Well today, I’m going to talk about all 3 so let’s dive right into this…

Fat Loss Forever Review

Fat loss forever is a program based off of two main principles, which includes intermittent fasting and hormonal optimization training. When you combine these 2 critical fat loss elements together, in theory you can easily melt off pounds of excess belly fat and keep your new physique for life…

And that is the biggest problem I see with a lot of fat loss programs. They’re great at helping you shed those last few pounds, but once you complete the program you tend to put all of the weight back on because you never had a great maintenance plan in place.

Now intermittent fasting is well…what the name implies. It’s not a completely new concept; however, intermittent fasting has been predicted to be the next biggest fitness and fat loss trend in 2012. Why? Because it goes completely against conventional wisdom with regards to fat loss and even putting on muscle.

A lot of people are under the notion that you must eat 5-6 times per day to keep your metabolism as high as possible and to keep blood sugar levels stable throughout the day. The problem with this thinking is that it’s all “gym” science. It is simply not true.

When you eat 5-6 small meals a day, you are basically creating a roller-coaster like effect in terms of your blood sugar levels. This is something you do not want to happen because it can lead you to becoming  more hungry, craving more foods, and possibly insulin resistant over-time. Plus, who wants to worry about eating 5-6 times a day anyways? That’s a pain in the butt when you have to worry about cooking all of that food or bringing tons of containers to work with you every day.

There are countless studies demonstrating that your metabolism will NOT dip below maintenance levels even with a 24-48 hour fast. For that to happen, the average time-frame is around 72 hours before you see any dip in your metabolic rate.

The other big lie within the fitness, diet, and fat loss industry that Dan and John talk about is the issue of eating BREAKFAST. Again, many people think that breakfast is the #1 most important meal of the day…

Truthfully, it’s not, especially if you eat a  lot of carbohydrates for breakfast. This can leave you feeling groggy, sluggish and slowed down. What it really comes down to is meal timing and this is something that Dan and John thoroughly write about within the Fat Loss Forever Program.

In fact, here are 4 benefits to skipping breakfast and how it will accelerate your body’s fat burning furnace…

1. By skipping breakfast, you can easily cut down on the total amount of calories you ingest each and every day. It’s a no-brainer, but many people fail to even realize this. Now if you’re thinking that you’re going to be severely starving during this time, well you’re right. But this is all because of a little hormone called Ghrelin. To make things simple, this hormone is released when your body is expecting food and you those hunger pains. But, the cool thing is that this hormone can be trained. In fact, it only takes a few days to a few weeks to re-train this hunger hormone, which means you will no longer be “starving” and can easily go without breakfast if you just stick to the schedule. AKA => Faster fat loss.
2. By skipping breakfast, you’ll also see an up-tick in growth hormone production, which is the anti-aging hormone that everyone seems to be talking about these days. Growth hormone is positively correlated with fat loss. That is one of the reasons why a lot of professional bodybuilders pump themselves up with the stuff when trying to diet down for a contest because it helps them just melt the fat right off.
3. Another reason why you should skip breakfast is because of the crazy amount of energy you’re going to get from doing so. When you skip breakfast/fast, catecholamines get released as well as dopamine. This combination will give you an awesome feeling of alertness, focus and overall well-being that it’s equivalent to drinking a few cups of coffee without the caffeine. I absolutely love the feeling and look forward to it kicking in about 30 minutes after I wake up. It’s something that is hard to explain unless of course you have experienced it yourself. This is one of the BIGGEST reasons why I love intermittent fasting, which they also explain in Forever Fat Loss.
4. By skipping breakfast, you’re allowed to absolutely FEAST later on in the day, preferably after your workout. Personally, I’m a fan of big meals. I love cooking big meals, eating big meals and just enjoying food. Life is too short to be starving and to be constantly dieting. By delaying breakfast and eating 3 large meals later in the day, you will feel more satisfied and actually enjoy your food as opposed to snacking every 2 hours. To me that is just a tease. I’ve seen clients and other trainers who do this and they end up binging later on because of the “trained pattern” of always eating and the up and down of blood sugar levels.

Oh and before I forget, the other cool thing that they combined with intermittent fasting + hormonal optimization training is cheat days. If you’ve been a reader of my blog and emails, you’ll know that I’m a huge proponent of cheat days and cheat meals, especially when you’re trying to drop fat because it resets the hormone leptin.

Leptin is positively correlated with metabolism and is secreted by your fat cells. It’s supposed to act as a feed-back loop to the brain to alert yourself that you’re full and you don’t need any more calories. If you ignore this over-time you can actually become leptin resistant.

That’s why a lot of people always say they’re hungry but truthfully never are because this is broken. Now when you are dieting down and burning up body fat, less leptin is being released into the blood-stream and calories are usually below maintenance levels. Therefore, over-time your metabolism will decrease as well, which leaves you with painfully slow fat loss.

