Soon enough I entered the mature phase where I'm performing at a high level.
Imagine when you started learning about all this technical mumbo jumbo, using belts, straps, and nutrient ratios and maybe at that point you dropped out. It wasn't fun anymore. People were always saying that whatever you were doing wasn't the right way.
Bodybuilding can be extremely fun. Being active, getting in shape should be enjoyable. Learning about it as you go along should be interesting and not the worst thing you've ever done in your life.
QUESTION #15:
I s I t O K t o M a k e M i s t a k e s ?
Chances are you've been lied to since you started any type of sports or fitness program. Give me 2 minutes and I'll tell you exactly why you're thinking might be flawed and how it's holding you back from reaching the body of your dreams.
Do you ever define success like this?
How You've Learned To Define Success:
• Results
• Comparison with others
• Mistakes are not 0K
Results: You think in terms of your workouts as results oriented. You have a specific goal in mind with each workout. You based your workouts weekly on if you see changes. If you don't see significant changes quickly it's frustrated and discouraging.
Comparison with Others: You know what I mean. Looking at photos and wishing you looked like that or wondering if that person takes drugs to have those abs. Always comparing your results with those around you or focusing on others rather than yourself. If you had a good workout, you might not even care if you don't feel you got the results you wanted because you are too busy comparing yourself to a fitness model.
Men are guiltier than anybody of not checking the ego at the door. "Team-Ego" takes over and more often than not, males are more concerned with the weight they can push compared to others than the effort they give. Rather than learn or worry about the effort they are giving, it's a numbers game.
How many times have you been on a bodybuilding forum and seen these threads:
• How much can you bench?
• How much can you squat?
• How big are your arms?
Who cares?
Mistakes are not OK: Ever make a mistake? Who hasn't? When you were a baby, did you just learn how to walk from the start? Even in nutrition people make mistakes. But they are taught that mistakes can be deadly. Derail their goals. You better get it right and fast or you'll be wasting years struggling to get the results you want. Making mistakes is bad!
Now here's how a master defines success. This is a person who looks beyond the short term aspects of fitness and knows that the above will be guaranteed if they focus on the long term outcomes of their workouts.
Define success like this and your entire life will change.
How A Master Defines Success:
• Effort
• Learning
• Mistakes are 0K
Effort: Define your workouts based on the effort you gave or its intensity. The way you feel. Did you have a good workout because you gave it 100% effort? If you start to think in terms of the effort you are giving, the results from that effort will be guaranteed. No need to worry about results because if you put forth your best effort, they are coming no matter what you do. This is long term thinking.
As long as you gave it your best effort, that's all that matters. You don't care about the weight compared to anybody else. The only person you are in competition with is yourself.
You can use other people as motivation but you aren't comparing yourself to them. If it helps you to raise the intensity so that you can give more effort, that's great. But it's all about the effort you gave in the gym.
Learning: Rather than focus on why you don't have that six pack of abs or why your friend is more lean, concentrate on learning how they got that way. Learning is beyond the short term mentality of comparing yourself to other people. The more you learn, the easier it will be to reach your goals. Forget other people. All that matters is Y0U! When it comes to health and fitness you can be self-centered. After all, it's your health we're talking about.
Mistakes are OK: If you aren't allowed to make mistakes, how can you learn from them? When you learned to walk, you first learned to crawl. You fell over. The same thing is true for riding a bike, driving a car, learning how to scuba dive. Make those mistakes with nutrition. Screw up in the gym and learn from them.
Instead of beating yourself down for making a simple nutritional error in judgment, learn from that mistake.
• Ask yourself how did it happen?
• Were you in a position where you didn't have the best food choices?
• Maybe you didn't know which options would have been best?
• Could you have prepared better?
All too often we are taught that mistakes are not ok. People who achieve great success often make several hundred if not thousands of mistakes. They are ok to make and they learn from them. They keep giving 100% effort.
The conclusion is that if you think in terms of effort, learning and mistakes are okay, you will achieve the results you want. It's when you think in the short term that you put limitations on yourself. Change your definitions and you will be guaranteed success!
QUESTION #16:
W h a t ' s T h e B e s t W a y to L o s e S t u b b o r n B e l l y F a t ?
Everyone wants to know how to lose fat around their abs, well, here's how I do it...
