So, Where Do I Start?

This seems to be a common theme in most of the emails that I've received so far. Oh, please keep them coming guys because I learn so much from them. If I haven't responded to you, don't worry one will be in your inbox before you know it!

OK guys, so you've read my story, you've become motivated, and now you're ready to lose the weight. But, just like me, most of you don't have a clue where to start. You could follow your old high school football routine that had you in the best shape of your life 20 years ago, or you could purchase the latest gadget on TV that guarantees results or your money back. Listen, I want to be clear about one point. You don't have to buy one single piece of equipment or one diet book to get the body of your dreams--not one!

This may seem contradictory since I promote certain products on my blog; nevertheless, all these are merely to compliment your training/understanding of nutrition, but you don't need them to lose the weight. Don't let anyone tell you differently because if guys in solitary confinement can get shredded on "nutritious" prison food and leaving the cell for 30 minutes to an hour per day, what do you think you can do?

I'm going to give you guys a formula for success that won't cost you one red cent! I'm even going to give them to you in bullet points for easier reading. OK, I know that in some of my earlier posts, I've discussed very complicated ways for you to figure out how many calories you need and macro-nutrient breakdown, etc. Also, I've posted some workout routines that seemed a bit complicated.

Well, I'm going back to my old fashion KISS (Keep It Sweet & Simple) philosophy for both my training and nutrition. Yes, I'm aspiring to have the body of an athlete, but I'm not one. So, I have to keep in mind that whatever program I create for myself must include the realities of my everyday life. Does this mean that you should continue to use your busy schedule as an excuse for you not exercising? Of course not, your busy schedule should cause you to want to exercise to help rid yourself of everyday stress. Hey, if you haven't hit a heavy bag imagining that it's your boss or an annoying co-worker, then you really don't know the true meaning of stress relief. ;)

Let's start with nutrition and the least you should know:

• Calories do indeed count and always will. Don't get caught up in debates with people about this because it's counterproductive to your ultimate goal. If another person truly believes that they can lose weight and reach the size they want without having an idea of how many calories s/he is consuming, congratulate them on their success and move on because here on earth, the Laws of Thermodynamics have yet to be disproven.
  
  
• "Eat Less, Move More" - Oh, how we hate hearing that from doctors, family, and friends who have never had a weight problem their entire life--lucky bastards! Well, don't be so quick to dismiss what they are saying because there is some truth in this weight loss cliche. In a most basic way, this expression is simply encouraging us to consume less energy (create a caloric deficit) while using more energy for the extra movement (which, since there is a calorie deficit, will cause your body to use its stored energy--fat and muscles--to make up for the difference, which causes you to lose weight on the scale). Simple, right? Yes, but they left something out. How much less do you eat and how much more should you move?
  
  
• Determining your daily calorie requirements is usually so confusing that sometimes you feel you need a background in biochemistry to fully understand the damn formulas. Well, I've picked up a simple and extremely uncomplicated way to determine how many calories you need to consume to stay at your present weight and how much you should eat to lose weight thanks to tips from the bodybuilder and strength & conditioning communities. First, keep in mind that this is not an exact science and that these are estimates, but they are reliable enough that athletes use them as a guide for their training. So, to get an idea of how many calories per day you need to eat to stay at your current weight, multiply your bodyweight times 15. To lose weight, you want to multiply your current weight times 8 -12. For most folks starting off, go with 10 or 12. Reserve the lower number when you're going for your six pack!
  
  Let's look at the example of a guy who weighs 300lbs. Well, to lose weight, he needs to consume no more than 3000 cals (BW x 10 = 3000) a day. He'll stay with this number until he loses 20lbs, and then he'll go back and reformulate his calorie needs, which will now be 2800 cals a day. Next, he'll be eating 2600 cals after losing 20 more pounds. You see how simple this is?
  
  
• So, what about macronutrients (carbs, fats, protein)? Should you do low-carbs, low-fat, or a balanced diet? What I find interesting is that this topic makes so much money in the "diet" book industry simply because of confusion and marketing hype. It's really simple. If you want to lose weight, simply follow the previous bullet's suggestion. However, if you want the majority of the weight loss to be actual body fat, then I suggest that you consume no more than 100 grams of carbs a day. This has been shown to be the upper limit of carb intake for one to consume and still benefit from the hormonal response (read: lower insulin levels, more fat burning, etc).
  
  If you are still freaked out about doing a low-carb diet, consider that the USDA recommends that we eat at least 125 grams of carbs because of the glucose our brains require on a daily basis. That's a difference of 25 grams, and I'll tell you what, without going into detail about ketones and the brain, I'll compromise with you. After you do a resistance workout, take in those 25 grams of carbs with your protein shake, and we'll call it even! There's no reason to go lower than 100 grams, despite what you may hear from low-carb sites and forums.
  
