There’s a hot new trend taking over the fitness industry like wildfire, and the great news is, it’s not some new fad program that will die off in a few years. In fact, this rising trend is not new at all. It’s been time tested and proven to continue producing the best looking physiques for over half a century. Now that’s an impressive track record that cannot be ignored! The trend is Physique Training and it’s now more popular than ever, which should not come as a surprise to anyone. After all, the concept involves “Training for Looks”. The same “Look” that draws your eyes to the cover of a fitness magazine, causing you to daydream about looking phenomenal in a swimsuit.

Researchers say that NEAT, which is all the calories you burn every day outside your formal exercise session, is the reason there is so much difference between individuals in total daily calorie expenditure. Dr. James Levine, an endocrinologist and the top researcher in the field says, “Obese people are profoundly more sedentary than lean people. They move 2.5 hours less per day than lean people, which means they burn roughly 350 fewer calories per day.”

Does chewing gum help you lose weight or burn fat? This question has been investigated by scientists before and chewing gum as a weight loss strategy even got some mainstream pub thanks to The Biggest Loser. The idea looked plausible, even promising, but a new study has shed a different light on the subject. Researchers at the University of Alabama conducted an 8-week randomized controlled trial and the results were published in the March 2012 issue of the journal Obesity. Read on to see what they discovered…

If you’ve ever slipped or fallen “off the wagon,” looked in the mirror and wondered, “What happened – where did my body go?, then these might be the most important tips for “getting your body back” that you’ve ever heard!

If a guy dropped 23 lbs, burned off 8.1% body fat and cut 5.5 inches off his waist… IN ONLY 49 DAYS.. becoming a body transformation contest winner… at age 52…wouldn’t you want to know how he did it?

Yes, I know it’s the most clichéd end of the year post… “Stuff I learned in the past year.”  But actually, I like this topic. I think it’s valuable to take time for reflection and recapitulation. I enjoy “lessons learned” posts from other people as well when they’re written by experts I respect.  I always pick up some insights that benefit me when I read them.  I haven’t written a post like this in a long time, so I suppose I could say this is stuff I’ve learned in the last 5 years, but it all came to mind now in December of 2011 in this one big brain dump. Hope you find it helpful – and in parts, entertaining…

Time to Join the Holiday Challenge. Guest Blog By Audrey Aickwort. 2011 Burn the Fat Summer Challenge overall champion. Tis the season when young and old are full of good cheer and anticipating the biggest events of the year. Naturally, I’m talking about the 7-week Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle Holiday Challenge. Sure, it’s reasonable to wonder whether another holiday commitment is really your cup of egg nog. But we can see it as a burden or as an amazing opportunity.

What’s the secret to rapid body transformation? I have my own ideas, especially after watching thousands of people TRANSFORM in our Burn the Fat Challenge fitness contests, and seeing nearly 10 years of Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle success stories. But today I’m not going to TELL YOU how to transform your body fast, I’m going to ASK YOU. Here’s why: Every year, During our Burn the Fat Challenge kickoff promotion, I do a huge giveaway / sweepstakes where a handful of lucky winners win free memberships to my Burn the Fat Inner Circle – the Internet’s premier fat loss support and motivation community (thousands of members in 152 countries strong!). Why do I give away so much free stuff and why am I this year, giving away more free stuff than ever? …

Every year I read articles about how to avoid holiday weight gain. Some of them are written on mainstream news or gossip websites and they’re usually rather trite. Let’s see, they include gems like these: Skip the party snacks, never go to a party hungry,  mind your portions and don’t just decorate your tree, decorate your plate (with colorful veggies). Maybe useful, but not so Earth shattering. Then you have the more sophisticated blogs and websites that try to put a scientific spin on it all. Usually they mention proper timing of refeeds, as well as post-exercise nutrient timing tactics, workout timing, planning that big cheat meal just right, fasting before or after and the retroactive damage control strategies after you’ve already made a glutton out of yourself. Better than the aforementioned 3rd grade tabloid stuff, but even the science sites are missing something… something much more human…

The 52-year old guy in the e-mail exclaimed: “SHOW ME SOMEONE MY AGE!” All I was trying to do was motivate and inspire my readers by showing them some before and after success stories. But it was almost like this guy was mad at me because the examples I displayed were age 20-something to 30-something. Afterward, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I was trying to figure out whether he had some deep-rooted self-limiting belief that it’s impossible to get in shape after a certain age, or whether he was positive and open-minded and simply looking for tips for older men to burn fat.   I figured maybe a little of both, and I thought I’d post my response on the blog because I think I can help and I’m sure there are lots of other men who would like to know this too…