SAMPLE HIIT REGIME

How to do High Intensity Interval Training

You need a heart rate meter, otherwise it's kinda hard to gauge whether you are doing it right or not. The elliptical machines fit this category well, treadmills are not recommended, but running outdoor is okay. Next calculate your maximum heart rate, take 220 minus your age and you get your max heart rate. e.g I am 20 years old, my max heart rate would be 220 minus 20 and i get 200. The more intense the exercise, the higher the heart rate .

Please consult with your doctor before you start HIIT, it's very tiring. Before you begin HIIT and if you are a newbie to exercise, i suggest you get used to cardiovascular exercises 1st.

Beginners HIIT regime 4 cycles :

5 minutes jog. ( aim to increase heart rate 70%)

1 minute run ( aim for HR 75%)

30 seconds jog ( don't walk)

1 minute run ( aim for for HR 75-80%)

30 seconds jog

1 minute sprint ( aim for HR 80 -85%)

30 seconds jog

1 minute sprint as fast as possible( aim for HR 80-85%)

5 minutes jog cool down ( don't skip this)

advanced HIIT Regime 10 cycles

5 minutes jog warm up ( aim for HR 70%)

1 minute run aim for HR 75%

30 seconds jog ( don't walk)

1 minute run ( aim for for HR 75%)

30 seconds jog

1 minute run ( aim for HR 75%)

30 seconds jog

1 minute run ( aim for HR 75-80 %)

30 seconds jog

1 minute run ( aim for HR 75-80 %)

30 seconds jog

1 minute run ( aim for HR 75-80 %)

30 seconds jog

1 minute sprint ( aim for HR 80-85 %)

30 seconds jog

1 minute sprint ( aim for HR 80-85 %)

30 seconds jog

1 minute sprint ( aim for HR 80-85 %)

30 seconds jog

1 minute sprint ( aim for HR 80-85 %)

30 seconds jog

5 minutes cooldown

You can't sprint at the beginning of the cycles, otherwise you will run out of steam by the 5th cycle, slowly build up then sprint at the last 4 cycles. DO NOT SKIP THE COOLDOWN IT'S DANGEROUS. Imagine your heart going real fast at 85% and suddenly, you skip the cooldown and sit down- it's like putting a sudden flooring brake on your speeding car, what can happen ? Car overturns.

Glucagon learn for yourself

Type the word glucagon in wiki, learn what is it.

Glucagon induces fat loss, it's the opposite of insulin.

So basically you want to induce it for cutting, and these are the methods :

- low sugar in your blood

- increased protein consumption ( with no carbs consumption)

- Exercise

- secretion of cholecystokinin ( induced by low/no carb diet) also helps hunger control

The mother of all diets

First there was low fat,

then there was low carb,

then there was no carb,

then there was no grains,

then there was south beach,

then there was ............

A lot of people swear by low carb, while others swear by low fat, then there is the group who doesn't think diet is the problem but the lack of exercize we do.

So many diets, but which to choose ?

This is a free guide, but it's the truth : no matter which diet you choose .

Fat loss combined with muscle loss -> net calories in minus net calories out.

If you wanna lose fat ( together with muscles, this is unavoidable) , you gotta eat less energy than you spend or you use more energy than you ingest. The mother of all diets is actually the calorie diet ( counting calories). Then you might ask me what about low carb , why does it work ?

This is the basic mainframes of a successful diet plan :

1) net calories you ingest is less than you spend

2) deals with hunger pangs, cravings , etc.

3) maintain functionality to the dieter ( makes sure the dieter is not too weak to work)

4) enough vitamins and minerals

Low carb is a variation of low calorie diet with a kicker, think about this, 50-70% of our normal diet is made of carbs, when you eat low carb, you take that 50% of energy and replace it with proteins ( and in low carb that 50% of energy derived carbs is replaced with less energy derived from proteins). Proteins are harder to digest (more energy outto digest) and makes your body feel warmer. What makes low carb special is that, it increases insulin sensitivity, you feel less hungry , less hunger pangs, less cravings, etc. Seriously, furthermore most low carb diets now advocates fat replacement - i.e replace transfats with essential fatty acids.

Low fat diet is the old school calorie diet, with no kicker to insulin sensitivity but it still works if you stick to the plan.

There is no succesful diet that doesn't adhere to the mother, if you don't believe me, take any successful diet and count the calories.

