Ahh… I remember those fun Halloween nights when I was younger wearing my costume over my snowsuit, trekking from house to house with my pillow case through a foot of snow while that cheap elastic band from my mask kept snapping off from the cold!

Yeah that was a typical Halloween night for me growing up in Northern Canada.

But this year we are excited to bring our 5 month old daughter Matea around for her first Halloween. She is sure to clean up with that cute BEE suit!

Matea resting her wings

Check her out with all her baby friends at our Halloween party that we had yesterday for all the new moms in our area.

Twelve babies under age one under one roof, now that’s SCARY!

Anyway, if you still have your kids at home I have a great Halloween tip to do with them before they head out trick or treating this evening.

…Actually I think even us parents could use this tip so we don’t double dip into our kids Halloween treats.

If you have young kids and are taking them out this evening for Halloween, treat them to a spooky Halloween dinner before they head out.

Put a twist on some dinner time favorites.

Halloween Recipe:

Witch’s fingers & Monster Brains covered in blood – thin chicken strips with shake & bake (add some minced spinach, parsley and oregano to the mix for a green color) bake in the oven until well-browned and curl up on top of a bed of whole wheat noodles, tossed in a little olive oil and mixed with cooked peas and sweetcorn niblets. Drizzle a little tomato sauce on top for the blood effect.

Treating your kids to a spooky Halloween dinner will make them less likely to eat the candy they collect before you have a chance to check it for them.

As for YOUR sweet tooth….

If you are living the Dad Fitness Lifestyle you can enjoy a little treat this Halloween because Dad Fitness allows you to live your life while getting the body you want.

Wishing You A Healthy Halloween!

Sean Barker, CPT

Learn the “The Truth On Fat Loss, How To Finally Lose That Beer Belly” in this FREE report from Sean Barker at www.dadfitness.com

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That’s because Tom is one of the top guys in the health and fitness industry when it comes to getting people to lose fat and build lean muscle.

His popular Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle ebook is one of the top selling ebooks on the entire internet!

So now Tom has finally published his first hard cover book. It’s sure to be a hit and I am adding it to my Amazon.ca wishlist.

While your waiting for his new book to hit the shelves in January be sure to get his world famous Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle ebook.

For more info on his new book check out the press release.

New Hardcover Book By Tom Venuto Reveals the 5 Principles for Burning Fat, Building Lean Muscle, Ending Emotional Eating and Maintaining Your Perfect Weight.

By now, we all know that we gain fat when we take in more calories than we burn. But we’re not always rational creatures when it comes to food and exercise. Recognizing the emotional and psychological factors that sabotage success, Tom Venuto’s new Book, The Body Fat Solution (Avery/Penguin Group) hones in on the real causes of body-fat and provides a sound plan to take back control of our bodies and end emotional eating for good.

In The Body Fat Solution, Venuto outlines the five principles that will retrain your mind and body for automatic success. Determined to help you keep the fat off for good, Tom shows you how to:

• End emotional eating and stop diet self sabotage
• Re-program your mind for “auto-pilot” success
• Go beyond goal setting by crafting a powerful “vision” that motivates you for life
• Eat healthy, delicious food almost unconsciously and shed the pounds effortlessly
• Increase your metabolism and break any fat loss plateau
• Reshape your body through lean muscle training for a strong core and toned frame
• Build a supportive social network of friends, family, and mentors to help you achieve your dream for life

Venuto reminds us that calories do count! But The Body Fat Solution is neither super low carb nor super low fat, and he steers clear of demonizing entire food groups. Instead, Venuto helps you personalize an eating plan that takes into account your unique metabolism and calorie needs. He then presents illustrated workout programs to maximize the success of the diet plan that are fast and efficient.

Most important, he helps you plan and organize your life so that you can fully implement your new goals and monitor your progress, and finally maintain your perfect weight for life.

Tapping into his years of training expertise and personal experience, Venuto helps readers change their relationship with food, empowers them to take charge of their lives, and delivers a program that promises dramatic and permanent results.

————————————————————————————————–
ADVANCED PRAISE FOR THE BODY FAT SOLUTION:
—————————————————————————————————

“Read this book–if you want to lose weight, improve your body and your health, and keep up these improvements for life. Tom Venuto gives it to you straight, basing his program on solid science and common sense. You will come away with a new feeling of inspiration and a new action plan to get you started and keep you on track to help you reach your goals–and then beyond.”

