What Can My 17 Month Old Daughter Teach You About Fat Loss?

You learn a lot about life and life’s principles when raising a child.

You learn how to be patient…relatively.

You learn how much joy one little person can bring you.

You learn how much you have an effect on someone else.

But one thing I’ve learned, as it pertains to fat loss, or really any goal, is that of perseverance and patience.

I learn this whenever my daughter is trying something new.

Take her walking for example. A number of months ago she took her first steps. She was very wobbly at first, but after a while she got the hang of it and now she’s running, and falling, everywhere.

But when she was first learning, it was kind of driving me crazy. Don’t get me wrong, it was awesome watching her learn, but it was making me crazy because I wanted it to happen NOW.

I didn’t want to have to wait weeks for her to get the hang of it. I wanted her to just stand up and go.

But looking back, those weeks (or days, really) weren’t that big of a deal.

They were at the time, but aren’t now.

The same can be said about fat loss. It can make you crazy at first.

The pounds don’t come off as fast as you’d like.

You’re not gaining the leanness or muscle tone you want fast enough.

It doesn’t seem like your waist line is shrinking.

However, if you stick with it and don’t give up, a few months from now you’ll be amazed at how far you’ve come.

You’ll be amazed at how many inches you’ve lost and how much smaller your waist line is from when you started.

But you have to keep at it. You must persevere.

You must realize that it takes time, not that much in the big scheme of things, but it takes time.

However, like I said before, if you stick with it, just like my daughter did when she was learning to walk, you will succeed and a few months from now all this struggle won’t seem like such a big deal.

Have a good day!

Ed

P.S. – If you want to learn all the healthy eating habits and get enough 15 and 10 minute workouts to last you about 6 months, check out my Fat Loss To Go program. Go to www.fatlosstogo.com to pick it up.

P.P.S. – Don’t forget that in a couple weeks I’ve got some big announcements for my Fat Loss To Go product. I’ve got a bunch of new bonuses lined up that will only be available for a limited time, however they will be given to everyone who’s already purchased. So if you don’t want to miss out, pick up your copy today and you’ll be sure to get all the new bonuses as soon as I get them ready.

How To Instantly Shrink Your Waist Line By 1-2 Inches

I'm sorry about the subject line, but I wanted to make sure you read this.

But that is the most common question I get, not only from clients but from everyday people who have found out I'm a personal trainer.

"How do I get rid of this...quickly?" It's usually asked while grabbing a hold of a little goo sitting on the tummy.

The proper answer is that it takes exercise and better eating habits, but there is a quicker answer that may surprise you.

All you have to do is learn to control your abdominal, low back and butt muscles and you will instantly lose a couple inches off your stomach.

It's not really magic, it's just learning to use proper posture while sitting and standing.

Today's population has horrible posture. I see it everyday, not only in my training studio and massage clients, but just from "people watching".

Everybody is slouching with rounded shoulders, flat butts or they let their gut hang out which gives them a big curve in their lower back.

That's why I am constantly telling my training clients to keep their tummies tight while doing their workouts.

The ladies in my boot camps can attest to this. I'm constantly harping on them to keep their tummies tight.

I can tell when they are and when they aren't, because their stomachs will shrink by a couple inches when they keep their stomachs tight and controlled.

It's probably the easiest thing you can do, right now, to make your stomach shrink. Not only that, but your body will feel better.

When you have poor posture, or let your stomach muscles get too relaxed, your body has to work harder to keep you upright. That means you'll get tired easily.

Not only that, but you won't perform as well in your day-to-day tasks. All because of poor posture.

So here's what you can do right now, while reading this, to help remedy the situation.

Sit up straight, or stand up straight. Lift your chin up so you're looking straight ahead.

Pull your shoulders back by squeezing your shoulder blades together. Lift your chest up and relax your shoulders so you're not all hunched up.

Now contract your abs like someone is going to punch you in the gut. Not too hard, just enough that you know they're tight.

Now, if you're someone who lets their gut hang out, creating a nasty curve in your lower back, I want you to tighten your glutes
(butt) and "tuck your tail under" so that your stomach comes back and that curve in your low back goes back to normal.

If you've done this right, you should look like a soldier standing at attention.

There's a reason soldiers look so fit and intimidating when they're standing at attention. They're using perfect posture (plus they're in damn good shape). They're standing upright without any hunches and are not letting their guts hang out.

Practice this routine multiple times per day until it becomes routine.

Not only that, but when you're exercising, concentrate on keeping your stomach tight. You will be amazed at the results you see in the mirror. Actually, that's another good tip. Practice this in front of a mirror.

You, and the people around you, will think that you have lost 10 pounds.

Have a good day!