What should i eat during cutting ?

Sick of Meal replacement food ? Sick of eating powders ? Here's a breakdown of natural cutting foods :

CARBS

1) brown rice

2) Apples

3) oatmeal - non instant

4) potatoes - boiled

5) sweet potato - boiled

6) cassava - boiled

Fibers

1) salads - with non fat ranch

2) metamucil - liquid fibers (no sugar)

3) fruits - non sweet type

Protein

1) tempeh - fermented soy

2) lean meat of any kind , boiled or grilled - note the word lean

3) Fresh fish of any kind

Fats

1) flaxseeds , flaxseed oil

2) Fish oils - can be forgone if you eat fish

Rule 1- no MSG ( monosodium glutamate - it increases your appetite, potential fail spice), read the label , hot dogs, soy sauce, chips , instant noodles contain MSGs.

Rule 2 - no sugar added, no fried foods

Rule 3 - don't eat too fast, eat slowly

Rule 4 - The only time you can eat a regular amount of carbs is in the morning and afternoon, at night you can only eat a little

Rule 5 - Weigh your food

Rule 6 - Eat at least 4 times a day, 5 times is ideal

Rule 7 - Don't skip breakfast - you mess up your metabolism

Rule 8 - You get a cheat meal once a week, the idea is not to eat DIRTY cheat meals ( NO KFC , PIZZAS, BURGERS). Examples of cheat meals are: Oatmeal with a glass of milk and some fruits, brown rice with grilled chicken breast and salad.

Overview - summary

Starting fat loss

1. Commit yourself to fat loss - Tell your housemates about it, the more people you tell the better. Make a contract to yourself and your loved ones and set realistic goals. A realistic goal could be like, i want to lose how many inches of my waist in 2 months or I want to lose how many % of my body fat. 10kgs of weight in 1 month is realistic if you are super fat, but if you are only a little fat, it isn't. weight alone don't suffice.

2. Plan your fat loss - decide on the type of diet, the amount of food/ calories, the supplements, the exercises. Keep a food log to track your food intake. For example :

morning 7 am, 5 spoons of quaker oats mixed with half glass of milk.

3. Measure - measure your weight , waist and hips weekly. Take photos biweekly. Sometimes you lose fat, but it won't show in your weight.

4. Throw away all trash food at home, outside, at work . Avoid them like the plague.

5. Before you can throw away trash food, recognize them. Seriously, this needs practice - for pointers : Anything that is sweet and fatty is mostly trash. e.g pringles, coke, sprite, hamburgers, hotdogs, mac donalds (except the salads). Beware of deceptive labels, like low fat foods, low sodium, fruit juice, low gluten. The moment it says low whatever, be wary.

6. Cook your own food- Cooking your own food allows to DIRECTLY control your diet, weigh the food , surely you can approximate the calories by comparing the weight to the nutritional table. Eat lots of fibers and protein in your diet, reduce high GI carbs like bread and switch to brown rice or oatmeal or apples.

7. Go Low carb ( at least at night) - low carb diets are harder to fail, because they control our blood sugar and reduce our cravings.

8. Adjust your caloric intake according to daily activities. eat more when you exercise and vice versa.

9. Exercise - Do your cardios and weightlifting if you want to speed up your fat loss.

The Velocity diet - why it works (w/o buying biotest supplements)

WANNA LOSE 20 LBS in 28 DAYS ?

Everyone has heard of the Velocity diet by Chris Shuggart, but no one ever talks of the reason it really works. Just google , 'Velocity diet' and you can see the program.It's one of the most effective diet in existence, possibly one the breakthrough diets. In the V-diet, Chris has advocated everyone to buy Biotest supplements, but no one ever discussed whether they can be replaced by cheaper supplements.

Firstly , we should list out of all the reasons and science behind the V-diet :

1) Simply put, V diet restricts your caloric intake by giving you fixed amount of shakes and most fat loss participators fail to calculate your caloric intake (either too little or too much). THIS IS THE BOMB, Calories in less than calories out and you get fat loss.

2) Secondly, it's simple. Just mix up and drink.

3) You measure weekly - important to see progress for motivation.

4) Chris advocates a clean meal weekly to spike your metabolism. Similar to cheating diet.

5) Chris deals with hunger pangs - his protein shake is a mix of fast and slow protein and fibers.

6) It's a low carb diet, not a no carb diet, you don't deal with ketosis.