.-Judith S. Beck, Ph.D.
Author of The Complete Beck Diet for Life.
Director, Beck Institute for Cognitive Therapy and Research
Associate Professor of Psychology in Psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania

At last, easy, concise, no excuses – get skinny – this is the guide Great work, Tom!”

– Richard Bandler, co-founder of NLP, author, “Get The Life You Want”

“Tom Venuto’s Body Fat Solution is one of the most important books on health, happiness and physical well-being ever written. In this fast-moving, easily usable series of methods and techniques, you learn how to enjoy superb physical fitness, achieve your ideal weight, and feel terrific about yourself both emotionally and spiritually.”

Brian Tracy – Motivational Speaker, Author – “Reinvention”

In 2003 Tom Venuto changed the fat loss world with his ebook “Burn the Fat – Feed the Muscle”… In 2008 he’s done it again with the Body Fat Solution. The World’s expert on fat loss speaks – I listen. I’ve often said – Fat loss doesn’t start with an exercise program, a diet or a supplement… It starts with a mindset shift. That mindset shift begins with Tom’s new book. If you want to change your body – you need to change your mind. And to do that – you need Tom Venuto.”

- Alwyn Cosgrove, Co-Author, The New Rules of Lifting and The New Rules of Lifting for Women

————————————————————————————————–

The Body Fat Solution is scheduled for release on January 8th, 2009. Now available for Pre order at Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble.com

http://www.amazon.com/Body-Fat-Solution

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/The-Body-Fat-Solution >

Learn the “The Truth On Fat Loss, How To Finally Lose That Beer Belly” in this FREE report from Sean Barker at www.dadfitness.com

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I started back to the gym today as my strained thumb is feeling better.

I went back to basics with my training. Just compound movements that work all the large muscles.

Bench Press
Chin-Ups
Deadlifts
Cable Crunches

Good to be back in the groove!

3 Simple Steps To Awesome Abs
By Sean Barker CPT

Take a look around the next time you are at the gym. What do you see?

No, not the girl on the leg curl machine! Keep looking….

You see people lying on dirty gym mats doing endless crunches and spending hours on cardio machines like a hamster stuck on a wheel.

Even today, with all the great information out there regarding exercise and weight loss, this is what people continue to do to lose unwanted belly fat and get rock hard abs.

1. Build

So let’s finally end this confusion on how to get awesome abs. People seem to train their ab muscles different than any other muscles. This is a big mistake. You wouldn’t build your biceps by doing 100 reps with no weight, so why would you think you would develop your abdominals by doing 100 crunches or more? For that matter, you don’t even need to do crunches at all to build rock hard abs!

Your abdominals primary purpose is to actually stabilize your spine and to keep your torso from twisting in half under times of physical stress. Some great ab exercises are the elbow bridge plank, the side plank, stability ball plank, ab wheel rollout, cable woodchop, Russian twists, mountain climbers, seated leg lifts, hanging leg raises and cable crunches. Ya I know, the cable crunch is technically a crunch but it is a great exercise for working the ab muscles under load.

Another great tool for your abdominal training should be the use of a Stability Ball. You notice I said “tool” not some magic bouncy ball that burns belly fat as the tv infomercials try to make you believe. You might have seen them in your local gym as soccer players to soccer moms use these to help develop functional core strength. They allow you to build overall core strength and stability by bringing into play all the little stability muscles that you cannot stimulate through regular resistance exercise.

You can do almost any weight training exercise on them using dumbbells. It is also a great tool for a simple home gym. Just make sure you are using an anti-burst ball if you plan on using heavy dumbbell exercises!

2. Barbells

Overall, the best exercises for your abs are exercises that allow your body to use your core the way it is meant to be used; for stability and support. Heavy squats and standing overhead presses work your abs better than any crunch will ever do. The most effective exercise method is a two-pronged approach of weight-lifting and high-intensity cardio.

Studies show that weight-training elevates your metabolism up to 39 hours after your workout. Studies also show that interval cardio burns fat 9 times faster than slow long duration cardio. For best results, follow the exercise guidelines of 3 weight-training workouts a week combined with short interval burst cardio like is found in the Dad Fitness workouts

3. Burn

To finally burn that fat and see those lean abs looking back at you in the mirror you have to realize that your DIET is the most important aspect of getting to reveal those rock hard abs that you train so hard in the gym. I love the quote “Abs are built in the kitchen”.

