One major issue that many women who are getting serious about their workouts start to deal with is known as the female athlete triad.

It’s important that you learn to recognize exactly what the female athlete triad consists of so that you are not only aware if you are already experiencing it but also, you learn what you can do to protect yourself from further damage taking place.

The female athlete triad, like the name suggests, is composed of three big factors.

1. Amenorrhea

Amenorrhea can be defined as the cessation of the menstrual cycle, after it had previously been somewhat regular, for three or more months in a row.
While some women may just be irregular, the key here is that they are not getting periods at all. It can be slightly difficult to establish if this is your issue if you have always been irregular, but most often even those who are irregular will get at least one menstrual period of a three month cycle.

2. Eating Disorders

The second component of the female athlete triad is the presence of any one of the various eating disorders that are seen. This could be anorexia, bulimia, binge-eating disorder, or an unclassified disorder (unhealthy relationship with food). Remember to keep in mind here that one does not need to be fully starving themselves to have an eating disorder.  You could simply be feeling extreme amounts of guilt after even a small detour from your diet and this could classify you as having an eating disorder or unhealthy relationship with food.

3. Osteoporosis

Then, the third factor in this condition is osteoporosis. This factor particularly, is very detrimental to the woman as it could set her up to experience an increased risk of stress fractures or broken bones for the rest of her life.  Many women also start to remove dairy products from their diet as they believe it will cause weight gain and once again, this only further enhances the problem.
Additionally, this factor usually comes about because of the previous two factors.

In terms of what causes this condition to develop, there have been many research studies that have tried to determine just this and unfortunately there isn’t once single precipitating factor, but rather, it’s a combination of factors that seem to be at play.

First, usually what causes the condition to strike is that the individual is not consuming enough total daily calories.  This seems to be the most important part of the equation; therefore, if you are hoping to avoid the development of these problems, eating enough is your best preventative mechanism. As an easy general guideline, for weight loss, the lowest number of calories you consume should be ten times your body weight.

So for example, a female weighing 130 pounds would require a minimum of 1300 calories each day – and this is for maximum fat loss.

The second thing that needs to be looked at is the woman’s overall body composition.  Women need so much fat on their bodies in order to function effectively.  When there is a lack of total body fat, problems occur, particularly with the reproductive system – as seen with the loss of the periods.

Usually these two are interconnected as many times a woman is not taking in enough total calories will obviously have a lower body fat level.
Between the two though, total calories is more important as there are a select few who are able to maintain quite low body fat percentages, yet still avoid the development of this problem. 

Why is this? It’s because they are eating enough calories to maintain their weight, their weight is just a lot of lean mass and little fat tissue.

Finally, the third reason that this condition can develop is because of overexercising.  When a woman overdoes it in the gym or on the court/field, she is starting to place an inordinate amount of stress on her system, and both her CNS and reproductive system will respond in a negative way. Rest is very critical in any workout program and should be scheduled in regularly.

So, the three main points to watch out for are a loss of your periods, abnormal or unhealthy eating behaviors, and a workout schedule that allows you very little, if any rest at all.

If you are suffering from any of those, or a combination of them, you may want to speak to a professional (both medical and psychological), as all three are very interrelated, with the development of one often leading to the development of another.

If, on the other hand, you are already experiencing problems, then your first step is to cut back on the amount of exercise you are doing and your second step is to increase the amount of calories you are consuming.  Increase the calories slightly slowly as this might be a scary process for you, aiming for a weekly increase of about 10% of your total current intake each week.  This will also allow the metabolism to keep up with this increased amount of food and prevent you from gaining any weight in the process.

If you complete both of these objectives, you should find that slowly your body fat levels also become more regulated, which fixes the last issue of this disorder.

So, if this sounds like it could be a condition you are experiencing or are at risk of experiencing, be sure to have a good hard look at your training and eating habits. Your health should always be the number one priority, even if some of you would rather place looks as your main objective.

