Hi*
Here is Part Two of the Article which was posted last week
from AtoZfitness.com http://www.atozfitness.com

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FAT LOSS SUCCESS SERIES FROM BEGINNER TO ADVANCED
PART 2: Fat Loss For Intermediates: Stepping up to the next level
By Tom Venuto

If you've been training for at least three months and now you're
ready to kick it into high gear and start learning more about
training and nutrition so you can get better and faster results, then
this week's article is for you.

If you're currently not working out at all and you'd like to know the
best way to get started, refer back to part one in this series: Fat
loss for Beginners It's archived on my Fitness Renaissance website
here: www.fitren.com/res3art.cfm?compid=18&artid=89

If you've been training for years and consider yourself "advanced,"
then the fifth and sixth installment in this series will be for you,
so stay tuned!!!But don't skip this one - even if youre advanced, you
might learn something new in this newsletter that you missed along
the way.

#1 THE SECRET TO INCREASED FAT LOSS IS...

Ok, so you just got started on a program of walking or light cardio
and some basic lifting, maybe some dumbbell work - nothing fancy. You
feel better, you've lost a few pounds, you have more energy and
you're confident that you're getting healthier.

But you want more.

You want the results to come faster. You want to look in the mirror
and really SEE the difference. You want other people to see the
difference too.

You want more than "a little tone." Maybe you want a nice hard
chiseled six-pack with a small waist, or maybe streamlined, muscular
thighs. Arms like Madonna perhaps? A Brad Pitt "Fight Club" body
maybe? Nothing too crazy - not a miss fitness Olympia body or the
massive bulk of a Mr. Universe - but definitely better than average.

Well, if you're prepared to STEP UP to the next level and pay the
price necessary to reach the next rung on the ladder, here's how you
do it:

The answer is very, very simple. As you leave the novice stage
behind, it's time to start WORKING HARDER.

That's it!

Were you expecting something more esoteric? Some secret Bulgarian
periodization program and thermogenic - anabolic supplement stack?
Sorry, but the secret is that there is no secret. A great body all
boils down to outright effort and hard work.

Not counting the "genetic freaks" who seem to have been born with
muscles and zero fat, there's one thing that all people with great
bodies have in common: they all work HARD, HARD, HARD, HARD, HARD!

If you want to ascend beyond the lowly beginner level you simply have
to push yourself harder. And that means DIS-COMFORT. When you're
pushing yourself out of the comfort zone, it hurts. Frankly,
sometimes it sucks! But outside the comfort zone is where you grow.
Staying inside the comfort zone will only maintain you at best but
usually it sends you plummeting into a downward spiral.

Most people retreat into the confines of their comfort zone the
second the effort gets difficult. The comfort zone is a very
dangerous place because if you slide back into the comfort zone even
once, then it starts becoming a habit.

First, it's stopping just a few minutes short on your cardio or
coasting on level 5 when you could be doing level 6. You stop at 8
reps, when you had 11 in you. Then you start blowing off workouts
completely. Pretty soon, you're sliding back in other areas of your
life; you slide back from making those sales calls; you slide back
from spending quality time with your family, you slide back from
saving money and watching your finances. You become.... A BACKSLIDER!

You can either be a backslider or you can be an ACHIEVER but you
can't be both and you can't "hang out" in between - it's one or the
other. Although you might think you're safe just "maintaining" in the
comfort zone, unbeknownst to you, you are always in motion in either
a forward or a backward direction. There's no such thing as standing
still; ask any physicist - everything in the universe is always in
motion...vibrating... growing or dying.

The ACHIEVER is the person who is aware that to "stand still inside
the comfort zone" is akin to dying, so he or she is ALWAYS MOVING
FORWARD. The only way to move forward is with hard work and effort in
the direction of a specific goal.

#2 AVOID THE TEMPTATION TO SPEND (WASTE) YOUR MONEY ON GIMMICKS...
AND LEARN TO RECOGNIZE A GIMMICK WHEN YOU SEE ONE

Once you begin getting a taste of what real hard training is like, it
often becomes tempting to succumb to the error of looking for
the "easy way." An electrode on your abs, a "fat-melting" cream, a
pill, a drink mix, a drug - anything and everything except sweat and
hard work. But shortcuts will always fail you in the long run.

You are setting yourself up for so much trouble if you give in to the
lure of the quick fix. You see, it's all about the Law of Sowing and
Reaping. This great law of life states that your rewards will come
back to you in direct proportion to what you put in. Everything has
its price and that price must be paid in advance.

If you were a farmer, how ridiculous would it be for you to skip the
planting of the seeds in the spring and then go out in the fields
looking for a harvest in the fall? How ridiculous would it be to
stand in front of a wood burning stove and say, Ok stove, give me
some heat and then I'll put in some wood?

