I lost 55 lbs. and so can you in 3 simple steps!

*Warning -- Long post ahead but worth the reading.
How many times have you read a title like that only to find a sales pitch for a book or new supplement that you can buy for only $19.99? That's not what I am going to do. I am going to tell you exactly how I lost 25 pounds in the first 3 months and 55 pounds in 1 year. I also gained 20 pounds of muscle which means I lost about 75 pounds of fat! I was 30% body fat and I was feeling it. I felt like crap. For those of you that don't know 30% body fat is considered obese. I was 6 foot 2 inches (still am) and 230 pounds. At my lightest about a year later, I was 168 pounds and 6% body fat. Right at this moment (a year and 9 months later) I am 175 pounds and 6% body fat. Really the only thing that matters to me now is my body fat percentage. I no longer care what I weigh as long as it goes up and I stay at the same body fat. Want to get to this way of thinking too? Here's how I did it.

1. Nutrition>! Nutrition! Nutrition!
I put it first because it is the most important. If you want to look like a bodybuilder and not like an Olympic weight lifter type with the big gut then nutrition is the key. It is very simple and easy too. Eat the right percentage of fat, carbohydrates and protein and eat less calories than you burn. Ok maybe not easy but it is simple. I have a friend who burns an unbelievable amount of calories through running marathons sometimes two in a single weekend. He should be skinny as a rail but because he doesn't watch what he eats he replaces all that he burns and more. He has been putting on weight lately because of it.

Read and record all you eat and read all nutrition labels.

Now, what are the actual steps to getting your nutrition right? I figure out how many calories I need to maintain my weight (there are tons of calculators on the web *see below), drop 10% to 15% off that total and then divide that total into the percentages of needed fat, carbs and protein. I go with 20% fat, 40% carbohydrates and 40% protein. The USDA says 30% protein, 30% fat, and 40% carbohydrates but we are bodybuilders so we need more protein and if you are overweight you have plenty of fat already. I tweak those a bit for hard muscle building weeks but this is a general rule. I also eat 5 meals a day so I divide the total calories by five to give me my total allowed each meal. This is my goal meal. If you are reading all the labels and writing down what you eat you can keep track and hit your goal meal each and every meal. I try to get as close to the goal meal every meal that I eat. (Again, I do tweak this a bit as I have slightly more carbs in the morning than I do at my night meal.)

For example, say I determine that to maintain my weight and activity level I need 3000 calories a day. For me that is high. I'm actually at about 2300 calories but in this example I take that 3000 calories and multiply by .9 to give me 2700 calories. Now I convert the calories to each type of food so let's start with fat. Fat has 9 calories per gram and I want 20% fat so take 2700 times .2 and I get 540 calories. Divide 540 calories by that 9 calories per gram and I get 60 grams of fat that I can eat a day. Next I'll do Carbs. 2700 times .4 gives me 1080. Carbs have 4 calories per gram so I divide 1080 calories by 4 and I get 270g. Protein is the same as Carbs so no math just 270g. It is pretty simple math. Now I have my daily totals of 60g fat, 270g carbohydrates and 270g protein. Now I figure my per meal amounts. Just divide each of those by 5. So 12g fat, 54g carbs and 54g protein each meal.
So a sample meal for this person could be:
5 oz Chicken Breast (6g fat, 48g protein)
5 oz Yams (40g carbs, 10g protein)

Notice I'm a little over on the protein and a little under on the fat. The fat can be supplemented later or earlier in the day by adding some good healthy fat like flaxseed oil and the protein can be trimmed later by having a smaller portion at another meal.

If you are getting hungry during the day you are eating the wrong kinds of food. Take a cake for example. One tiny little ounce of cake packs a massive 4g of fat, 20g of carbohydrates and 2g of protein!! A typical piece of cake would be about 100 grams or 16g fat, 73g carbs, and 6g protein. I don't know about you but I can eat 3 or 4 typical slices of cake with no problem and still get hungry in an hour. Now let’s look at broccoli. One ounce has 0g fat, 1g carbohydrates and 1g protein. A typical serving of 100g and you're only talking 0g fat, 5g carbs and 3g protein. Sure it doesn't hit the sweet tooth but look at the massive amounts you can eat and still get nowhere near the levels of the cake. You certainly wouldn't be hungry if you ate a head of broccoli the size of your head but if you ate one piece of cake for a meal you'd be hungry in a few minutes. Proper choices are important to avoid the hungry feeling not to mention vitamins that your body needs to be healthy.

