Ab Exercise Tips

by Caleb Lee

Nutrition is AT LEAST as important as any exercise regime in a good bodybuilding program.

Your muscles need the proper nutrients if they are to grow and give you the body you want. Of course good nutrition is important for overall health, which is a nice bonus.

Today I’m going to give you a few pointers on getting the right balance of foods that your growing muscle needs.

First of all, your eating patterns are going to have to change a bit. Rather than two or three larger meals a day, you want to eat smaller meals frequently throughout the day.

The point of this is to increase your metabolism. This will help you burn fat and help your body get into muscle building mode. In fact after 4 hours without food, your body switches into catabolic mode, where you begin to accumulate fat; a biological function of the body from the days of being hunter/gatherers who literally didn’t know where their next meal was coming from.

So instead, you’re going to eat 4-6 meals a day, about three hours apart.

What should I be eating?

Good question. Balance is the key when trying to build muscle. You want protein, carbs AND fat in every meal.

Getting all three at once helps your body make the most of each element and gives you sustained energy without “crashes”. The ratio you should be aiming for is roughly 40% of carbs, 40% protein and 20% fat.

What about calories; don’t those matter?

What you should be looking for in terms of calories is an alternating pattern of low calories (about 2000 for men and 1200 for women) for two weeks followed by higher calories for two weeks (about 2500 for men and 1500 for women).

Doing your calorie intake like this will help you lose fat and build lean muscle mass — just what every bodybuilder desires. (You should send these numbers upwards somewhat if you are doing energy intensive training such as running.)

Are you now thinking, “OK, so what specifically are good things to eat while building muscle?”

You’ll want both complex and simple carbs - while I don’t have enough room here to go into an entire menu plan, here are a few ideas:

Simple Carbs: Fruit is your best bet for simple carbs; whatever fruit you like is fine here. As for complex Carbohydrates: Oatmeal, sweet potatoes, rice, broccoli, spinach

Go for these Proteins: Eggs, skinless turkey or chicken, tuna, very lean beef.

Fats: Stick with the healthy oils such as olive oil, canola oil, fish oils, and flaxseed oil, also natural peanut butter is a good source of protein/fat.

And don’t forget: you need a LOT of water. You need water to keep your body flushed of toxins and to stay hydrated for optimum performance/health.

If you follow everything in this article it will get you started on your way to a nutritious diet for lean muscle building.

About the Author:

Fitness expert Caleb Lee can teach you a lot about building muscle. His website will teach you ways to build muscle fast.

by Herman Dias

In today’s world most of the people find it very hard to keep those pounds off. Obesity is fast growing in North America. The worst part is so many children are facing this problem

The main problem lies in the way we perceive food. Many people think that how much you eat affects how much weight you gain or lose. This may be true, but it does not tell the whole story.

As much as the amount you eat affects your weight, so does the types of foods that you eat. Put simply, there are certain foods that will add fat fast. Luckily there are also easy ways to avoid those foods, without sacrificing all of your little food indulgences.

Some of the foods add Belly Fat really fast. The Belly Fat Diet will help you replace these foods with good results.

Oily Foods

One of our biggest weaknesses is the love for fast food, fast food outlets usually cook their food in oil. These oily foods contain a lot of transfats, which not only add to the fat in the body but also cause other health problems. Even while cooking at home one should be careful while cooking and replace the fatty foods with healthier foods and stop gaining those extra pounds.

Fries - If you enjoy a meal that includes fries, try baking them at home instead. You will find that these homemade fries actually taste better than their fast-food counterparts.

Oils - Instead of using canola oils, corn oil, or other processed oils that contain transfat, try natural olive oils. Spiced olive oil will even add that extra flare to your fried foods.

Margarine - Instead of spreading margarine on your morning toast, try some low-fat cream cheese. It has more taste, and it’s healthier.

Sugary food

The next area that can really mess up your figure is sugary foods. Processed sugars are basically empty calories. If you eat a lot of processed sugars, there are easy ways to replace them with better foods. Here are a few ideas to get you started:

Chocolate - Don’t have dairy milk bars or a mars bar, Instead try eating dark chocolates. Dark chocolates contain lesser sugars in comparison to other chocolates.

