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NOTE: All articles in BetterU News are written by Nick Nilsson -
http://www.fitstep.com/ unless otherwise credited.

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Another Question About The "Metabolic Surge - Rapid Fat Loss" Program The "Metabolic Surge" program is all about losing fat as quickly as possible while keeping and even BUILDING muscle mass. If you haven't read about it, you can do so here: http://www.fitstep.com/metabolic-surge/metabolic-surge-rapid-fat-loss.htm Naturally, when a groundbreaking program like this comes out, you have questions. To help you decide whether this new program is right for you, I'm going to provide you with some of the most frequently asked questions about the program. QUESTION: Does the Metabolic Surge program require strict calorie counting? ANSWER: Not at all! In fact, it's the first highly-effective fat loss program that I've found that doesn't actually require strict calorie counting to work and work very well. The training and nutritional techniques found in the program (such as Fat-Loss Circuit Training, Macronutrient Rotation and Lactic Acid Training) will take care of boosting your metabolism so that you don't need to focus on measuring and weighing everything you eat. If you do prefer to count calories and find you get better results that way, however, I've also included in the program not only advice on how to go about it but also specific ranges of caloric intake based on your gender and bodyweight to get the best results. The information is there if you need but it is definitely NOT necessary to count calories on the Metabolic Surge program and still have it work effectively. To read about the inspiring real-world results that others have obtained with the Metabolic Surge program, click on the following link now: http://www.fitstep.com/metabolic-surge/metabolic-surge-testimonials.htm You can also download a complimentary trial version of Metabolic Surge using either of the following links: http://www.fitstep.com/cgi-bin/schlabo/dl.pl?surge-free http://www.fitstep.com/freebooks/metabolic-surge-free.pdf (Right-click on this link and choose "Save Target As..." to download)

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Secret Training Tip #321 - Squatting With Your Core - This Never-Before-Seen Technique Can Make You Stronger in the Squat Instantly! Squatting is a total body exercise. When you learn how to use your core muscles to push when you squat, weights you've struggled with will FLY up!

Squatting is simply one of the very best exercises you can do for building muscle and strength. Period.

What would you say if I told you that your body has the potential to lift 10% or more weight in the squat RIGHT NOW, with just a small adjustment in how you perform the exercise?

Today, you're going to learn exactly how it's done. You're going to learn how to use your core muscles to not only stabilize your upper body during the squat (the regular squat technique), but to actually help PUSH the weight up as well. This is how you will be able to use more weight instantly - you'll be using more muscles to push the weight up!

It's an extremely powerful technique that will not only help you use more weight, it will help you develop incredible core strength, power and stability. In fact, use of this technique while squatting can even help you become a more powerful athlete because it teaches you how to use your core muscles to not only stabilize during but to actively participate in powerful movements found in most sports.

The result: a stronger throw, a higher jump, a more devastating punch and a more powerful kick.

Before I go on to explain the technique for improving the squat, you need to know how to properly perform the basic squat. For information on how to perform the squat, please click on this link:

"You Don't Know Squat About Squats"
http://www.fitstep.com/Misc/Newsletter-archives/issue17.htm

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Teaching you how to use your core to push during a squat is not a one-step process, nor is it something that comes naturally to most. I'm going to take you through several progressions that will force your body to learn the technique so you can immediately apply it to your squatting.

First, we need to pre-exhaust the muscle of the core. Pre-exhausting is a technique whereby you work a single target muscle group in isolation, e.g. flyes for the chest, before working it in combination with other muscle groups, e.g. bench press for the chest.

Why on earth do we need to pre-exhaust the muscles that we're trying to use to make another exercise stronger? Won't that defeat the purpose of the technique?

The answer is simple. When the core muscles are fresh and unworked, it would be much harder to actually feel how we want them to work. When we pre-exhaust them with one specific exercise (which I will teach you) then work them another specific exercise (which I will also teach you), the core muscles will be the weak link and your body will be forced to use the core to push in order to actually perform the movement.

It's basically a way of selectively exhausting your core muscles to make you feel them working in the way we want. Without pre-exhausting, the core muscles won't be forced to work like this and it wouldn't teach you the technique.

