7 Tips to Eat Cleaner

To eat cleaner, you may have to clean out your food pantry. You will eat the food in your house, whether its healthy or not. If you want your eating habits to improve, don't skip this step.

If you are having trouble with problem foods, try this trick:

Give up one bad eating habit a week. You could start with cutting excess sugar from your diet. For example, replace sodas and sugary fruit drinks with water and unsweetened tea. This one change will cut huge amounts of calories and body fat. The replacement method will make your diet changes more practical and less overwhelming.
But, you will still need to try and comply with your total meal plan at least 90% of the time.

Eating healthier is a challenge for many of us due to bad habits developed over a long time.

This is a comment posted by "Any Wife:"

"Great idea, except my problem would be that I could make it one week omitting or decreasing the intack of say sugar, but the next week when say I decided to increase my fiber intack I would start with the sugar again."

Here are 7 tips to try:

Note: Eating cleaner starts with eating whole, natural foods with one ingredient most of the time. Examples would be fruits, veggies, fish, eggs, oats and nuts. These types of foods also keep you fuller for longer on less calories.

1. Get an accountability partner (such as a friend, workout partner or personal trainer) to hold you accountable to your exercise and nutrition goals.

2. Keep a daily food journal to track your intended goals and actual eating patterns. Review and recommit to every nutrition goal every week. Once you get good at knowing what, how much and when to eat, you can stop keeping the journal.

3. Replace your "bad food" item that you like with a "good food" item that you also like. Unsugared fruit juice is a better choice than sugary juice drinks. Likewise, replace something like ice cream with low-calorie, natural smoothies. I think you get the idea. When you eat something you like, you are more likely to continue eating the healthier, low-calorie food choice.

4. Reward yourself every few days or once a week when you "stick to your nutrition plan." Having a small, sugary treat (or fill in the blank) will not hurt your nutrition plan.

5. You may need to start throwing away all the bad foods in your pantry and replacing them with healthy replacements.

6. Set your daily calorie intake based on your basal metabolic rate, activity level and goals. This way, you won't eat too much or too little.

Maintaining the right amount of calorie deficit (burning more calories than you consume) on most days is the key to burning fat and losing weight. For instance, if you eat 1,200 calories a day for too long, your body will store fat as a survival mechanism. It thinks you are starving.

7. Above all else, recommit yourself every day to your exercise and nutrition goals because its what you really want to do. Some call it willpower. You'll be healthier and happier.

Start taking these steps today to help you change your eating habits and burn more fat.

-Catherine Ebeling and Mike Geary are co-authors of the popular ebook, Fat-Burning Kitchen, which shows you how to totally revamp your kitchen to make your body a fat-burning machine!

Mark Dilworth, BA, PES
Your Fitness University
My Fitness Hut
Her Fitness Hut
Sports Fitness Hut
Rapid Fat Loss and Six Pack Abs

Stand Up Desk, Stand Up Exercises Burns Calories and Fat

Use a stand up desk to burn more calories and fat. And, it will keep you more alert, especially early morning and after lunch. Some stand up desks also have treadmills attached to them (go right ahead if you want).

One more thing about a desk job: Long hours sitting at a desk (or any prolonged, daily sitting) puts you at risk for some fitness and health problems such as:

1. tight hip flexors, hamstrings and calves,
2. postural problems such as hunched, rounded shoulders and forward head position,
3. limited lumbar spine extension and a stiff thoracic spine,
4. tight external hip rotators with limits hip joint range of motion,
5. shoulder blade alignment problems and
6. miscellaneous muscle strains and muscle imbalances.

Postural problems can be corrected. See my posts on posture. Flexibility problems can also be corrected. See my posts on flexibility.

Some other things you can do:

a. Walk during work breaks. Just doing this will give you 30-40 minutes of moderate exercise during the day. This technique is an underestimated calorie burner.

b. Do flexibility stretches every two hours or so at your desk. Kneeling hip flexors, calf, hamstring, quad, neck, spine and other stretches will help keep you flexible and relaxed. Standing trunk rotations, arm circles, leg swings and pectoral exercises are also good.

c. Brace (like getting ready to take a punch to the gut) your torso as you stand to strengthen your core.

Benefits of Stand Up Exercises

Exercising on your feet works and activates more muscles and that's what you want. You will build more muscle mass faster and burn more calories and fat.

