Watch Your Snacking Habits

Snacking is an area where many people cheat on their diets. If you munch on high calorie snacks in between meals, it will undermine any diet you’re trying to follow. Stay away from vending machine snacks like candy bars and chips.

Instead, bring some healthy snacks with you. Nuts and dried fruit are a good choice. While nuts such as almonds, cashews and walnuts contain fat, it’s the healthy kind. Still, you should only eat a few at a time, as they are fairly high in calories. Another healthy snack is a whey shake, which provides you with plenty of muscle-building protein.

Be Active in Between Workouts

Assuming that you work out regularly, you can also get in some extra activity throughout the day. Use your breaks at work, as well as lunchtime, to get in a few power walks. Whenever possible, walk or ride a bicycle instead of driving. Use stairs rather than elevators or escalators. These types of habits will mean burning off more calories every day.

What to Eat Before the Main Course

You can curb your appetite by eating some healthier, low calorie foods before you start biting into that pasta or steak and potatoes. A good way to start a meal is with a healthy soup and salad. You should, however, make sure that these are truly low calorie. With salads, stick to oil and vinegar for dressing. If you insist on using more flavorful dressings, keep the quantity to a minimum.

Do Interval Training Rather Than Conventional Cardio

Research shows that doing long stretches of cardio, such as on an exercise bike, isn’t the best way to lose fat. It’s more effective and less time consuming to do some type of interval training. You can do this on an exercise bike or elliptical machine, but you vary the intensity. Alternate short periods of intense activity with rest periods.

Don’t Neglect Strength Training

Aside from cardio or interval training, you should also consistently do strength training if you want to lose fat. Building muscle and losing fat go hand in hand. That’s why it’s essential to work all of your major muscle groups at least a couple of times per week. To give you some extra power when lifting weights, make sure you add creatine to your diet regimen. Click here for more info about this powerful supplement.

Meat, Eggs and Dairy

Fresh, unprocessed animal products provide the full scope of essential amino acids as well as some vitamins and minerals not found in plant-based foods. These include iron, vitamin A and vitamin B12, all of which are necessary for proper metabolism and nervous system function.

You also receive saturated fats from animal products. This wrongly-maligned fat is critical for the production of testosterone, which boosts metabolism, stimulates muscle growth and improves energy and endurance levels. You can also improve your exercise performance by adding a pre-workout supplement to your diet.

Fresh Fruit and Veggies

It’s recommended that you have fresh fruit or vegetables with every meal. These supply soluble and insoluble fiber, which improves digestive efficiency and helps you absorb more nutrients. Furthermore, soluble fiber from plant foods feed probiotic gut bacteria. Studies have shown that these beneficial flora produce serotonin, which enhances mood and reduces junk food cravings.

When you eat vegetables, it’s a good idea to consume them with a source of fat like olive oil, coconut oil, almond oil or real butter. This will aid the absorption and utilization of the fat-soluble vitamins A, E, D and K.

Nuts

Tree nuts and peanuts are fantastic ideas for snacking or adding to meals. They contain a wide array of vitamins, minerals and antioxidants that support good physical and psychological health. Some nuts, such as walnuts provide ample amounts of omega-3, which has been shown to aid fat loss. Furthermore, their status as a protein-rich food makes them ideal for curbing occasional junk binges. To further boost your consumption of healthy fats, consider an omega-3 supplement.

Water

While water isn’t technically considered a food, it deserves to be mentioned here simply because of its importance as part of a healthy diet. Your kidneys use water to clear out wastes, but when water supplies are short, they don’t work so well. At this point, your liver deviates from its normal role of metabolizing food and body fat into energy, providing backup filtration instead. While your liver is doing this, you aren’t burning fat and you may even be gaining some. Staying fully hydrated at all times ensures that your liver is free to help you avoid obesity.

Read on to find out how you can sport your own V-shape torso before too long.

Concentrate on Lats

You will want to first concentrate on building wide lats. You can get your lats in order by focusing on wide grips, close grips, pulling, and rowing. To be particular, you should be specifically paying attention to the Yates row, the inverted row, and the bent over row. Chin-ups and pull-ups will also help you achieve your desired look.

