I am about 17 days away from my week long vacation in the Mayan Riviera and I am super excited about it. This means I’m writing in my food journal, low carbing it for the next 3 weeks, hitting up my metabolic circuits hard and only doing the high return exercises that will get me lean fast.

I’m also making sure I’m enjoying myself this summer. I hit up a new Japanese tapas restaurant in Toronto called Guu and it was AMAZING. I caught the Brazil Germany World Cup game at Real Sports, which is the biggest sports bar in Canada and then I hit up my lake in Stouffville to do some swimming on Sunday because it was HOT!

The most popular question I always get is how to get rid of the belly and get a firmer mid section. I want you to remember that the very BEST ab exercise is pushing the dinner table away from you. Meaning you want to eat right the right way with the right foods.

Diet is SUPER IMPORTANT when getting that flat stomach you desire.

Exercise is just as important and…when it comes to abs…you definitely can’t go wrong with this exercise.

It is a high level exercise and has to be done with caution (especially with those who have a tight lower back/hips). It is so good I’m getting a bunch of these for my markham boot camps.

It’s called…The Ab Wheel.

It sounds so simple but yet it is so damn effective.

The best ab exercises you can do to develop your abs are ones that use your abs as stabilizers (ie. planks, mountain climbers, side planks) rather than traditional ones like crunches, leg raises etc…

The reason is because when you use your abs as a stabilizer you are actually working those deep abdominal muscles that really develop your mid section.

The Ab wheel really fires up those deep abdominal muscles and you will end up feeling a sore in your abs like you have never felt before!

How to do it:

- Start with the knees on the ground, wheel at your knees, with your arms straight below you.
- Now roll the wheel out…and keep your abs braced and glutes squeezed
- …until you’re laid out as far as you can go, but still under control. Then pull everything back to starting position.

A slight pinching in the lower back, indicating a large arch in the lower back, is the best way to determine that you’ve lost good form and/or you are not doing it correctly.

If you are just beginning to work out or if you feel insecure doing this exercise then avoid it at all costs. I would definitely get a markham personal trainer to spot you to make sure you are doing it correctly.

Hope this helped you out…I’ll be coming out with more programs to get you lean for the summer time!

Talk soon,

Dan

1) It’ll give you an awesome fat loss program you can bring into your Markham Gym today.
2) I have a Fitness Model from Thornhill in it (and he may or may not take his shirt off at the end )
3) He may or may not have puked after the workout

Enjoy!

Hope you enjoyed the video! If you are looking to get really super duper crazy lean in the midsection, arms and thighs…you gotta try out the women’s boot camp we have in Markham:

Click here to get started>>> Www.GoGirlBootcamps.com <<< Click here to get started

Talk soon,

Dan Go

Ps.  We also threw in a Tabata squat and press at the end for good measure.  If a fitness model can get into great shape doing my Markham boot camp workout…you definitely can.  Activate that free trial now…you really got nothing to lose…other than your love handles

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All it takes is a good 6 weeks of dedicated effort to see a body you can be proud of staring at you back in the mirror

And you are not alone either…I gotta get my body right because I’ll be spending a lot of time at the beach this season. Just joined Not So Pro beach volleyball leagues…so that means shirt off beach volleyball action…I better be prepared or I’ll be one embarrassed boy.

Changing your body can be as hard or as easy as you want it to be.  The only thing I know is…if I was able to do it, then you can DEFINITELY do it.

There is a conspiracy going on in the fitness industry. I’m serious. Gyms, personal trainers and fitness instructors don’t want you to know about this because if you did…they wouldn’t have jobs anymore.

I even read a “fitness expert’s” blog telling his readers to do this same ineffective form of exercise to sell a couple of his products…not cool.

They would rather let you be blinded from the truth, let you stay fat (and get fatter) and keep doing it until they take all your money or you end up losing hope…or both.

I gotta let you know the truth even though a ton of people will end up getting pissed off at me.

