What Are Supplements And What Do They Do? Part 1

When it comes to health and body maintenance many of us don’t get enough of what we need or are diets don’t have some of the most crucial building blocks of the body. We don’t usually notice it or care too much because our bodies usually do a pretty good job of developing what we need and extracting what we need from the food we eat.

Even though our bodies are about as efficient as they can get, they are very far from performing at their optimum capability.

This is where supplements come in to the mix and help out considerably. Especially if you’re in to body building and better health they provide you with the next level of physical development and maintenance. Some of them provide essential Vitamins and oils that the body can’t develop itself but still needs. Others keep our bodies topped up to their optimum requirements and performing at their absolute best.

There is an incredibly wide range of supplements out there, all doing different things for you, this does not necessarily mean you have to take every single one available, in fact this could possibly have a negative effect on you if you just want to lose a bit of weight or belly flab. If you are one of us trying to lose the belly a great way to go is taking a multi-vitamin tablet and drinking a few cups of green tea a day.

Green tea really stimulates the metabolism and puts it into overdrive to lose fat. Scientist still haven’t got to the bottom of why this happens but they have proven through multiple tests on people and groups that it increases the rate at which the body burns fat by at least 15%. Depending on the person the effects are different. But it is confirmed that whoever you are and whatever you eat. Green tea will help you to stabilise your fat or stimulate the loss of it.

If you are on a weight loss or fat loss Program, or diet, this could mean that your body isn’t getting some of the essential vitamins your body needs, of course this depends on your previous diet. Whether your serious about this whole thing or not, A Multi-vitamin is absolutely essential to you.

Vitamins are vital to making sure everything in our body’s functions properly and healthily. Vitamins such as the much lauded vitamins C and B, These two alone can prevent colds and skin conditions altogether. Vitamin B also helps to increase the metabolism and develop muscle tone and condition. It can also help to decrease or get rid of acne and spots.

Vitamins come in two forms. There are water soluble vitamins and fat soluble vitamins. Water soluble vitamins include vitamins B and C. These aren’t usually stored in the body for more than a couple of hours at a time, but that’s all you need. Fat Soluble Vitamins include A, D, E and K Vitamins. These provide stimuli for the metabolism, immune systems and the digestive system. If you suffer from constipation that’s in part due to a lack of these Vitamins in your body. Fat Soluble Vitamins play a major part in stopping your body from developing all sorts of deficiencies, especially if you’re older, these will help. If you have no health problems at all at the moment these will help you to maintain that state.

For weight loss and fat loss and another metabolic boost, wheatgrass is worth considering instead of or as well as green tea. Wheat Grass contains a lot of alkaline properties which help to neutralise acid build up in the body. If you have a very stressful day ahead of you nothing else will prepare you for it quite like wheatgrass. The only thing you have to bear in mind is this will give you a lot of energy, so it’s probably best to avoid having this in the evening.

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Reasons Why You Should Only Work Out 3-4 Times A Week

Reasons Why You Should Only Work Out 3-4 Times A Week

A lot of people start a workout program and put there all in to it straight away, they are motivated and fired up which is great. A crucial part they forget though is taking a break, they will wake up in the morning, do an insane amount of press-ups, sit-ups, crunches and whatever else they have decided to include in there program, go to work, off out for the day, then do all these workouts again before they go to bed at night.

While this is incredibly good for you, you should NOT do it every day.

After a few weeks maybe a month tops of doing this EVERY day, you will begin to feel weak, probably pretty sick and be aching all over.

After an intense workout, the body needs time to repair, develop and strengthen your muscles, This process usually takes 24-48hours to complete fully. If you don’t give your body a chance to regenerate, all you will be doing is killing your muscles slowly, and stopping the regeneration and building process from happening.

When you are actually working out, you’re doing very little to your muscles other than using them to their current limit, each time maybe pushing a bit further, doing a few more reps. It’s only after the workout does something start to happen, assuming you push a bit harder every time you work out, your body will be adapting and developing to cope with this new level ‘stress’ or fitness.

That is why you shouldn’t workout EVERY single day, After you’ve finished an intense workout your immune system is weakened slightly as well, hence where the weakness and sickness comes from if your working out every day.

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The Three Main Body Types

If you were to go out and examine the body of every single person in this world, you will soon see a pattern that comes up over and over again, you will notice several features are very similar on people, things like overall body shape, height; they may have big thighs and abdomen areas. Similar levels of fat whether they exercise or not. If you were to take in to account all these things and were to categorize people that are similar to each other, you should end up with three groups.

These 3 groups are Ectomorph, Endomorph and Mesomorph. Every single person on this earth can go into one these categories. There is a few indifferences and anomalies among certain people, but overall they can still be identified and put in to one of the body types.