  
• Finally, figure out what triggers your poor eating habits. Listen, we know that eating a scoop or two of ice cream in a cup is better than that gi-normous four scoop sundae that drips down our chin and add to our waist. What's just as important along your weight loss journey is to figure out who you are and what makes you tick. We all eat, or should I say overeat, for different reasons. I was an emotional eater. Whenever stress knocked on my door, I was off to Krispy Kreme for a baker's dozen! No one forced me or even suggested that I react this way to stress, and, unfortunately, my body acted accordingly to what and how much I was feeding it.
  

I wanted to get nutrition out of the way first because the training aspect of your weight loss journey is even more simple in my opinion:

• If you lose weight mainly through calorie restriction, you, more than likely, will have droopy and saggy skin. We all have seen guys who lose a lot of weight and are pretty saggy. I call it the Jared Complex. No disrespect to the Subway guy because he is encouraging kids to exercise and be more conscious of their calories, but I never wanted to look skinny fat. When I lost weight using pills and doing tons of cardio, I looked like Jared, complete with the saggy skin and man boobs to boot! Fellas, if you don't want folks coming up to you and poking your saggy stomach like your the Pillsbury Doughboy, I'd suggest that you realize that resistance training is not an option--it's mandatory!
  
  
• Compound bodyweight exercises are more than enough for your strength and cardio conditioning. That's right, the body you see in the mirror every morning presents more than enough weight resistance for you to build a respectable body! Again, you don't need to buy any equipment. For ideas, feel free to go to www.bodyweightculture.com for free videos, discussions, and information on bodyweight exercises. I think it's one of the best bodyweight only forums/sites on the web! As I stated in my last post, YouTube is chock full of videos of people doing various bodyweight exercises. Oh, and there are two more BW-only sites that I've come across that I want you to check out:
  
  
• Beast Skills - Jim, who lives in my hometown of DC, has a great site and instructional videos.
  
• Body by Fish - Scrapper is another bodyweight culturists who has an outstanding site.
  

• Finally, I have a little treat for those guys out there who just need a program to follow. OK, if you fall in this camp, I have a pdf file that you can download or view by clicking here. This is basically a teaser from Craig Ballantyne's Turbulence Training Fat Loss Program. The good thing about this pdf is that you'll get a lot of mileage out of it because it has beginner, intermediate, and advanced routines. So, you have a good three months, or more depending on your current level of fitness, of workouts (including cardio) that you can use to decide if you want to purchase his ebook.
  
  Even if you don't buy Craig's book, make sure to take advantage of this free pdf, and make sure that you start to do research on the term EPOC (Excess Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption) to understand the number of new fat loss exercise programs getting ready to inundate the market around this concept!

Remember guys, the tortoise was right, slow and steady wins the race. It's OK to aim to have the body of a sprinter, but make sure to develop the mentality of a marathon runner along the way.

Happy Belated B-day to Mr. Sandow

I really wanted to post this on April 2nd, which was Eugene Sandow's 141st birthday, but that obviously didn't happen. So, it's better late than never. I also thought this would be a good time for me to report on what I learned during my In Search of Sandow Body Transformation, which extended a little longer than anticipated. Nevertheless, here's a list of things that I learned on trying to reduce my body fat % and my continued search for a six pack:

• Life happens - Even the best intentioned plans don't always come off exactly as planned. Getting married, moving, and trying to keep with my planned diet and workout routine didn't always work well together. So, I feel as though I did not keep sufficient records for this cycle as far as my nutrition is concerned; however, I kept a pretty good log of my workouts. Even so, my next 6-8 week cycle, which I'll start in two weeks, I plan on being a bit more disciplined with keeping a written account of my intake.
  
  
• Calories must be counted - It is really unfortunate that we are in 2008 and folks are still debating this issue. I'm sorry to keep beating a dead horse here, but I achieved my lowest level of body fat on this journey (7% as my electronic calipers indicate), and there is no way in hell I could have achieved this loss in body fat without counting my calories and eating below what my body needed to maintain my current bodyweight. I still don't understand why people are still so resistant to this idea, and it's not like you'll be doing it for the rest of your life.
  
