Health & Fitness Tips: Nutrients That Boost Your Metabolism By Chris Guerriero

Most diets advocate low-fat, low-carb, high-protein foods as the standard weight-loss regime.

Truth be told, not only is this type of diet very restricting, but it doesn’t supply your body the optimal nutrition it needs to boost you metabolism. This type of diet can also be confusing and often time consuming, making you count calories or decipher color-coded cards — it makes you work for your food.

I believe a healthy diet is one that makes your food work for you — a diet that gives you the maximum nutritional value in each meal, nutrition that will help boost your metabolism for the long-term.

Why would you want to just eat a diet that helps you lose weight when you can create a diet full of foods that not only helps you drop weight, but also have loads of energy, and sets your metabolism up on autopilot so it helps you burn more fat — allowing you to exercise less and get back to living life.

Let me explain. There are two main types of nutrients out there... micro- and macro-nutrients. To put it simply, micro-nutrients are all the vitamins and minerals. These are the nutrients that supply your body with the sustenance it needs to keep your metabolism “healthy”.

Macro-nutrients are nutrients like protein (chicken, fish, lean red meat and egg whites), carbohydrates (rice, potato’s and vegetables), fats (oils, fatty meats and fried foods) and fiber. These nutrients can either boost your metabolism and burn body fat, or force your body to store fat.

Think of the food you eat like a drug for a moment. Each micro- or macro-nutrient you ingest causes a very specific chemical reaction in your body. Some foods cause your body to release chemicals which force it to store more body fat, while others force your metabolism to burn hotter and thus burn more calories and stored fat.

It just makes sense that you should strive to eat only those foods proven to make your body healthier, tighter and leaner.

Creating a diet that’s going to get you these results is as easy as following three basic rules:

1. Eat 5 or 6 meals every day — equally spaced about 2 to 3 hours apart.

When you eat a healthy meal your metabolism automatically kicks in and begins burning that food as fuel for energy. In order for this process to work efficiently however, it shouldn’t be interrupted, except when you sleep.

It takes your body about 2 to 3 hours to break down the macronutrients and then assimilate the micronutrients from foods. Your metabolism is high and in fat burning mode during this entire process (assuming you choose the right foods).

Once your body digests that food, your metabolism begins to slow down. So, by eating every 2 to 3 hours, you’re forcing your metabolism to remain high, maximizing your body’s ability to burn body fat and stay healthy.

2. Eat lean protein like chicken, fish, lean red meat, egg whites, or protein powder in every meal. Also add a wide variety of raw vegetables in each meal, making your serving size as large as possible—avoid starchy vegetables.

3. Eat complex carbohydrates like potatoes, rice, grits, or rice cakes in your first few meals. These servings should be smaller, like a cup of rice or 1 regular size potato for example.

It’s important when following these rules to also remember your first meal should always be your largest and should be eaten within 30 minutes of waking. When you sleep, your metabolism is at it’s absolute lowest, so you need give it a boost as soon as you can to trigger the fat burning process to begin as early in the day as possible.

The two best ways to jump-start your metabolism after waking up in the morning are by eating a breakfast that contains protein, vegetables and some complex carbohydrates, or by exercising.

If you skip this vital step and don’t begin eating anything substantial until lunchtime, you’re missing out on all those golden hours of fat burning you could be automatically taking advantage of simply by eating a healthy breakfast.

Your last meal of the day should be the smallest and should consist of only lean protein and raw vegetables.

Yours in good health and fitness,

Christopher Guerriero
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Christopher Guerriero is Founder and CEO of The National Metabolic and Longevity Research Center. Christopher is the author of several books, including the world wide best-seller "Maximize Your Metabolism". Take a moment to learn about Christopher's Healthy Living Weight Loss Audio program.

*brought to you by FitnessAndHealthAdvice.com

5 Fat Burning Exercises By Craig Ballantyne

You don't need expensive cardio machines to lose fat. Instead, you can do fast workouts full of fun exercises for fat burning at home with hundreds of simple moves.

In fact, there are 5 simple categories of fat burning exercises. If you put at least one of each fat burning exercise into your workout routine, you'll lose fat at home in short workouts of 30 minutes or less, only 3 times per week.

The 5 fat burning exercises categories are squatting, pushing, pulling, single-leg exercises, and total body ab exercises. It's that simple. You can do hundreds of these types of home fat burning exercises with just your bodyweight, and I'm going to show you how.

