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Exercise alone will not get you a toned stomach – diet is a huge part of the equation.

Below I have compiled 5 very easy tweaks to your eating habits that will dramatically flatten your abs.

Diet Tweak #1: Don’t eat after 6pm
This is such a simple and effective way to lose fat. Late night eating is the most damaging to your waistline, so cut it out completely.

Brush your teeth immediately following dinner. Once your teeth are brushed, you’ve put a period to the end of your consumption for the day.
Change your evening routine. If you’ve always ended your day watching your favorite shows with your hand in the snack bowl, then now is the time to change things up. Find activities that don’t revolve around food and stick with those.
Make it a habit. The first few weeks will be the hardest, but soon your new no-food-after-6pm routine will feel normal.

Diet Tweak #2: Cut back on carbs
Notice I didn’t say to cut out all carbs, but rather to cut back on carbs. These diet tweaks are meant as lifestyle changes that you stick with long term. Cutting back on carbs is a realistic and very effective way to lose weight.

Always choose whole grain bread and pasta over white. Whole grains are less likely to be stored as fat than processed grains.
Eat half of the carbs you normally do. Eat your sandwich open-faced and reduce the size of your pasta serving.
Avoid carb-filled snacks between meals. Instead of crackers or chips, have fresh fruit and veggies.

Diet Tweak #3: Eat more fiber
Most people simply do not get enough fiber in their diets. Fiber is essential when it comes to getting lean since it is low calorie while filling you up.

Instead of seeing salad just as a side item, make salads into meals. Add protein to a large pile of greens for a guiltless meal. *Try the recipe for Grilled Salmon and Peach Salad below.
Make veggies a part of every meal. The benefits of eating more vegetables are too numerous to list, just know that your body will become healthier and leaner with each fibrous bite.
Fruits are a delicious source of fiber. Incorporate fresh, seasonal fruits into your daily diet.

Diet Tweak #4: Drink tons of water
Drinking plenty of water is another extremely simple way to promote weight loss. Chronic dehydration leads to false hunger signals and unnecessary calorie consumption.

Drink a large glass of water before each meal. This will prevent overeating.
Choose water instead of sugar-filled sodas and juices. Sugar-filled drinks are a huge weight-gain trap.
Carry a water bottle with you throughout your day. Keep water in the car and at your desk for constant hydration.

Diet Tweak #5: Enjoy natural sweets
Traditional sugar-filled sweets will quickly add up around your waistline. Instead of going for sugary sweets, enjoy natural sweets.

Fruit is nature’s candy. Reach for sweet, seasonal fruit for dessert.
Avoid foods that contain white sugar or high fructose corn syrup. Consider these items ‘anti-flat-abs’.
Use wholesome sweeteners such as pure maple syrup, brown rice syrup or dates in your recipes instead of white sugar. Eliminate white sugar from your kitchen.

Eating right, coupled with challenging exercise, is the formula for a toned, lean body – so guarantee your results by teaming up with me.

Together we will come up with a fitness plan that is uniquely yours, one that fits your lifestyle and brings you promptly to your goals.

Take the first step and click on the ‘get started’ button!

1. You are eating TOO much. Even if you are carefully measuring and planning your main meals, extra calories can sneak in during snack. It is VERY common to significantly under-estimating the number of calories you are consuming on a daily basis. If you’re not sure, write down everything you eat for one whole week.  Healthy eating does not equal proper portion control.  It is VERY easy to eat too much of the ‘right’ foods.

2. You are not eating enough. This is counter-intuitive, but the belief that the less you eat the less you weigh’ is a HUGE recipe for disaster. You need to create a caloric deficit by reducing you calorie intake slightly. If you go too far below your maintenance calories, your body goes into starvation mode; sheds muscle and stores calories as fat, for a future energy source. Not eating enough supportive foods also lowers the amount of calories you burn….less thermic meals = less body fat burned.

3. You are not lifting weights – cardio burns calories but it doesn’t boost your metabolism. Resistance training is *critical* to maintaining your muscle and tone. If you’re not lifting weights while trying to lose body fat, you will lose muscle and tone and your metabolic rate will decrease causing you to burn fewer calories 24 hour-a-day!

4. You are simply not exercising anywhere near enough! You can only decrease your caloric intake so much before you start losing your fat burning muscle. The only other alternative is to increase calories out. VERY FEW people are successful at losing weight AND keeping it off without exercising almost everyday!! Make it a rule to be active at the very least 30 minutes a day.

