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Cheat Your Way Thin: An Interview with Joel Marion

Today, I’m featuring an interview Tom Venuto did with Cheat Your Way Thin author Joel Marion, as it’s a great interview that delves into the science of leptin and how it can be strategically manipulated for fat loss – even if it’s during the holiday season.

Tom: Cheating on your diet to lose more weight seems counterintuitive if not utterly illogical, but depending on how you approach it, I’m in complete agreement that there’s a strong argument for it from two different angles – psychological and physiological. What do you think are the psychological benefits to the dieter allowing cheat days as opposed to being 100% strict on your diet?

Joel: First, it absolutely increases adherence across the board, there’s no getting around that. It makes ―dieting‖, a concept which generally (and absurdly) demands that people forgo their favorite foods for months and months at a time, actually livable, and more importantly ENJOYABLE.

I was actually just talking about this with another trainer the other day. For most people, Day 1 of a diet—when they finally buckle down and decide they need to go on one—is the worst day of their life. It’s depressing. ―No pizza, for like, 3 months while I attempt to lose this 30 lbs. Yeah, right. Anyone who thinks that’s actually going to happen is completely deluded and this is exactly why 99% of people fail with restrictive dieting.

Two, let’s say you do cheat (not strategically) and eat something you’re not supposed to while dieting. Guilt, failure, and a slew of other feelings that you should NEVER have to feel while on a diet surface and make you feel as though you ―just don’t have it in you or that you lack willpower or that you don’t have what it takes to stick with a program and achieve your goals. That’s terrible.

Flat out, dieting, in the calorie restrictive, self-sacrificing manner we have learned it, is flat out unrealistic for the vast majority of people. If you told me I had to give up pizza for 3 months to get lean, I’d be one fat dude. The trade off isn’t worth it, and neither are the painfully slow results that most ―diets yield. Tom: On the physiological side, there are a lot of benefits to “cheating” after a period of restrictive dieting. There’s a lot going on in the body when you do this, but much of it seems to revolve around one hormone, leptin. Would you explain in as simple terms as possible for the layperson, what is leptin? Joel: Leptin is awesome (or at least when you know how to manipulate it, it is). Get on its ―bad side, however, and you’re pretty much doomed to be overweight. In the simplest terms, leptin is a hormone that communicates your nutritional status to the rest of your body. From there, your body then makes decisions on what to do with things like fat burning and metabolism, based on the messages it’s receiving from our friend leptin. High leptin levels = heightened fat burning and metabolism Low leptin levels = decreased fat burning and metabolism There’s a little more to it than that, but you asked for simple terms. Leptin has also been deemed the ―anti-starvation hormone, which is essentially is its major function in the body, to prevent, or at least dramatically slow the negative adaptations (from a survival standpoint) when food is scarce or when energy intake drops substantially (i.e. starvation).  This was great for our hunter and gather ancestors, but terrible for the dieter.

And while dieting certainly isn’t as extreme as starvation, it really is nothing more than a lesser degree of exactly that, carry slightly lessened, but still very troubling consequences for the dieter.

Getting into some of the research on leptin, research has shown that after only seven days of calorie restriction, leptin drops on average 50% -- putting you at roughly 50% of your fat burning potential. That’s after only ONE week.  And as long as you continue to fail to provide your body with the energy it’s hoping to receive, adaptations get worse, leptin falls harder, and metabolism takes an even greater hit. The good news is, it only takes one day of ―overfeeding‖ or ―cheating‖ to bring leptin levels back to baseline and restore things like plummeted thyroid hormones, fat burning enzymes, a manageable (not insatiable) appetite, and metabolism overall.

The problem with overfeeding, however, is that if you fail to properly set up the rest of the diet in an extremely strategic manner around a cheat day or overfeed day, overfeed days can backfire and lead to a one-step-forward one-step-back phenomenon. This is something we cover heavily in Cheat Your Way Thin—the ideal way to set up the other 6 days each week, based on a plethora of research, to ensure that each cheat day accelerates, not detracts, from progress.

Tom: Are you saying that you can significantly manipulate leptin with nutritional intervention, including cheat days, and that if we can scour the research and make a punch list of things that keep leptin levels as normal as possible and prevent leptin from dropping like it would with a linear low calorie or low carb diet, this is going improve our results?

Joel: Absolutely, no question about it. Keeping metabolism consistently high and avoiding the negative hormonal adaptations of dieting equates to better, faster results; there’s no way around that. That’s in addition to the psychological/adherence benefits, which obviously, if you’re actually still doing the diet 6 or 8 weeks into the plan, you’re going to experience infinitely better results than if you quit after two weeks every time. Tom: Are you claiming that these techniques will actually increase fat loss, or simply prevent the bad stuff that happens with restrictive dieting, like the adaptive decrease in metabolism and the increase in appetite, which could then lead to plateaus? I think this is an important distinction. Joel: Preventing the bad stuff = increasing the good stuff (i.e. fat burning). If your metabolism slows, that means you are burning fewer calories, right? So for instance, let’s say your BMR was 2000 cals/day when you first started dieting, and then through restrictive dieting over a period of a month or two (and the subsequent decrease in leptin and metabolism), you’re now only burning 1500 cals/per day. If you had kept leptin ―happy through strategic cheating and metabolism did NOT drop off, you’d still be burning an extra 500 calories a day. Do you think that burning an extra 500 calories a day is valuable in terms of faster fat loss? Without question.

Essentially, by ―preventing the bad things from occurring, you automatically and absolutely increase fat loss beyond what would be possible without taking measures to manipulate leptin and keep metabolism at its height, week to week. Simply put, use strategic cheating in the proper way, and by the end of each week you’ll have lost more fat than if you simply chose to remain ―strict seven days a week. That equates to increased fat loss any way you look at it.

Tom: I’ve been looking at some research that says some folks have plenty of leptin but they also have leptin resistance. I haven’t seen many people really address this leptin resistance issue aside from saying it exists. Do you think this is a common problem and does your program offer any insights into the causes as well as solutions? Joel: Okay, the other thing I didn’t mention while trying to give you the ―simple definition earlier was that leptin levels aren’t just mediated by calorie intake alone—they’re also affected by the amount of body fat you are carrying. High levels of body fat = high levels of leptin Low levels of body fat = low levels of leptin

Now, from everything I said earlier, that makes it sound like fat people with high levels of body fat should actually be the leanest people around if leptin actually made a difference (and lean people should be gaining weight like nobody’s business, because of extremely low leptin levels).

