A few decades ago, few people knew what a carb was. However, everyone knew that you were supposed to eat a healthy, balanced diet. Now, however, low calorie cooking has been replaced with complicated recipes with hard-to-find ingredients, all in the name of weight loss. How did this get so complicated? Is it possible that you can lose weight without an advanced degree in physics?

The real key to weight loss and healthy living is low calorie cooking and exercise. Most people have one of two problems with this method. One, it seems too easy, or two, it does not magically make weight disappear.

Although people may say they want an easy solution to weight loss, the truth is the complicated methods make people feel like they are accomplishing something. If it is as simple as lowering calories, people are not constantly reminded of what they are doing, so it seems like they are doing nothing. This coupled with the second reason, it does not make weight magically disappear, makes people assume it does not work. People want to look in the mirror the day after starting a diet and see a difference. They want a manifestation of the hard work and effort they are putting forth. However, few long-term solutions make a difference that quickly. Low calorie cooking and exercise are not capable of getting you into skinny jeans in a week, but the real goal should be long-term health and fitness.

How do you incorporate low calorie cooking into a diet based in deep-fried food and sweets? The first step is to reduce the grease and sugar. You do not have to give it up completely, but make it a rare treat instead of a staple in your diet. When cooking your regular recipes, replace ingredients with healthier alternatives or low calorie counterparts. For example, use low fat cheese and milk and veggies whenever possible.

You can also get exercise into your everyday activities. Park in the far parking places at work or at the grocery store and opt for the stairs instead of the elevator. Every little bit helps get you into shape.

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Have you been religiously doing your abdominal muscle exercises? Is your abs showing to your satisfaction? No? Why? Do you know that your abdominal muscle is one of the easiest muscles to build but yet why is it that most people have difficulty in developing that 6 pack abs?

Here is the truth. Those of you who are working out your abs regularly do probably own that much sought after six pack. Yes, you do. The only trouble is that your belly fat is covering them. Your abs will not show up well if you have a body fat ratio of more than 12%. The more fat you burn off, the more defined your abs will be. You will own that rippling washboard abs when your body fat is 10% or less. So if you have fat on your belly, forget about abdominal exercises and burn off the fats first.

There is another reason why people put in so much effort to develop their abdominal muscle and yet their abs are not showing although they have low body fat. Again, there is a simple explanation. They are doing the wrong exercises and working out in bad form.

Let's take for example the most common abs exercises, the sit up and the leg raisers. Everybody seem to be doing these two exercises not knowing that these exercises really don't do much for their abs. Don't believe me? Ok…try this. When you do your sit up or leg raisers, place your palms on your hip on the area connecting to your thigh and perform the exercises. Tell me what did you feel? Ahhh….you are getting it. Those muscles there are doing most of the work. Those are your hip flexor muscles. Since your hip flexors are doing most of the work, how can you develop your abs effectively?

So you say, from now on I will do crunches instead. Well, I have another surprise for you. Most people perform their crunches wrongly too. Think about it. Why is the exercise called the "crunch"? It is because you must squeeze your abs so are that you are crunching them. In order to squeeze your abs hard, you have to curl up like a prawn and breath out all the air in your lungs at the top position and then squeeeeeeeze the muscles so hard that you feel a burn. That will take a few seconds to crunch out all the air before you lower to the beginning position again. You can't do this effectively if you just go up, down, up down, up down rhythmetically. So, if you have been doing hundreds of crunches everyday with minimal result, now you know why. In fact, it is almost impossible for the average guy to do tens of properly performed crunches and not to say hundreds of them. The same squeezing principle applies to other abs exercises.

Ok….now that you know why your abs are not showing up well, so get on with burning your fats and perform your workout in correct form. You will then see your 6 pack abdominal muscle in no time.

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Read the whole column but here are some excerpts.

On the "Quaque" diet which recommends alternating extremely low calorie days with normal calorie days: "If you don't like tomatoes you won't like this diet, which the author acknowledges might not work and could even be dangerous. Don't try it if you have medical problems, an eating disorder or take meds for heart disease, diabetes, hypertension or stroke – in short, if you suffer from any of the myriad health problems often associated with being unpleasingly plump."