Vince DelMonte is the author of No Nonsense Muscle Building About the Author: Vince knows what it takes to build muscle, lose weight and overcome muscle unfriendly genes in the shortest time possible. Vince has an Honors Degree in Kinesiology and has been a Personal Trainer for five years. He now shares this information with anybody who is serious about building muscle - especially skinny guys who can’t gain muscle weight. Just recently he has authored the brand new e-book “No Nonsense Muscle Building: Skinny Guy Secrets To Insane Muscle Gain.” This is a 199 page manual that teaches skinny guys how to build muscle and gain weight quickly naturally and in less time. programs: No Nonsense Muscle Building: Skinny Guy Secrets To Insane Muscle Gain Your Six Pack Quest: The No Nonsense Fat Loss System Ultimate Muscle Advantage: Eighteen 60-Minute Interviews with the World’s Biggest Experts on Building Muscle

Check Our Review of Vince’s Program

Check out No-Nonsense Muscle Site

Are looking for a weight loss program that works? If so, you’ve probably seen the Fat Loss for Idiots program around, along with plenty of Fat Loss For Idiots Diet Reviews.

But how beneficial is Fat Loss For Idiots? Understanding some common dieting myths is important to determine whether this program is worth its salt. First, if you read their premise, they state that if you eat 2500 calories a day, your body will adapt and stop burning 2500 calories a day. Well sorry folks, but that just is not correct. If your body adapted to burning off however many calories a day you are eating, how do you think you got fat in the first place? Your body certainly did not adapt to those calories - what makes you think it will adapt to the ones this program tells you to eat?

The bottom line is that if you are looking for a smart way to lose fat, you will need to create a caloric deficit. Your Six Pack Quest does this. By reading through it, you will get access to a metabolic calculator to determine the optimal number of calories your body needs to guarantee fat loss, without feeling like you’re starving. Sure, if you have been on a starvation diet, you will need to up the calories - and when you do, you’ll find you do actually lose weight! But if you are currently eating thousands of calories, your body will not adapt to burning those off. You need an action plan that works - Your Six Pack Quest will lay it out for you in easy to understand terms that anyone can follow.

Next, when looking at the Fat Loss For Idiots program, they downgrade exercise stating that it doesn’t ‘matter’ when it comes to gaining or losing weight. How can exercise not matter?! Study after study has shown that dieters who combine exercise with their dietary efforts show a much higher rate of fat loss, rather than a mixture of muscle and body fat. Do you know what happens when you lose both muscle and fat? Your metabolism slows down. So sure, you’ve lost weight but now your natural metabolic rate is slower meaning you have to eat less for the rest of your life! Is that something you want? A diet of rabbit food forever? Didn’t think so.

Your Six Pack Quest will show you how to exercise productively, where you aren’t spending hours in the gym, but you are getting results. Doing so will help you retain that crucial muscle mass, thus helping keep your metabolism revved and make maintaining your weight loss a piece of cake.

So, instead of falling for another gimmicky plan that promises rapid weight loss (they claim 9 pounds in 11 days - which will be mostly water anyway), opt for a plan that combines both a healthy, long-term way of eating with healthy exercise that doesn’t feel like torture. Your Six Pack Quest offers meal plans just as Fat Loss For Idiots does, but it takes things one step further - you’ll also received detailed exercise descriptions and plans for a variety of exercise needs, a workout DVD, a virtual trainer, supplement information, along with continuous updates on all the latest on the research front related to fat loss. It really is an all inclusive program that will address all the factors that contribute to weight gain - not just diet alone. Remember, losing weight should be a lifestyle approach, not just changing what you put on your plate.