Ice-Cream - If you buy ice-cream from a store you will see that it has a lot of processed sugars, Instead of having this try having naturally-flavored yogurt it will take care of your waistline and not add those pounds.

Sugar - Instead of white sugar try artificial sweeteners. There are different kinds of artificial sweeteners, but all of them are lower in calories than sugar. Some of them are even calorie free.

Soft Drinks - Drinking cola is another big problem, Instead of having cola try having the diet version or better still if you can replace it with flavored water.

Processed Flour

Some of the other foods that add those pounds are foods made of processed flours. The foods such as white bread or pasta are really high in calories and don’t contain any fiber or whole grain. Try having foods which are made of whole grain, it is a much better choice.

Simply being aware of what is in the food that you eat is a good start to choosing the Belly Fat Diet. With this article I have given you a start with foods to avoid. Get used to reading labels to see what is in the food you eat, and find alternatives to bad foods. Burning fat is a process, this is one part of the process. To learn the secret of burning fat check below.

About the Author:

If you need to Burn Fat and Lose Weight quickly, make sure you grab Herman Dias’s No Cost Report on the Revolutionary Fat Burning Secret and the Best Belly Fat Diet

by Travis Killian

In order to fuel life, our body needs a constant supply of three major macronutrients: carbohydrates, fats, and protein. Carbohydrates and fats help to supply our bodies mostly with energy. Protein however is a bit different.

Proteins are distinct from other macronutrients because it is composed of little chains of nitrogen that contains subunits called amino acids. These are important to the body because they are a primary source of dietary nitrogen which is an essential element. Amino acids also serve a huge role in building muscle.

These amino acids are the building blocks of lean muscle. This is where whey protein enters the picture. Whey supplies all of the essential amino acids and digests very quickly - usually within 30 minutes. Whey protein is also very inexpensive and, especially chocolate whey, can taste great.

One of the best times to take whey protein is right after you workout. The reason for this is that your muscles are depleted of their glycogen reserves and your muscle tissues are broken down. After you workout, you are highly sensitive to insulin - which shuttles muscles to your muscles rather than fat.

During this period it is very important to get as much protein and carbohydrates to your muscles as possible. You want to build back up your glycogen reserves and build back stronger so that you can hit the gym sooner. This allows for you to grow faster and stronger than ever.

Whey protein is also very safe for you. There is no evidence that says that whey protein has any harmful side effects. With moderation, it is very safe. In fact, it can boost your immune system and increase muscularity. Whey protein is also natural and is found in everyday food such as milk.

When is it most important to consume protein and how much should you consume? Well that is entirely up to you, but the best times to make use of whey protein is post workout and right after you wake up. Your body is most sensitive and will greatly benefit from its speedy absorption.

For any other time of the day, casein protein could help you out. I won’t mention much about it in this article, but casein digests slowly. This will give you a constant supply of protein throughout the day so that way you can prevent muscle breakdown and keep your body constantly supplied with protein.

Whey protein is any bodybuilder’s, or person who wants to make a positive change in their appearance, best friend. Its benefits are astounding and you should always value the health of your body. Build confidence through an impressive physique and a better life through feeling great about you.

About the Author:

Travis is a male fitness model and is very passionate in regards to exercise and health. His fitness blog delivers Exercise Advice as well as information on how to Build Muscle Mass

If you took a poll of the most common smoothie, what do you think you would find? Chances are that it would be strawberry banana smoothies.

Something this popular has to taste great! So it’s a good time to follow the trend and add your own unique spin to the concoction.

What is it about strawberry and banana that makes the combo so popular? Banana is a creamy and mellow-sweet fruit, for one thing.

We know strawberries are sweet too, but they’re also on the tart side and extremely flavorful. Mix the two together, and you have a perfect duo.

The most common strawberry banana smoothies include fruits of the same name along with ice and milk. This is a great recipe all on its own, but there are certainly ways to improve upon the recipe.

One of the best things about smoothies is that you can combine almost any kind of fruits in the blender and come out with something that tastes wonderful.

