Weight loss tips

Some of the important points to remember when you are on a weight loss program are:

• If you lose weight too quickly with just dieting alone, you'll most likely lose more valuable lean muscle mass than body fat, so be sure to stick to a program that gives you no more than a two-pound per-week loss.
• Stay hydrated by drinking plenty of water before, during, and after your workouts. If you are thirsty, it is too late - your body is already telling you that you're dehydrated.
• Stretch after you are already warmed up and after your workouts. Warm muscles respond better to flexibility training.
• Never work out the same body part two days in a row (excluding core training). Each body part needs a day of rest in-between workouts for recovery.
• Try Yoga in-between workouts if you find yourself feeling stiff and sore. Also, doing some light cardio exercise seems to help to relieve soreness. Just be sure to stretch after as well.
• As with any exercise program, if you experience chest pains, lightheadedness or dizziness, nausea, or extreme muscular or extreme muscular or joint pain, stop immediately and consult a physician before continuing.
  

Vegetarian recipes for shape aspirants

Perfect shape aspirants who are vegetarian and who want to be in perfect shape should try the following veg recipes:

• Asparagus and Cherry Tomato Omelet
• Blue Cottage Cheese Dip
• Chili Chocolate Sauce
• Creamy Fruit Salad with Toasted Almonds
• Japanese Noodles with Peas and Soy Nuts
• Lettuce Rolls with Peanut Sauce
• Low-Fat Carrot Muffins
• Made-from-Scratch Appleasauce
• Red-Hot Oven-Fried Potatoes
• Slow-Cook Bean Bourguignonne
• Speedy Black-Bean Burritos
• Tofu Noodle Bowl
• Tomato-Sourdough Salad with Mozzarella and Basil
• Tuscan White Bean Soup
• Whole-Wheat Tomato Basil Pasta
  

Exercises for Back:

• Back Extension
• Front Pulldown
• Clean High Pull
• Deadlift
• Overhead Medicine-Ball Throw
• Power Clean
• Single Arm Dumbbell Snatch
• Seated Cable Row

Exercises for Biceps

• Clean High Pull
• Cable Curl
• Preacher Curl

Exercises for Chest

• Bench Press
• Cable Crossover
• Dumbbell Flye
• Overhead Medicine-Ball Throw
• Power Push-Up

Exercises for Legs

• Clean High Pull
• Lateral Hop
• Leg Press
• Lying Leg Curl
• Power Clean
• Romanian Deadlift
• Single-Arm Dumbbell Snatch
• Squat
• Standing Calf Raise
• Step-Up
• Single-Leg Squat
• Seated Calf Raise
• Tuck Jump

Exercises for Sholders

• Arnold Press
• Barbell Front Raise
• Bent-Over Lateral Raise
• Clean High Pull
• Dumbbell Lateral Raise
• Overhead Medicine-Ball Throw
• Power Clean
• Power Push-Up
• Single-Arm Dumbbell Snatch
• Upright Row

Exercises for Triceps

• Lying Triceps Extension
• Dumbbell Kickback
• Overhead Cable Extension
• Overhead Medicine-Ball Throw
• Power Push-Up
• Single-Arm Dumbbell Snatch
• Upright Row
  

Few exercises for abdominals

Looking for perfect abs, try these exercises:

• Boat sit
• Crunch
• Decline Crunch
• Exercise Ball Crunch
• Exercise Ball Crunch with Medicine Ball
• Hip Thrust
• Hip Thrust with Medicine Ball
• Overhead Medicine-Ball Throw
• Plank
• Reverse Crunch
• Side Plank
• Straight-Leg Raise
• Tuck Jump
• V-Twist
• Weighted Single-Leg Plank
• Weighted Plank
• Weighted Plank on BOSU
• Weighted V-Twist
  

Week by week breakdown: Exercising to Lose Weight - 2 of 2

Week 1: Resistance training focus: Circuit
Choose one exercise for each major muscle group. Go through the circuit, doing one set of each exercise and resting as little as possible. When finished, start at the beginning and repeat two more times. Choose weights that bring you to momentary muscle failure within 12 reps. This week, you'll work your entire body on three different days in a total-body workout. Rest between sets for only as long as it takes to set up your next exercises.

