Lose Weight

If you want to learn my personal keys to gaining muscle and losing fat, keep reading because I will reveal them below.

Last night, I had the pleasure and opportunity to attend one of Dave Ramsey’s “Financial Peace” seminars here in Portland, Maine.

For those of you who do not know, Dave Ramsey is a financial consultant, best-selling author, and popular radio talk show host. I highly recommend that if you get to see him speak in person, that you go. He is phenomenal!!

He spoke of a couple of things that really got me thinking about how things really work in life if you just follow certain principles.

Now, I often go to seminars, not only for my personal benefit, but so that I may relay any information I learn that may be useful to my clients and newsletter subscribers in my business.

Last night was no exception.

Dave first mentioned that, if you want to achieve wealth and become finacially independent, you must learn from other rich, wealthy people, not from people that have their own opinions but nothing to show for it.

I thought of this point in fitness as well.

It seems everyone has an opinion as to what should be done and what works, but how many people have actually put it to action and have done what they know so much about.

I can remember growing up, hearing my family doctor tell me how important exercise was to health, yet he was extremely overweight.

So, to put Dave’s advice on modeling others into gaining muscle mass, seek out those that have already achieved what it is you want and copy some of the things they have done.

It worked for him in his life, where he learned certain
principles from wealthy people that worked and when he applied them in his own life, he became a millionaire many times over.

Dave also talked about certain truths with money, laws that must be followed if you want to achieve true wealth.

These are laws that, much like the law of gravity, occur
whether you want them to or not. If you jump off a building, the law of gravity will occur and you will hit the ground, no matter what.

He called these laws “No Matter Whats” because they work every single time, NO MATTER WHAT you think about them.

I though about this point as it relates to fitness and I
realized that there are also many “No Matter Whats” in the
fitness and exercise world.

I thought about many of them and that if you just followed them, they would work, NO MATTER WHAT!

Here is my top ten list of NO MATTER WHATS for gaining muscle and losing fat. I thank Dave Ramsey for the insight to realize that weight loss also has many “laws” that govern it.

Here are ten I thought of immediately:

1. No matter what…if you stay positive and persistent, you will WIN in your efforts to gain muscle.

Those people that “keep on keeping on” are winners in all they set out to do. They may not win every single time, but it sure likens the odds they will. So be positive and have persistence. Besides, what’s the alternative, being negative and quitting?

2. No matter what…if you take SOME form of action, you will be better off than not doing anything. Gaining muscle occurs by being active. You must lift weights to gain muscle. You must work out regularly.

Taking some form of action will get you further ahead than over-analyzing the situation to death and not moving at all!

3. No matter what…people do not see great results because they “know not what to do.” In order to get in great shape and gain muscle, you must understand the HOW behind it. Educate yourself on the principles of gaining muscle and you’ll never have to hire a trainer again(wait, then I’ll be out of business).

4. No matter what…you must have fun in your fitness routine or you will not want to stay with it for long. Most of you know that optimal fitness is a life-long process. Can you imagine doing something you do not like for your entire life? (besides your job?) Have fun with your workouts!

5. No matter what…eating small, well-balanced and nutritious meals or snacks every three to four hours will get your metabolism operating more efficiently. Having a faster metabolism is vital to long-term fat loss.

6. No matter what…progressively increasing the amount of
weight you lift over time will have a positive impact on how much lean muscle you build. Who does not want a little more muscle and a lot less fat. I have never had anyone tell me “Shawn, I am all set in the muscle department, can we add a little more fat now?” To gain more muscle, lift heavier over time.

7. No matter what… gaining muscle takes time. There is nothing in life worth having that happens overnight. Do be a get_____quick type of person.(You can fill in the blank.)

8. No matter what…you must create a synergy between proper nutrition, moderate aerobic exercise, and intense, brief weight-training. You must do each one well, and they will come together to produce incredible results.

9. No matter what…gaining muscle and getting in shape requires a lifestyle change. You cannot expect to continue those things that got you overweight or out of shape in the first place. To get better, you must do better. You must change your habits so they support you, not hinder you. So cut your ties to them!

10. No matter what…if you want it bad enough, you can achieve it. To take what Dave finished with last night, and put it into my own weight loss and fitness terms:

Gaining muscle and losing fat is “Whatever you will it to be.” The choice is yours. You can make it happen. Or you can quit. The choice is “whatever you will it to be!”

Shawn Lebrun is an online fitness trainer and
natural bodybuilder. Visit his site and see how
he can help you gain muscle, lose fat, and help you
get in the best shape of your life.
Shawn LeBrun Fitness

Tags: bodybuilding, build muscle, burn fat, fitness, gain muscle, health, Lose weight, weight lossbodybuilding, build muscle, burn fat, fitness, gain muscle, health, Lose weight, weight loss

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1. Set a goal for yourself and get real about achieving it.

