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So, I’ve decided to take “Ninja Nutrition Tactics” out of the vault for the first time since February.
What’s Ninja Nutrition Tactics?
Without a doubt, some of you know exactly what it is, while many others probably don’t. So, for those who do not, allow me to get you “up to speed”, as they say.
First, NNT is an eBook, and its full name is:
Ninja Nutrition Tactics: Stealth Techniques to Slice Through Any Fat Loss Plateau
I know, awesome name.
BUT, perhaps even more awesome than the name is its contents, and believe it or not, the whole thing kind of came together by “accident”.
You see, back in February, a good friend of mine, Rohn Jomaniello, released a pretty sweet e-course called Final Phase Fat Loss, which was, as you may have deduced from the name, a training program specifically designed to help users bust through fat loss plateaus and lose those last, stubborn pounds once and for all.
You can see a picture of Rohn here:
Weird dude, but hey, he’s got a knack for helping people lose those last 10 lbs, so what can I say.
Anyway, as a little incentive for my customers and newsletter subscribers to purchase John’s program, I decided I would put together a short guide that included some plateau-busting nutrition strategies to compliment John’s training advice.
And that I did.
But, what I didn’t know when I first starting writing NNT is that it would end of being one of the best eBooks I’d ever written. I mean, I knew it was going to be good, but I didn’t know it was going to be THAT good.
You see, when I sat down to write NNT, I was originally thinking it would end up being somewhere around 20 or so pages of “cool” nutrition info.
Then, I started writing.
20 pages…
30 pages…
40 pages…
50 pages…
60 pages…
And I didn’t stop until Ninja Nutrition Tactics held 63 pages of my most advanced plateau-shattering nutrition strategies (11 in total), each one guaranteed to get the scale moving again immediately, regardless of how long you’ve been “stuck” at your current weight.
And as a bonus, the whole thing is pretty darn funny. Like, take my funniest blog post ever, and then multiply it by 337.
That funny.
So, why the heck am I telling you this?
Well, as I alluded to at the beginning of this post, Ninja Nutrition Tactics hasn’t been available since February, but I AM going to be “releasing” it for a short, few days next week.
You’re not going to want to miss the opportunity, because, it’s very likely that after those few days, these stealth techniques will be going BACK inside the vault for good, or at least for another very long time.
Why? Quite frankly, these are my best techniques, many of which no one has ever heard of, used, or seen before (apart from my private clients).
And while I’m OK with sharing these ‘private-client’ techniques with a very select group of my loyal subscribers and customers so that YOU may also enjoy the unfair advantage they provide, I really don’t want these techniques getting out there amongst the “masses”.
Also, while it’s not my intentions to hype this up, I have to say that NNT is seriously one of the best things I’ve ever written. Anyone who owns it already knows that.
And for those of you who don’t, you’ll have a brief opportunity to secure your copy next week.
Can I trust you to uphold the ninja code of secrecy?
At least 100 comments and maybe I’ll post a “sample” Ninja Nutrition Tactic straight from the NNT manual later this week ;)
Until then, be true to the way of the Ninja.
*Ninja vanish*
Shogun Marion
P.S. I’m now doing virtually ALL my cooking with coconut oil – if you want to know why, click HERE.
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After a day of flying across the country, I’m finally getting the opportunity to write this newsletter.
Straight from…what’s this place called? Ah yes, the Gibson Guitar Lounge in Orange County airport.
I was actually planning on sending this during my last flight, because, that plane was COOL and had the internet, but alas, my middle seating assignment amongst two individuals even larger than I made that an impossibility.
But here I am, making it a point to deliver on my promise to you, my loyal subscriber, even before I check in to my hotel.
Alright, enough of that…moving on to what you really want to know: How much protein do you really NEED?
Ha! Trick question, because that’s actually not the question you should be asking anyway. You see, when you ask the question about “need”, one needs to examine the context of the question.
How much protein do you need for what?
To build muscle? To improve body composition? To improve performance? To enhance recovery? To live?
In most cases, people are asking how much protein should I intake to enhance my body composition and performance related goals.
And with that question, it’s important to take a look at things not from a “need” standpoint, but from an “optimization” standpoint.
And because my very good friend and nutritional biochemist and all around bad ass Dr. John Berardi already covered this in another article, I’ll just quote him here:
“Asking ‘How much protein does an athlete need?’ is much like asking the question ‘How much does a student need to study for an exam?’ Since a student only needs to pass their exam to remain a student, the proper answer would be ‘however much it takes to score a 60%.’ However, very few students want to earn only a 60%. Therefore the best question would be ‘How much does a student need to study to get an A on their exam?’