Cardio: Do four days of cardio, focusing on long sessions - 40 to 60 minutes - in a lower heart-rate range. Do one day of higher-intensity intervals for a change of pace. On the recreational cardio day, this is your chance to break away from the routine and engage in whatever activity you enjoy most. You can go for a hike, a long walk, even go dancing; the important thing is to have fun and share the experience with someone.

Week 2: Resistance training focus: Heavy
Work on the bodyparts indicated for each day. Choose three exercises for each major muscle group being worked and do four sets of 8 to 10 reps. Left heavy enough to reach muscle failure by the last couple of reps. Always use the first set of an exercise as a warm-up. This week you'll work each bodypart once in a split routine. Rest between sets will vary, depending on the bodypart being trained, but you'll probably need anywhere from 1-2 minutes to allow some some muscle recovery.

Cardio: This week, cardio sessions will remain at four; however, the emphasis is on higher-intensity training - keeping your heart rate up for a relatively short amount of time. Three workouts will be 25-30 minutes long at 80%-85% of your max heart rate, with one long, lower-intensity day thrown in for variety.

Week 3: Resistance training focus: High Reps
Work on the bodyparts indicated for each day. Choose three exercises for each major muscle group being worked and do three sets of 15-20 reps. Choose weights heavy enough to fatigue your muscles within the suggested rep range. This week you'll work each bodypart twice in a split routine. Rest between sets should last 60-90 seconds.

Cardio: Bumped up to five times this week, you'll train for 30-40 minutes at 70%-75% of your max heart rate during four of the sessions. You'll also do one session of higher-intensity intervals for 30 minutes.

Week 4: Resistance training focus: Supersets
This is where you work two muscle groups back to back with no rest. For example, when you train biceps and triceps, you'll do a set of dumbbell curls, then without rest, go straight into an overhead dumbbell extension. Work on the two bodyparts indicated for each day. Choose three exercises for each major group being worked and do three sets. Choose weights heavy though to reach muscle failure in 12 reps. Move quickly between exercises, resting as little as possible. This week, you'll train each bodypart only once. Take no downtime between sets here: Move right from one exercise to the other.

Cardio: Staying at five sessions this week, most cardio sessions will last 25-30 minutes and you'll train at 75%-80% of our max heart rate. Of course, one workout will consist of training at a lower intensity for a longer period.

Week 5: Resistance training focus: Circuit
Follow guidelines for Week 1.

Cardio: Sessions are similar. The only change is an extra day of cardio.

Week 6: Resistance training focus: Heavy
Follow guidelines for Week 2.

Cardio: Sessions are similar. The only change is an extra day of cardio.

Week 7: Resistance training focus: High Reps
Follow guidelines for Week 3. Bodyparts trained together will differ from Week 3.

Cardio: Sessions are similar. The only change is an extra day of cardio.

Week 8: Resistance training focus: Supersets
Follow guidelines for Week 4. Bodyparts trained together will differ from Week 4.

Cardio: Sessions are similar. The only change is an extra day of cardio.

8 week to lose weight: Exercising to Lose Weight - 1 of 2

Hey you, the girl with the nice body and serious dedication to fitness. Yes, you! You work out all the time, you've been exercising for years, and even though you've noticed some great changes in your physique, you still want more, don't you? If it's true that the better shape you get in, the higher the bar rises for the shape you want to be in, then this is the workout for you.

Fast paced and progressively challenging, this eight week program focuses on increasing muscle tone and definition with an emphasis on wasting fat from your body. It's hardcore, serious and time-consuming. If you follow it - for the results it was intended to produce - be prepared to push your body beyond its comfort zone, further than you've ever taken it before. Be prepared to come out on the other side of eight weeks with a body that sets the standard rather than one that follows.

Eight the hard way

No doubt, this program will have you working hard, fast and often. It has to if it's going to be effective. Nothing good comes easy, but if you do it right, it may come a little quicker, and that's the premise of this workout. Eight weeks is a reasonable amount of time to commit to a serious exercise program without risking burnout, overload or boredom. It's time enough to see and feel your body transform, to reach new heights and realize more of your potential.

If you're looking for a way to lose 20 pounds or to build a fitness-competitor physique, we have to tell you, it's going to take longer than a mere eight weeks. It isn't going to happen in a couple of months, with this program or any other. But what you can expect is to have a stronger, leaner, shapelier body and to feel great about making the time and effort to achieve it.

