Belly Fat Loss: The Supplement Weight Controversy

In the world of bodybuilding, the dietary loss supplement weight controversy is huge. If you are serious about bodybuilding, this is an issue that you cannot avoid – especially if you have body fat. So, what is the deal with the dietary loss supplement weight controversy?

In recent years, many weight loss dietary supplements have been pulled off of store shelves by the FDA. It seems that they have horrendous side effects, such as heart attacks, strokes, and liver damage. But weight loss is still important in the bodybuilding world, so what should you do?

You should use the most miraculous body building supplement known to man – creatine. Creatine has an incredible number of benefits, it is safe, and it is highly recommended by doctors, scientists, and bodybuilding experts – and even weight loss experts these days.

It is amazing that there are still so many different dietary loss supplement weight products out there being used by bodybuilders – most of which do not work, and others of which are absolutely dangerous – when we have creatine which is highly approved of, incredibly effective, easily affordable, and simply proven to work.

Creatine occurs naturally in the body, and it consists of three amino acids, which include Methionine, Arginine, and Glycine. Once in the liver, these three amino acids are combined, and they produce creatine.

What scientists have found is that when you have plenty of creatine in your system, your muscles use more adenosine triphosphate during exercise. This is important, because this is what gives the muscles energy to perform the exercises that you are doing. The more creatine you have in your system, the more ATP you have, and the more exercises you can do.

Creatine is so effective in the process of building muscles that it has been deemed the legal steroid – even though it isn’t actually a steroid. Creatine is perfectly safe, and it does not change your estrogen or testosterone levels in any way.

In terms of weight loss, creatine is effective in that it has been proven to burn off excess fat while building lean muscle mass. This happens very easily. The idea is to absolutely drench your muscles with creatine, by taking a creatine supplement. This in turn will attract water to those muscles. When this happens, the muscles must expand, which makes them bigger.

Bigger muscles require more energy than smaller muscles. When they cannot find that excess energy anywhere else, the muscles will start using stored body fat for energy. Note that exercise is still required; however this is incredibly beneficial for body builders, and in recent years has settled the great dietary loss supplement weight controversy.

Diets basics and the glycemic index

In order to build your body you must know what the materials for your new temple will be. Each nutrient performs a specific function and you must know what that is. Here is a brief look at each nutrient and what it does. Later we will get into how to use these and make your own eating plan.

Carbohydrates – The fuel for your fire. Carbs are the preferred source of energy for the body. When you eat carbs your body converts them to blood sugar or glucose. This glucose is stored in your muscle cells and liver for use when needed (like training!). When weight lifting, it is mostly this stored energy that your muscles use for contraction fuel. As with any calories you eat, any excess carbs that can’t be utilized are stored as fat.

Some sugars are more conducive to a good-looking physique than others. There are three kinds of carbohydrates:

Monosaccharides (one-sugar molecule) Disaccharides (two-sugar molecules) Polysaccharides (three or more sugar molecules)

Monosaccharides and disaccharides are called sugars while polysaccarides are usually called complex carbohydrates or glucose polymers. This is where the real good stuff begins. Because the complex carbohydrates contain three or more sugar molecules, they take longer to break down. The longer it takes the body to break these carbs down, the more time it has to use them as opposed to storing them as fat. A good way to gauge the quickness of the break down is the glycemic index. You can find these charts in different places; the best right now is www.mendosa.com/gilists.htm.

You should shoot for carbohydrates in the 55 to 65 range on the gycemic index, but the lower the better. This way you get the slow break down for sustained energy and avoid the sharp rise in insulin levels. If you would like to know more about the glycemic index and how it works I would suggest reading the material at www.mendosa.com/gi.htm. Carbohydrates contain 4 calories per gram.

Protein – Building blocks! These are the bricks in the building we call the body. Protein is responsible for the repair and growth of your hair, skin, nails and most of all your muscles! A deficiency in protein can result in reduced energy, weakness, lowered resistance to infections and prolonged recovery time after your workouts. The basic suggestion for intake of protein is 1-2 grams per pound of bodyweight per day. Modulate this up or down depending on how intense your training is, but start at a gram. Protein contains 4 calories per gram.