I hate the fact that you are being lied to over and over and over again.  You gotta know the truth.

So what is this secret that’s being held back from you?

Here is the secret….

Hold your breath….

This is probably going to get a lot of people pissed off at me but oh well…

Aerobics and Cardio absolutely suck at helping you burn fat. And if you do more aerobics and cardio…it could lead you to becoming fatter.

Lemme explain further…doing Aerobics and Cardo to burn fat is like using a shot glass to empty the ocean. It simply doesn’t work.

When I first started working out I thought the only way to burn fat was to do more cardio. I hated cardio but I did it because I was so desperate to lose fat.

I would ask personal trainers and my friends on tips on how to lose fat. Do more cardio was the only thing the personal trainers were telling me. That’s what my friends were telling me. So I did it. And nothing happened.

I was extremely frustrated. How could I be working so hard and still not seeing results? So I had to research it out further and when I found out the truth it couldn’t be more different than what everyone else was telling me.

But first, what is aerobic exercise? Any steady state locomotion elevating the heart rate into the zone for twenty minutes or more. The zone is determined by formulas based on age and resting heart rate.

This includes: Running long distances (doing cardio for 20 minutes or more at a steady pace), step classes, dance classes, any class that has you following an instructor while he/she exercises, endless running on the treadmill, exercise tapes with the women wearing spandex (guys too)…and yes that includes Zumba…ugh

Don’t believe me?  Here is some research that proves my point:

• In a 3 month study, women exercised at 78% of their max heart rate for 45 minutes, 5 days a week and lost no more weight than those who dieted alone

Utter AC, Nieman DC, Shannonhouse EM, Butterworth DE, Nieman CN, Influence of diet and/or exercise on body composition and cardiorespiratory fitness in obese women. Int J Sport Nutr. 1998 Sep;8(3):213-22.

• In a 12 month study, subjects did aerobic exercise for 60 minutes a day, 6 days a week, and only lost an average of 3.5 pounds for the whole year!

McTiernan et al. Exercise Effect on Weight and Body Fat in Men and Women. Obesity 2007 June – 15:1496-1512.

Just think back to the last time (or times) you have taken a fitness class or did long distance running….did you even see results. Truth is you probably thought you worked hard, did it for a couple of weeks and then your body plateaued or you got bored with the program. This is the main reason why fitness classes can’t even guarantee results.

This is also the reason why you can have fitness instructors who are clinically obese training 2 classes a day, working out with their subjects and….not seeing a change in their bodies at all.

I worked at a big gym chain that rhymes with “Hood Life” for 2 years and saw this one fitness instructor teach 2 classes a day, she was not only overweight and obese…she was fat and bigger than most of her class members. She did this for 2 years….2 years! And I still didn’t see a change in her body.

You would think that doing all that “cardio” would make her leaner and help her lose weight?

The biggest reasons why cardio and aerobics don’t work is because:

- Cardio and aerobics focuses on the calories burned in the workout but does nothing to burn calories outside of the workout in terms of elevating your metabolism. To burn calories outside of the workout you need to do something “metabolically disturbing” in the form of different types of interval training and/or circuit training.

-  Aerobics and cardio burn muscle…which is the foundation for your metabolism…which is the foundation for you to burn more calories…especially while you sleep.

- Your body adapts to the exercises and the programs you do after every 4 weeks. This is why you may see results initially but plateau after because your body becomes too efficient at doing the exercise program.

So the only way to burn more calories using that cardio or aerobics is to do it longer, faster and to eat less.  In the real world this is not possible.  That is unless you want to give up your current lifestyle, eat celery all day and do hours of cardio 6 days a week.

I mean that’s cool and all…if you want to end up looking like this guy ——>

So why are fitness trainers, fitness instructors and gyms still recommending it??

I could think of a number of reasons but I won’t get into that.

I also researched further into this “Aerobic and Cardio” myth and found out 10 other reasons why it is actually bad for you and your body.

