Plenty of people have fallen into the myths about exercise.  They’re easy to mistake for the truth, and there are even some personal trainers and others you would think were experts who talk about them like they are substantiated facts.  So if they’re falling for these, how can I really expect the average individual to know the difference.

1. Cardio is making you fat-I saw this one at the gym the other day, and it drives me nuts on a personal basis.  Cardio is not making you fat, cardio is the only way you can burn fat actually.  Building muscles makes you more toned, but only if you can burn away the fat that covers the muscles, by using cardio.
2. My muscles can turn into fat-these are two completely separate organs and devices.  Muscle is muscle and fat is fat.  If you stop exercising, over time your fat gains size while your muscle shrinks.  They do not actually replace each other, and the same goes for just the opposite of fat turning into muscle.
3. If I lift weights, I will be bulky-not necessarily.  A lot of it is genetic yes.  But at the same point in time, if you lift weights like small weights in many reps, you will build lean muscle, not bulky muscle.  It’s largely dependent on your technique.
4. If I just do these exercises, I will achieve the ideal body-your ideal body has to fit your genetics.  If you have a big butt, your butt will stay big in proportion to the rest of your body.  You can use exercises around your butt.  But realistically speaking, you cannot just burn fat there.  You have to do cardio and over time burn fat all over.  But there’s only so much you can do about some trouble spots.
5. Gaining weight with age is inevitable-it’s harder to lose weight when you get older.  Your metabolism slows down, your HGH levels go down, etc.  But it just takes you kicking it up.  Some people hit 50 and are in the best shape of their life because they increased their workout and adjusted their diet.

If you want to lose weight, you have to work out. You have to exercise, and quite frankly speaking, to maximize your workout, even to just make it easier is a big deal. To do all these things will help you to burn more calories, to lose more weight, and achieve the greater results and more toned body that you are looking for. This being said, there are a few things to do.

First of all, bring your ipod. Studies have shown that if you are listening to your iPod, you are more likely to be more distracted, to exercise for longer periods of time, and otherwise not to actually be weighed down by your workouts. Likewise, make sure you are using the right playlist. Using the right playlist can make a huge difference, because if you’re listening to tears in heaven, chances are you aren’t going to be so motivated in your workouts. However, something more upbeat can always help.

Then you want to squeeze your glutes as you go. Frankly, you don’t usually think about it. But just squeezing your glutes can make a huge difference. Basically speaking, when you squeeze your butt, you are actually burning more calories, you are obviously toning your butt, etc. You can do this while you are just walking around too, not necessarily just when you are doing something like squats or lunges for that matter.

Doing these small things will ultimately speaking make a big difference. You will be able to burn more fat, tone your muscles at a greater rate, and in general terms achieve greater results. If you do not do them, you will still be able to get results, just at a slower and harder pace.

Guarana has been one of the weight loss revolutions in the past 10 years, or so we like to think.  This being said, everybody has talked about guarana, because if for nothing else, it’s the stimulant free and caffeine free stimulant essentially speaking that should ideally speaking help you to also thermogenically burn fat despite the absence of actual caffeine.  So how does it work or really does it work at all?

So while many are asking can I lose weight with guarana, not so many are actually achieving it.  Why?  Because despite the fact that many of us have been drawn in by the fact that is found in Brazil, it does not actually burn fat or otherwise promote weight loss.  Yes, it’s an effective energy supplement and it’s devoid of caffeine.  But as far as its weight loss capabilities, it has none.

Now this is not to say that you should never use guarana.  My favorite drink, one I affectionately call blue bawls has it, and it’s great.  Some of my favorite coffees also have it.  This is not all.  If you actually combine it with damiana and yerba mate, there have been some studies that have shown that people were able to lose weight.  Unfortunately, they do not actually disclose the amounts used, which makes it complicated to find a weight loss supplement that uses the right amount.  However, should you actually find a weight loss supplement using a significant amount of each ingredient, you have a fairly good chance of seeing the promotion of gastric fullness leading to weight loss associated with the combination of guarana, damiana, and yerba mate.

There are definitely ways to maximize your workout and here are a few of them.

1.       Drink water! Yes it cannot get more important than drinking more water.  You have to hydrate your body and you have to keep all your systems running properly.  This will help you to get the results you want overall.

2.       Create a routine.  Creating a routine of eating and exercise puts your body into a certain amount of advantage.  This is key in getting the maximum benefits and allowing your body to know when it should burn and when it doesn’t perhaps have to burn as much.

3.       Remember to sleep-proper sleeping is key in helping you to get the proper fat burning.  It rejuvenates and renews your body, and it’s absolutely critical in your greater success.

4.       Take a day off-you should rest the muscles worked, with the exception of the abs, for at least a day when you are considering exercises, and of course you should actually do cardio every day.  But major muscle groups should have time to rest and recuperate

5.       Stick with it!  This is the big one.  You have to stick with your workout and diet routine.  If you do not stick with it, you are not helping yourself and ultimately speaking, you won’t see any greater success.

