Spot Training: The Myth

No, training your abs harder will not give you more visible abs, in fact squats are more beneficial.  It may be counter-intuitive to some, but after thinking it over it will become a bit more obvious.

What is Spot Training?

Spot Training is training or excising only one muscle group or area of the body.

Why Spot Training?

Often people believe if they want a more defined area of their body that they need to increase the reps for that particular muscle group. Although this will tone and condition the muscle it will not remove fat around the muscle group that is keeping it from being visible.

How Body Fat Reduction Works

When exercising a muscle group the energy comes from calories, some of those calories come from "stored calories"(fat),  your body grabs calories from all of its fat stores not just the fat stores available in the area being exercised. So when doing crunches your body is not using only the fat stores in your abdomen but rather all of the fat stores available in your body. If you go for a jog with your dog, squat in the gym, or rep crunches in your living room, fat will still be all be burned the same.

Why Squats Over Crunches?
Since your body grabs its energy from fat stores all over the body it is best to uses muscles that require a lot of energy.  Just look at the size of your hamstring and quadriceps compared to your biceps and triceps.  Your legs can lift a lot of weight, and moving a lot of weight requires a lot of energy (calories)

The Best Bet
Stay away from sport training.  It isn't good for your body to have muscle imbalances.  Eating healthy will help prevent having excess calories that are stored as fat.  Also, controlling your metabolism which can be read about here ( Metabalism: Know It  Control It ), and of course a daily does of physical activity.

Thanks for reading, any advice on things you would want to read about is always appreciated.  Otherwise have a great day and spread the health

Breakfast: The Mighty Morning Meal

We have heard it before. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Yet 4 out of 10 adults skip this mighty meal(According to a poll from ABCnews). Whether there is no time in the morning or they are attempting to cut morning calories people who do not eat breakfast are physiologically setting up there body for failure. Breakfast aids in weight loss, improves concentration, strength/endurance, and lowers cholesterol levels. 

Eating Breakfast Is Vital in Weight Loss
1. Staring the day with a meal also starts the bodies metabolism for the day.
2. If the metabolism is not started blood sugar drops.
3. If blood sugar drop the body craves sweets and other foods full of sugar.
4. Sugar is bad (Read more on how sugar effects your body “Sugar: A Bitter Sweet Tale”)
5. People who start the day off with a healthy breakfast satisfy their bodies early in the day and tend to eat less calories, saturated fat, and cholesterol. Set your day up for success.

No Time? Not Hungry? No Excuses!

No Time?
Instant oatmeal takes 1 minute to make.
Fruit and yogurt
Peanut butter on whole grain bread
Low-Fat Milk and whole grain cereal
A shake or bar is better than nothing.

Not Hungry?
Make yourself eat breakfast for a week hungry or not. Soon your body will adapt to your new eating schedule and when you wake, your body will expect it's morning boost.  This is a good thing.

No Excuses
Let's be honest we all know were suppose to eat a healthy breakfast.  When we were children it was a staple mark crying call of our mothers.  Now it's laced through multi-media advertisement.  Do your self a favor and use the knowledge you already have. Be Smart. Eat Breakfast  

What To Eat, What Not, and How Much

What To Eat
Start with water.  The body wakes up dehydrated.  Those who consume caffeine skip the creamer and sugar with coffee or drink tea.  Then add a carbohydrate, a protein, and some fat.  Carbohydrates are ideal for the days energy source and protein keeps you full and builds/repairs muscle.  Fat in the morning is key.  When you eat a carbohydrate and a protein your metabolism is programed to use those and break them down because they are available.  Adding fat will prime your metabolism to continue to burn fat for the rest of the day. Fat host many addition benefits. Use any of the examples below and aim for 250 to 375 calories per morning.

Carbohydrates (energy)
Oatmeal!
Whole grain Bread
Whole grain Bagel
Fruit
Whole Grain Cereal (Be wary check the ingredients for sugar)

Protein
Yogurt or even better double the protein and eat Greek yogurt (check the sugar)
Cottage cheese
Milk
Peanut butter your protein and a fat (Go with natural on this )
1 Full egg mixed with 3 egg whites (1 full egg has 78% daily value of cholesterol)

Fats
Peanut butter
Almonds
Granola
Full-Fat Yogurt
Ground flax seeds or flax seed oil
l full egg


Don't eat
Leftovers! Pizza and Chinese food are nasty culprits.
Pastries
Sugar (watch bars, cereal, and juice)
White Bread for toast.
Bacon (I know I know, so tasty, not worth it)

Have a great day.  Be smart.  Eat Breakfast.

Always appreciate comments and questions. Thanks for reading.

Metabolism: Know it Control it

When it comes time to managing your weight, metabolism is king!

Knowing how to control it is a powerful tool that can be used to control your weight.

Think of it this way your metabolism is not only the process of the body that converts food into energy it is also how efficiently your body uses that energy.  In this case energy is calories.  Being able to tweak and manipulate your metabolism allows your body to burn more calories.  The average metabolism burns around 1800-2800 calories a day.

I will share with your tips and facts that will help rev up your knowledge about your metabolism.

1. Eat 5-6 meals a day.

Our metabolisms have not evolved from a time when food was not available as our current time. The human body is wired for survival and one mechanism is to store fat.  Fat is available to be used in time when the body needs extra energy. So in the past when food was not so abundant the body would want to burn energy slow and store energy (convert calories to fat) so that if a meal was not around for awhile it had reserves.  By eating often your sending the message to your body that more energy is soon on the way so it not need store the calories.  This means burning more calories during the day while getting a nice bonus of feeling more energetic!

2. Weight Training

Time you use your new found energy from tip 1! This is simple, lifting weights build muscle and muscles burn more calories.  This is important because cardio is usually looked at for weight management, that is because is burns calories instantly DURING the exercise,  but changing your resting metabolic rate through weight training allows you to burn more calories THROUGHOUT the day.
1 lb of muscles burns 35 calories a day at rest. Compared to 1 lb of fat which burns a grand total of 2. Muscles give you a24 hour increase in calorie smashing fun per day.

3. No special foods or drugs

Even though you know have additional energy that does not mean you want to waste it.  No special food or drug will permanently increase metabolism.  They may temporally give the metabolism a slight bump but will not sustain a change.
Your best bet is to make sure you are eating recommended amounts of protein which take the body 25% more energy to burn.

 4. Heredity

Heredity does play a role in metabolism but I suggest not assuming your metabolism is bad making the correct changes in lifestyle will give a positive effect to your metabolism rate.
Gender, sex, and age are all factors.  You can convert your metabolism here.
http://health.msn.com/weight-loss/measure-your-metabolism.aspx

Thanks for getting to know your metabolism and please message me with questions.  I hope you see the importance of a primed metabolism and if you want to start making changes no better time than right now.  If you have the power to help manage your weight by eating some snacks throughout the day and building muscle I say it's worth taking advantage of!

Enjoy the day!