October was the biggest month in the history of this blog in terms of readership, so I want to take the time to thank you all for playing such a huge role in that success.

Who am I kidding – thank you for being entirely responsible for making this happen.

As always, this site is all about giving you practical information that you can put to use immediately. Going forward, I want to make sure that I am on track and giving you exactly what you want, but for that I will need your help.

What do you want to read about?

There is no wrong or insane topic. If you want to read about pancakes (seriously, someone drop that as a suggestion so I can have an excuse to do it), then so be it!

Leave your suggestion in the comment section below and I will return the favor by blessing you with the most epic of internet high fives as well as do more research into said topic – this is a win/win situation here.

Photo Credit: oddsock

“If you love life, don’t waste time, for time is what life is made up of.”
-Bruce Lee

Sexification Note: This has been a topic that I’ve been focusing on a lot lately as I take on more and more responsibilities and it has been extremely helpful. Hopefully you walk away with the same feeling of awesomeness and empowerment that I did after writing it.

Let me paint a picture for you. Its 12am on a Saturday morning, and I’m just finishing up a pre-bed meal of meat, meat and more meat. It is glorious. I turn on the TV, completely intending for it to be a brief channel surfing session before giving in to my bed’s sweet embrace. That is, until I hear a loud, booming voice ask the question that sends my night spinning into an entirely different direction – can you freeze your farts and smell them later?

My interest is officially piqued.

5 hours later, not only have I figured out the salary range of a pimp, but I’ve also watched the triforce of horrible movies – Ernest Goes To Jail, Ernest Goes To Camp & Ernest Scared Stupid. It is now 5am. I have work at 9. The P.O.N.R. has been passed (point of no return – for those not in the know), so any amount of sleep that I get will only serve to piss me off. My only choice is to stay awake and power through my work day like the champ that I am. Did I also mention that it was Squatin’ Saturday? Needless to say, I ditched that workout for a 360 min static hold in my bed. I’m sure you’re wondering by now what the heck the point of that story was, so I said all of that to say this – if you’re failing to manage your time effectively, then you’re seriously limiting your personal growth potential.

I’m willing to bet that there isn’t one of us who hasn’t at some point wished that there were more than 24 hours in a day. Just imagine the possibilities! The difference between us and the people who are most successful in their field is that many of us act like we live in fantasy land where time is infinite. I know that there have been times where I’ve looked at what I wanted to accomplish, and what I actually did accomplish and threw up my hands in defeat, wishing that some magical troll would drop a few extra hours of time into my lap. I consider myself a logical man, and while I know this wont happen, that doesn’t stop me from often using my time in such a way that you’d actually believe that I thought those extra few hours were on their way. Successful people, on the other hand, simply accept the reality that there is a finite amount of time in the day, and time will only appear as it is created by them. Luckily for us, time management, like any other skill, can be learned if we simply study and apply the habits of those who have been successful in the same pursuit.

You Gotta Get Up To Get Down

The old adage “The early bird catches the worm” is false. Waking up early gives the person a head start in terms of seizing the day, but if they wake up early and do nothing then they’re just getting less sleep for no good reason. Nevertheless, it highlights a very important lesson – waking up early is quite possibly one of the simplest things that we can do in order to maximize our output from a time management perspective, yet a lot of people tend to skip right over this.

Why is that? Well, mainly because it requires effort to do, but I’m sure there are a host of other reasons out there. In order to get up early, you have to go to bed earlier, but the sad truth is that most folks just aren’t willing to make that necessary sacrifice. A lot of people claim that they don’t have time to workout, or have time to cook meals or have time to pursue the goals that they have been putting off for years, but 9 times out of 10 that is just a lie dressed up in truth’s clothing. If your fridge looks like Alanis Morissette in her “Thank You” video, yet you hit the level cap in World of Warcraft in 1 week, don’t say that you don’t have time to do anything because you do – you just chose to do something else with it.

