You see, all the marketing hype has created a sandstorm of false information. Even worse, there are times when the research isn’t even clear.

Now if the gurus have a tough time detangling the research, how is the average women supposed to? Luckily, I have already done this for you.

So without further ado, here are 4 fat arm pitfalls exposed:

1. Giving supplements priority over whole foods. Ignore the labels and outlandish claims. Whole foods will always trump supplements. Our bodies have evolved to absorb food in its natural form, not pills.

2. Loading up on fiber. Metamucil is everywhere these days! Unfortunately, research has shown that supplementing with fiber can increase colon cancer risk. It’s speculated that the free radicals from processing cause this, not good!

3. Assuming you should be thin to win the sexy arm battle. Well, contrary to popular belief, being thin is no guarantee of being healthy. Even worse, being thin is no guarantee of having toned arms. I’ve seen thin women with horrible blood lipid profiles and very flabby arms!

4. Thinking carbohydrates are the only food that can alter insulin. Excessive animal saturated fat intake and excessive protein intakes can also alter levels of insulin in your body. So don’t think that all you have to do is stay away from the white bread and pasta!

Ok, now you know 4 mistakes you shouldn’t make in your journey to get sexy and lean arms. And knowing what to avoid is extremely important in any endeavor. After all, time spent doing useless things is time that could be used to get you closer to your goal.

Writer Katherine Crawford, a Harvard exercise expert and recent arm fat sufferer, teaches women how to lose arm flab quickly. Discover how to get sexy arms by exploring her blog about how to get rid of flabby upper arms for women right now!

Since i can’t afford going to the gym. I only have two pound dumbbells. So what can i do from there?

Answer:

I have a set of 2 lb dumbells and I might as well let the kids play with them. They are THAT useless for resistance training because they offer practically NO resistance.

In order for resistance training to be effective, you need to use enough resistance to keep your muscles challenged. When you’re doing reps, do about 10 of them, but you have to use enough resistance so it’s very difficult to complete the last rep. If you can easily do the last rep, which you will be able to with those 2 lb’ers, you’re need to increase the resistance.

Fortunately, you can do that when you use Bodylastics resistance bands. Each of the rubber tubes has clips on the end so you can combine the bands into a variety of tension levels. Each set is a complete home gym system. It includes the tubes, handles, ankle straps (that can also be used as wrist straps) and a non-marring door anchor. The XT versions of the systems also come with an anywhere anchor that can be used around poles or posts. You’ll also get a workout book, DVD and access to free online workouts.

CLICK HERE to see how Bodylastics resistance bands work. Order a set today. While you’re there, sign up for the free workouts. Soon you’ll be exercising at home without going to the gym.

But there is a catch, however. Exercising the wrong way can silently destroy your joints and surrounding connective tissue. This can happen even if you don’t feel a single ounce of pain.

So, without further ado, here is how to prevent joint damage when losing weight:

1. Get strong and flexible: Resistance training is a must for rapid weight loss. But you should also make sure you incorporate flexibility training as well. You see, a lot of injuries and joint misalignments are a direct result of inflexibility. Having said that, don’t skimp on the weights-they are critical.

2. Eat joint friendly foods: There are certain nutrients that your body uses to regenerate cartilage and connective tissue. You can get these nutrients from leafy greens and seafood. Or, you could supplement your diet with calcium and vitamin D.

3. Supplement with shells: Doing so will protect your joint spaces and potentially regenerate your damaged cartilage. The main catch here, however, is that this effect takes a long time. And this makes sense since cartilage wears out over long periods of time.

4. Stay upright: Working from the seated position is a sure fire way to place excess stress on your lower back’s connective tissue. So make sure you remain upright as much as possible. And keep in mind that building a standing desk is very easy. If needed, you can always buy one.

5. Don’t smoke: Not only does smoking cause cancer, but it also weakens your bones. It does this by making them less dense. And less dense bones are more prone to breaking. Now you could potentially over supplement with calcium to try to offset this, but you are far better off not smoking altogether.

Preventing joint damage when losing weight is often overlooked, but can lead to some serious injuries that are only cured with surgery. So make sure you don’t delay with following this advice!

Writer Katherine Crawford, a Harvard fitness expert and former flabby arms sufferer, teaches women how to lose loose arm fat quickly. Learn how to get sexy and toned arms by visiting her website about how to get rid of flabby arms rapidly right now!

Do you have to burn fat before you try lifting weights or doing any resistance training? I’ve heard that if you do not lose the fat, you will bulk up and become even bigger.

Answer:

That’s sooo not true. In fact, the fastest way to burn fat is through proper resistance training. Building muscle actually melts fat faster than any other type of workout.

