8 Metabolism Boosters for Weight Loss

By: Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS
www.TurbulenceTraining.com

Your metabolism is your fat loss foundation.

It keeps burning and burning fat 24 hours a day...the only problem is, do you have a fast metabolism? And if not, what can you do about it to boost your metabolism and burn fat to lose weight?

Your metabolism is basically how many calories you burn each day. Children have faster metabolic rates than adults, and we all know about the legendary metabolism's of teenage boys. That's the metabolism you wish you had.

And while it is inevitable that your metabolism decreases with age, it doesn't doom you to gaining weight. It might even decrease 30% over your life, but really, is that any reason to become overweight? No way. Not when you can turn it around with a couple of simple, proven techniques listed below...

Here are 8 possible metabolic boosters and the truth about whether each works.

1) Strength training

Claim: Boosts metabolism up to 10% after a training program

True!

In fact, despite what many men and women think, harder exercise is better for your metabolism. However, please note that 1 pound of muscle does not burn 50 calories per day.

In one study, women received a greater metabolic boost from using 8 repetitions per set rather than traditional high-rep (12 reps) sets. So stick to harder exercises (pushups and more advanced bodyweight exercises) or dumbbell exercises.

2) Breakfast

Claim: Because it stops your "fasting", it can boost metabolism

True? Maybe yes, maybe no. Your metabolism won't go into
"starvation mode" without breakfast, but it is associated with
successful weight loss. So make it a habit to consume some protein, fiber, & fruit (& even veggies if you can fit them in) at this time. This will keep your appetite in check till your next break or even lunch.

3) Green Tea

Claim: Burns an extra 80 calories per day

True? Not really. It has been shown to burn 80 calories per day in young men on the first day of supplementation, but will this affect last once your body gets used to it? I don't think.

After all, take a look at caffeine. You can find studies that show
it increases metabolism as well. But really, is anyone losing fat
with caffeine? The revolving doors at Starbucks say "No!".

Coffee is okay in moderate doses, and I recommend Green Tea to everyone, but for health reasons, not for fat loss. The only way you will lose fat with Green Tea is if you replace a 300+-calorie Frappucino with an iced, unsweetened Green Tea. Otherwise, don't count on it for much in terms of metabolism.

4) Fat Burners

Claim: Boost your metabolism big time!

See above. Fat burners are simply caffeine pills with a few other
ingredients thrown in. You'll get an increase in mental energy, but that doesn't mean it will significantly boost metabolism or burn fat.

5) Ice Cold Water with Lemon Juice Squeed into it

Claim: The body will burn calories warming up the water and the lemon juice also burns more fat.

Truth? Nice in theory, short in practice. Nobody is losing fat with ice cold water. If it sounds too good to be true - you know the rest of the story.

6) Eating 6 small meals per day

Claim: Boosts metabolism and can help control cholesterol.

True! Simple and effective, and true! Try and split your meals up into smaller meals that can be eaten over the course of the day. This might be part of the breakfast magic...

7) Protein

Claim: Burns more calories (uses more calories in digestion than
carbohydrates or fat).

True!

Now I'm not sure if this is significant, but protein also helps
fill you up longer. And that's where the real benefit comes in -
preventing overeating. And if you want details, another study
showed that animal protein results in more energy burned than
vegetable protein.

8- Interval training

Claim: Interval training causes a greater increase in post-exercise metabolism than regular cardio.

I certainly believe it.

And I do know this. A recent study from Australia found that a
shorter interval program led to more weight loss than a
twice-as-long aerobic training program. This confirms the original interval training study from as far back as 1994 that showed greater results from a shorter interval program when compared to a traditional cardio program.

Bottom line: Intervals work!

So we see that hard work and diligent eating burn more calories and that magic pills and potions don't work.

But that shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. My advice? Add
strength, intervals, mini-meals, and protein to your weight loss
plan and you'll be leaner and warmer thanks to your faster
metabolism.

Turbulence Training was built to boost your metabolism,

Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS
Author, Turbulence Training

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 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, visitwww.TurbulenceTraining.com

Weight Loss Workout for Busy People

By: Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS
www.TurbulenceTraining.com 

You can get an incredible weight loss workout at home without any equipment. That's right, you can burn fat and lose fat in the comfort of your own home. You don't need fancy machines or expensive mega-gym memberships, and you don't have to deal with line-ups or sweaty, stinky fellow gym-members. Ewww!

