The 1% Rule for Losing Fat and Getting Fit!

by Mike Geary, Certified Personal Trainer, Certified Nutrition Specialist

So, what is the “1% rule?” Well, what this means is that it really only takes 1% of your given time every week to keep yourself in top shape…

Let’s think about it in terms of your available time… if you dedicate only 25 minutes per day, 4 days per week to a good exercise routine, that’s only 100 total minutes per week. Considering that you have 1440 minutes in each day multiplied by 7 days equals 10,080 minutes per week of total time.

So now look at those 100 minutes per week dedicated to exercise and divide that into the 10,080 minutes total that you have in a week, and that represents approx 1% of your total time in any given week.

1% of your time… that’s it!

When you think about it in those terms… isn’t it really ridiculous when you hear someone say that they “don’t have time to workout”… it’s actually almost comical that someone would claim they can’t dedicate 1% of their time every week to exercise.

So based on that rule, I wanted to share an article with you. written by Mike Geary, the author of Truth About Abs. We Love him and all he stands for. We hope this gets you motivated!
Why Do You Miss Workouts? Stop the Procrastination and Excuses and Start Working Out!

Here’s a common theme I see all the time at the gym…

Somebody that was doing well working out and finally starting to get results at the gym all of the sudden stops coming in for several months.

When they eventually come back and start working out again a couple months later, they’re usually back in horrible shape, have gained back all the weight or more, and lost most of their strength gains that they worked so hard for.

So while talking to them, I’ll ask where they have been the last couple months, and that’s when the excuses start…

•Perhaps it was that they had a special assignment at work and have been “too busy” to work out lately
•Or perhaps it was that they had a shoulder or arm injury so they thought that they couldn’t work out during this time
•Or perhaps they had a knee, ankle, or leg injury so they thought they couldn’t work out.
•Or perhaps they were busy with house renovations, or family issues, or too busy with the kids, etc, etc, etc… excuse, excuse, excuse

You can see where I’m going with this… if your health & fitness and how you look and feel is important to you, then there is no such thing as an excuse. Either you want it, or you don’t, and it’s either going to be a priority in your life, or it’s not!

After all, your health and fitness determines not only how good you’re going look and feel every day that you’re on this planet, but also how long you’ll exist on this earth to enjoy the time you have with your friends and family… So with all of that said, why wouldn’t you make your fitness a priority in your life!

Here’s my opinion on the example excuses above…

Excuse #1 – Too busy at work:

Ok, so why don’t you squeeze in really brief but really intense 5 minute workouts before and after work each day… after all, that’s only 10 minutes of your time, and despite popular belief you CAN stay in excellent shape working out as little as 5 or 10 minutes a day (as long as your time is well spent with the right exercises and right intensity).

“Too busy at work” excuse busted!

Excuse #2 – Shoulder or arm injury so haven’t worked out:

Bum shoulder… so what… are you saying your legs and abs don’t work all of the sudden just because your arm or shoulder is hurt? After all, most of your fat loss and metabolism-boosting results come from lower body based exercises anyway, as they burn more calories due to the larger muscle groups involved.

Your upper body injury just gives you a good reason to focus even more intensely on your lower body, abs, and interval training during this period when you won’t be able to do upper body exercises.

Shoulder injury excuse busted!

Excuse #3 – Knee, ankle, or leg injury so haven’t worked out:

Ok, so now you’re saying that just because you have a leg injury, that somehow your upper body no longer works? Even if you need to walk in there on crutches, and then do nothing but seated upper body exercises, that’s a lot better than doing nothing and letting your entire body get weak and soft during while your leg heals.

Knee or leg injury excuse busted!

Now don’t get mad at me about these injury excuses… Believe me, I DO understand that there are some serious injuries and disorders that do prevent some people from doing any exercise at all. However, for most minor injuries, there’s no excuse not to at least continue doing some form of exercise.

Excuse #4 – Too busy with the house, family, kids, etc:

Once again we need to get back to priorities. If your house and kids are priorities, why wouldn’t your health and fitness be top priorities also, so that you can enjoy your life and everything and everyone in it!

Remember, you don’t need to work out for hours every day to be in great shape. It’s all about maximizing the intensity and amount of full body musculature you work in a given time period, even if that time period is just a brief 4 minute daily workout.

