A focused strategy will help you reach your weight-loss goal. So count calories and get out your comfort zone. Search online and you’ll find dozens of Web sites promising to tell you exactly how to lose 20 pounds (or more), often with hyped-up claims of speedy success, like losing the weight in 30 days or “just six weeks!” The reality is that losing 20 pounds is an achievable goal if you apply proven strategies, such as counting calories. This approach may take a bit longer than those miracle diets, but it will actually work and help you develop healthy habits to keep the weight off, and even lose more, if that’s your goal. Having a realistic weight goal makes good sense. Eliminating 500 calories a day can help promote a one-pound-per-week weight loss. Increasing physical activity can also help promote weight loss. In order for counting calories to work, you will have to do a little maths. If you want to lose 1 pound a week (it is safe to lose up to 2 pounds a week or 1 percent of your body weight, if you weigh more than 200 pounds), that means you need to cut out or burn through exercise about 500 calories a day. A reduction of at least 500 calories a day means you could lose a pound every week or 20 pounds in about five months. Cutting out sweet drinks is non-negotiable. Canned or bottled pop, flavoured and sweetened milks, waters, and coffees all have to go. Drink plain water, low-fat milk, and sugar-free drinks instead. A study of 810 adults between 25 and 79 years old showed that after 18 months, those who cut out sweet drinks had greater weight loss than those who cut down on food calories. One possible reason: While your body lets you know when it is full of food, there is no way for your body to tell you when you’ve maxed out on liquid calories. Physical activity helps counting calories. Being physically active burns calories while it improves your overall health. Aim for 30 minutes a day most days of the week. A brisk 30- to 45-minute walk burns 100 to 200 calories. If you can burn 200 calories through exercise, you only have to cut out 300 calories in food or drink to reach your daily calorie-cutting goal. Strategically eating less drops weight. Studies of overweight people who participated in four popular diets found that whether diets were low-fat, high-protein, or a combination didn’t matter — weight-loss success depends on CUTTING out calories. In fact, you can continue to eat filling portions if you simply replace high-calorie foods with low-calorie foods that contain a lot of water, such as fruits and vegetables. A study of obese women who ate either a low-fat diet or a low-fat diet with additional fruits and vegetables found that those who emphasized fruits and veg lost up to five pounds more. With dedicated work you can apply these to lose 20 pounds in 20 weeks or less. So get moving!

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Why you may not be losing weight and how a Personal Trainer can help. Weight loss needs time for us to see results, for the body to change its shape, access its fat stores and use them for energy, and re-contour itself by building lean body tissue. Remember, one pound of weight is equivalent to 3,500 calories. If you need 2,500 calories just to maintain your weight, you would need to consistently eat only 2,000 calories daily and exercise about 30 minutes daily (to burn another 250 calories) in order to see a true 1.5-pound weight loss in one week. It sounds like a lot of effort — and it is. This is where a Personal Trainer can make you accountable for your actions. Are you counting calories? Then how do you know how many to have in order to lose weight. Is your Personal Trainer making you go to the gym when your not with them? I hope they are. Is your diet being monitored? It should be. This is what will separate good trainers from bad, the give away is in the job title, PERSONAL Trainer. You should never feel left alone on your fit journey. Like I say to all my clients, if your car was broke, would you go to a professional or fix it yourself ? 😉

Let's talk about fasted cardio. Is it worth it? Let me tell you what we know and not people's interpretation. (It's long winded so buckle in) Even though morning cardio has been embraced by bodybuilders as a "tried and true" fat loss technique, there is definitely not a unanimous agreement about its effectiveness, especially in the scientific community. Most competitive bodybuilders are die-hard advocates of doing cardio first thing in the morning before eating their first meal. They believe it will cause them to mobilize more stored body fat and increase their metabolic rate all day long. There's quite a bit of scientific literature supporting the a.m. fasted cardio theory, but it's short term research and generally, the exercise physiologists and scientists tend not to buy it. They subscribe to the energy balance hypothesis, which states; as long as you burn more calories than you consume in each 24 hour period, then the time of day you burn them doesn't matter, nor does whether you burn them from fat or carbohydrates. If you have even the most basic understanding of human physiology and physics, you have to admit that the timing of your cardio is not the most important factor in fat loss. When you do your cardio won't make or break you. Simply doing it whenever it's convenient and following a mildly calorie restricted diet is what's important. HOWEVER, there's a very strong case for doing fasted a.m. cardio and if you want to gain every advantage possible in your quest to get leaner then it's definitely something you should take a closer look at and experiment with. The argument in favor of fasted early morning cardio goes something like this: 1. When you wake up in the morning after an overnight 8-12 hour fast, your body's stores of glycogen are somewhat depleted (especially if you are on a reduced carb diet and you cut back on carbs late in the day). Doing cardio in this state causes your body to mobilize more fat because of the unavailability of glycogen(Carbs). 