Over the weekend I hit the gym with my buddy Mikey for a morning cardio workout.
Now, I say “cardio”, but really it was a metabolic resistance training session.
If you’re unfamiliar with the term, the simple definition for metabolic resistance training is “cardio with weights”. We’ll cover this more in detail in another update so as not to get too off topic.
So we’re about 10 minutes into the workout and Mikey looks like he’s in pretty bad shape (despite being in really GOOD shape). So I asked him what the deal was.
“I didn’t eat anything for breakfast.”
Me: Why the heck not?
“I thought that’s what you’re supposed to do if you want to burn the most fat from your morning workouts.”
Uh oh.
Perhaps you’re still believing this old myth just like good ol’ Mikey, so allow me to take a moment to dispel it.
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Over the next week or so we’re going to be talking quite a bit about metabolic resistance training (i.e. “cardio with weights”), but before we do I want to address something that slightly concerned me when reading through some of the comments that came in on yesterday’s “empty stomach” cardio post.
Apparently, many people are still stuck doing long duration, low-intensity cardiovascular exercise — yikes!
Here’s the deal: if you’re looking to achieve maximal benefit from the time you put into your workouts, long duration “slow-go” cardio is NOT the way to go, and for many reasons.
Here are my top 5:
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A few weekends ago I was in LA with my buddy Vince “No Nonsense” Del Monte and a few other fitness friends for a marketing conference, and upon arriving at our hotel the very first thing Vinny and I did was take a taxi run to the grocery store.
Now, generally we’d be a little more laid back when traveling for the weekend, but fact is we’re both currently “in training” for an upcoming deadline and we know that we’ll make the best food choices when we’re in control of the menu.
So we hit the grocery store, and one of the things I happened to pick up was yogurt.
You see, yogurt can be both delicious and healthy, but the problem is that most people are mistakenly buying yogurt that is TERRIBLE for their health and waistline, even though it’s touted as “healthy as can be”.
Take for example, this label from a popular “low fat” yogurt:
Sounds like a healthy option…”low fat yogurt”. But no. 33 grams of carbs, 27 grams of sugar (most of which is dreaded high fructose corn syrup), and only 5 grams of protein. That is, essentially, a recipe for fat storage despite the fact it’s “low fat”.
So, what type of yogurt should you be eating? Without a doubt the answer is plain Greek yogurt. Compared to the above, plain Greek yogurt has 6xs the protein and 1/3 as much sugar (which is simply the naturally occuring milk sugars lactose and galactose).
That’s 31 grams of protein per 8 oz and just 12 grams of low-glycemic carbs!
Need something a little sweeter than plain yogurt? Throw some mixed berries in (strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, etc) and/or sweeten it a tad with some Splenda or Stevia. DELICIOUS.
This is one of my favorite snacks throughout the day, and it packs a ton of high quality nurtients in to a very filling meal.
Take home message: Ditch the sugar-laden “junk” yogurt and go with delicious, thick, plain Greek Yogurt instead (look for the 0% fat variety).
P.S. The above yogurt and berry blend was actually a small part of tonight’s HUGE dinner, which also included an ample-sized lean steak, mashed sweet potatoes with cinnamon, quinoa mixed with pumpkin seeds and cranberries, green beans sauteed with garlic and roasted tomatoes, a huge spinach salad with roasted tomatoes, goat cheese, artichokes, blackened chicken and avocado, and jumbo grilled asparagus topped with organic blue cheese crumbles.
And you know what? Dinners like that are the norm EVERY SINGLE DAY of my brand new rapid fat loss 28-day diet, The HUGE Dinner Diet.
Want a copy of the Huge Dinner Diet? Well, although you can’t even buy it for another 6 months, I’ve decided to give a free copy of the HDD to any one of my readers that picks up a discounted copy of my buddy John Romaniello’s brand new Superhero Workout program. Even if you never even open John’s program, you’re going to get my brand new 28-day rapid fat loss Huge Dinner Diet system 6 months early, and cheaper than it will be later. Think of the Superhero Workout as a “bonus” to an already ridiculous, exclusive deal.
