I receive a lot of questions via my YouTube channel, and about 99% of the questions are identical. These questions come to me in the form of personal messages on YouTube, and the message begins with the person providing me with very specific info about themselves, such as gender, age, height, weight, measurements, etc. Then the person tells me various details about how they want/need to lose x amount of fat. Finally the person asks me quite frankly, “how can I lose the fat?”

My answer to these questions is always the same: eat less and exercise more. That might sound like I’m trying to be cheeky, as surely people are looking for a more detailed answer than that, but the eat less and exercise more answer is the simplest and best answer I can give to people when they contact me and ask how to lose fat.

The way to lose fat is not a mystery. It’s actually very simple. Improve your diet, workout regularly, and push yourself very hard when you work out. No halfassing it during your workouts. If you’re not dripping sweat after your workout, you’ve had a pretty mediocre workout, and you can do better than that.

Regarding diet, I am working on creating a product with my own simple meal plans that people can use to take the guesswork out of their diet, but until such time that I’m selling my own meal plans, I will continue to recommend Harley Pasternak’s fantastic 5-Factor Diet book. It is currently the best resource that you can use to improve your diet and start eating healthy nutritious meals that will help you lose weight.

Regarding workouts, check out my home workouts for a selection of intense time-efficient home workout routines that you can do with minimal equipment, or no equipment at all. My home workout routines are very high-intensity total-body circuit training workouts that I guarantee are more effective than whatever workouts you’re currently doing.

To summarize, if you want to lose fat, start by improving your diet because it’s impossible to lose fat if your diet sucks. It doesn’t matter how awesome your workouts are, if your eating is bad, the workouts will not help you lose fat. Once you’ve got your diet on track, then get some high-intensity total-body workout routines that challenge and motivate you to give your best each and every workout to ensure that you see great fat loss results.

Friday night is BJJ open mat at Universal MMA in downtown Vancouver. Something unique about the Friday open mat at Universal (compared to most other BJJ academies) is that the Friday open mat at Universal is open to students from other BJJ academies in Vancouver (or anywhere else) that want to stop by for open training (there’s a small drop-in fee for non-members). I enjoy seeing the new faces at the Friday open mat and having the opportunity to train with people from other BJJ academies in Vancouver. If you’re currently training BJJ at another academy in Vancouver, consider stopping by Universal MMA on Friday for the open roll.

Universal MMA in Vancouver offers a freestyle wrestling class every Saturday from 1:30PM to 3PM. A few months ago I tried the wrestling class and it was absolutely one of the most intense and enjoyable workouts I’ve ever experienced.

Just the warm-up was a killer workout. I was covered in sweat before we even started the wrestling workout. And there were parts during the wrestling training that I honestly didn’t think I was going to last until the end of the workout. We were drilling single-leg takedowns — working with a partner taking turns shooting for the takedown, and defending the takedown —  and towards the end of the workout I literally could barely stand up. Super intense, but fun as hell, and absolutely more enjoyable than going to the gym and lifting weights or doing boring cardio.

That wrestling class I did a few months ago was the first time in my life I’ve ever done a wrestling workout, and after one workout I was hooked and looking forward to making it a regular part of my weekly exercise routine. But unfortunately a knee injury I sustained the following week (doing jiu-jitsu) has prevented me from training any wrestling since then, but no doubt about it, as soon as my knee gets better, I’ll be back at the Saturday wrestling class at Universal MMA.

I absolutely recommend that you try out a wrestling workout if you’re bored with traditional gym workouts and are looking to try something new to help motivate and challenge yourself to take your fitness to new levels.

This is a truly ridiculous exercise involving actually standing on top of a stability ball and performing squats. About the only possible reason I can think of to perform squats while standing on a stability ball is if you’re a circus performer and your job involves standing on top of and balancing on a stability ball. If you’re not a circus performer and have no good reason to practice squatting on a stability ball, but you do it anyway, that makes you an idiot.

I present to you, the squat standing on a stability ball:

This exercise would be ridiculous enough without putting a barbell on your shoulders such as the jackass in the video demonstrates. The barbell takes the absurdity of the exercise up to such an insane level that I’m lost for words. I’ll just leave it at this: don’t perform squats while standing on a stability ball.

I just came across an interesting looking company in Vancouver that offers 30-minute personal training sessions for only 25 bucks. Sounds like a pretty sweet deal, but you might be wondering whether or not it’s possible to have an effective workout with a Vancouver personal trainer in only 30 minutes. It’s a valid question.

