Archive for December, 2009
December 23rd, 2009 | 
Author: An interview by Geovanni Derice with Mike Geary – Certified Nutrition Specialist, Certified Personal Trainer
I had the pleasure of being interviewed recently by a fitness professional from NYC, Certified Personal Trainer, Geovanni Derice. The interview is below and I think you’re going to like it… I reveal some of the hardest hitting strategies for getting rid of that stubborn stomach fat to uncover those flat six pack abs that everyone wants.
“GD: Welcome Mike to our 4-ever-Toned Fitness Journal. For those who do not know you, please tell us a few things about yourself and how you can help our readers with their fitness and health.
MG: Thanks for having me, Geo. Well, to go back a little, I have been heavily involved in fitness and sports for about 17 years now, ever since I was a teenager. Being involved in sports in high school got me interested in strength training and conditioning.
At that point, once I started feeling more energetic, getting stronger, and looking better, I was instantly hooked for life. I’m 33 now and still addicted to the way living a healthy and fit lifestyle makes me feel energetic, confident, strong, and youthful on a daily basis.
I decided earlier in my 20′s that I wanted to make the commitment to help other people experience the excitement of being fit and getting in the best shape of their lives, especially since we’ve reached an epidemic of obesity, heart disease, diabetes, cancer, depression, etc. That’s why I became a fitness professional. It just gives me so much satisfaction to help others, who have struggled for years to get in good shape, and show them that it can be done, and it can be fun in the process.
I’ve expanded over the years from just reaching local individuals with personal training, into being able to help people all over the globe achieve their fitness goals with the reach of the internet. I only hope that my passion for fitness inspires people to take action and improve how they look and feel for life.
GD: Now Mike, there’s so many things out there as to what works and what does not work… if you had to pick 3 things that work time and time again to get flat lean abs, what would they be?
MG: The first and most important thing to get control of in order to lose your belly fat and get flat abs is cleaning up your diet. Exercise is important, but your diet is king when it comes to losing body fat so that you can see your abs.
There’s so much confusion these days about what a healthy diet that promotes fat loss really is… after all, we are bombarded by conflicting messages in the media about what is healthy and what is not, and you have all of these gimmicky diet books about low carb, low fat, high protein, vegetarian, fasting, atkins, south beach, liquid diets, and hundreds more. There’s so much conflicting info, that the average consumer doesn’t even know where to start when it comes to eating for fat loss.
The second thing that works time and time again, is to focus on the intensity of your workouts and focus on working the body as a whole in order to get the best metabolic response to lose that stubborn stomach fat.
In order to really get lean, the workouts should have a high intensity, with short rest periods, working the largest muscle groups of the body, instead of trying to isolate specific small muscles like the biceps, triceps, or calves.
For the third thing, let’s talk about actually training the abs specifically. When it comes to training the abs, if you want real results, I always recommend forgetting about the crunches and situps for the most part. They are ok for someone that is really deconditioned, but most people that already have some training under their belt need a much better stimulus for their abs than crunches. Crunches are one of the abs exercises that actually provide the least amount of resistance, and remember that resistance is what develops and tones the muscles.
I provide a ton of great abs exercises in my book, but one of THE highest resistance exercises for the abs, is hanging leg raises (but NOT the way you see most people at the gym doing them). The key to doing these and actually working the hell out of your abs is to curl your pelvis up as you raise your legs. Almost nobody ever does this right. To be honest, the majority of people cannot do this at first, but I provide some strategies in my book as to how to progress to doing these correctly.
Free Tips for Losing Stomach Fat & Eating Healthier
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GD: What are people doing wrong when it comes to developing the coveted “6 pack abs”?
MG: Well Geo, I know this sounds funny to most people, but the MAIN thing that people are doing wrong to get those flat 6-pack abs is… are you ready for this?
They spend entirely too much time focusing on training their abs! WAY too much time spent on abs exercises. Sounds crazy, but it’s true.
Remember, having a flat and visible six pack of abs is all about getting down to a low body fat percentage. In order to do that, your workouts must focus on stimulating a fat burning hormonal environment in your body, and increasing your metabolic rate. That just does not happen when you focus too much time training a small muscle group like the abs.
Instead, you must use the majority of your time focusing on training the largest muscle groups of the body like the legs, back, and chest. That’s what stimulates your metabolism and the fat burning hormones that will get you truly lean and sporting a flat sixxer!
GD: Which exercises are the top exercises that people need to do if they are to get maximum defintion with their midsection?