Eager to save on the supplements ? You can save a lot ordering online, or replacing them. Just study biotest supplement calories and compare them with the replacement.

Here are a list of things that you can use to replace V-diet's supplements

1) For metabolic drive low carb protein -> replace with a mix of ON Whey and Casein or just use a protein mix that contains whey and casein (the mix has to be optimal, or at least 40% casein). Note that, whey alone doesn't work because it's a fast protein, you'll get hungry.

2) For flameout -> just use normal fish oil

3) For HOTROX -> use clenbutrol or USP labs OEP ( OXY ELITE PRO) , not really needed actually even Chris said it's optional.

4) For Surge post workout -> just use whey (or BCAAs powder) , sugar and creatine, seriously you don't need this for the program, because all the exercises you do are light walk, light weights.

I think Chris is cheating us on this, but only this part.

5) For BIOTEST SUPER FOOD/fiber choice tablets -> just use metamucil (sugar free) coupled with antioxidants. You need fibers and antioxidants to flush and combat the oxidizing effects of fat loss , do not forgo this.

6) milled flax seed -> it's not that hard to find, don't replace

7) natural nut butter -> no need to replace

The main highlight of this program is its simplicity, it's too simple for you to even ask questions about. Although if you replace it, you have to make some calculations and comparations to the real supplement, I believe the cost savings is worth it. The whole program is outlined by Chris go to his site and study it :

http://velocity.t-nation.com/free_online_program/sports_body_training_diet_velocity/velocity_diet_30#the-diet/velocity-diet-program-3-0

Not full doesn't mean hungry EF

So basically, low carb is the bomb for us (easy fatties for short EFs). EFs are probably the gene that will survive the bad harvests, shortages of food. EFs are usually fat, and even when you get to the ideal body size, you get back fat easily. For short, our body systems are kinda different from others. We are more efficient at using carbs than the other gene types, being efficient means we have more glucose from our meals,which gets converted to fats eventually.

So how do we counter this EF body system, by eating low carb.

1) Change your eating habits to low carb or slow (low GI) carbs

2) Learn to understand hunger, and avoid carb highs (gives you the full feeling)- only eat when you are hungry

3) Be more active (move around more often in your office) or better yet start exercizing more often

4) Make friends with diabetics and follow their diet, buy their snacks and drinks.

5) Avoid caffeine-mess up with your sugar levels

6) Build muscles. Only time you should go high carb or medium carb is when you build muscles

A sure fat burning exercize

What type of exercizes use up the most calorie ?

1) total body resistance workout - a combination of Pull-ups, bench presses, squats, deadlifts, shoulder presses : but they need to be done the correct way !!

rule 1 : do it heavy, with low reps , 5 reps for 5 sets. Choose weight that you fail at 7 reps

rule 1b: if you can't lift heavy, lift 10 reps but do it fast. Choose weight to fail at 12.

Don't rest too long in between exercizes - 20secs to 1 minute ( depending on tiredness level of previous exercize). Don't have to repeat 1 type of movement, e.g

after 1 set of squats, you can proceed to do benchpress then squats.

rule 1c : know the muscle you target with a specific movement. Don't overwork them. You can't do deadlifts and squats in one day, the muscles they target overlap.

rule 1d: If you hate weightlifting and love cardio, then at least do HIIT. Here's how : jog for 10 mins (warm up), then sprint for 1 minute, then jog for 1minute, sprint for 1 minute, jog and repeat. The sprint to jog should last at least 15 minutes, by the end of the HIIT, if you aren't huffing and puffing , that means you didn't sprint. HIIT burns more cals than regular cardio.

Cutting diet

Do you have round waist , big backside/bottom and gain fat easily ?

If so, you are the same as many people who have problems trying to lose weight.

They classify us as ENDOMORPH.

Endomorphs are efficient at storing fat, so during famines endomorphs can use up the stored fat and survive. Most endomorphs gain weight easily because they are more efficient at using the calories from food and store them. Endomorphs are the most likely survivors of famines. If you are of the ecto or meso, you wouldn't have difficulty losing fats, seriously.

What many people don't tell you is this : endomorphs cutting thrives on a low carb environment. I'm serious, if you are round at the bottom and the waist, try doing low carb for cutting.

Bulking is relatively easy for endomorphs, but if the caloric excess is too high, fat will be stored.

When does our body start to burn fat vigorously ?

