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Welcome to my first article on how supplements may be able to help you if you are trying to loose belly fat and gain muscle. In this article I’ll be talking about creatine, answer the question “what is creatine“, summarising the benefits of creatine and also any side effects of creatine.

Overview

So you may have heard about a supplement before called creatine or you may be totally new to the concept of supplementation at all. There are many myths surrounding creatine and it’s often though of as a performance enhancing drug and class with substances like anabolic steroids (which is most definitely not the case) or associated with the idea of making your kidneys explode!

Basically, Creatine is a white powdery substance that is taken to improve athletic performance. The following scientific explanation is taken from Wikipedia:

“Creatine is nitrogenous organic acid that occurs naturally in vertebrates and helps to supply energy to muscle and nerve cells. Creatine was identified in 1832 when Michel Eugène Chevreul discovered it as a component of skeletal muscle, which he later named creatine after the Greek word for flesh, Kreas.”

Benefits

The scientifically documented benfits of creatine include:

- Prevents the buildup of lactic acid in muslces allowing you to workout harder/longer
- Regeneration of ATP gives you more energy during workouts (especially for quick and explosive movements like lifting weights)
- Shown potential for helping various diseases such as Type II Diabates and Cardivascular disease.
- Its extremely cheap in relation to many supplements

Side Effects

There are some known side effects of creatine but these are limited to the minority of people and are known to stop as soon as the dose is lowered.

These side effects are related to digestion of creatine and can include bloating and diarrhea but are normally associated with excess consumption.

In terms of short-term and medium-term side effects, medical studies have shown that creatine taken at normal levels is harmless to the body

How should creatine be taken?

It has been shown that creatine is best taken after a workout to replenish the stores used up through exercising, and it should also be taken with some form of carbohydrate to assist in it’s updake.

I personally take creatine in my post workout shake which also include whey protein and simple carbohydrate (I’ll talk more about this another time)

I hope you enjoyed this article about using creatine to loose belly fat and found it useful. If you have anything to say about it or any questions, please leave me a comment.

Here is part 2 of my article on a good workout to help you loose belly fat and build muscle.

To recap on part 1 of the article, there are a number of things we should be aiming to do with a workout for loosing belly fat :

• Stimulate our muscles
• Increase our heart rate/EPOC
• Train as many different muscles as possibly per workout
• Complete the workout in a timely way so that we can keep 100% focus on what we’re doing without getting tired or bored

As I’ve already said before, nutrition is by FAR the most important part of loosing belly fat so you need to remember that however hard you work in the gym, you need to be strict with your diet in order to be successful.

Sets and reps

A rep is a single movement of the exercise we are performing. For example, if we take a press-up, a single rep would involve extending your arms so that your chest is in the air and then lowering yourself down again.

When we perform a number of reps in succession with a rest period after, this is known as a set.

For each of the exercises below, I recommend that you perform 5 sets of 5 reps with a 45-60 second rest in between each set.

You should be lifting a weight that starts relatively easy, but makes it hard for you to complete the last rep of the last set for each exercise.

How often to train

Workouts should be performed at a maximum of every 48 hours to allow the body enough time to rest and recover. This is especially important when the body is running on a lower number of calories than normal when on a calorie-controlled diet.

Workout 1 should be performed one day, then 48 hours later, workout 2 should be performed. For example, a 2-weekly plan could be as shown below:

Week 1

Monday: Workout 1
Tuesday: Rest
Wednesday: Workout 2
Thursday: Rest
Friday: Workout 1
Saturday: Rest
Sunday: Workout 2

Week 2

Monday: Rest
Tuesday: Workout 1
Wednesday: Rest
Thursday: Workout 2
Friday: Rest
Saturday: Workout 1
Sunday: Rest

The Exercises

Each workout will use 2 compound exercises for the upper body with a lower body exercise.