But isn't it the same thing when you take a pill or attach some
electrodes to your stomach, or smear some cream on your thighs and
expect to lose the flab without exercise or eating right?

Even if you've made the decision to avoid gimmicks, in today's
marketplace, how do you know what's a gimmick and what's legit? After
all, these marketing people are smart - they know how to play on your
emotions and make gimmicks sound scientific. Don't feel bad; judging
by the e-mails I get every day, most other people don't know the
difference either. Nearly all of these e-mails include this sentence:

Does "IT" work?

Here's how to tell if "IT" is a gimmick or not: If it makes getting
in phenomenal shape sound easy and effortless, then it's a gimmick.

If it addresses the symptom but not the cause - it's a gimmick.

If your gut feeling says it sounds too good to be true - it's a
gimmick.

If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck...
it's a duck!

Do yourself a favor and stop looking for a quick ride to the top. The
elevator to success is out of order - you're going to have to take
the stairs.

#3 HOW TO DOUBLE YOUR RATE OF FAT LOSS IN THE NEXT 7 DAYS

How would you like to learn a way to DOUBLE YOUR FAT LOSS in the next
seven days? I know, I know - sounds like a gimmick, right? Well, it's
not! It's really quite simple.

To burn more fat you have to burn more calories. Most beginners start
off with three days a week of cardio training. This amount of cardio
is enough to get health benefits and it's enough for many people,
especially beginners, to lose body fat. That's because when your body
isn't accustomed to exercise, then any increase in activity above no
activity will always produce results.

However, more often than not, the results begin to slow down a bit
within a few months of training (commonly known as "hitting the
plateau"). Then they scratch their heads and wonder why it's not
working anymore.

This is why: Because three days a week is a great starting point for
beginners, but it's often insufficient for intermediates to keep the
ball rolling, or for those seeking maximum fat loss in the least
amount of time (such as bodybuilders in the pre-contest period or
people preparing for fitness contests and "12 week transformation
challenges").

If you want a little more fat loss, increase your cardio a little.

If you want twice as much fat loss and you want it twice as fast,
double your cardio - if only for a very short period of time to reach
a peak condition.

Suppose you burn 400 calories per workout for three workouts per
week. That's a total of 1200 calories per week burned. If you
increased that to six days per week at 400 calories per workout, you
would burn 2400 calories per week. YOU JUST DOUBLED YOUR FAT LOSS!
That was a real no-brainer, wasn't it?

#4 HOW TO TRIPLE YOUR RATE OF FAT LOSS IN THE NEXT 7 DAYS

While we're on the subject of burning more calories, what would
happen if, in addition to increasing your cardio frequency from three
to six days per week, you increased the intensity so you're burning
600 calories per workout? With six workouts at 600 calories per
workout you're up to 3600 calories per week.

Holy abdominals Batman - You just tripled your fat loss!

Yes it's that simple and the solution was right there in front of you
all along.

If you're a proponent of High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) and
you're thinking that I forgot to factor in the post exercise calorie
burn that comes from brief, intense cardio workouts, then consider
this:

Studies on Excess Post Exercise Oxygen Consumption (EPOC), also known
as the post-workout elevation in metabolism, or "afterburn effect,"
have shown that EPOC INCREASES with both the intensity and duration
of the exercise session. Not only that, but if you do cardio daily,
you're getting this post- exercise metabolic boost every day of the
week, not just every other day. Why wouldn't you want your metabolism
revved up to the max every day?

By the way, this kind of frequent, intense cardio is how I reach 3 -
4% body fat for competitions: Six days per week of moderately intense
(not low intensity) cardio, 30-45 minutes per session. For
maintenance, I pull back to 3 days per week for only 20 minutes.

Naturally, of course this advice is for people who have at least
reached the intermediate phase and have already built an aerobic
conditioning base... and who have no health problems the preclude
high intensity exercise.

#5 ALWAYS BE ON THE LOOKOUT FOR SOMETHING TO MOTIVATE AND INSPIRE YOU

After the initial novelty of starting a workout program wears off,
one problem nearly everyone runs into is lack of motivation. I can
personally confirm this just by the membership attrition (drop out)
statistics in my health club. Fifty percent of all people who join a
health club quit in the first three months. Here's how you can
prevent becoming a part of that statistic:

Always be on the lookout for something to motivate and inspire you -
anything! Go see a movie, watch a video, read a book or article. Hire
a coach or personal trainer. Get a training partner. Think about your
goals and write them out repeatedly. Pick a role model of someone you
want to look like. Attend a competition. Enter a competition. Hang
out with people who motivate you. Ditch the people who don't support
you (I'm not kidding - get out of unsupportive relationships like
you'd get out of a burning house!) The list of motivational methods
is endless.