Fat – Fat is essential for maintaining healthy skin and hair. It also acts as a transport for the fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E, and K. The deal with fat is that is contains 9 calories per gram, and this is why fat foods are considered high calorie. Despite its bad reputation, you do need between 15-20% of your diet to be comprised of fats to maintain health. Most of this will come indirectly through your regular eating and it’s a fat chance (pun intended) that you’re not getting enough already!

These are the cornerstones of creating any diet or nutrition plan. Using these macronutrients properly will ensure optimum performance and health.

Diet, But Know Your Fats!

Margarine, butter, other spreading fats and low fat spreads, cooking oils, oil-based salad dressings, mayonnaise, cream, fried foods including fried chips, chocolate, crisps, biscuits, pastries, cake, puddings, ice-cream, rich sauces and gravies are all in this food group because they contain fat.

Like carbohydrates, fats contain the elements Carbon, Hydrogen and Oxygen. Fats are used as a source of energy: they are also stored beneath the skin helping to insulate us against the cold. Do not think that by avoiding fat in your diet you will stay thin and elegant! If you eat too much carbohydrate and protein, you will convert some of it into fat, so you will put on weight. You must balance the amount of energy containing foods with the amount of energy that you use when you take exercise

Soft drinks (not diet drinks), sweets, jam and sugar, as well as foods such as cakes, puddings, biscuits, pastries and ice-cream.

It is essential to have a small amount of fat in the diet, but eat foods containing fat sparingly as they are high in energy. Look out for reduced fat or low fat alternatives (by law any food labelled as low fat must contain no more than 3g of fat per 100g). Fats can be divided into saturates, monounsaturates and polyunsaturates.

Limit consumption of saturates, associated with animal products, cakes, biscuits and pastries, to reduce risk of heart disease. To cut down on saturates, make use of the information on nutrition panels on food products, cut off visible fat from meat and poultry, choose lower fat meat and dairy products, and where fat is needed in cooking use it sparingly.

Choose fats and oils containing monounsaturates (e.g. olive and rapeseed oils) and polyunsaturates (e.g. sunflower, corn and rapeseed oils) instead of saturates. In moderation these are not associated with an increased risk of heart disease – but still use them sparingly. There are two types of essential fats, which must be supplied by the diet in small amounts: omega-3 fatty acids (e.g. found in oily fish, walnuts, omega-3 enriched eggs, and rapeseed and soya oil) and omega-6 fatty acids (e.g. found in vegetable oils such as sunflower, corn and soya oil and spreads made from these).

Spice up Your Six Pack Diet

Cinnamon can reduce belly fat! Yes! That is what I said.

Cinnamon is one of the oldest spices known to man. In fact it was considered more precious than gold. The early Egyptians used it for flavoring foods and for medicinal purposes and it’s even mentioned in the bible.

Today most people only think of cinnamon as a spice for apple pie or sweet potatoes and gingerbread cookies. But cinnamon is in fact so much more!

Quite by accident the Maryland USDA Research Center discovered the wonders of cinnamon. They were conducting a study on how certain foods affected glucose (blood sugar) levels in the body. When it came to apple pie (with cinnamon) they expected it to have an adverse effect on the body. To their utter surprise, it lowered glucose levels in the blood. This merited further study.

In December of 2003, the Dept. of Human Nutrition in Peshawar, Pakistan, a study was underway to determine how cinnamon affected glucose levels, triglyceride and good and bad cholesterol on 60 patients with type 2 diabetes.

The first group was given between 1 to 6 g of cinnamon per day and the second placebo. After 40 days the cinnamon group had a reduction in glucose levels between 18 and 29%. Triglycerides reduced by 23 to 30% and LDL cholesterol 7 to 27% and overall cholesterol 12 to 26%. In fact this group continued to register lower levels even after 20 days of not taking the cinnamon! The placebo group had no real changes. This is good news for diabetics and people with heart disease.

In a study done with rats, one group was given a high fructose diet with cinnamon and the other a lower amount of sugars. The end result was both groups did the same. Even though the rats ate high fructose, cinnamon causes the body to lower glucose levels and manage insulin levels and making it possible to shrink the belly fat.

If you add cinnamon to your daily diet either by sprinkling on foods or taken as a capsule or liquid herbal tonic, this may help you in the battle of the bulge. To speed up the process, add an aerobic activity or brisk walking, plenty of water and fresh vegetables and you’ll feel better and look better.

