Did you start eating healthier after what I told you last week in Part 1?
Did you add some fruits or vegetables? How about getting rid of the pop and juices?
In the art of full disclosure, I think I should tell you that I ate pretty poorly over the weekend. I let myself get too hungry and let my cravings get the best of me.
In fact, on the way home from church on Sunday I was practically drooling thinking about what I wanted for lunch…my wife can attest to this.
But you know what? I can’t change what I did over the weekend. It’s over and done with. All I can do is try better from here on out and resist the evil temptations presented to me.
I’m also splitting this into a 3 part newsletter. So stay tuned for part 3, next week where I cover cardio.
Now onto smart resistance training.
Notice I said “smart”.
“Smart” resistance training does NOT include spending lots of time devoted to “arm” exercises like bicep curls and triceps kickbacks. Nor does it refer to spending a lot of time doing crunches.
Doing hundreds of crunches everyday will NOT get you a lean, flat stomach. Your body just doesn’t work that way. It would be nice if it did, but it doesn’t.
You cannot spot reduce.
Smart resistance training means that you spend most of your time using dumbbells and body weight exercises and do total body exercises and total body workouts.
By doing total body exercises and total body workouts, you’re ensuring you get the biggest caloric and fat burning effect possible in the time you have, while using dumbbells and bodyweight exercises ensures you get the most muscle involved while doing the workout.
To burn fat you’ve got to use a lot of muscle, because the only tissue in your body that burns fat is muscle and if you work lots of muscle at one time, you burn lots more fat including when you’re not working out.
Whereas if you spend lots of time doing arm exercises and lots of crunches, you’re not using very much muscle overall which means you’re burning very little fat.
This doesn’t mean that you have to have huge, hulking bodybuilder type muscles – or work to get those big muscles. So don’t worry about that.
I’ll give you an example of what I mean. What exercise do you think works more muscle and thus burns more fat? A push-up or a triceps kickback? Push-ups work virtually every muscle in your upper body – including your abs and core. A triceps kickback, on the other hand, only works the back of your arms.
You may say that you want the backs of your arms to look better, which is why you do the triceps exercises, but I say that you work the back of your arm a heck of a lot harder by doing a push-up. Plus the push-up works your chest, shoulders, abs/core, upper back and even your biceps get a little work.
Remember what I said earlier about muscle being the only tissue in your body that burns fat? Well, after reading that sentence about the push-ups should make you understand why I stick to total body movements and total body workouts…you just work a heck of a lot harder, work a heck of a lot more muscle and get done in a lot less time, meaning you also burn more fat.
Do you want that put into a practical example?
Here’s a couple exercises from a workout I just did as an example of what I’m talking about:
1A) Dumbbell Chest Press (Works your chest, shoulders, back of your arms)
1B) Bent-Over Dumbbell Row (Works your entire back, front of your arms, and core/abdominals)
Can you see what I’m talking about? Those 2 exercises used every single muscle in my upper body and each exercise worked multiple muscle groups which ensures I get the most fat burning possible.
That was just the first superset. I did a few more that also included my lower body and hit my cardio system. The best thing of all was that it took me about 20 minutes.
Not bad, huh? Especially if you think you need to spend hours in the gym to get a good workout.
That’s about as easy as I can make it for resistance training and losing belly fat.
Stay tuned next week for part 3 where I get into probably the most misunderstood aspect of losing fat…cardio.
If you want to learn more about smart resistance training, check out my Fat Loss To Go downloadable fat loss program by clicking here. www.fatlosstogo.com
Have a good week!
Ed Scow
P.S. – Don’t forget to stay tuned next week where I cover smart cardio.