Broaden Your Shoulders

While you work on your lats, you’ll also want to begin building your broad shoulders. Your deltoids have 3 heads, and they are known as the anterior, posterior, and lateral muscles. You can work these by using exercises such as the bent over lateral raise, the bent arm lateral raise, and the lumberjack press.

Thicken Your Traps

Lastly, you should also work on your traps. Your traps are made up of three parts:  mid, upper, and lower trap. As you would assume, you need to be working on all of these muscles to achieve maximum muscle density. Specifically, to work on these muscles, you should focus on the face-down inclined front raise, inclined shrug and seated cable row.

Change Your Diet

You probably guessed that what you eat will have a lot to do with the success of your V-shape torso build. Because you’ll be building muscle, you’ll want to focus on foods that are high in protein. Next time you are at the grocery store, pick up foods such as whole eggs, fish oil, wild salmon, berries, yogurt, flax seed, mixed nuts, red meat, and broccoli. You should also consider a whey protein shake to further boost your gains.

Overall, building a V-shape torso takes persistence. You’re not going to see results in your torso after one workout. The more closely you follow the workout plan for the V-shape torso, the more sculpted your torso will be and the happier you’ll be with the results. Be sure to give your body time to develop, and never succumb to impatience by quitting or giving up.

Focus on diet

Most fitness experts agree that diet is the biggest challenge when it comes to achieving a shredded body. Getting a shredded body starts in the kitchen. If you are looking to totally change your physique, start off by cleaning up your diet.  This can easily be done by (1) reducing carbohydrate intake, (2) eat high protein, and (3) eat healthy balanced fats.

Stay away from all refined and processed carbohydrates. Cakes, cookies, pies and any other sweets must not be consumed when in the process of getting shredded. Eating high amounts of protein creates a thermic effect in the body which in turns helps shed body fat.  Also, it is necessary to eat healthy balanced fats coming from natural sources such as eggs, fish, beef, avocado, nuts, and dairy. Stay away from hydrogenated oils and fried foods. You may want to consider an omega-3 supplement as well.

Increase the exercise intensity

One of the biggest mistakes that many individuals make when attempting to get shredded is performing the same exercise routine over and over again. In order for the body to grow, it needs a new level of stimulus every six to eight weeks.

Individuals should focus in on heavy and explosive compound movements such as squats, deadlifts, rows, chin up and presses. These movements transform the body because the sheer amount of adaptive stress placed on the neurological and endocrine system.

Try super-setting between variations of those aforementioned exercises. Always workout within 60%-90% of your one-rep max. Each set should be composed of 6-12 reps with the last rep being at failure.

Do high intensity interval training

The days of slow steady-state cardio is over. High intensity interval training not only burns more fat, but also boosts testosterone and other hormones. These hormones work in tandem with one another to not only help individuals retain and build muscle mass, but also burn fat.

Sprints, Tabatas, CrossFit WODs and other high intensity workouts will be the best. These total body workouts shock the body and will burn fat better than running on a treadmill or bicycling. When doing high-intensity exercise, you can improve performance by using supplements like creatine and whey.

Get enough rest and recovery

The key to fat loss and ultimately being shredded is rest and recovery. A lack of sleep not only affects workout performance, but also raises cortisol levels drastically. Cortisol, a catabolic hormone, hampers fat loss by burning muscle glycogen for energy versus fat. Getting eight to nine hours of sleep a night, supplementing with ZMA, and limiting caffeine intake to around workouts will help reduce cortisol levels.

In the end, getting shredded does not have to be difficult. It’s just a matter of understanding that it is a science and certain procedures must be followed in

Stay Away from Sugary Mixers

The majority of the calories in mixed drinks actually come from the mixers as opposed to the spirits. To cut out some of the calories and carbs, stay away from drinks made with fruit juices and sugary sodas. A shot of whiskey or rum in a diet cola packs all of the alcoholic punch, but has less than half of the calories and no carbs.

Consider an Old-School Cocktail

With the emphasis on mixology that has sprung up in the wake of the craft beer revolution and shows like Mad Men, consider going old school with your drink order. The Manhattan is one of the most sophisticated of the old guard of cocktails, and has just a few carbs from the sweet vermouth. Ask for a 3:1 whiskey to vermouth ratio for a tasty tipple that won’t wreck the hard work you’ve put in on your diet.