Now, the truth is, there are MANY reasons beyond “need” to increase protein intake to boost body composition and performance related results, here are just a few:
Reason #1
Increased Thermic Effect of Feeding — While all macronutrients require metabolic processing for digestion, absorption, and storage or oxidation, the thermic effect of protein is significantly higher than that of carbohydrates and fat. In fact, protein requires 25-30% of the energy it provides just for digestion, absorption, and assimilation while carbs only require 6-8% and fat requires 2-3%. That means that eating protein is actually thermogenic and can lead to a higher metabolic rate. This means greater fat loss when dieting and less fat gain during hypercaloric diets.
Reason #2
Increased Glucagon — Protein consumption increases plasma concentrations of the hormone glucagon. Glucagon is responsible for antagonizing the effects of insulin in adipose tissue, leading to greater fat mobilization. In addition, glucagon also decreases the amounts and activities of the enzymes responsible for making and storing fat in adipose and liver cells. Again, this leads to greater fat loss during dieting and less fat gain during overfeeding.
Reason #3
Increased IGF-1 — Protein and amino-acid supplementation has been shown to increase the IGF-1 response to both exercise and feeding. Since IGF-1 is an anabolic hormone that’s related to muscle growth, another advantage associated with consuming more protein is more muscle growth when overfeeding and/or muscle sparing when dieting.
Reason #4
Reduction in Cardiovascular Risk — Several studies have shown that increasing the percentage of protein in the diet (from 11% to 23%) while decreasing the percentage of carbohydrate (from 63% to 48%) lowers LDL cholesterol and triglyceride concentrations with concomitant increases in HDL cholesterol concentrations.
Reason #5
Improved Weight-Loss Profile — Research from Layman and colleagues has demonstrated that reducing the carbohydrate ratio from 3.5 – 1 to 1.4 – 1 increases body fat loss, spares muscle mass, reduces triglyceride concentrations, improves satiety, and improves blood glucose management.
Reason #6
Increased Protein Turnover — All tissues of the body, including muscle, go through a regular program of turnover. Since the balance between protein breakdown and protein synthesis governs muscle protein turnover, you need to increase your protein turnover rates in order to best improve your muscle quality. A high protein diet does just this. By increasing both protein synthesis and protein breakdown, a high protein diet helps you get rid of the old muscle more quickly and build up new, more functional muscle to take its place.
Reason #7
Increased Nitrogen Status — Earlier I indicated that a positive nitrogen status means that more protein is entering the body than is leaving the body. High protein diets cause a strong positive protein status and when this increased protein availability is coupled with an exercise program that increases the body’s anabolic efficiency, the growth process may be accelerated.
Reason #8
Increased Provision of Auxiliary Nutrients — Although the benefits mentioned above have related specifically to protein and amino acids, it’s important to recognize that we don’t just eat protein and amino acids — we eat food. Therefore, high protein diets often provide auxiliary nutrients that could enhance performance and/or muscle growth. These nutrients include creatine, branched chain amino acids, conjugated linoleic acids, and/or additional nutrients that are important but remain to be discovered. This illustrates the need to get most of your protein from food, rather than supplements alone.
So, looking over this list of benefits, isn’t it clear that for many individuals, an increase in protein intake would be advantageous for most people’s training goals?”
Hmmmm, indeed it does, Johnny boy, indeed it does.
So rather than looking at “need”, when talking about protein intake, let’s talk optimization.
Based on my experiences (and many others), that level is around 1 g per pound of lean body mass in most cases.
In some situations, for very specific purposes (like the protein depletion day of the XFLD), higher protein intake may be warranted.
Regardless, the bottom line is this: protein is the most under-rated nutrient, or at least the nutrient that most people under-consume. If you’re looking to boost your body composition results, make sure you’re getting enough.
Comments? Post ‘em below!
But, only after you hit the facebook LIKE button below to share this with your friends.
Talk to you in the comments section!
Joel
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So, I was at the gym today going through a rather brutal chest/back session and couldn’t help but “observe” those working out around me as I alternated back and forth between dumbbell bench and dumbbell rows (that was just the beginning of the workout).
Did you know that 99% of the people I observed could be achieving up to 3 times the results with some simple switches in the way they perform each exercise?