Vince DelMonte is the author of No Nonsense Muscle Building About the Author: Vince knows what it takes to build muscle, lose weight and overcome muscle unfriendly genes in the shortest time possible. Vince has an Honors Degree in Kinesiology and has been a Personal Trainer for five years. He now shares this information with anybody who is serious about building muscle - especially skinny guys who can’t gain muscle weight. Just recently he has authored the brand new e-book “No Nonsense Muscle Building: Skinny Guy Secrets To Insane Muscle Gain.” This is a 199 page manual that teaches skinny guys how to build muscle and gain weight quickly naturally and in less time. programs: No Nonsense Muscle Building: Skinny Guy Secrets To Insane Muscle Gain Your Six Pack Quest: The No Nonsense Fat Loss System Ultimate Muscle Advantage: Eighteen 60-Minute Interviews with the World’s Biggest Experts on Building Muscle

Check Our Review of Vince’s Program

Check out No-Nonsense Muscle Site

I started lifting weights for bodybuilding when I was 14 years old, but I never had ripped abs until I was 20. I endured six years of frustration and embarrassment. Being a teenager is hard enough, but imagine how I felt being a self-proclaimed bodybuilder, with no abs or muscle definition to show for it. Imagine what it was like in swimming class or when we played basketball in gym class and I prayed to be called out for “shirts” and not ‘”skins” because I didn’t want any one seeing my “man-boobs” and ab flab jiggling all over the court.

Oh, I had muscle. I started gaining muscle from the moment I picked up a barbell. I got strong too. I was benching 315 at age 18. But even after four years of successful strength training, I still hadn’t figured out this getting ripped thing. Muscle isn’t very attractive if it’s covered up with a layer of fat. That’s where the phrase “bulky” really comes from – fat on top of muscle. It can look worse than just fat.

I read every book. I read every magazine. I tried every exercise. I took every supplement in vogue back in the 80’s (remember bee pollen, octacosanol, lipotropics and dessicated liver?) I tried not eating for entire days at a time. I went on a rope skipping kick. I did hundreds of crunches and ab exercises. I rode the Lifecycle. I wore rubber waist belts.

The results were mediocre at best. When I made progress, I couldn’t maintain it. One step forward, one step back. Even when I got a little leaner, it wasn’t all the way. Still no ripped abs. When I played football and they beat the crap out of us at training camp, I lost weight, but STILL didn’t get all the way down to those elusive six pack abs. In fact, it was almost like I got “skinny fat.” My arms and legs lost some muscle but the small roll of ab fat was still there.

Why was it so hard? What was I doing wrong? It was driving me crazy!

My condition got worse in college because I mixed with a party crowd. With boozing came eating, and the “bulk” accumulated even more. At that point, the partying and social life were more important to me than my body. I was still lifting weights, but wasn’t living a fitness lifestyle.

Mid way through college I changed my major from business management to exercise science, having made up my mind to pursue a career in fitness. That’s when I started to feel something wasn’t right. The best word for it is “incongruence.” That’s when what you say you want to be and what you really are don’t match. Being a fitness professional means you have to walk the talk and be a role model to others. Anything else is hypocrisy. I knew I had to shape up or forget fitness as a career.

But after four years, I STILL didn’t know how to get ripped! Nothing I learned in exercise physiology class helped. All the theory was interesting, but when theory hit the real world, things didn’t always work out like they did on paper. My professors didn’t know either. Heck, most of them weren’t even in shape! Two of them were overweight, including my nutrition professor.

However, out of my college experience did come the seeds of the solution and my first breakthrough.

In one of my physical education classes, we were required to do some running and we were instructed to keep track of our performance and resting heart rates. Somehow, even though I was a strength athlete, I got hooked on running. After the initial discomfort of hauling around a not so cardio-fit 205 pound body, I started to get a lot of satisfaction out of watching my resting heart rate drop from the 70’s into the 50’s and seeing my running times get better and better. And then it happened: I started getting leaner than I ever had before.

The results motivated me to no end, and I kept after it even more. My runs would be 5 or 6 days a week and I’d go for between 30 minutes to an hour. Sometimes I had a circular route of about 6 miles and I would run it for time, almost always pushing for a personal record. When I finished, I was spent, drenched in sweat and sometimes just crashing when I got home. And I kept getting even leaner.

