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The following article was written by celebrated coach and dietician and author Mike Geary now justly famous for his best selling series Truth About Abs.  To see for yourself what this amazing coach can do for you just click below.

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There has been so much confusion about the topic of good carbohydrates and bad carbohydrates in recent years… I wanted to help clear up some of that confusion for you and set you on a clearer path to lifelong fat loss success and healthier eating.

First of all, although I am not a “low carb” believer (I certainly don’t think extremely low carbohydrate diets are healthy), I do believe that one of the main reasons that the vast majority of people struggle to ever lose weight is that they are over-consuming processed refined carbohydrates such as pasta, bagels, breads, cereals, rice, muffins, sodas, juices, candies, crackers, etc.

It is exceedingly hard to lose weight if you are over-consuming any of these types of refined processed carbohydrates (even if you work out extremely hard). In addition to causing big blood sugar swings and insulin surges that stimulate direct body fat storage, eating too many carbohydrates also increases your cravings and overall appetite.

Even carbohydrate sources that most people think are “healthy” really are just excess calories that do not really contain significant nutrient density… and many types of breads and cereals claim to be “whole grain” through clever marketing although in reality, the first ingredient in them is refined flour, which is just going to spike your blood sugar and create an insulin surge. After years of eating excess processed carbohydrates, it becomes harder and harder for insulin to do it’s job and continue handling all of this blood sugar, and insulin resistance and eventual type 2 diabetes can occur in many people.

My opinion on this is that the majority of people struggling to lose weight would get much better results by following these types of guidelines:

1. Reduce overall grain-based foods in your diet (pasta, cereal, crackers, rice, etc) and focus more of your diet on healthy free range, grass-fed meats and eggs, raw grass-fed dairy, and a whole lot of vegetables.

2. Instead of grains for most of your carbohydrate intake, try getting most of your carbs from veggies, sweet potatoes, and a variety of berries and whole fruits (NOT fruit juices, which remove the beneficial fiber as well as other important nutrients in the fruit)

3. If you are going to get any grains at all, focus on the most nutrient dense and fibrous portions of the grain… the bran and the germ. This means that the healthiest ideas are using oat bran instead of oat meal, and using wheat germ and rice bran by adding them to your salads, yogurt, cottage cheese, soups, smoothies, etc. This way you get all of the most nutrient dense parts of the grains without all of the excess starches and calories.

4. To replace the void if you are accustomed to consuming large quantities of cereals, bread, pasta, and other carbohydrate sources… try filling that void with additional healthy fats such as avocados, guacamole, nuts, seeds, nut butters as well as healthy proteins such as grass-fed raw dairy and grass fed meats, whole free-range organic eggs, etc. Healthy fats and protein sources go a long way to satisfying your appetite, controlling proper blood sugar and hormone levels, and helping you to make real progress on weight loss for life.

With all of that said, here’s one of my favorite carbohydrate sources that is high in fiber as well as contains a high density of antioxidants, fiber, vitamins, and minerals… it is yams and/or sweet potatoes. Try slicing them into thin slivers and sauteeing them with a few tablespoons of water in a pan for about 5 minutes for a quicker healthy carb (instead of baking them for over an hour). Finish them off with a touch of grass-fed organic butter and some cinnamon and you’ve got a delicous and healthy carbohydrate side dish!

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This article was written by the celebrated author,dietitian,trainer Mike Geary who has helped literally thousands of martial artists and non martial artists alike to achieve healthy balanced lifestyles. With the added bonus of sound and tested methods to help you achieve the kind of body you always wanted.

Working as a fitness professional, there is one type of question I get all the time that shows that many people are missing the big picture regarding the benefits of strength training. This popular question usually goes something like this:

“What exercise can I do to isolate my _______ (insert your muscle of choice – abs, quads, biceps, triceps, etc)?”

It doesn’t matter which muscle someone is asking about, they always seem to be asking how to ‘isolate’ it. My first response to this question is always – “Why in the world would you want to isolate it?”

The first thing I try to teach my clients is that the body does not work well in muscle isolation. Rather, it works better in movements along a kinetic chain; that is, large portions of the body assist other portions of the body in completing a complex movement. In fact, there really is no such thing as true muscle isolation. There is almost always a nearby muscle group that will assist in some way with whatever movement you are doing. However, this article compares attempting to ‘isolate’ body parts via single-joint exercises to the much more effective strategy of performing multi-joint complex movements.

