What You Need To Know About Fasting for Fat Loss, Muscle Gain

You’ve heard the preachers, including me, talk about how important it is to eat every 2 to 3 hours.  And how important breakfast is.

But are we right?

Two counter-approaches contradict the above recommendations:

a)      Intermittent Fasting (complete fasting for at least 24 hrs once a week or so)

b)      Semi-Fasted Cardio (first thing in the morning after about 12 hours of not eating)

Today we’ll cover the pros and cons of intermittent fasting.  Then next week we’ll cover “semi-fasted cardio”.

Here’s today’s outline:

• Pros and Cons of Fasting
• Roots of Fasting
• Fasting for Fat Loss
• Fasting for Muscle Gain
• Making Fasting Easier – 10 Tips

Let’s start with a summary, then follow with the details:

Pros And Cons Of Fasting For Fat Loss And Muscle Gain

Pros For Fasting

• Possibly very effective for fat loss, as studies show increase fat burn compared to carb burn, during fasting (much more detail on this in the rest of the article!)
• Easier, for some people, than being in slight caloric deficit each day
• Most people get a natural “high” on those days; better attention; surprising increase of energy
• More time for life; less time cooking, eating, and doing dishes
• Increased natural growth hormone:  potentially good for muscle gains (much more detail on this in the rest of the article!)
• Disrupts the body’s expectations about food, thus preventing diet plateaus (hypothetical)
• Confidence – any time you try something difficult, and then turn that into a habit, you will feel more confident in yourself; this will lead to you accomplishing more over the course of your life
• Bragging rights – most people are impressed with someone who has the discipline to fast one day a week
• Potentially clears the body of toxins and waste
• Anecdotal benefits to a whole range of health issues, from reducing arthritis and migraines to improved skin and hair

Cons For Fasting (more…)

Just starting out with weightlifting? Want to get bigger muscles this winter?
Get my full-body lifting routine here: FullBodyAttack!

Continue reading about What You Need To Know About Fasting for Fat Loss, Muscle Gain

Here’s a fun workout that will help you break up boredom you might be experiencing as you progress in your lifting program.  It’s called The 35,000 Pounder, and as the name implies, you’ll lift 35,000 pounds today.  I’ll tell you how I came up with it.

But first, let me be clear that this is NOT for a regular routine.  This is a once-in-a-while workout (a single day at the gym).  In your quest for gaining lean muscle mass, if you use any of my routines you’ll see weeks where I suggest doing “fun” workouts.  This is different than taking a week off – this is still a serious week of lifting.  It helps reset your mind and muscles so that you keep making progress.

But what do you do in these “fun” weeks?  Well, I’m compiling a whole report on various single-workouts (I’m calling them The LeanLfiters Fun Workouts).  And The 35,000 Pounder is one I’m sharing today.

A great aspect of this workout is that it is just as useful for beginners as it is for advanced lifters.  It’s full-body, so works really well with FullBodyAttack but even for The 6×6x6 Routine and Hypertrofreak, you need some ideas for fun weeks.

Here’s exactly how you do it: (more…)

Continue reading about The 35,000 Pounder Workout

“Darrin, with my schedule, the only time I can lift is during lunch.  I can do cardio in the mornings, but I don’t have a home gym so lunchtime is when I lift.  The gym is 30 minutes away from home, but right across the street from my work.  I only have 60 minutes for lunch, so I need to shower too. What should I do for my lifting routine?”  -  Mike

This is a common question.  But it’s a good question and I’m psyched that you are going to make every effort to get in your lifts.

We can take cardio out of the mix, per your email.  But what about lifting?

Most fitness experts say you need to keep your time in the gym to under an hour.  I think this is a good target for most people, but it all depends on your current level of fitness and your goals.  I’m not one of those guys who goes crazy when I hear someone spends 1.5 hours in the gym.  The rule you may have heard about “45 minutes” is just a myth.  No valid science supports that, because it varies based on too many variables to control in a scientific setting.

But in your case, you are tight on time with a hard deadline from your employer.  You have only 60 minutes and you have to walk there, change into your gym clothes, warm up, workout, shower, and walk back.

[Side note:  don't forget to actively participate in the free discussion forum - I give away a free ebook each month to the most active person!  After you read this article, go to http://worldfitnessnetwork.com/forum/ and either ask a question or answer a question!]

Let’s assume you take 4 minutes to walk there, 3 minutes to throw on shorts and a t-shirt, and 4 minutes back.  Then make sure you do 5 minutes of muscle-specific warm ups.  And a 10 minute shower.  That leaves you 35 minutes to workout.  I’m going to round it down to 30 minutes to ensure you get back on time.

With Only 30 Minutes Available A Day, Go With A Split Routine

The key is to do a split routine, not a full-body routine. I don’t know if you are a beginner or not.  I usually recommend beginners do full-body routines.  But I don’t think anyone can make good, consistent, long term progress on only 30 minute full body routines.  (Being full-body, you can only do them 2 or 3 times a week because you need recovery days.  Newbies can make progress for several weeks in 30 minutes a shot, but they will plateau if they don’t add more volume.)

Under this scenario, which is not ideal, I would recommend lifting 5 days a week.

I want to point out that normally, I only recommend 5-day routines to more advanced lifters. I also include a 5-day routine in my annual intermediate routines, but only for a brief period.  In your case, you are looking for a long-term consistent solution (unless you change employers and have more flexibility with your time).