And forget everything you ever heard about cardio for burning fat. You only burn a few calories while you’re doing cardio, but the cardio has to be intense enough to keep an elevated heart rate. But when you stop, so does the calorie burning. Resistance training is the opposite. It is absolutely possible to do a 10 minute workout and then burn off fat for up to 48 hours after you stop exercising.

Instead, do resistance training. You want to keep the reps around 10 and do them with enough resistance to it’s very difficult to complete the 10th one. The best type of exercises to do are compound exercises, ones that involve more than one muscle group. Do NOT use machines to do things like legs lifts, leg extensions, or preacher curls because they unnaturally isolate specific muscles and deactivate others simply by the way you’re forced to lay or sit on the machine. This can cause muscle imbalance and stress on the joints.

It’s better to workout without machines. I suggest using Bodylastics resistance bands. The Super Strong Man set is perfect. You’ll be able to do compound exercises safely. In fact, you can even get your own free personal trainer by signing up for the free workouts on the Bodylastics website.

Click here to get  Bodylastics, now.

Ok so today I went to buy a resistance band because I was sick of weights. I have been training for 6 months with weights and I want to change the way I exercise. Well the band I bought is too weak for me, so I wanted to exchange it with another one and the store doesn’t want to. So is there anyway to add resistance on the band? I am stepping right beside the handle and its pretty weak… any mechanical ideas?

Answer:

1) NO single resistance band is going to give you the results you want. You need a complete set.

2) DO NOT buy resistance bands with the handles already attached because you CANNOT get any more resistance out of them.

3) Stepping close to the handle in an effort to increase resistance on an already too weak band will snap the band.

Here is how you can fix all of that. Get a set of Bodylastics resistance bands.

1. They have clips on the ends of the tubes, making them ADJUSTABLE. The tension amount is stamped right on the clip. combine the bands for custom tension levels.
2. Bodylastics bands are ANTI-SNAP. You simply CANNOT over-stretch them.
3. You can get a COMPLETE SET of Bodylastics bands for under $30. It includes 4 tubes, handles, ankle straps, door anchor, travel bag, circuit training DVD, workout book and free workouts you can watch online.

CLICK HERE to get Bodylastics resistance bands now.

I have been working out for quite some time now. My goal in short, is to lose 40-50 lbs. At my gym,I do 60-90 minutes of cardio 4 times a week. After which, I strength train. I use traditional machines. On machines such as the chest press or compound row, the weight of 30lbs has become too easy. So I increased it by 20lbs. My husband says this is a no-no and that I’ll bulk up. but it was my understanding that women don’t really have the hormonal capacity to bulk up the way a man does. It was also my understanding that the proper weight is whatever becomes difficult toward the end of your set. Switching things up is also important to avoid plateaus. So, now I’m concerned. If the sets I’m doing keeps getting easier and easier, shouldn’t I increase the intensity? Won’t that build more muscle and in turn, burn more calories? I would hate to have to work out without getting that workout “buzz” at the end. Is my husband correct? Or is it ok to increase the weight?

Answer:

Your husband is wrong. Women don’t have the testosterone to bulk up.

If your goal is to lose weight, STOP DOING CARDIO!!! To burn calories when you do cardio, you have to maintain an elevated heart rate or it’s completely useless. To burn a lot of calories you have to exercise more often, work harder, exercise longer ALL at an elevated heart rate. And guess what happens when you stop moving? You stop burning calories. Cardio exercise triggers different hormones. That high heart rate cardio releases cortisol, a catabolic MUSCLE DEPLETING stress hormone. As your glycogen stores become low, the cortisol starts to metabolize amino acids in the muscles for energy and that inhibits muscle building protein synthesis. By continuing cardio, you’ll be working out fast-twitch muscles and you’re going to lose muscle mass.

Skip the cardio and concentrate on your resistance training. You don’t even need to waste your time going to the gym. Get a set of Bodylastics resistance bands and workout at home with their free workouts.

You need to do 10 reps of each workout. By the time you get to the 8-9th rep you should be have a difficult time. When you get to the 10th, you should barely be able to complete it. THAT’S how you know how much resistance to use. Then rest for about 10 seconds and move onto the next exercise until you’ve worked out your entire body. That’s one full circuit. Then do another circuit, if you’re up to it. If not, don’t worry about it. You’ll get better. By the 2nd circuit it should be more difficult to complete each exercise. By the 3rd circuit, even more difficult. Don’t start increasing resistance until you can complete 3 full circuits.

Workout every other day if you’re doing full body workouts. Don’t ignore your legs. They are the largest muscle in the body and will accelerate your fat loss. If you’re doing the upper body one day and the lower the next, then you can workout every day. Give yourself a break on the weekends.