Workout 1

Exercise 1: Bench Press (Chest/Shoulders)

For the bench press, other variation of this exercise can also be used. For example:

• Incline Bench Press (Dumbbells/Barbell)
• Decline Bench Press (Dumbbells/Barbell)
• Flat Bench Press (Dumbbells/Barbell)

Example => http://www.youtube.com/v/aY7IK0EkMnE

Exercise 2: Dead lift (Legs/Lower Back)

For the dead lift, other variation of this exercise can also be used. For example:

• Romanian Dead lift
• Stiff-legged Dead lift

Example => http://www.youtube.com/v/dAF0XFzdPR4

Exercise 3: Row (Upper Back)

For the row, other variation of this exercise can also be used. For example:

• Seated Row
• Bent-over Row (Individual dumbbells/Barbell)

Example => http://www.youtube.com/v/PUFUiotRPdE

Workout 2

Exercise 1: Pull Ups (Back/Biceps)

Example => http://www.youtube.com/v/n3cot9o7xC8

Exercise 2: Squats (Legs)

For squats, other variation of this exercise can also be used. For example:

• Hack Squats
• Front Squats
• Sumo Squats

Example => http://www.youtube.com/v/Ni0bc_gaGrA

Exercise 3: Dips (Chest/Triceps)

Example => http://www.youtube.com/v/BuSx8rSDqwc

I hope this article has given you some more information on how to start using weights to train for fat loss. If you have any questions, please leave a comment and I’ll get back to you.

This article is going to be the first part of a two article series showing you a good workout to help you loose belly fat . In this article we’ll cover the WHAT and WHY of training to help you loose belly fat. Part 2 will show you exactly HOW to go about training.

Overview (what we are trying to acheive)

When trying to loose belly fat , we should be trying to aiming for 2 things: stimulate our muscles and increase our heart rates.

Stimulate our muscles
When eating a reduced calorie diet, our bodies can actually burn our own muscles for energy. This is extremely bad when trying to loose belly fat as the more muscle we have, the more calories we burn each day. By training with weights and stimulating our muslces, we can prevent them being used by our body for fuel or even stimulate them to grow bigger.

NB: For those women who are scared of getting ‘too big’ by weight training, you don’t have to worry. Females simple don’t have enough testosterone in their bodies to get noticeably bigger without the use of drugs.

Increasing our heart rates/EPOC
Training with weights as opposed to cardio exercise like jogging increases our rate of EPOC (Excess Post-exercise Oxygen Consumption). EPOC refers to the amount of time we continue burning calories at a higher rate AFTER we finish exercising.

When training with weights, EPOC is known to last up to a full 48 hours compared to cardio exercises which is only a couple of hours.

Type of exercise

So we know that we should be trying to maximise our EPOC and also stimulate our muscles in order to loose belly fat but how do we go about this?

The best and quickest way to train is using as many muscles per exercise as possible and training the whole body at each training session. While this may sounds difficult, its actually quite simple and can be done in as few as 2 or three exercises in about 30 minutes.

I personally find that choosing two complimentary upper-body exercises and a single lower-body exercise means that you can stimulate as many of your muscles in the shortest time.

Final thoughts

When considering how to train when you want to loose belly fat , there is one thing that is more important that any other and that’s nutrition. You MUST have your diet in check if you expect to see results loosing belly fat.

While I wish i could eat chocolate and cheese all the time and train 5 times more often, it doesn’t work this way and unfortunately, there is no way to out-train a poor diet.

I hope you have enjoyed this article and found it useful. Please check back again soon for part 2 of the series when I’ll tell you exactly which exercises to use and how to structure your workout.

When trying to loose belly fat do you make any of these common mistakes? There is a lot of misinformation out there regarding fat-loss and you could well be a victim yourself!

Eating too little fat

Do you eat a low fat diet to loose belly fat ? This is not a good idea as your body requires fat for daily bodily processes. Some forms of fat know as Omega 3 even have positive drug-like effects on body composition and have been shown to reduce the risk of cancer, joint problems and protein breakdown.

I get my Omega 3 fat in the form of milled flaxseed (added to meals or shakes) and also by taking Cod Liver Oil before bed.

Not eating breakfast

When you are trying to loose belly fat , breakfast is a MUST. Breakfast literally means breaking the overnight fast. When your body is in a fasted state after not eating, it goes in to ’survival’ mode where you will be more inclined to store body fat and definitely not lose fat!

Eating breakfast also boosts your metabolism first thing in the day giving you more energy and firing up your fat burning engine.

The bottom line is eat breakfast EVERY day without fail. I usually have 3 eggs scrambled with some spinach or a protein shake.

