How was your weekend?

Have you been watching the Olympics at all?

I love the Olympics.

We fell asleep early Friday night so we missed the best part of the opening ceremonies, but I’ll watch just about any sport that’s on during the Olympics.

I especially love swimming.  Personally I’m a horrible swimmer, but I think my love of the sport goes back to when I did some massage therapy work for our University’s swimming and diving team a number of years ago.

It was an awesome experience and I just fell in love with the sport.

But like I said, I’ll watch just about anything that’s being played.

Case in point, yesterday morning I watched some women’s weight lifting…very strong ladies.

Saturday I saw women’s badminton.  I didn’t know that was an Olympics sport.

I saw those in addition to all the swimming, basketball and gymnastics.

What are your favorite Olympics sports?

Anyway, onto the point of this email…

I wrote an article on what I view are the top 3 abs workout mistakes.

You can check it out on my website by going to:

http://www.fatlosstogo.com/Abs_Workout_Mistakes.html

Did you watch any of my YouTube videos last week?

If not, here’s the link to all 40 of them.

http://www.youtube.com/user/elswellness

Have a great day!

And don’t hesitate to email me if you ever have any questions.

Ed

My daughter is learning more and more words every day.

It’s a lot of fun, especially when you can get her to say things that are funny.

We’re in the midst of potty-training, which has its own ups and downs, but the words and phrases she’s saying are quite funny.

Just to give you an example, this weekend I taught her the word “stinky”…I’m pretty sure you can guess why.

Now she’s starting to say that, and it’s just so darn cute, even though she does stink when she says it.

Another one of her new activities is trying to mimic mommy and daddy while they do a bodyweight workout in the living room.

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I have been a bad boy about updating you on my 30 Day Fat Loss Challenge…Sorry

I suppose I’ve been a bad boy because nothing exciting is happening…

…other than I’m losing even more fat and feeling better than I have in years!

It’s true.

My waist just keeps getting smaller and I’m going to be ready to look darn good on the beach when Andrea and I skip the country in a couple weeks.

The true question is whether I will blind everyone on the beach with my white body.  I’m a very white, white boy.

Anyway, the challenge has been going well and it’s getting easier and easier to stick to.

We’ve been eating lots of lettuce and spinach salads with chicken breast and veggies on them, lots of chicken and turkey breast, steak, sweet potato, vegetables, fruits, nuts, etc. and it’s been wonderful.

My cravings have almost subsided, even though Andrea and I have had some REAL ice cream a couple times.  I say real because it’s homemade and only uses real ingredients as opposed to all the artificial stuff and “fillers” used by most commercial ice creams.

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Does muscle weigh more than fat?

I’ve been asked that question quite often and the answer to that is, obviously, no.

1 pound of muscle weighs the same as 1 pound of fat…1 pound equals 1 pound.

I think the people asking this question know that, but they’re slightly confused.

They’ve been confuse by so-called fitness experts telling them that muscle weighs more than fat.

What they should be saying is that 1 pound of fat takes up much more space than 1 pound of muscle.

I’ll give you an example.

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This is a new phrase for me…batwing arms.

I’ve heard of “bye-bye arms” as in even when you stop waving, your arm fat just keeps on flapping, but batwing arms is a new term for me.

It’s kind of funny.

I know it’s a huge issue with most women and virtually every female client of mine has always said they want to get rid of those batwing arms or bye-bye arms.

The problem comes in with the route that many women take to lose the batwing arms.

It usually entails some sort of fad diet and lots of cardio, or maybe they introduce some arm specific exercises using soup cans for resistance like tricep kickbacks.

That is not the way.

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How was your weekend?Did you eat well?  And by that I mean did you stuff yourself like most people do on the weekend, or did you only go slightly crazy?

I’ve been doing pretty well with my 30 Day Challenge.

Thank God for my wife because without her I would’ve eaten pizza last night rather than the salad with chicken breast, tomato, boiled egg, cucumber and carrots.  I really had to resist that pizza, but I did…but only because she made me that salad J

Earlier in the day we went for a run/walk and took Maren (our daughter) and the dog.

I don’t know about where you live, but yesterday was a killer temperature-wise.

I’m sure my Aussie, Kiwi, and African friends won’t sympathize, but it was really hot and humid yesterday and of course we decided to go for a run.  I know I’ve said before I hate running…and believe me I still do, but it felt kind of refreshing to get out and sweat that much.

So here’s a run-down of our run yesterday morning. 