Everyone has the exact same amount of time at their disposal over the course of the day, but where successful people differ from the masses is how they make use of it. In his book Time Power, Brian Tracy highlights the importance of what he coins the “golden hour.” What the golden hour entails is simply waking up an hour or so earlier than you usually do, and working without any interruptions for that entire hour. Now, an hour of working might not seem like a significant amount of time, but think of the long term potential – that’s 7 hours a week, 28-31 hours a month, 365 hours a year that came into existence simply because you committed to making it a habit to wake up one hour earlier.

Is it hard? It can be; permanent change is hard, and anyone who says that it isn’t probably hasn’t done it before. But take solace and find inspiration in the fact that successful people all around the world are doing just that every day – and you can too.

Eric Cressey – 6:30 to 7am.

Brian St. Pierre – 5:30 to 6:45am.

Tony Gentilcore -6:30 to 7am.

Michael Boyle – 5:30am.

Leigh Peele – 5am to 12pm.

JC – 5am.

Krista Schaus – 5:30 to 7am, depending on the time of year.

Ross Enamait – 4:30 to 5am.

Many of the people on this list have children, and all are entrepreneurs with a very busy workload. I’m sure that they would love to get a few more hours of sleep, but do they complain about it? Quite the opposite – they embrace it, learn to love it, and thrive because of it. These people aren’t just waking up early for the sake of doing so – they’re actively using this time to get after it, whether it is answering emails, writing blog posts or what have you.  I realize that such a drastic change to one’s lifestyle can be difficult, so just try it out a few days each week and see how much more productive you become.

Synchronize

During my internship at Cressey Performance, I got a chance to see some serious time management experts at work. Take Eric Cressey for example – the guy is a machine. I’ve watched him bang out a heavy set of deadlifts and then for the rest interval head into the office and knock out a quick blog post like it was nothing at all. All of the staff can be found frequently listening to audio books during their commute to and from work, with Brian going as far as to purchase Dragon Naturally Speaking, which is a voice recognition software that allows him to create blog content while on the road – talk about dedication! So what’s the take home point here? Try to make the best use of your time by combining tasks together in order to accomplish more in less time. Cleaning the house? That would be a good time to catch up on some phone calls that you’ve been meaning to make. Cooking dinner? You can always watch an educational DVD while you wait. Stuck in the airport during a layover? Brainstorm some creative ideas. Sitting on the toilet? What a perfect time to read a book! The possibilities are almost endless – use your imagination and see what tasks you can combine to free up some additional time during your days.

Operation: Distraction

How many times have you been in the zone on a particular day – like the Neo of getting things done – only to later derail your train of awesomeness upon the rocks of Facebook or some other distraction? One minute the sun is up and you’re plowing through work, and the next minute its Wesley Snipes dark outside, infomercials are all over the TV, and you’re wondering where the hell your day went. We’re all guilty of this happening, which is completely fine, but it’s when those brief distraction turns into hours of not getting anything done that it can start to become a problem. While I’m not successful by any means yet, one way that I’ve found to help eliminate this problem is to schedule my distractions. When you know that your reward for a hard day’s work is right around the corner it’s easier to continue working diligently until that time arrives. Likewise, when your scheduled time is over, it’s also that much easier to get back into the groove of things now that you’ve imposed limits on yourself.

Personally, I like to schedule an hour of watching the Chappelle Show or playing some multiplayer in Uncharted 2 as my end of the day distraction, but even then I use that time to get in some static stretching or mobility work.

Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep

How would you like to start every morning with a laser-like focus, knowing exactly what your tasks were for the day as soon as you woke up? Well you can, by doing as Brian Tracy suggests and simply planning your next day out before you go to bed. By doing so, your mind is actively at work figuring out solutions to the next day’s tasks and problems, so that when you wake up in the morning you are in ultimate G.S.D. mode, checking task after task off with amazing efficiency. Without such a list, the odds of you waking up and winging it for the entire day are increased by a ridiculous amount. So, no matter how you make the list, whether you do it in bed or while standing on top of your roof, basking in the glorious moonlight, just make sure it gets done.

Neo: What are you trying to tell me? That I can create time magically out of thin air?

Morpheus: No, Neo. I’m trying to tell you that when you’re ready, you won’t have to.

That’s an exact quote from The Matrix. I didn’t change a thing. Nope, not me.

