Designing_a_Strength_Training_Routine_for_Fat_Loss

Title: Designing a Strength Training Routine for Fat Loss

Word Count: 540

Summary: Lynn VanDyke provides the 5 factors to create an effective strength training routine for fat loss.

Keywords: Lynn VanDyke, Strength Training and Fat Loss, Weight Loss, Weight Training, Routine, Lose Fat, Lose Weight, Create a Weight Lifting Routine

Article Body: Copyright 2006 Lynn VanDyke

Your goal is to lose fat and tone up. You’ve read plenty of my other articles and know that I recommend a mix of 5 tools to create and sculpt the body of your dreams. Those 5 tools are nutrition, hydration, cardio, rest and strength training. Today’s article is all about creating a killer routine that delivers amazing results.

In my many years of experience in the fitness industry I have come across a few timeless myths. One of those myths really gets me piping mad. Have you ever heard, “Lift lighter weights for more repetitions if you want to tone up”? You probably have if you are a woman. I can already feel my blood beginning to boil!

The truth about strength training routines is that they can only be effective if they are created for you and your goals. Lifting light weights for 15 or more repetitions is not going to reduce body fat or help you tone. It will help you work on endurance. If endurance is your goal, then by all means lift lighter for a longer rep time.

On the flip side, and the most popular side, is lifting to lose fat. Your fat loss strength training routine should include heavier weights for low-to-medium repetition ranges. Below is a check list of items that your strength training routine should include:

- An exercise for each major muscle

- Between 3-4 sets for each exercise

- 8-10 reps per set

- A correct weight for each exercise

- 1-2 minute rest periods between sets

Here are all the major muscle groups in suggested order: back, chest, quads, shoulders, hamstrings and glutes, biceps, triceps, abs and calves. You can select from a full body routine done 2-3 times per week or split your lower body and abs from your upper body. An example would be: lower body and abs on Monday and Friday and upper body on Tuesday and Saturday.

Regardless of doing a full body routine or a split routine you will choose an exercise for each of these muscles and do it 3-4 times per workout. Each set will include 8-10 repetitions. You should rest for at least a minute between each set.

The way for you to determine what weight you should lift is to choose a weight that you can safely lift 8 times with perfect form. By the last repetition in each set, you should feel tired. If you feel as though you could do a few more reps with perfect form than move to a higher weight on the next set. You have selected the correct weight so long as you can get within 2-3 reps of the called for rep range with perfect form and your muscles feel tired.

Grouping together the correct weight, rep range, amount of sets, and exercises will result in a fabulous strength training routine that blasts away unwanted pounds. There are more than enough Internet sites providing free routines and information. I recommend using a routine that is developed specifically for you and your goals. You can have a master trainer (me!) create a routine for you for $25 these days. You simply fill out a few forms and I send you an email with your custom build a routine attached. Easy, simple and designed for results!

Burning_Fat_vs._Burning_Calories

To lose weight and get in shape you must have a good diet and exercise regularly to burn fat. The first thing you must understand about exercise is that just because you are burning calories does not mean you are burning fat. Your main focus when you exercise should be losing body fat, and you can’t lose body fat just from burning calories. When we exercise, our bodies will start burning calories, but the calories that are burned are the calories from carbohydrates in our system. In order to burn calories from your stored fat, your body requires the presence of oxygen. There is a certain amount of oxygen that your body needs in order to start burning fat and the only way for you to measure the amount needed for your own body is to keep up with your target heart rate during exercise. Please understand that if you continue to only burn calories from carbohydrates, you will lose mostly “water weight” which leads to a decrease in your metabolism. Also, think of the calories that are burned from carbohydrates as your energy calories. If you lose too much energy calories then your muscles will not receive enough energy to increase your metabolism which indirectly burn fat. Therefore you must increase your calorie intake when you are on an exercise program to replace your burned energy calories.

Burning Fat Calories during exercise

During aerobic exercise, your body goes through several stages before it reaches the point where you are burning fat. You will hear people say that you are only burning sugar (carbohydrates) not fat during the first 10 minutes of exercise. This is true to a certain extent. I say this because you will continue to burn sugar past the 10 minute mark if you are not working out hard enough for your body to want more oxygen; or you are working out too hard and you can’t supply your body with enough oxygen for fat burning. When you exercise you must move at a steady pace (not too fast, not too slow) so your body will utilize your stored fat (not carbohydrates or sugar) as its energy source. Also remember that just because you reached the fat burning stage does not mean you will stay there. Staying at the fat burning stage once again depends on if you are moving at a pace that is right for your body. Make sure that you are within your target heart rate range.