Ed Scow

P.S. - Every one of the workouts in my Fat Loss To Go program focus not only on fat loss, but giving you better posture. I didn't design the program using any of the fancy machines found in a health club, which can make the problems worse. These workouts will give you better posture, when done correctly, and will have you keeping your stomach tightened, which will help you lose even more inches off your waist line. Check it out at www.fatlosstogo.com

10 Minute Fat Loss Workout

I love doing 10 minute workouts.

Some people don't seem to think that a workout that only lasts 10 minutes can be worthwhile, however when done correctly they are FANTASTIC.

They are great if you don't have the time to fit in a longer workout, or if you just want to do something different.

Below is another one of my 10 minute workout videos. Check it out and give this workout a try sometime. Just make sure you make it challenging.

No weenie weights!

How Does Me Singing Relate To Your Fat Loss?

Do you like to sing? How about karaoke?

Personally, I hate singing and I definitely hate karaoke.

I'm a horrible singer. My dog howls when I sing. Not really, but he does look at me goofy.

I can remember a couple years ago being at a family reunion on my wife's side and there was karaoke.

A few of my relatives decided to do an old Sinatra song and wanted a group of guys to do it "rat pack" style.

They needed one more person, so I decided to fill the gap. That was a horrible mistake on my part.

We got booed...by family!

That was the first and last time I ever did karaoke. The bad thing is that my 16 month old daughter loves music and loves to dance so I have to occasionally sing.

She doesn't care that I am a horrible singer, she just wants to hear a melody, no matter how horrible it is.

How does this parallel to fitness and fat loss?

Because there are going to be things that you don't enjoy doing, but must do if you want to succeed and live a healthy, fat free lifestyle.

Maybe you don't like vegetables. Too bad. You have to eat them.

Maybe you don't like to exercise. Too bad. You have to do it. You can search out things you enjoy doing, but it must elicit enough of a calorie burn to make a difference and going for a leisurely stroll with your spouse or friends doesn't count.

Maybe you enjoy drinking soda and don't want to give it up. Too bad. You have to give up that habit if you want to lose fat. And sometimes diet soda is worse than its regular, sugar-laden counterpart.

Maybe you like the donuts in the break room everyday or hitting the vending machine around mid-morning. Too bad. You can't eat donuts or junk food on a regular basis if you want to be fit. You can have it occasionally or for one of your "cheat" meals, but that's it.

You get the idea, right?

Sometimes you have to do things you don't like because they're good for you.

It may sound horrible, but I promise you that if you give it a shot for a few weeks it will be easier and will become a habit. It's just getting to the point where it becomes habit that's difficult.

I'm actually starting to enjoy singing. Well to my daughter at least. She likes it, so I like it.

Have a good day!

Ed Scow

P.S. - Who knows you may enjoy eating broccoli, drinking green tea, or, God forbid, doing resistance training a few times per week followed by some interval training for about 15 minutes each. That doesn't sound too bad, does it? Give it a shot. You just may surprise yourself. And if you're really smart you'll pick up my Fat Loss To Go program and get started today with your fast fat loss workouts and common sense nutrition. Check it out at www.fatlosstogo.com

Hotel Room Fat Loss Workout

Last week I got back from a fantastic, but very short, trip to Toronto where I had a mastermind meeting with 10 of the top fitness professionals in the world.

That’s no exaggeration.

Most of us were fitness professionals only, but a few were nutrition experts and I’ve got some very exciting things planned with all of them in the near future.

Anyway, I learned two very valuable lessons while in Toronto.

The first thing I learned was that there are a lot of refugees from Somalia in Toronto. My cab driver to the hotel was from Somalia and when asked about his home he didn’t seem too eager to talk about it.

I took the hint.

The next thing I learned is that when doing your bodyweight workout in your hotel room in the morning you should catch your breath before answering the door to tell housekeeping to go away.

I was near the end of my workout when I got the knock and ran to answer the door to tell her to go away…and I was panting.

She looked at me kind of funny and said she’d come back later.

So that’s where this newsletter has taken me. Hotel room workouts.

My workout only took me about 15 minutes to complete, included nothing but bodyweight exercises, and as the housekeeper found out, left me breathless.

So here’s what I did, and you should try too the next time you find yourself in a hotel but not wanting to head down to the workout facility.

I did a quick warm-up consisting of push-ups and squats. I did 3 sets of 10 each with little to no rest between sets.

I then did 4 sets of the following supersets, only resting 20-30 seconds after the second exercise before returning to the first:

1A) Push-up w/Hand Raise – 12 per hand
1B) 1-Leg Hip Extension – 15 reps per leg

2A) Pike Push-up – 15 reps
2B) Reverse Lunge – 15 reps per leg

3A) “T” Push-up – 16 reps
3B) Overhead Squats – 20 reps

After those exercises, I had a pretty good sweat worked up.