As my buddy Rob Poulos often explains, it has to do with how you specifically perform the repetitions. To better understand this, let’s examine our 3 different strength levels in any resistance exercise.
Take the dumbbell bench press exercise for the pectorals for example. In this movement, you begin with the weight in the lowered position at the sides of your chest. You proceed to smoothly and slowly press the dumbbells up until they meet over your chest.
This first portion of the exercise trains your positive strength level.
Want to make the movement even more effective? Pause briefly and contract your pectorals/chest muscles hard at the top of the movement. This trains your static strength level.
Finally, you would want to lower the dumbbells slowly back to the starting position. This trains your negative strength level.
Now the problem is that most people don’t even bother with their static or negative strength levels, and that’s VERY apparent just by sitting back and “observing” more than 50 people working out at my local gym.
They put all of the focus on the “lifting” or positive portion of the movement, while not pausing or contracting sufficiently at the top, and not taking nearly enough time on the negative portion.
In effect, doing this only gets you one third of the benefit that each exercise can provide.
Actually, it’s less than that because the static and negative portions can actually create deeper inroads into your existing strength levels. This is something you want, as it will lead to greater progress faster, heavier weights used, more calories burned, and more fat loss.
My buddy Rob just posted a free video that shows you how you can target each strength level in a very specific way to decrease your workout time dramatically while doubling or even tripling the effectiveness of each exercise. But in order to get the most out of the techniques, they need to be performed in VERY specific way.
You can learn about Rob’s specific methods in his free video here:
Click above to watch the video.
Catch you soon,
Joel
140 Comments
Over the weekend I got a phone call from my friend Natalie.
She was a bit frustrated, and understandably so.
You see, about a week ago (per my recommendation) she purchased an electronic body fat scale to track her progress as she attempts to diet down for “beach season”.
Unfortunately, for the last week, the readings have been all over the place.
“One day it says I’m 26% and then the very next day somehow it reads 22%. Then back up to 24% the next day. It makes no sense.”
Perhaps you can relate.
Without a doubt, these scales can seem pretty worthless if you don’t really understand a) how they work, and b) how to use them to produce reliable, consistent data.
On the other hand, when you’ve got “A” and “B” down pat, body fat scales can be an invaluable tool to easily track body composition without having to bust out a pair of calipers or set up an appointment to have your body fat evaluated at your local gym (which has its own set of accuracy problems).
Today I’ll clear up the confusion and tomorrow you’ll actually be able to use the body fat function of your scale to produce some meaningful data.
Click here to continue reading
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I’m going to make this post extremely quick and easy.
To enter to win one of FIVE TWENTY copies of the entire Xtreme Fat Loss Diet system that I’m GIVING AWAY today, simply reply in the comments section below this post (reply form is at the bottom of the page) with the following information:
In 250 words or less, I want you to tell me exactly why this program is the perfect program for you at this point in your life. Tell me WHY you NEED access to this information.
Again, please keep your reply less than 250 words, and please, leave finances out of your reply. This program (via our special launch pre-sale) will be affordable for literally anyone who wants access to it. Anyone.
So, again, leaving the financial stuff out, I want you to tell me, based on everything you’ve learned about dieting and FAST fat loss over the last 6 updates, why this program is the perfect fit for you.
I will keep the contest open for a full 24 hours, and then will go through the replies and notify the winners via email sometime on Saturday!
Good luck!
Joel
NOTE: THIS CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED.
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Welcome to Body Transformation Insider! For some of you, you’ve been here hundreds of times before (more than 10,000 comments posted in the last 6 months alone), and for others, this may be your first time — either way, this gift is for YOU! Consider it a “Welcome” or a “Thank You” (or both!)
You see, within the fitness industry, I happen to “know” a lot of people. Which is a great thing, because I’m always scoring free stuff and special deals for you as my reader (not to mention loads of free blog content from me each week).
Well, John Romaniello, the creator of the Final Phase Fat Loss system just so happens to be one of my best friends.
And here’s what we have in store for you:
A *FREE* Bodyweight FPFL Density Workout that you can do anywhere with NO equipment!
No need to sign up anywhere or anything like that, just click and download below.
(Right click and select “Save Target As” or “Save Link As” to save a copy to your computer)
Whether or not you are one of the 9,000+ new Final Phase Fat Loss users or not, you can begin using this workout to accelerate your results today…and it costs you nothing (just right click to download).
(Right click and select “Save Target As” or “Save Link As” to save a copy to your computer)
Enjoy your free gift! I’ll be back with more blogging and body transformation strategies soon.