Once you have all that down there is one other thing that you will want to keep in mind about carbs. The nutritional data on the foods we eat shows the Total Carbohydrates and two additional categories of carbohydrates, Dietary Fiber and Sugars. As you would probably think, you want to keep the sugars as low as possible on the carbohydrates that you eat. That is 1 cup of white rice at 0g sugars is a better choice than 1 cup corn at 5g sugar and forget about that piece of cake! I'll go more into detail about sugar carbs in other blog entries but try to keep the sugars as low as possible.


2. Strength training.
It makes sense that you are what you eat. I would add your body is what you eat and what you do. If you eat great but sit on the couch all day you might be thin but your muscles will be weak, have no tone and you will be very unhealthy. Muscle burns more calories just existing than any other kind of cell in our bodies so having more muscle will mean our maintenance calories needed to keep our body size will be higher. Plus, muscles look great! This is a natural bodybuilding blog so I'm talking nice natural muscles here not bloated, steroid, HGH muscles. Ladies that means the toned look of Jillian Michaels not the masculine featured testosterone taking women bodybuilders. Note to the ladies, no matter how much lifting weights you do you will not look like a guy (unless you already do) because your hormones are different your bodies will never develop huge muscles unless you take steroids like testosterone. What you will get are toned shapely curves that you and that special someone will love.

There are a ton of sites where you can get weight training plans. If you don't use mine just make sure you don't overdo it right away. The weight training plan of a professional bodybuilder is not suited for a beginner and you will get hurt. Listen to your body and expect some pain soreness but not burning crippling pain. If you get that you are training too hard. When first starting don't train a body part more than once a week and your total weight training session should only last an hour or less per day.

My example weight training for the week (I do each set to failure. I use the maximum weight I can and still get the reps.) :

Monday: Shoulders And Abs

Exercises
Seated Barbell Military Press Muscle Targeted: Shoulders 3 sets of 8-12 reps
Side Lateral Raise Muscle Targeted: Shoulders 3 sets of 8-12 reps
Seated Bent-Over Rear Delt Raise Muscle Targeted: Shoulders 3 sets of 8-12 reps
Front Dumbbell Raise Muscle Targeted: Shoulders 3 sets of 8-12 reps
Barbell Shrug Muscle Targeted: Traps 3 sets of 8-12 reps
Hanging Leg Raise Muscle Targeted: Abdominals 3 sets to failure
Crunches (25 lb. behind my head) Muscle Targeted: Abdominals 3 sets to failure

Tuesday: Legs

Exercises
Barbell Squat Muscle Targeted: Quadriceps 3 sets of 12-15 reps
Leg Extensions Muscle Targeted: Quadriceps 3 sets of 18-20 reps
Lying Leg Curls Muscle Targeted: Hamstrings 3 sets of 12-15 reps
Stiff-Legged Barbell Deadlift Muscle Targeted: Hamstrings 3 sets of 12-15 reps
Standing Calf Raises Muscle Targeted: Calves 3 sets of 12-15 reps
Seated Calf Raise Muscle Targeted: Calves 3 sets of 20-25 reps

Thursday: Chest Triceps And Abs

Exercises
Incline Dumbbell Press Muscle Targeted: Chest 3 sets of 8-12 reps
Barbell Bench Press - Medium Grip Muscle Targeted: Chest 3 sets of 8-12 reps
Incline Dumbbell Flyes Muscle Targeted: Chest 3 sets of 8-12 reps
Dumbbell Flyes Muscle Targeted: Chest 3 sets of 8-12 reps
Triceps Pushdown Muscle Targeted: Triceps 3 sets of 8-12 reps
Lying Triceps Press Muscle Targeted: Triceps 3 sets of 8-12 reps
Bench Dips Muscle Targeted: Triceps 3 sets of 8-12 reps
Flat Bench Lying Leg Raise Muscle Targeted: Abdominals 3 sets to failure
Oblique Crunches Muscle Targeted: Abdominals 3 sets to failure

