Three Keys to Build Muscle in Your Arms

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Many people want to look in the mirror and see big guns, but in order to build muscle in your arms you have to understand the right technique. It's easy to make mistakes when trying to add bulk to your arms. But with these three keys you'll stay on track.

Limit your workouts. It may seem strange that when you want to bulk up, you need to limit your workout time. But to truly develop muscle you need to keep arm workouts to two times weekly.

Why do you need to be sparing with your exercise program? If you want to have big arms, you need to give them time to grow. The real work of muscle growth happens between workouts during the recovery phase.

If you never allow yourself a time to rest, you'll not give your body a chance to build muscle in your arms and give results for your hard work. It may seem the opposite of common sense, but you need to keep your arm workouts to a minimum.

Use proper form. You'll want to make sure that when you lift weights with your arms you use proper form and technique. Instead of moving the weight up and down quickly and swinging your arms, you want to use slow and controlled motion.

You also want to make sure you complete the full range of motion when you lift weights in order to maximize the tension on your muscles. You'll target more muscle and get better results. If the weight is so heavy that you can't control it, move to a lighter weight.

It may help to work with a trainer if you're new to lifting weights to learn new exercises and proper techniques for your upper body workout. After a session or two you'll be able to continue on your own in most cases.

Exercise to the point of failure. While you want to have slow and controlled movements for your reps, you also need to give your muscles a challenge. At the end of the workout you should feel muscle fatigue. We also call this failure Â? the point at which your muscle can no longer support the weight in a controlled manner.

You should use a weight that's heavy enough to bring you to failure, but light enough that you can handle the first 8 reps in the set with control. It may take some time to figure out exactly what weight you need to use, but over time it will begin to be clear.

Following these three keys will help you to build muscle in your arms and meet your goals to have strength, power, and definition.

Filed Under: Building Muscle

Real Life Tips For Healthy Weight Loss

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Are you tired of diet tips handed out by someone with apparently unlimited income and time? For some of us, it may just not be practical to spend half of our Sunday preparing carefully portioned meals for the rest of the week, or financially feasible to buy all our meals prepackaged in just the right portions. And there are those of us who cringe at the thought of weighing food to achieve ‘optimal portion sizes'. Here are ten real life diet tips for the rest of us.

1. Eating out? Restaurant portions tend to be enormous, and if it's on the plate, we tend to eat it. If it's possible, order from the kid’s menu, where portions are more reasonably sized.

2. Keep healthy snacks around and easily accessible. A bowl of fruit on the kitchen table, a container of celery or carrot sticks in the refrigerator, or a couple of pop-open cans of fruit salad in your desk at work will help you grab for something healthy when those first hunger pains begin. In other words, you'll be more likely to grab something low-calorie and good for you if it's easy to eat.

3. Substitute frozen vegetables for canned. Canned veggies tend to be high in sodium, which you don't need, and low in real nutrition, which you do. Buy economy size bags with zip closures to make it easy to pour
out a single serving for a meal.

4. Buy a vegetable steamer. Steaming is one of the healthiest ways to cook vegetables. The food retains nearly all of its natural nutrients instead of leaching it out into the cooking water. Even better, it makes your veggies taste great – which means you'll be more likely to eat them instead of filling up on fatty foods that pack on weight.

5. Never eat standing up. One of the easiest ways to sabotage your diet is to ‘eat without thinking'. Treat eating with the respect that it deserves. Fix yourself a plate. Sit down and eat properly. You'll be less likely to just pop food into your mouth without paying attention.

6. Spread your meals out. When you eat three meals a day, your body tends to store whatever it doesn't need right that moment. By adopting a ‘grazing' habit, you'll keep your metabolism working throughout the day. Have a small breakfast, a piece of fruit with crackers or toast at mid-morning, a light lunch and an ‘after school snack' mid-afternoon. Just remember that you're breaking up the same amount of food into smaller meals, not ADDING more food into your daily diet.

