Fit and Youthful Life

Guest Author: Rob Ruston


Some people absolutely love going to the gym, for others it’s a necessary evil, only a means to help in their efforts to shed a few pounds. It really doesn’t matter how much you do or don’t love the gym I think we can all agree that it would be ideal if we could make the absolute best of the time that we do spend there.

Here are two of the biggest cardio blunders that hurt your weight loss efforts. By eliminating these two mistakes, your ability to shred pounds will dramatically improve.

1. You absolutely must not perform slow, steady-state cardio.

This will torpedo you weight loss efforts for two reasons.

First, when you stop exercising, you stop burning fat at an accelerated rate. You don’t get an “after-burn” effect when doing slow steady-state cardio. To solve this, do high-intensity interval training instead.

What you do is vary the intensity from all out, unbelievably intense to relaxed and slow. By going up and down like that, you shock your body into speeding up your metabolism and creating an after-burn in which you burn calories at an accelerated rate for up to 18 hours after you’ve stopped exercising. Not bad, huh?

The second reason has to do with all of the time you need to devote to slow, steady-state cardio just to burn off a lot of calories. It’s just not efficient. Without the after-burn effect, you’d have to exercise for 30 or more extra minutes just to make up the calories lost to the after-burn. So to increase your fat loss efforts, you have to increase the time you do your cardio. That’s simply not a practical way going about weight loss. I’m sure you’re busy enough as it is, so it would be hard to squeeze in even more time to exercise.

2. You absolutely must not forget to drink enough water while, or after doing your cardio routine.

Forgetting to drink water is so bad for you. Your body is 70% water, your blood is 90% water, and your muscles are around 75% water. Water is absolutely vital to your weight loss efforts. Just sip water constantly through your workout… and throughout your day as well. It’s pretty much the simplest thing you can do help along your weight loss efforts. A good rule is to drink at least one ounce of water for every pound of body weight.



The Real Youth Potion

Guest Author: Harry J. Andersohn


It’s amazing to me how one simple TV show — granted, one of the most respected and watched TV shows in the history of the planet — can quickly catapult a previously unknown product, person, or service into the stratosphere of popularity.

That’s exactly what happened when 60 Minutes did their story on the two researchers who finally were able to isolate the amazing component in red wine that is apparently responsible for so many of the health benefits that regular wine drinkers experience. This compound, known as Resveratrol, is now one of the hottest supplements on the market today.

While this is great, because if the studies on Resveratrol turn out to be even halfway accurate, a lot of people are going to experience some life-changing benefits pretty darn soon, all is not rosy in the world of Resveratrol proponents.

For one thing, its sheer sudden popularity has created a couple of big problems for people who want to start taking Resveratrol supplements right away.

For one thing, when a product completely takes off like this one has, a whole bunch of supplements manufacturers who really have no business getting involved in it, will basically put together an inferior product and slap a label on it and make some quick money before anyone figures out that what they’re selling is junk.

So when you’re looking for a place to buy Resveratrol supplements, you have to do your homework and be careful to make sure that what you’re getting is the real deal.

Second, when something is this popular and supplies are a bit limited, you’re going to start to find some companies that try and extract an exorbitant price from people who are desperate to have it.

Luckily, not all companies are this way. When I was researching this for a story over on my blog, I was able to find a couple resources for people who want to buy Resveratrol supplements, but who don’t want to pay an arm and a leg and who want to get a high-quality product.

In fact, I’m going to tell you about a couple resources where you can actually get Resveratrol supplements for free. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

First let’s talk about whether or not Resveratrol is right for you.

Let’s go over some of the health benefits that have been reported in the news media — including on that 60 Minutes story — and then you can decide whether or not it sounds like something that you could benefit from.

Resveratrol is basically being called a true fountain of youth. In tests in the lab, it seemed to actually halt or reverse the effects of aging. Pretty exciting, right? But that’s only part of the story.

Some other benefits that have been reported with Resveratrol include things like weight loss, improved stamina, increased metabolism, protection against cancer, and an improvement in the way your body copes with cholesterol.

So with all that evidence is Resveratrol right for you?

Well, here’s what I’d suggest — why not try it and see for yourself if the benefits that people are talking about actually happen?