Don’t Snack While You Drink

The only reason that bars stock pretzels and peanuts is to make you thirsty, which leads to you drinking more. The snacks are empty calories, and they lead to you drinking more calories as well. Have a healthy dinner before you hit the bar. Pressed for time? Shake up a quick whey protein shake for a filling, nutritious snack.

Practice Moderation

Finally, moderating your intake is probably the most powerful technique to avoid stalling your weight loss. If you want a beer, have one or two good craft beers as opposed to a six pack of tasteless light beers. Go for quality over quantity. With a little forethought, you can still have fun at happy hour while you slim down.

Get Rid of the Bread

To start on a low-carb diet, it’s important to know which foods are low-carb and which ones aren’t. The most obvious ones to cut from your diet are bread, pasta, potatoes and anything starchy. Cakes, cookies, crackers, cereal and anything else with lots of sugar, flour or wheat are sure to be low in protein and high in carbohydrates. These items should be eliminated — or consumed very sparingly — when following a low-carb diet.

Protein is Your Friend

While this isn’t a guaranteed rule of thumb, if you’re wondering if an item is an ally or enemy to your diet, ask yourself how much protein it has. Oftentimes, if it has lots of protein, it has a small amount of carbs. Great examples of this are peanut butter, fish, lean meats, eggs and cheeses. These items are delicious for you to enjoy while you’re on a low-carb diet. You should also consider a men’s whey protein shake for a quick muscle boost.

Plan in Advance

It’s easy to start your low-carb diet with good intentions. Unfortunately, these can get derailed quickly when you’re hungry and you see a vending machine loaded with sugary candy and soda. Set yourself up for victory by packing protein bars and water bottles to avoid these high-carb temptations.

Avoid Boredom

One of the pitfalls of the low-carb diet is that guys often get bored with having meat, fish, eggs and cheese all the time. They start to miss their favorite foods like baked potatoes, French fries, toast and sugary sweets. Stave off boredom by exploring new foods and different ways to prepare them.

If you don’t already know how to cook, taking this on as a hobby will help you stick to your low-carb plan. Learning how to flavor your food with spices will keep monotony away when you’re using the barbecue frequently.

Here are the four keys to bulking up:

Fuel Intake

Calories are required to gain weight. The more calories consumed from healthy foods, the better. One known rule of thumb is to avoid packaged foods entirely. Try to consume fresh items and prepare multiple meals a day. Manage the available meals and focus upon quality protein, good carbohydrates and healthy fats.

Become knowledgeable of the negatives with saturated fats, sugars and sodium. Knowledge is power: if you know what nutrients to look for, you’ll have an easier time planning out your diet.

Anaerobic Exercise

Traditional thought suggests lifting heavier weights with fewer repetitions allows for muscles to grow big. Conversely, if the preference is a more chiseled or defined look, then lift lighter weights with more repetitions.

Another current concept is to change your workouts every month to surprise or shock your system with hopes to avoid any plateaus. Whatever the preference may be, lift weights and exercise with them consistently. You may also want to consider workout supplements such as creatine and whey, both of which have been shown to improve performance and results.

Aerobic Exercise

A workout is not complete without a focus upon exercising the heart. Walking, running and swimming are just a few examples of ways to increase your heart rate. The key to blending an aerobic routine within your weight gaining program is to cap the time around 30 minutes per day.

Contrastingly, the time is not appropriate to start training for a long distance race such as a marathon. The body simply redirects too many calories by keeping the legs and arms moving for such a long period of a time. Always remember calories are precious and need to be reserved for the goal of gaining weight.

Rest

Equally important is getting proper rest. Environmental stress hammers the body continuously and the muscles and brain need to recharge from the daily encounters with work and family. Quite candidly, the body needs to have a chance to recover from the daily grind.

A restful mind allows for a better performance within all aspects of life. Plus, workout performance becomes much more satisfactory when the only fatigue feeling is from the muscles recovering.

