Burning fat and losing weight is hard enough. But for most of us, losing those last 10 or 15 pounds – and keeping them off – seems nearly impossible. And let’s not forget that we want to keep the muscle we’ve built along the way, right?

OK, time to drop the word “nearly” and just call it impossible?

Not so, says personal trainer and fitness blogger Chad Howse.

Chad has a great personal story of his own which includes boxing and putting functional muscle on his skinny frame, but today he stopped by to share 3 tips for burning fat and how he went from fighting at 165 lbs to 152 lbs without sacrificing any muscle.

Here are Chad’s tips for dropping those last pounds and making sure they stay gone. (more…)

It’s not easy losing weight – at least for most of us – which is why fat loss is always a mainstream topic being talked about on almost every talk and news show (Larry King with Carnie Wilson and Jillian Michaels last week was the icing on the cake!). Most of you reading this probably want to burn up that fat and uncover your abs sooner rather than later.

Who wouldn’t want a midsection that looks like a cheese grater?

[This pic is for anyone stuck shoveling snow this past week. Must go somewhere sunny very soon!]

NOTE: I would’ve used the old “washboard abs” metaphor but I think it’s time to retire that one since anybody under the age of 30 probably has no idea what the hell a washboard is?

So to get you on your way to burning up the fat around your belly, here are five crucial fat loss tips to help your diet and exercise regimen for the new year: (more…)

So the calendar has switched over and it’s 2010. You’re interested in losing weight and think you should buy the latest supplement or give a new weight loss infomercial a try.

But what if we told you the secret to losing weight is right around the corner at your local grocery store?

[I can't remember the last time I went down the "pop" aisle? You shouldn't be going down it either!]

This is where it all starts – The input to the output. The snap of the ball before the touchdown pass. How you go about something as routine as grocery shopping could be holding you back from the fat loss goals you deserve to achieve.

Here are three important strategies to keep in mind the next time you’re heading out to the grocery store to “pick-up” a few things. (more…)

Looking at the food court in a local shopping mall today I thought about these two questions:

How many people have calories on their mind?

Do any of them count calories?

I’m gonna go out on the proverbial limb here and say probably none of them.

Harsh? Maybe. But I too was once a frequent visitor of the common food courts eating fattening foods and feeling my clothes getting tighter by the fry. So chalk this up to experience.

After several failed attempts at losing weight, I finally took some responsibility and found an unlikely weapon against fat-> The PENCIL!

[I used to yawn or skip right over any talk about goal setting. But after giving it a go in my fat loss journey, I'm using it everywhere now!]

Keeping a Food Journal

In the beginning, I tried keeping a food journal but it never lasted more than a few days at a time. It was time consuming and an inconvenient exercise to calculate all of those calories ingested over the course of a day. In the end, calories were either forgotten or grossly under-estimated.
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Don’t be fooled by all the fat loss and muscle building experts out there proclaiming the death of calorie counting. Chances are they all started with some form of calorie counting and are obviously more experienced now and don’t need to follow the practice religiously.

Fellow fitness blogger Rafi Bar-Lev from The Fitness Adviser was kind enough to explain the basics of this time-tested method and outline the long term benefits.

Benefits of Counting Calories: Fat Loss and Beyond- Guest Post by Rafi Bar-Lev

Your coworker makes a comment to you about your weight.

Generally, you’d just brush it off, but this isn’t the first person to say something and you’re aware that it really is a problem. You decide that starting today, you’re going to go on a diet and start losing weight.

There’s only one problem. You don’t have the faintest idea where to start?
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