Just be sure to use this link to identify you as my subscriber:
==> Discounted Superhero Workout + The Huge Dinner Diet FREE
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My main man CB-tastic just got in town today and shortly after his arrival we both sat down to a HUGE dinner full of secret fat-burning ingredient foods.
A few things you should know:
1. CB-tastic is Craig Ballantyne. DUH.
2. I’m releasing a new program called The Huge Dinner Diet tomorrow. It involves huge dinners. It also involves fat loss.
Like, LOTS of fat loss.
How much fat loss? Take your body weight and divide it by three.
Now multiply it by a BILLION.
That much.
3. Secret ingredient foods are by far the best fat burning foods you can possibly eat. In fact, here’s a list of the foods we included in our HUGE dinner tonight, each of them containing the magic “secret ingredient”:
- Filet Mignon
- Spinach
- Apples
- Blueberries
- Cranberries
- Cherry Tomatoes
- Fresh Mozzarella
- Olive Oil
- Balsamic Vinegar
- Carrots
- Broccoli
- Cauliflower
- Blue Cheese Crumbles
- Wheatberries
- Walnuts
- Pumpkin Seeds
I didn’t lie when I said the dinner was huge. I also didn’t lie when I said dinners of this size are part of a new rapid fat loss diet I developed, The Huge Dinner Diet, due out tomorrow. And I didn’t lie when I said that ALL of these foods are made up of secret ingredients.
Do you know what secret ingredient all of these foods have in common?
Simple: ALL of these foods have only ONE ingredient – the food they are.
Broccoli is made up of broccoli – that’s it.
The ingredient list for raw walnuts? Raw walnuts.
Hey, what’s in those cherry tomatoes? Oh, I know! Cherry tomatoes!
The absolute best fat-burning foods are one-ingredient foods — whole foods that contain only one ingredient.
They’re natural. They’re not processed. They contain vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, fiber, and more…in their natural form.
Many folks ask me to analyze their diets and I find that they’re full of highly processed, crapola foods. If it comes in a box, throw it out. Instead, try this for just one week:
Eat only natural, unprocessed one-ingredient foods: meats, fruits, vegetables, oils, nuts, legumes, and seeds.
See how much better you feel. See how much better you LOOK.
How about you? How many one-ingredient foods are in YOUR diet today? Will you join me in eating only one-ingredient foods this week?
At least 100 comments and I’ll randomly select one commenter to receive a copy of The Huge Dinner Diet for FREE.
Talk to you in the comments section!
Joel
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Since our Chocolate Peanut Butter Fat Loss Milkshake went over so well the other day, I thought I’d follow it up with another one of my favorite fat loss milkshake recipes:
My “Cinnamon Bun” Fat Loss Milkshake
Ingredients:
1 Scoop Prograde Protein (Vanilla)
1 Tablespoon Vanilla Instant Pudding
1/4 tsp Vanilla Extract
1/4 tsp Cinnamon
1/4 tsp Nutmeg
1 Cup Organic Skim Milk
3 Ice Cubes
Directions:
Pour 1 cup of organic skim milk in to a blender, then add the remaining ingredients. Blend on high for 30 seconds. Enjoy :)
This creamy milkshake tastes like a mouth-watering cinnamon bun! Fat loss dessert…Mmm Mmm good :). Enjoy it as a convenient snack or meal replacement anytime – delicious!
15% Coupon Code for Prograde Protein! – Use Code Pro15 (Expires Tomorrow)
One reason I love Prograde Protein is because it’s the only stevia sweetened, delicious, cold-processed protein powder I’m aware of. Oops, that’s 3 reasons :)
Most protein powders are denatured and damaged due to high heat processing, but Prograde Protein uses a low-temperature filtration process that protects the protein as it’s purified. It’s also naturally sweetened with stevia, which is extremely hard to find when it comes protein powders. Oh, and it tastes great (which in reality is probably the most important factor).
Uber quality; uber yumminess :)
Grab your Vanilla Prograde Protein at 15% OFF and give this a shot sometime this week! Or drink it every day like I do :)
Be sure to use the code Pro15 at checkout to save 15% – coupon expires tomorrow!
Keep rockin’!
Joel
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Do you like Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups?
ME TOO =)
And even better, you can still have that chocolate peanut-buttery goodness every single day while shedding fat like crazy – just requires capturing the essense of Reese’s in a delicious, fat-burning dessert-esque milkshake.
