There comes a time in everyone’s life when you’re looking to improve yourself. If it’s your habits, your lifestyle, or your appearance, we all want to make the best out of our life. When the warmer months start to creep up, everyone wants to improve the way they look in their swimsuit.

Too many times you start working towards this goal when it’s almost too late to really see results. Procrastination is an ongoing problem for the majority of people out there. So why do we wait till the last second to try and get what we really want? Most of the time it’s because we don’t have a plan to reach our goal. I thought I would try and help those out there that don’t have a plan of action. I’ve decided to put together this 8 week program to help you lose those unwanted pounds before it’s too late to fit into that new swimsuit. Get ready to enjoy that new beach body!

Prepare for Hard Work

The toughest part of getting into any exercise routine is actually committing to it. The first week is very important. You have to make sure you get into the habit of eating correctly and exercising. Make a choice right now to work hard and accomplish your goals. You need to make sure you have the motivation to lose weight.

Here are some tips that will help you stay on track toward your goal:

• • • Make a fitness journal.

      • Start writing down everything you do in your exercise routine. One workout routine or exercise may work better for you than someone else. You can learn quicker what works best for you if you see exactly what you’ve done in the past and what results you’ve gotten from it.

• • • Make a nutrition journal

      • This has the same principle reason as the fitness journal. When it comes to getting the perfect body, what you eat will play the deciding factor in the long run. Determine how much food it takes for you to lose weight, maintain your current weight, and also add quality muscle.

    • Take measurements

      • Without measurements you can never really tell if what you’re doing is working. I will talk more about this in the upcoming section.

There are many more things you can do to keep yourself on track, but I like to keep things simple. These 3 things will help motivate you to continue each day. When you start to see good results you will only want to do more. Here are 10 strategies to transform your body.

Measurements

Now is the time to take measurements. You always want to know exactly where you’re at so you can know where to go. You can measure as many parts of your physique as you want, or you can just focus on one or two areas. Here are some common areas I like to keep track of. Anything listed in bold is the important measurements that you need to focus on unless you’re wanting to change certain areas of your body.

• Weight

• Body Fat Percent

• Waist both at belly button and at your belt line

• Chest

• Neck

• Shoulders

• Bicep

• Forearm

• Hips

• Thigh

• Calf

I like to keep track of everything personally, but that’s because I focus a lot on muscle development even when I’m trying to shed my body fat. I know many of you are wondering why I didn’t include weight as a major measurement to pay attention to. Well weight is very important, but many times people get to invested in seeing their weight going down. They don’t realize they may be getting great results with your weight staying the same or even going up. Body fat percentage is the most important number to look at. By dropping body fat percentage, the toned look will begin to show and that is what a beach body is. So keep track of as many measurements as you want, but don’t forget the premise on how to get toned.

Don’t try and measure yourself everyday. These things don’t just all of a sudden happen over night. Your body requires time to adapt to the stress you are putting it through. As a good rule of thumb in a normal exercise routine, measure once every 4-8 weeks. Be sure to keep track of this in one of your journals. For this program, I want you to measure yourself every 2 weeks.

Nutrition

Let’s start to think about what what you’re eating. When it comes to lasting results, nutrition will be very important. From my past experiences with clients and myself, getting the body you want comes 80% from eating right.

After writing in your nutrition journal for 2-3 days, go back and take a look at what your normal day looks like. Focus on things you can eliminate to help decrease your calories. Don’t make it difficult on yourself. What are the unhealthy parts of your current diet? Take out fried trans fat foods, high sugar foods, and anything high in saturated fats. If you’re a numbers person like I am, search the calorie value of each food. You can easily see what you’re getting from the foods you eat. I like to use FitDay.com. It’s a great software tool for creating diets and calculating how many calories you intake. It also provides a free calculator. There are many more calorie calculators out there and many of them are similar. Find one you really like and stick with it.

Here are some easy things to help improve your eating habits:

• • • You should be having 5-6 small meals a day. This will really help increase your metabolism and energy levels. Make sure to pay attention to the portion size of each meal. Don’t eat more than what a small tupperware will hold. Many times I hear complaints that this isn’t possible with your living situation or your work schedule. This is completely untrue. I have been able to eat 6 meals a day with the most hectic work schedules possible. It just takes some planning.

    • Cook your meals in bulk. I cook all my meals on Thursday and Sunday. I keep all my meals in tupperware in the fridge. This makes it very quick to have a meal anytime, anywhere.

    • Increase your intake of fruits and vegetables. The extra fiber will absorb more water in your gut and ease the feeling of hunger.

    • Begin replacing your white foods with whole grain foods. Whole wheat pastas, brown rice, and whole wheat bread are all great choices. Here are a list of healthy foods you can make your meals out of.

    • Have a glass of green tea each morning. The tea will also boost your metabolism for the day. The green tea is also full of great antioxidants to help your overall health.

