Archive for the ‘Burn Fat’ Category

So right now you are sitting there in front of your computer wondering “How to get skinny thighs quick.” Well that is half the problem. You are sitting there. Look down. What do you see? Your thighs are spread out aren’t they? There’s cellulite, back of thighs and front right? So step one for how to get skinny thighs quick is to not sit down at the computer all day. Stand and move.

So you say you can’t, you have to work or you enjoy being on the computer? Well there are other options. You can get a desk that is designed for being on the computer and standing and there is even a TrekDesk Treadmill Desk that will fit around your treadmill! So seriously, no excuses.

So you are up and standing and ready to move, but what should you do? Well those flabby thighs are the result of excess fat, so cardiovascular activity will help to burn it off. Dancing, running, swimming, sports like soccer and basketball, all will help you to burn thigh fat.

How to Get Skinny Thighs With Exercise

Next you need to tone the thighs, not bulk them up, but tone them. So try this exercise. Lean your back against a wall and slowly lower yourself into a seated position. Hold for 10 seconds and rest for 10 seconds. Then repeat 5-6 times. This will give you just enough muscle to give you a nice lean thigh.

The other tip for how to get skinny thighs is to watch what you eat. Garbage in = Garbage out.  Keep your body energized with fresh vegetables and good protein sources like fish and beans. Watch the carb intake and definitely no sugar. Drink a lot of water and perhaps do a lemon cleanse to detoxify your body every few weeks.

Another option for how to get skinny thighs quick is to try a cream which they have come a long way since they were first introduced on the market. Here is the one I like below and it has a free trial offer. Good luck!

We just read a great new article on CNN that tries to answer the question “How much should I lift?”

The weights at the gym can sometimes be a tricky mine field. Lift too little and get no results. Lift to much and you can get tears.

I see people at my gym all the time adjusting and readjusting the machines and I can’t seem to figure out any rhyme or reason to their methods. One day they are lifting huge amounts of weight just 1 time and then they are doing more repetitions with lighter weights on other days. So where is the happy medium that will build the most muscle?

How Much Should I Lift to Get Max Muscles?

According to a new study just reported on CNN, it might be best to lift at 30% until failure. This is great news for me because I have recently been lifting max load for 10-12 reps and 3 sets.  I would much rather lift at 30% until I reach failure.

The CNN study reported failure at the point where your muscles start to jiggle from trying to lift. It’s still tough to do because you are ultimately going to do more reps but I prefer it to the grunting and grinding of lifting a large amount of weight. It’s also great for people who want to lift weights but think the amount they lift is so small that it doesn’t matter.

The study was done at McMaster University and published in PlosOne journail. Let us know if this answers your question “How much should I lift?” and what your results are!

On the season finale of Losing It With Jillian Episode 8 , Alvarez Family July 20, Jillian travels to Miami and gets the family to get serious for their health. I am so sad the season is over! In this episode, this family is in dire straights and as usual, Jillian recommends her plan at JillianMichaels.com for their exercise and diet needs.

The most heart wrenching story of the family is David Jr who is 9 years old and has to check his levels for pre-diabetes. This is due to him following in his Dad’s, David Sr’s, footsteps.

David Sr had a sleep apnea test 3 years ago and was given a mask to wear while he slept because he would actually stop breathing in the night. He threw the mask out though and didn’t make any changes for his health. Now he has some of the highest “know your body” numbers ever! His sleep score was 64 and apparently, anything over 35 is seriously dangerous.

The doctor on the set says to Jillian that David Sr cannot go beyond a heart rate of 140 BPM while he is exercising so that limits the amount that she is able to push him. Instead, she focuses on Carmen, the wife, to show David that he needs to get behind his wife’s efforts of trying to make the family healthy. Carmen is furious because David just accuses her of nagging whenever she brings up his weight and the fact that he is so close to death.

The next day, there is a family dinner. The grandparents come over with fried bread in syrup and sugar, fatty pork, white rice and yucca dripping in oil. They say that is what they have always eaten and Jillian basically gives a repeat of the Yavapai-Apache Indian Reservation speech from a previous week. They say “Family is everything to us” and Jillian responds “How would you feel if you had to bury your song?” Everyone gets behind the diet and exercise plan and they immediately start throwing away food from the kitchen…8 grocery bags worth!

Things Jillian said were off limits in the kitchen were croutons, hydrogenated oil (was in their peanut butter), trans fat, and MSG. All they had left for dinner was beans and salad so it was pretty shocking for them.