Burning Fat Calories at rest

The only way for you to continue to burn fat calories hours after you have finished working out is through the anaerobic exercise of weight training. Weight training is the key to burning fat at rest. Weight training is an anaerobic activity that will cause you to burn more calories than aerobic exercise. The calories that you are burning during weight training exercises are mostly calories from carbohydrates (meaning you must eat even more calories per day for energy); but the calories you burn at rest are mostly calories from fat. The reason you are burning fat at rest is because weight training increases your metabolism which uses your stored fat as energy.

To make your body the ultimate fat burning machine you must do aerobic (cardio) and anaerobic (weight training) exercises.

Burn_More_Calories_in_Less_Time

When I work with my clients, one of the key elements that I incorporate into all of our workouts is INTENSITY. In my view, intensity is the most critical aspect of any exercise regime and can mean the difference between someone who reaches their goals and someone who doesn’t. Increasing your workout’s intensity will stimulate your body to burn more calories and induce a greater cardiovascular response. It will also allow you to have a more time efficient workout.

If you are looking to burn fat and become more toned, then increasing your exercise intensity is critical. Many people have the misconception that if you workout at a higher intensity you will no longer be burning fat since you will be in your “cardio zone”. Whereas, if you keep your intensity low for a longer duration you will burn more fat since you will be in your “fat burning zone”. Let me clarify this for you once and for all. By training at a low intensity (<70% max) it is true that you use fat as your predominant source of fuel. While exercising at a higher intensity (>75% max) your main fuel source is carbohydrate but you will ultimately burn more calories. And since 1 pound of fat is equivalent to 3500 calories, the ultimate goal is to burn as many calories as possible to create a negative energy balance!

One of the best ways to achieve this intensity is through the use of full-body compound circuit training (strength training) in conjunction with interval training (on the cardio equipment). The benefit of full body compound training is that since it utilizes more muscle in any given movement you burn more calories. The intensity of the workout also means that each exercise becomes more challenging as your heart rate is sustained at a much higher level.

Here are a couple of benefits to following an exercise program combining circuit training and interval training:

1. Intervals and circuits vastly reduce boredom. Traditional steady state cardio training and/or weight lifting can become quite boring. Interval training and circuit training offer more variety and excitement to your workouts.

2. Interval training increases post-exercise energy expenditure (calories burned following exercise) more than steady-state exercise, which means that more fat is burned. After intense exercise, the body needs extra calories as it works to repair muscles, replace energy stores (i.e. carbohydrate) and restore the body to its normal state (e.g. reduce heart rate). As this can take many hours, you will keep on burning more calories long after the workout is over. In fact, research shows that metabolic rate is higher for several hours following interval training compared to steady state exercise.

3. Interval training burns more calories. As an example, 30 minutes on an Elliptical machine using a steady state program will burn roughly 292 calories, whereas 30 minutes of intervals will burn approximately 584 calories!

Here is a sample workout that will leave you huffing and puffing:

Warm-up bike, treadmill, elliptical, rower 5-10 min

Circuit (45 seconds for each exercise, with 15 seconds rest between exercises) 5-7 min Lunge walks with lateral raises Plank (on stability ball) Squats with medicine ball shoulder press Push-ups Side Bridges Reverse Pull-ups Burpies

Interval Training (cardio equipment) 20 sec @ 100% : 40 sec @ 70% x 5 5 min

Repeat Circuit and Interval 3 times

Total Workout Time: 45 – 60 min

Burn_Fat_fast_With_Negative_Diet

The Secret of Negative Calories Food

FAT IS A SILENT KILLER! Can you beat it ?

The answer is:

!! YES!!

The fact is: obesity can cause severe health problems like high blood pressure and diabetes …

We need to take a different approach to loosing weight than we have being doing in the past. Forget old-fashioned diets that don’t really give you the long-lasting results you seek. They are very good reasons why they do not work well.

Some of the calories in the foods you eat are burned off just to digest, so the the net amount of calories is actually less than the amount contained in the food.

This process has several names: - Diarety-induced thermogenesis - Specific dynamic actiom of food - Thermic effect of food …

You may have heard of the expression, “Negative calories”, this refers to certain foods which have a thermic effect and a low colorie density.

This is almost impossible for these food to be stored as fat because most of these calories are burned off just to be digest them.