Each week focuses on a different style of training, which helps to keep your body from becoming accustomed to a particular workout or set of exercises. You'll do circuit, heavy, high-rep and supersets training, repeating the cycle - with few changes - the last four weeks. The cardio portion of the program is progressive, geared to increase in not only frequency, but duration and intensity, as well. This is to kick your body into fat-burning mode, especially in the last few weeks when your metabolism is already burning hotter.

When doing the cardio intervals, follow the suggestions for the work-recovery ratios. For example, on a day where you do 30 minutes at 1:1, this means you warm up for five minutes, bump up the intensity for one minute (work), then bring it back down for one minute (recovery). During the work portion of the session, raise your heart rate to 80% - 85% - or higher, depending on your level of fitness - then drop it back down to 60% - 65% during the recovery phase. You can also extend the work-to-rest periods, as long as they're kept even. So if you'd rather, you can work at a high intensity for two minutes and then recover for two minutes. Or bring those numbers down if you prefer.

The fine print

Don't neglect flexibility training. To help keep muscles supple, reduce the risk of injury and help maintain joint health, warm up for 5-10 minutes with a low-impact activity and then begin your stretch session. Two days of flexibility training are automatically built in. If you'd like to devote more time than that allotted to this part of your training, by all means, go right ahead.

You'll also notice three days during the eight weeks designated as rest days, where you have the day off completely. Don't train on these days - at all. Instead, take the time off to reflect on your level of dedication thus far and appreciate the downtime. Probably your most highly anticipated day will be the dietary cheat days, of which there are three. On these days, you have license to eat whatever you want, within reason. Bon appetit!

When doing resistance and cardio training on the same day, lift first. Hit the weights when your muscles are fresh to reduce the risk of injury. Follow the 90-minute rule: Keep your workouts under 90 minutes in length. As long as you spend your time wisely, you should be able to accomplish all the goals for each day within the time frame. And of course, we can't say it enough: Make sure that you take the time to stretch your muscles to reduce injury and soreness.

Flexibility training

An often-overlooked part of fitness, flexibility can enhance your workouts, your results and your life. On the designed days, dedicate 15-20 minutes to stretching all the muscle groups you train throughout the week. Below are some basic guidelines to follow, but you'll benefit much more by reading up on stretching and learning more than what we include here. For the following muscle groups, you can use the accompanied moves as mentioned here:

• Back
  Upper back pull
• Chest
  Doorway chest stretch
• Quads/Hip flexors
  Standing quad pull
• Glutes
  Glute stretch
• Hamstrings
  Seated hamstring stretch
• Biceps
  Biceps pull
• Triceps
  Overhead triceps pull
• Delts
  Lateral pull
• Low back
  Trunk twist
  

Cardio suggestions

The following activities are just a few of the many choices available to you when it comes to fulfilling your cardio requirements each week. Since the focus of these exercises if fat-burning - and the cardio workouts are progressive - you may need to get creative to avoid tedium. A word to the wise: Don't do the same thing more than twice a week. Keep your body guessing and keep moving toward that goal by varying your cardio activities:

• Machines
  Stair-stepper
  Treadmill
  Stationary bike
  Elliptical trainer
• Fitness Classes
  Studio cycling
  Step
  Kickboxing
  Low impact
• Fun Stuff
  Swimming laps
  In-line skating
  Hiking
  Walking
  Dancing
  Outdoor cycling
  Running
  

Exercising to Lose Weight

Want to know about exercies to lose weight or burn 20 pound fat? Here they are:

