Precision Nutrition Diet, Nutrition and Weight Los

Fat Burning Insanity Extreme Burpees Your Fat Burning And Cardio On Fire

2010-06-15T10:25:00.000-07:00

Link http://howtogetthatsixpackabslook.com/Articles/?p=246

If you do only one bodyweight exercise in your fat burning workouts it should be the Burpee. We are talking a total body fat burning and conditioning exercise. And the variations you can do using a barbell, medicine ball, dumbbells, kettlebells and sandbags just keeps upping the intensity.

And wait till you see the third video I posted unreal.

So what are you doing still here click the link above.

6 Pack Abs Another Non Traditional (But Highly Effective) Ab Workout

2010-06-12T07:11:00.000-07:00

Link http://fatburningdietsandworkouts.com/6packabs2010/

Are you still struggling to get that six pack abs look? You know that lean tight stomach so your not hanging out over your belt line anymore. Click the link above for a NON Traditional ab workout that can help you reach your goal.

Burn Fat With This 1 Fat Burning Exercise

2010-06-05T03:56:00.000-07:00

Link http://howtogetthatsixpackabslook.com/Articles/?p=217

Click the link above to get the article and video of the bear. Don't know what the bear is? It is the end of your I have no time to exercise excuse.

Precision Nutrition 17 Lessons Why Your Not Lean Yet

2010-05-26T14:43:00.000-07:00

17 Lessons if fat Loss by Dr. John Berardi of The Precision Nutrition System

I know that some readers are not at this level of fitness yet, but I’m hoping that if you’re not there yet, that you will use these tips as a guide and maybe inspiration to change your body.

In the following article, Dr. Berardi talks about one of his success stories, Canada K (obviously not a real name) and how he transformed his body following the Precision Nutrition program.

The great thing about this article is that it’s quite long and explicit and “Canada K” does go into a lot of details about journey to a leaner and firmer body.

In fact, “Canada K” breaks down his experience in 17 practical lessons:

>>> Here’s the article: Dr. John Berardi tells you why you’re NOT lean yet!

A couple years back, I released a rapid fat loss program called the Get Shredded Diet.

Now, I’ve always made it clear who this type of diet is for. It’s for folks who are pretty lean already. So, if you’re closer to 20 or 30% body fat, it’s not for you at all. If you’re in this range, your fat loss approach should start with The Precision Nutrition System.

Now, while the GSD is expressly for those already lean folks who want to get REALLY lean, the lessons learned from doing something like the GSD are absolutely universal. That’s why today’s update comes from Precision Nutrition Member, Canada K.

Canada K is a 37 year old guy, who, by day, is a chemical engineer and father of 3 boys. By night, however, he paints his face and turns into a bona fide gym warrior.

During the last few months, with the help of the GSD, he’s made it his mission to drop the stubborn body fat. You know, the stuff that prevented him from ever dipping into the land of single digits – in other words, below 10%. And drop it, he did, ending up around 6% body fat.

How did he do it? And what did he learn? Well, that’s what you’re here to find out. From the man himself.

Get Shredded Diet -

The 17 Lessons I Learned

I just came off a successful run at the Get Shredded Diet. It was such a mind-blowing experience, it took me several days to even partially wrap my head around everything I learned. Indeed, it was a brain explosion and I’m still processing everything. Following are my random thoughts, experiences, and philosophies around fat loss:

Lesson #1: If You Don’t Have The Body You Want, You’re Doing It Wrong

I’ve done the fat loss extreme (GSD) and, thank you very much, I kicked its a$$. The key was my attitude. It wasn’t until I got the right attitude that I starting seeing results.

Now, I thought I had it before, I really did. I’d have argued day and night that I had it. And, with a few people I did argue. But I didn’t get it. I was too confident in my knowledge. To certain I was on the right track. And because of that, I wasn’t doing the right workouts or eating the right stuff. It held me back.

Only once I admitted I didn’t know what I was doing 100% – only then did I begin to learn how to get lean. Only then did I start to discover the right workout and the right nutrition program. And my body followed suit. I started to get lean.

Before that, I was doing stuff wrong. That’s why I didn’t have the body I wanted. Perhaps that’s why you don’t have the body you want either.

Lesson #2: When Fat Loss Turns Invisible – The Dead Zone

Fat loss is a funny game when you get into the 10-15% range. Above 15%, any fat loss looks good. Your shape improves, you get slimmer, clothes get smaller, and so on.

Once you slide below 15%, the returns really diminish. You can lose a boatload of fat and it seems invisible. It’s not until you get below 10%, or even 8%, where abs start to appear, where your waistline starts to get really tight, and where veins really start to show up.

So basically, there is this giant dead zone in the middle where you’re making real gains but they’re incredibly unsatisfying. You must hang in there anyway. If you don’t, you’ll never be lean.

Lesson #3: When Fat Loss Turns Invisible – The Dead Zone, Part 2

At some point during the fat loss trek, everything seemed to stall. The scale was inching downwards, but the tummy looked the same, no abs in sight. On and on the stupid diet went, and still no abs. Here’s why. My body was shedding fat from other, less sexy, places like my quads, my back and my a$$. I just wasn’t looking there. If I would have been, I might have been happier with my progress.

Our bodies are funny things, and fat will come off unevenly. Sometimes it’s not where we want it to come from most. It doesn’t matter. That’s the way it goes. You’ve gotta just keep plugging away. Because eventually the fat will be lost. All of it.

In my case, it’s clear that my abs won’t really pop until I get down to probably 5%. Others may be luckier, but that seems to be what I have to do.

Lesson #4: Food Is Only Fuel & All Eating Is Emotional

Fundamentally, food is fuel. The only other reasons we eat is for socializing and for emotional reasons. This probably ruffles feathers, but I am basically saying that all eating is emotional, especially overeating and unhealthy eating.

It is also nearly impossible to divorce the emotional aspect from eating and make it simply a re-fuelling process. If it was, we’d all eat nutritionally perfect gruel and be perfectly happy with it. Getting to an elite level of body comp and staying there requires wrapping your head around the FACT that the reason you reach for the bag of Doritos, or the cheesecake, or the Aero bar is emotional eating.