2. Eating causes a release of insulin. Insulin interferes with the mobilization of body fat. Less insulin is present in the morning; therefore, more body fat is burned when cardio is done in the morning. 3. There is less carbohydrate (glucose) "floating around" in the bloodstream when you wake up after an overnight fast. With less glucose available, you will burn more fat. 4. If you eat immediately before a workout, you have to burn off what you just ate first before tapping into stored body fat (and insulin is elevated after a meal.) 5. When you do cardio in the morning, your metabolism stays elevated for a period of time after the workout is over. If you do cardio in the evening, you burn calories during the session so you definitely benefit from it, but you fail to take advantage of the "afterburn" effect because your metabolic rate drops dramatically as soon as you go to sleep. Research supports this theory, as cardio performed in a fasted state has been shown to use more fat than carbohydrate for fuel. A study has shown that a kilogram of fat is burned sooner when exercise is done in the fasted state in the morning than when it's done later in the day. The researchers measured respiratory gas exchange, caloric expenditure and carbohydrate and fatty acid metabolism, and found that the amount of fat burned during aerobic exercise amounted to 67% of the total energy expenditure in the morning after a 12 hour fast. This is substantially higher than the 50% expenditure achieved when the same exercise was done later in the day or after eating. If you burn glucose during exercise, you tend to burn more fat the rest of the day. If you burn fat during exercise, you burn more glucose during the day. The end result is identical. If that weren't the case, then athletes like sprinters who never 'burn fat' during exercise wouldn't be shredded. Basically, they burn so many calories that they remain in balance and don't gain any fat. So, while morning cardio probably provides some psychological benefits to bodybuilders who are programmed to do it that way, I can't say that I think it will result in greater fat loss to the rest of the population, which is what matters. Whether or not morning cardio in the fasted state increases "real world" fat loss is still the subject of controversy, but there are many other reasons you might want to consider making it a part of your daily routine. So to summarise, for the general population exercising any time of the day will work the same. It's calories in v calories out. For the trained athlete who's diet is cleaner eating frequently and counting their macros the case of calories in v calories out is not as straight forward. If it works for you stick with it, if not , don't stress and rely on good old thermodynamics. Here are some of the additional benefits of doing cardio early in the morning (whether fasted or not): 1.It makes you feel great all day by releasing mood-enhancing endorphins. 2. It "energizes" you and "wakes you up." 3. It may help regulate your appetite for the rest of the day. 4. Your body's circadian rhythm adjusts to your morning routine, making it easier to wake up at the same time every day. 5. You'll be less likely to "blow off" your workout when it's out of the way early (like when you're exhausted after work or when friends ask you to join them at the pub for happy hour). 6. You can always "make time" for exercise by setting your alarm earlier in the morning. 7. It increases your metabolic rate for hours after the session is over, if intensity is high enough. Of all these benefits, the post-exercise increase in your metabolic rate is one of the most talked about. We call this "afterburn" effect the "excess post-exercise oxygen consumption" or EPOC for short. Looking only at the number of calories and the type of calories burned during the session doesn't give you the full picture. You also need to look at the increased number of calories you continue to burn after the workout is over.Work out in the morning and you burn calories all day long. Imagine burning extra fat as you sit at your desk at work! That's the good news. The bad news is, the degree of EPOC is not as great as most people think. I dont believe that your metabolism stays elevated for 24 hours after a regular aerobic workout. Ive yet to see proof of this.That only happens after extremely intense and/or prolonged exercise such as running a marathon. After low intensity exercise, the magnitude of the EPOC is so small that its impact on fat loss is negligible. Somewhere between 9 and 30 extra calories are burned after exercise at an intensity of less than 60-65% of maximal heart rate. In other words, a casual stroll on the treadmill burns some calories and provides other health benefits, but will do next to nothing to increase your metabolism after the workout is over via the EPOC mechanism. . One way to get a significant post exercise "afterburn" is by using more intense cardio workouts such as high intensity interval training (HIIT). HIIT is done by alternating brief periods of high intensity work (85% or more) with brief periods of lower intensity work. Studies on the effects of HIIT have demonstrated a much higher EPOC, which can add substantially to the day's calorie expenditure. In one study, scientists compared the effects of two exercise protocols on 24-hour energy expenditure. The first group cycled for 60 minutes at a moderate intensity. The second group performed HIIT, cycling for two minutes at high intensity followed by two minutes at a low intensity. The group that performed the HIIT burned 160 more calories in 24 hours than the low intensity group. That means the HIIT group would burn an extra 11.8 pounds of fat in one year if they did HIIT five days a week instead of conventional training. Ironically, weight training has a much higher magnitude of EPOC than aerobic training. Studies have shown increases in metabolic rate of as much as 4-7% over a 24-hour period from resistance training. So girls that means "bodybuilding" does burn fat -- albeit afterwards more than during. For someone with an expenditure of 2500 calories per day, that could add up to 100 - 175 extra calories burned after your weight training workout is over. The lesson is simple: Anyone interested in losing body fat who is not lifting weights should first take up a regimen of bodybuilding. Worrying about details such as whether to do cardio fasted or fed is pointless if you're not even taking advantage of the major body-composition improving benefits of weight training! A common concern about doing cardio in the fasted state, especially if it's done with high intensity, is the possibility of losing muscle. After an overnight fast, glycogen, blood glucose and insulin are all low. As we've already concluded, this is an optimum environment for burning fat as the fuel source during exercise. Unfortunately, it may also be an optimum environment for burning muscle because carbohydrate fuel sources are low and levels of the catabolic stress hormone cortisol are high. It sounds like morning cardio might be a double-edged sword, but there are ways to avert muscle loss. Any substantial amount of aerobic exercise will have some effect on building muscle, but as long as you don't overdo it, (longer than 60 to 90 mins depdnding) you shouldn't worry about losing muscle. It's a fact that muscle proteins are broken down and used for energy during aerobic exercise. But you are constantly breaking down and re-building muscle tissue anyway. This process is called "protein turnover" and it's a daily fact of life. Your goal is to tip the scales slightly in favor of increasing the anabolic side and reducing the catabolic side just enough so you stay anabolic and you gain or at least maintain muscle. How do you build up more muscle than you break down? First, avoid excessive cardio. Limiting your cardio on an empty stomach to 30 minutes, and then it would be "highly unlikely that amino acids will be burned as fuel." Up to 45-60 minutes is perfectly safe, but only if the intensity level is low. A strong cup of coffee should facilitate a shifting to burn more fat and less glycogen. I'm not a believer of pre workout drinks. Second, give your body the proper nutritional support. Losing muscle probably has more to do with inadequate nutrition than with excessive aerobics. Provide yourself with the proper nutritional support for the rest of the day, including adequate meal frequency, protein, carbohydrates and total calories, and it's not as likely that there will be a net loss of muscle tissue over each 24-hour period. Third, keep training with relatively heavy weights, even during a fat loss phase. Using light weights and higher reps thinking that it will help you get more "cut" is a mistake: What put the muscle on in the first place is likely to help you keep it there. Fourth, if your cardio workouts are going to be high in intensity, it's ideal to do them in a fed state because your performance will be better fed and you will be less likely to tap into lean tissue for fuel during high intensity exercise. If you're doing low or moderate intensity cardio, then it's safer to do it fasted, from a muscle-retention standpoint. Still worried of losing your hard-earned muscle, but you'd like to take advantage of the increased fat oxidation that happens during fasted morning cardio? One strategy many bodybuilders use is "semi-fasted cardio " and drink a protein shake or eat a protein only meal 30 minutes or so prior to the morning session. The protein without the carbs will minimize the insulin response and allow you to mobilize fat as fuel during the workout while providing amino acids to prevent muscle breakdown. In conclusion, it seems that A.M. cardio has enough indisputable benefits to motivate most people to set their alarms early. But let's tallk results here: Does doing morning cardio in a fasted state really result in more "real world fat loss" than cardio performed at other times of the day or after eating? Although the timing of your exercise is clearly not the most important factor, I believe that fasted cardio, done intelligently, can help. The combination of existing research plus my experience make me believe so. Nevertheless, this will obviously continue to be an area of much debate, and more long term research is needed. In the meantime, while the scientists are busy in their labs measuring respiratory exchange ratios, caloric expenditures keep waking up at 6:00 AM every morning to get on the Stairmaster.

