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Salt Lake City—A new weight-loss product, Total Trans4m, contains Reishi, an ingredient from Japan derived from mushrooms.

According to Total Trans4m’s Toni Druce, “Reishi was long held as a secret of the Orient.  The Japanese Reishi mushroom boosts metabolism and burns fat.  In Japan and throughout Asia, it has a reputation as the ultimate herbal substance since there appear to be health benefits and in most people, no side effects.  We’ve introduced Reishi as a key ingredient in our Total Trans4m weight loss pills because our experience has shown that people who use this lose weight, keep it off and have more energy.”

Druce adds that another key ingredient in Total Trans4m is L-Carnitine.  She says this special amino acid helps the body use fat as an energy source, thereby reducing or preventing fatty buildup in the heart, liver and skeletal muscles.  Simply stated, this amino acid helps with heart health and oxidizes fat around the organs.

“Many individuals who have used Total Trans4m have reported weight losses of anywhere from 2 to 5 pounds per week.  We’ve tried to make this product incredibly user friendsly.  Just take one of these revolutionary diet supplement pill each morning with your regular breakfast, and that’s it.  You eat what you normally eat, but with Total Trans4m, you’ll have less of an appetite, thereby reducing your calorie intake,” Druce said.

For more information, visit totaltrans4m.com.

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I think we’ve all heard this question from time to time from various sources. In fact, I remember doing a lot of online research on it before I started taking it consistently for the first time.

Real Solutions Magazine put out an article recently addressing this same question. You can read it here:

Is Creatine Safe?

So what do you think? I know that a lot of people like to mention that the overall long term affects of creatine have not adequately been studied, and this may very well be true. I guess only time will tell. I know that for me personally, I don’t take any supplement (besides whey and a multivitamin) for super long periods of time. I think this is good advice for most enhancement related supplements.

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Omega 3s are an important part in everyone’s diet. Here are some ideas from Dr. John Berardi on how to get more Omega 3s in your diet.

Omega 3 Snacks
by Dr. John Berardi

Once you’re splitting up your fats correctly (about 1/3 of your fat intake coming from each of the three types of fat), your next goal should be to balance out your omega 6: omega 3 ratio. Do this and you’re arteries will be jumping for joy and they’ll have less body fat around them to impede their jump height.

While most of you probably already know that the omega 6: omega 3 balance is critical, I’m sure many of you are wondering in you can balance out the 6:3 ratio without having to pour another tablespoon of flaxseed oil down the gullet?

How about trying some pumpkin seeds or flaxseeds? Pumpkin seeds provide a 2:1 ratio of omega 6 fatty acids to omega 3 fatty acids, increasing the EFA content of your diet while putting your fat intake back in balance. Also, adding flaxseeds to your diet is a good idea. Grind these seeds up in a coffee grinder and add to your meals. Flaxseeds provide fiber, protein, and a 3:1 ratio of omega 3: omega 6 fatty acids. Your arteries will thank you.

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Do you ever find yourself wondering what else you can eat, maybe even on a so-called ‘cheat day’? I know I do sometimes. I get tired every now and then of eating virtually the same type of foods all the time.

This is where recipe sites come in handy. Granted, not all of them are friendly for our particular lifestyle, but I think you can still get a lot of ideas from these sites. Then just tweak the recipe to your needs.

One really cool site for this is KeyIngredient.com. You can submit your own food recipe, view other recipes, and even add them to your own blog or whatever you want. Here’s an example:

Anyway, its a fun little site, check it out sometime and see what kind of recipes you can come up with and tweak to your enjoyment!

Sponsored Post

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There are different variations on this question, but it seems that a lot of us wonder how often we should train, how many days of rest we should have between workouts, etc. It would be nice if there was a blanket answer for everyone such as “Train 3 days a week with one day of rest in between.” Wouldn’t it be nice if everything was that simple?

The fact is that different people do better under different routines. I believe that in the end you have to experiment and learn what works best for you and your situation. There are just so many things to take into consideration such as your work schedule, how much time you have to go to the gym, nutritional concerns, etc.

Real Solutions Magazine put out a good article on this topic that approaches it from those different angles. In fact, at the end of the article the author, Nick Nilsson, actually gives examples of different routines he has followed during different times in his life. It makes a good read.

Here’s a link to the article: Training Frequency: How Often Can You or SHOULD You Train to Maximize Your Results?

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I was thinking about what to write about today, but I decided that I would go ahead and just do a short list of some of the most common muscle building supplements that are available out there.  You have most likely heard of all of these before, but I think it’s good to go back to the basics sometimes.

• Creatine - Creatine is the most popular bodybuilding supplement simply because it works.  It’s pretty easy to find plenty of examples of people that are seeing great results with this product.
• Whey Protein - You gotta have your protein!  Whey is the best, simply put.
• Glutamine - Glutamine is the most abundant amino acid in the body and has all sorts of benefits.
• ZMA - ZMA helps you produce more testosterone, and I think we all know what that leads to (bigger muscles from working out)
• Other

I’m sure I could add more things to this list, but those are some of the basics.  You could also look at some products like NO2, HMB, and others.  But some of these are not as well proven to help.