  
• Insulin is not an evil hormone - I'll be the first to admit that I am a re-covering Carb-phobe. You see, my body responds extremely well to a low-carb, paleolithic style diet since I suspect that I'm an endomorph that is insulin sensitive, which is a recipe for a fat ass; however, I played around with cycling my carbs or carbing up which allowed me to actually eat a large number of carbs which went to replenishing my depeleted muscle glycogen and not fat storage. I'm going to play around more with this and blog about it in the future. But, I will say that from reading Jim Hale's new book and a couple of Lyle McDonald's that there are many more hormones involved in the fat loss and fat storage process that are seldom discussed. I'll be the first to admit that I'm still trying to digest what they are saying because I don't think most guys really understand how complex our body really is, or at least I didn't. So, I'm getting a crash course education now.
  
  
• Zero or very low carbs is not necessary - Unless you know that you are very sensitive to insulin, I really don't see the need for most fellas to go so low with their carbs. Honestly, I've done very low carbs for more than a year and worked out like a mad man with kettlebells only to get a very unimpressive (in my opinion) and emaciated looking physique. I had no idea how a muscle that's been depleted of its glycogen looked versus one that isn't. So, I could not figure out why I could not build muscle while I was going really low carb. Well, I wasn't eating enough carbs to keep my muscles' glycogen replenished, which gives the muscle a full look that most guys want. I suggest as Anthony Colpo does in his Fat Loss Bible that you eat between 60-100 grams of carbs a day and to take in post-workout carbs with the amount depending on how hard you worked out and for how long. Again, manipulating your macronutrients is not as simple as reduce your carbs to near zero and you'll have the body of Adonis before the summer.
  
  
• One can gain strength and definition using bodyweight exercises solely - You know I really can't believe that people are still saying this is not true, and they really should be ashamed of themselves. Yes, I understand that folks want to sell fitness equipment, but when they make outlandish claims like this, it's really criminal. As I've noted before on my blog, some of the strongest athletes are gymnasts who use virtually no weight training yet are able to do muscle-ups, iron crosses, and push ups on rings. Hey, I'm not anti-weights or anything like that because I'm going to go back to my kettlebells in a couple of weeks; however, I still strongly believe that one should master his/her own bodyweight first before thinking about picking up a weight. Also, it's a hell of a lot cheaper than buying some type of Bowflex contraption.
  
  
• Doing endless crunches is not necessary to get rock hard abs - Did I finally get my six-pack? Well, not quite, but I've reduced my sag in my belly enough to know that it is definitely within sight. Oh, and I did nothing special either to develop my abs. I hate doing crunches and preferred to do mainly isometric style holds such as ab vacuums, side bridges, oh and this one that my buddy Steve told me about which has you staying in the half-crunch position while raising your hands above your head. I called this one stick 'em up. LOL! The main thing about getting abs is removing that layer of body fat that's covering them up because WE ALL have them! They may not all look the same, as all of our muscles' shapes and sizes differ, but we all have a six-pack, and I don't care how fat you are right now.
  

• Fat is not bad for you but shouldn't be eaten ad lib either - I think what happens when someone goes low-carb is that it is unbelievable that they can eat what seems like an unlimited amount of dietary fat and still lose weight. I know because I was one that couldn't believe that I could eat three double-cheeseburgers, without the buns of course, and still drop weight. Not only did I not count calories, but I embraced fat like a long lost friend whom I had shunned during my years of low-fat dieting. Well, it was too much of a good thing because of the calories per gram of fat. I know that there are a lot of guys out there low-carbing, eating damn near zero carbs and can't figure out why they are still experiencing a plateau. Well, if you stop eating so much fat, you would automatically lower your daily caloric intake. If you're going very low-carb, you could also increase your carb intake to no more than 100 grams a day, and as long as you are in an energy deficit, you will lose weight. Also, I've switched to using 2% shredded cheese as I did with full-fat shredded cheese and mixing real eggs with a little bit of egg beaters. Also, I'm taking more fish oil pills that have also replaced some of the dietary fat I use to eat. No, fat isn't bad, but when you are trying to get your body to use the stored fat it has, you need to chill on eating so much dietary fat.
  
  
• Be flexible in your beliefs and open minded to challenge your previous views - When I reached my first goal of losing 100 lbs, I did so buy basically reading one book, Dr. Ellis's Ultimate Diet Secrets. I've blogged enough about this book, but I had to come to realize that there is no such thing as a guru or someone who has all the answers. If someone claims to, then they are just full of themselves because not one person can be an expert on every aspect of weight loss because the process is just too complex. Now I realize that much of the debating that goes on in the dieting community as a whole is really counterproductive in many ways because it keeps people from reading and trying to understand the complex processes involved in weight loss, especially if you are trying to achieve low levels of body fat. While I think that I'm getting a better grasp of the things I read, the more I read the more I realize how much I have to learn.
  
