The Beginner’s Guide to Losing Fat, Gaining Muscle and Getting Fit
The following is an article I wrote several months ago for a non-fitness online community I frequent. Enjoy.
The Beginner’s Guide to Losing Fat, Gaining Muscle and Getting Fit
By Joshua Ford, PTS
I like knowledge. Knowledge is power. Knowledge is the currency of the world’s elite. As well as (unfortunately) anyone else with access to the internet these days I'm privy to a plethora of free knowledge by the world’s experts on health, exercise and nutrition. These men and women have dedicated their lives to the advancement; application and sharing of this knowledge. Here I am… stealing from the collection plate so to speak, taking their offerings and sharing the important stuff with you. But that’s what it’s all about; standing on the shoulders of giants…their experience is our gain.
For someone just starting on the path to a healthy lifestyle, or a trainee who hasn’t kept on top of the latest information this vast expanse of knowledge can be intimidating, confusing and downright time consuming. It is my goal with this article to amalgamate all of that knowledge into a much less bitter pill to swallow. You won’t become the next “trainer to the stars” reading the following; but it’s going to provide you with a solid base of useful information that is fairly easy to understand and apply. And more importantly, I’m hoping it will spur further interest and research on the topics discussed.
The only way to get better at something is to learn more about it and to engage in whatever you want to improve at on a regular basis. I don’t care if you’ve read every copy of Men’s Health front to back, there is still much to learn about fitness and nutrition. Strength and conditioning coach Michael Boyle is a perfect example of this. While it’s often said he’s already forgotten more than most coaches already know; he’ll gladly turn to fellow industry pro’s who may have half the experience he has and isn’t afraid to alter his methods on their advice.
Education is similar to stepping foot in the gym, you have to leave your ego at the door and be open to new and sometimes controversial methods and information. Whether your goals are geared towards performance enhancement or just lookin’ good nekkid there are some commonalities among training methods that need to be discussed and some myths that need to be cleared up.
“I’m 5”11 and 150 pounds. I’m looking to gain some muscle and lose some fat. Tone up. I’ve been working out my arms with these dumbbells I found in my basement and I’ve been doing pushups to make my chest bigger…but my arms and chest are still the same size.”
“Really? Interesting. What have you been eating?”
“Oh, I eat a lot.”
“Really? How much?”
“I usually have a couple pop tarts for breakfast if I have time, oh and a glass of juice. Then at school (or work) I have a tuna sandwich, those are healthy. I have a protein bar in the afternoon and whatever my parents (or wife) make for dinner.”
If I type another word in that exchange I may break my keyboard…but hopefully you see my point. For one, this trainee isn’t really training, he’s not eating nearly enough and of equal importance, the right foods to gain lean body mass and lose fat mass. He may remind you of someone…He (You) needs help.
And we’ve all seen the girls who go to the gym 7 days a week, run on the treadmill for 45 minutes and then park themselves on the adductor and abductor machines for the rest of their workout with the latest issue of Glamour in tow. It pains me. Yes, even if they are a spicy chiquita, it pains me. Nothing worse than a gorgeous girl who’s clueless in the gym. It’s like a blue cheese steak from The Keg without the blue cheese.
Training
Whoever said, “What you don’t know can’t hurt you.” obviously wasn’t big on training or nutrition because if trainees, athletes, weekend warriors and the like followed that kind of thinking we’d all look more like Dick Cheney.
The Basics
You want to gain some muscle. Muscle mass is fantastic. It increases your metabolic rate, makes you stronger, improves athletic performance, and most importantly (for most of you) it looks pretty damn hot too.
1. You may think you only want to gain size on your arms and chest. You do not. This will make you look like a disproportioned buffoon and every serious trainee will laugh you out of the gym. Your training program should include movements for EACH and EVERY body part. The only exceptions are if you are missing a body part (my apologies) or if you’re limited somehow by an injury/pathology, in which case you should be getting that taken care of before starting a serious weightlifting program anyway. A common error among male trainees is to avoid lower body training. Who wants to have a huge upper body and pencils for legs? It looks ridiculous, it isn’t functional and it will limit the growth of your upper body. Your body doesn’t like change, it wants to survive and be as functional as possible. You’ll reach a certain point in your top heavy training where your body will limit your growth until you bring your legs up to match. Gosh your body is smart!