The negative calories foods have so few calories that you can burn up more calories in preparing cooking, chewing and digesting them than they impart.

The ingestion of these foods increases the metabolic rate of the body, which, in turn draws excess calories from the body’s fat deposit.

Frequently Asked Questions:Fact:

Foods that actually melt down fat were discovered by nutritionist physicians during their search for healthier foods. When you add these type of foods to your normal diet, you lose weight but you also lower and normalize your cholesterol rate. This always contributes to your health.

Q: How many pounds can you lose per week?

A: If you are less than 20 pounds overweight, you can lose an average of 5-8 pounds in the first week, and 3-4 pounds in the subsequent weeks.If you are more than 20 pounds overweight, you will lose weight even more quickly. Some people with more than 40 pounds to lose have lost up to 12 pounds in the first week.

Q: I have tried bean pod capsules, other methods, other diets, and nothing has helped me lose weight yet. Why will it be different with this?

A: Because you will burn away more calories than you absorb. Everyone who has tried it has lost weight, there is no reason that it would work for everyone else and not for you!

Burn_Body_Fat_And_Lose_Weight_24_Hrs_A_Day_Lose_Fat_Even_When_Sleeping

Burn body fat 24 hrs a day is simple. Yes, I said simple but I did not say it is easy. That is because you must have a firm commitment and mental discipline to do it. However, it will get easier and easier when you adapt to your new lifestyle and when your lose fat goal is achieved.

So how do you burn fat 24 hrs a day? Here are some simple steps to lose fat 24 hrs a day.

• Build muscles. Muscles are active cells and they are great calorie burners. The more muscles you pack on, the more body fat you will burn because the calories you have eaten will be burned for energy by your muscles.

• Do your cardio exercises in the morning before breakfast. Make sure that your cardio exercises raise your heart rate sufficiently to burn more fat. The exercises must be intensive and will leave you puffing, panting and sweating. This is to make sure that you will continue to burn calories hours after you stopped your cardio exercises.

Do your cardio exercise 5-6 days a week. On top of that, because your carbohydrate store is low in the morning, your body will burn more body fat to fuel your cardio exercises.

• Eat 5-6 times a day with about 3 hrs intervals. Make the meals small consisting protein and complex carbohydrate. Complex carbs are carbs that are more difficult to digest so that they do not spike insulin quickly to be converted into body fat. So instead of eating white rice, eat brown rice. Instead of having white bread, substitute it with brown bread instead. Have plenty of fresh leafy fibrous vegetables.

The frequency of meals will tell your body that there is plenty of food and so your body need not store body fat for emergencies. On top of that, your digestive system will be constantly working to digest the food and so that means burning of calories.

• Do weight training 3 times a week with rest days in between. Do your weight workout in the evenings so that you will continue to burn fat. Workout with compound exercises such as bench presses, squats, lunges, dead lifts etc to activate more muscle fibers and so that these large muscles will carry on burning calories for many more hours into the night.

• Take slow release protein supplement before bed such as casein protein. This is to feed your body throughout the night and help your muscles to recover from the day’s activities and at the same because casein protein is slow to digest so will not turn to fat easily and thus your body will continue burning calories even when you are asleep.

So with a combination of all these activities, you will be burning body fat almost 24 hrs a day. Simple? Great. Let’s start to lose weight by burning body fat round the clock now.

Best_Fat_Burner_to_lose_Weight?

This article will tell you but my approach is a little different. I am not going to tell you the best fat burner by discussing certain ingredients or chemicals or telling you some particular brand name is the greatest.

No. I am going to let the average person decide by casting a vote. I used an internet tool that let me determine how many searches were performed for a particular word or phrase at a certain search engine.

The results were for the month of May, 2006. I selected well known weight loss pills, brand names or an ingredient and then entered that word or phrase to get my numerical result.

The top vote getter, the most searched term for an herbal diet pill or what the people think is the best fat burner is "ephedra".

Here are the results:

Ephedra 86,507 Hydroxycut 52,524 Xenadrine 32,650 Stacker 2 19,031 Metabolife 9,819 Ephedrine 42,575 Green Tea 40,856 Chromium 8,754

Let me note a few things of interest.

More people searched for the term "ephedra" during the month of May, 2006 while searching for information on a weight loss pill or diet pill than any other well known brand or ingredient.

But what's interesting is, most people think ephedra is illegal or no longer available. Plus, ephedra is just one herbal ingredient in many fat burners.