This is where leptin resistance and leptin sensitivity come in. Similar to insulin resistance, if leptin receptors are constantly being bombarded by high levels of leptin, they start to become less sensitive to the hormone. This is what happens with insulin in Type II diabetics. People eat crap food and loads of highly processed carbohydrates for years, flood their bloodstream with insulin every hour of the day, and gradually over time insulin receptors become so desensitized to the hormone to the point that insulin no longer ―works.

It’s the same with leptin. Overweight people, who have been overweight for years, become resistant to the hormone because of massive amounts of leptin (caused by high body fat levels and high calorie intakes) slamming receptors for extended periods of time. On the other hand, lean people can get by with lower levels of leptin, relatively speaking, because their receptors are extremely sensitive to the hormone. It’s important to note, however, that this is relative to the person and their individual ―baseline levels of leptin when food intake is normal. For example, let’s say, and I’m just pulling out a totally arbitrary number for simplicity’s sake, a particular person with a low level of body fat has a baseline level of leptin is ―10 (I’m leaving out the μg/L units of measure left and all that jazz for simplicity as well). ―10 is all this person needs for normal metabolic functioning to occur because they are highly sensitive to leptin. On the other hand, ―10 wouldn’t be nearly enough to maintain normal metabolism for a much larger, and subsequently less leptin sensitive individual. So, you can see what I mean when I say that it’s all relative. Another important thing to note is that calorie restriction lowers leptin independent of body fat. So, let’s say this same person from above went on a diet. And they’re leptin levels went down to ―5. Sure, they’re very sensitive to leptin, but ―5 ain’t going to get the job done even for them. When leptin levels fall below baseline levels, whatever baseline levels are relative to the person, negative metabolic adaptations occur.

Getting back to leptin resistance, there’s good news and there’s bad news. The good news is that it’s totally reversible, but the bad news is that someone who has been overweight for years (and is thus probably leptin resistant) can’t just jump right into a full-out strategic cheating and carb-cycling program and have it be effective—simply put, in this case, the dietary strategies we use to manipulate leptin wouldn’t really be of use to them because they’re resistant to the hormone and it’s not going to matter if we’re doing all these different things to manipulate leptin—they already have plenty of leptin running around.

For this person, the focus would then be on reversing the leptin resistance and restoring leptin sensitivity, and that is done one way: clean eating + exercise, and yes, with a moderate calorie restriction. Pretty much all the same dietary measures one would take to increase insulin sensitivity (clean eating, low-carbs, low-glycemic carbs, etc).

Carbohydrate intake also affects leptin levels, so someone is this position would certainly want to avoid highly processed carbs or anything that is going to give leptin a significant spike.

I generally recommend 2-3 weeks of lower-carb dieting (with strategic cheating interspersed) before beginning with the full blown program, and that’s actually the purpose of the ―priming phase of the Cheat Your Way Thin program. For the Cheat Your Way Thin Holiday Edition, we also included some other leptin resistance reversing strategies as well (still allowing for plenty of holiday cheating).

Tom: I’ve found a lot of evidence to suggest that an overweight person and an already lean person have some significant physiological differences that can influence how they respond to a particular diet. Do you suggest a different approach for the overweight person and the already lean dieter who is trying to get even leaner (for example a bodybuilder or figure competitor)?

Joel: In addition to what I’ve mentioned above, I’ll say this. The leaner you get, the more leptin becomes a limiting factor and the more you have to do to manipulate it. Because of this, we often increase the frequency of cheat days to once every 5 days for very lean individuals, or even every 4 days in some extreme instances like with bodybuilders or figure competitors prepping for a show. Some advanced diet and exercise strategies are also needed to make that type of frequent approach work.

Similarly, for the very overweight person, when we first transition them to using strategic cheat days, we may start with a cheat day once every 9 or 10 days, as opposed to once a week.

For the vast majority falling in between these two extremes, however, the once per week approach works best (and is great for consistency as cheat days always fall on the same day each week allowing people to plan their cheat day around whatever day is generally their most social day of the week).

Tom: I’m a firm believer in cycling calories up and down and doing that by manipulating carb intake which I call carb cycling, for many of the same reasons that you have a cheat day. Over the years, I’ve seen a lot of different ways to carb cycle, like 5 days keto and 2 days of high carb, the rotation of high, low and medium days, and various mixtures of high and low carb days. What is your basic methodology for introducing the higher calorie cheat days and why do you prefer your method over some of the other ways that people do carb cycling?

Joel: As for methodology, it’s based on the research I shared earlier that leptin falls off by about 50% after only one week, while only taking one day of ―overfeeding or ―cheating to ramp levels back up to baseline. So this is the basis of the weekly cheat day.

That said, we actually do use carb cycling in addition to Cheat Days to make the program even more effective, but carb cycling alone, unless you are doing very high calorie ―refeed days, while somewhat effective, not as effective as combining both or using all-out cheat days.

I’ll explain the reason and necessity for the weekly carb cycling in a bit.

Tom: Your method seems complicated with high glycemic index/glycemic load days, low carb days and cheat days and all kinds of phases. If your goal is to increase adherence by allowing cheat meals, then wouldn’t creating a complex system of high, low, cheat, and various GI level days just create the opposite effect and lower adherence?

Joel: People have reported, a thousand times over, that it’s actually the easiest diet they’ve ever done, and not only because of the cheat days, but because of the wide variety of foods that you’re allowed to eat even on ―diet days.

We go low-carb after a cheat day and then pretty much every day we add foods to the ―allowed list. This isn’t hard to do, there is no calorie counting, and with every day you just get to eat more than you did yesterday. That’s a pretty easy diet to stick to. And oh yeah, once a week you get to eat whatever you want. I don’t think it gets easier.

In the manual, I list it out in the easiest way to understand possible, and after a week or two on the diet the entire system become second nature in which people don’t have to even think about it whatsoever.