2. Ladies…lifting weights, even heavy ones (relatively speaking) will not make you look big, bulky or *gasp* manly. It may however make you grow hair on your upper lip so at the top of every supplement purchase list I’m recommending an extra large bottle of Nair for the female readers. Training for females should not be and doesn’t have to be that much different than training for males. Sorry ladies, although you have many hormones that make our lives difficult, you lack the quantity of androgens or “muscle building” hormones that we males possess.
3. You have to overload a muscle to cause an adaptation in the body. This means ladies (and for some of you men..) that curling the pink 5 pounders 74 times is not going to amount to much of anything. It may make you more efficient at curling 5 pounders but last time I checked that wasn’t an Olympic event…yet. For the body to adapt and add muscle or get stronger you must put it under enough stress for it to NEED to adapt. If it’s not difficult, it’s probably not worth doing.
4. You need goals. Unless you’re training for something you’re training for nothing. Set long-term goals and short-term goals. If you set short-term goals that you’re reaching or exceeding often, your motivation will remain high and therefore so will adherence to your program. Aim to accomplish something in every training session. Hitting one more rep than last time, moving more weight than last time, learning a new exercise, you should always be aiming for and seeing improvement.
5. Include compound, multi-joint exercises in your program. Squats, deadlifts, cleans, snatches, all are great exercises because they work multiple muscle groups and are extremely taxing on the body. They are excellent for building strength, power, muscle mass and even burning fat! Start off learning the exercises through part movements and variations and progress to the full movements for maximum benefit. Visit http://www.danjohn.org, http://www.mikesgym.org, http://www.uwlax.edu/strengthcenter/videos/video_index.htm for videos and advice on learning the Olympic lifts.
6. If you’re just starting out, don’t worry about dynamic effort days, the “best” pogram (there isn’t one), supine overhead high pulley reverse curls on a bosu ball standing on one leg…find a program, follow it as closely as you can and stick to it for as long as you’re required. Guess what? You’ll likely see results. The lesson? Don’t focus on the minutiae.
Myths and Madness
Myth Use lower weight and higher reps to “tone” muscles. I’ve always loved this one. Just the other day I was at a friend’s house and her roommate stated with conviction that using lower weights and higher reps would tone muscles and was not a useless training method. Well actually, that’s not exactly what she said, but it’s what she meant. If my friend wanted to take advice from her 19-year-old fine art major roommate that was fine by me; but I wouldn’t expect her to achieve the results she’s looking for. Usually when people are referring to “toning” muscles they are actually saying they want more definition in their muscles. This is largely a factor of your body fat and means you have to lose fat mass, and that folks is going to rely heavily on a solid diet.
Madness Not using any form of periodization and using the same methods/modalities for too long. My first question posed to someone when they come to me and say they aren’t seeing results anymore is “How long have you been using your current program?” The answer is usually preceded by a shy giggle and blushing “A while.” Recent research suggests results on a specific training program can start to decline as soon as 1 month after beginning said program. I’m not going to write a how-to on periodization but for the sake of your training do some research on periodization and implement it into your training.
