Best Moves To Slim Your Love Handles

Best Moves To Slim Your Love Handles

One of the most common goals that most people have as they go about their fitness program is to find out how to slim their love handles.  The sides of the stomach region, also known as the ‘love handles’ are the place where many people do tend to store their body fat, so it’s always one of the main places where most tend to focus on.

Understanding which moves are going to best target your love handles is important as then you can be sure to incorporate these into your workout sessions so that you are doing everything in your power to tone them up.

One thing that you do need to keep in mind however as you do this as that it’s imperative that you’re also following a lower calorie diet plan as not only do you need to tone the love handles by strengthening the muscles, but you’ll also need to lose the fat that’s covering them.

A good diet combined with the following moves is going to be your recipe for success.

Here are the main exercises to consider.

The Bicycle

The bicycle is the first move that you’ll definitely want to be doing as you go about your workout program.  This exercise is going to have you rapidly shifting from side to side, which will definitely go a long way towards keeping the stress on the oblique muscles.

The bicycle is going to be great for those who also want to firm up the lower abs as well as they’ll be in a state of constant contraction as your legs are hovering above the floor.

When performing this exercise make sure to maintain a nice and slow movement pattern as this will keep maximum tension on the oblique muscles.

Prone Ball Roll Ins To The Side

The second exercise that you’ll want to think about doing as part of your workout to target the love handles is the prone ball roll in to the side.  This movement is especially great because due to the prone body position along with being on the exercise ball, it’s really going to place you off balance.

Each time you squeeze the ball into the side of the body you’re going to really feel it in the oblique muscles, illustrating to you that these muscles are definitely working.

Decline Twisting Sit-Ups

Decline twisting sit-ups are the next top move to hit the oblique muscles in your workout sessions.  Decline twisting sit-ups are more intense than normal sit-ups because of the fact that you will be working against gravity as you lower the body and rise up again.

When doing this exercise you want to focus on twisting as far to one side as you possibly can and then back again as this will help work the muscles across the full range of motion.

Best Moves To Slim Your Love Handles

So there you have a few of the top moves that you should definitely consider incorporating into your core workout to help you see faster results at toning the stomach and love handles and developing your dream body.  Do these three times per week for 15-20 reps per set and 2-3 sets per exercise and you’ll be on track to results. 

    

Image courtesy of Luigi Diamanti / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Four Steps To The Body Of Your Dreams: Your How To Guide

Four Steps To The Body Of Your Dreams: Your How To Guide 

If you’re on a mission to build the body of your dreams, it’s vital that you’re making sure that you have a good game plan in place.  Many people set out with an end goal that they want to achieve, but don’t take the necessary steps to figure out how exactly they are going to achieve it.

If you want to see good results, you must make sure that you’re following a smart protocol that is designed to work with your body to get you the look that you’re after.

Let’s give you a step by step guide for doing so.

Step One: Determine Your Look

First things first, you need to get it clear in your mind the precise look that you’re going for.  If you don’t have a clear visual in mind of what it is you want to look like, it’s hard to develop a training routine that’s going to be effective.

Remember to keep this ‘look’ you desire reasonable and realistic, otherwise you’re fighting a losing battle from the beginning.

Step Two: Plan Your Diet

Once you have your desired look, then you need to form a diet plan.  If the look involves getting slimmer or leaner then a reduced calorie intake needs to be utilized.  If the look involves getting larger and building muscle or adding curves if you’re a female, then adding more calories to your current diet will be necessary.

A good place to start is adding or subtracting 300-500 calories in either direction as this should get you seeing progress quite quickly.

Then make sure that you eliminate all the processed and refined foods from your diet, so you’re eating as many natural foods as possible.  Get an even mix of proteins, carbs, and fats in each snack, with the carb and fat intake being slightly lower for those looking to lose weight and higher for those looking to gain.

Step Three: Design Your Weight Workout

After the diet is in place, then it comes time to design a workout.  Weight training is the best exercise for reshaping your body, so it’s what you’ll want to turn to.