Your friend,
Joel
P.S. And if you haven’t yet picked up the entire Final Phase Fat Loss system (all 16 Density, Dynamic, Lactic Acid, and Strength workouts, plus bonuses), for a limited time you can still save $60 as a “Friend of Joel Marion” HERE. It’s not quite the 52% off Grand Opening price, but it’s darn close! Always lookin’ out for ya!
==> Save $60 HERE
P.P.S . And feel free to drop a comment below. I’d love to “meet” and interact with you and give a helping hand however I can!
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Well, since Vince Del Monte pretty much copies everything I do, I figured it’s time I return the favor ;)
Just kidding. Vince and I are pretty much business partners and we consult with each other pretty much daily, so it’s natural that we get a fair amount of ideas from one another.
The other week, Vince put together a “things I learned in 2009″ post on his blog. I loved it, and thought it’d be cool to do the same. Thanks for the idea, Vinny.
Below you will find my list of “49 insights” from 2009. Take a read through it and then respond in the comments section with your comments and/or 1 thing you learned this year! Rock on!
1. Curb Your Enthusiasm never stops being (inappropriately) funny. You gotta love the twisted mind of Larry David.
2. You can have whatever you want in life. It’s not metaphysical bull shit, it’s simply about believing in yourself and going after what you want full force.
3. Self-imposed limitations will cripple your potential. It doesn’t matter what other people think is possible for you-the ONLY thing that matters is what you believe you can achieve.
4. Excuses are nothing more than sugar coated self-imposed limitations.
5. Expect failure. Failure is an inevitable stop on the road to success. And even in the midst of success, you’ll still fail-get used to it. Fact is, I still fail-all the time. The difference is that winners simply keep trying until they succeed, while the majority just give up and fade away.
6. Expect success. Contradictory to the above statement? Nope. I KNOW I will succeed in everything I do and I expect to do so. I also know that I may have to fail several times first.
7. “Take action” is my new motto. If you’re not actively “doing” something to change your circumstances, then I’m not interested in hearing your complaints about those circumstances.
8. Being a complainer is still perhaps the most annoying, unattractive character trait.
9. Email is the biggest time-drainer in the world.
10. Short duration, high-frequency training is the most effective way to build muscle.
11. The only thing that matters with regards to overtraining is avoiding central nervous system burn out.
12. Motivation is the best way to assess central nervous system burnout. If you’re motivated to train, forget about soreness and get your butt back in the gym.
13. Turning something “negative” into something loved is a special skill (i.e. Cheat Your Way Thin ;)
14. Friday Night Lights is the most underrated show on television. Period. If you’re not watching it, do yourself a huge favor and go buy every season on DVD. Today.
15. It’s very hard for me to have a bad day when the sun is out. Thus, I moved to Florida.
16. Relationships are the only thing that matter in life. I could have every material possession in the world, but would be completely miserable without the interaction I share with so many “real” people on an every day basis.
17. 48 oz steaks have nothing on me.
18. Eating a healthy, big breakfast may be the most fundamental rule of weight control.
19. 99% of supplements are still bogus.
20. Vince Del Monte has the crappiest laptop in the world for someone who travels non-stop and runs an internet based business.
21. Do not call Craig Ballantyne. Text or email only. And if you mistakenly do call, do NOT leave a message.
22. Identifying problems and providing enjoyable solutions is a winning concept to build any business around.
23. Nothing could be more influential in one’s life than having a phenomenal mother.
24. Stay true to who you are and don’t allow past experiences to “harden” or change you-even if it means allowing yourself to be vulnerable (again). You are an amazing person and someone equally as amazing will love you and treasure you for every single one of those traits (thank you Lisa).
25. Taste buds change. I used to hate salad and seafood; now I can’t get enough of either. Try revisiting foods you once wrote off-you may be surprised.
26. On a similar note, sushi is actually really good. Never in a million years would I have thought I would have liked that.
27. Surrounding yourself with and building strong relationships with other passionate, driven people are perhaps the best things you can do for your life.
28. No matter how far you move away, home is still home.
Sometimes you just have to trust your gut and go with it.
29. Find a very small, core group of people to network with and get input from regularly, and keep it small. Too many opinions = confusion. Find the “core” people you trust most, and turn to them often (thanks Vinny and Craig).
30. There are much more important things in life than work. If your job controls your life, change that however you can, or simply find another job.