• Back
  Pull-Down
  Seated Cable Row
  Bent-Over Barbell Row
  One-Arm Dumbbell Row
  T-Bar Row
  Machine Row
• Chest
  Flat Bench Press
  Push-Up
  Dumbbell Flye
  Incline Dumbbell Press
  Pec-Deck Flye
  Seated Machine Press
• Quads/Glutes
  Squat
  Stationary Lunge
  Walking Lunge
  Step-Up
  Leg Press
  Leg Extension
• Hamstrings
  Deadlift
  Romanian Deadlift
  Lying Leg Curl
  Flat-Bench Dumbbell Leg Curl
  Standing One-Leg Curl
  Seated Machine Hamstring Curl
• Abs
  Crunch
  Hip Thrust
  Oblique Crunch
  Cable Crunch
  Swiss Ball Crunch with Feet on Wall
  Vertical Bench Leg Raise
• Biceps
  EZ-Bar Preacher Curl
  Standing Barbell Curl
  Cable Hammer Curl (with Rope)
  Supinating Dumbbell Curl
  Incline Dumbbell Curl
  Machine Preacher Curl
• Triceps
  Dumbbell Kickback
  Pressdown
  Overhead Cable Extension
  Lying Triceps Extension
  Overhead Dumbbell Extension
  Close-Grip Bench Press
  Machine Dip
• Delts
  Military Press
  Arnold Press
  Dumbbell Lateral Raise
  Bent-Over Dumbbell Lateral Raise
  Machine Raise
  Machine Press
  Front Barbell Raise
  

Exercises for fabulous Abdominals

Getting started: Get your heart rate up and melt the flab that's covering your abs with this routine. Perform the exercises one right after the other, moving quickly from one to the next. This continuous movement will keep your body warm and working hard.

Exercise Ball Crunch
Lie back on an exercise ball so your torso is parallel to the floor, feet hip-width apart and knees bent 90 degrees. Press your lower back into the ball and place your hands lightly behind your head. Lift your shoulders while keeping your hips stationary. Squeeze your abs briefly at the top, then slowly return to the start position and repeat without bouncing or pausing. Be sure you crunch by flexing your spine, not your hips.

Exercise Ball Oblique Crunch
Lie back on an exercise ball, torso parallel to the floor, hands lightly behind your head. Lift your shoulders by contracting your abs, then twist your torso to aim your left shoulder toward your right knee. Hold briefly, return to the neutral crunched position, then slowly return to the start position. Alternate reps to each side.

Cable Crunch
Attach either a close-grip handle or a rope to a high-pulley cable. Facing the weight stac, step back 2-3 feet and kneel down, taking a firm grip with both hands in front of you and leaning forward slightly. Keep your lower body stationary as you contract your abs and aim your elbows toward your knees to curl your torso toward the floor. Squeeze your abs briefly, then slowly return to the start position.

Kick Out
Lie faceup on the floor with your knees and hips bent 90 degrees. Place your hands down by your sides and extend your legs straight out at about a 45 degree angle. Hold this position for a count, then slowly return to the start. Repeat for reps without letting your feet touch the floor.

Tip: Exercise balls come in a variety of sizes, but as a general rule of thumb, when you sit on a ball, your knees should be even with or slightly below your hips.

How is Fitness Measured?

Running is not only a natural human activity and integral part of many sports, it gives us the most accurate way to measure fitness - the oxygen uptake test. This test involves running to your maximum on a treadmill. The speed and incline of the treadmill are gradually increased until you're running at breakneck speed, gasping for breath, wishing you had never heard of Covert Bailey and the oxygen uptake test. Off to the side, a medic waits with resuscitating paddles in case you pass out. (Naturally the test is voluntary.) Sounds like fun, doesn't it? Actually, it's expensive, time-consuming, and, as you can guess, potentially dangerous.

For one minute during this maximum effort, we measure the amount of oxygen that disappears inside your body. If oxygen, a agas, goes in and doesn't come out, why don't you blow up? Obviously, it's because the oxygen is metabolized into other products. To get a high score on the oxygen uptake test, you have to have a healthy heart, lungs, and blood to absorb and transport oxygen, coupled with fit muscles that can combine the oxygen with sugar and fat to produce energy.

Since the test measures the amount of oxygen your body uses, you might ask, "Is this a lung test?" Or you might think it's a running test. Actually, it is neither; it is a "whole-body" test that measures the efficiency of heart, lungs, blood and most of the other physiological functions.

Your ability to use oxygen when your body is working at its maximum is directly related to the number of calories you burn. If you use lots of oxygen when you run you are, by definition, using a lot of calories. An out-of-shape person who gasps and puffs during exercise is not using lots of oxygen. Her body wants it, she breathes it in, but because her absorption and transportation systems are poor, most of the oxygen is puffed right back out. The oxygen uptake test cells us how much of that oxygen you're breathing in is actually being used.