MG: When it comes to developing the abs themselves, I again refer to any kinds of hanging abs exercises, as well as some good floor abs exercises like lying leg thrusts (all described and illustrated in my book).
However, maximum definition in the abs and midsection comes from losing bodyfat, and the most effective exercises featured in my program for that goal are various forms of swings and snatches (unique dumbbell or kettlebell exercises that almost nobody ever does in normal gyms), squats, deadlifts, lunges, step-ups, clean & presses, mountain climbers, sprinting, and other full body exercises and calisthenics. If you want great looking flat abs, focus on those instead of focusing so much on training the abs directly!
GD: When it comes to diet Mike, people really have tried millions of ways to get one thing… and that is fat loss. What recommendations have you used to successfully help your clients lose body fat and keep it off?
MG: I have included a fully comprehensive discussion of this topic in my book, which accounts for almost half of the book, but I’ll try to make some nice simple generalizations to get people started on the right path immediately. The most important thing is that your diet is as natural and unprocessed as possible. It almost always comes back to the overprocessing of food that makes it unhealthy, and makes it totally wreck your metabolism and hormone balance in your body.
For example, why eat refined grains, when you can eat whole grains (even better are sprouted grains, as I usually recommend limiting grain foods overall for best results).
Why eat refined sugar, when you can get natural sources of sugar from a high nutrient whole food like fruit. Why eat highly processed, refined, and hydrogenated vegetable oils (these are THE worst thing in the modern diet), when you can eat natural sources of healthy fats like nuts, avocados, fish, eggs, coconut milk, organically raised meat, and so forth.
The point is to not fall for some gimmick like extremely low carbs (although I do believe in a fairly reduced carb intake as that is a big problem for most people), low fat, super high protein, or any other combination that has you focusing on one macronutrient vs. another.
Your body needs all macronutrients to thrive and obtain a variety of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, etc. Trying to cut an entire food group out just works against what your body needs. I get into much more detail on this vitally important topic towards losing body fat (especially that stubborn stomach fat) for life in my book.
GD: Thank you very much Mike for sharing with us all of this great information.
Well, I hope you enjoyed this interview and plucked several nuggets of info to get you motivated and started on showing off your flat abs shortly. If you don’t already own a copy, be sure to pick up a copy of my Truth about Six Pack Abs book and discover the entire system I’ve developed for ridding yourself of that extra ab fat for good!
Go here to see the results many of my readers are getting in losing stomach fat and getting lean abs.
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The best car insurance quote is a policy which is customized to your precise needs and situation, providing you the finest value for money. Every driver wants to pick out the finest car insurance cover available, even if that means shifting companies each year when renewal time is upon them. Nevertheless, wanting the best car insurance and finding it are 2 very different things and you have to recognize how to do the latter in order to save money and still get the policy that fits every one of your requirements and specifications.
The worst age for purchasing auto insurance in the UK is seventeen. Regrettably the majority of seventeen year olds obtain auto insurance quotes to be more than £1000.
The majority of seventeen year olds with a provisional or full licence confront some of the most costly auto insurance estimates in the world. The cost of 17 year old car insurance can be too expensive and many insurance providers are merely unable to offer an insurance quote.
Obtaining an instant car insurance quotes for a seventeen year old is not hard. In fact it can be fairly simple. Get out a phone book and start calling insurance providers. You will need to tell them that you are enquiring for a quote for 17 year old car insurance. It is important that you phone several different providers to make sure you find the cheapest UK car insurance quote for your teenager.
Online insurance quotes are the fastest method to find the low-cost, yet best insurance solution to purchase. In the world of insurance, finding an affordable insurance provider which also offers good coverage is not an easy task.
Getting quotes online is a fast way of comparing auto insurance rates from quality carriers offering affordable coverage. Since quotes within providers vary widely, it is imperative to complete a comparison in order to find out which one will offer you specifically, the cheapest rate.
Put side by side the best car insurance rate quote offered in the UK, find the best insurance for your car and save with the cheapest deal in minutes. We assist you find the leading car cover providers around for a car cover quote that provides you with superior cover for less.
If your house is warmed by gas central heating then you must be mindful that only a registered engineer should attempt to undertake any heating installation, gas safety checks and routine boiler servicing. Gas appliances that are not set up or maintained correctly can prove to be deadly so there truly is no point trying to take on this work yourself.
