For beginners, getting into fitness can be intimidating and confusing. But it doesn’t have to be that way. In fact, getting fit is one of the most straightforward tasks you’ll attempt. Fortunately, reaching your fitness goals requires only two things; discipline (that’s up to you) and a set of simple guidelines (which I’m happy to provide).

First, you should arrange for a full physical examination from your physician. This is mandatory for people that have high cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes, or are obese. Once you have your doctor’s approval to begin a  home fitness program, you should schedule a fitness assessment with a health professional at your gym.

While both of these are incredibly annoying, they are essential to your success and well-being. The benefits of a doctor’s visit are obvious, particularly if you have one or more of the previously mentioned conditions but it also allows you and your doctor to discuss your lifestyle. Preventative medicine is far better than reactive medicine. Make your doctor part of your fat loss and health-building team along with the health professionals at your gym.

The real benefits of the fitness assessment aren’t finding out how much body fat you have or how many minutes you can last on the treadmill, but rather getting a better understanding of your strengths and weaknesses. If you want to avoid injury and actually achieve your goals this year, get to know your strengths and weaknesses.

The next secret is to walk, don’t run, to fitness success. If you want to pick up your University running workouts where you left them 10 years ago, that’s fine. But I guarantee you won’t last 10 days. And then it’ll be a dreary 355 days until you’re ready to try exercise again.

The hidden benefit of a good fitness assessment is that it will actually serve as a nice introductory workout to your return to fitness. It will buffer your delusions of fitness grandeur from the reality of what your body actually can do. After the fitness assessment teaches your body a lesson and awakens your muscles from their winter slumber, only then will you realize your limits that you must respect in subsequent workouts.

Goal-setting is the fourth secret to success (and not just in fitness, but in any area of life). It is much more effective to commit to a set of specific short-term and long-term goals than it is to routinely hope for weight loss each year.

Set realistic goals and remember to train within your limits. If you are currently sedentary and haven’t exercised in months (or years), don’t begin an advanced training program. Start with a conservative beginner program. Your belly wasn’t built in a day, and neither will be lost overnight.

Limit your initial workouts to 1 set per muscle group. In week 2, you should be ready to add another set. And if you want to build up to 3 sets, then do so in week 3. Slowly increase the weight and stay within your desired repetition range. At no time should you be too sore to function. And runners should also heed this advice. Too much running will guarantee shin splints in the early going. Avoid running on back to back days for the first two weeks and keep the distance short. Sore muscles are guaranteed when you lift. So keep the volume low.

And now for 2 super secrets that will help keep you committed and consistent with your workouts and will finally help you lose fat for good.

First, build your social support team. Social support is the #1 factor for success for women in fitness programs, and is important for men as well. Support can come from your spouse, brother or sister, child, mom or dad, friend, neighbor, co-worker, personal trainer, or lifestyle coach. Don’t try to go it alone. People respond better when they report to a person instead of a machine.

You also need to know that nutrition is the second most important factor for success in fat loss programs. That’s why you don’t need to train like a world-class athlete when you are starting to lose fat. Most of the fat you’ll lose in the early going is because you have chosen to make better nutritional choices. And if you don’t make better nutritional choices, even the best exercise program in the world isn’t going to help you achieve your fat loss goals.

Nutrition is a lot simpler than you think. Don’t over think things. See a nutritionist or listen to what your mother told you as a kid. Food choices should contain a large nutrient-to-calorie ratio. Dr. Phil (yes that Dr. Phil) calls this “High-Response Cost, High-Yield Nutrition”. And follow this rule: Don’t eat foods with added sugar or high-fructose corn syrup, but make sure to log your nutritional intake. This is a free website that allows you to track your calories, protein, carbohydrates, and fat.

The consistent use of these 6 secrets will help you achieve your fat loss goals this year. Make this year’s fitness plan a strategic investment in your future health. The most efficient and effective way to lose fat in 2005 is with my Turbulence Training workouts – the choice of fitness professionals.

About the Author

Craig Ballantyne is a Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist and writes for Men’s Health, Men’s Fitness, Maximum Fitness, Muscle and Fitness Hers, and Oxygen magazines. His trademarked Turbulence Training fat loss workouts have been featured multiple times in Men’s Fitness and Maximum Fitness magazines and all over the Internet, and have helped thousands of men and women around the world lose fat, gain muscle, and get lean in less than 45 minutes three times per week. For more information on the Turbulence Training workouts that will help you burn fat without long, slow cardio sessions or fancy equipment, visit www.TurbulenceTraining.com

Turbulence Training

Men’s Fitness magazine recently asked me for 3 of my best fat loss secrets. Since most times the magazines just don’t have enough space to run my full tips, I thought I’d give you a more detailed explanation of my secrets here (plus a few extra bonus tips that I didn’t send to the magazine).

