Entries from February 2008 ↓

I’ve received numerous emails from my subscribers asking me the following question:

“If I want to lose body fat or get six pack abs, should I give up eating ice-cream
or chocolate (or any other junk food) for good?”

Not at all. You can still eat ice-cream or chocolate and yet lose fat. How? Read on
and see what the fat loss expert, Tom Venuto (Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle)  has to say about it.

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EXCERPT #2 FROM THE “SUPER LEAN” SEMINAR

How to lose fat by eating pizza
Super Lean Seminar
Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle

QUESTION: “We’ve got a question here which is going to be useful for everybody,
because probably everybody listening has their favorite foods that they don’t want
to give up. For example, I love chocolate. A caller wanted to know, “Is it possible
to get a flat stomach and six-pack abs and single-digit body fat while still
enjoying your favorite foods like chocolate or pizza?” What’s your take on that,
Tom?”

ANSWER: “Of course it’s possible. You just have to eat small enough portions of
chocolate or pizza so you’re still in a calorie deficit. In fact, you could eat 100%
pizza and 100% chocolate diet and still lose weight. Heck, if a guy can eat 100%
Subway and lose weight, why not 100% pizza?

All you need is a calorie deficit. Of course, I DON’T recommend you eat a100% junk
food diet because that’s going to have a negative impact on your health. I’m just
trying to make the point that fat loss revolves around having that calorie deficit.

We have some diet book authors, some of them who even have bestsellers on the top of
the charts right now, who are spreading the same myth that diet gurus have been
spreading for decades; they’re saying calories don’t count. That’s total B.S.

Calories in versus calories out is stating the first law of thermodynamics, but
apparently we have a group of people who claim to have figured out a way to avoid
the laws of physics.

There’s actually an explanation of why they say that though. What these guys are
usually trying to do is to give you a list of eating rules which makes it almost
impossible to overeat. You could say that they’re “tricking you” into eating less. I
wouldn’t say that’s necessarily a bad thing. If the foods you choose spontaneously
make you feel fuller on less calories, I might even argue that’s a good thing.

But they’re misrepresenting how it works because there’s a huge difference between
saying “don’t count calories” and “calories don’t count” but they’re lumping them
together as if they were the same thing.

Do you see the difference between those two statements? If anybody listening doesn’t
see the difference, then make sure that you get the difference, because it’s huge.

Suppose I tell you that the only thing you can eat is lean proteins (like egg
whites, chicken, fish and green salads and other vegetables), lean plus green and
I’ll also let you take in some essential fats and oils, to make sure you get all the
essential nutrients.

Then suppose I say, “Don’t count calories; you can eat as much as you want.” I bet
you’re going to have a really hard time eating in a calorie surplus, because I’ve
removed food groups that are dense in calories, like starches and grains and sugars.

But does that mean that calories don’t count? No. It means that instead of counting
calories you were given a bunch of eating rules that usually curb caloric intake
automatically

“Calories don’t count” is one of the worst myths out there because if people don’t
understand the calories in versus calories out equation, they’re not going to be
able to get past the plateaus that we just talked about and they’re going to start
thinking there’s a cause and effect relationship between specific foods and gaining
fat.

They’re going to figure, “Eating pizza equals getting fat.” It doesn’t. They’re
going to think that eating chocolate equals getting fat. It doesn’t. It’s not a
cause and effect relationship where “junk food” automatically turns into fat. Eating
too many calories equals gaining fat.

Now if you take a pizza and you load that thing up with triple cheese and sausage
and pepperoni and olives and just stack the calories in there, then you have a very
calorie-dense food. Even though no food in itself makes you fat, calorie-dense
foods, if you eat them frequently, are more likely to give you a calorie surplus.

Or some foods stimulate your appetite or don’t keep you full for long, so you end up
eating more of other stuff later, and again, you’re likely to eat in a calorie
surplus.

The bottom line? As far as your favorite foods go, my philosophy is that depriving
yourself completely of your favorite foods is a great way to make yourself miserable
and to be almost certain that you fall off your diet very quickly. My philosophy is
allow yourself your favorite foods as long as you acknowledge that calories count
and you obey the law of calorie balance.

This is one reason that I don’t prefer the full day off the diet or the free for all
cheat day, because some people might interpret that loosely and they may almost feel
obligated to see how much food they can eat and how much they can shove down their
throats. They say, “Hey, it’s cheat day, so I have to cheat real good. I don’t want
to miss out on this!”

