The energy consumed (in calories from food you eat), has to be less than, the
energy out (calories you burn), in order to burn stored body fat.

You must maintain your muscle and grow more by resistance (weight) training.
Remember, muscle is your body’s fat burning engine. With more of it, you will have
the capacity to burn more fat. Most people have the desire to burn body fat.
Whether you are a man or a woman, the great looking lean body is achieved by
burning body fat. In order to do this most efficiently, you must keep your existing
muscle and work towards growing more. Most people lose muscle while dieting and
training. This is the most common mistake people make when trying to lose their
body fat. Don’t worry ladies, you will not turn in to muscle bound freaks. It is a lot
harder for women to grow muscle than it is for men. Gentlemen, you do have the
potential to grow a lot of new muscle. Read “How To Grow Muscle” to learn more
about muscle growth.

You must increase your metabolism (energy required to perform all your body’s
biological processes).

Eat 4-6 times/day. Eating frequently throughout the day allows you to reap the
benefits of thermogenesis. Thermogenesis is the energy requirement for digesting,
absorbing, and assimilating food nutrients. And the activation of the sympathetic
nervous system, which stimulates your metabolism. Exercise is another great way
to increase your metabolism. After exercising your metabolism will be higher for
several hours. You need to do both eat frequently and exercise. This will cause you
to burn more calories per day helping you maintain a calorie deficit.

You must maintain a calorie deficit in order to burn stored body fat. Which means
your daily caloric intake must be less than the amount of calories you burn in a day.
When you burn more calories in a day than you consume, your body must get the
extra calories from your fat stores.

You must eat low calorie nutrient dense foods. Which means the foods you eat
should be protein rich, contain complex carbohydrates, and be low in fat and high in
fibre, vitamins and minerals.

• Protein is the most important nutrient in food. Protein makes up every cell in your
  body, including your skin, organs and muscle and is involved in many biological
  processes. It is extremely important to have an adequate amount of protein in your
  diet; especially when you are dieting and exercising. This will allow your body to
  maintain its muscle and grow more. Eat high quality lean sources of protein.
• Eat very little simple sugar. Simple sugars (carbohydrates) such as sucrose, high
  fructose corn syrup and glucose cause your pancreas to release too much insulin.
  Which then leads to fat storage, low blood sugar and food bingeing. Complex
  carbohydrates are a better energy source. They do not cause the pancreas to
  release an excessive amount of insulin, minimizing fat storage, and do not cause
  low blood sugar, which will help prevent food bingeing. Complex carbohydrates
  should be eaten in moderation.
• Fat contains 9 calories per gram, protein and carbohydrates contain only 4
  calories per gram so it is easier to maintain a calorie deficit when you cut back on
  your fat grams–eat low fat.
• Fibre helps slow down the digestion of carbohydrates which helps prevent high
  blood sugar and insulin levels–minimizing fat storage.
• Vitamins and minerals are involved in many biological processes in the human
  body including fat burning and should be consumed in adequate amounts, especially
  when dieting. Eating foods from nature such as fruits and vegetables, legumes and
  meats will provide you with most of the vitamins and minerals necessary. Avoid
  processed foods because they contain less vitamins and minerals. Supplementing
  with a multi vitamin and mineral is recommended when dieting.

You must perform cardiovascular exercise. Performing cardiovascular exercise will
increase the rate that your body burns fat for energy. Most of the energy used,
while performing cardiovascular exercise, at your target heart rate, comes from fat
stores. You will also help promote and maintain your daily calorie deficit by
performing cardiovascular exercise due to the amount of calories burned.
Cardiovascular exercise is crucial to burning body fat quickly and efficiently.

Don’t give up! The process of altering your body composition in any way, especially
fat loss, is a time consuming process and takes persistence, determination and a
burning desire to succeed. Maintain these characteristics, in your attitude towards
fitness, and you will achieve your goals.