Remember, I said above that you can get the stuff for free. So it will cost you hardly anything to try it, and you can put it to the test for yourself.



Turn Back The Clock

Guest Author: Abhishek Agarwal


The original intent for the production of spyware was to assist advertisement companies as well as others to monitor the activities carried out on the computer. With the aid of the spyware an advert company can monitor the activities on a particular computer and as a result know the need of the user, this will help them to provide adverts of products that will meet the needs of the user. By the help of the adware those adverts will be sent to the computer system of that user in relation to the investigations conducted on the user’s area of interest with the use of the spyware. In this case you will observe that the spyware and adware work together.

In the process of time this software packages called the adware and spyware were abused and lots of people began to use it illegitimately, that is the origin of the spyware problem. It is now a dreaded software program because of the way criminals use it to commit crimes on the internet. The spyware on its own is not bad, what determines its nature is the use or abuse. When the spyware is used properly it produces the right result favorable to all, when it is abused, it will make thevictims suffer losses.

In your fight to avoid spyware, be sure to protect every avenue the spyware can use to enter into your system. Spyware comes into your system through breaking your password, keylogging and it can forcefully enter into your system. Once it come sin you will not notice it but the monitoring is already in process, sending out all your private information to its programmers.

To effectively combat the spyware, you need to also use an anti-spyware software to track down and destroy all spyware from your system. Before choosing the anti-spyware to use, you need to go into the market an do a survey to know the best spyware remover product available. This is known as spyware comparison.

Since, there are a lot of anti-spyware removers available you will need to carefully analyze the features of the very best products in the market and the result of your analysis will determine the one you will pick to protect your system.

McAfee is one of the best names in the market when it comes to Anti-Spyware. The uniqueness of this program is evident in its packaging, the anti-virus, anti-spyware, anti-adware and all other protection are all contained in one package, it also includes firewalls. In this case, you will only need to buy one package and all the protection you need is provided – just like that.

Other anti-spyware software products offer the spyware removing program in a different package from their anti-virus program, so if you need the anti-spyware you will have put in a fresh order for it. The most important thing to consider in all these is to make sure your spyware removing software includes a firewalls protection.

The firewall is needed to block your system so that spywares and adware does not get access, after tracking down and destroying all spyware in your system, you wil still need to protect your computer from future attack on your system by syware, the firewalls makes this possible, giving your computer system maximum protection.

Finally, you should carefully consider the points highlighted here and decide on the right anti-spyware to purchase after evaluating various products in the market. With this, you will be able to keep the spyware out of your computer for good.



Look 10 Years Younger

Guest Author: Elizabeth Ruby


I’m not an expert on eye creams, but I don’t think I need to be to write a wrinkle cream eye review. I think you are more interested in what works and what doesn’t, than if I am an "expert." I’ve tried many eye creams in the past, so I am going to write an under eye wrinkle cream review for you.

I’m only going to tell you about three products in this wrinkle cream eye review, because the ones I tried before these didn’t work at all, so I am not going to bother telling you about them.

First off I want to say that no one is paying me to write this review. At the end you will be able to go to a web site I have that tells you which one I use and you can order it if you want, but it’s not “my company” that I buy from. It is just the best under eye wrinkle cream that I’ve found for the value, so that is the one I chose to buy. I think we are all like that when we find something that really works and our pocketbook likes it too, we stick with it and we like to tell people about it.

I’ve tried the Avon Anew Intensive Eye Care and it did a great job for the dark circles under the eyes, but it didn’t rid me of the wrinkles and puffiness under my eyes as good as the product I use now. If I had kept trying it I may have found better results, but the Avon lady moved away, and I didn’t want the hassle of finding someone else, so I found what I use now and have like it so well, I have stayed with it.

Before I tried the Anew, I used Dermitage. You may have heard about it, or even use it yourself. It was a good under eye wrinkle cream. I liked it. It worked, but my pocketbook didn’t like it, which is why I left it and tried the Avon product.

If I hadn’t stumbled on the next under eye wrinkle cream when reading someone else’s wrinkle cream eye review, I may have went back to the Dermitage, and just cut back somewhere else so I could afford it, but the next product cost me much less money and did a great job. And I don’t have to worry about someone moving like my Avon lady did, because I order this online.