NOTE: If you’re having trouble losing weight, 20 minutes of exercise three times a week isn’t going to cut it! Most people who tell me they are *really serious* about losing weight are not willing to do what it takes to get where they want to be. If you’re not willing to make exercise a *serious* priority in your life, your chances of succeeding at losing weight and keeping it off are VERY small!
5. Impatience. Are you impatient? Are you looking for *instant* results? When it doesn’t happen, you may give up. You HAVE to be resolved to the fact that it takes the integration of the Factors of Fat Loss and change WILL be slow yet steady! Try focusing on progress, not perfection

6. Skipping meals. Are you any skipping meals? If so, do not expect to see results.  Skipping meals slows your metabolism causing body to store calories rather than burn them. Eat equal amounts of food every 3-4 hours. Don’t have time? Plan ahead and keep snacks with you always.
7. Too Much Carbs Are you eating sugary foods or simple / refined carbohydrates?  White rice, white (non whole wheat) flour products, white pastas, soft drinks , sweetened drinks – like juice, and the hundreds of products that contain added sugar that’s deceptively listed on ingredient lists with names like sucrose, high fructose corn syrup, etc. turns off the hormones responsible for releasing your body fat and instead turns ON the hormones that store fat.

8. BOOZING How many alcoholic drinks do you have each week? Alcohol stimulates your appetite, slows your metabolism, and it’s loaded with empty (sugar) calories! 1 gram of alcohol has 7 calories, which is more than carbohydrates and protein, which each have only four!

9.  FAILURE TO PLAN Are you planning and preparing your meals ahead of time? If you have not planned your meals, you are more likely to cheat and find yourself off track. Most people are too busy to eat properly in the ‘spur of the moment’. Take time on the weekends when you have more time to plan your meals and snacks ahead of time.

10. Lack of Accountability Do you have a coach or training partner- someone who holds you accountable and ensures you do what you say you’re going to do? If not, chances are you won’t. Consistent exercise is just one of those things that MOST people need help, structure and accountability doing effectively on a consistent basis.  I’ve been training for nearly 15 years, have owned my own studio for four, and probably enjoy working out more than the average person, and I STILL have to hire a trainer to keep me on track.  It’s just the way it is.

As you can see, there are lots of variables to consider when trying to lose fat…….if you don’t want it bad enough to do what it takes, it won’t just accidentally happen. If you really want to change, quit playing around with it. Get serious about it and make it an absolute, non-negotiable priority in your life… and it will happen!

If you need a little help, and would like to see how my Synergize! team can help you get on the right path towards a leaner healthier body, give me a call TODAY or click on the ‘request free consultation’ button in the top right corner of this page.

My team and I look forward to helping you,

Shondelle Solomon-Miles aka Coach

P.S.  Please don’t hesistate to schedule a FREE consultation because you think you cannot afford our services. Synergize! is a semi-private training studio, which means our training rates are MUCH less expensive than traditional personal training, and yoru results will be MUCH more than training at your local health club alone.

P.S.S. Please leave a comment and share what you think your top reasons are for not seeing the results you expect.

For those of you who don’t know much if anything about CrossFit, it’s a training methodology that is defined as constantly varied, high intensity, functional training.

In plain English it’s a HARD CORE workout that will get you in the best shape of your life.

The last workout of the day was extremely challenging.

It consisted of 25-45 reps of 8 exercises  followed by a 500 M. run. all to be completed  within  18 minutes.

To say the least it was NOT easy.

After the 4th exercise, as I’m painfully gasping for air and every part of my being wants to stop, I remember thinking to myself:

‘Shondelle, what the heck is wrong with you? Why do you continue to voluntarily put yourself through this degree of discomfort and pain.  This SUCKS!!!  Is it worth it?  Have you lost your frickin mind?”

I’m not exaggerating, I literally had this conversation with myself as my lungs were exploding, my knees were throbbing and my muscles felt like fireworks exploded inside of them.

However, when it was all over, I was already looking forward to another competition, so that I could do it all over again!

Some could call it masochistic and other would call it just ‘plain ole’ insane.

However, I call it riding the ‘Swing of Life’

Here’s how I can explain it.

Think of a child on a playground swing.

Does he have more fun when sitting motionless on the swing or when he given a hard push into the air?

Of course, he’s safer and perhaps more ‘comfortable’ if the swing is not moving, but he’s definitely having more fun and adventure flying into the air!

And typically, the harder the push, the better the ride!

Life is like the swing.

It must be moving, in one direction or the other,or it’s really not that fun.

Increase the swing, increase the momentum and you will increase your thrill or in other words, the greater the effort, the more exciting the journey, andthe greater the reward.

If you don’t want to swing very high, you just won’t have as great a reward.

Sometimes you’ll be swinging up, and sometimes you’ll be swinging down,but one thing is for sure, you don’t get stuck in mid air, but only if you’re sitting motionless at the bottom.

After all, what goes up, must come down right?