I am against 7 day, 30 day, 90 day, and whatever day programs.  I cannot be more clear about this.  Quite frankly, there is an idea that in order to really lose weight, you should change your lifestyle and basically make permanent changes.  This is for a reason.  If you go back to your old habits, then you will gain all the weight back, which is why things like the Idiot Proof diet, which are unsustainable and highly temporary, only for short term use, never really work. 

But this being said, I am not against cleansing, which is short term and cleanses your body.  It jump starts your diet.  But frankly, there are various people who would try to sell you something like a “90 day” diet which is longer than most, and they claim you can suddenly lose tons of weight. 

But honestly speaking, while I admire the results of P90X for example, I would have to strongly recommend against them.  This for the simple reason that they really don’t set up an after plan.  So that means that you have no way, no education, no idea of what you should be doing after.  It’s great to get quick results, but frankly that’s no good if you can’t actually sustain them afterwards.  So in short, I would suggest you find only the best long term diet plans instead of going for the catchy so many days ideas.

Honestly speaking, the single most effective way to lose weight is to suppress your appetite and eat less. Eating fewer calories means that you have fewer calories to burn off later in the day, make sense? So there are various ways to do this, and frankly it does not give you a free pass to eat whatever you want. But this explains why some cultures actually eat quite a few fatty foods, but they manage to still maintain lower obesity rates than countries like the United States. They understand the concept of actual moderation. This being said, the easiest ways to suppress your appetite are

1. Break your meals up into smaller meals throughout the day

2. Drink more water. Water acts as a natural appetite suppressant and obviously your body is more able to burn small bits than one big bit all at one time. These ways are most effective, and frankly the fact is that most others options don’t work as effectively, and to say the least they aren’t as cheap. Of course with more frequent meals, you will actually end up eating more in general. However, suppressing your appetite and eating smaller portions is the best way to go.

In all truth, if you are really serious about using the most effective possible diet, yes many are going to fail at some point in time. But at the same point, there is not really room for regular doses of carbs. By this I mean bad carbs. It’s how life works. Many like to think there is and that every once in a while they should eat rice or something. I’m not saying you should go on a low carb diet, by no means am I saying that. I don’t really have much to say about them in the good way.

However, cutting out bad carbs in favor of lean proteins and fruits and vegetables is the healthiest possible way to go. It’s actually the best way to lose weight, and if you can keep it up in the long term, well it’s certainly more maintainable than a traditional low carb diet. There are basic food groups of course, there are always basic food groups essential to life.

But candy is not one of them, pasta is not one of them, white rice is not one of them. Fritos are not one of them for that matter. It’s just a matter of realizing the truth of things and working with it rather than trying to find some way to get around it.

I’ve never kept a journal in my life, except for one. I wouldn’t exactly consider this to be a “journal.” But it’s just keeping track of your diet and the foods you eat along with the exercise you do. I keep this on my phone, and there’s actually a nifty little program that I use that counts the calories for me and then I also look back during that time to see how I’ve been doing in keeping track of my calories and behaving myself in general terms.

This definitely has helped me to take control and see better results in general. But the trick is to keep up on it. I have to obviously follow the restrictions and everything. But I also have to actually put in all the food I am eating. It really gave me a more realistic grip on all of the things I was actually putting into my body on a regular basis, and it helped me take hold of my life in general terms, which was really helpful in all honesty to getting me to a place where I was actually achieving greater results. It’s all about the honesty factor with yourself.

There is only one person I’ve ever seen who actually loses weight when she’s pregnant. This phenomenon is beyond me, they say you should expect to gain weight maybe 20-25 pounds. It’s not just at first either, it’s all the way through. She’s a bigger girl, and frankly many bigger women I couldn’t tell the difference at that point. So if they gained 20-25 pounds I wouldn’t know. But I would have known if they had lost weight. That I would’ve definitely noticed. But for her, sometimes I wonder if she should get more medical attention, because the whole pregnancy she eats nothing but saltines, because she can’t keep anything else down.

It’s kinda like pregnant anorexia in some ways. It’s not that she wants to do it, but honestly the whole pregnancy she functions like this because she can’t keep anything else down. It definitely can’t be good for the baby. Either way, if you are actually one of the few people and people I haven’t heard of suffering from this kind of problem, I would say chances are it’s pretty severe and you should realistically go in and check it out with your doctor to see what exactly is going on in general terms.

Metabolism is everything, and while you can definitely tell who has a higher metabolism because they are always eating and yet never gain weight, they are ridiculously skinny and sometimes we wonder if they purge or something, you may have a normal or low metabolism otherwise and it’s hard to tell the difference, depending on how realistic you are about your diet. And by the way, if you purge, you still might be fat for the simple reason that quite frankly, your body absorbs the fat for use quite quickly and over time of course there’s starvation mode among other things.

But you can use what is called a direct calorimetry. You spend time in an atmospherically controlled chamber where you produce heat at rest and essentially they measure this. Heat has a lot to do with your metabolism and how many calories you are naturally able to burn in general. You can also use an indirect calorimetry where they measure your breathing into a bag after an overnight fast and the oxygen content. Either way, these methods tend to be rather accurate, and they can test your resting metabolic rate or RMR. The equipment for this is quite expensive and so the testing is quite expensive. But it’s an easier way to tell.