Cinnamon is a delicious way to help you lose weight. Happy eating!

Lose Your Belly Fat And Show Off Your Six Pack Abs

Have you noticed that most people will never fail to include abdominal muscle exercises in their routines and yet somehow or other, they can never own that coveted 6 pack abs?

Have you been religiously doing your abdominal muscle exercises? Is your abs showing to your satisfaction? No? Why? Do you know that your abdominal muscle is one of the easiest muscles to build but yet why is it that most people have difficulty in developing that 6 pack abs?

Here is the truth. Those of you who are working out your abs regularly do probably own that much sought after six pack. Yes, you do. The only trouble is that your belly fat is covering them. Your abs will not show up well if you have a body fat ratio of more than 12%. The more fat you burn off, the more defined your abs will be. You will own that rippling washboard abs when your body fat is 10% or less. So if you have fat on your belly, forget about abdominal exercises and burn off the fats first.

There is another reason why people put in so much effort to develop their abdominal muscle and yet their abs are not showing although they have low body fat. Again, there is a simple explanation. They are doing the wrong exercises and working out in bad form.

Let’s take for example the most common abs exercises, the sit up and the leg raisers. Everybody seem to be doing these two exercises not knowing that these exercises really don’t do much for their abs. Don’t believe me? Ok…try this. When you do your sit up or leg raisers, place your palms on your hip on the area connecting to your thigh and perform the exercises. Tell me what did you feel? Ahhh….you are getting it. Those muscles there are doing most of the work. Those are your hip flexor muscles. Since your hip flexors are doing most of the work, how can you develop your abs effectively?

So you say, from now on I will do crunches instead. Well, I have another surprise for you. Most people perform their crunches wrongly too. Think about it. Why is the exercise called the “crunch”? It is because you must squeeze your abs so are that you are crunching them. In order to squeeze your abs hard, you have to curl up like a prawn and breath out all the air in your lungs at the top position and then squeeeeeeeze the muscles so hard that you feel a burn. That will take a few seconds to crunch out all the air before you lower to the beginning position again. You can’t do this effectively if you just go up, down, up down, up down rhythmetically. So, if you have been doing hundreds of crunches everyday with minimal result, now you know why. In fact, it is almost impossible for the average guy to do tens of properly performed crunches and not to say hundreds of them. The same squeezing principle applies to other abs exercises.

Ok….now that you know why your abs are not showing up well, so get on with burning your fats and perform your workout in correct form. You will then see your 6 pack abdominal muscle in no time.

Get Rid Of That Dangerous Belly Fat!

It is a proven fact that belly fat is the most dangerous kind of fat on the human body. We have all seen people who are overweight in just their stomach region and appear fit in every other place. It is a strange thing, isn’t it? It seems like we are all overweight somewhere or another, and while we all need to keep track of our weight and be proactive about maintaining a healthy lifestyle, those who carry extra belly fat need to be aware even more.

If you think about it, your belly is the area that holds most of your most important organs. Having extra weight in your legs or your hips doesn’t affect the functioning of any major organ, while carrying belly fat can really hinder the work of some of your body’s most important parts. Because it important that our organs work well, we want to do everything we can to protect them and not hinder their work.

I’ll often have clients come into my fitness club and tell me that their most annoying problem is the extra belly fat that they just cannot get rid of. I agree that their belly fat not only is annoying, but it is also dangerous. I am surprised by how few people know the dangers of belly fat, so I am always quick to share with them the facts. It only further increases their motivation to get rid of their extra belly fat.

Another large group of clients will come in with the firm belief that there is nothing they can do with their belly fat. They think that it is impossible to trim down, especially the older they get. As a personal fitness trainer, I am convinced that getting rid of belly fat not only is possible, but that it is important enough to be tackled regardless of how hard it is to accomplish.

Losing belly fat happens by a combination of consistent and directed exercise and a specfic diet. It is amazing how certain exercises are aimed specifically at reducing fat in certain areas of the body. Certain types of nutrition plans will also help to trigger excess fat in particular areas of the body.

If you have extra belly fat, you should be intentional about dealing with it. Make an appointment with a fitness trainer, a dietician or a physcian. Let someone help you get on the right track in dealing with your belly fat and making it history.