Until you set a goal of how much body fat you want to lose, you are just dreaming. It needs to be specific and written down. If losing body fat is what you want to do, you must be willing to achieve it at all costs.

If you do not want to lose body fat enough, you will continue to give yourself reasons not to work out. Get real and tell yourself that you are going to do this, no matter what. Before any other step, this is the most important one.

If you are not real and serious about losing fat, all the other steps will not help you.

YOU MUST SET A GOAL FOR YOURSELF. You need a reason to keep going, to do cardio first thing in the morning, to skip that extra slice of pizza. You need a reason or you will not follow through.

So step 1 is to stop dreaming and start doing. Tell yourself you are going to achieve your goal no matter what. Write down what you want to achieve and then go after it!

2. Drink your life away! (well, not really)

If you have ever doubted the importance of water, try going a few days without it. You can live weeks without food, but only days without water. It is used in EVERY single physiological process your body undergoes.

It’s importance cannot be stated enough, especially when it comes to fat-loss and fitness training. Shoot for at least a gallon a day, preferably more. The inconvenience of constantly using the bathroom is a minor drawback compared to the benefits you will receive.

Keep a bottle wherever you spend most of your day, at your desk at work, in your car, hell, wear a water bottle around your neck, but just get enough water.

3. Eat 5-6 (or more) small meals a day consisting of high protein, moderate carbs, and low-fat.

This is important in keeping your metabolism efficiently burning calories. Constantly grazing on meals every 3 hours will allow your body to burn off what it has consumed quicker and more efficiently.

Eating one or two larger meals will actually cause your body’s metabolism to slow down. Skipping meals altogether will actually cause your body to store fat as a defense mechanism.

Your body is not sure when its going to get its next meal so it tends to store more in case of perceived famine. Make each meal consist of higher protein (builds muscle), moderate carbohydrates (fuel for the body) and low fat (energy and protection).

Use the 50-40-10 rule as an approximate guideline. 50% of your calories coming from protein, 40% carbs, and 10% fats.

4. Do INTENSE cardiovascular workouts 3-4 times a week.

This is where the majority of the calorie burning takes place.

Not necessarily from the cardio you just did, but from the fact that doing cardio increases your metabolic rate so that the rest of the day you will burn off more calories as well.

Treat your cardio days like you do your workouts. That means, put all of your energy and intensity into your cardio. Do 20-30 minutes of cardio 3-4 days a week. During a session of cardio, warm-up for 5 minutes, then do 20 minutes at a high intensity pace.

Then cool down for the last 5 minutes. Go at a fast enough pace where you are sweating, panting, huffing, puffing, turning red. Get your body out of homeostasis (everythings normal and in balance).

Doing cardio for the sakes of doing it will not burn fat. Going for a leisurely walk will not sufficiently burn fat, unless you walk ten miles. Riding a stationary bike while relaxingly reading the paper will not burn much fat.

Hey, it’s only 30 minutes. Bust your butt for this time and the return on your investment will be great. Choose cardio machines that get more of your body moving. The more you move, the more you burn.

Stairmaster and running on the Treadmill are good examples. The recumbent bike is good also, because you can focus on high intensity without worrying about falling off. The more your whole body moves, the more energy you expend.

5. Do INTENSE Weight training at least 3-4 times a week.

Do not mistake weight training w/ trying to burn fat. Weight training will not burn a sufficient amount of body fat. What weight training will do is help you burn fat in the future. When you add muscle to your frame, your body has to expend more energy (burn more calories) to maintain that muscle tissue.

So when you are at rest, even sleeping, the more lean muscle mass you have, the more calories you will expend. Weight training will not only strengthen existing muscle, but will add additional lean muscle tissue to handle any future demands placed on the muscle.

The more lean muscle tissue you have, the more calories you will expend at rest. Not bad, huh?

6. Figure out your daily energy expenditure and reduce it.

Most people do not like to calorie count, me included. But in order to properly lose body fat, you need to determine your daily energy expenditure or caloric maintenance level. You then need to reduce your energy consumption to be below your energy output.

It’s difficult to place a number on how much below your consumption you should go, because everyone is different. A good place to start would be 150-200 calories below your maintenance levels.

Then continue to observe the effects in the mirror to determine if this number needs to be changed. If you continue to see no results, try reducing your energy consumption to 300 calories below your energy output.

7. Instead of a 30 minute cardio session, do 2, 15 minute sessions.

This is definitely a tough thing to do because of busy schedules, but if it is possible, do a 15 minute cardio session first thing in the morning and another session later in the afternoon or early evening.

Research has shown that compared with subjects that did a 30 minute cardio session, those that did 2, 15 minute sessions burned twice as many calories. Make each 15 minute session still very intense, which is easier to do if you are going 15 minutes.

