Weight Loss - What Works and What Doesn't

If you've been trying to lose some weight with no luck so far, you may want to review your weight loss approach. There are a lot of tips on the internet but most of them are not anything near helpful.

Today I'm going to bust some myths and list some tips on weight loss and hopefully that would help you lose that stupid stubborn fat in your belly.

First of all, you may need some science behind this whole thing: why you get fat.

I would recommend you watch this article.

TL;DR; 
Your body need a balance in blood sugar to keep your body function.
When sugar in your blood gets high, your body release insulin. And when fat cells see insulin, they turn sugar into fat and store in their cells. When sugar in blood decrease, insulin goes away and when fat cells see that insulin disappears, they release fat and turn fat into sugar so that your body has enough energy to function. That way, your blood sugar is always balance.
When you eat too much sugar, your body release more and more insulin to tell fat cells to store sugar as fat as fast as possible. After a while, fat cells keep seeing a lot of insulin and begin to think that there's something wrong with insulin and refuse to react with insulin. When this happens, your body has no other way to do than to keep releasing more insulin, and the fat cells become even more deaf to insulin.Now what will happen is that there will always be insulin in your blood, which doesn't let fat cells release fat anymore.
And BAM, you've got fat.

Now that you know the science, you would easily understand why the tips below would work or wouldn't work.

What don't work:

1. Training your abs will give you six-packs

This is the most well-known myth on the internet. Training your abs will surely give you abs muscle. But to make those muscle visible, you must first lose all those belly fat that is covering your abs muscle underneath. Moreover, the belly fat won't melt away if you target your training on the abs. The belly fat will melt away when your whole body fat reduce. And your abs will be visible when your body fat reaches 12% or below.

2. Cardio only will make you lose weight

While cardio will burn you a lot of energy in that one hour training session, your muscle will burn your energy in the rest of the day. When you target on cardio and not your muscles building, your muscles get smaller, and hence burn way less energy during the day, which leads to buring less energy in total. Therefore, muscles training does affect weightloss. I've seen a lot of body builder do zero cardio training and still have six-packs

What work:

1. Try to reduce on sugar/carbohydrates as much as possible

While there's maybe some arguments on this, I personally see that cutting down on sugar as much as possible is the way to go. People may think that we need some sugar so that the body can function. But I myself find out that during the day, sometimes I can't fight the temptation to consume some dessert so I would cut down as much as I can on the main diet so that those occasional dessert wouldn't raise the carbohydrate too high.

2. Do muscles training

As stated above, big muscles lead to more fat burning. So don't depend on cardio only, but also pay muscles building the attention it needs.


Final words, by understanding how you get fat, you know how you can lose them scientifically.

If you have any tips or any thoughts on the article, let us know in the comment.

Cheers!

Fastest Way to Burn Fat (LITERALLY!!)

Burn fat and build muscle in 6 weeks without equipment
http://athleanx.com/x/bodyweight-work-out-plan

If you want to burn fat fast or know the fastest way to burn fat to get ripped you better stop looking in the gym. The best exercise for burning fat is one you can do with your own bodyweight with no need for any equipment at all. The answer is sprinting. Not only is sprinting one of the most athletic exercises you can do with your body, but it represents an overloaded version of the more traditional jogging done for conditioning.

A lot of times, traditional cardiovascular training is done for a long period of time at a low intensity. This (especially when combined with caloric restriction) can cost you lean muscular development albeit while helping you to burn fat. If you want the best of all worlds, you would emphasize high intensity conditioning exercises while losing fat if you want to build muscle at the same time.

Sprinting serves all of these purposes. Not only can you overload the intensity quickly, but because you can you can keep your workouts brief. My typical sprinting workout may only last 10 to 15 minutes. That’s because I don’t waste time in between sprints. I pick a slight uphill slope and aim for a distance of 30 to 40 yards to sprint. 

Begin by performing a few jogs to warm up. Once warm, choose either 90 percent intensity runs or 100 percent. The lower intensity runs are meant to work your conditioning and fat burning while still paying attention to your form and improving your overall running form. If you want to instead maximize your all out caloric burn, you want to increase your effort to your fullest. Here you would sprint at 100 percent and perhaps let your form slide just a bit.