Saturday: Back And Biceps

Exercises
Chin-Up Muscle Targeted: Lats 3 sets of 12-15 reps
Bent Over Barbell Row Muscle Targeted: Middle Back 3 sets of 12-15 reps
One-Arm Dumbbell Row Muscle Targeted: Middle Back 3 sets of 12-15 reps
Barbell Deadlift Muscle Targeted: Lower Back 3 sets of 12-15 reps
Barbell Curl Muscle Targeted: Biceps 3 sets of 8-12 reps
Hammer Curls Muscle Targeted: Biceps 3 sets of 8-12 reps
Concentration Curls Muscle Targeted: Biceps 3 sets of 8-12 reps



3. Cardio Training.
Not only is it good for your heart but nothing burns the calories like good cardio. Running is my cardio of choice but I have used jumping jacks, squat thrusts, stair climbing and walking. The main target is to get your heart rate elevated and keep it there as long as possible. Sustained activity burns calories faster than sustained inactivity (duh!). The main thing is pick cardio you can do and sustain for at least 30 minutes a day every day and increase the intensity as you can.

The fat metabolism happens in structures within the muscle cells called mitochondria. Fats are transported into the mitochondria where, in the presence of oxygen, they are broken down to generate energy. More mitochondria means more fat metabolism, more ATP, and more energy. High-volume training increases the amount and size of mitochondria. Longer exercise (cardio) produces the greatest gains in mitochondrial content (fat burning engines of the muscle cells).

If you don't seem to have time to get into shape this is a quick note for you: A lot of people say they don't have time to get into shape. Obesity reduces your lifespan by up to 10 years. That's 87,600 hours. That is enough time to work out an hour a day for 240 years 7 days a week. I say you don't have enough time to NOT get in shape. I know that sentence is a double negative so shoot me.

* Use this calculator and pick Sedentary for your activity level then use this calculator to see how many calories you burn through exercise and add the two for your total calories needed. http://caloriecount.about.com/cc/calories-burned.php http://www.healthstatus.com/calculate/cbc

Bodybuilders are strange

You know how some people keep a candy bowl at their desk? I keep a bag of chicken jerky. It helps me fight the mid-morning and late afternoon hungries. I prefer the Jack Link's Flamin' Buffalo Chicken Nuggets but pretty much any type of jerky is good.

My Cellcom Green Bay Marathon Training

In case you want to follow along.

Week	Mon	Tues	Wed	Thurs	Fri	Sat	Sun
31-Jan	3 m run	4 m run	rest	3 m run	rest	9 m	rest
7-Feb	3 m run	5 m run	rest	3 m run	rest	10 m	rest
14-Feb	3 m run	5 m run	rest	3 m run	rest	7 m	rest
21-Feb	3 m run	6 m run	rest	3 m run	rest	12 m	rest
28-Feb	3 m run	6 m run	rest	3 m run	rest	13 m	rest
7-Mar	3 m run	7 m run	rest	4 m run	rest	10 m	rest
14-Mar	3 m run	7 m run	rest	4 m run	rest	15 m	rest
21-Mar	4 m run	8 m run	rest	4 m run	rest	16 m	rest
28-Mar	4 m run	8 m run	rest	5 m run	rest	12 m	rest
4-Apr	4 m run	9 m run	rest	5 m run	rest	18 m	rest
11-Apr	5 m run	9 m run	rest	5 m run	rest	14 m	rest
18-Apr	5 m run	10 m run	rest	5 m run	rest	20 m	rest
25-Apr	5 m run	8 m run	rest	4 m run	rest	12 m	rest
2-May	4 m run	6 m run	rest	3 m run	rest	8 m	rest
9-May	3 m run	4 m run	rest	2 m run	rest	rest	May 15 race

Marathon? What are you thinking?!?!

