Trying to lose weight... what should I do, Cardio or weights?

I get this question a lot and the answer simply is both are great for burning calories and losing weight - to a certain degree that is... Just remember one important thing, the benefits and results you'll get from each form of exercise is greatly dependent on how hard you're working! You can't just expect to find something that's easy to do and yet it burns calories like crazy it doesn't work that way; remember nothing comes easy in any aspect of life so neither is a healthier, better looking you!

Now resistance training of any form (bands, cables, weights, calisthenics) is said to burn up to 2 times the amount of calories as just regular steady state cardio. Now this can be true, but it's not going to be true if you're taking your sweet time in between sets, not using enough weight, not doing enough reps, and most importantly not pushing yourself to your limits. In that case the person doing cardio on the treadmill lets say will be burning more calories than you. As for cardio though you can easily burn 100's of calories in short amount of time, but you're not going to do it walking 3.5 mph with a 4 incline, if you're going to do that you're wasting your time in my opinion. In order to burn a ton of calories doing cardio you need to do HIIT, or high intensity interval training, which calls for short bursts of very high intensity actions followed by a longer rest period and then repeated over and over again. For example you walk on the treadmill at 3.5mph for 2 minutes, then once the 2 minutes is up you bump up the speed to as fast as you can go 8, 9, 10 mph for only 30 seconds. Once the 30 seconds is up drop it back down to a 3.5mph speed for another 2 min and repeat! HIIT is one of the best things for burning calories, and getting you in shape fast!

Both resistance training cardio have their unique benefits, but as for which one is better for getting skinnier, that's all dependent on you and how hard you push yourself! You should try and incorporate both types of training into your regimen though!

Counting Carbs? Keep in mind NET Carbs...

This seems to be a new thing I'm noticing these days with healthy foods, you'll see a lot of packaging on foods that says something along the lines of "Only 5 net carbs"... Well what is a net carb exactly and how does it help you? A net carb is when you take the total number of carbohydrates in serving of food and subtract the amount of fiber from it; what you're left with is a net carb. For example if I was eating some whole grain tortillas and on the nutrition label it said 10 grams of carbohydrate and 5 grams of fiber for one tortilla then technically you're left with 5 net carbs. This is because your body can only absorb 5 grams of carbs due to the amount of fiber.

So why is this a good thing to know? Because today lower carb diets seem to be the way to go for those looking to lose the pounds and fast, and by knowing how to calculate net carbs you'll save yourself a lot of trouble and actually be able to eat more then someone else who was counting carbs but didn't know how to calculate net carbs. Another example of this is lets say 2 people were only allowed to have 40g of carbs per day while dieting. The first person knows how to calculate net carbs eats a total of 70g of carbs, but all from sources with a lot of fiber which added up to 30g of fiber... leaving them at 40g of net carbs taken in for the day! Now lets say the second person didn't know about net carbs and just eats 40g of carbs, but in actuality they ate 20g of net carbs then they technically could be allowed to have more!

Whether you have some extreme weight to lose, or you're simply trying to tone up while retaining muscle mass, keeping net carbs in mind can help you out a lot when choosing the right foods!

THE ALMIGHTY SPARTACUS WORKOUT

If you're looking to get in shape and fast people may tell you that there is no way to do it fast and easy, getting in shape and looking good takes time; well they have never participated in the Spartacus workout! Although it's definitely no easy feat by any means, stick to it for a while and you'll definitely see some pretty nice results come on pretty fast. That's because this grueling high intensity circuit routine can get you burning as much as 731 calories in just 41 minutes! Whether you're new to working out, or you're a veteran the Spartacus workout will for surely give you a run for your money. I honestly believe that if you can complete the circuit exactly as instructed - 3 sets, 60 sec stations for each exercise, only 15 sec rest between exercises, and pumping out as many reps as you can - than you're in incredible shape!

I do this workout every now and then and sometimes I find myself barely making it through the third and final sweat... By then you'll be pouring sweat and ready to pass out. Don't get me wrong though you don't have to kill yourself for the Spartacus workout to be enjoyable, you can adjust each station time so it's less, you don't have to do all 3 sets, etc. I sometimes drop each station time from 60 seconds to 40-50 seconds and that makes all the difference. Although I see nothing wrong with sticking strictly to the Spartacus workout for a few weeks (3-6) it's always good to switch it up so that your body will keep progressing. So what are you waiting for, make an undefeated champion gladiator out of yourself, or at least your physique!

See the link for a better description, and directions for the workout and each exercise**
http://www.menshealth.com/fitness/spartacus-workout-1?onepage=1

The Ultimate Fat-Burning, Butt-busting, Belly Toning Secret!

Are you looking to lose pounds of body fat, lose inches off your belly and waist, and get a nice, sexy, beach-ready body? Here’s the secret…. There is no secret!

The #1 absolute key to losing weight and looking great simply put is hard work! You may be working hard and busting your ass in the gym, but that is only part of the equation, the major part of the solution is DIET, DIET, and DIET. The only thing that you need to know to lose weight is that you must expend more calories than you consume. Your body needs calories or in other words, energy from food, just to function and perform at optimal levels; these functions include but are not limited to, heart function, brain function, digestive function and more, even breathing requires calories. The average human body needs anywhere from 1500-2000 calories a day just for maintenance, and it gets this energy from either food or stored energy in the body.  This stored energy can come in the form of fat, glycogen, muscle proteins, or a mixture of all three.

When losing weight the proper way to go about it is to target and reduce mainly body fat, this way you’ll look good, feel good, and be healthier. Though if you eat too little, starve yourself, and/or workout too hard you can actually keep your body from burning mainly fat and instead it will target muscle proteins and glycogen; you’ll still be losing weight but mainly skeletal muscle and you could end up looking what’s called “skinny-fat”.

The proper and safe way to go about losing the weight is to aim for a loss of 1-2 pounds each week (a little more if you’re on the obese side of things, and a little less if you’re already fairly lean). A pound of fat consists of approximately 3500 calories, so in order to lose one pound of fat a week you’d need to be in a calorie deficit of 500 calories a day for 7 days, make sense? 500Calories x 7Days = 3500Calories, so if you’d want to drop 2 pounds every week you’d need to be in a calorie deficit of 1000 calories per day to add up to 7000 calories (and no more) or 2 pounds of that lovely fat by the end of the week. This is the best approach to attacking weight/fat-loss for average to overweight individuals; it’s safe, effective, you’ll be able to function at almost 100%, and you’ll lose little to no muscle at all if you follow this route. If you get impatient, if you go too hard into diet mode, if you spend excessive time in the gym killing yourself doing cardio, you’re not going to get 100% of the results you want, you’ll feel like crap, you’ll drop a lot of strength and muscle, you’ll most likely plateau at some point and stop dropping the pounds and possibly even reverse weight loss.

In the next articles to come I’ll continue to go more in depth about these details, certain diets, why they work/don’t, and for a lot of you ladies out there I’ll talk about why it’s important to have and spare muscle because you’ll actually burn more calories with it!