Some people think that weight lifting is going to add weight on, but it actually helps you to lose weight and burn calories at a faster rate than if you were just flabby and had a lot of body fat. However, it is important that you still do cardio as well when you are doing your workout regimen, to maintain the actual calorie burning piece of the workout. The thing with lifting weights is that the actual weight lifting itself doesn’t burn tons of calories in and of itself, like cardio activity does, but when you build muscle mass, you actually burn calories at a higher, faster rate when you are sitting still, and that’s where you get your bang for the buck from weightlifting.

Not only do you have a better resting metabolism when you lift weights and build lean muscle mass, but you also will get a lot more comments on looking great because of the fact that lifting weights makes you look cut and buff. Just doing a lot of cardio will keep you thin, but it’s the weightlifting that will actually shape and sculpt your body, and get you noticed.

One trick to burning calories is that you can up the repetitions and keep the weight the same, and then bump up your weight in pounds, and bump up your reps again when that one actually gets too easy. This is a good way to get a good calorie burn in with your weight lifting repertoire. Not to mention, you can get ripped and sculpted doing it this way!

I love using lighter weights and lots of reps because I actually feel like I am doing some sort of lighter cardio, and I feel like I’m burning off some sort of stress – maybe it’s therapeutic, but it feels like I’m doing something that gets the anxiety out!

I’ve always wanted sculpted, sinewy, muscular yet still feminine arms, and somehow that has eluded me most of my life, since my fat seems to automatically migrate to my upper arms and my thighs. But that’s what it’s like for most women. The most common places for fat to accumulate on a woman are the thighs, buttocks and the upper arms. It’s just a fact of life, and it’s something that most women have to fight tooth and nail, and can’t let up on during their lives, or else their upper arms will turn flabby again before they can say the words “arm workout hiatus”.

I did have skinny muscular arms once. However, I was at a point in my life where I dieted very strictly, and I just don’t think that I can diet like that again . I severely limited my refined carbohydrates, and I worked out religiously at least 5 to 6 times a week. I’m just at a different point in my life now. I like to eat the occasional pancake breakfast, and eat a slice of chocolate cake here and there. It’s these little things that give me pleasure, and I can’t forego them anymore like I used to be easily able to do in my younger days, for the sake of skinnier clothes.

Here are some of the roadblocks that women have up when they are trying to get that skinny armed, toned and yet still feminine look to their arms. They first of all do not possess as much testosterone as men do, and therefore it is actually harder and more labor intensive for women to gain muscle mass in most areas of the body, particularly the arms. Men just get big arms a little more easily. It doesn’t mean we as women can’t get those arm muscles, we just usually have to work a little harder and longer for it.

Also throw down the roadblock of birth control. Many birth control pills hinder the production of testosterone, which destroys a woman’s abilities to get larger arm muscles. She must work double time to achieve the same muscle mass many times if she is on an estrogen birth control method. Women are made to actually have higher levels of body fat on them, because we bear children, and that is how nature intended us to look. But it’s not all a bad thing. Actually, higher fat in the thigh area has been shown to be correlated with higher IQ’s in women, so there!

Jogging and running, I am convinced, really does melt off the pounds, and the fat. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve found that regular jogging makes my excess calories go up in smoke, so to speak, and it seems like I can eat more without putting on excess weight. When I think about why this might be with jogging and running, more so than when I do my “regular” thing at the gym like getting on the elliptical machine and doing my weights workout, I think it’s because your body is under a real stressor and this accounts for the extra calorie burn and sweating.

Not only that, but when you run outside as opposed to indoors on a treadmill, you get the benefit of alternating inclinations and speeds, and also of the weather being inclement, so say if it’s a bit nippy outside, you get the extra benefit of your body trying harder to heat itself up, which burns more calories than when it is in a totally comfortable temperature stasis, and when it is hot or very warm outside, you get the benefit of getting slightly overheated, which your body also tries to compensate for and starts to burn more calories to keep the body cooled.

So, running outside, I’ve found, is one of the best calorie burners out there. Not only that, it offers a peace of mind and pleasantness that works overtime on busting stress that working out indoors can’t offer. You get to see greenery, which is intrinsically calming to the human species and gives a sense of well being and one with nature, and you also get to breathe in the fresh air, which is excellent for your lungs and for your sense of well being as well.

I took a long run today. It was 75 degrees outside, and I did get pretty hot. I alternated jogging and running/sprinting and walking, which I think really does the trick since you are not overbearing on your legs and your joints, but you are keeping that calorie burn at an ultimate high since you are still “coming down” when you are walking, from your jogging.

When I came back, I was literally dripping with sweat, and that was only on a moderately warm day with a bit of a cool breeze. I was out there for about 35 minutes total, and my sense of calm and stress reduction when I got back was amazing. I was exhausted of course, but I really felt like I had accomplished something, and being outside added to that sense of elation. Running outdoors is one of the most enjoyable forms of exercise I’ve ever done, definitely.

One of the huge benefits that we don’t necessarily put to the face of exercise and fitness is the fact that it increases the quality of our blood circulation in our body. Sure, this benefit is lumped in with other benefits like the fact that it helps protect against heart disease and even stroke, both of which are linked to poor circulation and blood flow, but we don’t often think of it as a “standalone” benefit of exercise – particularly cardio exercise, like we should. Circulation is what gets your blood going to the different parts of your body, right down to your finger tips and extremities, which often will get cold if you have poor circulation.