But the easiest, quickest and fastest way to prevent this from happening is by having a cheat meal once a week. The combination of carbohydrates, fat, protein and calories will sky-rocket insulin levels, which in turn will increase leptin all the way back to base-line levels.

Plus, it gives you a mental break from dieting throughout the week; especially when you know you have your cheat meal coming up and you can pig out on whatever you’ve been craving the past 7 days.

Another cool trick to really jack up your fat burning results, that they talk about in Fat Loss Forever is by having a complete fast day the NEXT DAY after you had your cheat meal. Since leptin levels will be through the roof, metabolic rate will be increased, you’ll be able to burn a ton of fat without having to worry about your metabolism dipping down at all.

So who are the creators of Fat Loss Forever?

You have “The Fat Loss Ninja” Dan Go himself. He’s a good buddy and we usually see each other at a ton of business and training seminars. He’s a smart guy and the one who really got me into intermittent fasting. I didn’t believe him at first, but I tried it for a month at a time and the results were phenomenal. Never felt like I was dieting or starving myself. Dan is based out of Toronto and has been published in numerous places such as LIVESTRONG, Maximum Fitness, The National Post, The Globe and Mail, and Oxygen Magazine.

John Romaniello is a fellow New Yorker and one of the most sought out trainers in the city. He’s been published in every major media outlet including Men’s Health, LIVESTRONG, and SHAPE. He’s been named Trainer of the Month by Men’s Health, and considered one of the Top 20 fitness experts online. He’s also appeared on Good Morning America specifically talking about hormone optimization and how certain training variables can affect your fat loss results.

I know that was a lot, but I just wanted to give you a really in-depth look into intermittent fasting and they’re new fat loss program titled Fat Loss Forever. It’s something that I truly believe in, have done myself and agree with whole heartedly. The effects on your physique and even on your well-being are amazing and I’m so glad I discovered this way of eating. If you’ve been stuck at a certain number or just want to drop a ton of belly fat and keep it off, then I have to sincerely recommend they’re program.

Therefore, you have high levels of blood glucose which can cause a host of problems for you. Most of the time, this will just get dumped into your adipocyte cells AKA increasing the amount of fat you have on your body. This is not good. Being insulin resistance has been linked to Diabetes Type II, obesity, heart disease and strokes. You want to be as insulin sensitive as possible. Now is there a way to increase your insulin sensitivity through diet alone…Well yes and no. Exercise plays a crucial role in increasing insulin sensitivity, especially right before you sit down for a meal. The reason for this is because of the activation of GLUT 4 which is a transporter found in your fat cells and muscle cells. In order to make sure that whatever glucose is circulating in your blood ends up in your muscle tissue to be used for glyogenolysis, you need to perform some type of exercise or muscular contraction. This brings GLUT 4 to the surface and allows glucose to pass through the cell wall to be used for energy.

Another way to increase insulin sensitivity is by following a low carbohydrate diet. When you follow a low carbohydrate diet, your body releases less insulin over time. Therefore, when it does get released, it’s a lot more sensitive to its effects as opposed to if you’re eating tons of carbohydrates throughout the day and not exercising that much. There is also a lot of anecdotal evidence pointing to the old adage of eating 5-6 small meals a day as possible increasing one’s insulin resistance even more over time. The reasoning is because each time you have  a meal, whether It be large or small, your body’s blood glucose levels spike.

Insulin get’s released each time to bring these levels back down to baseline. But if you do this 5-6 times a day, then that is a lot of insulin that is getting released. Even if you are healthy, over time this can lead to an increase in resistance since your pancreas is working so hard. This has been demonstrated even in individuals who are extremely lean. Now many people, trainers, and fitness enthusiasts are recommending someone to eat the old way of 3-4 large meals a day instead of breaking them up. The larger the meal, the lower the spike in blood glucose levels and the less of a rollercoaster effects one would have.

All in all, an insulin resistance diet is not hard to follow, but there are steps you can take to increase your body’s sensitivity without really sacrificing much at all. I would definitely be following a lower carbohydrate diet throughout the day, eating 3-4 larger meals as opposed to 6 tiny meals a day, and exercising at least once a day to increase insulin sensitivity through GLUT 4. One clever way to increase this even more is to exercise for 5 minutes before each meal doing some sort of total body movements for around 30 repetitions with just your body weight. For example you could do 30 body weight squats and 30 pushups before each meal to bring GLUT 4 to the surface. Try it…I’m sure it will work. 

For example, if you keep doing the same type of workout over and over again, then that’s something that will definitely hold up your progress. But you need to venture outside of your comfort zone in order to see results. You need to experiment with different things, nothing bad can happen from it except the number on the scale going down.

For example, when I go to my own gym to get a workout in, I see the same people doing the same routines, day in and day out, for months. Their body’s never change a single bit. Now maybe they just go to the gym for purely health reasons, but usually it’s a vanity thing. Don’t get me wrong, this is not a bad thing because we all want to look good. That’s the real underlying reason why people exercise. They want to look good.

