After reading this post, I want you to share your weight loss goal (or any goal you may have) in the in the comments and tell me what you will change about your approach that will ensure that you succeed this time.

Step 1 - Determine the Real Reason for Your Goals

A goal means nothing if you do not know why you want to achieve it. This is especially true when it comes to weight loss. You'll often hear people say things like "I want to lose 30 pounds" or "I want to get down to my goal weight of 120 pounds".

But why?

Does seeing a lower number on the scale make your life better in some way? Do you carry that number around with you everywhere you go? Do you wear a shirt that states your current weight on it?

My guess is the number actually means very little to you. Thus, you probably want to lose weight for a different reason.

Maybe you want to look good in a bathing suit so that you are not embarrassed when you go to the beach. Now, you may not even reveal your bathing suit when you go to the beach. Or maybe you don't even go to the beach because you cannot stand the thought of being seen in a bathing suit!

Or perhaps your reason is that you feel sluggish all the time carrying around the extra weight and want to feel a heightened sense of energy. You want to feel lighter. You want to move more freely. You want to walk around with an upbeat sense of confidence.

Whatever you real reason for losing weight is, you must get to the heart of it if you want to have a real chance to achieve your goals. This real reason--the deepest level of it--could be all the weight loss motivation you need.

The truth is that it's probably not about weight loss at all. It's about some level of transformation--some deep-set desire for change--that will give you what you are looking for.

Step 2 - Determine Your Ultimate Weight Loss Motivation Factor

Once you discover your true reason for losing weight, your ultimate weight loss motivation factor should become clear. This is the one thing that will keep you focused on your mission.

To find you ultimate motivation factor, you must be willing to get a little emotional. Humans are driven by emotion. We make decisions based on emotion and rationalize them with reason.

Your motivation factor is your emotional reason for losing weight.

In some cases, a positive emotion will drive you to lose weight. You can imagine the feeling of finally looking the way you want to look. You imagine looking yourself in the mirror and finally seeing the real you. Or maybe you imagine what it will be like to have the energy to play with your kids.

In other cases, the driving emotion will be a pain caused by your current state. If you are currently embarrassed to wear certain things or feel ashamed at your appearance when many eyes are cast upon you, this feeling of embarrassment and shame likely stirs up many emotions.

You are pained by your embarrassment. You think about it a lot. It makes you insecure. It makes you hate your body.

This is the emotion that can become your motivating factor.

BUT…

A Different Perspective

You must also realize that this is all inside your head. If this pain is causing you to be distraught in your current state, you must realize that it is only because that is the way you choose to feel.

You can also choose to believe that you are a beautiful person, which I'm sure you are. You can choose to feel as if anyone who cannot see your real beauty does not know you.

Those people who do not see your beauty are not aware of who your are, or they are ignorant of what an amazing person you are.

This does not matter. It is you who decides what kind of person you see yourself as.

If you are not happy with your appearance, you can certainly work toward making it better, but you should understand that your outward appearance is only "you" to those who don't know the real you.

It's the real you that matters. And it's the real you that is CAPABLE of achieving your greatest goals!

Step 3 - Draw a Clear Picture of Your Goals

Facing the canvas of life, we are all artists. We all are the creators of our own lives. We have our own visions, our own dreams, and our own realities.

The vision of yourself once you have achieved your current "weight loss" goal is an imaginary representation of your future. In order to make that vision more real to you, draw it out and transform the vision into a true work of art.

I'm not saying you should get out a pencil and sketch pad to start drawing your new body (though it might help). Rather, get out a notebook and write about the person you want to become through your weight loss journey. Write about the person you see yourself being as you reach your goals.

Don't just write about your new body. Write about how you will feel. Write about your health, your energy, your mood, your confidence. Write about how you will be proud of what you achieved. Write about how your relationships with others will improve. Write about how you will become more productive and all the potential for growth that this will provide.

Allow your creativity to flow out of your head. Do not stop writing until you have a clear picture of the person you will be a few months from now, or some point in the future.

Your weight loss journey is not just a weight loss journey. It can be a journey to transform your entire life.

Remember, it's not about the numbers. It's about something much deeper--unleashing the person you really want yourself to be.

Step 4 - Set Yourself Up for Success

We all like to feel good about ourselves. We all like to celebrate accomplishments. Celebration can actually be a huge motivating factor in any undertaking.