Relevant links: Reverse pyramid training

The other day I was roaming my local library, in search of large amounts of nerdery to sooth my soul, when I stumbled upon the greatest piece of literary fiction ever created: Marvel Zombies.

Seriously. It’s the best. I now render your ability to argue against this point useless (insert mystical finger waving and arm flailing here)! Did you think Peter Parker was just your friendly neighborhood spider? Just wait until he hits you with a face full of arteries and veins instead of webbing, son!

In this alternate bizzaro world, all of your favorite Marvel superheroes have been zombified, which is bad news for the human race since we’re the only thing left on the menu. While constantly fluxing between a state of anxiety and “zomgwtf”, I started to notice a pattern – these dudes knew how to stay ripped!

I can already hear all the thoughts of you naysayers out there. Oh sure, blame it on the fact that they’re battle scarred and in a constant state of decomposition, or that they may or may not be missing several limbs and/or random body parts. My response? Bullocks, I say! Success leaves clues, and while they may smell a little ripe, these protectors of the universe know a thing or two and have given me the go ahead to break you off a piece of that knowledge and how us mere mortals can apply it.

The Typical Diet Cycle

Come, step into my time machine. Let us go back to any one of your many past diet attempts where you tried valiantly, but in the end fell far from reaching your goals. Did they happen to look something like this?

Phase 1: You begin your diet with great gusto. You are awesome, you are great, and you are unstoppable. Rarr!

Phase 2: Hunger begins to set in, but you have it under control. It’ll take more than that to keep you from achieving awesomeness.

Phase 3: You haven’t lost as much fat as you had hoped for, and now your hunger is at code red levels. You’re not sure how much more of this you can take.

Phase 4: You break, and my goodness what a break it is! Several cookies, cakes and small villages later you lay defeated in a food coma on the floor. Having undone days or weeks of progress in one fell swoop, you are down, but not out for the count. You vow to begin once again with a renewed spirit, because this time will be different.

And the cycle repeats itself again, and again, and again. Mad frustration ensues.

Of Zombies And Men

When these zombies get hungry, they get HONGRY! Due to their ramped up superhero metabolism and high levels of physical activity, their appetite is almost insatiable. As a side effect of this ravenous hunger, if they go too long without food they start to go crazy and are unable to focus anything more complex than finding their next meal. Simply put, they start to make stupid choices that decrease the likelihood of achieving their goal (i.e. man flesh).

Starting to sound familiar, eh?*

When we embark on our own physique changing adventures, we commonly experience the exact same things that zombies do. “Nuh uh, Rog, we’re different! We’re able to push those feelings of hunger to the back of our minds and power through it!” Yeah, initially. But what happens when those moments of hunger are constantly rolling around in your head? You’re at the movie theater eye-balling the popcorn chomper eight rows ahead. You’re in the parking lot plotting how you’re gonna scrape that decade old piece of bubble gum off the pavement and into your mouth. You’re on the toilet, wishing you had packed yourself a peanut butter and banana sammich. What? Don’t act like it’s just me!

The fact of the matter is that at some point you’re going to be hungry while trying to lose fat, but I’m going to share with you a tactic that you can use sparingly when facing down the hunger beast.

Thank You, Giant-Man

As the leader of the superheroes, Henry Pym, better known as Giant-Man, is responsible for coming up with the technology necessary to transport the heroes from world to world across the universe in order to gobble up any humans that they can. Given the nature of such a complex task, Pym has to keep his wits about him while focusing on his work otherwise he is useless. In order to do this, he has to take the edge off of his hunger before it gets out of control and reduces his ability to think straight, and what better way to do this than by keeping a real live human tied up in the basement and using him as an occasional snack bar!

So why don’t we do the same thing?

Not the whole holding another dude hostage and eating him thing, but the stopping your hunger before it becomes an issue.

Have A Cookie

In order to lose fat, you need to achieve a caloric deficit, either through more activity, less food or a combination of both. How great that deficit is is based on how fast you want to safely and realistically reach your goals, but in general the larger the deficit the more physical hunger you’re going to experience. This time around though, instead of having an almighty binge when those thoughts of hunger feel downright unbearable, just have a cookie.

Have a cookie?!

Yep, have a cookie.

