Senin, 11 Mei 2015

Why Most Female Fat Loss Programs Are A Joke!

Most “fat loss workouts” are a joke, relying on high reps, solely bodyweight movements and “going for the burn!” They do not create a sufficient enough caloric deficit to lose body fat at a steady rate. The new trend in fat loss is “metabolic resistance training workouts” which is essentially cardio with weights. Most MRT workouts look like this type of circuit:

Lunges x 15
Shoulder Press x 15
Lat Pulldown x 15
Burpees for 30 seconds
Repeat 3-5x

Again, this “stacking” of non-competing exercises is traditionally known as metabolic resistance training and it’s very powerful at burning a lot of calories during the workout and increasing your metabolic rate for 48 hours AFTER the workout.  This is the good news about MRT workouts and why I love them.

The problem with MRT workouts (which we’ll overcome in a moment) is that they leave you skinny and soft, not sculpted and strong.  High rep training does burn calories but the weights are too light and not sufficient to stimulate the fast-twitch muscle fibers that maintain and build new muscle.

Essentially, over four to six weeks of doing strictly MRT workouts, your body will give up muscle because the weights you’re lifting do not solicit the need for muscle on your body! Also, since your body gets used to lifting lighter weights, it gives up its strength and you become weaker. This is based on the use it or lose it principle.
Once your body “lets go” of your muscle and strength, you burn fewer calories at rest and have a greater chance of gaining the fat back once you stop this style of training. All that hard work for nothing! That’s the bad news about MRT workouts.
Introducing: Targeted Metabolic Resistance Training Workouts 
Imagine MRT workouts targeted to a specific body part! Here are the benefits if you’re looking for a strong and sculpted body instead of a soft and skinny body:

  • You avoid adaptation. Your body is designed to adapt. When you keep doing the same exercises, in the same order, for the same number of reps, using the same hand grip or foot stance, the body adapts. In effect, your nervous system becomes “hardwired” to that particular routine and consequently, fewer fibers are recruited, you use less energy and fewer demands are made on the body. In short, you become a pro at that routine, and after a surprisingly short amount of time, you stop making progress. Targeted MRT workouts shake things up by changing the stimulus, so the nervous system doesn’t adapt. What happens is that your body grows new muscle and become stronger and “harder” to survive the onslaught of your attack! Essentially we’re going to apply more direct muscle work to each body part so your body takes on a curvier shape. Hello hourglass!
  • Shifting rep ranges develops neurogenic and myogenic muscle tone. Most individuals are hopelessly attached to the old 10-15 rep range scheme. It’s as automatic as your morning coffee and watching your favorite reality TV show each week. It’s largely habit. Remember, every rep range targets a different group of muscle fibers and if you don’t stimulate all your muscle fibers than you’re throwing away 50% of your gains! Muscle fibers are "typed" according to their oxidative capacities and how fast they fatigue. Historically, fast-twitch fibers (the ones best suited for growth and neurogenic muscle tone) are worked by a combination of lower-rep, and heavier weight workouts. This style of training is new for most females. Except that muscles are also made up of slow-twitch fibers and contribute to myogenic muscle tone. You can't just ignore them if you want to see your sexiest body revealed once the fat comes off.  Targeted MRT workouts will include lower rep training (i.e. reps less than 7), intermediate rep ranges (i.e 8-12 reps) and high-rep training (i.e 12-15 and even 15-20 reps) to make the best progress and develop both types of muscle tone - neurogenic and myogenic.
  • You look harder, curvier and sexier! When you directly target a muscle group with straight sets you make average gains; when you directly target a muscle group with a bi-combo (two exercises back to back on the same body part) you can almost double your rate of progress; when you target a muscle group with a tri-combo (three exercises back to back to back on the same body part) you can almost triple your rate of progress! Fitness models of known this for years, which is why they have strong yet still feminine bodies.  Targeted MRT workouts apply so stimulus directly to the body parts i.e your thighs, glutes, shoulders and back that give your body the coveted hour glass figure! By adding a few pounds of muscle to these specific body parts you’ll dramatically transform the shape of your body type and create the illusion of a much leaner and sexier body!
  • You strip all the fat revealing killer definition.  Mountains of research have shown MRT workouts to be effective at burning a substantial amount of calories during the workout and for up to 48 HOURS AFTER the workout. Targeted MRT workouts achieve the same goal but stimulate your muscles at the same time so that you keep and even gain a few pounds of calorie-burning muscle to reveal killer definition in a few short weeks!