On low carb days you eat steak, fish, eggs, and plenty of veggies, on low GI days you fill up on things fruit and legumes, and for higher GI days you’re allowed to have pasta, bread, potatoes, rice, etc. Of course there are a lot more options than just those foods, but that’s the gist of it…you just climb the GI scale throughout the week.

It’s not complicated at all once people read through the program, and even less complicated when they actually start doing it.

Tom: I’ve been following the research on glycemic index/glycemic load and weight loss with great interest. It seems, at least if you go by what the peer-reviewed research says, that GI is a useful tool for blood sugar management, which is what it was originally intended for, but when calories are matched evenly, there’s little or no impact of GI on weight loss. Are you familiar with these studies, and if so then why do you emphasize GI and GL so much in your program?

Joel: Yes, I’m familiar, but here are a couple things to consider. One, these weight loss studies are performed with people adhering to the same typical calorie restrictive, 7-days a week of dieting approach that I adamantly preach against, because it’s ineffective. There is no calorie cycling, carb cycling, or strategic cheating involved. Needless to say, simply manipulating GI in this instance isn’t going to make a big difference.

Beyond that, let’s say that GI really didn’t matter even when adding a weekly cheat day. That would be valid data if you were consuming the same basic diet the other 6 days of the week, but that’s not what we do with Cheat Your Way Thin.

Allow me to make an analogy. Let’s say my employer pays me one of two ways – my pay for a full week once a week on Friday, or my pay for one day, every day. At the end of the week I make the same amount of money with either approach. But is there a difference in the impact of each payment method? Absolutely.

With the once a week approach, my pay day is a much bigger event, I have enough money to make a larger purchase, or go out for a higher-end dinner. With the every day approach, not so much. I make the same amount of money each week, but it never quite ―feels like a have a lot of money in my hands.

Well, we treat our use of the GI system the same way. If I just prescribed the same diet every day, it probably wouldn’t make much of a difference, but that’s not how I use GI and GL. Instead, we line up carb intake strategically to create little "paydays": spikes and jumps and high points in insulin throughout the week, and that strategic use makes an impact. Now, you’re probably thinking, "why would we want to spike insulin throughout the week?" That’s a good question.

The reason is, I’ve read through quite a few VERY intriguing papers that show the number one influencer of leptin is insulin, and this supercedes the actual calorie content being consumed. There was actually one study – and your eyes are really going to be opened with this one – that monitored leptin levels of fasting individuals. Naturally, leptin crashed pretty hard, but then they did something else. They gave each subject an IV drip of insulin to maintain normal blood insulin levels, and even though they were consuming ZERO calories, leptin levels were maintained.

That’s the power of insulin in this scenario, and exactly why we cycle carbohydrates in the fashion we do. We start off the week low-carb when leptin is high after the cheat day along with strategically time exercise to accelerate progress. Then, mid-week, when leptin starts to fall off from the low cals and carbs, we reintroduce low GI carbs for an insulin boost. Then, later in the week, as leptin begins to fall again, we add starchier, higher GI carbs for an even greater boost.

Every single day is set up in a strategic way to manipulate leptin and maximize the benefits of the Cheat Day.

Tom: Is there any reason that the cheat day has to be “junk” food? Call me crazy, but I don’t like eating a lot of junk. Give me two cheat meals a month and I’m completely satisfied, I swear, I just want the option to eat what I want occasionally. In fact, I usually feel like crap after I have a huge junk meal, let alone an entire junk food day. Would a guy like me get the same effect, from a physiological point of view by carbing up / refeeding on potatoes, yams, rice, oats and maybe some pasta? Is there any reason eating more clean food won’t have the same effect as junk food?

Joel: A clean ―carb reefed does not have the same benefits and is not as effective; we actually tried it many, many times with clients, comparing results with the ―all-out approach, and strictly from fat loss standpoint the all-out approach produces better results every time.

Now, that is not to say that you need to eat ―junk food, but rather that you just need to understand why ―junk food works so well for our purposes, and then replicate those reasons with cleaner items.

French fries, pizza, ice cream, pastries, etc, all combine two things very well—very high glycemic carbohydrates and fats. That is the winning combo.

Carbohydate + fat produce a synergistic insulin response beyond what is possible when just using carbs.

And you need to go HIGH GI—yams and oats are OK as part of the day’s menu, but you really need to go higher GI than this. Throw in some bread, the rice and pasta are good, maybe some crackers, Gatorade, etc. Bottom line, high GI carbs + fat wins out.

Tom: To what degree is your varied carb approach simply a way to manipulate calories? With so much focus on carbs and glycemic index, do you see a danger that people are going to start to fear carbs or consider carbs fattening, when its really just a caloric deficit we’re trying to achieve, isn’t it?

Joel: The calorie stuff is actually just a side-effect, after-effect, or added ―”bonus” of what we do with carbs, not the main or intended effect we are trying to achieve, which again are the insulin spikes throughout the week.

Yes, the calorie cycling does help a bit indirectly, but I even mention in the manual that this is not the main reason for the staggered carb set up.

Tom: I’m sure you’ve heard this one before, but I have to ask. Do you see any potential downside of allowing an entire “eat whatever you want” cheat day, as opposed to doling out individual cheat meals? In particular aren’t you concerned about people overeating, losing track of calories and setting themselves backwards? If you give permission to your clients to go wild and eat whatever they want on cheat day, I know some dudes that would make an all-you-can-eat buffet go out of business.

Joel: Yes, and I’m one of those dudes. The fact is that it works the way it is. I haven’t met anyone who can really overeat the cheat day to the point that it sets back progress if they strategically follow the way I set up the rest of the program. It just doesn’t happen. And this is coming from a guy who orders a 48 oz steak when I go out to a steak house, along with appetizers, salad, soup, family-size sides, and dessert.

The only ―stipulation I put on the cheat day is that you do not eat to the point of discomfort. Eat until you are full, but that’s it. Then wait until you are hungry again until you eat. If you are leaving the table saying ―I ate too much‖ or if you’re feeling sick, or if you have to lay down because you over-did it, that’s where you know you’ve gone overboard, and that’s really the only way people are going to overdo the calories.

