My fitness/health continued

So I posted on Friday with some info on what I've done to lose weight/fat and I said that I'd be back to chat about wobbly bits and the six pack so here is the low down on that :)

Many of the comments/emails referred to "toning up" wobby thighs/butts and bingo wings. Here's the thing: there is no such thing as "toning". You can do one of two things: either lose fat or gain muscle, or both! So decide which you want to do and work towards it.

The truth is you CANNOT spot reduce, so you can do all the ab crunches and squats you want but the fat will go from where the hell it wants to (usually murphys law dictates that it'll go from the place you want it lose it from last). That's not to say crunches and squats etc are useless though, cos any exercise is good as you're burning calories and fat. The real trick to weight loss is to lose fat and retain lean body mass, so keeping up with the exercises is good for that, especially lifting weights! You want to be lean not skinny fat! Muscle is good! It means we can do more, eat more and makes us healthier!

So the six pack. Yep I am working on it! When I was instructing before I had the 4 upper rectus abdominal muscles defined and I am on the way to getting that again. The way to attain that is through hard work and dedication, exercise and basically losing body fat % which means eating clean. Eating clean is eating very little processed foods, making sure you get your daily water intake and then doing core exercises. I know I have the muscle for the 6 pack, I can feel it under the layer of fat, so I need to reduce the body fat so I can SEE it! I do exerices to work the Rectus abdominus & obliques but by far the best exercises IMO are the planks. If you haven't heard of them do a google search for abdominal planks, they are really good for core conditioning. Oh and nope I don't use an "ab-doer" or the rolling cage things, useless IMO nothing you can't acheive without the equipment so save yourself the money! The exercise part I have down, no problem, the water is fine, it's the eating clean I have trouble with. But I'm getting there! I'll keep you all updated with my 6-pack progress :)

I also wanted to say, if I could give you ONE peice of advice, that would be throw out the scales! Take measurements instead! If you can't stop weighing yourself then just weigh in monthly. Trust me it's so much more gratifying to SEE shrinking butts/thighs than to lose 1lb on the scale! I'll update at some point with my inch loss so you can see the real result of losing weight/fat.

Have a great Sunday!