MBAdmin2023

Fat burners! Hope or hype? Tempted! Before you try, check the top 4 must have ingredients in a natural fat burner.

Are you eyeing that beach vacation this summer? Fat burner could be your best friend. These magic pills claim to rev up your journey from fat to fit and are very much in demand. Before you start making unrealistic expectations, you need to know the facts on a fat burner.

1. What is a fat burner
2. Top 4 ingredients in a fat burner
3. Benefits of a natural fat burner

Storing fat is the body’s intelligent mechanism to survive. Since Paleolithic times to modern days, the mechanism hasn’t changed, though our life has. Excess calories get deposited in fat cells. Period.

Cut the advertising hype and fat burners do not melt fat like butter on a hot skillet. While, in the company of a sensible diet plan and moderate exercise, fat burners do help you burn the fat faster. The good news about exercise is that it transforms fat into muscles. Therefore, even if you weigh the same, you will lose inches. Moreover, muscles are metabolically active tissues and a pound (453g) of muscle burns 6-10 additional calories, which increases your Resting Metabolic Rate. RMR is the number of calories your body will spend in its maintenance.  

Therefore, 

TOP 4 INGREDIENTS IN A NATURAL FAT BURNER

Rather than choosing fat burners that suppress appetite with an ingredient like Hoodia, you should go for thermogenic fat burners. They increase your body’s core body temperature and provide a burst of energy to you and increase your body’s core temperature. As a result, you end up spending more calories throughout the day. Green tea is indispensable in a fat burner because it is an extraordinary product to melt fat, even the stubborn belly fat. The credit goes to EGCG to rev up the fat loss in the body. Besides, putting the metabolism on overdrive, green tea inhibits the body to store unused energy as fat, by increasing the rate of energy release. Several scientific studies confirm the effectiveness of green tea in weight loss.

For instance, a study published in an issue of American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, green tea has been shown to activate the body’s thermogenic fat-burning activity. In this study, subjects drank an optimal amount of green tea (690 mg of catechins) for 12 weeks. Post the duration of the study, the subjects taking green tea in the required dosage experienced a reduction in their waist size and total fat area. As an active partner in your weight loss plan, green tea promotes metabolism to increase fat burn and also improves your body’s insulin sensitivity to keep you lean.

Garcinia Cambogia is a tropical fruit also known as the Malabar tamarind, is a popular weight loss supplement.  The skin of Garcinia Cambogia fruit has Hydroxycitric Acid (HCA). HCA plays a key role in supporting fat loss. The two-pronged action of HCA restricts appetite and inhibits the conversion of carbohydrate into fats.  Several research studies on Garcinia Cambogia have shown a reduction of 5-8 percent of body fat in an 8-week period. 

Grapefruit extracts contain Naringenin, a flavonoid in grapefruit, balances out blood sugar levels and helps to prevent metabolic syndrome, a pre-diabetic condition associated with weight gain around the waist. A half of grapefruit has only 50 calories and is rich in polyphenols, a type of antioxidant found in citrus fruits. According to an October 2008 study published in ‘Phytomedicine,’ a dry polyphenolic extract of grapefruit, orange and red-orange breaks down stored fat.  Scientists at the University of Western Ontario found it worked by programming the liver to burn up excess fat, rather than store it.

Cayenne Pepper finds favour with fat loss products. Studies show that consuming cayenne pepper will lead to melting of excess fat and converting it into energy, which is known as fat oxidation. To enhance the effectiveness of cayenne, you need to use it with a moderate exercise program. 

u climb past the weight loss plateaus and shed those extra kilos for a beach-ready body.  past the weight loss plateaus and shed those extra kilos for a beach-ready body. 

BENEFITS OF NATURAL FAT BURNERS

A natural fat burner is thermogenic, it lacks stimulants like caffeine. Therefore, you can have it late in the evening as well without the risk of losing sleep. Since it works on the principle of increasing body temperature it is safe to take, as long as you want. An ingredient, like Garcinia is proven to melt body fat by recruiting fat for energy and interrupting the deposit of carb in fat.

Good night sleep is critical in achieving your fat loss goals. It will help you climb past the weight loss plateaus and shed those extra kilos for a beach-ready body.