Eyeliss™ and Halyoxl™ and Homeo Age™are the main ingredients in the under eye wrinkle cream I now use. The first ingredient improves drainage, reduces capillary fragility and reduces skin sagging and irritation to reduce the puffiness and bags under my eyes.

Before I used it I read that in a clinical study 65% of the participants showed a definite reduction in bags under their eyes within 28 days, so that is why I tried it, and it worked. For me it didn’t even take 28 days, it was more like 14 – 20 days, and I could see a difference in the puffiness around my eyes.

I’ve also learned by reading the company literature, that as we age the circulatory system under our eyes begin to leak, which cause the blue-red pigmentation. Halyoxl™ helps to rid me of this problem. I no longer get those ugly dark circles under my eyes. My eyes look young and alive again.

The Homeo Age™ is the last ingredient I’ll tell you about. It reduces the wrinkles around my eyes. If you are interested in the other ingredients in the product go to the web site below and you can read about them.

Hopefully you’ve enjoyed my wrinkle cream eye review, and if you are in need of an under eye wrinkle cream you will check out the ones I’ve reviewed and find the best one for you and your pocketbook.



Turn Back The Clock

Guest Author: Craig Ballantyne


I’m not a huge fan of cardio, spinning, or aerobics in terms of people looking to lose body fat obviously in short time periods. I mean if somebody likes doing it; if somebody wants to be the triathlete, you know what, go ahead and do it and love what you do.

But I’m not a big fan of it for those people I see who are running on the sidewalk and look like they despise every single minute they are doing it.

That is probably a greater percentage of the people who do it when they are looking to lose weight. There are a lot of research studies to say that aerobics and cardio aren’t the greatest way to lose weight. And I’m not a fan of having somebody do stuff they don’t like to achieve a goal when there are other ways to do it.

I’m not a big fan of certain machines in the gym for cardio. It may not be the machine itself, but it may be the excuses. Its human nature that some of these machines allow us to slide by and do stuff that we think is helping us, but subconsciously we’re taking the easy way out.

I have what I call the human nature test; because I always make fun of elliptical machines and I really think that they are not again what people make them out to be.

Let’s say you take 100 people. You go to a mega gym – you’ve got 100 treadmills and 100 elliptical machines – you take 100 people into that room and you say, “Okay, you have to work out for 30 minutes at a pretty good pace. You choose your machine.”

You know darn well that 70-80 of those people are going to be on the elliptical machines rather than the treadmill. To me, that says something. I just think that we’re wired to take the easy way out.

You can extend it even further and say, “Okay, you’ve got 100 people; you’ve got 100 treadmills and a track. Go do your training. You can either do the treadmill or the track.” You know 80% of those people are probably going to use the treadmill.

Humans take the easy way out when given hard choices. The other thing that I’m against in terms of cardio is – I refer to it as one of the dark sides of cardio – is that people can get injured doing a high volume of cardio work.

Of course, to be fair, you can get injured doing a high volume of body building work. When I was young and reading the magazines, I was doing too much upper body work and had a little bit of shoulder problems; not anything I haven’t been able to get over.

So injury risk is often proportional to the volume of exercise you do. Too much volume in lifting, too much volume in cardio, or even too much volume in crunches and you’re going to end up in the doctor’s office or the physiotherapy office.

Ironically, many trainers and physiotherapists are the worst offenders of over-use injuries. There is one physio that I worked in a gym where she worked, and she literally could not walk properly because she did so many spinning classes.

Spinning classes are another thing I’m not a huge fan of. On one side, there’s great benefit to your fat loss program because of the group mentality because social support is huge. Working out in that group encourages you to come back. And a lot of people have fun with it. Plus, its interval training in nature. So lots of good things about spinning.

But I figure, why do something for 45 minutes when you can get the same results in 20 minutes? Also, I’m not a big fan of the high RPM spinning because I think that’s where a lot of hip problems have been developed in people that I’ve trained personally and also in some of the classes I’ve watched.

I just don’t think that it’s great for your hips, especially in women who have hip problems already from childbirth, to be going at 140-160 RPM or whatever they are doing and you just watch their bodies flopping around without the right torso strength and endurance and stability there, they are going to end up with problems.