If you want to bring out more muscle definition in certain regions, add in a few isolated exercises for those muscle groups.  Be sure that you also have the compound exercises in place as well, as these will be key to building full body strength and conditioning.

If you want to lose fat, aim to keep the rest breaks between sets shorter as this will enable you to experience a better metabolic boost after each workout.

Step Four: Factor In Cardio

Finally, the last step is to factor in cardio.  If you’re trying to fill out or build muscle, your cardio exercise will be minimal as you don’t want to be burning off too many additional calories.

If you’re looking to lose fat on the other hand, then you’ll want to add more cardio in.

Cardio should be a mixture of interval session as well as longer, moderate paced sessions to keep good balance in your program.

Just be sure to never let yourself sacrifice your weight lifting performance for cardio training instead as cardio simply isn’t as effective for changing your body.

Four Steps To The Body Of Your Dreams: Your How To Guide

So there you have the top things that you should remember with regards to designing a complete body transformation plan.  If you take the time now to lay everything out, all you’ll have to do is follow your ‘road map’ for success.

    

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The Top Reasons Most People Fail At Weight Loss And What You Can Do About It

The Top Reasons Most People Fail At Weight Loss And What You Can Do About It

If you’re on a mission to achieve your goal body weight, it’s important that you take a pro-active approach in learning what often causes people to struggle on their plan and what you can do about it so that you move forward rather than backward.

It’s an extremely common scenario – someone looking to lose weight starts out great with the scale moving exactly as they had hoped for but as time passes on, that shifts and pretty soon they’re feeling frustrated and hopeless that results are actually going to come.

Typically this is due to one or two minor mistakes that they’re making that are holding them back from seeing the progress they desire, so by getting these in check for yourself, you can make sure that they don’t come to hinder you.

Let’s look at what you should know.

They Don’t Re-Evaluate Their Intake After Losing Weight

The very first mistake that’s made is neglecting to re-evaluate their calorie intake after weight lossoccurs.  Remember, as you lose body weight, you’ll be burning fewer calories every day just to stay alive.

This then means that your total weight loss calorie intake needs to come down otherwise you’re going to likely be eating at a maintenance level instead.

If you fail to reduce your calories further as fat loss keeps taking place, it’s only going to be so long before you hit a plateau.

They Don’t Factor In Small ‘Bites’

The second big error that some people make is failing to account for the small bites that they take here and there.

You may think that that half a cookie won’t really matter, but in the long-run, it will.  Each of those bites adds up over time and it could really influence your rate of success.

If the unaccounted for bites are happening often enough, you could be cancelling out the entire deficit that you’re creating.

They Use Black And White Thinking

Another common error for many people is using black and white thinking patterns with their program.  They believe that they have to be 100% on at all times. If they aren’t, they might as well throw in the towel.

This is a very bad thought pattern to get into because it’ll cause you to easily lose focus as soon as a minor slip up takes place.

Minor slip-ups typically have very little influence on the end results as long as you move on immediately from them.

It’s when you let that minor slip-up turn into a major slip-up that big problems are going to occur.

They Aren’t Constantly Planning

Finally, last but not least, another big mistake is failing to plan.  Always try and pre-plan your meals and snacks as much as you possibly can. If you aren’t planning out what you’re going to be eating each day, you’re leaving it up to change.

Leaving it up to chance invites unhealthy foods in and this will throw off your results.

The Top Reasons Most People Fail At Weight Loss And What You Can Do About It

So there you have the top reasons why many people fail with their diet program.  Do you see yourself in any of these? If you do, it’s time to make a few changes to make sure you’re moving forwards rather than backwards.

    

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How To Maintain A Healthy Relationship With Food While Dieting

How To Maintain A Healthy Relationship With Food While Dieting

If you’re on a fat loss diet plan, there may be a chance that you could come to ‘fear’ certain foods after so long.  You’ve been conditioned to know which foods are ‘good’ and which foods are ‘bad’ and do everything you can to stay away from the bad ones and only eat the good ones.