Okay, here's the first thing you need. About a 8x8 open area. And your bodyweight. That's it. Don't rest between any of these exercises.

First exercise: Prisoner Squat

Place your hands behind your head, keep your elbows back, and squat down halfway to the ground. Keep your shoulder blades together to work your upper back and push your hips back as you squat to work your back of your legs.

Do that 10-20 times depending on your strength levels.

Second exercise: Push-up Plus

Do a regular pushup, but at the top, add a little extra push to round your upper back and make your shoulder blades move away from one another. Do 4-12 reps depending on your strength.

Third exercise: Plank

Support yourself on your forearms and toes and keep your body in a straight line from ankles to shoulders. You'll be "hovering" just above the ground. Keep your abs braced and hold for 10-60 seconds depending on your endurance.

Fourth exercise: Split squat

Stand with one foot 2 feet in front of your body and the other foot 1 foot behind your body. This is a stationary lunge position. Bend your back knee and drop your hips to the floor. Then push up using the muscles of the lead leg. Use a wall for balance or support if needed. Do 5-12 reps per side depending on strength.

Rest 1 minute then repeat the circuit up to 4 times.

Have fun, and burn fat,

Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS
Author, Turbulence Training

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 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, visitwww.TurbulenceTraining.com

How Bad is Your Nutrition?

By: Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS
www.TurbulenceTraining.com 

Chances are your nutrition is terrible. Or at the very least, your nutrition plan is good but you allow yourself far too many treats. Take today for example. How many Halloween candies have you treated yourself to at work? And you still have to go home and resist the leftover candy bowl or your child’s Halloween loot. The bottom line: You can’t succeed in your fat loss program if your diet is average.

I need to bring up this point because of the many emails people send me about their nutrition. From what I read, most people’s nutrition plans are far too poor to allow them to lose fat. And yet they are working harder than ever in the gym and wondering why they aren’t losing fat. No workout will help you build muscle and lose fat if you keep eating at fast-food restaurants, drinking sugary sodas, and raiding bags of leftover mini-candy bars.

And it’s frustrating because the secrets to fat loss nutrition are so simple. The best approach is eating several small meals per day, with each meal containing lean protein, vegetables, and other whole foods. You must eliminate unnecessary calories such as soda and high-fat, high-sugar snacks (like that mini-Snickers bar that’s on your desk right now). If you’re trying to lose fat, you can’t have treats every day. If fat loss is the goal, then cookies, apple pie, ice cream, nachos, fried foods, etc. just don't make the cut, as unfortunate as it is.

Research shows that an increased intake of fruits and vegetables is associated with fat loss (nutritionists never put a limit on the number of vegetables that people should eat - provided they are not fried or covered in fat or sauces). Other research suggests that replacing carbohydrates with almonds (a source of fiber, protein, and monounsaturated fats) leads to greater weight loss. Almonds are a very healthy snack and help curb hunger. A typical serving is 1 ounce of almonds (about 22 pieces) and can replace chips, chocolate bars, and cookies in your diet.

Make sure you are logging your food intake and making notes about your energy levels when you eat certain foods. Soon you will identify the nutritional reasons for your fatigue or for your consistent energy levels. You will quickly associate sugar and fried foods with poor mental performance, while noticing that small, whole, natural food-based meals and snacks help keep you alert and full of energy.

If you are overweight and just starting to improve your nutrition, I have some good news for you. You should begin losing at least 1 pound per week (probably 2 or more) simply from the nutritional changes.

Nutrition is that powerful. Don’t expect to start eating perfectly tomorrow, but you should slowly build up to eating much better and healthier than you were yesterday. Try to improve your nutrition plan everyday. Stay consistent and focused with your nutritional approach. You can do it. Here are three nutrition changes that would pay huge dividends for a fat-loss beginner:

1) Eat several small, whole food meals per day.

2) Don't consume any unnecessary liquid calories (i.e. no soda, alcohol, or sweetened beverages). Drink more water – nutrition experts recommend 3 liters per day.

3) Eliminate processed carbohydrates and sugar from your nutrition plan (no soda, cake, chips, white bread, or chocolate bars).

If you’re fed up with the body fat and spare tire around your middle, then it’s time to take a structured approach to fat loss.