In fact, you can put them together in a powerful fat burning circuit just like this. Start with a squat exercise, then do a pushup exercise, follow that with bodyweight or dumbbell rows, then do a single leg exercise, and then finish with a total body ab exercise. Do 10-15 repetitions per set. Don't rest between exercises. Rest one minute at the end of the circuit. If you are fit, you can do 1-2 more circuits. Powerful stuff!

The first category is the squatting motion. It is the most effective exercise method for burning calories because it uses your large leg muscles.

Here's something you didn't know. If you wanted to burn fat and flatten your stomach, and you only had time to do either bodyweight squats or ab crunches, you'd be better off doing squats! Squats will burn more calories, work more muscles, and help you burn fat better than crunches.

Fortunately, there are dozens and dozens of ways to do squats. For beginners, you can do wall squats or basic bodyweight squats. For intermediate level strength, you can do prisoner squats, Y-squats, and split squats (which also fall into the single-leg exercise category). Finally, if you are advanced, you can do single-leg squats. Those are all the bodyweight only exercises.

However, if you have dumbbells, kettlebells, or barbells, you can do more advanced fat burning exercises like dumbbells squats, kettlebell swings, or deadlifts. But be careful, you can only do these exercises if you have proper technique. Fortunately, these exercises burn even more calories and help you sculpt your body and improve your fitness at the same time.

The next type of home fat burning exercise is the pushing movement. That means pushups of all kinds (kneeling, regular, close-grip, decline, spiderman, etc.) or presses with dumbbells, kettlebells, or barbells. Again, hundreds of choices.

The third type of exercise is any type of pulling exercise. From chinups to pull-ups, bodyweight rows to dumbbell rows, kettlebell swings to deadlifts, there are a lot of options here, and as you see, some exercises can even cross-over into the squatting category. If you have resistance bands, you can use those as well.

The fourth category is back to the lower body, with some type of single-leg exercise. Your options include lunges, split squats, step-ups, 1-leg squats or 1-leg deadlifts, or even 1-leg lying hip extensions for beginners.

Finally, time to finish the circuit with a total body ab exercise. This does not include crunches. Instead, use stabilization and dynamic stabilization exercises like the plank, side plank, stability ball rollout and stability ball jackknife, mountain climbers, and all their variations.

Instead of 5 exercises for fat burning at home, I gave you at least 25 ways to burn fat at home. You don't need fancy machines and you can just say NO to cardio with 21st century fat burning workouts in the comfort of your own home.
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Learn about the "Dark Side of Cardio" in the free report from Craig Ballantyne at TurbulenceTraining. Craig is a Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist and writes for Men's Health, Men's Fitness, Maximum Fitness, Muscle and Fitness Hers, and Oxygen magazines. For information on the Turbulence Training workouts that will help you burn fat without long, slow cardio sessions or fancy equipment, click here.

-Do have any other exercise ideas for working the abs? If so, please leave a comment to share them.

*brought to you by FitnessandHealthAdvice.com

Top 5 Fat Burning Exercises By Craig Ballantyne

If you are going to the gym and spending too much time while not getting the results you deserve, then you probably aren't using the right exercises.

Over my 16 years of training and training men and women for fat loss, I've stumbled across the "Big 5" movements that must be used in a total-body fat burning, muscle-building workout.

The "Big 5" movements are guaranteed to boost your metabolism and help you lose belly fat. If you don't have these types of exercises in your program, then you are wasting your time and money when trying to lose fat.

So I designed this workout around the Big 5, and put them into a circuit to help you get more results in less time. But first, let's go over the Big 5 fat burning exercises...

Actually, let me clarify something. The Big 5 are not specific exercises. Instead, they are specific movements, but this allows for a huge number of exercises to be used, and therefore a lot of variety in your workouts. And don't forget, variety is one of the 3 main principles that explain why the short, burst exercise workouts work so well.

Here are the Big 5 movements, starting with the most important of them all.

1) Squat movements...

This could be a barbell squat to a dumbbell squat, it could be a deadlift because that's the same type of movement, or it could even be a kettlebell or dumbbell swing, which is becoming a very popular exercise these days.

Kettlebells are becoming more popular for fat-burning because it's just that movement of pushing your hips back, bending you knees, and dropping your body. You're moving your entire body there.

The squat movement allows you to do a lot of mechanical work which is one of the keys to burning a lot of calories. So that's the first movement in the "Big 5". Always start your Big 5 workouts with a squat.

Please note: Lunges and split-squats also qualify as a "Squat-type" movement, even though you will also be able to use them in the Single-Leg Exercise category below. Sometimes the lines blur between movement types for such great multi-muscle exercises.

2) Pushing exercises...

