Tighten Your Core

Tighten and Strengthen Your Core

If you are wanting to have a complete physical ability to move at your best daily, you must have a strong fit core. The middle part of your body, the core, the abs, the lower back, the hips, all are included in the subject of your core. It is important to strengthen and tighten your core to have a complete athletic physique and ability.

In sports, the core is a necessity in transferring of body weight from one part of the body to another. For example in baseball, a pitcher’s core is vital in transferring the power from the legs all the way up to the release point and beyond in a pitch. You would assume a wrestler needs a strong core for balance and power to defeat their opponent.

Core strength and conditioning can be done without the needs of weights. You also don’t have to go to the gym to get a great core workout. You can simply work your lower abs by performing high knees while on your feet. You can work your lower back by laying on your stomach and lifting your chest and knees off the floor like superman. You can workout your hips by standing on two feet, lifting one knee up where your quads are level with the floor, and then pulse slowly slightly upward and down for a minute or two. There are several exercises available without having to purchase equipment or going to the gym.

Fastest Way To 6 Pack Abs | Tighten Your Core

Many people want to know the fastest way to 6 pack abs. Many people even consider having surgery. Okay, surgery doesn’t make you healthy. Isn’t that the true goal? Being healthy first and looking good is the perk. In my opinion, you should never jeopardize health for muscles or weight loss. So here is the secret you want to know about how to get 6 pack abs fast. It is your nutrition.

There is no secret, no magic pill. Plain and simple, if you are not exercising on a daily basis and eating right, you will never see those abs popping out below your chest. To get in further detail, there are specific foods that you can eat to help you. Before we go into that, you need to know that you can have great abs under your skin, but if you don’t lower your body fat, they will never show up the way you are hoping. Resistance training, cardio, together with proper nutrition is the fastest way to 6 pack abs.

Flat Stomach Foods | Tighten Your Core

Staying away from sugar, high sodium foods, over eating, complex carbs, and juices is a good start. Don’t totally eliminate your carbs because you need that for energy. However, getting your carbs from fruit, nuts, and dark greens is the best way to get a lean nutrition to your advantage for lean abs. Watch your portions as eating too much healthy food at a time also can cause weight gain. Stay away from hydrogenated vegetable oils as they are loaded with trans fat. Yeah, the bad fat. Instead, choose to go with monounsaturated fats like olive oil or avocado is good too.

When it comes down to it. Just control your portions, eat slow not fast to control bloating, drink plenty of water, and eat smart. If you can create a daily habit proper nutrition and commit to a fit lifestyle with resistance training, cardio, and nutrition, then, you won’t have to worry so much about eating the
perfect flat stomach foods because you will lead a healthy life with great habits and that is truly the fastest way to tighten your core.

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The Second Depression

As some of your may know, I like to talk about life in general, not only fitness. In the end, what good is fitness if you are not happy in all other areas in your life. Financially, spiritually, physically, and also in our relationships with family and friends. I wanted to take the time this morning because I woke up and really thought that I should write a little article about the financial state of the economy and how it effects you and your family. Not only that, but if you don’t do something about it now, you could be left with absolutely nothing, no matter how much money you have.

The baby boomers now are retiring and experiencing the first financial bust they have ever witnessed. They were born into years where our economy has always been on the rise after the Great Depression. The truth is, our economy never fully recovered from the first great depression and all the baby boomers know is the massive economic boom that began in 1971.

You see, our US dollar if you think about it is just a short decision away from having no value. It is the standard currency around the world right now but can you imagine if the other countries like China, Japan, Australia, and all decide to turn to another currency instead of ours? America would be done. Why? The US dollar is not backed by anything but the good faith and credit of the US government. It used to be linked to gold and silver, but in 1971, president Richard Nixon took the money off the gold standard and changed the rules of money forever. Our money became monopoly money and we started playing by monopoly rules in real life.

Bank Never Goes Broke | The Second Depression

“The Bank Never Goes Broke” One of the rules in the game, Monopoly. You see, it says that if the bank runs out of money to give out, it can just write money on a piece of paper and disperse it. That will count as real money. You want to know something scary? This is real. The bank in real life never goes broke because of the fact that they can just print on paper anytime they feel like it.

By the federal reserve being able to print money whenever they can, it puts our economy into higher debt and inflation occurs. Bailouts, stimulus plans and such, just add to $600 trillion plus that our US economy is in debt today because of the mistakes and bad decisions our nation has encountered. In result, us the taxpayers, must pay money back to the government for their own mistakes in the form of debt, inflation, retirement, and taxes. It doesn’t sound like a fair formula. However, because the system makes it so confusing for the consumers to understand, the consumers just go along with depending on the government for bailouts and financial help not understanding how it will effects their family in the future.

