Fitness Destinations

Beachbody's online WOWY workout community and their Million Dollar Body Club are truly extraordinary in the opportunities they represent for someone who wants to lose weight or get in shape.

Unlike many online communities that are primarily just a message board and a pile of stale articles and tips, Beachbody's offering really takes it to the next level. They give new meaning to the term "over-deliver," and a quick look at this list of goodies will prove that conclusively.

The WOWY® Online Gym

WOWY stands for Work Out With You, and it is a system where you can log in to work out in real time with people all over the world. Every member of WOWY who is online at any given time is eligible to invite other people to work out at the same time as them, thus making both of you accountable to each other.

You can schedule your workouts up to 90 days in advance so that you can coordinate work outs with people that you know in the real world, or just fellow WOWY members who also have a work out scheduled at that time.

In addition to the accountability factor of having other people that you have committed to working out with, one of the most irresistible factors of working out in WOWY is that each time you log in, you are eligible to win up to $1,000 in cash and prizes that are given away each and every day. The drawings are totally random, and each person can only enter once per day, so you don't have to worry about anyone being able to "game the system". The prize winners are announced daily, and are real people just like you.

WOWY is the free version of Beachbody's Million Dollar Body Club, and doesn't cost anything to join. You can sign up and work out absolutely free of charge, but still have that priceless accountability factor, and you still have the same chance to win the daily prizes as WOWY members who have signed up for the paid version of the Million Dollar Body Club. To learn more about WOWY, check out the Team Beachbody Community information page.

Million Dollar Body Club Features

The Million Dollar Body Club is both a feature-rich online community, as well as an opportunity for you to actually earn incredible cash prizes, rather than just have a random shot at the prizes by working out in WOWY. The MDB club is radically inexpensive, and has a HUGE list of features and benefits, all detailed below, including the chance to use your fitness success to win up to $10,000 in any given month, or $250,000 in any given year!

The Million Dollar Body Game®

All of the prizes that are given away in WOWY – including the prizes that free members can win – are part of the Million Dollar Body Game. Paying members of the Million Dollar Body Club, however, can also radically increase their chances at winning a ton of cash by simply getting in great shape!

Like any reputable company, Beachbody wants to be able to promote the success of their products and services, so each month MDB Club members can submit their personal success story in order to win cash prizes. Every month two people each win a grand prize of $10,000 by simply attaining great results and then sharing those results with Beachbody.

In addition to the two grand prizes of $10,000 each month, 6 other people will win $1,000 each. Whenever you think about how many people truly put forth enough of an effort to have a success story worthy of a cash prize, you'll quickly see that your chances of winning one of those prizes can be very high.

Also, if you don't win a prize in any given month, you can just submit your story again the following month, and you'll be in even better shape after another 30 days on the program. You can continually submit your story every single month for the entire calendar year.

Each person who wins the $10,000 monthly prize is also automatically entered into the annual contest which is almost exactly like the monthly contest. People work hard and then share their results with Beachbody at the end of the year. Again, a male and a female will both win a top prize – this time $250,000 – and 6 other people will each win $50,000 each.

Many people don't even earn $50,000 per year in their salary. Could you handle taking a year or FIVE off just for getting in shape???

Video Programming

The Million Dollar Body Club's incredible video programming is not just an archive of content, but rather an on-going information stream that is updated frequently, usually at least twice a week.

• The Beachbody News Network (BNN) is just like a TV newscast, only the content is informative, empowering, and educational. The content covers everything from the latest health and fitness news, to interviews with Beachbody trainers, community members, and company representatives who keep the public informed about every step of the Beachbody health and fitness success initiatives.
• The Million Dollar Body Game® Show is a fun and entertaining piece that features stories about people who have won cash through the game, and gives you an inside look at what fueled their success. It is hosted by Danny Teeson and Diana Georger, both of whom are funny, entertaining, and motivational.
• Danny Teeson is also the host of the Slim Style and the Thin Kitchen video series, and his humor and understanding of the weight loss process shine through in both of those programs. Slim Style focuses on dressing so that you look your best at any weight, and Thin Kitchen teaches you how to cook in ways that help you to lose weight, but without sacrificing the fun and great taste of eating and preparing enjoyable foods.
• The Trainer Tips video series is nothing less than incredible. Beachbody features some of the most talented, knowledgeable and entertaining fitness professionals in the industry, and they each have their own series of videos in the MDB Club. They focus on everything from the mental side of motivation and fitness to the in-depth details of how to exercise safely and efficiently in order to get the most out of your work outs in the shortest amount of time.