The big problem with this good and bad thinking however is that it forms a negative association in your mind regarding certain foods in the diet.  If you’re not careful, this could lead to eating disorders over time, which are very serious and could require extensive treatment to overcome.

Let’s take a quick look at some of the important things that you should remember that will help you maintain a more positive relationship with food while dieting.

Think In Terms Of Healthy Or Not Healthy

The very first thing that you should be doing to maintain a healthy relationship with food is think in terms of healthy or not healthy rather than good or bad.  This shifts the perspective and allows you to focus on the health benefits that certain foods provide, which is a much healthier association.

Try filling your diet with the most nutritious foods that you can, not because they are low in calories but because they will do the most for you from a nutritional point of view.

Plan For Cheat Meals

Next, another thing that you should be doing is planning some cheat meals into your program. Cheat meals are great because they give you psychological relief from strict diets and help you see that eating a food that’s ‘off’ your diet list won’t automatically make you gain all the fat you’ve lost right back.

This is key for maintaining that healthy relationship with food.  Cheat meals should be scheduled once every week or two for maximum benefits.  More frequently may not be a good idea as it could hinder progress, but making sure to get them in every so often is important.

Periodically Take Diet Breaks

Finally, the last thing to keep in mind is that you should periodically add some diet breaks as well.  This is key for helping you learn your new maintenance calorie intake so you don’t start thinking that you must maintain a very low calorie intake in order to succeed with keeping the weight off.

Often what occurs is that as you progress on the diet, your metabolism slows down so you start decreasing your calorie intake further to spark more fat loss, but over time, this leads to a very low calorie intake.

Before you know it you’re scared of eating more again for fear all the weight will come rushing back on.

Diet breaks will not only help to reset your metabolism but also teach you that you can eat more food and still maintain your body weight.

How To Maintain A Healthy Relationship With Food While Dieting

So there you have the most important things to note about maintaining a healthy relationship with food while dieting. For your psychological health, this is a must.

    

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Diet Tricks To Beat A Weight Loss Plateau

Diet Tricks To Beat A Weight Loss Plateau

If you’re on a diet program and have recently noticed that the weight you were losing has seemed to have slowed and it seems like it’s been forever since you’ve shed a few pounds, it might be time to consider that you are stuck in a diet plateau.

Many people will face a diet plateau at some point or another as they do tend to be incredibly common along the weight loss journey. This is especially the case if you’ve been using a lower calorie diet for an extended period of time as the body will be fighting hard to help keep you from starving to death.

But, if you approach the plateau in the proper manner, you should be able to bust through it relatively easily and get back on track to maximum success.

Let’s go over a few of the smart diet tricks that you can use to bust through any plateau you face.

Zig-Zag Your Calorie Intake

The very first thing that you should do is zig-zag your calorie intake.  What this does is essentially tricks your body. At first it may have thought it caught on to you and slowed its metabolic rate down to the amount of food that you were eating.

But, if you then add a much higher calorie day into the mix, you confuse it. Now it’s getting more fuel, so it may start to speed up again to compensate for this.

Your body does try and maintain homeostasis as best as possible, so it will speed up and slow down with just three to five days of intense dieting.

By having some low and some high calorie days throughout the week, you never give it this consecutive period where receiving the same amount of fuel, day after day.

Eat More Variety

The second dietary strategy that you can use to bust through a plateau is to try and consume as much variety as you possibly can. Don’t gravitate to the same three foods over and over again.

Mix it up, as long as they stay healthy.

While this won’t have an incredibly huge impact on your progress, it still can make a difference and every little bit will add up.

Add A Two To Four Day Diet Break

Finally, if you’ve been dieting intensely for quite some time, it may just be time to consider a two to four day diet break.

Sometimes a one day high calorie day isn’t enough to get things kick-started again and you instead need to elevate calories and keep them there for a longer period of time.

A short break off your diet and eating at maintenance levels can be just the thing to get you out of the plateau and on track again.

Diet Tricks To Beat A Weight Loss Plateau

So next time you feel like your progress is moving slower than it should, consider these strategies. Using them should get you moving forward again so that you don’t end up any more frustrated than you already are.

    

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net