It doesn’t necessarily have to be a cookie, but have whatever it is that will sooth the beast within, allowing you to continually move forward towards your goal. Will having a small bag of chips now keep you from setting up residence at the all-you-can-eat buffet a few days down the road? Then eat ‘em – then get right back to work. Alternatively, you could also simply eat a little bit more of the food you’re already eating. If you constantly find yourself repeating the cycle that I talked about earlier, then you need to consider moving into a smaller deficit. Lyle McDonald wrote a great piece on caloric deficits that you should check out. Regardless of the scenario, I’d rather see someone take one small step back and preserve their sanity and momentum than take a huge hit and moonwalk all the way back to where they started, perhaps even further. Yes, it will take longer to reach your goal, but I’d much rather see that happen than have you constantly reinforce negative thought patterns that come from not achieving what you set out to do.

If that option doesn’t appeal to your Spartan dietary sensibilities, than you only have one other option.

Nut Up Or Shut Up

Accept the fact you’re going to be hungry at some point and anticipate it. Knuckle down and get it done if it is that important to you. If you’re not willing to do any of these things, then you can simply keep replaying this infinite loop until you get tired enough to do something about it. Like Captain Planet said folks, the power is yours.

What dietary blunders have you made in the past and what did you do to solve them? Leave your answer in the comment section below!

* – No, I’m not from Canada.

Photo Credit: istolethetv

It really burns my biscuits (and not just any biscuits – I’m talking Red Lobster Cheddar levels of biscuiticity here!) when I create a program for a gym member only to find out that they’re kinda sorta not really doing the program that I wrote for them at all. That’s right madame, you most certainly did mistake a set goblet squat for 10 sets of tricep kickbacks, but it’s a simple error and I completely understand how you could have gotten the two confused. Needless to say, it’s refreshing to have a client who is excited to train and trusts me enough as a trainer to know that I have their best interest in mind.

Enter Kiersten.

I’ve been training with Kiersten for 4 weeks and in that short amount of time her progress has been nothing short of fantastic. Like many people she is looking to drop a few pounds, but she began  our sessions with the mindset that it takes time to achieve results – a rarity in this day and age where people don’t want results today, but last week. Working with Kiersten has been an absolute joy for me, not only because she has such a positive attitude, but because no matter what is going on in her life outside the gym, she shows up with a bright smile and a willingness to straight up crush it.

I currently train her 3x a week using full body workouts, with a little extra focus on her posterior chain during each session, which ranges from trap bar deadlifts, 45 degree back extensions, and, of course, the illustrious hip thrust. As much as she loves the strength training aspect, I think she gets her jollies by crushing the circuit that concludes each training session. I’ve taken Escalating Density Training, a concept brought to the mainstream by Charles Staley, and applied it to her fat loss circuits. I pretty much just set the clock for 10 minutes and let her cause as much chaos as she can within that time frame. The progression method is simple – each following session she strives to do more work than she did last time within that same 10 minutes.  Since we started incorporating these circuits during week 2, she has improved her performance each and every session.

Here is one of her most least favorite circuits:

• Forward Sled Drag – 50lbs (25 Yards)
• 30 punches on the punching bag
• Medicine Ball Slams – 12lbs (10 reps)
• Jumping Jacks – 20 reps

And would you look at that, no bulk whatsoever. She feels stronger, her clothes fit better, and already she is noticing positive changes in her physique. Whowouldathunkit? Great job, Kiersten!

Photo Credit: Multitrack

Weight: 201

All is going well on the cinnabon front. Yesterday I started experimenting with calorie levels for the long-term body recomposition plan that I’m planning now, which helps explain the increase in weight and water retention in this round of pics – a 4,000 calorie day will do that to ya.

I’ve also upped my training to 4x a week now instead of 2 as I’m looking to put on some muscle while dropping fat over the long haul. Breaking things up this way allows me to keep my time in the gym for each session to a minimum while still getting in enough volume over the course of the week. Shizam!

Until next time.

And so we have arrived at the conclusion (or is it just the beginning? Watch in awe as I twirl my curly mustache!) of my body transformation trinity that will undoubtedly go down in history as the most comprehensive treatise ever written on the subject.