Here are the six essentials:

1. You must maintain your muscle and increase lean tissue through resistance
   (weight) training.
2. Increase your metabolism.
3. Maintain a calorie deficit.
4. Eat low calorie nutrient dense foods.
5. Perform cardiovascular exercise.
6. Don’t give up.

Burn lots of fat and enjoy your success!

Fitcorp Asia specialises in Effective Fat Loss Programs. Contact us at
info@fitcorpasia.com for more information.

Although integral to overall health and especially fat loss, cardio training can be a
real bore. It doesn’t need to be though, and there are many ways that you can kick
start your cardio training and add elements of challenge, intensity and variety to
keep your body guessing and prevent the onset of boredom.

Variety really is the key to effective cardio

Run!

This may sound pretty obvious, but when I say run, I mean RUN!!!! Our bodies are
designed to move, designed to walk and designed to RUN! Incorporating short
sprints into your training allows for many physiological adaptations to occur.
Improved circulation, improved anaerobic threshold, increase cardiac output and
faster recovery are all added benefits from ‘picking it up’.

Interval Training

Rather than plug in a hill or interval program, use a manual or quick start program
and take control of your cardio training program. Set yourself a goal for the
duration of the training session. If you are limited on time, aim for shorter recovery
periods. For example. Aim for a 20 minutes cardio session with an interval ratio of
1:2. That is 1 period of higher intensity training for every 2 parts of recovery. This
may be an interval of 15 seconds of higher intensity work followed by 30 seconds of
lower intensity ‘active recovery’. The longer your training session, the longer your
recovery should be.

Research now shows that interval training is THE most effective way to train to burn
fat. Forget the fat burning zone, it is a myth! You will burn a slightly higher
percentage of fat during your exercise, however with interval training your total
caloric expenditure will be higher, and therefore your total fat calories will also be
higher.

Get Out of the Riders Seat

When using the upright bike for your cardio, incorporate intervals out of your seat.
Rest your elbows on the handles of your bike and crack up the resistance. Leaning
on your elbows will support the extra body weight to allow your legs to move freely.
Use your body weight to drive the pedals. You will find your rhythm. Again, this high
intensity option will surely increase the excess levels of lactic acid and fatigue your
legs, so make sure you have a period of ‘active’ recovery.

Play a Sport

Learn a new sport like tennis or squash. Every worn a hear rate monitor while
playing tennis, squash or badminton??? I have, and I guarantee I can burn more
calories playing squash than traditional cardio training. One of my female clients
burns over 1000 calories in just 60 minutes playing tennis! Even an average game
of tennis will probably get you up to 500-800 calories in an hour.

Tabata

I love to surprise my clients with this one. Tabata is a Japanese Physiologist and
during his research, he determined the optimal level for maximising aerobic AND
anaerobic capacity simultaneously in just 4 minutes! Tabata is a form of interval
training with an interval ratio of 2:1. 20 seconds of ‘maximal’ all out exercise
followed by a very short 10 second recovery. Perform 8 sets, and make sure you
have a bucket nearby for the one!

Give these a try, I guarantee they will kick start your cardio training and help you
break through your boredom and fat loss plateaus.

Daniel Remon is the Founder of Fitcorp Asia, Thailand’s leading Health, Fitness and
Performance Company. Fitcorp Asia specialises in goal oriented fat loss education,
golf fitness, outdoor fitness boot camps and corporate health.
www.fitcorpasia.com | www.golffitnessasia.com | www.bangkokbootcamp.com
02 661 7900 | 0818 044 335.

Despite all your efforts to avoid them, are processed food poisoning your shopping basket?

Here’s a small list of big names in the war against oxidants and industrial foods. Add them to your menu right now, because they might literally save you an arm and a leg in future medical expenses.