They end up in a huge surplus and if they go so far over on the cheat day, when it
all averages out over the week, they’re even and they haven’t lost any body fat.

Your best approach is to know your calorie target, or at least the ballpark, and
inside that calorie target, give yourself a compliance rule.

One that works really well for me and for my clients is 90% compliance. I give you a
list of clean foods like the ones that I mentioned before that include high nutrient
density foods with all the essentials and I say, “Eat these 90% of the time. The
other 10% of the time, eat whatever you want.”

If you look at it from this perspective, then you can see that there’s no such thing
as forbidden foods. For most people, in the long run, any diet that gives you
flexibility is going to work better than a diet that demands 100% “clean eating.”
This is not only my personal belief, it’s also well supported in the clinical
nutrition and behavioral psychology journals.

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I hope you have benefited from this excerpt. I may post one more tomorrow if I have
time.

To get more details about Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle and getting this entire
“Super Lean” Seminar for free (with the purchase of Tom Venuto’s burn the fat
program), just visit the burn the fat website at the link below. But hurry, this is
only a three day special promotion. it will expire on Wednesday, February 13th at
midnight.

Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle

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Today I’m posting an excerpt from one of two recent teleseminars featuring fat loss expert, Tom Venuto. Tom had them transcribed and turned into ebooks and MP3 audios that he’s actually giving away for free as part of a 3-day special promotion ending February 14th. Go to Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle for more information on that.

I wanted to share this excerpt from the seminar with you in particular (I got permission from Tom to reprint this). I think you’ll find it fascinating because it explains the real reasons why people hit fat loss plateaus. It happens especially when you get down to that “last 10 lbs” or when you drop a lot of weight, and you hit the “good” body fat category, but you’re an “overachiever” and you still want to get even leaner… all the way to “ripped”, or at least lean enough to see your abs.

Breaking through plateaus is a challenge, but there IS something you can do about them… read on and see what Tom says about it.

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EXCERPT FROM THE “SUPER LEAN” SEMINAR

QUESTION: “Our first question says, “Tom, I know you often say that to get to the point to be able to see your abs, you need to get to single-digit body fat. What if I hit a plateau at about 12% body fat? What do I need to do to break the plateau and get my fat% down to single digits? Should I do more cardio, more weight-training, manipulate my diet somehow?”

ANSWER: “You could do any of the above. You could manipulate your calories, change type of cardio, add cardio duration or frequency. You could increase cardio intensity. You could change your weight-training. You shouldn’t limit yourself.

One of the problems I see with quite a few programs is that they’re too dogmatic. If you hit a plateau, the person with the most flexibility in their approach is the person who’s going to be most likely to get through that plateau.

The first thing though is to understand what a plateau really is. This is important, because if you were losing weight, but now you’re not, there’s only one thing that that could mean; you were in a calorie deficit but you’re no longer in a calorie deficit.

You may be wondering why that happens.

There are four primary reasons you hit a plateau:

The first reason you hit a plateau is because your metabolism decreases. While this does not completely stop fat loss, it does slow down fat loss. If you’ve been cutting calories, especially if you cut them severely, your body adapts by decreasing the metabolic rate. That’s sometimes known as the “starvation response” or “Adaptive thermogenesis.”

The second reason is that you need fewer calories after you lose weight. Calorie needs are directly tied into your body weight. One problem is that after people lose a lot of weight, they tend to keep eating the same way they were eating when they were heavier.

So they’re feeding a smaller person the way they were when they were a bigger person, but when you’re a smaller person, you don’t need as many calories, even at rest (your basal metabolic rate is lower).

A third reason is that when you move that smaller body, you’re not burning as many calories. If you strap on a weighted vest or heavy backpack and go out and hike up a hill, you can tell, obviously, that if you’re lugging around extra weight, you’re burning more calories. So now can you see why, after you lose weight, you burn fewer calories?

The fourth reason is that most people either cheat on their diets or they forget to record part of their food intake. This one requires a little bit of honesty with yourself. Even if you don’t do it intentionally and you don’t “cheat” per se, unconsciously, we’re all terrible at estimating how much food we eat.

Some studies have even showed underreporting calorie intake as much as 50%. In other words, you say, “I’m only eating 1,200 calories a day, but i’m stuck at a plateau!” but you’re really eating 1,800 calories a day which doesn’t give you much of a deficit.

All of these reasons for plateaus get amplified in the later stages of a diet, because biologically speaking, your body is doing everything it possibly can to get you to go off your diet and to get weight to stabilize.

