Today’s article explains why so much mass confusion exists about fat burning, and how to avoid this and get yourself on the right path for lifelong fitness.

People are confused more than ever about how to burn fat. They are confused about the best way to go about achieving the body they want. They are confused about what works and what doesn’t, and the reasons why.

There are countless individuals slaving away in gyms and fitness centers around the country right now. They are working tirelessly, almost every day, on the treadmill, stair-climber, elliptical, etc. to burn those calories and fat. They also might be lifting weights several times a week for hours at a time to build some strength and muscle. They might even join a few aerobics or spinning classes too.

They are probably also trying one of the latest diet strategies that promises miracle fat burning and weight loss. They could also be spending a lot of money on the latest and greatest dietary supplements that could be that miracle pill that will aid in weight loss.

They are also carefully watching the scale as their main judge of fat loss progress. If it goes up a pound or two, they may behave rashly and maybe even change up their entire workout or diet program! And of course there are others are doing variations on that same theme.

After all, this is the kind of stuff that many of the popular fitness and diet gurus typically recommend to burn fat. But with so many different strategies and plans being pushed as the be all and end all, what happens is we tend to go overboard.

And when that happens, we lose sight of what really matters in achieving lifelong fat burning, fitness and health…the principles than many people don’t know about, most people have forgotten, and only a select few put to use to achieve lifelong health and fitness. These are the same principles I used to drop over 40 pounds of unwanted body fat, keep it off, and revitalize my life!

With any exercise or nutrition program, you’ll probably lose some fat initially, but far too often the progress doesn’t continue or doesn’t come as fast as the person would like because they’re using a temporary mindset. They’re only focused on the short term and one specific goal. So they end up switching to something else, and the cycle continues until they’ve become consumed by this cycle of confusion.

I believe that this is one of the biggest, if not the #1 reason for the lack of fat loss and fitness progress that is being experienced by the masses of exercisers and dieters in the world. They are jumping from one fad diet or exercise routine to another, while losing sight of what’s really important, and what really works. Simply put, they are exercising far too much, not nearly intensely enough, and trying to adhere to unrealistic diet recommendations.

If instead they focused on a long term plan, a lifestyle as it’s often called, and didn’t worry about “losing 10 pounds by summer”, they would find it far easier to do the right things most of the time. And those right things include brief, progressive, and intense resistance training, eating a diet full of nutrient rich foods, drinking tons of water, and getting plenty of quality sleep and rest.

The students of my Fat Burning Furnace method understand this and are reaping the life long health and fitness rewards because of it. Are you?

Check out Rob’s Fat-Burning Furnace System at his website: At Fat Burning Furnace

Rob Poulos is an expert fitness author and the founder and CEO of Zero to Hero Fitness. Rob created his “Fat Burning Furnace” system to help those looking to put an end to restrictive fad diets, long boring cardio workouts, and the need for super-human willpower for good.

The Grapefruit Diet

The old Grapefruit Diet has been floating around for a long time. Its popularity for so many years can be attributed to pseudo-science and good marketing copy. This is one of those fad diets that you can use to drop some quick pounds, but, like all fad diets, you need to recognize that it’s deficient nutritionally and that you’ll gain back what you lose as soon as you get off the diet IF you return to your old eating habits.

It’s pretty much agreed by the Grapefruit Diet gurus that most people who try the program for a week or two will probably lose somewhere between 12 and 20 pounds.

Below is a typical day on the Grapefruit Diet
Breakfast:
Half a grapefruit and plain coffee or tea

Lunch:
Half a grapefruit plus two eggs
Cucumber and tomato salad with vinegar, lemon and herbs dressing
One piece of dry melba toast and plain tea or water

Dinner:
Half a grapefruit
4-6 ounces of chicken or beef or ham slices
Half a head of lettuce and a tomato with vinegar, lemon and herbs dressing
Plain tea or water

With a diet this restrictive — eating fewer that 800 calories a day — you can see why you’d lose weight. You can also see how nutritionally deficient this program is. And talk about boring. Phew.

Volunteers ate or drank grapefruit with every meal

Eating or drinking grapefruit may help people who are obese to lose weight, a study suggests.

Researchers in the United States say adding grapefruit to people’s diet may also protect them from diabetes.

The findings are based on a study of 100 obese people, who ate or drank grapefruit for 12 weeks.

The researchers are now planning a much larger study to see if the results are the same, according to a report in Chemistry and Industry magazine.

Grapefruit with meals

Ken Fujioka and colleagues at the Scripps Clinic in San Diego California enrolled 100 obese patients with an average weight of 218 pounds in the study.

One group of volunteers ate half a grapefruit before each meal three times a day, while another drank a glass of grapefruit juice before every meal. A third did not include grapefruit in their meals.

After 12 weeks, those eating grapefruit had lost an average of 3.6 pounds, and some shed as much as 10 pounds.

The participants drinking grapefruit juice lost an average of 3.3 pounds. But those in the control group who consumed no grapefruit only lost an average of 0.5 pounds.

The researchers said the weight loss was probably linked to lowered levels of insulin, which was born out by measurements of glucose levels.

Insulin is used to metabolise sugar. The more efficiently sugar is metabolised, the less likely it is to be stored as fat in the body.

Lowering insulin levels also makes people feel less hungry. High levels of the hormone stimulate the brain’s hypothalamus, causing feelings of hunger.

They also stimulate the liver to manufacture fat that can constrict arteries, leading to heart attacks and strokes.

“Grapefruit is already known to affect the metabolism of some drugs,” said Chemistry and Industry.

“It improves the efficiency of some common oral medications, such as those taken for blood pressure, sedatives, and some immunosuppressant.”

Emma Bunn, diabetes care advisor at the charity Diabetes UK, said: “If grapefruit does significantly lower insulin levels this could be a potentially exciting discovery.

“We know weight loss reduces the body’s resistance to insulin and therefore improves diabetes control, so weight management is important in prevention and treatment of diabetes.

“We will be following any further research in this area closely to establish if grapefruit could provide genuine benefits.”