CUTTING TO MANY CALORIES TOO QUICKLY. I'm posting this because some of my clients have done this. I have them on a calorie deficit and then they stop doing what I ask and start cutting more calories than I've asked them too. They think this will bring quicker results. Makes sense doesn't it? If you're like most people who want to lose weight, you want to lose it fast. So you may be tempted to make drastic changes in your diet to dramatically reduce the number of calories you consume. But what you may not know is that eating too few calories can actually backfire and sabotage your weight-loss efforts. Calories and Your Health The most effective way to lose weight is to consume fewer calories than you expend, creating a calorie deficit. But if your calorie intake dips too low, says Lummus, your body could go into starvation mode. Your body will start to store fat because it thinks it is not going to get anything. You will be at a point where your body is kind of at a standstill When your body goes into starvation mode, your metabolism slows to a crawl, burning calories as slowly as possible to conserve its energy stores. This is why people who cut their calories too much may reach a plateau and stop losing weight. Eating too few calories can be the start of a vicious cycle that causes diet distress. When you cut your calories so low that your metabolism slows and you stop losing weight, you probably will become frustrated that your efforts are not paying off. This can lead you to overeat and ultimately gain weight. It is so hard to sustain cutting calories and eating too little. What typically happens is that you will go in the opposite direction. Become too hungry and go into a binging mode. Because you are getting frustrated by not seeing any weight loss, you just throw in the towel. In addition to sabotaging your weight-loss efforts, eating too few calories can also harm your health. When your body goes into starvation mode, you are at increased risk for the following: Abnormally low blood pressure and slow heart rate Heart rhythm abnormalities Electrolyte imbalances, especially potassium deficiency Gallstones Hair loss Brittle fingernails Loss of menstrual periods in women Soft hair growth over entire body Dizziness Trouble concentrating Anemia Swelling in your joints Brittle bones Depression Coming to Terms With Calories Remember that calories are not your enemy. They are a vital part of a healthy and energetic life. Your body needs a certain amount of calories just to sustain proper function. This is why fad diets that force you to cut out too many calories leave you feeling lethargic, shaky, and ready to give up. Instead of opting for a fad diet, find a reasonable eating and exercise plan that allows you to lose one-half to two pounds per week. There is evidence that people who lose weight at this rate — by making better nutrition choices, eating smaller portion sizes, and exercising — also have the best chance of keeping it off. Make a plan to adopt new healthy habits that you will be able to stick to indefinitely, and always allow yourself a little room for special occasions.