You can either jog back to the starting position and keep the pace feverishly high, or you can give yourself a slight break by performing something called a sprint, walk, jog. Here you would sprint up the hill, walk back half the distance and then jog back the final half distance back to the starting line. Here you would immediately turn around and move into your next sprint.

Running and sprinting are tremendous fat burning activities and have the benefit of requiring no equipment at all. If you are looking for a complete bodyweight workout plan that helps you to burn fat fast and build muscle at the same time, head to http://athleanx.com and get the ATHLEAN XERO program. In just 6 weeks, see what it’s like to build ripped athletic muscle with nothing but your own body.

For more bodyweight workouts to burn fat and exercises to burn body fat fast, be sure to subscribe to our channel here on youtube at http://youtube.com/user/jdcav24

Fat Burning Ab Workout (HOME VERSION!!)

In this video, Jeff Cavaliere is going to show to burn your abs at home, hitting the abs directly and indirectly at the same time.

Burn fat and get six pack abs without equipment
http://athleanx.com/x/fat-burning-bodyweight-plan

Some people think that fat burning workouts and ab workouts have to be done separately. That’s not the case. In this video, I show you a fat burning ab workout that you can do at home without anything more than a pullup bar that you hang in a doorway. Not only that, but because of the bodyweight exercises we choose in this workout, you’ll be able to create muscle overload in your upper and lower body and therefore build muscle with this as well.

To start, we will break down this ab workout into more than just abs. With an upper body push, upper body pull and legs component of this routine, you’ll be able to target all of the major muscle groups beyond just the abdominals. First up is the push portion of this home ab workout.

Begin with a set of spiderman pushups to failure. The key difference between this exercise and a more traditional pushup is the increased demand on the core muscles needed to perform it. With just three points of contact on the ground instead of four, you have more work required of your abs in order to perform this classic upper body exercise. 

As soon as you are done with your first set, proceed immediately into the pendulum plank exercise and perform it for your 45 second “rest” period. Obviously it would be nice to take an official rest but this is not in the cards in this routine, not if you want to burn fat that is. Keep doing this for 3 rounds and then you earn a quick breather until moving onto the next portion of the workout.

Here you move onto the upper body pull portion of this fat burning ab workout routine. The combo you perform here is the legs straight high pull pullup. This ab and back exercise isn’t easy, but the results are worth it. If you find this too easy for some reason, you would want to wear a weighted vest (as you could with the pushup as well if needed). 

Complete your set to failure and move right into the knee drive sit-ups. This six pack abs and oblique movement is the perfect compliment to the pullup since you can perform it on the floor right below the bar without skipping a beat. Once again, three sets of this combo without rest is what you need to do for this bodyweight routine.

Finally, we hit the legs with a bodyweight rolling squat. If this is too easy for you, either slap on a weighted vest of do a single leg version of this exercise. Of course, you can even do a weighted single leg version for an extreme challenge. Your abs rest period exercise is the hollow rock. You perform this for 45 seconds each time.

Complete your fat burning home abs workout by doing 5 minutes of jump rope or an equivalent exercise that will keep your heart pounding and your fat burning on high. This is just a sample of the type of workouts that we have in the ATHLEAN XERO bodyweight workout program. You can get a complete 6 weeks of no equipment workouts that burn fat and build muscle at http://athleanx.com with the Xero program.


For more fat burning ab workouts and workouts to get six pack abs while building muscle, be sure to subscribe to our channel here on youtube at http://youtube.com/user/jdcav24

Six Pack Workout | Obliques (26 REPS ONLY!)

In this video, Jeff Cavaliere is going to the only way you should ever train your abs if you want to get results. He's going to dig beneath the surface a little bit, put the science back in strength, and oh yes; he's breaking out the markers.