Who doesn’t wish for six-pack abs? Practically everyone, yet most of us feel that these abs are the most difficult to attain. The fact of the matter remains that the washboard abs are the reward of getting strong, being athletic and rocking in the gym. Even for the most competitive athletes and body builders, abs ebb and flow with a change in your workout and the diet schedule. The elusive abs, peek at a lower body fat percentage for both men and women. Obviously, for the shredded six-pack kind, your body fat needs to go lower further.

Your abs are intimately linked to your body fat percentage and for a genuine reason. Believe it or not, all humans have washboard abs, but for most of us, it is hidden beneath a layer of fat. Whereas for an average male, body fat ranges between 18-24 percent, in women it goes up to 25-31 percent. The bare minimum body fat required for basic physical and physiological functions in men should not go below 2-5 percent and in women below 10-12 percent and this is the range around which bodybuilders are during the contest prep. Hence, you have to go on a weight loss diet for abs to show.

CRUNCHES: THE ULTIMATE SIX PACK ABS WORKOUT

One of the most believed myths is that umpteen crunches, is the ultimate six pack abs workout and the more crunches to do, the result will reflect on your abs.  This is not true. Your rectus abdominis, the scientific name for muscles that run the length of your abdomen constitutes predominantly of fast-twitch muscle fibers.

Sit-ups or crunches are a standard exercise to strengthen the rectus abdominis muscle group. Crunches engage upper abs and leg raises recruit the lower abs. When you train your abs, use   these ab exercises every alternate day. A study commissioned by American Council on Exercise in 2001 recommends an exercise stability ball to train rectus abdominis muscles

HOW TO PERFORM A BASIC CRUNCH

1. Lie on your back with your knees bent and feet flat on the floor, hip-width apart.Put your hands behind your head in a way that thumbs touch your ear, but do not cradle your head by lacing your fingers together.
2. Hold your elbows out to the sides but rounded slightly in. Tilt your chin slightly.
3. Pull your abdominals in and curl up so that your head, neck and shoulders lift off the floor.
4. Wait for a second or two and go back to the starting position..

 A set of eight to twelve repetitions, with enough resistance so that you reach the verge of failure by the time you do the 12^th rep is more than enough to build these muscles. While for beginners, body weight provides ample resistance, as you grow stronger rely on weights to increase the resistance.

 Though your abs recover faster from the strain of training, yet it makes sense to train your abdominals every alternate day to allow time for recovery.

ESSENTIAL FOODS FOR SIX PACK ABS

Since abs peek at a lower body fat percentage, your abs diet should accelerate fat loss, especially around the midsection. Along with the basic tips, like frequent eating, counting portion size, drinking lots of water and no carbs after 7pm to keep your metabolism high, you need to incorporate certain essential foods for six pack abs.

1. HIGH PROTEIN DIET FOR SIX PACK ABS

A study published in the International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism reported that subjects getting 40 percent of their calorie requirement from protein along with weightlifting and cardio lost more than twice body fat, particularly from the abdominal region, as compared to subjects, getting 15 to 20 percent of their daily calorie share from proteins and following only cardio program.

A high protein diet along with a sensible mix of weight lifting and cardio is a must to maximize both muscle growth and fat loss. Increasing protein share in your diet not only lowers carb content but also keeps you sated for a longer duration and maintains steady insulin level. When you replace carbs with proteins, it forces your body to burn more body fat for fuel. 

2. CYCLE CARBS TO FIRE YOUR METABOLISM

To drop your body fat percentage, you need to curtail carbs.  The downside of a low carb diet is energy depletion, extreme food cravings and a drop in your resting metabolic rate. Try to put a bare minimum of 25 to 50 grams of carbs both before and after your workout sessions to get that energy spurt. Never omit vegetables as they package fiber and micronutrients in a lean calorie format.

After every three to four weeks of low carb diet, you should have a high carb weekend to fire your metabolism. During your carb party eat nutrient dense carbs, like fruits, wholegrain bread, and pasta to stimulate insulin response that will enable shuttling of nutrients in your muscle cells and enable them to grow. Additionally, it will replenish muscle glycogen stores to fuel your cells. Cycle carbs to fire your metabolism for accelerated weight loss. Whether you’re restricting carbs or allowing those,  you need to avoid starchy carbs before bedtime.