So the answer to myself as to why I continue to endure the pain and ‘suck factor’ of my Crossfit workouts:

It is because at the end of the day, the thrill,  and feeling of accomplishment and adventure after the workout,  far outweigh the discomfort I endure during the workout.

And it’s that feeling that makes the doing worthwhile.

I challenge you today, to find an aspect of your life where you’re sitting motionless on the swing of life and give yourself a push.

It could be your relationship, your career or perhaps your health and fitness.

In the beginning, it may take awhile to get your momentum going, and you may need  to come

outside of your comfort zone, and perhaps experience a little pain in the process, but I

promise you at the end of the day, your efforts will yield great reward!

Here’s to the Swing of Life,

Shondelle aka Coach

PS. If your health and fitness needs a push, my team and I at Synergize! can help you.  Visit our website at www.SynergizeWeightLoss.com and schedule a FREE consultation to see how we can help you reach your goals.

Are these possible?

The most common question I get asked about body transformation is:

How can I flatten my stomach and are six pack abs really possible?

We are an ‘abs-obsessed’ society and many people seem to define their fitness level by the flatness of their tummy.

Are ’6-pack’ abs really possible?

Yes and No.

Yes, we actually ALL have a ’6- pack’ already, but some people’s are are visible and others are hidden beneath layers of fat.

NO, some  people will never have visible abdominals because they lack the genetic makeup to get their body fat low enough to see the six pack. (Typically women’s body fat needs to be between 15-18% and men between 7-10%  to see the six-pack)

So in other words, yes a ’6-pack’ is possible for some with consistent (and intense) exercise and disciplined eating, but for most, getting those washboard abs  will always be a fantasy.

So does that mean you should give up exercising and eating supportively to flatten your tummy?

OF COURSE NOT!!!!

Just because a ’6-pack’ may not be in your near future, there’s a LOT you can do to flatten and tighten your midsection, no matter what kind of genetics you may have. And the reality is, you don’t need a ’6-pack’ to look great in a bathing suit.

Here are a few things you should STOP doing if you want to see an improvement in abs.

1.  Stop doing long, low intensity, repetitive cardio exercise.

This includes walking on a treadmill for 45 minutes, or doing the elliptical machine for 30 minutes while catching up on your favorite tv show.   There are many disadvantages to doing this type of cardio:1. It’s boring. 2. You don’t burn many calories. 3. Metabolism doesn’t stay elevated for any time at all 4. It’s boring.

Instead of focusing on long bouts of slow cardio, increase your intensity BIG TIME so that you’re maximizing the number of calories you burn DURING your exercise sessions and most importantly AFTER your workout. For example, sprint for 30 seconds, walk for one minute. Repeat 10 times. (If you can’t sprint walk on a steep incline) Advantages of this high intensity interval workouts: 1. Burn more calories during exercise, 2. Burn more calories after exercise 3. Increase cardiovascular capacity 4. MUCH faster results

2. Stop wasting money , time and energy on, ab-rockers, ab-loungers, endless crunches and other infomercial ab-gimmicks… they’re all a complete waste of your time and money. I cringe whenever I see someone using these ‘ab contraptions’, Despite the misleading infomercials, the perfectly chiseled fitness models in the commercials did NOT get their perfect body by using these magical “ab contraption”… they got their perfect body through REAL workouts and REAL nutrition.

You cannot burn fat in a specific area of your body by exercising that area. This is called SPOT REDUCTION and does not exist.  In fact, you have NO control over where your body burns fat. So instead of wasting your time, doing crunches or using these ‘magic ab-devices’ focus on exercises that strengthen your core and burn calories, such as planks, overhead squats and mountain climbers.

3. Stop Eating So Much Starch.

Starches include foods like potatoes, rice, bread, cereal and pasta. Most people consume WAY to much starchy.  carbohydrates relative to the amount of calorie expenditure. Cereal for breakfast, sandwiche for lunch and pasta for dinner is not an abnormal eating regimen for most people.

The problem with eating this way is that your body stores a finite supply of carbohydrates in your liver and muscles and  once that supply is full, it’s full, and additional carbohydrate consumption will be stored as fat. Limit your starchy carb  intake to mornings and after an intense workout session, and this still should not exceed  1 gram of carbohydrates per pound of bodyweight.  I personally eat starches 2-3 times per week. The rest of the time my carbohydrate consumptions comes from fruits and vegetables.

So those are just 3 of the ‘Flat-Belly’ secrets I have for you today. Follow them and you’ll be showing off your flatter tummy, and for a few of you, your ’6-pack’ in just a  few months!

If you need  a little accountability and help with staying motivated long enough to see RESULTS, my team and I at Synergize! can help you, and we have the perfect 30-day program to get you started.

Check it out at www.SynergizeRapidFatLoss.com

Hope to see you At Synergize! soon,

Shondelle Solomon-Miles