Of course the true motivating factor in celebration is the feeling of accomplishment.

When you accomplish something of significance, a lot happens. Your mood lifts. Your confidence grows. You look forward to the next step in your journey. You believe that you can achieve even more.

This is why it is crucial that you set yourself up for success. Failures and setbacks are weight loss motivation hacks. They eat away at your spirit and take away your hope.

That's no fun.

Yet, if you're like most people, you have probably been setting yourself up for failure by creating ridiculous goals that don't even make sense!

The crazy thing is that most of these goals are actually subconscious goals that you don't even realize you are making!

For example, think about how often you check your scale. I know a lot of people that check their scale every single day, sometimes even multiple times a day!

Why?

Do you feel the need to see that the numbers are constantly going down?

Think about it. Is that what's really important to you--the numbers on your scale?

The numbers on the scale are only important if you do not complete steps one through three above. Sure, numbers are a decent long-term indicator that you are doing something right.

But every single day?

I have news for you. Your bodyweight will fluctuate by several pounds over the course of a day. And it's really only possible to healthily lose 1-3 pounds of fat over the course of a week.

So checking your scale every day does not make sense!

In fact, I recommend you check your scale no more than once a month. I personally have not checked my weight in over a year.

Instead of worrying about the numbers on your scale, set up some fun goals for yourself. Set a goal for exercising so many hours this week. Set a goal for not eating a certain "guilty pleasure" food for a whole week.

Set a goal for doing "x" amount of pushups by the end of the month. Set a goal for completing a mile in under 12 minutes.

Set daily goals that are challenging but achievable. Set weekly goals. Set monthly goals.

But most importantly, set yourself up for success. Start building some momentum by allowing yourself to feel a sense of accomplishment on a regular basis.

Then roll with that momentum into your next, more challenging, goal.

Step 5 - Eliminate Excuse Traps

One of the biggest killers of any kind of motivation, especially in regards to weight loss, is the belief in your excuses.

The truth is, your excuses are not what they appear to be. Your excuses are actually a cover-up for the real reasons why you would not stick to your weight loss plan. Uncovering the real reasons beforehand, and eliminating the beliefs associated with them, can go a long way toward keeping your weight loss motivation high.

The Excuse Dissection Process

The first step toward uncovering the reasons for your excuses is to think about why you do certain things.

The two main aspects of a weight loss program are diet and exercise. In order to lose weight, you must follow a healthy nutrition plan and increase your activity levels.

So let's think about some reasons why you might not do this.

Following a healthy diet is not easy if you are used to eating whatever you want. This is because your eating habits lead you to expect certain things from your meals. You crave certain tastes, and some things give you more perceived satisfaction than others.

For example, you may be used to snacking on chocolate chip cookies in the evening. Every night, you crave these cookies and usually give in to your cravings.

But why is it important that you eat those cookies? Why can't you eat a healthy snack like almonds instead? Almonds will give your body what it needs in terms of energy to live and function. Why do you need the junk?

The reason is because you believe you need the junk. You believe that the junk makes you happy. Moreover, you believe that the healthy stuff will not make you happy. You believe that the taste of the healthy stuff will not be to your satisfaction.

You've developed many such beliefs over the years. Then, when the times come to go against your beliefs, you desperately search for a reason to avoid doing so.

That's where your excuses originate. You believe that you need the chocolate chip cookies to make you happy so you try to think of a rationale (excuse) to make yourself feel better about eating them.

Then what happens?

You make your excuse--you won't be able to sleep unless you eat your cookies--and you follow your belief. The cookies taste good and you are satisfied.

But then you get angry at yourself. You wonder why you are so weak. You get frustrated with your lack of control.

In reality, you have already set the belief that it's OK to display a lack of control as long as you get angry at yourself. Moreover, you've set a belief that you ARE weak and DO HAVE a lack of control.

You have accepted these things as reality, when in fact they only exist in your own mind. The excuses merely give false rationale to the beliefs that you have already created.

This goes for any excuses that you make for not following your healthy weight loss plan. You believe that you are--for one reason or another--not capable of following this plan, or that following this plan will somehow make some aspect of your life worse.

The Excuse-Busting Exercise

I could write an entire book about this subject, but to save time I will give you a simple exercise to make you stronger in the face of your excuses.