The other thing I have noticed is dieting part to this whole equation. I hate the word diet or dieting because people associate that word with negativity. When they hear the word or think of it, they get images of pain, anger and frustration, plus starvation. This is not good and already that person is shooting themselves in the foot by thinking this way. They are setting themselves up for failure. They’re programming their brain to resist the change and go off on their diet at some point.

And this ties right in with the first point I made about doing the same things over and over again with your training program. If you do the same ole bland and boring diet that you did before, you’re not going to be motivated at all to get better, to see change, and to become a healthier individual. You need to change things up and get crazy. For example, I’ve been experimenting with client’s recently what I like to call the Feast and Famine diet.

This diet is a break-off from the regular intermittent fasting approach to fat loss. I personally really like it because it allows you to burn a ton of body fat while still feeling full and having a life of your own. It never feels like you’re married to a diet and it’s not hard at all to go through every day and live with. It’s quite easy and many people have had tremendous results so far.

So with the two main points above, I want you to start doing this right now…change up your exercise routine and change up your diet if you want to know how to reduce your tummy.

But I’m going to go further than that….I’m going to give you a week long workout that you can start doing right away. You can do this training program 3 days a week for a few months. But I must say that you should always try and improve on your numbers whatever that may be. Always try to decrease your rests periods, weight lifted, or total number of repetitions performed. This will always keep your body guessing, which is great because it will be forced to constantly keep adapting.

Monday:

Burpes x 12

Dumbbell Squats x 12

Pushups x 12

Pullups x 12

I want you to reach failure for each exercise at the 12 repetition mark. This is going to induce a high level of lactic acid throughout your entire body, which will further increase your metabolism and your fat burning capabilities. Plus it will increase your excess post oxygen consumption levels through the roof. Once you get through all 4 exercises, rest then repeat 5 more times.

Wednesday:

Dumbbell Overhead Press Into Squat Thrust x12

Inchworms x12

Mountain Climbers x 50

Dumbbell Rows x 12

I want you to reach failure for each exercise at the 12 repetition mark. Once you get through all 4 exercises, rest then repeat 5 more times.

Friday:

Jump Squats x15

RDL’s x 15

Jumping Jacks x 50

Explosive Pushups  x 10

Again reach failure for the prescribed amount of reps, then rest and repeat 5 more times.

All in all, if you want to reduce your tummy, there is no need to do any type of “spot” reducing exercises like thousands of crunches and sit ups. You just really need to turn things up a notch, change your program and diet, and blast away a ton of calories. By doing this, you will force your body to change and you’ll notice a difference in a matter of weeks.

The first thing you can do is start eating more protein. Protein is very satiating and has the highest thermic effect on the body over carbohydrates and fats. Protein has a 30% thermic effect while carbs and fats have around 5%. This means that you body has to work very hard to break down protein in order for it to be used by the body and digested properly.

The next thing you should do is cut your calories by at least 25%. But don’t think that this is some type of starvation diet because it’s not. Usually when you go on a diet, the first thing you should do is just clean it up. By cleaning up your diet and removing all of the junk food, you automatically will be cutting calories that your body will not miss. Plus, you can replace them with healthy sources such as fruits and vegetables to get the necessary amount of vitamins and nutrients.

The next thing I would recommend is to cut out all starchy carbohydrates. These types of carbs include any breads, pastas, crackers, candy, etc…This type of stuff will wreak havoc on your waistline and cause huge increases and fluctuations in blood sugar. When you want to drop a lot of fat fast, you need to keep your blood sugar levels as stable as possible. This ensures adequate fat loss. Also by keeping your blood sugars normal, you prevent those crazy roller coaster rides of feeling hungry, tired and weak. Again, you want to prevent this as much as possible because if you don’t your chances of going off of your diet go up by a lot.

Now I will say this…the best times to eat your carbohydrates are right after you workout, during or before. And that’s it. During this time, the chances of your body storing them as body are minimal at best. This is because your insulin sensitivity is really high. And when you workout or train with weights, your body will soak those carbs up like a sponge. Your muscles prefer this type of fuel source over any other in order to get the job done.

All in all, if you want a quick way to lose belly fat, start eating more protein, cut your calories by 25%, limit your carbohydrates, especially from grains, and just follow a normal diet. Just from making these small changes, I guarantee you will see huge results.

Seriously.

They can be your friend or your foe. They can be your best buddy or your mortal enemy.

It’s kind of funny like that because fats and proteins don’t give you these types of problems.

I can tell you this, when and how much carbohydrates you eat during the day all depends on what your goals are and your individual characteristics. That’s it. That’s all that it boils down too.

The best times to get those carbohydrates are the times when you are most insulin sensitive. This is just basically when the chances of you storing them as body fat are minimal at best. Here are the best times below to take advantage of this opportunity:

• 8-10 hours after your last meal
• Before a workout
• During a workout
• After a workout
• After a day of fasting
• Periodically during a low carb diet

That’s about it right there.

It might not seem like a lot of options, but these are truly the best times to consume those pesky carbs because the chances of them being stored around the belly are almost nonexistent.