As for the recommendation of doling things out to individual cheat meals, that does NOT work to bring about the physiological changes (increasing leptin, etc), which is the number one reason we use cheat days. The psychological stuff is a nice added benefit, but it’s a side-effect of the physiological benefits we are aiming to gain from each cheat day.

Cheat meals are great as a psychological vent, but that’s about it. Research has very clearly shown that prolonged overfeeding over the course of a day (and not a single meal) is necessary to restore leptin levels to baseline.

Tom: Thanks, Joel. This has been on extremely informative interview

Today marks the release of Joel's Cheat Your Way Thin Holiday Edition.  Check it out at a huge discount through this Friday, November 19, at midnight HERE.

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Fat Loss for the “Joes” and the “Pros”

I often get questions on what the best approach for fat loss is - and the truth is that there is no one correct way.  Everyone responds differently, and different fat loss programs have different outcomes for different people. That said, I wanted to outline two resources and the population to which they appeal the most. First, for the general fitness "Joes" (and "Janes") that read this blog, I wanted to give a shout-out to Dr. Kareem Samhouri's Double-Edged Fat Loss program , which is a resource that I'd highly recommend if you (or a family member or friend) is someone who is new to exercise and looking for a program that can deliver excellent results without much equipment.  It certainly isn't right for everyone (particularly a lot of the hardcore fitness enthusiasts and fitness professionals) reading this blog, but Kareem definitely offers an excellent resource to those who need help getting the ball rolling on an exercise program and want to do so without a ton of equipment.  He's also a great dude and an excellent motivator, so I think you'll find it to be good reading, should you make the investment.  Click here for more information and to see if it's a good fit for you.

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Second, for the fitness professionals out there, Alwyn and Rachel Cosgrove recently introduced an online education series, Counting Reps to Counting Revenue, about how they have built up their gym, Results Fitness, which is arguably the most profitable gym per square foot in the country.  What does this have to do with fat loss?  Well, the fat loss market is their bread and butter - so you can't have a successful business model without a successful training model. For more information, click here. I hope you all had a great weekend.  I'll be back tomorrow with more fresh, new content. Sign-up Today for our FREE Newsletter and receive a four-part video series on how to deadlift!
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Chad Waterbury on Why Some Fat Loss Plans Fail Miserably – and Why Body of Fire is a Better Approach

Today, we're fortunate to have an interview with Chad Waterbury. EC:  Chad, thanks for agreeing to this interview for the site.  It's hard to believe that EricCressey.com has been "live" since 2006, and this is the first time we've gotten you on-board for a feature.  Most of my readers are probably familiar with you already, but what have you been up to lately? CW: First off, I want to say that it's a pleasure to be here. You offer top-notch information to a wide variety of clients and that's why I'm happy to do this interview. This is one of the few websites that I read on a regular basis.

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Over the last few years, since moving to Los Angeles, I've gotten back to training more people one-on-one. In this town, it's all about fat loss. People want to get lean and ripped, like, yesterday. In LA, immediate gratification isn't fast enough. So I've spent time really honing my training and nutrition parameters to help people burn fat in record time. I've also been working with a lot of professional fighters. There's no greater challenge than developing a fighter because he needs to build elite levels of strength, endurance, and mobility at the same time. The cool part is that my work with fighters - and the parameters I use for burning fat - actually coalesce. Why? It's simple: the quickest way to get a leaner, stronger body is to train more like an athlete - especially a fighter. So my challenge was to create a system to get non-athletes to experience the same results that my athletes, such as Ralek Gracie, get when training with me personally.

EC: Gracie's rocking your "Body of FIRE" logo on his banner at the beginning of this clip; let's talk about that.  You've got a new fat loss e-book out (Body of F.I.R.E.).  Besides the obvious fact that a lot of people are...well...fat, what inspired you to write it? CW: Honestly, I was getting tired of hearing outrageous claims from trainers who've never transformed anyone. This industry is replete with self-proclaimed experts. Now, I'm certainly not against the idea of making money off your information, but when the sales pitch is exaggerated to the point of hysteria it becomes a little too much to stomach. It's funny because people often associate me with methods that are solely intended to build size and strength. In reality, I have more experience with training people for fat loss than anything else. So I took it upon myself to create a system that will transform people faster than they ever thought possible. That's why I created my new Body of F.I.R.E. program. In my experience, nothing transforms a person quicker than an effectively designed Full-body, Intense, Resistance Exercise program - hence the acronym.

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However, I didn't want to make a program that was only for advanced athletes, so I took a lot of time tweaking the parameters so anyone can get incredible results on the program. EC: Along those same lines, where are most people falling short on the fat loss front?  Why isn't the status quo getting the job done? CW: This is easy to answer. The first reason why people don't lose fat, and keep it off, is because they don't know how to eat to stimulate their metabolism. Most diets shut down fat burning and make people feel miserable. The second reason is due to their training program. It's imperative to stimulate as many muscle fibers as possible with full-body workouts while keeping the rest periods to a minimum in order to generate a large cardiovascular response. The third component is with their progression plan, or lack thereof. The only way to make your body lose fat week after week is to make it to do work without burning out your nervous system. Building athleticism is a key to making this work. Finally, tissue health is probably the most underrated and unappreciated aspect of body transformation. There are simple steps you can take to keep your joints healthy, and this is essential to sticking with a program. There are a lot of crazy programs out there that quickly impose an insane amount of stress on the joints. If you get injured, your fat loss endeavor immediately comes to a screeching halt. EC: Let's talk about the program itself.  What's unique about it that sets it apart from other fat loss methods that may fall short? CW: Quickly transforming your body starts with the right diet. You'll never lose fat unless your nutrition program focuses on foods that are high in nutrients but low in calories. It's all about food quality. You can eat an entire bag of potato chips because they contain no real nutrients. Therefore, your brain never gets the memo that your body is satisfied. However, you'd never be able to finish the same amount of calories from, say, blueberries or broccoli because your brain quickly gets the signal that your body is getting the nutrients it needs to support your metabolism. Bottom line: the only way to see your abs is to get your diet in order first. The second component is with your training program. As I mentioned, it's essential to train in a way that induces the largest metabolic cost that exercise can create. Tabata's research taught us that we need to think less about the metabolic changes that are occurring during a workout and focus more on what's happening after you leave the gym. An hour jog only burns calories while you're doing it, plus it's very hard on your hips, knees, and ankles. High intensity cardio, on the other hand, will stimulate your metabolism to keep burning calories long after you stop training - if you know how to do it right. Instead of running on a treadmill, focus on full-body circuits such as split jacks, jumping jacks, and burpees that are performed for multiple rounds with minimal rest.