  
• Saggy skin is mainly stubborn body fat - As my picture shows, my hanging belly has gone down a bit, but I know that I still have fat in my lower abdomen and lower back because I can feel it. I'm not kidding myself by thinking that my skin is going to come back and be smooth as it was when I was a teenager; however, I do believe that it will tighten up and come back much more than I initially thought. Also, I've noticed that my stretch marks become less noticeable the smaller my belly gets, which is really encouraging and motivating because I really want to see how far I can take this. Oh, and talking about the complexity of the problem of what I'm trying to do is that I'm actually fighting against my own body's defense system of stoping the body fat levels from getting too low. And, to add to this, different types of body fat respond to different stimulii from the body. Listen, if you are dieting down to try and get a six pack, and you've never done it before like me, then let me be the first to tell you that it is DAMN HARD, and anyone who tells you it's not is full of shit or trying to sell you something!
  
  
• Bodybuilders have weight loss down to a science - I don't know if it's the image of over muscled guys or women with pecs harder than most men, but the average person becomes really intimidated when it comes to the bodybuilding community. This is really unfortunate because they have this weight loss thing literally down to a science, but let me be clear about which aspect of the bodybuilding community I'm talking about. Now, 99% of the BB magazines you see on the market are garbage that are basically full of ads of companies that want to promise you the world and basically hustle you. So, you can cancel your subscription to Muscle and Fitness. You want information on how to really lose weight? Well, go on bodybuilding forums and read, read, and read some more. Not only will you find some extremely smart individuals on there, but they are not the 'roid rage, WWF-type personalities they are stereotyped to be. BB is a competitive sport, so you don't have to do everything they do, but when you have a group of individuals who's chance of winning is how little amount of body fat they have is someone that I will definitely want to hear what they have to say. I've found that bodybuilding.com and t-nation.com are two of the best forums around. However, I will warn you. If you are lazy and looking for an "easy" way to lose weight or get ripped, these forums aren't for you. Although they have it down to a science, they don't have a patent on a magic potion to make you shredded overnight. I'm sorry but it's going to take a major effort on your part.
  

OK guys, there you have it. My report from this roller-coaster ride that I've been on over the past three months. While I did not get my six-pack as I had hoped, I more convinced now that it's in my cross-hairs!

Plateau Does Not Equal Failure

OK, so you've been losing weight at a pretty steady clip and then, all of a sudden, you stop seeing the numbers on the scale go down. Panic starts to set in, your palms get sweaty, and all of your failed weight loss attempts of the past start flashing before your eyes. Sound familiar fellaz? I'm sure it does because anyone who has tried to lose weight has experienced a stall. Hell, I know that I have on many occasions.

As I've already discussed in my post on the Atkins Diet, I went through pretty much a one year plateau after losing 50lbs. It was a frustrating, yet rewarding, experience for me in many ways. I don't suggest that people follow my take a whole year to figure out you need to change something attitude; however, I now realize that while I was definitely not pleased with the pitiful weight loss numbers on the scale, I wasn't regaining my lost weight either. For the first time on my journey, I felt as though I really did have a little control over my bodyweight. Yes, one can argue that I really didn't lose any weight that year since our bodyweight can fluctuate up to five pounds on a daily basis, but that's taking the glass is half empty approach.

An alternative view, and just as valid, is that I was able to control my weight for an entire year by exercising and eating low-carb. Also, we have to remember that the scale is just one tool that we use to see how we are progressing on our weight loss journey. Keep in mind that you also have a tape measure, a full length mirror, and your clothes to see if you are still losing inches. If you are weight training, then you can expect to go through a period of possible gains on the scale because of your muscle growth. Those new to weight training or seasoned vets returning after a lay off will see the most initial growth in strength and size.

Next, you have to figure out how you can burn more daily calories. Don't always look to slashing more calories first. Guys, this is the wrong approach and one that leads to yo-yo dieting and weight loss. It's really simple: look for more ways to burn not cut calories. Stop parking so close to the front door of the mall. Get off the escalator and get out of the elevator and take the stairs. And, don't even think about getting on those moving sidewalks in the airport! Do these activities burn hundreds of calories? Nope, not even close, but they burn calories nonetheless and that's the point. To break through a plateau, try and figure out how you can holistically burn more calories first through a structured exercise routine (think weight resistance before cardio) and spontaneous activities like those I've mentioned.

Now, if you know that you are eating more calories than your maintenance level, then you need to do what I've said above and eat the number of calories that you've already calculated that you should be eating. Hey, don't beat yourself up and get down on yourself because I'll let you in on a little secret. The more you concentrate on eating whole, unprocessed foods, the easier it is to clean up your diet. It takes time, and it's not easy. But, man is it ever rewarding!