I know many of us cook for more than just ourselves and you don’t want to hassle our families with a bland diet. All healthy meals can be made delicious with just a little bit of work. There are many great recipes out there to help with this. During this program, I suggest trying to be as strict as possible on yourself so that you can get the best results possible.

Click HERE to get the full Free 8 week Beach Body Boot Camp!

I ran into this a few months back and thought it was just as hilarious then as it is now. This belongs in a porno not a workout regimen.

Raise your hand if you think your fat….my hands up, is yours?  if you have come to this article, you must have some problem with your current weight or maybe you are just wanting to learn some new things on how to get skinny fast.  Well let’s be honest with ourselves, losing weight fast isn’t always the best, healthiest, or long lasting way of doing things.  There are lots of things you can do right now to help lose your problem areas quicker though.

In this article, I want to share 10 tips to help you lose those unwanted pounds.  We all have areas of our body we feel we could improve.  It’s human nature to be unhappy with our appearance.  Try out these 10 tips and maybe you can increase the rate you lose the weight:

6.  It’s a mind game.

This is a problem I see in a lot of people I train.  Don’t let your problem areas and depression over your current weight bring you down.  Use this as fuel to motivate you towards your goal.  Achieving the things you want in life will come from a positive attitude and the acknowledgement that you can have what you want.  You have to know you can reach your goals, no matter if it’s to lose 10 pounds or make a million dollars.  I know it sounds like a stupid tip to lose weight, but when you are depressed your body reacts very poorly for fat loss. 

5.  Do more than what your doing now.

Well if you’re not currently losing weight, you’re doing something wrong.  It may be something big or it may be something small.  Take a look at what your currently doing with your exercise and diet.  If you haven’t started exercising, there’s your first problem.  You need to do more activity than your body requires to maintain its weight.  It’s a pretty simple concept that once you understand it, will be the main factor on how to get skinny fast.

4.  Make a plan of attack

Don’t go into a weight loss program blindly, or any fitness program for that matter.  Plan what exercises and diet you want to be using for the next couple months and follow it.  This is the only way you will know what’s going to work for you.

3.  Write everything down

This goes hand and hand with tip number 8.  Keep a fitness and nutrition journal from this day forward.  Even if you make a plan of attack for losing those unwanted pounds, it doesn’t mean it going to be the best plan.  You have to learn how your body reacts to calories, exercises, rep ranges, etc.  If you don’t keep track of what your doing, you will never be able to learn the best approach.  Each exercise plan and diet I have made for myself has improved my results.  Take each plan and learn from it.

2.  DO CARDIO!

I don’t know how many people I have trained that want to lose weight but only lift weights and eat small amounts of food.  If you really want to know how to get skinny fast, then listen to this.  Cardio is a must to get the weight off.  Only 30 minutes every other day will be plenty to start.  This will help shed the pounds so much quicker if you haven’t started cardio already.

1.  Get your diet together.

The number one aspect of transforming our bodies will be what nutrients in.  Diet is one of the most overlooked aspects of losing fat and gaining muscle.  If you are a beginner, you will see great results without changing your eating habits at all.  This is a problem a lot of people have.  You lose your initial 10 pounds but have 10 more to go.  Without optimizing your diet, you are going to have a hard time reaching your goals.

So now you know a few tips on how to get skinny fast.  Go out and use them today.  If you still are struggling with your weight and want a plan laid out for you, sign up for Go Healthy Fitness’ FREE Weekly Newsletter and you will get a free diet and workout plan that can be used to scale for either gaining muscle or losing fat.

It’s just so frustrating sometimes.  For the past 6 months, I have been about as lazy as you can possibly be.  There has been 1 workout that lasted around 20 minutes in this time period.  Now if you don’t know me, you wouldn’t know that this is ludacris.  I am not one to not be eating healthy and dong what I can to better my health.

This past weekend, i finally got back on the ball.  Not physically but mentally, which isn’t great but it’s a start.  I like to plan ahead of time so that I can stay on track a little better.  I was going to go through my whole workout and diet plan in a post but I decided to start a little video journal.  I will post this later on once I have some good content. 

After getting everything ready to go for my new workout plan for the 8-12 weeks, I went and got a new gym membership at the local YMCA.  I even got a pretty decent first day workout in to help get all the soreness out.  Well monday afternoon, I get a call from my boss letting me know I have a plane ticket awaiting me which leaves in the next 3 hours.  So once again, I am having to go out of town unannounced with little time to prepare.

This is a common occurance in my line of work and Im usually travelling 75% of the time I’ve noticed.  I know there are a lot of other travellers out there that are probably having the same problem I am…what the hell do I do with my workout plan when Im somewhere new everyday?  Trust me I know your pain.  I will be making up a few more vacation or away from home workout plans to help all those in need.  I meant to bring my video camera to do some video lessons, but I was in such a rush, I left it at home. 