First, write down any excuse you can think of having made in the past for not following a healthy nutrition and exercise plan.

Second, write down the reality of the situation.

Third, for each excuse think about the beliefs they may have been covering up. Think about the actions you took (or avoided). Think about why you did what you did. What were you afraid of? Why did you not want to follow your plan?

I'll give you a quick example.

Excuse: I don't have time to go to the gym because I have too much work to do.
Reality: I have some time (maybe 30 minutes) to exercise, but I would rather just relax.
Belief: I need to spend some of my free time relaxing because it is better for me than exercise.

In this example, you may not actually think that sitting on your couch and watching TV is better for you than exercise, but you believe that it is better because it feels better. Actually, the ACT of relaxing feels better than exercising, but the end result is usually that your are more stiff and feel more sluggish due to your inactivity.

Still, you would rather relax because the act of relaxing feels better and you know this. You believe this. But is it the truth?

What if I told you that you were merely feeling comfort while sitting on your couch because you were staying within the boundaries of your comfort zone?

What if I told you that you believe that staying within your comfort zone feels good because you are afraid to step outside it?

What if I told you that the feeling of discomfort by stepping outside your comfort zone only exists in your mind? The discomfort you get from exercise is not bad at all, though subconsciously you believe it is bad because it is not comfortable.

The situation is that you believe exercise is bad because it is uncomfortable. It's not that you don't actually like exercise. You subconsciously believe it is BAD because it is uncomfortable.

But what if I told you that exercise is good because it gives you more life an more energy? What if I told you that the discomfort can actually feel good because the "discomfort" you feel is actually your body being primed for transformation.

What if I told you that the pain that you feel from exercise is not actually pain, rather it is merely your body responding to challenge?

Are those not plausible explanations for how you feel about exercise?

A New Outlook

Eliminating the belief that exercise and healthy eating are bad because they are uncomfortable is the first step toward eliminating your excuses. You must work on developing the feeling that you are doing something good for your body and that the associated discomfort is merely your body reacting to a new stimulus.

The same goes for your mind. When you begin to deny yourself your "comfort foods" you will experience some mental discomfort due to a perceived lack of satisfaction. You know you do not really NEED your comfort foods, but you believe that you will be unhappy without them.

But you must make yourself realize that you can be happy with a healthy diet. You are transforming yourself into a healthy person--the person you most want to be. That alone should make you begin to feel that you can be happy while following a healthy weight loss plan.

And while you work on making this more clear for yourself, just follow your plan!

Step 6 - Plan Your Rewards

Back to the good stuff! Since you will be setting yourself up for success, you might as well plan your rewards for when you reach these successes.

Because you have daily, weekly, and monthly goals, you should also have daily, weekly, and monthly rewards.

Your daily rewards should be simple rewards for a solid day's work. They can be as simple as watching a good movie or giving yourself a gold star in your journal.

Weekly rewards can be a special treatment at the end of the week like a massage or a day of relaxation. You can also have yourself a special meal to reward yourself for following your nutrition plan.

Monthly rewards should be significant. They should be something that will motivate you to be even more focused on your weight loss mission. Perhaps you will plan a weekend getaway or buy yourself a new state-of-the-art blender. Whatever it is, make it cool!

But always keep in mind that your ultimate reward is the change that you will be making to yourself. The person that you become along your journey is the greatest reward you could ever imagine.

That ultimate reward alone will make this journey worth all the effort. The other stuff is just a bonus to keep you focused on your successes.

Step 7 - Share!

Even if you're already starting to feel more motivated, you should know that you don't have to do this alone. In fact, you shouldn't.

Find someone to share your goals with. Find someone to talk to about your struggles. Find someone to tell about your successes.

I truly believe that, no matter what your goals, you should have someone to share your journey with. Be it a spouse, a relative, a friend, or an internet acquaintance, you should have someone that you can tell all about what you are doing.

And it's not just for accountability like you may be thinking.

Having someone to share your successes and struggles with makes you realize that you are not alone. It makes you feel that you can lean on someone if you slip. It makes you feel good that someone else cares when you succeed.

There is something special about sharing such an important part of your life with someone else. Make sure you do so!

Remember, you are never alone. There is always someone out there looking for a friend just like you.

And always listen when your friends are trying to share something with you. Realize the importance from the outsider's perspective. Give support to your friends because you know its importance and will want someone to do the same for you.