Jillian takes David Jr. to a karate gym which was really nice because that is the sport that helped Jillian go from an overweight teen to what she is today. Then for his birthday, she gives him a ton of karate gear and he is super excited to get started.

At the gym again, Jillian tries to get Carmen to find her inner bad ass and offers her one end of a towel. Jillian plays the role of David Sr and tells Carmen to get me across this floor. Carmen pulls and yells and screams and figures out how she is going to tell David what she needs to. Jillian, Carmen and David all take a boat ride out into the ocean (so David can’t escape) and Carmen gets it offer her chest. Things finally seem to sink in for David. That night, he shows David Jr. his sleep mask and tells him that it is going to save his life and how he never wants him to go through what he is going through.

What is the Body Bug or BodyBugg Jillian talks about?

One more family bonding exercise on the beach…Jillian puts David Sr. in a boat on the beach and the family has to pull him across the sand. David Jr. goes from “I can’t” to doing his karate screams to get the job done. The Biggest Loser bodybugg ® (also referred to as the Buddy Bug, or Losing It with Jillian Body Bug) was featured in this segment as a great way to track your calories in vs. calories out.  Read more about the BodyBugg at the end of this post.

Losing It With Jillian Results

The results were pretty impressive for this group. Carmen lost 25 pounds and 4 dress sizes. Her legs were Awesome! David Jr was SOOO cute losing 25 pounds himself and he no longer has to check his levels for diabetes! David Sr came out looking quite snazzy having lost 54 pounds and getting completely off BP medications. His next goal is to lose the sleep mask. After Jillian had left him 6 weeks earlier, the doctors raised his Heart rate BPM up from 140 so Jillian said she owed him a real workout.

I am sad that the season is over for Losing It With Jillian Episode 8 , Alvarez family finale was a great ending! Remember to visit JillianMichaels.com to keep your own motivation going until the show starts up again! It really does work and at just $4 per week, easily replaces the cost of that fast food you wont be eating anymore!

The great thing about learning how to get bigger arm muscles is that most people are surprised just how little time this actually takes. Now if you are trying to get SERIOUS bulked up arms, you might need to check out this…

Choose A Goal Lose Fat Build Muscle Contest Prep Cortisol Blocker Energy Immune System Joint Health Prevent Aging Sexual Health Skin Care Sleep Aides Tanning More Goals…

But if you just want your arms a little bigger, a little more toned, then we have some tips right here. (Think Jillian Michaels arms for the women, and maybe Lance Armstrong for the men?)

First thing to know when trying to get bigger arm muscles, is that you have to eat right. There is just no way around this unfortunately. Garbage in, garbage out. Healthy in, healthy out. So, protein, vegetables, complex carbohydrates.

The other good news about how to get bigger arm muscles is that it doesn’t require a lot of expensive equipment. Dumbbells can get it all done but you don’t even need those. Push-ups don’t require any money, just  a lot of hard work. Also, you can do dips on your couch or a park bench. You know that hole for a garden you have been meaning to dig up for quite a while now? Get to it. Swinging a shuffle, hammer, hoe, ax, sledgehammer…are all going to get you some nice looking arms pretty quick.

For the ladies, you know that flappy part that hangs under the arms right? It CAN go away. Just keep toning and keep toning and keep toning and it will improve. Our favorite exercise for this is the above the head tricep drop. Hold  two dumbbells over your head so your knuckles are facing each other.  Then drop one arm at a time so that the end of the dumbbell hits your shoulder blade. You should feel that pull from your elbow to your armpit. You can choose to do these either to exhaustion or you can do about 20 x 3.

Don’t overwork your arms. Just one to two days per week is adequate and don’t work them two days in a row ever. You need to give the muscles time to repair and build themselves.

Now that you know some beginner tips on how to get bigger arm muscles, we expect to see you all at the “gun” show.

The beautiful Kym Johnson from Dancing With the Stars has lemonade diet success. Kym says that the new lemonade diet pill helps her to stay healthy and trim. We all know how gorgeous those dancer bodies are, and what it must take to keep them looking so lean and cut. The Lemonade Diet Pill is a new formulation of the Master cleanse diet where you take a pill instead of drinking all of those glasses of lemonade each day. But what is the Master Cleanse and why did the lemonade diet pill seek to make it a little easier and more accessible for everyone to use?

How to Have Lemonade Diet Success

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This Losing It With Jillian episode 6, Yavapai-Apache Indian Reservation, featured the Plunkett-Marquez family and the entire tribe. Jillian Michaels had to work really hard getting the people of the nation to want to lose weight and be healthy, but she accomplished her goal.