We start burning fat vigorously after all the carbs in our body is used up.

When does our body start storing fat ?

Learning this process helps you prevent fat gain :

After you ingest food, the carbohydrates will be converted to glucose, the speed of conversion depends on the Glycemix index ( the higher , the faster ). When the glucose level in our blood is high, our pancreas produces insulin. Insulin then allocates the sugar to our muscles , our liver and the excess glucose will be converted to fat.

Why low carb , won't the protein be converted to glucose ?

When glucose is depleted, the body starts extracting fats and muscles and starts converting them into sugar. The protein that you eat helps you to reduce the muscle loss effect. It's possible for protein to be converted to glucose, but the process is slower and more difficult. Here is a simple way to look at it:

1 )body burns off all dietary carbs

2) Then body starts burning dietary fat and protein

3) When depleted, body extracts from liver and muscles

4) Finally it starts burning body fat and muscle

Rule 1, of cutting or bulking

RULE NUMBER ONE :

Throw away all your junk food, throw them away even it belongs to your friend, roommate, family and tell your friends to stop buying them. I'm serious, existence of junk food tempts you, makes it harder for you to stick to your diet.

Junk food includes : potato chips, soda, crackers, biscuits, sweet stuff, sweet drinks, KFC, French Fries, licorice, ice cream, sweetened bread, hot dog, chocolate, starbucks sweetened coffee with that shitload of whipped cream.

Junk food is cleverly disguised, they say low fat potato chip or no fat potato chip, fact is it's pure carbs and MSG. Low fat ice cream is still ice cream, it has sugar and fat. KFC is pure evil, but at least it has some proteins.

Characteristic of junkfood : High fat content, High sugar content, High carb content, High GI, has MSG

There can only be one time where you eat high carb, high GI food, like potato chips, biscuits and that is your postworkout meal ( bulking period) with a dose of creatine.

HIIT`

Ever heard of HIIT ?
It's one of the latest fad in exercizing. Best of all it works.
H I I T= High intensity interval training.

Technique example :
jog for 5 mins to warm up.
then start sprinting for 30 s
slow down to a jog for 30s
sprint for 30 s
slow down again to a jog for 30 s
rinse and repeat , you only need to do HIIT for 15 mins to be able to feel the full effect.
If you do this right, at the end of that 15 mins you should be huffing and puffing.
You will burn more calories doing HIIT for 15 mins than doing your regular cardio for 25 mins

Advantages to HIIT:
-HIIT uses up more calories than regular jogging or fat burning.
-You can literally feel your metabolism increasing after the exercize.
- You can use it in any kind of exercize : swimming , Treadmill, Elliptical machine
- Trains your stamina / heart and lungs

- Improves insulin sensitivity : Feel less hungry, less hunger pangs, less cravings, u get the idea

Downside
- Injury prone, because you have to sprint/swim as fast as possible

Remember to wear your knee guards and watch out for injuries before trying HIIT out.

Bulking is not eating whatever you want

Bulking has this misconception nowadays.....
People say," I BULK so I can eat as much as I want and whatever I want."

Well , I did say create a daily caloric excess during bulk period, but to some people bulking has become an excuse to eat whatever they want.

Maybe you think the same. Maybe you just need an excuse to eat. Maybe you don't want to lose that fat.

Bulking irresponsibly is one of the major causes of fat loss failures. Always calculate your daily maintenance calories when you are bulking and do not exceed it by a lot. Let's say your daily maintenance is 2000 cals even with all that workout, the most you can consume is about 2400 cals. The max is 20% above your maintenance level, levels above those are counterproductive.

Look here guys and girls, you didn't really think that I would let you eat irresponsibly ? Losing that ugly and unhealthy fat is about control....




BTW reading this blog is free and you will probably find similar stuff
at http://www.truthaboutabs.com/
except you gotta pay for that one. All my advice is free, but you need to do groundwork yourself.

Bulking , feels weird

I have been really busy with work and family these few days, but here I am writing again. The stuff I had written about was definitely incomplete, but that was weighlifting for beginners, you have to practice to master it.

Things to remember while bulking :

1) Remember your input has to be greater than your output by about 200-500. On workout days, you use more calories so eat more , vice versa.

2) Diet matters. If you bulk on junk food, you are FAILING the program as you are gaining more fat than muscle. No ice cream, sweet stuff, pop/soda/coke, potato chips, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Pizza and many more. Rule of thumb, avoid high calorie food (fat and sweet). Exception to sweet things are only post and pre workout.

