Many apologies for the sporadic nature of the release of this Journal, as well as the Fitness Destinations Podcasts! There are 2 new projects that have been underway, and they have both been extremely time consuming. However, they are both ready for public release, so here are the details:

1. First Coast Wellness - This is a project that was put together geared primarily towards the Jacksonville, FL area, but it also has facets that can benefit people from all over.

First Coast Wellness is primarily a health and wellness education vehicle that also provides primary referrals to the services or products that are needed by health-hungry consumers. There is a meeting/seminar circuit being built locally in Jacksonville, and attendees will be given free health and wellness education and advice, and when needed, will be referred to local professionals for further services.

It's basically "word of mouth" on steroids, as each of the local service providers has been interviewed one on one by First Coast Wellness and found to be an organization worthy of referral business.

If you do not live in the Jacksonville, FL area, but you have a high quality product or service that can be delivered to the Jacksonville area or purchased from a distance, please contact First Coast Wellness to participate in the referral program. The more professional products and services that can be offered to health conscious consumers the better!

2. BioPhotonic Scanner - This is a truly amazing device, and if you really care about your health, you will find a way to get in front of one of these scanners!

Basically what a biophotonic scanner does is to take a reading of the antioxidant levels in your body. The number of antioxidants in your body is directly proportional to how well your body is doing in the constant fight against the harmful age, heart disease, and cancer causing effects of free radicals.

On a scale of zero to over 100,000, the biophotonic scanner gives you a numerical score using a perfectly safe test that is painless and only takes 3 minutes. When you consider that free radical damage is literally the catalyst for the very AGING PROCESS in human beings, the need to keep an incredibly high level of antioxidants becomes clear!

Most people think they are doing well with a decent diet, but the average American only scores around 15,000. A score of zero was recorded on a terminally ill cancer patient who unfortunately died 2 weeks later.

If you are interested in maintaining a very high quality of life and staying alive for as long as possible, you need to make sure your antioxidant levels are through the roof!

Contact Fitness Destinations right now to find out how to get scanned in your area, or just start taking antioxidant supplements without getting scanned. There is a nano-encapsulated version available that has an absorption rate 1,000 times more effective than anything you will find at the store. Get the details right now!

Veteran Fitness Destinations author Gary Matthews has given us 2 awesome articles this week! Check out his thoughts below on 'Weight Loss Myths' and 'Fast Weight Loss for Special Occasions'!

Enjoy and have a great weekend!

Please forward this email to anyone in your circle who can benefit from any of the information contained in the Fitness Destinations Journal, or who can utilize the site itself to help them with their health and fitness goals!

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Fitness Article - Weight Loss Myths

by Gary Matthews

Every regime has its supply of useless folk lore and half-truths that get passed on down the line from person to person. But I'd put weight loss up against any of them for what has to be the most time wasting and even the most dangerous myths out there.

There is a ton of free advice seen in the media these days and if it is taken seriously, can really set you back on your weight loss endeavours. This can lead to the kind of frustration that makes people think they are "destined to remain fat for life”.

This in not true, Have a look at the Weight loss myths below and draw your own conclusions.

Exercise on an empty stomach and burn more fat

Effective weight loss is the total amount of calories burned during the day, not how or why they were burned. It doesn't matter if it is night or morning, so exercise early in the day has no advantage to exercise later in the day.

Studies show that increased metabolism induced by anaerobic exercise is actually less after a large meal. Which probably means that more energy is being used for digestion than what is being used to repair muscle.

More exercise is better

Every exercise session is beneficial to each individual, however more is not always better. It depends on what is trying to be achieved. There is a level and frequency required to achieve results.

After this level is reached, additional exercise can have the opposite effect, not allowing the body to recuperate and adapt to the stress induced by the exercise, which can be detrimental to your results.

After stopping exercise muscle will turn to fat

This in not possible, Muscle and fat are two different types of tissues in the body and you cannot convert one into the other. This is like trying to turn water into milk. If you stop training, the muscles will shrink in size - and do not disappear. The more calories taken in that are not burned off will be deposited as fat.

If you’re not sweating, you’re not working hard enough

Sweating is the body's way of cooling itself down. Many factors contribute to body temperature, including room temperature, types of exercise done, body-fat levels, clothing, and exercise intensity. The intensity for exercise can't be judged by the amount you sweat.

A well-trained person will often sweat a lot because their body can more efficiently regulate heat.

Taking sugar before exercise to raise energy levels

Ingestion of sugar will lead to a rapid rise in blood sugar levels. This rapid rise stimulates a release of insulin, which quickly removes the excess sugar from the blood system, often causing your blood sugar levels to drop, sometimes below the level that it started at, leading to faster exhaustion.

Gaining weight is just a part of getting older

Getting older is not an excuse for gaining weight! As we age and begin a more sedentary lifestyle we start to lose muscle mass.

The efficiency of your metabolism is directly linked to how much muscle you have on your body. The most efficient way of maintaining your body's muscle mass and keeping your metabolism from dropping, is by doing a high intensity strength training workout once a week.

X is the best form of exercise

Claims like this are usually based on marketing strategy and personal bias. Even when claims are based on factual information, they have little practical value to the average exerciser. The most important thing is to choose an activity that you like, and perform it properly and consistently.

If it’s fat free I can have as much as I want

Unfortunately fat free doesn't mean calorie free. The word fat free is misleading because if you overeat on anything, even fat free foods and you don't burn off those calories, your body will store the excess as fat.

Don't drink water when you exercise or you will get cramps

By drinking litres of icy cold water in one go while exercising you will probably suffer from cramps. This is why it is important to drink water continuously before, during and after exercising to replace the fluid you've lost and avoid any discomfort.