Or not.

In the last two posts, I discussed caloric intake starting points as well as macronutrient recommendations depending on what your particular goals were. Now, it is high time that we tackle a subject that is, at least initially, absolutely paramount to your success. That’s right, I’m talking about the dreaded calorie counting.

When I bring up this topic to people who have never counted calories before, more often than not, they drop kick me in the chest and run off screaming bloody murder. All joking aside, many view calorie counting as an annoying, time consuming task that they want as little to do with as humanly possible. And I don’t blame them. As a society, we are becoming busier by the second, and with more and more to keep up with, I can see why people rebel against adding this to their to-do list.

But guess what? If you’re really as committed to your fitness and body composition goals as you say you are, then you have to come to terms with this one fact: if you don’t know how much you’re eating, then you’re just guessing. Notice that I didn’t say what you’re eating, but how much, because the devil isn’t so much in what kinds of foods you eat (although thats important, too), but how much of it. You can eat what are deemed the “cleanest” and “healthiest” foods in the world, and while you may be covered from a micronutrient and phytochemical standpoint, if you can still grab a fist full of fat and aren’t happy with the way you look, chances are you’re simply eating too much for your activity level.

Now that you’re committed to holding yourself accountable for your intake, I’m going to provide you with the only tool that you’ll need to do so, and in the process show you that tracking doesn’t have to be as hellacious as some make it out to be, but instead will put you on the fast track towards sexification.

Tools of the trade

I’m sure that we all know at least one person who can’t lose or gain weight no matter how hard they try. They swear that they are eating all the time, hardly eating at all or some variation of the two. More often than not, this person isn’t intentionally trying to mislead you or themselves, but the fact of the matter is that they’re just horrible at playing the estimation game. They are using their subjective mind to gauge how much they are eating and how hard they are working in the gym, but research has shown that people tend to misreport both their food intake and exercise intensity.

So whats the solution?

Enter the digital food scale.

Since we now know that we initially can’t be trusted to accurately measure our own food intake, we need an objective tool to help take our emotions and feelings out of the equation, and the food scale is just that tool. My good friend Leigh Peele created an eye-opening video demonstrating just how off people can be when left to their own devices, even when they have the best intentions.

Digital food scales are relatively cheap and are a worthwhile investment to have in your kitchen. I personally use a $25 Escali, but click here to view a list of other scales to give yourself some options.

There Will Be Nuts

But enough talk. We’re now about to use an actual example of a food that people tend to overeat by mistake: nuts. While great from a health standpoint as they provide a nice blend of the different kinds of fats, nuts also pack a huge punch from a calorie standpoint. Lets check the stats:

As you can see, 1 serving of walnuts (30 g according to the food label) contains a whopping 20 g of fat. Now lets take a look at how a this serving actually looks in the real world:

Not much, huh? That’s not even a handful, but when you consider that the average person just reaches into a bag with reckless abandon and goes nuts with the Planters, you start to see how this kind of dietary digression can quickly start to derail any chance you have of achieving your fat loss goals.

Now let’s see what happens when I just reach my hand into the bag and come out with the goods:

Well would you look at that! At 67 g, I came out with more than double the serving size and I wasn’t even trying to go overboard. This is only one example, but are you starting to see how this happening to you several times a day could cause you some problems?

Remember when I said that counting calories would be a lot easier than you made it out to be? Here is where I make good on that promise.

In my last post I provided you with a breakdown of how many calories a gram(g) of each macronutrient has, so here it is again for your convenience and viewing pleasure:

1g protein = 4 calories
1g carbohydrate = 4 calories
1g fat = 9 calories

So, using our nuts example from above, lets calculate how many calories are in 1 serving of walnuts by using these numbers.

20g fat x 9 = 180 calories
2g carbohydrate x 4 = 8 calories
5g protein x 4 = 20 calories

Total calories for 1 serving of walnuts = 208

As a side note, when counting carbs, you want to make sure that you subtract fiber grams from that total number as they don’t contribute a significant amount of calories anyway. For instance, in the above example there were actually 4g of total carbs, but I subtracted the 2g of fiber to arrive at the final number of 2g that I used in the calculation.