That being said, feel free to share your story with me and fellow Healthy Body Revolution blog readers by leaving a comment below. We're all here for each other!

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

A Healthy Body Begins with a Healthy Mind

If you are thinking about changing your body and becoming healthy, you must realize that you need to make some changes to your current lifestyle.  You probably also realize that these changes are not going to come easy.

The reason lifestyle change is not easy is because it is not natural.  You spend years creating your lifestyle.  You spend years developing your habits.  Through the years, these habits become engrained in your mind.  After a while, they become second-nature.

In other words, eventually you don't even think about your habits.  You just do them!

Once a habit is second-nature, breaking said habit is unnatural.

Doing anything that is unnatural is not easy, even if it is good for you.  The truth is, your body wants you to engage in heathy habits.  Your body wants you to do things that are good for it.

In fact, your body will reward you for treating it well by making you feel good.  When you eat a healthy diet and exercise regularly, you will feel great.  This is because you are treating your body the way it was intended--the natural way!

Things really get out of whack when you develop habits to treat your body poorly.  At this point, your body wants you to correct your habits but your mind doesn't want you to go against what you have grown accustomed to doing.

Or so it seems.

You see, your mind is actually a lot deeper than you realize.  You have the potential to reach a much greater depth of thought than you are currently reaching.

Even Albert Einstein never reached the furthest depths of his mind.  But he sure did make good use of what he was able to reach!

Your habitual mind lies at the surface.  It is the easiest part of your mind to reach.  In fact, you don't even have to consciously reach it at all in order to make use of it.

It just goes!

The problem is, if you have developed bad habits, you don't want this part of your mind to "just go".

You want to tap into another level of your mind and find a greater force to combat the negativity currently lying in your habitual mind.

For this reason, a healthy body does not begin with physical exercise; it begins with mental exercise.  You must begin training your mind by pushing yourself deeper and deeper into its reaches.

You must begin taking positive steps that are unnatural for you.  The great thing is that the more often you take these positive steps, the more natural they become.

Eventually, even positive steps can become second-nature.

There are cultures on this planet in which healthy eating is second-nature.  The members of these cultures have been eating healthy their entire lives.  They have no desire for fast food or diet soda.

They "just do" healthy.

And you can "just do" healthy, too.

I'm not saying you need to become one of those health freaks that eats perfectly all the time and exercises twice a day.

But I am saying that you can change to become more healthy.  You can change your lifestyle to make your body healthier.

And then your body will reward you by making you feel good.

And eventually all will be good with the world because your habitual mind will be filled with positive responses.

Remember, a healthy body begins with a healthy mind.

Flickr blueyedrican ♥♫♥

Are you doing a whole lot of exercises for the abs with very little success? If so, you're not alone. Walk into any gym and you will seeing people do all kinds of exercises for the abs from crunches to twists to leg lifts. In fact, the two most popular sections of my gym are the cardio machines and the abs mats.

So why do people continue to struggle with these abs exercises if they are not getting the results? That is a baffling question. I guess they feel that it will work eventually or maybe they feel they are not working hard enough.

In reality, though, you can do all the crunches in the world and never get a flat stomach and fit midsection because of these five reasons:

1) Your Nutritional Habits Suck Rocks…Yes They Do!

If you are not happy with your abs, it is not because you do not do enough crunches. It is because your nutritional habits need work. You are likely putting toxic foods in your system causing excess fat storage in the abdominal area. If you do not clean up your diet, the exercises you are doing for the abs will NEVER work the way you want.

2) You Are Doing Too MANY Crunches!

I'm going to be honest with you. I HATE crunches! That's right, I hate them. And I don't hate them because I don't like doing them. I hate them because they are one of the worst exercises ever created, and they are the most overused exercise ever created.

Crunches work the abdominal muscles concentrically. That means they work to build your abdominal musculature. Do you want to flatten your stomach or do you want huge ab muscles?

If you want to flatten your stomach, your goal should be to get rid of the fat in your abdominal area. That starts with nutrition. Yes, I am a fitness guy. And yes, I am saying that nutrition is more important. So focus on that first and then focus on…

3) You Are Not Doing Enough Total Body Conditioning

Do you want to burn fat with exercise? If so, you should be doing more total body resistance training than anything else. And by this, I mean circuit training with little rest and decent resistance. And I also mean using most free weights and bodyweight for the resistance. This type of workout is most effective for increasing your metabolic rate and building lean muscle. The end result will be greater fat loss and a fit physique.