The exercise we're going to use to pre-exhaust the core is called the
"Cable Gripping Trunk Twist." This exercise targets the entire group of core muscles in a rotational movement.

I will not go through the full technique of how to perform the exercise here. To learn how to do the exercise, please use the following link:

http://www.fitstep.com/Misc/Newsletter-archives/issue30-squat.htm

Perform two sets of 8 reps of this exercise with 30 seconds rest in between the two sets. You should feel all the muscles of the core tighten up from this movement so be sure to work it hard.

Now we move directly to the exercise that will teach you how to push with the core. Your core is pre-exhausted and ready to go. The exercise you will be doing is the "Low Pulley Deadlift."

Attach a straight or cambered bar to a low pulley. Use a fairly heavy weight for this exercise (the whole weight stack may be necessary). The execution is very similar to a standard deadlift.

For pictures and info on how to perform this exercise for our purposes, click on this link:

http://www.fitstep.com/Misc/Newsletter-archives/issue30-squat.htm

Get into the start position, making sure your lower back is arched. Now take a few steps back, away from the pulley, taking the weight with you. This angle on the pulley you get from stepping back is critical in teaching you how to push with your core.

Now do a deadlift movement but keep the knees fairly bent and focus primarily on straightening at the hips rather than the knees (you'll want to keep your knees bent throughout the movement). You should notice your core muscles immediately quivering as tension shoots through that area.

In order to even perform the movement, you now have to use your core muscles to push up. Without pushing with the core, you'll pitch forward due both to the angle of the cable on the low pulley and the direct backward force you need to exert to keep from falling forward.

Perform 2 or 3 sets of 8 reps of the Low Pulley Deadlift, focusing as hard as you can on pushing your torso straight using your core muscles. This exercise is all about learning to feel the core pushing, not necessarily about working the muscles. Using enough weight is very important to learning that feeling so don't go too light with this exercise.

Once you can reliably feel your core muscles pushing in this exercise, you're ready to apply it to your squats.

Load the squat bar with weight you'd normally use for about 8 reps. Do one set of squats as you normally would, not pushing with the core. Push yourself but not to failure with this set - stay a few reps short of that point.

Now we're going to apply what we've learned about pushing with the core. Using the same weight as your first set, go down to the bottom of the squat as you normally would. As you start to come up, push with your core muscles, just like you did when performing the Low Pulley Deadlifts a few minutes ago.

I like to imagine my core muscles compressing like a coiled spring as I lower myself down to the bottom of the movement then expanding as I come up. Visualization in this manner may help you achieve the proper focus as well.

This pushing with the core should allow you to squat up more easily than in the previous non-core set. The core is no longer a passive stabilizer but an active participant in the movement.

It will take a little practice to get your mind into the technique but the results are very much worth it. You could be squatting more weight more comfortably in a matter of minutes!

Practice the core pre-exhaust Cable Gripping Trunk Twist and Low Pulley Deadlifts regularly to not only help teach your core to push but to strengthen it as well. The carryover in strength to the squat is tremendous!

While your squat form may not visibly be any different when you do this squat, this unique focused activation of the core will result in significantly increased power and strength in the exercise.

Here is the link once again for instructions on how to perform the exercises that will teach you how to push with your core:

http://www.fitstep.com/Misc/Newsletter-archives/issue30-squat.htm

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Low-Carb Backlash - Is the Low-Carb Cookie Crumbling? The Low-Carb Diet has seen a tremendous upsurge in popularity, but are its days numbered? The answer and the reasons may surprise you.

Low-Carb Diets, such as the Atkins Diet and the South Beach Diet, can be extremely effective for fat loss and weight control. You've no doubt known or heard of someone going on a low-carb diet and dropping 10 pounds or more in a week. Low-carb diets are very popular for their rapid results. Who wouldn't want fast results like this?!

As popular and effective as low-carb diets are, how can there possibly be a significant downturn in the low-carb diet's popularity? After all, aren't low-carb diets supposed to allow people to eat as much low-carb food as they want still lose weight?

