Four Steps To The Body Of Your Dreams: Your How To Guide

If you’re on a mission to build the body of your dreams, it’s vital that you’re making sure that you have a good game plan in place.  Many people set out with an end goal that they want to achieve, but don’t take the necessary steps to figure out how exactly they are going to achieve it.
If you want to see good results, you must make sure that you’re following a smart protocol that is designed to work with your body to get you the look that you’re after.
Let’s give you a step by step guide for doing so.
Step One: Determine Your Look
First things first, you need to get it clear in your mind the precise look that you’re going for.  If you don’t have a clear visual in mind of what it is you want to look like, it’s hard to develop a training routine that’s going to be effective.
Remember to keep this ‘look’ you desire reasonable and realistic, otherwise you’re fighting a losing battle from the beginning.
Step Two: Plan Your Diet
Once you have your desired look, then you need to form a diet plan.  If the look involves getting slimmer or leaner then a reduced calorie intake needs to be utilized.  If the look involves getting larger and building muscle or adding curves if you’re a female, then adding more calories to your current diet will be necessary.
A good place to start is adding or subtracting 300-500 calories in either direction as this should get you seeing progress quite quickly.
Then make sure that you eliminate all the processed and refined foods from your diet, so you’re eating as many natural foods as possible.  Get an even mix of proteins, carbs, and fats in each snack, with the carb and fat intake being slightly lower for those looking to lose weight and higher for those looking to gain.
Step Three: Design Your Weight Workout
After the diet is in place, then it comes time to design a workout.  Weight training is the best exercise for reshaping your body, so it’s what you’ll want to turn to.
If you want to bring out more muscle definition in certain regions, add in a few isolated exercises for those muscle groups.  Be sure that you also have the compound exercises in place as well, as these will be key to building full body strength and conditioning.
If you want to lose fat, aim to keep the rest breaks between sets shorter as this will enable you to experience a better metabolic boost after each workout.
Step Four: Factor In Cardio
Finally, the last step is to factor in cardio.  If you’re trying to fill out or build muscle, your cardio exercise will be minimal as you don’t want to be burning off too many additional calories.
If you’re looking to lose fat on the other hand, then you’ll want to add more cardio in.
Cardio should be a mixture of interval session as well as longer, moderate paced sessions to keep good balance in your program.
Just be sure to never let yourself sacrifice your weight lifting performance for cardio training instead as cardio simply isn’t as effective for changing your body.
So there you have the top things that you should remember with regards to designing a complete body transformation plan.  If you take the time now to lay everything out, all you’ll have to do is follow your ‘road map’ for success.

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How to boost your metabolism

There are various myths, theories and old wife’s tales about how to boost our metabolisms and get them working faster and more effective, but not all of them are true. Lets firstly understand what a “metabolism” is.

In its simplest terms, our metabolic rate is the rate our bodies burn calories. Not many of us have a fast metabolism weight and even if you do it doesn’t necessary mean you are going to be that slim catwalk model. Although it may shock you, overweight individuals generally have relatively fast metabolism rates because they weigh more, however like most things in life everything is in moderation. If your weight is staying constant and your metabolism isn’t working quick enough to work off those calories your body is absorbing then your body will struggle to lose those extra lbs. in essence, by increasing your metabolism you will find it easier to work off that stubborn weight.

There are a number of factors that can control your metabolism rate, some of which include age, gender, heredity, thyroid disorder, and weight. Although you cannot change some of these factors you can have control over others. It is important that you have control so you can really work on improving your metabolic rate which will help you reach our weight loss goal.

Take a minute and work out your individual RMR rate. An RMR rate is your Resting Metabolic Rate and helps you understand how much energy is required by your body to stay alive with no activity. You RMR rate is one of the main contributing components of energy expenditure (around 70%).

How to work out your RMR rate:

Many use the Mifflin-St Jeor equation to calculate their RMR rate:

·         RMR = 9.99 x “w” + 6.25 x “s” - 4.92 x “a” + 166 x “g”-161

·         “w” = weight in kilograms; if you know your weight in pounds, divide by 2.2 to get your weight in kilograms

·         “s” = height in centimeters; if you know your height in inches, multiply by 2.54 to get your height in centimeters

·         “a” = age in years

·         “g”= gender = 1 for males, 0 for females

Your RMR rate will tell you how many calories your body needs when it is resting. Your daily consumption should be your RMR x 1.15.

For example RMR=2000 x 1.15 = 2300.

If you want to lose weight do not exceed your above calculated RMR. To help you do this make sure you check the back of food packets and keep track of how many calories you are consuming.

Eating smaller, more frequent meals cannot only help speed up your metabolism, but it often results in you eating less. People who eat smaller meals more frequently generally tend to eat less overall especially if you eat more fruits, oats or anything with a "high volume to calorie content" as these types of foods often leave you feeling fuller for longer.

Often when you think you are hungry and want to reach for the nearest chocolate biscuit it is actually your brain telling you that you are thirsty. As with food, depriving your body of water can encourage it to "hoard" rather than "burn". By drinking ice-cold water your body actually burns more calories warming it up to your body temperature.

You can boost your metabolism temporarily with aerobic exercise. Varying on the exercise you take part in depends on how many calories you will burn. However the important thing is to raise your heart rate and keep focussed in the activity for approximately thirty minutes. This way you will boost your metabolism and burn off those calories faster.

Although this is more common amongst men, weight training can help boost metabolism in the long run. Muscle burns more calories than fat does. An interesting fact is that our muscles can burn 73 more calories per kilogram per day, so the more muscle you can build, the higher your RMR rate will be.

Young healthy men typically have anywhere between 35 to 50 kg of muscle mass on their bodies. As you can imagine the most muscular men burn extra calories than the not so muscular men. In total this equates to around 6.9kg (15pounts) of fat per year.

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The 16 minute lunch

Make it easy on yourself


One of the main challenges with lunch is the time we have to eat it. A recent poll suggested that many of us take just 16 minutes off for lunch, a fact that explains the quick-fix success of the sandwich. So, how can you make healthier choices without a fundamental shake up of your day?

A little planning (and I mean minutes, not hours) can make lunch work for you. Leftovers, soups, healthier sandwiches and eating out options can all be suited to your menu planner.
Here are my top tips for eating lunch in a hurry:

Think about tomorrow
If like me, you’re a little fuzzy in the morning, (it’s easy to forget your own lunch when you have packed lunches to make, homework books to remember, uniforms to iron), the best option for you is to prepare your lunch the night before. It takes a little more organisation and planning than you can muster up after a long day but it’s well worth it, that way you don’t end up down the chippie at lunch because you’ve left your lunch box in the fridge!

Use the menu planner
Try using a food planner to plan all of your meals and most importantly your snacks. Having healthy snacks to hand means it's less likely you'll reach for biscuits or crisps. Try celery and hummus or rolled oats with natural yoghurt and honey for a sweet treat!

A sticky trick
If you find eating fruit a bit of a struggle- try mixing it up with grapes, pineapple and a melon fruit salad or a handful of berries. Keeping it interesting will stop you from leaving that apple lurking at the bottom of your bag uneaten.

Sarnie rules
If like many others, you are a slave to the sandwich, try to steer away from sliced white bread as it’s full of salt which only makes you want to eat more. Try wraps or pittas and fill them up with less meat- more tasty salad and try a home made balsamic dressing!

Try a soup
Nothing beats a nice warm, chunky soup. It’s quick and easy, you can make it at home and pop it in the freezer to take to work during the week.

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