After a long period of dieting and after a large weight loss, your body cranks up the appetite, stimulates cravings and tries to trick you into eating more.

The leaner you get, the longer you’ve been dieting and the more aggressively you cut calories, the more your body tends to defend its weight, and hold on to remaining body fat.

So it’s really common to hit that plateau when you’re dieted down and leaner. Usually it’s nowhere near as difficult for the overweight person to start losing weight as it is for the lean person to get even more lean. The last 10 lbs is usually a lot harder than the first 10.

If you think about it, it’s pretty unnatural from a biological perspective to walk around with really low single-digit body fat. It’s not beneficial from a survival-of-the-species point of view to have low body fat. So this metabolic adaptation becomes more pronounced the leaner you get.

You’re also at a higher risk of losing muscle, because extra muscle is not econmical when there’s a calorie shortage. Having extra muscle is like having an engine that’s bigger than you need - It’s like a gas guzzler.

The ultimate answer to why you plateau, why that last 10 pounds is so hard to lose and why it’s hard to break into those single digits is that you were in a calorie deficit but for all of the reasons mentioned above, you’re no longer in deficit.

The way to break the plateau then is to:

(1) re-stimulate metabolism and re-set fat-burning and starvation hormones, and

(2) re-establish the deficit.

(3) KEEP AFTER IT!

The question was, “How do I do that? More cardio, more weight training, manipulate my diet?”

You could do all of the above. Eating less or exercising more can both increase a deficit. But one thing you might want to do first, is give yourself a little break. Take your calories up to maintenance level, maybe for a week.

The idea there is not to try to accelerate fat loss, because what you’re actually doing is removing your calorie deficit for a short period of time. What you’re trying to do is facilitate the fat loss when you jump back into it.

It gives your body a physiological break from the stress of dieting; it resets some of those starvation hormones and stimulates your metabolism so when you go back to the calorie deficit, your body responds again.

You also get mental break from the diet as well, which makes it easier to stick with the program when you go back to it.

You could also use a calorie cycling approach, to help prevent yourself from hitting another plateau, and we already covered calorie and carb cycling in the last call.

I also recommend, because so many people underestimate how much they eat, don’t take any chances. Count your calories, or at least become really aware of the portion sizes and maybe even consider keeping a journal.

You’ve probably been told many times by a lot of different “experts” that you don’t have to count calories. But when you’re in a plateau, I’d recommend that you stop guessing and really get serious about what you’re taking in.

Then what you need to do is reestablish that calorie deficit using every tool at your disposal.

Use nutrition by pulling back your portion sizes. Or use cardio. And by increased cardio, I mean increasing energy expenditure. You could increase your frequency. You could increase your duration.

But increasing energy expenditure is not necessarily doing longer workouts, just burning more calories. You could also take the same amount of time that you’re spending right now and increase your intensity.

The whole idea is just burn more calories and stimulate metabolism, which gives you your deficit back again or you can pull back your food intake and give yourself a deficit again from the food side.

There’s more than one way to do it and I don’t think that you should lock yourself in. Use all of the variables and remember that there are TWO sides to the energy balance equation, not one.”

========================

I hope you enjoyed this excerpt, and mostly, I hope you put the information to good use!

This was just one short excerpt from almost two hours of audio in Tom’s new “Super Lean” seminar. Tom is giving away the entire seminar for free with the purchase of his ebook Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle, but only until February 13th.”

You can get more information on Tom’s Burn The Fat program AND his new “Super Lean” seminar at:

Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle

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By: Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS
This interview covers Turbulence Training for Fat Loss in-depth. Craig Ballantyne, the author of Turbulence Training, was recently interviewed by strength coach, Jason Ferrugia. Here is some advanced fat loss information.

JF: First of all Craig, I’d like to thank you for agreeing to do this interview. To introduce yourself to our readers could you tell us a little about your background?

CB:
I’m a strength coach (CSCS) in Toronto and I write for Men’s Health, Oxygen, and Maximum Fitness magazines. I have worked extensively with young athletes and I train 3 of the players on Canada’s National Rugby team.

I’ve also developed my own training system that has been featured in the magazines, and I call it Turbulence Training. The goal is to get maximum results in minimum time, no matter what the goal (mass, fat loss, or athleticism).

Turbulence Training (TT) uses a combination of the basic, most effective lifts, structured in time-saving supersets, as well as interval training. It’s based on research, but I’m not going to claim that it’s any magic secret or rocket science. It is simply about getting things done quickly in a logical order. It’s amazing how complex some trainers have made training when it is generally such a simple process to achieve your goals.