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With regard to weight training, it's important to do three things. First, for every other workout, lift loads that are heavy enough to recruit all of your muscle fibers. Most people lose size and strength on a fat loss plan because they focus on light, high-rep weight training exercises that are performed to failure. This is a travesty because it's not optimal for maximum muscle fiber recruitment. Focus on weights that are between a 6-12 repetition maximum, and accelerate all of your lifts. This ensures that you're recruiting all of your muscle fibers with every rep. As the saying goes: if you don't use it, you lose it. A full-body circuit comprised of an upper body push, an upper body pull, a lower body exercise, and a core exercise is outstanding for creating a huge metabolic cost when the rest periods are kept to a minimum. From there, I have my clients perform "cardio strength" exercises. These are exercises that don't require as much load as a strength circuit, but they can still recruit all of your muscle fibers when performed correctly. For example, I like to pair up the kettlebell swing with a push-up for descending reps. You'll start with, say, 13 reps of the swing and then you'll drop to the floor and knock out 13 push-ups. Then you'll jump back to your feet and do 12 swings followed by 12 push-ups. Next it's 11 swings followed by 11 push-ups. You'll continue with this sequence until you reach one rep for each exercise. When you perform each exercise at top speed, and when you keep rest to a minimum, it's awesome for burning fat while boosting athleticism.

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The third essential component of body transformation comes from an effective progression plan. Many people stop getting results on a fat loss program after a few weeks because their parameters are stagnant. You must force your body to do more work over time. You don't need to keep adding weight to your lifts. Instead, focus on adding a rep or set, or increase your work interval, or shorten your rest periods by five seconds with each workout. This ensures that your metabolism is constantly being challenged. In my new program, I use a combination of these progression methods in each phase. EC: The thing I noticed right away is the dedicated focus to staying healthy with good soft tissue work and a focus on mobility and athletic movement.  It seems like a lot of fat loss programs out there are all about just making people move a ton to tire them out and burn calories - but there is rarely (if ever) a focus on the quality of movement.  Inevitably, exercise technique goes down the crapper and many folks wind up injured (in addition to being raging a**holes from caloric deprivation).  Can you speak a bit to how you attacked this aspect of the program? CW: You're right, Eric, getting the most out of your workouts comes from quality of movement. And getting the most out of your movements comes from having healthy joints that are in balance. Just like high quality foods are essential to boosting your metabolism, so are the exercises. I spent a lot of time developing the exercise guide in this resource by including big, high-resolution pictures along with many tips and technique guidelines to ensure that everyone is doing each exercise perfectly. Furthermore, each workout starts with a few mobility exercises. Most people are stiffest in their ankles, hips, T-spine, and shoulders so it's important to mobilize those areas before you start training. The good news is that it doesn't take long - just a few minutes when you know what to do. And each workout ends with a few, key stretches for the same areas. This is great insurance to keep you on track. A program is only as good as the corrective exercises it contains to keep you from throwing your joints out of whack.

EC: Let's talk nutrition.  What can readers expect on that front in Body of Fire? CW: The nutrition program is as effective as it is user-friendly. The first step, as I mentioned, comes from replacing low-quality foods in your current eating plan with nutrient-dense, low-calories foods. The second step is to control insulin and add in certain, key nutrients that research has shown to have the greatest impact on increasing your metabolism. You must eat frequently, every 3-4 hours, and most people know that. But what might surprise people is that front loading your calories, where breakfast is your highest calorie meal and dinner is the lowest, is a simple way to supercharge your metabolism and burn fat. The third component comes from your workout nutrition. If you take branched-chain amino acids in the right amounts, before and after training, along with a specific post-workout feeding you'll accelerate fat burning, recovery, and performance. The nutrition plan, when paired with the workouts I outline in the program, produce incredible results. My client, Jon, lost over 40 pounds of fat on the program. Since he's an athlete, he couldn't afford to lose any size and strength. As you can see from the before and after pictures, he created what many guys might consider to be the ultimate body. I'll concede that he shaved, tanned, and lost his shoes, but I think the rest speaks for itself.

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EC: Not too shabby at all! Thanks a lot for taking the time to answer my questions, Chad.  Where can readers find out more about the new product? CW: Just head over to BodyofFire.com and check it out while the introductory price is still in effect. This program is unlike anything I've written about in any of my books or articles. I've never spent as much time on a project as I have on the this system. No stone has been left unturned.
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When is Rapid Fat Loss Ideal?

Programs aimed at rapid fat loss are quite the rave nowadays.  There are some excellent programs out there (most notably Warpspeed Fat Loss, which we've discussed here quite a bit) that deliver some quick reductions in body fat over the course of a few weeks of absolutely hellish training and strict nutritional modifications.  There's no doubt that it's a effective way to drop body fat quickly.

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That said, the question is whether that degree of specialization - incinerating body fat at all costs - is what's right for an individual.  For some people - particularly woman (who aren't generally as concerned with carrying appreciable levels of muscle mass and strength), these programs are just fine; any accompanying losses in strength and muscle mass won't be as disconcerting because they aren't perceived as being as important.  Obviously, it's also true for those who are morbidly obese, but they generally aren't candidates for complete overhauls right away, as they have to get their feet wet first with the basics of regular training and better nutrition. Most specific to this piece, though, rapid fat loss programs are most enticing to the more experienced trainee who carries a lot of muscle mass, but needs to shed some blubber quickly to get ready for a vacation, photo shoot, or scandalous make-out scene on live TV.