By not having a personal trainer I wont make gains

Hiring a personal trainer is one way you can use to reach your goals, but you are an adult capable of making decisions and setting your own goals once you have the knowledge of how to go about it. Following a good exercise program and eating plan does not require someone standing over you and telling you how to do it.

By exercising my abs I will lose my pot belly

Exercising your abdominals will help to tone and firm the abdominal region, but it will not reduce fat deposits that are responsible for a pot belly. Fat reduction comes from burning more calories than you take in. Fat is reduced uniformly throughout the body there is no such thing as spot reduction.

About the Author

Gary is the author of several ebooks, including "Maximum Weight Loss in Ten Weeks" - the complete ebook and time-saving solution for burning away unwanted fat, and "Maximum Weight Gain in Ten Weeks" - easy-to-use and follow techniques that serve as a guide to muscle growth without having to "live in the gym".

Visit Gary’s website at http://www.maximumfitness.com/

Fitness Article - Fast Weight Loss for Special Occasions

By Gary Matthews

You have all been through it before, the family wedding is coming up next month and you can’t seem to fit into that suit or dress because you have put on too much weight. So you must lose at least ten or more pounds quickly.

Losing weight quickly is not advisable as most of the loss will be muscle tissue and water; you put on the weight slowly (usually over years) so normally you should take it off slowly and then you will know that the majority of the loss will be body fat.

But you have a problem here and the clock is ticking so you will have to diet pretty hard to meet your target weight loss. Let’s look at that first, you all know that diets don’t work; they send the body into starvation mode, a survival mechanism from long age when humans faced periods of famine.

Going too low in calories causes the body to lower its metabolic rate, which reduces its ability to burn fat. At the same time, hunger signals increase and you quickly start to crave high-energy foods loaded with fats and sugar, the same foods you are trying to do without.

Research shows repeated dieting actually makes it harder to lose weight and easier to put it on because when you dump the diet and return to normal eating habits the drop in metabolic rate caused by the diet means that your old habits actually represent an excess in calories. Not only do you regain the fat stores just lost, but also you may even gain an extra bit.

Knowing this, you really don’t want to put yourselves through this rigorous process, but for this special occasion you will. First though, you will have to boost the metabolism that has been lowered by the dieting. To do this you will have to perform a light "Strength Train" workout to generate that initial spike in your metabolism. By increasing the lean muscle on your body by using Strength Training, your metabolism will increase, burning fat along the way.

The strength training technique I use requires just twenty to thirty mins per week. Gone are the days of the five-day a week program with 6 to 12 sets per body part, that method has never worked. One short intense strength-training workout a week will elevate your metabolism more than you ever thought possible.

While the calories expended doing exercise are important, the increase in metabolism especially after strength training continues long after the exercise is finished, burning calories at the same time.

The two main components of this technique are the intensity of the exercise and the recovery after the exercise. Infrequent, short, high intensity weight training sessions, followed by the required amount of time to recover and become stronger is what is needed to increase functional lean muscle and lose body fat.

The way to lose body fat and maintain muscle is to have a food program for life. Quality food and more energy output are the basics you’ll need to go for. Bulk foods that fill you up and don’t fill you out, foods that are low in fat and sugar which aren’t refined should be the ideal.

Small frequent meals should be consumed during the day each containing a little protein to maintain muscle mass and energy levels. A high quality broad spectrum vitamin and mineral supplement should also be taken on a daily basis.

As before get the calories from high quality food but if you can’t, utilize a blender to make concoctions from skim milk with whatever additives you want to use, just as long as you keep count of the calories for your daily total.

Now use these blender mixtures and solid food for your daily feedings. Spread it out over many small meals a day instead of the traditional three meals a day. The way to keep track of weight loss is to buy a calorie counter and record your daily calorie intake for a week.

Now average out how many calories you consume a day with the use of a seven-day eating plan and calorie counter, once you have this figure subtract 1000 calories and this will be the target number of calories you will be aiming for.

Remembering that one-pound of fat contains 3500cals, losing 1000 calories a day will total 7000 for the week, which equals two pounds lost by dietary means alone. Another technique for low calorie eating is to watch your fat intake as this has the most calories.

Incidental activity is also very important if you want to lose this amount of weight in this short period of time, by increasing incidental activity you can burn at least another pound a week The best exercise for the purpose of fat-loss is fast walking either indoors on the treadmill or outdoors.

Walk until you are mildly puffing and hold that rate until the allotted time. If your aerobic activities leave you panting or breathless, your going too hard, your energy is coming from your carbohydrate reserves and not from your fat stores. Try fast walking for one hour a day every day of the week.

Well there you have it, as an experienced trainer I wouldn’t recommend this type of program to my clients. The weight loss is just too quick and the program would be very hard to maintain owing to the very low caloric intake.

I advise my clients to decrease their calories by just 500 per day (and no more) below their maintenance levels and they will be losing 1 – 2 pounds of body fat every week, safely, without craving and without too much disruption to their lifestyle.

Remember, think long term here and that’s between 30 and 50 pounds of fat lost in six months. Any faster and all you will be losing is water and precious muscle tissue.

About the Author

Gary is the author of several ebooks, including "Maximum Weight Loss in Ten Weeks" - the complete ebook and time-saving solution for burning away unwanted fat, and "Maximum Weight Gain in Ten Weeks" - easy-to-use and follow techniques that serve as a guide to muscle growth without having to "live in the gym".

Visit Gary’s website at http://www.maximumfitness.com/