Myth Running is the best cardio to lose weight. I have a few issues with this argument. First let’s define cardio. Cardio refers to any activity that calls upon the use of the heart and lungs. This means that yes, even making pudding is cardio. Reading this damn article is cardio. Aerobic training (with oxygen) and anaerobic training (absence of oxygen) are both states of cardio respiratory exercise. Running is considered steady state aerobic training. A ton of people lose weight running and in turn tell all their friends that running worked for them so if they want to lose weight they better run too. Sure, running/jogging will burn calories, resulting (hopefully) in fat loss. However there are much more efficient methods for achieving the same results in a much shorter period of time. You’d like that, would you not? Enter the dragon known as HIIT. High intensity interval training. Interval training involves some form of intense anaerobic exercise in short periods or, intervals. My favored modalities for interval training are on a bike or sprinting. It’s true that a greater percentage of fat is used as a substrate during lower intensity exercise however high intensity exercise burns more TOTAL calories and can raise the metabolism for a significant period post exercise. This is your greatest ally in the fight against fat known as EPOC - Excess Post Exercise Oxygen Consumption, or much like the effects of a great Mexican feast…the after burn.
From Alwyn Cosgrove’s “Afterburn.” – http://www.alwyncosgrove.com
“The recovery of the metabolic rate back to pre-exercise levels can require several minutes for light exercise (aerobic training), several hours for very heavy exercise (anaerobic cardio training), and up to 12 to 24 hours or even longer for prolonged, exhaustive exercise (interval training or circuit weight training).”
What does this mean? It means include interval training into your program…duh.
Madness I have a SuperTrainer8000Deluxe home gym, how can I use it to look like Brad Pitt? You can sell it and buy yourself a gym membership. Sure a gym can be intimidating; we’ve all been there. I’ve never been the biggest guy in any gym, and I never will be. There will always be someone bigger, someone stronger, leaner, longer…err…you get the idea. You have to be serious about training and unless you have a well-equipped home-gym, you’re going to be limited by the equipment you can use and the results you can achieve. Also on the seriousness note, you have to want it. You need to be hungry for…no not that Oreo Blizzard…success. If you don’t want it you’re not going to get it. Nobody accidentally loses 50 pounds or puts on 50 pounds of muscle mass. You have to put in the work, and be intrinsically motivated. I’ll be brutally honest with you and tell you there is nothing worse than working with an unmotivated client who mopes around like s/he hates being there and just wants to get the session over with. Have some enthusiasm for **** sakes! These people get a trainer/coach and think, “Great, they’ll take care of the motivation aspect.” Sure, but I’m not going to lift the ******* weight for you! I’d rather have someone so fired up that they are trying the movement before I’m even finished explaining what we’re doing…although that sucks too, so don’t do it. Rant over.
Madness I’m going to make this one short and sweet. Do not follow the suggested workouts in the magazines. They weren’t actually written by the pro’s and they’re not likely to work for you. Are you a professional bodybuilder? Are you on various performance-enhancing drugs? This holds doubly true for a beginner exerciser. It’s like going to the rock climbing wall for the first time and taking on “The Widowmaker” right off the bat.
Nutrition
You can’t out train a bad diet. I’m not sure who first said this, but they’re damn smart. I don’t care if you spend 7 days a week in the gym, are working out twice a day and running 50 miles a week. If you put crap in your mouth, you’re going to get crap out (in more ways than one). It’s time people stop looking at food as a soother, an anti-depressant, a de-stressor and start looking at food as fuel for your body.
If you want to gain lean body mass you need a SURPLUS of calories. This means your energy (caloric) intake is HIGHER than your energy expenditure (how many calories you burn a day). For fat loss, just change surplus to DEFICIT and higher to LOWER.
Not only is Dr. John Berardi an authority on sports nutrition but he’s an authority on nutrition (and training) in general. His Precision Nutrition system is absolutely without a doubt, the best resource to teach people how to eat healthy now and for the future. The PN principles can be applied to a regular Joe, a casual exerciser and an elite athlete and they have been, with proven results. Precision Nutrition can be purchased at http://www.precisionnutrition.com. Now that I’ve plugged his website, I’m sure he’ll be more amenable to me stealing the basis of the PN system to share with you.