However, for every one of these folks (the experienced trainees - not the horny, drunk, bearded dudes with Confederate flag hats), there is another individual who is male, with limited training experience, subpar strength, and not enough muscle mass on him to really even demonstrate that he regularly trains.  He might be 6-1, 180 pounds at 20% body fat.  For those of you keeping track at home, that's 144 pounds of fat free mass, and 36 pounds of fat mass. Well, here's a question: if this hypothetical guy dropped 10 pounds of body fat right now and somehow managed to maintain all his muscle mass (and recovered any water weight reductions he got from lower carb dieting), would he be happy with how he'd look?  That'd still put him at 144 pounds of fat free mass, but lower his body weight to 170 with 26 pounds of fat mass (15.3% body fat).  Sorry, but while respectable, 15.3% body fat isn't super lean.  And, 170 pounds at 6-1 will only earn him points with insurance companies who calculate premiums based on body mass index. Imagine taking about the ideal NFL cornerback, and then stripping 25 pounds of muscle off him and adding back 15 pounds of body fat.  Be sure to kill off all the athleticism in the process, too.  Not a very impressive picture. In other words, a program that might have been perfect for a guy who was 30 pounds heavier with the same body fat percentage - but two more years of training experience - just isn't a good fit for a guy who can become "skinny-fat" really quickly.

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I have just seen a lot of guys go on crazy fat loss programs only to get to a lower weight and realize that they look skinny because they aren't carrying enough muscle mass in the first place.  And, along the way, they lose a lot of strength - so it's harder to build up muscle mass quickly thereafter to right the ship. For this reason, it's been a long time since I resorted to a rapid fat loss program in my own training; I just am not willing to sacrifice the strength gains I've made just to see the scale weight go down quickly.  Rather, I'd prefer to do it gradually and retain the gains.

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This has also been a strategy we've employed with excellent success with athletes who come our way who need to lean out.  Often, body weight - and not body composition - are what predicts their success.  Pitchers are a perfect example; I've seen many who have just indiscriminately lost body weight, only to see their velocity drop considerably.  This may come from the actual loss of body mass, the increased training volume that caused it, the type of training (extra aerobic activity?), or - most likely - a combination of all these factors.  One thing is for sure, though; I would be my 2010 salary on the fact that if CC Sabathia "trimmed down" to 210, he wouldn't be nearly as dominant as he is.

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Would some gradual weight loss and an emphasis on improving body composition help him?  Absolutely.  Would taking 80 pounds off him be a smart or specific off-season goal?  In my opinion, no.  The research has demonstrated that body mass is one factor that predicts velocity.

Baseball relevance aside, this is why I rarely go "exclusively fat loss" or "exclusively bulking" with a lot of general fitness clients who don't have more than two years of strength training under their belt.  They absolutely, positively can add muscle mass and drop body fat simultaneously if they accumulate enough of the right kind of activity and eat the right stuff.  It just takes some individualization, adherence, consistency, and effort.  We've seen it hundreds of times already with the Show and Go program alone, and that doesn't even take things to the level of individualized programming.

To reiterate, I'm not saying that rapid fat loss programs don't have merit; I've seen a lot of people get tremendous results when the program was the right fit for them.  However, I also know that handing a NFL running back's training program to a 12-year-old Pop Warner running back isn't appropriate in light of his experience.  The same can be said for novice trainees who try to drop body fat too quickly; they are skipping steps and missing out on crucial adaptations - including strength and muscle mass gains - that could bode more favorably for long-term progress. As always, you have to fit the program to the individual, and not the individual to the program. Sign-up Today for our FREE Newsletter and receive a deadlift technique tutorial!
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Two Sunday Night Freebies

Just a quick heads-up for my loyal weekend blog readers... 1. Alwyn Cosgrove and Mike Roussell just provided a free fat loss training session example using Alwyn's new 4x Method.  Check it out HERE.  With their updated Warpspeed Fat Loss program almost ready for release, these two give you a good taste of what's to come. 2. I did the Fitcast with Kevin Larrabee on Friday morning, and the full audio is available (also at no charge) HERE.  We talked about assessment, programming, whether squatting is "safe," my recent deadlifting specialization program, and our new product (Assess and Correct).  My portion kicks in about halfway through the episode. 3. Speaking of Assess and Correct, today is the last day for the early-bird price.  At midnight tonight, it'll be gone forever, so if you haven't taken advantage of this offer yet, now's the time!  www.AssessAndCorrect.com.

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Looking for a Reason to Head to Tampa in January?

I know as a New Englander, I never need an excuse to go someplace warm during the cold winter months.  Still, it was pretty cool when Joel Marion invited me to become a speaker at his big event, Transformation Domination, on January 16-18, 2010.  Joel's brought 15 presenters of all different backgrounds together for event geared toward helping people changes their bodies and their lives with fitness and proper nutrition. I'll be very up-front and say that this isn't for the fitness professionals and "geekiest" of readers in my regular audience, but for the beginner and intermediate folks out there who are really looking for a resource to help them get motivated and learn legitimate strategies to make the changes they want, this is it.  If you struggle with being consistent with exercise in nutrition, or walk into a gym and legitimately feel confused about where to start, and how to sort through all the different opinions in the fitness world, this event is for you. Joel's running an early-bird special where you can sign up with a friend, and in the process, get the second registration at half-price by signing up together.  He's also worked out a great hotel discount at an AWESOME place to get away, if these pictures are any indication:

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I hope to see some of you there.  For more information, check out the Transformation Domination Registration Page.

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Stuff You Should Read: 8/10/09

A few good reading recommendations for this week... Sucker Punch: Alwyn Cosgrove - This is a fantastic interview at T-Muscle with one of my best friends and mentors in the industry.  Alwyn calls it like he sees it (which is sadly becoming less and less common in this industry).  He even gives some schmuck named "Cressey" a shout-out in the interview. The Influence of Strength and Power on Muscular Endurance Test Performance - This recent study from the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research confirms what we already know - but also gives a quantifiable number for which we can shoot when training for something like the 225 bench test - or even in dealing with endurance athletes.  Here are the sentences I like the most: "...the current research suggests that the initial goal of a training program to enhance muscular endurance should be to increase maximum strength to a point that the specific load being lifted during repeated actions is less than 40% of the individuals' 1RM. Subsequent training should then focus on maintaining maximal strength levels and improving local muscular endurance in the specific task." So, if your goal is to get better on the 225 bench press test, unless you've got a 562.5-pound bench press, it's still going to help you to train for maximum strength. And, more significantly to what we see on a daily basis, you need to get fit to run, not run to get fit.  A 200+ pound woman who takes up jogging as her initial form of exercise to lose weight is just asking to get hurt because she is far too weak for the load (at least 800 pounds of ground reactive forces) that is imposed on each leg with each stride. Someone like this would be better off focusing on programs like Afterburn or Warp Speed Fat Loss - which focus on using resistance training, interval training, and nutritional modifications to get unwanted weight off folks.