When you attempt to ‘isolate’ muscles by performing single-joint exercises, you are actually creating a body that is non-functional and will be more prone to injury. Essentially, you are creating a body that is a compilation of body parts, instead of a powerful, functional unit that works together.

Now if you really want to end up hobbling around in a body bandaged up with joint problems, tendonitis, and excess body fat, then by all means, continue trying to ‘isolate’ body parts. On the other hand, if you would rather have a lean, muscular, injury-free, functional body that works as a complete powerful unit to perform complex movements (in athletics or even everyday tasks), then you need to shift your focus away from muscle isolation. Believe me, focusing on how well your body functions will give you the side effect of a body that looks even better than it would have if you focused on muscle isolation. For example, take a look at the physiques of any NFL running backs, wide receivers, or even world class sprinters. Trust me when I say that these guys pretty much NEVER train for muscle isolation (their strength coaches wouldn’t be crazy enough to let them), yet they are absolutely ripped to shreds! Just look at guys like Maurice Green or Terrell Owens and tell me who wouldn’t want a physique like those guys.

Another benefit to moving away from the ‘muscle isolation’ mindset to a more ‘complex movement’ mindset is that you will find it much easier to lose body fat. The reason is that by focusing more on multi-joint complex movements as opposed to single-joint muscle isolation, you not only burn a lot more calories during each workout, but you also increase your metabolic rate, and stimulate production of more fat burning and muscle building hormones like growth hormone and testosterone.

Let’s look at an example. The machine leg extension is a single joint exercise that works mainly the quadriceps, can potentially cause knee joint instability in the long run, and doesn’t even burn that many calories. On the other hand, exercises like squats, lunges, step-ups, and deadlifts are all multi-joint complex movements that work hundreds of muscles in the body (including the quadriceps) as a functional unit, create more stable and strong joints in the long run (when done properly), and also burn massive quantities of calories compared to the single-joint exercises.

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It is common to hear fitness professionals and medical doctors prescribe low to moderate intensity aerobic training (cardio) to people who are trying to prevent heart disease or lose weight. Most often, the recommendations constitute something along the lines of “perform 30-60 minutes of steady pace cardio 3-5 times per week maintaining your heart rate at a moderate level”. Before you just give in to this popular belief and become the “hamster on the wheel” doing endless hours of boring cardio, I’d like you to consider some recent scientific research that indicates that steady pace endurance cardio work may not be all it’s cracked up to be.

First, realize that our bodies are designed to perform physical activity in bursts of exertion followed by recovery, or stop-and-go movement instead of steady state movement. Recent research is suggesting that physical variability is one of the most important aspects to consider in your training. This tendency can be seen throughout nature as all animals demonstrate stop-and-go motion instead of steady state motion. In fact, humans are the only creatures in nature that attempt to do “endurance” type physical activities. Most competitive sports (with the exception of endurance running or cycling) are also based on stop-and-go movement or short bursts of exertion followed by recovery. To examine an example of the different effects of endurance or steady state training versus stop-and-go training, consider the physiques of marathoners versus sprinters. Most sprinters carry a physique that is very lean, muscular, and powerful looking, while the typical dedicated marathoner is more often emaciated and sickly looking. Now which would you rather resemble?

Another factor to keep in mind regarding the benefits of physical variability is the internal effect of various forms of exercise on our body. Scientists have known that excessive steady state endurance exercise (different for everyone, but sometimes defined as greater than 60 minutes per session most days of the week) increases free radical production in the body, can degenerate joints, reduces immune function, causes muscle wasting, and can cause a pro-inflammatory response in the body that can potentially lead to chronic diseases. On the other hand, highly variable cyclic training has been linked to increased anti-oxidant production in the body and an anti-inflammatory response, a more efficient nitric oxide response (which can encourage a healthy cardiovascular system), and an increased metabolic rate response (which can assist with weight loss).

Furthermore, steady state endurance training only trains the heart at one specific heart rate range and doesn’t train it to respond to various every day stressors. On the other hand, highly variable cyclic training teaches the heart to respond to and recover from a variety of demands making it less likely to fail when you need it. Think about it this way — Exercise that trains your heart to rapidly increase and rapidly decrease will make your heart more capable of handling everyday stress. Stress can cause your blood pressure and heart rate to increase rapidly. Steady state jogging and other endurance training does not train your heart to be able to handle rapid changes in heart rate or blood pressure.