And that’s how the game is played, my friends. Instead of counting calories per se, you would instead count grams of protein, fat and carbohydrate, which is a lot less stressful and infinitely more manageable than meticulously adding up each and every calorie.

Common Pitfalls And How To Avoid Them

Back in the day, when I was eating tons of chicken breast/thighs, nuts and an assortment of other foods, I had no concept of portion OR calorie control. I really thought that the magic was in avoiding certain foods and as long as I did that, I would be ripped to shreds like a bad report card in no time flat. Needless to say I was wrong a sin, but I want you to learn from my mistake instead of repeating them like a foolish mortal.

Pitfall #1 – Overcomplicating things

Solution – Simplify, simplify, simplify. If you’re weighing a food item, the serving size is based on the form that the product is in when you buy it. For example, if you’re rollin’ through the grocery store and pick up a package of raw ground beef, you would grab a handful of meat, find the serving size and weigh it in its uncooked form. Meat will always weigh less after being cooked, so if you’re going to weigh it cooked, I would cut the serving size in half to account for the water & fat lost during the cooking process.

Example: 4 oz of raw beef = 2-2.5 oz cooked

Leaner meats, such as chicken breast, tend to weigh closer to their raw serving size than fattier meats (think 80/20 ground beef).

If you’re a pasta lover, take heed of this advice as it will save you some tears down the road. A typical serving of pasta is 2 oz measured dry, which is actually a pretty decent amount, but those who are pasta eaters really LOVE THEIR PASTA and rarely tend to eat just 1 serving, or even know what that serving looks like. Welp, now that I’ve gotten that admission of pasta induced self guilt out of the way, let’s move right along!

Pitfall #2 – Being a slave to the scale

Solution – Keep it in perspective. The scale is a tool to keep you accountable to yourself and nothing more. If you’re working towards your goals just fine without it, then good. If you’re not, then stick with it for a week or two, which is a small amount of time in the grand scheme of things. Over time you’ll find that you’re able to reliably size up portions of food with your eyes like you’re in The Matrix or something. As you gain more experience and start to move away from relying on the scale for as much you did in the past,  people will start to notice and become mad jealous of your newfound abilities. If you play your cards right, you might even get invited to the local diner for a malt with all the cat daddys and groovy chicks. True story.

Pitfall #3 – Too anal

Solution – Relax. Breath. Fat loss is certainly an emotional undertaking, so don’t make it more of one by making it harder than it needs to be. You don’t need to weigh your broccoli, spinach, cauliflower or green beans. However, be careful more starchier veggies such as carrots and peas as they tend to have less fiber in them per gram of carbohydrate in each serving and that adds if you go overboard up.When in doubt, use one of the sites below to check up on your veggie of choice and if you notice that it has a lot of carbs relative to fiber, keep an eye on overdoing them.

Having said that, if thinking about it too much is causing you to fall deeper into this pitfall, let it go. I’ve never seen someone who was overweight because they ate too many veggies.

Superior Tech!

I want to wrap this up by giving you my go to websites when I want to get all sexy with watching my intake. I don’t do it very often anymore, but it’s good to have when I want quickly reference a food or create an intake trend to keep myself on track when I’m going after a new goal.

Fitday – This is the most user friendly site that I’ve seen so far. Wanna know the best part? It’s free to sign up, and it even lets you enter your own custom foods that aren’t on the list – win!

USDA Nutrient Database – This is for those that wanna get down to the nitty gritty and know everything and more about a food. Fitday actually uses information from this database, and while this site is nowhere near as sexy as Fitday, its worth checking taking a peek at.

So, how are you feeling? Great? Overwhelmed? If you feel like I’ve left something out or you have any questions, please leave a comment so I can address your concerns directly. Even if you don’t have any questions, come on by and share how you keep track of your intake and how its going for you.

Photo Credit: Michele Eve Photography

Today I’d like to give you a glimpse into my boring, but effective, dietary life.

When I’m eating in a bit of a caloric deficit to lose body fat, the bane of my existence is eating small, insignificant meals throughout the day because I never get that satisfied feeling in my stomach. Oh sure, I have enough mental willpower to last for a day or two like this, but by day three I’m ready to eat Yogi, Boo Boo and all the goodies in their pick-i-nic basket.

