Why Cardio Alone Doesn’t Work

Have you ever heard someone referred to as a skinny fat person? Maybe you’ve seen someone who fits that description. A skinny fat person is someone who is not fat in the typical sense of being large in size, instead this person is small framed yet has no muscle tone. These skinny fat people believe that pounding away on a treadmill, or doing the elliptical for hours a day will get them the dream body they’ve been searching for, but have probably never picked up a weight in their life. Cardio certainly has it’s place in every fitness program but it should be a part of a balanced program including cardio, strength training, and a healthy diet.

The key to losing body fat and keeping it off is strength training. Lean muscle is the driving force behind your metabolism and the only way to increase your metabolism or burn more calories at rest, is to increase lean muscle through strength training. For the women that are afraid to get “too bulky” from strength training that is simply a myth. When most people think of strength training and the results it yields, they think of the heavily muscled bodybuilders that plaster the covers of magazines such as Muscle and Fitness. The models that grace the covers of those magazines are simply models who are hired to sell magazines and not a realistic result of someone who strength trains a few times a week to get healthy. So in order to truly rev up your metabolism and get rid of body fat once and for all, hit the weights!

The Truth Behind Your Scale!
Your Scale Doesn’t Tell the Whole Story

When it comes to weight loss, the scale can be a good measure of progress, particularly if you have a lot of weight to lose. But if you place too much emphasis on your weight and not enough on your body composition (the ratio of fat to lean muscle), you’re only getting half the story. Plus, dreading your weigh-in or obsessing over the number on the scale is unproductive and can lead to unhealthy behaviors such as bingeing or starving yourself. Losing pounds doesn’t always mean losing fat. Here’s why the scale can be misleading.

· The scale doesn’t tell you how much fat you have. Your scale does exactly what it’s supposed to—it tells you how much you weigh. But in addition to measuring your weight, the scale weighs bone, water, muscle, organs, and undigested food. When the number on the scale goes up or down, it doesn’t represent only fat loss or muscle gain. It measures fluctuations in glycogen (stored carbohydrates) and water, and it even measures how much that breakfast you ate weighs.

You may wonder about scales that claim to measure your body fat. These send small electrical currents up one leg, through your pelvis, and down the other leg to determine your body’s density. Then a formula is used to estimate your body fat. The problem with these scales is that they’re notoriously inaccurate. However, they are usually consistent in their readings, so they can be helpful as a measuring tool. Even though the body fat reading might be off by as much as 5 or 10 percent, if the number trends downward over time, you know you’re on the right track.

· The scale can’t tell if you’ve gained muscle. A pound of muscle is like a brick, small and compact. A pound of fat is like a fluffy feather pillow, bulky and lumpy. When you gain muscle and lose fat, your body gets smaller and tighter. Building muscle also makes it possible to drop clothing sizes without a big change in weight. Perhaps after a 90-day fitness program, the scale says you lost 7 pounds, which may not sound like much. But what if you actually lost 12 pounds of fat and gained 5 pounds of muscle? That’s a remarkable improvement in your body composition, but you wouldn’t know it if you only used your regular bathroom scale to track your progress.

· You didn’t really gain 5 pounds of fat overnight. You may step on the scale one morning and shriek in disbelief because the number is five digits higher than it was the day before. Stop panicking. Unless you ate an extra 17,500 calories the previous day, you didn’t gain fat (a pound of fat is equivalent to 3,500 calories). Your scale is registering water, stored carbohydrates, and food. Also, cheap bathroom scales may have measurement errors, giving slightly different readings even when you’re at exactly the same weight.

· Your body’s water levels are constantly changing. The scale can move up or down depending on how much water you drink, how much salt you consume, how much you sweat, and how many carbohydrates you eat. An average person can see a daily fluctuation in water weight of about 2 pounds, without any changes to diet or exercise habits. These fluctuations do not signify fat loss, and watching the scale move up and down every day can be frustrating for many dieters.

If you’re trying to achieve a healthy weight and improve the way you look, you should focus less on what the scale says and more on developing the good habits that will produce results. To get lean and strong, with low body fat and nice muscle tone, there are three things you should do:

1.  Resistance training. Cardio workouts raise your heart rate to help you improve your fitness level, burn calories, and shed fat. Resistance training builds muscle, which boosts your metabolism and helps you burn even more calories.

