These are fats that sneak up on us, so it’s important to be armed with all the information you can.

What Exactly is Trans Fat

Trans fats are manufactured fats (except for the ones that occur naturally, but they are small enough to not seriously worry about).

The ones that are the most dangerous for your body don’t occur naturally in the wild, but rather happen through an industrial process. Already, if you’ve read any of the previous Nutrition Articles on my site, you’ll know that eating too much manufactured fat is an extremely easy way to ruin your fat loss and put some serious bumps on the road towards a lean, ripped body.

Trans Fat is created when a manufacturer adds hydrogen to vegetable oil. They call this “hydrogenation”, which is why you hear about “hydrogenated vegetable oil” and the “non-hydrogenated” variety.

Making Food Last Longer Often Means Making It Worse For Us

This process makes the vegetable oil (it could be anything, but it’s often soy or canola oil, being the cheapest and, not coincidentally, not very good for you) thicker than it normally would be, which means one thing — you can keep food on the shelf longer.

Ever poured extra virgin olive oil all over some bruschetta? Pretty greasy if it gets on your hands, right? Yeah, obviously — it’s a fat. It’s something we put up with in exchange for eating great-quality fats that taste delicious.

Trans fats are all about eliminating this greasiness, not spoiling, and lasting longer on the shelves. Manufacturers came up with this hydrogenation process in order to make more profits by being able to “produce” and ship food in packages that could sit on a shelf for a lot longer.

Remember: long expiration dates for foods that should otherwise rot = bad. It means there’s stuff in there you don’t want to be eating.

Why The Body Can’t Deal With Trans Fats

Ok, you say — so they add a little hydrogen to some vegetable oil. What’s the problem?

Basically, this:

1. Trans fats increase your bad cholesterol. They do the opposite of what, say, omega-3s in olive oil do. But that’s not all…
2. Trans fats decrease your good cholesterol. It’s not enough that they could just give you some of the bad stuff, but they legitimately lower your good cholesterol, racking up your risk for heart disease in the process. Let’s not even get started as to why this is bad for a weight loss, healthy-living, ripped-body perspective — anything that increases your risk of heart attack by this much is not something you want to be dealing with.

How to Avoid Trans Fat

A few things to remember:

• Eat more fresh food. If it rots or goes moldy fast, like bakery-fresh bread, it’s unlikely to be loaded with trans fats.
• Check labels. Most labels now say how much trans fat a product contains.
• If you’re in the US, watch out. If there’s less than 0.5 grams of trans fat in a product, it can legally say “trans fat free!” This isn’t much of a big deal if you’re having one or two potato chips, but people often go crazy when they think a food is giving them a free pass. That’s why so-called “health” and “diet” foods are so awful for you.
• Get rid of margarine, shortening, processed cookies, crackers, cakes, and donuts. If you have to have any of this stuff, go buy it from a real bakery where it’ll go bad in 2-3 days instead of sitting, wrapped, on a shelf for a year. You know why a Twinkie is indestructible? Not because it’s good for you!

No one who is serious about getting in shape, getting a kick-ass body, and achieving their fitness goals is sitting there eating only “diet” and “health”-labeled products in the first place. They’re eating nature’s health products: natural whole food that doesn’t have a marketing team behind it.

Do the same!

What’s even worse is that this starts to compound — the idea of working out starts to become a lot less fun when you’re constantly playing catch-up, when you have it in your head that what you did previously was a fluke, and you’re destined for failure. It’s no fun operating from a position of weakness like that, and that’s not what getting a great body should be about.

Fortunately it doesn’t have to be this way. There are a bunch of little tips, all of which I’ve relied upon in the past, and have picked up either from my own experience or from others, that can get you over the hump of self-doubt or lack of motivation. These are tips to use right when you’re at that breaking point, when you’re either about to exercise or about to abandon it for the day.

So read through the 7 I’ve assembled here and put them into practice — you’ll find these can bust you out of a bad state faster than anything.

#7) “The 90-Second Visualization”

Visualize, without doing anything else, the body you want and will achieve through working out. Don’t just visualize the entire thing, but think about individual parts of it — think about strong shoulders, ripped arms, a flat, sculpted chest.

Then realize that it’s only through working out that you can possibly get these things for yourself, and do what you need to do.

#6) “Check the Numbers”

Write stuff down. Then, when you’re feeling like you’re ready to skip another workout, go back and double-check what you’ve written down. Write down statistics, weight, inches, clothes sizes, how you felt after a workout, your goals, your expectations, what you didn’t expect to find out that you have.

Read as much or as little of these stats right before you workout again. Seeing the hard numbers like that will inspire you to go out and generate some more.