Conclusion

If you’re interested in trying out a science-based and strategically designed to build calorie-burning muscle and strip the fat in the same workout then check out Flavia Del Monte’s brand new CURVALICIOUS Body Sculpting System

By Flavia Del Monte, R.N., C.P.T., C.N

The Two Types of Muscle Tone and How to Really Tone Them

For years, women have been told that losing weight through diet and cardio was the way to look great in a bathing suit. The result was a lot of women who were thin but flabby and without the shape, definition and curves they were hoping would magically appear through fat loss alone.

Now, women, and the media that informs them, are finally beginning to understand that weight-training is the real answer to a sleek, strong, sexy body. Yet there are still so many misconceptions and so much misinformation about how to use weight training to get that body.

You Have to Know What You’re Working with before You Can Work It!
The last thing you want to do is to walk into the gym without a thorough understanding of the two types of muscle, how they’re stimulated and shaped and what each of them does for your appearance. Wandering from machine to machine, trying a little of this and a few of those is not going to get you the body you desire. However, that body is more attainable than you probably think. Once you understand the composition of your muscles and how to reshape them, you’ll be able to go into the gym (or even into your home workout space) and actually redesign your body very quickly.



The Two Types of Muscle Tone – Myogenic and Neurogenic
There are two types of muscle tone in your body and they determine how your muscles look at rest and how your muscles look when they’re being flexed or worked. Here’s a really simple visual illustration: Your arm hanging loose as you prepare to lift a weight = myogenic muscle tone.

Your arm as your curl a dumbbell toward your body = neurogenic muscle tone.

Myogenic tone determines how your muscles look when they are at rest.
Basically, it’s the residual tension in your muscles and is based on the
density of your muscles. It’s a permanent change in your muscles that is there even while you’re lying still on a beach towel or curled up reading a book. The density of your muscles is affected by stimulating the contractile proteins actin and myosin, with moderately heavy weights and relatively low reps, between 8-15 reps to be more specific.

Neurogenic muscle tone determines how your muscles look when they are working. By “working”, I mean anything from reaching for your child to running up a flight of stairs. Neurogenic muscle tone determines how hard and defined your muscles look during movement.  You change your neurogenic muscle tone with heavy weight/low rep exercises. (By low reps, I mean between 3-7 reps per exercise.)

This type of program works by improving the efficiency of your CNS or central nervous system. Specifically, it increases the sensitivity of the gamma and alpha motor neurons.

Why Working with Heavy Weights is the Way to Real Muscle Toning
In other words, that waist to hip ratio that gives you a sexy, hourglass shape and that full, round tight butt are the result of myogenic muscle toning and those defined arms and diamond-shaped calves you want to see when you’re lifting something or walking are the result of neurogenic muscle toning. As you can see, you want both.

Working with heavy weights actually improves both myogenic and neurogenic muscle tone. It increases the density of your muscles (which is what gives your body its actual shape) through hypertrophy (growth) and increases the sensitivity of the gamma and alpha motor neurons to give your individual muscles that hard, defined tone you’re looking for.


You’ll be happy to know that you don’t have to deadlift 200 pounds to do this, nor do you have to spend a lot more time in the gym. Working out with heavier weights and lower reps achieves so much more than endless low-weight/high-rep routines and in much less time.

Burn Fat While You’re Building Muscle and Redesign Your Body
Now, some of you are probably thinking that you need to work on losing body fat first, before you can think about building muscle. Let me explain why that thinking is a little bit backwards.

Adding lean muscle to your body actually helps you to lose fat faster and it does this in a few ways. First, it boosts your metabolism, helping you to burn more calories throughout the day. Second, it helps regulate certain fat-burning and fat-storing hormones in your body so that you can lose stored body fat. Third, weight training to the point of muscle fatigue with heavier weights will actually cause your metabolism to burn even more calories for as many as 48 hours after you work out.