Even if you are a beginner, in what I’m recommending you won’t be overtraining.  At 30 minutes a day, 5 days a week, that’s only 2.5 hrs a week lifting which is nowhere near over-training levels.

Day By Day Breakdown

Each day, pick a different major lift.  I’ve talked about The Big 7 before.  Pick one of those each day as your main lift.  I know, you have only 5 days and there are 7 of The Big 7, so I suggest these: (more…)

Continue reading about Lunchtime Workouts

[Editor's note - a different version of this post came out two years ago from Jason, but I (Darrin) have years of experience managing teams of professionals and so I've added my experience with how people can achieve their goals.  So this is a pretty major rework...]

This is the time of year that many people already start to give up on their New Year’s Resolutions. Especially fitness goals.  Don’t be one of those people!

Not getting to your destination? Having trouble achieving your goals? You may have a problem that you haven’t considered – how you set them in the first place.

When you are doing everything you possibly can to achieve your goals, but just can’t quite seem to reach them, the problem might be that you are setting the wrong type of goal. Here’s a real-world example that you might see in business:

My goal is to increase company sales this year.

What’s wrong with this goal?

• “This Year” is too long a timeframe to measure progress. You can easily lie to yourself each month you fail to see higher sales, by saying “I’ll make up for it next month”.
• You don’t directly control company sales. Most likely, you aren’t in a position to control company-wide sales.  Even a director of sales doesn’t technically “control” sales because customers must buy something for sales to increase, and you can’t control the customers. You can only take actions that will influence their decision to purchase.
• Not measurable. How will you measure your success here?  “Increase” could mean just $1 more revenue when you really meant much more.

You may have heard of SMART goals:  specific, measureable, actionable, realistic, and timebound. Good advice in theory but in practice, the average person gets so confused by these 5 criteria that their goals become convoluted and dysfunctional.

MT Goals

So forget the “S”, “A”, and “R” for now and just focus on the “M” and “T” – make sure your goals are Measureable and Timebound (you do this right, and the S, A, and R will come along for the ride).  And since you are the only person that you have complete, direct control over, you are the only person that your goals should ever focus on. You will only set yourself up for disappointment if you create a goal that you can try your hardest to achieve and still fail at.

[I've known this for many years, after struggling with teams and individuals going into contortions to set up goals.  All that really matters is that they are measurable and timebound.  But the first time I heard the phrase "MT" goals was from the guys at http://www.manager-tools.com/ .  For further advice on MT goals, see Better Smart Goals.

Your Workout Goals – Outcome vs. Process

You don’t have direct control over your body composition either. If you did, you would just add 10 pounds of muscle or lose fat whenever you want.

Instead, you have to take the specific actions that influence your body to look the way you want. You don’t just lose fat… you increase your metabolism, run hard, and eat clean food, and then your body may or may not lose 10 pounds of fat.

So setting a goal to lose 10 pounds of fat is an outcome-based goal. Outcome-based goals are fine and usually the place people start. And they are an important part of goal setting.  But they don’t tell you what to do – what action to take.  If you don’t know what the best mix of diet and exercise is most likely to lose 10 pounds, no amount of goal setting will make it happen.  You need to have some more experience before you can set outcome-based goals.

The solution to these problems is (more…)

Continue reading about Goal Achievement For Lazy People – Start With The Right Goals

…………

The Two Keys For Eating To Gain Muscle While Simultaneously Shedding Fat

I’ve found two specific eating habits that are essential if you want to gain muscle and shed fat at the same time.

This is the 3^rd and final installment on this mini-series of how to eat to maximize muscle gain.  Click here for part 1 and here for part 2.  Plus, today I’m including some sample menus!

Before I share them, and conclude this series, let’s get some assumptions on the table:

• You are not fat now, but still want to get leaner
• You want to gain muscle AND lose fat at the same time
• You are willing to have each of those goals progress more slowly in combination than if you focused on only one at a time; but you still want good progress on both
• I assume you are using a decent lifting routine
• I assume you are eating healthy food, in a good mix of proteins, carbs, and fats; if you don’t know the basics, then refer to Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle or 3 Months To A New You.

Ok , so rather than tease you, I’ll state the two keys upfront:

a)       Gradually increase your overall calories to a point far above what you think you should be eating

b)       Use the zig-zag calorie method

Last week I shared a 5-step strategy about how to gradually increase your caloric intake.

Now let’s talk about that “zig-zag method”… (more…)

Continue reading about Eat Like This To Gain Muscle And Lose Fat At The Same Time – conclusion

There are surprisingly many scientific studies comparing machines to free weights.  You have to be careful about who is sponsoring them of course, but generally you’ll see pros and cons start to emerge if you read many of them.  I’ve done my best to summarize them in Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 of this series.  Now, in Part 4, I want to share a few of the better studies and go a little deeper into each one.  These were some of the studies I used as the basis for the earlier parts of this article.

Smith Machine Squats Inferior To Free Weight Squats

In a recent study (see Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research: December 2009 – Volume 23 – Issue 9 – pp 2588-2591) researchers figured that the Smith Machine was probably better for activating certain leg muscles because the lifter wouldn’t be focused on stability so much.  The logic, like most people would have thought, was that attention to stability reduced activation of the leg muscles in free weights, whereas the Smith Machine users could focus more on the leg muscles.

Well, turns out they were wrong!  They measured the same lifters (i.e. people) using a weight on each exercise equal to 8 reps maximum.  And they measured 7 different muscles (including some abs and lower back).

Surprisingly, (more…)

Continue reading about The Science Of Machines vs Free Weights – part 4 of 4 articles