If you use any standard cardio machines, such as the treadmill, bike, cross trainer, etc, you will know they provide you with a lot of information. They will tell you how many calories you have burnt, as well as what ‘heart rate zone’ you need to be in to burn fat most effectively. But what if the information it gave you wasn’t accurate?!

The ‘Fat Burning Zone’ is something cardio machines love to show off about. Many of them have diagrams (like the one above) showing what heart rate zone you need to be to burn fat most effectively.

It obviously depends on your age as to the exact figures. They may say your fat burning zone is between 120-140 beats per minute. And your ‘cardio’ zone is 150 beats per minute and above.

In my mind, the fact these companies can get away with providing people with this kind of information is scandalous. Honestly the ‘fat burning zones’ they talk about are such rubbish and lead people into doing ineffective workouts.

This issue really is amazingly straightforward. The harder you work and the higher you push your heart rate the more fat your body will burn. This idea of working at a lower intensity to burn fat is utter rubbish.

Ideally you would use interval training to achieve this ‘elevated heart rate’ but even if you are going for a run of a set disatnce, the faster you do it, the more fat you will burn.

And the danger zone on the chart above should only be used if you are a beginner to exercise. If you are an experieneced exerciser, you can definitely push yourself beyond the levels in the chart.

Today’s Takeaway – Forget this idea of low intensity training for fat burning. Your optimal fat burning zone is as hard as you can work!

GI, which stands for ‘glycemic index,’ is an area that creates a quite a lot of confusion. Should you eat low GI all the time? If you do so will it make you thin? Does it actually make any difference? All will be revealed…

The glycemic index basically categorizes foods by the amount that they increase your blood sugar level.  The more the food increases your blood sugar levels the higher the GI value will be.

The general idea is that you want you blood sugar levels to stay as constant as possible as, amongst other reasons, it will stop you getting cravings and hungry when your blood sugar levels drop back down.

Examples of high GI Foods include; white bread, white pasta, most cereals, ice cream.

Examples of low GI foods include;  most vegetables, most fruits, beans, unrefined grains.

So from this you would assume that Low GI = Good and High GI = Bad. Well if in doubt, that’s not a bad rule to follow. The majority of fatty refined foods are high GI, and the majority of unrefined, healthy foods are low GI.

However the problems are (a) high GI is not bad in itself, and (b) there are many exceptions to this rule.

Two foods that are undoubtedly ‘healthy’ but have a high GI are cooked carrots and bananas. Eating these 2 foods will not make you fat, so please don’t stop eating them.

Cooked carrots and bananas provide many vital nutrients to the body, and would never be consumed in a great enough quantity to drastically affect you blood sugar levels.

You… Read more->

The vast majority of people that do cardio have no idea what they are doing. Sad, but true. I’m not trying to make anyone feel bad about themselves, but very rarely do I come across someone doing what I consider to be ‘smart cardio.’ Find out what that is below…

Firstly let’s just clairfy what ‘bad cardio’ is. This is when you go jogging, swimming, cycling or whatever else, and plod along at a comfortable pace for 20/30/60 minutes.

But i’m still burning fat by doing that right? Well, barely. Doing this ‘bad cardio’ is a monumental waste of your time and the sooner you get out of the habit of it, the better.

Tweaking your ‘bad cardio’ into ‘smart cardio’ can generate some amazing fat loss results. I am going to give some examples of what you should be doing;

1/ Jogging. This can be done whatever you fitness level. Jog slowly/power walk for 2 minutes followed by a 30 seconds jog/quick run.

2/ Swimming. Do 8 lengths breaststroke followed by 2 lengths fast front crawl. Don’t worry if your front crawl isn’t very good, it doesn’t matter. I splash around all over the place doing front crawl but I get the desired result – i.e. being out of breath at the end of it.

3/ Cycling – Put bike on a comfortable level for 2 minutes, then put the resistance right up for 30 seconds and try to maintain the same speed you were doing before.

I’m sure you begin to get the idea. The key, whatever you are doing work as hard as you can during the interval periods. It is here where you are generating the fantastic fat loss results.

Today’s Takeaway – Bin the bad cardio and take up ‘smart cardio.’ The results will speak for themselves.

Flat abs, toned stomach, fat-free belly, whatever you want to call it, is the most sought after ‘desire’ in health and fitness. Unfortunately 99% of people totally misunderstand what is required to get flat abs. So is it any wonder they don’t achieve their goal? Find out what is standing in your way -TODAY!

There are 3 stages in learning what it takes to get flat abs. Well 3 exercise stages anyway, the nutritional stages are for another time.

1/ Accepting that sit-ups/crunches are not the answer. Unfortunately so many people still fall at this hurdle. Seriously, if you can show me someone who has succeeded with fat loss by doing cunches and not a lot else then I will eat my hat! Otherwise please don’t go down that road it just won’t work!

2/ Accepting that sit-ups and deep core work alone are not the answer. Okay so this is better than stage 1. At least in this stage you are working and strengthening those deep core muscles which is essential if you want flat abs. But this is still not enough!

3/ Accepting that total body, metabolism boosting exercises are the answer for the flat abs you desire. I know it’s hard for most people to accept, but it’s true, doing stomach exercises is actually the least important part of your routine. As long as you do sufficient ab work, say 10 minutes 3 times a week, your core/abs will be plenty strong enough. You must do total body exercises such as squats, deadlifts, clean and press, 1 arm swings, etc to reduce your body fat to the necessary level.

Today’s Takeaway – You must focus more on total body exercises for a flat stomach and less on ab specific exercises.