Warm-up for 2-3 minutes and then go all out for 13-15 minutes, then cool down for 2-3 minutes.

Once again, if you can fit 2, 15 minute cardio sessions into your day (avoid doing it on weight-training days), you will burn twice the amount of calories than doing a 30 minutes session.

8. Continue to up your weight (overload) when doing resistance training.

Remember that building lean muscle will assist you in the fat-burning process later on. The more muscle you have, the more energy your body expends to maintain that muscle, even at rest.

In order to make constant and significant gains, remember to train intensely and for short durations. I like to call them “bursts of exercise!” Try and work no more than 2 muscle groups a workout, 3 workouts a week.

Or you can do 1 muscle group each workout, training 5-6 days a week in shorter bursts.

Keep reps lower than higher. This will cause you to maintain high enough resistance to add overload to the muscle, causing more muscle growth. Do only 2-3 heavy sets per exercise and keep workouts no longer than 45 minutes.

Keep your workouts intense and to the point. Do it and get out of the gym. DO NOT DO YOUR CARDIO BEFORE WEIGHT TRAINING! It’s hard to focus intensely on both weight training and cardio in the same session. Do not rob one to pay the other.

These are 8 simple (well, not so simple if you do them well!) ways you can maximize fat burning while increasing the likelihood of not losing much muscle.

Cardio and proper nutrition are two of the most vital areas to focus on when attempting to shed fat and gain muscle.

Shawn LeBrun is an online fitness expert that will show you how to lose fat, gain muscle, and increase your strength in the least amount of time! Visit http://www.shawnlebrunfitness.com for info.

Tags: build muscle, fat loss, gain muscle, lose fat, Lose weight, weight lossbuild muscle, fat loss, gain muscle, lose fat, Lose weight, weight loss

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If you’re looking to build lean muscle, I want you to first work on getting a tan. (Although that may be tough for us living here in the frigid northeast!)

I can see it now, people are going to be lined up at their local tanning salon, telling the clerk they need to start building some muscle. Well, let me save you from stares of confusion from the salon owners.

You’re not going to build muscle from sun tanning.

But the cause and effect relationship between the sun and tanning perfectly illustrates a point I want to make about working out too much.

I must get 3 or 4 emails each day from people wanting to know why they’re not building muscle as fast as they’d like. They tell me that they’re working each muscle group as often as possible.

Well, the thing is, there’s no law in weight lifting that says if you double your time, you double your results. Usually, if you double the amount of time you lift, you actually lessen your results.

It’s because weight lifting is closer to the “Less is More” theory than the “The More The Better” one.

So I want to show you how getting a tan actually answers why you do not want to weight train a muscle group more than once each week.

Getting a sun tan is a cause and effect relationship. The sun is the cause and the tan is the effect. In other words, the sun is the stimulus and the tan is the result.

When you get a tan, what is actually happening is that your melanocytes are producing melanin pigment in reaction to ultraviolet light in sunlight. Ultraviolet light stimulates melanin production.

The pigment has the effect of absorbing the UV radiation in sunlight, so it protects the cells from UV damage.

You have to expose yourself to UV for a short period of time to activate the melanocytes. By repeating this process over 5 to 7 days pigment builds up in your cells to a level that is protective.

But what happens when you get too much sun? That’s right, you get a sun burn, something you do not want to happen. Too much of the stimulus leads to a negative result.

So the key is to find the right amount of sun for the desired effect. Too little sun results in no tan and too much sun results in a sun burn.

So, how does this relate to building muscle?

Muscle growth happens by overloading a muscle with heavy weight and then allowing it to rest and recuperate. In this case, the lifting of heavy weight is the stimulus and, if the environment is properly set up, the result is lean muscle growth.

The proper “environment” for muscle growth is rest and proper nutrition (high protein, moderate carbs, plenty of water).

If you train a muscle group (biceps, triceps, etc) more than once each week, it does not get a chance to recuperate and will not grow or become stronger.

It’s like going back out in the sun too much. Overexposure to the sun leads to a burn. Overexposure to lifting leads to overtraining. When overtraining occurs, muscle growth and strength gains come to a screeching halt.

So to maximize muscle growth and keep that “anabolic window of opportunity” intact, you definitely want to train a muscle group once each week.

Too much weight training (stimulus) will produce negative results. If you do not allow your muscles to rest, recover, and get ready for the next workout, you’re doing the same thing as if you went back out into the sun too much.

Too much of something can produce negative results as much as too little of something.

So if you want to start building more muscle, start working on your tan

Shawn LeBrun is a personal trainer and natural bodybuilder. To learn how to build muscle and lose fat in less time, visit Shawn LeBrun Fitness now.

Tags: build muscle, burn fat, fat loss, gain muscle, Lose weightbuild muscle, burn fat, fat loss, gain muscle, Lose weight

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