If your current nutritional plan is preventing you from losing fat, then it’s time for you to start working on building better eating habits. This can be as simple as committing to one small nutritional improvement per day (such as replacing your lunchtime soda with water) and one large nutritional change per week (such as setting aside time on a Sunday to prepare a weekly menu and all of your meals).

But you need to have a plan to make this work, just like how you have a plan for your workouts. Your nutrition plan should include the contents of every meal, as well as your grocery list for the week. This will enable you to have meal alternatives for nights when you might need to be running from one event to the other with no time or healthy snack alternatives when you are on the road between meetings.

It’s important that you make your plan something you can follow. If you are currently eating 7 meals per week at the golden arches, it wouldn’t be realistic to plan to replace those meals with carrot sticks and tofu this week. A better plan would be to substitute a couple of those meals with healthier sandwich options and then work on improving things even more in the following weeks.

So here’s a three-step guideline on building a better nutrition plan:

1) Prepare a weekly menu. Outline each meal and snack for every day of the upcoming week. Take into account the possibilities that you might work late or get invited out to lunch. The more options you have and preparations you make, the better you will be able to stick to your fat loss plan.

2) From your menu plan, you’ll now know what foods and ingredients you need to make it through the week. Make your grocery list and stick to it (see mine below). Grocery shopping is your first opportunity to break some bad nutritional habits. You can’t eat chips, cookies, or cakes if you don’t have them in the house – so don’t buy them and you’ll avoid any future temptation.

3) Prepare the meals or prepare the ingredients so that making the actual meal doesn’t take a lot of time. Like shopping, it’s best to do all of these preparations at one time (such as on a Sunday or another day off).

My shopping list includes:

Fruits · Apples · Oranges · Blueberries · Melon · Peaches · Grapefruit · Raspberries

Vegetables · Peppers (red, yellow, green, & orange), · Spinach · Asparagus · Broccoli · Snow Peas · Mushrooms · Frozen mixed vegetables · Tomato sauce

Protein Sources · Chicken breasts · Turkey breasts · Salmon fillets · Lean beef · Skim milk & low-fat, low-sugar yogurt

Carbohydrates · Oat bread · Oatmeal (no sugar added) · Whole-wheat pasta

Other · Green tea · Unsalted, not roasted, Almonds

You’ll notice that most of these foods come without a food label. Most of the foods that you should avoid come in a bag or a box. Building a shopping list that contains very few bagged or boxed items is something to aim for. But when you do purchase something with a label, make sure to avoid two of the unhealthiest ingredients created by man:

1) High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) 2) Hydrogenated or partially-hydrogenated vegetable oil (the sources of trans-fatty acids)

You might have heard of these two ingredients. They are strongly associated with obesity and other lifestyle-diseases (such as diabetes).

Sincerely,

Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS
Author, Turbulence Training  www.TurbulenceTraining.com 

Fat Loss Secrets of Fitness Models

By: Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS
www.TurbulenceTraining.com

Fat loss is easy once you understand how hard it is.

Once you realize that fat loss is hard work, and not just as easy
as eating some celery, drinking really cold water, and slamming
down some "metabolism boosters", that's when you'll really start to get results.

When you accept sticking to your nutrition program will take effort, only then will you start planning and preparing your nutrition to meet your fat loss goals.

Same with exercise. When you understand that harder workouts are more effective, then you'll start to plan your workouts accordingly.

Over the past year I've interviewed over a dozen fitness models
(men and women) for Oxygen and Maximum Fitness magazines, and their secrets to success are as plain as day.

They know it is going to be hard work to get ready for a
photoshoot, but what do they know that you don't know?

First, they've got their nutrition plans down perfectly. And when I say planned out, I don't just mean they have a meal plan torn out of a magazine. Instead, they have their shopping lists prepared.

They have time set aside for cooking, cutting, and chopping. These men and women have more than enough tupperware to store and freeze their food for the week.

Fitness models take their meals with them and aren't so naive as to believe that they will be able to find something "healthy" at work or on the road. They are not willing to sacrifice results for convenience. They have accepted the hard work that comes with eating for fat loss. Have you?

Second, fitness models know what works - not only in the kitchen, but also in the gym. They've recorded their workouts, studied the effects of various exercises, rep ranges, and workout frequencies.

They have accepted that their can be NO guesswork in a fat loss
workout program. That's why fitness models plan their workouts in advance, and write down the results in a training log for analysis.