Men and women looking to lose fat love it because it fits their often hectic schedules. Three 45-minute strength & interval sessions for fat loss are a lot easier to fit in rather than five 1-hour cardio sessions. And the bodyweight workouts I have, you can get done in the time it usually takes you to get to the gym and back.

JF: Your Turbulence Training system is one of the most effective training systems I have ever seen. Could you briefly describe the thought process that went into creating Turbulence Training and what makes it so effective and time efficient?

CB:
In grad school, when I had no time to train, I had to find a way to get results, fast.

That’s what almost everyone wants and needs these days, and it doesn’t matter if they want to gain muscle or lose fat. I was working 15-16 hours in the lab but still trying to get in my workouts. I realized that I couldn’t do marathon sessions, but I wasn’t about to sacrifice muscle or get fat.

Fortunately, the results of my training studies along with my review of some other research studies, confirmed my experiences that high-intensity training was the way to go. Use only squats, deadlifts, presses, split squats, rows, and similar exercises to get the maximum results in minimum time.

By training with multiple sets of low reps (6-8), and using intervals, you apply the most metabolic turbulence to the muscles. That burns a ton of fat and calories in the workout, and after. That is the key. Light weight, high reps, and slow-steady cardio don’t cause you to keep burning a lot of calories after the workout. And this approach also helps you do the next to impossible; gain lean mass while losing fat.

Another important component of TT is variety. I change the workouts frequently, every 3-4 weeks. That means rotating the exercises, putting in new variations (you can still create an endless number of workouts with variations on the basic lifts, as well as the advanced bodyweight exercises).

That’s the nuts and bolts of my Turbulence Training philosophy.

JF: I know you are a big fan of interval training. What are your favorite methods of interval training?

CB:
Sprinting is the best method, without a doubt. So whether it’s running intervals on the track, uphill sprints, or treadmill running, that’s clearly the most effective method. Moving your own bodyweight over a distance is the true definition of work, and that can be done at a high intensity.

Strongman methods are also top-notch. Pushing the truck, pulling the sled, flipping the tire, these are all great ways to do your interval training.

A little word of caution here though, as both sprinting and strongman training methods can be very intense, so you do need to warm-up more than adequately. Don’t just jump into sprinting outside or you could strain a muscle. And be conservative with the volume. If you haven’t done truck pushing intervals in 6 months, or ever, don’t do 5 or 6 of them because you’ll be puking your guts out. That being said, both of these methods are great because you are doing a lot of work in a short amount of time.

My next two favorite methods are bodyweight training and cycling. Both can be done with less need for an extensive warm-up, but both will really help you slash the fat.

I’ve been on a big bodyweight kick over the past year and it includes some very tough bodyweight interval circuits. It’s great “real-world” conditioning for athletes, and everyday people. The bodyweight workouts and circuits can be humbling, but build “everyday” strength.

I’m also partial to stationary cycling. Because you are cycling against a resistance you can do a lot of work. Doing a lot of high-intensity work means burning a lot of energy during the training the session and after (what I call putting your body into Turbulence). Just be careful with overuse injuries on the bike…as being in that hunched position can be rough on the low-back and can tighten up the psoas and rectus femoris muscles.

Rowing is okay for interval training. And simple walking at faster speeds or inclines is perfect for beginners. Remember that interval training is relative. What is an interval for me might not be an interval for you, or for Lance Armstrong.

Elliptical training machines are useless for intervals. These things are one of the biggest wastes of space in commercial gyms today.

As far as timing goes, there is no one best interval length for fat loss. I use everything from 20 seconds to 3 minutes for the length of the work interval. For the shorter sprints, I use 60-90 seconds rest, and for the longer aerobic intervals (i.e. 2-3 minutes) you would rest an equal amount of time as the work interval lasted. These are excellent not only for fat burning but for improving sport-specific conditioning.

One thing that has never made sense to me is the Tabata protocol for intervals (and if you don’t know what it is, don’t worry about it). The rest intervals are too short to allow high quality work…and that’s what Turbulence Training is all about – quality over quantity.

JF: Why is interval training so much more effective than regular steady state cardio?

CB:
Many reasons. But specifically, we choose quality over quantity.