Lesson #5: Eating Will Always Be Emotional… Learn To Use That

I don’t think we ever completely get past the emotional aspects of eating. But the people who are most successful at attaining elite body comp are the ones who get past it, and learn to look at food purely as fuel.

Decadent foods like pizza or ice cream become special occasions, kind of like the rest of the world might treat an expensive bottle of champagne. They are things to be savored and enjoyed rarely, not as a staple.

Think about this: a person who indulges in booze every day is called an alcoholic. Someone who indulges in junk food every day is called… your average North American.

Lesson #6: Fat Loss Is Easy, It’s Your Brain That’s Getting In The Way

This will pi$$ a lot of people off, but fat loss is actually pretty easy. It’s way, WAY easier than muscle gain. It’s not always pleasant, it’s pretty much always socially uncomfortable, and it forces you to go against the grain of your friends, coworkers and family. But when we break it down to a pure physiological process, fat loss is easy.

It’s all the mental stuff tied up in eating that make it pretty much impossible for most of the world. It’s the emotions around eating, the addiction to the taste and the feeling of food, the bonding that comes from sharing food with others, and the sense of belonging that comes from “going with the flow”. Most people fail not because they don’t have the right diet plan, not because they don’t have access to the right food, and not because they don’t know or understand exactly what they need to do. All the physiological elements are in place, and they work. Most people fail because they don’t consider the psychological aspect of the diet.

Food, particularly sugar and refined carbohydrates, is addictive. The cravings can be emotionally crippling. Hunger is a feeling completely foreign to westerners and we can’t handle it; it breaks us as brutally as being physically beaten.

There’s also the profound sense of alienation that comes from doing something “different”. Once food and shelter are taken care of, our number one need as human beings is to feel like we belong. When a person starts a diet they isolate themselves from the norm. And the single most social thing we do, as a species, is share food and drink. Many people will abandon a diet because it feels like they’re excluded, and for a heavy person already feeling badly about their self-image and their sense of belonging, that’s just too high a price to pay. They’d rather be obese than alone.

I’m not trying to be all haughty and holier-than-thou, let me be the first to admit I’m an emotional eater. I get a profound sense of happiness from sweets. It’s such a satisfying feeling it is (honestly and without exaggeration) practically sexual. But now I can control the psychological aspects of eating, and for long periods I can treat food purely as fuel. I feel like if any single thing allows me call myself an upper-tier gym warrior it’s that.

Lesson #7: Re-feed Days Are Great and Terrible

Re-feed days are a mixed blessing. For the most part, the key is learning to stop eating when you get “satisfied”, but that is very hard to do when you’re in the throes of indulging your carb addiction. It’s like telling an alcoholic to have just 1 beer.

I found myself eating things I didn’t even want because the day was almost over, and if I didn’t eat the ice cream, or the chocolate bar, or the donuts now, I’d miss my chance for another two weeks! How stupid is that?

So be careful with re-feeds. Because they can be very helpful during something like the GSD. However, when emotions kick in, they can become difficult to control. Again, all eating is emotional!

Lesson #8: Busting Out Of The Rut

I would never have pushed myself to this extreme if I hadn’t been afraid of being humiliated. In hindsight, what I did wasn’t even that extreme; it just looked that way from deep inside the walls of my rut.

I had no idea how many constraints I had put on myself, or how many different avenues I had simply refused to explore, until I climbed out of my rut and looked back at my old self.

We are all putting constraints on ourselves, telling ourselves “no I can’t”, “that’s doesn’t work for me”, “it’s too hard to try”. It’s all self-deluded horses##t, and no one is doing it to us. We’re doing it to ourselves. And we must stop. For our physical and our mental health.

Lesson #9: Competition Drives Us To Great Heights

Competition is probably the only thing that pushed me from good to great. And that’s why I’m so glad myself and some of the other PN guys decided to do this.

The fear of losing horribly and being humiliated in our little ad hoc contest was a strong motivator. Plus, the desire to win was also very strong. In fact, these were the only reasons I ever considered pulling myself out of my comfortable rut.

That rut was actually a grave. It’s a grave because once you put yourself into one, you’ll probably spend the rest of your life there, and die there too. So, if you want to make big chances, you’ll need a big goal. Compete for something. It’s very useful.

Lesson #10: No Limits

I could compete someday if I wanted to. I’m not saying that I’ve got such an exceptional body that I could walk away with a title or anything. I’m saying that there is no physiological reason why I couldn’t. My body type isn’t standing in the way, genetics aren’t standing I the way either.

My lifestyle, and what time I can afford to dedicate to bodybuilding IS standing in the way. My own mental toughness is another possible barrier, but much less of one than before. In essence, I realize that the only limits I have are those I place on myself. And I realize that I’m now in control of them. Very liberating!

Lesson #11: Water Shedding

Before taking my “after photos,” I decided to try water manipulation. It’s something necessary to look your best. So I wanted to do everything I could. Now, I can’t say for absolute certain that the water shedding made a significant difference. I believe it made me look leaner and fuller, but then again I wasn’t an ideal candidate: I’m not particularly huge nor was I lean enough where the differences would be most striking.

Plus I don’t feel like I’m sophisticated enough to know the feeling of “flat” versus “full” versus “depleted”. I also wasn’t able to follow the process exactly, and I’m told water-shedding is an extremely delicate balance, so that would have been another factor.

Still, I feel like it made my muscles look bigger and rounder. It was a worthwhile experience to try, because once again it forced me to do something way outside my usual rut.

Lesson #12: Water Shedding & Drinking Tons Of Water

As part of my water manipulation, I had to drink 3 gallons of water a day for a few days. This was actually harder than the diet. It’s a physically demanding task in ways that really surprised me. Much like the first few days of the GSD were depressing, so was water loading. The only difference was, by the time you start getting used to it, it’s over.

Lesson #13: Bodybuilding Is About Creating An Illusion

So much of what we see in magazines and on stage is actually kind of fake. You just to look bigger and leaner that the next guy, and there is a lot of trickery involved in doing so.