#5) “Move Wherever You Are”

Just start moving. It doesn’t matter where you’re at — just get up and start pacing around, jumping up and down, walking, hopping, and so on. If you’re sitting there, lying down, wondering why you can’t get the energy up to go and exercise or do your workout, the plain old inertia of the fact that you’re not moving might be your biggest stumbling block, and blasting through it your best solution.

#4) “The Zero-Intentions Workout”

Start working out with absolutely no intention of continuing. Just start and promise yourself that you’re only going to work out for about 5 minutes here, and then you’re immediately going to stop because you have something much better to do.

And by all means, if you don’t feel like continuing after 5 minutes? Then stop. But the chances of you stopping are low — you realize that, right?

#3) “The Espresso Nap”

Lethargic and tired and need a quick boost? If coffee doesn’t work wonders for you under normal circumstances, try this. Brew up some espresso (you can get a little stovetop one), although normal coffee works fine here too. Espresso just has a bit more caffeine by volume so you don’t have to drink as much of it.

Then set a timer, drink the coffee, and take a 20 minute nap. No music, no nothing — just lie there and drift off if you can. If you’re tired, you will. When you wake up again, you’ll be ready to go and the caffeine will just start kicking in. Get moving.

#2) “Collect Your Things”

This is another version of the “zero-intention” workout. Get all the trappings of your workout, your clothes and your shoes and everything you need to do your workout. Take them all and get them in whatever position is necessary for you to workout. Don’t commit to working out, but be conscious of the fact that by doing this little task, you’re getting closer to just actually starting to work out, and then, hey — why not?

#1) “Be Like Nike”

Sure, it’s a slogan you might not love, but it’s lasted so long for a reason. When nothing else is working for you, just do it. Repeat it in your head a few times, shut off the internal whining machine, and get out there and just go.

Any Tips?

Have you got your own little motivators you use when you’re trying to avoid working out? Which ones work? Leave a comment and let me know!

The very physical presence of all these machines, along with a ton of people using them, tells our brains that this is important. These are the fundamentals of the gym.

I’m here to tell you why that’s not the case.

Why Weight Machines are Popular

It’s very simple — free weights can be intimidating and hard work. Weight machines are not.

I could stop there, but I’ll go on a little bit more — free weights don’t come with an instruction guide that tells you how to use them, because you can use them in so many ways.

Weight machines, on the other hand, have little diagrams right on them that help you through the exercises, to an extent.

So what’s wrong with that?

Weight Machines are Limited

In the very act of helping you through these exercises, weight machines limit themselves (and by extent, you).

They suggest that help in the gym is just a few easy instruction-steps away.

That a machine can tell you what to do just as well as a person.

That a gym is a naturally intimidating place, but machines are here to help.

All of these things aren’t terrible on their own — I’m sure exercise machines have got a lot of people into gyms, working out, and getting good bodies that they otherwise wouldn’t have got if there’d been only dumbbells. To be totally honest, if you are just starting out weight machines might even be the best place to start.

But you don’t want to just lose a bit of weight, do you? Not when the dream of a lean, ripped body is so achievable now, when you can get free six pack workouts online, all the motivation and support you need, and fulfill that dream you’ve been carrying.

And to do that in the most efficient, healthy, strong way? You need free weights and the flexibility and versatility they bring you.

Why Free Weights Are Better

Here are 5 simple reasons:

1. They don’t limit your range of motion. You can make adjustments depending on what you’re able to accomplish, rather than being locked into what a machine designer has prescribed. They also keep your body guessing because there are so many exercises to do, so you aren’t stuck with the same 5 or 6 machines, week-in, week out — which is a recipe for plateauing, hard.
2. They teach you. It’s all the more important to have good form and posture when using free weights, so by choosing to use them, you automatically force yourself to not slack off on your form.
3. They are catalysts for conversation. It’s not a cakewalk, figuring out how to use free weights all by yourself. You’ll probably want to talk to a trainer and consult a lot of advice online. This is a good thing!
4. They engage your whole body. Rather than isolating a specific muscle and leaving the rest alone, free weight exercises are very frequently compound exercises that work multiple muscles. You get a more well-rounded workout and the results show in a balanced, kick-ass body.
5. You aren’t sitting down! Sure, if you use a bench you might be sitting or lying for some workouts, but just the fact that so many free weight workouts involve standing (where their machine counterparts involve sitting) makes a huge difference in the intensity you bring to your workout.

How to Start Making the Transition

Watch more of my workout videos. Talk to a trainer at the gym. If you’re using a lot of machines now, start slow — you don’t want to change every single aspect of your workout all at once. See which ones you can replace first, and every time you hit the gym or do your home workout, replace a machine with a free-weight exercise.

By the end, you’ll wonder how you ever got along without them.

