Best Unconventional Ab Exercises

Firstly, there are the ‘typical’ Ab exercises which everybody knows – variations of situps and crunches. Needless to say, these are useless.

Secondly, there are those ab exercises which really target the abs through developing your ‘core strength’. Many people don’t know of many of these exercises, although they are far more effective and targeting than ordinary ab workouts. These can be found at this page: Lower Ab Workout.

Thirdly, there are other ab workouts you can throw in to change your program, which actually works your entire body while also working your abs ie. Effective indirect ab exercises. The Lower Ab Workout section contains a ‘12 Best Ab Exercises’ which also includes some highly effective indirect ab exercises, with diagrams. Two of them are:

1) Dumbell Rows

2) ‘Mountain Climbers’ on Floor

A good program to use these could be 3-4 sets of 8-10 repetitions for each exercise. Note: Mountain climbers can be done for 30 – 45 seconds, instead of reps.

Dumbbell Rows

1. Start in a pushup position while holding 2 dumbbells.
2. ‘Pull’ or ‘row’ one dumbbell towards your body while keeping your body stable with the other arm. Slowly bring the dumbbell back towards the floor.
3. Alternate with the opposite arm.

The stabilizing strain while performing the rows gives an incredible workout for your entire core (midsection) area. You’ll really feel your abs burn!

Mountain Climbers

1. Start in a pushup position.

2. Move right leg in and out so that your knee is tucking in under your chest. Move back to starting position. (This resembles a climbing motion, while flat on the floor)

3. For you advanced people, shuffle your hands 10-12 inches forward and backward while doing the leg movements. This makes it a full body exercise and much more difficult.

These will give you one of the best ab workouts you’ve ever had without even doing ‘direct’ ab exercises. You’ll see what I mean after you try them:

http://bestabexercises.theprovenprogram.com/

Carbohydrates / Diet:

There has been so much confusion about good carbs and bad carbs in recent years, I would like to clear up some of the confusion for you, ideally setting you in the right direction for prolonged fat loss success and healthy eating.

Firstly, I’m not a ‘low-carb’ follower - I definitely do not think extremely low carb diets are healthy. However I do believe that a major reason that the majority of people struggle to lose weight, is due to the over-consumption of processed carbohydrates such as white bread, cereal, pasta, rice, soft drinks, and candy bars (Just to name a few). The ‘Burn the Fat Feed the Muscle’ program is excellent in this area, as part of the package details ‘foods that burn fat’ and ‘foods that turn into fat’, so I suggest you take a look at this.

If you are over-consuming a combination of these types of refined and processed carbohydrates, it is increasingly difficult to lose weight, regardless of how hard you work out.

Not only does the excess consumption of carbohydrates cause large blood-sugar swings and insulin surges (stimulating direct body fat storage), but it also increases your appetite and cravings.

Even carbohydrates that many people believe are ‘healthy’ are excess calories that do not actually contain any significant nutritional value. Where many brands of cereal and bread claim to be ‘whole grain’, the major ingredient used in them is refined flour - which spikes your blood sugar to create an insulin surge. After many years of eating excess refined carbohydrates it becomes harder for insulin to do it’s job to continue handling this blood sugar, and insulin resistance and eventual type 2 diabetes can occur in some people.

My opinion is that those people struggling to reduce weight would get better results by:

· Reducing overall excess ‘grain based’ food in your diet (for example: crackers, pasta, rice, crackers, cereal..) and focus your diet more on free range, ‘grass fed’ meats and eggs, dairy, and a majority of vegetables.

· Instead of grains for most of your carbohydrate intake, try to get your carbohydrates mostly from vegetables, potatoes, and a variety of whole fruits (ie. NOT fruit juices, which remove important nutrients in the fruit including the beneficial fiber).

· If you are going consume grains, make sure you focus on the most nutrient dense portions of the grain - the bran and the germ. Therefore is it a healthier alternative to eat oat bran instead of oat meal, and adding wheat germ and rice bran to your yoghurt, soups, salads, cottage cheese, smoothies.. etc. This ensures that you will get all the nutrient dense elements of the grain without the unnecessary excess starches and calories.

· If you are used to eating large quantities of pasta, bread, cereals etc.. Replace these with healthy fats such as nuts, avocados, seeds, guacamole, nut butters, and also healthy proteins such as ‘grass fed’ meats, ‘grass fed’ dairy, and free-range eggs etc.. Healthy fats and protein sources are really beneficial in controlling blood sugar and hormone levels, satisfying your appetite, and helping you in making noticeable progress on your lifelong weight loss.