Diet & Nutrition

The diet and nutrition information available at the MDB Club is as high quality as the rest of their offerings, and there is no shortage of great ways to keep yourself on track from a nutritional standpoint.

• Recipes - Over 200 tasty and healthy recipes are available to all MDB Club members, and they are divided up into: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner, Soup & Salads, Breads, Dips, & Sauces, and Desserts.
• Personalized Meal Plan – Simply put in the stats of where you are now, where you want to be, and the type of exercise program you'll be doing, and you get a personalized meal plan that will get you there, complete with a shopping list that you can print out and take to the store with you.
• Michi's Ladder – This is a very cool 5-tiered food distribution grid that breaks down many popular foods into their level of effectiveness with regard to eating healthy. You can choose from the various tiers in order to stay on-track with a simple to understand system of good food vs. not-so good food.
• Additional Tools – Also in the nutrition section of the MDB Club are a body fat estimator, a Body Mass Index calculator (BMI), and another calculator for figuring out how many calories you should be taking in based on your goals.

Exercise and Fitness

The exercise and fitness section is jam packed with tons of informative content that will keep you educated and empowered so that you don't fall victim to some of the common mistakes that many people make on their health and fitness journey.

• Expert Tips and Articles – Over 100 awesome tidbits broken down into nutrition tips, health tips, and fitness tips. It is tons of fresh content, too, rather than boring old standbys that have been seen elsewhere.
• Transformation Tracker – The transformation tracker is just what it sounds like – a great way to keep track of where you are in your program. You plug in all of your present information, the results of an optional self-administered fitness test, and what your goals are. You can then test and track your progress every single step of the way, making sure that you are on target to attain your goals.
• Workout Diary – Health and weight loss are as much mental as they are physical, and you can record your entire journey in one place as a member of the MDB Club. The diary gives you a place to write down everything from the data about your nutrition and exercise program, to your state of mind as you progress through your journey.
• Target Heart Rate Calculator – A lack of intensity is one of the biggest problems people have when it comes to their exercise program, and knowing how high to safely get your heart rate up is a HUGE step in the right direction to make sure you don't fall into that trap. Staying in your target heart rate zone will ensure that you see maximum results from each and every work out.

Trainers and Experts

All of the Beachbody fitness professionals keep their own little corner of cyberspace where you can learn from them specifically. This is really great because most people have a favorite trainer that they really like, and each trainer's corner includes everything from tips and blogs, to real-time chat sessions.

Present Beachbody trainers who are featured include:

• Tony Horton – Power90®, P90X®, P90X® Plus
• Chalene Johnson – Turbo Jam®, Turbo Jam® Fat Burning Elite
• Debbie Siebers – Slim in 6®, Slim Series®
• Shaun T – Hip Hop Abs®, Rockin' Body™, Shaun T's Fit Kids™ Club
• Gillian & Teigh – Yoga Booty Ballet®, Yoga Booty Ballet® Master Series
• Kathy Smith – Project: YOU™

Community and Peer Support

When it comes to supporting each other, and actually feeling like you are part of a community, Beachbody definitely has it nailed. Whether you are talking about your WOWY accountability partners, or your friends in chat or on the message boards, the community aspect is an important part of the MDB Club.

• Member Gallery – The member gallery is a feature-rich, yet easy to use way of finding other people to interact with in WOWY or other areas of the site. You can search by letter, by name, by state/province, or by the fitness program they are using. They also have a very cool option for you to only see the Coaches so that you can partner up with people who are ready and willing to help you out.
• Message Boards – The Beachbody message boards are probably the most informative and active health and fitness message boards that you will find on the Internet. With more than 13,000 active members, and more than 400,000 individual posts, there is nothing about health, weight loss, or the Beachbody programs that you can't learn about and discuss in the community message board section of the Beachbody site.
• Chat Rooms – Interact live not only with other MDB Club members, but with many of the Beachbody trainers as well. There are open chats, scheduled VIP chats with Tony Horton, Chalene Johnson, and others, and there is also a post-work out cool-down chat room, and also a room for chatting with coaches who can help you with your program.