7. Grab a fruit juice or flavored water instead of soda. Soda is nothing but empty calories. No nutrients, lots of sugar. Instead, grab a bottle of 100% fruit juice, or water flavored with a spritz of fruit.

8. Drink water. Even the FDA recommends at least 8 full 8 ounce glasses of water a day to keep your body working right. When you're dieting, you should drink even more. It's not just that full feeling – water helps your body digest foods properly and cleans out your system.

9. Can't afford a gym membership? Make a pact with friends to exercise together. Make a date at least three times a week to play volleyball, take a walk or spend half an hour doing something active.

10. Skip the potato chips. Fatty snacks fried in hydrogenated oil like potato chips contribute fat and calories and not much else. Instead, grab a handful of dried fruit or a cup of yogurt for the same amount of calories and a lot more nutritional benefit.

Filed Under: Weight Loss Tips

The Top Five Muscle Growth Products

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When you work out, you want to be able to enhance your efforts with muscle growth products that boost your fitness and size. Here are the top five muscle growth products you need to add to your fitness regimen.

Product #1 Â? Protein Powder. The most commonly used protein powder is whey protein powder. This comes from the protein in milk. It's digested quickly and easily by the body so it can get to work building muscles after you exercise.

You can also use casein protein powder which also comes from milk. This is slower digesting and when paired with whey protein, you'll begin to see better muscle growth results. Both of these products should be taken after working out. But you can also use them daily for energy boosting.

Product #2 Â? Creatine. Creatine is a supplement that has been well researched and has been scientifically proven to help build muscle. It's made of three particular amino acids that play an important role in muscle cell growth and repair.

You use creatine by taking it just before you exercise. The creatine will supply your muscles with oxygen and allow you to have more energy throughout your routine. You can also take it right after your workout to provide the needed amino acids for recovery.

Product #3 Â? Nitric Oxide Boosters. Nitric oxide is a chemical compound that helps your body to dilate blood vessels. What that means for your muscles is that when you take nitric oxide boosters before your workout, your blood vessels are better able to supply your muscles with nutrients.

You'll have more energy while you exercise and you'll have better recovery after your workout. By adding this supplement, you'll begin to see results right away.

Product #4 Â? Carnitine. If you're not only wanting to build muscle, but also burn fat carnitine is a great choice for you. It causes your body to use the energy from stored fat for your muscles. It also can increase your levels of testosterone after a workout which leads to more muscle growth.

You'll take this both pre and post workout for the best results. You can just add it to your protein shake.

Product #5 Â? Branched Chain Amino Acids (BCAAs). There are three amino acids that are critical to muscle growth Â? valine, isoleucine, and leucine. These are all found in BCAA supplements. They help you to have more energy during your workout.

In addition they aid in muscle growth and they help you recover without as much soreness after a workout. These muscle growth products have all been proven effective to enhance your workout and give you the best results.

Filed Under: Building Muscle

10 Weight Loss Motivation Tips and Techniques

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Most people know they need to lose weight. They see it in the mirror, they feel it when they put their clothes on and the low self-confidence and self-esteem reminds them every day. But, for many finding the motivation to lose the weight, even when they know they need to is something else.

This is very common, and most overweight people struggle with the motivation factor their whole life.

But, motivation is essential for weight loss, no matter if you need to lose 10 or 100 pounds, it's the most important element of success. In fact, if it was easy to lose, obesity would not be worldwide epidemic that it has become.

It is important to realize that losing weight is well worth the effort because it has many benefits.

The Benefits of Weight Loss

Improves health
Makes people much more energetic
Makes people look great
Makes people feel great
It's mentally rewarding
It prevents lots of diseases associated with obesity, like, diabetes, heart diseases, stroke and cancers, just to mention a few.

Where to Find Motivation

Finding motivation to lose weight is all about changing one's perspective. While many consider dieting a hassle, too hard and inconvenient, this is the wrong thinking.

Think instead of learning to eat healthier and make better choices, one food and one day at a time. For example, choose an apple instead of a donut. Eat vegetables for a side dish instead of fries.