I think the hardest part of keeping healthy on the road is your meal plans.  Its tough to eat healthy when your only choices are take out and fast food.  I will also try and touch on that in future articles as well. 

And if you haven’t noticed as well, I have added Guest Posts and Daily Thoughts which will keep the content coming at a little more rapid pace instead of me just adding informative articles on my own…its gets a little boring sometimes haha. 

Enjoy Go Healthy Fitness and please feel free to leave me a comment below, ask me a question, or join me at Facebook/Twitter for more fitness talk.

Everyday people look at their diets in the view of “How can I lose weight”.  Today I want to think about how we would go about if we wanted to gain fat.  Let’s see if there might be things you do today that you would be doing if you wanted to gain weight.  It might help us eliminate some habits that we don’t think much about.

Take the easy way out.

To gain fat, we want to do as little activity as possible throughout the day.  Everything we intake needs to be stored not used.  So if you have a choice of stairs or elevator…take the elevator.  Fight for that parking spot next to the door instead of walking 30 seconds from the open lot thats farther away.  And of course, no extra curricular activities.

The Healthy Way:

People don’t realize how much small daily activities will help when you want results in fat loss.  Keeping active throughout the day by doing small things like mentioned will help keep your metabolism going all day.  Take the stairs and park far from the door.  Make sure to get 30 minutes of exercise in a day and I don’t include the small daily activites.

Eat anything you like.

So what would my diet be like when learning how to gain fat.  Well thank god it would be my favorite food ever, cheesecake.  I would eat cheesecake every meal.  Cheesecake isn’t the worst food out there.  To gain fat, you can enjoy anything you want anytime you want.  Stick to the fatty foods and high sources of sugar.  Along with gaining fat, lets cross our fingers for diabetes and tooth decay.

The Healthy Way:

I’ve preached it many times now.  A well balanced diet is the way to go.  Your nutrition should be made up of lots of fruits, vegetables, whole wheat products, low GI foods, and healthy fats.  Eat smaller meals throughout the day to keep your metabolism going.  This really helps burn extra calories.

So now you should know how to gain fat.  Hopefully it will help you avoid actually gaining fat.

If you’re really wanting shed those fat pounds, try the free diet plan from Go Healthy Fitness. Learn how you can burn fat and build muscle all at once.

It can be a difficult process to burn fat and build muscle at the same time.  Theoretically you can only be either breaking down or building, not both.  But, if you learn your body well enough, you can develop both these attributes at once.  It takes hard work to get your perfect body.  Don’t ever give up or back down even if the challenge is tough.

Diet is going to play a huge role in whether you are gaining muscle or losing it while you are also trying to lose fat.  You have to learn how much nutrients your body requires.  To do this, you have to just test different diets.  Start at the higher range of calories.

Slowly drop your calories each week and keep your weight recorded.  If you are losing 1 lb. a week, you are eating 500 calories less than what you require to maintain your weight.  You DO NOT want to be losing more than 1-2 pounds per week.  If you start losing more than 2 pounds a week, you start eating away at your muscle.

Once you determine your calorie ranges that are ideal for weight loss at a steady rate, you can start playing around with how you break down your nutrients.  Everyone requires a different amount of carbs, proteins, and fats for ideal fat loss.  My perfect breakdown is 40% proteins, 40% carbs, and 20% fats.

Your exercise will be the second determining factor in whether you are going to gain muscle or just lose fat.  You want to keep your rep range between 6-10.  When you are eating smaller amounts of calories like you are when your losing fat, your workouts will be more draining because you don’t have the energy stores like you would have.  Keep your workouts between 20-35 minutes and do only 1-2 exercises per muscle group.  Overtraining during losing weight will rapidly cause your muscle to be used for energy and that is the last thing you want to do for results.

Cardio is also necessary to lose the right amount of fat.  Don’t over do your cardio but keep it at a steady pace for 30-45 minutes about 2 to 3 times a week.

To really learn your perfect diet breakdown and amount of exercise for the best results, you will want to keep a journal of everything you are doing.  Keep a log book of your measurements.  Keep as many different measurements as you like, but the most important ones to pay attention to are weight and body fat percentage.  With just these two measurements, you can determine the best diet and exercise plan for you.  I also like to pay attention to my waist, chest, and hip measurements to make sure my body shape is how I want it.

Here’s a free 4 day weight lifting routine that will help you develop the results you’re looking for.  You can also find this free diet meal plan for losing fat at Go Healthy Fitness.