Chocolate Peanut Butter Fat Loss Milkshake
Ingredients:
1 Scoop Prograde Protein (Chocolate)
2 Tablespoons All Natural Peanut Butter or Almond Butter
1 Cup Organic Skim Milk
3 Ice Cubes
Directions:
Pour 1 cup of organic skim milk in to a blender, then add the remaining ingredients. Blend on high for 30 seconds. Enjoy :)
This bad boy tastes like a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup milkshake! Mmmmmmm. Enjoy it as a convenient snack or meal replacement anytime – pure goodness.
15% Coupon Code for Prograde Protein! – Use Code Pro15 (Expires Monday)
One reason I love Prograde Protein is because it’s the only stevia sweetened, delicious, cold-processed protein powder I’m aware of. Oops, that’s 3 reasons :)
Most protein powders are denatured and damaged due to high heat processing, but Prograde Protein uses a low-temperature filtration process that protects the protein as it’s purified. It’s also naturally sweetened with stevia, which is extremely hard to find when it comes protein powders. Oh, and it tastes great (which in reality is probably the most important factor).
Uber quality; uber yumminess :)
Grab your Chocolate Prograde Protein at 15% OFF and give this a shot sometime this week! Or drink it every day like I do :)
Be sure to use the code Pro15 at checkout to save 15% – coupon expires Monday!
Keep rockin’!
Joel
13 Comments
If there’s one thing that causes more unnecessary panic and stress to cross my email inbox, it’s the dag on scale.
People literally FREAKING OUT because the scale reads one pound more today than it did yesterday.
So today, I’m here to help you with some facts and a bit of advice.
#1 – that’s NORMAL. If you weigh yourself every day, you’re going to see fluctuations in weight throughout the week (mainly due to daily water fluctuations). That’s normal and to be expected especially if you’re utilizing a program that cycles carb and calorie intake like Cheat Your Way Thin or Xtreme Fat Loss Diet.
The solution?
NEVER weigh yourself more than once a week. Period. Anything more than that and you’re just screwing yourself psychologically. The scale will inevitably jump around and instead of staying focused on your fat loss plan and your goals, your thoughts become consumed with a number (that for all intents and purposes is unreliable on a daily basis).
So when should you weigh yourself?
The key is to keep things as consistent as possible throughout the measuring process:
*Same scale
*Same day each week
*Same time of day
*Same circumstances
For example, if you have a Cheat Day on the same day each week, I recommend taking your scale reading on that day, first thing in the morning before eating or drinking anything, on the same scale each week, unclothed. Taking measurements in this fashion will give you a pretty good idea of the type of results you were able to achieve from the previous week.
Perhaps an even better indicator of progress is your waist measurement, and as such I recommend taking a waist measurement along with your scale reading each week. Again, same measuring tape, some spot (around the navel), same set of circumstances, etc.
Even if for some fluke reason the scale doesn’t budge one week, as long as your waist measurement decreases you can rest assured that you’re losing fat because your fat stores are shrinking.
So, if you’re someone who steps on the scale daily, or even worse sporadically throughout the week at different times of day, do yourself a favor and STOP. Move to once-a-week progress measurements for a much more reliable, stress-free indicator of progress.
Oh, and if you enjoyed that advice, you’re going to LOVE this:
2 “Junk Foods” That Actually Burn Fat
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The other day I was talking with my friend Mike.
Mike is a good guy, but frankly, his diet sucks.
Now, it’s not that Mike eats junk all day; in fact, the foods that make up Mike’s daily diet aren’t half bad.
Mike’s problem is something different: his timing is WAY out of whack, and unfortunately, it’s a problem that 99% of Americans share.
Take a look at the typical American diet and here’s what you get:
- Breakfast is the smallest meal of the day, if consumed at all.
- Lunch is a decent, moderate sized meal.
- Dinner is by far the largest meal of the day, often times consumed late at night.
The problem with this set up? It has you eating your largest meal of the day in the evening hours when metabolism is at its lowest point.
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I’ve been getting a lot of questions about metabolism lately, so I figured I’d put together a few blog posts about how you can increase YOURS.
#1 – Increase your G-flux.