The important aspect of variable cyclic training that makes it superior over steady state cardio is the recovery period in between bursts of exertion. That recovery period is crucially important for the body to elicit a healthy response to an exercise stimulus. Another benefit of variable cyclic training is that it is much more interesting and has lower drop-out rates than long boring steady state cardio programs.

To summarize, some of the potential benefits of variable cyclic training compared to steady state endurance training are as follows: improved cardiovascular health, increased anti-oxidant protection, improved immune function, reduced risk for joint wear and tear, reduced muscle wasting, increased residual metabolic rate following exercise, and an increased capacity for the heart to handle life’s every day stressors. There are many ways you can reap the benefits of stop-and-go or variable intensity physical training. One of the absolute most effective forms of variable intensity training to really reduce body fat and bring out serious muscular definition is performing wind sprints.

Most competitive sports such as football, basketball, racquetball, tennis, hockey, etc. are naturally comprised of highly variable stop-and-go motion. In addition, weight training naturally incorporates short bursts of exertion followed by recovery periods. High intensity interval training (varying between high and low intensity intervals on any piece of cardio equipment) is yet another training method that utilizes exertion and recovery periods. For example, an interval training session on the treadmill could look something like this:

Warm-up for 3-4 minutes at a fast walk or light jog;

Interval 1 – run at 8.0 mi/hr for 1 minute;

Interval 2 – walk at 4.0 mi/hr for 1.5 minutes;

Interval 3 – run at 10.0 mi/hr for 1 minute;

Interval 4 – walk at 4.0 mi/hr for 1.5 minutes;

Repeat those 4 intervals 4 times for a very intense 20-minute workout.

The take-away message from this article is to try to train your body at highly variable intensity rates for the majority of your workouts to get the most beneficial response in terms of heart health, fat loss, and muscle maintenance.

to receive your own personalized metabolic rate calculator as well as a free training & nutrition bonus e-report that will change the way you think about fat loss and abs.Michael Geary is a Certified Nutrition Specialist, Certified Personal Trainer, and author of the internationally best-selling book, The Truth about Six Pack Abs, with readers in over 150 countries. For those looking for fast but effective workouts, see below.

This article was written by the celebrated author,dietitian,trainer Mike Geary who has helped literally thousands of martial artists and non martial artists alike to achieve healthy balanced lifestyles. With the added bonus of sound and tested methods to help you achieve the kind of body you always wanted.

Click Here <<<<<……

This article was written by the celebrated author,dietitian,trainer Mike Geary who has helped literally thousands of martial artists and non martial artists alike to achieve healthy balanced lifestyles. With the added bonus of sound and tested methods to help you achieve the kind of body you always wanted.

To find out more on this amazing coach just follow the link.

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In this article, I have an intriguing discussion about cardio training, which will hopefully get you thinking differently, and trying new things.

You may know I’ve been called the anti-cardio guy before, but this week I’m back posing the question to you…Do you really need cardio training to get lean and in great shape? By the way, you’ll see in a minute that I’m not really “anti-cardio”, just “anti traditional cardio”.

Most fitness buffs, weekend warriors, or anyone trying to get in shape or lose body fat, consider it a fact that they need “cardio” exercise to accomplish these goals. They would never even question it. However, I’m not only questioning it, I’m going to refute it! In fact, you may be surprised to know that some of the leanest and meanest people I know (men and women), NEVER do any type of normal or traditional cardio. And I’ve spent over 15 years working out in various gyms, and hanging out with athletes of all sorts, so I’ve seen it all. I will say that there can be a place for low-moderate level cardio for really overweight or deconditioned people, but even in those cases, there can be more effective methods.

But what exactly is “cardio”? Most people would consider cardio to be pumping away mindlessly on a treadmill, riding a stationary bike, or coasting on an elliptical machine, while watching the TV screen at their state of the art gym. This is what I call “traditional cardio”. Hmmm, no wonder the majority of people get bored with their workouts and give up after a couple months without seeing results.

But if you look closer, “cardio” can be considered any type of exercise or activity that strengthens the cardiovascular system. I’m not going to get into anything technical like increasing your VO2 max or anything like that. To keep it simple, if it gets your heart pumpin, and gets you huffin and puffin, it’s cardio. I don’t care if you’re holding dumbbells or a barbell and everyone calls it a weight training exercise…it’s still conditioning your heart.

