No SPOT Reduction

Do you workout but your one problem area never seems to go away…your belly fat or beer belly or some gurus called it as pooh belly? Men tend to have big problem with it because that’s the first place that fats love to settle down right THERE... could it be more macho having those fats dangling there? Or sometimes “pop OUT” when you dress up too tight. As for women, fats love to settle at and around the hips and butts. Know what, some men would say “emmm, look at her, she’s fertile!”.. Do you really judge those fats as fertile? Or it’s an insult to women?

Remember there is NO SHORT CUT and sorry to inform you that there is NO SPOT REDUCTION. So save your penny and forget about those slimming centres out there especially those in Damansara Utama. By the way, can they sue me for condemning them? Well let’s getting serious, if you have been on a quest for a flat belly or even a six pack abs, it’s what you don’t know that may be sabotaging your efforts of budging that stubborn fat off your stomach. The right information can be the difference between looking at your same old belly a few months (I took 2 months to flatten my tummy, from 36.5” to 31”) from now or seeing a brand new you with flat abs you haven’t seen since your college days.

First and foremost if you have been doing various abs exercises in hopes of reducing fat surrounding your stomach…you REALLY need to stop. I’m talking about all traditional abs exercises like crunches, sit ups, side bends, weighted sit ups …Sit-ups is REALLY a NO-NO. Please STOP if your current abs workout involves you doing some type of torso twisting or bending or involves strenuous hip flexor twisting. These abs exercises don’t do much other than wreck your posture and put unnecessary strain on your lower back. Bear in mind, your abs muscles are not designed to flexing or bending your spine. The perfected engineering & design of the abs muscles are to maintain your midline stability. That’s the real function of it. In other simple words, your abs muscles are there to protect your back from bending and twisting too much... do you get it now?

Here’s a good sample exercise you can try, that gets your abs activated. Start on the floor in a plank position with both your elbows bent at 90 degrees. See picture below:-



* Get into pushup position on the floor. Now bend your elbows 90 degrees and rest your weight on your forearms. Your elbows should be directly beneath your shoulders, and your body should form a straight line from your head to your feet. Hold the position for as long as you can. Your goal should be to hold it for two minutes.

Picture by Men's Fitness

1. An average JOE can hold for 1 minute.

2. If you think you are a STUD, hold for 1.5 minutes.

3. And a POPEYE can hold easily for 2 minutes.

4. If you able to HOLD for 4 minutes, you are HOT

Whatever it is, you got to remember that having strong functional abs aren’t enough to get you a flat tummy. In order to effectively get flat abs you have to burn the fat from your stomach. The problem is you can’t target reduce fat, like I said earlier, NO SPOT REDUCTION. That means when you burn off fat, you burn it off from your entire body. HE did not design ‘selector’ switch for us to choose which area to ‘spot reduce’ hehehe... It bolts down to your body fat percentage still. So believe you got some ideas how to play the games now......


Let's go and flatten our tummies before the coming Christmas.... and enjoy and feel proud of your brand new BODY..Yeah!!!

Please leave a comment. I am sincerely would love to know what you think and what’s in your mind.

To Fitter & Leaner YOU....

Kayee Lai

Weight Training And Abdominal Fat Loss

As a personal trainer, I go to gym almost everyday. I really enjoy my work as a personal trainer. I help people to achieve their fitness goals and I feel so satisfied when I see the results they achieved.




There are lots of time people asked me, who are the people who engaged your personal training service? To be honest, those are people who wants to lose weight. But I'd rather use the word "FAT LOSS". You have to be cautious of what weight you are losing. Most of the time, I see people running on the treadmill or using any of the cardio machine for half an hour or more. The next thing they will do is stepping on a weighing scale and see how much is their weight. And you know what, they are so happy because they are LOSING WEIGHT. Haha... They are just losing water. And then, they will go to the sit-up bench and do HUNDREDS of high speed body bouncing with their back hyper-extended SIT-UPS hoping to get the washboard abs. I know it sounds funny and familiar. Am I talking about you or your friends or the other gym member that is working out with you? Yes, if you or your friends are doing this. I don't meant to be mean. My dear friends, let's face the truth. There is no such thing called "SPOT REDUCTION" for our abs. If your bodyfat percentage is high, no matter after HUNDREDS or THOUSANDS of SIT-UPS or AB CRUNCH, you still cannot reveal your washboard abs. Sorry to say that you are just wasting time. Then you'll start to ask me, how to get the sexy abs you dreamed of? Please read on the fact.