Beetroot

You can’t beat beets! Beets are full of vitamins B3, B6, C and beta-carotene. They’re also a valuable source of iron, magnesium, zinc and calcium — all necessary to promote optimal detoxification and elimination. Beets also support good gallbladder and liver health — organs that are paramount for breaking down and removing toxins. The high amount of fibre in beetroot improves digestion and helps eliminate bodily waste.

Sea Vegetables

Often known as seaweeds, these amazing foods house powerful antioxidants that help to alkalize the blood and strengthen the digestive tract. The algin in seaweeds absorb toxins from the digestive tract in much the same way a water softener removes the hardness from tap water. Sea vegetables offer the broadest range of minerals of any food, containing virtually all the minerals found in the ocean — the same minerals that are found in human blood. Dulse is my personal fave.

Dandelions
Dandelions are considered a powerhouse food full of nutrients that are essential for anyone regularly eating the “Standard American Diet” (SAD). They’re a rich source of minerals and provide a variety of phytonutrients. They’re super antioxidants that support cleansing of the digestive tract and offer great liver support. Try adding dandelion leaves to your salad.

Broccoli Sprouts
Broccoli is part of the powerhouse brassica family of vegetables. Broccoli contains important phytochemicals that are released when they’re chopped, chewed, fermented, cooked or digested. The substances are released then break down into sulphorophanes, indole-3-carbinol and D-glucarate, which all have a specific effect on detoxification. Broccoli sprouts can actually provide more benefit than regular broccoli as they contain 20 times more sulfurophane. Add these to your salads and get creative with them in your meals.

Flaxseed
One of my favourite “superfoods,” flaxseeds serve many purposes. When detoxifying your body, it’s essential to ensure toxins are eliminated properly. Ground flaxseeds provide a wonderful source of fibre that helps to bind and flush toxins from the intestinal tract. They’re also a great source of health promoting omega 3 oils. Try consuming two tablespoons of ground flaxseeds in lemon water every morning.

Lemons
Who doesn’t love lemon? This wonderful fruit stimulates the release of enzymes and helps convert toxins into a water-soluble form that can be easily excreted from the body. Drinking lemon water, which is alkaline-forming, first thing in the morning will help to balance out the acidity of foods we’ve consumed. Don’t forget to add your ground flaxseeds to enhance toxin removal.

Garlic
No detox plan should be without some garlic: It’s a powerful antiviral, antiseptic and antibiotic. Ridding your body of these pathogenic microbes can reduce endogenous (made by your body) toxins. The vital sulphuric compounds garlic contains makes it an essential detoxifier.

Artichoke
Artichokes are not only a very tasty food, they’re also incredibly healthy. Artichokes have been shown to increase bile production and purify/protect the liver. They also have a mild diuretic effect on the kidneys, ensuring proper removal of toxins once the liver breaks them down.

Tumeric
Curcumin is the active ingredient in the spice turmeric, which gives it its yellow color. The rate at which your detox pathways function depends on your genes, your age, lifestyle and a good supply of nutrients involved in the detox process. Curcumin is used a lot in Ayurvedic Medicine to treat liver and digestive disorders.

Apples
Apples are full of wonderful nutrients. You get fibre, vitamins, minerals and many beneficial phytochemicals such as D-Glucarate, flavonoids and terpenoids. All of these substances are used in the detox process. One flavonoid, Phlorizidin (phlorizin), is thought to help stimulate bile production which helps with detox as the liver gets rid of some toxins through the bile. Apples are also a good source of the soluble fibre pectin, which can help detox metals and food additives from your body. It’s best to eat only organic apples as the non-organic varieties are among the top 12 foods that’ve been found to contain the most pesticide residues.

Do you want to know more about eating healthy in Bangkok? Call today 02 229 4114 or email us for a complimentary consultation.

Fitness magazines and so-called fitness pundits love to flood their audience with the same old messages year after year.

Summer’s coming? Try our orange-only diet!

Winter’s coming? Then try our 14-day watery soup diet!

Summer’s gone? Why don’t you try our brand new ‘don’t eat until noon’ diet?