The 8-10 hours after your last meal are ideal because insulin levels are quite low and that’s why people usually say to eat a large breakfast. However, a good point that a lot of people don’t understand is that during this time, adiposity tissue sensitivity is also quite high so there is more of a chance of those carbs being shuttled to your fat tissue as opposed to being burnt up and used for energy.

However after a night time fast, you can have some fruit in the morning. Your body primarily feasts off of its liver glycogen stores at night and the only way to replenish these is actually with fructose. And you can find plenty of natural fructose from fruit, but don’t go overboard with the stuff. Fructose is not the best carbohydrate to be used for energy that’s why ideally you should only eat it after you wake up in the morning. But even then I would hold off…

The reason is because if you let your body fast for a slightly longer period of time, fat burning increases as well as your sympatheic drive AKA your nervous system. You’re going to feel extreme amounts of focus and energy because of this. Carbohydrates blunt this response and cause you to feel tired and groggy.

So I personally would hold off my first meal of the day for a few hours after waking up and even then it would be very light. I would only have a protein shake with a small amount of healthy fats such as almond butter, cashew butter and or fish oil. You could also substitute a whole egg omelet with some greens such as spinach, broccoli, peppers etc…

Since I usually get my own workout in at around 12-1 p.m. right before I head off to the gym I’ll down a shake consisting of some creatine monohydrate, BCAA’s, and casein hydrosolate. Casein hydosolate is the absolute PUREST form of protein powder that you can get on the market. It’s already pre digested and broken down into di and tri peptides. Therefore, its absorption rate is within 15 minutes of being ingested. Even whey concentrate, the stuff that most people buy can take up to 2 hours.

But the problem with this extreme purity is the taste….It tastes like absolute puke because it’s already pre-digested…But you gotta do what you gotta do right?

After my workout, that is when I’ll have my first BIG meal of the day consisting of mostly carbohydrates, protein and some fats. The carbohydrate sources would ideally be from starches such as potatoes, yams, or sweet potatoes.

The reason is because I need to replenish glycogen stores and increase insulin output in order to create an environment for growth and repair. And since I waited to consume any form of carbohydrates until AFTER my workout (like one of the points above) most of the time those carbohydrates will never be stored as body fat.

The next big meal will be about 3-4 hours later and will be made up of protein, fat and tons of vegetables.

And as you can tell, no carbs in this meal since I had the majority of them as my post workout meal.

Now if you were to be doing some type of low carb diet for fat loss purposes, you can periodically have a re-feed every couple of days or every 7 days depending on how low your body fat number is and how long you’ve been dieting for.

This is what I call a cheat meal or cheat day. It’s great because it replenishes glycogen stores, increases anabolism, and enhances your metabolism.

To really kick it up a notch I would do a big time workout beforehand to really increase insulin sensitivity. Load up on the carbohydrates as your re-feed meals, then the next day have a fast day or protein shake only day.

Metabolism will be through the roof so you’ll be able to burn up a ton of body fat in the process.

All in all, I hope this article shed some light on the carbohydrate conundrum. Remember, the best times to have any carbs are at the above points. This will greatly cut down your chances of storing them as body fat.

Oh and another thing, for most people, I would never recommend going over 100 grams a day total on days you train with weights. It just won’t be needed. Of course though this is dependent on how muscular you and the types of workouts etc…

Seriously, it’s the cornerstone to you getting the body that you really want. Fat is like an ugly sheet that just covers everything up. It’s not that hard to get rid of, especially if you have the right program in place and you follow it to the letter…

But muscle on the other hand is a pain in the you know what. It takes a long time to add lean muscle mass to your frame because it’s happening on a microscopic level. Think about it for a second…

When you lift weights, you’re breaking down tissue at the microscopic level. So to be able to synthesize a pound of muscle takes a lot of hard work, sweat, extra calories, and resources. If you want a good comparison, just go to the supermarket and look at  16 ounces of steak….Your body has to make that.

Now there are some things you can do to help speed up the process somewhat. Every little bit helps so without further ado, here’s 38 muscle building tips that you can start using right away.