That’s when I started to figure it out. If you’re expecting me to say that running is the secret, no, that’s NOT it per se. I was thinking bigger picture. In fact, I noticed that my legs had lost some muscle size, so I knew that over-doing the runs would be counter productive, ultimately, and I don’t run that much anymore these days. But that’s how I did it the first time and I had never experienced fat loss like that before. The fat was falling off and I had barely changed my diet.

My “aha moment” was when I realized the pivotal piece in the puzzle was calories. It wasn’t the type of exercise, it wasn’t the specific foods and it wasn’t supplements. Today I realize that it’s the calorie deficit that matters the most, not whether you eat less or burn more per se, but in my case creating a large deficit by burning the calories was the absolute key for me.

These runs were burning an enormous number of calories. Everything I had done before wasn’t burning enough to make a noticeable difference in a short period of time. 10-15 minutes of rope skipping wasn’t enough. 45 minutes of slow-go bike riding wasn’t burning enough. Hundreds of crunches weren’t enough. I put 1+1+1 together and realized it was intensity X duration X frequency = highest the total calorie burn for the week. How much simpler could it be? It wasn’t magic. It was MATH!

It was consistency too. This was the first time in SIX YEARS I stuck with it. Body fat comes off by the grams every day – literally. Kilos and pounds of body weight may come off quickly, but they come back just as fast. Body fat comes off slowly and if you have no patience or you jump to one program to the next without following through with the one you started, you’re doomed. In six years, I had “tried everything”… except consistency and patience.

Then the stakes went up. I had finally gotten lean, but there was another level beyond lean… RIPPED! My buddies at the gym noticed me getting leaner and then they popped the question: Why don’t you compete? My training partner Steve had already competed 3 years earlier and won the Teenage Mr. America competition. Since then, I had been all talk and no walk. “Yeah, I’m going to compete one of these days too… I’m going to be the next Mr. America.” Days turned into weeks, weeks into months, and months into years. The only title I had won was “Mr. Procastinator.” Then finally, Steve and my other friends challenged me almost in an ultimatum type of way. Well, the truth is, I set myself up for it with my big mouth and they called me out, so I would have been the laughing stock of our gym if I didn’t follow through.

The first time you do a real cut - all the way down to contest-ready - is the hardest. Not as much physically as psychologically, simply because you’ve never done it before. Doing something you’ve done before is no big deal. Doing something you’ve never done before causes uncertainty and fear, sometimes even terror! I was plagued with self-doubt the entire time, never sure if I was ever going to get there. It seemed like it was taking forever. But failure was not an option. Not only did I have an entire gym full of friends rooting me on, I had great training partner who was natural Mr. Teenage America! The pressure was on. I had to do it. There was no way out. No excuses.

Some other day, I’ll tell you all the details of the emotional roller coaster ride that was my first contest diet, but let it suffice to say, at that point, I still didn’t know what I was doing. It was only later that I went into “human guinea pig” mode with nutritional experiments and finally pinned down the eating side of the equation to a science (and gained 20 lbs of stage-weight muscle as a result).

In the late 1980’s, the standard bodybuilding diet was high carb, low fat. For that first competition, I was on 60% carbs – including pancakes, boxed cereal, whole grain bread, and pasta - so I guess you can toss out the idea that it’s impossible to get ripped on high carbs – although high carb is NOT the contest diet I use today. But it didn’t matter, because I had already learned the critical piece in the fat loss puzzle – the calorie balance equation. Understanding that one aspect of physiology was enough to get me ripped. It only got better later.

In the end, I took 2nd place at my very first competition, the Natural Lehigh Valley, and one month later, I won first place at the Natural New Jersey. Seven months later, the overall Natural Pennsylvania.