If you’ve never heard of G-flux, here’s a simple formula for increasing it: Eat more; exercise more. Sounds pretty simple, but let’s take a deeper look.
Exercise increases metabolism. Eating increases metabolism. The trick is learning to balance the two so that you still create a negative calorie balance.
Let’s back up real quick.
Sendentary people (folks who just sit around and don’t exercise) have painfully slow metabolisms. This is due to many hormonal factors resulting from a lack of exercise along with the fact that these individuals never really “teach” their body to burn additional calories.
Likewise, chronic dieters share the same plight. When you chronically under-eat, metabolism shuts down as a starvation protection mechanism and the oh-so-slow metabolism blues start a-playin’.
On the contrary, exercise and eating are metabolism boosters. That being said, it’s not very likely that eating more by itself will ever do wonders for your fat loss goals.
But when you combine eating more with a high caloric burn via exercise you get the best of both worlds.
For example, let’s say your basal metabolic rate allows you to burn 2000 calories a day. Knowing this, you go on a diet and begin eating 1500 calories a day, putting you 500 calories in the hole. Now, on the surface a 500 calorie deficit would appear to be a good thing, but unfortunately you’ve done your metaoblism NO favors here. In fact, under-eating only decreases metabolism with each passing day.
So, “dieting” is not the method of choice for creating a calorie deficit.
Now let’s take a similar scenario. You burn 2000 calories a day, but instead of “dieting” you start eating 300 calories MORE each day and you also burn 800 extra calories through exercise. The result? The SAME 500 calorie deficit (2800 calories burned, 2300 calories consumed) but you do so while increasing your metabolism through eating and exercising more.
That’s the power of G-flux. Apply the concept and watch your metabolism skyrocket.
#2 – Eat Carrots.
This actually has nothing to do with metabolism, but it allows me to shamelessly post a picture of my daughter’s first “whole food” feeding yesterday – Mmm mmm carrots! :)
On a more serious (albeit less adorable) note, while we’re on the topic of metabolism here’s something you should definitely check out. Believe it or not, my buddy Kyle Leon just posted a new metabolism trick that can’t even be stopped by “bad genetics”…and he SHOWS you proof. See for yourself:
==> Metabolism trick to OVERCOME your genetics (actually works)
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Perhaps the largest complaint I hear coming from dieters is the issue of being “hungry” and a lack of satiety from the meals they eat.
Well, the truth is, you can easily eat A LOT of food and leave the table full (every time) while still sticking to a reduced calorie regimen IF you learn to harness the power of something called caloric density.
The term caloric density simply refers to the amount of calories in a given amount or volume of food.
A food that packs a large amount of calories in a very small volume of food is considered to have a very high caloric density. Conversely, foods with a low caloric density yield a much smaller calorie total from the same amount of food, allowing you to eat “more” without actually consuming more calories.
Ice cream is a classic example of a food with a high caloric density. Anyone can eat 1,000 calories of ice cream. On the other hand, even the largest appetites would have a hard time consuming 1,000 calories worth of spinach.
Obviously, if the goal is to leave the table full without consuming a massive amounts of calories, the key is to consume low-calorie, high volume foods.
It’s probably no shocker that fruits and vegetables have very low caloric densities, particularly green and leafy vegetables.
Other foods with low caloric densities include lean proteins, beans, and by nature, most foods high in fiber.
Which meal would fill you up more at 400 calories?
Take home message: Combine LOTS of fruits, veggies, beans, and lean proteins for meals that leave you full, without the calorie bulge.
Apply that simple tip to at least 2 meals today and I guarantee you’ll shave hundreds of calories off your daily total while being completely content with the amount of food you’re eating.
Keep rockin’,
Joel
P.S. Every so often, something crosses my desk that’s just too good not to share with you. Well, my buddy and uber nutritionist Kyle Leon is at it again:
Hey, it’s Joel! So you want to know a little more about me, huh? Well, I’d be happy to oblige :-)
I guess it all started back in 2001 (my freshman year of college) when I was just a “skinny fat” 19-year old kid. At the time, I was spending close to 2 hours a day in the gym (now my workouts last about 30 minutes), and despite my efforts, you’d probably never guess I worked out a day in my life by looking at me...