Most health related organizations, such as American Heart Association, American College of Sports Medicine, and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, recommend aerobic exercise for promoting metabolic health and weight control. Increasing evidence shows that weight training is an essential part of an exercise program. Weight training builds strength, but it also improves metabolic health and promotes fat loss. East Carolina University researches, led by Robert Hickner, showed that a weight training workout cause marked increases in energy expenditure and fat use in lean and obese men. Weight training was particularly effective for mobilizing fat in the abdominal region. However, abdominal fat mobilization was greater in lean than obese people. Weight training increases energy expenditure and fat loss in lean and obese man, but a variety of approaches is best for promoting weight control.

So, do you know what to do now? Stop cheating yourself by stepping on the weighing scale after cardio session and stop doing thousands of sit-ups. Hope this answered your doubt and stop more people from wasting time at the gym and doing more effective workouts with more real results to come.

Stay Strong and Keep Pumping!

Kevin

Statistic (What Do YOU Think?)

Dear ALL,

I am NOT promoting Great Eastern, but want you guys to take a look at their quarterly policy payouts... actually not the figure that surprised me but the details of it. Bear in mind, this is just a 3-months' report on JUST ONE insurance company in Malay-sia. What about others? Think about the message.

Please double-click on chart to enlarge to new window.

If you can't see clearly the numbers ... and if you are interested to know, please email me. I will forward you the report.

All the best and best of health!

To Fitter & Leaner YOU,

Kayee Lai

BEFORE Tailor Your Nutrition Plan

Oh gosh! It sounds so tedious. Oh yes indeed it’s tedious if you are serious about fat loss (mind you, I am not talking about weight loss OK, still following?) or muscle gain. Actually this was the very first step I did when I started my own fat loss program last Oct. I believe everyone got to have a good start in everything they REALLY want to do. Understanding of in-out caloric values of our body is the utmost important step to fat loss or muscle gain (over here I will emphasise more on fat loss). Why? Why so important to have such understanding? You may ask. It’s simply because You Are What You Eat. No matter how much time you invested in cardio, weight training, yoga or whatsoever exercise you name it, if you still do not know your position in caloric needs, you are screwed! Isn’t that simple to get screwed?

Shall we start now? Good, I heard you, you are still following.... so let’s get serious and ehemm a bit tedious too (where is the Mathematics teacher) hehehe....

Well the first step to tailor a personal nutrition plan for yourself is to calculate how many calories you burn in a day, in short it’s called TDEE (total daily energy expenditure). TDEE is the total number of calories that your body burns up in 24 hours, including all activities. TDEE is also known as your "maintenance level". Knowing your maintenance level will give you a starting reference point from which to begin your nutrition program. Hope you are doing fine so far... Let’s move on then...

There are many different formulas you can use to determine your caloric maintenance level by taking into account the factors of age, sex, height, weight, lean body mass, and activity level. The formulas namely:-

1. The QUICK Method (based on bodyweight)
2. The Harris-Benedict (BMR based on total bodyweight)
3. The Katch-McArdle (BMR based on lean bodyweight)

Note* BMR: Basal Metabolism Rate = Your resting metabolism rate for functional of your body.
Any formula that takes into account your lean body mass (LBM) will usually give you the most accurate calculation of your energy expenditure, but even without LBM you can still get a reasonably close estimate.

I will touch on Quick Method and The Harris-Benedict formulas because I know most of you out there do not know your lean bodyweight or body fat percentage. Therefore, you won’t be able to use the more accurate Katch-McArdle formula.