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Even the most motivated people can sometimes falter when it comes to their health and fitness, and everyone likes to be recognized for their achievements.

Beachbody's WOWY online gym and their incredible Million Dollar Body Club offer all of the information, interaction, empowerment, and support that you could ask for, and it is all presented in an easy to use, easy to keep track of interface that includes plenty of success tools and incentivies to help you on your path.

For only pennies a day, the Million Dollar Body Club is a no-brainer, and the WOWY online gym offers an accountability structure that really keeps you sticking to those work outs. Overall, membership in the Beachbody community is highly recommended, very inexpensive, and is a huge step towards goal attainment, changing your lifestyle for the better, and for making new friends who share your interests, your desires, and your challenges!

WHAT'S NEXT?

Join the Million Dollar Body Club
Learn about the Million Dollar Body Game®
Passionate about helping others? Become a Million Dollar Body Coach

Despite a startling amount of scientific research and real-world examples, there is still a grossly inaccurate belief that the key to weight loss is starving yourself. Not only is that an exceptionally false statement, but starving yourself actually causes your body to store body fat, and it also deprives your body of much needed energy and nutrients, which in turn makes your health decline – regardless of what the scale says.

“Skinny fat people” are people who believe that dieting alone is an effective way to lose weight, and they do, in fact, lose weight. Skinny fat people often weigh as little as 110 to 130 pounds, and they fit into clothes much smaller than the clothing sizes they wore before they starved themselves.

The problem is that the majority of the weight that they lost came from their body literally “eating itself,” and what they lost was healthy, metabolism-boosting muscle tissue – they still held on to a lot of the FAT!

Whenever you consistently don’t eat enough calories to sustain your body’s need for energy and for nutrients, your body will believe that its energy intake will always be that low, and it will go into “starvation mode”. In essence, it will hold onto body fat because body fat is a long-term energy source, and it will “defend itself” from further energy needs by destroying muscle tissue, and using that tissue for energy.

The muscles in your body are what use the majority of the calories that you ingest. They are the “furnace” that cranks up your metabolism, and for every pound of muscle tissue that you have, your body needs to feed that muscle tissue just to keep it alive. A body that is in starvation mode realizes that even though not very much energy is coming in, those muscles are still needing to be “fed”. In order to defend itself against actually starving to death, your body will start to break down those muscle tissues in order to use them for energy, and to prevent those muscles from needing to be fed in the future.

On the scale, this all looks well and good. Muscle weighs significantly more than fat does, so while you starve your body, the number on the scale drops, but your body fat isn’t going anywhere.

In addition, since you are forcing your body to literally “eat itself” in order to survive:

• Your metabolism plummets to dangerously low levels, causing you to have very low energy levels.
• Your muscle tissue is literally disappearing, so your strength also goes away, and even everyday activities can become difficult.
• Since your muscles use most of the calories that you ingest, and you have allowed your body to destroy your muscles, you are forever stuck in a vicious circle of needing to starve yourself to keep from putting the weight back on.
• The majority of the nutrients that we take in come from our foods, so a lack of consistent intake of nutrient-dense foods causes you to be susceptible to numerous illnesses, and your ability to recover from those illnesses is severely limited.
• Although the number on your scale is lower, you look unhealthy. Your skin sags from your bones, you jiggle when you walk, and even the best outfits can’t hide the fact that you are not in shape – you are a skinny fat person.

The Solution

Proper diet AND a proper exercise program are the only way to lose weight while also increasing your overall level of health.