So, big things can happen on the instant if other countries decide they don’t want to use our money as the standard currency. It would put the US under and no matter how much money you have you will have lost everything for the future of your family. Put it easy to understand……

….If your house got broken into while hyperinflation happened, or from other countries deciding to take their money off the US standard, and the US currency lost it’s value while the Federal Reserve keeps printing money, then you would see the robbers that broke into your house steal your refrigerator and leave the pile of $100 dollar bills you left on your counter. Why? We would be going back to a world of barter and trade rather than fast currency transactions. Money would have little value.

So how can you protect your family for the worst to come if this ever happens. Trust me, it could happen real soon. According to many successful entrepreneurs I consult with on a daily basis about our economy, they are telling me to embrace myself for what is to come and educate yourself on how you can prepare your kids for the next great depression.

My question is to them, how can people prepare if they are struggling to find a job or don’t have a good enough source of income where they can put aside money and invest in the right things? Here is what they are telling me and you can bet, I am following their advice:

1) They need to get educated on why we are in this situation
2) Must study the trends of money and the economy and understand it
3) Educate themselves on what to invest their money in just in case the US dollar goes under
4) Take action

State Of Our Economy | The Second Depression

Lastly, the Federal Reserve isn’t slowing down in printing money. In March 18th, 2009, they injected 1.2 trillion dollars back into the us economy. As Robert Kiyosaki stated in his book, Rich Dad’s Conspiracy of the Rich:

“In a normal economy, when the US Treasury offers bonds, countries such as China, Japan, England, and private investors buy the bonds. But, when the Fed buys are bonds, this means the US is truly printing money. This means that our economy is still collapsing like a hot-air balloon with a tear in it.

Is Running Good For Me

You ever wonder, “Is running all the time good for me?”Running is a great source of exercise. Not only does it burn calories and increase your endurance, but it also is a great way to relieve stress because of the way it makes your blood flow and oxygen cycle throughout your body. However, it is not necessarily good for some people who may have problems with their joints.

As the technique of running on concrete impacts your joints the same as if you were to run on a treadmill, it is good to mix up your cardio workouts to help relieve stress on your joints on a constant basis. You may consider mixing in some swimming, cardio based programs such as Turbo Fire or Insanity, biking, and more to compliment.

Changing up your exercises also helps your body burn calories and fat more naturally because of the different ways you move your body as well as putting your body through High Intensity Interval Training, or HIIT, to increase fat burning by doing slow cardio mixed with short spurts of high intensity. So mixing up your cardio rather than running all the time if you have bad knees can be beneficial to you in more ways than one.

Running all the time is not a bad thingif you are healthy enough to deal with the impact on your knees. As you get older, you may want to look at alternatives on certain days as mentioned above. In the flip side, people who don’t run at all should add this exercise in their routine. Why? I know many people who are locked into one type of cardio routine that involves nothing but sports specific moves where you don’t run. They are very much in shape as an athlete except for the fact that when it comes to running a mile or two,they struggle completely. The reason is that their body is not used to the movement and it lacks the discipline it takes to go the distance if you have not acclimated your body to it. The more variety you incorporate into your routine, the more complete abilities you will have as an athlete or fitness enthusiast.

When I was 8-13 yrs old, I used to run cross country in school and I used to set a goal to run all the way through and never stop. Although I was successful as a kid and didn’t know any better, as you get older or take a break from the sport and get back into it after a while, you will need self motivation, discipline, and commitment along with both physical and mental toughness. A treadmill is a good place to start as a beginner. This will help build your mental toughness without having to compare yourself with others on the road or on the track.

So running in general is a great thing and I enjoy it. Although it is not my specialty anymore as when I was a kid, it is something that I strive to get better at as I get older. So if you are ever curious and ask yourself,”Is running good for me?” It is an excellent source of exercise, but mix it up and put variety in your routine for maximum results.

How To Plan Your Nutrition With Ease

Plan Your Nutrition

The very first thing you should do when starting on a fitness journey to reach your goals, is to plan your nutrition. Not planning your eating habits on a daily basis is like driving out of town but not knowing which route to take to get there. Sometimes this task of knowing what to eat sounds easier said then done. But don’t stress out about it, I will give you a tip on a software I use that can take away all the dirty work.

When planning your nutrition, it is also vital to know what your goals are. Are you trying to lose weight, tone up, build muscle mass and strength, or are you just looking to maintain the same weight and get healthier? Each goal will require a specific eating plan to help you reach your ultimate goal.