Hey, so I was thinking instead of my weekly post, I thought I'd leave the floor open to you guys. Is there something you would like to know? What question have you always want answered? Do you need to know something about diets? Weight loss? Weight gain? Maybe you want to know why your not losing weight. What's the best way to train? So hit me with what you've got, (if your prefer to do it privately then inbox me😊)

"Things You Need To Know About Fat Loss" This is Andrea who did exactly as I asked. In this post you are going to learn how to eat, train and properly address all of your fat loss goals. Whether you have 10 pounds of stubborn fat to lose or 100 pounds, you will find this information useful to you and your situation. Once applied, the information will begin to produce results for you. We all want to be fit, healthy and lean. Struggling with weight is an issue for all of us at one point or another in life. Some people will struggle with weight issues more than others and many will struggle with it throughout their lives, never fully getting control over their weight issues for numerous reasons. Maybe you have some weight issues that bother you. Maybe you have been unable to shift the last few pounds even though you are training hard and eating really clean and following all the ‘so-called’ fat loss rules. Maybe you are struggling to accept the fact that your weight problem has been self-inflicted and you are finding it hard to finally accept the fact that it’s your fault and you need to take responsibility and address the problem head on. Whatever your fat loss related issues are, these simple 10 tips will become very useful to you as you start to address your fat loss goals. Just remember these tips only do you any good if you start to implement them and implement them consistently! Fat Loss Fact #1 TAKE RESPONSIBILITY! You MUST accept responsibility for your current physical state. Stop playing the blame game, take responsibility and take immediate action. If you continue to blame others or blame your genetics you will never achieve the fat loss result you want and that’s a fact! Successful people on the other hand are those who take responsibility and control of their exercise regime, nutrition and lifestyle. Fat Loss Fact #2 CHANGE YOUR BEHAVIOR! Fat loss isn’t under the control of a higher power or the magical fat loss fairies. It’s based on simple CHANGES IN BEHAVIOR. If you continue to participate in behavior that is not favorable such as the weekly fast food meal, pizza and ice cream while the other half of you continues to buy “just one” bag of crisps when you’re out food shopping. You are not giving yourself a chance! Simply get involved in activities that are going to be positive and push you in the right direction. Steer clear of anything and anyone that will potentially get you off track. Put yourself first and change your behavior, change your mindset and this will help you change and improve your body. Fat Loss Fact #3 SET FAT LOSS TIME SCALES! Losing body fat isn’t going to happen magically overnight or within the space of a few short weeks. Don’t let yourself be fooled into thinking you can achieve rapid fat loss if you are ‘REALLY GOOD’ over the next 3-4 weeks. I always smile when clients will ask me how much will they lose if they are really good over the next few weeks. Straight away I like to stop a person when they start talking like this and address their mindset. You must develop the right mindset and that means thinking long-term, making changes in behavior that are long-term and ultimately focusing on achieving and maintaining long-term fat loss. How quickly you lose will depend on how much you have to lose, how disciplined you are, your gender, genetics to a certain extent and your previous training background amongst other factors. Just be patient and remember that it’s not a race to lose the weight, but a lifestyle change to lose it and keep it off! Fat Loss Fact #4 FAT LOSS WILL BE FASTER FOR GUYS! Since I mentioned gender being a factor above, I want to point out that it will be a slower process for females to lose body fat than males. SORRY LADIES! Wish I had better news for you but I don’t. If you’ve ever watched shows like The Biggest Loser, you will have noticed that the men always have the higher weekly weight loss numbers. That isn’t because the females don’t work as hard. It’s got to do with hormonal differences and the fact that males will have more muscle mass, and muscle is what drives your metabolism. Fat Loss Fact #5 RESISTANCE TRAINING! You must not be resistant to resistance training. As I pointed out above ‘MUSCLE’ is what drives your metabolism and metabolism as we know is the rate at which one burns fuel in the form of calories. When fat loss is the goal you must attack the muscle via resistance training, whether it be by using barbells and dumbbells, body weight exercise or kettlebells, it doesn’t really matter too much, just make sure you are resistance training and doing so at least 3 times per week. Resistance training will help you achieve faster. When we attack the muscle via resistance training we cause muscle fibers to become damaged. Not only do we expend a load of calories while performing the resistance work itself, but also the muscle needs to repair and this repair process is calorie costly. Fat Loss Fact #6 Cardio is a must for those seeking fat loss. Problem is that most people don’t know what cardio training is. Keeping it simple, cardio training is anything that will elevate your heart rate and respiration. This can be achieved with both low intensity and high intensity activities. The problem with training at low intensities (<30% max) is that it can be counterproductive! Too many people start training like endurance athletes for fat loss, going for lengthy runs, etc. All you will achieve by doing this is improvements in endurance via improved energy