Tip: For a low carb diet you need to replace grains with veggies and include grains in a high carb diet

3. DO NOT FORGET FAT FOR RIPPED ABS

Finally, you must not forget fat for washboard abs.  Incorporate good fats such as olive, flax seed, fish oil into the diet. Exercise discretion and limit your fat intake to only a few grams per meal coming from the healthiest sources. Avoid fats prior and post work outs, as it can slow digestion and make you lethargic.

Most importantly, you need to understand that six pack abs is a reward of a disciplined lifestyle, and it will stay that way. Rather than slaving for washboard abs, focus on getting stronger and muscular. Abs will follow. 

Every Monday you find that your routine starts with chest and you are pumped up about it. You reach the gym, full of vigour and energy, to find that all the chest machines are already taken. Every machine has 4-5 guys hovering around it, waiting impatiently for their turn. You join in and have an incomplete, unsatisfactory workout.

Your workout has been the same for the past few months that you have been working out – 3-4 sets of bench press, incline bench or dumbbell press, flat flyes and/or 3-4 20-rep pec-deck flyes. And now you have hit a plateau. Your weight refuses to budge, your measurements remain the same and you are losing confidence after every workout, especially when you are facing yourself in the mirror.

That fear is done because today you will learn a new way of hitting your Pectoralis muscles hard and get it to grow big.

For that, you must know the chest musculature.

KNOW THE MUSCLES OF YOUR CHEST

There are two major muscles of the chest:

1. Pectoralis Major: the biggest muscle of your chest
2. Pectoralis Minor: just below the pec major

There are other minor muscles that act synergistically along with these two pectoralis muscles.

Working the chest from different angles ensures overall development of all these muscles and gets you an aesthetically shaped chest that is just ‘perfect’.

WHAT IS YOUR CHEST WORKOUT METRICS

Since you are looking at the size and shape of the chest muscles, you need to focus on hypertrophy. This means usually that the rep range is going to be 8-12. Here we are going to consider rep range to be 5-12 considering that for different people, the hypertrophy ranges are different and so the workout would invoke different responses. Moreover, you have been doing the 8-12 range for quite some time now, and you are reading this article because you have literally stopped growing!!

The weights you use must be 75-90% of your 1RM (1 Rep Maximum). So for that,you must know your 1 RM – the maximum weight that you can move for one rep.

THE BEST CHEST WORKOUTS

These are the exercises that you must know and do in this routine.

Barbell Bench Press

• Main muscle worked: Chest
• Other muscles: Chest
• Type: Compound  Level

HOW TO DO BARBELL BENCH PRESS FOR MASSIVE CHESTS

Starting Position: Lie back on a flat bench. Using a medium width grip that creates a 90-degree angle lift the bar from the rack and hold it straight over you with your arms locked.

• From the starting position, breathe in and begin coming down slowly until the bar touches your middle chest muscle. Go slow, bringing the bar down should take twice the time as compared to raising it.
• Pause and push the bar back to the starting position, as you breathe out. Use your chest muscles to push the bar. 
• Repeat.

REPS & SETS:

            Barbell Bench press: 3 Warm-up sets of 10-12 reps

            Barbell Bench Press: 3 Working Sets of 8, 6, 5 reps          

 HOW TO MASTER INCLINE DUMBELL PRESS FOR STRONGER PECS

• Main muscle Worked: Chest
• Other muscles: Shoulder, Triceps
• Type: Compound  Level

Lie down on an incline dumbbell press on your back and hold two dumbbells in both your palms atop your thighs.

• Starting Position: Raise the dumbbells to your shoulders, so that the palms of your hands are facing away from you.
• Keep the dumbbells in control and push them with your chest.
• Lock your arms at the top, hold for a second and then start lowering the weight slowly.
• Repeat. When you complete the set, put the dumbbell back on your thighs, then gently to the floor.

