If you take a peek into some of the advertising copy of “miracle” supplements, you may actually begin to believe that diet and exercise are no longer necessary if you want to become healthy and ripped. You just need to pop a pill, and your fat will magically turn into muscle.

But regardless of whether you believe the hype or not, you have to ask, does fat turn into muscle?

This is a good question, because turning fat into muscle has always been a standard claim in the fitness industry.

But if that’s the case…

Exactly how does fat turn into muscle?

The answer: it depends.

Fat vs. Muscle

If you mean literally turning fat into muscle, then the answer to the question is no. Fat does not turn into muscle, because they’re made from different types of cells. It is physiologically impossible to turn fat into muscle because fat doesn’t have nitrogen which is needed so it can turn into muscle and there’s no way to turn fatty tissue into amino acids.

It’s sort of like trying to turn straw into gold. It can only happen in fairy tales.

Less Fat, More Muscle

Now if we are talking about turning fat into muscle in a less literal sense, then it’s possible. It’s a figure of speech, just like when some advertising copy promises to turn you into Hercules. You don’t actually become the demigod son of Zeus—you just turn into a muscular dude.

But why do some chubby people turn into impressively muscled men in some pictures? You’ve probably seen them too. And then again, some people don’t seem to lose weight at all. They just become more fit and muscular while their flab disappears.

That’s because when you stick to eating right, supplementing with whole food nutrients (Zeal for Life recommended) and a good weightlifting routine, two things can happen:

You will lose weight. When you don’t consume enough calories for your weightlifting activities, your body is then forced to lose burn the fat stored in your body for energy. Exercise burns calories, and combined with a diet your calorie intake can become less than the number of calories you use up.

You will gain muscle. When you lift weights, what you really do is to stress and tear your muscles. Your body then responds to this by rebuilding the muscles, and because you have lots of protein in your diet you have the necessary raw material to build more massive muscle.

You can’t turn straw into gold, but in the real world you can sell straw and then use the money to buy gold. And when we put it this way, we did turn straw into gold.

It’s the same thing for turning fat into muscle. You have two separate results—muscle gain and fat loss—but both are the results of your diet and weightlifting regimen. And they happen generally at the same time.

So does fat turn into muscle? In a way it does, from a certain POV.

Many slim people don’t know they may have excess belly or visceral fat. However it is true and these people can have the same increased risk for heart disease, cancer and diabetes as an overweight person and not even know it.

Researchers have found 4 main reasons why slim people have excessive belly fat:

Lack of Exercise

If a person tries to stay slim by diet alone, s/he can still pack on pounds of fat deep within the abdominal cavity and not know it. As far as exercising, cardio routines are the best to get your heart rate up and your body into the fat-burning mode. Try to do cardio exercises 20 to 40 minutes per day for at least four days per week. Add in two days of strength training and take the 7th day off.

The Persons Age

As we age, our metabolism slows down, so we do not normally burn as many calories per day as when we were younger. In some people, the extra calories our body does not burn up get stored as belly fat. While aging is a continual process, you can help stave off its effects through proper diet and exercising.

Their Hormones

As we age, hormonal changes occur. Especially in postmenopausal women, fat may move from the hips to the abdominal cavity. So even though the scale has not shown any weight gain, fat may have moved to the belly region. There isn’t much that can be done to prevent it. Eat a healthy diet and get exercise as described above.

Their Genetics

Some people are predisposed to acquire fat in their belly region instead of on their hips or buttocks. Call it “bad genes” if you will. This can be disheartening as you are doing everything right but still gaining belly fat. Try to control it though exercise and avoiding sugary foods or food with trans fat. The body doesn’t know how to process trans fat, so it stores it as fat.

The odd fact about belly fat is that it does not show up on a Body Mass Index (BMI) reading. So even with a BMI of less than 25, dangerous belly fat could be lurking inside your body.

Unfortunately, belly fat is the most dangerous fat there is as it secretes hormones in the body that can create an increased risk for many life-threatening diseases. The only real way to tell if you have excess belly fat is through a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) or a Computed Tomography (CT) test.

You can find more “Belly Fat Success Tips” in our weight loss category found at http://myfitnessnut.com and while you’re they, be sure to subscribe to our monthly fitness newsletter and be kept up to date on the latest developments in the world of health and fitness.

here are two main types of fat: subcutaneous and visceral. The first type, subcutaneous, is found just under the skin. Visceral fat, also known as belly fat, is found behind the stomach muscles and in the abdominal cavity, and around many of our internal organs. Why you may think fat is fat, the two types are very different.

Belly Fat Increases Your Risk for Certain Diseases

This visceral fat does a couple of things biologically that can lead to a whole host of dangerous diseases. For example, excessive belly fat inhibits insulin to do its job, a condition called insulin resistance. So as your body becomes more insulin resistant, it has a harder time controlling your blood sugar. This can lead to diabetes.