Compare Cliff (another PN Member who also did the GSD recently) and I. The big guy has 25 pounds of pure muscle more than I do, and only 8 pounds more fat. He is clearly the better bodybuilder. But the human eye is fooled into seeing leaner muscles as being bigger. When you rely on the human eye, I got the edge.

It makes no damned sense! But, at the same time, it’s the truth. So remember this, the leaner you are, the bigger you seem to look. Especially with your shirt off. And in pictures.

Lesson #14: A Great Body Looks Lousy With Lousy Photography & Lighting

When you take a picture of yourself, how it looks has as much to do with the lighting, the coloring, the angle, and just sheer dumb luck as the condition of your body.

I took a dozen front-double bicep pictures on photo day. Some made me look soft and small, but the one I picked made me look huge. The others were just bad pictures.

And don’t forget other finishing touches. I fake-tanned for a month before the pictures, and believe me I was brown! I still looked pasty white under the light of the sun. This over-exposed-washing-out tends to blur the muscular detail makes abs invisible.

So if you’re taking a picture, you need to have some colour or you need to manage the lighting to compensate. Even the buffest bod looks smooth otherwise. Oiling up your body helps too. The oil catches the light and emphasizes definition. I took pictures with and without oil, and the difference is notable.

Lesson #15: Full-Body Shaving

Shaving was both interesting and a drag. Body hair definitely blurs the muscular details. But nothing is as irritating as the unbelievable itching in the inner thighs on the third day after a shave.

For men there is a balancing act. Unless a guy is freaky huge, or really lean, men look feminine with no body hair. But thick or dark hair hides the muscles, and makes anything but the buffest abs hard to see. Plus uber-hairiness is off-putting to the ladies.

My compromise going forward is that I’ll keep shaving my arms (who likes hairy knuckles?) and probably my abs. I’ll use clippers everywhere else (except… well… there!).

Lesson #16: Bigger Muscles Show Better Than Small Ones

There are two ways for your muscles to really “pop”. Either you get rid of all the fat covering them up, or you grow those muscles really big so that they are easier to see underneath the fat.

That’s why a more muscular guy can look really good at higher body fat, the bigger muscles are still easily visible. As a slimmer guy, the message is clear. If I want to look like an underwear model I either have to maintain sub 7% body fat, or I have to gain more muscle.

Lesson #17: It’s An Exclusive Club

I think maybe 1 person in 1,000 will ever be able to drag themselves down to single digit body fat as adults. It’s way, way, WAY easier to be obese.

However, for those who are willing to commit to getting very lean, it’s totally possible. You just have to remember this. You probably don’t know what you’re doing – yet. You probably don’t know what you’re getting into – yet. Do it anyway. You’ll learn so much along the way. And when you stall, don’t be afraid to reach out for help. The PN Member Zone is a great place to do just that.

For More Help

Those are some great lessons from our friend, Canada K. Now, for those of you wondering how you too can become part of the “exclusive leanness club,” here’s how I recommend getting started.

Step 1: Begin with The Precision Nutrition System.

This is the cornerstone of everything we do here at Precision Nutrition. Skipping this step is like building a house on a foundation of sand. In other words, don’t do it. Get the right plan from the start.

Step 2: Once you’re lean, that’s when you can try the Get Shredded Diet.

As above, once you’ve built a foundation of good habits with the PN System, and you get your body fat down to the mid-teens, that’s when you can take the next step, just like Canada K did.

Step 3: Think about the Lean Eating Program.

As Canada K said above, fat loss is mostly about your brain – and how it gets in the way. If you’re the type of person who’d like to skip the trial and error and get right down to business with expert coaching, a rock-solid support system, and a system that guarantees your success, make sure you put your name on the waiting list for our next Lean Eating group. The next one kicks off in January of 2010.

For my review of the Precision Nutrition System Click the link

5 Fat Burning Cardio Workouts

2010-05-13T02:18:00.000-07:00

Link http://howtogetthatsixpackabslook.com/Articles/?p=173

Faster Fat Loss With This Full Body Workout

2010-05-09T16:51:00.000-07:00

Target more muscles in less time — and lose more fat — with these compound moves. Do them at home or in the gym!

Lose weight faster!

By John Berardi, Ph.D.

As a career-driven woman, fitness model and wife, Melissa Hall understands what it means to be busy. So when her clients start asking for something quick, she knows just what to give them – a total-body circuit that can be done anywhere.

Full-body circuits come with non-stop benefits. You can hit more major muscle groups with each workout versus isolating them with a segmented routine. Instead of exercising your hamstrings and quads once per week or four times per month, full-body workouts allow you to work them three times per week without the risk of overtraining. Since you are recruiting more muscle fibers with each training session, you expend more energy, yielding faster fat-loss results.

Your Personal Plan

You can do this workout in one of three ways. Simply pick the one that works best for you and get moving! Do it three times per week for four weeks to meet your goals.

• Three to four sets of each of the exercises demonstrated here for 12 to 15 repetitions with 30 seconds of rest between sets.

• Progress to heavier weights when you can easily complete 15 reps, and adjust your rest intervals to 45 seconds.

• Perform this program as a circuit routine. Do two minutes of intense cardio (which could include jumping rope, stationary running or using cardiovascular equipment) after completing a series of sets of an exercise.

DUMBBELL LUNGE & PRESS

Target Muscles: quadriceps, anterior deltoid, biceps
Synergist Muscles: glutes, adductor magnus, soleus, lateral deltoid, trapezius

Set Up: Standing upright with dumbbells at your side, step forward with your left leg into a lunge position (1). Be sure not to let your back knee touch the floor.

Action: From the lunge, transition into a standing posture by moving your right leg forward, placing your weight on your left leg. Simultaneously, curl the dumbbells up to your shoulders and (2) press them over your head while bringing your extended right leg in front of you. Repeat from the start (standing) position. Alternatively, you can try walking lunges.

ALTERNATING DUMBBELL PUSH-UP

Target Muscles: pectoralis major (sternal)

Synergist Muscles: pectoralis major (clavicular), anterior deltoid, triceps brachii

Set Up: In a push-up position, begin with your right hand on a dumbbell and your left hand on the ground (1).