I’ve never been too fond of those standardized diets that are supposed to work wonders on everyone. Everybody has a different metabolism, different reactions to different foods, and thus using a run-of-the-mill magazine diet doesn’t make any sense at all. Instead of being hell-bent on losing that extra inch on the waist by turning into a diet maniac, let’s approach the problem from a different angle: by making small, gradual changes to your diet over a period of time you won’t feel like you’ve been imprisoned and banned from opening the fridge ever again.

We are creatures of habits, changing them is a long process, not a 2 week sprint. Give yourself just 3 months to completely rethink what foods define you and what acceptable substitutes you’d be ready to use in order to get healthier and therefore slimmer.

Usually people want to get slim first, without even thinking what impact it can have on their health when the trim-down is done wihtout any regards to proper nutrition.

Below is a substitute chart that you can use as a basis to redefine your diet on the long term.

Most frequently used carbs

White bread

White pasta

White rice

Acceptable substitutes

Whole grain bread, 50/50 bread (half white flour, half whole flour)

Whole grain pasta, spinach-based pasta, tomato-based pasta

Gabba rice/whole grain rice

Most frequently used vegetables

Carrots

Tomatoes

Green peas

Acceptable substitutes

Cauliflower

Avocado

Kidney beans

Most frequently used protein

Beef

Pork

Chicken

Acceptable substitutes

Turkey

Ostrich

Crustaceans

The short list of substitutes I’ve mentioned here are to be used as a starting point and they all are, without exception, far superior in terms of health benefits. Saying no to a fat, juicy hamburger is still too hard ? Cheat please! A simple rule of thumb will greatly help you in your quest for a better figure (outside AND most importantly inside) : 90/10.

Nutritionally, if you stay on track with your substitutes 90% of time you’re allowed to cheat hard 10% of the time. Suicidal? Not at all, consider this as a just reward for your efforts. Eat clean, go easy on the salad dressing and exercise each and every day except on Sunday. Sunday is truly your pig out day. have a burger with fries and wash it down with an ice-cold coke. This reward will help you cope with the change and the beauty of it all is that you don’t even have to feel guilty about it! Used to clean, wholesome foods, your body won’t have the chance to even notice that you cheated it of a healthy meal.

At the Aspire Club, we don’t talk non-sense, we don’t sell miracle pills. Instead, we listen to our clients and come up with training and diet plans that are unique and individual, no fast food fitness here!

Call today 02 229 4114 or email us for a free discovery nutrition session

www.theaspireclub.com

The Aspire Club, always on the lookout for effective weight management methods is presenting you a diet that will turn your world and your refrigerator upside down.

Most people are very ill-informed about what their diet should look like or how they should shop to get healthier. Instead of using chemical-saturated MRP’s, shakes and so-called healthy pills, let’s turn the clock back a couple hundred of thousands of years and take a look at how our ancestors actually fed themselves.

Back then, mills and processing plants didn’t exist so the food that cavemen ate was ultra-fresh and 100% unprocessed. This guaranteed that important nutrients such as minerals and vitamins were still present at the time of ingestion and that in turn these men were healthy and strong as an ox.

They literally had to fight for their food. They jumped, ducked and ran for cover when sabre-tooth tigers tried to steal their shopping carts. Their diet revolved around nuts (such as almonds, walnuts, or cashews), fresh plants, and from time to time, when they were lucky, some meat and fish. Without knowing it, they pioneered parkour and bootcamps! Research shows that they walked and ran 5 to 10 miles daily to find their sustenance. Today, it’s more like 5 to 10 meters….

Refined is not fine

I really stress that they ate animal protein from time to time only, not because they didn’t like the taste of a barbecue sirloin, but simply because it was hard and dangerous to find. Most, if not all the calories came from vegetables, nuts and plants.

Processed carbs like bread, pasta or even rice weren’t available at the time an it did a lot of good on their waistlines.