The #1 question that is asked on all fitness sites, bodybuilding forums, magazines and late night TV infomercials sounds a lot like these:
How to I lose the stubborn belly fat? How do I lose abdominal fat? How to do I get great abs? How do I lose the stomach pouch off the lower abs?
These are all too common question and they are so popular that it's the reason the weight reduction arena is a multi- billion dollar (yes billion) industry.
You are about to read the real secret to great abs and how to lose the abdominal fat without spending money on supplements or following some diet-of-the-month and it's going to be a very simple formula that you can follow. Remember...
Your abdominal muscle is like the rest of the muscles in your body. They require training if you want them to be larger and stronger. A common misconception is that you must train your abs several times a week. This will only lead to overtraining. Your abs are a muscle. Train it like everything else. No need to focus and go overboard. Two to three times a week of focused ab work or core strength is generally the rule for 6 pack abs.
An Easy 3-Step System For Ripped Abdominals:
Step 1
Training: 1% of your overall ab development will actually come from training. Consider the fact that most people think 90% of your results come from training, you can see this isn't the popular consensus. Needless to say, that's where most focus their efforts. They don't get their nutrition in order, they don't use cardio effectively so the masses just do more ab training and more crunches. Ultimately for your abs to show you must have abs to show and a low percentage of body fat for them to appear. More training does nothing to eliminate the layer of fat that is covering them. This is commonly known as spot reduction. Training an area for the sole purpose of eliminating fat in that area.
Tip - Do not make training the #1 priority to show off those abs. Train them like any other muscle. More ab work will not make your abs appear. Focus on lowering your body fat levels and not spot reduction.
Step 2:
Cardio: 9% of your effort can be directed as using cardio as a fat burning tool. High intensity interval training is by far the fastest and most efficient method you can use to shed the pounds. You'll want to keep in mind, using cardio is a tool. Not a foundation. This simply means that doing marathon sessions will not be to your advantage. Learn to use cardio effectively and you can enhance and boost your metabolism beyond what even eating the right foods can do. Some competitive bodybuilders use cardio up to twice a day for 30 days to just chisel off that last remaining layer of fat that's cover up the abdominal region.
Tip - Cardio can be done twice a day for a full body shock! Just keep in mind this method is a short term tool and not a routine you would use for any length of time.
Step 3:
Nutrition: 90% of your efforts will be based upon your diet. In order to show off the abs, you must get rid of the layer of fat that is covering them up. It is that simple. Many people will train their abs and do all kinds of cardio and they still forget that nutrition plays such a massive role in getting rid of belly fat. You must know how many calories a day you need to eat and what to eat in order to get your nutrition on track and working for you. Going to the gym more often, doing more cardio and more hanging crunches will do you no good if you fail 90% of the test. Tip - Use nutritional fundamentals to turn your body into a fat burning furnace.
Wait just a second...
Before you rush off to check your nutrition, cardio and training, take this next concept into consideration.
Loose Skin: Skin is very elastic and over time (age) or with a large amount of weight reduction it may not just spring back like it did. In this case, surgery may be the only option once you have reached a very low level of overall body fat.
-Many women may experience this because of pregnancy. -Many men and women may experience this because of a large amount of weight reduction.
For example, if a man was under 10% body fat and had loose skin; this is a prime example where skin may need to be taken away because of other circumstances. While this is pretty rare it does happen and if the skin cannot bounce back, there are little options a person has except to have it removed. What this means is...
If you have a low enough (12-15% or less body fat for a woman in this example) and you still have a lot of loose skin from slimming down or pregnancy, you may want to explore the option of having that excess skin removed.
With that said...
The secret to ripped abs is nothing more then 3-steps in this order of importance:
1. Nutrition
2. Cardio
3. Training
You see, all of the programs you'll find will adhere to these 3 concepts. Once you have the abs, you need to show them. In order to show them, you will need to get rid of the layer of fat that is covering them up. It's easy to lose the belly fat when you know how.
QUESTION #17:
W h a t A r e t h e R E A L E f f e c t s o f A l c o h o l o n My B o d y ?
If you are curious as to the effects of alcohol on the body, this could be the most eye-opening article you will ever read.
Many of us associate the effects of alcohol on the body with the heart, lungs, liver, brain, memory, etc. Furthermore, if asked about effects of drinking alcohol in terms of our fitness goals, most people will let you know about the infamous beer belly.