Now I know exactly what they mean because when I go to a group class ( spinning for example ) and I can’t hear what the instructor is telling me, I start to get irritated and demotivated.

See knowing how to do something makes it not just easier but also more fun and a lot more effective because you can focus on just really giving you all without any distractions.

Now I know when you do a new workout program it might take a session or two to get use to and to make sure you know your way around the gym. So it is expectable if your very first workouts is maybe not as intense as the ones the follow but there are some ways you can eliminate this problem all together.

• You can start by making your workouts easy and uncomplicated. You can do this by using machine on which you can do many different exercises or use free weights so that you don’t have to move around too much.

• Secondly you can make sure you know how to do your workout by asking an expert to go through it with you once before you start. And then you can also have a walk through the gym and make sure you know where all the equipment is that you will be using during that session.

The main thing is to make sure that when you about to do something, you know what you want to do and how to do it so you can focus on just pushing really hard rather than wasting time trying to figure out what it is you should do.

Remember, it doesn’t have to be complicated to be effective and as I have said a few times, being successful in any thing in life, is about doing the basic, correctly , consistently.

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Download your Free Abliteration Workout Manual below:

DOWNLOAD ( The file is 16MB big so it might take a while. Right click and SAVE it to your pc )

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Hi my name is April Deweese from Las Vegas NV.  I am a Personal Trainer, Nutrition Consultant, NPC Bikini Competitor and mother.  I have been weightlifting for 15 years and competing for 7.

I love being a part of the fitness industry. Fitness is what keeps me grounded. I started working out after my son was born, at the age of 21. My love for weights inspired me to get certified as a Personal Trainer, and from there, I continued on for my associates and Bachelors in the field I love…Exercise!

It has taken a long time, but things are finally starting to happen. I’ve been featured in American Curves, Muscular Development and Body.

April’s competition history:
2003 NPC mid-Illinois Figure-2nd place
2004 NPC Central USA AGF Figure-5th
2005 Miami Universe
2008 Las Vegas Fitness America
2010 NPC GNC Muscle Contest Master Bikini-1st place
2010 NPC USA bikini championships-7th

We recently had the privilege to ask April a few questions:

Vitals Age: 35 Hometown: Las Vegas Height: 5′ 3″ Weight: 110lbs – 116lbs Stats: 32-25-35     One word to describe yourself? Motivated How did you get into fitness/bodybuilding? I first got interested in fitness/bodybuilding when I saw a bodybuilding competition on the TV as a little girl.  I remember making my mom sit on the steps and watch me pose:)

What is your eating plan like? My eating plan is 6 meals a day…all balanced with protein, carbs, and healthy fat. Minimum 1 gallon of water/ day What food can’t you go without? I couldn’t live without my chicken breast or oatmeal! What has been your biggest accomplishment in the fitness field? My biggest accomplishment was getting my Bachelors degree in Exercise Science.  It was a very challenging 6 years of my life to get through…being a single mother, working 3 part time jobs, homework, dieting, working out, cooking, and competing…it was a very rough time but I wasnt gonna give up:)

What are your workouts like? I always change my workouts up…I train each body part once or twice a week including walking, plyometrics, trail running, running stairs and sprinting. What is a typical daily routine for you? My daily routine during this summer has been pretty nice:  check my email/facebook, clean my house, cardio and weights,  shower, get ready for work,  train clients, eat,  relax and hang out with my son. Once my sons school, soccer and baseball starts…it will be a whole different crazy schedule!

What keeps you motivated to stay in shape? What keeps me motivated is my love for weights, staying healthy, and being the best role model I can be for my son, family, and clients:) Top 3 tips for people who want to get in shape? My top 3 tips for people who wanna get in shape:  eat 6 healthy/balanced meals a day, lift weight, do cardio…it takes all 3 to get the job done.

What is the most challenging thing you deal with about consistently staying in top shape? Dieting used to be the hardest challenge for me when it comes to staying in shape.  I’ve been eating this way now for 7 years and now I couldn’t imagine eating differently.  When I have big cravings for something, I will have it, and get right back on track. Your own physical feature you are most proud off? I get the most comments on glutes and legs

Famous fitness icon/bodybuilder you would most like to have coffee/protein shake with? I would love to have coffee or a protein shake with Monica Brant! What is the biggest fitness (weight loss, work out, diet) myth you encounter in the fitness industry every day? The biggest myth is when people think they can work out but eat whatever they want…and still lose weight

	What part of a guy do you find most sexy? The body part of a guy that’s most sexy is a gorgeous face..then of course an athletic looking body Your favorite ab exercise? My favorite ab exercises are weighted crunches and leg lifts using a stability ball.

Connect with April   Website: AprilDfitness.com Facebook: Click Here Status Fitness Magazine: Click Here

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