So I have decided I could need to lose some pounds, I have no goal of an exact amount at this moment. I’m not going to struggle, I will really let it take time this time. The ca

use of this is of course I want to get more fit, but this is also an experiment of my body. Will two simple steps work? I’m going to do two small things everyday in order to reach my goal within 4 months.

1) I’m going to fill up my schedule a lil bit more. Before, I used to do cardio workouts five times a week. Wednesday and sunday was resting day. Now I’m going to workout with cardio at home seven days a week. That means no resting days.

2) As for the second thing, I’m going to eat smaller portions at dinner everyday. The reason for this is that I understood the importance of it even better now. Let me explain: I’m usually very inactive physically after dinner. That means that everything I eat won’t be burning up as easily as it would during daytime when I’m walking and running all day. I might get hungry before bedtime which is going to be hard to get used to. But I don’t need much energy when sleeping, now do I? Worst case, I’ll eat some hassle nuts or a fruit.

These are two very simple steps to lose some weight, I don’t guarantee it will work for everyone though. Some people really can’t sleep on empty stomach.

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1. Lose Weight With Cardio F.A.Q
2. Eating Breakfast And Drinking Water Can Do A Lot

Here are some guidelines to follow when you’re creating a daily eating routine:

* Don’t eat right before bed.
* Eat a steady breakfast. Really steady! What you eat is less important.
* Keep your lunch 3 hours after breakfast.
* Nuts, fruits, and other small meals during afternoon.
* Dinner portions should not be too big, but still enough.

If you hold on to these guidelines, you will definitely reduce the risk of getting type 2 diabetes.

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1. Eating Breakfast And Drinking Water Can Do A Lot

Lose weight by eating breakfast & drink  water at the right time

Eating breakfast will make your metabolism much better during the whole day and therefore burn up more calories. You will also feel much more energized and focused. It’s not very important what  you eat – Of course, the best breakfast is a good mixture of fiber, protein, carbohydrates and some fat.

By drinking water as soon as you wake up will make your taste bud better and also make you feel hungry, study; http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8287852.

It is proven that drinking water before meals will make the food more tasteful. Therefore, it’s a good simple step for people who tend to give up breakfast because they aren’t feeling hungry. Moreover, drinking water after a meal will get your metabolism to work immediately and therefore burn more.

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1. Eating at the right times

Six advices for you to set goals to get motivated:

1. Answer the questions how, when, how?
2. Get help if you can not answer them myself. (E.g how – personal trainer)?
3. For what reason? Is that enough justification?
4. How will you measure your performance when you are ‘advanced’? When are the target to be achieved and what happens if it is not?
5. How will you reward yourself? (Reward spurs)
6. Once the plan is nailed, it is reasonable? You can follow this plan along your options?

In order that a case should be motivating enough, you should have about 50% chance of doing it. This means that it will be difficult to achieve, beacuse if the goal is too easily achieved you won’t feel motivated enough to struggle.
Similarly, if the goal is too hard it will be easy to hang because of performance requirements.

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1. I’m going to lose some pounds now

Perform the exercise shown in any order.

* jump squat
* staggered pushups
* alteranating split jump
* explosive pushups
* prison squat
* hindu pushups
* kneeling band row
* burpees
* pull ups
* double crunch

Have fun!

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1. Cardio Outdoors – Full Body Workout

It began simple enough.  Our family relocated to Sicily, Italy by way of California, complements of the United States navy.  I had just lost the forty-five pounds of post-baby weight and was down to fourteen percent body fat.  I was happy, content and thin.  Then the news that we would be moving abroad came into view and I instantly became frantic.  I had heard the rumors of Sicilians walking the streets, eating pastries, enjoying large ten-course meals at lunchtime, and lots of alcohol consumption.  I had seen the pictures of brooding Sicilian mothers forcing their large families to “mangia!  Mangia!” and not to leave the table until every morsel vanished.  I knew of several Italian families living here in the United States that only enjoyed their family reunions because of the pasta-gorging and pizza-baking.  These people were serious about their food!  I wanted no part of it.  I decidedly refused to be a part of the Sicilian culture and especially reminded myself that of course there was a commissary on the navy base and certainly I could continue my current eating lifestyle.  Luckily, this was not the case and thankfully so when we landed on Italian soil in march 1997.

The first sampling of fine Sicilian cuisine was at a ristorante in a little village close to the navy base.  They served all specialties of pasta, and their main following was for the wood oven-baked pizza that was routinely made with buffalo cheese.  It was incredibly delicious, light and filling.  I was pleased and so were my family.  We decided that this little restaurant would become a regular for our family.

As the months went on, our tastes became even more refined as we traveled throughout all of Italy, attuned to the differences in the sauces of Florence versus Rome, and got to know whose pasta was the most al dente. During the first year of life in Sicily, I became increasingly aware of how much better I felt, how much clearer my skin was, and how I had not gained any of my weight back!  I was even eating more bread, more pasta and staying at exactly the same body fat as I did before moving to Sicily.  What remained more of a mystery were the Sicilians themselves.  The girls and women there were not overweight and in fact were slim and beautiful.  They did not beat their bodies with exercise, did not starve themselves, and did not take supplements.  They did eat more slowly, drank gallons of water and ate only the freshest food possible, all with a slight coating of olive oil.  They did not run five miles a day, nor did they have to have gastric bypass surgery.