3) Please remember, you are not in cutting/ fat loss phase , so please don't go low carb or switching to low calorie high volume food. For example getting your carb only from oats or avoiding carbohydrates. We need the carbohydrates during bulking, please remember that insulin helps to sens muscle cells with your nutrients and protein. Eating only high volume, low calorie carbs like apples/fibre type of food or oats is good for the your bowel movement, but you are probably going to puke because you have to eat so much of them to fill up your daily caloric needs. Wholemeal and white bread is still fine. Rice is acceptable too.

4) Once you get used to the weightlifting exercises, make a schedule. The schedule should include a cardio day to boost your heart performance, improve blood vessels that can boost our muscle gain. It could look like :
Monday - upper body + mid
Tuesday- lower body + mid
Wednesday - rest
Thursday- cardio
Fri - repeat from monday
You know yourself better than I do, so make your own.

5) Get enough rest, pretty basic. Since you build muscle during rest, you need to rest, seriously. Go for 9 hours a day of sleep.


These are some of the responses that people got when people tried bulking and my answers to them :

1) Bulking is so great, I am losing my weight and I am becoming slimmer significantly....
ANS: If you do the program correctly, you are supposed to gain muscle. So if you lost a significant amount of weight and you can feel that you are becoming thinner chances are that instead of BULKING , you are CUTTING. In other words you are not getting enough calories to compensate for your output.


2) Can I cut first then bulk later ? I am not comfortable with gaining weight ...
ANS: It's your own choice, I am just recommending you the things that I have learnt from experience. Personally , it's faster for you to reach your goals, if you bulk first. Remember that the muscles are like a supercharger that you install in your engine, it makes you go faster.

Weight lifting for dummies

I won't tell you everything, but I'll give you the basics. The rest you have to learn some on your own, buy a book or learn from your friends.

This won't be hard, but you need a gym, even a makeshift one will do. You have to learn the different forms of weightlifting, different exercizes to target the muscles.

For example, I will list the important ones :
Bicep curl - biceps ( pretty obvious)
Tricep curl - triceps
Deadlift - lower back , thighs
Squats - almost everything at the lower body
sit ups/crunch - abs
pull up - upper back, shoulders
shoulder press - shoulders
hack squats - thighs
bench press - chest

repetitions/reps : obvious, but it is the number of times you do an exercise at one go

Before you do weightlifting always check with your medical doctor for any underlying disease that might harm you.

First thing you should bring to the gym, is a piece of paper and pen, your workout drinks and yourself. Learn the proper form of all the exercises listed above.
Proper form beats heavier weight but bad form.

Go choose an exercise listed above, choose a weight (for example 10 pounds) that you feel comfortable with , test HOW MANY REPETITIONS YOU CAN DO until you are unable to lift it in PROPER FORM ( until you mess up/slant sideways, fail). Record the number if the number is in the range of 7-11 then it's a good weight. Note it down and go over the rest of the exercises ( you can add more if you want).

The thing you just recorded is your starting strength list, it should be updated every two weeks to check your progress/regression.
Let's say you recorded down a fail in ten reps for your bicep curl. Do 8 reps ( 10-2=8 ) , 4 times

I always go for volume, in the example above the volume is 4 times 8 reps ( 8x4 =32 ). Volume should always be around 25-30ish.

How long should I rest between exercises ?
Depends on how heavy/tiring the exercise is. For squats and deadlift, I reccomend 1 to 1 and half minute. For the rest I reccomend 10-30 seconds.

What muscles should I exercise in a session ?
I prefer you target both upper and lower body in a session. Just do 5-6 types of exercise in one session, and do not do squats and deadlift at the same time.

I have sore muscles...
I have said that weightlifting itself doesn't actually build you muscle, it's the recovery from your weightlifting that does. It's normal to feel sore at the beginning for a few days but remember not to exercise the sore muscles.

Remember to track your progress. Maybe you realize after one week you can lift more reps, you can try to increase the weight. One of the most obvious ways to check on your muscle building program is to check your improvement in the weights. The fact that you are stronger means that you have built muscle. Another way is to use measuring tape to measure your different muscles weekly.

Please remember to take your POST and pre workout drinks/meal .

Why bulk ? Why not cut ?