Low-carb backlash (people turning against low-carb dieting) and low-carb diet failure is a reality and I'm going to tell you the reasons why. Before I do, I want to make one thing perfectly clear: I believe low-carb diets do have their place in nutritional science. They can be a very valuable dietary strategy and can be very effective for fat loss. I actually incorporate proper low-carb eating into my fat loss program "Metabolic Surge - Rapid Fat Loss!" It's the misinformation and bandwagon profiteering currently becoming associated with low-carb diets that really create the problems we're seeing now with low-carb diets.

1. Manufactured Low-Carb Junk Foods Are Sabotaging Low-Carb Diets

One of the major reasons people used to lose so much weight on low-carb diets was that there was a very limited selection of foods to choose from. These foods (like fish, meats, poultry, salads, vegetables, etc.) are primarily unprocessed and natural.

Enter: big business. Spying the chance to make a profit, big food manufacturers (and even little ones) saw a way to create a whole new market for themselves in the form of manufactured low-carb foods. Out came the low-carb cookies, cakes, chips and desserts. Basically, all the garbage foods that a person wasn't previously allowed to eat on a low-carb diet suddenly became available to eat again.

So we're right back to square one with people eating junk food. The problem is, now people think they can eat as much of it as they want because it's "low-carb!" If this sounds to you like the "I can eat all the ice cream I want because it's zero fat" attitude commonly found with low-fat foods, you're absolutely right.

Just because a food is "low-carb" doesn't necessarily mean it's good for you or that you can eat as much of it as you want. It's most likely not going to be low-calorie and don't be fooled...even on a low-carb diet, calories do count. If you take in more calories than you burn, you're not going to lose fat, you're going to gain it.

The next time you're at the grocery store, look at the nutritional information on the label of a low-carb food package, specifically serving size. One small low-carb cookie could give you 10 grams of carbs with another 10 grams in sugar alcohol. The person who is buying low-carb cookies to satisfy their craving for carb foods is not going to eat just one cookie. A few cookies later, they've eaten their entire carb allotment for the day and what nutritional redemption do they have to show for it (and creme-filled goodness doesn't count)!

With the current tremendous availability of low-carb junk food, a person doesn't have to eat fish, meat, eggs, salads and vegetables, which should be the focus of a low-carb diet. They can eat the same garbage that got them fat in the first place.

This is one of the main reasons low-carb diets are starting to fail and why there is a growing resentment towards low-carb dieting. Unknowingly, people have undermined their dieting efforts by supporting food manufacturers who make highly-processed, low-carb junk food. People want to believe that they can continue to eat the same foods they're comfortable with and still lose fat.

The problem is, you just can't keep doing the same things you're doing and expect different results.

As an aside, not only are these foods sabotaging low-carb diets, they actually cost a lot more than their normal counterparts (I've seen a small loaf of low-carb bread for six dollars)! People are paying more money for products that are screwing up their diets.

2. Too Much Emphasis on Unhealthy, High-Calorie, Fatty, Low-Carb Foods

A low-carb diet is not a "bacon and butter diet." A low-carb diet is not a "sausage and Diet Coke diet." Granted, the fat in these foods is not as much of a problem when eating low-carb, but you should NOT base your eating habits on preservative-loaded, saturated-fat-packed, high-sodium foods. Just because you CAN eat them doesn't mean you SHOULD.

Dr. Atkins, in his diet program, actually discourages overuse of foods like this. He focuses more on unprocessed meats, fish, poultry, eggs, salads and vegetables, etc., rather than the bacon, butter and sausage. The general public seems to only get the sound-bite message from the "don't-confuse-us-with-the-facts" popular media, which is "eat all the bacon and butter you want and still lose weight." This is not and should not be the focus of any low-carb diet.

Why is eating fatty foods like bacon and sausage contributing to a downturn in low-carb dieting? Because when it comes right down to it, these foods will never be healthy and should not be consumed in quantity. Not only are they full of saturated fat and preservatives, the high fat levels mean they are very high in calories. As I mentioned before, calories do count, even on a low-carb diet. If you take in more calories than you burn (which can easily happen when you eat 500 calories worth of bacon for breakfast) you're not going to lose, you're going to gain.

