Tip of the day

If you are looking to burn fat, drink ice water and try and sleep in a colder temperature. Your body has to work harder to regulate your core temperature which forces it to burn fat.

Health and fitness made easy

You have probably heard it a million times, a certain product or workout plan promising that it will get you in shape in no time with minimal effort. With the fitness and nutrition industry being a billion dollar a year business and everyone and their mom trying to get a piece, the skepticism is well warranted. As a society we have been conditioned from the constant barrage of infomercials and B.S. not to trust anyone when it comes to fitness. Monthly magazines are published with new and crazy workout tips in order to make money and push product, but guess what IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE THIS HARD. In fact by following a few simple rules you are able to get results you could never imagine in a time frame you will not believe. The first misconception that most people have is that more time in the gym will yield better muscle building and fat loss results. This could not be farther from the truth. Most people are actually doing themselves a disservice and stunting their progress by being in the gym 6 days a week for 2 hours. The time alloted to the gym to get maximum progress is actually about 2-3 times a week for 30-45 minutes a session. A prime case study of this is Tim Ferris, author of the 4-hour Body. Tim was able to gain 30 pounds of muscle while lowering his body fat in just under a month, and guess what? His total time in the gym training for the month.... a mere 4 hours. So now there is the nutrition side of the equation which I believe is actually much more important to getting results. I would say 70/30 nutrition in terms of importance. The first thing you need to think about is consuming a enormous amount of protein. We all know the body builds muscle using protein so this should come as no surprise to anyone. You will need to consume a large amount of protein within 30 mins of waking because you have been fasting for 8 hours as you sleep, also around 30 grams 30-45 mins after your workout. You have a very short nutritional window that you must hit after a workout so your body doesn’t start eating up muscle. Carbs are not the enemy so don’t shy away from them but do try to take in as many carbs with a low glycemic index as possible. In terms of maximizing your time in the gym you want to focus on heavy lifts doing as many 1 rep max lifts as you can and also focusing on the main 3 lifts of bench press, dead lift and squat. For more information on how Tim was able to do his transformation you can visit his blog at http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2007/04/29/from-geek-to-freak-how-i-gained-34-lbs-of-muscle-in-4-weeks/

Ill finish with this don’t succumb to convention just because something seems impossible doesn’t mean it is. Try things for yourself and think outside the box because failure is the best teacher and everyone of us is different.