Eating before bed

As we talked about above, your body is likely to go into a state of starvation overnight; kicking in it’s survival instincts

To minimise this effect, it’s a good idea to actually eat before you go to sleep. Something like a slow-release protein is ideal.

Believe it or not, you actually burn more energy sleeping than you do sitting watching TV so don’t think that while you are asleep you don’t need fuel.

I recommend eating cottage cheese or a protein shake before bed, and I do this myself every night.

Eating too little

Are you guilty of trying to starve yourself in order to loose belly fat? Well this is actually doing you more harm than good.

As we have already talked about, when your body doesn’t get enough food, it actually goes in to a starvation mode preserving as much energy as possible (which is does by storing fat)

To keep your body happy that its going to get plenty of food in the coming hours, days and weeks, it’s better if you eat smaller more regular meals. This will also help keep your blood-sugar levels more constant which should make you feel more energetic and less hungry.

I thing that eating about 6 small meals per day is around the right number.

Being too strict with yourself

If you are a very strict dieter and follow a perfect eating regime, then you might be hindering your progress when trying to loose belly fat.

It’s actually been shown that it’s more beneficial to have a cheat meal or cheat day each week so why not reward yourself with some ‘bad’ food.

Just remember, you only deserve this if you’ve been 100% on your diet for the rest of the week and when I say cheat, I don’t mean eat everything under the roof!!

For my cheat day each week, I like to have a home-made pizza. The following day, it’s back to being well behaved again

It’s widely known that in order to loose weight, you need to consumer fewer calories than your body uses. But to loose belly fat in particular, we need to delve a bit deeper and look at our food choices in more detail.

A simple calorie deficit in our daily diets will lead to weight loss. This is a fact that I guarantee. However, indiscriminate weight loss should not be our aim - instead, changing our body composition by maintaining lean muscle and losing fat is the ideal that we should focus on. This is quite simple when we make intelligent food choices.

Drink Lots of Water

The facts: Over 80% of our body is made from water and the effects of dehydration can be noticed with as little as a 2% loss of liquid from our bodies.

80% is a large amount, and 2% is a tiny threshold so when you aim to run your body as a fat burning machine, you need to ensure that you are extremely well hydrated.

The best way to keep well hydrated is to drink plenty of water - 8 cups a days is the absolute minimum but I personally drink over a gallon per day.

To start with, when you increase your liquid intake, you will need the toilet much more regularly then you do now. After a while you’re bladder will adapt to this though so stick with it!

A final benefit of taking on more water is that any retained water will be released. In the same way that your body holds on to fat when it foresees a shortage, your body retains water when it isn’t getting enough too. This is often stored around the belly and has a liquid-like feel (unlike normal belly fat) and is released once you are getting an adequate amount of water.

Carbohydrates you must eat

There are certain carbohydrates (carbs) you must eat if you want to loose belly fat and these are typically green and hated by children worldwide!

Green vegetables should be eaten as often as possible as they contain valuable minerals and vitamins such as potassium as well as antioxidants and fibre which keeps you feeling full.

Some examples of the carbs you should be eating are:
- Lettuce
- Cabbage
- Sprouts
- Broccoli
- Spinach
- Rocket
- Peas
- Broad Beans
- Green Beans
- Runner Beans

The choice is yours, just make sure you’re eating them!

Carbohydrates you MUST NOT eat

Sugar is the enemy! While this is not true all the time, in most cases sugar is bad. Sugars (also know as simple carbs) unsurprisingly have a massive impact on your blood sugar levels which in turn switches on the fat storage mechanisms in your body and switches off the belly fat burning ones.

In addition to this, the high and low spikes in your blood sugar levels that are caused by sugar also make you hungry sooner.

Simple carbs and sugars include candy, chocolate and soda but are also found in other foods too such as pasta, white rice and fruits.

While these latter food aren’t as bad for you, they can still be substituted for their wholemeal alternatives in order to help you lose fat more easily and faster.

Proteins

The main point about eating protein is that you must eat enough of it. A good protein source should be eaten at every meal of the day. Simple!

Examples of protein include the following:
- Meats
- Fish
- Cheese
- Eggs
- Milk
- Protein shakes

Fats

As I discussed in a previous article, fats are not bad and are actually essential if you want to lose fat. You do have to be careful however, as fats are high in calories.