3. Turns Out Carbs Are Not Actually Evil

Carbs are everywhere. They're in many of the foods we love to eat. They're also in many of the very nutritious foods we SHOULD be eating. There is no denying that the human body is designed to efficiently use carbs for energy. Carbs are NOT inherently evil nor do all carbs need to be avoided like the plague.

The problem most people have with carbs is that they eat the wrong types of carbs. Enriched, pulverized, processed, sugary carbs are the carbs people have fattened themselves up on for years. These are the carbs that should be avoided and/or minimized.

Fruits, vegetables and whole grains are not the problem. They contain nutrients that are extremely important to the body and contribute to health and athletic performance. Look to high fructose corn syrup and enriched white flour and you'll find the source of the problem.

Most people truly WANT to eat carbs and SHOULD eat (proper) carbs, which makes it that much harder to stick to a low-carb diet. This is another major reason we're seeing resentment towards the low-carb lifestyle.

4. Missing Nutrients

The low-carb diet is a very unbalanced diet. Only eating from certain food groups will catch up with a person in the long run (potassium deficiency can be a BIG problem with low-carb diets). The body functions best when fed a variety of healthy foods and people on low-carb diets should be very careful to be sure they're getting enough varied nutrition. Unfortunately, as we know, most people aren't that careful.

If what you're eating is not giving your body the nutrition it needs, it will let you know. You will get strong cravings for the foods you're missing and you may even develop nutrient deficiencies. Not a good situation. For most people, a diet that can leave you vulnerable like this, if you're not careful, is not going to be effective in the long run.

*** If you are currently on a low-carb diet, be absolutely sure you are at the very least taking a good multivitamin! ***

5. Sugar Alcohol - The Great Pretender

Sugar alcohols simply DO NOT exist in nature in the quantities found in low-carb foods these days. When a body ingests a large amount of a substance it's not familiar with in large quantities, what's its reaction? Bingo - flush it out the other end as quickly as possible.

In fact, if you read the small print on some of the foods that contain sugar alcohols (such as maltitol and sorbitol), you'll see a little notice that reads: "Warning: excess consumption of this product may have a laxative effect."

Maybe it's just me but in my opinion, unless you're eating something like prunes where you know what you're getting into, the foods you eat shouldn't have a laxative effect (and "laxative effect" is the nicest way of putting it!). This reaction is the body's way of saying something is not supposed to be there.

Another point is this: foods that contain sugar alcohol also contain calories, which need to be accounted for in a fat-loss diet. Even though the "impact carb" count may be low, those non-impact carbs still have calories [the term "impact carb" only refers to carbs that affect insulin levels in the body] that can make you fat if you eat too many. You may be looking at a low-carb bar that contains 200 calories yet has only 1 gram of "impact" carbs! Those calories have to go somewhere.

For more information on "impact" and "net" carbs, read the following article:

Impact Carbs, Net Carbs and Effective Carbs - Is Marketing Slang Messing With Your Low-Carb Diet?

http://www.fitstep.com/Misc/Newsletter-archives/issue25.htm

You can just imagine there being resentment towards a diet that has you eating foods that have you sitting on the toilet half the day. You'll lose weight, certainly, but it's not going to be how you thought. Move over Olestra!

6. The Dreaded Low-Carb Plateau

What is the main reason people go on a low-carb diet in the first place? Results. So what happens when the results slow down and stop? That major motivation for being on the low-carb diet in the first place is gone.

If you're on a diet that is not only not working but is actually uncomfortable, expensive and, depending on how you're doing it, unhealthy, chances are you're not going to stick it with very long.

And this is what we're seeing quite a lot of. People are making the mistakes that I've outlined here by eating manufactured low-carb foods filled with sugar alcohol. They're missing carbs (and the nutrients associated with carbs) both mentally and physically. Their results are slowing down and stopping.

A significant downturn in the popularity of low-carb dieting is on the way and, unfortunately, it's leaving a lot of people more confused than ever about how and what to eat to lose fat and stay healthy.

My advice to you: if you're on a low-carb diet, leave the low-carb manufactured foods on the shelf and focus on unprocessed, natural foods. If you're not on a low-carb diet, do the same thing! Regardless of what type of diet you're on, a focus on foods that are unprocessed and closer to their natural state will help you burn fat and keep your body healthy.