1. The best sets and reps scheme to put on slabs of beef to your frame AND build strength at the same time is around 5-8 repetitions. If size and strength are your main goals, then stick to this rep range for most of your movements.
2. If size is purely what you’re after and can’t give a rat’s @$$ about strength  or power, then stick to around 10-15 reps per exercise. Worry more about time under tension as opposed to lifting the weight.
3. Always try and keep progressing. By this, I mean always try to improve each week by at least 1 rep on every exercise. Or add weight to the bar by 2.5% when it gets too easy. You could also change the exercises up every once in awhile, decrease your rest periods and do more work in less time.
4. For sheer size, you need to have sufficient total volume. If you wanna get big, then you need to increase your total volume per exercise. By that, I mean multiply your sets x reps. The minimum amount of total reps you should be aiming for is 24 per exercise per muscle group during each training session. In total for the week, shoot for between 50-100 total reps.
5. When warming up…never EVER go to failure. The CNS is what controls a lot of your strength gains. By going to failure during warm-ups, you’re just burning yourself out. This will hurt your workouts.
6. Lift explosive during warm-ups. You want to wake up your central nervous system during your warm up sets. The more excited your CNS, the more weight you’ll be able to lift
7. Always push as hard as you can per each rep. Even if the weight is really heavy, I still want you to push that weight as hard as you possibly can. This will excite your CNS, turn on more alpha motor neurons, which will turn on more muscle fibers. The more muscle fibers that get hit, the more muscle you will build.
8. Avoid failure for most sets. If you’re goal is to do 5×5 of bench with 100 pounds, and you hit failure on the first set, your subsequent sets are going to suffer. By lightening the load slightly, and leaving 1-2 reps in the tank, you’re total volume lifted will be much higher. This equates into bigger and faster strength gains.
9. You can go to failure more often for smaller body parts and exercises. These include calves, biceps, neck, abdominals, and forearms. The loads are relatively lighter as compared to a squat or dead lift.
10. Always try and reduce your rest periods per week. And by decreasing your rest periods, just aim for around a 5 second decrease week per week. But this should never come at the expense of weight lifted. If it does, you cut down your rest periods too much too fast.
11. In the beginning, always use a total body training split. PERIOD
12. After a sold year of training under your belt, feel free to switch to an upper body, lower body split. This is very popular with strength athletes and coaches for size and strength.
13. Try and hit each muscle group at least 2x per week. The more times you can hit a muscle group without going to failure or over train, the more chances it has to grow.
14. With regards to #13 above, this must be built up over time. You can’t just jump in and start hitting each muscle group more than 2-3x per week without sufficient adaptations. Also, your program must be spot on.
15. Don’t change your exercises frequently. In fact, out of all the things you can change within your workouts, exercises should be the last thing you change. This of course barring any injury. Your body needs something to adapt to structurally. That’s the point of getting stronger and bigger. That’s why it’s best to keep exercises constant BUT use progressive overload to create a new stimulus.
16. Don’t listen to the “big” guy at the gym. Most often times they have done some sort of performance enhancers and or genetically gifted. It came easy to them. Their legs would grow just from squatting off the toilet.
17. Don’t program hop. I used to be guilty of this myself when I was younger and just finding my way in the muscle building world. I used to go from one program to the next. The only reason I did this was because I thought that program A wasn’t working so program B must be the right answer. The truth is I never gave program A, a chance to work…Get what I’m saying? Pick something and stick to it all the way through. You might be surprised. Here’s a good rule of thumb…If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!
18. You gotta get that food in. If you’re killing yourself in the gym and eating like a bird, there’s no way in hell you’re gonna get big and strong.
19. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that you eating 6x a day is enough. You have to look at total calories.
20. Focus the majority of your attention on big multi joint compound movements. Those are the variations of squats, dead lifts, pull-ups, rows, bench presses, military presses.
21. Focus 10-20% of your time on assistance exercises. These are all the single joint exercises such as bicep curls etc…
22. Always go for the most bang for your buck. AKA the 80/20 rule. Big exercises first and foremost. Once those are finished with, feel free to throw in a few assistance exercises to round out your physique if you’d like. I personally rather just do another big lift instead. But that’s just me.
23. Bump up the volume for all back exercise. The back can take a huge amount of volume. So don’t be afraid to increase the number of sets and reps you do for each exercise. Plus it’s great since most people have bad posture and interiorly rotated shoulders from benching too much. Keep this up and you’ll encounter numerous shoulder problems down the road. Trust me on this one.
24. Always do some type of spine loaded exercise first in your workout. Examples are squats, dead lifts, overhead presses, etc…
25. STRETCH. I know it’s annoying. I hate stretching too, but you gotta do it. The more you can stretch the better your chances of staying injury free.
26. If you can’t gain weight, start drinking olive oil. This is especially important if you got one of those super fast metabolisms that allows you to eat whatever and whenever you want, but never gain a single pound. If this is the case, start adding a few tablespoons of olive oil to your protein shakes every day. Just avoid crowded areas
27. The easiest way to gain weight is to eat more fat. This goes hand in hand with #26 above. Fat is 9 kcals per gram, while protein and carbs are around 4 kcals per gram. Perfect examples are whole eggs, olive oil, peanut butter, assorted nuts, coconut milk etc…
28. Get your fish oil in. Fish oil is seriously a miracle food. It has anti cancer fighting properties, anti inflammatory properties and it’s just great for your overall health. I recommend this to anyone.
29. Never miss a meal. NUFF SAID.
30. Get at least 8 hours of sleep a night. Your body is built up when you’re sleeping, not in the gym. The breaking down of muscle tissue happens when you lift. The rebuilding process happens when you sleep. So get that sleep in. If you don’t do this, you’re recovery abilities will suffer and so will your muscle gains.
31. Supplement with creatine. Creatine monohydrate has been around for a very long time now. In a nutshell, creatine gives you more fuel to enable you to lift more weight for a longer period of time. This is one of the 3 main energy systems inside of your body. The second main  one is the ATP-PC system aka creatine phosphate.
32. Get at least 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight. If you’re not getting in enough protein, you’re cutting down your chances of building muscle.
33. Have a high carbohydrate meal before and after your workout. I prefer you to have some type of shake right before you workout around 30 minutes prior. This jacks up your insulin levels which equates to anabolism. After your workout, you need to keep this going to have either a shake or a solid meal of protein and carbs right after.
34. Don’t worry about the pump. The pump really has nothing to do with building strength or muscle, so forget about it.
35. Don’t be afraid to lift heavy. Lifting heavy is one of the best things you can do for long term strength and muscle gains. If you can increase your 1RM in all of your big lifts, you’ll be able to increase your 8-12RM as well. This equals more weight lifted and more total volume.
36. Don’t be afraid of fats. Eating fat helps to increase testosterone levels. I know you know what that means right?
37. Don’t be afraid of cholesterol. Study after study shows that food cholesterol has little effect on your total cholesterol numbers. It’s mostly genetic anyway. But cholesterol is needed by the body to synthesize hormones, especially testosterone. The easiest source is from whole eggs. I eat 4 a day.
38. Get a little crazy. I like switching things up and preventing boredom from just going against the norm. If I feel like lifting for 2 hours and doing crazy amounts of high repetition work, I’m going to do that. So feel free to get creative and go nuts. Doing this once in a while will definitely spark some new found growth!