Green tea, while it has many other benefits was not searched as often as ephedra which is considered illegal by many people.

This is also curious. The brand name Metabolife is a brand that is no longer around. The company has gone bankrupt from lawsuits yet almost 10,000 people a month search for this once great weight loss product.

Another interesting point is that the word "ephedrine" is actually a chemical within the herbal ephedra plant, but a large number of people are searching for this chemical.

Ephedrine is the major reason the herbal plant, ephedra, works so well and is considered the best fat burner, certainly among the general population of people searching the internet for weight loss pills or diet pills.

Are_You_Responsible_Enough_to_Lose_Fat_

Seems like an odd question for a personal trainer to ask her clients, but I do. I have a theory that not every one is willing or able to accept that the sole outcome of their fitness and nutrition program is based on personal responsibility. There are a few circumstances in which an individual has no control over their weight gain or weight loss, but for the majority of us our results can be expressed by our resolve.

A few things prompted me to write this little article about personal responsibility. One is a television show that I watched last night. Other reasons include a few emails I received this past week and a personal friend’s comments to me. Each of these situations taught me something rather interesting. Something I already knew, but didn't quite think about until now.

There is a race to melt fat, tone up, slim down, and feel great about your body before the summer hits. Have you noticed an increase in diet pill commercials lately? What about exercise gadget infomercials or new diet books? The dreaded warm weather means many of us are about to bare skin that we'd rather keep hidden.

In this frenzy to shed the weight I have been receiving a bombardment of emails from folks looking for a magic solution. They are convinced I know something they do not. A few emails this past week blew me away. One of them accused personal trainers of knowing the secret to weight loss, but thought they refused to tell anyone the answer so they wouldn't lose clients. Another email practically begged me to spill my guts about my training program because the person thought I had a super-duper program that only personal trainers use.

Admittedly I got a bit upset at first. I mean do people actually think personal trainers know the secret to fat loss, but are unwilling to share it with others? Nonsense. We share it with folks all the time. It’s all about eating well and enough and being active out often. And just for the record my nutrition and exercise routine are the exact same routines I talk about on my site and in my ebook. I actually follow my own advice!

Two other things worth mentioning happened to me within the past week as well. I watched a television show about changing your family lifestyle. The point is to become active and eat healthy so that children grow up healthy. I loved the idea behind the show and that is why I watched. About half way through this particular episode I was in shock.

The children, aged 8 and 10, were actually eating better and becoming more active. They were following the rules the nutritionist had set for them. They were healthier and happier. Guess who was unwilling to change? Mom! She sat out on her front porch swing, smoking a cigarette, and talking to the camera about how this show was supposed to be for and about her children and not her. Therefore she should be able to eat when and what she wants.

Lastly I had a friend approach me and tell me how lucky I was to be fit. She went on to talk about how she wishes she could go kayaking and hiking as much as I did. She talked about how I am so lucky to work in the fitness industry and what a coincidence it was that I enjoyed my job. She went as far as to say she wishes she could have some of my luck.

Between those few emails, the television show and my friend’s comments it became abundantly clear that many people lack personal responsibility. Each scenario boiled down to one basic tenet- only you are responsible for you. No one can make you lose fat. Not even me! I cannot force you to stick to an exercise program. I cannot demand you kayak more or love your job. I wish I could, but I cannot.

Only you can make changes in your life. You are the only person who can create a happy, healthy, vibrant, loving and thriving life. I can provide the tools and motivation, but you are the master of your destiny. You are the sole force that determines how successful you will be in your life. Ask yourself these questions:

- Do you love waking up in the morning because you are excited about your day?

- Are you truly happy with your body?

- Are you thrilled with your personality?

- Do you really believe that you are in control of your life?

- Do you acknowledge that your thoughts are not enough? Action is key.

I help many people find a path to joy through living healthy and fit lives. I can beyond a shadow of a doubt proclaim that once you push aside the excuses, once you really step up to the plate, you will hit a home run. There will be hard times, but with the proper tools, motivation and goals you can and will overcome them.

Personal responsibility is the main success factor in fat loss. It is not luck that I find time to hike and kayak. It is not coincidence that I love my job. We all have 24 hours in a day. How we decid to spend that time really determines our life’s outcome. Watching 4 hours of television each night is not conducive to you if your goal is fat loss. It’s all about personal responsibility and doing what you know is right for you. So I ask, are you responsible enough to lose fat?