Also, this visceral fat secretes hormones and proteins into your blood stream. When you have normal belly fat amounts, the hormones and protein are beneficial to your body, but as you gain belly fat, too much is secreted and that is when it can start to cause problems. The excess hormones contribute to atherosclerosis, a buildup of plaque on the walls of your arteries, and eventually lead to clogging of the arteries; excess secreted proteins from belly fat cells constrict blood vessels causing high blood pressure known as hypertension.

Because visceral fat is located so close to the liver, fat cells enter that organ directly through the portal vein. Once inside, they can cause dementia, high LDL cholesterol, and breast and colon cancer.

Results of a Belly Fat Study

In a 14-year study that ended in 2012, 12,785 patients were broken down into three categories: normal, overweight and obese. What the study found is the group with a normal BMI, but with excessive visceral fat was 2.1 times more likely to die than the obese group that had a 1.4 greater risk of dying. The point is belly fat is extremely dangerous even if you carry a weight commensurate with your height.

How to Get Rid of Belly Fat

The good news is that even though people complain about it being the hardest last few pounds of fat to lose, this visceral fat is also one of the first fats to start going. Focus eating fresh fruits, vegetables, whole grains and the good fats – the unsaturated and Omegas. Do 20 to 40 minutes of cardio exercises four days per week with a couple of days of strength training.

If you take in fewer calories through proper eating and start burning more calories through exercising, the calorie deficit will start to burn off excessive belly fat.

You can find more “Belly Fat Success Tips” in our weight loss category found at http://myfitnessnut.com and while you’re they, be sure to subscribe to our monthly fitness newsletter and be kept up to date on the latest developments in the world of health and fitness.

This is a very interesting topic. Can yoga get rid of cellulite? Some people say that yoga works wonders and others say that other than slight health benefits, they saw no visible reduction in their cellulite.

So Who’s Right About Getting Rid of Cellulite?

This is another one of those questions where both parties are right.

What? Both parties? Really?

Yes. Before we examine why, first you need to understand what cellulite is.

Let’s look at what Wikipedia says about what it is:

Cellulite (also known as adiposis edematosa, dermopanniculosis deformans, status protrusus cutis, gynoid lipodystrophy, and orange peel syndrome) is the herniation of subcutaneous fat within fibrous connective tissue that manifests topographically as skin dimpling and nodularity, often on the pelvic region (specifically the buttocks), lower limbs, and abdomen. Cellulite occurs in most postpubescent females and rarely in males.

In simple terms, cellulite is fat. That’s it. Fat. F-A-T.

Most women are shocked when they hear that cellulite is nothing more than stores of fat. They often exclaim that it can’t be fat because it looks so clumpy, lumpy or dimpled. Normal fat is just smooth and rounded.

That’s wrong thinking.

The reason that cellulite appears the way it does is because of the connective tissues beneath the skin of a woman. In a woman, the connective tissues from the muscles to the skin are perpendicular. This creates pockets or spaces for fat to be stored.

Men do not have this problem because their connective tissues are connected in a cross hatched manner. Men have it good in this department.

To worsen the situation, women have thinner skin so any subcutaneous fat becomes much more visible when it pushes up against the skin. As a woman ages, her skin gets thinner and less supple.

That’s a double whammy because now the cellulite becomes much more visible. This is why older women complain of cellulite more.

Get Rid of Cellulite by Getting Rid of Fat

The only way to reduce the appearance of cellulite is to reduce the fat stores in the body, be on a healthy diet and take care of your skin by consuming collagen supplements and applying moisturizing lotions to your skin.

Women see cellulite on their thighs and butt because the skin there is thinner. Different women may see cellulite in different places. It all depends on how thin the skin is on the body. Regardless of location, the principle is the same.

When you lose the fat, you’ll lose the cellulite.

So is Yoga Effective to Get Rid of Cellulite?

If your body fat percentage is not too high, yoga may help you burn more calories and you may lose some body fat. When this happens, your fat stores drop and the cellulite may be less visible or not even exist at all.

If you are overweight or obese, it may take you a long, long time to burn off all the excess fat with yoga because yoga is not a high impact exercise. In this case, it may not be very effective in the short run but over a period of time, yoga can get you there. So, depending on the person, the answer is a yes for everyone even though it may take much more time for some.

I’d highly recommend that yoga just be one component in a varied training regimen. You want to hard cardio workouts that will get your heart pumping and your body in fat burning mode. You want resistance training especially for your lower body. Squats, lunges, dead-lifts, scissor kicks, etc. will tone the muscles in your legs and butt. You will also accelerate fat burning in these areas.

That is how you lose cellulite. Yoga is a means to an end and not an end in itself without a considerable amount of time invested.

Five Tasty and Healthy Foods to Lose Weight to Brighten Up your Menu

It seems that far too many people these days associate weight loss with being reduced to following a diet of bread crumbs and water. Thankfully, in reality things are far from being that bad, especially since it was discovered that many of our favorite foods can still be eaten while on a diet if you were to simply use different ingredients for them.