Quick Method

The "Quick" Method (based on total bodyweight)

A fast and easy way to determine calorie needs is to use current body weight times a multiplier.

a. Fat loss = 12 - 13 calories per lb. of bodyweight
b. Maintenance (TDEE) = 15 - 16 calories per lb. of bodyweight
c. Weight gain = 18 - 19 calories per lb. of bodyweight

Go on take out a calculator, check yours! :)

The Harris-Benedict Method

The Harris-Benedict formula (BMR based on total body weight)

a. Men: BMR = 66 + (13.7 X wt in kg) + (5 X ht in cm) - (6.8 X age in years)
b. Women: BMR = 655 + (9.6 X wt in kg) + (1.8 X ht in cm) - (4.7 X age in years)

Note: 1 inch = 2.54 cm.
Note: 1 kilogram = 2.2 lbs.

Example:

You are female
You are 30 yrs old
You are 5' 6 " tall (167.6 cm)
You weigh 120 lbs. (54.5 kilos)
Your BMR = 655 + 523 + 302 - 141 = 1339 calories/day

Now that you know your BMR, you can calculate TDEE by multiplying your BMR by your activity multiplier from the chart below:

Activity Multiplier

1. Sedentary = BMR X 1.2 (little or no exercise, desk job)
2. Lightly active = BMR X 1.375 (light exercise/sports 1-3 days/wk)
3. Mod. active = BMR X 1.55 (moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days/wk)
4. Very active = BMR X 1.725 (hard exercise/sports 6-7 days/wk)
5. Extremely active = BMR X 1.9 (hard daily exercise/sports & physical job or twice per day training, i.e marathon, contest etc.)

Example:

Your BMR is 1339 calories per day
Your activity level is moderately active (work out 3-4 times per week)
Your activity factor is 1.55
Your TDEE = 1.55 X 1339 = 2075 calories/day

Adjust Your Caloric Intake According To Your Goal

Once you know your TDEE (maintenance level), the next step is to adjust your calories according to your primary goal. The mathematics of calorie balance are simple:

To keep your weight at its current level, you should remain at your daily caloric maintenance level.

To lose weight, you need to create a calorie deficit by reducing your calories slightly below your maintenance level (or keeping your calories the same and increasing your activity above your current level).

To gain weight you need to increase your calories above your maintenance level. Macronutrient ratios may be manipulated, but the primary difference between weight gain programs and weight loss programs is the total number of calories required.

Adjust your caloric intake gradually

It's not a good idea to make any drastic changes to your eating plan (if you like to call it as “diet”, please go ahead) all at once. After calculating your own total daily energy expenditure (TDEE) and adjusting it according to your goal, if the amount is substantially higher or lower than your current intake, then you may need to adjust your calories gradually.

For example, if your determine that your optimal caloric intake is 1900 calories per day, but you have only been eating 900 calories per day, your metabolism may be sluggish and your appetite may be on the low side. An immediate jump to 1900 calories per day might actually cause a fat gain because your body has adapted to a lower caloric intake and the sudden jump up would create a surplus.

When your calories have been very low, the best approach is to gradually increase your calories over a period of a few weeks to allow your metabolism to speed up and acclimatize. Increase a little bit at a time each week, monitor the results, and then increase again if all is well until you reach your optimal calorie intake for healthy fat loss.

Measure your results and adjust calories accordingly

All of these calculations for finding your correct caloric intake are quite simplistic and are just estimates to give you a starting point. You will have to monitor your progress closely to make sure that the result you obtain is the proper level for you. You will know if you're at the correct level of calories by keeping track of your caloric intake, your bodyweight, and your body fat percentage. You need to observe your bodyweight and body fat percentage to see how you respond. If you don't see the results you expect, then you can adjust your caloric intake and exercise levels accordingly.

The bottom line is that it's not effective to slash your calories to very low levels in order to lose fat. In fact, the more calories you consume the better, as long as a sufficient deficit is created through diet and exercise. The best approach is to reduce calories only slightly and raise your daily calorie expenditure by increasing your frequency, duration and or intensity of exercise.