You could even give that workout a try this weekend. Do it first thing in the morning before anything else gets in the way and pushes the workout to the back burner.

Have a good weekend!

Ed Scow

P.S. – As I said earlier, I met with 10 of the greatest fitness and nutritional professionals in the world this week and have some exciting things in the works for my Fat Loss To Go e-book (www.fatlosstogo.com). Stay tuned in the coming weeks for more information.

How To Dine Out And Still Lose Fat

Have you ever been eating at a restaurant and wondered how many calories are in the meal sitting before you?

No? OK, well maybe it's just me, but after reading this you may want to do the same.

Some have the information available upon request, but most don’t make it available.

Well, my aunt sent me an email that had the worst restaurant meals and their caloric content and nutritional breakdown.

Here’s just a few examples.

McDonald’s 5 piece Chicken Selects with ranch sauce has over 800 calories with 55g of fat. 55 Grams of fat! That’s insane. Especially when you consider that they advertised them under the guise of healthy food because they were supposed to be chicken breast, but even chicken breast isn’t healthy when it’s doused in batter and deep fried.

My favorite, though was the smoothie from Jamba Juice. When you hear smoothie you probably think it’s healthy, right? That’s how they’re marketed after all. But this smoothie from Jamba Juice had 900 calories, with 160g of sugar! That’s unbelievable!

By the way, those two I just gave you were the “best of the worst”. There were plenty with upwards of 1500 and 2000 calories. That’s how many calories many people should be consuming in an entire day if they want to lose fat and these entrees (or some appetizers) have them in one shot.

Hearing numbers like that it should be no surprise to anyone that we have an obesity epidemic in this country. We simply eat too much, or don’t pay any attention to what’s going in our mouths, and don’t notice until it’s wound up as gooey fat sitting on our gut, butt or thighs.

You should be wary of any meal when dining out. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t go out to eat. Quite the contrary. I think it’s necessary that we get out of the house and frequent restaurants. I’d go crazy and get cabin fever if I didn’t get out of the house and eat at restaurants. What I am saying is that you need to understand that many meals and drinks are not prepared with the idea that they’re going to keep your waist line in check.

They are made to taste as good and but as cheaply as possible because restaurants need to make money, after all. So in order to make many foods taste better, they are fried, sautéed, or otherwise prepared to increase the fat, because fat makes food taste better, or are smothered in sugar and fat loaded creams and sauces.

So here are a couple tips to watch out for when dining out.

First, avoid the appetizer. Appetizers are usually loaded with fat, and this includes the veggie dishes because they come with some sort of dipping sauce.

Next, avoid anything fried, sautéed or cooked in some sort of sauce. It may sound healthy because it’s salmon or chicken or vegetarian, but if it’s fried, sautéed or cooked in sauce, it’s high in fat and loaded with calories.

Last, if you’ve decided that you’re going to eat poorly when you’re eating in a restaurant, at least get a half order. The proportions on full orders are so out of whack they could feed an entire village in some starving country. So do yourself a favor and just ask for a half order, or split it with whomever you’re dining.

Another easy thing to do is to take a drink of water between every bite. Water will fill you up a little faster, which means you won’t be able to eat as much, which means you won’t store as much fat.

I hope I’ve enlightened you a little bit, and will begin to eat a little more consciously when you’re out and about.

Have a good day!

Ed Scow

P.S. – I have an entire bonus dedicated to traveling and eating out that comes free with my Fat Loss To Go program. It comes with tons of fat loss workouts to do on the road and how to read menus to keep you on your fat loss track. Check it out at www.fatlosstogo.com

Eat Your Cake and Lose Fat Too!

"So, who's going to be the first one to eat the cake?"

That's the question I asked recently when I was at small business meeting up in Toronto.

There were 10 fitness professionals in the room and we had lunch catered to the meeting room...and there was chocolate cake.

Everybody was looking at it and you could tell everybody wanted it, but we're fitness professionals. We shouldn't eat that stuff, right?

So do you think anybody ate it?

Absolutely! By the end of lunch the ENTIRE cake was gone. And you know what? It was fantastic.

What's my point?

You have to relax a little bit every once in a while. Just because you're on a fat loss program doesn't mean you have to totally throw out your favorite foods.

If you try to do that, you will fail. And you will go crazy in the process of your failure.

Many of my clients who have tried fad diets in the past tell me that they simply can't stick to the program because they're too restrictive and make the person totally eliminate the foods they love. Or they make you eat something that you don't like.

That's just insane. And it sets you up to fail. And it makes you crazy.

Here's where me and my fellow fitness pros differ from the majority of the population and why we were able to eat the cake - guilt free.

