A Fit Body Burns Calories and Loses Weight- Pretty Simple

A common strategy for people trying to lose weight is to focus on calories, so they make calorie burning the biggest aim of all their workouts, with the added goal of being in the "fat burning zone". See our new page on The 7 Steps to New Year's Weight Loss. People often do very long and repetitive cardio sessions — walking or jogging for an hour or more at a relatively low, even level of intensity. But this isn't necessarily the most efficient way to burn off unwanted fat, and it's certainly not the most effective way to achieve and maintain a strong, lean body over time.

To do that, you need to boost your metabolism, which regulates your body's ability to become (and stay) lean. And shifting your metabolism depends on improving your fitness and supporting your goal with good nutrition, which is 70% of your ability to get the results you want.

When your body turns food and oxygen into energy — something it does throughout the day, virtually all day — it burns calories. That process takes place in your cells' mitochondria, which need oxygen to burn those calories efficiently. So the more oxygen your body is capable of processing per minute (a function of your VO2 max — more on that in a moment), the more calories it can grind through on a given day.

In other words, being fit helps your body run more like a finely tuned machine — one that's naturally inclined to eliminate excess weight.

"People who have a higher level of fitness burn more calories even while at rest and asleep," Hyman says. Exact numbers are difficult to nail down because each person's resting metabolic rate is unique (based on muscle mass, age, genetics and even climate). Still, some experts estimate that fit, muscular adults can burn an extra hundred calories or more per day — while at rest.

It's important to note that in the course of their daily activities and workouts, fit adults can and do burn a couple thousand more calories daily than unfit, more sedentary ones.

And here's the beauty of it: Fit people are naturally more inclined toward activity and tend to exert themselves at higher levels. That's because exercise and activities of all kinds become easier as your fitness improves, and even intense levels of exertion become more comfortable. All of which makes calorie-burning activities a much more appealing proposition, thus further increasing active inclinations.

This is what's known as a "benevolent circle" (as opposed to a vicious one) — and the more fit you become, the more you can take advantage of its fat-burning effects.

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Leg Muscle Madness

To anyone who has ever picked up a weight – or even thought about it – this four-letter word can take on a variety of different meanings.

For many, legs are the indomitable foundation for which a healthy physique is formed. To a large number of others, the leg day is the one square on the calendar that you painfully dread, the one that you know will require both vigorous effort and agonizing labor.

And yet to many others, legs mean absolutely nothing. Hence, they are woefully neglected.

But nothing looks sillier on a fitness fanatic than a beefy upper torso cemented atop a pair of chicken legs.

So, don’t be that chicken. Take on these painful, gainful exercises that are sure to turn your legs into logs in due time.

Hack Squats: After setting the desired weight, station yourself inside the machine, so your shoulders are flush underneath the pads and your feet are in the middle of the platform. You feet should be at a shoulder length width. Releasing the safety bar, slowly bend your knees, allowing the weight to push your buttocks toward the platform. When your quadriceps are parallel to the floor – or perhaps dip a little lower - immediately reverse the movement, exploding the through an upward motion. Stop just before your knees are locked as you squeeze your legs during the contraction. Try 3-4 sets of 10-12 repetitions.

Leg Presses: Lie down on the machine so that your feet are on the platform. Make sure that your feet are parallel to each other and not pointed inward or outward. Allow the weight to push your knees toward your torso. Stop when your knees form a 90-degree angle. Reverse the movement as you push with your legs, pushing your torso away from the platform. As your legs begin to straighten out, stop just short of your knees being locked. Slowly let the weight bring your buttocks down into the starting position. Try 3-4 sets of 10-12 reps.

Leg Extensions: Sitting on the bench, clasp your ankles underneath the pads, gripping the side handles for balance. Slowly raise the pads, squeezing your quads, and stop the motion when your knees are locked in front of you. Squeeze your quads for a two-count before releasing the tension, allowing your legs to drop to the starting position. Repeat the motion for 3 sets of 12-15 for an incredible burn.

Hamstring Curls: Set yourself face down on the hamstring machine, sliding your heels underneath the pads. Grip on to the handles for balance. Setting a manageable weight, slowly curl your legs upward, so your heels push toward your buttocks. Your feet should be flexed during the movement. Curling upward, the motion should stop when your legs and torso form an angle of roughly 45 degrees. Squeeze your hamstrings during the motion. Slowly release the weight and return to the starting position, as your legs should straighten out. Repeat this movement for 10-12 reps for 3–4 sets.

A leg workout requires optimum intensity, if your intentions are to increase size and strength. Nothing in weight training will wear you out the way a rigorous leg workout will so be sure to provide yourself with ample rest before leg days. Also, legs should be done only once a week to insure time for the torn muscle tissue to recuperate.

