So you want to look great any time of the year and you’ve decided that having cut muscles is the answer. There can be no denying wanting to look beach-ready all year round. Whether you are a man or woman, wanting to look great in any outfit is a dream come true.

The first step to getting cut muscles is to make positive changes in your diet. You will need to start eating a lot less of that fast food and eat food that is rich in fiber and protein.

You will need a diet that has a lot of fruits and vegetables. A lot of people who have aimed to lose weight and get cut muscles always include these two kinds of food into their diets. Without these, you can expect to never reach your weight goals.

You can opt to chew on fruits instead of candy bars. What’s natural sugar compared to artificial sugar? Better yet, snack on vegetables instead!

Next topic we need to tackle on how you can get those cut muscles is how you eat. Forget diet advice like skipping meals or eating low-calorie food. Whenever you skip meals, you can expect your body to worry about when the next meal is coming. The result is not cut muscles, but actually extra flab and eventually extra pounds.

The body tends to store fat when you skip meals so that you will always have energy whenever you need it.

What you can do to get cut muscles is to divide your meals into smaller ones and not forget to eat breakfast. Eating breakfast jumpstarts your metabolic rate and fuelling your body throughout the day will help you burn more calories and not worry about them getting stored.

A diet to get cut muscles can not do well without exercise. If you think you can just get all toned or muscular by just watching what and how you eat, then you must be from another planet.

You need to exercise to develop muscles that will burn fat or calories. When you have gotten rid of the fat, exercise will show of cut muscles. Muscle definition is achieved by having a good workout regimen that you can stick to well.

If you say you don’t have enough time to hit the gym or find a gym membership to be too expensive, you have a better option. You can work out at home and it doesn’t have to be complicated at all.

Take a good look at boxers and jump ropes. If they can look the way they do with cut muscles and jump rope regularly, then the same can work for you. Dumbbells are also cheap so you can try using those right at home. You can check out articles that teach you when and how to exercise in the comfort of your own home.

But the real secret to getting muscle definition and looking great is a combination of exercises. Combine strength training exercises with regular cardio exercises and expect to find cut muscles on your body much sooner!

Fight club is one of the greatest movies made within the past 10 years, at least in my opinion it is. Other than the socially conscious message, the intense story line, genius dialogue and brilliant acting, was both Brad Pitt and Ed Norton’s bodies. They weren’t that big or anything, they were just cut so perfectly, especially Brad Pitt. After Fight Club, many people were trying to find out how to look like Brad Pitt did in Fight Club. Here’s the solution:

Diet

• Avoid Dairy
• Avoid White Flour, Soft Drinks, Fruit Juice, Pastries
• Avoid JUNK
• Eat whole fruits early in the day
• Eat grilled fish and chicken, NOT FRIED
• Eat eggs, but no more than 2 a day and 6 a week
• Only eat whole grain breads and brown rice
• Cream of Wheat, Oatmeal and Whole Grain Cereals are also okay
• No potatoes or french fries, Sweet potato fries are better for you
• Your fats should come from fatty fish, olive oil or canola oil

Remember the calories formula? Bodyweight X 12 = Your Average Calories. If you are overweight, by 20 pounds for example, then try to eat your (Bodyweight X 12) – (20×12) of calories a day. Divide this into roughly 6-8 meals throughout the day, one every 2 hours, and try to eat carbs and protein early in the day, and protein and vegetables later during the day.

After your work out, drink water or Gatorade, DO NOT DRINK FRUIT JUICES OR SODA!

The Workout Plan

• Do 30 minutes of cardio 5 times a week. If you tend to gain weight easily, do high-intensity workouts like jogging, but if you tend to lose muscle mass quickly, speedwalk.
• Do 15-25 reps of total body resistance workouts. This will help you get cut and avoid building bulky muscles. 
• The main focus should be on your abs. Brad Pitt’s body was focused on his abs, his shoulders, chest and arms weren’t too big, it was mainly his abs.
• Abs Tip: Grab a hold of a chin up bar, and lift yourself up. Then slowly lift your knees to your chest, and slowly bring them down. This will work your abs.
• Work on your chest, abs and shoulders on day 1.  Remember not to do more than 15-25 reps of exercises, you want to get cut, not bulk up.
• On day 2, work on your biceps, and triceps. Curling with dumbbells, should help you build your biceps. 
• On day 3, focus on your legs. Squats, leg extensions and hamstring curls should help you work out your legs.

