If you go to the gym early in the mornings, you are bound to speak to at least one person who will tell you that they are doing “fasted cardio.” But, what does that mean and what are some of the benefits and downfalls? Read along for an explanation and the pros and cons of fasted cardio!

Fitness trainers and coaches have been using fasted cardio techniques to help their clients achieve the results that they want. This method is popular among personal trainers and fitness coaches because you don’t have to exercise more, eat less calories, or use supplements to see results. Additionally, when done correctly, fasted cardio can burn up to 20% more fat, studies have shown.

With everything, there are caveats. It may seem simple: only workout when you feel like your stomach is empty. This is a common misconception. You must workout when you are in a “fasted” state not when you feel that your stomach is “empty.” This is because in an actual fasted state, your insulin levels are low. The higher your insulin levels are, the less fat your body will burn. Gym patrons that use this method choose to do fasted cardio in the mornings to ensure that they are in a fasted state and their insulin levels are baseline.

SO to see results, be sure your body is in a fasted state! The following are some of the advantages and disadvantages of fasted cardio:

Pros:

• Lose stubborn fat. As mentioned before, fasted cardio allows you to lose fat in spots where it may be difficult. For example, studies have shown that abdominal region is increased you are in a fasted state. Say “Goodbye” to that little pouch you carry underneath your belly button!
• Your body learns quickly. Research shows that your body will learn to adapt to training in a fasted state by choosing to its glycogen stores more efficiently.

Cons:

• Your muscles may break down faster. Fasted cardio can sometimes increase muscle breakdown rates. If you damage too many muscles working out, your body will not be able to keep up with repairs, which means less muscle growth over time or even muscle loss.
• Lackluster workouts. When you work out in a fasted state, you tend to be less energetic and have less focus. The physical and mental intensity that you are used to, will definitely be lower during this time.

Please, remember to contact one of our experienced fitness trainers to learn how to implement fasted cardio into your fitness journey. Also, if you are anywhere near Irvine, California, come check us out! Jungle Fitness Orange County

If you have been around personal trainers, fitness coaches, gym owners, bikini competitors, or any other fitness fanatics, you have probably heard the words “intermittent fasting.” If not, you will definitely learn about it here, at Jungle Fitness in Orange County, from one of our fitness professionals. This is because intermittent fasting has been around the athletic world for decades and remains a constant buzz word. It is an easy and effective way to lose fat and gain lean muscles!

By definition, intermittent fasting is a pattern of consuming foods only during specific times in the day. Usually, these eating times are spread out with a large chunk of fasting time in between. Unlike a diet, during intermittent fasting it not common to limit foods. You must only limit the times in which you consume foods. The most popular schedule is fasting (not consuming any foods) for 16 hours and consuming two large meals in 8 hours. It is also common to fast for 24 hours, once or twice a week.

If you are looking to incorporate intermittent fasting into your fitness journey, please continue reading! The following are some tips that will guide you along to get the best results!

1. Don’t jump into it.
   You should start slowly and gradually work your way to fasting up to 18 to 24 hours a day. Try adjusting regular meal times first, then skip a meal here and there. This will help ensure your success in the long run. Slow is smooth, smooth is fast!
2. Results come with time.
   Bikini bods don’t happen overnight. Your fitness journey is all about commitment because it takes time to see results. Intermittent fasting is no different. Keep with it and eventually you will see an undeniable effect on your physique.
3. Stay hydrated.
   You should be drinking water regularly throughout the day regardless. However, during fasting, drinking more water can be a tool that you can use to stifle your hunger! Curb your hunger with more liquids to keep on track.
4. Keep your nutrition level up.
   You get the freedom to consume whatever you want during intermittent fasting, however remain conscious of what you are consuming! You’re not on a diet so you don’t have to eat a kale salad. I would encourage you to eat what you love! In moderations, of course. Most importantly, make sure you are getting all your nutrition through vitamins and supplements.
5. Don’t go overboard with exercise.
   Remember that your body is adjusting, also. Overworking your body may put you at a disadvantage and set you back in your fitness journey. Listen to your body and to its cues. Try doing a fasted walk on the treadmill in the mornings just to clear your mind! 

Please, remember to consult one of our Bootcamp Orange County fitness trainers before starting or stopping any kind of eating schedule, as they will be able to guide you to the healthiest options. Also, if you are anywhere near Irvine, California, come check us out! Jungle Fitness Orange County.

Are you trying to get ready for bikini season? But, you don’t want to give up eating delicious carbohydrates? You’re in luck because Carb Cycling helps you reach your fitness goals without eliminating carbs completely!

What is this magical “Carb Cycling”? Simply put: Carb Cycling means consuming more carbohydrates on some days and less on others. This diet has been around the fitness and personal training world and has been popular for decades. Highly-regarded coaches and transformation experts recommend this diet to their clients that are fitness models, bodybuilders, and athletes. Read on to learn about how Carb Cycling can transform your body into the best shape it has ever been in!