Becoming a modern-day hunter-gatherer is quite easy and affordable, especially in Bangkok, where fresh fruits, vegetables and quality protein like fish or poultry are rampant. Instead of shopping in big supermarkets like Carrefour or Tesco, why don’t you try to go out and shop with a hunter-gatherer mindset. Shoot for one of the many fresh markets in BKK.

Your typical shopping list should look a bit like this :

– plenty of LOCAL fresh fruits (mango, pineapple, papaya, banana, etc…)

– ditto for the vegetables

– peanuts, cashews, walnuts

– chicken, turkey, crustaceans, sea fish

– go easy on the carbs, try to look around and get some gabba rice: it’s whole grain, unprocessed rice with its husk. Very good because of the slow and steady energy release.

There you have it, a simple, almost primitive approach to nutrition. Going back to the basics will not only prove salutary for your weight but in the long run, you’ll become a healthier and happier person (happier? yes, happier! bad food bog your spirits down, we’ll talk about it soon) as well.

What’s your take on this ? Please share your thoughts on twitter and reach us @fitcorpasia

Need more details ? Article source : http://www.mayoclinicproceedings.com/content/79/1/101.full.pdf+html

It’s been proven by numerous studies: your modern western diet is not up to scratch. Here is why.

Do you regurlarly eat white rice, pasta or white bread? If yes, then I’m afraid you’re not as healthy as you might think. For decades, soils have been washed and rinsed with pesticides, fungicides and growth agents. This thorough wash-out has turned soils into sterile lands, devoid of the all-important minerals that are critical to hundreds of chemical reactions in the body.

The salt we’re using has been stripped of most of its magnesium, leaving only sodium and iodine as active ingredients. The issue is, magnesium chloride is absolutely vital. Lacking magnesium in your diet can have disastrous consequences on your metabolism and spell doom on your life expectancy. This might sound a bit too alarming but for your reading thrills, I’ve compiled a laundry list of the effects a low magnesium diet can have on your health :

• muscle weakness
• fatigue
• back pain
• loss of appetite
• constipation
• insuline resistance
• heart failure
• Do I need to go on?

According to the US Agricultural Research Service, more than 60% of the US population has a degree of magnesium deficiency. Ok we get it, we need magnesium, more of it especially in Bangkok where 99,9% of the dishes contain white rice. But where to find it?

Enter Nigari (bitter in japanese) : this crystal-like powder is pure, unadulterated sea salt that hasn’t undergone any kind of processing whatsoever. The Japanese have been using this salt for millenia; it’s an essential part of tofu preparation. In our case though, you don’t need to wolf down a pound of tofu to make sure your daily magnesium requirements are met. Don’t eat it, drink it.

Nigari has the virtue of being extremely cheap (about 30THB per pound) and is pretty easy to find as well. The only downside of Nigari is that even if you heavily dilute in water, it still tastes awful but I guarantee that the benefits for your health far outweigh its funky flavor. The recommended dosage is 20 grams of Nigari per 1,5 liter of water. You can easily store the preparation in the fridge and drink a regular glass every day, first thing in the morning. You could of course take magnesium in pill form but you’d miss out on the colon detoxification properties the drinkable version possesses.

Spectacular Effects

Take your glass of Nigari every day for one to two weeks and just watch your body and mind literally metamorphose. This is no joke, the benefits of the magnesium contained in Nigari is well documented and you’ll find dozen of doctors and health experts ready to talk about it. Why ? For once, not because they make millions selling magnesium pills but merely because it works so well. The general population is not aware of it, partly because it’s difficult to add value to such a basic product, so major drug companies have given magnesium the cold shoulder. You shouldn’t.

Here are some of the benefits of the wunderbar mineral:

• enhanced metabolism
• fat loss
• improved mood
• improved energy and endurance
• improved gasto-instestinal function
• cancer prevention (look at the numbers, they speak for themselves)