On "How the Rich Get Thin," she offers the following, "When she arrived at Klauer's Park Avenue doorstep, this "dynamic mover and shaker in the world of public relations" had lost her zip; she was fat, fatigued and flaky. "For a woman accustomed to being in the limelight, this was a most unhappy state of affairs," Klauer confides breathlessly. Fortunately for Dianne, her assistant became adept at calling restaurants in advance to ask for crudits instead of a bread basket on her table."

On the "Skinny Bitch" she opines, "A chapter about the low-carb craze is titled "The Dead, Rotting, Decomposing Flesh Diet." A sometimes amusing, sometimes annoying bully of a book with an attitude on every page and a potentially obnoxious political agenda."

This article is sponsored by: http://www.getfitsource.com

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As summer approaches, many fitness enthusiasts will switch from muscle building routine to doing light weight high reps routine to cut away their body fat and to reveal their ripped muscular body. After all, it is shirt off time for the beach and poolside parties, isn't it?

Well, I am about to bust this popular light weight high rep to tone muscle myth. Did I hear you gasp? Good. This is because the myth is so well entrenched and a lie being told too often will generally be accepted as the truth.

To get toned and well defined muscles, you need to lose body fat covering the muscles. Period. When you get rid of your body fat, your muscles will show through. You will look sinewy and muscular. Of course, that is provided that you have built muscles below those fats.

Let me ask you, how could light weight high repetition exercises build muscles or melt away fat? There is no logic in this.

To build muscle mass, you have to do heavy weight low rep compound exercises, exactly the opposite of light weight high rep routine. To lose body fat, you have to do intensive cardiovascular exercises and eating correctly.

There is no such thing as spot reduction short of invasive medical procedures such as liposuction. That means no matter how many crunches and side bends you do, the fat isn't going to come off your belly and neither will your love handles melt away.

So if you want to reveal your well toned and defined musculature, you have firstly to build bigger muscles and then subsequently cut your body fat. Medium weight high repetition compound giant set exercises may help you burn more calories if the exercises keep your heart rate up and get you panting and sweating throughout the entire exercise workout session. However, this will already be a cardiovascular workout session and not a weight lifting workout session.

So next time when some smart aleck advises you that to get a well toned muscular body, you must workout with light weight and with high repetition, just ask him to explain the logic behind his statement and have a good laugh when you see him fumbling for a logical answer.

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Every day, excited people join fitness clubs determined to attend classes or workout for an hour a day, five days a week. This exuberance for vitality typically lasts for 10-14 days before self-doubt, sleeping in, and skipping workouts take over. In two short sentences, the first two psychological phases of fitness were described. The five phases of becoming fit are the following:

Excitement and Highly Motivated Doubt Toward Goals Conquer Doubt Total Change in Energy Level / Confidence Make New Fitness Goal / Challenge

The five phases are used to describe to people how they are going to feel in the near future about starting a fitness program whether as a beginner or as an advanced athlete preparing for Special Forces training. Typically, both the out of shape beginner and the advanced Special Operations candidate develop into their goals through the five phase process.

In Phase One of fitness, a person makes a decision to get healthy, or decide to serve their country as a Special Forces member. This phase takes 2-3 seconds, but it actually takes about 2-3 weeks to replace old, bad habits and to create new habits that will fuel your desire to obtain your goals. Hang in there at least three weeks. It takes 2-3 weeks to BUILD GOOD HABITS. This phase is filled with motivation and a general excitement about fitness and exercise. Statistics show that people who workout in the morning before work are twice as likely to complete the workout compared to those who wait until after work to exercise.

In the Phase Two, doubt enters and can either crush your progress or make you stronger. It is absolutely natural to have doubts about what you are undertaking. My advice is to start doubting as quickly as possible and get over it. Realize self-doubt is part of the process and it will be encountered again throughout your fitness journey. Even SEAL trainees doubt themselves, but those who become SEALs conquer their doubt. Likewise, those who lose 60-80 pounds in a year, conquer their doubt as well.

