Precision Nutrition System

Basil for Swine Flu?

2011-01-02T04:42:00.000-08:00

Basil has a dark secret in its closet.

It's actually really good for you.

In fact, recent research suggests that basil can help fight bacteria, viruses, and chronic diseases.

So it may be helpful in the age of swine flu, and diabetes.

Click here to learn more about this tasty, healthy herb.
Basil for Swine Flu?

A body transformation worth seeing . . .

2010-12-26T07:47:00.000-08:00

To say that Lean Eating client, Yano, had a great year would be an understatement.

During the last 12 months he lost 20% body fat and, in the process, won $10,000.00.

Once over 255lbs and pre-diabetic, he’s now 70 pounds lighter, healthy, and extremely fit; and he wants to share his photos, and his story, with you.

Click here to check it out:
>> A body transformation worth seeing . . . <<

She didn't think she could do it . . .

2010-12-25T22:21:00.000-08:00

Carey, 41, is a self-proclaimed rebel. And, one year ago, she was about as far from "athletic" as a person could be.

Then she joined the Lean Eating coaching program.

Skeptical, she certainly wasn't convinced she could change her body or her life with an online coaching program.

"I’d get that voice that said, 'This isn't who I am, I don't belong in a gym, I can't do this!'" she says.

Fast forward to today; she's 80 pounds lighter and stronger than ever before.

Through the program, she transformed herself from obese and unhealthy - to lean, extremely healthy and fit.

And today she wants you to know something. She wants you to know that you can do it too.

Check out her story, her pictures, and her message for you:
>> She didn't think she could do it . . . <<

Mom shares secret for losing 70 lbs . . .

2010-12-25T22:09:00.000-08:00

Married and a mother of five - Patricia, 55 - has been taking care of people for decades.

Like a lot of committed mothers, she "didn't have the time" to lose weight or be healthy.

Instead, she bounced from diet to diet, losing weight then immediately gaining it back.

But when her obesity became a source of embarrassment and she could no longer perform simple daily tasks, she decided it was finally time to lose the fat - for good.

After one year in the Lean Eating program, Patricia lost over 70 pounds and looks fantastic in her svelte, strong new body.

Today - she wants you to know how she did it.

Check out her story, and her pictures.
>> Mom shares secret for losing 70 lbs . . . <<

Tip #1 Eat Pasta... Carefully

2010-11-25T23:37:00.000-08:00

Eat Pasta... Carefullyby Dr. John Berardi

As a God-fearing Italian, I have to admit that I love pasta. But, as a gut-fearing weight lifter and athlete, I definitely have to choose the lower GI, nutrient dense whole-wheat variety. During training phases that require or allow for higher carbohydrate intake (higher volume training) I'll eat one whole-wheat pasta meal per day. During other phases (like where I'm trying to lose fat), the pasta stays on the shelf in favor of a higher lean protein, good fat, and fruit and veggie intake.

SEE ALSO:
This tip is sponsored by Precision Nutrition - our pick for the best nutrition and supplement resource currently available. Containing system manuals, gourmet cookbook, digital audio/video library, online membership, and more, Precision Nutrition will teach you everything you need to know to get the body you want -- guaranteed.

Order Precision Nutrition now and get $50 off!

Tip #2 The Sunday Ritual

2010-11-23T20:45:00.000-08:00

by Dr. John Berardi

To ensure that good foods will be available when you need them, use the Sunday Ritual. This is performed by setting aside three hours every Sunday to write out your menu for the week, shop for the week, and prepare your meals for the week. Cook all the meat, chop all the vegetables, measure out all the yogurt and/or cottage cheese, and distribute all the powders. Have them ready and set aside so that you can grab them in the morning and bring them with you regardless of what your day holds in store for you.

SEE ALSO:
This tip is sponsored by Precision Nutrition - our pick for the best nutrition and supplement resource currently available. Containing system manuals, gourmet cookbook, digital audio/video library, online membership, and more, Precision Nutrition will teach you everything you need to know to get the body you want -- guaranteed.

Order Precision Nutrition now and get $50 off!