Where most people fail, is there nutrition. They have no clue what to eat, how often to eat, or why they need to eat at all. Believe it or not, some people try to eat less during their workouts thinking that they will be burning off fat twice as much by not eating.

That cannot be further from the truth. Your muscles need food for energy before, during, and after your workouts. If you body does not supply your muscles with the proper nutrients during the times when you are putting stress on them, they will suffer growth and you will lose muscle, feel fatigue, and even gain weight because of your low metabolism when not eating frequently.

The proper way to spread out your meals in a day is every 3 hours on average. You should be eating 5 to 6 meals per day being the right portions in each meal. How do you know what the right portion is? A good way to measure this is by the size of your palm or fist. However, you must be consistent and if you have a sweet tooth here and there, all I have to say is that no one is perfect, but you must control your temptations up to a point where you don’t stray away and start affecting your final results in a huge way. If you aren’t disciplined to an extent, the little cheats here and there will and do add up and therefore will effect your body.

My Meal Planner | Plan Your Nutrition

Who wants to spend all the time in figuring out the complexity of the nutrition plan when you can have it done for you. There is a meal planner I use that anyone can use if they so choose. I use it because it takes the guesswork out of my hands and I can spend more time doing other productive things in life.

There are many reasons why I use this:

It is quick and easy
It covers all corners
You can edit it to your liking and stay on track
It caters to your height, weight, activity level, and much more
It comes with a community of fitness enthusiasts that can help you with anything about fitness
It makes fitness fun and promotes a healthy lifestyle, not a hobby.
Support 24/7. Very important for me

There are many more reasons but I want to keep this on the short side. Often times, a person changes their goals to improve their physique. For example. If they have lost tons of weight and really leaned up, now they change up their eating habits and workout plan to add some muscle mass and fill it all in. That itself will take a change in nutrition and the way you eat from what got you lean and mean. The meal planner will solve this for you in the blink of an eye. Done. Now you are on a different eating regimen and off to your new body.

Commit To Be Healthy | Plan Your Nutrition

A meal planner does nothing if you do not commit to be healthy yourself first. You must have a reason why you are looking to eat right and stay on track. Commitment without a plan is ignorance. Set yourself up for success by completing the whole system around you and being the best you can.

Having a goal, the right fitness program, the right plan of your nutrition, support, and the commitment on a consistent basis can take you a long way to a life of prosperity.

Watch this video on the Meal Planner I use

P90X Mobile

Beachbody has come out with the P90X app for Iphone users. Now you don’t have to stay at home or where ever your DVD player is, you can now have your workouts with you wherever life takes you. In addition to having your workouts at your convenience, you can also track your reps and weights, log in your meals, interact your results with others, and view your progress reports for only $4.99.

You can do all versions in the P90X program such as the Lean, Classic, and Doubles.

P90X Iphone App Interactive Features | P90X Mobile

1) Schedule – You are not limited to only the Beachbody P90 workouts. You can also schedule runs, hiking, swimming, and more.
2) Track – Track areas where you are making progress and where you need to get better to meet your goals. Customize your 30-90 day progressions to push through to your goals.
3) Earn – You can rack up achievement badges with this app for achieving your fitness goals, completing your workouts, and even going above and beyond by working out on a Friday night while your friends are out and about. Sync your workouts with our online “Super Gym” to get your chance to win up to $1000 daily just for working out.
4) Share – We live in a social media world and of course you would expect to be able to share your progress with your friends on Facebook, Twitter, email, Team Beachbody, and Apple’s Game Center.
5) “X” Anywhere – Take your workouts with you anywhere you go. You can purchase all the workouts or just single ones that you need. Either way, it’s still less than hiring a personal trainer as this app also features timed video demos for every move, tips on form, audio guidance from the man himself, Mr. Tony Horton.

P90X App Cost And Requirements| P90X Mobile

The workouts cost on average of $6.99 each or you can get the whole complete program for around $59.99 and you have the program for life. To get all the workouts is about $70 after taxes.

Requirements: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Requires iOS 4.1 or later.

P90X mobile will take a little to learn how to navigate just like anything new. Be patient and learn the app as you go and you will be fine. To get discounts, you must be a team Beachbody member. Get your free membership here.

Tropical Shakeology Review | A Vegan Meal Replacement

Tropical Shakeology

Introducing the newest flavor to the vegan meal replacement from beachbody, Tropical Shakeology. Fresh, natural and delicious explains how to best describe it as it combines the fruit flavors of pineapple, banana, papaya, and more.

