Fitness4Her

Women's Fitness

The Sure Fire Way To Burn Body Fat

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What if I told you there were proven ways to burn body fat that don’t require heavy equipment or a gym membership? You can easily boost the power of basic moves to see significant results. All of the exercises in my 30 Minutes to a New You exercise program burn fat and build muscle without any sophisticated equipment.

A stability ball is inexpensive to purchase but delivers a powerful punch. The instability of the ball means that you will burn twice the amount of fat and get double the workout. Working out with the ball could cut an inch from your waist in just 4 weeks.

Cardio blasts are excellent for burning bundles of body fat, too. With these you go from strength training exercises to short cardio bursts of energy, like jumping jacks for a few minutes or running in place, then back to strength training.

Adding short bouts of vigorous activity to your fitness routine can speed up weight loss and help you slim down faster. Intervals increase calorie burn both during and after exercise to help you lose weight quicker. These types of workouts increase adrenaline, a hormone that helps to burn belly fat.

You can even flatten your abdominal muscles and strengthen your back in easy Pilate’s moves that take less than 15 minutes to complete.

Your abdominal muscles are found in your stomach, just under your ribcage and extending down to your pelvic area. The abs are made up of six muscles. These muscles are vital for body posture.

Your six muscles referred to as the abs are the Transverses Abdominis, Two Internal Obliques, Two External Obliques, and the Rectus Abdominis. Working these muscles will not only give you the famed six-pack abs, they also give you better posture, for back pain relief, and help you when you bend-over, or reach for objects on upper shelves.

There are thousands of books written about burning fat and building muscle, but not all are in agreement. There are many fallacies and fairy tales pertaining to losing weight and burning fat. I have outlined some of these below and I discuss each one.

Fairy Tale: Exercising the abs will burn belly fat. No doubt, you have probably seen plenty of products that claim to melt away just belly fat, just thigh fat, just arm fat … From exercising, taking pills, using creams, or even electronic stimulation! The truth is that you simply can’t burn fat from one area of your body. Fat loss occurs throughout your entire body at the same time. have you ever seen someone will the belly of a 400-lbs person and the arms of a bodybuilder? It’s simply not possible (without liposuction!) to burn fat in one area. Your body breaks down fat for energy from all portions of your body so not to deplete any one single area. Fat acts as an insulator. It wouldn’t make sense for your body to remove all the “insulation” from a single place. 
Aerobic exercise along with a balanced diet will enable you to burn fat all over your body. Working out a specific area is good for you and will build muscle, but will not burn that fat away! You need to do aerobic activities and strength exercises to burn fat and have a toned body. My 30 Minute
to a New You exercise program incorporates both of these types of exercise.

Fairy Tale: Fat on my body comes from eating fatty foods. 

Instead of eating cookies, you might eat popcorn with no butter to avoid fat. Or maybe you eat a couple chicken breasts because you know they have less fat than a burger. For some reason, your body fat just isn’t going down! That’s because fat in foods is not the same as fat in your body.

In reality, fat comes from calories and it doesn’t matter where those calories come from. Fatty foods tend to have a lot of calories, but they do not turn into fat unless you are overeating them. If your body is taking in more calories than it needs, it does what anyone would do with extras–store them. Stored calories in the body are covered to fat!

Your body needs nutrients from all different kinds of foods, but the important thing is to not overeat any type of food. Eating a small, balanced meal will ensure you aren’t getting too many calories and aren’t adding to your body fat content.

Fairy Tale: Exercising the abs will burn belly fat. 

You’ve probably seen plenty of products that claim to melt away just belly fat, just thigh fat, just arm fat… From exercising, taking pills, using creams, or even electronic stimulation! The truth is that you simply can’t burn fat from one area of your body. Fat loss occurs throughout your entire body at the same time.

Have you ever seen someone will the belly of a 400-lbs person and the arms of a bodybuilder? It’s simply not possible (without liposuction!) to burn fat in one area. Your body breaks down fat for energy from all portions of your body so not to deplete any one single area. Fat acts as an insulator. It wouldn’t make sense for your body to remove all the “insulation” from a single place. 

Aerobic exercise along with appropriate eating will enable you to burn fat all over your body. Working out a specific area is good for you and will build muscle, but will not burn that fat away!

Fairy Tale: Skip meals or go on a starvation diet to cause your body to burn fat. If you skip meals or go on a hunger strike, your body is not taking in energy through calories, so your body is forced to break down the fat in your body for energy. The result of this is an immediate decrease in body fat. One problem: You’ll gain it all back and more when you start eating again! Depriving yourself of food puts your body into “starvation mode.” When you reintroduce food, your body (worried about having to survive another hunger strike) stores as much as possible in fat reserves. To make things worse, starving people will overeat resulting in the body having even more fat than before.
In order to burn fat and keep it off, you have to eat so your body has a continuous source of energy and will not go into starvation mode. This is what causes the Yo-Yo form of dieting. You lose weight but end up gaining it all back and then some.