The Ectomorph is characterised by these traits:

• The Definitive “Hard Gainer”
• Delicate Built Body
• Flat Chest
• Fragile
• Lean
• Lightly Muscled
• Small Shouldered
• Takes Longer To Gain Muscle

Ectomorph Body Type

If You’re in to body building and have been struggling to build significant muscle, this is probably the reason why, but it can be helped by using supplements such as whey protein to aid in muscle building and making sure you have proper form in all your workouts.

The next significant body type is Endomorph body or more commonly known as the “pear shaped body”, things to look for are:

• They are generally Curvy
• Body fat tends to accumulate in the lower regions of the body, namely the abdomen are and thighs
• Big Hips, Thighs and Abdomen area
• Tendency to have a blend of features from the Ectomorph and Mesomorph body types
• Has Capacity for High Fat Storage
• Small to medium bone size
• Muscles aren’t well-defined

Endomorph Body Type

A lot of Endomorph body-type people struggle to lose weight weather they are dieting or exercising a lot. On the plus side if they do put the effort in, and make a bid to lose all the fat, they can have some of the best looking abs of any of the other two body types. Due to the slight uniqueness of their situation, they can usually end up looking like one of the other body types with the right exercise.

The Final body type that everyone longs for is the Mesomorph, A lot of the Mesomorph don’t realise how lucky they are to have this body, because with a little work they can get stunning results pretty quickly, yet they are completely oblivious to this. The Distinct characteristics of the Mesomorph are.

• Athletic Appearance
• Hard Body
• Hourglass Shaped (female)
• Rectangular shaped, broad shoulders(male)
• Mature Muscle Mass
• Muscular Body
• Excellent posture
• They tend to gain muscles easily

Mesomorph Body Type

Now you know about the three body types, which one are you? And what do you want to look like?

With a good exercise program, it’s possible to look like any of these body types, You just have to be patient, consistent and set realistic goals along the way.

How To Focus Your Mind To Develop Your Abs And Body

Probably the SINGLE most important part of your workout routine and goals, the thing that’s going to give you the motivation and kick to get you the perfect body you want is the single thing nearly everyone seems to forget.

If you were to go to your local gym now and ask someone to describe their reasoning behind them being there, their goals and what they want to look like. I bet you anything they won’t give you a straight answer. No one will be able to describe EXACTLY what they want to look like, or EXACTLY how whatever they do at the gym is going to benefit them.

This is the single difference between the toned body of a superstar and your average Joe that goes to the gym a lot.

Hollywood film stars and people who have great bodies know exactly what they want to look like in their mind. They know exactly what they want their arms to look like, they know exactly what they want their chest and pecs to look like, they can see a beautiful set of washboard abs, they will be able to tell you what sort of overall body shape they want, what sort of obliques they want. The list goes on and on but this is how it starts.

If you don’t know what you want to look like in your mind and yourself, then there’s no aim or effort really going to be put in to what you do at the gym. You won’t feel motivated or purposeful in all you do at the gym. This is where it just becomes another ‘choir’ for people to do, till eventually they drop it altogether.

So how do you focus your mind and achieve exactly what you want your body to look like?

You need to take some time to really sit down and think what you want to look like, If you’re not sure but really do want to make a difference to your life and your looks, browse round the web get some pictures and ideas really get yourself into how you want to look, even if your far from it now, a key thing to remember is that nothing is impossible, you can achieve ANYTHING when you put your mind to it.

Really enjoy this and take a minute to time out and think how you would feel if you lost x amount of weight and had a nice set of six-pack abs, or a beautiful, slender toned body. Or maybe you want some really beefy arms or more shape around your thighs and buttocks.

Once you know what you want and have really got this feeling and idea in mind you then need to set yourself believable goals towards attaining your ultimately perfect body.

If you want to develop your arms, start doing weights,and every 2 weeks to a month knock up whatever your pulling by 2-5kgs and do a few sets at the new weight till you feel you can replace it altogether with this new weight, keep working with these little things and notching up till you get to where you want.

Apply this principle to every area you want to improve and put together a program, or a routine that you do every time you’re at the gym, alternate everything for a while going up in increments, so now your working towards your perfect body. Then when you finally do get there you will be happy beyond blazes.

You may see people at the gym and think I wished I looked like that, but if you were to ask them are they pleased with their body and workout program, they would probably say not sure or they could do better. This is because they never set out any goals to work towards, they just kept pushing themselves with no real focus.

Your now going to be focused and know EXACTLY what you want and how you want to look. You’re going to feel much more fulfilled and motivate.

This is what motivationis all about :)

Dont Want To Change What You Eat But Still Want To Lose Weight? Heres How...

A lot of people that want to lose a lot of weight never really want to change their diet, which is understandable as what they eat is what they love. It’s a shock to your whole body as well if you want to make the dramatic change in what you eat fast. When people attempt this big change in diet straight away, it rarely lasts for long and they are back to all the fatty and unhealthy foods again.