Tip #3 Fish Oil Rules

2010-11-20T21:49:00.000-08:00

by Dr. John Berardi

I consider fish oil to be an essential supplement for fat loss. Data from the University of Western Ontario shows that fish oil supplementation increases lean body mass (during non-dieting conditions), increases BMR (by up to 400kcal/day), decreases inflammation, and improves the ratio of fat/carb oxidized (sparing carbs, burning fat). Recommended dose: Start with 6-10g per day of total fish oil (assuming 30% EPA and DHA).

SEE ALSO:
This tip is sponsored by Precision Nutrition - our pick for the best nutrition and supplement resource currently available. Containing system manuals, gourmet cookbook, digital audio/video library, online membership, and more, Precision Nutrition will teach you everything you need to know to get the body you want -- guaranteed.

Order Precision Nutrition now and get $50 off!

Tip #4 Revving Up Metabolism

2010-11-16T05:52:00.000-08:00

by Dr. John Berardi

I recommend more calories than most do. That's because there's no such thing as a stagnant metabolic set-point. Instead, metabolism chases intake. So, if you want a bigger metabolism, you need a bigger food intake. And if you're worried about fat gain with this approach, just use outcome-based decision making and adjust energy (calorie) intake every two weeks based on your results. Not much 'damage' can take place in only two weeks. So if you end up boosting your metabolism, you'll be thanking me eternally. And if it turns out you're consuming too much, you can just adjust down.

SEE ALSO:
This tip is sponsored by Precision Nutrition - our pick for the best nutrition and supplement resource currently available. Containing system manuals, gourmet cookbook, digital audio/video library, online membership, and more, Precision Nutrition will teach you everything you need to know to get the body you want -- guaranteed.
Order Precision Nutrition now and get $50 off!

Check out these transformations

2010-02-04T10:53:00.000-08:00

JB just did it.

JB just signed two cheques for $10,000 each.

And those cheques are on their way to top male and top female body transformation winners from this last round of Lean Eating.

------------------------------
Lean Eating 2009 - The Winners
------------------------------

Overall male winner - YLR - lost 50 lbs and 13% body fat while in the program.

And overall female winner - CYNERGY - lost 40 lbs and 20% body fat while in the program.

Check our their pictures - and their feedback - by clicking here:

---------------------------------
Lean Eating 2010 - Results So Far
---------------------------------

Also, I wanted to let you all know that only one month into the Lean Eating 2010 program, our clients have already lost:

--- 1,400 lbs of fat

--- 1,250 inches

If things keep up at this rate, our clients will have lost over 8,400 lbs and 7,500 inches at the end of this program.

Holy cow!

But, more important than the "outcome" measure above, are the "behavior" measures.

You know, the things that clients can actually control, like showing up and completing their workouts, doing their assignments, and complying with the nutrition habits. So far:

--- average assignment completion is 75%

--- average workout completion is 68%

--- average nutrition habit compliance is 79%

Remember, consistency is ALWAYS the key to health, body composition, and performance changes.

So we make sure to emphasize, encourage, and track consistency about all else.

Click here to learn more about the current LE group

Preventing physical breakdown with age

2010-01-13T07:56:00.000-08:00

We're all getting older.

In fact, research has demonstrated that the march toward physical decline begins at age 30.

The good news, though, is that by taking the right steps, we can keep our bodies healthy and vital into old age.

And, believe it or not, hormones aren't the most important player in the process.

Health is maintained in our brains. More specifically, through the prevention of something called neurodegeneration.

So, in today's article, we'll provide a broad overview of the brain as well as share some important ways of preventing neurodegeneration through nutrition.

According to author, Dr Bryan Walsh, this may be one of the most important articles you read all year, especially if you want to be lean, healthy, and fit, and for a very long time.

Check it out.

The Lean Eating Coaching Program is finally open

2010-01-05T20:15:00.000-08:00

Lean Eating Program for Men

Lean Eating Program for Women

Summary:

* Expert coaching
* Groups for both MEN and WOMEN
* Nutrition and training recommendations
* 24/7 support
* Fully guaranteed results
* $40,000 in prize money!

HOW TO REGISTER
---------------

Spots are extremely limited, and the program won't run again until July of 2010. So if you're interested in getting in shape the Precision Nutrition way -- with expert coaching from the nutrition experts -- then click the link below to
get yourself a spot . . . .

... because when they're gone, they're gone.