Action: Move your body down toward the ground, as in a regular push-up (2), and then return to the starting position. After completing one repetition, place your left hand on the dumbbell (3) and remove your right hand, placing it on the ground to resume the starting position on the opposite side of the dumbbell (4). Again, perform a regular style push-up while keeping your left hand on the dumbbell (5). This is one rep. Repeat.

SINGLE-LEG STIFF-LEGGED DEADLIFT WITH ROW

Target Muscles: hamstrings, glutes, middle trapezius

Synergist Muscles: rhomboids, posterior deltoid, soleus, adductor magnus

Set Up: Stand on your left leg (right leg lifted off the ground with knee bent) and a dumbbell in your right hand held up at your side, in a hammer curl position (1).

Action: Move your right leg posteriorly as you bring your torso down and forward. Continue until your right leg and torso are on the same horizontal plane, almost parallel to the ground (2). Holding this
position, pull the weight in your right hand up towards your torso, bringing your elbow as high as you can (not shown). Return to the starting position by reversing the movement. Repeat, then switch sides.

FLOOR DIP WITH BODY WEIGHT

Target Muscles: triceps brachii

Synergist Muscles: iliopsoas, rectus abdominis, anterior deltoid, pectoralis major

Set Up: Assume a normal dip position with all four limbs on the ground. Extend your arms and keep them in line with your shoulders. The knees should be bent at approximately 45 degrees with the lower legs perpendicular to the ground. To complete the starting position, straighten your left leg so that it is pointing upward at 45 degrees in line with the right upper leg (1).

Action: Lower your body toward the ground by bending at the elbows and increasing knee flexion (2). Once you almost reach the ground, push yourself back to starting position. Repeat, then switch sides.

Full body circuit training workouts along with a good healthy eating program can give you the edge to the fastest fat loss possible.

The Precision Nutrition Challenge Nutrition Debates

2009-05-22T07:22:00.000-07:00

The "Great" Nutrition Debates

by Dr John M Berardi, CSCS of Precision Nutrition Challenge

While displacement foods (unhealthy foods that fill us up, knocking healthy foods out of our diets) are probably at the root of many of our health and body composition crises, what I call "displacement debates" have also become a real problem in today’s information age.

For example, the average North American barely knows what a carbohydrate, protein, or fat is, yet when they hear well-respected experts at the ADA recommend high carb diets and the highly (though not universally) respected Atkins group recommend low carb diets, they get so confused and frustrated they ultimately do little or nothing proactive to improve their health.

This argument is an example of a displacing debate: an academic argument that pushes the more important problems out of the public discourse. For the average North American, following either the ADA recommendations or the Atkins recommendations would go a long way toward improving their health. But instead of suggesting that people just do something, these groups continue to bicker about who’s right at the expense of an ever-growing obesity rate.

Below I’ve presented six of the interesting displacing debates I’ve heard argued lately. Hopefully by discussing them I can put to rest the idea that these issues are of critical importance to your overall health and body composition. I’d like you to understand that these represent small, fine tuning details which are only relevant to a small percentage of the population, if that. On the whole, these debates do more to confuse and paralyze people than to encourage them to take their health into their own hands.

The Top 6 Displacing Debates

1. Fruit is Bad Now?
We all know fruit provides fiber, vitamins, minerals, and low glycemic index carbohydrates, so it should be no surprise that many experts recommend eating a few servings of fruit each day. Heck, this notion has even been turned into a clichéd rhyme:

"An apple a day keeps the doctor away!"

Yet some experts out there actually suggest that fruit might be bad for us! That’s utter nonsense. So, imagine you’re someone with a lifetime of eating habits that are less than optimal (for some of you, it might not be so hard to do) and you’re exposed to this debate. What do you do? Well, nine times out of ten, you figure that if there’s a chance fruit is bad for you, you might as well stay away from it — probably better to reach for a Big Mac instead. After all, it does taste better.

What to do? Eat the damn fruit – but, as with everything else, don’t overeat!

2. Raw? Organic?
Speaking again of fruits (and vegetables), it’s recommended that the average person consume two pieces of fruit and three servings of vegetables per day as a bare minimum. I recommend 10-15 servings per day. Yet most North Americans (athletes included) consume far less than the standard recommendation of five servings of fruits and vegetables.

However, rather than simply recommend more fruit and veggies (no matter how you can get them, for any fruits and vegetables are better than none), experts spend their time fighting about canned fruits and veggies vs. raw fruits and veggies. And then they fight about raw fruits and veggies vs. organic fruits and veggies! Sure, I agree that raw, organic fruits and vegetables are best since they probably have a higher micronutrient count, but let’s face the facts: any fruits and veggies are better than none!

So again, imagine you’re someone with a lifetime of bad eating habits and you’re exposed to all this bickering. What do you do? Well, you'll probably avoid the fruits and veggies, wait for the experts to finish dueling it out, and reach for a Snickers bar instead.

What to do? Get sufficient fruits and vegetables in your diet before worrying about whether they’re organic or not. Once you’ve done that, worry on.

3. Raw Milk vs. Regular Milk
What about milk? In my opinion, it’s not necessary, doesn’t always "do the body good," and should be minimized in the diet (although I see no need for total elimination unless you’re lactose intolerant).

However, if we could simply get more people to drink milk instead of sugary soda, we’d have less obesity and disease. But instead of focusing on healthy behaviors, experts will bicker on and on about regular milk vs. raw milk. Of course, all this does is serve to draw negative attention to milk and away from the other healthy decisions people could be making.

Sure, if it were possible to get raw milk that was guaranteed aseptic, it would be better than processed, pasteurized milk. But faced with the confusion, what do you, the hypothetical sub-optimal eater, do? Well, nine times out of ten, you avoid both kinds of milk and drink another Coca-Cola instead.

What to do? Limit milk, and drink calorie-free beverages like water and green tea instead.

4. Tap Water vs. Bottled Water
Speaking of beverage consumption, people are dehydrated because they drink too little water while drinking too many caffeinated, diuretic drinks (coffee, soda, and alcohol). Dehydration leads to all sorts of health problems for the inactive, not to mention the decrements in athletic performance seen in dehydrated athletes.

