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Well now that good old Thanksgiving is done and over it’s now officially the time for Christmas.  I wanted to make a quick guide giving you some of the best stuff the fitness industry has to offer.

Everything I’m recommending in this post is because I believe in it and I personally use it for myself and for my clients.

Also everything here can be used in your own home for a kick ass home workout.

And with that here is my 2009 fitness Christmas shopping guide!

TRX Suspension Trainer. This is my most favorite piece of exercise equipment because you can literally take it anywhere and get a fantastic total body fat burning workout with it.  I use it with every one of my clients and they all love it.  If I could only own one piece of fitness equipment it would be this hands down.

Valslide. The Valslide is another very versatile piece of fitness equipment because it can be used in an unlimited number of planes.  You can do alternating push-ups with it, lunges, leg curls, etc.  You’ll also be recruiting more muscles per exercise and therefore burning more fat and building more muscle.

SuperBands. SuperBands will give you the best bang for your buck.  They are super cheap and you can do a ginormous number of exercise with them.  You can do a lot of crazy partner drills and the SuperBand is the only piece of equipment that can vary its resistance so your muscles will be working differently then with any dumbbell.

Kettlebell. Awwhhh the Russian response to the dumbbell.  The Kettlebell can be used for so many compound exercises than it’s crazy.  You can burn more fat doing exercises with these babies and can get your heart pumping a mile a minute.  Forget the treadmill, try a Kettlebell.

Foam Roller. The cheapest way to get all the knots and kinks out of your body.  Trading a measley $25 for a quality foam roller can do wonders for your body and your recovery program.  I integrate foam rolling into my own and my clients warm-ups for injury prevention and overall muscle and strength gains.  If your body has density issues it’s going to hinder your performance, use a foam roller and your life could change, mine did.

PowerBlocks. Adjustable up to 50 lbs. these dumbbells are great for a home workout and is a much wiser solution than buying 2-dozen pairs of dumbbells.

That’s it!  Get your Christmas shopping done early so you can enjoy your holidays and get your workout on!

So you’re all pumped up to start working out and losing some weight but you’re not sure where to start?

Today I want to give you some great ideas on where you can start your weight loss journey.  This post may be more appreciated by the beginners but even if you’re a fitness vet you can still find some great ideas to expand your fat burning horizons.

Now some things work better for others and some things work horrible for others. The goal of today is to find the one that you think would be the best fit for you (NOT the easiest!) so you can get started burning fat fast.

Here are my 10 best ways to start losing wieght fast and today!

1.  Get Your Nutrition Right. This is probably the hardest out of all the ones I’m going to talk about today but it’s easily the best one for you.  If you can’t get your nutrition so it’s good at least 90% of the time then it’s going to be hard for you to achieve great success.  This doesn’t mean starve yourself or go on the grapefruit diet… instead focus on eating lean protein, fruits and vegetables along with drinking only water for 3 meals and 3 snacks a day.

2.  Join a Boot Camp program. Boot camp programs are quickly becoming one of the most desirable options for people getting started losing weight and for those who want to take their workouts to the next level.  The best part about boot camp programs is that they are way more affordable than hiring a personal trainer and they also give you a great environment filled with a lot of social support.

3.  Hire a personal trainer. The next best thing is to hire a personal trainer who can take your hand and put you on the path for success.  Beware though, all personal trainers aren’t created equal and finding the right one who will over-deliver is rare.  But a great personal trainer will motivate you and give you all the keys for success.

4.  Get a buddy to work out with you. They found that having a social support system in place in losing weight was INCREDIBLY more effective than just going in it alone or feeling like people are being really negative about you wanting to lose weight (usually people who are trying to hold you down).  Find an awesome and reliable workout partner to keep you going when you don’t feel like going any farther.

5. Start going to fitness classes at the gym. Fitness classes are another option for wanting to lose weight but they aren’t the best because most are based around a cookie cutter program that borders a Jazzercise class.  Not the best option for consistent weight loss but if you’re lacking motivation then getting somebody to tell you what to do can help a lot.

6.  Get in a group training deal with a personal trainer. I’m starting to go more towards the group training aspect over individual 1-on-1 sessions that have been the staple of personal training for decades.  In a group training environment you’re able to quickly get a great fat loss workout going with much less money out of your pocket and you get a social support system going as well.  The best bang for your buck option besides boot camps.