Here’s another idea: Try mixing some blueberries with strawberry banana smoothies. The difference in flavor will be subtle, but delicious.

If you’re trying to get more antioxidants in your diet, you will absolutely love this smoothie variation.

Smoothies that have strawberries and bananas also go very well with chocolate. Have you ever had chocolate covered strawberries or bananas?

If you’ve experienced this, you know how delicious this combo is. So, try mixing in some chocolate ice cream or yogurt with your smoothie.

But if this is going to be part of a smoothie diet, you’ll want to make it as healthy as possible. As odd as this sounds, you should try adding chard or kale to your smoothie, since this will give you an even better dose of vitamins.

So what you get is a wonderful drink that tastes of strawberries and bananas, but you’ll still get your healthy greens.

Just experiment and see what you come up with. Before long, you’ll be inventing all sorts of banana and strawberry concoctions. Make this a habit, and your doctor will be blown away by your improved health.

But to get started, you’ll want to search for the best smoothie recipes around. Use them as a foundation to get you started in a world healthy, delicious smoothies.

Getting control over what you eat and drink is the whole idea behind dieting isn’t it? Many times a diet is the first time you actually get control over your diet rather than letting food control you. And that is a great feeling. So one of the best weapons that you can use in this war on fat to help you get and keep control is making your own diet shakes. These delicious drinks are a great way to get the vitamins and nutritional value of food that you need in a tasty way.

The diet industry makes millions of dollars selling foods already put together for dieters including diet shakes in cans that you can buy. But for a couple of reasons, buying your shakes is not the best way to go. For one thing, making your own diet shakes means you can use absolutely fresh foods and that means you are getting the most nutritional value from the shake. More importantly, those shakes you buy in cans may say “diet” on the outside of the container but too often what you actually drink is not that healthy.

Of course the heart of making a great shake of any kind is owning a great blender. But with that one piece of equipment on hand, its really just a matter of combining the right base with the right ingredient to make shakes that will be healthy and help you reach your diet goals and taste good too. There are three types of bases of any good diet shake and they are dairy, vegetable or fruit based shakes.

It’s no mystery what the heart of any dairy shake will be. You start with a healthy dairy product and build the shake from there. Now, naturally if you have problems consuming and processing anything dairy, this base is out of the question for you. It’s best not to try to use soy or other dairy substitute for a dairy based diet shake because for a good dairy shake, good old 2% milk is the way to go. And because milk goes so well with lots of other foods, you can come up with a huge variety of other things to add to the shake to keep them healthy and fun to drink for a long time to come.

Because vegetable based shakes are so full of healthy vegetable vitamins, they can almost be a dinner all in one. The V8 commercial drink is a good recipe to follow if you want to start with a tomato base and then add other vegetable juices and spices to make a delicious and filling shake. However, you do have to make sure the juice you start with isn’t too harsh for your digestion which can happen because concentrated vegetable juices can sometimes be a bit hard on the stomach.

What is great about making your own fruit diet shakes is that you can get that taste of something sweet and still stay on your program. The best way to make a fruit based shake is to start with fresh fruit and use the blender to turn it into a smooth drink. That way you retain all the health value of the fruit. And it’s a delightful way to get your day going or even to have a light desert at night that isn’t going to make you fat.

Now working from these bases, it’s really up to you how to vary the ingredients in your diet shakes. It’s a good idea to use that imagination of yours too because the more variety you can introduce in your diet, the more likely you are going to be able to stay on the diet month after month and see some real results. You can add peanut butter to a dairy or fruit based shake and increase the protein value significantly. You can also add powdered vitamin supplements to mix in important vitamin levels that you may not have complete control over working with raw ingredients.

The fun and great tasting foods you can make into diet shakes do a lot to keep the boredom and tedium of dieting from slowing you down on your diet goals. And by using only fresh foods from the market, you are doing the best thing you can do to not only give your body the best nutrition you can give it, you are also helping it fight off disease and viruses because the diet shakes are supercharging your immune system. So the end result is not only a skinny and great looking you but a healthy and energetic new you also.