10 reasons why you shouldn’t do Aerobics or Cardio

10 Reasons you shouldn’t do Aerobics and Cardio…I might get all scientifical on you here…no worries…I’ll explain.

1. Your metabolism slows down to a crawl – Aerobics causes you to lose muscle and the lost muscle means your metabolism slows down…this means that you end up burning less fat throughout the day and retaining all the calories you take in through food.

2. Elevated cortisol (stress hormone) production – Which causes a breakdown of muscle tissue (slower metabolism) and increases fat storage or deposit fat. People do aerobics to alleviate stress yet end up creating more stress.

3.Lowered testosterone and HGH levels – For men, aerobics kills the hormone that…well makes them men. Low T-levels are associated with lowered libido, depression, anxiety, increased body fat and decreased muscle tissue. This contributes to muscle-wasting and lowers the basal metabolic rate.

This means men get fatter doing it because they lose muscle and lower the hormones that allow them to burn fat.

4. Increased appetite and a tendency toward binge eating patterns – Aerobic exercise makes people hungry! They burn 400 calories in a workout then consume the 400 in the meal afterwards because cardio makes them hungrier.

5. Oxidative Stress – Which causes a breakdown of tissues. It also predisposes one to cancer and heart attack. You actually make yourself more susceptible to two of the biggest killer diseases in the world. Not cool.

6. Conversion of fast-twitch muscle fibers to slow-twitch – The loss of fast-twitch muscle fibers contributes to aging and the loss of explosive power and speed. People become slower and slower and end up looking older and older.

7. Burns a very small amount of calories vs. the time spent – One large meal completely offsets the pitiful amount of calories burned in an hour aerobics session. And if you workout the correct way for fat loss you will be burning calories inside the workout and outside of it as well…at least 24 to 36 hours of fat burning from one real fat loss workout.

8. Overuse injuries to the feet, ankles, and knees from excessive, continual pounding transmitted throughout the body – This is made worse by over-engineered running shoes which cushion the feet in such a way to create a neural amnesia.

9. Shortening i.e., deformation, of the muscle tissue from repetitive movements – This creates inflexibility, immobility, and muscle imbalances. Besides being tight, the bodies postural alignment becomes compromised. Aerobics create tight, inflexible bodies that are in chronic pain.

This is the reason why long distance runners have so many constant injuries.

10. Burnout – A consequence of the “feel good” neurotransmitters which also stimulate the release of adrenaline. Adrenaline is the fight or flight hormone. Too much adrenaline creates an addictive response and people going routinely for the so called “high” of running end up with adrenal burnout, e.g., chronic fatigue and depression.

With all of these reasons to NOT DO aerobics I would be cheating you if I didn’t tell you what you should be doing.  I will get more into this in the next blog post coming out in a couple days.  Keep your eyes peeled to your email box when it comes out.

I had the craziest time this weekend in downtown Toronto (I swear I was made to live here…the plan is to move here by next year) where I hit up Nuit Blanche, which is a city wide art exhibit with stations set up all over Toronto.  This was my first ever Nuit Blanche in Toronto and it was crazy experience.

It’s like Toronto became a huge party and everyone came down to celebrate….it was NUTS.

Here are some pictures I took of the exhibits:

Not sure what this is but it looks really cool

One of my favourites

This artist has problems with women I'm assuming...

Sick manny pacquiao painting

Massive travelling party bus w/hundreds of people partying on the streets

Like I said it was a crazzzzzzzyyy experience.  You gotta hit Toronto next time Nuit Blanche hits town.

This is a quick blog post about some of the most random fat loss tips I have learned and researched over the years.  I definitely like #2 and use #13 when you want to lose a ton of fat in a short period of time.

27 Random Fat Loss Tips

1.  Focus on the muscle you are working out.  When doing ab exercises start thinking about your abs and you will actually start using those muscles more than the surrounding muscles that usually take over the exercise.