Secret #1 – Focus on burning carbohydrate, not fat, during your fat-loss workouts.

Sounds backwards, right? But not when you look at how I structure my workouts.

Remember that Turbulence Training focuses on resistance training and interval training. Both of these use carbohydrate as the main source of energy. So it’s obvious the workout is designed to burn carbohydrates during the training session.

I have no interest in you trying to train in your “target heart rate zone” for fat burning (aka – the fat burning zone). The whole idea of a fat-burning zone is an over-simplified idea of how the body works during exercise.

Leave the inefficient fat burning zone to the mis-educated trainers in the commercial gyms (that not surprisingly, also want to sell you a heart rate monitor so you can stay in your “fat burning heart rate zone”).

If you want to get the most results in the least amount of time, focus on burning carbohydrates, not fat.

Why do my fat loss workouts focus on burning carbohydrate rather than fat?

In order to burn more calories after the workout, that’s why. When you exercise with intervals and heavy resistance training, your body uses more calories in the hours after exercise than it would if you did traditional cardio and lifted lighter weights.

I call this ‘Turbulence’. By any name it gives you the same results – maximum improvements in your body composition (helping you lose fat while gaining muscle).

Secret #2 – Use a range of repetitions in your strength training workouts.

In order to train more muscle fibers and burn more carbohydrates, I have clients use a range of repetitions within the same workout.

The Turbulence Training workouts now use 6, 8, and 12 reps per set in order to work the muscle the most effectively.

This will burn more carbohydrates and promote as much muscle growth as possible when you are keeping the calories low.

Secret #3 – Use the stationary cycle for interval training.

I choose the stationary bike for intervals whenever possible because cycling against a resistance can help maintain muscle mass.

Cycling against a resistance also allows you to perform a large amount of mechanical work, and that is a key determinant of the Turbulence in my training.

But please note: I don’t use low-intensity, fast pedaling ‘spinning’ intervals as I’m convinced that the hard, resistance based intervals are more effective for fat loss. My clients only cycle against a strong resistance in their intervals.

And while I really like the bike, but there are many other ways to do intervals. Use what works for you, but if you are at a plateau, try the bike.

Secret #4 – Increase meal frequency

Okay, so this isn’t really a secret to anyone that has read about fat loss.

But a 2005 study from the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition showed that eating 6 times per day was associated with eating fewer calories per day, lowering cholesterol levels, and lowering post-meal insulin levels.

Combine an increased meal frequency with an increased protein and fiber intake, and you’ll see your body composition improve rapidly.

If you need more nutrition help, then you’ll love the new Turbulence Training Nutrition Guide for Men & Women – written by Dr. Chris Mohr, Ph.D.

See below for more details…

Secret #5 – My Synergistic Turbulence Training Workouts

My Turbulence Training Fat Loss workouts are fast becoming the most effective way to burn fat, build muscle, and get lean. The synergistic strength training-interval training workouts are efficient and effective – getting you in and out of the gym in under an hour.

Here are some tips that you can use for an advanced training phase. Use these advanced secrets for 2 weeks then return to your normal training schedule:

a) Add 10 seconds to each interval but maintain the intensity

b) Add in some bodyweight circuits (10-20 minutes per day) done in the morning or evening (if you do your regular workout in the AM, do your bodyweight circuits after dinner; otherwise, do the bw circuits first thing in the AM, and then do your regular workout at lunch or later in the afternoon or evening)

If you are advanced, you can use squats, pushups, and bodyweight rows for your circuit.

If you are a beginner, you could use lying hip extensions, modified pushups, and stick-ups.

c) Add an extra set to each exercise in the first superset you do in each workout.

Again, use these three tips for an advanced fat loss period of two weeks, then return to a normal training schedule.

But always stick to the best fat loss nutrition plan possible.

If you have any other questions, just let me know.

Sincerely,

Craig Ballantyne

Author, Turbulence Training

P.S. Big Nutrition Announcement!

The Turbulence Training Nutrition Guide for Men & Women – written

by Dr. Chris Mohr, Ph.D., is ready for you.

