SlimQuick is a weight-loss product that claims to be the first fat-burning aid created especially for the fat-storage issues of a woman's body. The weight-loss formula uses vitamin and herb complexes to "overcome the physiological and hormonal barriers" of losing fat."

Reviews of SlimQuick are mixed. On the positive side, the SlimQuick program advocates an exercise program to accompany the use of the product. One testimonial on the SlimQuick web site said, "I was faithful to the diet and exercise program that was outlined. I have never had such quick and excellent results in any diet program."

But there are dissenters out there, too. "Products like SlimQuick perpetuate the growing trend of misinformation under the guise of 'science.' At best, it offers false promises of health and fitness in a bottle," said Melissa Urban, owner of CrossFit 603. "At worst, it could be dangerous to your health."

When trying to lose weight, there are probably a few rules you follow, including lowering your intake of fats and sticking fast to your lower-calorie diet. But, maybe you shouldn't -- AOL Health took a look at some of the ideas behind Crack the Fat Loss Code by Wendy Chant, and some of the suggestions might surprise you.

• Pig out -- Not all the time, of course, but every 18 days -- this keeps your body from getting used to the same caloric intake, thereby increasing your metabolism.
• Forget fat-free -- Skip the skim and opt for low-fat (or -- gasp! -- even full fat) dressings and dairy products, and make sure you get omega 3 fatty acids like tuna and flaxseeds, and monosaturated fatty acids like you find in nuts and nut butters.
• Spice things up -- Adding just half a teaspoon of a spice, like cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, or cayenne can boost your metabolism nearly 80%!
  
  

AOL Health has plenty more tips and tricks for cracking the fat loss code, and you can find them right here.

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If simultaneously accelerating fat loss and improving your cardiovascular health sounds like something you might be interested in, consider following a workout program that includes interval training.

To get the most out of an interval training workout, it must include a variety of exercises, tension, resistance, interval lengths, and duration. The key to making all these variables work for you is understanding the sprint portion of the workout. More or less, you are sprinting when you can no longer carry on a conversation with someone and, perhaps even more accurately, are working at 90 percent of your max effort.

The following workout, designed by Maximum Fitness magazine, is one that can be completed on a treadmill, an elliptical machine, on a running track, on a stair-climber -- just about anywhere. The interval concept can easily be implemented into almost any cardio-based workout.

Warm-Up..............Light Jog..................5 minutes
Sprint...................90% Effort...............10 seconds
Jog.......................70% Effort...............30 seconds
Sprint...................90% Effort...............10 seconds
Jog.......................70% Effort...............30 seconds
Sprint...................90% Effort...............10 seconds
Jog.......................70% Effort...............30 seconds

Note: Repeat the above cycle for 20 continuous minutes
Incline/Resistance: Increase incline or resistance setting by five percent every five minutes

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Even if your goal isn't to build abs like Michelangelo's David, you may still have interest in trimming your waistline. Easier said than done, right? Not exactly. Well, then again, I take that back ... it is easier said than done. It would be ridiculous to suggest otherwise. I mean, what does it take -- all of one second to say "I want a trim waist"? Getting that trim waist, however, requires far more time than that. Still, I think the underlying point remains: Getting a fitter stomach is not impossible. There, now that's a much more grounded statement.

The first thing to realize is that you can't really spot reduce fat. When we lose weight, we lose it from all over. Liposuction is probably the only exception to this rule, and I surely wouldn't classify that as an exercise-based weight loss method. The second thing to realize is that performing dozens of sets of crunches and other ab exercises won't do much to whittle your middle. Will they harden the abdominal muscles that lie underneath? Absolutely, which is why you shouldn't abandon your ab routine altogether. But, will they reduce the amount of belly fat you carry and give you the stomach you've always wanted? Not by themselves they won't.

It's all about total body fat loss, and the way to ramp up this process is to eat a healthy diet and do cardio. Lots and lots of it. Resistance training is a great way to help accelerate this fat loss, but at the end of the day, it's the hardcore cardio sessions that will strip away the fat.

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After weeks and weeks of successful weight loss, the needle on the scale seems to freeze at a certain number. And then, worse yet, you notice it begins turning clockwise again. Fear not, there are things you can do to stop that needle and soon get it turning in the healthier direction once again.

Here are five ways to help make that happen:

1. Amp-up the Exercise. If you haven't changed your workout in four to six weeks, you're probably starting to plateau. In addition to mixing the reps, number of sets, rest time, distance on treadmill etc., for maximum results, you should also increase your intensity level.

2. Eat Slowly. Sit back, relax, and savor the food you're eating. Research shows that people consume around 67 fewer calories per meal when they take their time.

3. Make Half Sandwiches. Skipping the top slice of bread will save you around 70 calories. If you eat a sandwich a day for lunch, you'll save yourself 490 calories a week.

4. Eat Protein. Try to consume more protein if you don't eat enough already. Protein digests very slowly (especially casein protein, which is found in dairy products), so it requires a great deal of calories to be expended in order for it to be processed.

5. Be Salad Smart. Because many popular salad dressings contain about 75 calories per tablespoon, you can save yourself about 150 calories per salad by substituting in vinegar.