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As I write this I’m eating an awesome fat fighting lunch and I just got finished with a great workout that has my abs screaming, even though I didn’t do one single “abs exercise”…no crunches, sit-ups, leg lifts, etc.

The workout was actually a leg workout from my buddy Jimmy Smith’s Physique Formula Workout.

He’s helped me tremendously over the past few months gaining muscle and with some supplement tips and I’m doing his muscle building program over the next month or so and it’s awesome.

I mentioned that my abs are screaming and it’s mainly because of one exercise.

The barbell overhead squat.  It was the last exercise in the workout so my legs were already worn out, so my abs/core had to work extra hard to stabilize 135 pounds straight over my head.

Again, not a typical “abs exercise”, but it definitely works the abs.

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Before I get going letting you know if I stuck with my challenge, I want to touch on something else I’m discovering.

I’ve done a lot of reading on the effects of artificial sweeteners, artifical flavorings, etc. and how they are addictive.

I’ve never really fully understood whether this was true, or if it they were just minor studies and smart people postulating on the effects.

That is until now.

Until I decided to do this challenge where I’m effectively getting rid of all artifical sweeteners, flavorings, and processed crap and only sticking to real, single-ingredient foods.

I’ve told you that since day 1 I’ve had really bad cravings in the evening.  I’ve had cravings before, but they were always minor and I would just have an oatmeal cookie or something and that would take care of it.

These have been worse, though.  They’re bad cravings and the only thing I can think that they are are withdrawl symptoms.

I haven’t had any full-blown headaches or anything like that and I can only assume that’s because I didn’t eat or drink very many overly processed foods or drinks with artificial sweeteners, etc. so my symptoms shouldn’t be as bad.

However I am having them.

The good news is they’re getting better and all I have to do to alleviate them is have grapes, pineapple or some other really sweet fruit.

I’m also feeling much better overall which is fantastic.  That was something I was hoping to find.  I wanted to know how much these processed foods affected me and I’m finding out that they have a large effect because I’m feeling more alert and I’m sleeping better.

As hard as this is to stick to, I’m very glad I’m doing it.

As far as dinner last night, we had chicken breast, a sweet potato and corn on the cob.  Perfect for the country boy!

Today has been a normal day.  I started off with my smoothie, then had a banana, apple and some almonds as a mid-morning snack.

How’s your challenge coming along?

Be sure to leave comments and let me know.

Have a great day!

Ed

How was your weekend?  How’s your 30 day challenge going?

I had a slight slip-up yesterday.  Oh well!

How do you eat if you want to lose fat?  What’s a good fat loss diet? 

 Those are a couple questions I get quite often from clients and from the public in general when they find out I’m a fat loss and fitness expert.

After I speak them a little more, I come to realize that many people are all making the same mistakes.

I’ve narrowed those fat loss diet mistakes down to the top 3 that 99% of the population are making.

1 - Sauces, Dressings, Condiments.

There really is no quicker way to ruin your fat loss diet than by dousing your salad, pasta, or whatever food you’re eating, with a bunch of salad dressings, ketchup, sauces, or other condiments.

 They’re loaded with sugar and fat and lack virtually any nutritional benefit making them the worst of the worst when it comes to fat loss foods.

You will gain fat by eating too much of them…I guarantee it.

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Boy, it’s been a while since I updated this.  Sorry about that.

The week went pretty well, until yesterday.

I stuck to my guns as far as eating is concerned, but I discovered I really need to take my own advice when it comes to not letting yourself get hungry.

Andrea and I let ourselves get too hungry yesterday before we went to see the new Batman movie (which is awesome), so we stopped at a sandwich shop downtown.

The sandwich wasn’t too bad, but it had bread (which I’m not eating) and I didn’t know the quality of the turkey breast or cheese.  I didn’t know if they used lots of preservatives, etc. thus making them non-single ingredient foods.

Plus I had a bag of chips and a Cherry Coke.  I felt horribly afterward, both physically and mentally because I let myself down.

I failed in my challenge, but it’s OK because today is a new day and I’m moving forward.

No longer will I eat that way and no longer will I give in to the evil temptations of sandwich shops (at least for the remainder of the 30 days).

Today is a fast day, as usual, so I’m just drinking lots of water and eating my breath mints.

My workout will probably be a bodyweight workout since I seem to feel the best doing that type of workout when I fast.

Lots of push-ups, dips, lunges, squats, planks and maybe even some pull-ups.

Good times.

Have a good day!

Ed