Building Muscle Increases Your Calorie Deficit
You’ve probably heard that your base metabolic rate is based on how much you weigh, but that’s only partly true. It’s also based on your body’s composition, which is the ratio of muscle to fat.  A woman who weighs 120 pounds with 22% body fat does not burn calories at the same rate as a woman who weighs 120 pounds but has only 18% body fat. Muscle tissue burns calories; fat tissue does not. The more muscle tissue you have, the more calories you need each day. This makes it much easier to lose stored fat through a calorie deficit, without having to cut your intake so low that you’re starving and fatigued.

Building Muscle Regulates the Hormones that Burn or Store Fat
Adding lean muscle to your body also helps to regulate and balance several hormones that either store or burn the fat you now have. In particular, increasing lean muscle tissue helps to regulate insulin secretion by making your body’s cells more sensitive to that insulin. Insulin is a fat storage hormone. It’s next to impossible to lose stored body fat if you are insulin resistant, because the presence of insulin in your bloodstream actually stimulates fat storage. This is true even if you’re eating a strict diet.

One of insulin’s main jobs is to transport glycogen through the phospholipid layer of your muscle cells’ membranes so that it can be burned as energy.

The less sensitive to insulin that those cells are, the less glycogen they can absorb. That leftover glycogen is then turned back into glucose and stored as fat, particularly around your tummy. This is why metabolic syndrome (insulin insensitivity) is marked by excess belly fat.

The more muscle you have and the more you work that muscle, the more glycogen your body can absorb and burn and the less fat you store. Not only that, but as your sensitivity to insulin increases, the amount of insulin you need to transport glycogen decreases. Less insulin in your bloodstream will then actually stimulate your body to start burning off that stubborn fat you already have stored. In essence, building muscle turns your body into a fat-burning factory.



Training to Fatigue Burns Calories Long After Your Workout
The old school of thought on weight training for women was to work out for long periods with low weights and high reps. This method may burn more calories during your workout than a much shorter, heavy weight/low rep routine, but once you’re done working out, you’re also done burning calories. This is because it demands very little of your muscles and doesn’t result in muscle fatigue.

Training with heavy weights and low reps doesn’t burn as many calories because it takes a much shorter time to complete your workout. However, it does get your muscles to the point of fatigue, which results not only in muscle growth (hypertrophy) but also increased oxygen uptake after your workout. This means that your body is burning calories at a higher rate throughout the rest of the day and for as long as 48 hours after you leave the gym. In other words, you burn far more calories in the long term, even while you’re relaxing or sleeping.

The Real Way to a Lean, Sexy Body
If you really want to transform your body in the shortest period of time and with the most dramatic results, you need to lose fat and build muscle simultaneously. You also need to stop focusing on how much you weigh.

It’s not how much you weigh that determines how you look; it’s how much fat and muscle make up that weight. In fact, you could end up gaining weight when all is said and done, but look a thousand times better. This is because muscle tissue weighs more than fat tissue, but takes up much less space because of its density. Let me give you an illustration.

Imagine filling a plastic bag with one pound of rocks and then twisting it tightly shut. That plastic bag will fit easily into the palm of your hand. Now imagine filling a plastic bag with one pound of Styrofoam packing peanuts.
You might not be able to wrap your arms around it! This is why a woman who stands 5’4 and weighs 115 pounds with 16% body fat is rocking those skinny jeans while another woman of the same height and weight but 26% body fat is hiding her body in sweatpants. A pound is not a pound, ladies.

If you focus on burning fat through interval cardio and building lean muscle tissue (both myogenic and neurogenic) through heavy weight/low rep training, you’ll get that lean, curvy, sexy body you’re looking for, without starving yourself and without working out for hours on end every day.


Eat more, work less; look incredible. How great a deal is that?

By Flavia Del Monte, R.N., C.P.T., C.N.


 

The Truth About Toning!

Do you feel it’s time to take your workout results from ordinary to extraordinary?  Want to learn what it really takes to develop toned, defined and sexy curves?