4) You Are Not Doing Enough Core Stabilization Work

Core stabilization exercises are the best way to strengthen the core. Planks, side planks, and bird dogs are essential exercises for a fit midsection and overall strong body. If your core stabilization is weak, the rest of your body will be weak and you will get hurt. It's just a matter of time. On the flip-side, if your core stabilization is strong, you will be able to get more out of your workouts and will be less prone to injury.  This means no more missed exercise from low back pain.

5) You Nutrition Habits Suck Rocks…Yes They Do!

Don't argue with me on this one. It is your nutritional habits that have caused that belly fat. Until you clean up your diet, the belly fat will remain. If you want me to give you more exercises for the abs, you're barking up the wrong tree. Strengthen your core stabilizers, do total body resistance workouts, and clean up your diet! That will give you that flat stomach you've been dreaming about!

Flickr by Vesuvianite

At some point in our lives, we all want to improve our physique. It's human nature to always seek improvement. None of us will ever be truly satisfied with our appearance. So we hit the gym and we start watching our diet in effort to burn some fat and build some muscle.

But are we approaching it the right way?

The truth is that most people approach body transformation in all the wrong ways. They simply follow what has become "common lore" in fitness circles and run with it.

So your goal is weight loss. OK, you figure you'll do a lot of cardio. That seems to be the common sense approach.

WRONG!

Sure traditional aerobic cardio can burn a lot of calories, but it may actually hurt your weight loss efforts in the long-term.

Why?

Well, our bodies adapt to long-duration, low-intensity exercise fairly quickly. Eventually, running for 30 minutes on the treadmill is not going to burn nearly as many calories as it did when you started exercising.

Furthermore, this type of exercise can start to use muscle tissue as fuel. This will have metabolic consequences. The more muscle you have, the greater your resting metabolic rate.

I'm oversimplifying this situation for you for a reason.

One of the biggest causes of failure in the typical body transformation journey is belief in some common myths. While most people see these myths as a troubling sign, I see them as a great thing.

These myths are great because they mean there are some major problems in our body transformation planning that we can be correcting. If there weren't any problems to correct and we still had issues…well, that would be cause for concern.

But we do have things to correct.

This should give you hope. This should open your eyes to be careful of falling into common misconceptions.

This should make you excited to develop a new, stronger plan for yourself. You should be eager to develop a plan that will build you the best healthy body transformation that you can maintain for the long term.

And to get you started, I'm giving you some help.

I've put together a guide of Fat Loss Exercise Myths and FAQs. It's part of the Healthy Body Revolution welcome package and you can download it by clicking the link below.

HBR Welcome Package

Remember, just because you've heard something a million times doesn't make it true. We have all the knowledge to create many great healthy body transformations. It's time to start putting it together and making things work.

We've made mistakes in the past. And that's a good thing. That means we can do better starting today.

And that makes me hopeful. How about you?

It is my desire to spread hope to those battling frustration, struggle, anxiety, depression, fear, and overall self-dissatisfaction due to a seemingly never-ending fight to achieve a healthy body and a better physique.

We live in a world in which an ideal of beauty has been forced upon us.  While this ideal is very different from that of years past, the nature of it has become quite troubling.  Those who don't fit the ideal often view themselves in a distressing light.

This self-deprecation due to a non-ideal physique in accordance to societal preference, leads to the problems described previously.

What we need to do is flip the script.

We need to define beauty and health from the inside out.  We need to develop our beauty and health in the same manner.

We need to begin by spreading hope.

We need to spread hope through positive energy, through happiness...through love.

We must start by first loving ourselves as our own ideal being, as we presently stand.  We must be happy with who we are and all we have, and then build upon this by taking advantage of the opportunities present each moment in life.

We are all special.

We are all unique.

We are all beautiful.

THAT is the true ideal.

And THAT is my hope for the world.

Why do we keep waiting for things to happen for us?

Why do we keep looking for handouts?

Why do we keep seeking someone to bail us out?

When will we begin taking responsibility for ourselves and start living our own lives?

This world is full of potential.  It is full of opportunity.  It is full of untapped resources, unexplored sources of great happiness.  Yet we continue to waste these resources.