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Please Don't Pay Full Retail Price For Your Supplements When You Don't Have To From: Nick Nilsson I've been training and buying supplements for more than 16 years and I've learned a thing or two about where you should go to get your supplements at the best prices. It may not be what you think and I want to be sure you're not paying too much for supplements you could be getting for much lower prices (think about it - if you pay less, you can get more supplements for the same money!). You have several choices: 1. You can go to a health food store and pay top dollar. When I started training, this is the way I went. I paid way too much for my supplements but I just didn't know where else to go. 2. You can go a specialty retail store like GNC. With GNC, if you wait for your Gold Card Discount (20%) and the "buy one get one for half price" days, you can get fairly good deals, especially on vitamins. But what if you can't get to the store on Gold Card days? 3. You can go to a specialty discount or warehouse store. After a few years, I discovered this route. The only problem was, to get the great prices, I had to drive an hour (sometimes more if traffic was bad) to get to the store! 4. You can buy your supplements online or by mail order. This is by far the easiest and cheapest way to go. It's how I buy ALL my supplements and is the way I highly recommend. You can get the exact same supplements that you can get at any store (usually far more though!) so selection is definitely not an issue. Delivery is fast and inexpensive (at the online store that I go to and recommend). You can get rock-bottom prices on supplements because the company is not paying for a retail storefront. The savings are tremendous, 50% (or more) less than what you'll pay at a health food store or even a retail speciality store. Sound interesting? Check out the following link right now to see for yourself how much money you could be saving on your supplements: http://www.fitstep.com/goto/supplements.htm

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The "Sting Ray" For Front Squats - Training Equipment Review Can this unique piece of equipment take the pain and suffering out of the front squat and replace it with raw results?

The Front Squat has the potential to be one of the most effective thigh-training exercises a person can do. But what stops most people from doing it? The answer: holding the bar can be just plain uncomfortable.

The "Sting Ray" from Advanced Fitness, Inc., maker of the excellent "Manta Ray" for the squat, is designed to address this problem.

[Manta Ray Review - http://www.fitstep.com/fitness-equipment-reviews/equipment-reviews/manta-ray-review.htm]

By attaching two specially-shaped polyurethane polymer forms to the bar, the Sting Ray is reported to distribute the load of the bar over a greater surface area, dramatically decreasing the uncomfortbale pressure on the body during the front squat movement.

The question is, does the Sting Ray effectively achieve this goal?

To answer this question, we need to look at the mechanics and set-up of the front squat movement and how the Sting Ray is designed to work to improve the movement.

In a nutshell, a front squat is basically done exactly the same as a back squat, the major difference being that the bar is held across the front of your body rather than the back. This changes not only the balance of the movement, but also where the tension is placed on your muscles.

The front squat is generally used to more effectively target the quadriceps. Since the weight is held at the front of your body, you are able to maintain a more vertical torso position. This allows more tension to be placed on the quads rather than the glutes and lower back.

This exercise requires strong abdominals and shoulders in order to keep the barbell properly racked across the front of the shoulders ("racked" in this case means how the bar is held in place on your shoulders), but it is extremely effective in working the quadriceps.

There are two methods of holding the bar on your shoulders (racking).

The first method is the "Clean" style rack, which looks a lot like the bottom position of a barbell shoulder press but with a narrow grip and the elbows pointed directly forward.

This method gives a wider "base" on the bar but is very difficult for those lacking elbow, wrist and shoulder flexibility or for anyone who has any trouble with those joints. A trainer with large arms may have trouble with this style of rack as well, as the muscle mass will prevent the necessary range of flexibility.

Click this link to view pictures of this racking style:

http://www.fitstep.com/Misc/Newsletter-archives/issue30-stingray.htm

The second method is the "Crossed-Arms" style rack. With this method, the bar is placed across the front shoulder muscles (anterior deltoids), the elbows are pointed straight forward, the forearms are crossed over directly in front and the hands are on the bar. If you raise your arms out in front of you and touch your right hand to your left shoulder and your left hand to your right shoulder, you'll see how this position looks.

The crossed-arm grip is easier on the joints of the upper body but leaves you with somewhat less control over the bar. The bar also has a greater tendency to roll back down into the throat, which is never a good thing!