Evaluate the food you eat and take a close look at your daily calorie intake. Start walking daily, then increase your workouts as you get healthier. These are just a few examples of action steps you can take right away.

10 Great Weight Loss Motivation Tips

1. Put a picture of your old self in plain sight. The worst picture you can find that really upsets you in regards to your weight. Each and every time you want to cheat, skip workouts or otherwise blow your diet plan look at the picture.

2. Make a list of the reasons you want to lose weight. Make the list nice and long and readable. Write down how you would feel if you don't lose the weight. And, also write down how awful it will be if you lose some and then regain it if you quit and waste all the effort.

3. Each morning remind yourself of your reasons to want to lose weight, check your lists and read them out loud. Consider how you will feel if you don't lose weight and those reasons go out the window.

4. Ask for help. Accountability is really good for motivation for weight loss. A friend, nutritional counselor or family member that creates some accountability is really helpful.

5. Celebrate the successes. It is very important to celebrate each success. Establish a reward for each 5 or 10 pound loss. A movie, a new outfit, or anything you enjoy to make a big deal out of those success.

This helps with motivation and also makes it harder to throw it all away should you want to quit.

6. Set goals. It's important to have goals in writing. Set short and long term goals, stick with them, mark off achievements as you go.

7. Envision success. Imagine yourself fit on a daily basis. Imagine how you will look in a smaller size outfit. If you have one, hang that outfit that doesn't fit in plain sight so you can see it daily. Look at pictures of fit bodies or whoever you want to look like to remind you of your goals.

Do this daily.

8. Be good to yourself. If you have a relapse and do cheat, don't beat yourself up.

9. Think lifestyle change, not temporary diet plan. The motivation cannot be short term, it must be lifelong to maintain fitness. Diets are temporary, learn to eat right, change your bad habits and the magic will happen.

10. Choose the right weight loss method, this can often be the key to long term success. Many over extend themselves by choosing fad diets that cannot possibly bring long term and lasting results. They also choose diets they cannot follow and just set themselves up for failure. Choose wisely and it will keep you motivated for the long term.

Filed Under: Weight Loss Tips

The Relationship Between Exercise to Build Muscle and Cardio Workouts

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When you're ready to bulk up, it's important that you understand the relationship between exercise to build muscle and cardio workouts. You may be surprised that when it's time to gain bulk, you'll need to cut back on the cardio.

Cardio workouts are important to build up your heart muscle and to help you burn some fat. But they take up a lot of energy and can make it more difficult to bulk up. So when you're ready to focus on gaining muscle, you may need to limit your cardio sessions.

If you're used to getting in a jog or run every day, you may find it difficult to add bulk to your frame. There's a reason that most people who run a lot have slender frames. But that doesn't mean you have to completely throw it out of your routine.

Your heart needs to have exercise from cardio training and it's the most important muscle in your body. For that reason alone it's a good idea to continue getting a little cardio in about three times a week.

But you'll need to lower the intensity of those workouts and you'll want to limit them to about 30 minutes on those days. This will allow you to get the training effect for your heart without burning so many calories that you take away from your muscle mass.

The major issue here is that cardio takes a lot of energy. But your body needs energy in order to focus on repairing muscle tissue and adding bulk to your frame. When you perform long and intense cardio workouts, you drain your body of the required energy it needs to build muscle.

If you want to keep training your heart and you just enjoy your cardio workout, keep doing it. Just make sure that you keep your heart rate below 140 and that you don't perform cardio for more than half an hour three times each week.

Also make sure that you get plenty of time to rest in between workouts. One of the most misunderstood concepts about building muscle mass is that it happens after the workout Â? not during.

The time after the exercise is when you recover and when muscle mass continues to build. You need to make sure that you give yourself plenty of time to rest and relax so that your energy can be spent at the cellular level.

If you want to build muscle and cardio exercise is important to you, just reduce the time and intensity of the workout so that you can have both benefits.

Filed Under: Building Muscle

10 Habits Of Healthy Eaters

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There is increasing evidence that what we put into our bodies plays as big a role in the presence or absence of disease than just about anything else. Those who eat healthy simply have a longer life and a better quality of life when compared to those who do not choose to eat healthy.