Until March 2009 certified heating engineers had to be Corgi registered. Nevertheless, you need to be conscious that in March the Corgi register was substituted by a another system called Gas Safe. The Gas Safe register runs in a similar way to the Corgi scheme and you should not allow any engineer to install or service your gas central heating system unless they can demonstrate they are on the new register. The Corgi scheme is no longer recognised by UK law, so always ask to see your engineers Gas Safe registration card before letting them to begin any work.
It is actually a legal requirement that anyone undertaking any kind of emergency gas heating engineer in Derby or upkeep work on a gas appliance must be Derby gas safe registered plumber. If they are not registered they are breaking the law and can be prosecuted.
The Gas Safe register currently holds over 120,000 sanctioned engineers so you should have no problem acquiring a registered engineer. The work took on by the Gas Safe sanctioned engineer is routinely and randomly scrutinized. Anyone discovered to be doing sub-standard work is removed from the register.
The Gas Safe identification card is an elementary way of discovering if your heating engineer is qualified. However, if you do not yet have a heating engineer or have not selected the company you wish to set about your heating installation or upkeep then you can refer to the Gas Safe site. This site allows you to explore from a database of Gas Safe authorized engineers and establishments so you can chose with self-assurance
You should never attempt to tackle this form of work yourself. This includes not only central heating installation and gas appliance servicing in Derby but also connecting gas hobs and ovens. DIY gas installment and servicing have lead to carbon monoxide escapes, which kill close to 14 people every year. An additional safeguard against carbon monoxide poisoning includes buying and fitting a carbon monoxide detector. Many local councils offer carbon monoxide detectors free of charge so determine with your local authority to discover if you are eligible.
Car insurance for young drivers and especially low cost auto insurance is hard to get! However, if certain methods are followed, it is very possible to obtain young drivers insurance. There are particular insurance companies that have specially designed offers, of car insurance for young people. You might save money if you are young merely by being female. You’ll see that your quotes are less as figures show that men drive more recklessly up to age of 25.
Men have a common perception that women are poor drivers. Men generally say that females can’t be good drivers as they don’t have quick reflexes and they do not use common sense while driving. yet the irony of the situation is that female drivers have to fork out less insurance than male drivers. Statistics confirm that women drivers have reduced chances of being involved in a major accident. Statistics also show that even if female drivers are involved in accidents, the damage done to the motor car or driver is substantially less than in those cases when only male drivers were involved. Studies have shown that female are much more mindful of traffic regulations and speed limits while driving.
Attempting to find the lowest cost car insurance is something that most people spend a little time doing once a year when their policy comes up for renewal. Everyone knows that ladies receive cheaper quotes than men due to the fact that they represent a lower risk to insurers, but females can still make large savings if they are willing to do some research before deciding on which company to get their instant car insurance from. Although car insurance for women has always been easy enough to find we now have the Internet to help us search for the cheapest deal around meaning it shouldn’t be hard to make substantial savings without much effort.
If you are a seasoned e-commerce veteran, you undoubtedly have heard of drop shipping. But if you are a newbie, you might not realize that you can start a business on the Internet with no need to stock inventory! How can you accomplish this? You find dropshipping directory to send or ‘fulfill’ your sales for you. You just collect the customer’s money – buy the merchandise from your wholesaler, and they send it to your customer with your name on the packing slip.
All you have to do to start a dropshipping website is a web site, a way to accept credit cards (PayPal is great for starters), and a product to offer! There are many drop ship supplier directories on the internet. You need to be careful, however about using these directories. Some of them are just outdated lists with old or bogus information. Be careful when you are buying access to a directory of drop shippers.
The best drop ship distributors directories give you the actual name and address of the supplier companies. That is the way to go; beware of sites that say they also provide merchandise – they are most likely a middleman and you will pay high prices for your products. Don’t use a middleman, you won’t be able to price your products at a competitive level.
The web has opened up a new world of business ideas to those who are not afraid to spend a bit of their effort and money to learn the basics. You don’t need a big inventory of products to start selling on the web. Drop shipping is a great, low-cost way to start.
Building a list of subscribers is one of the most profitable things that you can do in most niches. There are some exceptions, but it generally is the most basic long term money making strategy. In this article, we will go over some very simple ways of building a subscriber mailing list and making serious money from affiliate marketing programs.
A very simple and straightforward way is advertising your opt in page on traffic exchanges. You surf for credits and then use them to put your page in front of thousands of potential buyers and subscribers. Unfortunately, the quality of subscribers received from traffic exchanges will be slighty lower than from other sources, so you should definitely think of quantity as well.
Another great way is by setting up a signature on niche forums where you can get exposure for your opt in page. The more you contribute, the more you will be respected on the forum. This in turn will give you a lot of clicks and signups.