REPS& SETS:  4 Working sets of 10, 8, 6, 5 reps          

 HOW TO DO PERFECT PUSHUPS TO BUILD STRONGER CHESTS

A heavy-duty chest workout is just not possible without discussing pushups.

• Main muscle Worked: Chest
• Other muscles: Shoulder, Triceps
• Type: Compound  Level

Starting Position: Plaster your hands firmly on the ground, directly under shoulders. Put your toes firmly on the floor and keep your whole body straight, without any tension.

1. Begin to lower your body, till your chest touches the ground, at no point, your hands should move.
2. Now, exhale and slowly push back to the starting position.

REPS & SETS: 3 working sets till failure

WHAT SHOULD YOU DO FOR A GREAT CHEST WORKOUT

1. Do this every 5-6 days a week, for 6-8 weeks for the best results.
2. Keep your elbows in, at an angle of 20-30 degrees relative to your body. This is the most “Natural” position your body is in, and this allows for the maximum weight to be moved.
3. Keep your shoulder blades pinched. To do so, try puffing up your chest away from the bench, while your back is still in contact with it.
4. Keep your back a bit more than its natural arch. Arching it a lot would lead to stress in the lumbar region, and arching it too little would result in less force generated.
5. Try touching the chest with your bar at every rep. If you have any shoulder issues and are not able to do so, stop about an inch from touching the chest, not more.
6. You can rotate the dumbbells a little bit towards the hammer position in the lowering portion of the incline dumbbell press. This would ensure deeper movement and better focus on the chest muscles rather than on the shoulder (Deltoid) muscles.
7. You can alternate between either push-ups or the dips. For example, if on day 1 you have done push-ups, on day 5 you can do parallel bar dips.
8. Failure sets mean that you perform the exercise set till you cannot do even 1 more rep.
9. Try to finish the workout within 50 minutes, to get the maximum possible gains.
10. Increase the weights in small increments, like 3-5 pounds, when you are reaching your last set.
11. STRETCH after every set, to facilitate proper growth of muscles by expanding the fascia (a tissue sheet covering the muscles).
12. Give 48-72 hours of rest before you do the next chest workout, to ensure complete recovery. A recovered muscle performs better and thus grows faster.

WHAT YOU SHOULD NOT DO

1. Do not use smith machine bench press as an alternative. It recruits less muscle fibres overall and it is against the natural movement of the joints involved.
2. Do not flare your elbows. Many people flare it to almost 90%. This is less effective as it recruits more of your shoulder deltoid muscles and is detrimental to your shoulder joint.
3. Do not compromise your form just to push the weights that are heavy and unmanageable. This would lead to uneven development and increases injury risks. 
4. If the weight is heavy, just reduce it a bit and do with proper form.
5. Do not stop the program within 2-3 weeks. It takes at least a month to gain noticeable changes. Try to do it for 6-8 weeks for maximum gains.

 Remember, Rome was not built in a day, neither in two weeks. Give it the time it deserves. Be smart and avoid Monday to work out your chest. Instead, try doing it on Tuesday and Friday, or Wednesday and Saturdays. This way you can avoid the long queues near the bench press station and ensure effective, undisturbed and satisfying workout

Follow this routine with the right nutrition plan, and you will soon be filling out your shirts with barrel chests that you have always yearned for.

For bodybuilding enthusiasts, preserving muscle mass is as important as building muscles. While you are awake you eat enough proteins and work out to build muscles. The story changes when you sleep and your body goes protein hungry. Now, pitches in casein supplement to prevent muscle breakdown overnight. Slowly and steadily, casein keeps trickling amino acids in your bloodstream. Hence, your body gets nutrients to fuel metabolic activities and spares your hard-earned muscles.   

An outcome of cheese making process both casein and whey are milk-based proteins, but with different effects on the muscle building process. When citric acid is added to milk, while preparing cheese, it separates into two protein components: whey and casein. The watery remnant has whey proteins and cheesy, clump like milk-residue is casein. The protein content in milk is 80 percent casein and 20 percent whey. Both these proteins have Protein Digestibility Corrected Amino Acid Score (PDCAAS) of 1 0. The highest possible PDCAAS is 1.0 and this score means that after digestion of the food, it provides cent percent or more of the recommended amount of essential amino acids per unit of protein. 