For instance, the standing shoulder press will not only work your shoulders and arms but will also activate your core muscles.

And, since you are standing, your lower body also has to do some work. Your legs will also help you lift more repetitions during a set.

The seated shoulder press won't allow you to build the type of strength you will need in every day movements. You will never try to lift a heavy load while sitting. The seated shoulder press is useful for beginners or those recovering from injuries.

Other standing exercises are squats, deadlift, bentover rows, lunges and medicine ball exercises.

So, if you want maximum fat-burn and calorie-burn, plan your exercise routine with more standing exercises. You can sit down after your workout!

Follow a regular strength (3 days a week) and interval cardio exercise (2-3 days a week) program. All it takes is 30 minutes a day. Among other benefits, this will give you needed muscle (and related fat burn), good heart health and strong bones.

Free Bodyweight 500 Metabolic Fat Burner Workouts. Start shaping your body faster!

Mark Dilworth, BA, PES
Your Fitness University
My Fitness Hut
Her Fitness Hut
Sports Fitness Hut
Rapid Fat Loss and Six Pack Abs

Shrink Your Body with a Fat Loss Diet

Shrink your body to lean with the right diet, a fat loss diet. You don't have a fat loss diet? Get one ASAP! A fat loss diet plays a huge part in the success of your fat loss and weight loss efforts.

Don't confuse a fat loss diet with a quick weight loss diet. They are totally different animals. How different? Check this out:

a. A quick weight loss diet leaves you hungry and sometimes starving. You might lose weight in the beginning but you will have low energy, slowed metabolism, a weakened immune system and your body will begin to store fat (starvation mode).

Ultimately, you will regain more weight than you lost when you start to eat normally again (yo-yo effect). You don't want to live like that, right?

b. A fat loss diet will help you maintain your energy. You will never be hungry or starving because you will eat every 3-4 hours. The food items will be whole, natural and nutritious and help you burn fat.

You will eat enough to fuel your intense weight training and interval cardio workouts. Without these workouts, its impossible to build muscle mass and lean out your body.

The Fat Burning Kitchen will Help you Makeover Your Food Pantry

If your basal metabolic rate is 1800 calories a day, 1000 calories of food intake is not enough food for you to function properly. Doing this will turn your body into a total wreck! Having a healthy body at a healthy weight and acceptable body fat percentage is the most important.

The only way to improve is to know where you went wrong (if that's the case). The truth behind your weight loss and subsequent weight gain can sometimes be painful.

If you want a healthy, lean body that will give you the best chance to live healthy for a long time, you need to know the reasons why your weight loss and fat loss efforts failed.

As a personal trainer, I have seen many reasons why people fail at weight loss and fat loss. Here are 5:

1. You MUST make a real commitment to change eating habits and exercise habits. A real commitment always includes willpower to succeed. That means you won't quit even if you lose some battles along the way. One bad day or bad week won't stop you---you will get back up and keep trying. Its also called perseverance.

If you have low self worth, it will affect everything you do, including your efforts to change your body and lose weight. Somehow, you must eat right and workout because you're worth it and its good for your health and lifestyle. This is a very positive behavior and will lead to permanent lifestyle changes.

2. If you are afraid to set goals for fear of not reaching those goals, then you will find some way to sabotage your efforts. For example, you set low goals or no goals and that's what you achieve---very little!

3. Don't try to burn fat and lose weight all by yourself. You need help to accomplish your body shrinking goals. That could be a trainer, a friend, a spouse or other family member. Research proves that those who have weight loss buddies are more likely to succeed.

4. Don't depend on a fat-burner supplement, powder or weight loss pill to change your body. Stop wasting your money!

5. If you experienced quick weight loss without exercise and without fat loss, that's not the type of shrinkage you want. In other words, you still have high body fat. You didn't build muscle. You lost muscle mass. The weight came back on with a vengeance when you started to eat again (and not starve yourself).

You can write down your own weight loss and weight gain adventures. It will be well worth your time. Ultimately, you will succeed if you learn from your failures and successes.

The Fat-Burning Kitchen, will show you how to totally makeover your kitchen pantry to make your body a fat-burning machine!

Mark Dilworth, BA, PES
Your Fitness University
My Fitness Hut
Her Fitness Hut
Sports Fitness Hut
Rapid Fat Loss and Six Pack Abs