Here's the link to the registration page:

Lean Eating Program for Men

Lean Eating Program for Women

3 KEYS TO BODY TRANSFORMATION
-----------------------------

Recently I've talked a lot about change. Reason is, I see SO many people on the verge of making big changes who, for a number of reasons, miss the chance. And they end up hating themselves for it. Literally.

The problem is that we're all expected to be able to change on a dime, in an instant -- but we're not really taught how to do it.

I've spent years studying this phenomenon, because when I started coaching, I quickly realized that it was as important as the training and nutrition, if not more so.

It's actually a lot simpler than it seems. Here's what you need to know -- the 3 Keys to Body Transformation.

Lean Eating Program for Men

Lean Eating Program for Women

-JB

Lean Eating

2010-01-03T08:22:00.000-08:00

Lean Eating Program for Men

Lean Eating Program for Women

Making Healthy Eating Work - Food Preparation Strategies

2010-01-01T16:42:00.000-08:00

Making Healthy Eating Work -
Food Preparation Strategies
by Dr John M Berardi, CSCS

Most people nowadays know at least the basics of what they should eat and what they should avoid to improve their health, their body composition, and their performance. Yet most people are overweight and/or obese.

So what’s the problem? Where’s the disconnect? Why is it so hard for them to make the change? Well, unless they really don’t want to change, the two biggest impediments to their success are:

1.Their habits — or their ingrained set of day to day food and activity related actions — remain poor because they don’t have a conscious, logical plan for changing them.

2.They aren’t ready for the tough times. Things might be getting better; then the tough times hit. They "get busy". Eating well becomes inconvenient. No one else supports their decision to make a change. When these inevitable circumstances come up, they bail.

Habits are more powerful than momentary desire. Habits are more powerful than information. Habits are more powerful than guilt. And only a concerted, conscious effort to override habits will lead to success.

So, in some respects, better nutrition is more about altering lifestyle habits and less about the food. Sure, you’ve gotta know which foods are good to eat and plan to eat them. But, as GI Joe once said, knowing is half the battle. Even if you know what’s good and expect to eat good foods, if the good foods aren’t around when it’s time to eat, you’re doomed. In other words, preparation is the other half. Here are my top food preparation strategies to ensure you win the other half of the battle – the doing part.

Strategy #1 — The Sunday Ritual

No, no, this ritual doesn’t include lamb’s blood or any special Kool Aid. The Sunday Ritual is performed by setting aside 3 hours or so every Sunday (any day of the week will do but Sunday is easiest for most) to write out your menu for the week, shop for the week, and prepare your meals for the week.

First, on your Ritual day, sit down and come up with your meal plan for the week. It should only take a few minutes to lay out 7 different breakfast meals, 7 different lunch meals, 7 different dinner meals, and 2-3 additional snacks for each day.

Next, once the meal plan is laid out, add up exactly how much of each food you’ll need over the 7 days and go pick those foods up at the grocery store.

Finally, once you’ve got all those groceries home, it’s time to start cooking for the week. Some people choose to prepare all their meals for the week on Sundays (excluding shakes). Others prefer to figure out which meals will be easy to cook just prior to meal time and save them for later, preparing only the meals that will need to be eaten during work hours or during busy times of the day when food prep becomes difficult.

For example, some people can easily prepare breakfast meals and dinner meals on demand by setting aside a few minutes each day for meal preparation. Others have a significant other who can prepare these meals for them. Either way, these meals can probably wait until they are needed. However the lunches, 2-3 daytime snacks, and workout shakes usually present a problem for the unprepared so they should be made in advance. Sunday is a good time for most to do this preparation.

So, if it suits your lifestyle, use the Sunday ritual to get these meals ready for the week. Cook all the meat, chop all the vegetables, measure out all the yogurt and/or cottage cheese, and distribute all the powders. Have them ready and set aside so that you can grab them in the morning and bring them with you regardless of what your day or your boss holds in store for you.

Strategy #2 — The Breakfast Ritual

Rather than preparing all their food for the week on a single day, some people prefer to do a little food preparation each day. That’s what the Breakfast Ritual is for.

Using the Breakfast Ritual, simply perform all your cooking for the day each morning. Since you’ve gotta prepare breakfast anyway, make sure you’ve got a couple of meals going while breakfast is being prepared. Again, this need not be a huge production. I can prepare all my meals for the day with a max prep time of 30 minutes.