Proper diet means:

• Eating 5 to 6 smalls meals per day
• Ingesting calories based on your lifestyle, not just on your age and your gender
• Taking in the proper ratios of lean proteins, complex carbohydrates, and healthy dietary fats

Proper exercise means:

• An exercise program that is appropriate for your goals and your present level of conditioning
• Exercising intensely and consistently, while also listening to your body
• Knowing when it is time to rest or back off, rather than over-doing it and getting injured

Exercise Program Recommendations

For putting on muscle mass, radically cranking up your metabolism and your level of cardiovascular fitness, check out P90 or P90X.

For losing inches in a very healthy manner that doesn’t emphasize muscle growth as much, check out Debbie Sieber’s Slim in 6 program

If structured exercise does not appeal to you, but you want to take the weight off in a fun and healthy way, take a look at Turbo Jam or Hip Hop Abs.

Regardless of what type of program you get involved with, always remember that there are 2 components to fitness: Proper diet and Proper exercise.

If you skimp on either one, you will regret it in the long run – guaranteed.

If you're like most Americans, you're probably eating only three servings of fruits and vegetables a day, if that. Big mistake. Research shows that the more veggies you consume daily, the better off you'll be, in terms of overall health and body weight. Aim for five to nine or even 13 servings of fruits and vegetables a day. Here are six reasons why.

1. Helps you lose weight. Since fruits and vegetables have a lot of fiber, the more of them you eat, the fuller you feel. The beauty is that they're low in calories, so you wind up satisfying your appetite without exceeding your daily calorie allotment. Recent studies show that increasing your fiber intake by as little as 14 grams a day can result in weight loss of just over 4 pounds in 4 months. It's the fiber in the fruits and veggies that does it, which is why it's better to eat the whole carrot or apple than to drink carrot or apple juice.

2. Fights cancer. In a comprehensive review of the best research on fruits, vegetables, and cancer by an agency for the World Health Organization, the authors concluded that eating more vegetables "probably lowers the risk of cancers of the esophagus and colon-rectum" and "possibly reduces the risk of cancers of the mouth, pharynx, stomach, larynx, lung, ovary, and kidney." Cooking certain veggies increases the body's ability to absorb cancer-fighting antioxidants—especially carotenoids (found in carrots). In fact, your body can absorb up to five times more carotenoids from cooked and mashed carrots than it can from raw carrots, according to a study led by Dr. Sue Southon of the Institute of Food Research in Norwich.

3. Promotes heart health. A 14-year-long Harvard study of nurses and other health professionals found that the more fruits and vegetables a person ate daily, the lower that person's chances were of developing heart-related health problems like heart attack and stroke. People who ate more than eight servings of fruits and vegetables a day were 30 percent less likely to have cardiovascular problems. For every extra fruit or vegetable serving a person ate each day, that person's heart disease risk dropped by 4 percent.

4. Lowers cholesterol. According to a study by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, people who ate more than four servings of fruits and vegetables a day had much lower levels of LDL or "bad" cholesterol than those who ate fewer servings.

5. Reduces bowel problems. The fiber in fruits and vegetables relieves constipation and helps prevent diverticulosis and colon disease.

6. Improves vision. Eating your vegetables may help prevent vision problems associated with aging. The antioxidants in veggies (particularly dark-green leafy ones) fight damage from free radicals that harm the eyes and can lead to the development of cataracts (clouding of the eye's lens) and macular degeneration (damage to the center of the retina).

Article author: Jude Buglewicz, Courtesy of Team Beachbody

Sources: Howarth, NC, Saltzman, E, Roberts SB. "Dietary fiber and weight regulation. Energy density of foods affects energy intake across multiple levels of fat content in lean and obese women." Am J Clin Nutr 2001:73:1010-1018. Vainio H, Bianchini F. IARC Handbooks of Cancer Prevention: Fruit and Vegetables. Vol. 8 Lyon, France, 2003. Southon, S. Knockout broccoli fights cancer. New Scientist 5 April 2003: 25. Hung HC, Joshipura KJ, Jiang R, et al. "Fruit and vegetable intake and risk of major chronic disease." J Natl Cancer Inst 2004; 96:1577-84. Djousse L, Arnett DK, Coon H, Province MA, Moore LL, Ellison RC. "Fruit and vegetable consumption and LDL cholesterol: the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute Family Heart Study." Am J Clin Nutr 2004;79:213-7.