This is the Fight Club workout! You’ll be ready to take on anyone in the Fight Club after you’re done this workout! Just remember to do your cardio every morning BEFORE BREAKFAST!

When you exercise, there are two reason why you do it. Either to get/stay in shape, or to gain muscle. Staying in shape is something you should make a daily routine to stay looking healthy. Many people start exercising or dieting just because they want to lose weight or fix their figure.

Losing weight is not really that difficult to do, it just requires patience. You will not lose weight overnight, unless you undergo liposuction. To lose weight it is a mixture of exercise and proper nutrition.

To begin your weight loss journey, start by eating properly. Cut out any unhealthy foods. Replace junk snacks with fruits and vegetables, replace white wheat with whole wheat, and replace red meats with lean meats. Eat more frequently, but in smaller proportions. Have many healthy snacks, this will help your digestion system and metabolism.

Every morning, do some cardio first thing when you wake up, before you eat. Your running should follow this pattern: 2 minutes jogging, 30 seconds sprinting, 2 minutes jogging, 30 seconds sprinting, and so on for 30 minutes. This will tap into your fat supply and burn it. Then do 15-30 minutes of an upper body work out, or lower body workout and alternate daily. Once you are done, drink anything with electrolytes to hydrate you (eg. Powerade) and have breakfast. A healthy breakfast.

Within just a few weeks, you will start to notice that you have lost an incredible amount of weight and made your figure more fit. Losing weight is easy to do, but maintaining it is the difficult part. You will need to change your lifestyle to a healthy one. Don’t lose all your effort by eating McDonald’s every day and thickening your coffee with sugar like it’s syrup. It’s okay to have fast food here and there, but making it a habit will be extremely detrimental to your lifestyle and all your hard work!

This is a question I’m sure many of you are wondering, should you diet or exercise? It all depends though, really, it is not a simple question to answer. 

We start off with the simple idea of how your weight works. Calories. Your weight multiplied by 12 is how many calories you take in an average day. A 150lb person takes in a total of around 1800 calories a day. If you want to lose weight, you have to start making sure that your calories are less than 1800 a day. If you want to gain weight, you have to make sure you are taking in more than 1800 a day. The question now remains, do you diet or exercise?

One of exercising’s main benefits is the increased metabolism rate. After an intense weight-lifting session, you increase your metabolism both in the long term and short term, whereas with cardio you only do for the short term, and you do not at all by dieting. Working out will also make your weight loss look good, you won’t look skinny, you will look slim and toned. A mixture of cardio and weights will tone your body and you will look great. The downside to exercising though, is that it gets in the way of dieting. You may reward yourself with a hamburger thinking “I’ll just work it off later with an extra 20 minutes”. It’s easy to consume all the calories you burned off in a matter of minutes.

You could just focus on dieting, and you will end up losing weight eventually. There are advantages to this, you may find you have more time to spare, you may have more energy, and you will save money on gym membership/equipment. You also force yourself to eat healthier, which is great in lowering cholestoral and preventing many diseases and complications. Eating healthy is very important! The downside, however, you will not build any strength and you will have to maintain your diet forever to stay at the weight you wish.

At the end of the day, I know you may not want to hear this answer, but it really is a combination of both that helps you lose weight. If I honestly had to choose one though, it would be dieting. At least in dieting, you may not look as great, but here and there you will work your muscles, and at least you do not eat junk food that will haunt you in the future!

Have you ever watched So You Think You Can Dance?, America’s Best Dance Crew, or Dancing with the Stars? Have you noticed how fit these contestants are? I think dancers have the perfect bodies; they are slim, toned and in shape. Many guys have an issue with dancing, unless it’s break dancing, but they don’t realize how much of a work out dancing actually is and how easily it can put you into shape (not to mention, all the gorgeous ladies you can meet in your dance class!).

