Todays Exercise is as follows.

Elliptical Trainer - 100 cals burned

Exercise bike     - 300 cals burned

Hammer curls    - 3 sets - 20 reps. - 10kg

Military Press    - 3 sets - 20 reps  - 20kg

Bench Press      - 3 sets - 5  reps   - 30kg

What Is The Cabbage Soup Diet?

 Today, I have found another diet to try, this is basically a very low calorie diet; the cabbage diet works, temporarily by cutting daily calories to near stavation levels.

Interestingly, no person or organization seems to want to claim responsibility for inventing the cabbage soup diet! So there isn't an "official" propriety version, but various cabbage diet plans based around eating copious quantities of cabbage soup, and very little else.

Claims made for the cabbage soup diet range from the ludicrous, ie. the cabbage soup itself has fat burning properties to the dubious, ie. you can lose 10lbs in a week. The diet is often put forward as a quick way to drop pounds for a special event and most proponents advise that it only be followed for a week

What's Involved

The Cabbage Soup Diet plan is very strict. The idea is to eat as much cabbage soup as you like every day - enough to keep you full up, so you don't cheat! Plus specific additional foods on each day of the seven day diet. No alcohol is allowed and other drinks are limited to water, and unsweetened fruit juice on days when fruit is allowed.

• Day 1 - Cabbage soup plus as much fruit as you like, excluding bananas
• Day 2 - Cabbage soup plus vegetables including 1 jacket potato with a little butter
• Day 3 - Cabbage soup plus fruit and vegetables excluding potatoes and bananas
• Day 4 - Cabbage soup plus up to eight bananas and as much skimmed milk as you like
• Day 5 - Cabbage soup plus up to 20 ounces of beef and up to six tomatoes
• Day 6 - Cabbage soup plus as much beef and vegetables (excluding potatoes) as you like
• Day 7 - Cabbage soup plus brown rice, vegetables (excluding potatoes) and unsweetened fruit juice

Recipes for the cabbage soup vary, but all are based on cabbage, onions, tinned tomatoes, green peppers, celery, carrots, mushrooms and onion soup mix.

Monday I will be trying the fruit diet, just to see if I can lose more weight quickly. 

Seven to ten day fruit diet

Going on a much longer fruit diet with purification herbs can assist in eliminating more deep-rooted toxic problems, such as gallstones, kidney stones, gout, digestive problems, bronchial problems, chronic constipation, etc.

How to go on the fruit diet

§         Choose a selection of fresh and dried fruits you enjoy, so you have plenty of variety.

§         Chew your fruit slowly.

§         Don’t mix fresh and dried fruits at the same meal.

§         Eat 4 to 5 small meals a day.

§         Fruit digests a lot more quickly than many other foods so be prepared to carry some fruit with you in case you feel hungry – most people do.

§         Always eat watermelon alone; do not mix with other fruits.

      Many, but not all, slimmers find a fruit diet helps them to lose weight.  It can be used as a dietary regime in itself or as a one to three day aid to a slimming programme.  Typical weight loss on a three day Fruit Diet can be between 2 to 6 lbs (1 to 3 kilos)

Contra Indications

If you are taking or have been taking drugs for a diagnosed health condition for a number of years, or are a frequent drinker of alcohol, it is possible that your liver is storing a great deal of toxins.  What we recommend is overhauling the quality of your diet completely and introducing fruit meals as part of your regime, such as a fruit breakfast or fruit lunch.  After a few weeks of this dietary improvement, you should see some overall improvement in your health, and then you can try a one day Fruit and Raw Vegetable Diet.  If you feel good after this, then keep on with your new normal dietary regime and do a Fruit and Raw Vegetable Diet once a week to help boost your system.

Wish me luck and I will let you know how I get on.....

Take care and have a great day! - Debs.

KEEP GOING DON'T GIVE UP!

So far to date I have lost 10lbs - Keep training and don't give up!

Elliptical Trainer - 100 cals burned

Exercise bike     - 100 cals burned

Hammer curls    - 3 sets - 20 reps. - 10kg

Military Press    - 3 sets - 20 reps  - 20kg

Bench Press      - 3 sets - 5  reps   - 30kg

Meal Today

Breakfast

Oatmeal - 1 small bowel / Orange Juice

Dinner

Salmon/Broccoli/Pasta/ Protein shake.

Tea

Chicken soup with two slices wholemeal bread./ Water.

 consider the normal body fluctuations that occur everyday. The human body is always in a constant state of flux; therefore, no one’s body weight remains constant. A persons lean body mass can fluctuate up or down by one to five pounds on any given day. These fluctuations have nothing to do with body fat, but have more to do with other variables. Water retention, hydration levels and the time of day can contribute to variations in body water. In addition, the weight of your clothes, the amount of food in your stomach and certain medications can all affect the reading on the scale so please don't worry to much about it.  Take care and have a great day. - Debs.

Bodybuilding Advanced

- TRIPLE DROP-SETS are single, prolonged sets where the weight is reduced when you reach failure allowing you to complete further reps. Start heavy with a weight that allows 6-8 reps, reduce the weight when you are unable to perform any further reps, go to failure again and reduce the weight for a final time. You are aiming to complete 6-8 reps on each of the drops. Remember to take each drop to complete failure; the weight should be reduced no more than two times in a single set.