Here are a few healthy foods to lose weight which you should definitely think about including in your diet.

Healthy Foods to Lose Weight Tip #1 – Raspberries

Regardless of whether or not you actually like them, the fact remains that raspberries are full of a very important enzyme called ketones. This is the enzyme which your body naturally produces in order to break down fat and turn it into energy.

By putting more raspberries in your diet you are effectively going to increase your body’s metabolism, raising the rate at which it burns fat, effectively losing weight faster than before.

Healthy Foods to Lose Weight Tip #2 – Green Tea

While it wasn’t conclusively proven beyond all doubt, recent clinical studies strongly suggest that green tea has some tremendous weight loss benefits, especially when combined with an exercising regime. As it turns out, green tea is full of antioxidants and various other ingredients which help with fat oxidation.

Otherwise said, green tea contains ingredients that help the human body process fat and turn it into energy at a faster rate, which as you can guess, helps with weight loss.

Healthy Foods to Lose Weight Tip #3 – Papaya

Sweet cravings are something that definitely needs to be addressed when making up your diet plan, especially if you have a sweet tooth.

The answer, in this case, is to substitute your sweets with fruits, such as the papaya for example. Being sweet, very light, and extremely beneficial for your health (containing tons of vitamin C, A and iron), the papaya is the perfect way to keep your impulses at bay all while strengthening your system.

Healthy Foods to Lose Weight Tip #4 – Cucumbers

Even though cucumbers may not be able to bring too much to the table in terms of nutrition, they are capable of doing something that not too many other foods can; they can make you feel nice and full without taking up a lot of calories. It would be wise not only to use cucumbers in your salad, but also to eat some before your meals as well as during your snacks to prevent yourself from eating too much, or to suffer from hunger cravings.

Healthy Foods to Lose Weight Tip #5 – Oats

Finally, because every list of healthy foods to lose weight needs to include a proper source of fiber, there are oats. As most of you already know (but have probably forgotten), oats are a great source fiber, they are great at making you feel full, not to mention that clinical studies have actually proven that they have some benefits for weight loss.

You would do best to eat some oatmeal for breakfast, perhaps even for lunch while you are at work with the help of instant oatmeal packets. Whatever oats you choose to eat, make sure that they are sugar-free; you can add your own ingredients such as fruit to it if you want it sweetened and enjoy variety.

You can learn more about healthy foods to lose weight and other great diet tips at http://MyFitnessNut.com and subscribe the My Fitness Nut Newsletter to get the most recent updates concerning diets, fitness and weight loss.

If you’re sick and tired of weight loss programs that are ineffective while doing nothing more than wasting your time and money while failing to deliver, then you need to watch this short video below and follow along with the proven weight loss solution it provides you. – Frank and Anna

How’s that for a scientifically proven weight loss solution for melting away those unwanted pounds without turning your life upside down? Such a nice simple solution for losing weight and you don’t even have to think about it much because everything is so well planned for you.

Certainly you already know that you don’t have to look very far to find hundreds of programs advertised as “weight loss solutions”. The problem is that you’ll spend much valuable time and money yo-yoing and even failing completely just to find the one weight loss solution that will work for you.

Choose a Weight Loss Solution that is Proven and Effective

When you’re ready to start a weight loss program or make an investment in weight loss supplements you want to be sure that what you are buying is effective and not some gimmicky fad diet or false promises in an eye-catching advertisement.

The waste of good money is one thing but more importantly the waste of time and what it does to your mentality when you fail. Even when you know that it’s the fault of a poorly designed weight loss plan, it still takes a mental toll on you when you fail.

So, if you really want a solution to losing weight, one that will help you lose then maintain your weight in simple doable steps; watch, then follow the video above then follow along with where it guides you.

This Weight Loss Solution is the ‘Real Deal’

Very seldom will My Fitness Nut’s Frank or Anna make a personal recommendation let alone both at the same time. We’re usually about researching, testing when necessary, reviewing and then providing additional resources to help you make the best decisions for what you want to accomplish.

This is one of those rare occasions where we both agree that this is a weight loss plan that will work well for most people who follow it. We’ve seen people use this program to get rid of belly fat that numbers of sit ups could never dissolve. We’ve seen people who’ve tried dieting for years, finally become happy with the direction they are going within a few short weeks of starting it.

Waste No More Time Looking for a Weight Loss Solution

It feels good to be able to drop weight quickly in the beginning so that you can see fast results while continuing to see fat melting off week after week moving you closer to your ultimate weight loss goal. It not only feels good, it looks fantastic too.

Don’t waste anymore time, money or senseless frustrations with fad and gimmick diets. Watch the weight loss solution video to the right and follow along with the free trial because we already know that you’ll be so happy you did.