By now you would be probably thinking that I have gone bonkers/crazy/nuts/insane whatever you want to call me. However, I am telling you this, I have been there and done that. Initially I did not know, about muscles increasing my metabolism, so I started with cutting, the process is very fast initially, but it slows down and stops.

If you don't believe what I'm gonna say, just please at least try it out, the first few pounds of fat is easy to lose, but the last remaining ones are slow. This plateau ( slowed growth) is the reason why I am advocating you to gain muscle first. When you gave muscle, you will find that it is much easier to reach your goals faster.

Illustration :
Johhny fat boy uses about 2000 calories a day without exercise. He decided to follow my advice and go ahead increase his caloric intake and bulk for muscles. After 3 months johhny is still fat, but he is much more muscular and he weighs more (muscle and a little fat gain), and his body in sedentary (non exercise) mode uses about 2600 calories a day.

And then Johhny decides to go on a cutting phase : he needs to eat roughly 2500 calories a day, to lose weight ( let's say for simplicity sake, johhny does not exercise for all cases).

Whereas if Johhny fat boy decides to straightaway cut and skip bulking, johhny has to reduce his dietary intake to 1900 and less if he reaches a stagnant point.

Now between reducing intake of 2500 calories and 1900 calories a day, which one is manageable for Johhny fat boy? Definitely Johhny will think that it is much easier to reduce his intake to 2500. After all, every fat person, whether girl or boy does not really like to reduce their caloric intake drastically. Muscles ultimately create an unprecedented advantage for fat loss, metaphorically speaking it gives you that 5 minutes headstart for the race.

The ultimate fat loss program

There is only one way to lose fat efficiently and permanently, that is to build and maintain muscle in order to jack up your calorie output and then continuing on your fat burning.

Program is simple :
1) Set your goal. Make sure is something clear and not weight related. Let's say for example I want to reach 18% fat, or I want a waist size of 37.

2) Since you are fat and probably huge already, go bulk ( put on muscle ) , with the as little fat gain possible.This will be referred to as the bulking phase.

3) After you are satisfied, go on a fat loss program and minimize muscle loss.This is called the cutting phase.

4) Rinse and repeat until you get your desired result/goal

Setting your goal is something really important, so please that will the first thing you do. Remember to measure regularly to find out how you are doing.

First things first, remember to count your food calories: http://www.weightlossforall.com/food-calories-list.htm
This is one of the simplest thing that i will tell you to do , buy a food weighing machine and then just compare it with the list given to you in the above link.

Big people don't usually have much trouble gaining muscle, the idea is simple. You just need to calculate your daily calorie expenditure, then make sure you eat 10-20% more.

Diet should be medium carb, high protein, low fat (good fat)

Example :
You use 2500 calories a day ( after weight lifting session factored in )
Make sure you consume roughly 2750.
Don't go low carb/protein, and avoid fats.
Remember to check with your physician before you exercise, you might have heart or thyroid disease that prevents you from exercising.
Make sure you work out/ lift weights..... If you don't work out then it's useless.

This may sound weird but try to split your meals into 5-6. The reason is that by splitting your meals, your muscles can absorb more of the nutrients, compared to eating 3 meals a day. It's a chore, but you have to do it.

Never indulge in junk food, except pre and post work out drink.

Remember to eat your preworkout drink/meal.
Let's say :
Work out at 5pm
Preworkout meal should be 45-60 mins before workout.
Preworkout drink should be 15-30 mins before workout.
Choose either the meal or drink, but not both.

Preworkout meal: your regular meal complete with carb, protein and good fats.
Preworkout drink, half scoop of Optimum Nurition ( I use Optimum, you can use other brands it's pretty much the same) whey protein , 1/4 scoop of sugar (if your protein contains enough carbs then skip the sugar) and add some milk/orange juice (optional). If you did not add the orange juice remember to eat vitamin C before the workout, time depends on the absorption rate. Vitamin C is an antioxidant and helps out prevent oxidation. If you don't like the sugar, substitute it with a banana, it's healthier that way.

Postworkout drink , is also very very important, you can buy premade postworkout drinks in gnc or bodybuilding.com , but u also can make it yourself.

Post workout drink : 1 banana, 1 scoop of whey, 1 serving of creatine, add a little sugar, if no banana add more sugar to spike insulin. Banana can be substituted with fruit juice. You can skip the creatine if you feel uncomfortable.