He quoted a statement from Men’s Health about how they said you should switch up the exercises around every 4-6 weeks.

So this got me thinking, if he had this question then many others probably have the same question.

Now when it comes to getting the best results possible you have to do this FIRST AND FOREMOST…

TRACK YOUR PROGRESS.

By tracking your progress you can see yourself progressing from week to week, workout to workout. I’m not only talking about weight here. I’m talking about number of repetitions performed, number of sets, total volume lifted, was the weight heavier, lighter, was your cardio routine easier, was your heart rate lower this week, did you recover faster etc…

Okay I know the list can literally be endless. So to make it easy I wanted to break it down for you. The 5 most important areas to focus on and track within your workouts.

Workout Variable #1: Repetitions Performed

This is probably the easiest thing to track when it comes to your workouts. It’s real simple; just create a chart for each exercise during your workout with sets, reps, and weight with their own respective columns.

If you have to do dumbbell rows for 3 sets of 10 and you hit your goal number this week, then write it down. The next week you now know you have to get at least 10 reps for this exercise. BUT what you should do is try to beat that number by at least 2 reps.

This makes it so much easier to keep progressing along. If you were just flying blind, you’d have no idea how you were doing from week to week.

I also like this because it’s self motivating. For a lot of people, working out on their own is really hard to do. It’s hard to find the motivation to push yourself. I get that…But keeping your numbers from week to week enhances motivation 10x. Even if you are having a bad day, tired, sleepy, hungry, you’ll be surprised sometimes to how strong you really are and how much you can really do just from charting your progress.

Workout Variable #2: Increase Number Of Sets

Just like counting repetitions, this is one of the easiest ways to progress. However, I wouldn’t focus on adding a set per exercise each week UNLESS you were planning what’s called a de-loading week. This is the basis behind what’s called a Periodization Model…It’s popular with strength athletes etc…

You add a set to each exercise each subsequent week, then on the 4^th, 5^th, or 6^th week, you de-load and back down the volume by 50%. This allows over-adaptation. It’s pretty neat and definitely works. I’ve used it in the past.  But if you wanted to go this route, I would recommend you only add a set to each exercise every few weeks. Also make sure to keep your repetitions the same week per week IF you were to go this route in changing up your routine.

Workout Variable #3: Decrease Rest Periods

Rest periods are extremely important when it comes to any physique related goal. But a lot of people don’t pay attention to their rest periods. Often times you rest a lot longer than you need to. This is a great example of Parkinson’s Law from Cyril Northcote Parkinson. This law states that “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”

Basically if you give yourself an hour to workout, then your workout will take that hour to complete. If you cut that down to 45 minutes, then your workout will take you 45 minutes to complete. This is true with anything including deadlines, papers, projects, etc…By cutting down rest periods, this increases your work capacity, and increases the more work you do in a given time period. By doing more work in less time, this increases metabolic activity, EPOC, and just gets you in better shape.

So what I want you to do is start timing yourself in between sets and see how long you normally take. You shouldn’t need more than 60 seconds for most things unless you are a powerlifter or lifting for pure strength and hypertrophy gains.

And if you do become diligent in this, then go for 60 seconds of rest in between most exercises and start cutting that number down by 5 every week.