The show started in Camp Verde, AZ, with Jillian driving up to the reservation as the family was preparing for a roast in the ground. The mother, Cora-Lei, says “Now it’s up to us to make our dreams come true.”

There is the  meeting with Dr. Van Herle where the family learns about their current health status. Cora-Lei, learned that she weighed 203 pounds and she should weigh 120. She had high LDL cholesterol and high blood sugar as well.

Then there is Delight, Cora-Lei’s sister and age 21, who weighed 257 and should weight 132. Brandon is Cora-Lei’s son and weight in at 253. At 15 years old, he should weight 158. Then there is Delores, Cora-Lei’s mother who has diabetes.

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Is it necessary to exercise to lose belly fat? Or can you burn belly fat with just diet alone? Research seems to point to exercise and specific types of exercise to get the best results. But diet does count too! So what’s the best plan?

First you do have to exercise to lose belly fat.

Cardio is important for all over body fat burning, this includes belly fat. But doing some additional work such as crunches (no, not hundreds of them a day) helps too. Crunches and situps help to get rid of visceral fat which lies deeper in the abdomen and surrounds your organs, but things like walking, jogging and even some heavy duty yoga can work on the subcutaneous fat which lies just under the skin.

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Remember I posted the YouTube video of Bryan Gaynor, young college kid with scoliosis, doing his robot thing on SYTYCD (So You Think You Can Dance?) Well here he is with his entire “crew” RemotKontrol, performing on last night’s show. I am glad they are giving him a chance to do a real performance again because I just think he is so inspirational. Do what it is you want to do, no matter the obstacles in your way. Go Bryan and RemoteKontrol!

Bryan Gaynor and RemoteKontrol on SYTYCD (So You Think You Can Dance)

Sure we hear a lot of different weight loss tips from time to time but these are to make your fat gone FOREVER. It’s the difference between saying “Yea, I am going to TRY to lose weight” and “HELL YEA, I AM LOSING WEIGHT THIS TIME ONCE AND FOR ALL!” See the diff?

Weight Loss Tips

1. You don’t need any big plates. What for? So you can pile the food on extra high and avoid a few trips back for fourths or fifths (because trust me, your seconds and thirds are right there on that plate with your first serving). The smaller size plates are perfect for meals. I know it seems like that might be impossible for dinner, after all, isn’t that what a dinner plate is for? Think of it this way, the smaller plates hold one serving. If you absolutely MUST have seconds, go back and get them. But having the smaller plate makes you stop and think about it. Big plates = big bellies.

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On this week’s Losing It With Jillian episode 4 – June 22, The Northern Family and some southern cooking in Goodlettsville, TN get a big ole visit from Jillian! Patrick, the daddy and Kim, the mommy are surprised by Jillian during a dinner of some southern fried foods! Patrick says “Tell her I’m not here.” Always joking and carrying on, Patrick definitely brings the fun to this Losing It With Jillian episode. But there is quite a serious side too.

Losing It With Jillian Episode 4 Recap

A year ago, Patrick lost his job, lost his confidence and parked it on the couch. Soon the whole family was right there with him, with Kim being the main breadwinner of the family and feeling the stress. Pounds started to pack on and before you know it, looming health issues are peeking around the corner.

Jillian has a hard time yelling at Patrick because he is just too cute and funny. But she eventually gets into the normal, screaming Jillian we all know and love and the family starts getting with the program. A trip to the rollerskating rinks brings some more laughs.

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Ok, why do they keep making this stuff taste SO FREAKIN’ GOOD – Edy’s Yogurt Blends in Chocolate Fudge Brownie! Really, it is good stuff and definitely satisfying the chocolate need that a square of super dark chocolate just can’t do sometimes. When we are trying to lose weight, depriving ourselves is not going to cut it 24 hours a day, 7 days a week….so find something like this to splurge on (not eat every day) and enjoy!

Edy’s Yogurt Blends Review – Chocolate Fudge Brownie

First of all…really hard to eat just a half cup. I sort of make myself feel better by reminding the “nutritional label OCD chick inside of me” that this stuff doesn’t have any High Fructose Corn Syrup in it, but it does have lots of regular corn syrup and just plain old sugar. But the sugar! 14 grams of sugar in a half cup serving that is 120 calories.

Still…sometimes you gotta have a treat or two and this one definitely hits the spot. I like it a lot better than the Skinny Cow stuff I USED to like until I saw they use HFCS. This Edy’s Yogurt is much, much creamier and truly tastes like someone churned away at it for hours. And it does have active yogurt cultures for healthy digestion….that has to count for something, right?