The stuff you lift, no matter how heavy that crap is, isn't building your muscle. What you are actually doing is breaking your muscle down in a good way, and then you stimulate it , to rebuild during rest. To stimulate your muscle to rebuild , you need to deliver nutrients to your muscle cells, to do so you need to spike insulin to deliver the glucose to your muscles and you need fast protein.

Try to avoid eating too much fat during your bulking phase. Eat your omega 3 and omega 6, they are good for you. I would recommend a ratio of 1 omega three :2 omega six , and it makes up 10-15% your diet. The remaining should be split evenly between carb and protein.

your worst enemy is your best friend

So after reading the last post , everything seems simple right ? Doesn't it just equal to calorie balancing of input and output ? To increase output , we just need to exercise and build muscle, while we need to eat less to burn more fat ?

Almost all of us knows about this, but why is it many of us fail even after trying ? Because there are some key things that I have not mentioned .

- The process of muscle gain

" We just need to work out and eat a low carb meal and high protein meal. Then we will gain muscle and lose fat at the same time."
Is the statement above true ? The answer is no.

Remember insulin ? The stuff that your pancreas releases , to send your sugar all over your muscles and liver , then converts the remaining sugar to fat ?
Your worst enemy , you may think, but ....
You need insulin for muscle growth. The presence of insulin also stimulates more nutrients, protein to be sent over to your muscle tissue, stimulating its growth. If you want to grow muscles fast and big you need to eat your sugar.

Before and after you workout, make sure to drink a high GI ( glycemix index ) and high protein drink. The glycemix index tells you how fast your food are converted to sugar, hence the higher GI , more insulin.

Thus, it is actually inevitable for you to gain muscle, without gaining some fat (because of insulin release). If you want to reduce the amount of fat you gain, then you reduce the amount of carbs and fats.

calories and metabolism -> the basics

The amount of energy you use is measured in kcal (calorie). The food and drinks you ingest contains carbs, fats and proteins that will react with oxygen to produce energy which is measured in calories.

So how many calories do we roughly burn in a a day ?
check this website to calculate your daily calorie needs.

In order to lose fat, you have to increase your daily calorie expenditure that is equivalent to increasing your metabolism. There are 3 ways to increase your metabolism:

1) exercise
2) be more active ( increase your non exercise physical activity )
3) gain more muscle ( muscle tissue use up more calorie than fat )

Remember the previous equation I gave you ?
Let's make it simpler

fat gain + muscle gain = calories from food - calories burned
So all we need is to make sure we burn more calories than we ingest ?
Now if we use more calories than we ingest, according to the equation we can lose either muscle or fat or both. Sounds confusing enough? you might say that it's fine, we will lose both fat and muscles, but what if I tell you there are secret techniques that will enable you to minimise muscle loss, and maximize fat gain.



Why do we need muscles to lose fat ?
Girls hate muscles, no they fear it. Muscles make them ugly, they say. Yet they are missing the secret of losing more fat faster and permanently.

Your muscle tissue use up more calorie than fat tissue. So more muscle means more calorie burned daily, and some of these calories come from your fat( we can maximize the calories burned from fat) . Your muscle is like an auto calorie burner, it is advantageous to have it.

Understanding your body

How do we lose fat ? What should I do to maximize my fat loss ?

To understand how your body burn fat, you must understand how your body gain fat. Whenever you consume carbohydrates , your body will convert this carbs into sugar, later converted to glycogen. Now, the body starts to sense that it has a lot of sugar, then it will issue a command to the pancreas to secrete/release insulin. Insulin takes these sugar and store them as glycogen and then stores them in our muscles and then our liver. Excess sugar will be converted into fats.
Read about insulin in Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insulin.
Carb type food examples : sugar, bread, rice, wheat, flour,fructose found in fruits

What about the fats we eat ? Unless it is burnt fat will be stored as fat, those that are not stored will be defecated out. There are medicines that absorb the fat you eat and allow to defecate it out, I think it was manufactured by Roche , called Xenical.
Fat type food examples : cooking oil, fish oil, olive oil

What about protein ? It is not likely for protein to be stored as fat. Protein will have to be converted to glucose first then fat.
Protein type food examples: Meat, milk(mix of carb and protein), whey

below is an equation to relate fat gain
Fat gain = calories eaten/digested - calories used in daily activity - calories used in muscle gain + calories derived from muscle loss