Click this link to view pictures of this racking style:

http://www.fitstep.com/Misc/Newsletter-archives/issue30-stingray.htm

Also, and this is a problem with both racking styles, when the bar rests directly on the collar bones, it creates pressure on the rib cage, which can cause you to run out of breath before your legs are thoroughly worked.

How The Sting Ray Works:

The Sting Ray directly addresses the problems associated with racking the bar across your shoulders.

First, it utilizes the crossed-arm style of racking in order to decrease stress on the joints of the arms while also decreasing and eliminating the problems you'll find with the crossed-arm style.

Its unique shape allows it to rest comfortably on the shoulders while spreading the load of the bar over a far greater surface area. This increased distribution of weight ensures that the bar doesn't dig into the shoulders or create unnecessary pressure on the rib cage while lifting.

By clamping directly onto the bar, the Sting Ray also completely eliminates any chance of the bar rolling either forward and down or backward into your throat. This feature also increases the amount of control you have over the bar while doing the movement, allowing for greater stability of the bar.

Is The Sting Ray Effective?

The answer is "yes." The Sting Ray accomplishes its goal of making the front squat a more comfortable and productive exercise. You'll still have to do the work but the Sting Ray will allow you to focus on working the muscles you're targeting and not on the pain of holding the bar across your shoulders. This makes it a very effective training tool.

In my own training, I've actually worked at front squats and tried to find a way to do them comfortably without much success. The first time I used the Sting Ray, however, I found I was able to do the exercise with better form and focus on working the legs rather than on how much the bar was digging into my shoulders.

Including the front squat exercise in your leg workouts will help you to build a more balanced physique both in terms of muscle development and strength. While the back squat strongly affects the posterior muscles of your body, the front squat strongly affects the muscles on the front side of your body. Your abs will get such a great workout, you won't even need to work them directly after doing front squats!

If you work out in a home gym and don't have access to a squat rack but do have access to a bench press bench, the front squat is ideal for you. Normally, to do the back squat, you would have to shoulder press the bar over your head and into position on your back, do your set, then lift it back up and over. This not only limits the amount of weight you can use but decreases the safety of the exercise.

With the Sting Ray, you can set your bar in your bench press racks, sit in front of it then get the bar into position for a front squat. You'll get the benefits of a squatting exercise without the inconvenience, weight limits, or safety issues of lifting the bar overhead.

The front squat is also very useful for those who have knee problems but want to work their thighs. Other exercises that focus on the quads, such as sissy squats, lunges and leg extensions, can be quite hard on the knees. The front squat is quite comfortable on the knees and should pose no problems.

The Sting Ray does have its drawbacks but they are minimal compared to its usefulness.

Since the Sting Ray comes in two separate pieces (they are attached with a connective tie), proper placement on the bar can be tricky. This is one of the drawbacks of the Manta Ray as well but having two separate pieces can make it a little harder to get right.

When using the Sting Ray, the pieces must not only be placed so that they are even on the bar from side-to-side but also rotationally (meaning that one piece can't be placed further around on the bar than the other). To illustrate this, hold your hands out in front then pretend like you're wringing out a towel. See how one hand is rotated down and one is rotated up? This can happen when you place the Sting Ray on the bar. This is easily remedied by eyeballing the pieces and/or setting your shoulders under it and rotating one piece until it's even with the other.

On the plus side, having the two separate pieces does allow for more adjustability with regards to body structure, i.e. a person with wider shoulders or narrower shoulders can place the Sting Ray wider out or closer in on the bar.

A good way to deal with where to set the Sting Ray is to experiment and find the proper placement for your body structure. Once you've got it, use the same bar every time and note the overlap of the Sting Ray pieces over the knurled (rough) portion of the bar compared to the smooth center area. You can use finger-widths on the bar to be your guide, e.g. one finger of overlap, two fingers, etc.