7.  Get some great weight loss DVDs.  Sometimes you don’t have all the time in the world to workout but you still want to get a great workout in your home.  Finding some great weight loss DVDs can help you a lot by showing you what to do and getting a little motivation going.  This is hardly the best option because it’s going to be WAY harder to keep yourself motivated doing the same cookie cutter workout program every time when it’ll be easier to plop your butt down and watch The Simpsons.

8.  Live an active lifestyle. This is more important then it seems.  Just going for a walk for your entire workout is like eating sugar packets down at Dunkin’ Donuts Mike Boyle would say.  But incorporating active elements into your lifestyle is imperative to permanent weight loss and happiness.  Weight loss extends beyond the workouts and nutrition…it goes into your whole life.

9.  Write down your goals, measurements and smaller goals with a deadline. Yep this is probably one of the hardest to get people to do but you have to stand up and face the music.  Having goals with a deadline is great as well as knowing where you are now and where you want to go.  Just think of it as your trophy when you lose all that weight you’ll look back at those pictures and measurements and feel an overwhelming feeling of accomplishment.

10.  Join a gym and actually go! You’ll be surprised how many people sign up for a membership at the gym with all intentions to go but they never set foot again in the place.  Just buying the membership isn’t going to make you lose weight.  You have to go and put in the work!

If you want to find 21 of my best fat loss tips enter your name and email on the upper right part of the page to get my free report, The Fat Loss Frog delivered immediately.  Trust me it’s worth it.

“Stay away from the dark side.”

Sometimes when we want something bad enough it doesn’t always matter how we get it. We all want to look and feel great but just like everything there is a good and a bad way to do it. Having great nutrition and exercise program is a great way of approaching weight loss but going on crazy fad diets and extreme workouts is the wrong way to go.

All too often I’m hearing somebody wants to drop 20 pounds this month and is starting a grapefruit only diet and is working on an elliptical for 2 hours at a time.

Going through such extremes can kill your body and the real secret behind permanent weight loss is lifestyle changes. Yep you gotta change your life if you want to keep those pounds off.

Now this change doesn’t have to come immediately, heck we’re all scared of such a big change. Start up a routine by going to the gym 3 times a week and do that for a month straight. Pretty soon you’ll be used to going to the gym and it’ll become a regular habit of yours.

Same goes with nutrition. For breakfast try eating some old school oatmeal every morning for 21 days and it’ll become a habit. Now I personally am not a fan of regular old oat meal but through some experiments I found it tastes much better when I put some raw honey on it and some sliced up bananas.

Keep experimenting and see what works best for you.

It would be great to actually find a magic weight loss pill that kept us looking and feeling great but the real truth is that the only way you can accomplish that is by

making some permanent changes in your life. This means no more late runs to Taco Bell and no more skipping breakfast or the gym.

If you watch what fit looking people do you’ll always hear or see them consistently doing things that keep them fit. They’re either always working out or they’re eating healthy most of the time.

I’ve heard reports saying you can only safely lose 2-3 pounds per week but I’ve seen you can safely lose around 5 pounds per week if your nutrition is on point

and your workouts are awesome. Now once you stop all this and you go back to your old ways…the fat will pack on twice as fast as it took to lose it.

Fortunately it probably won’t be as hard to lose it the second time around because of muscle memory and such but this still sets you back and the starting line.

One of the biggest reasons I’ve found more people aren’t successful at losing weight is because of fear and doubt. Fearing failure and change while doubting yourself with negative self talk is a recipe for disaster.

I recommend to all my clients in the morning before they work out is to do some deep breathing exercises and to do 5-10 minutes of positive meditation. And guess what? My most successful clients are the ones who do these exercises every morning.

Fear and doubt can paralyze you so you won’t go ask out that girl you’ve been seeing at the store every Saturday or can keep you from getting that promotion you really deserve.

When people tell me their B.S. reasons as to why they can’t lose weight I always know the underlying cause … fear and doubt. “Oh I have bad genetics” and “I don’t have the time to work out.” Yeah right!

I’ve heard every excuse in the book and seen so many people drop off on their path to success that it makes me sick. Get rid of your fear and doubt and start getting stuff done or else you’re going to stay fat.

The flu season has officially arrived and with the media trying to scare the bezeezy out of us with the swine flu, it’s going to be good to protect our bodies and build up our immune systems to their maximum potential.

I used to get sick a lot and it was mostly because I had a weakened immune system.  Unfortunately I didn’t know what I’m about to tell you and if I did I would have spent many fewer days laying around with a cold than I should have.