Phase Three is one of the most exciting phases when you realize you have conquered your doubt. You may reach this phase continually throughout your quest for fitness or Special Forces status, but once you do, you really can do anything you set your mind to. This is where the mind and body connect. Use the workouts to be a catalyst in all areas of your life: work, relationships, school, spirit, financial, and others. I am a firm believer that exercising your body will give you the stamina and energy to exercise your mind, spirit, and achieve those life long dreams you have for yourself.

Phase Four is the total identity change and self-confidence realization period for most people. You now associate yourself with fit and healthy people. Now, you are fit in mind and body. Your example will inspire others. Be a role model to another heavy person or aspiring Special Operations soldier. People will be amazed by your new work ethic at work and play. Eating healthy is now a habit for you too. In fact, eating fast food or unhealthy snacks makes you feel slightly ill. This is because your body will naturally crave healthy foods as you subject yourself to a long-term physical fitness routine.

Phase Five is the next step, but the journey never ends. Set and conquer goals for yourself. Whatever you like – run, swim, bike, weight lift, etc. Challenge yourself to run a 10k, bench press 300 lbs, do a triathlon. The options are unlimited, after all fitness is a journey – not a destination.

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Causes of weakening vaginal muscles

– Lack of exercise – Been through many pregnancies – Growing age – Being overweight

Ways to do Kegel exercise

– One of the easiest ways to do this is to contract the vagina and then relax. Repeat this at least 20-400 times a day depending on your strength.

– The other method is to avoid using your stomach, leg, back or buttock muscles while doing this exercise. Breathe slowly and deeply. If your abdominal muscles move while doing this asana you are doing it the right way. The movement of your leg and buttocks muscles means you are in the wrong direction.

– Gadgets are also available in the market which would help you exercise the right muscles.

Easy to do

– This exercise hardly takes any time and you can do it anywhere. Standing in a bus queue, while watching TV, lying down, walking and pretty much while doing anything else.

It is better to start early and maintain the strength of your vagina muscles. As you grow older, particularly during menopause, the muscles are weakened.

Need to do it

We give lot of attention to our external look by doing number of exercises. Kegel exercise helps us improving our body internally. This exercise, if done in a proper and regular fashion, provides great results. This exercise may not work wonders overnight but by regular practice it will surely reap results. Some may notice changes within two weeks.

How to find the right muscle?

If you have no clue which muscle we are talking about then the answer is the one which is used while you pee. The muscle that helps you control your urinal release, i.e. start and stop urination is the pubococcygeus muscle. One should avoid doing Kegel exercise while urinating.

Is this the right muscle?

The tightening of the vagina on a squeeze by your finger would tell that you are exercising the right muscles.

Benefits of doing Kegel exercise

– An enjoyable and painless way to reach orgasm – It makes your orgasm stronger and better – It prevents prolapse and incontinence – Childbirth becomes much easier and the muscles regain their strength very quickly after birth – Would increase your confidence level – More control in bed

Warning: The reader of this article should exercise all precautionary measures while following instructions. The responsibility lies with the reader and not with the site or the writer.

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Part of the reason for this is, after 30, we begin to lose muscle to what is known as atrophy (muscle shrinkage due to disuse). We also begin to lose bone density leading very slowly to eventual osteoporosis. Muscle is active tissue and therefore burns calories. When we start to lose muscle to atrophy, our metabolism begins to slow down as a result leading to more fat storage and weight gain, and over 50% of this is due to inactivity. Is there anything you can do to help reverse this process? The answer is yes you can.

We've all seen it, there are two women standing together, one is around 35 years old while the other is around 50, yet the older women looks more firm and vigorous than the younger women. You might ask yourself; how does she do it? The answer is she exercises. Period! You, at almost any age can stay in great shape as well, but you have to exercise. You have to make exercise a regular part of your day.