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I think that this tip goes along with everything in life.  You have to keep educating yourself.  If you ever get to the point where you think you know everything about something, you’re going to fall behind really really fast.  Especially in today’s world with information flying around the globe as quickly as it does.

So what are some good ways that you can keep up to date and keep learning the best ways to exercise and stay fit?  Well, let’s say for example that you’re a woman and looking to keep up on women’s arm exercises.  You could check out some blogs and subscribe to them, read books on the topic as they come out, or join a natural bodybuilding forum to learn the new tricks and techniques.  Another great medium that has come out with the advent of YouTube are exercise videos.

I guess my point here is not to give you an all inclusive list of places to go to find information, but make sure you’re doing your best to stay up on what’s going on in the fitness world.  But also make sure you have a grounded foundation in the basics.  Yes, new fan dangled contraptions and workouts come out all the time, but a lot of times they’re no better than the tried and true.  That’s another reason to stay educated: it keeps you from being duped!

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With the internet today, there are plenty of places where you can learn how to lose weight.  It seems like everywhere you go you’re getting the latest tip or trick that is bound to help you lose weight quickly and permanently.

For those of us that try to keep a realistic look on things, please understand that losing the weight that you’ve put on over the years is going to take time to come off.  I often get annoyed at our “I want it done yesterday” society, and weight loss is one of those areas.

If you want a good list of weight loss tips, here is a list to check out: 101 Weight Loss Tips.  If you went through this list and really applied most, if not all, of these ideas, you’d be well on your way to losing weight.  You have to realize that in order to lose weight and lose it permanently you have to make some lifestyle changes.

Does weight loss come in a pill?  Well, there are supplements that can help, but you still have to be willing to do the work.  The other benefit of doing the work is that you’ll learn how to change on the inside as well so that you don’t put the weight right back on again.  But if you use supplements to help you on your way, that’s fine with me!  There are plenty that have been proven to help.  One you might check out is Lipo-6.  Use this link for some Lipo-6 reviews.

In summary, there are a lot of things to do and learn to effectively and permanently lose weight.  If you’re willing to do the work and make some chances, your chances of success are so much higher!

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I’ve always heard and read that it’s never a good idea to be drinking a lot of caffeine when you’re taking caffeine. I’m assuming most of you have read something along these lines as well. So my initial thought was that creatine has been reported to help your muscles retain water, but if you notice when you drink a lot of caffeine you have to urinate more. So at first I thought that was the reason not to mix the two.

Well, rather than relying on my own thinking, I decided to look up some information on the topic. I came across a really interesting article from CreatineMonohydrate.net, and I’ll quote from it below:

Certain wrong explanations, however, can be discounted from the start. First, the fact that caffeine is a diuretic has nothing to do with its counterproductive effect…These opposing effects of caffeine and creatine have inspired rumors that caffeine counteracts the benefits of creatine by preventing muscles from retaining fluids.

So right away I learned that my assumption was wrong. So what is the big problem anyway? Well, this article goes on to explain more:

It is thus relevant that one of PCr’s primary roles in muscle is to provide the energy to return calcium into these reservoirs. In this manner creatine (PCr) assists in muscle relaxation and enhances our athletic performance. Interestingly, caffeine has the opposite effect of allowing calcium to escape from these intracellular calcium storage sites. Caffeine would thus hamper muscle relaxation. In agreement with these findings a recent study has shown that caffeine interferes with creatine’s ability to facilitate muscle relaxation, especially during moments of fatigue. Caffeine might thusly confound the ability of PCr to store away calcium and in doing so nullify part of creatine’s benefit.

So it isn’t really about the water, it’s more about calcium!

Another interesting thing I learned from this article is that most of the problems come from continuous caffeine use. If you’re just grabbing a Coke from time to time you shouldn’t see any problems. (I’d still say to limit the Coke though! ) But if you’re doing it daily, you can expect to see less benefit from your creatine use.

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If you’re going to gain muscle, and even if you’re going to lose weight….in fact, just to be healthy you need to make sure that you’re getting enough protein in your diet.  Then the question always comes up of “What type of protein is best for me?”  Great question!  Rather than going through all the details in this post, here is a protein supplement guide that you might want to check out if you have this question.

As a side note, you might have these questions on other supplements as well.  Here’s another article you might want to check out about the top 7 bodybuilding supplements.  This site gives some pretty good info on many different supplements.

Another question that comes up a lot about protein is, “What is the best way to get protein?  Should I get it through supplements or can I just eat enough regular food?”  Well, this is a difficult question to answer, because there are so many things you need to consider for yourself.  While there are a lot of high protein foods out there, it is very difficult for most of us to get in enough meals to make that a plausible idea.  That’s where supplements come in.   Just keep in mind that supplements are meant to be supplements!  They aren’t there to replace eating regular foods entirely, but to help you reach your goals by giving you what you might not be able to get from regular foods.

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