- STRAIGHT SETS are traditional sets of 8-10 reps. Again, straight sets should be taken to failure.

The programme is split as follows:
Monday - Chest
Tuesday - Quads/Hams/Calves
Wednesday - Rest
Thursday - Shoulders/Triceps
Friday - Back/Traps
Saturday - Rest
Sunday - Rest

Monday (Chest)
Set 1. Incline Dumbbell Flyes. Pre-exhaust.
Set 2. Incline Dumbbell Flyes. Triple Drop-set.
Set 3. Bench Press. Straight Set
Set 4. Bench Press. Triple Drop Set.

Tuesday (Legs)
Set 1. Leg Extension. Pre-exhaust.
Set 2. Leg Extension. Triple Drop-set.
Set 3. Back Squat. Straight Set.*
Set 4. Hamstring Curl. Pre-exhaust.
Set 5. Hamstring Curl. Triple Drop-set.
Set 6. Stiff Legged Deadlift. Straight Set
Set 7. Calf Raise. Triple Drop-set
*Can be replaced by Hack Squat or Leg Press; if this is the case I recommend you use the triple drop-set technique.

Thursday (Shoulders/Triceps)
Set 1. Side Laterals. Pre-exhaust.
Set 2. Side Laterals. Triple Drop-set
Set 3. Seated Dumbbell Press. Straight Set*
Set 4. Seated Dumbbell Press. Triple Drop-set*
Set 5. Machine Dips. Triple Drop-set**
* Can be replaced by any form of shoulder press.
** Can be replaced by any triceps exercise incorporating the triple drop-set technique.

Friday (Back/Biceps)
Set 1. Dumbbell Pullovers. Pre-exhaust*
Set 2. Dumbbell pullovers. Triple Drop-set*
Set 3. Wide-grip Pulldowns. Straight Set
Set 4. Wide-grip Pulldowns. Triple Drop-set
Set 5. Deadlift. Straight Set
Set 6. Hammer Curls. Triple Drop-set
*Can be replaced with machine pullovers or straight-arm pushdowns.

Exercise Bike - 250 cals burned

Billy Blanks Abs workout.

Lateral thigh trainer - 40 steps.

Menu

Breakfast 

Oatmeal (with no Suger) Orange juice.

Dinner

Tuna/salad.Water

Protein drink

Tea

Chicken with brown rice/ water.

Today I started back after a brief rest from training.

Exercise Bike - 300cals Burned 

Billy Blanks Boot Camp Fitness DVD. 200cals Burned. You can purchase Billy's DVD at - http://www.asseenontv.com/prod-pages/billys_bootcamp.html

30kg Bench Press. 1 set 5 reps.

Food Today

Breakfast

Oats, Orange juice,

Dinner

Chicken with rice, water,

Tea

Tuna Salad/ water.

Keep training and stick with the diet. I will be weighing in again on Sunday. Take care - Debs.

ATKINS DIET

I have been asked if the Atkins diet really works, the answer to that is for some people it may work for others it does not.  I can only tell you of my experience. I was asked by a friend of mine to help her son as he weighed a massive 21 stone,  I took this on because I wanted to test this as I was a little sceptical.

He trained with me everyday for eight weeks resting on the weekends and only eating meat, such as bacon, sausage,beef burgers, chicken, turkey, pork etc.....  You must stay away from bread and potatoes.  After eight weeks of training with me, he lost 14lbs.  The down side to Atkins is that you get so sick of eating meat that you soon revert back to potatoes and bread. He just couldn't keep it up!

Needless to say that I couldn't stick to just meat.

Gym Ball Exercises.

These are great exercises that get right to the abdominal muscles. Don't forget to start with warm ups by gently stretching and more after the exercise to loosen your body.

SO YOU WANT HUGE GUNS?

Biceps

Seated Bicep Curl: Sit on a bench and rest a barbell in your lap. Take a shoulder-width underhand grip on the bar and curl it upward toward your chin. Use a weight that is so heavy, you can only perform eight reps. This exercise allows you to use more weight than you normally would because the seated position limits the range of motion. Try to curl 150% of your normal bicep curl weight. Perform one set of eight reps, rest 30 seconds, then increase the weight 10% and perform as many reps as you can.

Triceps

Close-Grip Bench Press: Do yourself a big favor and perform this exercise in a power rack or on a Smith machine. Limit the range of motion to the top third of your range. By limiting the range of motion, you will be able to hoist a much heavier weight and it's that big weight - not the range of motion -- that triggers new muscle growth. Grip the bar with your hands spaced about six inches apart and contract your triceps to lift the bar off the support and to full extension. Use a weight that is so heavy, you can only perform eight reps. Again, with this restricted range you should be able to use at least 50% more weight than normal. Perform one set of eight reps, rest 30 seconds, then increase the weight 10% and perform as many reps as you can.

Forearms

Forearms tend to be neglected in most workouts, but these two exercises are fabulous at generating an awesome intensity of overload to these highly visible and impressive muscles. Seated Wrist Curls: These are performed from the same position as the bicep exercise described above. With an underhand grip on a barbell, rest your wrists on your knees so that your hands extend beyond your knees. Allow the weight of the bar to force your wrist toward the floor. Use your forearm muscles to power the weight back up. Perform one set of eight reps, rest 30 seconds, then increase the weight 10% and perform as many reps as you can.