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It's impressive how I brought this entire blog post back to Alwyn in a big circle, huh?
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Feedback on the Ultimate Off-Season Training Manual

I received this email earlier this week from a very satisfied customer of The Ultimate Off-Season Training Manual: "Hi Eric, I just thought I'd let you know of my progress after completing the first two months training from your offseason manual. At the same time I started, I also purchased Precision Nutrition and implemented a much improved eating plan to see me add strength and lose bodyfat whilst maintaining lean mass ready for the onset of the soccer pre-season at the start of July. So, after two months of Precision Nutrition eating and off-season training, in terms of measurements I have: - lost 14lbs in weight - lost 2 inches off my waist - lost 3 1/4 inches off my hips - lost 1 inch off my neck - gained 1/2 inch on my shoulders - maintained the same arm measurement with no direct arm training and in the gym I have: - added roughly 45lbs to my bench and squat - 3RM chin of BW+45lbs - 'straightened out' my previous anterior pelvic tilt - improved my hamstring and adductor flexibility In the eight weeks this took, I have eaten seven meals a day without fail that have with no exceptions adhered to the 10 habits of PN (allowing a slice of cake for desert once a week!). I have been in the gym everyday at 6am (bar Saturdays, my off-day), with Mondays and Wednesdays being my regeneration days, which I view as just as important as my four resistance days. I can't wait for soccer preseason to start in July and see hopefully my hard work payoff (literally ££!!). Thanks for providing the great resources to put me on the track to progression, Andy Powell United Kingdom"

Click Here to Check Out The Ultimate Off-Season Training Manual for Yourself!

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Strength and Conditioning Programs: Rethinking Interval Training

Rethinking Interval Training I love interval training, but one of the problems we commonly run into - particularly if someone isn't prepared physically to sprint, or doesn't have a place to do it because of weather restrictions - is that repetitive, low-amplitude motions are our only options.  In other words, it has to just be cycling, elliptical, or stairclimber.  While slideboard work, medicine ball medleys, barbell complexes, and sled pushing definitely help to work around these problems, when it comes down to it, many of them still don't give certain folks the variety they need in their exercise programming.

In our Building the Efficient Athlete seminar, Mike Robertson and I spoke about the law of repetitive motion: I = NF/AR In this equation, injury equals the number of repetitions multiplied by the frequency of those repetitions, divided by the amplitude of each repetition times the rest interval.  While you can attack each of these five factors differently (and I will in a future newsletter), the take-home point with respect to today's discussion is that simply increasing the amplitude - or range-of-motion - in one's daily life can reduce (or eliminate) the presence or severity of overuse conditions. For that reason, I often substitute one or both of two different training modalities for client's interval training. The first is dynamic flexibility circuits with little to no rest between sets.  In this scenario, we program 2-3 different mobility/activation drills for each inefficiency the athlete displays, and then combine them in a series of drills.  Ideally, as many of these drills are done in the standing position as possible.  Let's say a client has poor thoracic spine mobility, a horrific Thomas test, bad glute function, and poor hip external rotation.  Here's what his circuit might look like: a) 1-leg supine bridge b) wall hip flexor mobilizations c) 3-point extension-rotations d) cradle walks e) overhead lunge walks f) walking spiderman with overhead reach g) yoga push-ups h) 1-leg SLDL walks (you can find videos of many of these exercises in the Assess and Correct DVD set, and I'll have more information on the rest down the road)

Is this circuit going to completely "gas" an athlete?  Absolutely not.  However, it is going to make him/her better in light of the inefficiencies I outlined above - and you don't have to leave the gym exhausted to have improved. The second option is to simply take a series of resistance training exercises with a corrective emphasis (sometimes integrates with the drills outlined above) and put them in a series of supersets.  For these exercises, the load utilized should only be about 30% of 1-rep max.  I outlined this option a while back in my article, Cardio Confusion. Here's an example I used with an online consulting client recently: A1) Overhead broomstick walking Lunges (3x10/side) A2) Push-ups (3x12) B1) Face pulls (3x15) B2) Body weight only reverse lunges (3x10/side) C1) 1-leg SLDL Walk (2x6/side) C2) Band external rotations - arm adducted (2x15/side) D1) Behind-the-neck band pullaparts (2x15) D2) Bowler Squats (2x10/side) This series is preceded by foam rolling and a dynamic flexibility warm-up, and can be followed by more "traditional" interval training. Like I said earlier, I'm still all for both traditional and non-traditional interval training.  Initiative like I outlined above, though, can serve as a nice change of pace and work in corrective exercise while keeping the heart rate up.  Be as creative as you'd like and you'll see great results; the sky is the limit in terms of the combinations you can use. Enter your email below to subscribe to our FREE newsletter:
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An Overlooked Hormone?