1. It’s at least 200% more efficient, if not more. You can get the same or better fitness and fat loss improvements in half the time.
2. It builds real-world fitness. How many times each week do you do a 20-second stair climb? Compare that to how many times you run 30 minutes continuously (not including training)? The fact is life activities are short bursts of intensity, not long, slow bouts of continuous activity. The same can be said for most sports. So it quickly becomes clear which training method is better.
3. Intervals build anaerobic and aerobic fitness. Cardio builds only aerobic fitness.
4. Intervals build sport-specific fitness. Put a typical marathon runner on the basketball court and he’ll get beaten every time because he doesn’t have sport-specific fitness.
5. The health benefits of interval training are the same as you get from traditional cardio training. But again, the workouts are shorter.

JF: You favor a rep scheme that is lower than most typical fat loss programs. Could you explain why this is?

CB:
When you diet, you have to give your muscles a powerful stimulus to grow or maintain their current size. If you train with light weight and high reps, you don’t stimulate muscle growth and you don’t hit as many muscle fibers. The result will be a loss in muscle mass.

So in the TT workouts, we work in the 6-8 rep range for the first two supersets. The third and final superset of the workouts will often use 10-12 reps in order to stress all the metabolic processes in the muscle. That means the most “turbulence” and the most calories burned in and out of the training session.

JF: How much time does some one need to dedicate to training each week to achieve a great physique?

CB:
Fortunately not as much as most people think. You can do really well with 3 hours of structured training. However, you have to live the fat loss lifestyle for 167.5 hours per week (allowing 30 minutes per week for a “cheat” meal).

If you pick efficient lifts (like squats, deadlifts, presses, and rows), you don’t need to lift more than 1-2 hours per week for fat loss. And you can get great interval training results in three 20-minute sessions. Then you just have to concentrate on your nutrition. Plan ahead, shop correctly, and prepare your meals in advance.

For mass, cut out the intervals, do 4 sessions of 45 minutes per week, and you’re set. Spend the rest of the time concentrating on your muscle-building nutrition.

JF: What are the two or three biggest mistakes most people make in their quest to lose bodyfat?

CB:
Following politically-correct workouts and nutrition programs. By that I mean, slow-cardio marathon sessions followed by light weight, high rep weight training. Fortunately, there are a lot of great Internet sites giving good info for men, and even the magazines are catching on and giving good programs.

Unfortunately, women still get terrible fitness advice (one of the recommendations that upsets me the most is the suggestion to lift soup cans or water bottles – like that is going to help any woman under the age of 75).

As far as nutrition goes, the politically-correct recommendations still include a lot of carbohydrates, and generally these articles don’t even recommend the right carbohydrates. If you want to lose fat fast, get carbohydrates from fruits and vegetables first. These should be eaten at every meal. Cereal bars, rice cakes, and juices have no place on any weight loss program, if you want the weight lost to be fat.

JF: There’s six weeks left until the fourth of July; in that time how big of a difference can some one make in their physique?

CB: If someone knows what they are doing, or trains with someone that knows what they are doing, they can make incredible changes. Just look at bodybuilders. Look at the difference they make in 6 weeks. But again, they aren’t following politically correct recommendations. Don’t get me wrong though, just because you aren’t doing the politically-correct weight watchers diet doesn’t mean that you are doing anything unhealthy.

So in my opinion, both beginners and advanced physiques can make dramatic changes in their bodies in only 6 weeks. Overweight guys that eat like crap can probably lose 20-30 pounds of fat if they turn things around dramatically. And any guy that is around 15-18% body fat can develop an incredible set of abs and hit single-digit body fat in only 6 weeks.

JF: Where can people read more about you and your training methods? Do you have any new projects, etc.?

CB:
I have lot’s of big projects coming up, Jay. And I could go on forever about this stuff, so if your readers have questions, feel free to contact me through my site.

I keep on adding programs to my member’s section at TurbulenceTraining.com and I’ll be focusing on more hardcore fat loss workouts, muscle-building programs, and my bodyweight training pet projects. Seems like the hardcore fat loss programs are in greatest demand, so I’m working on those right now.

So all that, and I plan to continue taking Turbulence Training to the masses to help people get more results in less time.

About the Author
Craig Ballantyne is a Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist and writes for Men’s Health, Men’s Fitness, Maximum Fitness, Muscle and Fitness Hers, and Oxygen magazines. His trademarked Turbulence Training fat loss workouts have been featured multiple times in Men’s Fitness and Maximum Fitness magazines, and have helped thousands of men and women around the world lose fat, gain muscle, and get lean in less than 45 minutes three times per week. For more information on the Turbulence Training workouts that will help you burn fat without long, slow cardio sessions or fancy equipment, visit Turbulence Training website

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