Article marketing is a great way to get targeted traffic to your signup page. I would recommend using 5-6 of the biggest article directories and focus on them. The key here would be to write articles with a very powerful call to action in the article author resource box. More clicks equal more sign ups.
These are just some of the very simple methods of generating mailing list subscribers and they have all be proven to work. Now, the quality of the subscribers may vary from method to method, but their responsiveness and your income will depend solely on your effort and the value you bring to your list.
Maranella Mrakovith works from home building niche websites and maintaining many different lists of subscribers. Her expertise can be seen by viewing her web marketing and thyromine effectiveness marketing websites.
Nothing contained in this article is intended to be used as medical advice and it is not intended to be used to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease, nor should it be used for therapeutic purposes or as a substitute for your own health professional’s advice. If you have any medical issues, you need to consult your doctor or medical practitioner.
Blu-ray, commonly known as BD or blue-ray discs, is a next-generation optical disc that has been developed by the Blu-ray Disc Association. The group is composed of leading purchaser electronics giants, PC and media manufacturers, like Philips, Samsung, Sony, sharp, HP, Hitachi and Panasonic, to name a couple. The blue ray recorder format enables recording, re-writing and playback of hi-def video ( HD ). One major advantage that the technology has over typical DVDs is that it allows for more storage capacity. It can hold up to 25GB on a single layered disc and 50GB on a dual-layer disc. The technology also incorporates advanced video and audio codes for the final high definition viewing experience. The name Blu-ray is utilized as the format uses a blue-violet laser, instead of a red laser as in the case of traditional DVDs.
Another major advantage with Blu-ray format lies in the fact that the entire technology is backwards compatible. You can now play your old CDs and DVDs thru a BD/DVD/CD compatible unit. The blue-violet laser has a shorter wavelength than a red laser, which will enable it to concentrate on a disc area with greater precision. The information is also packed on the surface of a disc more tightly. This explains the disc’s capacity to store more data, although it is of the same size as a normal CD. Blu-ray discs have a maximum capacity of 25GB and dual-layer discs can hold up to 50GB – enough for four hours of HDTV. Like HD-DVD, Blue laser discs don’t require a caddy and the players and recorders will be in a position to play current DVD discs. Codecs supported by Blu-ray include the H.264 MPEG-4 codec that will form part of Apple’s QuickTime 7, and the Windows Media 9 based VC-1.
Now the twin layer Blu-ray disc writers have hit the market, it has certainly heated up the war between Blu ray and DVD writers, and every time you go buying electronic devices you will doubtless be advised to buy one of these 2 kinds of products. In fact, to most people, owning twin layer Blu-ray disc writers would represent a major shift up in technology and with Blu-ray discs offering a lot more storage space, there is every reason why folks would buy them and thus the requirement will also arise for them to own dual layer Blu-ray disc writers.
A key reason to consider investing in a Blu-ray player or recorder is to use its high definition capacities. What good is that 50-inch HD plasma television if you can’t enjoy your flicks in all their HD glory? Major film studios support Blu-ray technology with many now releasing movies completely in the Blu-ray format. You will not have to toss your DVD collection either as Blu-ray players are backwards-compatible with DVDs. Also you aren’t required to be concerned about your huge DVD collection as a Blue-Ray player is able to run your DVDs too. Thus you are free from the responsibility of getting all of your DVDs interpreted to Blue-ray version.
I remember how excited I was when our family first learned that we were going to have a baby. The attention was great–everyone congratulated us. But as the pregenancy progressed, the realization that we were going to have a baby at home with us all the time started to sink in. Then, the panic started building as we realized we had no idea what we were going to do and much less what things we needed to do it. We read and studied information from many resources, trying to calm our anxiety.
After looking back and remembering the anxiety we faced as new parents, I wrote a series of articles titled “Things you need for Baby”. These articles discuss some of what we learned as parents, including items we found necessary (or nice to have) with our baby. Each article covers a different actvity parents and babies share together, such as feeding, bath-time, travel, and more. You don’t have to get anxious about your new baby. Instead, enjoy the anticipation and excitement of this time in your life.
If you have already gone through this wonderful time of life for yourself, why not share your knowledge and experiences in the comments section located at the bottom of each of our articles. There is nothing in this world like having a new baby in the house. We have certainly been blessed by ours and my hope for you is that your little one will bless you too. I hope you find these articles useful. Good luck with your baby!
Go to Baby.ConcerningAging.com to find advice and fun for you and your baby.