A good exercise program would be one that contains both aerobic and resistance exercise with some stretching added also. Many prefer to do aerobics and resistance exercises separately, but a lot of people find that the best workout for them is circuit training since it utilizes all three of these types of exercise in one, and is very effective and time saving.

A lot of people seem to think that aerobic exercise is the best way to lose and maintain weight, but, since 75% of the calories you burn are at rest, this is not the case. Aerobic exercise only burns calories during the activity, and then within two hours after you are finished, you burn no more calories than before.

Resistance exercise on the other hand builds and maintains muscle, and since muscle is active tissue, you burn more calories than before, even at rest. One pound of fat burns around 4 calories per day while one pound of muscle burns around 50 calories per day. After 30 years of age, an inactive person will lose 1/2 to 1 pound of muscle every year. That means that ten years of muscle loss due to inactivity equates to a metabolism slow down of around 450 calories per day!

If you want to lose fat and gain muscle tone, then you must include exercise into your day and that means including resistance training into your exercise routine. Men and women who include resistance training to their exercise routines lose around 44% more fat than those who don't. Adding resistance training to a regular exercise routine will also slow down many of the effects of aging. People even in their 80s and 90s have seen as much as a 200% improvement in their strength levels within 3-4 weeks of starting to exercise.

You can stay fit and trim after 40, but the message is clear, exercise with resistance included is an absolute must if you want to stay in peak condition and feel young and alive, and you can do it, even well past 40.

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Your swimming pool is always your "Shangri-La" whenever you are in agitated state of mind. It's the most soothing place where you always love to be. It's the place that you always want top notch, clean, hygienic, and well maintained.

Certainly, a well maintained swimming pool is a source of eternal joy, but a poorly maintained one is a dreading place. Without proper care and maintenance, your swimming pool is nothing, but a natatorium of infected water.

Your poorly maintained will no longer be the place where you always love to be. It's always your well maintained and a clean swimming pool that attracts you. Thus, proper maintenance is always a key to your enjoyment in swimming pool.

Whenever it's about swimming pool maintenance, you effort should mainly focus on the two major areas; removing the unwanted dirt and foreign particles from the swimming pool, and maintaining or adjusting the chemical balance of the pool water.

You should always do your best to keep your swimming pool's water free from contaminants. So never ever let your pool turns green with algae. Your swimming pool's water often get polluted by pollutants, such as dust, leaves, chemical wastes, pollen, spores, bacteria, etc. These pollutants can get in a swimming pool's water via winds or swimmers. Often these pollutants travel thru your hair, sweat, body joints, your swimming trunks or swim suits. You can also keep foreign materials away from your swimming pool by regular brushing and vacuuming of your swimming pool.

So, you should always take a shower bath to get you body free of pollutants before getting into your swimming pool. You should always keep your swimming trunks or swim suits neat and clean. Most importantly, you should get your swimming pool equipped with an efficient a circulation pump and filter.

Your pool pump ensures that the swimming pool water moves through the filter every day, thus keeps the water free from pollutants and disinfected organic materials. You should always keep checking regularly to make sure that your pool pump and pump are working well.

Other important thing is that you should always make sure that your swimming pool's water is safe for swimming i.e. it should have balanced amount of required chemicals. For this you should regularly testing, maintaining, and adjusting the quantity of chemicals in your swimming pool's water; add chemicals if you find them deficient in the water, or adjust their level if they are too much. You can get a good swimming pool calculator to check and adjust the quantity of chemicals in your swimming pool.

Finally, you should chalk out regular swimming pool maintenance program; making it weekly is better idea. Your regular swimming pool maintenance program will help to prevent swimming pool problems and avoid pool water problems. It'll help you keep your swimming pool tiptop.

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It's not so! Your swimming pool water needs to very clean. Your swimming pool with clean water will always be an inviting place for you and importantly, it'll keep you away from a number of diseases and infections. It's not at all a headache rather an easy 'n' enjoyable task, if you really love your swimming pool. You just need to keep care of certain things.