In order to solve this problem, I simply have less overall meals but make them larger to the point where I actually kinda sorta feel full after eating. Some days I eat 2 meals, and on others I eat 3, but regardless of the meal breakdown, my only focus is hitting my macronutrient goals for the day with foods that make my soul smile.

Pic #1 (from the left)
1lb broccoli
1 glorious cinnabon
10 oz grilled chicken breast
16 oz 1% milk
80 g protein  (whey/casein blend)
1/2 lb blueberries
1/2 lb strawberries

Pic #2
10 oz turkey burgers
10 oz chicken breast
6 oz salmon
1 magnificent cinnabon
1/2lb strawberries

Pic #3
15 oz rib eye steak
4 cups of green beans (I almost finished eating them before I realized that I forgot to take the picture)

Not shown in the pictures: Fish oil, multi-vitamin and Vitamin D capsules.

Do you notice a trend developing here? A variety of protein, fruit and vegetable sources that I enjoy eating. I actually love fat a helluva lot more than I enjoy carbs, and since I was trying to control my intake I scaled back the carbs in sake of more fat in my meals.

And now, for your viewing pleasure. Check back tomorrow for a user friendly guide I’ve put together on counting calories and how you can make it work for you.

Photo Credit: id-iom

In my last post, I gave you the rundown on how to roughly calculate your maintenance, fat loss and muscle gain calorie levels. This is the most important part of the fat loss puzzle, so if you don’t have that concept down yet, go back and read the Cliffsnotes portion of that article before you go any further.

Alright, before we’re ready to blast off, we need to do some clowning around.

One of my favorite shows to watch when I was lucky enough to catch it on was the Bozo The Clown show. The part of the show that always got me pumped up was the grand prize game. In order to win, the kid simply had to stand in place and successfully throws ping pong balls into a series of buckets that progressively were placed further and further away from him.

Despite being deathly afraid of clowns at the time, Bozo was different, most likely because he gave out cool stuff to kids and I secretly hoped he would reach through the TV screen and break me off a piece of that prize action. Sadly I never got broken off, so I’m here to make sure the same thing never happens to you in regards to your physique goals.

Buckets-O-Fat

What is the purpose of a bucket? To hold stuff. What kind of stuff? In the infamous words of The Rock, it doesn’t matter – as long as it can fit into the bucket, the bucket can hold it. If you ever sit by the pale moonlight and ponder life’s most vexing question, you’ll quickly realize that your body is just one big ‘ol living, breathing bucket.

There are tall and wide buckets, short and thin buckets and all sorts of variations in between, but the common denominator here is that they all need constant input in the form of food in order to keep running. While all this is nice and dandy, it also makes the task of achieving your ideal body composition a difficult one at times.

Be careful of what you put into that bucket of yours – too much of anything can cause your bucket to grow in ways and places that you want no part of, but put too little of the right things into it and you might as well buy yourself a one-way ticket to Skeletor island.

Plan For Success

I’m a big fan of making things only as complex as they need to be. I do this mainly because, in my own experience, I’ve found that the less variables you have to try and manipulate and figure out, the better it is, at least in terms of initially getting started. Having said that, I’m a big fan of basing your current intake on the weight you’d like to be in the future, which is a method that I first discovered in Alan Aragon’s Research Review (Sexification Note: Do yourself a favor and subscribe here.) I’m a fan of this method for several reasons:

1. It’s super practical. There are methods out there that use your percentage of lean body mass to determine how much of a certain macronutrient you should take in for your specific goal, but the main drawback of this is that there are people who don’t have access to a fitness professional who can do test such as skin calliper readings. Even if they do have access, the margin of error between certain body composition methods can be so large that it may not even give you much reliable feedback to begin with, especially if you happen to have a lot of fat to lose. You’re also going to have to adjust these numbers based off your results anyway, so don’t spend too much time trying to get too sexy in figuring out your starting point.
2. It’s easily applicable. Almost everyone has, at the very least, a slight inkling of the body weight that they’re aiming for.
3. All of the number crunching can be done in less than 2 minutes, and no matter how busy you are, you have that amount of time to do some planning for your success.