It unfortunate to see how many females who fear muscle and end up detouring their progress in what should be a relatively easy goals, “toning”.

I’ve always found it ironic when I read fitness magazines or hear trainers tell females you can’t build big muscles because you don’t produce as much testosterone as a man (which is true) and then paradoxically say to just use low weight and high reps!

Why would it matter if a female lifts heavy weights and low reps if she doesn’t have the hormones to produce big muscles? Why do “fitness experts” contradict themselves and perpetuate myths? Perhaps they are scared to prescribe heavy weights and low reps because they are misinformed on “toning”?

Here’s what females must understand about toning if they ever want TRULY toned, defined and sexy curves:

Relying on low weight and high repsresults in spending years trying to achieve

what a few months of heavier weight and low reps could potentially bring if the weights were progressed up at a gradual level!

The entire, “Drop the weights and go for a burn…” advice is complete nonsense! Here’s why:
There are two types of muscle tone.


Myogenic muscle tone and neurogenic muscle tone. You need both for a sexy,hard and defined looking body. 

Myogenic tone can be defined as residual tension in a resting muscle. What this really means is how hard, full and dense your muscles are when you are at rest.  An increase in myogenic tone is a permanent increase in the appearance of your muscles. Myogenic tone is affected by the density of your muscles and is improved by stimulation of the contractile proteins using a heavy load and low rep training workouts. [i.e. reps in the 8-12 and 13+ range]

Neurogenic tone refers to the level of tension in a muscle in a working or flexed state. That is how “hard” a muscle is when you are training it or just flexing it.  It refers to muscle tone that is expressed when movements occur (like when you extend your arms to point). Neurogenic tone is improved due to the effect lower rep training [i.e. less than 7 reps] has on improving the efficiency of your central nervous system.
Heavy weight training for women increases your myogenic tone through the hypertrophy (growth) of the contractile proteins myosin and actin (myosin and actin are by far the most dense components of skeletal muscle).

Lower rep training with heavier weights is by far the best way to get a lean, defined and tight body. This type of training will increase the sensitivity of alpha and gamma motor neurons, thus increasing neurogenic tone when conducting even the simplest of movements (i.e. walking, extending your arm to point, etc).
Training with heavy weights improves both myogenic and neurogenic tone.  When a body is stripped of much of its fat, muscle density and hardness go a long way to enhancing the attractiveness of one’s physique!  If your goal is to have a lean, sexy and defined looking body, then incorporating training with heavy weights and low reps is the next (and best) step to set yourself up for an amazing body.

Need proof?
Have you ever seen a women in the gym or in a magazine with defined arms?  Toned shoulders?  Sculpted calves?  Trim thighs?  The way their bodies are sleek and curved is easy to achieve once you drop the “drop the weights and go for the burn” nonsense and begin working out with some heavier weights and lower reps -- this is the best way to lean, hard and strong, but not big!  As long as you manage your calories, there is no fear in getting big.

Now that you can see a difference between myogenic tone and neurogenic tone it’s time to use this information to go from ordinary to extraordinary or Curveless to Curvalicious!


To read about 4 “toning” myths that must die and what’s really holding you back from toned, defined and sexy curves, check out Flavia Del Monte’s CURVALICIOUSBody Sculpting System.

By Flavia Del Monte, C.P.T. C.N. R.N.
& CURVALICIOUS


9 Reasons Women Should Not Be Scared Of Gaining Muscle

Fit girls
I am a huge advocate for gaining muscle. I love the way it looks on a female. For years I wanted people to notice that I worked out. Finally, after losing enough fat off my entire body, my muscle definition became visible and people noticed!

Muscle is not just aesthetically pleasing, it is EXTREMELY important for a myriad of health benefits.