10 Habits Of Highly Effective Eaters
1. Eat every 2-3 hours.
2. Eat complete, lean protein with each feeding opportunity.
3. Eat vegetables with each feeding opportunity.
4. Eat vegetables or fruit with any meal; other carbs only after exercise.
5. Eat healthy fats daily.
6. Don’t drink beverages with more than 0 calories.
7. Eat whole foods instead of supplements whenever possible.
8. Plan ahead and prepare feedings in advance.
9. Eat as wide a variety of good foods as possible.
10. Plan to break the rules 10% of the time.
Myths and Madness
Myth You’re going to gain a bunch of fat on your bulk. A holdover idea from the bodybuilding world. I think it’s just an excuse for them to eat whatever the hell they want. An excess of calories will most likely result in some fat gain, yes. However, if you’re going to eat an excess of calories you may as well make them good ones which is going to minimize any fat gain during a “bulking” period and increase the efficiency of your lean body mass gains.
Myth You shouldn’t eat after 9pm. Who the **** came up with that one? Seriously. Sure if you eat a bowl of ice cream right before bed there’s a fantastic chance you’ll end up seeing those cookie dough pieces on your thighs tomorrow morning…but let’s get real here. When we go to sleep we’re essentially fasting. Breakfast=breaking the fast. Fasting is great way to lose muscle mass which sort of flies in the face of what we’re trying to accomplish here. Stick to vegetable and fruit sourced carbs later in the day and make sure you eat a slow burning protein source (cottage cheese, milk protein blend) with a healthy fat (avocado, natural peanut butter etc.) before bed and you’ve done your best to stave off catabolism (muscle wasting state) until breakfast.
Madness Not eating breakfast. Do I really have to explain this one at this point? Eating breakfast is essential to start your day off right. It jump starts your metabolism, drops cortisol levels putting you back in muscle building mode and provides your body with energy to ensure mental alertness and optimal physiological functioning until your next feeding opportunity!
If your diet is not in order and you’re not following the 10 Habits at 90% adherence then it’s not even time to look at supplements. It’s important to take things one at a time and not get ahead of yourself in this regard. Just as you can’t out train a bad diet, you can’t over-supplement a bad diet either.
With that being said here are the 3 supplements I would start someone off with when I was confident in their nutrition.
The 3 Most Basic Supplements
Post Workout Recovery Drink – Your body is starved for nutrients after exercise. You’ve gone and depleted all your muscle glycogen! How dare you! Don’t worry, do your best to get in some high glycemic (sugary) carbs, along with a protein source as soon as possible after exercise. This will put you in an anabolic (muscle building) state and enhance recovery. A good choice would be a product like Biotest’s Surge, or you can make your own PWO cocktail with any quality whey protein (Dymatize, Champion, Optimum) and some maltodextrin and/or dextrose.
Creatine – There are a ton of fancy schmancy creatine’s out on the market these days. It’s all a load of crap. Either you respond to creatine or you don’t. Creatine works by overloading the creatine stores in your muscles, which is called upon in intense exercise to be used as energy. If your stores are already high, it’s not likely you’ll see much benefit. It will not put slabs of muscle on you magically. It only allows you…in the simplest terms…to do more work. Creatine Monohydrate is still the old standby in this category and none of the fancy stuff will do anything more for you other than emptying your wallet. Don’t worry about loading, unloading, cycling…just try to get in 5 grams a day.
Fish Oil – Daily fish oil supplementation should be made a legal requirement for the entire world. I’d bet the balance of my chequing account that the incidence of cancer, heart disease, diabetes and every other major illness would be reduced dramatically. In studies at the University of Western Ontario fish oil has also been shown to increase metabolism by up to 30%. Fish oil also has powerful anti-inflammatory properties.
Tips and Things to Think About
-Look at those who have already achieved what you would like to. A great body, a 500lb deadlift, a huge bank account, a hot wife. Find out what those people did and are doing. Model their behavior.
-Look at your goals. Look at your behaviors. Do your behaviors match your goals?
-There is a ton of training information out there these days and at times it’s hard to make sense of it all. Focus on the commonalities among coaches and trainers, the things they agree on. It’s where they disagree that your research should start.
-Absorb what is useful, reject what is useless.