The answer is, hell yes it’s possible to have an awesome workout in only 30 minutes.

60-minute workouts are completely unnecessary. The vast majority of Vancouver personal trainers that offer 60-minute sessions will devote huge blocks of time during the workout to pointless stuff like jogging and crunches. Also, 60-minute personal training sessions often involve a lot of time-wasting chatter between client and trainer.

If you’re looking to save some money and time without sacrificing any results, consider hiring a personal trainer in Vancouver that offers 30-minute sessions.

If you’re looking for a boot camp in Vancouver, it can be hard to decide which program to join since there are so many options out there. Here’s a handy little guide you can use to avoid the lowest quality Vancouver boot camps.

1. Dinky Hand Weights: Perhaps the simplest way to tell if a boot camp runs modern and high quality workouts, or outdated and embarrassingly low quality workouts, is to find out what equipment, if any, you’re required to bring to the workouts. If they ask you to bring light hand weights to the workouts, find a different boot camp because nobody gets results exercising with dinky hand weights.

Dinky hand weights = low quality boot camp.

2. Jogging: If you’re considering joining a particular boot camp in Vancouver, find out exactly how much time they spend jogging each workout. Most boot camp companies won’t put that information on their website, and they’ll understate it if you ask them, but ask anyway because if they say they spend any time at all jogging, that’s a low quality boot camp and you should keep looking elsewhere.

Jogging = low quality boot camp.

3. Crunches: When checking out various boot camps in Vancouver, find out how much time they devote to abdominal crunches and other pointless, and possibly dangerous ab exercises. If you ask me how many crunches we do at my workouts, my answer is we do precisely zero crunches at my workouts. But my workouts are also very high quality and effective. A sure-fire sign of a low quality boot camp program is when you ask how may crunches you’ll be doing, and they respond with a number that’s any higher than “zero”.

Crunches = low quality boot camp.

4. No Guarantee: Boot camp companies who run high quality workouts stand behind those high quality workouts with a solid satisfaction guarantee. After all, if you’re running awesome workouts, there no risk involved to offer a 100% money-back guarantee. Low quality boot camp companies do not stand behind their program with a solid guarantee because doing so would ruin their business when more than half of their customers ask for a full refund after being disappointed with the workouts and with their results.

No guarantee = low quality boot camp.

For more info on how to choose the best boot camp in Vancouver, visit my Vancouver Boot Camp Guide website.

Long slow boring cardio on your favourite cardio machine doesn’t work. It never has worked, and it never will work. If you’re stick of not getting any results from the hours upon hours that you spend on the cardio machines, then stop using the cardio machines and starting burning fat with intense bodyweight workouts.

Here’s an example of a 10-minute bodyweight circuit that you can do at home, or anywhere else, without any equipment at all.

First start with a light warm-up for a few minutes to get your muscles and joints warm and ready for the circuit. An example of a warm-up is 30 seconds of each of the following exercises:

1. Jumping Jacks
2. Strides
3. Lunges
4. Duck Unders
5. Butt Kicks
6. High Jog

After you finish the warm-up, you’ll be ready for the intense bodyweight circuit. Perform each of the following 4 exercises for 30 seconds each, moving from one exercise to the next with zero rest between exercises.

1. Alternating Split Squat Jumps
2. Burpees
3. Runner Stance Squat Jumps
4. Jumping Jacks

After you perform all 4 exercises, take a 30 second rest. Perform 4 rounds of the series for a total circuit time of about 10 minutes.

Check out the Mode Athletics Store for more bodyweight workouts that you can use to burn fat at home without any equipment.

I just launched a new Vancouver Boot Camp Guide website at the domain that was formally used for the Mode Boot Camp website. Lots of good info on the Vancouver Boot Camp Guide site if you’re interested in joining a boot camp program in Vancouver and you’re trying to decide between the countless different options available. My boot camp guide is surely going to irritate some boot camp companies in Vancouver, but that’s not a concern of mine. I’m only interested in posting helpful info about Vancouver boot camps to help ensure that you don’t get scammed by any of the money-grubbing boot camp companies in Vancouver who are more interested in your wallet than providing you with high-quality and effective workouts. So visit my Vancouver Boot Camp Guide website for the straight goods on how to find the best boot camp in Vancouver.