WHEY VERSUS CASEIN

Most recreational athletes work out in the evening and follow it up with a whey shake to maximize muscle synthesis.

Contrasted with casein, whey breaks down faster in the body and hits the muscle cells quickly post workout. Rich in leucine, an essential branched chain amino acid, whey fosters muscle growth along with workouts. 

 So far so good, but whey is a quick acting source of protein. This implies that whey reaches muscle cells quickly, attains peak levels in less than 90 minutes, but it runs out too at a fast pace. As a result, blood amino acid concentration drops and your body will begin to breakdown muscles 6 hours after your last meal to provide amino acids to your gut. This is a difficult situation to be in, but the way out is simple. You need to make protein available to your intestines to reverse the scenario and to put your muscles back in an anabolic state.

This clearly highlights the value of nocturnal protein feedings to preserve hard earned muscle tissues. And here comes in the role of casein, an abundantly found milk protein to prevent muscle breakdown.

Being a slow acting protein source, casein forms a gel in the stomach and slowly trickles down amino acids to the blood stream. This slow and steady flow of amino acids creates a prolonged yet low rate of muscle protein synthesis to preserve muscle mass.

Just like whey protein there are many options for casein too. The most common casein supplements are milk protein and calcium caseinate but the most effective protein is micellar casein.

Whey	Casein
Quick digesting & short lasting release of amino acids for muscle synthesis	Slow digestion & sustained release of amino acids to prevent muscle breakdown
For fast initiation of muscle recovery	Sustaining muscle recovery during sleep and inter meal period
Good for post workout and with meals	Ideal for consuming before sleep and between meals

MICELLAR CASEIN: THE BEST SUPPLEMENT TO PREVENT MUSCLE BREAKDOWN

The purest and biologically intact form of casein protein is micellar casein.  It’s specially filtered during cheese making process without chemicals to retain the natural benefits of casein. Earlier casein particles were usually referred to as “calcium caseinate–calcium phosphate particles.”  The term “casein micelle” was introduced in 1921 and over the years, it stands for the purest form of casein available to put your muscles on 24-hour anabolism trail and keep your metabolism active. Being an excellent source of calcium, micellar casein supports fat loss.  In the world of slow-acting protein supplements micellar casein rules, just the way hydrolyzed whey does in the realm of quick-acting proteins.

 Research studies have noted that satiety levels have gone up by 33 percent in participants consuming casein.

Micellar casein is the best supplement to reduce muscle breakdown, as it contains strains of glutamine which help boost the immune system. Serious lifters know the kind of strain their muscles undergo while attempting those lifts. Also, it helps them recover faster.

Most importantly, the slow-release nature of micellar casein ensures supply of amino acids to help promote strong, lean muscles. In a 10-week long Texas study involving 36 males, it was found that heavy resistance training along with the duo of whey and casein helped build stronger and larger muscles than the combination of whey, BCAA, and glutamine.

WHO SHOULD USE MICELLAR CASEIN

Anyone who is physically active and trains regularly stands to benefit with micellar casein, especially if he is keen to grow muscles overnight.  In bodybuilders, micellar casein because of its long-lasting stay works as an excellent nighttime  and in-between meal protein to preserve lean muscle mass, particularly in the chest, shoulder and leg muscles.

The best time to supplement micellar casein is before sleep and in-between meals to keep the body in a positive nitrogen balance, even after the fast digesting proteins from the last meal have exhausted.

Micellar Casein helps to preserve your hard earned gains when you know you’re going to go without food for a long duration, the time when you sleep. Be sensible and use whey before and after a workout to expedite muscle synthesis and fire your muscle gains.

Importance of Fats, Often regarded as a shortcut to flab, foods rich in fats are the first items to be struck off from a muscle building menu. Avoiding fats whenever possible and switching to low-fat version, if you must eat fats has been the traditional approach. However, this approach has its flaws, because fats are essential for your well being. Do you find this strange? Then, you need to know that fats have been demonized for long and have earned a bad reputation without being too much at fault.

