Congratulations to Japan who won against the US with penalty kicks in the Women’s World Cup final. After scoring early, the US was caught with a goal from Japan. After staying tied the remainder of the match, the US scored first in extra time. Then Japan came back one more time to tie it up. Once penalty kicks started, everything sort of fell apart for the US team. They missed their first two shots and Japan got a couple in on the US team. When everything was counted up, the nation of Japan was elated to have a victorious team.

Notable mentions on the US team were Alex Morgan who had an amazing goal. The youngest and fastest on the team, she will be around for many more years. Then there is Wabbach…with her amazing head. The second US goal was a kick from Morgan to Wabbach who headed it in perfectly.

No matter who you routed for, both teams played with a tremendous amount of heart. Thanks for putting on a great match! Japan wins over USA and the country who has been in such pain for the last year can finally enjoy some celebration.

Of every diet you’ve heard of, The Lemonade Diet is one you probably know very little about. It is a short period, cleansing diet that takes the course of several days (approx.. a month). The purpose of the diet is to detoxify the body of its various impurities that carry a large cause in the contraction of some sicknesses/diseases (e.g. skin irritation, oily foreheads, physical emaciation, etc.) And while on this lemonade diet, your body relies solely on the energy of lemonade, with the nutritious juice it offers, so as to alleviate these contaminants in your body; losing weight is a byproduct of that.

The diet’s key ingredients are cayenne pepper, lemon juice extracts (of course), and syrup (maple). There are virtually no carbohydrates involved during the period of the lemonade diet, so you’ll be looking at a mixture of these three ingredients for about 30 days.

In addition to this part of the diet, you’ll ascribe to salt water everyday, as well as laxative tea; all to ensure that there is proper cleansing of the body (as mentioned above).

The essence of this diet relies upon the cleansing of bodily toxins to allow the digestive tract to rest (so it won’t work as hard). This leads to the expenditure or “burning” of stored fatty acids, without decreasing any somatic or central insulin levels (in non-medical terms, you’re perfectly safe losing weight under this diet). Speaking of insulin, this diet is not recommended for those who are diabetics, as lemon juice extracts may lead to high level acidosis/ketosis and cause other health problems.

There is also the lemonade diet in pill form which makes the whole process much easier to do than the lemonade cleanse Beyonce or Ashton Kutcher did.

If you have been wondering how those that are not the Biggest Loser Winners go home and keep losing all that weight, we now know the answer is the Biggest Loser Meal Plan. The Biggest Loser Meal Plan is now being offered through eDiets, the leader in fresh prepared meal delivery.

I always wondered what contestants were doing at home to keep dropping those big numbers! Adam lost 102 pounds at home and says “I saw a huge change in my weight loss. I have been replicating some of the numbers I had on the ranch. I saw the direct correlation immediately. It’s literally been the backbone to my success!” The shocking thing with the plan is that Adam did this in 19 weeks.

Another Biggest Loser Winner, Patrick, lost 60 pounds with the Biggest Loser Meal Plan after he went home. “I don’t have to stare at my cabinets trying to figure out what to eat. I don’t have to weigh food or measure. It’s quick, it’s simple, it’s awesome and I know exactly the nutrition that I’m putting into my body.”

With the Biggest Loser diet, you can choose the 5 or 7 day plan and you get to choose the meals you prefer either online or over the phone. You also get access to:

• Unlimited support from registered dietitians via phone, email or online chat
• Easy-to-use online nutrition tracker
• Tools to help you track your weight-loss progress and live a healthy lifestyle

Right now you can start the Biggest Loser Meal plan and get a week free using this link :

Join The Biggest Loser® Meal Plan and Get a Week Free

They are the big three of the flabby areas and losing flab on your stomach, arms and thighs remains the most desired result from exercise and dieting. Unfortunately, some of the dieting and exercising you are doing to lose flab might not be helping you. Here is the low down.

Flab is nothing more than loose skin, fat cells, and some empty fat cells. So losing flab on your body can be very difficult. However, there are some studies that have shown specific exercises and diets are helpful in the quest.

One thing you can try is changing your diet from white to wheat. Studies have shown that this change can help with belly fat and might give you a flatter appearance around the midsection. So, white rice, white bread, and white flour should all be replaced with 100% whole grain versions.

You can also add fat burning foods to your diet. Things like hot peppers and cinnamon have been shown to help the body get rid of fat and lemons are good for cleansing toxins. Cayenne pepper and grade b maple syrup have some cleansing and fat burning properties too so recipes with those ingredients can help. You might want to try a lemonade cleanse which combines a lot of these ingredients into one.

What about exercise? Think of it this way. Your flab or pooch or whatever you want to call it, it needs to be filled up and stretched out. Only we are not going to do it with fat, we are going to do it with muscle. No, you aren’t going to get all beefy like a pro wrestler (unless you want to) but just enough to sort of spread the flab out and create a smoother appearance. Let’s face it. There are not too many things that are going to shrink your skin back to place (though MSM soap has been rumored to do this) but you can create a nice look still with muscle building and toning.

Use Hand Weights to do tricep exercises or just do push ups against a wall for back of the arm toning. For thighs, lean against a wall and lower yourself into a squat like you are sitting. You will definitely feel the burn in your thighs. For the stomach, weight resistance and sit ups do go hand in hand if you are doing them right. Do the sit ups slowly so you can feel the muscles working. Use an exercise ball for more advanced sit up exercises.

The last thing you should do for losing flab when all else has failed is to hire a personal trainer. Sometimes we say we tried everything, did everything we were supposed to, but did we really? Without accountability it is sometimes hard to get results. If it is important to you, you will make every effort to get it done. A personal trainer might help you target exactly what you are doing wrong.

Losing flab on your stomach, arms and thighs is not impossible but be prepared for some work to get the results you want.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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…

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?

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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?

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?

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.

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!

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:

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!)