Of course, as with the Sunday ritual, think about what your day will hold under both the best conditions (i.e. home from work early and a relaxing evening ahead) and the worst (i.e. unexpected deadline, all nighter at work, long day at work and soccer practice for the kids) and act like a boy scout — be prepared.

One great strategy for being prepared is to bring both the meals you expect to eat as well as some "back-up" options, just in case. So, as discussed earlier, even if you expect to grab lunch at TGI Fridays and have dinner at home, bring with you both a lunch alternative and a dinner alternative, just in case something else comes up. If you don’t need the meals, that’s fine — just eat them another day. But if you do need them, you can chow down without skipping a meal or choosing a poor alternative.

Here’s another idea for you. If you don’t want to bring several full meals that you’re unlikely to eat, another great option is to bring some homemade snacks with you. Things like homemade protein/energy bars are a fantastic alternative to the mostly crappy, store bought, sugar laden, artificial ingredient containin’, protein bars.

Strategy #3 — Have Others Cook For You

If you love the idea of having 5-6 ready made meals always available yet can’t see yourself using the Sunday or the Breakfast Rituals above or buying all the Tupperware, there are a number of options at your disposal.

First, you can hire commercial food preparation services to do all the cooking for you. If you’re anywhere near a metropolitan area, you’ll be able to find dozens to choose from. The two biggies nowadays are Atkins At Home (Atkins Diet) and Zone Nation (The Zone Diet). The Atkins At Home company delivers 3 meals and 1 snack to your door by 6 AM each morning. The cost of this is between $35 and $40 per day. Alternatively, the Zone Nation company delivers 3 meals and 2 snacks to your door by 6 AM each morning for the cost of $35-40 per day, just like the Atkins company. I hear good things about both services.

Now, if you’re not interested in supporting the Atkins or Zone programs, there are many smaller companies who can assist you with your meal preparation needs. For example, when I lived in Miami Beach I found a local woman who provided this very service for $5 per meal. Every day for lunch she brought me an 8oz chicken or turkey breast, a baked potato or serving of rice, and a large serving of steamed veggies. Other days, I’d have her bring me 2-3 meals just like this.

Here’s another tip. Pick 4 restaurants in your immediate area (2 fast food places, 1 medium-priced restaurant, and 1 higher priced restaurant) that prepare meals in a way that conforms to your nutritional plan and have them prepare the food for you when necessary. Of course, you’ll have to do a little research on your potential eateries by collecting hard copies of their menus or visiting their web sites (if they’re online).

If you’re looking for a few examples, here ya go. Dave Thomas’ Wendy’s makes a couple of tasty chicken salads and a chili that you can eat when on the go. Even McDonalds is offering healthier meal selections — I’m lovin’ it.

Choose healthier fast food meals that conform to your meal plan when you don’t have much time or much money for a meal and choose a medium-priced restaurant like TGI Fridays (US) or Kelsey’s (Canada) for a better quality menu to provide you with a solid daily lunch. TGI Fridays, for example, has a great list of Atkins-friendly selections.

Finally, choose higher priced restaurants if it’s time for a power lunch to impress colleagues. Since most people don’t really know where they want to go eat anyway, if you get roped into a business lunch, you can be the one to make the definitive decision as to where the group is going to eat. Your decisiveness will win you big points with colleagues and you’ll also be able to control your eating habits.

Of course, if you don’t have the resources to entertain strategy #3 and pay others to cook for you, consider the fact that if you use the first two strategies to effectively build a lean, muscular body, you might just be able to convince attractive members of the opposite sex to take over for you. However, getting them to drop them off at your place by 6 AM every morning is a trick I’ll teach you in a later article.

In the end, whether you choose to regularly prepare your own meals by using the Rituals described above or you regularly choose to have others prepare your meals for you, circumstances will arise in which you’ll have to "cross over" and use a different strategy than you usually use. It never ceases to amaze me how much time those interested in health and fitness spend seeking out "the perfect plan" and how little time they spend figuring out what they’ll do when life’s circumstances prevent them from following it.