The next exercise to use is any type of push-up or dumbbell press or bench press or even standing shoulder press. Again, very large amount of muscle to be used in those exercises that burn a lot of calories.

Plus, using the "non-compete" principle of the short, burst exercises, by using a pushing exercise next, we let our leg muscles recover (and often our grip strength too, depending on the first movement used).

3) Pulling exercises...

The next movement is any type of pulling exercise, so it could be rowing or pull-ups, dumbbell rows, seated rows, anything in a pulling motion is going to work a lot of musculature so a lot of your upper back, some of your arms, your lats, and even a little bit of your lower back if you keep that - by holding yourself in that static upright position.

This is a powerful fat burning, muscle-building movement. You could even use the deadlift at this time because it is a pulling movement. Again, often the lines blur between movement types for such great multi-muscle exercises.

And at this time, you'd have gotten about 80-90% of your results. So if you are really crunched for time, you could stick to only the first 3 movement patterns. But if you want to put the finishing touches on your body and rev up your metabolism even more, then you'll need the last 2 pieces of the Big 5 circuit.

4) Single leg exercises...

This could be a dumbbell lunge or split squat or a reverse lunge or a single leg squat, anything that works one leg at a time. Because you're using the lower body, it's a lot of musculature.

This is a tricky movement to do right after the Pulling movement, because your grip strength will be fatigued from the rowing or chin-ups or whatever you did. So try to use a bodyweight only single-leg exercise, such as the 1- leg squat or 1-leg lying hip extension.

This would also be a great place for a single-leg stability ball leg curl, or a single-leg exercise holding the barbell across your back. If you must use a dumbell exercise, choose the Bulgarian Split Squat or DB Step-up because less weight is needed than for lunges or split squats (and therefore less competition for grip occurs).

5) Total body ab exercises...

The final movement in the Big 5 circuit could be anything from a mountain climber to a stability ball rollout, it could be using the old infomercial gadget - the Ab Wheel since that works great - or it could be a hanging knee raise. Alternatives include cable chops and cable crunches if you have access to cables in a gym.

But you'll notice these aren't just basic crunches. Instead, you're working your arms, legs, and torso. That's why you must use a total-body ab exercise to finish off the Big 5 circuit workout.

Those are all the exercises that you could use for the Big 5 movements.

Fortunately, you have an endless variety of exercises and set-ups that you can choose.

If you did those exercises, you would have a total body workout, you'd have an incredible muscle-building, fat-burning, metabolism-boosting training session and if you did that type of stuff 3 days per week and maybe did your interval training after each circuit you'd lose a lot of belly fat. Man, it would just melt right off!

That's my Big 5 exercise movement system for building a better body.

If you want to burn fat, you want to build muscle, and you want results that are absolutely guaranteed, implement the Big 5 into your workout today.

To recap, here are the Big 5 Movements:

* Squat
* Push
* Pull
* Single Leg Exercise
* Total Body Ab Exercise
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Learn about the "Dark Side of Cardio" in the free report from Craig Ballantyne at TurbulenceTraining. Craig is a Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist and writes for Men's Health, Men's Fitness, Maximum Fitness, Muscle and Fitness Hers, and Oxygen magazines. For more information on the Turbulence Training workouts that will help you burn fat without long, slow cardio sessions or fancy equipment, click here.

*brought to you by FitnessandHealthAdvice.com

Get Yourself Motivated to Achieve Results By Carolyn Hansen

We may wonder how we can stay motivated long enough to achieve fitness or weight loss success when we begin an exercise and eating plan. The real dilemma with any wellness program is sticking with it long term - like for life!

At some point in time, almost everybody has started a diet plan, an exercise program or both and unfortunately most of us give up and surrender our high expectations a short time later.

We look for quick, simple effortless solutions to our problems. We wait for a miracle pill, drug or product to immediately cure our personal ailments and weaknesses. We tend to become disillusioned even with our own efforts and lack staying power and patience for the long haul.

We need to understand, fitness, strength and weight loss is not a quick fix process. It is not a happening or an event. It is the result of 100's of tiny steps day after day, workout after workout and healthy meal after healthy meal. It is a systematic process, one that doesn't product huge changes overnight and is not a quick sprint.

Although we know all of this, staying motivated in general remains challenging for many people. Fitness motivation is a learned process, one that gets easier with time and practice just like anything else worth having. This process is divided into three main parts.

1. Knowledge - Attitude changes toward fitness begin with education so you understand why exercise is important and what sort of life you will have if you do not fit proper exercise into your schedule. Taking responsibility and educating yourself on the benefits of exercise and proper nutrition is the first step in the process.