I aim to eat around 50% of all my calories from fat and have them split equally between polyunsaturated, monounsaturated and saturated fats

As a site note saturated fats get a bad reputation where they are in fact actually vital for the body. To stay safe however, it’s best to keep away from the processed saturated fats as these can be particularly nasty. An example of this is where hydrogen gas is bubbled through fat to make hydrogenated fats - not exactly natural.

For your fat sources I recommend the following:

Monounsaturated Fats
- Olive oil
- Nuts
- Seeds
Polyunsaturated Fats (especially Omega 3 fats)
- Oily fish
- Cod Liver oil
- Flax oil/seeds
Saturated Fats
- Meat
- Eggs

It’s a very common misconception that when you want to loose belly fat you should use cardiovascular exercise such as running, cycling or rowing to burn the fat. While this form of exercise can lead to weight loss, when you want to loose belly fat specifically and not just weight (muscle as well as fat), lifting weights is the best for the following reasons:

• Stimulating your muscles through weight training lets your body know that they are required and therefore cannot afford to be burned off for fuel.
• Muscle, unlike fat, has a metabolic cost. This means that muscle cells use energy even when you aren’t actually doing anything - sitting, sleeping watching TV etc. Therefore the more muscle you have, the more calories you will burn just by existing.
• Excess Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption (EPOC) refers to the amount of calories burned after you have been exercising. When you exercise, you’re metabolism rises and continues at a raised level even after you have finished; burning calories at an increased rate. With cardio exercise the duration of this EPOC isn’t very long at all, but with resistance training, EPOC can last for upwards of 24-48 hours.

Hopefully this article has given you some information on why exercising with weights is the best way to loose belly fat . If you aren’t already doing so, I hope this will make you think about incorporating weight training into your current regime.

If you’re looking to loose belly fat with the least amount of effort required, this post will give you some top tips for saving time and/or effort.

Foods you can prepare quickly

If you are looking to save some time on the preparation front, then there are certain foods that you should be eating regularly that are also extremely quick to prepare.

These can be classified into three types themselves; cold cooked food, raw foods, and processed foods.

Examples of cold cooked foods could include cooked chicken or turkey; both very lean meats that should be a part of everyone’s diet. These could form a salad or just be eaten on their own. I usually have a chicken salad every lunch time as it only takes one minute to prepare in the morning before work.

Example of raw foods would be raw leafy vegetables such as lettuce, spinach, rocket etc. These all contain vital vitamins, minerals and antioxidants, and should be eaten at every meal time. These raw examples provide a convenient alternative to other fibrous green vegetables that must be cooked such as sprouts and broccoli.

Example of processed foods that are suitable for eating when you’re trying to loose belly fat are protein bars and protein shakes. These are very good sources of protein containing minimal carbohydrate and fats and although they shouldn’t be relied on, can keep you going between meals if you don’t have much time.

Eating the same thing

By eating the same foods regularly you can become a lot more efficient when trying to loose belly fat.

Time and effort can be saved in a number of different ways, including:

Shopping
You always buy the same food so you know where it is in the supermarket and don’t have to waste time looking for it. To improve on this even more you could use online grocery shopping and just have a similar order placed for the same time every week

Preparation of food
When you make a small number of meals regularly, you are able to find quicker ways to do certain tasks involved. No need to learn new recipes, and when you have that special man or lady over to dinner, you’ve cooked your regular meals so many times that you have them absolutely mastered.

Psychologically
I’ve always found that I see considerably better results when trying to loose belly fat when I stop thinking about food as a treat or for enjoyment, and start to see it as necessary fuel for survival. When you make the same food over and over again, although it can still be very tasty, it’s never a ‘treat’ as such and I find this helps reduce cravings for the ‘bad’ foods.

Not eating something in the first place

When trying to loose belly fat there is one single thing you can do that is more powerful than any exercise or workout in the world, and that is not eating something in the first place.

The painful truth is that no workout or exercise plan can out-train a bad diet so in order to loose belly fat, you need to make sure that you don’t put that food in your mouth in the first place.

Consider an example here - when you go jogging you burn around 150 calories per hour more than you would just sitting still. By working for 2 seconds on not putting the chocolate biscuit in your mouth, you can save yourself a whole hour or more of pointless jogging.