Let’s take some time out to take a look at wide ranging topics from identifying birds to youth soccer parents and even cake decorating ideas as for many; when it comes down to it – it is not the quantity but how we spend our time away from wherever we are employed that becomes one of the most important things to us. Having said that we see a growing trend in the interest in coaching youth soccer as our children; to so many of us really are the main thing in our lives. Now, let us suppose that an individual wishes to become an expert when it comes to youth soccer parents there will be large amounts of work to do if one is to ever be able to be of the best help to our youth. The field of coaching youth soccer will be one that continues to draw a great deal of interest with parents wanting their children to be the best when it comes to youth soccer parents.
Turning our attention to other things from focusing on our children and coaching youth soccer we also treasure the time we spend outdoors dealing with bird watching as this allows us to cultivate another important component of our creativity. Being able to be the very best when it comes to fly fishing for beginners means that we will really need to be willing to put the time in just as with youth soccer parents as discussed above. It can be said that some of us actually prefer to be indulged in bird watching and our own activities.
Moving on in our consideration of fly fishing for beginners, refinishing hardwood floors & youth soccer parents let’s turn our attention to the inside of the places that we reside and the fact that dealing with home staging brings out a different type of satisfaction to our lives. As we continue to deal with pressures at our places of employment for sure we will continue to wish to spend time on identifying birds, youth soccer parents and home staging in order to bring balance to life.
Sports cars are widely loved, but a quick survey of one’s morning commute will show they are not the most popular vehicle type on the road. Four door sedans, SUV’s, practical pickup trucks, and small economy cars dominate the automotive landscape. Sports cars seem to be an increasingly rare commodity. This is because other types of automobiles are increasingly able to take the best aspects of the sports car experience while avoiding some pitfalls inherent to the smaller speedsters.
For a long time, high performance was ruled by sports cars. Manufacturers used their sports car line to showcase new developments and design elements. Today, however, it appears many of these great qualities can be easily adapted to other car types.
The lighter construction of today’s cars, coupled with improvements in technology, has allowed family sedans to perform almost on par with sports cars. In fact, many of today’s “standard” offerings outperform the higher end sports cars of only a few years ago. Even SUV and trucks boast technology and performance that were unthinkable only a short while ago.
The automobile has evolved to a point where virtually any type of car can capture sports car technology. Regular production cars handle better than ever before and the only performance advantages to sports cars can only be realized under extreme driving conditions few will ever encounter. A sports car may hug a lynchpin turn at high speeds, for instance, better than the family sedan, but one must wonder how often any family will be trying to set speed records on mountain roads.
While today’s regular production models can steal some of the sports cars’ thunder, they can also offer some unique advantages over their smaller counterparts. Sports cars are notorious for their small size. Although this helps in handling and speed, it makes longer drives less comfortable while making every day use less practical. Larger cars have a utilitarian advantage that sports cars simply cannot match.
It was once sensible to trade some comfort for superior performance, but with modern standard autos now performing so well, the tradeoff seems less and less sensible. This seems apparent when one looks at the kind of cars people are buying: larger vehicles with greater seating capacity.
Additionally, the limited utility of sports cars makes them increasingly rare due to economic considerations. Few families today can afford to purchase and maintain a hobby car. By and large, people expect to use the vehicles they purchase on an every day basis. The old days of having a little convertible in the garage to use for occasional bursts of summer fun no longer seems like an economically feasible diversion for most people.
Originally, sports cars were designed specifically with rallies and contests in mind. Auto producers tested their design and mechanical skills against one another as they sought out ways to increase automobile performance. Later, sports cars became popular for mainstream drivers who were seeking greater performance from their vehicles. Lately, however, regular production cars have evolved and now come with the higher performance parts and construction once reserved for sports cars.
This may spell the eventual end for traditional sports cars, although producers are sure to maintain a small fleet of developmental performance cars with which to test new ideas. In the end, we may see a return to the sports cars of yesterday-cars designed specifically and almost exclusively to test new ideas, as opposed to popular cars for the larger public.
With each passing year, it seems, one notices fewer and fewer true sports cars on the road. This trend is not likely to be reversed any time soon, as more practical alternatives exist and the performance gap is shortened. Although the true sports car will probably never completely disappear, it is likely to become increasingly less visible to the public.
About the Author: Josh Hayes is the webmaster of several websites. His most recent website is www.makeabirthdaycard.org. If you are wanting to make a free birthday card to print on your own please visit the site. The website makes it very easy to make a birthday card.