Side Note: Food Support Systems

In order to make the Sunday Ritual and the Breakfast Ritual work, it’s important to pick up a few items — nutritional support systems, if you will. Here’s what we recommend picking up before you start using either of the two Rituals:

A good countertop grill. Since you’ll most likely need to cook relatively large batches of lean protein, it’s important to have a quick way of doing this. If you’ve got a great backyard grill that you can use year-round that’s great. If not, pick up a Foreman or Hamilton Beach grill and you’ll be all set.
A good cooler in which to store and carry your meals for the day. Coleman makes a few good ones. Before buying one, however, make sure there’s enough room to carry a few meals and a few shaker bottles.
5 small Tupperware-type containers. These containers will be for storing and transporting your daily meals. Make sure they are small enough to fit into your cooler but large enough to accommodate a full meal. Your choice of glass or plastic is up to you.
5 large Tupperware-type containers. These containers are for storing larger quantities of food. For instance, if you chop your veggies for the week or cook all your chicken breasts for the week, store them in one of these. Again, your choice of glass or plastic is up to you.
3 Rubbermaid Chuggable drink containers — 1L size. These containers are for your liquid supplements. Be sure to choose the blue top variety as these are far and away the best drink containers out there. Most others leak.

Follow the guidelines in this article and you’ll be able to display the adaptability necessary to move from nutritional novice to "seasoned" nutritional veteran.

SEE ALSO:

For more great training and nutrition wisdom, check out our complete system, Precision Nutrition. Containing system manuals, gourmet cookbook, digital audio/video library, online membership, and more, Precision Nutrition will teach you everything you need to know to get the body you want -- guaranteed.

And what's more, your online access allows you to talk exercise and nutrition 24/7 with thousands of fellow members and the Precision Nutrition coaches. Find out more about Precision Nutrition.

Order Precision Nutrition now and get $50 off!

Balancing Out Those Dietary Acids

2010-01-01T06:00:00.000-08:00

by Dr John M Berardi, CSCS

Simply put, the North American diet is very acidic. From most proteins to many dairy products (especially cheese) to most grains, we take in far more dietary acids than we do bases. And this imbalance between acid and base can cause some serious long-term health and physique problems.

You see, when a food is ingested, digested, and absorbed, each component of that food will present itself to the kidneys as either an acid-forming compound or a base-forming one. And when the sum total of all the acid producing and the base producing micro and macronutrients is tabulated (at the end of a meal or at the end of a day), we're left with a calculated acid-base load. If the diet provides more acidic components, it will obviously manifest as a net-acid load on the body. And if it provides more basic components, it will obviously manifest as a net-base load on the body.

Since I already noted that a net acid load is bad, let’s discuss why.

Every cell of the body functions optimally within a certain pH range (pH is a measure of the acidity or alkalinity of the body). In different cells, this optimal range is different, however, the net pH of the body has to remain tightly regulated. One common problem with most industrialized societies is that our diets produce what's called a "low grade chronic metabolic acidosis." In other words, the PRAL (potential renal acid load – a measure of the amount of acid being introduced through the diet) of our diets is high and this means that we're chronically in a state of high acidity.

While there are a number of disease states that induce severe metabolic acidosis, we're talking a sub-clinical rise in acidity here. Therefore, your doc probably won't notice the problem. But that doesn't mean that you're in the clear. Your cells will recognize the problem.

So what's wrong with this low-grade chronic metabolic acidosis?

Well, since the body must, at all costs, operate at a stable pH, any dietary acid load has to be neutralized by one of a number of homeostatic base-producing mechanisms. So, although the pH of the body is maintained and your doctor visits turn out fine, many cells of the body will suffer. Here are some of the most severe consequences of your body's attempt to maintain a constant pH in the face of an acidic environment:

• Hypercalciuria (high concentrations of calcium in the urine). Since calcium is a strong base and bone contains the body's largest calcium store, metabolic acidosis causes a release in calcium from bone. As a result, osteoclastic (bone degrading) activity increases and osteoblastic (bone building) activity decreases. The net result of these changes is that bone is lost in order to neutralize the acidic environment of the body. The calcium that was stored in the bone is then lost in the urine along with the acid it was mobilized to neutralize. This creates a negative calcium balance (more calcium is lost from the body than is consumed) and bones get weak. (2,3,4,6)
• Negative nitrogen balance (high concentrations of nitrogen in urine). Glutamine is responsible for binding hydrogen ions to form ammonium. Since hydrogen ions are acidic, glutamine acts much like calcium to neutralize the body's acidosis. Since skeletal muscle contains the body's largest glutamine store, metabolic acidosis causes muscle breakdown to liberate glutamine from the muscle. The amino acids from this muscle breakdown are then excreted, causing a net loss of muscle protein. (2,7)