Here’s the nutritional breakdown from their website:

		Nutritional facts
		Amount per 1/2 Cup
		Calories Calories from Fat		120 30
		Total Fat Saturated Fat Trans Fat		3.5 (g) 1.5 (g) 0 (g)
		Cholesterol		10 (mg)
		Sodium		40 (mg)
		Total Carbohydrates		19 (g)
		Dietary Fiber		1 (g)
		Sugars		14 (g)
		Protein		3 (g)
		Calcium		10 %

I wish I could get it in a smaller container so I could refrain from eating half the bucket. Not a good idea when training for a 5K. Still, with proper supervision and discipline, I will be enjoying this Edy’s Yogurt Blends Chocolate Fudge Brownie Yummmminnessss for some time (in these super cute ice cream waffle cone bowls!)

I knew Jillian was overweight as a teen but for some reason I never came across Jillian Michaels Before and After photo…until now. I guess this was in a magazine recently and I think it’s the one she showed on The Doctors show.

Either way, it just shows you how much she had to go through to get to where she is today. I’ve been a true fan of hers after I learned about her “softer side” in the Ladie’s Home Journal piece they ran on her. I didn’t know everything about her background in karate and how it helped her deal with a difficult family situation.

No matter what you think of Jillian’s weight loss plan or her methods, anyone can admit that she sure is a force to be reckoned with. Seeing Jillian Michaels Before and After Photo reminds us that she has come a long way.

So the big day is coming closer and you are searching for wedding diets that work and you want to get rid of wedding fat? Maybe you thought the weight would already be gone by now, but the stress and activity of wedding planning might have gotten in the way of your weight loss goals. Here are some wedding diets that work depending on the amount of time you have to get trim, either more than 30 days, less than 30 days, two weeks or one week.

Wedding Diets That Work – More than 30 Days Out

Even if you don’t have the full 90 days, P90X is the way to go if you have more than 30 days to get ready. Nothing is going to kick your butt more in the exercise department except maybe the Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred videos. Either one, you will be looking hot on the big day and there will be no wedding fat peeking out of the top or arms of your dress.

Less than 30 Days?

The recommendation for this time span would be doing a plan like the Diet Solution or using Jillian’s website. They are both healthful eating and exercise and you still have enough time to get the results you want. The goal for these diets are keeping your sexy muscles and losing the fat so you will look good. Solid advice and sensible diet.

Wedding Diets that Work – Have Only Two Weeks?

The Lemonade Diet pill is the choice for anyone having 14 days because the product says you can lose up to 17 pounds in this time period. This is the one that Kym Johnson from Dancing With the Stars uses to stay trim. Like the Master Cleanse but you get to eat so you will have the energy you need for those last few days of planning.

Have only One Week?

Tough times call for tough measures. You are going to have to suck it up and do the full Master Cleanse like Beyonce did for her role in Dreamgirls. I would still eat SOMETHING though each day…spinach, apple, walnuts. I mean, you are going to need energy on the big day and don’t want to be depleted. People report getting a burst of energy on this plan but it’s after the first few days of detoxing where the side effects might be headaches, fatigue, constipation. So for this plan, you really have to think about whether or not those pounds are worth it. Otherwise, try the Lemonade Diet Pill and you will at least get half of the weight loss benefit and still get to eat every day. It’s basically the Master cleanse ingredients, lemons, cayenne pepper, grade b maple syrup, but in a pill.

Don’t forget that along with these wedding diets that work on getting rid of wedding fat, you also get a lot of rest leading up to your big day.

On last’s night episode of Losing It With Jillian, tips on cleaning out kitchen to lose weight were featured. Jillian was in the kitchen in her usual style, throwing things and yelling “NO” (which I love) and the family was having a hard time giving up a few items. Canned fruit for one. Cleaning out the kitchen to prepare it for healthy foods to help us lose weight is, I think, one of the biggest challenges we have in the whole process. There are some really concrete things you can look for and do to make the process go smoother.

Tips on Cleaning Out Kitchen to Lose Weight

1). Get help. Before you even learn what you are going to have to throw out, find someone to help you. This will make you accountable and not allow for any “cheating”…(“I am just going to finish that one jar of high fructose corn syrup jelly and then ok, that will be it”).

2). Plan for where the food will go. Is there a food bank you can make donations to? Some people just CANNOT put food in the trash, even if that is what half of it is….But do me a favor will ya? Buy one bag of organic food, or brown rice, or bags of beans, and donate that too?

3). Clean it. This is a great opportunity to get into areas you might not have been in for a while. Clean food deserves a clean place to put it in, so scrub off that juice that was making the refrigerator shelf sticky and get those crumbs out of the spice drawer!