But rather than simply promoting the heck out of water consumption, experts will bicker on and on about tap water vs. bottled water. Sure, good quality bottled water is usually a better choice, but don’t be one of these people who stay away from tap water, forget to pick up their bottled water, and simply remain dehydrated.

What to do? Drink sufficient water first; worry about the source later. (Of course, you may want to avoid drinking out of puddles next to pig farms in Uganda.) Put a water filter on your tap or buy one of those filter jugs you store in your fridge and be done with it.

5. Glass vs. Plastic
And how about the bottles the water comes in? That’s right, the glass vs. plastic debate. Just the other day, I was recommending that a group of my athletes pick up some Tupperware so they could whip up all of their meals and shakes in the morning. It’s easy to make a good food choice during the day when you’ve got all your good food with you, pre-cooked, pre-wrapped, and ready to be eaten.

After the talk, one of the athletes came up to me and told me he avoids Tupperware altogether because of the potential leeching of xenoestrogens into his food. When I asked what he uses to store his food in, he told me he doesn’t even preplan his meals. He also told me he needed to lose fifteen pounds and that he was overweight because his nutrition sucked!

Buddy, I agree that glass containers may be marginally better than plastic, but for the love of God, pick up some plastic if it'll help you plan your meals! And this was a world-class athlete! You can imagine how the average guy fares!

What to do? Plan your meals in advance, storing them in woven baskets if necessary. Buy the best containers you can afford. If you can get the glass versions, great; if not, the generic plastic ones will do just fine.

6 . Free Range vs. Extremely Limited Range Meat
Most weightlifters eat lots of protein and that’s no mistake. One of the best ways to get all that protein is by eating a lot of protein and micronutrient-rich lean meat. Protein supplements are okay to supplement your diet, but real food should be your nutritional mainstay and there’s nothing better than good ol’ fashioned lean meat.

Since eating more protein can increase metabolic rate, improve your weight loss profile, increase protein turnover, accelerate exercise adaptation, and (when replacing dietary carbohydrate) decrease the chance of cardiovascular disease, it should be clear that most people would do well to increase their consumption of lean meat.

So imagine the dismay someone might experience when hearing that the experts are now bickering about the type of meat we consume. Many experts muddy the waters when discussing free range vs. grain fed meat, telling people that grain fed meat (the only kind you can find in many grocery stores in North America) is full of toxins, bad fats, and hormones.

Sure, free-range meat is probably a better choice, although there’s little proof the supposed toxins and hormones actually get passed on to us. But again, imagine you’re someone with a lifetime of eating habits that are less than optimal and you’re exposed to all this bickering about lean protein. What do you do? Well, when you’re afraid of the meat you have access to, you shy away from all types of lean meat and reach for another bagel. Bad choice!

What to do? Find the best meat you can by going around to various grocery shops and butchers. Owners of health food stores may also be able to help you locate the best stuff. But don’t be afraid to eat the meat you find in your grocery store — the reports of your impending death are greatly exaggerated.

These are just a few of the displacing debates gaining momentum in the nutrition world. Do your best to get past the marginalia, to get past the differences between all the new programs, and try to discover for yourself the basic principles all the successful programs seem to be built upon. Most importantly, when faced with a choice between two good options, one of which may be marginally better than the other, but both of which would be an improvement over what you're currently doing, just pick one and go with it. You can optimize later, as long as you make an improvement now.

There's no debating that.

SEE ALSO:
For more great training and nutrition wisdom, check out our complete system, Precision Nutrition Challenge. Containing system manuals, gourmet cookbook, digital audio/video library, online membership, and more, Precision Nutrition will teach you everything you need to know to get the body you want -- guaranteed.

And what's more, your online access allows you to talk exercise and nutrition 24/7 with thousands of fellow members and the Precision Nutrition coaches. Find out more about Precision Nutrition.

Getting Lean by Revving Up Your Metabolism

2009-05-15T09:18:00.000-07:00

Getting Lean by Revving Up Your Metabolism
by Dr John M Berardi, CSCS
I remember the day I got the bad news. I was 20 years old and I was in the middle of a nearly impossible squat session. Between sets, while trying to catch my breath, an “older” personal trainer (he was probably in his thirties) came over and offered some “advice”—unsolicited, of course.

“Ya know,” he said, “I used to look like you. But just you wait. After 25, the metabolism slows down, and it’s all downhill from there, buddy. You’d better enjoy it while it lasts.”

Then he turned and walked away.

I wasn’t sure what to make of this guy. After all, he didn’t look that great. Sure, he was a trainer and he did look better than most folks his age; but just barely. And he had a lot less muscle and a lot more fat than I did.

But the critical question was this - was he right? Did the metabolism come to a grinding halt after age 25? Was I doomed to lose my prized physique? Worse yet, was I destined to look like him? I had to find out. After all, if middle age spread was an inevitable consequence of aging, why bother?

So I asked around. I spoke with personal trainers, gym owners, and nutritionists, who all confirmed what I had heard. I spoke with some instructors at my local community college. They said the same, although with less certainty since at that time not much research had been done about the matter.

I looked around, studying the physiques of people I ran into at the gym, grocery store, mall, and elsewhere. The evidence was all around me. Younger people were leaner and seemingly in possession of faster metabolic rates than older individuals.

So, in my 20-year-old mind, the message seemed clear: I’d better make the most of my youthful body and metabolism because I was destined to lose it.

Fortunately, I was dead wrong!

Deceiving Father Time

Since that day, I’ve accomplished quite a bit in the exercise, nutrition, and fitness realm. In the late 90’s I won the NABBA Jr USA Bodybuilding Championships. I’ve also spent 10 years studying at University – eventually earning a PhD in Kinesiology with a specialization in the area of exercise and nutritional biochemistry. Finally, I’ve developed an exercise and nutrition consulting company called Science Link, with the mission of taking advanced exercise and nutrition research and translating it into meaningful, usable information for people who are not quite as sciency as I am.