2.  Add a pinch of salt to your water to help your body absorb it better and keep yourself better hydrated.  The more hydrated your body is the better it becomes at burning fat.

3.  Decrease the rest times in-between your sets to increase the afterburn effect on your metabolism

4.  The more muscles you can get involved in one exercise the more your metabolism gets fired up and the more fat you burn in the process.

5.  Stay away from carbs past 4pm.

6.  Visualize the body you want.

7.  Write down your goals and make them specific.  Also go over them twice a day (once before going to bed and once at night).

8.  Add cayenne pepper spice  to your foods to raise your metabolism.  Just a pinch.  We don’t want you to add a handful and end up burning off your mouth

9.  Stay away from toxic and negative people. Usually the people who entice you to eat a piece of cake even though they know you are trying to lose weight.  Toxic people are afraid of other people changing so they will do whatever it takes to keep you the same.  Stay the hell away from these people.

10. Run your own race and go after the goals you want.  It’s more fulfilling that way.

11. Join a group of people who have similar goals.  Just being in their presence alone will push you achieve your goals faster

12. Get a coach or mentor who has achieved what you wanted to achieve or has helped others do the same.

13. For fast fat loss go on the green face diet.  Do not eat anything that does not have a face or has not been grown from the ground.

14. Always change your workout program every 4 weeks.  Your body plateaus after 4 weeks and you need to change the entire program…not just the exercises to keep on seeing results.

15. Eat protein with every meal.

16. Take a post workout shake after every workout to boost metabolism and speed recovery.

17. DRINK WATER.  Women at least 2 litres and men at least 3 litres.

18. Drink Green tea after meals to boost metabolism and digest food faster.

19. Always eat frequent meals (5-6 a day).  Do not skip a meal with the intention of losing weight.  It works the opposite and brings you a step back.

20. Use combination exercises to boost metabolism.  Instead of doing a squat, do a squat and press.  Instead of doing a lunge do a lunge and bicep curl.  Incorporate as many exercises into one to boost your metabolism through the roof.

21. When shopping the grocery make sure you skim the outer edges of store.  That is where you will find the foods you should be eating rather than all the processed garbage they have in the middle.

22. Drink your food and eat your water.  Chew on your food until it is a liquid..and swish the water around for a bit before ingesting.

23. Mix Low carb protein shakes with fruits to use as an ideal healthy snack.

24. Do your exercises on one leg  to force your core to become more engaged.  Squat with one leg instead of two.  Do a bent over row balancing on one leg.  Once an exercise becomes easy…add this dynamic to make your body work more as a functional unit.

25. Do your core exercises between your sets as a rest period so you can sneak them in.  Use this blog post to work your core in ways you have not imagined.

26. Do whatever it takes to lose those inches and pounds off of your body…walk through your own fears and doubts and just take action.  The most important step to losing the fat off of your body is the first one.  Have a mentality of, “I will do whatever it takes no matter who, what, where, how…I will achieve my goals no matter what” and do not let anything stop you.

27. Join my Rapid Fat Loss Boot Camp.  Instead of going to the gym and doing the same old thing and not seeing results….use my proven exercise and nutrition system guaranteed to help you lose inches and pounds.  I’m taking 7 more members into my camp for October.  All you gotta do is contact us at info@gogirlbootcamps.com and we’ll get your free trial activated.

You gotta get in before all the spots are taken!

Here is an email I got from one of the members of our 7pm boot camp:

Hi Dan,

I just wanted to say thanks for putting together such an awesome program.  In 3o days I have lost a total of 7 inches off my body. I am only down 3.5lbs, but the inches is what counts for me anyways.

Thanks again and see you tonight

Lina

I hope you enjoyed that blog post.  Don’t forget to contact us immediately at info@gogirlbootcamps.com to hold your spot.

Now I know this isn’t Nuit Blanche but…

It’s one of my favourite dogs in the world Hiro.  I swear this dog looks like a friggin Ewok from Star Wars.  Anyways I’ll talk to you soon!  Have an awesome day!