People have been sweating it out on the dance floor for years now, and the fact that it is a great workout is pretty well understood. However, like any workout, there are ways to get the most out of it, or ways to minimize the benefits that you’ll get.

People who go to night clubs or dance parties to get their groove on can certainly work up a good sweat, and burn off some calories. With a good mix of music or a DJ who really knows how to work the crowd, it can really be a lot of fun, as well as a way to get some great exercise. Unfortunately, night clubs and parties usually come with ways to retard the weight loss benefit in the form of high-calorie drinks, snacks, and other foods.

If you want to just “cut a rug” and have a blast, then by all means, at least get the exercise benefit out of it, even if you aren’t going to lose any weight. However, if you want to have the fun of dancing, and ALSO the weight loss benefit, here are some ways that dancing can crank up your weight loss efforts!

A Consistently elevated Heart Rate

One of the best ways to lose body fat is to keep your heart rate elevated for long periods of time. Notice the term “lose body fat” as opposed to the term “lose weight”. Many allegedly miraculous weight loss programs cause you to lose water weight or even healthy muscle tissue, both of which are unhealthy, short-lived, and can actually cause you to gain more weight back after the program.

Your mission when it comes to weight loss is to lose BODY FAT, not just to lose weight. Body fat goes away whenever your body has a need for energy that cannot be met by whatever calories are presently in your system. Specifically, whenever you elevate your heart rate into your Target Heart Rate zone (roughly 60%-85% of your maximum heart rate), you open the flood gates of your body’s fat burning ability.

If you have ever really gotten into a dance set, at a party or otherwise, you know that you are breathing heavier than normal, you start to sweat, and your body starts to go looking for energy. That’s the “sweet spot” whenever you are in a position to start losing weight, right there on the dance floor. However, that is provided that you don’t hit the chips and dip table or suck down a beer as soon as you get off the floor…

Increased Metabolism

In addition to just raising your heart rate so that your body goes looking for additional calories from stored body fat, dancing raises your metabolism more than a more “traditional” exercise because dancing utilizes so many different muscle groups.

It would be impossible to list the specific muscle groups that are used when dancing because it obviously depends on the type of dancing that you are doing. However, the thing to remember is that whenever you dance, you use many muscle groups all in conjunction with each other, and that “confuses” your body about where to obtain the energy for that activity. The more intense your dance routine is, and the more muscle groups you manage to incorporate, the more “confused” your body will get.

The benefit to confusing your body in this manner is that not only will you burn calories during your dance activity, but you will continue to burn calories long after you stop. The more you can crank up your metabolism during any type of exercise activity, the longer it will take your body to “normalize” afterward.

So, the next time you feel like getting a little “freaky” when you dance, go for it!

A Powerful Core

Your “core” muscles encompass many different muscles groups, including your inner and outer abdominal muscles, your side abdominal muscles, the muscles of your lower back, and also the musculature that supports your spine. Having a strong core is necessary for many reasons, not the least of which being the prevention of injury, increased mobility, and the ability to do activities that people with a weak core cannot do.

Although dancing uses many different muscle groups, it all starts in the middle, where your core muscles are. You can’t gyrate your hips, bend over backwards, dip your partner, or do any other fancy (and calorie burning) dance moves if you can’t control your core muscles.

Not only will dancing increase the strength of your core and your brain’s ability to control those core muscles, but having a strong core also sets you up to do other activities later on with an increased sense of “solidity,” for lack of a better term.

Whenever you feel like you have a strong core, it is the same idea as building a house on a solid foundation. Anything is possible whenever your central power unit is in great shape. The confidence of having a strong core will cause you to be more willing to do other physical activities later on down the road that will enhance your weight loss efforts, in addition to the calories that you burn during your dance routine.

Boost to your Self-Esteem

Right on the heels of a cranking up your confidence by building a stable core comes the related benefit of raising your level of self-esteem. Dancing in a manner that makes you feel good about yourself carries over even after you get off the floor. By getting in touch with your body and controlling it in such an intimate and precise way, you feel mentally more in touch as well.

