You may wonder where the bodytweakers are and what they are up to. We’ve traveled all the way to Madrid, Spain, to visit the annual Fitness Fair. Hundreds of companies from all around the world present their new achievements (products) in all health & fitness related areas.

Generally, you see a lot of fitness equipment and gadgets that cost a lot of money, but provide rather suspiciuos results. Imagine a “thing” that weights what it seems like 1000 lbs (500 kg?), takes away more space than a regular couch and costs about 1000 USD. Now the fun part is that you use it to do triceps extensions. Apart from that it counts your calories, gives you advice about your nutrition and greets you by your name.
I guess such an investment can be made by a gym, but as a regular person, you have to be stupid to put 1000 bucks on the table and buy that bunch of metal only to do your triceps workouts (and even then it’s only 1 exercise!).

Yeah, it’s always fun to see all that unnecessary consumerism in action when you are on a fitness fair. We should get a stand one of these years and show all these people how to do “all that” using only a bench and a pair of dumbbells.

Look at this thing:

Does it look like a torture seat to you used by the Spanish Inquisition? That “home gym” would cost you over 1,700 USD. What it does? Nothing you can’t do without it.

We’ll post more photos and info about what we have seen and learned at the Fitness Fair (aka Fitness Inquisition) in the next few days.

Keep looking for the next episodes of this fitness horror series!

At certain moments in our life we may not have any access to a gym nor to our dumbbells. Imagine that you go for a 2-weeks trip to the mountains. Somewhere where even the most basic fitness equipment is out of your reach. How do you stay fit in those “extreme” conditions?

Other situations may be:

• You have to spend some time in prison
• You struggle to buy even a set of dumbbells.
• You end up on an island like Robinson Crusoe
• Someone steals your dumbbells (I do see the irony :))
• You are an extreme-bodytweaker: you think you don’t need anything but your body to stay fit

Anyway, how do you stay in shape in those conditions? How do you lose weight and even build muscle without any equipment, without any weights?

Well, when everything else fails, you can still use your own body’s weight to have some good workouts. This includes many different types of push-ups, pull-ups, sit-ups, etc, etc, etc. All these movements are directed against the forces of gravity. So you use your own weight (instead of any artificial weights like dumbbells to do the workouts) to work on your muscular strength and to burn some calories.

In this series or articles we’re going to present a kit of exercises you can do in extremely small spaces without any equipment. Look for the next parts of “Traveler’s Fitness Kit” to find out how the bodytweakers kept in shape on their week-long road trip.

Although hoodia or even phentermine cannot be included in the conventional prescription drugs, they are no doubt very popular. People don’t buy soma as much as they buy hoodia.

Note: A real bodytweaker doesn’t need any equipment.

I am not a vagetarian myself, but I have a lot of vegetarian recipes in my “portfolio”. You don’t have to be a vegetarian either to enjoy all the benefits of those delicious dishes! If your diet is not balanced (lack of fruits, veggies, cereals) a good way to start is to have one meat-free day a week. And after some time you will start eating healthy, vegetarian dishes everyday!

I don’t have a meat-free day, but 3-4 out of 6 of my daily meals are vegetarian. But it’s not a bad idea to have one. A good friend of mine who is a bodybuilder, fitness trainer and diet advisor used to say that a “vegetarian day” once a week cleans your guts due to its very high amounts of fiber and is therefore very good for your digestive system.
Other benefits that are associated with vegetarian diet are:

• lenghtens life
• lowers bad cholesterol and is consequently good for your heart
• helps you to lose weight (low calorie)
• strenghtens the immune system (high in vitamins and minerals)
• lowers the risk for diseases like constipation, hemorroids, diverticular disease, gallstones, hiatal hernias, appendicitis, irritable colon, bowel polyps, and appendicitis.
• Colon cancer is very rare in people with a low-meat diet.
• Prevents and controls diabetes (due its high amount of fiber)

There are lots of more facts and benefits of vegetarian diet vs. meat-centered diet. I will post an extra info on this later.

In these series, low calorie and vegetarian recipes, I will post some of my favorite dishes that are healthy and tasty even for a meat-eater like me!

Part 2 with first recipes is coming very soon (this week). Just search for “vegetarian recipes” on BodyTweaking in few days.

Cost: I buy everything on a weekend-market here. The cost is always $0.50 for a kilo (ca. 3 lbs) of stuff: be it bananas, apples, cereals, tomatoes, etc. Some cost more, others less. But in average it’s always 50 cent.