This is primarily true because you could do a 1000 crunches a day and still not see your abs if you’re eating the wrong foods. Most people today are overweight, so basically do the opposite of what most people do so you don’t look like most people. Years ago growing up, people made fun of the fat kids in school. Unfortunately now, most kids are overweight so they make fun of the skinny kids.

Here are 3 secret diet tips to reveal your abs once and for all.

- Eat Dinner For Breakfast

Yes, you read that right, eat dinner for breakfast! Stay away from the highly processed boxed cereals and have what most people see as a dinner meal. Lean meat and veggies. Here is another diet secret that Olympic athletes use to get super lean, super fast. Have a meat and nuts breakfast every morning.

This keeps your blood sugar stable and gives your muscles lean protein and healthy fats to keep your metabolism elevated. You will also find that you have better mental clarity. Example meals would be a turkey burger and cashews, or steak and walnuts. Try a different meat and nuts combo every morning.

- Earn Your Carbs

You need carbohydrates for energy right? Yes, but are you consuming more energy in the form of carbs than you are burning up? Here is a simple and easy way to manage your carb intake: Only eat starchy carbs during the 2 hours after your workout.

During this time your body will use the carbs to replenish your muscles energy stores and th
ey won’t be stored as bodyfat. Starchy carbs are the pasta, potatoes, rice, oatmeals, breads and cereals. Even when you do eat these post-workout, make sure you choose the whole grain and whole wheat varieties. The rest of the day eat fruit or veggies as your carb source.

- Eat Breakfast For Dinner

So you already had dinner for breakfast. It only makes sense to have your normal breakfast for dinner. Keep remembering to do the opposite of what is the norm. Most people’s diets are backwards; they eat a small breakfast, if at all, then a medium lunch and top the day off with a large dinner.

To achieve a lean body you need to have a large breakfast, a medium lunch and a small dinner. This coincides with most people’s activity levels, making sure calories are being used as fuel and not stored as fat. So for dinner an omelet with mixed veggies is a great choice to end the day towards leaner abs.

Well, there you go. When you feel overwhelmed with information on finally getting rid of that belly fat or you feel your current weight loss efforts are getting you nowhere. Use these tips to keep you on track to lifelong fitness and to achieving those Awesome Abs.

Sean Barker, CPT

Learn the “The Truth On Fat Loss, How To Finally Lose That Beer Belly” in this FREE report from Sean Barker at www.dadfitness.com

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Children See, Children Do…

Thanks for TheFatherLife.com for sending me this video.

I will be writing a monthly column for them starting next month.

Here is what TheFatherLife.com is all about.

“Becoming a dad doesn’t mean that you stop being a guy. It definitely changes things, but it doesn’t require you to surrender yourself to a life of mini-vans and diapers. You can still have ambitions, interests, and good taste.

We here at The Father Life believe that being a great dad can go hand-in-hand with being a great guy! And that’s what The Father Life is all about. We are the only men’s magazine geared toward fathers; a magazine for guys who work hard, play hard, and father hard!”

…As for me, no gym until Monday. My strained thumb and hand is feeling a little better.

Hopefully I will be ready to get back to the gym by then as I am looking forward to starting a new workout routine and kicking my workouts into high gear!

Sean Barker, CPT

Learn the “The Truth On Fat Loss, How To Finally Lose That Beer Belly” in this FREE report from Sean Barker at www.dadfitness.com

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I will be taking the rest of this week off from the gym as I strained my left thumb and hand yesterday. Hopefully its just a bad strain and will heal-up after a few days.

I have no idea how I did it but I have no grip strength and can barely lift a pencil!

Usually I take a week off from the gym every 8 weeks or so anyway to give my body and mind a break from hard training. I will be starting a new workout routine Monday and will let you know how it goes.

But here’s an awesome little video showing the value of omega 3 fat intake in the diet. For the best nutrition system on the market today check out Precision Nutrition. I use it, pro athletes use it, so it will definitely work for you.

Sean Barker, CPT

Learn the “The Truth On Fat Loss, How To Finally Lose That Beer Belly” in this FREE report from Sean Barker at www.dadfitness.com

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