Face Scrub

If you have an oily face, you need to choose a cleanser that will reduce as much of the oil as it can and will help your body stop producing more oil on top of it. That means that you need a cleanser that is slightly tougher than the normal, so look for a face scrub that has glycolic acid listed as one of the ingredients, such as MenScience Microfine Face Scrub. This cleanser is designed to help reduce oily skin and maintain a clear complexion that will inspire confidence.

Clay Mask

If you have a little while to yourself, think about clay masks. There was a time when people believed that clay masks were only good for women’s skin, but as time goes on, we have realized that clay masks are just good for people’s skin. Clay soaks up the moisture while leaving the skin feeling moisturized and revived, and it also tightens pores, giving your skin a much finer look. A MenScience clay mask can help manage oil levels and restore your skin to its original, pristine condition. Find out more here.

Face Lotion

Contrary to popular belief, oil and moisture are not the same thing. Even if you have oily skin, it’s important to moisturize regularly to maintain proper skin health. The key is to look for a moisturizer that is non-comedogenic. This word is crucial: non-comedogenic is a term that signifies a product will not clog pores. If you accidentally opt for a comedogenic moisturizer, you might make your oil problem first – and even produce some acne. MenScience Advanced Face Lotion will keep your pores clear and keep your skin from looking overly shiny or greasy.

Wash Your Face Regularly

If you want to keep your skin clean and oil-free, you have to wash it – no ifs, ands, or buts. However, don’t just wash your face with any cleanser. You need one with salicylic acid, which can help fight oily skin and prevent breakouts (as well as treat existing ones). Just don’t overdo it. There’s no need to wash your face more than once or twice a day.

Apply a Lightweight Moisturizer to Your Skin

Even those with oily skin types need to use moisturizer. If you avoid using a moisturizer, your skin will just produce more oil. However, you should not use a heavy moisturizer. Instead, apply a non-comedogenic moisturizer to your skin. This type of moisturizer won’t clog pores; clogged pores is a leading cause of oily skin and nasty acne breakouts.

Pay Attention to What You Eat

If you have oily skin, paying attention to what you eat is important. Spicy and greasy foods might taste good, but they dilate your blood vessels, causing your skin to sweat. Just try to limit your intake of these types of foods – you don’t need to give them up altogether. You should also eat foods high in antioxidants, including fruits and vegetables. Antioxidants can help make your skin look even better by fighting free radical damage, which can lead to wrinkles and other aging signs.

Exfoliate Your Skin

Exfoliate your skin twice a week to loosen the dirt and oil in your pores. Just apply the exfoliating product to your skin with your fingers in circular motions. Using a face scrub provides a deeper clean than a face wash. Nevertheless, exfoliation is not something that should be done every day. Because of its deep-cleaning nature, too much exfoliation can actually irritate your skin and make an oily t zone worse. For help with exfoliation, check out this exhaustive primer.

As you can see, controlling an oily T-zone is not impossible. If you follow these helpful tips, your T-zone will look healthy and oil-free.

Here’s what you can do to speed up recovery and hit the gym hard again.

Take a Break

If you work out every day, stop. Working your muscles hard day in and day out is probably doing more harm than good. You see, your body needs rest to grow – much of muscle growth occurs when you’re not slaving away at the gym.  Try to incorporate at least one rest day into your regimen each week. Also, don’t work out the same muscle groups consecutively – mix things up to keep your body guessing and to keep injury at bay.

Eat Right

Rest is just one part of the equation; you also need a good diet.. Muscles depend on protein, vitamins, and certain amino acids that are found in special foods.  The average person finds all the protein and vitamins the body needs in their normal meals, but athletes push themselves harder. Like running a sports car requires high performance lubrication, athletes need generous portions of relatively scarce amino acids and nutrients. A multivitamin can work wonders for a body builder, but that is only the start of the possibilities. Click here to find out more about the benefits of vitamins.

Take Workout Supplements

A good diet and sufficient rest will get you far, but there’s one missing ingredient that can take you to the next level: workout supplements. There are a plethora of supplements such as whey and creatine that can help boost your performance for faster results and recovery. MenScience supplements nix filler ingredients and provide only the necessary nutrients to repair your muscles. For a list of supplements to consider, check this article out.