Get a new ab workout every single day with this program…
http://athleanx.com/x/new-ab-workout-every-day

In order to get a complete six pack and obliques, you have to train your core completely. In this video, I show you how to hit every major function of your abs, obliques and transverse abdominus muscles in order to maximally develop your core and have a visible six pack. Now obviously, no good core comes without a good nutrition plan. Be conscious of the foods you put in your mouth and you will start to see your abs and get rid of the overlying fat.

That said, all you have to do to understand the complete function of the core is to look at the direction of the fibers of each muscle that is found in it. To start, the rectus abdominus muscle runs vertically straight up and down. This makes the rectus a good muscle for producing the normal up and down motions of a crunch or standard leg raise. 

The obliques on the other hand, are angled muscles that run high to low and low to high. The external obliques are responsible for creating rotation and anti-rotation while the internal obliques rotate in the opposite direction while still helping to create stability and control of rotation. 

The transverse abdominus runs horizontally and acts as your own internal weight belt. The function of the transverse is to cinch down and provide internal support and stability of your waist while allowing your six pack abs to stand out without appearing too blocky due to having a thick waist.

Now you can either train each of these muscles independently through the use of different exercises or you can train all of these functions at once. We actually include complete ab workouts that take only six to eight minutes that hit all of the muscles and movements in your core. With new shuffled ab workouts every day, you’ll never do the same six pack abs workout twice.

The six pack abs workout shown in this video gives you a fast but tough option to train for a 6 pack. Spell out every letter of the alphabet with your knees during a hanging knee raise without taking a rest and your abs are in for a challenge. If you are super strong, try to make your way through the alphabet more than once. The key is really spelling out your letters and taking advantage of the multi planar elements of your ab exercises.

For a complete ab workout program while building a ripped athletic body with daily workouts and meal plans, be sure to head to http://athleanx.com and get the ATHLEAN-X Training System. Get ripped while developing an impressive six pack in the next 90 days.


For more ab workouts for six pack abs and exercises to get abs, be sure to subscribe to our channel here on youtube at http://youtube.com/user/jdcav24

Lower Pec Punishing Exercise (NO MORE SAGGY CHEST!)

In this video, Jeff Cavaliere is going to show you how to understand better the anatomy of the chest so you can start getting better result in specific areas of the chest - or at least trying to influence different areas of your chest.

Sculpt an impressive chest in the next 90 days here…
http://athleanx.com/x/chiseled-in-90-days

The pecs are actually separated into three distinct heads that divide the upper chest, lower chest and middle chest. The heads that accomplish this are the clavicular head at the top, the sternal head in the middle and the often overlooked abdominal head at the bottom of your chest. Through varying orientations of the upper arm, you can influence the fibers of each to a greater or lesser degree. In this video, I am going to show you how to better activate the lower chest by paying attention to the way you do your crossovers.

Cable crossovers are a popular exercise for sculpting a better and bigger chest. It is common to see people grab the handles from down below and lift up and across their chest to try and build a better lower chest. The problem is, this defies the anatomy of the pectoralis major. In order to influence the lower chest more than the upper chest you would actually want to do the opposite and start with your arm high and bring it low.

Here I demonstrate how the lower or abdominal portion of the pecs line up and how you can take advantage or their orientation to better activate them during adduction of the arm. Of course your pectorals contract all or none in the sternal portion of the pecs (the upper chest may actually have a slightly different contraction pattern due to the fact that it has a separate nerve innervation). That being said, because the upper arm position can be changed in all three dimensions, it is possible to provide some fibers with specific orientations, a better line of pull than others.

To hit the lower portion of your chest more you want to set up a cable station in a high position. This can easily be performed at home without elaborate equipment by simply attaching a resistance band to a pullup bar. Whatever you choose, you want to grab hold of the band or cable handle with one hand and step away from the machine. Here you want to rotate your shoulder externally by taking an underhand grip on the handle and making sure to let your shoulder roll back and down.

From here, you want to focus on the movement of the elbow as you try and bring it across your chest (into adduction) and head towards the top of your abdominals on that side. With the lower portion of the chest inserting into the aponeurosis of the abs and obliques you want to be sure to target this area as your end point or destination for your elbow if you want to get at that lower chest.

