Toning for Teens: The 20-Minute Workout That Makes You Look Good and Feel Great!
192
Toning for Teens: The 20-Minute Workout That Makes You Look Good and Feel Great!
192eBook
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Overview
Flat Abs. Tight Butt. Lean Thighs. Kickass Attitude. Get One Great Body! Have you been looking in the mirror and thinking, "I hate my...I can't stand those...I have to hide my..."? Do you want to feel strong and confident in whatever you wear, from jeans to a halter top? No matter what shape you're in now-star athlete or gym class wallflower, string bean, jelly belly, or chunky monkey-you can be fit and fabulous, safely and without starving yourself.
America's #1 Fitness Expert, Joyce Vedral, has helped thousands of teens create their best body. Her foolproof techniques are designed to produce a tight, toned, dynamite figure-and you can start using them right now! The secret is not dieting obsessively. It is working out with Joyce's special toning program and eating right. In fact, with Joyce's daily food plan, you will probably eat more than you do now-but lose fat from the first day. And her 20-minute workout with weights is not only fun, but gives you visible results fast! With her program, you can:
Get a better body in just 3 weeks...and a terrific body in just 12 weeks!
Develop a figure that's firm and toned instead of soft and flabby
Burn fat...even in your sleep!
Get rid of cellulite
Go down a dress size every 3 weeks if you are overweight
Boost metabolism so you can eat more-without getting fat
Build exciting new strength, balance, and stamina, but no bulky muscles
Increase self-discipline to promote success in all areas of your life!
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780446553537 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Grand Central Publishing |
| Publication date: | 12/14/2008 |
| Sold by: | Hachette Digital, Inc. |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 192 |
| File size: | 3 MB |
| Age Range: | 12 - 17 Years |
Read an Excerpt
Toning for Teens
By Joyce L. Vedral
Warner Books
Copyright © 2002 Joyce L. VedralAll right reserved.
ISBN: 0-446-67815-5
Chapter One
YOU CAN GET IN SHAPE! (IT'S EASIER THAN YOU THINK IF YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING)You've been looking at those other girls and you've been wondering: "Why them and not me-why can't I have a body to die for?" You've been looking in the mirror and thinking, "Yuck. I hate my ... I can't stand those ... I must hide my ..." Well, all of that is about to change. I've worked with thousands of teenagers and adults-getting them into their dream shape-and I'll do it for you.
In this book you will find the foolproof techniques that will not only get you into shape but keep you that way for the rest of your life. And by the way-I'm not just talking about losing weight. I'm talking about having a tight, toned, defined-dare I say it-sexy body, the body of your dreams. By this time next year, you'll be wondering what you were worried about in the first place. But it won't take a year-it will start happening in three weeks, and in twelve weeks you'll look so good you'll wonder-"Could it get any better?"
THE BODY OF YOUR DREAMS
Yes. You'll have the body of your dreams-finally. But what's more important-and this is one of the best things that comes from working out with weights-you'll never wish you had anybody else's body. Why? Because your body will be in its ideal shape-and when that happens, something wonderful happens to the mind. You actually believe in your heart of hearts that you look marvelous. When you look at photos of models and pop stars, instead of wishing you looked like them, you'll think, "I look better than she does." Why? You'll start to notice that some of these teen icons don't even have the shapely, rock-hard muscles you have-and they lack definition. Oh, they may be thin, but you'll realize that many of them are really "flabby skinny"-their shoulders, arms, legs, are not shaped as well as yours. And for those who are rock hard and ripped, you won't care, because so are you!
THE SECRET KEY
Working out with weights is one of the best ways for you to lose weight. Nobody talks about this, which is why I've been dying to write this book. I can no longer bear to watch talk shows and see teens crying out about how fat they are, and then starving themselves down to a skinny fat-and then gaining it all back, becoming even more flabby in the process. The secret key to getting the body of your dreams is not dieting. It is working out and eating right. Yes. Eating for your muscles! You can call that a diet if you want, since the word diet really only means "what you eat every day."
So-it's the workout and the eating plan. First and foremost, though, it's the workout, and here's why.
BURN FAT EVEN IN YOUR SLEEP!
Muscle is the only body material that is active twenty-four hours a day. When you put muscle on your body-which takes only nine weeks with this plan-you permanently burn 15 percent more fat twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, even in your sleep. (Since breathing takes energy, you do burn calories even in your sleep.) While you're doing the workout and following the eating plan, you'll be gaining muscle and losing another body material. Fat! What this means is that you will be changing your body composition.