Here are nine reasons women should not be afraid of gaining muscle:

  1. Muscle helps you live longer! According to Tufts University, the more muscle mass you have, the greater your longevity potential.  Muscle is the number one biomarker for longevity. It is a better predictor than total cholesterol or blood pressure!
  2. The more muscle you have the more calories you burn at rest. It is estimated that for every pound of muscle you gain you burn an extra 50 calories a day. Add 5 pounds of muscle and you’ll burn an extra 1,750 calories a week! That’s the equivalent of going on the treadmill five times a week for 40 minutes!
  3. Muscle makes life and everyday activities easier. The more muscle you have, the more strength you have. Researchers at Tufts University determined that strength is the number two predictor for longevity!
  4. Muscle improves body composition. According to world renowned strength coach Charles Poliquin, for every kilo of lean muscle that was gained, there was an equal loss of weight in body fat! Look at this way, if gained 4 kg of muscle during a 12 week program, in the same 12 weeks you would drop 4 kg of fat! So if you started at 20% body fat and 60 kg of bodyweight, your body fat would now be 13%! These body composition changes will make you look absolutely amazing and feel very empowered.
  5. Muscle empowers women because of the new sense of strength and power that muscle gives!
  6. The more muscle you have the more insulin receptor sites you have, and the more sensitive they will be. This means it’s easier to stay leaner and keep the fat off!
  7. Muscle builds stronger bones, preventing osteoporosis.
  8. Muscle improves flexibility and balance
  9. Muscle can improve the postural muscles to enhance your posture.

And most importantly, muscle makes you look great naked! Want a sexier butt? Add some muscle, strip the fat and VOILA! Want your waist to look tinier? Shape your shoulders and WOW! Want to make your legs look longer? Strip some fat and add some muscle and SHAZAM!
Now that you understand why women should not be scared of gaining muscle, here is what you need to know about muscle tissue. It can do one of two things:

            1.         Grow larger and/or stronger
            2.         Shrink and/or get weaker

So how do you gain lean, sexy and hard looking muscle safely?

If you want to be toned, sexy and defined curves, don’t be afraid of training with weights
Which one you want To Be?

A desirable female physique is one that can only be achieved by moving some serious iron in the weight room! But what about all the talk about weight training making women big and bulky? First, it is physiologically impossible for you as a woman to put on large amounts of muscle mass; you're body's hormonal makeup is not one that will allow you to do so. God never intended for women to look like men (go figure), so he made the chemistry of each gender's respective bodies different. Regardless of how you train, how often you train, how much protein you eat, etc, you're not going to even come close to the big, bulky physique of a female bodybuilder. It will not happen. That look is only obtainable by one means: steroids. Because their natural hormonal profiles would never allow them to get that "big," they resort to changing their body's chemistry through the use of illegal drugs. Secondly, if the right training method is chosen, the hypertrophic (growth) response to resistance training can be even further reduced. This brings us to our next point.
If you want to be toned, sexy and defined curves, you should train HEAVY with weights.
Training with heavy loads and low volume (sets x reps) is the best way to get hard and strong, but not big. Muscular hypertrophy is generally a response to a high volume work output; therefore, by keeping the sets and reps low with heavy training, you wont have to fear getting overly big (this really isn't even an issue due to the physiological reasons mentioned earlier). Why then is it commonly recommended that women train with lighter loads? Well, there are a couple reasons. First, there is the typical stereotype that women are weak, fragile creatures who can't handle anything more than pushups on their knees and bicep curls with pink dumbbells.

Give me a break. Secondly, the belief that high-rep training increases muscle tone is 100% myth.
Losing fat is the only thing that can reveal the status of your “tone” and high rep training does very little for improving your “tone”.

If you want to be toned, sexy and defined curves, you should train with compound, multi-joint movements.

If you want to sport a hard body, you better start training heavy. Big, compound movements such as the deadlift, squats ,presses, chin ups and rows are superior to machine, isolation-type movements for toning up your thighs, butt and upper body as they allow you to use challenging weight while training a number of muscle groups simultaneously. Another benefit obtained by performing multi-joint compound movements is increased confidence. With strength comes confidence.
Getting skinny and soft is the easiest task in the world - starve yourself and avoid weights. But once you stop starving yourself all the weight will come right back and you’ll be fat and soft. Not exactly what we want!