Fairy Tale: My body is fat because I eat fatty foods.
Instead of eating cookies, you might eat popcorn with no butter to avoid fat. Or maybe you eat a couple chicken breasts because you know they have less fat than a burger. For some reason, your body fat just isn’t going down! That’s because fat in foods is not the same as fat in your body.

Any amount of exercise will burn body fat.
 When you exercise for more than 20 minutes, your body starts to get concerned that it will run out of the regular energy source. So, it starts breaking down fat to supplement that energy. If you exercise for less than 20 minutes, your body most likely has not started breaking down fat, no matter how many calories the LCD screen displays. You need to get your heart rate up for at least 30 minutes in order to burn body fat.

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Cheesy Baked Snapper

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This wonderful dish makes 4 nice healthy servings. I like to serve it with rice and broccoli or asparagus. Small potatoes, cut into small chunks and cooked go nicely with this dish, too.

4 – 4oz.fresh Snapper fillets
1/4 cup light mayo
2 to3 tbs. of grated parmesan cheese
1 tbs. fresh chives
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce or white wine

1. Coat baking pan with Pam cooking spray and place snapper filets in.
2. In small bowl stir together mayo, cheese, chives, and Worcestershire sauce.
3. Spread mayo mixture over snapper fillets.
4. Bake on 450 degrees for 4 to 6 minutes, test with fork for flakiness.
5. Serve with steamed rice and broccoli.

Health Benefits:
Rich in Omega 3’s and high in Vitamin B6, snapper is a healthy fish to eat. You may have difficulty finding fresh snapper, and if you do, substitute with cod or some other cold water fish.
The parmesan cheese is a great source of calcium and is one of the easiest cheeses to digest. Low in saturated fat but high on taste, it pleases both the palette and the tummy.

Affirmations Are More Than Just Words

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Daily affirmations are much more than words. With the power to bring about success in your life, these positive declarations train your brain to react. Since your mind is the catalyst for bringing about change in your life, these active phrases can train your brain to seek out success.

Whether your goal is to lose weight and get in shape, make a career move or to improve your finances, affirmations can put you in the right frame of mind to help you reach those goals. A vital tool when you want to enact change in your life, affirmations can be your key to success.

When you are trying to lose weight, by making lifestyle changes to your diet and fitness routine, daily affirmations can keep you on track. Best of all, they are completely free of charge, and you get to decide which affirmations that you will repeat.

This is the important part of affirmations. You don’t want to repeat phrases that you don’t even believe in. In order to achieve anything, you must first believe it to be possible. If you want to lose weight, you must believe that you can and will lose weight. You will eat healthier foods. You will exercise for at least 30 minutes every day. You will get at least 7 to 8 hours of sleep tonight. You will eat at least 5 fruits and vegetables today.

Keep in mind that your daily affirmations are for the present day only. Concentrate on the day at hand and don’t try to project too far into the future. Dieting and weight loss are a day by day challenge, focus on each day, be thankful for your achievements and do all that you can to attain success today.

Eat a sensible diet, exercise for at least 30 minutes every day and keep a fitness journal to help you succeed with your weight loss plans. If you will practice these simple techniques, you can and will lose weight without a strict diet that deprives yourself of all your favorite foods.

Remember, affirmations are more than just words, they are the foundation to your success. Use them wisely and most importantly, believe in the power of your words.

Janelle’s Garlic Pork Loin

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A friend of mine, Janelle makes a great pork loin that will melt in your mouth. She gave me her recipe and it turns out succulent every time I cook it. If I have a large gathering, I prepare two loins and there is never any left over.

1 small garlic clove crushed
12 oz. boneless pork loin
1 teaspoon dried rosemary crushed
1 tbs. olive oil
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
2 tbs. honey mustard
2 tbs. water
Salt and pepper

Directions:

1. Press pork loin with garlic, rosemary, olive oil, salt and pepper.
2. In large skillet spray non-stick (Pam).
3. Cook on medium heat 12mins. turning half way, until juices run clear.
4. For sauce stir vinegar, honey, water and mustard add to skillet, stirring to scrape up brown bits.
5. Bring to a boil, simmer until thick.
6. Serve over pork.
7. Serve with a plain sweet potato.

Health Benefits:
Pork is super meat of protein, one serving gives you almost all the protein you need for the day. High in Omega 3 and Omega 6 fatty acids. The pork loin is lean and low in fat. Antioxidants found in the garlic, Rosemary and olive oil help to protect the body from cancer-causing free-radicals. Rosemary is good for you because it reduces inflammation and has the ability to stimulate the nervous system for a calming effect.