Muscle takes up less space than fat but weighs more. You may be surprised to see yourself go down a dress size when the scale shows only a slight weight loss. If you're overweight, you'll go down in clothing sizes and your scale weight will keep going down-but the size drop will be faster than the scale shows. Soon you won't care what the scale says. You'll start looking in the mirror, because you'll realize that what you and other people see and feel on your body is in the mirror and in real life-not on the scale. In fact, in time you'll stop weighing yourself altogether, and that would be just fine with me.
WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT FROM THIS WORKOUT
Go down a size approximately every three weeks if you are overweight
Become hard and defined instead of soft and flabby
Increase your metabolism so you can eat more without getting fat
Increase your strength, balance, and stamina and improve in your sport
Improve your posture-look better as you walk, sit, or stand around
Increase your self-discipline-which will carry over into accomplishing dreaded tasks such as term papers, studying for tests, chores, and more
Know and get what you want out of life due to increased self-esteem
MUSCIE VERSUS FAT-AND WHAT KIND OF MUSCLE ARE WE TALKING ABOUT?
Let me explain a little more about muscle and fat-and the kind of muscle you'll be getting with this workout.
Think of muscle as a one-pound dumbbell and fat as a one-pound pillow. Which would be bigger in size? The pillow, of course-much bigger. Which would feel harder to the touch? The dumbbell. So your goal will be to put on muscle and lose fat.
I've been talking a lot about muscles. I don't want to scare you. I'm talking about feminine muscularity-not the bodybuilder kind of muscles that will make you look like a guy. There's no danger of that whatsoever with this workout. To look like a hulk, you would have to work out with weights twenty times heavier than the ones I'm giving you-and you would have to spend hours, not minutes, a day doing it.
Maybe you've seen female bodybuilders on TV and worry that you will look like them. You can put your fears aside. In addition to working out with very heavy weights for hours a day, the ones who look like men take steroids' a male hormone called testosterone. Both men and women naturally produce a certain amount of this hormone, which is needed for normal growth and development, but women who want to get huge muscles ingest a lot of it and suffer side effects such as facial hair, a deepened voice, and rough skin along with big hulky muscles. This will not and cannot happen to you by following the workout in this book. End of story.
WHAT ABOUT DIET?
Now that you understand why working out with weights is the key, does this mean you don't have to diet? If you're not overweight, you don't have to diet. By doing the workout you'll transform your "skinny-fat" body into the body of your dreams. If you are overweight, you should follow the eating plan in this book for your "in-training" body. It's found in chapter 7.
Perhaps the best part of the eating plan is that you get to eat six times a day and never go hungry. In addition to the three meals and three snacks, there are certain foods you can eat anytime, night or day, if you feel like it.
THE SECRET OF THE GIANT SET: WHY THIS WORKOUT WORKS
You'll learn the full details of how to do the workout later in the book, but for now, let me explain why this workout burns maximum fat and at the same time gives amazing definition and feminine muscles. Basically, you're doing what's called a giant set. You do three different exercises for one body part before you take a short fifteen-second rest-and then repeat it two more times with graduating weights. As explained on page 5 with this system, your muscles are not resting long enough to use heavy weights and get big and hulky, but at the same time, they are working in exactly the right way to get rock hard and perfectly sculpted. I learned this secret from champion bodybuilders. It's what they do in the weeks before a contest to get rid of any excess fat and get maximum definition-to hone down the body into its ideal form.
WHY CAN'T AEROBICS OR SPORTS GET YOU THE BODY OF YOUR DREAMS?
We've discussed the beauty of feminine muscularity-but why can't you get that way by doing aerobics or your favorite sport? The answer is quite simple. The only thing you can accomplish with aerobics is to burn overall body fat and to condition your heart and lungs. While these are wonderful accomplishments, they will not reshape your body. The only body shaping you'll get from running is muscular calves. The only leg advantage you'll get from stair-stepping is stronger legs-but your thighs will remain the same shape! The same holds true for any aerobic activity. You get some effect on the body parts that are involved in the aerobics but not sculpting and shaping.
What about sports? If you'd be happy with just pretty legs, then soccer will do it. If you want a nice back and shoulders, then take up swimming. If your only goal is one strong forearm (depending upon whether you're a lefty or a righty), take up tennis. The list goes on.
So you see-there's no way around it. The only way to shape and tone your entire body is to do it body part by body part in a systematic, scientific way, with weights-simple ones at that. Dumbbells. Let me explain.
WHAT WIIL YOU NEED TO DO THIS WORKOUT?
