1. Drink water …

No, you don’t have to fill up like a tub, but ensure that you drink 8 to 10 glasses of water every day. Don’t substitute for juice. Your body should always be hydrated. Your kidneys will thank you as it can easily flush out the waste. With adequate water intake your body will be able to metabolize fat more effectively.  And if you have a glass of water 10-15 minutes prior to your meal, you will feel full once you start eating.  Another fun fact, did you know that you can lose 62 calories by drinking ice cold water?  But it’s better to drink it between meals or before meals, so that your food gets digested properly.

2. Eat 5 times a day …

Start with breakfast. The more you eat for breakfast, the less food you will want to eat at night.  Please, don’t skip this meal as you’ll end up devouring everything in sight for the rest of the day. You don’t need to gobble up 5 large meals, just 3 meals of a sensible size and 2 delicious yet low calorie snacks. Eat sensibly so your body doesn’t crave for food. If you treat your body right it won’t demand for more attention!

3. Use weights …

Needless to say, exercise is crucial to weight loss. You can’t expect to sit on the couch all day, sip water and lose weight. Join a good gym that lets you work with weights. It will help you build muscle and your metabolism rate will increase. You’ll soon see the fat come off and in its place muscle will develop.

4. Use smaller plates in dark colors …

The hotel industry has changed the way we look at food. Today a regular burger can feed an elephant. Well, almost! Check your portions the next time you dine out. You don’t need to finish every morsel.  So, what you should do is ask your waiter to put half of your meal into a doggy bag before it even makes to the table.  This way you will not be tempted and you will feel full eating less.  And you will have something for breakfast too!

5. Read between the lines …

Food and drink products are all out to get you. They scream ‘Buy me! Buy me!’. It could be ‘fat free’ but it could still have a lot of calories. You need to analyze the nutrition label on the cover.  The number one example of this is sodas.  Find out what’s good for you and what isn’t. Knowing in advance can help you stay away from products that are calorie-enriched.  Oh, and when shopping for groceries, avoid the aisles with cookies, frozen pizzas and ice-cream - it’s not the best place to test your will-power.

6. Keep a journal …

It helps to document what you eat. This way you can keep track and evaluate your eating habits at the end of each week. Ask your dietician to look at your journal and suggest improvement points.  I found it helpful to measure myself with a meter every morning.  Every time I skipped dinner, my waist was a little bit smaller - and that’s what gave me the strength to get my appetite under control. 

7. Dont Punish Yourself

Go easy on yourself at least one day in a week. If you begin to dislike your diet then there’s something wrong. Find a diet that suits your body type and your lifestyle.

You will definitely see results with these 7 fastest waysto lose weight. If you’re motivated enough to stick to the regime, you’ll get there faster than ever!  Stay committed!

I can’t wait to hear from you about your weight-loss experience, guys!  And if you know other great ways to loose weight, please share them in the comments, I’d love to hear how you tackle the weight problem!

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Fitness Fables

By Heather Hatfield

The world of fitness abounds with fables, from no pain, no gain, to drinking water before exercising can give you cramps, and falling for one could have you spinning your wheels and getting nowhere instead of shaping up. Experts set the record straight and take the mystery out of these and other muscular myths for WebMD so you can make the most of your exercise routine.

No Pain, No Gain. 

"No pain, no gain is bad," says Jeffrey Berg, an orthopedic surgeon and team physician for the Washington Redskins. "When people start to exercise, there may be some muscle aches and pains, which are normal. But there are other aches and pains, such as joint pain, bone pain, muscle strains, and ligament or tendon strains, which are bad, and you should back off of because they'll get worse if you ignore them."

So start slow, explains Berg. "Always ease into an exercise plan to avoid injury," says Berg. "The recommendation is if you're healthy and you know it, you can start exercising, but err on the side of being too slow than too fast to avoid injury."

The American College of Sports Medicine recommends starting an exercise program slowly and listening to your body and to your doctor.

There Is One Best Way to Exercise. 

"This is not true," says Berg. "In fact, not only is there not one best way for everyone to exercise, but there's not one best way for each person."

His recipe for success? Vary your routine.

"You have to incorporate different exercises and routines into your fitness strategy to reach your goals, which should be individualized for you," says Berg. "The exercises you choose should be tailored to what you like to do and then optimized for fitness and to avoid injury."

More Sweat, Less Fat. 

"This is false," says Cedric Bryant, chief exercise physiologist for the American Council on Exercise. "The amount you sweat is indicative of your body's ability to maintain its normal body temperature. You sweat when your body starts to store heat so you can experience cooling via evaporation of that sweat. So it doesn't correlate to how much energy, or calories, is being expended."