I’ve had this problem my whole life, and I’ve noticed that it gets worse when I go on longer jaunts without working out, because working out definitely improves this circulation of blood to my extreme body parts like my fingers and my feet and toes. But the circulation of blood isn’t just important to keep you warm, it’s also important because blood carries oxygen to all your major organs, including your heart and your brain, and if that circulation is compromised you can end up with serious problems in both organs. So, you can see why good circulation is crucial to maintaining the health of your body and your mind.

Because blood carries oxygen to the brain, it may also improve your focus and your mental stamina, so it’s wise to exercise to keep your mind sharp as well. As with noticing my circulation improvement to my extremities, I also notice that working out a lot makes me a more focused person, and I’m able to complete mental tasks and memory tasks much more easily. Not to mention my energy levels increase dramatically since my blood is carrying oxygen everywhere it needs to go where it can be utilized for further breaking down into energy.

If you are concerned with increasing your circulation, give yourself a double whammy of exercise for circulation improvement and do cardio and also get yourself a good yoga DVD. Yoga not only helps to stretch the muscles out, it also helps to oxygenate them by improving circulation and carrying blood to areas that don’t get enough of it, which increases your energy and helps to get the blood flowing everywhere in the body.

Have you ever found, as so many other people who have made the healthy habit of working out part of their weekly routine, that your workout just doesn’t seem to be getting the same results or challenging you as much as it used to? That’s because with this amazing thing we call the human body that we were blessed with, it was made to reach new heights all the time, to be pushed to newer and better muscle definition, lung capacity, endurance and overall strength and stamina heights.

When you reach a phase where your body becomes accustomed to the workout that you’re doing, or even the combination of acitivities that you are doing, that’s when it’s the perfect time to change things up, shake up the body, and get it to reach those new heights of physical fitness. We’re not just talking about making you look better, but also in achieving greater overall endurance and strength, which is a great anti-ager, and one of the things that is most joyful in life, to be able to hike, have fun with kids, get out and enjoy the outdoors and sports, and to do things without feeling overly tired or fatigued all the time.

You will notice your energy levels increase as your physical fitness increases, and you will also notice your confidence skyrocket, making life more enjoyable and something that you feel like conquering every day instead of crawling back into bed and going to sleep. Sounds good, huh? Well, if you continue to push the levels of your workout by switching it up by doing different things like wall climbing, elliptical training, jump roping, lunges and alternative moves and intensities, this creates optimum levels of fitness in the body.

Try doing something totally different than what you’re used to. If you’re not the most flexible person and have trouble even doing stretching before your workouts, try doing yoga and getting advanced at it. It will stretch your muscles and tell you of the muscles you didn’t even know you had in your body. If you’re not the best at cardio endurance, start marathon training. Talk about a challenge! Or you could try taking a spinning class, which requires mucho cardio endurance! If you don’t have very built muscles, try doing muscle training on weight machines. It’s all about switching things up and keeping your body challenged.

I’m amazed every time at how quickly I seem to lose muscle tone whenever I’m incapacitated and can’t work out for a few days or a week or so. I can’t work out now for five days due to a procedure I had done, and I already feel like my arm muscles have pretty much atrophied, with my lunch lady fat hanging down off of them again, even though I’ve actually seen the scale go down, probably because I have lost muscle mass, which weighs more than fat.

Unfortunately, as quickly as you can gain muscle, you can also lose it. It’s always best not to forgo the workouts for a week or more if you can, because it takes a little more time to get those muscles back in shape and up to speed since they aren’t used to bulking up or carrying heavy things like they got used to fairly quickly when you were in the groove and working out all the time.

It’s been five days now, and my belly doesn’t even look so good. I supposed I could do some crunches, but if I’m being totally honest, once in a while it’s nice to be totally free of working out or worrying about it. Another bad side effect of skipping the workouts for a while is that your energy levels plummet, and you do tend to find that you can get in a blue mood much more easily, which really just boosts the argument that working out and exercising is not only good for the body, but it’s also good for the mind and the soul.

I’ll get back on the horse tomorrow, which is the official day I’m allowed to begin my workouts again and sweat, so I’ll start feeling much better then I’m sure. One thing’s for sure, I’m getting more done on my computer since I can’t actually work out!

I’ve been doing the old as dirt Bodies in Motion series, and suddenly my DVR is capturing newer episodes of the Israeli studmuffin (some magazine called him this which I think is hilarious) doing his moves to get your heart pumping. Honestly, Bodies in Motion is a pretty easy workout. It’s only a half hour, not even because of the intro and the commercial breaks, and he seems to go easy on you. Now his other series, Total Body Sculpt is a little harder and I love it because it usually challenges me and shows me moves I’ve never done before that actually work pretty fast to sculpt away problem areas.

The series Bodies in Motion was capturing a bunch that were from the early 2000 years, and they were just outdated so they were hard to get into. Plus he didn’t do many of the kickboxing moves he does in them now, so you feel like you’re doing something more modern with his newer Bodies in Motions series. I usually will pair this with his Body Sculpt show, and it gives me a pretty good workout.