The only thing you will need to do this workout are three sets of very inexpensive weights called dumbbells. They are about fifty cents a pound; call your local exercise equipment stores using the yellow pages. They are often called hexes because of the way they are shaped. You'll be starting with two-, three-, and five-pound dumbbells, and since you need two each (one to hold in each hand), it should cost only about ten dollars for the whole set. You will get strong quickly, so if I were you I would also buy three extra sets and put them to the side: eight-, ten-, and twelve-pounders. You can always buy the heavier ones later if you choose to go that far.
If you have a bench, great. You can use a plain flat bench of any kind, or simply use a step as they do in step aerobics. You'll be lying on it, and you only need it for about three exercises. If you don't have any of these, just do those moves on the floor.
ONLY TWENTY MINUTES A DAY: WHY THE TWENTY-MINUTE WORKOUT IS EQUAI TO AN HOUR'S WORTH OF WORK
When most people work out, they use heavy weights, and they rest for about sixty seconds after every set. (A set is a group of repetitions of a certain exercise.) In this workout you'll be doing approximately forty-five sets a day. For example, on workout day one, you'll be doing three sets each of three different exercises for five body parts. If you took a whole minute off after each set, you would waste forty-five minutes resting.
With this workout, you only take a fifteen-second rest, and that's only after you do three sets-so when you do the math, you're only resting for a total of three and three-quarter minutes-less than four minutes of wasted resting time. You save more than forty minutes, and in the bargain you burn more fat and get maximum definition-and because you keep it moving, it's impossible to get big hulky muscles. For that you would have to lift heavy weights, and for that you would have to take long rests.
With my method, your twenty-minute workout is worth more than an hour's. And guess what? After you get used to it, you can skip all or most of the rests, and finish up in about fifteen minutes. How about that?
THE TRAINING EFFECT
There are wonderful benefits to this workout. One is that you will become more disciplined and confident. How does this happen? As you get into the habit of working out for twenty minutes a day, you gain control over yourself. Your mind controls your body, and that gives you power. This power carries over into other areas-like getting yourself to do schoolwork or dreaded chores, even if you don't feel like it.
Another thing happens. You begin to feel better about yourself and think more highly of yourself. You begin to respect yourself more than you did before, and your self-esteem improves. When this happens, you learn to expect and demand the best, go after better things in life, and get them! A whole lot of amazing things will happen for you when you let your mind take control of your body.
OTHER BENEFITS
Working out with weights the way you will learn to in this book makes you stronger and more agile-so when you participate in your sport, you'll find that you are better at it. You have more stamina, and you move faster. In addition, your balance is improved, because your overall body musculature is more balanced.
Another wonderful side effect is that you won't feel as stressed out all the time. The workout in and of itself provides a natural high. In fact, many doctors recommend weight training as an antidepressant-and studies show that weight training can take the place of antidepressants for many teenage girls as well as women.
HOW LONG WILL IT TAKE TO SEE RESULTS?
You will see major changes after twelve weeks of working out-but you'll feel something in only one week and see something in three! After a week of working out you will have the sensation of being tighter-more "put together." You'll also start to feel stronger. In three weeks you'll start to see some definition in the shoulder and arm area, and maybe even your upper back. In twelve weeks, if you were overweight, you will have dropped three to four sizes and will be well on your way to the body of your dreams-if you're not there already.
WHY THIS WORKOUT IS FOR YOU EVEN IF YOU'RE NOT OVERWEIGHT
Even if you're not overweight, you might still think you're fat. Why is that? When your body is soft as opposed to hard, you feel fat. The only way to make your muscles tight and toned is to work out with weights. In addition, even though you're not overweight, you may not like the exact shape of your body parts. The only way to achieve your ideal shape for each body part-your thighs, your hips, your buttocks, your shoulders, chest, back, stomach, and calves-is to work each of them individually in a carefully designed program like the one here.
WHAT ABOUT GUYS?
Good news. Guys can do this workout, too-only they can leave out the hip/butt work, since they don't have childbearing hips. Otherwise it's exactly the same. Also, guys will start with higher weights because they naturally have more testosterone and larger, stronger muscles. If you're a guy doing this workout, double the weights listed here and go for it.
BEFORE YOU START
Before you start this workout, I would like you to show the book to your parents and your doctor, and get their approval. Next, I want you to please read through the book and at least skim the exercises so you have a feel for what is coming up. And don't be afraid to write in the book-make your own notes, circle things that seem important. Write your questions in the margin; later you can e-mail me. I answer my e-mail personally. You're not in this alone. I'm sticking with you all the way.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Toning for Teens by Joyce L. Vedral Copyright © 2002 by Joyce L. Vedral. Excerpted by permission.
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