Glycemic Index Is It Really Important?

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Lately it seems, I’ve been hearing a lot about the glycemic index of certain foods and how it is a measurement that we need to be concerned with. While I pay close attention to any added sugars in my diet, I do love to eat fruit.

I figured I needed to research this area and determine what the glycemic index is all about. There is evidence that as a society we are eating way too much sugar. No wonder there is all this talk about measuring the sugar content of the foods we eat. Many foods have hidden sugars, so reading food labels is an absolute must. However learning how the glycemic index is determined was something I wanted to know.

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It’s important to pay attention to the effect of food on your blood sugar, but the glycemic index has been called the imperfect tool to do so. Apparently there is much to be learned about the Glycemic Index’s limitations.

Glycemic refers to sugar, by the way, and the glycemic index of carbohydrate foods measures how a fixed amount of carbohydrate from assorted food sources affects blood sugar. Protein has less of an impact on blood sugar and fat has almost none, so carbs are the main foods that are measured.

The Glycemic Index, (GI) is a simple measure of how much and how quickly that amount of carbohydrate raises your blood sugar on a scale of 1-100. Foods that send your sugar levels soaring are definitely ones you should be aware of.

The GI, however, has two big limitations. The first one refers to a certain food when it is eaten by itself, like a piece of white bread. Often if you combine two different foods, like meat and bread, each has its own glycemic index, and this causes the overall rating of the foods to change. So while the piece of white bread by itself has a high glycemic index, when paired with a piece of meat, the GI drops considerably.

The second limitation for the glycemic index is the standard portion that applies rarely has much bearing on average portions consumed by individuals. In reality the portions that were used in the GI rating were much larger than normally eaten. Therefore the GI is going to be much higher.

Scientists however, have countered this problem with a much better measurement term. The glycemic load. This actually takes into account the portions eaten normally and gives a more realistic view of the amount of sugar. However, it still becomes tricky. There just doesn’t seem to be an easy formula to compute it accurately.

Eating a lot of high GI foods can be detrimental to your health because it pushes your body to extremes. This is especially true if you are overweight and sedentary. Switching to eating mainly low GI carbohydrates that slowly trickle glucose into your blood stream helps to keep your energy levels balanced which help you feel fuller for longer periods of time between meals.
Low GI diets help people lose and control weight
Low GI diets increase the body’s sensitivity to insulin
Low GI carbohydrates improve diabetes control
Low GI carbohydrates reduce the risk of heart disease
Low GI carbohydrates reduce blood cholesterol levels
Low GI carbohydrates reduce hunger and keep you fuller for longer
Low GI carbohydrates prolong physical endurance

An important note to remember after exercising is that High GI carbs help re-fuel carbohydrates stored in your body. That’s because sugar burns quicker than fat, so the body burns up the sugar first and then the fat. When you get finished with a strenuous workout, you might find that you sugar levels are lower than normal, or you might just feel really exhausted. Try a power bar or a banana with peanut butter. These foods will raise your blood sugar level to normal without adding too many calories or fat to your diet.

The best way to be sure that you aren’t overloading your glycemic load is to watch what you eat and select natural, wholesome foods rather than processed foods that come from packages. Just examine the food labels of your processed foods to see that there are a lot of additives that you simply won’t find in natural foods.

Making small substitutions in your choice of food can make a big difference when you are watching your glycemic levels and loads. Try these suggestions below:

• Use breakfast cereals based on oats, barley and bran
• Use breads with wholegrains, stone-ground flour, sour dough
• Reduce the amount of potatoes you eat
• Enjoy all other types of fruit and vegetables
• Use Basmati rice instead of white rice
• Enjoy pasta, noodles, quinoa—all whole grains
• Eat plenty of salad veggies with a vinaigrette dressing

Keeping close watch on your glycemic load or index may seem daunting at first. However, you will soon get a handle on how to determine what foods work best for you. That’s where a fitness journal can really come in handy. A fitness journal not only helps you measure your calories and fat, you can monitor the amount of sugar you eat each day, too.

By writing down everything you eat and drink and all of the activity that you do each day, you can better establish how these foods react in your body. It’s important to note any changes in your behavior, stress level or activity level following a high glycemic meal. You can use your fitness journal to show your physician how these changes have affected you. This is an excellent tool to help you monitor not only your weight loss, but your overall health.

So, whether your doctor has advised you to watch your Glycemic load or index, or you just want to consciously cut back on your sugar intake, you can easily do so by tracking what you eat, or going the scientific way and determining the true measurements of every piece of food that you consume. Remember the lower the number the better for your health.

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