Let’s take a look at a couple examples. Take a barbell (or dumbbell, or kettlebell) clean & press for example, which involves lifting a barbell from the floor up to shoulders, then push pressing overhead. And listen up ladies, because even though this is usually seen as a manly exercise, it doesn’t matter if you’re not lifting 250 lbs; if 45 lbs is challenging to you, then you will still benefit just as much. At first glance, most people think of the barbell C&P only as a weight training exercise or strength exercise. However, I challenge you to do a hard set of around 10-15 reps on the C&P. If you used a challenging enough weight, what you’ll find is that your heart rate is probably up to about 80-90% of your recommended max, and you are huffing and puffing like you just ran a 100-meter sprint (which by the way, sprinting kicks the crap out of jogging any day if you want the easiest way to lose the flab).

Try the same thing for a set of 20 reps of one-arm snatches or swings with each arm with a kettlebell or dumbbell, and tell me your legs aren’t burning, heart racing, and you’re gasping for breath. How about trying 5 minutes straight of bodyweight squats, lunges, and pushups with very little rest. Again, notice your heart pounding, sweat pouring off of you, and chest heaving for breaths!

Try and tell me you’re not conditioning your heart with this style of training! Conventional thinking says that these are weight training or strength training exercises. However, they are fullfilling your cardio needs as well.

Not only do you save time, but you strengthen and condition almost every muscle in your entire body with these full body exercises if you do them with enough intensity…something that can’t be said for that boring stationary bike ride or treadmill jaunt while reading or watching TV. Seriously, if you can read or watch TV while doing any exercise, you’re not concentrating enough on what you’re doing, plus you’re probably not working out hard enough to see any real results.

I challenge you to give the “traditional cardio” a rest for a month or two, and start training the way I explain in my internationally-selling Truth about Six pack Abs Program, and see how you start getting leaner, more defined, and your six pack starting to show through what used to be stubborn stomach fat deposits.

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You’ve been told for decades that saturated fat will kill you. Even medical and health professionals have believed this was a “fact”. However, did you know that this “fact” has never been proven? In this article, you’ll learn why saturated fat may actually have some surprising benefits.

I’ve written many times in the last couple years about the mistaken beliefs in society about saturated fat and the false perception in the media and with MOST health and medical professionals that saturated fat is bad for you.

If you’ve seen in some of my articles, I’ve even showed you why saturated fat can even be GOOD for you in some cases, despite every health & fitness professional in the world just accepting the false belief that it is unhealthy for you.

I have to say I was pleasantly surprised to FINALLY see a big name publisher have some guts to publish an article about why everyone in the world may be wrong about their beliefs about saturated fat and it’s health effects.

I received my new issue of Men’s Health magazine recently, and they had a really detailed 6-page article in there about the faulty research in the past about saturated fat, and some new emerging research that is showing why it may actually be more good for you than you would have ever conceived.

I have to give them credit… the article was very well researched and laid out in an easy to understand format to summarize where the studies in the past have gone wrong, and why recent studies are showing that everyone may have been wrong for the last 5 decades about saturated fat.

I’d highly suggest you read the entire article if you can. If not, I am going to try to give you a quick synopsis of the findings here since it was a long article…

First of all, did you realize that although doctors, nutritionists, dietitians, fitness professionals, and the media all have told you that it’s a FACT that saturated fats are bad for you, this “FACT” has actually never been proven!

It’s actually not a “fact” at all. It was a hypothesis! This goes all the way back to a flawed research study from the 1950′s where a scientist named Ancel Keys published a paper that laid the blame on dietary fat intake for the increasing heart disease phenomenon around the world.

However, there were major flaws to his study. For one, in his conclusions he only used data from a small portion of the countries where data was available on fat consumption versus heart disease death rate. When researches have gone back in and looked at the data from all of the countries where data was available, there actually was no link between fat consumption and heart disease deaths. So his conclusions were false in reality.

Second, his blaming of fat intake for heart disease was only one factor that was considered. There was no consideration of other factors such as smoking rates, stress factors, sugar and refined carbohydrate intake, exercise frequency, and other lifestyle factors.

Basically, his conclusions which blamed heart disease deaths on fat intake were really just a shot in the dark about what a possible cause may have been, even though all of those other factors I just mentioned, plus many others, may be the more prominent cause.

Unfortunately, Keys study has been cited for over 5 decades now as “fact” that saturated fat is bad for you. As you can see, there certainly is nothing factual about it.

Since that time, numerous other studies have been conducted trying to link saturated fat intake to heart disease. The majority of these studies have failed to correlate ANY risk at all from saturated fat. A couple of them made feeble attempts at linking saturated fat to heart disease, however, it was later shown that the data was flawed in those studies as well.