Looking back, was all the effort worth it? Well, my good friend Adam Waters, who is an accountability coach, teaches his students about using “redemption” as a motivator. Remember the Charles Atlas ad where the skinny kid got sand kicked in his face and then came back big and buffed and beat up the bully? That’s redemption. Or the dateless high school nerd who comes back to the 10 year class reunion driving a Mercedes with the prom queen on his arm? That’s redemption.

After all the doubt, heartache and frustration I went through for six years, I not only had my trophies, my abs were on the front page of the sports section in our small Pennsylvania town newspaper. The following year, I was on the poster for a bodybuilding competition… as the previous year’s champion. THAT’S REDEMPTION. You tell me if it was worth it.

There are 7 lessons from my story that I want to share with you because even if you have a different personal history than I do, these 7 lessons are the keys to achieving any previously elusive fitness goal for the first time and I think they apply to everyone.

1. Set the big goal and go for it. If your goal doesn’t excite you and scare you at the same time, your goal is too small. If you don’t feel fear or uncertainty, you’re inside your comfort zone. Puny goals aren’t motivating. Sometimes it takes a competition or a big challenge of some kind to get your blood boiling.

2. Align your values with your goals. I understood my values and made a decision to be congruent with who I really was and who I wanted to be. When you know your values, get your priorities straight and align your goals with your values, then doing what it takes is easy.

3. Do the math. Stop looking for magic. A lean body does not come from any particular type of exercise or foods per se, it’s the calories burned vs calories consumed that determines fat loss or fat gain. You might do better by decreasing the calories consumed, whereas I depended more on increasing the calories burned, but either way, it’s still a math equation. Deny it at your own risk.

4. Get social support. Support and encouragement from your friends can help get you through anything. Real time accountability to a training partner or trainer can make all the difference.

5. Be consistent. Nothing will ever work if you don’t work at it every day. Sporadic efforts don’t just produce sporadic results, sometimes they produce zero results.

6. Persist through difficulty and self doubt. If you think it’s going to be smooth sailing all the way with no ups and downs, you’re fooling yourself.. For every sunny day, there’s going to be a storm. If you can’t weather the storms, you’ll never reach new shores.

7. Redeem yourself. Non-achievers sit on the couch and wallow in past failures. Winners use past failures as motivational rocket fuel. It always feels good to achieve a goal, but nothing feels as good as achieving a goal with redemption.

Postscript: My journey continued. Since that initial first place trophy, I have competed as a natural for life bodybuilder 26 more times, including 7 first place awards and 7 runner up awards. And yes, I finally nailed down the nutrition side of things too. You can read more about that and the fat loss program that developed as a result at burnthefat

Train hard and expect success always,

About the Author:Tom Venuto is a natural bodybuilder, certified personal trainer and freelance fitness writer. Tom is the author of “Burn the Fat, Feed The Muscle,” which teaches you how to get lean without drugs or supplements using secrets of the world’s best bodybuilders and fitness models.program:        Burn the Fat, Feed The Muscle: A Complete Fat Burning System Based on The Secret Techniques of The World’s Best Bodybuilders and Fitness Modelss. Check out our Review of Tom Venuto Program

You can’t boost your metabolism with supplements. Or at least not enough to cause weight loss. This is hope in a bottle, but this hope doesn’t stand a chance. It doesn’t work.

If there is any benefit to taking a particular supplement, by the end of the
week, your body has adjusted to the chemical and no longer reacts to it. And
that’s why, as a recent study showed, that taking Green Tea supplements for
12 weeks did not cause any fat loss. Most supplements seem to be nothing
more than glorified caffeine pills.

Let’s think of this another way. Say for example that green tea extract
actually did help you burn an additional eighty calories per day. It is
agreed upon by most trainers that one pound of fat is equal to 3,500
calories. Even if the supplement worked as intended, then it would take
nearly a month and half to lose one pound!

Unfortunately, you’ll find big promises from supplements in every magazine,
and it is very difficult to avoid the allure of the quick fixes that
supplements present. Supplements make you think, “Why work out when you can
take a pill?”

