Weight Training Diet and Workout Tips to Lose Fat and Gain Muscle

Is a weight training diet plan an oxymoron? After all when we think of weight training we think of big burly men, whose only diet would be the see-food diet. I'm joking of course. When it comes to the look and shape of your body, exercise and nutrition go hand in hand, with what you eat arguably the more significant. Exercise dictates performance; diet dictates what you see staring back at you in the mirror.

So if you are putting in the effort with the weights to improve the look and shape of your body, it figures that you would also put some thought into what you eat.

Now conventional wisdom tells us that the exercise program isn't enough to change the look and shape of our body, just open any muscle or health and fitness magazine, they are full of adverts for super foods and supplements as well as articles explaining why you must eat this and mustn't eat that... We need a weight training diet.




The misconception is that because you are weight training you need to eat in a specific way; usually "more", however in reality this is not the case!

You don't require extra calories to get a better looking body
 
Sure if you are trying to gain weight it is a given you will need to consume more energy than you use over a sustained period of time. But who wants to gain weight? Besides, excess energy gets stored as fat which is the last thing you want.

Aim to lose fat and gain muscle
 
Most people would rather have the lean and toned look of a celebrity or fitness model and use weight training as part of the plan to get there. If this is you then you certainly don't need to be adding food or following the typical body "building" approach. After all, when it comes to the look of your body, bigger isn't better.

You don't need "special" foods or supplements, great looking bodies were built before any of them were around
 
In the fitness media, it seems that for every new weight training program is a new wonder supplement that is required to get the best out of it. Of course this is just hype. Never be fooled, the real focus of your training should be, you guessed it, your training. Don't let a supplement steal the glory you earned, and don't let these details steal your life.

Plenty of people waste a long time wrapped up in health and fitness culture. The irony being that this kind of obsessive compulsive behavior isn't healthy at all. Follow an approach to lose fat and gain muscle and do it the right way. You'll be glad you did.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/expert/Michael_Mukoyogo/856255

Kettlebell Exercises for HIIT Training

HIIT training has become a very popular form of fat burning exercise, not only athletes but also the working professional who wants a great body but doesn't have the time to spend hours in the gym at a time.

If you think of HIIT cardio as a condensed fat burning session, which also combines muscle sculpting properties, it becomes very apparent as to why this will appeal to the masses. In just a 20 minute Kettlebell HIIT training session an athlete can burn in excess of 250 calories, as a Kettlebell is used to perform the exercises the muscle repair stage post training can burn an additional 150 calories equalling a 400 calorie consumption workout for only 20 minutes spent in the gym.

There truly is no comparison for calorie burning, with perhaps the exception of uphill cross country skiing but how many of us have time to do this on a daily basis?




The nature of the Kettlebell and the directional pull of the weight directly below the handle engages the full set of core muscles throughout each and every repetition, this is not the case with Barbells and dumbbells which is why Kettlebell HIIT is so much more effective as an exercise session when compared with your traditional body pump and body combat group training sessions that are so popular throughout gyms.

High intensity interval training has a few variation with some extreme classes simply being made up of 8, 30 second extreme all out circuits totalling a 4 minute workout. Whilst evidence does suggest this to be effective, the more popular 30 sets in 20 minutes Kettlebell exercises HIIT tends to produce the best results.

As the kettlebell itself allows no resting mid repetition the muscular tissue remains contracted throughout the HIIT training and the muscle sculpting results of this type of training can be very impressive. It is almost the dream training sessions, short, intense,. Fat burning, muscle sculpting and also with the factor of improving your cardio vascular system. In fact, high intensity interval training has been shown to dramatically increase your Human Growth Hormone levels slowing down the ageing process, improving your immune system and also helping to improve an individual's mental health.

HIIT may not be for everyone as many people enjoy hitting the pavements first thing in a morning with their music blazing into their ear drums and runner's euphoria (an increase in endorphins) solving a lot of problems and reducing an athlete's stress levels but if you are not willing to replace your cardio sessions at least introduce HIIT training to your workouts as this will keep your training fresh and interesting and keep your body guessing which is something we all have to do to keep our bodies improving.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/expert/Emily_Robert_Rowlands/1418748