Do we actually have evidence that saturated fat may in fact be good for you instead?

Well, let’s consider a few examples…

Did you know that there are several well known tribes in Africa… the Masai, Samburu, and Fulani tribes… where their diet consists mostly of raw whole milk, large quantities of red meat, and cows blood? Despite their very high saturated fat intake, they display extremely low body fat levels, and heart disease to natives of the tribe is virtually non-existent.

Now most critics of this example will say that it has to be related to superior genetics… however this is not true, as when they studied tribesman who had moved out of their native lands and started eating more modern day diets, their blood chemistry skyrocketed with heart disease risk factors.

This is true of certain pacific island countries inhabitants as well. Several studies have shown that certain pacific island nations had VERY high intakes of total fat as well as saturated fat from tropical fats such as palm, coconut, and cocoa. Despite very high intakes of saturated fat and total fat, these island natives were typically very lean and heart disease was virtually non-existent.

However, when researchers followed up with islanders that had moved away from their native island and adopted a typical western diet, the heart disease factors were through the roof.

In fact, did you know that although saturated fat intake does increase your LDL bad cholesterol, it actually increases your HDL good cholesterol even further, hence improving your overall cholesterol ratio, which has been proven to be more important that just total cholesterol level (actually total cholesterol is an almost useless number… inflammation is the REAL problem, but that’s a whole different topic).

Another fact worth noting in favor of saturated fat…

Saturated fat is comprised of various different types… the 3 most prevalent types are stearic acid, palmitic acid, and lauric acid.

Stearic acid is found in animal fat and cocoa in higher levels. Research continues to show that stearic acid has no negative impacts on heart disease risks. If anything, it’s either neutral or beneficial. In fact, your liver breaks down stearic acid into a monounsaturated fat called oleic acid, which is the same type of fat that makes up most of heart-healthy olive oil. Bet you didn’t know that!

Lauric acid is beneficial as well. Not only has it been shown to increase your HDL good cholesterol levels significantly, but it is also lacking in most Americans diet and has even been shown to have some powerful immune-boosting effects potentially. It is even being studied currently in HIV/AIDS research to help improve immune function in patients.

Tropical oils such as coconut and palm are the best sources of beneficial lauric acid.

Palmitic acid is the other main component of saturated fat and has also been shown to increase HDL good cholesterol to the same, if not greater extent than LDL bad cholesterol, thereby making it either neutral or beneficial, but certainly not bad for you.

So, if all of these researchers have tried so hard over the years to point the finger at saturated fat, but have continued to fail to show a correlation between saturated fat and heart disease risk, what are the REAL culprits for heart disease?

Well, here are the real causes of heart disease risk:

• Trans fats (artificially hydrogenated oils)
• Heavily refined vegetable oils such as soy, cottonseed, corn oil, etc. (inflammatory inside the body, and typically throw the omega-6/omega-3 balance out of whack)
• Too much refined sugar in the diet (including high fructose corn syrup)
• Too much refined starches such as white bread, low fiber cereals, etc
• Smoking
• Stressful lifestyle
• Lack of exercise
• Other lifestyle factors

So why does it seem that so many attempts over the years have tried to lay the blame on saturated fat… Do you think it might have anything to do with the muli-billion dollar vegetable oil industry, which has taken over for cooking oils for what used to be mostly animal fats and tropical oils in decades past…

Hmm… do multi-billion dollar industries really have an influence on the way data is portrayed to the public? I think you know the answer to that! And don’t even get me started on the cholesterol meds industry! Again, I digress.

I hope this article has opened your eyes about the truth about saturated fat and how you’ve been misled over the years.

The true FACT is that saturated fat is a neutral substance in your body, and even beneficial at times, not a deadly risk factor for disease. The REAL risk factors are what I listed above.

Keep in mind that this does NOT mean that eating 5 pounds of bacon for breakfast every morning is good for you, and you should only eat foods high in saturated fats. Rather, you still need a to strike a balance for optimal health… this means fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, healthy meats, eggs, and small amounts of whole or sprouted grains.

Again, animals raised in an unhealthy manner are not good for you… this is the case with most commercially raised meat and grain fed meat. On the other hand, wild game meats, grass fed meats, free range chickens and eggs (preferably organic) are healthy animals, and therefore the meat is generally healthy for us with better omega-3 to omega-6 ratios than standard commercial meats.