Getcho’ Eat On

Protein – The Constant (4 calories per gram)
For men, if your goal is fat loss or muscle gain: 1g/lb of target body weight
Sexification Note: I imagine that women could get away with a bit less protein (.8g/lb of target body weight) due to higher levels of body fat, but when in doubt could always stick with with the 1g/lb recommendation. I’d rather someone get a little too much protein than not enough.

Example: Rog Law has a target body weight of 185, therefore he will have an intake of 185g of protein, which comes out to 740 calories.

Fat – The Greasy Guardian (9 calories per gram)
Both sexes, regardless of your goal: .4-5g/lb of target body weight is a good starting point.

Example: Rog Law has a target body weight of 185lbs, therefore he will have an intake of between 74 and 93g of fat, which comes out to between 666 and 837 calories

Carbohydrate – The Under-appreciated Underdog (4 calories per gram)
Simply subtract the number of fat and protein calories from your fat loss calorie level that you figured out during my last post.  After doing so, divide that number by 4 to figure out the your carbohydrate grams.

Example: Rog Law sits on his butt cheeks all day, so he has calculated his fat loss calories by multiplying his target body weight of 185lbs by 9.

185 x 9 = 1665 kcals
1665 – 666 (fat) – 740 (protein) = 259 kcals
259/4 = 65g carbs

This would be an example of a non-training day. On resistance or interval training days, you can experiment with adding an extra 50-200g of carbohydrates in, mainly around training time. Yep, there is that much individual variability, so let your goals and results dictate how much you add in here.

If you find that you’re putting on the fat too fast, reduce your carbs and fats systematically until you find that sweet spot where you’re seeing that scale creep up, but so quickly that a ton of blubber comes along for the ride. Likewise, if you’re not losing fat as quickly as you’d like to be, you can follow the same progression. Just keep in mind that as your calorie level and carbohydrate intake drop, your protein requirement increases. If you don’t feel like upping your protein, make sure that you get at least 50g of carbohydrates a day, as their protein sparing effect helps protect your lean muscle mass from being gobbled up in the presence reduced carbohydrate intake and a large caloric deficit.

And I’m out like I have 0 hit points left *adjusts nerd glasses*

Questions? Concerns? Death threats? Leave ’em in the comments section below!

Photo Credit: Jeffk

I’m all about putting your flaws out into the universe  and using them as motivation to change for the better, so here we go!

I’ve gotten a good 3 training sessions in over the past month and a half. I felt run down and took a week off only to realize that I had no desire to go back to the iron just yet, and I was ok with that. Now, after taking some time off and reassessing my goals (plus seeing how far I’ve fallen), its time to get back to into action.

My strength levels have  taken a huge nosedive from where they used to be. My front squat dropped from 405 to 315 for a 1RM, my bench from 315 to 265, and my trap bar deadlift from 585 to a comparatively weaksauce 495. I’m sure a lot of this was of a neural nature and will be regained with time, but I know I’ve lost a fair amount of muscle as well.

My overall movement quality is like one of those busted Chuck-E-Cheese robots that haven’t been serviced since 1990. It was slowly getting better due to the mobility work I did during my training sessions, but since those were few and far between its no wonder that I’m back to pure suckage again.

The chub is back in full force, and it ain’t pretty, so it has to go. And this is where you come in.

I invite you all to join me on this personal journey of sexification, and if you’ve recently found yourself settling for less than what you’re capable, I encourage you to get moving in the right direction. On your own terms.

Speaking of doing things on your own terms, that is exactly what I’m going to be doing as far as my food choices and training are concerned. I’m going to simply train 2x a week for about 45 minutes and walk for an hour every day to burn some extra calories.

Oh yeah , and I’m going to have a Cinnabon every day for the next 30 days. Every other week I’ll make sure to post picture updates, and at the conclusion I’ll go into detail about what unexpected things I learned and encountered along the way that may help you in your own quest.

My secondary goal here is to demonstrate that your diet doesn’t have to be boring and that with proper planning you can still have a healthy diet while chowing down on your favorite foods.

Starting weight: 198lbs
Target weight: 185lbs