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It’s a Resolution to Anti-aging

Five, four, three, two, one. Happy New Year! Whether you were dancing in the streets at midnight or sleeping beneath the sheets long before the ball dropped, the world rang in 2007, which means you will celebrate another birthday before 2008’s big bash. However, while “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve” countdown and the counting of candles on your birthday cake may be unavoidable year after year, the way you age is certainly in your control.

Aging gracefully and comfortably (without the aches and pains of arthritis and osteoporosis) can be as simple as choosing the right foods in your diet, as well as exercising regularly. Because even more than preventing wrinkles, anti-aging also means preventing memory loss, heart disease, cancer, and osteoporosis. For this reason, the anti-aging diet is receiving much attention and can certainly complement your everyday life.

The anti-aging diet is a combination of both nutrition and lifestyle factors. Not only is it important to pile your plate with healthy choices from the food pyramid, it is doubly important to keep your body fine-tuned by exercising, avoiding UV light and cigarettes, and even doing crossword puzzles. Yes, researchers have proven that mental activity forms a strong connection between your brain cells and the way your transmit thoughts, so as you age, you are less likely to develop Alzheimer’s. Even more, according to the American Dietetic Association, not only can mental activity reverse damage to your cells, but also with adequate amounts of vegetables and fruits, including blueberries and spinach, age-related losses in motor function and cognition can be reduced.

If you want to see your age grow to high numbers, then you need to make sure the scale shows you the lower ones. From weight training to cardio to yoga, a fusion of activity will keep you feeling young at heart and looking ageless in your jeans. Weight training will help you build muscle, maintain strong bone density, and burn fat. That’s right. The more muscle you have, the more fat you will burn. And while pumping weights will keep your muscles strong, cardio will help keep your heart pumping while yoga will keep your body stress-free.

Stress is one of many free radicals, which can cause damage to healthy cells, leading to internal aging as well as visible signs of external aging. Now, just as science has proven how dangerous free radicals are for our cells, antioxidants have proven to defend our cells by fighting against oxidation. Therefore, on the nutrition side of things, choosing antioxidant-rich foods, such as berries, may be one tasty way to living a longer, healthier life. According to the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, cranberries, blackberries and blueberries rank highest in antioxidant levels. In addition to berries, other anti-aging foods include garlic, fish, whole grains, cruciferous vegetables, nuts, soy, water and red wine.

Don’t let time pass you by. To stay looking and feeling younger than ever, make sure to exercise regularly, challenge your mind, avoid harmful UV light, and enjoy a low-calorie diet full of anti-aging foods. Start today and by 2008, you’ll be ringing in the New Year without having aged a day. Eat your heart out Dick Clark!

Why Core Fitness Is Important

If you’ve listened to the buzz around the fitness world lately or perused the latest workout books, you’ve probably heard the experts referencing core fitness in some shape or form. Traditionally, strength training has been dominated by exercises focused on isolating the muscles of the arms and legs. In fact, if you look at many of the weight machines that have become popular in modern gyms, you’ll notice that they require you to sit or recline while you use them.

While these machines will effectively help you build the muscles that they target, the problem is that, in real life, we don’t use our muscles that way. We lift a box from the floor to a shelf, swing a golf club, push our children on the swing set, or climb a rock wall. In fact, the vast majority of the things we do require all of the muscles in our bodies to function together and be coordinated through our mid-sections, or our “core.”

While those activities may make the use of core muscles seem very obvious, this area, made up of the muscles of our midsection, are actually responsible for quite a few of the more subtle functions as well, including posture, balance and stability.

A weakened core will often result in poor posture and stability, yet we don’t necessarily feel the results of it in areas that show us a direct cause and effect correlation. For example, poor posture, due to a weakened core, might allow our hips to slip out of alignment resulting in knee pain. In fact, quite a few of the chronic muscle and joint pain issues that

Americans are suffering with today stem from a weakened core.

It is no wonder, then, that exercise science has taken a dramatic shift in recent years to include the core in strength training regimes. Now, rather than using a machine to first exercise your legs and then your arms, trainers are suggesting that their clients use free weights or bands to combine exercises such as a squat to overhead press. By linking the two, people are forced to transition the exercise movement through their core, and the core muscles in turn help to maintain good posture throughout the exercise. The end result is that we are exercising in a fashion that mimics the movements that we use in everyday life, while creating better posture and increasing our stability and balance.

Bryan Ashbaugh has a Masters in Exercise and Sports Science and is Co-Founder and CEO of www.liveleantoday.com. He has authored many fitness and nutrition articles. He has been in professional fitness for 8 years. If you want more information on other topics and a fitness and nutrition plan for you go to www.liveleantoday.com.

Article Source: BlueArticles.com