Monday, March 24, 2008

Fat Burning Exercise For Women

Bodyweight exercises for women are an effective tool to build strength and lower the body fat.

It can be done anytime, anywhere and without any fancy equipment - which makes it a great time saving way to build strength and fitness.

And it gets rid of any excuses for not training.

Here are 5 bodyweight exercises for women -

1) Reverse Crunch - knees bent, hands placed beside your hips flat on the floor, bring your knees towards your chin while exhaling. Your hips should come off the floor and slowly lower your feet to just above floor level. Do 15-20 reps.

2) Side (Plank) Bridge - lie on your side so that your body is rigid and straight. The only contact points on the floor are your forearm and the near side of your foot. Do 20-30 seconds.

3) Front Bridge - Lie face down so that your body is rigid and straight, the only contact points on the floor are both forearms and both sets of toes. Do 20-30 seconds.

4) Split Jump - Stand in a lunge position with one leg between half to a meter in front of the other, arms at your sides. Bend at the knees until your back leg almost touches the floor, then swing your arms forward and jump as high as you can. While in the air, switch leg positions so that you can land softly with the other leg in front. Repeat for 8 to 12 reps.

5) Push-ups; or if you are a beginner try the kneeling push-up (push up position but with your knees on the floor)

Bodyweight exercises for women can be adjusted as the fitness level improves.

As your body fat decreases and strength improves, adjust the exercises to make it more challenging.

For example, you can change the kneeling push-up to the same push-up from your toes. Or if you want to make it more difficult, why not adjust the position of your hands to continuously advance your muscle strength.

Other alternatives to make it more challenging is to increase the intensity like varying the repetitions, sets and shorten the rest period between each sets.

Best yet, why not do 10 push-ups followed immediately by 10 split jumps. Then rest for 60 seconds, and repeat again.

The aim here is to increase the intensity by alternating between an upper body exercise and a lower body exercises for greater impact.

Therefore, the higher the intensity, the better the metabolic impact you will have on your body.

Food For Fat Burning And Fat Loss

There is a category of food that does just what overweight people want it to do. There are actually foods that are natural fat burners. Amazingly, they are not difficult to find. The thing is that some of these foods may actually surprise you. There is a concept that has been around for some time. It is called negative calorie foods. What this means is that there are foods that require more energy to burn than they provide. Some of these are celery, spinach and apples.

These are just some of the natural foods that are fat burners. There is another group of natural foods that are not fat burners. Citrus fruits are not negative calorie food burners. However, they perform a helpful function in weight loss programs. Citrus fruits aid your body in the release of fats. It also helps your body to process the fat more efficiently and quickly.

Coconuts and coconut oil is another natural food that is a fat burner. This natural food is helpful in many ways. It has been used by the women of India to treat weight problems, hair and skin conditions.

Fat burning natural foods are not hard to come by. Here are some examples that you can find in your super market or natural food store (if available, organic produce is preferable). These delicious root vegetables are just what you need if you are trying to lose weight. They are packed with fiber and nutrition. They include: carrots, parsnips, radishes, rutabagas and turnips. Turnips are a great substitute for potatoes.

You probably already use onions. Now you can also add chives, leeks, scallions and shallots. These are very tasty and versatile in your cooking.

Remember your mother's admonition about eating your greens. It's true that they're not much fun but they do burn fat. With some creativity you can incorporate these foods into your menu, lose weight and feel satisfied when finished eating. This would include cabbage, dandelion greens, Chinese cabbage, mustard and collard greens. The emphasis here is on changing your diet, not dieting. By focusing on what you eat as opposed to losing weight, you will naturally, effortlessly lose weight and feel better.