We all worked out in the morning before our meeting. Not long workouts. Mine only took about 15 minutes and included all bodyweight exercises (it was a workout from my Fat Loss To Go program) and I didn't have to leave my hotel room, which meant no worries about bags under the eyes, stanky breath or the proper workout attire.

The other thing was that our lunch and snacks all included healthy food.

We had bananas, apples, pears, oranges as well as yogurt and for lunch we had sandwiches (whole wheat bread and low-fat meats) and salad.

That means that it's OK to splurge every now and again on something like chocolate cake.

So lighten up.

Have a piece of cake.

And don't feel guilty after you eat it.

Just make sure you stick to your fat loss workouts and healthy eating the rest of the time.

Have a good day!

Ed Scow

P.S. - Sorry there's no video today. I had planned on filming a video up here in Toronto, but I forgot my camera. Oh well. But if you're looking for some awesome fast fat loss workouts, check out my Fat Loss To Go (www.fatlosstogo.com) program. All the workouts can be done in as few as 10-15 minutes and done in the comfort of your own home, or hotel room.

Are You Sabotaging Your Fat Loss Goals?

I’ve been told by some of my friends and clients that they just can’t lose fat.

They try and try, but nothing happens.

They exercise. They eat “right”. They do all the right things.

Does that sound familiar?

However, when I dig down deeper and ask some questions I find out that they’re all doing one thing wrong. It comes in different forms, but it’s all the same mistake.

They think that if they have a really good workout, they can “reward” themselves with an unhealthy snack.

Or, if they have had a really hard day/week, they give in to some temptation or comfort food.

It’s just this one time, right?

Many people think that just because they exercise that they can eat more unhealthy foods and not have any consequences. After all, exercise burns calories and so if you eat extra calories they won’t matter in the grand scheme of things, right?

Have you ever had that thought?

Or have you told yourself that if you stay diligent and focused all week that you can let it all hang out on the weekends, because you deserve it after all your hard work?

Or maybe you’re the emotional eater who stays disciplined 80% of the time, but there are those days that make you want to pull your hair out (or someone else’s) and you cope by drinking alcohol or eating ice cream or cheeseburgers.

Those are all hidden mistakes that will wreak havoc on your fat loss goals.

Never lose sight of the fact that you’re trying to LOSE FAT and, if that’s what you’re after, you have to keep an eye on everything that goes in your mouth (or doesn’t go in your mouth).

You can’t justify eating whatever you want just because you’re active. That may be fine for the 20 year old collegiate athlete, but not the 40 year old, mostly sedentary, except for the 30-45 minutes of exercise 3-4 days per week man or woman.

Nor can you give in whenever your kids, husband, wife, job, neighbors, or whatever the trigger is, drives you a little crazy.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for rewarding yourself once and a while. I adhere to the 90/10 rule, where I stay disciplined 90% of the time and 10% I can “loosen the tie” so to speak and have unhealthy foods or a little alcohol. That’s what I preach in my Fat Loss To Go program and what I preach to my clients.

Sometimes this mistake is known and sometimes it’s “hidden”, but I want you to really look at your eating habits and ask yourself if this mistake fits you.

Do you justify eating those junky treats because you deserve it after that fat loss workout?

Do you reach for the “Chunky Monkey” ice cream after a hard day’s work?

Do you justify eating and drinking whatever you want on the weekend because you stayed disciplined all week?

If you answered yes to any of those, or if you thought of your own, change those habits and you WILL lose fat. That I can promise.

Have a great day!

Ed Scow

Check Out My Favorite "Crunch Free" Ab Exercises

By far the most questions I get are about abs.

How do I get better abs?

How do I get rid of this belly fat?

How can I cut off this belly fat? That’s a little extreme, but who am I to judge?

So to answer all the questions I get about stomach fat and abs, I made a video devoted to 3 of my favorite “crunch free” ab exercises.

After doing these ab exercises, you should realize that not only do they work your abs, but your shoulders, low back and glutes.

Give 'em a try in your next workout and tell me what you think.



Don't forget to leave a comment and tell me what you think of these ab exercises.

If You Want To Lose Fat, You Must Watch This

This is the time of year where your mentality towards working out and eating right go one of two ways.

You either:

1. Kick it in gear because you know that summer is coming and you don't want to be that person at the pool or lake who doesn't take their shirt off.

Or,

2. As the weather gets nicer you begin to tell yourself that you've got too many things "going on". You don't have time. The kids are out of school and you want to be around them. You golf and do yard work and that's enough. You go for walks around the neighborhood when the weather's nice and that's enough.

Don't fall into category 2. You must workout and stick to your healthy eating habits. Or if you haven't started yet, DO IT RIGHT NOW!

Watch this video if you need a swift kick in the pants. It's an awesome video and makes you think.



So? Are you going to start now? Or do you still think you don't have the time.