(In fact, Linda and I have provided you with these short workouts throughout our blog/website)
Excuse #4 busted!

I know I take a hard-nosed approach with this stuff, but if finally getting into shape is important to you, nothing less will do, than to adopt a true fitness lifestyle and mindset.

I hope today’s article helps trigger some new motivation if you’ve struggled in the past with excuses or procrastination to getting in shape.

Til next time, don’t be lazy… be lean.

Mike Geary
Certified Nutrition Specialist
Certified Personal Trainer
Author – world-wide best seller: The Truth about Six Pack Abs

Can you get fit in 6 minutes a week?

NY TIMES, June 24

By Gretchen Reynolds

A few years ago, researchers at the National Institute of Health and Nutrition in Japan put rats through a series of swim tests with surprising results. They had one group of rodents paddle in a small pool for six hours, this long workout broken into two sessions of three hours each. A second group of rats were made to stroke furiously through short, intense bouts of swimming, while carrying ballast to increase their workload. After 20 seconds, the weighted rats were scooped out of the water and allowed to rest for 10 seconds, before being placed back in the pool for another 20 seconds of exertion. The scientists had the rats repeat these brief, strenuous swims 14 times, for a total of about four-and-a-half minutes of swimming. Afterward, the researchers tested each rat’s muscle fibers and found that, as expected, the rats that had gone for the six-hour swim showed preliminary molecular changes that would increase endurance. But the second rodent group, which exercised for less than five minutes also showed the same molecular changes.

The potency of interval training is nothing new. Many athletes have been straining through interval sessions once or twice a week along with their regular workout for years. But what researchers have been looking at recently is whether humans, like that second group of rats, can increase endurance with only a few minutes of strenuous exercise, instead of hours? Could it be that most of us are spending more time than we need to trying to get fit?

The answer, a growing number of these sports scientists believe, may be yes.

“There was a time when the scientific literature suggested that the only way to achieve endurance was through endurance-type activities,” such as long runs or bike rides or, perhaps, six-hour swims, says Martin Gibala, PhD, chairman of the Department of Kinesiology at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada. But ongoing research from Gibala’s lab is turning that idea on its head. In one of the group’s recent studies, Gibala and his colleagues had a group of college students, who were healthy but not athletes, ride a stationary bike at a sustainable pace for between 90 and 120 minutes. Another set of students grunted through a series of short, strenuous intervals: 20 to 30 seconds of cycling at the highest intensity the riders could stand. After resting for four minutes, the students pedaled hard again for another 20 to 30 seconds, repeating the cycle four to six times (depending on how much each person could stand), “for a total of two to three minutes of very intense exercise per training session,” Gibala says.

Each of the two groups exercised three times a week. After two weeks, both groups showed almost identical increases in their endurance (as measured in a stationary bicycle time trial), even
though the one group had exercised for six to nine minutes per week, and the other about five hours. Additionally, molecular changes that signal increased fitness were evident equally in both groups. “The number and size of the mitochondria within the muscles” of the students had increased significantly, Gibala says, a change that, before this work, had been associated almost exclusively with prolonged endurance training. Since mitochondria enable muscle cells to use oxygen to create energy, “changes in the volume of the mitochondria can have a big impact on endurance performance.” In other words, six minutes or so a week of hard exercise (plus the time spent warming up, cooling down, and resting between the bouts of intense work) had proven to be as good as multiple hours of working out for achieving fitness. The short, intense workouts aided in weight loss, too, although Gibala hadn’t been studying that effect. “The rate of energy expenditure remains higher longer into recovery” after brief, high-intensity exercise than after longer, easier workouts, Gibala says. Other researchers have found that similar, intense, brief sessions of exercise improve cardiac health, even among people with heart disease.

There’s a catch, though. Those six minutes, if they’re to be effective, must hurt. “We describe it as an ‘all-out’ effort,” Gibala says. You’ll be straying “well out of your comfort zone.” That level of discomfort makes some activities better-suited to intense training than others. “We haven’t studied runners,” Gibala says. The pounding involved in repeated sprinting could lead to injuries, depending on a runner’s experience and stride mechanics. But cycling and swimming work well. “I’m a terrible swimmer,” Gibala says, “so every session for me is intense, just because my technique is so awful.”