Workout Variable #4: Add Weight

This is simple…Just add weight to the exercises. If you find that you can complete those 3 sets of 10 of dumbbell rows without a problem for 2 consecutive weeks, then bump up the weight by 5-10 pounds. It’s pretty simple and easy to implement. And if you’re getting stronger at a rapid pace, then feel free to bump up those repetitions as well per set. No harm, no foul. Just don’t and add more sets thinking the more you do the better. That’s not always the case and can lead to over training, injuries and a decrease in motivation.

Workout Variable #5: Change The Exercises

Duh right. You probably saw this coming, but this one is particularly tricky. You see, the whole rule that you should change up your exercises every 4-6 weeks is a VERY general rule. Extremely general rule. It all depends what your goals are.

You need to look at it like this. Your body needs to adapt to something in order to get better at it, aka you lose fat, build muscle, and gain strength.

Now for this to happen, you can’t go and change a million variables at once. It’s best that you change ONLY one variable per cycle. So for the first 8 weeks, you might only focus on adding weight to your exercises. The next 8 weeks, you can focus on adding repetitions with this new added weight…You see how it goes? By just changing one variable at a time, you can easily chart progress.

By changing the exercises every 4-6 weeks, the immediate strength gains you have will be mostly neurological, not that much muscular. It’s a completely new motor pattern that your CNS has to learn.

For example, in the past 3 ½ months I have been on a strict muscle building phase, eating more calories, and not worrying so much about some fat gain. My plan is to get stronger and bigger. Period. My whole program is based upon increasing weights and repetitions, but keeping the exercises the same. The exercises I choose are the big multi joint stuff. This allows the highest increases in repetitions performed per week and weight increases to the bar.

I haven’t changed a single exercise in the entire program, but yet I keep getting stronger and better.

So that is what you have to do.

Pick one or at the most two variables from above to change and base your program around for the next 8 or so weeks.

If you decide to change the exercises every 4-6 weeks, then I personally would leave the weights the same and work on increasing the reps.

If you decide to add weight to the bar every 2 weeks, then keep the exercises the same.

If you want to just decrease your rest periods, then so be it. No need to change anything else since you’re doing more work in less time.

I hope this all makes sense. It can be a bit tricky. But if you take away one thing from all of this, just remember….keep as many variables constant while only changing one or two at the most. Chart your progress each workout so you know what you need to accomplish the next week.

So to answer the question, “Can you really be addicted to sugar?” You bet you can! It’s not an addiction that is talked about much yet, because it’s so socially acceptable. My friend, who is known as the Sugar Addiction Specialist, Samantha Taylor says:

“It’s when that white substance starts to be something you can’t want to live without; starts to affect your health negatively and you don’t know how to get yourself to stop eating it – that, my Friend, is when there is a problem.”

Sugar seems so innocent. How can you actually be addicted to it and how can it be that bad for you? Keep reading to hear answers to both of those questions….

Samantha says, “When you look up the word ‘addiction’ in the dictionary and study the characteristics of what an addiction is, people that struggle with eating too much sugar totally fit the criteria of having an addiction. You decide for yourself by checking this out….”

The word addiction means:
1) The state of being enslaved to a habit or practice or to something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming, as narcotics, to such an extent that it’s cessation causes severe trauma.

Now, I don’t know about you but eating sugar becomes very habit forming for most and when they try to quit and don’t do it the right way, they have trauma…depression, uncontrollable cravings and strong withdrawals.  Samantha was a sugar addict for 30 years so she confirms that to be true!

2) The condition of being abnormally dependent on some habit, especially compulsive dependency on narcotic drugs.

Huh, have you ever felt abnormally dependent on sugar?  Always wanting it?  Eating it emotionally when you had a bad day, eating it daily or just down right gorging on it?

Wait till you hear the definition of a drug, you can decide if sugar acts like a drug in the body but first let’s look at one more definition of addiction: 3) Habitual psychological and physiological dependence on a substance or practice beyond one’s voluntary control.

Most that struggle with eating too much sugar say they do have a dependence on it that they don’t feel like they can stop eating it even if they wanted to and believe me, many of them have tried.

Now check out the definition of a drug: 1) A chemical substance, especially a narcotic, taken for the pleasant effects it produces.  Ha, sugar is definitely a chemical substance and, yes indeed, most do take it for its pleasant effects initially…until the ‘come down’!

Look at this definition of a drug: 2) Something and often an illicit substance that causes addiction, habituation, or a marked change in consciousness.

Yes, excess sugar can definitely cause addiction and habituation where you do it out of habit.

Now the real test will be to take ‘The Quiz’ I will be sending out in a few days to see if you even are a sugar addict and since you know yourself better than anyone, you can diagnose yourself.

Samantha has studied sugar for many years and she says that research shows that sugar in excess can be very toxic to the body. It has been linked to the three main killers in this country: heart disease, cancer and diabetes. It also is highly linked to osteoporosis, fatigue, headaches, joint pain, weakened immune system, mental fogginess, PMS symptoms, moodiness, hot flashes, depression, ADD-like symptoms, excess wrinkles and the list goes on and on.