With the success in the past, it has been know for being the bread and butter to the results of many people in the health and fitness industry. That is, because being fit and healthy doesn’t mean just looking good on the outside, but also on the inside.

All natural with no artificial coloring or flavors, this shake is one of a kind. Recommended by doctors all over the world, people are turning to shakeology for help with high blood pressure, cholesterol levels, skin deficiencies, lack of energy, and more.

It is hands down worth trying if you are looking for a meal replacement that will not only help you to lose weight and have long lasting energy throughout the day, but also to make sure that you have all your daily vitamins and nutrients that your body demands daily.

It also helps you to control your hunger throughout the day by giving you that healthy feeling that you are full. No, I’m not talking about how you feel after eating a burger and fries with a large coke, SUPERSIZED.

See this article I wrote about How Lisa J Transformed her body using Shakeology

Vegan Meal Replacement | Tropical Shakeology

The new flavor will also be vegan. Unlike it’s flavor siblings that came out before, the protein will be from sprouted brown rice, unlike their sibling flavors that came out before as they got their protein from Whey isolate. This was the only reason that the chocolate and greenberry flavors were not considered to be vegan. So yes, tropical shakeology will be Beachbody’s first and only to date Vegan meal replacement.

The new flavor launched in January or 2012. Darin, the co-founder is also a vegan and he plans on having all the other future flavors that come out to also be labeled the same as they believe that this is the healthiest way to go for a product such as this. I agree.

Eliminate Toxins | Improve Digestion | Tropical Shakeology

If you have not yet tried Shakeology and are thinking about giving it a whirl, just know that it is not only an all natural meal replacement to lose weight and have energy, but also that it eliminates the toxins in your body while helping your body absorb the nutrients that it needs. With over 70 ingredients and over 30 superfoods that are found from all over the world in places that you and I have no means to go. I am talking about going through the earth’s most uncomfortable plains to know farmer’s that you haven’t even heard of to take you on their boats that you can’t even make to get to the places that you never even heard of before to get the most natural earth grown, never touched by human hands ingredients.

That, is Tropical Shakeology.

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P90X2 Review | How Does It Compare To P90X

If you are one of the lucky ones who pre ordered P90X2 a few months ago from a beachbody coach, then congratulations, it is now on the way to your home. If you haven’t ordered it yet, make sure to read this P90X2 review to decide if it is best for you and your goals.

A lot of people have been asking me how P90X2 compares to P90X. So I decided to put it out there for all those that are interested.

Tony Horton, created a video explaining the difference and I got to say that I can’t wait to get mine. So let’s get to it

Here are the words from Tony Horton Himself.

Difference from P90X and P90X2 | P90X2 Review

P90X was created to get you in the best physical shape of your life
P90X2 was created to increase your athletic ability with body transformation being an inevitable bi product.

P90X changed your body with muscle confusion with a combination of resistance training, plyometrics, cardio training, and yoga to keep your muscles guessing.
P90X2 incorporates the same training protocols and also layers in a sports breakthrough science technique called PAP. Post – Activation – Potentiation

P90X has (3) 30 day phases designed to avoid a plateau. Constantly rotating between adaptation and mastery.
P90X2 has more flexible phases ranging from 3 to 6 weeks, but with individual goals for each phase establishing a strong foundation, increases in strength, and explosive power.

P90x kept you moving 6 days a week, while P90X2’s heavy workload means more recovery is required, keeping your workout week at 5 days.
P90X2 incorporates 12 challenging workouts, while P90X2 has 12 all new workouts plus 2 additional extreme workouts

P90X includes a solid 60 day nutrition plan
P90X2 also contains 90 days of performance based fuel integrating the latest research in nutrition science, including all new recipes and additional vegan, and grain free options.

Finally, X2 Yoga is a 60 minute, all new moves, focused on sports specific training.

Which Fitness Program Is Best For you | P90X2 Review

So there you have it.

If you are wanting to do a body transformation, then P90X will be the best of the two for you. P90X2 is more to increase your athletic performance rather than transform your body in 90 days. However, P90X2 will still be a major part in developing strong lean muscle.

As a matter of fact, I would highly recommend doing P90X first before moving on to it’s sequel as the 2nd will require some athletic ability as it focuses on sports specific movement as stated above.

If you haven’t seen my P90X transformation, you can see on my Youtube channel. I highly recommend to get it, follow the workout calendar AND nutrition plan that comes with it. If you don’t do the nutrition plan and workout calendar, then you aren’t doing the program correctly and won’t get your maximum results. Really Take in this P90X2 review and decide for yourself which is best for your current goals.

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Author: Tony Banawa

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