Yet throughout, I’ve always come back to that question – is it inevitable – must we lost large amounts of muscle and gain large amounts of fats once we hit our late 20s? Well, I, for one haven’t suffered this fate. Firmly entrenched in my 30s, I’m just as active as ever and, interestingly, just as strong and just as lean as I was during my twenties. But my story aside, I’m also happy to report that the metabolism does not have to slow down with age – for any of us (assuming we’re healthy).

Yes, it’s true that when you’re young, your body finds a way to balance energy expenditure and energy intake. It’s true that, as you age, you’ll have a much more difficult time maintaining what you’ve got. It’s true that studies have shown that 1/3 of all North American adults are at least 20 percent over their “ideal weights.”

These truths, however, don’t seal your fate. Just because some folks spend their lives engaged in a frustrating battle of eating less only to gain more, that doesn’t mean you have to. I’ve skirted around those so-called truths. I eat just as much food—if not more—than I did in my twenties, yet I have no more body fat to show for it.

I’m no anomaly. Over the years, I’ve trained countless clients, ranging in age from 25 to 65. It didn’t matter how high their body fat percentages, how slow their metabolisms, or how scrawny their muscle mass when they met me—they were all able to turn things around – without drugs. Consider the following impressive stats:

• Robert, age 41: Lost 18 pounds of fat and gained 8 pounds of lean mass (lean mass is made up of muscle, bone, and other non-fat tissue) over 3 months

• Kenneth, age 31: Lost 27 pounds of fat and gained 2 pounds of lean mass over 6 months

• Lynn, age 57: Lost 24 pounds of fat and gained 8 pounds of lean mass over 7 months

• Danielle, age 32: Lost 14 pounds of fat and gained 17 pounds of lean mass over 5 months

• Ben, age 21: Lost 14 pounds of fat and gained 29 pounds of lean mass over 10 months

• Gail, age 26: Lost 9 pounds of fat and gained 6 pounds of lean mass over 2 months

• Jason, age 45: Lost 11 pounds of fat and gained 3 pounds of lean mass over 3 months

• Kelly, age 38: Lost 22 pounds of fat and gained 15 pounds of lean mass over 6 months

• Mike, age 26: Lost 12 pounds of fat and gained 11 pounds of lean mass over 2 months

• Rachel, age 24: Lost 23 pounds of fat and gained 3 pounds of lean mass over 7 months

• Vivian, age 38: Lost 15 pounds of fat and gained 8 pounds of lean mass over 5 months

• Amy, age 38: Lost 29 pounds of fat and gained 10 pounds of lean mass over 9 months

• Joseph, age 42: Lost 4 pounds of fat and gained 38 pounds of lean mass over 13 months

As you can see, it doesn’t matter how old people were when they decided to get serious and turn things around. Whether they were 25 or 45, their results were the same: They changed their body composition, replacing their flab with lean, metabolism boosting muscle. You’re never too old to boost your metabolism.

If that’s not enough to convince you that you have what it takes to rev up your metabolism, shed fat, and build muscle, then consider the research. When I was in my twenties, few scientists had tried to answer the questions that were nagging me. At that time, no one really knew for sure whether metabolism slowed down with age and, if it did, whether anything could be done about it. Now a group of applied scientists have looked at those questions and uncovered some surprising facts.

These scientists had noticed that the metabolism does seem to slow with age, but they refused to believe that there was nothing anyone could do about it. Today, as a result of their efforts, we’ve got plenty of evidence demonstrating that your metabolism slows with age only if you do nothing about it. If you eat properly, exercise, and take the right supplements, you can maintain your metabolic rate over your life span! Even if you’re 40 or older and things have already slowed down, you can reverse the trend and regain the metabolism of your youth. In fact, you can create a metabolism that’s even faster than the one of your twenties!

Is it easy? No. Does it take hard work and dedication? Yes. But it can be done. I’m living proof. So are my clients, and so are the thousands of people who have participated in hundreds of studies conducted in the United States and around the world.

Of Age and Metabolism

So why does maintaining a healthy weight get tougher as we age? Well, although most people eat less as they age—to compensate for moving less at their desk jobs—their activity levels generally decrease even more than their energy intakes, resulting in fat gain.

These decreasing activity levels result in yet another problem: muscle loss. Researchers have determined that, starting between the ages of 25 and 30, most people lose roughly 5 to 10 pounds of lean body mass during each decade of life. As muscle is a metabolically active tissue. That means that in addition to burning calories to move your skeleton through space, it also burns calories to maintain itself. So age-related muscle loss can cripple your metabolism. The average person who becomes less active and, consequently, loses muscle experiences a 20 to 25 percent reduction in 24-hour metabolism (measured as the amount of energy your body burns in 24 hours) by age 65. This adds up to a daily metabolic drop of more than 500 calories.

It’s tough to cut 500 calories off your daily menu to compensate for that metabolic drop, so most people end up packing on the fat.

Of course, this scenario holds true only if you do nothing to prevent it. Why do most people lose muscle as they age? Because they don’t use it. When it comes to the human body, what you don’t use, you lose, and muscle is no exception.

Studies of people older than age 60 show that you can—at any age—reverse muscle loss and regain the metabolism of your youth. In fact, according to research, individuals who—through exercise and smart eating—maintain their lean mass (muscle, bone, and other non-fat tissue) as they age experience only a 0.36 percent drop in metabolism per decade compared to the 5 to 7 percent per decade drop that most adults experience. Add a few key supplements to the mix and you can even prevent that 0.36 percent drop, and possibly even rev your metabolism higher than it was during your youth!

So metabolic slowdown is not inevitable. You can prevent it. And you can reverse it using a three-pronged approach including eating, exercising, and supplementing the right way to get a series of all-natural “metabolic advantages.”

With these metabolic advantages, you can expect to:

BUILD THE MUSCLE NEEDED TO SPEED UP YOUR RESTING METABOLISM ALL DAY AND ALL NIGHT LONG.
A gain of 5 to 10 pounds of lean mass muscle will rev up your resting metabolism—the number of calories your body burns to maintain life—by roughly 100 calories – each and every day.