The latest research evidences have found that not only fats can keep you slim but even ward off diabetes. In fact, on your muscle building route, it becomes easier to burn fat with the help of fat. Learn all about fats, especially good fats and make an informed pick, to amplify your muscle gains.

Saturated Fats

• Solid at room temperature
• Long chain fatty acids
• Butter, animal fats, coconut, palm oil, milk products
• Good for health but in limited quantity

Unsaturated Fats

• Pufa & Mufa
• PUFA: omega 3 and omega 6
• Liquid at room temperature
• All oils except coconut oil
• Omega 6: vegetable oils
• Omega 3: fish, flax seed, walnuts
• Omega 3 is invaluable for healthy heart and joints

Trans Fats

• In-between man made fats where liquid oils are converted to saturated fats
• Fast foods, bakery goods
• Harmful for health, avoid at all cost

How Fats Help Build Muscles

Fat is an important constituent of the nutritional pyramid. It is an energy dense food and provides 9 calories per gram, more than twice the calories provided by carbs and proteins. Fats help ferry fat-soluble vitamins, like vitamin, A, E, D and K in the body. More than 60 percent of your grey cells are made up of fat. Fats, essentially the good kinds derived from nuts, fish prevents ageing by providing skin with EFAs (Essential Fatty Acids) and also help the body burn fat effectively. Therefore, fat is not superfluous rather an essential ingredient of your diet

1. Eating Less of Fat Will Make You Fat

For years, you’ve consistently banished fat from your diet and trained yourself to pick only the low-fat version of your favourite food. In the process, you’ve shortchanged your weight loss efforts, because just like no free lunches, there are no low-fat foods. Fat provides texture and taste to foods. To compensate for the loss of fat, many of these processed foods contain added sugars to enhance taste, which makes their calorie content often similar to the full-fat foods. Moreover, you exercise less discretion and overeat these foods, because you feel that they are low fat, therefore less in calories, which is not true.

2. Eat Fat to Burn More Fat

For healthy adults, 20 to 35 percent of daily calories should come from dietary fats, recommends The Dietary Guidelines for Americans. Of that total, one-third should be saturated, one-third polyunsaturated (corn and fish oil) and one-third monounsaturated (olive oil). When you eat less than the recommended allowance of fat, you have lower levels of adiponectin, a fat-burning hormone that works to enhance your metabolism and increase the rate at which you will burn the fats. Research studies prove that daily intake of fish or omega-3 supplement increased adiponectin levels by 14-60%.

3. Eating Less Fat Is Equivalent To Eating More Foods

The fat in your foods makes you feel full. The perennial problem of the low-fat diet is that you feel constantly hungry. Diets fail for a lot of reasons but one of the primary ones is simply hunger triggered by the low-fat diet. When the fat you eat reaches the small intestine, it signals the release of Cholecystokinin or CCK and peptide tyrosine PYY which not only stimulates the digestion but also instils in the feeling of fullness. As a result, you don’t need to nibble on snacks. Research studies prove that perceived hunger is lower and weight loss is greater in overweight premenopausal women when they consume low carbohydrate, high protein diet with moderate fat, versus high-carbohydrate/low-fat diet

4. No / Low Fat Diet Deprives Your Body of Essential Nutrients

Fat is an integral component of your diet, that’s the reason it’s there in the food guide pyramid. Fat is needed to build cell membranes, the vital exterior of each cell, and the sheaths surrounding nerves. It is essential for blood clotting, muscle movement, and inflammation Vitamins A, D, E and K are fat-soluble, which means fat is required to absorb these important vitamins. When your diet is low on fat, your body is deprived of essential nutrients.

5. Less of Fat is Equal to More of Carbs

This is not a scenario you would like to be caught in and for good reasons. Though you might believe that a calorie is a calorie irrespective of the source, it is not true, because research studies go on to prove that calories from different sources have different effects on the body, with calories from carbohydrates more likely to encourage weight gain. When it comes to fat the most important hormone is insulin.

A high-carb diet increases the amount of glucose in the bloodstream, which in turn increases the production of insulin. The more insulin the body produces, the more fat gets stored. A low-carb diet means less insulin, making it easier to lose weight because less fat is then stored.

Eat good fats in moderation to remain healthy, build muscles and lose weight.