Meanwhile, his lab is studying whether people could telescope their workouts into even less time. Could a single, two- to three-minute bout of intense exercise confer the same endurance and health benefits as those six minutes of multiple intervals? Gibala is hopeful. “I’m 41, with two young children,” he says. “I don’t have time to go out and exercise for hours.” The results should be available this fall.

For more information on interval training, go to Turbulence Training.com

In good health,


Rachel and Linda
http://losefatlivehealthy.com/

Healthy Snack Options

Did you ever have one of those days when you’re running nonstop and don’t get to a chance to eat?

You don’t have the time to stop. You didn’t think to wrap a handful of nuts in a napkin and throw it in bottomless pit you call your purse. And the last time you grabbed an apple on the run you almost choked on it while you where driving and dropped the core under the seat of your car where it’s still fermenting!

This was my day today and pretty much everyday! Being a busy mom of two teenagers, a Personal Trainer and the chief cook and bottle washer of my castle keeps me busy just about all of the time. I barely have time to make breakfast lunch and dinner never the less worry about the snacks in between. And let’s be honest, sometimes an apple just doesn’t cut it. You want something more, more than a fruit!

That’s how I was today. Call it hormonal cravings, whatever? But if my shoelaces where dipped in chocolate I probably would’ve eaten them. I was not only hungry for good healthy food and unable to take the time to stop and eat but I wanted the old hormonal chocolate fix! I was stuck! Nothing in the bottom of my purse, nothing in the glove compartment, absolutely dry, bare to the bone!

Now, my diet does NOT include those chocolaty, nutty, gooey candy bars that are supposedly “nutritious” and “good for you”. I really don’t believe in eating a product with ingredients I can’t pronounce. So grabbing one of “those” was out of the question. What to do?

I’ll tell you what I should’ve done, what I’m going to do next time and what you all should do!

Next time I’m going to grab a CRAVER! Yep, it’s called a CRAVER and take it from me, a person that must watch what she eats all of the time, Cravers are a healthy alternative to eating junk! One craver is 180 calories and made with 100% organic dark chocolate!

So why do they call them CRAVERS? Try them and you’ll know immediately! They come in three flavors that speak for themselves; Peanut butter, Almond Butter and Spirlina. 180 healthy calories that you can take with you, anytime, anywhere!

Seriously, this isn't your ordinary "tastes like chemicals or cardboard' nutritional bar.”

Don’t believe me? Do yourself a favor and go to GetPrograde/Cravers and read the ingredients. 100% Organic Dark Chocolate, 100% Organic cocoa, Organic Agave, Organic Brown Rice, need I say more?

Also, check out their meal replacement shake at GetPrograde/Lean. It’s a fast 35 grams of protein and 8 grams of fiber. Just what you need to keep your energy up, fat down and metabolizing all day long!

Prograde.com <===== CLICK HERE to check out the best line of nutritional supplements on the market.

To Your Health

Rachel and Linda

http://losefatlivehealthy.com/

Two Flat Stomach Secrets

By Holly Rigsby
Creator of FitYummyMummy.com

Have you tried everything under the sun to get a flat stomach, only to come up disappointed? Have you fallen prey to all the gimmicks, fad diets and shameless infomercials promising you that elusive flat stomach that you desire?

Well fret no more, I’m going to let you in on the two ‘secrets’ that will help you shed unwanted fat and reveal your toned, flat stomach once and for all.

The first secret for a flat stomach is eating supportively. While this doesn’t seem like a secret at all, most women get this wrong in spite of their best – but misguided – efforts. Women have fallen prey to low-fat, low-carb, Hollywood, grapefruit, South Beach and every other over hyped diet that marketers can dream up, all in hopes of shedding those unwanted pounds. But eating supportively is isn’t about dieting or deprivation; it’s about moderation and balance. While cutting carbs or fats out of your nutrition plan might give you a temporary loss of a couple of pounds, it’s typically followed by a drop in metabolism and a weight gain of more than you lost in the first place once you go back to your old eating habits.

So what is eating supportively? Eating supportively is having protein and carbohydrates at every meal. It’s grazing on 4-6 meals or snack each day instead of missing meals and then gorging yourself. It’s enjoying a healthy breakfast and not drinking your calories. But most of all, eating supportively is enjoying the foods you love in moderation instead of in excess.