After the first year of eating well and being amazed at the lack of overweight people that surrounded me, I investigated further by becoming one of the Sicilians by learning their language and immersing myself in their culture and lifestyle.  I would find out why they were thin and Americans were, well, not so thin.  Within the second year of eating delicious pasta, staying thin still and conversing fluently in Italian with my new friends, I discovered that the Sicilians had many, many things going for them.  They had their families, they valued their relatives, they did not snack on empty foods, and they drank lots and lots of bottled water.  They did not appear to have the stressors that we Americans had.  They ate fresh, unprocessed foods. They shopped frequently for fresh ingredients. They baked their own bread.  They grew their own vegetables and fruit, even if their gardens were scanty in size.  They talked with their friends and neighbors often, and were seemingly always with their families, including the extended family.  They rarely ate out in restaurants.  They ate very, very little refined sugar.  They drank very little milk.  As well, they drank very little alcohol.

Wrapping up our third year in Sicily, I was still at the same body fat, still wore the same size clothes and still happily ate an entire Mediterranean diet.  I knew now that the secret to staying thin was something that the Sicilians knew better than any of we Americans could ever know.  I miss my Sicilian friends and miss the smell of fresh bread being baked at our local panificcio.  I miss the outdoor markets in each of the tiny cittas and I long for the pizza margherita that we used to buy down the street from our home from the tiny ristorante known as Vittorio’s.  More than anything, I miss the simple pleasures of good, fresh food eaten slowly on a summer’s day while watching the lava flow down mount Aetna, hearing the sounds of young boys playing soccer outside in the street and smelling the orange blossoms from the blood orange groves that surround us in the countryside.

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1. Stand in a lunge position, right foot forward
2. Make sure to keep your hands behind your head
3. Jumping up and switch foot position in mid-air, landing in a lunge position, with the left foot forward, keeping the hands behind the head.
4. Repeat 10-15 repetitions, or timed

After you have practiced this workout a lot, you can add dumbbells for extra weight, as you can see on the video included below.

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When I first started out as an artist in 1990, there were hundreds of struggling artists in Austin complaining of not finding any “real” work. Of course an artist who works regularly is successful, and balances their energy between being creative and being entrepreneurial. Many talented people refuse to do it this way. They focus on the art itself… the fun part! That’s important, too, but almost not as important as the business side. It’s like my design professor said at university, “Talent is only 10%. That piece of paper is only worth 5.” There are plenty of gifted people out there who never achieve their goals because they don’t know how to package, sell or market what they have to offer.

Everything soon came together for me, and I realized this business approach works in every aspect of life if you truly want to find direction and make tangible progress. It even works for health and fitness. In fact, it works quite well!

Think of this as a business workshop for your health. Begin by looking at the development of a diet and fitness program as if you were starting your own small business, and the product you are manufacturing is a newer, fitter, healthier, better-organized, more motivated, sexier you.

Industrial-Strength or Lemon Scented?
Begin by choosing a name for your Product and writing a mission statement for your company ― one which means a lot to you and will drive every decision you make about your “business.” For instance a name like “No Excuses” or “Be Ready” tells you instantly each time you read it what your objective should be for every decision you make. My personal brand name is “I Will Be Unreasonable: I will not reason my way out of anything by making excuses.” I’m an artist so it only makes sense that I live my life as unreasonably as possible. But my business aim is in the statement, moving towards a targeted goal. Concentrate on your name and mission statement every time you blow out the candles on your company’s anniversary cake, and every other time you need to remind yourself about what’s most important to you and to your life.

The Sweet Smell of Sweat!
I’m no athlete. When I was a kid, I was always picked last for team sports. I’d run the other way before a dreaded dodge ball nailed me in PE. I scored a soccer goal once! For the other team. But just because I have a checkered athletic history doesn’t mean I don’t like to exercise. In fact, I’ve learned over the years that I pretty much love it.

I thank my lucky stars that my parents signed me up for the Champions Swim Team at the age of 4. Not only because it was fun (and sometimes I was picked second to last for team sports), but also because it was there that I learned to swim and to compete. I was not a strong swimmer. I was always a delicate build. I had no strong muscles like my friends were born with, and had a deep fear of heights which prevented me from the Diving Team. So the second year my parents decided that we would just swim for fun and that made all the difference. Now I go swimming as often as I can. It makes me ridiculously happy to be immersed in water.

The days of disco introduced me to roller skating parties and roller derby, enticing us with “speed skates” and “couples skates,” Xanadu, and a whole lot of girl fights. I still have a tendency to pull out my old roller skates (the ones with the pink wheels) and roll around the ad agency where I work ― for speed purposes, of course. But you would be surprised at how much traction you can get from the office carpet and get a incredible 3 o’clock energy boost, unlike the usual office party birthday cake sugar fix. It also gets me out of the office quicker so I can have more quality time afterhours.