One last thing I’ll say on this is that an aerobic training program is probably one of the worst places to start a 300 pound person out on a fat loss program because their muscles are not prepared for this and neither are their joints. Quite frankly, I wouldn’t want to run with an extra 120 pounds on my back, or even walk quickly. We need to re-examine where we start people out.

So if you are not getting the results you want but you are doing a lot of cardio, spinning, or aerobics classes, decrease the volume, try some interval training, and focus on quality workouts for fat burning.



Instant Skin Tightener

Guest Author: Steven Walters


Most people are not big fans of using training journals when they start lifting weights. Why should I they think, I’m lifting weights to get bigger or stronger, not to become a writer. They are extra work and extra trouble and most of us just don’t want to be bothered. Well, after a few weeks of floundering through the weight room without any results may have you changing your mind. At this point you might be motivated to try anything that will help you to show some improvement in your training. Introducing weight training journals, which really can make a difference in your weight training results.

I was never a big fan of them myself until I found out that charting your progress really does help you progress faster in the gym. Her are 6 very good reasons to start using a weight training journal:

1. The biggest key to success in weight training is constant improvement. To know that you’ve improved you need to know how much you were lifting yesterday, last week and last month.

2. You need to be able to analyze your progress to see where you’re improving, where your not and what works to help you improve faster.

3. It is very helpful to be able to take notes while you’re lifting. That way you can make changes next time. If you don’t write it down you’re likely to forget and to keep repeating the same mistakes.

4. It helps you with goal setting. If you don’t know how much you benched last time how can you say you’ve benched more today. With a weight training journal you can chart your progress and can set realistic future goals based on your past performance.

5. It helps you to feel organized and like you’ve got a purpose when you’re in the gym. There’s nothing worse than going forward blindly.

6. Helps to stimulate your competitiveness if you know what your best lift is. Next time you can challenge yourself to beat it.

When you keep a weight lifting journal your workouts will be more organized, more productive and possibly even quicker. You will also be giving yourself positive reinforcement every time you reach one of your goals, even if the goal is just to add 1 rep or 5 pounds to a lift.

Weight training journals also help to make you feel more accountable to yourself. It’s harder to skip a workout when you know you’ve set a goal for yourself in writing. Start keeping a weight training journal today and I guarantee that in 12 weeks you’ll be amazed at your progress and you’ll be glad that you did.



Health and Vitality Now

Guest Author: Gerry Bosworth


Its amazing how some gym myths are so hard to die. Ask just about anyone at the gym these days and they will sell you the common wisdom: “Cardio is the way to lose weight.” But the truth is that I’ve seen people workout on cardio equipment for years and they have not lost any significant weight at all.

These are dedicated gym rats that workout 3-4 times a week and use cardio machines for 30 minutes or more. Yes they break a sweat and feel ok afterward but their bodies look the same year after year.

We recently got a few new crosstrainer machines at our gym. They are the latest model and honestly everyone loves them because they just glide so smoothly. One person said: “It feels like you are not working out at all.” These dedicated gym members get their 20 minutes “fat burn” workout and feel like they got all the exercise they need for the day.

These new crosstrainer machines take all the “work” – out of working out. They are great if your only goal is to go to the gym to socialize and be pampered (nothing wrong with that, many gyms today are just giant spas).

But if you are going to the gym to get results and you are looking to lose some weight then no amount of easy gliding is going to do it for you.

I think most of these new machines are design to make you feel better about yourself today but not designed to get you the results that would make you feel happy with your body for the rest of your life.

The truth is that these crosstrainer machines do not work when your goal is fat loss. They tend to be a total waste of time. You do moderate exercise and the computer gives you some high “calories burn” number that to me just doesn’t feel right. You have a mild sweat and breathe just a little bit heavier than normal. That is not the way to lose fat and get trim.

So you ask what is the answer. What do I do if my goal is to lose fat and get healthy. Well the answer is short intense bodyweight circuits. Its the only way to feel that burn. You end up really sweaty and feel great because of all the heavy breathing. Its a new way of thinking but short intense workouts actually do work at shaping your body into the lean fighting machine it is designed to be.