Look at the crowd at any night club or party, and look at the people who are dancing vs. the people who are just watching. The dancers are having fun, they aren’t bored, they aren’t shy, and they are rarely all alone. Even a dancer who goes to a night club alone does not stay that way for long, as he/she gains momentum and self-esteem as their mind and body come together while dancing.

In addition to just having a dance partner at a party or a night club, however, that self-esteem tends to carry over into other areas of your life as well. When you feel confident and in touch with your body, and you put your body “out there” frequently on the dance floor, it becomes a lot more difficult to consciously pack on unnecessary “curves”.

Picture yourself getting busy on the dance floor, shakin’ your thing, and having a blast, and then try to picture yourself wolfing down a double cheeseburger, a large order of fries, and a sugar-filled soda. Those two pictures just don’t mix, do they?

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As with any other exercise protocol, you can get a lot out of dancing, or you can get the minimum benefit by not taking it very seriously.

If you want to take it seriously – and use it as a fun and very effective way to lose weight – then get your groove on in the privacy of your own home with exercise routines built specifically for the dancer in you: Turbo Jam and Hip Hop Abs.

Lose some weight, and learn how to be the center of attention on the dance floor all at the same time. Now that is time management!

If you want to get the most out of your exercise and weight loss program in the shortest amount of time, there are two words that you should become very familiar with – muscle confusion.

In order to lose weight, you have to expend more calories than you take in. That is the basic formula for fitness that we have all known for years. However, what a lot of people don’t know is that whenever you engage in an exercise program, your body adapts to that activity very quickly.

In other words, your body finds ways to use fewer calories, even though you are working just as hard!

Well, that doesn’t seem fair does it? Here you are busting your butt to get in shape, and your body is working against you! You body isn’t actually working against you, but rather it is simply doing what it has been taught to do for thousands of years – to adapt.

The only way that you can stop your body from adapting to your exercise program – and keep up the calorie burn in the process – is to change up your exercise routine on a regular basis. Never give your body the chance to adapt to what you are doing, and it will never have the chance to cut down on the number of calories that are burned during any given activity.

Muscle Confusion

Muscle confusion is simply the process of working your muscles in a different way than they are used to, causing them to utilize more resources (including calories) in order to do any given activity.

For example, if you are a jogger, and you frequently run 3 or 4 miles per day, that’s great. However, your body will get used to that activity after awhile, and you will cease to get as much out of it. Possible ways to confuse your muscles could include:

• Running shorter distances, but at higher rates of speed
• Running longer distances than you are presently used to
• Stopping during your run to do body weight exercises such as push-ups, squats, or lunges
• Running at intervals where you run at a certain speed, then speed up, then slow down, speed up, slow down, etc.

That same principle of muscle confusion can be a part of any fitness routine. Not only will it keep your caloric burn at an all-time high, but you will get the most out of your workouts as well. Muscle confusion has the following benefits, in addition to a higher calorie burn:

• Allows your muscles, tendons, and ligaments to be used from several different angles, rather than repetitively working them from the same angle all the time. This prevents overuse injuries, and strengthens those tissues for a myriad of different lifestyle activities.
• It keeps you from getting bored with the same routine over and over again. By incorporating muscle confusion into your workouts, you will enjoy the change of pace, and will also modify your mindset when exercising, rather than just looking at the same boring routine all the time.
• Muscle confusion cranks up your metabolism to a screaming high level. Your metabolism – simply put – is the rate at which your body utilizes calories and other resources. By constantly confusing your body about how much energy is going to be needed, your metabolism will go up to higher levels during your workouts, and stay cranked up longer after your workouts.

Many of the Beachbody programs incorporate muscle confusion into the workouts, which is one of the many reasons why they are so effective. For maximum muscle confusion – and thus maximum results in the shortest amount of time – P90X is the present industry leader in muscle confusion workouts.

Divided up into 12 separate routines done consistently over a 12-week period, the P90X success stories speak for themselves. Check out this video of Aaron, who lost over 100 pounds using P90, the less intense pre-cursor to P90X. If Aaron could get these results with P90, imagine what you could get with P90X!

Power 90 Success Story – Aaron Mathis

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