If you aren't doing that, then you're doing nothing more than
playing a workout "lottery" and hoping you'll come up lucky.

Third, and perhaps most importantly (because its hard to have the first two factors without this one), fitness models surround
themselves with a supportive environment and social support groups.

How many fitness models do you think are married to sedentary, overweight smokers? How many fitness models do you think hang around men and women that start drinking at 4pm every Friday?

Having the right social support group and supportive environment can make or break your fat loss program in less than a minute.

Research shows this. Experience proves this.

All it takes is a bunch of co-workers to surround you at your desk with a box of doughnuts and pressure you into "having just one". The next thing you know its 3 days later and you haven't had a decent meal since.

According to the research on social support for fat loss, there are
at least 2 proven ways to harness the powers of others for your fat loss goals.

First, include a health professional in your social support group.
This could be your doctor, a nutritionist, or a trainer that you
see on a regular basis. But you need to be accountable to someone.

This will work best for those of you that can't find support among your family, friends, or co-workers.

Second, if a member of your social support group also loses weight, you'll have a greater chance of succeeding. So try and get family members, friends, and co-workers directly involved. Get them from cheerleaders to active participants in the fight against fat.

I hope these tips help you out. If you don't have any social
support right now, by all means, send me an email on your progress and at least hold yourself accountable to me.

If you need help planning a workout, please visit:
http://www.turbulencetraining.com/

I promise you Turbulence Training will give you to the fat loss you deserve and desire.

Sincerely,

Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS
Author, Turbulence Training    www.TurbulenceTraining.com

Rating the Energy Drinks

By: Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS
www.TurbulenceTraining.com 

Energy. Everyone wants more of it. And it's as easy to get as heading down to the corner store...All we need to do is slam down a Red Bull. Or a Gatorade. Or a coffee. Or so the ads say.

But which of these is really the best energy drink? The answer, of course, is below...

Now when people talk about energy drinks, they are often simply referring to products that contain caffeine. After all, when someone is describing their energy levels, they are really talking about their level of mental alertness. So we'll limit our discussion today to that: what drink gives you the best and longest-lasting energy levels.

#5 - At the bottom of our list are those sugar and caffeine "energy drinks" such as Red Bull (and even cola).

The problem with many energy drinks is that they contain too much sugar and/or too much caffeine. So while the short-term effects are huge increases in energy (i.e. feeling wired or even jittery - even to the point of nausea), after an hour or two you'll crash and burn, and more than likely be ready for a nap - or as those marketing machines prefer, another "energy drink".

#4 - Sports Drinks: Give these guys credit, they've convinced the world that we need to refuel with what's essentially uncarbonated soda pop. Now unless you're performing an exercise of more than an hour, you don't need this liquid sugar.

#3 - Coffee: Having never had a coffee in my life, I'm not sure it's fair of me to pass judgement on this beverage. But I'll say this...a cup of coffee each day is not going to kill you.

But if you depend on the caffeine to give you your morning get-up-and-go, maybe you should do a little lifestyle review. Perhaps there are some things you can change to give yourself more energy without relying on a caffeine fix? And you're probably getting a lot more caffeine than you bargain for if you get your coffee from the well-known coffee shops.

#2 - Green Tea: True, this beverage does contain caffeine, but it does so in relatively smaller amounts than coffee.

In addition, you should be able to find naturally decaffeinated Green Teas (avoid Green Tea that has been decaffeinated via an "acetylation" process - this might also remove the healthy phytochemicals in the tea). And of course, go organic if you can.

NOTE: All teas are healthy. Green Tea may or may not be healthier than traditional teas.

Green Tea is a super close second place to our winner...and research suggests that several cups of the tea are necessary each day to receive the full health benefits.

#1 - Filtered Water: There's no way that water is going to lead to an energy crash. And it's important part of your nutrition plan. While I admit, it will never compare to a caffeine-based beverage for giving you that mental wake-up, in the big picture, water is the go-to drink.

Unfortunately, despite all the messages about H2O, I know a lot of the Turbulence Training  clients still do not drink enough water.

I'm a big proponent of 12 glasses per day - I drink more than that and immediately notice sluggishness when I am unable to do so. I encourage you to monitor your water intake and determine your optimal level for alertness.

Use the Turbulence Training Lifestyle to increase your energy.

Sincerely,

Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS
Author, Turbulence Training   www.TurbulenceTraining.com