-Want to know if something works? Don’t ask others, try it for yourself; you’ll get an individualized answer and you may learn a few things in the process.
The Beginner’s Guide to Losing Fat, Gaining Muscle and Getting Fit
By Joshua Ford, PTS
I like knowledge. Knowledge is power. Knowledge is the currency of the world’s elite. As well as (unfortunately) anyone else with access to the internet these days I'm privy to a plethora of free knowledge by the world’s experts on health, exercise and nutrition. These men and women have dedicated their lives to the advancement; application and sharing of this knowledge. Here I am… stealing from the collection plate so to speak, taking their offerings and sharing the important stuff with you. But that’s what it’s all about; standing on the shoulders of giants…their experience is our gain.
For someone just starting on the path to a healthy lifestyle, or a trainee who hasn’t kept on top of the latest information this vast expanse of knowledge can be intimidating, confusing and downright time consuming. It is my goal with this article to amalgamate all of that knowledge into a much less bitter pill to swallow. You won’t become the next “trainer to the stars” reading the following; but it’s going to provide you with a solid base of useful information that is fairly easy to understand and apply. And more importantly, I’m hoping it will spur further interest and research on the topics discussed.
The only way to get better at something is to learn more about it and to engage in whatever you want to improve at on a regular basis. I don’t care if you’ve read every copy of Men’s Health front to back, there is still much to learn about fitness and nutrition. Strength and conditioning coach Michael Boyle is a perfect example of this. While it’s often said he’s already forgotten more than most coaches already know; he’ll gladly turn to fellow industry pro’s who may have half the experience he has and isn’t afraid to alter his methods on their advice.
Education is similar to stepping foot in the gym, you have to leave your ego at the door and be open to new and sometimes controversial methods and information. Whether your goals are geared towards performance enhancement or just lookin’ good nekkid there are some commonalities among training methods that need to be discussed and some myths that need to be cleared up.
“I’m 5”11 and 150 pounds. I’m looking to gain some muscle and lose some fat. Tone up. I’ve been working out my arms with these dumbbells I found in my basement and I’ve been doing pushups to make my chest bigger…but my arms and chest are still the same size.”
“Really? Interesting. What have you been eating?”
“Oh, I eat a lot.”
“Really? How much?”
“I usually have a couple pop tarts for breakfast if I have time, oh and a glass of juice. Then at school (or work) I have a tuna sandwich, those are healthy. I have a protein bar in the afternoon and whatever my parents (or wife) make for dinner.”
If I type another word in that exchange I may break my keyboard…but hopefully you see my point. For one, this trainee isn’t really training, he’s not eating nearly enough and of equal importance, the right foods to gain lean body mass and lose fat mass. He may remind you of someone…He (You) needs help.
And we’ve all seen the girls who go to the gym 7 days a week, run on the treadmill for 45 minutes and then park themselves on the adductor and abductor machines for the rest of their workout with the latest issue of Glamour in tow. It pains me. Yes, even if they are a spicy chiquita, it pains me. Nothing worse than a gorgeous girl who’s clueless in the gym. It’s like a blue cheese steak from The Keg without the blue cheese.
Training
Whoever said, “What you don’t know can’t hurt you.” obviously wasn’t big on training or nutrition because if trainees, athletes, weekend warriors and the like followed that kind of thinking we’d all look more like Dick Cheney.
The Basics
You want to gain some muscle. Muscle mass is fantastic. It increases your metabolic rate, makes you stronger, improves athletic performance, and most importantly (for most of you) it looks pretty damn hot too.
1. You may think you only want to gain size on your arms and chest. You do not. This will make you look like a disproportioned buffoon and every serious trainee will laugh you out of the gym. Your training program should include movements for EACH and EVERY body part. The only exceptions are if you are missing a body part (my apologies) or if you’re limited somehow by an injury/pathology, in which case you should be getting that taken care of before starting a serious weightlifting program anyway. A common error among male trainees is to avoid lower body training. Who wants to have a huge upper body and pencils for legs? It looks ridiculous, it isn’t functional and it will limit the growth of your upper body. Your body doesn’t like change, it wants to survive and be as functional as possible. You’ll reach a certain point in your top heavy training where your body will limit your growth until you bring your legs up to match. Gosh your body is smart!