You know what I'm talking about right?
Drink too much and you end up storing too many calories as fat.
Many people will choose low calorie alcohol drinks or low carb alcoholic beverages in an attempt to avoid the fat storage issue. They feel that by making this choice the only bad effects of alcohol - increased fat storage - will be minimized.
But what you didn't know is that only about 5% of the calories from alcohol are stored as fat! [14] Then it hit me as it should hit you right about now...
The effects of alcohol on the body are far more damaging than can be predicted by the number of empty calories in some alcoholic beverage.
The truth is...
1- Alcohol really affects the amount of fat your body can and will burn for energy!
In a study done by the American Journal of Clinical Research [4] they concluded that just a mere 24g of alcohol consumption showed whole-body lipid oxidation ( the rate at which your body burns fat) decreased by a whopping 73%!
When alcohol goes thru the liver, the by-product is called Acetate. It would appear that acetate puts the proverbial brakes on fat burning.
Your body can use many types of fuel. Protein, carbohydrates and fat. In many cases, the fuel used is dictated by its availability.
Trouble is...
Your body tends to use whatever you feed it for fuel right? As your acetate levels increase, your body burns more acetate as fuel.
What this means is...
Fat burning takes a back seat! What it all boils down to is this...
a) You consume a couple of alcoholic drinks or more.
b) Your liver metabolizes that into acetate. c) Your body uses the acetate for fat as fuel.
2- It Leads To an Increase In Your Appetite
In another American ]ournal of Clinical Nutrition study, there was evidence to suggest that consumption of alcohol lead to an increase in appetite over that of any other carbohydrate type drink. [5]
Researchers over in the Research Department of Human Nutrition and Center for Advanced Food Studies in Denmark [8] concluded that consumption of alcoholic beverages, and wine in particular, may enhance total energy intake at a meal relative to a soft drink, when served with no restriction.
3- Decreases Testosterone and Increases Cortisol
A study of 8 healthy male volunteers observed that after drinking alcohol, the effects of a significant decrease in testosterone and an increase in cortisol (a muscle destroying hormone) lasted up to 24 hours! [6]
The only real question to ask yourself is this...
If you are serious about building muscle and burning fat, you want all the free testosterone levels you can get and you want to reduce cortisol in any way you can. That means go lite on the drinking because it does affect your hormones.
What more...
Is that the effects were even worse if you exercise before drinking. [1] This means that if you are going out and will be drinking more than a small amount of alcohol, you might as well skip the gym.
Not shocking is a study done by the Department of Radiology, Sahlgrenska Hospital, Goteborg, Sweden [2] that determined increased waist to hip ratio of alcoholics may include not only changes in adipose tissue, but also in muscle tissue distribution.
In layman's terms... that means fatter around the waist and less overall muscle mass.
4- Decreases Vitamin and Mineral Absorption
When you consume large quantities of alcohol, your liver is busy converting the alcohol to acetate and any vitamins and minerals that it might process are taken up by the detoxification process.
Alcohol interferes with the metabolism of most vitamins, and with the absorption of many nutrients. Alcohol stimulates both urinary calcium and magnesium excretion. [13]
This just means that you'll get less of a benefit from the "healthy" meal you may be consuming.
Food in the stomach will compete with ethanol for absorption into the blood stream. It is well known that alcohol competes and influences the processing of nutrients in the body. [12]
5- Decreases Protein Synthesis of Type II Fibers
This means the actual building of muscle is slowed down by 20%+ or more. This included a 35% decrease in muscle insulin-like growth factor-I (GF-I). [9]
6- It Increases Dehydration
A common side effect of alcohol is dehydration. Alcohol is a diuretic. Drinks containing 4% alcohol tend to delay the recovery process. [11]
Considering how important water is to muscle building and general health, it's clear that dehydration can put a
damper on your progress. After alcohol consumption the first thing you might want to do is drink coffee. But that's a diuretic as well. How to avoid dehydration? Drink more water.
7- It Reduces Sleep
Alcohol consumption, especially at the times when you would normally sleep, can have effects on the quality of sleep. Clearly high quality sleep is extremely important to the rebuilding and growth process of muscle. Without proper rest and recovery, your gains will be affected.