OK OK... now I realised that writing blog is like doing a cardio session for an hour LOL... If anyone of you still feeling LOST, not knowing what I tried to convey, please write to me.

Woah... sorry way too long for this one. Anyway, hope you guys have a GOOD START.

To Fitter and Leaner YOU,

Kayee Lai

Your So-called Personal Trainer

Getting Unstuck In The Gym

Yo~~ Just trained my legs yesterday. With the help of my workout partner Kayee Lai and another iron brother, I had a great workout! With lots of compound movements and a few heavy sets, I almost puke at the end of my leg extension pump set. Definitely it was not the typical "SQUAT TILL YOU PUKE" type of workout. I knew I can't continue with my workout after I puked, because I've experienced for couples of times before.

Talking about working out, I had lots of people approached me and ask me questions such as: "How can I improve more on my bench and/or squats. How can I gain more lean muscle? How to increase strength because I think I hit the plateau and my gain is stagnant and I'm so dissapointed with my progress..."

If you are reading this and you think you are experiencing the situations above, stop doing the same old thing and sit on your butt!!! It's time to take action! Each of the following strategies can help you get rolling again:

1) If you've been killing yourself in the gym to no avail, don't train for a week. Focus your mind on other pressing matters instead, like solving world, helping out victims in Haiti or figuring out why TV detectives can only solve crimes once they've been relieved of duty.

2) If, on the other hand, a few days off every week is the problem, blast your body for a week or so. Let it know you are back in charge.

3) Get adequate sleep, which for most people means at least 6-8 hours a night. Zzzz.......

4) Eat 5-6 healthy, nutrient packed meals a day. You AREN'T going anywhere if you don't have fuel in your tank. (undereating is the most common problem among people who weight train)

5) Give your body adequate time to rest between workouts. Seldom, if ever, train the same bodypart on back-to-back days, for example.

6) If applicable, stop taking every set to failure.

7) Periodise your training to keep tour head in the game and your body on its toes.

Overtraining: WARNING Signs

When your gains slow to a crawl, the first order of business is to make sure you aren't overtraining. You may need a little R&R if you are experiencing some combination of these telltale signs:

A: Elevated resting pulse rate upon awakening.

B: Loss of interest in training.

C: Increase injuries, muscle aches or both.

D: Irritability.

E: Insomnia.

F: Loss of muscle size.

G: Headache.

H: Fatigue.

I: Diminished sex drive.

J: Loss of appetite.

My Cheat Day

Woh ........ Today I am really feeling exhausted, not because of my training session yesterday but I did not have a good night sleep. And I really hate it if I can’t get at least a good 5 hours solid sleep... I need to preserve my muscles if it is not grow :( Oh gosh, probably due to my core training, can feel the adrenalin rush and feeling hyperactive, how I wish our brain is an “ON OFF” button. OR probably I was looking forward to today!!! It’s my CHEAT DAY!!! Yeahhhhhhh ....

Today I want to talk about Cheat Day (CD). Cheat Day is just another fat loss jargon, it’s another day in paradise, a special day to give your body a TREAT :) after a few low caloric deficit days. Eat what you want.. Stay cool... you will love your Cheat Day too. Maybe lots of you have not heard of this fat loss jargon, it’s not NEW actually. I did not know before Oct 2009. Let’s get a bit serious, Cheat Day is an important day, an UNO day, to avoid the negative adaptation of your long term calorie restriction (this is what you called DIETING). Have you ever thought why “DIETING” would not work efficiently for a long term? Let me cite an instance, a SMART ALEC would go on diet, week after week, wow amazing, the weight continues to come off like magic ala David Blain, simply by eat less or some might solely rely on protein diet (ops hate to use the word “diet”) and exercise, that’s all.