Here’s what’s going to happen. Your resting metabolic rate will rise and you’ll burn more stored fat. So even after you’ve exercised, you will continue to burn calories even while you’re sitting or better yet, sleeping! Yup, buring calories while you sleep. Why? Because when you stress your muscles, it creates tiny microscopic tears. The body then repairs the tears, thereby building new and stronger muscle cells. The more muscle you have, the more calories you’ll burn. Like 40-50 calories per day per pound of muscle just to keep that muscle alive! Your bodyl literally becomes a fat burning furnace.

Now you might ask, if I build muscle, how will I lose weight? Wrong question to ask. Don’t be concerned about your weight. Track your progress with a measuring tape to see how many inches you’ve lost. A pound of muscle weighs the same as a pound of fat, but the pound of muscle has far less volume than the fat, hence inches lost.

Strength training workouts out the slow-twitch muscles. You’ll burn calories both during and after exercise and you won’t be destroying any muscle while doing it.

Eat lean protein and complex carbs at every meal to keep those muscles fed.

Click here to get a set of Bodylastics resistance bands.

So here is how to burn more calories:

1. Make resistance training the focus of your exercise program: If all you do is cardio, you will be missing out on the best way to burn more calories, weight lifting. You see, there is no other exercise modality that can increase your caloric burn rate as much as weight lifting.

2. Increase fidgeting: Although hard to believe, fidgeting adds up over the day and can really increase the caloric burn of your routine. In fact, people that can eat everything under the sun while not gaining weight, have been shown by research to have a high fidget rate.

3. Take advantage of thermic effects from food: By far the food with the highest thermic effect is protein. However, this doesn’t mean that you should go out and eat tons of protein because this will affect other biological systems in your body.

4. Don’t sit down after eating: Not only is this not the best environment for digestion, but it also reduces the thermic effect of food. You see, if you start moving after a meal, you amplify its thermic effect. So make sure you get moving after eating.

5. Exercise in water: You see, water pulls heat away from your body 200 times faster than air. Thus, the caloric cost of exercise in water is very high. The only issue here is that exercise in cold water can increase appetite a lot. So make sure you take this into account.

6. Try to get in some work from the standing position: Not only is this great for your lower back, but it will also help you burn some more calories. You see, being seated for extended periods of time is horrible for your discs and reduces circulation.

Anything you can do to increase caloric burn is going to help your weight loss mission. And remember that too much of a caloric deficit can be very damaging. So make sure you don’t go overboard here!

Writer Katherine Crawford, an exercise expert and recent arm fat sufferer, instructs on how to tone arms. Unearth how to get sexy arms by exploring her blog with shake weight reviews now!

Question:

I’m talking about losing around 20-40 pounds here, working out cardio, dieting, weight resistance training. Working hard every day. Being somewhat overweight/chubby. How long would it take to look skinny?

Answer:

One pound of fat has 3500 calories. You need to burn off 70,000 – 140,000 calories. If you eat nutritional food, keep your calorie consumption low, and do resistance training exercises, you can start to see results in a little as a couple of weeks. The more muscle you build with resistance training, the faster the fat will burn off. Muscle has less volume than fat so even though you’re building muscle, you’ll most definitely become trimmer. You can’t always trust the scale. You should measure, instead.

You can easily do resistance band exercises at home. Get a set of Bodylastics resistance bands. They have free workouts on their site.

I also suggest getting a copy of The Cardio-Free Diet by Jim Karas. It explains why cardio sucks for losing fat. Click that link and scroll down the page to read a preview of the 1st couple of chapters. In the book, he’ll tell you want resistance  bands exercises to do and what and how much to eat.

By Lynda Keating

Advise the typical woman trying to lose weight to add a day or two of strength training to her fitness plan and you’d think you had suggested she inject steroids by the way she looks at you.

“But I don’t want to look like one of those women bodybuilders!” she’ll often reply, alarm on her face. “I’m afraid I’ll just bulk up.” Today it’s time to grab this myth by its meaty bicep and find out what really happens when women add strength training to their routine.

First, let’s look at what we really mean by strength training.

Getting The Strength Training Myth In A Chokehold

When we really pin down the strength training myth, we find it often starts with how many of us define “strength training exercises.” What typically comes to mind are vein-rippled monster men doing squats or bench presses with a Volkswagen-sized stack of plates on each end of the barbell.

But that’s not all there is to it – you need to realize strength training is not synonymous with weightlifting, power lifting, or bodybuilding.