Carb Cycling is superior to the standard, calorie-restricted diet for reducing weight and lowering blood levels of insulin. Most diets cut out carbs completely, and this has proven to be the wrong technique for weight loss. This is because carbs are an extremely important source of immediate energy for your body’s cells. You need carbs to power through tough workouts at the gym! Without carbohydrates, your metabolism will usually slow down, your stress hormones will rise, and your muscle-building hormones will plummet.. making both fat-loss and muscle gain extremely difficult. Conversely, eating too many carbohydrates can actually lead to fat storage and excess weight. And this is why the proper implementation of Carb Cycling could change your life.

The basic premise is that on days that you do your most intense workouts, you should eat carbs. On days that you are off or do minimal at the gym, you should lay off carb-loading. Instead, rely on proteins and vegetables to fill your appetite. The precise amount of carbohydrates to protein and fat ratio that you should eat completely depends on your weight, muscle mass, as well as fitness goals. For example, if your fitness regimen includes high cardio, your carb intake schedule would be completely different than someone who incorporates minimal cardio into their workouts. Either way, Carb Cycling done properly is proven to boost muscle gains, weight loss, and overall health of everyone who tries it.

Please, remember to contact one of our experienced fitness trainers to learn the perfect meal plan for your fitness journey. Also, if you are anywhere near Irvine, California, come to check us out! Jungle Fitness Orange County.

But what exactly is HIIT you ask?

For those of you that don’t already know, HIIT stands for High Intensity Interval Training. Instead of, for example, jogging at a steady pace for 30 minutes, HIIT workouts are composed of short intervals of highly intensive training in between intervals of moderate intensity training. HIIT has been receiving a lot of attention in the fitness world in recent years due to new findings in research which show that HIIT workouts cause less muscle deterioration than LISS (Low Intensity Steady State) cardio. Studies also found that LISS workouts are ineffective for weight lost when paired with a low calorie diet. Though any exercise is better than none, we’re sure no one likes to jog for an hour only to learn it was largely ineffective at cutting weight!

There are a lot of research articles on HIIT training on the internet so we encourage you to read more about it if you’re interested in the science behind it all. However, let’s move on to the good stuff. Here are some crazy intense HIIT workouts that are sure to have you wishing you didn’t eat that slice of pizza earlier today. Let’s see if you have the courage to try them all!

1.   The Runner’s High – Sprint Routine

(for workout wed)

If you thought running a couple miles was a good cardio workout, wait until you’ve tried this. It’ll leave your legs pounding afterwards. As always, it’s a good idea to warm up a little bit before going full on.

1.   Warm-up (walk quickly) for 2-3 min.

2.   Walk at moderate speed for 1 min.

3.   Sprint at 90% intensity for 1 min.

4.   Repeat steps 2 and 3 until 28 min. have passed.

5.   Cool down (walk briskly) for 5 min.

2.   Sled Pulls

This routine may be a little harder for most to try since it requires a weighted sled and a harness. For those of you that do have access to one, be sure to try this routine out. Sled drags are a great and effective way to improve athletic capabilities such as sprinting and power. Here’s what to do:

1.   Warm-up : Jog at a slow pace for 10 minutes

2.   Drag the weighted sled with the harness all out for 20-30 seconds

3.   Walk briskly for 2-3 minutes.

4.   Repeat steps 2 and 3 for a total of 5 times.

5.   Cool down with a 10 min. brisk walk.

3.   Over and Under – Kettle Bell Swings

Kettle bell swings are a great HIIT workout to strengthen your core muscles, hips, knees, glutes and back. Though they can be awkward for some at first, kettle bell swings are an effective way to help promote muscle growth.

1.   Warm-up : Jog in place for 10 minutes

2.   Do swings all out for 20-30 seconds

3.   Rest for 45-60 seconds

4.   Repeat steps 2 and 3 for 5 times.

5.   Cool down : Jog in place for 10 minutes

“Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength.” – Arnold Schwazenegger

We too often forget the power of our subconscious mind and its importance in our journey to success. Waking up, going to the gym, and pushing out those last sets of your workout isn’t going to cut it if your head isn’t in the game. Your mind is more important than your body. From your mind you either create the passion and strength to push forward, past whatever obstacles may face you, or you can create a mental state of weakness and failure. What will you choose to do with your mind? Who will you choose to become? To truly be successful you must train your subconscious mind to think successfully!

Everyone who has trained knows and understands how easy it is to slip off track. Once your subconscious allows you to fall off track, it is much easier for you to act in ways that will not lead to success. Here are some important ways to help train your mind and keep you on that path to greatness.

1.            Feeling negative? Make note of it and pinpoint why you feel that way. Instead of ignoring the feeling, acknowledge it and accept it for what it is. Understand it is something you need to change and remind yourself that you can overcome it. Always maintain a positive mindset, no matter the circumstance. As long as you think positive, even your failures will be nothing more than life lessons.

2.            Love to fail. Once you start maintaining a positive mindset, embrace the fact that you’re going to fail. It’s important to understand that failing, even often, is a perfectly normal part of life. Realize that it only makes you stronger. Pick yourself back up, and laugh at your mistakes!

