How Most Health & Fitness "Gurus" Cheat You Blind (With Ultimately No Results To Show)

The health and fitness industry is enormous. It doesn't take a genius to tell you that there are literally millions of health and fitness "gurus" out there trying to sell you all sorts of junk with absolutely no follow-up or accountability to offer. More than 90% of people don't look after themselves physically, not because they don't want to be fit and healthy, but mainly because they are not in the right frame of mind due to their conditioning on eating and physical activity. These things can be very hard to change, but they don't have to be!
What's more shocking?
90% of the 10% who do "look after themselves" end up failing at their initial health and fitness goals in the long run. This leaves 1 in every hundred people "fit and healthy". No joke.

The major obstacle, you might think, must be food and exercise, right?
WRONG.

The reason that so many people fail to reach their ideal health and fitness goals is because:

a) Unrealistic expectation and lack of commitment (completely psychological)
b) A lack of sound advice and knowledge (too many "gurus" with contradicting stories)
c) Cheat psychology (wanting the quick-fix)

So when you see a commercial on TV or a marketing campaign focused on getting you fit, do not fall into the sales traps of the corporate fitness "gurus" who spend billions each year on learning how to take your money.

Health and fitness is simple:

1. Find good information and advice suited to you personally
2. Follow through with accountability to ensure your success  

This is a matter of what you eat, how you eat it and what exercises you engage in etc. But the major, MAJOR obstacle is truly getting the two steps above right in the first place. You can achieve this by finding someone fit and healthy (preferably a professional), getting their advice on your situation and getting a group of like-minded people to form a "social-group-network" which is going to hold you to your goals.

Image sourced: http://netdna.copyblogger.com/images/sleazy-salesman.jpg

Top Superfoods For Fat Loss, Health & Backwards Aging

There is not as much talk about these incredible superfoods as I would expect, given their AMAZING potential for fat loss, health, longevity and "backwards aging". Sure we hear a LOT about anti-oxidants in the mainstream media and how they can benefit our health but in all honesty, most of the truly simple superfoods are not often spoken of, mainly due to their lack of marketing potential to big companies.

So here is a list of my top superfoods to accelerate fat loss and make your body an energetic, lean machine!

• Goji Berries (also known as Wolf Berries), Acai Berries, Blueberries, Elderberries, Blackberries
• Cinnamon, Cloves, Cardamom, Turmeric, Garlic, Cumin Seeds
• Kale, Red Onion, Spring Onion
• Walnuts, Pecan Nuts, Almonds, Pistachios
• Lentils & Beans
• Organic, grass-fed meats
• Broccoli, Cauliflower & Spinach

It's important to realize that the foods listed above are all "super-foods", but the quantities of antioxidants and vitamins and minerals differs with each one. It's also vital to understand that although one superfood like cinnamon has loads of antioxidants (see graph below), it's unlikely that you will eat more than a few teaspoons of it per day as compared with say, lentils of which you could easily eat half a pound or more.

ORAC values of selected super-foods as taken from www.oracvalues.com

These are all amazing foods which you should try to include in your diet as much as possible. Berries and nuts make a great snack food if you get hungry between meals and loads of the others can be used to flavor or garnish your meals regularly. If you do this, you will find fat loss is HEAPS easier and you will get a tonne of health benefits as well.

Image above sourced from http://vitalityoflife.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/superfoods2.jpg

How To Beat Ugly (and DANGEROUS) Abdominal Fat

Not only is excess abdominal fat ugly sitting as a flabby layer on top of your pristine 6 pack abs, that extra fat is actually also dangerous to your health...

Why?...
It's simple. Abdominal fat is a symptom of poor health. The more you listen to your "consumer mentality" mindset and ignore the "righteous mentality" side, the more you fall into the trap of eating the foods that are well marketed instead of the foods that fuel fat burning processes, and also taste AWESOME!

But this is not just about right and wrong. It's about your lifestyle choices, and how you choose to live. If you listen to the common fantasies about doing crunches and dieting to get flat abs then, like 99% of us, you will fail to reach your goals of abdominal fat loss.

The truth is, it's easy to beat ugly abdominal fat. The exercises are easy and can fit into ANY schedule because they are time effective and adaptable. The food tastes AMAZING and will enrich your life and health more than any starvation diet will ever do.

An easy way to start winning this battle is to start a commitment. Buy at least 2 super-foods which you are going to include in your regular eating and eliminate at least 1 fat-friend-food. Now if you are currently doing some form of exercise, like walking, mix into this just 1 minute of high-intensity exercise. This is an awesome start for anyone trying to beat abdominal fat, not only for the amazing transformation in your looks, but also in your health.

Image sourced from http://losefatgut.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/getting_rid_of_fat_belly-200x300.png

Dandelion Tea To Burn Fat

Back in May this year I wrote a little spot on dandelion tea and how awesome it can be to burn fat. I love this stuff so much that I just had to give you a reminder about how powerful little things can be in aiding to lose stomach fat. After all, why not try dandelion tea to help burn fat? It tastes great, has loads of benefits and can be easily substituted into your regular diet as a coffee replacement.