One of the more common and harmful dysfunctional eating habits is emotional eating, or emotional overeating. This is something that many people have done in their lives on occasion, and for some it is commonplace and can lead to serious health consequences.

Emotional eaters typically lack the coping skills necessary to deal with stress, pain, fear, and loneliness and so they use food as a drug to deal with them. Typically, their diet is far from healthy and depending on how often they use food to cope with life, it can be downright harmful. Many times, emotional eaters do not know what a healthy diet looks because they are stuck in the vicious cycle of binging when life's problems becoming too overwhelming.

What makes a healthy eater?

It is often a matter of good habits. Here are ten habits of healthy eaters you can adopt as your own:

1. Healthy eaters watch portion sizes. In other words, they know that a portion of steak is just three ounces and a half cup of fruit really means you eat half a cup rather than as much as you want. Monitoring portion sizes helps keep bodyweight within normal limits.

2. Healthy eaters have colorful plates. They recognize the value of colorful fruits and vegetables, especially orange, green, yellow, and blue fruits and vegetables. Each offers unique health opportunities and many colorful foods contain helpful antioxidants which scavenge for unhealthy oxygen free radicals in the body.

3. Healthy eaters take their time with their meals. There is about a 20-minute lag time between the time you fill your stomach and brain signals that the body has had enough food. If you eat slowly and mindfully, you can avoid the trap of overeating, indigestion, and weight gain.

4. Healthy eaters recognize the value of small snacks. Our energy level over the course of a given day can be impacted by the highs and lows of our blood sugar. When we incorporate healthy snacks into our diet, we avoid having too many highs and lows in our daily diet and have energy throughout the day.

5. Healthy eaters don't eat large evening meals. It is far better to have your bigger meal as the noon meal of the day than it is to eat a large meal at 7 pm just before retiring. This allows the body a chance to metabolize a large meal and avoids the trap of eating too much before sleepingÂ?something that can lead to insomnia.

6. Healthy eaters eat with others. Food should be part of a social experience with an exchange of conversation happening while eating. It forces you to eat slower and it puts the meal in perspective as part of a social experience.

7. Healthy eaters focus on unsaturated rather than saturated fats. In other words, they tend to lean toward plant oils when cooking and away from fats and oils that come from animals, including butter and cream. Saturated fats tend to raise cholesterol levels and are not particularly heart healthy.

8. Healthy eaters have dessert sparingly. While topping off a good meal with a dessert sounds like the right thing to do, it only adds empty calories to your diet and should instead be a rare treat on special occasions. Regular meals should be meals in and of themselves rather than a part of a whole dinner/dessert package. Similarly, those who follow a healthy diet rarely go to fast food restaurants or consume high calorie nutrient poor junk food, like potato chips, donuts, candy, and soda.

9. Healthy eaters eat more fruits and vegetables than they do meat. Meals should contain more fruits, vegetables and whole grains than they do meat products. This means using meat more sparingly as part of a larger vegetable dish rather than grilling up a big slab of meat as the focus of the meal.

10. Healthy eaters choose whole grains. Rather than subsist on white bread and processed rice or pasta, the healthy eater chooses the whole grain variety. Whole grains are especially high in fiber, which helps the bowels move more easily. Foods high in soluble fiber like oats can also reduce cholesterol levels and help with healthy weight management.

Filed Under: Healthy Eating

The Most Effective Muscle Gain Supplements

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When you're looking to build muscle, you'll want to use muscle gain supplements that provide you with the extra nutrition you need to have success. There are several different types of supplements that can enhance your efforts.

First, the most common supplement is creatine. This is a chemical that your body produces naturally when it makes protein. When you take it as a supplement, you enhance your body's ability to make new muscle tissue.

It's best to take it before a workout so that it's available in your bloodstream during your workout. You need to give it about 45 minutes to become available for your workout. If you take creatine with a carbohydrate source it can be more easily absorbed by the body.