2. Ladies…lifting weights, even heavy ones (relatively speaking) will not make you look big, bulky or *gasp* manly. It may however make you grow hair on your upper lip so at the top of every supplement purchase list I’m recommending an extra large bottle of Nair for the female readers. Training for females should not be and doesn’t have to be that much different than training for males. Sorry ladies, although you have many hormones that make our lives difficult, you lack the quantity of androgens or “muscle building” hormones that we males possess.
3. You have to overload a muscle to cause an adaptation in the body. This means ladies (and for some of you men..) that curling the pink 5 pounders 74 times is not going to amount to much of anything. It may make you more efficient at curling 5 pounders but last time I checked that wasn’t an Olympic event…yet. For the body to adapt and add muscle or get stronger you must put it under enough stress for it to NEED to adapt. If it’s not difficult, it’s probably not worth doing.
4. You need goals. Unless you’re training for something you’re training for nothing. Set long-term goals and short-term goals. If you set short-term goals that you’re reaching or exceeding often, your motivation will remain high and therefore so will adherence to your program. Aim to accomplish something in every training session. Hitting one more rep than last time, moving more weight than last time, learning a new exercise, you should always be aiming for and seeing improvement.
5. Include compound, multi-joint exercises in your program. Squats, deadlifts, cleans, snatches, all are great exercises because they work multiple muscle groups and are extremely taxing on the body. They are excellent for building strength, power, muscle mass and even burning fat! Start off learning the exercises through part movements and variations and progress to the full movements for maximum benefit. Visit http://www.danjohn.org, http://www.mikesgym.org, http://www.uwlax.edu/strengthcenter/videos/video_index.htm for videos and advice on learning the Olympic lifts.
6. If you’re just starting out, don’t worry about dynamic effort days, the “best” pogram (there isn’t one), supine overhead high pulley reverse curls on a bosu ball standing on one leg…find a program, follow it as closely as you can and stick to it for as long as you’re required. Guess what? You’ll likely see results. The lesson? Don’t focus on the minutiae.
Myths and Madness
Myth Use lower weight and higher reps to “tone” muscles. I’ve always loved this one. Just the other day I was at a friend’s house and her roommate stated with conviction that using lower weights and higher reps would tone muscles and was not a useless training method. Well actually, that’s not exactly what she said, but it’s what she meant. If my friend wanted to take advice from her 19-year-old fine art major roommate that was fine by me; but I wouldn’t expect her to achieve the results she’s looking for. Usually when people are referring to “toning” muscles they are actually saying they want more definition in their muscles. This is largely a factor of your body fat and means you have to lose fat mass, and that folks is going to rely heavily on a solid diet.
Madness Not using any form of periodization and using the same methods/modalities for too long. My first question posed to someone when they come to me and say they aren’t seeing results anymore is “How long have you been using your current program?” The answer is usually preceded by a shy giggle and blushing “A while.” Recent research suggests results on a specific training program can start to decline as soon as 1 month after beginning said program. I’m not going to write a how-to on periodization but for the sake of your training do some research on periodization and implement it into your training.
Myth Running is the best cardio to lose weight. I have a few issues with this argument. First let’s define cardio. Cardio refers to any activity that calls upon the use of the heart and lungs. This means that yes, even making pudding is cardio. Reading this damn article is cardio. Aerobic training (with oxygen) and anaerobic training (absence of oxygen) are both states of cardio respiratory exercise. Running is considered steady state aerobic training. A ton of people lose weight running and in turn tell all their friends that running worked for them so if they want to lose weight they better run too. Sure, running/jogging will burn calories, resulting (hopefully) in fat loss. However there are much more efficient methods for achieving the same results in a much shorter period of time. You’d like that, would you not? Enter the dragon known as HIIT. High intensity interval training. Interval training involves some form of intense anaerobic exercise in short periods or, intervals. My favored modalities for interval training are on a bike or sprinting. It’s true that a greater percentage of fat is used as a substrate during lower intensity exercise however high intensity exercise burns more TOTAL calories and can raise the metabolism for a significant period post exercise. This is your greatest ally in the fight against fat known as EPOC - Excess Post Exercise Oxygen Consumption, or much like the effects of a great Mexican feast…the after burn.