Yeah right!!! If only it were that simple. In fact, if it were, we would probably all be having sporting abs and bodies resembling those of fitness models (as you can see those fitness models ads in men briefs’ boxes :))

If you go on a low calorie diet for weeks, regardless whether it’s a protein diet, carbs diet (those vege eater), any other low calorie diet, or even thinking to go for meal replacement e.g. Herbalife, your BODY will screw you up by doing everything it can to keep you from losing fat further. Why so? It’s simply because our body is a great invention indeed. Thanks and no thanks, right?

OK, back to some engineering, FAT = warmth + energy. These 2 important things are for your survival when food intake is restricted or just so happened to be scarce. Though body is a great invention but our body can’t differentiate dieting from starving. So it will turn “ON” the body starvation mode/response to counteract the changes.

What will happen next? When starvation mode is triggered, it will slow down the metabolism rate, decreases fat burning hormones, increases fat storing hormones and protect your current fat storage. So now you tell me how to burn them further? Once it's triggered, what will happen if you can't go on the same diet you used to do and back to normal eating habit occasionally? BANG!!! Your body love it... Your body will win the battle and it happens always, easily 80% chances your body will win hehehe... Then you will be back to a square one with even higher body fat %. So just remember to play the CHEATING GAME with your body OK so that your body don't fall into starvation response.

A basic understanding is important at THIS STAGE for beginners rather than knowing all other scientific terms like Leptin or Insulin hormones.

Looks like I got to pen off otherwise it would be too bored to read my blog... Want to know my eating plan today?

1st meal: Well I had spaghetti, chicken, celery and carrot in tomato sauce as topping, a serving of HL fresh milk and a cup of NitroT,.. emm just nice for 550 calories breakfast.

Tea time (10:30am): A cup of Nesvita and Mass Factor.

Lunch (1:00pm): Will have a good lunch with plenty of carbs.

Tea time (3:30pm): Fruits, goreng pisang (fried banana).. love it! Cucuk kodok hahahaha and cup of coffee. And probably will go for 2 glasses of Red Wine... where else? In Sid’s LOL..

Dinner (6-7:00pm): Pizza Hut with COKE.

Supper (9:00pm): Half piece of Roti Canai, a packet of nasi lemak.. luv Tosai too and a cup of Teh Tarik.

To Fitter and Leaner YOU,

Kayee Lai

KStorm Kayee Lai "What's Been Holding You Back?"

I rested 2 days from training, Friday & Saturday and this morning I walked into the gym feeling so fresh. I changed my routines entirely, applying the "time squeezing method" and giving a new burst to deep fibres of muscles. As usual in all my gym routines I don't neglect cardio vascular exercise. Somehow today while doing my HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) cardio routine, I was thinking about my friends and others.. "What have been holding them back?". They see me changed but that does not inspire them at all to hit the gym or exercise. So what's in their mind? What we gonna lose if we spend some time exercising? Health isn't wealth?

I've also realised different things motivate different people to make changes. Like my case, it was because of my blood pressure and visceral fat. Personally I also believe in majority of cases, most people wait until the pain reaches crisis or even to the point of "rock bottom" or "you're going to die" (ops, too strong words to use), before they make a change. I remember I was asked why I quit smoking 2.5 years ago, I used to say "I do not want to be warned by someone UP there or DOWN there" :-) Whatever it is, normally when there was some type of "triggering event" then only will prompt them to begin a program of physical transformation. OK OK... yes some commented mine was way too drastic... but actually I don't think so at all. I love my new physique :-), and more importantly the fitness level.

Fortunately, you don't have to hit bottom to get motivated enough to make a change. If you take a serious inventory of what's going on inside your head, - thoughts, beliefs, values and old programming - weigh those I mentioned, you can identify your true motivations to change, now, right now, today, long before it gets serious or too late. Time waits for no men. Time flies... but I guarantee you that you can also find what's been holding you back. Act now!

So what's been holding you back? Think about it seriously......

Quote of the day: A goal casually set and lightly taken, will be freely abandoned at the first obstacle (by Zig Ziglar)

To Leaner & Fitter You,

Kayee Lai