And as long as there are people who aren’t willing to work for their
results, there will always be a product claiming to work miracles.

Unlike these “miracle” supplements, research repeatedly shows that both
strength training and interval training can help boost your metabolism and
burn fat.

In one study, women did a strength training session with eight repetitions
per exercise and had a significant increase in their post-exercise
metabolism. This is just another example of how short burst training will
burn more calories and more fat. These are proven results that no diet pill
can compete with.

Boost your metabolism with hard work, not the easy way out,

Craig Ballantyne is a Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist About the Author: Craig Ballantyne is a Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist and writes for Men’s Fitness, Maximum Fitness, Muscle and Fitness Hers, and Oxygen magazines. His trademarked Turbulence Training fat loss workouts have been featured multiple times in Men’s Fitness and Maximum Fitness magazines and all over the Internet, and have helped thousands of men and women around the world lose fat, gain muscle, and get lean in less than 45 minutes three times per week.program: Turbulence Training: Training workouts that will help you burn fat without long, slow cardio sessions or fancy equipment

Check out Turbulence Training Site

For years I’ve been yelling and screaming about the importance of online
social support (i.e. having Internet weight loss buddies).

Researchers at the world famous Karolinska Institute wanted to find out why
some men and women succeed at weight loss while others don’t.

They studied many men and women using an Internet Weight Loss Club, and
found that the people who used the site the MOST also LOST the most weight.

That means that going online for social support in your weight loss program
is one of the most IMPORTANT things you can do.

You might not have the perfect home life, office environment, or workout
buddies, but chances are you will find someone to help you on an Internet
weight loss forum.

And the truth is, you won’t find another Internet Weight Loss Club as
positive and helpful as you’ll find in the Turbulence Training Member’s
area. Just listen to what this Turbulence Training member has to say…

“I have been using Turbulence Training for about 3 months now and am
ecstatic with the results. The workouts require minimal equipment, you get
great nutrition information and you get access to the online forum which is
invaluable. Being able to actually communicate on almost a daily basis with
the person who created the program is one of the best parts of TT, and there
are plenty of other people on the site with tons of useful information who
may have gone through similar experiences.

Since starting the TT program I have dropped 15 lbs, more than 5% bodyfat
and over 3″ from my waist. I feel great and my energy levels are through the
roof. I even feel this extra energy spilling over into other aspects of my
life and making them better as well. All I can say is thanks CB not just for
the fitness change but a great lifestyle change.”
Derek Kendig

We’re there to help you lose weight and inches. Stay strong with our help at
TurbulenceTraining.com!

Craig Ballantyne is a Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist About the Author: Craig Ballantyne is a Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist and writes for Men’s Fitness, Maximum Fitness, Muscle and Fitness Hers, and Oxygen magazines. His trademarked Turbulence Training fat loss workouts have been featured multiple times in Men’s Fitness and Maximum Fitness magazines and all over the Internet, and have helped thousands of men and women around the world lose fat, gain muscle, and get lean in less than 45 minutes three times per week.program: Turbulence Training: Training workouts that will help you burn fat without long, slow cardio sessions or fancy equipment

Check out Turbulence Training Site

I often get asked, What’s the best way to burn fat and lose my belly?

People want to know if aerobics is better than strength training, or if traditional cardio exercise is better than intervals. Cardio is not the best way to burn fat. Intervals are a better fat burning workout to burn belly fat.

With over 15 years experience helping others, training myself, training for sports, spending countless hours in the gym, AND actually conducting laboratory research studies on different exercise methods, I’m pretty confident in knowing what works and what does not.

But first of all, I want to frame my responses. I’m going to talk about what works for people that have a limited amount of time to exercise, mostly because I expect your readers don’t have 90 minutes per day to devote to a workout, unlike the typical audience of a fitness magazine.

That’s why there is a huge disconnect between some of the information found in magazines and the ability of the reader to apply it to their lives.