Here are just some of the things you’ll learn from Dr. Mohr…

1) How to calculate your calorie needs (p. 6)

2) Calorie recommendations for obese individuals (p.7)

3) The 23 types of sugar (many hidden!) to avoid (p. 9)

4) The 20 whole-grain sources to fuel your fat loss program (p9)

5) Over 60 fruits and vegetables that should be added to your diet (p. 10)

6) The 16 protein sources you should select most often (p. 13)

7) Shocking trans-fat content of 18 common foods – find out which food is the deadliest in terms of fat content (p. 16)

8] The 9 Fat Sources you should select most often (p. 17)

9) Dr. Mohr’s 12 Rules for Fat Loss (p. 18)

10) The TT Nutrition Plan for Men (p. 19)

11) The TT Nutrition Plan for Women (p. 23)

12) Bonus Supplement Report: The Truth About Fat Loss Pills (p. 27)

Try Turbulence Training today

What the heck is this new style of workout that fitness experts are calling “Metabolic Resistance Training”?

Metabolic Resistance Training (MRT) workouts are advanced fat burning sessions that are a hybrid-fusion of bodybuilding set and rep schemes with an interval training twist all in a total body workout system.

Bodybuilding workouts are metabolic, but they fail to be ultra-metabolic because those workouts focus on one body part at a time.

So the next step is to do total body workouts.

Plus, the TT MRT workouts add in a greater interval training response for fat burning. You’ll love it when you use some high rep bodyweight exercises, kettlebell swings, and short sprints.

My MRT program contains two different types of MRT workouts.

• First, there is the heavier resistance, classic MRT program.
• And second, there is the higher rep, Metabolic Conditioning style workouts.

Both are used in my MRT program.

The workouts are different than anything they’ve tried before. I’ve managed to create workouts that are fun, fast, effective, and even give you a bit of that bodybuilder pump and fatigue.

It’s the best of all worlds, and the results are dramatic – and quickly noticeable.

So get ready to achieve more with your workouts – and get faster fat burning results than you have gotten with any other program. TT MRT is the hottest thing going in the fat loss world today.

So what are you waiting for?  Get started losing the fat today!

“Metabolic Resistance Training System”

Under this style of weight loss plan, every meal should consist of at least 50% vegetables. You will probably need to educate your palate as most of us don’t normally eat this many.  But, prepared correctly, vegetables can be extremely tasty. The key is not to boil them into mush but to gently steam so you preserve the taste as well as the nutrients.

The recommended intake for fruit and vegetables is currently five a day in most countries.  But scientists and doctors usually suggest that we try and eat more than that.  For illness prevention, better skin and longer life, try eating double the suggested quantities.  Don’t think boring salads but add spice and variety using different combinations of these super foods.

Carrots are particularly powerful as they detoxify the body.  A diet high in beans and pulses help people to live longer. Tins of baked beans are good for you, just opt for the no sugar or low sugar varieties.   If you want to increase your chances of beating cancer, eat Brussels sprouts and not just at Christmas. Peppers in all colors are full of vitamin C and also contain vital anti-oxidants.  Spinach fights heart disease and age related blindness.  Blueberries should be included where possible due to their anti-oxidant level.  You can combine blueberries with other berries, a low fat yogurt and some almond milk in a smoothie to give you a powerful start to your day.

Make time for breakfast every morning and cook yourself some old fashioned oatmeal. You can sweeten it with some fruit spread if you can’t bear the taste.  Just make sure that the spread doesn’t contain any hidden sugars.  We need complex carbohydrates in order for our bodies to function properly.

The carbs we can do without are the ones that release energy really quickly. These are found in processed foods such as white bread, pasta and rice as well as in cakes, biscuits, candy and all the other foods we all love to indulge in on occasion. If you must eat cake, make sure it is homemade as it will contain less hidden sugars and bad fats.

On the subject of fat, you need to include some in your eating plan although you are on a diet.  Fats make our food taste a lot better and are essential for the body to work properly.  If you do not get sufficient monosaturated (good) fats, you will feel miserable and are likely to fall off your diet very quickly.

You need to exercise as well. You will not lose weight as fast as you could unless you increase your levels of physical activity.  You also need to include a little protein with every meal.  It will help to keep your energy levels stable which should decrease the snack cravings.  Low carb diet food allows you to eat well and not feel deprived. You cannot say that with most weight loss plans.