Spot reduction is a Myth !!!!

A lot of people come to me and ask what kind of abdominal exercise can they do to get rid of belly fat? My answer is always the same : " doing sit ups and crunches all day long won't help you get rid of belly fat " for couple of reasons, first of all spot reduction is a myth, second of all six packs are made in the kitchen and last but most importantly the bodies fat distribution depends on the hormones and getting rid of it depends on the hormones as well.
I will try to explain it real simple in a nutshell here how our hormones makes us accumulate belly fat. I am not an expert in hormones or not a doctor or anything just had my own weight problems for many years and did a lot of reading and studying to figure it out how to permanently loss weight and keep it off as well. I didn't wanted a quick fix, I wanted something that works on the long run and it's sustainable and healthy. It took me a long time until I figured out how to do it and I will share it with you now.
So lets go back to the basics and talk about why the body accumulates body fat mainly around our wast and why is that dangerous. Couple of reasons you have all or most of your body fat around your belly is: insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome , high blood sugar, impaired glucose metabolism, adrenal fatigue to mention a few and the danger is that it's not just around your waist but all around your organs as well.
Hormones that control your metabolism, appetite  and body fat distribution are: thyroid hormone, insulin, cortisol, gherlin and leptin, estrogen and testosterone.
Extra belly fat can indicate one or more of the following hormonal imbalances: high estrogen, low testosterone, low DHEA (a hormone of the adrenal glands), high insulin and high cortisol. 
Belly fat is a sing of estrogen dominance especial in woman, high cortisol and high insulin go hand in hand and they are catabolic hormones meaning that when they are high your body is storing fat and breaking down muscle. Testosterone is a growth hormone manly for mean but women have it, too only a lot less than man and it is an anabolic hormone meaning that when it is high your body is braking down fat and building muscle. The problem is that in todays word both woman and man have high levels of estrogen, insulin and cortisol and low levels of testosterone. Belly fat in a man indicate low testosterone and high cortisol. 
So now lets see how to balance our hormones to lose the belly fat and save ourself from diabetes, heart disease and other health issues.
First thing to do is, change your diet, remember " six pack are made in the  kitchen ", SUGAR has to go, refined and artificial and even natural if you have impaired glucose metabolism like I do. Grains has to go and all the junk made from them, hydrogenated oils has to go as well , all the junk , artificial coloring and all the man made chemical the has nothing to do in our diet.
Start eating good fats, every hormone in our body is made from cholesterol, in order to balance our hormones we have to eat lots of good fats like bacon and eggs, avocados, lard, coconut oil, butter and anything we have been told not to. We see what the low fat diet did to us, now lets focus on fixing it.
Second most important thing is a good night sleep, yes very important, if you can't change your diet but you fix your sleep everything  will get better. 8-9 hours of quality sleep is necessary possibly from 10 pm until 6-7 in the morning at least. 
 Last thing to do is stress management, you have to fix your cortisol levels, meditate or anything that helps to relax. 
Exercise helps to balance your hormones as well, so I am not telling you not to exercise, contrary you should exercise on a regular basis and workout your whole body not just some parts of it, in order to keep you muscles in balance as well.

Suns out, buns out !! Training the glutes the right way for the right reasons !!

Who wouldn't like to have a nice and round back side for the summer or for the whole year or for the rest of your life. 

The gluteus muscles includes the gluteus maximum, medius and minimus and are one of the biggest, strongest and most functional muscle in human body.  We want them big, round and hard, boys and girls, old and young. 

The gluteus muscles does hip extension, abductions and adductions  among other things and  has many function,  from moving us around all day long to aiding in posture and helps to hold the upper body straight, stabilizing the hip. It's a mover and a stabilizer at the same time. Sitting a lot on it doesn't do much good to it, it wasn't made for that, actually makes it weak and lazy. An other thing that sitting does it gives us short hip flexors and the shorter and stronger are the hip flexors the longer and weaker are the glutes. The short and tight hip flexors are pulling us forward and the weak glutes can't  counter balance in the back and hold up straight. 

So why we need to train our back side to be nice round and strong beside aesthetics's is function, our every day mobility and posture depends on it. 

Because the lot of sitting we do on a daily bases, many people can't even contract their glute muscles, not just because of weakness in the muscles but because they don't have the neural pathway to do it, in other words their brain doesn't know how to do it. If you don't use it, you loose it!! 

First thing you have to do is to learn how to do standing body weight hip extensions, abductions and adductiones, floor bridges or ball bridges. After mastering these exercises and making sure that our brain knows what to do and how to contract the glute muscles we can progress to cable hip extensions, abductions, adductiones and maybe sg leg ball hip extensions, this is more challenging but can be done. From here we can go to squats and lunges, step ups and split squats with body weight and then adding weights to it and than progressing to hip trusts with heavy weights for strength. And that is how you get the nice and round back side with a lot of function and strength-:)))

Exercise videos:

 Strengthening the glutes and stretching the hip flexor at the same time.

Swiss ball bridge or hip extension.

Standing hip extension, adduction and abduction.

Cable hip extension, abduction and adduction.

Sg leg swiss ball hip extension.