2 - Attitude - If your attitude is the stumbling block holding you back from achieving your health and fitness goals would you be willing to change it? You can only reach these goals when you have a positive exercise attitude and need to remind yourself how much better you will look and feel, how you will resist disease and how you will have a longer higher quality of life than if you don't exercise.

3 - Behavior - Adjusting your behavior is the most difficult task of all. Your eating plan, training and lifestyle are unquestionably important, but what is way more important than which specific nutrition or training plan you choose is whether you have the ability to put them into action consistently. Beginning an exercise program is one thing, but sticking to it for an extended period of time is quite another thing.

The ultimate key to fitness success is your ability to motivate yourself to take consistent action and change your habitual behavior. You need to act on it, to get it done, to follow through and stick with it. You must do it, so be your own coach and get yourself going.

The motivation to act is the ultimate key to success and when you 'get it' you will understand that self-motivation is responsible for driving behavior, creating action, changing habits and... most importantly -- getting results.
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Carolyn Hansen is a certified fitness expert and fitness center owner who coaches clients to look and feel younger. In her nearly 30 years of fitness and bodybuilding competition experience she has helped thousands of people start their journey towards being strong, fit and youthful at any age. Visit her at FitnessWeightLoss.com

-Do you have additional ideas on how to stay motivated to exercise and stay in shape? Please use the comments below to share your thoughts and ideas.

PS. If you're looking for another excellent way to stay motivated be sure to join this free motivational newsletter - it will help you keep charged up and ready to achieve all your goals!

Lose Weight With These 17 Hot Tips By Carolyn Hansen

Some $30 billion dollars is spent on weight loss each year as people desperately search and mistakenly believe 'the answer' to looking and feeling good is losing weight. This may be a popular belief but it is totally false as the majority of the big weight loss spenders are losing their money, not their weight.

The majority of people who try to lose weight use very unhealthy methods that have devastating effects on the metabolism (the body's engine). In fact, 98% of those people who do manage to lose some weight soon gain it back and end up with a damaged metabolism which makes future weight loss efforts near impossible.

There is a simple concept to lose weight and look good. It happens when you do the right thing and take responsibility for your health and improve it first and foremost. You cannot lose weight to improve your health - you must improve your health and have a healthy metabolism in order to lose weight.

Don't keep doing what you are doing if it is not working.

Here are 17 hot tips that will work better than anything you can purchase:

1. Have a strength training exercise program firmly in place.

2. Perform 1-2 interval training sessions each week.

3. Hire a fitness professional to teach you how to exercise intensely enough to really make a difference to your metabolism.

4. Do not do any long, slow, steady state activity (walking, jogging, cycling etc). These are recreational activities that are fine as part of an active lifestyle but can never replace a proper exercise program

5. Separate interval training and strength training days.

6. Eat 5-7 times each day.

7. Have at least 20 grams of protein at each meal.

8. Make up the balance of your meals with lots of cooked and raw vegetables.

9. Eat whole natural unprocessed foods.

10. Space your small meals out every 2-3 hours throughout the day.

11. Eat within an hour of waking.

12. Plan your meals, shop and prepare them in advance and take them with you wherever you go so you are not tempted to eat something that will not help you reach your goals.

13. Plan your workouts in advance and schedule them on your planner or calendar.

14. Treat these workout times as important appointments and keep your promises to

15. List 10-20 benefits that you will gain from becoming stronger, fitter and slimmer and make them your health/fitness/weight loss goals. These goals will then become much more personal and meaningful.

16. Go over these benefits as often as you need to. This may be daily, weekly or monthly.

17. You can't manage your health until you can manage your self which involves managing your time, your energy, your workouts, and your eating plan.

Follow these 17 hot tips and consider yourself successful as this approach to fitness and fat loss will give you an advantage over 95% of the diets and weight loss programs available. Yes you will lose fat but you will also improve your overall health which in turn will improve the quality of your life.
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Carolyn Hansen is a certified fitness expert and fitness center owner who coaches clients to look and feel younger. In her nearly 30 years of fitness and bodybuilding competition experience she has helped thousands of people start their journey towards being strong, fit and youthful at any age. Visit her at FitnessWeightLoss.com

-Do have any additional weight loss tips or ideas you would share? Please do so in the comments below.

Sponsor Message: If you've not done so already, grab your copy of the world wide best-seller 'Maximize Your Metabolism' by fitness expert, speaker, and author Christopher Guerriero.

*brought to you by FitnessandHealthAdvice.com