Many people take creatine in shakes that also include carbs. You can also take creatine supplements with a glass of juice to get the same effect. The effect of creatine is that you're able to perform exercises better and that you can recover faster. This leads to muscle gain.

You can also take protein supplements. Protein is the building block of muscle, so if you provide your body with extra protein you'll be giving it more of the raw materials it needs to construct muscle tissue.

There are a few different sources of protein. The most common supplements come from whey protein. This is an inexpensive protein derived from milk. It comes in powder form and can be added to shakes to give our body an extra boost.

You can also get protein supplement made from casein. This is another type of protein made from milk sources. It's digested slowly, but it keeps you from feeling really full. This is a benefit if you're working to eat more to gain weight.

Glutamine is another type of supplement. This is an amino acid that helps to build up muscle tissue in the body. It also protects muscle you've already built so that it won't deteriorate. It also supports a healthy immune system as an added benefit.

If you're looking for a supplement that helps you to gain muscle and lose fat, carnitine is a great choice. It allows you to have better circulation to your muscles. More blood supply means that more nutrients are delivered to the tissues and they can grow faster.

Adding supplements to a healthy diet can boost your ability to bulk up. These muscle gain supplements are specifically designed to help you develop and keep healthy muscle tissue when you exercise.

Filed Under: Building Muscle

Strategic Weight Loss

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One of the first things that you'll do when you decide to lose weight is to set a goal weight. For most, that goal will be their ‘ideal weight', but for many, that ‘ideal weight' may be exactly the wrong weight for them to be aiming for.

Years of dieting or being overweight have the physiological effect of moving the body's concept of the ‘ideal weight' from what is truly considered ideal. The ‘set point' is the weight at which your body naturally feels most comfortable. If you've been overweight for a very long time, or if you've consistently ‘yo-yoed', your body may respond to your initial weight loss by lowering its metabolism because it believes that you are starving to death. This slowing leads to discouraging plateaus that often knock people off their diets entirely, and lead to regaining all or part of the lost weight.

Instead of aiming for an ‘ideal weight' that calls for you to lose weight steadily for months or even years, many experts recommend aiming for shorter-term attainable goals. Since the bulk of diet research shows that most dieters lose weight steadily for about 12 weeks, then hit a plateau, that's the number that they suggest you aim for. The strategy that many have found works best for them is one of alternating periods of weight loss and maintenance, each lasting 8-12 weeks.

Choose a realistic amount of weight that you can lose in 8-12 weeks. Figuring that the most reasonable and healthiest weight loss rate is 1-2 pounds per week, 30 pounds in three months is not unreasonable. Diet until you reach that goal, or for 12 weeks, whichever comes first, and then switch to a maintenance diet.

Why switch to a maintenance diet at that point? In part, you're giving yourself a ‘breather', a break from more restrictive eating. The other part, though, is that you're re-educating your body and letting it establish a new ‘set point'. Once you've maintained your new weight for 8-12 weeks, set another weight loss goal, and move back into weight loss mode. By giving your body a break from ‘starvation', you'll have overcome its resistance to losing more weight, and be back to dieting for ‘the first two weeks' – the weeks that most people lose weight more rapidly.

You'll also be giving yourself a chance to ‘practice' maintaining your new, healthier weight. Researchers have found that more than half of the dieters who take off significant amounts of weight do not maintain that weight loss once they go ‘off' their diet. By practicing weight maintenance in stages, you'll be proving to yourself that you CAN do it, and removing a powerful negative psychological block.

This will work with any long-term weight loss diet, no matter the focus. You'll find it much easier to do if you choose a diet that has concrete ‘phases', like the South Beach or the Atkins, since the weight loss and maintenance phases are clearly laid out for you to follow. Regardless of the diet you choose, though, by alternating between weight loss phases and maintenance phases, you'll teach yourself and your body how to maintain a healthy weight.

Filed Under: Featured

The Five Best Muscle Growth Tips

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When you're ready to bulk up, it helps to have muscle growth tips that keep you on the right path to the body you want. Keep these five things in mind when you're working to build the body of your dreams.