We spend our days sitting back and letting the few go-getters have all the fun.  Then we complain in envy that these people have all the luck.

They do not have luck.  There is no such thing as luck in the world of achievement.  Those who get what they want in life get it because they go after it.  They don't sit back and wait for someone to give it to them.

Technology is awesome, but it is killing us.  We feel that there always must be an easier way to do things, so we search around to try to find this easier way.

Since we spend our time searching, we are letting precious moments of our life slip by--precious moments of potential happiness.

There is a great difference between comfort and happiness.  Comfort is safety.  Comfort is stationary.  Comfort is status quo.

Happiness is exploring life and extracting its wonders.

We cannot be happy if we are always comfortable.  We must push beyond the boundaries of our comfort zone and explore new areas of life and opportunity.  We must make ourselves uncomfortable to grow as human beings.

Life is about acting.

Fitness is about doing.

Those who wait, do not get what they want.  They get the leftovers after the go-getters get what THEY want.

So the choice is yours...

Will you settle for the leftovers or create your own five-star main course?

Let me know in the comments.

Flickr Image by André SC

Today's post is going to be simple.  It is a top ten list of the best exercises for the butt.  I get asked all the time, usually by women thankfully, what can be done to add a little meat to the butt.  Here is a list of exercises that I would use in my answer to this question.

1) Squat

2) Deadlift

3) Romanian Deadlift

4) Lunges

5) Step-Up

6) Lateral Lunge

7) Single-Leg Squat

Bulgarian Split Squat

9) Lateral Walking with Tubing

10) Glute Bridge (with or without exercise ball)

There is no particular order to these exercises, but I do feel that the squat is the best overall exercise for the glutes.  I would use two to four of these exercises in each of your total body workouts.  Make sure that, on exercises like squats and lunges, you push out of your heels.  This will place the load on the glutes and away from the knees.  By having your weight on your toes, you will put too much pressure on your knees and take away some of the benefit from your glutes.

These exercises are designed to build muscle in the butt.  If you just want a fat butt then all I can tell you is eat a lot of bad stuff.  The problem with that is that you will be fat everywhere else, too and very unhealthy.  If you want a fat butt and a skinny everything else then I suggest you go see a plastic surgeon (please note that this is meant as a joke and not an actual recommendation).

Incidentally, a lot of these great butt exercises also happen to be some of the best fat loss exercises as well.  They are very metabolically demanding and will burn a ton of calories.  So even if you are perfectly happy with your butt, I'd recommend this list of exercises as great additions to your workout program.

So there you have it.  Build some muscle in your butt.  Burn some fat everywhere.  Look and feel awesome!

Flickr Photo by hectorir

Today, I'm going to put together a fat burning exercise routine for you that takes just seven minutes to do.  The aim of this program is to provide a metabolic boost with minimum time requirement.

Can you get super-diesel by doing this exercise routine everyday and nothing else? No, but it's a good way to throw some high intensity exercise in if you only have a few minutes available to workout.

Prepare to work very hard with this circuit and realize that you will will be moving for the full seven minutes.  This is not a beginners workout, though it can easily be modified for anyone.

1) 30 Jumping Jacks (30 seconds)

This is to get the heart rate elevated and get you moving.  This should not be difficult, rather it should serve as a preparation of what is to follow.

2) Mountain Climber (30 seconds)

You should go as fast as you can for 30 seconds.  This should be fairly difficult and you should be starting to lose your breath at the end.

3) Plank (30 seconds)

This will allow you to "rest" from your high intensity exercise and do something without movement.  The difficulty here is that you will already be in a semi-plank for 30 seconds during the mountain climber.  Can you hold it?

4) 12 Spiderman Pushups (30 seconds)

Now we get in a little upper body work with a side of core.  This is not easy after the mountain climber and plank.

5) Slow Marching with High Knees (30 Seconds)

It's important that you keep moving but this interval is meant for recovery.  Your heart rate should lower a bit from these 30 seconds.

6) 8-10 Burpees (30 seconds)

Do as many as you can in 30 seconds.  Feel free to curse me out as you do them.  Believe me, you'll feel good when you're done.

Next, repeat each of the six exercises with no rest.  Keep moving and keep going hard.

After you have repeated all six, finish with 60 jumping jacks in 60 seconds.  That will finish things off nicely and then you can walk it off to lower the heart rate slowly.