Your ability to use oxygen when your body is working at maximum is directly related to the number of calories you burn.

We realize now that this test measures not just fitness but total body health as well. In other words, as the body's ability to use oxygen improves, physical fitness increases - and you become healthier.

Having a high rate of oxygen uptake means:

• lower blood pressure
• better heat regulation
• stronger tendons and ligaments
• thicker cartilage
• larger muscles
• greater blood volume
• more hemoglobin
• less body fat
• denser bones
• more efficient lungs
• heart pumps more blood with each stroke
• more oxygen extracted from the blood
• more capillaries
• lower heart rate

Crunches for Awesome Abdominals

If your are looking for an awesome abdominals, you can start with Crunches. Your abs are one of the easiest bodyparts to train at home, and this top-to-bottom routine takes only 15 minutes to complete. Perform each of the exercises 3-4 days a week, periodically swapping out these moves for other favorites and you should start noticing weight loss with these exercises:

• Crunch
  Lie faceup with your knees bent and feet flat on the floor, or bend your knees and bring your feet up in the air. Be sure your lower back is pressed firmly into the floor. Touch your hands behind your head and curl your upper chest toward your hips, lifting your shoulder blades off the floor. For a more advanced move, lift your feet and curl your knees toward your chest as your crunch your torso up. Squeeze your abs before lowering back to the start. As you become more advanced, increase the reps to 20-25. Correct technique should bring you to muscle failure. If you feel you can do more, you may need to tighten your form.
• Reverse Crunch
  Begin by lying faceup on the floor. Bend your knees, lift your legs 90 degrees from your hips and place your hands under your lower back. Contract through your lower abs to slowly curl your pelvis off the floor and toward your ribeage, holding for a moment at the top. Slowly lower your legs and hips back to the start position.
• Side-to-Side Crunch
  Start in the same position as the crunch. Support your head by placing your hands lightly behind it, then lift your head and shoulder blades off the floor. Hold this position and crunch to your right side to work your obliques, thinking of bringing your right elbow to your right hip while keeping your lower back pressed firmly against the floor. Repeat to the left side. Your abs will perform an isometric contraction as you hold your head and shoulder blades off the floor, putting the muscular stress on the obliques.
  

Expect exercising results with consistent results

In six weeks you could lose 4 to 6 percent body fat, and over twenty inches overall, if you are dedicated to doing at least thirty minutes of cardiovascular work four to six days a week, following a weight-lifting program two or three days a week, and sticking to a strict yet sensible nutrition plan. But I want you to keep in mind that sculpting your body, gaining muscle, and losing body fat requires consistency and determination to achieve optimal results. When you expect instant results (such as after just one week of hard work), you set yourself up for disappointment and potential failure.

Set realistic goals: Follow the "S. M. A. R. T." concept and set goals that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely. If you've been a couch potato for the last year, don't jump right into an advanced program or you'll be in over your head. If you exercise regularly, don't start with a beginner program that provides little challenge or you'll quickly become bored. Setting realistic goals will help prevent the all-too-common tendancy of starting something you either can't or don't want to finish.

Write it all down: What are your specific goals? How do you plan to achieve them? Why do you want to achieve them? Have you established a realistic time frame? Make sure you've thought through your plans and strategies, and aim to revisit your plans each day. Seeing your goals on paper will help keep you motivated and focused. In addition, keep a food and exercise log. The only person you're accountable to is yourself. If you're not seeing the results you want within a reasonable time frame, review your food and exercise log and try to determine what you might need to change. If you follow a program religiously, hitting a plateau may be a sign that you need to progress to the next level. Don't forget - to achieve amazing results you should follow a perfect combination of good nutrition, cardio & weight lifting exercises.

Measure yourself to stay motivated and keep track of your results: Before you start a weight lifting exercising program, first take tape measurements and photos of yourself. You need to have a way to measure your progress, and the numbers on a scale are often misleading when you start to incorporate resistance training into your routine. The reason for this is that muscle weighs more than fat, and once on a new program, you may weigh more but go down a clothing size. Make sure you measure biceps, forearm, shoulders, waist, hip, upper & lower thigh, and calf and that you are consistent with the sites you measure so you get a true reading each time!