Guest Author: Wesley McDermott


Weight Training is one of the best ways to beef up and get fit. All the benefits of weight training are way too numerous to list now, you may know a lot of them or you may not, but what you should know is that it’s one of the best things you can do to get that body you want. The whole purpose of this article is to help you come to terms with the wide array of terminology used in the weight training world. Whether you are speaking to a personal trainer, reading from a book, or listening to a salesperson it’s always good to know what they’re talking about.

Maybe you have thought about joining a gym or thought about buying a piece of gym equipment. Either way you’re probably going to get bombarded with some terminology that you don’t understand. The gym and people within in it tend to use terms that would baffle most, and this article is about trying to understand these terms so that you know and feel comfortable with conversations regarding weight lifting in the future.

Some of the basic terms used are:

Routine : The range of exercises you carry out make up a routine. Whether it be a whole body routine or a half body routine (upper or lower body) it is more popular that a routine is split up over 3 days a week, so that you have time for your muscles to recover in time for your next workout. Always remember and take into consideration the time it takes for your muscles to recover when designing a routine. The best way to design your routine around this is to separate the 3 training days with a day off in between. So you would train Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

Repetitions (Reps) – Let’s say your doing push ups shall we. Taking into consideration the normal technique of a push up is lying down with 2 hands placed shoulder width apart flat on the floor. You then push up keeping your back straight, and at the top of the movement you lower yourself back down again and repeat. Doing this once counts as one repetition (rep). The amount of reps that are recommended is very important as any more or less could bring upon the results that you didn’t desire. For instance – If you did more reps than recommended then you could decrease muscle growth and just increase your stamina. Whatever your goal is the amount of reps reflect it.

Sets – If you do 10 push ups then rest a minute and do another 10 thats 2 sets all together. A set is defined by the exercise then rest affiliation. Sometimes personal trainers will recommend doing less reps in each set. Say, 1 set for 10 reps, then 1 set for 8 reps, and so on.

Spot – If anyone asks you while you’re in the gym do you need spotting, don’t take it as an insult, because they’re not saying you have spots, they’re simply asking you if you want them to assist you if you’re lifting a heavy weight. This is particularly useful if you want to lift to failure.

Free weights – These are simply weights that free of machinery, they include dumbbells and barbells. You have to physically load the weights onto the bar.

Rack – The rack which is sometimes known as the pwer rack is used for many exercises. It’s the big metal contraption with holes drill dup both sides so that you can slide a safety bar in. A rack can be used for squats, chin ups, and a wide variety of other exercises.

Circuit routine – A circuit routine combines a number of cardio exercises with weight training. This is where you perform a variety of weight training exercises back to back without having a rest period in between. A circuit routine like this is generally used as a form of toning up and cutting to get rid of those few extra calories.

Negative – You may here someone in the gym saying something like “Why don’t you add some negatives”. What they mean by negatives is the lowering of a weight. Say in a bicep curl, you lift the weight up and then you let the bar down. The negative is the part were you let the weight down. This is know as the negative porion of a rep and it can be very effective at stimulating muscles. Some people increase the amount of time on a negative rep than they do on the positive rep, which in turn increases more muscle tension and allows for more muscle growth.

Some less than obvious muscle terms :

Pecs – Pectorals (Chest)

Lats – Lattisimus Dorsi (Muscles in your back that flare out)

Hams – Hamstrings

Glutes – Gluteus Maximus (Butt Muscles)

Traps – Trapezuis (The muscle that goes from your neck to your shoulders)

Bi’s – Biceps

Tri’s – Triceps

Quads – Quadriceps (Your thigh muscles)

Delts – Deltoids (Your shoulder muscles)

Abs – Andominals (Your stomach muscles)

Right, go to the gym right now and ask a personal trainer for a 3 on 1 off mass building routine with reps containing an increased negative motion at a tempo of 1-3-1 with special emphasis on your glutes and delts….Only kidding.

If you’re a beginner I do hope you have learned something from this article. If you are experienced at weight training then you’ve just wasted your time because you should already know this LOL.

Get straight to enjoying the many benefits of weight training, be stronger, leaner, and more confident within yourself starting tomorrow.

All the best in health.

Wesley McDermott



Instant Wrinkle Reducer