Call it "Seven Minutes of Hell" if you'd like.  This is certainly not an easy workout.  But it requires no equipment whatsoever and can be done anywhere.  That makes it a great excuse-buster.

Give this workout a try some time this week and let me know how it goes.  Remember, it only takes seven minutes so NO EXCUSES!

Flickr Photo by lululemon athletica

When it comes to exercise for weight loss, the mantra has always been you must do a lot of cardio.  As a result, when you go to the gym, you will notice that the treadmills, ellipticals, bikes, rowers, and aerobics classes are all filled with people trying to lose weight.  And a predominance of these people tends to be women.  That's all about to change as part of the Healthy Body Revolution, where we will be entering into a new era for weight loss and a new world of resistance training for women.

Why Many Women are Against Resistance Training

In the past, many times when I would present women with a resistance training workout to help them lose fat, they would object that they don't want to get big.

Fair enough, but you are not going to get big unless you train like a bodybuilder with high volume workouts and high caloric intake.  So we can just kill this objection right here.

A second objection I've heard from women is that they would rather burn the fat first so that they do not have muscle on top of a layer of fat.

This objection is absolutely absurd.  Muscle is built on top of bone and fat builds up on top of muscle.  You will never build muscle on top of fat!  Period.

But Doesn't Cardio Burn More Calories?

Yes, cardio does generally burn more calories during the workout itself than your typical resistance training program.  However, resistance training offers additional caloric expenditure that aerobics does not.  Resistance training at a high intensity raises caloric expenditure for hours after exercise is complete.  In addition, this type of exercise will build small amounts of lean muscle tissue which will increase your metabolic rate.

That's right, the muscle that you thought would make you big, actually helps you burn fat!

Muscle is Sexy

So you want to lose weight to look good, right?  But if all you do is cardio then you will lose fat and muscle.  This will make you "skinny fat".  Your bodyfat percentage will not drop much, you'll just have less fat at a lower weight with less muscle.

This "skinny fat" look without muscle is not very attractive, at least not to me.  I find women with a good bit of muscle--again, we're not talking bodybuilders--to be very sexy.  So if you are looking to improve your physique, I highly recommend you partake in a total body resistance training program three times per week.

Stuck for ideas to get started?  Tomorrow, I will have a post for you with a sample resistance training workout that I've used with great success for many women.

This all makes High Intensity Interval Training the perfect storm for fat loss!

Here are five HIIT Workout ideas that you can use to spice up your exercise routine and start burning more fat today:

1) Stationary Bike - Boring But Effective

I always introduce HIIT work on the stationary bike.  It's easiest to learn and easy to progress.  So here's the workout idea:

Warm-up: 5 min. easy, low resistance, ~60RPM

Work: 30 sec. hard at the highest resistance you can keep over 70RPM
Rest: 60 sec. easy, low resistance ~60RPM

Repeat work and rest intervals 6-8 times then cool down for ten minutes.

2) Running Outdoors

Warm-up: 5 minute jog

Work:  30 second sprint
Rest:  60 second jog/walk
Repeat 6-8 times

Cool down: 10 minute jog

3) Kettlebell/Elliptical

Warm-up: 5 minutes on elliptical

Work: 12 Kettlebell swings with good resistance
Rest:  60 seconds on elliptical, easy
Repeat 4-6 times

Cool down: 10 minutes on elliptical

4) Bodyweight Combo

Warm-up: 15 squats, 15 lunges, 15 pushups

Work: Mountain Climber 30 seconds
Rest:  30 Jumping Jacks
Work:  10 Burpees
Rest:  Slow step to small box
Work:  Spiderman Climb
Rest:  March in place with high knees

Repeat.

Cool down: Walk for 10 minutes

5) Core Intervals

Warm-up: Choose any warm-up from above

Work:  Mountain Climber (30 seconds)
Rest:  Exercise Ball Rollout (12 reps)
Work:  Cross-Body Mountain Climber (12 reps)
Rest:  Medicine Ball Chop (10 reps each direction)
Work:  Spiderman Climb (30 seconds)
Rest:  Plank (60 seconds)

Cool down: 10 minutes of something easy like walking.

Feel free to draw ideas from this and modify these HIIT workout ideas to fit your own needs and ability level.  If you have some more good HIIT ideas, leave a comment. I'd be happy to hear from you!