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Even with the best of intentions, as well as an admirable amount of effort, the weight sometimes doesn't come off!! Try as you might to get the needle on that scale to budge even the slightest bit, sometimes it's just not having it. This is especially true for people who have already lost quite a bit of weight and are now trying to take off those last ten pounds or so.

To help you shed those stubborn extra pounds, here is a quick tip from an article titled "Scale Stuck?", which appears in this month's edition of Self magazine. I'll be posting one of them a day for the next 10 days.

Hopefully these tips will help you figure out what's causing those pounds to stick around.

Quick Tip #7

Diet Flub: Your wear your comfy clothes - What's wrong with wearing large, baggy clothing? Nothing if you're lounging around the house. Or doing anything else, for that matter. They're your clothes, you can wear whatever you want. BUT, if you're avoiding wearing clothes that fit snugly, you could be missing out on some very obvious clues. Like, oh I don't know, the pants that fit perfectly three months ago are now clinging to you like spandex, or how that favorite polo of yours now looks like a belly shirt. These are obvious signs that you've put on some pounds.

Fix It: Try putting on your jeans once a week. This will help you keep tabs on any sneaky bulge that may be forming around your midsection. The author of the article in Self magazine stridently suggests giving away your larger clothes once you no longer fit in them, helping to ensure that you will not gain the weight back again. You can also avoid wearing clothes that mask what you consider to be your flaws. Granted, nobody wants to flaunt what they may feel somewhat ashamed of, but this can also be used as a motivator to keep you on track. Case in point, I remember reading an article (not in Self, but in a different publication) about a man who felt as though his calf muscles were too small. For years, he would avoid wearing shorts to the gym, even when temperatures reached close to 90 degrees. He hid what he was ashamed of, until one day he decided that he was no longer going to conceal what he considered to be his problem area. From that point forward, he always wore shorts to the gym, knowing full well that people may notice his disproportionately small calves. Instead of allowing his insecurity to hold him back, he instead used it to fuel his workouts. Years later, he finally built his calves up to a point where he was actually proud of the way they looked, so much so that he considered them to be one of the best built parts of his body.

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Being a recovering personal trainer (no meetings involved, no "hello my name is Chris and I'm a personal trainer" introductions. It's great), I have quite a bit of experience helping kids lose weight. For a short period of time back when I was training, I was helping members of a teenage swim team gain a competitive edge. At least, that's the way their slightly overzealous coach explained it, but I digress. Anyway, in working with kids in this capacity, you learn quickly that a fitness goal -- as well as the ability to achieve that goal -- is never the same across the board. Body types are different, levels of determination vary, and it also seemed as though body fat reduction was affected by gender.

Now, after reading about a study published a little while back in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, it seems as though these observations of mine may have been right on the money. It turns out that the impact of exercise on body fat differs for boys and girls. This discovery comes after a study of 224 children (a random sample) aged between 7 and 10 from twelve different schools in the Republic of Ireland. Unlike the girls in the study, the boys who performed the least difficult exercises were found to be the fattest. Moreover, those who led a predominantly sedentary life (video games and the internet strike again) had the thickest waists. As stated, this was not the case for the girls in the study.

It's strange to think that we live in a time where kids are going to personal trainers, not just to improve their sports performance, but to simply get some exercise. I know I pointed to the internet and video games as the culprit behind the rising child obesity rates, but also to blame are poor diets -- not eating enough throughout the day and then eating far too much in one sitting. I don't for a second claim to be an expert on why kids are getting heavier, but these reasons just mentioned seem to make sense to me. What I do know, however, especially with this new research on the topic to support my belief, is that (redundancy in 3-2-1 ... ) everybody's body is different. Some people need more time than others to lose weight and fat, as evidenced by this study on boys and girls. It also speaks to the fact that the Body Mass Index (BMI) may be inadequate, by itself, to determine the extent of cardiovascular risk in children and adolescents, and possibly even adults.

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One of the more popular supplements to come along in the past five years has been Nitric Oxide (or NO). In fact, I did a post a while back on my experience with one of the more popular NO products on the market: No-Explode. Though I have stopped using this product since (mainly because its very high levels of taurine and caffeine made me a bit jittery), I may try supplementing with the primary active ingredient, which is an amino acid called arginine.

Research out of the Univeristy of North Carolina, Wilmington revealed that arginine can simultaneously help you build muscle while dropping body fat. In their study, fifteen female athletes consumed 6 grams of arginine supplements per day for four weeks. Researchers found that these women lost 2 pounds of body fat while at the same time gained 2 pounds of muscle, all without any change to their diets or exercise programs.

Now, before you rush out to your nearest GNC and pick up some arginine, you may want to first discuss things with your doctor. But, if you've already tried supplementing with this amino acid and would care to discuss your experience with it, we'd love to hear what you have to say.

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You'll often hear people say that since they quit working out, all of their muscle "has turned into fat." On the flip side, many people try to "crunch" their flabby stomachs into perfect abs. But as Joy Bauer reminds us, burning fat and building muscles are two entirely separate processes.

Fat is burned through eating less and exercise and includes a process where fat cells are actually disassembled by the body and expelled through heat, exhalation, sweat, and urine. Muscles, on the other hand, are built through regular use. So fat can't be turned into muscle, but shedding that fat will reveal the shape you've been sculpting underneath!

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