Click this link to view pictures of how to place the Sting Ray:

http://www.fitstep.com/Misc/Newsletter-archives/issue30-stingray.htm

Conclusion:

Is the Sting Ray a useful piece of equipment for making the Front Squat a more effective and comfortable exercise to perform? Absolutely. If you are interested in performing the front squat and focusing on your quadriceps with a squatting movement, I highly recommend investing in a Sting Ray. Let me put it this way...if you're not doing the front squat, you should. It's an excellent exercise. And if you're doing the front squat, you should use a Sting Ray.

Click on the following link to learn more about Sting Ray and how you can order one for yourself:

http://www.fitstep.com/goto/stingray.htm

To read the review on the Manta Ray for regular squats, click on the following link:

http://www.fitstep.com/fitness-equipment-reviews/equipment-reviews/manta-ray-review.htm

To real all our training equipment reviews, go to:

http://www.fitstep.com/fitness-equipment-reviews/equipment-reviews/manta-ray-review.htm

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Nine Sure-Fire Ways To Gain Fat When it comes to fat gain, you may be helping your body succeed without even realizing you're doing it! These nine things will open your eyes and stop fat gain in its tracks.

Ever wonder if some of the things you do on a daily basis could be making you gain fat? Some things you may already know but some of them may take you completely by surprise!

1. Eating then sleeping will make you gain fat

Did you know that Sumo wrestlers eat then sleep on purpose to gain fat as quickly as possible? Your body doesn't require as many calories during sleep and calories that are eaten right before sleep have a FAR greater chance of being stored as fat. In fact, it's almost a certainty.

This goes for afternoon naps and also applies to late-night eating. If you eat and then immediately sleep on a regular basis, you will gain fat.

[EDITORS NOTE: eating specific foods such as protein shakes that are taken for the purposes of muscle building and recovery do not fall into this category. When taken properly and in reasonable quantities, they will not add significant fat to the body.]

2. Skipping meals or not eating for long periods of time will make you gain fat

But doesn't skipping meals (most notably breakfast) save a lot of calories during the day? Sure, there's a chance that it may. But consider this - skipping meals will slow your metabolism and you'll get really hungry. With a metabolism that's been slowed by not eating (particularly true of skipping breakfast), you're going to store a lot more of that food as fat. It doesn't matter if you're eating a hamburger and fries or if you're eating plain pasta and a chicken breast. Your metabolism will be sluggish and your body will want to store what you're eating rather than use it.

Eat as soon after you wake up as possible (never more than an hour) to kick-start your metabolism for the day. Even if it's just a small something you grab on the go, do it. It will get your metabolism going and ensure the food you eat later doesn't get preferentially stored as fat.

3. Drinking soft drinks (even diet drinks) with fatty foods will make you gain fat

A sugary soft drink will result in a high insulin response. Insulin is a storage hormone - it helps the body store carbohydrates, proteins and fats.

There is also evidence to suggest that the artifical sweeteners commonly found in diet drinks can cause an insulin reaction in the body. It's a simple reaction to the sweetness, not carbs as there are no carbs in diet drinks. The body simply associates the taste of sweetness with the presence of carbs and assumes that carbs are present, increasing insulin levels in response.

What do you get when you have fatty foods in the presence of increased insulin levels? Simple. You get fat.

My advice is this: if you're going to eat fatty foods (we all do it at some point or other), drink water, not soft drinks or even diet soft drinks. Save the diet drinks for times when you're not eating fatty foods.

4. Constant snacking on energy foods will make you gain fat

I'm all for frequent eating to boost the metabolism and snacking on healthy foods is definitely not a bad thing. That's not what I'm talking about here. I'm talking about giving your body a constant supply of food energy.

Consider this: if you give your body a constant supply of energy, it will not have a reason to dip into stored bodyfat for energy. You'll never dip into the battery on your laptop computer if you leave it plugged in. The body is no different.

A constant supply of outside energy means it won't have to use its own stored energy supplies. The result: you put on fat because the body doesn't need to burn any of it for energy.

5. Stress without physical exertion will make you gain fat

The jury is NOT out on evolution. The human body evolved to deal with stress in certain ways. Before we became "civilized," stress was all about fight-or-flight. Stress was that you were about to be eaten by a lion so you'd better run!

In response, the body needed a mechanism for quick energy to be available and a system to help deal with shock and injury. It was all about survival.