We just don’t have 6-8 hours per week for exercise, nor do we need it. If you’re a triathlete, you might need that, but not someone that just wants to lose fat and gain muscle.

Having said all that, the bottom line for getting a better body is…

Use bodyweight exercises to warm-up, strength training supersets to build muscle, and then finish your workout with interval training to burn fat in a short amount of time. I’ve structured my system so that you are in and out of the gym in 45 minutes, three times per week.

You’ll do 5 minutes of bodyweight exercises to warm-up. This is a much more efficient approach than spending 5 minutes walking on a treadmill, which really doesn’t prepare you for anything except more walking on a treadmill.

Then we move into the strength training supersets, where we use two exercises performed back to back with minimum rest between each. This cuts our workout time, while still giving us maximum results. We only need 20 minutes for this, and we’ll use basic exercises, and sometimes even more bodyweight exercises, depending on the client’s goal for muscle building.

And finally, we’ll do 18 minutes of interval training. A warm-up, followed by six short intervals at the appropriate fitness level for the client, interspersed with short periods of low-intensity recovery. Finish with a cool-down. And that’s the workout. Again, about 45 minutes total.

Compare that to what most people do, which is run, jog, cycle or use the cardio machines for 45 minutes straight. Sure, that will burn calories, but it doesn’t build a better body.

In fact, there are a few “dark sides” to long slow cardio, including less-than-optimal results, the potential for overuse injuries, and it is an inefficient form of exercise. If you only have 30-45 minutes for your workout and you spend it all on a cardio machine, when are you going to train the rest of your muscles and sculpt a better body?

So the best way to burn belly fat is with a combination of strength training and interval training. It’s fast, it works, and it’s fun!

Compare that to what most people do, which is run, jog, cycle or use the cardio machines for 45 minutes straight. Sure, that will burn calories, but it doesn’t build a better body. It might even leave you hurt!

So if you want to burn belly fat fast, drop the slow cardio and try interval training. Use strength training to sculpt your body and boost your metabolism. You’ll be shocked at the results from this new way of training to burn fat and lose that belly!

Craig Ballantyne is a Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist About the Author: Craig Ballantyne is a Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist and writes for Men’s Fitness, Maximum Fitness, Muscle and Fitness Hers, and Oxygen magazines. His trademarked Turbulence Training fat loss workouts have been featured multiple times in Men’s Fitness and Maximum Fitness magazines and all over the Internet, and have helped thousands of men and women around the world lose fat, gain muscle, and get lean in less than 45 minutes three times per week.program: Turbulence Training: Training workouts that will help you burn fat without long, slow cardio sessions or fancy equipment

Check out Turbulence Training Site

I try to read a book per week, and I recently picked up “Rules for
Renegades” by Christine Comaford-Lynch. It was the perfect book for my short
flight to and from Baltimore back in June.

I’ve chosen the top 5 renegade rules for fat loss below (you’ll have to pick
up her book for the other 5) to help you get more results in less time.

1. Responsibility

We all need to take full responsibility for everything in our lives,
including how big our belly is.

Only you are in control of what you eat. Only you are in control of your
workouts.

Once you accept responsibility than the rest is easy! (Because now you know
who is in charge.)

2. Solicit support

I can’t agree with Christine enough on this one.

As you know, I was one of the first fat loss experts to tell you about the
importance of social support and what it means to your success.

So get a nutrition buddy, a workout buddy, and lots and lots of positive
people on your site supporting you through your fat loss success! The more
people on your side, the better.

3. Toss toxicity

On the other hand, spend less time with people who say, “You won’t be able
to do it”. And toss the toxicity out of your kitchen too. No more chips,
soda, candy, or crap. Get rid of it! Say goodbye to temptation, because even
fitness pro’s can’t keep their hands out of the cookie jar if its there.

4. Persevere

Too many folks give up just before they succeed. It’s just like “The Dip”
that I told you about last week.