MAXIMIZE SOMETHING CALLED THE “AFTERBURN.”
Through targeted strength training and energy system training, you can increase the number of calories you burn during your workouts (about 300 to 600 calories per day depending on your body size and workout duration). However, assuming you integrate high intensity efforts, you can also blow through another 100 to 200 calories per day – a post-exercise energy burst that eats up calories even when you’re sitting on your butt.

INCREASE THE NUMBER OF CALORIES YOUR BODY BURNS AS IT DIGESTS FOODS.
Prioritizing metabolically costly proteins, metabolism-boosting fats, antioxidant-rich fruits and veggies, and the right carbs at the right times (nutrient timing), can boost your metabolic rate by another 100 to 200 calories per day.

ENCOURAGE YOUR BODY TO WASTE CALORIES.
The right combination of food choices and supplements can turn you in to a much less efficient calorie burner. Much like a car in need of a tune up, your body will consume more fuel than it needs to operate, wasting away the excess as heat. Unlike with your car, however, when it comes to your metabolism, inefficiency is a good thing. It will coax your body into burning more calories – and more fat – for fuel.

BOOST THE NUMBER OF CALORIES YOUR BODY BURNS THROUGH MOVEMENT.
Thanks to that desk job, family commitments, and great lineup of must-see TV, most of us move less at ages 30, 40, and beyond than we did during our teens and twenties. By training at least 5 hours each week, you can increase your calorie burning by about 300 to 600 calories per day.

All told, with the right combination of training, nutrition, and supplementation, you can expect to increase your daily calorie burn by between 40 and 60 percent within just 8 weeks. In other words, a guy who currently burns 2,500 calories a day would rev up his metabolism to a 3,400 to 4,000 daily calorie burn! That’s enough of a boost for you to see a 10-to-15-pound drop in body fat during those 8 weeks above. And for those at a beginner/intermediate level of training, you can expect muscle gain too.

Muscle gain and fat loss simultaneously? Yep, it happens all the time. Time to revisit my examples above.

Even more important, when you get these things right, you will simultaneously improve your health. In addition to speeding your metabolism, building muscle, and shedding fat, you can also expect to lower your blood cholesterol, blood pressure, and blood sugar. So not only can you live look better, you can live longer. So, in the end, I’m here to tell you that a large-scale metabolic decline isn’t inevitable as we age.

If you’re young and haven’t seen the affects of father time, that’s excellent. But that doesn’t mean you wont! Make sure that you use a combination of smart eating, training and supplementation to keep that metabolism reving for life.

And if you’re older and your current lifestyle has negatively impacted your body, know that it’s not too late. Turn things around now and you can reverse the damage that’s been done. I’ve seen it happen time and time again.

SEE ALSO:
For more great training and nutrition wisdom, check out our complete system, Precision Nutrition. Containing system manuals, gourmet cookbook, digital audio/video library, online membership, and more, Precision Nutrition will teach you everything you need to know to get the body you want -- guaranteed.

And what's more, your online access allows you to talk exercise and nutrition 24/7 with thousands of fellow members and the Precision Nutrition coaches. Find out more about Precision Nutrition.

The Precision Nutrition Challenge

2009-05-07T11:16:00.000-07:00

Ladies, get a lifetime of lessons learned in just 5 days with Precision Nutrition.
“I want to be leaner. I want to eat better. I want to look more fit. And I want to live healthier than I have in the past. Believe me, I want to change! The question is: how!”

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard those sentiments from women who want to make some changes, some improvements, to the way they look and feel.

Perhaps you too want to make some changes. Perhaps you too want to change your body. But you just don’t know how.

And I can understand why. You see, the irony is this. With all these new fad diets and all this media bombardment about eating healthy, people are in worse shape than ever before. And the right messages are getting lost in all the noise.

“So what do I do? How do I transform my body? How do I eat healthy, lose fat, and get in the best shape of my life?”
You know, the lessons are out there.

But everyone has focused on the differences among the experts instead of looking to what’s similar — to the timeless lessons, the simple, scientific and successful principles — the real-world advice that will get you the body you never thought you could have.

So we decided to write a 5 day email course for women - to teach those very lessons.

Here are just a few of the things you’ll learn:

What “good nutrition” means, specifically; the simple reason why others have it wrong, and how you can get it right. I’ll teach you 10 rules that cover everything you need to know.
How striving for dieting perfection is a recipe for failure, and how to include your favorite foods in your diet and still get the body you want. (There’s a trick here, and I’ll share it with you.)
The one thing that will absolutely prevent you from getting in shape. Believe me, it’s preventing you right now. The good thing is that it can be fixed in an afternoon, and when fixed, can nearly guarantee your success.
So if you can blot out all the noise for a few days, I can show you all you need to know to start transforming your body, immediately and permanently.

To get all the details click on Precision Nutrition

Changing The Rules Of Good Nutrition

2008-11-20T11:41:00.000-08:00

Changing the Rules of Good Nutritionby Dr John M Berardi, CSCS

What are the rules of good nutrition?

What types of things must you absolutely do to succeed – and what types of things must you avoid?

Seriously, take a moment and think about it.

What rules do you think you’ll need to follow if you want to eat in a healthy way – a way that will improve the way your body looks and the way it feels.

Come up with that list in your mind right now.

Now that you’ve considered these rules, I want you to take a second and think about your list. Specifically, think about where you learned these rules.

Certainly your rules have been influenced by how you were raised, no? Certainly they’ve been influenced by your experiences dining with friends and relatives – comfort foods, right? Of course, no set of nutrition rules is immune to media influences – you can’t help but be bombarded by those Got Milk ads!

Your rules have probably also been influenced by what you’ve heard others say – heck, every 3rd episode of Dr. Phil is about food and dieting. And, no doubt, your nutrition rules have probably been influenced by your own past attempts at changing your body – whether you’ve been successful or unsuccessful.

I could sit here all day and list potential nutritional influences. But I’ll stop here since there are probably hundreds of ‘em and to enumerate them all would bore your socks off.