I've got a guest blog for you today from Joel Marion of Cheat Your Way Thin.  As I noted in a recent newsletter, Joel has done his homework, and in this article, he'll share with you some of the interesting research he's been doing over the last six years.  Check it out: LEPTI-WHA?? It's name is Leptin (derived from the Greek word leptos, meaning "thin"), and it's without a doubt the most important hormone you probably never heard of. You see, leptin was only first discovered just over 10 years ago, and as far as weight loss is concerned, that's extremely recent. Leptin's function? To communicate your nutritional status to your body and brain. Leptin levels are mediated by two things. One is your level of body fat. All else being equal, people with higher levels of body fat will have higher leptin levels than those with lower levels of body fat and vice versa. Because leptin is secreted by fat cells, it makes sense that under normal conditions there is a direct correlation between leptin levels and the amount of fat you are carrying. Unfortunately, when you're attempting to lose fat and begin to restrict calories, conditions are anything but "normal" and the body responds accordingly by lowering leptin levels. This is because the second mediator of blood leptin levels is your calorie intake. Lower your calorie intake and leptin will fall, independent of body fat. So, yes, you can be overweight and still suffer from low leptin levels - just go on a diet. So what happens when leptin levels fall and why the heck does it matter? Again, under normal conditions leptin levels are normal and the brain gets the signal loud and clear that nutrition intake is adequate. Metabolism is high and the internal environment of the body is one very conducive to fat burning. Until you start dieting. Go on a diet and leptin levels quickly plummet (by 50% or more after only one week), sending a signal to the body that you're semi-starved and not consuming enough calories. This puts the breaks on metabolism and creates a hormonal environment extremely conducive to fat storage. Thyroid hormones (hormones extremely important to metabolism) respond by taking a dive and the abdominal fat-storing stress hormone cortisol skyrockets measurably. HELLO belly fat. And if that wasn't bad enough, the appetite stimulating hormones ghrelin, neuropeptide-Y, and anandamide all hop on board to make your life even more miserable. You don't have to remember any of those names, just remember that when leptin drops, you get seriously hungry. Despite having a pretty good reason for its reaction, it's pretty ironic that our bodies are primed for fat loss at every other time except when we are trying to burn fat. Wouldn't it be great if we could maintain high leptin levels and a body primed for fat burning while dieting? It would seemingly solve all of our problems. But in order to do this, we'd have to somehow keep leptin levels high as we attempt to lose those extra pounds. "HOW ABOUT "SUPPLEMENTING" WITH LEPTIN?" A couple of problems here: First, leptin is a protein based hormone, which means that it can not be taken orally (otherwise, it would simply be digested). So that rules out a leptin pill. This leaves the method of "supplemental" leptin administration to injection. And leptin injections DO indeed work, reversing the metabolic adaptations to dieting and "starvation" even while continuing to restrict calories. In 1996, Ahima et al. used leptin injections to reverse starvation-induced neuroendrocrine adaptations in mice. "Well, that's nice and all, but I'm human." Point taken; research with rodents doesn't always correlate to similar findings in humans, however... In 1999, Heymsfield et al. performed a double-blind placebo controlled study analyzing weight loss over a 24-week period in 73 obese humans. Subjects either injected daily with leptin or a placebo (i.e. bogus alternative). At the end of the 24-week period, the leptin group lost significantly more weight than the placebo and a higher percentage of fat vs. muscle. In 2002, Rosenbaum et al. administered low-dose leptin to subjects (male and female) who had dieted to a 10% decrease in body weight. During the diet period, thyroid hormone levels, 24-hr energy expenditure, and other metabolic markers substantially decreased. The result of the leptin replacement therapy? "All of these endocrine changes were reversed..." Thyroid output and daily calorie burn increased back to pre-diet levels. In 2003, Fogteloo et al. showed that leptin injections "tended to reduce the decline of energy expenditure associated with energy restriction, whereas the tendency of energy intake to increase back to baseline levels in placebo-treated subjects was largely prevented in subjects treated with leptin." Yeah, that's a mouthful. Let me put in simple terms: not only did the leptin group experience less of a decline in metabolism, but they were also less hungry, allowing them to more easily stick to the prescribed diet. In 2004, Welt et al. reported that leptin given to a group of women with thyroid disorder immediately raised circulating concentrations of the thyroid hormones T3 and T4. In 2005, Rosenbaum and company were at it again, again showing that energy expenditure and circulating concentrations of T3 and T4 all returned to pre-weight-loss levels with regular leptin injections. So, as theorized, keeping leptin levels high during a diet does indeed solve our dilemma by avoiding the negative metabolic (and perhaps behavioral) adaptations that calorie restriction perpetuates. The problem? Daily leptin injections are far too expensive, costing thousands and thousands of dollars per week. So, we can pretty much forget about supplemental leptin as a solution (which is probably moot anyway considering that not too many people are going to voluntarily plunge a needle into their skin daily). A REAL Solution Now that we know that leptin injections aren't going to save us, let's talk about the possibility of manipulating your body's natural leptin production. And I've got good news - this can indeed be done, and without involving needles or thousands of dollars. In fact, we'll swap the injections and mounds of cash out for two things I can guarantee you're absolutely going to love: more calories and more carbs. We know that leptin levels decrease by about 50% after only one week of dieting, but fortunately, it doesn't take nearly that long for leptin to bump back up with a substantial increase in caloric intake. In fact, research has shown that it only takes about 12-24 hours. So, the answer to the fat loss catch-22? Strategic high-calorie, high-carb CHEATING. By strategically cheating with high calorie foods (and yes, even stuff like pizza, ice cream, wings, cookies, burgers, fries, etc), you can give leptin and metabolism a major boost mid-diet which sets you up for plenty of subsequent fat loss when you resume your reduced calorie eating regimen. This means greater net fat loss week after week, and ultimately, a much more realistic, maintainable way to bring you to the body you truly want and deserve. So what's so special about carbs? Well, leptin, carbohydrate and insulin have been shown to have very strong ties. Calories alone don't get the job done, as research shows that overfeeding on protein and fat has little effect on leptin. In order to get a strong leptin response from overfeeding, there needs to be plenty of carbs in the mix. In fact, the relationship is SO strong that research conducted by Boden et al. at the Temple University School of Medicine shows that leptin levels will not fall even in response to all-out fasting so long as insulin and blood sugar are maintained via IV drip. That's CRAZY. Because of this carbohydrate/insulin-leptin relationship, it makes sense that foods combining both carbs and fat (like pizza, burgers, cookies, ice cream, etc) work best for reversing the negative adaptations caused by dieting because of the BIG-TIME insulin response they produce. THIS is why strategic cheating with your favorite foods is so powerful. THIS is why you truly can use your favorite foods to lose fat faster than you ever could with restrictive dieting. THIS is freedom. Essentially, it's everything "typical" dieting isn't. With regular dieting, come week two, you're screwed. With strategic cheating, you can literally use ANY food you want to *ensure* that you never go a single day without a body primed for fat loss. The cheat or not to cheat? I think the choice is clear. For more information on Joel's complete Cheat Your Way Thin system - available at half price through tomorrow (4/30) only, head on over to CheatYourWayThin.com.
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