I debated whether to post this but here goes; I'm training for the Cellcom Green Bay Marathon. I know what you are thinking, "Marathon training is contrary to bodybuilding! What are you doing?" I disagree and here's why.

First the timing of when you do your long distance training. If you are bulking up it is contrary to what you are doing to burn many calories. You want to have excess calories and lift heavy and often. I'm now in my cutting phase and cardio is very important. I want to be in caloric deficit. I want to drop to 4% body fat and that takes diet discipline and plenty of fat burning. I think the average per week miles add up to 25 miles. This is only 3 1/2 miles a day average. Even on the most miles in a week the total is 40 miles or 5.7 miles a day. The average man burns 124 calories per mile. That is 434 calories a day during an average day of training or 706.8 calories for the longest week. If I only lose fat (at 3,500 calories a pound) that means if just doing the running and no diet changes on the longest week I only drop 1 lb. of fat every 5 days on the longest mileage week or during an average week 1 lb. of fat every 8 days. What about losing muscle? Read the next paragraph about nutrition.

The number one statement I hear that bodybuilders should not run (at least not very much) is "You'll lose muscle because your body will convert protein (muscle) to glycogen as your blood reserves get low." That may be true if all you do is run but a bodybuilder is also lifting (heavy) weights. Lifting progressively heavier weights triggers your body to try to build muscle by creating more muscle cells and storing more energy, Adenosine triphosphate (ATP), in those cells. Look at the two types of cells we are concerned about here muscle and fat. Muscle is for action, movement of some kind. Fat is for storing excess glycogen in the form of lipids or long-chain fatty acids for use later as energy when breakdown of those lipids by lipolysis. Which will your body most prefer to use for energy when you are running? It seems obvious to me.

Now what a bodybuilder should be prepared for is the time between his brain realizing it is low on blood glycogen and his body converting fat to glycogen. Because muscle does have ready stores of glycogen your body will grab a bit of that first until the fat reserves start releasing stored glycogen. However, muscle cells lack the enzyme glucose-6-phosphatase, which is required to pass glucose into the blood, so the glycogen they store is destined for internal use and is not shared with other cells. How do we keep as much glycogen in the muscle cells? What I have found is before you run eat a slower release carbohydrate, which is a carbohydrate that does not contain many sugar grams. I will often use a low fat granola bar such as Quaker Chocolate Chip Chewy Granola Bars. At 17g carbs and 7g sugar I'll eat a half every 4 miles. That way I'm still at a big deficit calorically speaking but my body has a release of glycogen that only needs to be supplemented by fat glycogen release which a healthy body is very efficient at doing.

Properly timing your training with your phase of bodybuilding and adhering to a good nutrition plan a natural bodybuilder can be a marathoner too!

Typical cutting meal.

My breakfast meal
1/2 cup Oatmeal
10-15 raisins

My lunch meal

6oz Chicken breast no skin boiled
1/4 cup white rice
3/4 cup broccoli
1 slice fat free cheese
1T Picante sauce

My supper meal

Something with similar portions to the lunch meal but about double the carbs so 1/2 cup rice. This meal is always at about 3 hours before bed.

I try to have 5 meals throughout the day with the first in-between meal being a medium banana and a 9g serving of protein and the second in-between meal being 9g of protein (chicken jerky usually).

Cutting time

Getting ripped, shredded, sliced or whatever else you want to call it, that's what I've been working on since the second week of January. I did a bulking phase for November and December (both dirty and clean) and got up to 14% body fat and gained 14 lbs. (182 lbs.) The first week of February I was back down to 8% and only lost 5 lbs. to 177 lbs. 2% more and I'll be where I started in November at 6% body fat. I was at 168 lbs. in November so we'll see how much muscle I keep. My goal is 4% body fat by March 1st. I'll have my body fat measured on February 17th and post back.

My goal is to compete in a Natural Bodybuilding competition someday but I'd like to not embarrass myself. I went to see the 2010 Midwest Natural Bodybuilding, Fit Body & Figure Championships in October. Most of the competitors look so much better than I think I ever will but we'll see how I progress. After all, I've only been seriously working out and dieting correctly for a couple years now.