Some people insist that "motivation" doesn't last. I always tell them
they're right! Motivation doesn't last - but neither does bathing and
you do that every day anyway, don't you?

Every day you must ask yourself, "What can I listen to, do, find, or
watch to get inspired today." Then follow through.

I recently watched a movie called Without Limits, which is the story
of Steven Prefontaine, the runner. Even though I'm a bodybuilder and
not a runner, that movie got me so motivated I ran to the gym a
blasted through a killer leg workout, smashing through several PR's
(personal records).

I also have the videos of the 1996 Atlanta Olympics narrated by Bud
Greenspan. If watching Michael Johnson wi.n his races and accept his
gold medals doesn't motivate you, see if you still have a pulse.

For the bodybuilders, here's an old motivational stand-by. Watch (or
re-watch) the movie Pumping Iron.

One of the absolute best ways to get motivated is to spend time in
serious thought about what you want to accomplish and then write it
down, which leads us to the next "next level tip"...


#6 SET NEW (AND BIGGER) GOALS

If you ever feel unmotivated and you want to get over it, just take a
look at your goal list. What? You don't carry a goal card or a
frequently updated, written goal list with you? Well, I guess we know
why you're not motivated don't we?

Goal setting is not an event - it is a process. When you move up the
ladder to intermediate status, the modest goals of a beginner are a
thing of the past. "I am walking for 20 minutes three days every
week" is a great beginning, but eventually, you have to move out of
the minor leagues.

Goals are the fuel in the fire of motivation. Goals get you out of
bed early and into the gym in the morning. Goals keep you on the
treadmill for forty-five minutes when you feel like stopping at
thirty. In a set of ten reps, goals are what make you push for that
eleventh and twelfth rep.

Goals are so much more powerful than you can imagine. Read any book
on the subconscious mind, such as "Psycho Cybernetics" by Maxwell
Maltz or "The Power of Your Subconscious Mind" by Dr. Joseph Murphy
and you'll begin to understand why goals are so important.

If you don't have goals...and if you don't have a new set of them
every few months, then you're not deserving to move up to the next
level. Remember, you don't get what you want in life, you get what
you *deserve*

And one last thing - a goal is not a goal if it's not in writing -
its only a wish (as in wishy-washy)

#7 MOVE UP TO A SPLIT ROUTINE

A full body routine performed three days per week is probably the
best way for a beginner to start strength training. However, this
routine gets old fast. Within months or even weeks, you will outgrow
it and you'll need to add exercises.

The problem is, the more exercises you add, the longer your workouts
will become. If your workouts are too long, you reach a point of
diminishing returns and over-training. Stress hormones rise and
anabolic hormones will fall. Workouts must remain brief and intense
for you to keep making progress.

The solution is a split routine.

A split routine means that instead of doing all your exercises in one
session, you "SPLIT" your body in half and train one half on DAY ONE
and the second half on DAY TWO.

Adding more exercises allows you to:

1) Work each muscle more thoroughly and more deeply into the fibers

2) Work the entire muscle group; for example, front deltoid, side
deltoid AND rear deltoid

3) Concentrate on each muscle more instead of spreading your
attention out

4) Apply more energy and effort to each body part instead of holding
back and conserving energy for the last few muscles

Here's a sample 2 day split:

Day one: Chest, shoulders, triceps, Abdominals
Day two: Thighs, Back, Biceps, calves

And here's how it would fit into the week if you're training three
days per week:

Mon: Chest, Shoulder, Triceps, Abs (cardio optional)
Tues: Off (just cardio)
Wed: Thighs, Back, Biceps, calves (cardio optional)
Thu: Off (just cardio)
Fri: Chest, Shoulder, Triceps, Abs (cardio optional)
Sat: Off (just cardio)
Sun: Off: Total rest day
Repeat cycle beginning with day two workout

If you're ambitious, you have the time, and your recovery ability
warrants it, you can do this split four days per week, working
Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday.

I don't have space to write out a complete program with every
exercise, but you can check out my book, Burn The Fat, Feed the
Muscle for that - It has four routines, each with two variants to fit
your personal schedule, for a total of eight routines to choose from.

Here's one important tip when you're designing your own split
routines:

CHANGE YOUR EXERCISES, SET & REP SCHEMES, TEMPO AND REST INTERVALS
FREQUENTLY! This will help alleviate boredom and prevent your muscles
from "adapting" to the routine (Changing acute training variables
every 4 to 12 weeks is called the "muscle confusion" principle.)

#8 JOIN A HEALTH CLUB OR INVEST IN SOME NEW EQUIPMENT FOR YOUR HOME
GYM

Does your workout still consist of walking around the block, or the
Richard Simmons Sweating to the Oldies video in your living room in
front of the TV?