From Alwyn Cosgrove’s “Afterburn.” – http://www.alwyncosgrove.com
“The recovery of the metabolic rate back to pre-exercise levels can require several minutes for light exercise (aerobic training), several hours for very heavy exercise (anaerobic cardio training), and up to 12 to 24 hours or even longer for prolonged, exhaustive exercise (interval training or circuit weight training).”
What does this mean? It means include interval training into your program…duh.
Madness I have a SuperTrainer8000Deluxe home gym, how can I use it to look like Brad Pitt? You can sell it and buy yourself a gym membership. Sure a gym can be intimidating; we’ve all been there. I’ve never been the biggest guy in any gym, and I never will be. There will always be someone bigger, someone stronger, leaner, longer…err…you get the idea. You have to be serious about training and unless you have a well-equipped home-gym, you’re going to be limited by the equipment you can use and the results you can achieve. Also on the seriousness note, you have to want it. You need to be hungry for…no not that Oreo Blizzard…success. If you don’t want it you’re not going to get it. Nobody accidentally loses 50 pounds or puts on 50 pounds of muscle mass. You have to put in the work, and be intrinsically motivated. I’ll be brutally honest with you and tell you there is nothing worse than working with an unmotivated client who mopes around like s/he hates being there and just wants to get the session over with. Have some enthusiasm for **** sakes! These people get a trainer/coach and think, “Great, they’ll take care of the motivation aspect.” Sure, but I’m not going to lift the ******* weight for you! I’d rather have someone so fired up that they are trying the movement before I’m even finished explaining what we’re doing…although that sucks too, so don’t do it. Rant over.
Madness I’m going to make this one short and sweet. Do not follow the suggested workouts in the magazines. They weren’t actually written by the pro’s and they’re not likely to work for you. Are you a professional bodybuilder? Are you on various performance-enhancing drugs? This holds doubly true for a beginner exerciser. It’s like going to the rock climbing wall for the first time and taking on “The Widowmaker” right off the bat.
Nutrition
You can’t out train a bad diet. I’m not sure who first said this, but they’re damn smart. I don’t care if you spend 7 days a week in the gym, are working out twice a day and running 50 miles a week. If you put crap in your mouth, you’re going to get crap out (in more ways than one). It’s time people stop looking at food as a soother, an anti-depressant, a de-stressor and start looking at food as fuel for your body.
If you want to gain lean body mass you need a SURPLUS of calories. This means your energy (caloric) intake is HIGHER than your energy expenditure (how many calories you burn a day). For fat loss, just change surplus to DEFICIT and higher to LOWER.
Not only is Dr. John Berardi an authority on sports nutrition but he’s an authority on nutrition (and training) in general. His Precision Nutrition system is absolutely without a doubt, the best resource to teach people how to eat healthy now and for the future. The PN principles can be applied to a regular Joe, a casual exerciser and an elite athlete and they have been, with proven results. Precision Nutrition can be purchased at http://www.precisionnutrition.com. Now that I’ve plugged his website, I’m sure he’ll be more amenable to me stealing the basis of the PN system to share with you.