Feel the strong contraction of the lower portion of your chest and return the handle to the starting position slowly. Be sure to emphasize the strength and quality of each contraction rather than the number of reps that you are performing if you want to see better results from this lower chest exercise and get better lower pecs.

For a complete program on how to build an impressive middle, upper and lower chest while getting six pack abs and explosive legs, be sure to head to http://athleanx.com and learn how to start training like an athlete. Get the same exact program used by today’s top professional athletes from all major sports who want to get ripped, athletic bodies and perform at the top of their game.


For more videos on chest workouts and how to build the upper chest, be sure to subscribe to our channel here on youtube at http://youtube.com/user/jdcav24

How to get a BIGGER UPPER CHEST - The "Ultimate Chest Exercise"

In this video, Jeff Cavaliere is going to show you how we are going to combine muscle science and the way that chest functions to allow you to bump up your chest development.

More ways to get a bigger chest: http://athleanx.com/x/getthebestchest

Are you finding it hard to build a bigger upper chest? This is most likely because you are not using exercises that target how the chest actually works in your attempt to build it. The chest and the upper chest respond to more than just bench presses, pushups, dips and flys. In fact, in this video I'm going to show you a new way to train your chest to build it bigger and stronger with just a pair of dumbbells.

This chest exercise might be considered the ultimate chest exercise by some since it targets the main functions of the chest muscle. I'm talking about horizontal adduction and adduction of the shoulder, combined with the normal pressing action that you are familiar with. By combining elements of the guillotine press, we are also able to more effectively target the upper chest specifically by bringing the dumbbells closer to the neck (without endangering the shoulders or your own safety with a barbell near your neck!)

Learning how to get a bigger upper chest just takes a more scientific approach to your workouts. A true chest workout built around biomechanics will always win out over a chest workout that is based in bro science or the advice a local "weekend certification" personal trainer will give you.

When you're ready to build more than just a bigger chest, then head over to http://athleanx.com and put the science back in strength for good. Target your shoulders, legs, biceps, back and arms along with your chest as you carve out an athletic physique from head to toe.

For more than just the ultimate chest exercises and workouts be sure to check out our youtube channel at http://youtube.com/user/jdcav24

Build Huge Shoulders - All 3 Heads!! (FRONT, MIDDLE, REAR)

In this video, Jeff Cavaliere is going to break down the anatomy of the front, the side, and the rear delt to help you to decode and understand any exercise that you're doing, which area of the shoulder that you're actually targeting.

Build big, strong athletic shoulders with this complete workout
http://athleanx.com/x/get-cannonball-delts

If you want to get big shoulders and wider delts you have to make sure that you are doing exercises for all three heads. In this video, I show you not just what shoulder exercises you should use to hit each of the front, middle and rear deltoids but why you should choose them. There’s nothing like a set of wide thick shoulders to make a statement that you not only lift, but that you lift smart.

The front deltoids are the first area of attack in this workout. This muscle originates from the lateral third of the clavicle and inserts in the common area of the upper arm called the deltoid tuberosity. Based on the orientation of the muscle fibers of the anterior delt head, it makes sense that shoulder exercises that raise the arm to the front would preferentially influence this area. Things like the dumbbell front raise and even dumbbell shoulder press are commonly used to hit the front delt. 

That said, there is an even better way to hit this area of your shoulder if you look more closely at the orientation of the muscle. Check out the modified front cable raise that I show you here for an even better option to help you build huge shoulders much faster.

Moving around to the side delts, you can see that this head originates from the acromion. This little bump at the top of your shoulder can probably be felt if you run your fingers over the area. From here the fibers run pretty much laterally, down the side of your arm to insert in the same place as the front delt. This positioning allows this head to have more control over shoulder exercises that raise your arm out to the side. Included in this group are the popular side lateral raises or side dumbbell raises, and the less common dumbbell high pulls.