At this junction, I’d just like to go ahead and make my point. And the point is this - very few of your “Good Nutrition Rules” have been influenced by those who know anything about good nutrition – let alone about long-term success and about what it really means to eat in a healthy way! And worse yet, most of those rules have been hammered home without you even knowing it!

It’s time to change the rules.

The Triple S Criterion

Now I’ll admit it. Changing the rules – just like changing your habits – is difficult. Not only does it take a desire to change – “want to” – but it takes a strategy for change – “how to”.

The “want to” is all your own. But the “how to” is what I do best. I’ve committed my career to helping people do just this – to change their rules and change their habits – and have gotten pretty good at it. In changing these rules and habits, everything changes – the way clients eat, the way they sleep, they way they look, the way they feel when they wake up in the morning, and they way they perform in day-to-day activities or during athletic events.

Today, I’m going to teach you a good part of that system – a system based on my Triple S Criterion.

What’s the Triple S Criterion? Well, it represents a three step way of evaluating a strategy for its usefulness.

Step 1 – Simplicity: Are the rules easy to follow?

Step 2 – ScienceAre the rules based on sound scientific principles?

Step 3 – SuccessHave the rules produced success in past clients?

Using this criterion, the systems developed for my clients always produce a positive result.

Think again about your nutritional rules – rules that you might be quite attached to.

Which criterion did you use when determining your rules?

Are your rules based on Simplicity, Science, and Success?

Have your rules produced the desired effect – a lean, healthy body that you’re able to maintain; a body that you’re happy with when looking in the mirror?

If not, perhaps they could use a re-evaluation.

Dr. Berardi’s Good Nutrition Rules

Below, I’d like to present my 10 Good Nutrition Rules, rules based on the Triple S Criterion above. In doing so, I hope to accomplish 2 goals.

• First, I want to help you rethink your whole nutrition approach – providing you with a new set of nutrition rules and habits – a set that swiftly moves you in the direction of your goals.
• Secondly, I want to show specifically how the recipes, cooking tips, and strategies can integrate together to represent a complete success system, fully integrated into the basic habits of good nutrition.

So here are the 10 rules:

1) Eat every 2-3 hours - no matter what. Are you doing this – no matter what? Now, you don’t need to eat a full meal every 2-3 hours but you do need to eat 6-8 meals and snacks that conform to the other rules below.
2) Ingest complete, lean protein each time you eat. Are you eating something this is an animal or comes from an animal – every time you feed yourself? If not, make the change. Note: If you’re a vegetarian, this rule still applies – you need complete protein and need to find non-animal sources.
3) Ingest vegetables every time you eat.That’s right, every time you eat (every 2-3 hours, right), in addition to a complete, lean protein source, you need to eat some vegetables. You can toss in a piece of fruit here and there as well. But don’t skip the veggies.
4) If want to eat a carbohydrate that’s not a fruit or a vegetable (this includes things like things rice, pasta, potatoes, quinoa, etc), you can – but you’ll need to save it until after you’ve exercised.Although these often heavily processed grains are dietary staples in North America, heart disease, diabetes and cancer are North American medical staples – there’s a relationship between the two! To stop heading down the heart disease highway, reward yourself for a good workout with a good carbohydrate meal right after (your body best tolerates these carbohydrates after exercise). For the rest of the day, eat your lean protein and a delicious selection of fruits and veggies.
5) A good percentage of your diet must come from fat. Just be sure it’s the right kind. There are 3 types of fat – saturated, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated. Eating all three kinds in a healthy balance can dramatically improve your health and even help you lose fat.
Your saturated fat should come from your animal products and you can even toss in some butter or coconut oil for cooking. Your monounsaturated fat should come from mixed nuts, olives, and olive oil. And your polyunsaturated fat should from flaxseed oil, fish oil, and mixed nuts.
6) Ditch the calorie containing drinks (including fruit juice).In fact, all of your drinks should come from non-calorie containing beverages. Fruit juice, alcoholic drinks, and sodas – these are all to be removed from your daily fare. Your absolute best choices are water and green tea.
7) Focus on whole foods. Most of your dietary intake should come from whole foods. There are a few times where supplement drinks and shakes are useful. But most of the time, you’ll do best with whole, largely unprocessed foods.
8) Have 10% foods.I know you cringed at a few of the rules above – perhaps #6 in particular. But here’s a bit of a reprieve. 10% foods are foods that don’t necessarily follow the rules above – but food’s you’re still allowed to eat (or drink) 10% of the time.
100% nutritional discipline is never required for optimal progress. The difference, in results, between 90% adherence to your nutrition program and 100% adherence is negligible.
Just make sure you do the math and determine what 10% of the time really means. For example, if you’re eating 6 meals per day for 7 days of the week – that’s 42 meals. 10% of 42 is about 4. Therefore you’re allowed to “break the rules” 4 meals each week.
9) Develop food preparation strategies.The hardest part about eating well is making sure you can follow the 8 rules above consistently. And this is where preparation comes in. You might know what to eat, but if isn’t available, you’ll blow it when it’s time for a meal.
10) Balance daily food choices with healthy variety.Let’s face it; during the week –when you’re busy – you’re not going to be spending a ton of time whipping up gourmet meals. During these times you’re going to need a set of tasty, easy to make foods that you can eat day in and day out. However, once every day or a few times a week – you need to eat something different – something unique.

So, what about calories, or macronutrient ratios, or any number of other things that I’ve covered in many other articles on my own web site and elsewhere? The short answer is that if you aren’t already practicing the above-mentioned habits, and by practicing them I mean putting them to use over 90% of the time (i.e., no more than 4 meals out of an average 42 meals per week violate any of those rules), everything else is pretty pointless. Moreover, many people can achieve the health and the body composition they desire using the habits alone. No kidding!

In fact, with some of my paying clients I spend the first few months just supervising their adherence to these 7 rules—an effective but costly way to learn them.

If you’ve reached the 90% threshold, you may need a bit more individualization beyond the habits. If so, visit my web site. Many of these little tricks can be found in my many articles published there. But before looking for them, before assuming you’re ready for individualization; make sure you’ve truly mastered the habits. Then, while keeping the habits as the consistent foundation, tweak away.

Precision Nutrition by Dr. John Berardi