conservation. By all means, move and move a lot. 3-5 hours per week isn’t going to drastically improve your body! There are 168 hours in the week. So if you train 5 hours per week you still have 163 hours to accumulate fat and be lazy. MOVE AROUND – Take the stairs, ride the bike, walk the dog, do some sprints, play recreational sports, lift things, do it all. I ask all my clients to monitor their NEAT (Non Exercise Activity Thermogenesis) BUT when you go to the gym, go there to lift weights, perform bodyweight exercises, circuit train and engage in other high intensity activities such as intervals. Keep the low intensity activities for your non-gym days, and if you want to go for a long walk, do it outside. Don’t go to the gym to walk on a treadmill at 3mph when you could do so outdoors. Remember that lower intensity activities, such as walking and jogging have almost no after burn effect. Meaning that you simply increase your metabolic rate slightly while performing the activity, but afterwards your metabolism returns to its normal setting to carry on your daily tasks. So, train using high intensity work 3-5 days per week, and outside of that, you can add in low intensity work if you want to and provided you have the time to do so. Just realise that the low intensity work is not a must, nor a priority. Fat Loss Fact #7 YOU CAN’T OUT TRAIN BAD NUTRITION! Again I wish I were able to tell you that you can eat what you want, whenever you want and still achieve the fat loss results you want, but you can’t. Nutrition is and always will be the KEY factor for the fat loss seeker. Now this article is not going to be about fat loss nutrition, but you MUST address your nutritional habits and make changes, even if they are only small at first. Remember you need to expend more calories than you consume. The problem is that most people think they need to start eating like a rabbit and munch on bland, tasteless foods while never feeling satisfied. What happens is that they usually cut back so much that they don’t provide their body with enough nutrients. Your body not only seeks calories, but it primarily seeks nutrients from those calories. That’s why all those 100 calorie snack bars, etc on the market are useless crap. Yes, they might be low-calorie but they have no nutrients in them. They are nutrient poor food choices and you need to be consuming nutrient rich foods. Much better to consume a 150 calorie bar that is loaded with nutrients than a 100 calorie bar that is nothing but a sugar bar disguised as a health bar or fat-free weight loss bar. You can still occasionally eat some foods that are not ideal for the fat loss seeker by using strategic treat (notice how I say treat meals not cheat ) BUT 90% of the time, or more, you are going to have to be very disciplined with your nutrition. With your clean eating plan you will need to spend a little time experimenting with your foods and ingredients in order to spice up your dishes so they are satisfying. Like I said above, you don’t need to eat bland foods for fat loss, it just takes a bit of time to learn how to take basic nutrient rich foods and turn them into tasty, yet still healthy, dishes. Fat Loss Fact #8 LONG TERM CALORIE REDUCTION! The important thing to recognize is that it takes a LONG TERM reduction in calories. Periods of calorie deprivation for 3 days in a row then a massive influx of calories at the weekend will NOT result in fat loss. Any body fat you did manage to lose in those few days WILL, contrary to popular belief, quickly be replaced at the weekend leaving you back at square one. Fat Loss Fact #9 MOST SUPPLEMENTS SUCK! Over 90% of supplements on the market today are useless and just a complete waste of your time and money. The supplement industry is a multi billion-dollar industry and that’s partly because of their marketing campaigns that prey on people who are desperate and easily fooled into believing the marketing hype. Apart from a quality multivitamin and mineral supplement, fish oils and possibly some whey protein powder (for convenience) you really don’t need to use any other supplements. STOP hoping and looking out for the latest magical berry from the Amazon or the latest fat burning pill or potion. It’s so crucially important that you accept the fact that fat loss can’t happen using supplements alone! Fat Loss Fact #10 FAT LOSS ISN’T EASY! I hope this last one doesn’t come as a surprise but fat loss requires hard work and discipline, both in and out of the gym. As soon as a person accepts this fact (that fat loss is hard) fat loss becomes a lot easier because now the individual can focus on what needs to be addressed in order to achieve some real fat loss. They can forget about finding the magic bullet for fat loss, as there really is none. They can knuckle down and start training hard and eating clean in an attempt to lose body fat and get lean, so remember that hard bodies are achieved via hard work! I hope you found this information useful to you and your situation. I now strongly urge you to take action, apply the information and take control of your fat loss goals. This will lead to ultimately taking control of you life, allowing you to become and feel more energetic, so you can focus on the things in life that are most important to you.

More awesome results with my diet plans. EVERYONE has lost weight and still continuing too. From as little as £1 day. No fads no silly juice blends. Eat what you want and still drink alcohol. Let me show you how to do it with scientifically proven result. Inbox me now!

I know I've been quiet of late, but I thought I deserved a break at xmas😊 So, are you one of the people who calorie count and STILL DONT LOSE WEIGHT? Well there are lots of hidden calories you may not be accounting for. You could be over as much as 500kcal without even trying. Tomorrow I will explain where these calories are coming from that you didn't realise.