You should be well aware of pollutant or contaminants that generally pollute your swimming pool's water. Your swimming pool's water generally gets polluted by environmental pollutants, such as dust, leaves, chemical wastes, pollen, spores, bacteria, etc. Your sweat, body oils, and body fluids also pollute your swimming pool's water. However, you can check these pollutants from getting into your swimming pool's water and you can even get these pollutants out of your pool water.

Your swimming pool has a circulation pump and filter. Your pool pump makes your pool water move through your pool filter every day, thus it helps to remove unwanted pollutants and disinfected organic materials from your pool water.

What you need to do is, to check that your swimming pool is equipped with a good quality pump and filter. You should also keep regularly checking that your swimming pool pump and filter are working well. In case you notice any problem, you should get it fixed by a professional.

Sand filters are the most common filter used in swimming pools these days. These filters are much easier to maintain than the diatomaceous filters. The diatomaceous filters can filter out finer particles of dirt, but they require more maintenance.

Cartridge filters, which are quite simple to maintain, are also quite widely in use these days. Nowadays, zeolite filters are growing pretty popular.

The filters with zeolite, specifically the clinoptilolite mineral, can filter particles as finely as diatomaceous filters. Additionally, the zeolite filters do not require any extra maintenance and they also have capacity to absorb ammonia and its complexes, reducing combined chlorine and offensive chlorine odors.

You should also backwash your pool filter. While filtering water, some dust, dirt and other particles get trapped in your pool filter, which obstruct the passage of water thru the filter. As result, your filter loses efficiency. Backwashing your filter will send water backwards through the filter and flushes the trapped dirt out. It'll help improve the working of your filter.

You should run your swimming pool pump at least 6 – 8 hours every day. There is usually a timer that cycles the pool pump on and off to ensure this constant filtration. Your pump will help circulate the pool water and remove floating or suspended particles of dirt from the water, but it can't do anything about pollutant that have settled to the bottom of the swimming pool or "stuck" to the walls; these can only be removed by "regular brushing and vacuuming" of your swimming pool. Thus, to keep your swimming pool water clean, you just need to keep checking that your pool pump and filter are working well.

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Most people don't get enough physical activity. Here are some reasons why they should:

* Lack of physical activity and not eating the right foods, taken together, are the second greatest inherent cause of death in the United States. (Smoking is the number one cause.)

* Physical exercise can help people feel right and enjoy life more.

* Regular exercise can halt or put off some diseases like cancer, heart disease, or diabetes. It can also perk up your mood can be a direct result along with helping depression.

* Being active can help people stay independent and able to keep doing things like getting around or dressing themselves as they get older.

There are four types of physical activies you need to do to have the right assortment of physical activities.

1. Get at least 30 minutes of activity that makes you breathe harder on most or all days of the week. That's called "endurance activity," because it builds your energy or "staying power." You don't have to be active for 30 minutes all at once. Ten minutes of endurance activity at a time is fine. Just make sure those 10-minute sessions add up to a total of 30 minutes most days.

How hard do you need to exercise? The right level of effort is described this way: If you can talk while exercising without any trouble at all, you're not working hard enough. If you can't talk at all, it's way too hard.

2. Keep using your muscles. When muscles aren't used, they waste away at any age. How important is it to have "enough" muscle? Very! Muscles step-up your metabolism, allowing you to burn off more calories during the day when your body is at rest. Using your muscles may also make your bones stronger, too.

3. Do things to help your balance. Every now and then walk heel-to-toe. When you walk this way, the toes of the foot in back should almost touch the heel of the foot in front.

4. Stretch. Stretching can help keep you flexible and will be able to move more freely. Stretch when your muscles have warmed up. Never stretch so far that it hurts.

So, make physical activity a part of your everyday life. Find things you enjoy. Go for brisk walks. Ride a bike. Dance. Work around the house and in the yard, take care of your garden, climb the stairs, or rake your leaves. Regular day to day chores around the hous can keep you moving and active.

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