Alcohol consumption can induce sleep disorders by disrupting the sequence and duration of sleep states and by altering total sleep time as well as the time required to fall asleep. [10]
8- Makes the Next Day Not the Best Workout Day
A rather obvious conclusion but if you plan on drinking on a Friday night in excess then the leg workout you thought of doing on Saturday morning won't be top notch. It takes a bit to recover, your body to detoxify and for you mentally to be prepared to workout.
Not to mention you need energy for the workout ahead. Sure you can hit the weights but my point is...
It's not going to be the best workout you've ever experienced.
At this point you might be totally discouraged to ever drink any alcohol again. But there's some good news. Here's proof...
In the November 2004 issue of the International Journal of Obesity [7] they did a study on the effects of moderate consumption of white wine on weight loss.
Each group consumed 1500 calories. 150 calories came from white wine in one group and 150 calories from grape juice in another.
Conclusion:
An energy-restricted diet is effective in overweight and obese subjects used to drinking moderate amounts of alcohol. A diet with 10% of energy derived from white wine is as effective as an isocaloric diet with 10% of energy derived from grape juice.
It's simple: Moderation is the key! (With first place being abstinence as you already know). In any event…
The effects of alcohol on your body when it comes to building muscle and burning fat are quite clear. It is a lot more than just some extra calories stored as fat. If you consume too much, it can derail your goals a lot longer after your head has hit the pillow and you've gone to sleep.
References:
1. Heikkonen, E., Ylikahri, R., Roine, R., Valimaki, M., Harkonen, M., & Salaspuro, M. (1996). The combined effect of alcohol and physical exercise on serum testosterone, luteinizing hormone, and cortisol in males. Alcoholism, Clinical and Experimental Research, 20, 711-716
2. Kvist, H., Hallgren, P., Jonsson, L., Pettersson, P., Sjoberg, C., Sjostrom, L., & Bjorntorp, P. (1993). Distribution of adipose tissue and muscle mass in alcoholic men. Metabolism, 42, 569-573
3. Raben A, Agerholm-Larsen L, Flint A, Holst JJ, Astrup A. (2003). Meals with similar energy densities but rich in protein, fat, carbohydrate, or alcohol have different effects on energy expenditure and substrate metabolism but not on appetite and energy intake. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 77, 91-100
4. Siler, S.Q., Neese, R.A., & Hellerstein, M.K. (1999). De novo lipogenesis, lipid kinetics, and whole-body lipid balances in humans after acute alcohol consumption. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 70, 928-936
5. Tremblay, A., & St-Pierre, S. (1996). The hyperphagic effect of a high-fat diet and alcohol intake persists after control for energy density. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 63, 479-482
6. Valimaki, M.J., Harkonen, M., Eriksson, C.J., & Ylikahri, R.H. (1984). Sex hormones and adrenocortical steroids in men acutely intoxicated with ethanol. Alcohol, 1, 89-93
7. Flechtner-Mors, M., Biesalski, H.K., Jenkinson, C.P., Adler, G., & Ditschuneit, H.H. (2004). Effects of moderate consumption of white wine on weight loss in overweight and obese subjects. International Journal of Obesity and Related Metabolic Disorders, 28, 1420-1426
8. Buemann, B., Toubro, S., & Astrup, A. (2002). The effect of wine or beer versus a carbonated soft drink, served at a meal, on ad libitum energy intake. International Journal of Obesity and Related Metabolic Disorders, 26, 1367-1372
9. Lang CH, Frost RA, Kumar V, Wu D, Vary TC. (2000). Inhibition of muscle protein synthesis by alcohol is associated with modulation of eIF2B and eIF4E, 3, 322-31
10. Alcohol Alert, National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, No. 41 July. 1988
11. Shirreffs, Susan M., and Ronald J Maughan. 91997). Restoration of fluid balance after exercise-induced dehydration: effects of alcohol consumption, Journal of Applied Physiology, Vol. 83, No. 4, pp. 1152-1158
12. "Alcohol, chemistry and you," Kennesaw State University, chemcases.com, Aug. 2002
13. Dept. of Health and Human Services, Report to Congress, 1990
14. "Why alcohol calories are more important than you think," Christian Finn, TheFactsAboutFitness.com
QUESTION #18:
H o w M u c h W