10 Habits Of Highly Effective Eaters
1. Eat every 2-3 hours.
2. Eat complete, lean protein with each feeding opportunity.
3. Eat vegetables with each feeding opportunity.
4. Eat vegetables or fruit with any meal; other carbs only after exercise.
5. Eat healthy fats daily.
6. Don’t drink beverages with more than 0 calories.
7. Eat whole foods instead of supplements whenever possible.
8. Plan ahead and prepare feedings in advance.
9. Eat as wide a variety of good foods as possible.
10. Plan to break the rules 10% of the time.
Myths and Madness
Myth You’re going to gain a bunch of fat on your bulk. A holdover idea from the bodybuilding world. I think it’s just an excuse for them to eat whatever the hell they want. An excess of calories will most likely result in some fat gain, yes. However, if you’re going to eat an excess of calories you may as well make them good ones which is going to minimize any fat gain during a “bulking” period and increase the efficiency of your lean body mass gains.
Myth You shouldn’t eat after 9pm. Who the **** came up with that one? Seriously. Sure if you eat a bowl of ice cream right before bed there’s a fantastic chance you’ll end up seeing those cookie dough pieces on your thighs tomorrow morning…but let’s get real here. When we go to sleep we’re essentially fasting. Breakfast=breaking the fast. Fasting is great way to lose muscle mass which sort of flies in the face of what we’re trying to accomplish here. Stick to vegetable and fruit sourced carbs later in the day and make sure you eat a slow burning protein source (cottage cheese, milk protein blend) with a healthy fat (avocado, natural peanut butter etc.) before bed and you’ve done your best to stave off catabolism (muscle wasting state) until breakfast.
Madness Not eating breakfast. Do I really have to explain this one at this point? Eating breakfast is essential to start your day off right. It jump starts your metabolism, drops cortisol levels putting you back in muscle building mode and provides your body with energy to ensure mental alertness and optimal physiological functioning until your next feeding opportunity!
If your diet is not in order and you’re not following the 10 Habits at 90% adherence then it’s not even time to look at supplements. It’s important to take things one at a time and not get ahead of yourself in this regard. Just as you can’t out train a bad diet, you can’t over-supplement a bad diet either.
With that being said here are the 3 supplements I would start someone off with when I was confident in their nutrition.
The 3 Most Basic Supplements
Post Workout Recovery Drink – Your body is starved for nutrients after exercise. You’ve gone and depleted all your muscle glycogen! How dare you! Don’t worry, do your best to get in some high glycemic (sugary) carbs, along with a protein source as soon as possible after exercise. This will put you in an anabolic (muscle building) state and enhance recovery. A good choice would be a product like Biotest’s Surge, or you can make your own PWO cocktail with any quality whey protein (Dymatize, Champion, Optimum) and some maltodextrin and/or dextrose.
Creatine – There are a ton of fancy schmancy creatine’s out on the market these days. It’s all a load of crap. Either you respond to creatine or you don’t. Creatine works by overloading the creatine stores in your muscles, which is called upon in intense exercise to be used as energy. If your stores are already high, it’s not likely you’ll see much benefit. It will not put slabs of muscle on you magically. It only allows you…in the simplest terms…to do more work. Creatine Monohydrate is still the old standby in this category and none of the fancy stuff will do anything more for you other than emptying your wallet. Don’t worry about loading, unloading, cycling…just try to get in 5 grams a day.
Fish Oil – Daily fish oil supplementation should be made a legal requirement for the entire world. I’d bet the balance of my chequing account that the incidence of cancer, heart disease, diabetes and every other major illness would be reduced dramatically. In studies at the University of Western Ontario fish oil has also been shown to increase metabolism by up to 30%. Fish oil also has powerful anti-inflammatory properties.
Tips and Things to Think About
-Look at those who have already achieved what you would like to. A great body, a 500lb deadlift, a huge bank account, a hot wife. Find out what those people did and are doing. Model their behavior.
-Look at your goals. Look at your behaviors. Do your behaviors match your goals?
-There is a ton of training information out there these days and at times it’s hard to make sense of it all. Focus on the commonalities among coaches and trainers, the things they agree on. It’s where they disagree that your research should start.
-Absorb what is useful, reject what is useless.
-Want to know if something works? Don’t ask others, try it for yourself; you’ll get an individualized answer and you may learn a few things in the process.
posted by Josh at
3:53 PM
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