2.  Healthy diet. No matter how much you exercise, you’ll never reach your fat-loss goals if you don’t follow a healthy diet consisting of protein, vegetables, and fruit. The right foods in controlled portions will fuel your body as it shrinks.

3.  Track your progress. If you don’t use the scale, you need to do something else to check your progress.

· One of the best ways to keep track of your changing body is to use a tape measure. Record your chest, waist, hip, thigh, arm, and wrist measurements in a journal. Update the measurements every 30 days to see how your body changes.

· Pictures are also good indicators of progress. Have someone take front, side, and back photos of you every 30 days and keep these with your body measurements.

· Body fat testers can also be used regularly to track your fat loss. Monitoring your progress with tools other than the scale will give you a more realistic assessment of your weight loss success

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· Notice how your clothes fit. This is a foolproof way to prove that you’re losing weight. If your clothes are getting looser, your body is shrinking, even if you don’t see a big change in the mirror yet.

Too many people are slaves to the scale. They can’t resist weighing themselves, only to feel guilty, angry, or demoralized when the numbers don’t move down quickly enough. If you’re one of those people whose weigh-ins lead to loss of motivation or a feeling of helplessness, then you need to reconsider using the scale for your progress checks. Success is more than just a number!

Weight Loss – What Successful People Do That The Others Don’t

A while back I asked my readers what they wanted to know about fitness.  I wanted to know what people needed to know to help them lose weight and achieve their fitness goals.

While I did get a good amount of responses asking specific questions, the overwhelming amount of readers informed me that they have a decent idea of what to do to reach their goals they just don’t do it.  They try for a while and quit or never start at all.

I realized that people asking the specific questions where the ones who were having the best results and the ones who were struggling where searching for motivation.

So what’s the difference between people who succeed and those who have a hard time? In the process of training hundreds of people over the years, I’ve noticed what successful clients do that the others don’t.  Here are a few of the traits of successful clients

They Know What They Want

You have to know exactly what you are working for.  It’s very important to set a specific long term and short term goal that you are trying to achieve.  This is basic goal setting.  More on goal setting below.

They Know Why

Even more important that what, is why.  Knowing why is what keeps you motivated.  You have to a have a reason and acknowledge your reasons to yourself.  Real reasons, not why people or books tell you should be fit, but the real reason you want it.

You have to want to do something to stick with it.  Why do you want to workout and eat right?  You probably don’t.  You just want what comes from eating right and exercise.  That is your reason for doing it.  The payoff is much more rewarding than the work.

 

They Are In It Long Term

Long term weight loss takes long term effort.  You can’t expect to rip off weight fast and keep it off.  You gained it slow you have to lose it slow.  It’s also important to know that you have to have a nutrition plan you can stick to for life and you have to cheat! Eat right 90% of the time and exercise consistently and you will have great results.  Just know that you have to do this for life and get out of the mindset that you can keep going up and down the roller coaster.  It doesn’t work.  Invest in yourself and invest in fitness for life.

They Have Confidence They Can and Don’t Make Excuses

Most people fail because deep inside they think they will fail.  Guess what?  The people who have had success aren’t anymore special than you.  Genetics aren’t making you fat, the man isn’t holding you down, you do have time to exercise, and no one is shoving food down your face.

Anyone can have great results.  You are a smart and special person who can figure this out and stick to it.  Think of all the things you have done in the past that you thought you couldn’t do.  Even as simple as riding a bike.  It seemed so hard at one time, but now its second nature.  Eating healthy and consistent exercise can be second nature just like riding the bike.  You just have to practice and not give up.

They Have A Step By Step Plan

You have to have a plan and you have to write it down.  It doesn’t have to be much, but at least write down the following:

Long term goal

Why you want it

Steps you will take to achieve it

Potential Obstacles

Solutions to Obstacles

3 short term actions to help you achieve it

How you will reward yourself when you do achieve it

Mapping out those things will give you a conscious plan of what you want and why you are working for it.  You have to remember why you want this when those times of temptation hit.

In summary, there are really two major traits of the people who achieve success that can be summed up in one sentence.  People who achieve success in fitness want it bad and remember they want it bad at all times.

Do you want it bad?  Why?  What are you going to do about it?