There has been a growing trend of people trying alternative chinese medicine techniques for fixing ailments and enhancing their lives.  The classic techniques are herbal medicines and acupuncture.  These techniques have been known to heal many health problems.  Herbal medicine alone has shown to help depression, anxiety, respiratory conditions, arthritis, plus many others.  These herbal medicines are very safe as long as they are prescribed correctly by a properly trained practiitioner.
Acupuncture is a  traditional Chinese medicine that began in China over 5,000 years ago. It is based on the belief that living beings have a life energy, called “Qi”, that circulates through twelve invisible energy lines known as meridians on the body. Each meridian is associated with a different organ system. An imbalance in the flow of Qi throughout a meridian is how disease begins.  Acupuncture is known to remedy ailments of the muscular and neurological origins.  It has been shown to help rebalance your energy levels, regulate the Qi and stimulate your immune system.  There have been clinical studies which demonstrated how acupuncture and herbal medicine reduce the length of time one is ill.  Acupuncture is used like a massage for muscle recovery and injury as well.

So how can these alternative Chinese medicines help your fitness?  These medicines can influence the release of pain relieving endorphins, neurotransmitters which increase nerve reaction time, and circulation.  All 3 of these can greatly affect your workouts.  If you have any muscle or joint injuries, acupuncture can also help heal quicker.

If you are interested to see how acupuncture will affect my workouts, join Go Healthy Fitness’ FREE Weekly Newsletter.  I like to report on my experience with all different forms of alternative medicine like acupuncture, herbal medicines, massages, and others.  It also provides fitness and nutrition tips and tricks.

There’s not much better to energize a evening workout more than a quality lunch.  The food you take in 3-5 hours before your workout is going to play a large part in how good your workout could be.  These foods can affect your energy levels or even your testosterone levels just to name a few.  Your workouts could be so much more if you get a good quality meal in a few hours before.
There are many good recipes you can find out there to give you the right nutrients.  Here is a great recipe that I like to use for a good meal that will help your workout.

Gourmet Chicken Sandwich

This sandwich has a bistro style which delivers on a good taste.  We will combine sweet Dijon mustard, rosemary, and a seasoned chicken all on a herbed foccacia.

Ingredients
4 skinless, boneless chicken breast
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1 teaspoon minced garlic
ground pepper
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons of mayonnaise (this ingredient is optional, the mayonnaise adds too much fat but I use it if Im bulking.  If Im
on a cut diet, I leave it out)
1 teaspoon chopped rosemary
8 slices focaccia bread

Instructions
1.  Add pepper on one side of the chicken.  Heal the oil in a large skillet then brown the minced garlic.  After this you can add the chicken with the pepper side down.  Saute the chicken for 12 to 15 minutes.  Make sure the chicken is cooked through.
2.  Combine mustard, rosemary, and mayonnaise(optional) in a small bowl.  Mix together and spread across focaccia bread.  Make a sandwich with two slices of bread and a peice of chicken.  Then enjoy.

Nutritional Facts
Per serving (serves 4)
Calories: 523
Total Fat:  16g(with mayonnaise), 11g(without mayonnaise)
Carbohydrates: 58g
Fiber: 3.1g
Protein: 35g
Cholesterol: 71mg
Sodium: 827mg

This tasty sandwich will boost your workouts.  You can find many more healthy nutritious recipes in Go Healthy Fitness’ FREE Newsletter.  Just enter your email in the form to the top right of the screen.

Every parent out there wants the best for their children. It doesn’t matter if it comes to getting the best education possible to making your child the healthiest you possible can. Your children look up to you to know best. This is how you have to treat your children’s diet as well.
A childhood of unhealthy choices without any will power will lead to a hard struggle throughout their later years. Start early in your kid’s lives teaching them how to make great choices when it comes to nutrition.
It’s never too late to change your child’s eating habits. Start now before it becomes harder. Feeding healthy foods can sometimes be very difficult. There are certain ways to get children healthy food.
1. Mix foods.
Its a simple trick parents have been using for years to get their children to eat healthy food. Easy steps are chopping up vegetables and other foods kids don’t enjoy and add them to something they enjoy a little bit more.
2. Give them healthy on the go snacks.
Stay away from pudding packs and chocolate bars. Skip the junk and give them string cheese, healthy yogurt, or a fresh fruit.
3. Don’t be afraid of the blender.
Making a healthy smoothie is always a rock solid way to get kids enjoying a healthy food. You can add nearly anything to a smoothie and get it to still taste great.
4. Use whole grains when you can.
By giving your children quality carbs, their energy levels will be higher. These foods won’t make them hyper like a refined sugar would but they will be physically and mentally stronger each day. Add some peanut butter to a whole wheat pita for a tasty snack that’s packed with great proteins and carbs.
There are all great ways to get your children healthy food. Make sure to set a good example for your children. Don’t expect them to eat healthy if you don’t at least while they are watching. Don’t have anything on your plate you wouldn’t allow your child to have.

If you are really wanting to eat healthy every meal, you should look at QualityHealth’s FREE ebook. It gives you great healthy recipes that can be made any day.  Just click the link above.