3.            Believe in yourself and your capabilities. Stop thinking about your limitations and start thinking about the possibilities. Tell yourself you’re awesome daily and open your eyes to the world of possibilities. You must put all self-doubts behind and realize your full potential. You have everything to gain from a strong confident mentality.

“Good things don’t happen by coincidence. Every dream carries with it certain risks, especially the risk of failure. But I am not stopped by risks. Supposed a great person takes the risk and fails. Then the person must try again. You cannot fail forever. If you try ten times, you have a better chance of making it on the eleventh try than if you didn’t try at all.” – Arnold Schwarzenegger

The enemy of gut-conscious girlfriends everywhere, the epitome of what “fat” is to what appears to be all of humankind, the enemy of the state, of the people, and what makes the people. Everywhere you go, it seems that the one thing everybody seems to agree on is that carbs are a big No-No when it comes to dieting; well almost everyone. Besides the no-carb diets, there are the low carb diets and the high carb diets (well there’s also the SCD or Specific Carbohydrate Diet but we’ll get into that a little later, stay tuned!). In the eyes of the health-conscious and internet-mongers, the amount of information on carbohydrates is oversaturated and sadly mostly nonsensical. Most people believe that carbs are just unwanted, sugars that just magically turn into fat. That seems to be the typical concept, the quintessential prototype everybody seems to have in their head. But what they don’t realize is how carbohydrates are a necessary component of everyday functioning. You need carbohydrates to get by, to keep your metabolic state up.

Carb cycling is a diet that implements a rotational system in which you alternate the days in which you eat low, moderate, and high amounts of carbohydrates. Low carb diets are nothing more than just short, quick fixes. They take away your energy and are not sensical – you need carbs to function daily. High carb diets that speed up your metabolism but are not ideal for weight loss because there is not a big enough deficit for your body to cut down pounds. Carb cycling gives the body the fuel (carbs) to increase the metabolism and at the same time add a calorie deficit to beef up fat loss. Days are essentially split up in three: high carb day, low/moderate carb day, and no/low carb day. Basically the rule of thumb for most users is that they eat high carbs on tough training days and lower carbs on relaxing, slow days. This plan is coupled with six meals a day or five to seven meals a day. Try out this carb rotation diet and let  us know how it goes for you! Good luck and remember, stay positive!

And remember folks, we are not doctors nor registered dieticians, so please, consult with your doctor or primary care before taking our advice into action

Let’s face it. Who doesn’t want a massively ripped chest? Here are some major tips to help develop this beautiful muscle.

1.      Alternate chest and back exercises. Doing so will allow you to handle heavier weights during your workout. Chest exercises are pushing motions while back exercises are pulling motions. These two workouts complement each other perfectly in a way so that while the chest muscles are resting, the back muscles can work and vice versa.

2.      Try eccentric training. Eccentric training is when you overload the eccentric portion of the lift, in which you lower the weight. The heavier the weight you lower, the stronger you will be in your lifting phase of the exercise. An easy exercise to try eccentric training with is decline bench press. On the third of rep of each set, have a spotter push softly down on the bar as you slowly lower it to your chest. You’ll find that you have more strength coming back up.

3.      One often overlooked trick for increasing chest development is maxing out your reps initially. Max out a chest exercise and then go for reps instead of weight. Start with a weight with which you can perform only 2-3 reps and only do one rep of it. Then, switch to a lighter weight and perform more reps.

4.      Do Partial Presses: Your triceps often fail before your chest does. By doing partial reps, you can continue to work out your chest muscles. Perform reps in the lower half of your bench press range of motion to keep pushing your chest muscles and working them out!

A great man once told me that the secret to life was not to stay safe, but to escape safety. To live life, he said, was to break out from the soft walls of your inflated bouncy house and jump into the threshold of “what if?”; to embrace danger and the cosmic unknown.

Who was this great man? He’s everyone. This is a story not of one man, but of all mankind. We are on this planet for a few years and by golly we need to live it up. This “great man” is nothing more than a plug-in for all those positive and self-experienced individuals I have encountered in my life. This “great man” could be you, could be me, and could be anyone.

To change, to progress we must push ourselves, we must take risks. We must become the “great man” (or great woman). To struggle is to live. This is something we must accept. Everyone has a life, and everyone is guaranteed a death, but not everyone lives their life. In the world of fitness and health, this is transparently true. Life is movement; to cease moving is to cease existing.

Here at Jungle Fitness we understand the great strides that need to be taken to allow ourselves to reach our inner, truest potential. We strive for mental and physical awareness and strength. We understand that exercise, staying fit, being proactive about your health: is hard. It’s downright maddening. We know we want to look good and be fit but it’s the mental block, the fear of change, which holds us back. We get it. We really do.

At times the mental thought of exercise can be more strenuous than the exercise itself. But hey, you got to start somewhere; nobody ever got anywhere without taking that first frightening step towards the right direction. It’s always easier to play the same cards you’ve been playing your whole life, and taking a hit few times will ensure you make more gains. So, in short, keep it moving and don’t give up because it’s too hard. Life is a struggle, and to stop struggling, well, is quite assuredly the opposite.