You definitely kick some major ASS.

Newsflash: You want a flat midsection.  Yeah you.  Don’t lie to me and say you don’t.

Don’t tell me that you don’t imagine yourself running down the beach Baywatch style in your bathing suit flaunting your wickedly flat stomach.  You want that.

Hell I wanted that for so long…it was the reason I went down this path of health and fitness.  Not the Baywatch part but the abs yes.

Looking back at my 11+ years of working out I have my go to moves for each body part.   You are in for a treat as I’m revealing My Top 5 ab exercises guaranteed to flatten and tone your stomach.

I love to do my ab exercises either in a circuit of 5 or less exercises OR I like to sneak them into my sets inbetween what I’m doing.

So when I do a chest press supersetted (ie. pairing up two exercises without resting inbetween.  I hate resting) with a Lat pulldown I like to sneak in one of my many many many different ab exercises.

Now these are not your typical ab exercises.  They are what I consider to be the best and what I do for myself on a semi daily basis.

One of my favorites that I won’t be able to show you is something I’m doing now called a Negative Dragon Reverse Crunch (Excuse me??).  Your back goes on a decline bench and you lift your legs above your head…then you SLOOOOWLY let your legs come back down to starting position (I like to count 7-10 seconds).  This is a KILLER.

Things to remember:  The BEST ab exercise is pushing the dinner table away.  And do not do your abs every single day.  You can train them frequently and even back to back at times but they are just like any other muscle.  They need rest to develop.

Do these ab exercises either in a circuit or sneak them into your sets.  Next thing you know you’ll be looking in the mirror and saying, “Daaaaammmnnn who is that sexy beast staring back at me?“  Well at least that’s what I do every morning 

Watch this video and integrate these exercises the next time you hit the gym.  Also leave a comment below and let me know what your “go to” ab exercises are!  I’d love to hear from you!

The Top 5 Ab Exercises You are NOT Doing

Hope you enjoyed the video.  Leave a comment and let me know what your favourite ab exercise is.  Let me know what you think!

I just came back from a WICKED Vegas Trip.  I would go into details but like they say, “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas”

All I know is that I came back with a lighter wallet, less a couple brain cells and gained more body fat than I would like to admit.

Coming from a weekend of destruction (and by destruction I mean tons of sightseeing and shopping galore…riiiight) means that I am now in rehab mode.  My nutrition is going to be nice and tight and I’m goin to kick some major ass in the gym.

If you want to get lean in a short amount of time then you gotta do My Vegas Rehab Workout. But be warned….it will be TOUGH.  Can you handle it?

The Vegas Rehab Workout

50 – 10 Circuits.  50 seconds of continous work followed by a 10 second transition into the next exercise.  5 Exercises done in a circuit type of fashion + 4 Rounds = 20 Minutes of Metabolic Fat Blasting exercise.

1.  Twisting Squat presses

-  Squat with Two weights on your shoulders.  When you come back up your will lift one weight in the air while turning to that side.  Alternate sides everytime you squat.

2. Lat pulldowns

3.  Overhead Forward Lunges

-  Lunge forward while holding two dumbbells above your head.  Your arms should look like a Y.

4.  Mountain Climbers

5.  Burpee Pushups

And thats it.

If you really want to burn off those pounds and lean out that stomach try out the cardio interval training program after you are done the circuit:

Done on a cardio machine -  Preferably a treadmill

1.Warm up for 5 minutes

2.Walk or Jog for 1:30 minutes – Intensity Level of 5/10

3. Sprint for 1 minute – Intensity Level of 8-9/10

Repeat for 5-6 times.

4.  Cool down for 5 minutes.

If there are two things my boot camp members can agree with….it is the programs I develop guarantee results and they are hard as heck!

Try out this workout program.  Let me know how it went. Good or bad I’m dying to hear what you have to say about it.

Take care and always keep improving!

Dan