1. Get Some Sleep – Sleep can strengthen and recover our bodies more than anything else.  And we all feel it when we aren’t getting enough sleep.  A scientist said that sleeping is the bodies greatest antioxidant and there are so many processes going on when we’re sleeping that it’s amazing.  I would recommend getting the 8 hours of sleep that’s always been suggested but also go to bed by 10:30. Going to bed at 1am and getting up at 9am isn’t nearly as good as going to sleep at 10:30 and waking up at 6:30am because of our bodies natural circadium rhythms.

2.  Lay Off the Sugar – Sugar and other artificial sweeteners wreak havoc on our bodies and you can bet they weaken our immune systems.  A study found that people who ate sugar had a weakened immune system for 8-12 hours after consuming it and the groups that didn’t eat sugar killed 14 times as much bacteria.  So go with natural fruits, stevia and raw honey if you’re craving those sweets.

3.  Drink Your Water – Dehydration means bad news to our bodies and puts our whole system in a weakened state.  Even when our bodies get 1 or 2% dehydrated our bodies will feel the effects.  Drinking a good amount of water is also a great means of natural detoxification and will help rid the body of all the bad stuff.  Try using the pee test, if your pee is clear than you’re clear, if it looks like apple juice then keep on drinking!

4.  De-Stress Your Life – Stress can be a royal pain in the “you know what” because sometimes we just can’t avoid it.  When we are stressed our bodies release hormones such as Cortisol which help to keep us going strong so we can persevere through whatever we are trying to accomplish.  Unfortunately a lot of us are always moving and are WAY to stressed out, hormones are constantly flowing and adrenal fatigue can set in.  Try relaxing every know and again and let your body recover from our stressful lives.

5.  Keep Moving – We always need to keep moving and to have some exercise in our lives for lymph system.  The lymph system is like a superhighway for our white blood cells which we all know fight off the foreign invaders.  This can be done by exercising, bouncing on a trampoline and even by doing some great deep breathing exercises.

6.  Eat Colorful Fruits & Vegetables – Eating more of these guys will help build up your immune system to ensure it’s a virus killing machine.  Stay away from the white stuff and go for varieties in color.  My Grandpa always told me to “eat the fruit of the season, it’s mother nature’s way of taking care of us.”  Try to get 10 servings a day and keep mixing it up so you don’t get too bored!

7.  Get Your Antioxidants & Phytochemicals - Start strengthening your body natures way by getting in your antioxidants such as pomegranate, blueberry and acai juice.  Also get some bacteria fighting phytochemicals from consuming more garlic, ginger, mushrooms and drinking green tea.

So not too sure what skinny fat exactly is?

Well it’s basically a term referring to people who *appear* skinny but in actuality they have no muscle and are not very healthy.

I’ve found that most people who want to be skinny just want to drop the weight but they steer away from resistance training because they don’t want to get “bulky muscles.”

Metabolic resistance training is one of the best ways to burn fat and get a lean toned body, unfortunately I’ve found so many believing that they’ll look like Arnold Schwarzenegger just by lifting a few weights.

I completely understand that women especially do not want to look like a steroid popping bodybuilder and that’s why it’s so important to follow a great training program.  I haven’t read an issue of Muscle and Fitness AKA Muscle and Fiction* in years because of the terribly bad training protocols and random cookie cutter work outs they’re telling people to do.

If you want to get rid of your skinny fat body then I highly suggest to start doing more resistance training, have great nutrition and do high intensity interval training. I always encourage my clients and boot camp members to have great nutrition, if you’re fortunate enough to have a thinner frame but don’t use weights and have crap nutrition then one way or another you’re going to find yourself being skinny fat.

All hope is not lost just quite yet.  Start by doing a total body metabolic resistance training program 3-4x a week and start doing about 20 minutes of high intensity interval training.  Click here to watch my video showing you how to do high intensity interval training on a treadmill.

This is a very simple and basic routine that is great for people who want to get rid of their skinny fat bodies.  This may be a lot to handle at first but once you get going you’ll feel you’re body changing and you’ll have more energy than ever.

This serves as the basis for my HEAT Workout DVDs and once I finally finish it I’ll let you be one of the first to know and I’ll let you try it for free.  If you haven’t done so yet, sign up to get my updates along with “The Fat Loss Frog” by entering your name and email into the box on the right.