Also, if you want to DOUBLE your fat burning potential, use stevia as a sweetener and I guarantee you'll start to notice a difference in your body within a week!

But don't stop there by any means. There are so many simple little ways that can help you to burn massive amounts of fat and get six pack abs really fast. By using a combinational approach implementing very little known methods, you're way ahead of the pack already!

Dandelion tea is not the only fat burning tea out there either. In fact most teas have some form of beneficial fat burning properties that help in a massive way and make it heaps easier to lose fat.

Remember: It is always simple things that make a big difference. Just implement it and you'll see for yourself how awesome it can be!

Image sourced from: http://www.crazyfortea.com/images/dandelion.jpg

10 Simple Things That Burn Fat

You have to admit, it's not always easy to achieve a health and fitness goal based around fat loss. In fact, it may be one of the most challenging things to achieve full stop. One reason for this is that there is a serious lack of sound knowledge accepted wholly by the health and fitness community.
Another reason I can think of is that people over complicate things. Really fat burning is not that hard. It's about doing simple things consistently and sticking with the mindset of achieving that goal to lose stomach fat or whatever your goal may be.
Here's a list of 10 simple things that burn fat:

1. Walking - everyone walks right, so try to make walking a part of your daily routine if you haven't already - like most things it won't make a difference on its own but if you combine it with other techniques it can be powerful.

2. Drinking water - don't count coffee and juices towards your daily water count, drink at least 6 large glasses of water each day to replenish your cells and flush out fat-storing toxins.

3. Exercise habitually (outside of walking) - Find something you love doing which gives you a good workout and stick it into your weekly schedule.

4. Don't refuse exercise if you can help it - make movement a priority and put other things second.

5. Ask a friend to commit with you - find a fitness bootcamp or another activity and get a friend to join in.

6. Make yourself an adventurer - Almost everyone loves a bit of adventure right? So commit to do some form of adventure activity once per month - get some friends involved and do it!

7. Make a note of refusing to eat over-processed garbage disguised as food! Eat fresh, vitamin-packed foods each day and watch how much fat comes off.

8. Reward your good efforts - If you've done well throughout the week (keep a food diary to make sure) then give yourself a reward. This gives you power and reinforces the good habits to make sure you have maximum motivation to keep it up.

9. Stop listening to what your "friends" say when they are being negative - switch yourself on and listen carefully to what people say. You can still love someone and not agree with them all the time. Do what's good for you!

10. Sign up to a blog like this one and read good quality information diligently - Once you know all there is to know, you can put it into practice and achieve great things with fat loss.

That's it! You should be able to EASILY do 5 of these things regularly. With a bit of extra effort, you should be able to do all 10 and keep it going. You will definitely achieve results in terms of fat loss if you do.

Stomach Exercise Structure Basics

There are loads of different ways to perform an exercise session as you are most likely already aware!
So what's the best way to get down and dirty and do some effective stomach exercise?
The answer is going to be different for each person. And this is exactly why we end up with a tonne of myths in the fitness industry. No two people are the same and so no exercise structure is the same.

What we CAN do, however, is create some really effective general programming and let the individual make up their own mind on how it works for them.

So, in basic terms, when you're performing a stomach exercise routine, you want to make sure it has the following sections covered:

• A general warm up
• Specific warm up sets
• Oblique targeting
• Rectus abdominis targeting
• Functional focus

So what we are aiming for here is a safe stomach exercise structure that gets some great results all over your body. After all, usually it's the stomach FAT that is preventing you from having a flat stomach NOT the stomach muscles.

A general warm up could be anything from a jog, skipping, a bicycle ride etc. usually for about 3 - 5 min. 

A specific warm up is a little trickier in that it is basically a brief warm up for the section you will focus on next. If you're doing bench press for example, a few pushups is a specific warm up.

As far as targeting specific stomach muscles, this should almost always be done using some type of functional exercise. Burpees are a great example of an exercise that burns loads of fat and works your rectus abdominis at the same time, giving you a flat, toned stomach as the end result.

So that is just a few basics of a stomach exercise structure. I hope you got something great out of it. Remember, it's almost always the small things that count BIG cumulatively.

Cinnamon Almonds - Awesome Fat Burning Treat!

It's amazing the things you can find day to day that will help you lost belly fat drastically just by using what's already around you!

I had a coffee this morning at a nice little cafe and got 2 little cinnamon almonds on the side... Nothing special right?

Well, I wasn't over impressed at the sugar coating of the almonds, that's certainly not going to do your stomach fat any favors. What made it interesting though was that the almonds were covered in cinnamon, an amazingly powerful thermogenic fat-burner. So naturally what sprung to my mind was...

All you have to do to that is replace the sugar with some stevia and voila! You have an awesome, tasty fat burning snack you can take to work and use to control sugar cravings.

Little things like this can be extremely powerful. Not only is the cinnamon going to help you burn fat, you're also going to get loads of protein, vitamins and minerals from the almonds.

Don't take for granted the awesome power of implementing a little thing like this to help you lose stomach fat. This 1 tip alone could help you lose at least 2 pounds of pure fat in a week!