If so, then don't worry, I'm not going to make fun of you - actually
I want to congratulate you for doing more than 95% of the lazy world
population - you got started!

However, if you've read this far, you've expressed interest in moving
up to the next level, so it's time to put those 2nd grade workouts
back on the shelf and move up to something with a little more "oomph".

First, I'm going to repeat my advice from part one of this series:
Join a health club! (If you missed part one, it's archived on the
Fitness Renaissance site: http://www.fitren.com/res3art.cfm?
compid=18&artid=89)

Since you'll be adding new exercises, a good health club will put an
almost infinite number of exercise choices at your fingertips.

Many people are scared to join a gym "until they get in shape."
That's really putting the cart before the horse isn't it? If you're
in this category, let me put you at ease:

You'd be surprised how supportive the environment is in a good health
club. I've been in the health club industry for 16 years and I've ne
ver heard a member or employee of any club I've worked in make fun of
a beginner or someone out of shape. (Personally, I prefer to make fun
of the blunders made by the "big-ego, know it all experts," but "gym
blunders" will have to be the subject of another article.)

I've seen people who were very overweight in our club and the
attitude of the staff and members is usually one of, "Good for you!
Is there any way I can help?" If fact, you're more likely to get a
derogatory comment from someone on the street than you are in a
health club. You owe it to yourself to put yourself in a positive,
supportive, caring environment and there's no better place than a
health club.

It also helps to realize that everyone has to start somewhere, and
everyone was "out of shape" when they started. We're all in the same
boat in the early learning stages.

If you choose not to join a club, that's fine, but you'd be smart to
invest in a few additional pieces of equipment for your home gym
beyond the bare basics.

Let's assume you own a bench and a set of dumbbells. The next
additions to your home gym should be a barbell set, a set of squat
racks and a cable-pulley apparatus with a high and a low pulley. By
owning these pieces equipment, you've just opened up a whole new
world of exercise options for yourself such as:

Barbell squats, barbell lunges, barbell rows, barbell bench press,
barbell shoulder press, barbell curls, barbell tricep extensions,
wide grip lat pulldowns, close grip lat pulldowns, low cable rows,
triceps pushdowns, cable curls and much more.

By the way, why so much talk about weights? Isn't fat loss mostly
nutrition and cardio? Yep, that's true. However, I'm emphasizing
strength training because it plays a more important role in fat loss
than most people realize. If you're busy aerobicizing and dieting
without hitting the weights, you're much more likely to burn muscle
along with the fat. And when the muscle goes, your metabolism begins
to go down the tubes too.

#9 READ, STUDY AND LEARN

Would you like to know how to rapidly blast through the beginner and
intermediate stage, into the advanced stage and then ultimately go
even beyond the advanced stage and become an expert at fat burning,
fitness and nutrition? If so, here's how:

Read one hour a day, five days a week, about training, nutrition, and
personal achievement. In three years you will literally be your own
expert.

Suppose you only read 30 minutes a day, but you do it every day as a
discipline. That's one book per week, 52 books per year, 520 books in
ten years. Think about the level of knowledge you'll achieve.

I personally read two or three hours a day, I have 2700 books and
over 250 audio and video programs in my library. I'll miss an hour of
sleep before I'll miss an hour of reading. People always ask me how I
learned so much about bodybuilding, nutrition and success psychology.
Now you know.

Some good places to start:

Get a good book about motivation and psychology. Here's one of the
best: "Maximum Achievement" By Brian Tracy.

Also, get a good cassette/CD program about motivation so you can
listen in your car and while you do your cardio. What? You listen to
music? Thought so. Most beginners do. Highly effective people and
achievers always double up and do two things at once whenever
possible. Why not kill two birds with one stone? Learn while you get
lean!

Here's a suggestion: Even if you think the infomercials are cheesy,
Anthony Robbins really does put out some fantastic stuff. Look
into "Personal Power" or "Get the Edge. "

Get a good book about nutrition for fat loss. read my 340-page
manual, Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle It's the number one best
selling fitness e-book on the Internet and is available for download
at www.burnthefat.com

Finally, get a good book about strength training. I recommend Ian
King's "Get Buffed" or "The Book of Muscle." There's also an
extensive list of the best strength training books in the world on my
Fitness Renaissance website at: www.fitren.com/res3art.cfm?
compid=18&artid=119

last, but not least, keep one thing in mind as you start this journey
of learning and continued progress: Knowledge is not power, knowledge
applied is power.
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(*And Thanks To Lewis a Great Friend, Founder & Owner of
AtoZfitness.com, http://www.atozfitness.com *)

Wishing EveryOne a Really Great & Happy Week'n*
Just me,
Freddie