31. If you have a desire to work for yourself, GO for it full throttle.
32. 10 minutes well invested each day will give you hours of your life back each week dur to increased productivity (and a host of other benefits). Binaural brain-beat technology (www.UltimateMindEnhancement.com) works; I can’t say enough good things about it. If you do not own these CDs, buy them. Right now. They will change your life and I’ve been saying it for the last 8 months.
33. The “little things” continue to be the most important things of a relationship.
34. Dogs, like children, can be terribly annoying, but quickly become an irreplaceable part of your heart and family.
35. It’s better to spend the money for quality than to try to save a few hundred bucks when buying a flat screen TV for your living room.
36. Mentorship is a must for success.
37. You must be willing to invest in yourself. The more money I spend to better certain areas of my life, the better those areas become. WARNING: This is only true if you are someone who “takes action”. Spending money doesn’t equal results – taking action on your investments does.
38. Intensity trumps everything. You MUST at some point in your workout feel as though you are struggling to continue. Otherwise, your workout is worthless. There, I said it.
39. If you don’t have goals, you’ll never achieve anything. Success just doesn’t “happen”; you need to plan toward something specific.
40. The Philadelphia Eagles will never win a Superbowl with Andy Reid as their coach. I actually learned this about 5 years ago.
41. If Denzel Washington is in a movie, the movie will be good.
42. Certain books have the power to change your life, even for people who hate to read (i.e. me). Stop being lazy and start reading (more).
43. Art is pretty cool-even the abstract stuff. Some of it just flat out sucks, though.
44. People who are not taking steps to better themselves often project negativity onto those who are. The underlying cause of negativity is almost always jealousy.
45. The more you give, the more you get. I have straight up GIVEN away more information than ever before this year, and my business has grown exponentially because of it.
46. The mental component of body transformation is more important than the diet and exercise aspects by about ten fold.
47. Going out to dinner 5+ times per week is not only absurdly expensive, but also a fat loss nightmare.
48. The easiest way to stick to your diet while traveling is to go low-carb.
49. YOU are an incredible source of motivation and inspiration for me. The comments on this blog, the emails I receive, and the opportunities I’ve had to meet quite a few of you in person have been an incredible reminder of the value of what I do, and more importantly, an undying source of inspiration for me to continue to push to be my best.
So there it is, 49 insights from 2009! What did you learn this year? Respond w/ at least one “insight” in the comments section below!
Talk to you in the comments section!
Joel
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Last week I sat down with muscle building and six-pack expert Vince Del Monte and recorded over 70 minutes of amazing content for Issue #2 of Transformation Domination Monthly.
You can preview a short section of the 70 minute audio below.
The new issue just finished printing and Issue #2 will ship out tomorrow to all current customers. If you are not a current Transformation Domination Monthly customer, Transformation Domination is FREE to try. We will send the current issue your way along with the Collection Binder and nearly $200 worth of other bonuses at no cost (just pay S&H), but today is your one and ONLY chance as the new issue ships tomorrow.
In addition to the snippet below, Vince and I also cover:
- Variable Rep Training and High Frequency Training for maximal results
- The REALITY of spot reduction and exactly how it can be done
- The “Myth” of Overtraining
- The least effective training variable to change (that everyone changes the most)
- Alternate body part sets
- Identifying 5 different types of “core” people in your life and how to use that knowledge to completely change your life forever
And a bunch more…
Preview the audio below:
http://www.bodytransformationinsider.com/access/audio/vinny_preview.mp3
To get the entire issue and other bonuses for FREE, visit www.TransformationDomination.com today. Today is your ONLY opportunity.
www.TransformationDomination.com <——- New issue ships tomorrow
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Listen below as Shawn and I discuss the differenced between “exercise” and “training”–along with one word that has the power to make all the difference in the results you get from the time you put in:
http://www.bodytransformationinsider.com/access/audio/preview.mp3
And that right there is only 8 minutes of the full 62 minute coaching session included in your FREE Transformation Domination Welcome Package!
Get the entire 62-minute session on CD–along with nearly $700 worth of exclusive, brand new content (including 18 weeks of never before released workouts)–all for FREE, before my lopsided offer expires on October 8th:
==> www.TransformationDomination.com <——- Click before the clock runs out
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I contacted my friend and Mom fitness expert Holly Rigsby of Fit Yummy Mummy last night to see if she would create a brand new exclusive bonus workout just for the ladies – and being as awesome as she is, she said “no problem!” and delivered for you bigtime!
Click here to continue reading
Corina on 
Josh on 
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...