4). Immediately go shopping afterward. (Unless you are planning on doing some sort of cleanse first to kick start the weight loss.) Now, you are probably thinking this is going to be a really expensive process, right? But, actually it shouldn’t be. First, you are just going to buy what you need for one week. You don’t have to buy every piece of organic fruit or every kind of whole grain this or that. Keep it simple for week #1 and you can build on that.

The way I did this was by trying new recipes. Each recipe, there would be one item I would have to get, like a spice I had never tried, or whole wheat bread crumbs for instance, that I could use and then have on hand for later. Before you know it, you have a kitchen stocked with healthy foods that you can’t really mess up in.

5). Now that you have the food you need and your clean, healthy kitchen is ready to go, you will need support to keep you motivated along the way. Recruit your friends to do what you have done. Help them to make the healthy steps you have made. Use things like the forums and boards on Jillian’s website to be accountable. Nothing better than having Jillian on your side pushing you to lose the weight you want. It’s $4 per week, so less than the cost of all those fast food meals you wont be having anymore! Really good tracking stuff in there too. 

The link for the specifics of what to throw out and what to keep are below. But…the only one I would add to is the high fructose corn syrup one. Pretty much if it says “sugar” as one of the first 5 ingredients, throw it out. Read my post on high fructose corn syrup vs. table sugar and you’ll see why. Also, the 40-30-30 recommendation from Jillian is pretty much The Zone Diet plan so you might want to read more about that too.

Ready to get started? Here is where you can find the very specific Losing It With Jillian tips on cleaning out kitchen to lose weight and then visit the BurnFatClub Jillian Michaels 5K Challenge Post to get the exercise started too!

In this Losing It With Jillian Episode 3, June 15 recap, Jillian makes a visit to the May family in Bakersfield, CA.  The usual Jillian coming in and kicking booty intro stuff. But my favorite part was Jillian cleaning out the kitchen. I think this is where a lot of people get stuck, not being able to throw out that jar of mayo even though they can read “High Fructose Corn Syrup” right there on the label. The response is “But it’s just mayo, and it’s fat free mayo!” Fact is, if the label says it’s junk, it’s junk. Here are more tips on cleaning out your kitchen from the NBC.com site. Get some friends to come help you. This will keep you accountable during the process.

Here’s the rest of the Losing It With Jillian recap from June 15…

Ruth and her three children who still live with her, Rachel, Ashley and a son, are struggling with the emotional remnants of a divorce from two years ago. It appears the father is no longer in the picture. The garage filled up with junk reminding us of lasts week’s hoarding situation. Though this time, Jillian holds a big yard sale to clear the house of the clutter and make room for changes.

Ruth challenges Jillian at the dining room table and tells Jillian ” I am filled with hate” (towards Jillian) because she says she didn’t let her go through her things before it was sold. Jillian calls her out on her constantly victimizing herself and that seems to be a big wake up call for Ruth.

The two girls (well one was 25 so not “girls”…young ladies) are really beautiful but each wants to lose some weight too. Jillian takes them to a soccer practice to play the sport they played when their parents were still together. This, for Ashley, is her A-Ha moment as Jillian “Why’s” her to death until she gets to the heart of what is bothering her. She can’t trust anyone because her dad left.

For Rachel…it’s that she is living in the shadow of her mother. Better communication and soon the women are on their way to better family relationships.

The kids sign up mom to an online dating site and she goes on her first date in 30 years!!! Wow! The date was shown for about 2 minutes, seemed ok but don’t know if there were any sparks. Still, at that point, it’s just great to get out there and start meeting people!

Jillian says she is leaving for 8 weeks and everyone states their goals. Ruth wants to lose 20 pounds but Jillian ups it to 40. Ashley wants to get in a size 7 dress and Jillian says, no, size 6. For Rachel, she also wants to lose 40 pounds.

Everyone reaches their goals, and Ruth loses a whooping 74 pounds! (It seemed like that was in the 8 week period but I don’t know because it showed many episodes of her not working out when she was supposed to be). Maybe they were adding up some weight she had lost on her own before Jillian arrived??? 74 pounds is a lot to lose in 8 weeks, but if anyone can make it happen, it’s Jillian.

The Losing It With Jillian show is starting to get a little too predictable at this point. My friend said it is very much like Nanny 911. Same old, same old. Last week, episode 2, was great with the 5K Challenge which we are doing here at BurnFatClub. This week….so so. The biggest take away is that it can be done…at any age and there is always time for a new beginning.

Here is a link to watch Losing It With Jillian Episode 3, June 15 video available online.