If eating supportively is the first secret to a flat stomach, then what’s the second?

The second flat stomach secret is resistance training. Unfortunately, just as fad diets have stood in the path of women achieving the flat stomachs they so desired, so have the myths of spot reduction and cardio being the best method for fat loss. Late night infomercials have long promoted gadgets that promised to spot reduce those trouble spots that women struggle with and sucked us in with testimonials from fitness models that undoubtedly picked up a nifty paycheck for endorsing their wares. But spot reduction is a myth. Think about it – have you ever met someone with a flat stomach and fat arms? Didn’t think so. If spot reduction was possible then undoubtedly one of these happy customers would have toned and tightened their stomach, yet kept their flabby arms.

The other myth that has led women astray is the belief that cardio is the best solution for fat loss. Treadmill manufacturers have sold the virtues of the ‘fat burning zone’ and led us to believe that we could plod along on a treadmill watching Oprah and before long a flat stomach would be ours.

These two myths have diverted us from the path of what really does work – resistance training. Resistance training is a flat stomach’s best friend because not only does an effective resistance training session burn plenty of calories while you’re doing it, but it keeps you’re metabolism revved long after you’re done. One recent study showed that you’re metabolism would stay elevated for over 36 hours after a resistance training session.

Try to get that out of an aerobics class.

And there’s another benefit of resistance training when it comes to getting a flat stomach. The lean muscle that you gain will raise you’re resting metabolic rate and help you burn more fat all day long, each and every day.

There you have it, two ‘secrets’ that are guaranteed to boost your metabolism and give you that flat stomach you’ve been longing for. So ditch the diet books and the aerobics classes and start eating supportively and resistance training. Before long that flat stomach will finally be yours.

About the Author:
Holly Rigsby is a nationally recognized women’s fitness coach, certified personal trainer (CPT) and the author of the internationally popular e-book – Fit Yummy Mummy - Burn Your Baby Fat & Get Your Body Back. Go to FitYummyMummy.com to get your FREE copy of her special report: "The Five Ways To Boost Your Metabolism."

P.S. For additional workouts, nutrition information and numerous ways to burn that fat, check out Craig Ballantyne’s Turbulence Training

20 minute fat burning workout!

Good morning.

I just got back from a great kick a@@ workout and I wanted to share it with you. I have to admit, yesterday my eating was not so good. It was a rainy, gloomy day and I was home all day....which is not good for my diet! I didn't eat terrible, just too much because I was around all day. The key for me is to get out, so the food is not always in my face. The bottom line is, healthy food has calories too.

So, that being said, I decided I needed to get out and work this morning! I was going to go for my typical 3 1/2 mile run, just to get out and get moving. However, once I got out, I changed my mind.

We have this awesome hill in town, which for most, is challenging to just walk up. It's is perfect for me because it's about 3 minute slow run from my house--the perfect warm up. That's what I did. Ran to the hill deciding on my way there what kind of workout I was going to do.

The workout kind of just happened for me and this is what I did:

Workout:

warm up 3 min jog
Hill sprint 25 secs
walk down 30 secs

*Repeat for a total of 8 sprints

That is usually my workout, but it's amazing what a bad eating day can do-- so I decided to continue as follows:

Walking lunges up the hill (40 total or 20 each leg) ......OMG, talk about a burn!
walk down
Repeat for a total of 3X

Cool down by running home.

I have to say, it was a great workout and it only took me 20 minutes. I even had time to go home, get my dog and walk her into town for coffee and bagels (for the kids, of course!). She is recovering from ACL surgery, so it's baby steps for her! NOT that she'd ever be able to run with me anyway (you can see in her photo--not a runner!), but we love our walks.

This type of workout is sooo much more efficient, as well as you burn way more fat, than the typical 30-45 minutes on a treadmill or whatever your machine of choice. So, get out and find a hill or someplace that will challenge you and push yourself! You don't have to run, but make sure you challenge yourself. Put an end to long, slow cardio for once and for all. It's only 20 minutes of your day......You just have to do it!

Please comment and let me know what you think.

For more interval type training workouts, check out ==> http://Tinyurl.com/offdl4

Have a great workout and an awesome day!

Rachel
http://www.losefatlivehealthy.com/