Instead, tapering your calories down gradually (without doing anything extreme), while adding metabolic resistance training workouts to strip the fat to reveal your muscle tone and adding heavier weights and lower reps will help you reveal a sexier, athletic and fit body!
What is sexier to you, fit and athletic, or skinny and weak?  If you want the fit and athletic look then 

By Flavia Del Monte & www-CurvaliciousWorkout-com
visit my website for my complete Curvalicious Body Sculpting System.


  

5 “Toning” & Female Weight Training Myths That Must Die

Myth #1 - Toning is not “firming up the muscle”
The Facts: Muscle is already firm. There is no such thing as a soft flabby muscle only soft flabby fat.  Muscles do not go from soft to hard or hard to soft - they shrink, grow or stay the same size.

Muscles can get weaker or stronger. Muscles themselves do not “firm-up” or “tone”.   There is no such thing as a “toning exercise” and your abdominals don’t tone themselves by doing 100 crunches!

Myth #2 - Toning is not a result of just burning fat
The Facts: Toning is in fact a two-step process.  Burn fat and add lean muscle.  All the healthy bodies you find attractive are shaped by muscle and covered by a healthy layer of fat that smoothes it out to a shapely appearance.  You must dedicate a phase of your year to gain 3-5 pounds of lean muscle so your butt looks round, your legs look trim and your shoulders and arms are sculpted.  Plus, adding just one pound of calorie-burning muscle revs up your daily metabolic rate.  For every pound of muscle you add you’ll burn an extra 50 calories a day or 250 calories a week or 91,250 calories a year!  You need to burn about 3500 calories to lose one pound so just one pound of new muscle can help you keep off 26 pounds of fat a year! That’s insane and now you know why females who lift weights have an easier time staying lean! In a moment I’ll show you how to gain muscle…

Myth #3 - Toning is not a result of just adding lean muscle
Female Weight Training Myths
The Facts: Again, toning is a two-step process.  Add lean muscle and burn fat.  Don’t be fooled into thinking that by just adding 3-5 pounds of lean muscle, you’ll never have to watch your diet again. Muscle certainly increases your metabolic rate to help you maintain your weight but you need TRUE metabolic workouts that have a huge AFTERBURN and calorie burn or else you’ll never have the muscle definition underneath the layer of fat! Once the fat is removed and you’ve added some muscle, you’ll find it much easier to maintain your lean physique.

Myth #4 - Toning is a result of low weight, high reps and lots of bodyweight exercises.
The Facts:  Somehow the media has convinced you that if we just do bodyweight exercises or light weights for high reps, your muscles will magically take on a beautiful shape without growing or bulging. 

Training with light weight, higher reps and primarily bodyweight exercises is not wrong but you must understand it results in myogenic muscle tone, which is not the muscle tone that results in killer definition andcurvy body parts.



Myth #5 - Heavy weights will make you look “bulky”.
The Facts:  Eating too much food will make you look bulky! Your muscles grow on calories so as long as you manage your calories, you’ll manage your weight and shape.

Again, the media has detoured your progress by having you believe that if you challenge yourself with moderately heavy weights, your body will take on a bulky and unfeminine appearance.  If you believe this, you probably still believe in the Easter Bunny & Santa Claus!

Women need to trust that building minimal amounts of lean muscle speeds your metabolism, burns fat and the most important factor to having a shapely body.  Muscle is what gives the shape to your body!

Plus, most women don’t produce enough testosterone to bulk up from a few gym sessions a week. God didn’t intend women to look like men (go figure), so he made the chemistry of each gender’s respective bodies different.  (Can I get an amen?) In fact, most women produce 10-30 TIMES less testosterone than men and most men have a hard time bulking up! A big, bulky body is only attainable via one means: steroids.

Women must also trust that getting bulking doesn’t just happen by accident.  You have a better chance of winning the lottery than bulking up overnight.
And lastly, gaining lean muscle does not require you to gain fat. That’s simply not true. It’s possible to gain lean muscle without putting on additional fat weight and I’m about to show exactly how to do that in a sec!

To read more about Flavia Del Monte CURVALICIOUS Body Sculpting System, go to her Official website Here.

By Flavia Del Monte, R.N., C.P.T., C.N.