The result? In stressful conditions, the body secretes cortisol - a hormone that immediately starts breaking down muscle tissue for fast energy (it also acts as an anti-inflammatory in case of injury; cortisone is a relative of cortisol).

These days, we very rarely have to worry about being eaten by pretty much anything. But the basic responses of the body can't distinguish between that stress and the stress of, say, your boss taking away your treasured red stapler that you love so much and moving your desk to the basement.

In the past, stress would be immediately followed by physical exertion. You'd run as fast as you could from the lion or you'd fight off what was attacking you. Now, there is rarely physical exertion following stress so the cortisol is not dissipated. It continues to break down muscle and promote fat storage.

This is why constant stress without regular exercise will make you gain fat.

6. Toxic substances in your food will make you gain fat

Your body's reaction to a toxic substance is simple: protection. There are two primary ways the body does this. First, it tries to flush the toxins out. If that fails, it will try to lock the toxins away.

Think about it this way - what do nuclear power plants do with radioactive waste? They seal it in concrete and bury it. This is essentially the same thing your body does with toxins that you ingest. If it can't get rid of them, it seals them up in fat cells and locks them away.

Have you ever experienced headaches or other general ill feelings when you've gone on a diet? This is typical and is a result of previously stored toxins being released into the body again as you burn or release fat. You are, in essence, unsealing the toxins and flushing them out. This is one of the primary reasons it's critical to drink plenty of water when you're losing fat.

Minimize foods that contain toxins such as preservatives, pesticides (wash your fruit and vegetables thoroughly), antibiotics, and heavy metals (such as the mercury increasingly found in some species of fish). Your body will protect itself by holding onto fat to lock the toxins away.

7. Losing muscle mass will make you gain fat

The engine of your metabolism is your muscle mass. This is where the majority of calories are burned in the body. If you go on a diet and you lose a lot of muscle, it is pretty much a guarantee you'll gain the weight back (and often more!) and make it harder to lose fat again.

If you don't protect your muscle mass, the more you diet, the fatter you'll get.

8. Overconsumption of fructose will make you gain fat

Even though fructose is a sugar found in fruit and fruit juice, please, please, PLEASE don't take this point to mean that simply eating fruit is going to make you fat. It's not. Here's what I mean:

Your body stores carbohydrates in the form of glycogen in the muscles and in the liver. When your body needs energy, it breaks the glycogen down into sugar (glucose) for use in various bodily processes.

When your glycogen stores are full, extra carbohydrates will have a tendency to be stored as fat unless burned by activity. Fructose is more efficently converted into fat (more specifically, it's converted into the chemical backbone of triglycerides, which are fat molecules) than are other carbohydrates such as glucose. This makes it that much easier for excess fructose to be converted into fat.

While high fructose corn syrup is by far the main culprit when it comes to fructose and fat gain, even the fructose found in fruits and fruit juices can have this effect. Because fructose has "nicer" associations with it (being a fruit sugar) than other sugars such as sucrose (table sugar), a person may think they can drink all the juice they want and not run into the same trouble as if they drank the same amount of a sugary drink containing sucrose.

Fruit juices are essentially a concentrated source of fruit sugar and calories - as much as 150 calories or more per glass! Certainly, juice has more nutritional qualities to it than a soft drink but it is nevertheless important to realize that juice actually has a lot of calories and that the sugar it contains can easily be converted into fat.

What to do about it? Eating your fruit and drinking your fruit juice earlier in the day will greatly minimize any chance of spillover into fat stores. Also, take steps to minimize consumption of high fructose corn syrup, which is found in foods and drinks such as soft drinks and fruit beverages, cookies, gum, jams, jellies and baked goods. As always, read the labels!

9. Drinking alcohol frequently will make you gain fat

Alcohol can make you fat in so many ways. Consider these points:

All these points are not to say a moderate amount of alcohol consumption is bad for you. The key truly is moderation.

When you look at these points all together, imagine how quickly you'll gain fat if you drink a lot of alcohol late at night, eat fast food then go directly to sleep. There are few better ways to gain fat this quickly.

Conclusion:

Keeping an eye on the above factors can help you keep your weight under control. Add exercise into the mix and that extra fat will be a thing of the past!

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