The best exercise for me was always jazz, tap, and ballet. My most strenuous programs. Three classes three times a week plus recitals! And I excelled at it. I was always good at ballet, tap and jazz. I may not have been blessed with muscles, but I had definite rhythm and from the time I was born I loved music. I enjoyed jazz more than anything. Later in life this resulted in taking weekly Jazzercise classes that with a friend when we got off work. And I still take ballet classes to this day.

Then one day at our office gym I wandered into a yoga class when I wasn’t in the mood for aerobics or stepping. I was immediately hooked. Obsessed. Yoga changed my life. Now I’ve tried just about every kind of yoga there is. They’re gonna make me go to rehab.

Of course, sometimes a swim is just a swim, a yoga class is just a yoga class, ballet is just ballet, and there’s nothing life changing about it. But when a swim or a class is pretty darn good, it’s just great. All this to say, when it comes to exercise, find your bliss.

Change Your View to Increase Results
I believe the most important difference between this time and all of my failed attempts at weight loss is the change in my thoughts and views. I viewed exercise as a short-term weight loss plan or something that athletes and naturally fit people pursued. I figured it would be very difficult for me because I was not athletic and therefore was inept at exercise. This of course, meant that I should give up and leave it to the “natural born athletes.” Boy, was I wrong…

Remember, just as in business, the choices you make today have a direct effect on results you will experience tomorrow. Many people starting a new fitness routine work too hard or long, and consequently feel overwhelmed and quickly give up. Avoid this “jump start/failure cycle” by starting small. Start with the type of challenge that you will be most comfortable completing on a regular basis. The smaller the challenge, the quicker it will begin to feel easy. Seeing and feeling your physical fitness improve provides fantastic motivation.

Use this knowledge to motivate yourself to make healthier choices today and empower yourself to create a healthier tomorrow.

Valerie Johnson is an Advertising Creative Director and Independent Beachbody Coach. Read her month long series “If You Build It, You Will Become” beginning May 3^rd on TheTotalEffect.wordpress.com

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“Break up boring cardio into shorter segments, and you will burn more fat!”

Begin with warm-up, jogging for about 15-20 minutes to get your heart going.

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1. Spartan Full Body Cardio Workout Program

As we all inch closer to warm breezes, flip flops, and tan lines that can be spotted from a block away we must not neglect the present. Why not start this spring out with a bang? Even if you lack the time to pump it out in your local gym, there are a few other ways to boost your weight loss and overall health. I’d like to welcome you to a few of my dirty secrets:

1.The Avocado. Sure, they are packed with FAT and typically served with even fattier choices but avocados contain healthful monounsaturated fat, which has been linked to a reduced risk of cancer, heart disease, and diabetes.  But no fear…  it’s the bad fats that make you fat and the good fats that keeps you from getting fat! Most would probably assume they are in the vegetable family but the avocado is actually a fruit. (Technically a large berry that contains a large seed) Since fat has twice the energy of protein or carbs, limit yourself to 1/4 to 1/2 avocado per serving.

2.The Apple. Did you know there are Over 7,500 varieties of apples grown throughout the world???   They are packed full of antioxidants, especially vitamin C which is good for healthier skin. It turns out the simple apple is a jewel when it comes to healthy eating. If being a healthy carb wasn’t already enough, there are enzymes found in apples that might help your body digest food more efficiently!

3.The Blueberry. All berries contain anthocyanins which keep your skin healthy, but their goodness is much more then skin-deep. Blueberries are widely available and have the greatest amount of antioxidants of any other food, which should easily make them one of your best daily choices! They contain important nutrients that have shown many health benefits including  ANTI-AGING. That’s right, I said it.

4.The Green tea. In a recent study, volunteers who drank a bottle of tea (fortified with green tea extract) every day for three months lost more body fat than another group who drank a bottle of regular oolong tea. Except for the different teas, their overall diets were similar.  It is believed that green tea possess the helpful photochemical  disease-fighting properties that may trigger weight loss by stimulating the body to burn calories and mildly decrease your body fat. Normal green tea itself may contain more caffeine than coffee and no sugary additives or heavy creamers, so tomorrow morning opt for the healthy choice instead of your usual cup of Joe.

5.Last but not least, Spinach. This powerhouse of nutrients, or ultimate super food.. Is high in protein (GO FIGURE)!! The lists of health benefits from this wonderful green leaf of goodness are endless. It fights against so many different diseases and improves your health immensely. Spinach is very versatile and can be eaten cooked as a vegetable, or raw in a salad which is a superior alternative to the low nutrient iceberg lettuce. So if you haven’t already, make spinach a part of a daily recipe and believe me, your body will thank you for it.

Work with your body not against it, and really focus on what you put into your mouth because eating correctly will give your body the fuel it needs to really lay it down on your next cardio session.

-C.Hoefer

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1. The Basic Weight Loss Rule Number 1