Well there is a very simple answer to this which has worked miracles on me, and when I started this the effects were very rapid in the first few months, I’m now getting stabilised in my eating habits and KEEPING the weight and fat off PERMANENTLY.

Since my weight and flabby belly used to be a really bad personal problem that affected everything from my confidence to my looks and eventually my mental attitude and picture of myself, I figured the only way to get out of this was to make some drastic changes.
They didn’t turn out all that drastic though, but the first thing I did was swap out my snacking for something like an apple, banana or orange. Whenever I felt the compulsive need to eat I used to get something like a packet of crisps or handful of biscuits, which as your probably all well aware of packs on the pounds pretty quickly. These are some high calorie things which only keep your hunger away for about another half hour before you feel hungry again, so you grab more biscuits...rinse and repeat, you get the idea.

The best way to counter this problem with snacking is when you feel the need to eat, grab something healthy instead, FORCE yourself, I mean really force yourself. Trust me you will be thankful for it. You will feel miles better about yourself for doing it. If you don’t have any fruit or veg lying around, or you don’t have much of the stuff around your house, make sure you buy some next time you go shopping.

The other little secret I found out about pretty quickly is drink a lot of water, health experts recommend 2L a day which seems like an awful lot. But when you take into account our bodies are about 80% water you can see why. Lack of water or dehydration in your diet can often be mistaken for hunger, a lot of people don’t realise this, but water makes up for 50% of the feeling of hunger. So if you’re still feeling hungry after you’ve eaten a massive meal, get a few glasses of water down you and that will quickly sort that out. The piece of advice here to take on board is drink water instead of snacking to kill those hunger cravings.

A good test I find to see if you’re really hungry for food or not is drink 4 glasses of water in a row, if your still hungry after that, then you can get yourself something to eat, otherwise you know, you were just a tad dehydrated.

Doing these two relatively simple things will render noticeable results inside a month to three months. It also requires very little commitment on your behalf compared to changing everything you eat and your whole diet to something you don’t like. Your body will adapt to these little things over time and you will naturally feel more compelled to try other fruit and veg that you may have never really like or thought was tasteless. Since the appetite for sugar and sweet things will quickly deteriate, along with the urges or compulsive eating habits

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How To Get The Best From Your Work Out

If you’ve been going to the gym or working out for a while now, but seeing very little in the way of results, there’s a good chance you haven’t been doing the exercises’ properly, or really pushed yourself to the limit of what you can currently do.

Heres a few obvious ways to tell if you’re not working to the best of your ability

• You never stall or lose strength when you get to the end of your sets
• You don’t feel the ‘burning sensation’ in your muscles once you get to the end of your sets
• You seem to be able to do far more sets and reps than the more built up guy next to you
• You don’t break a sweat at all
• You haven’t changed the weight or exercises at all since you started
• You’ve never used some of the other equipment available to you

I can associate with this since I’ve been there, I done all the same stuff, on all the same weights, doing all the same exercises for a good few months every time I went to the gym or worked out at home, initially I noticed a few differences, but that was all. It got to a point where I didn’t break a sweat at all anymore and it all became a bit easy, repetitive and effortless and crucially boring. I then lost a lot of motivation and packed it in for a while.

Then I realised that I have to push to see the difference, not just a little, to the point where my body physically couldn’t do anymore, I’d just stall. If my goal was to do 3 sets of 10 chin ups, I’d just keep going at it till I literally couldn’t lift any more. It’d end up like this if you can picture it

• 1^st set of 10 chin ups

I’d probably manage 10

• Around about 7 or 8 chin ups I physically wasn’t able to pull myself up any more, every time I tried I’d Just stall
• 3^rd Set of 10 chin up

It used to be around 5 – 7 chin ups till I’d stall.

After a while I’d manage to do just a few more each time, This is when I knew it that my workouts were being productive and useful. After about a month or two, I could do 10 chin ups no problem in the first two sets, and about 8-9 in the 3^rd set.

A few top tips now on how to get the best from your workout.

• ALWAYS push till you physically can’t do any more reps, this will increase over time.
• Make sure you feel the tension in your muscles, or that ‘burning sensation’ I was on about.
• Don’t rest for any longer than a minute between sets, because you will lose the tension
• Increase your workout in increments, like an extra 5kgs on the weights instead of 10kgs or 20kgs, this will keep your muscles well toned, and won’t put any unnecessary stress on them
• Don’t feel that you have to keep up with anyone, A lot of people are in their own worlds at the gym and have their own workout schedule.
• Add variation to your workouts, this will stop it getting boring, and stop your body getting used to the same thing over and over.
• Always stay well hydrated, it’s easy to forget to drink when your in the middle of an intense workout, staying well hydrated will boost your performance significantly as well