Did you know ballroom dancing burns 300 calories per an hour? Take a ballroom dancing class! If you practice 2 nights a week, that’s 600 calories a week you are burning! I personally prefer ballroom dancing over break-dancing. Although I grew up watching break-dancers, I feel that ballroom dancing is more of a cardio work out, while break-dancing is more strength. 

Whether you are doing tango, polka, disco, salsa, whatever, ballroom dancing will probably be useful to you in the future. Not only are you losing weight, but how cool is it to say that you can ballroom dance? Sure, it may not sound that cool in front of the fellas, but ladies will dig it! Plus, it’s more fun that you may think!

Dancing tones your body into really good shape because of the cardio involved. You will lose fat, and also do some basic muscle exercises. Before you know it, you will be practicing more on your own and losing weight while your mind is just telling you that you are practicing. When you are dancing, it’s not like jogging where you can just quit whenever you want, you must finish the dance! You keep moving!

Look up a local dance school in your yellow pages, or look for drop in sessions at community centres, and go for it! You’ll be surprised at how much you may enjoy it!

A gym membership is expensive. There sure are advantages, such as the variety of equipment or the motivation from watching others work out, but sometimes a gym just seems pointless. Truth be told, in my opinion, all gyms are useful for are “networking” with women. 

You can create an effective work out plan in your own living room that is identical to what the gym is offering, with just a few adjustments and a few dollars! You can skip this entire article, by putting together $5000 and buying the same equipment the gym has and sticking it in your basement, or you can read the article and find some budget-cut ideas. Here are some ideas for a home workout plan:

Buy a Jump Rope

A jump rope is one of the most inexpensive and effective pieces of fitness equipment you could ever purchase. A jump rope causes you to keep your heart pumping, and is more effective than jogging (10 minutes on a jump rope is equivalent to 30 minutes jogging). Go to www.jumprope.com and buy a Fitness & Training Jump Rope. You will enjoy the investment!

Buy a Box

Yes, that’s right. Buy a box. The bigger the box, the better, but just make sure that you can step on the box! The box should be sturdy enough to handle 1.5 times your weight without breaking. This box will be useful in many ways. You can step up and step back down the box for both cardio and leg training, you can put your legs on the box and do push ups on the floor, and you can use it as a coffee table.

Buy Some Dumbbells

Dumbbells will help you with box strength training and muscle building. You can google the many ways to use dumbbells, but they can provide with you with almost identical work outs that the fancy equipment at the gyms provide you with. There you go! You have a budget home work out plan that will get you in shape the same way that gyms do! Create you work out plans by alternating the fancy-machines for the home-machines, and you will see the same results!

A lot of people don’t hit the gym because of the time it takes up. In a day, you can wake up, go to work, come back, relax from a long day, eat dinner, watch some tv, fall asleep, wake up, and before you know it, it’s another day. Where does exercising fit into this schedule? Some people at the gym spend HOURS lifting weights and running the track, it may seem almost impossible to work out, but you can do it easily. Try some quick work outs! These work outs you can do first thing in the morning, before you sleep, or even on your lunch break at work!

Morning – 20 minutes, Every Day

When you just wake up, before you brush your teeth and before you eat, get some cardio going. Run up and down the stairs, go for a run/jog/walk outside, or go for a bike. Every other day, instead of cardio, do push ups, sit ups, crunches, chin ups, whatever. Work on toning your body every other day, and work on cardio every other day.

Lunch - 10 minutes, Every Day

Every day, make it a habit to walk or jog for ten minutes. I prefer to walk, because it sucks coming back to work all sweaty! I used to work at a research firm in downtown Toronto, about a 10 minute walk from the Eaton’s Centre (major shopping centre) where I would eat Subway for lunch. That made it habitual for me to walk 10 minutes there, and 10 minutes back every single day.

Evening – 10 Minutes, Every Day

At night, try to do some push ups or sit ups. This will keep your muscles working and in a good toned shape. You can do this when you return from work, or before you sleep, it doesn’t matter as long as you do it!

It’s not that difficult to fit exercising in your schedule if you just wake up 20 minutes earlier, and break up the 40 minutes into 3 different sections. I’m sure you can’t be so busy that you do not have 40 minutes spread throughout the day to look after your health!