I even include a bodyweight only variation of the side lateral raise that helps those that are training at home and want a more effective way to build their side delts without equipment. You can find this and other bodyweight shoulder exercises in the popular ATHLEAN XERO program at http://athleanx.com

Finally, the rear delts are the most often overlooked of the three delt heads but no less important. In order to train your rear delts you need to include exercises that either extend the arm behind your body or take it into horizontal abduction. Exercises like seated rows or reverse flys are some of the best ways to target your rear deltoids. That said, the face pull may be one of the absolute best rear delt exercises and should make its way into any complete rear delt workout.

If you want to build huge shoulders at home or at the gym, you need to start training like an athlete. You can do that with the ATHLEAN-X Training System. Build wider, more powerful delts like today’s top professional athletes using the same exact workouts they are.


For more shoulder workout videos to get huge shoulders and wide delts be sure to subscribe to our channel here on youtube at http://youtube.com/user/jdcav24

Home Chest Exercises (UPPER, MID, LOWER CHEST!!)

In this video, Jeff Cavaliere is going to show you how to start hitting different areas of your chest with a home exersice.

Build your chest and rest of your body at home - no equipment
http://athleanx.com/x/sculpted-chest-without-equipment

Home chest exercises can often be seen as not as effective as their gym chest workout alternatives. That doesn’t have to be the case if you understand how the chest muscle works and how to position your body in space to take advantage of that. In this video, I show you home chest exercises that target each of the primary areas of the chest; upper, middle and lower chest.

If you look at the classic incline bench press, you will see that your upper arms are aligned not directly in front of your torso but at an angle upwards from that position. This shifts the focus to the clavicular fibers of the pecs and helps you to build a bigger upper chest. If you want to recreate this with a bodyweight chest exercise you can do at home you simply have to change the way you do normal pushups. By doing a decline push up, you will recreate the same position of your arms and therefore hit the same area of your chest.

The flat bench press is an exercise that targets the sternal fibers of your chest, more commonly known as the middle chest region. You can keep the upper arm oriented like this by doing a classic pushup exercise. The arm will follow the same path as it does on the bench press as it will on the pushup with feet flat on the floor.

Finally, to hit more of the lower chest and prevent that saggy chest and pecs, you want to perform incline pushups. The incline pushup angles your body upwards but your arms downwards (similar to the position they will be in when doing the decline pushup). 

Regardless of which area of your chest you want to develop or which home chest exercises you decide to do, you will want to be sure that you load them heavy enough to create change and growth. Now that doesn’t have to come in the form of weight. After all, if you are doing your workouts at home you may not have access to equipment. You can increase the load felt by the muscles in your chest by simply slowing down the exercise and making sure to keep the contraction on the chest with every rep.

Finally, I show you one way to combine all three movements to get the ultimate home chest exercise that targets the upper, middle and lower chest. Follow the sequence shown and you will quickly see that this one can become a killer chest building exercise in no time.

If you are looking for a complete workout program that requires no equipment at all and helps you build muscle in just 6 weeks, be sure to head to http://athleanx.com and get the ATHLEAN XERO program. Build muscle with nothing but your own bodyweight at home.

For more home workout videos and home chest workouts, be sure to subscribe to our channel here on youtube at http://youtube.com/user/jdcav24

Best Way to do Pushups (FOR A BIGGER CHEST!)

In this video, Jeff Cavaliere is going to show you how to do the pushup the right way, especially because we know how important this exercise is.

Over 25 pushup variations included in our bodyweight program here…
http://athleanx.com/x/zero-equipment-needed

The pushup is definitely one of the best (and only) options for building a big chest when training at home. That said, most of us don’t do this bodyweight exercise as effectively as we can be, which is costing us a chance to build the biggest chest or pecs that we can. In this video, I show you the best way to do pushups for a bigger chest by making just one small but important change to the way you do them.

To begin, it is important to understand what the function of the chest muscles are in the first place. We are all familiar with their ability to push our arms away from our body as in a bench press. That said, given the orientation of the fibers of the chest, it is actually more important for the pecs to pull your arm across your chest into what is called horizontal adduction.