If you have the ability to measure your body fat before starting a program, that is a great measurement of progress as well. Find a piece of clothing that you want to fit into again, or to pin up an inspirational photo of yourself (or a figure you emulate). Keeping written records will keep you motivated.

Avoid the overtraining syndrome
Always remember that sometimes less is more when it comes to working out. It's so inredibly important to have at least one rest day a week when your muscles and cardiovascular system have a chance to recover, repair, and rebuild. Overtraining can no only cause injuries and exhaustion, but it can also be the cause of either increased or decreased appetite, abnormal sleep patterns, and a compromised immune system. And please, relaxing activities or hobbies such as hiking, biking, or yoga do not qualify as taking time off. Your day off is meant to be exercise-free!

Why weight lifting is important for women?

Many women are afraid of weight lifting; they think they'll end up looking like the Incredible Hulk or, at the very least, too big or bulky. Some female weight loosing enthusiasts say, "I don't life weights because I don't want to bulk up."

It is very difficult for a woman to produce large muscles because women generally have high levels of the hormone estrogen. Estrogen is the hormone that produces female sex parts and our typically smaller amounts of lean tissue. Men typically produce more of the hormone testosterone, which produces the male sex parts and typically larger muscle tissue naturally. The improvements women experience will be made in muscle tone, strength, and endurance - not necessarily in size. As muscles become toned, the body begins to lose fat tissue and becomes firmer. When it comes to strength training, anything that is considered a healthy practice for men is also healthy for women. The fears about bulking up have created a cardio-only mind-set that serves only to burn-calories, but rarely tones or tightens. Resistance exercises such as weight lifting increase your lean muscle mass, which in turn increases the amount of tissue in your body that naturally burns calories in a resting state (ie, while you're sleeping!). If you do only cardio-based workouts, you'll burn calories and increase your cardiovascular output, but you risk the chance of burning muscle, thus slowing down your capability to burn calories and fat over the long run. This means you will risk the chance of slowing down your metabolism - not the effect you want. Cardio is only part of the job.

In addition, as women age, it becomes increasingly important that they focus on resistance exercises. Many changes in muscle tissue that are associated with age are caused by disuse. Just forcing your muscles to work on a regular basis can significantly improve their capacity to do work. You'll see improvements in circulation, coordination, balance, and bone and ligament strength. All of this is especially important for preventing loss of bone density and avoiding osteoporosis. You don't want to look like the Hunchback of Notre Dame, do you? Then get lifting! You can actually sabotage your own efforts because of your fears. Lift some weights, do cardio, and find the right nutrition. This combination will give you the strong, lean, healthy results you desire and lose some weight quickly.

Why free weights?

I like to use free weights when I lift for a couple of reasons:

• Cost: Free weights aren't too expensive and are generally available at any sporting goods store. It's pretty easy to purchase a set to keep and use at home.
• Options: There are a multitude of different exercises that you can do with free weights. Also, you have the ability to easily work at different levels of intensity by using lighter or heavier weights.
• Challenge: If you use proper form, free weights allow you a better range of motion than a machine does, which adds a new dimension of difficulty to your workouts and challenges multiple areas of body at once. When you grow stronger, your body adapts to challenges at a quicker pace, and you're forced to challenge your muscles with different modalities and heavier weights to avoid a plateau. With free weights, the result is that more muscles are engaged and you get a more efficient workout. Although it may seem less efficient, you must go slowly, use good form, and use a controlled movement to work the muscles the right way to see your body change.

Exercises should be accompanied with diets for permanent weight lose

Hi people, this is David Ryska, the weight loss expert again. While I am training you on how to keep yourself fit & sturdy with the help of diets, I thought it would be the best if I could share my experiences of exercises for a permanent weight loss. I advice to all of my friends, colleagues, fans and customers that exercises (aerobic or weight or a mix of both) should be accompanied with diets for permanent weight lose and this blog is exclusively dedicated to suggest you some exercising methods with which you can permanently loose your weight and it's for both men & women.

I look forward to achieve the following with this exercise regime:

• Tighten abs & sculpted arms
• Shaped butt, legs & core
• Improved back & shoulder strength

You can keep the exercising ON with any program that you buy from my website (http://drperfectnutrition.com/ret/), you will receive personalized coaching and all the tips and short cuts to reach your goal. I am here for you. Go get one of our great programs and I will talk to you soon.