There will be tough times, make no mistake about it. But persevering through
them is what separates the XL’s from the mediums. Or the 38 inch waists from
the 32’s. Or the sweatshirted folks on the beach from those that are walking
around in skimpy bathing suits.

What group do you want to be in?

5. Pay attention

In this case, track and test everything you do.

Track your nutrition. Record your workouts.

Review them frequently to identify what is working. That way, you can always
come back to successful programs in the future when you are struggling.

Along with social support, this might be one of the most overlooked aspects
of fat loss success.

Track and test and get to know your body!

Follow these renegade rules for fat loss and you’ll succeed!

Now go get some friends to support you for fat loss,

Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS
Author, Turbulence Training For Abs Home Abdominal Workouts

P.S. Take the 21-Day Turbulence Training Trial for only $4.95…

In addition to being able to try the workouts you’ve heard so much
about, you’ll also get 3-months FREE to the TT membership site where
you’ll get positive social support from all over the world.

Plus, you can check out the entries for the latest TT Transformation
Contest…

Folks are starting to finish, and the girls are coming in with abs!

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Craig Ballantyne is a Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist About the Author: Craig Ballantyne is a Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist and writes for Men’s Fitness, Maximum Fitness, Muscle and Fitness Hers, and Oxygen magazines. His trademarked Turbulence Training fat loss workouts have been featured multiple times in Men’s Fitness and Maximum Fitness magazines and all over the Internet, and have helped thousands of men and women around the world lose fat, gain muscle, and get lean in less than 45 minutes three times per week.program: Turbulence Training: Training workouts that will help you burn fat without long, slow cardio sessions or fancy equipment

Check out Turbulence Training Site

Lately I’ve been reading this little book called, “The Dip” by a guy named
Seth Godin.

You might be able to relate - this is very true of fat loss, working out,
and eating right.

After all, it’s not too bad to get through the morning or even the early
part of the afternoon without ‘cheating’ on your diet.

But late in the afternoon our diet becomes a struggle. And while sitting
around after dinner it is practically impossible for some folks to resist
the siren’s call of the cookies and chips.

But those who make it through the struggle WIN. They end up eating fewer
calories and losing fat for the day.

Same with our workouts.

The warmup is fine, and the first few sets are tough, but manageable.

But as we go on, some folks want to quit. But often it is the last set, the
last rep, the last effort that gives us the most results.

If we didn’t experience discomfort and fatigue - and make it through it all -
we wouldn’t change our bodies.

We have to get through what Seth calls, “the dip”. As he says, “It is human
nature to quit when it hurts.”

And human nature is why you see more lard bodies than hard bodies.

The two worst things you can do when you are in “the dip” are…

a) Quit (that’s obvious)

b) Jump from program to program (because each time you jump, you are
starting over again - always give a program a full 4-week trial period to
see if it really works for you)

If you can make it through the dip, you win.

But how do you beat the dip when the struggle is so hard?

By reminding yourself of how good life will be on the other side of the dip -
how good things will be once you make it through the struggle.

You must remind yourself that you can get to a point where you’ll prefer
whole, natural foods over junk food; that you’ll look forward to your
workouts, rather than find any excuse to blow them off.

You must have the right mindset.

You must learn to stay strong.

And get help from your social support.

Those are the 3 keys to making it through the fat loss dip using Turbulence
Training.

Craig Ballantyne is a Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist About the Author: Craig Ballantyne is a Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist and writes for Men’s Fitness, Maximum Fitness, Muscle and Fitness Hers, and Oxygen magazines. His trademarked Turbulence Training fat loss workouts have been featured multiple times in Men’s Fitness and Maximum Fitness magazines and all over the Internet, and have helped thousands of men and women around the world lose fat, gain muscle, and get lean in less than 45 minutes three times per week.program: Turbulence Training: Training workouts that will help you burn fat without long, slow cardio sessions or fancy equipment

Check out Turbulence Training Site