This motion occurs most visibly in exercises like cable crossovers and even dumbbell flyes. That said, especially for athletes, flyes present a risk/reward ratio that isn’t necessarily optimal or even necessary if performed with the arms too far out in an attempt to maximize chest stretch. Even Arnold himself tore his pecs twice during the pec fly while chasing that elusive extra stretch he felt the exercise was providing him.

That said, the portion of the horizontal adduction that we should be chasing the most is the end contraction. This comes when are hands are positioned in front of our chests and at or crossing over midline if possible. Now when it comes to pushups, you can immediately see that because our hands are fixed into the ground that it is impossible to actually move them closer together as we complete each rep. That doesn’t mean that we can’t simulate the movement however to engage the chest in a much stronger contraction.

As I show you here, you want to be sure that when you come up to the top of each push up, you attempt to pull the hands closer to each other (though they won’t move since they are pressed into the ground) and then turn your forearms away from you. This second part can be accomplished by trying to envision your biceps turning towards the front as you come up. Both of these moves act to fire up the pec muscles even more and get a much stronger contraction on each pushup than you would otherwise get.

Simply counting reps when doing push ups is not what is important if you are trying to build muscle at home with this chest exercise. You want to focus on increasing the number of quality reps you perform. The quality means everything. Get a stronger contraction on your pecs and you will be rewarded with better development and chest growth when working out at home (or wherever you decide to incorporate these tips).

For a complete bodyweight only workout program that you can do without the need for any equipment at all, be sure to head tohttp://athleanx.com/xero and get the ATHLEAN XERO program. This muscle building bodyweight only workout is the fastest way to deliver muscle growth when training without equipment or access to a gym.

For more videos on how to build a bigger chest, the best chest stretches, and lots of creative pushup variations be sure to subscribe to our channel here on youtube at http://youtube.com/user/jdcav24

Why you got fat

For decades we've been told gaining and losing weight is all about the calories. Just one little problem: the research says otherwise. Diabetics undergo dramatic weight changes when they adjust their insulin levels -- and so do you. Your diet determines how much insulin your body will produce over time. From the documentary "Fat Head."

After watching this video, you will understand why you got fat and how you can prevent fat from stocking up in your belly.

From the video:

Most of us think we only put fat in our fat cells when we eat too much but as Gary Taubes explains in "Good calories, bad calories", your fat cells are like rechargeable fuel cells. Everytime you eat, you store some fat. In between meals fat comes out of your fat cells to provide the fuel for your muscles and organs.

If you are naturally thin, it's because you have efficient fat cells: fat goes in quickly and it comes out easily.

Your body doesn't need much fat because the little bit of fat you do have is a reliable source of fuel.

If you're predisposed to be fat it's because you have greedy fat cells. When you eat, you tends to store calories as fat instead of burning them, and when your other tissues need those calories, the fat comes out slowly, if it comes out at all.

The end user of food that we eat are our individual cells and it doesn't matter if it goes in our mouths, if it doesn't get to those cells, we start to starve at the cellular level. And so you do what your body is telling you to do: you eat more. In other words, you're not getting fat because you're eating more. You're eating more because you're getting fat.

Most of us weren't born with greedy fat cells but we can certainly make them that way. When you eat too many carbohydrates you raise your blood sugar. Since high blood sugar is toxic, your body releases insulin to bring it down. But your body can only burn a little bit of sugar at a time, so what happens to the rest of it?

For your storage size for carbohydrates are limited and we've got unlimited storage places for fat, so the body ends up just converting the carbohydrate to fat. And after bringing down your blood sugar, insulin does its other job: it tells your body to store fat.

When you have a healthy metabolism, it only takes a little bit of insulin to bring your blood sugar down and then everything goes back to normal. But overtime, that can change. The cells can become resistant to the effects of insulin. When that happens, insulin is talking but the cells wouldn't start listening. And when they don't get the message from insulin, they don't do what they're supposed to do. And so your body does what it has to do: it starts producing more insulin. You finally reach a point where your insulin is high just to keep your sugar normal even if you're not eating any sugar. And then when that happens, then it starts to drive stuffs into the fat cells and all of a sudden BAM!, you're fat!