Yes, these sports do depend on strength training exercise, but keep in mind that many other sports do as well. For instance, softball, volleyball, basketball, and rowing teams all depend on strength training to accomplish their goals, yet they all feature rather normal-looking athletes, male and female.

When it comes down to the meat and gristle, resistance training is no more than contracting your muscle against an opposing resistance, such as gravity – as is the case in weight lifting. The aim is to increase your anaerobic endurance, your strength, and/or the size (bear with me) of your skeletal muscles.

Resistance doesn’t have to come from gravity – it can also come from hydraulic forces (machines), elastic forces (resistance bands), or the force of your own opposing muscles (isometrics).

Some of the methods of strength training for women simply leverage body weight. Think your run of the mill calisthenics or the more trendy Pilates.

Don’t be afraid to stick with good old-fashioned weights though either; there’s no reason to shy away from them. Just use lighter weights with more repetitions. 10 – 12 reps per set is a good average for women, and you can increase the weight as you get stronger.

Wait, But What Does “Increase the Size” Really Mean?

I could almost see your eyebrow twitch when you read that resistance exercises increase size – your face squinting into that “I told you so” look. But not so fast.

Some overweight women are deathly afraid of building strength because they look down at their arms and legs and what they see doesn’t seem entirely flabby. It feels solid to the touch, and they probably see themselves as naturally bulky.

So, if your arms are that beefy now, with little or no exercise, what’s going to happen when you work them out? They’ll get bigger, right? Well, no.

When you have a higher percentage of fat on your frame, it’s not just stored where it can be seen and pinched. It’s also stored in your muscle. To imagine how this works, think of a well-marbled steak with tendrils of fat running through the meat.

So what this “marbling effect” does is make your muscle bulkier. But if you’re overweight and start replacing your fat with lean muscle, your muscles will actually look smaller! They’ll just get smaller and more toned looking, and that what you want, right?

Muscle Mass And Metabolism

The real good news about building muscle is the increase in metabolism. Did you know that a more toned, muscular body actually burns calories faster and more efficiently?

Most women think all they need is to create a calorie deficit and they’ll start dropping some pounds, but adding lean body mass speeds up progress, even if it’s buried below extra fat. That lean mass will burn calories all day no matter what you’re doing.

As a result, the food you do eat won’t have such a drastic effect on your weight and appearance – it will still be a factor, sure, but by giving your body the resources to manage your weight, you won’t have to work so hard to manage it yourself.

Other Benefits Of Building Strength

The benefits of adding resistance training to your workout plan don’t stop there. In addition to helping control weight, it also reduces injury, increases stamina, improves balance, hones focus, and reduces symptoms of chronic diseases (like diabetes, back pain, or arthritis). To go on, one of the most important benefits is that strength training not only prevents bone density loss but actually can increase it, thus preventing and reversing the degenerative effects of osteoporosis.

The Final Rep

Look, here’s what it comes down to. Even men who WANT to bulk up have to spend a ton of time in the gym and eat exactly the right diet to get hard gains. Otherwise, they just get more toned… and yeah, their muscles may get a little bulkier-looking because their bodies are just built that way.

But you’re not a man; you’re a woman. And losing weight while building strength is not going to make you look like a female bodybuilder. Do you realize how much work (and often drugs) it takes for them to get there? Your two or three days in the gym could never do that.

It’ll make you slimmer, sure – more toned. It’ll help you lose weight and improve your overall health – definitely.

And that’s exactly what you want. Work your muscles, and they’ll work for you in return. Strength training is vital for women too – believe it.

Arming yourself with knowledge, based on fact, about nutrition, dieting and exercise is vital if you are serious about losing weight, keeping it off and living a healthier lifestyle. For more interesting and informative articles aimed at helping you make well-informed decisions about your health visit http://abcweightloss.org, which is run by the author of this article, Lynda Keating.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Lynda_Keating
http://EzineArticles.com/?Strength-Training-for-Women:-Will-Resistance-Workouts-Make-You-A-She-Hulk?&id=6865128

Answer:

Scared you’ll get a bigger what? You’re not going to get a big anything with those DVDs. I have the Self: Bikini Ready Fast DVD. It’s a combination of cardio and strength training with dumbbells. I love that workout. It’s going to strengthen and tone, but you’re not going to bulk up because they aren’t bulking exercises.

Some women bulk up because they’re lifting very heavy weights, have a diet and use supplements meant to build massive muscle, plus lord knows what else they’re using. In order with have muscles like a body builder, you need to train like one.

Click here for some more free workouts that you can do. Just sign up for a free account to access them. You’ll find cardio, resistance training, Pilates, yoga, muscle building, teen workouts and more. It’s all free.