Considering these are many of the main health issues our country deals with, it’s not surprising that the average American consumes 155 pounds of sugar EVERY YEAR!

My goal in writing this article for you is to help shed some light on the reality of this sugar addiction and hopefully inspire you to think about overcoming it. Make sure you look for the next email so you can take ‘The Quiz’, you will probably be surprised.  Maybe you are or maybe you aren’t addicted to sugar…. ‘The Quiz’ will confirm it…..

Stay tuned…and click the LIKE Button below please.

The other big reason why creatine always get a weird and bad rap with newcomers is because it works really fast for most people. I personally didn’t see any effect from using it, but a lot of people have. The results from creatine supplementation can be noticeable in as little as a week if you are properly loading with 20 grams of the stuff per day.

The biggest notable effect that you would see is an increase in water retention in your muscles, especially your arms. People think this is a bad thing, but it’s not. You want this water retention because it sets up the perfect environment for your muscles to grow and get bigger.

The other great thing about creatine is the increases in strength that you’ll get from using it on a constant basis. The reason for this is because of the type of energy system that you use when you exercise. The 2^nd one in the chain is called the creatine phosphate system. Essentially it lets you lift heavy loads at a fast rate, but only for a short duration. By supplementing with extra creatine, this will allow your muscles to keep contracting at a high force of output for a longer period of time. In laymen’s terms, you’ll be able to get a few extra reps that you couldn’t have been able to do before. It’s pretty neat stuff and definitely will help  you in achieving your strength and muscle goals.

Now with regards to negative effects of creatine supplementation, I’m sorry to say this but there just aren’t any real negative effects. The only negative effect is possible dehydration, which can easily be avoidable by drinking a lot of water throughout the day, but of course you should already be doing this.

The other possible side effect is that once you come off of creatine supplementation, you might experience a slight drop in strength. This is okay and is considered normal. You’ll lose a lot of the bloat, which also helps to provide more cushioning and strength in all of your lifts. But quickly you’re strength will rebound once you come your cycle.

So all in all, creatine side effects are really all favorable. You want the extra bloat so there is a perfect environment for muscle growth. And you want the extra strength increases you get from the supplement in order to help with your workouts.

The whole idea of eating two bowls of cereal with milk is disgusting now and wreaks havoc on your insulin levels and belly fat. In fact, I think that if a lot of people just changed what they ate for breakfast, they could easily see a big different in the way they look and probably start losing a few pounds each month from one simple change.

Now the purpose of this article is not to talk about any type of low carb diets or anything like that, it’s to give you some ideas for a quick and healthy high protein breakfast. One of my favorite high protein breakfasts for weight loss is a 4 egg omelet in the morning.

A lot of people assume that whole eggs are bad for you, but they really are not. All of the vitamins and minerals in the egg are found in the yolk and it only has 1 gram of saturated fat which is pretty low. Yes, they do have a lot of cholesterol, but study after study shows that cholesterol intake, especially from healthy eggs does not have an effect on serum cholesterol numbers. In fact, a lot of doctors will tell you to eat as many eggs as you want a day as long as you have no issues with heart disease or cholesterol problems. I still I think they are airing on the side of caution, but they have to cause they are doctors.

With omelets you can get as fancy as you want. I personally like to throw in mushrooms, peppers, onions, ham, turkey bacon, and
sprinkle low fat or non fat cheddar cheese on top. The combination of all these ingredients will leave you feeling full, satiated and not bogged down like a lot of high carbohydrate breakfasts can do to you.

Plus you get plenty of fiber and cancer fighting nutrients from all of the veggies that you put into your omelet. You can’t go wrong because it’s the best of both worlds.

Another high protein breakfast that you can implement into your diet is with protein shakes. Protein shakes are great because they taste relatively good now days; they are quick, easy, and inexpensive. My favorite kind to use is casein protein which is the exact opposite of whey. Casein is much thicker in texture and digests much slower than whey protein which can leave you feeling hungry really quickly. With protein shakes you can blend up anything you want to put in. I usually like to throw in a few pieces of fruit such as berries and an orange with some coconut milk. Throw in a couple of ice cubes are you’re all set. It’s quick and easy and will definitely keep you feeling full.

Another high protein breakfast you can try out is regular plain Greek yogurt. It’s high in protein, low in fat and medium in sugar. However, you should get the one that is just plain; anything else has a ton of sugar in it. Now a lot of people might not like the taste of the plain so what I recommend is to put 1-2 tablespoons of dark cocoa powder in along with 1-2 tablespoons of Splenda. Mix it up and you have chocolate pudding. It tastes a lot better than the regular old plain style and you don’t add in many carbohydrates to the mix. Cocoa powder only has 3 grams of carbs per tablespoon and 2 of those grams are from fiber, so it’s actually relatively healthy for you.

All in all, a high protein breakfast is the best option in my opinion to start your day off just right. Stay away from all of those processed carbohydrates in cereals, bagels, and muffins and treat yourself to a nice big omelet. I guarantee this one little change will make an impact in your physique and how you feel.