Drinking Water Causes Cramps. 

"Cramps are actually a symptom of dehydration, so this is an old wives tale," says Bryant. "Basically, drinking water will help ensure you are properly hydrated, which will ultimately reduce your risk of sustaining or experience cramps."

Lifting Weights Can Make You Look Bulky. 

"This is a myth that deters a lot of women from strength training, when in fact, what determines the amount of muscle bulk a person has is largely dependent on genetic factors," says Bryant.

So for the typical woman, and the typical man, the chances of looking like Arnold Schwarzenegger are slim.

"To keep things in perspective, less than 1% of women, and less than 10% of males, have the genetic predisposition to naturally develop muscle bulk in response to strength training," says Bryant.

Weight training is also an important part of any exercise plan, according to the American Heart Association web site. While aerobic activities help your heart and lungs and stretching improves your flexibility, weight training will improve your strength and endurance, and a combination of all three makes for an optimal exercise plan.

Exercising Is a Sure-Fire Way to Lose Weight. 

While it may seem obvious that exercise will result in weight loss, that's not necessarily the case.

"What can happen is an individual may gain weight because she is changing her body composition," says Bryant. "She's losing fat tissue, but gaining lean tissue, which is a good thing. So while you may gain, you'll start to notice that your clothes will fit better because lean tissue takes up less space than fat tissue because it's more dense."

And, of course, you need to take your diet into consideration.

"If you have a person who has a poor diet and she's inactive, and then she starts to exercise but continues the poor diet, she may lose weight, but it's only a modest loss," says Bryant. "The best method for achieving a change in body composition is to combine exercise with a sound eating plan."

You Can Target One Area of Your Body for Weight Loss.

 "This is a myth, pure and simple," Bryant tells WebMD. "No matter how much exercise you do for a specific region of the body, it's physiologically impossible to lose body fat in a targeted area."

Worse yet, the areas of your body that gain fat the fastest are the last to see it go.

"Fat is lost or gained throughout the entire the body," says Bryant. "But the last area where people tend to lose it from is the areas where they gain it first. So for most men, the abdominal region is the most difficult area to trim, while in women, the hips, buttocks, and thighs are the trouble spots."

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10 Easy Ways to Flatten Your Belly

By Melissa Gotthardt, Prevention

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What to Eat Before a Workout

By Gabrielle Reece 

You can't starve your way to fitness. You must eat the right types of food to help you achieve your goals. Whether you want to look thinner or more ripped, gain muscle mass, or just have more energy, food is your friend. That being said, feeding your body before a workout to generate the most amount of energy, create the chance to burn as many calories as possible, and fit into your real time schedule can be a bit of a dance.

To those of you who think not eating anything before exercise will set you up to burn, baby, burn are a bit off. First of all, if you are going to work out in the morning your body has just burned 80% of your glycogen (main energy source that is stored in your liver and muscles for energy) while you were sleeping. So you need to replenish your energy reserves to help your body work efficiently and to have enough energy to actually do the "work" in working out.

If you don't normally eat in the morning then start off with small meals to get you accustomed to eating first thing. If you don't want to eat, it's fine to go the smoothie route, which is rich with nutrients. Oatmeal is great to sustain your energy. And for something quick and to the point, I love a banana with almond or peanut butter for a solid burst of energy.

If you aren't going to workout until the end of the day, then go ahead and have a giant lunch because you have plenty of time to digest it. And you will need that energy when you are ready to go.

To give you an idea of how we burn through different types of food, it takes four to six hours to digest fat, three hours to digest protein, and two hours to digest carbohydrates. I wouldn't eat too much fiber long before or right after exercise since it can cause bloating and a bit of an irritation in your GI tract. You don't want to have the sensation of gas while working out (unless of course you are trying to keep other gym members away).

If you only have fifteen minutes as you head from work to the gym, then drink a smoothie. Try rice or almond milk as your base, throw in some frozen fruit, powdered protein, a banana--and if you are getting wild, some greens--and off you go. If you feel like getting crazy you can add flaxseed meal for thickness and some Udo's oil.

No, potato chips aren't a great pre-work out meal, and watch out for energy bars. Eating too many sugary bars can work against you in the weight area: Some are not that far off nutritionally from a Snickers.

Another critical thing to pay attention to is what a lot of professionals call the golden hour: the sixty minutes after you train that is so pertinent to recovering and refueling muscles. This is a great time to eat a protein-rich meal.

Just remember the time line for how long it takes to digest food and strategize about what would be best to eat and when. Remember your mantra, "food is my friend."

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