Tip 1 Â? Limit your resistance training to three days a week. Many people feel that they need to lift weights daily to get a muscular body. But that actually keeps your body from being able to establish new muscle tissue.

Instead, perform strength training three times a week and then rest in between so that your body has a chance to recovery. The recovery period is when muscle growth actually happens Â? not the day you're pumping iron.

Tip 2 Â? Take in enough protein and calories. You need to make sure that you don't restrict your calories too much, even if you want to lose fat. If you don't get enough calories your body will switch to starvation mode and you won't put on muscle or burn fat.

You also need to increase your protein consumption so that your muscles get the raw materials they need to grow. Adding a protein shake or bar can help you get what you need. You can also get protein from lean meats, nuts, and whole grains.

Tip 3 Â? Add Creatine to your plan. Creatine is one of the best researched supplements and has been shown to clinically increase muscle growth. It allows you to have more energy when you work out so that you can build more muscle.

If you take a supplement that also includes carbs and protein, you'll see even more results. Make sure to follow the manufacturer's instructions and take it before you begin your workout so that it will be in your system.

Tip 4 Â? Push yourself to lift the heaviest weights you can safely lift. Many people think that doing many reps is the key to bulking up. In actuality, you need to perform fewer reps with heavier weights to get more muscle growth.

Choose weights that challenge your body and push yourself to fatigue your muscle by the end of your set. You can work out for less time and get a much more effective workout using this method.

Tip 5 Â? Don't set unrealistic expectations. A lot of how your muscles develop is dependent on genetics. You can do the best with what you've been given, but your frame may never look like the Incredible Hulk. Be realistic about your own limitations and give it your best.

With these simple muscle growth tips you can begin to see new definition, get stronger, and make your body the best it can be.

Filed Under: Building Muscle

Metamucil Weight Loss Approach

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There has been a lot of talk lately about the possible benefits of Metamucil for weight loss. Metamucil it not designed or promoted as a weight loss supplement. In fact, it is fiber that aids the digestive system to remain regular. But, there are claims that Metamucil works in helping people to lose weight and get fit.

This is actually true, and scientific evidence does exist as to this supplement's effectiveness for weight loss. But, it's not because of the brand name, it's because of what it contains.

The manufacturer of Metamucil makes it clear that this product is made to aid in reducing cholesterol. It also helps to clean the digestive track, as fiber does and it is a good source of fiber, which is required for any healthy diet. Metamucil's main ingredient is psyllium husk fiber and it is this fiber, which is soluble, that really helps with weight loss.

How Fiber Aids Weight Loss

Fiber has long been known to help in weight loss because it fills you up. When you are more satisfied with less food you eat less calories and lose weight.

The fiber produces bulk inside the stomach and this makes you feel full. In fact, taking Metamucil before a meal, results in smaller portions, less calories and consequently weight loss.

Metamucil is just a supplement for fiber. You can get the same benefits from real foods that are rich in fiber, such as, oatmeal, artichokes, spinach, celery, bran and raspberries. But, many people just don't eat enough of the right foods to get their recommended daily intake, so supplements are a great alternative to get the fiber you need.

Eating a well balanced diet that is rich in fiber will really help you to lose weight. When you don't get enough fiber, take Metamucil as a supplement.

But, Metamucil in itself does not include any of the essential vitamins needed daily. So, it is important to eat a well balanced diet and take other vitamins and minerals as needed.

How To Use Metamucil

This product can be purchased and used in several ways, as a powder, a wafer, or as a capsule. The powder and wafer is mixed with water and drank. The capsule form is just swallowed with water.

The recommended dose for the average adult is 2 to 6 pills per day. It is important to take it with a full glass of water.

Do not rely on this product alone for weight loss. Fiber is an aid, not a plan. It's important to choose a low sugar, low calorie eating plan where fiber aids you to stay on track and eat less without the misery of hunger.

For those that feel hungry a lot throughout the day, and tend to snack and overeat, Metamucil can be of great benefit.

Filed Under: Weight Loss Tips
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