In addition to bone and muscle loss, other consequences of acidosis include:

• Decreased IGF1 activity (4)

• GH resistance (4)
• Mild hypothyroidism (4)
• Hypercortisolemia (4,5)

Interestingly, low-grade metabolic acidosis seems to worsen with age. Many have speculated that this is due to an age-related decline in kidney function (and acid excretion). Of course, osteoporosis and muscle wasting are unfortunate consequences of aging. While it's too early to tell, perhaps some of the bone and muscle loss evident as individuals get older is a result of diet-induced acidosis. This means that employing a few simple acid-base strategies may help slow osteoporosis and sarcopoenia.

So the big question is this – who’s at risk?

Recently, Sebastian and colleagues compared the pre-agricultural diet of our ancestors to the modern North American diet. After evaluating the two diets for what they call NEAP (net endogenous acid production) — essentially the same measure as the PRAL above — a -88mEq/day acid load characterized the pre-agricultural diet while the modern diet was characterized by a +48mEq/day acid load. What this means is that our ancestors evolved eating a diet that was very alkaline/basic and therefore very low acid. However, modern people are eating a diet that is high in acid, and therefore very different from what we evolved to eat. As a result, our modern diet is responsible for what the authors have called a "life-long, low grade pathogenically significant systemic acidosis."

How have we gotten so far off track? Well, the shift from net base producing foods to net acid producing foods comes mostly as a result of displacing the high bicarbonate-yielding plants and fruits in the diet with high acid grains. In addition, most of our modern energy dense, nutrient poor selections are also acid forming. Finally, high protein animal foods tend to be acid producing as well.

If you're now wondering how your diet stacks up, check out the online acid-base forum here: http://www.acid-base.de/. There you’ll be able to calculate your PRAL and determine how much of an acid or base load your body is under. Further, if you’re ingesting too many dietary acids, as most North Americans are, here’s what you can do:

• Add more vegetables - regardless of the final tally. Everyone can always benefit from more vegetables in the diet. Many bone specialists are now recognizing that the most effective way to improve bone health is to eat lots of fruits and vegetables. Vegetables, in addition to all of their other benefits, are powerful acid-neutralizers.

• If you're eating a big meal that's going to be a net acid producer (such as one that contains a large amount of protein and/or grains) and don't want to add more basic foods, consider adding a small amount of glutamine to this meal. Exogenous glutamine supplementation has been shown to neutralize acidosis.

• A cheaper alternative to glutamine supplementation is either sodium or potassium bicarbonate supplementation. You can add sodium bicarbonate (in the form of baking soda) to your beverages including your protein shakes, which probably are a bit on the acidic side (see milk above). A small 2-5g dose of baking soda would be sufficient to neutralize the shake. An alternative to baking soda is alka-seltzer.

• Adding sodium to foods can increase the base potential and reduce the acidity of the meal although a high salt diet isn’t necessarily recommended.

Although few individuals in the exercise nutrition world are discussing this issue, it remains an important one. Employing a few simple strategies to neutralize your high-acid diet may mean the difference between chronic low-grade acidosis — and the associated muscle wasting, bone loss, and altered hormonal profile — and a healthy, alkaline diet. So make sure you’re dietary acids are covered!

SEE ALSO:

For more great training and nutrition wisdom, check out our complete system, Precision Nutrition. Containing system manuals, gourmet cookbook, digital audio/video library, online membership, and more, Precision Nutrition will teach you everything you need to know to get the body you want -- guaranteed.

And what's more, your online access allows you to talk exercise and nutrition 24/7 with thousands of fellow members and the Precision Nutrition coaches. Find out more about Precision Nutrition.

Order Precision Nutrition now and get $50 off!

Vaccinating yourself against body fat

2009-12-30T23:17:00.000-08:00

This week I've shared with you two blog posts in which Dr John Berardi talks about losing body weight (and body fat).

The first one talks about how important incentives are for changing your body. And it goes on to incentivize you with a whopping $40,000 in prize money.

Could The Chance To Win $10,000 Help You Get In Shape?

The second one shows you how to coerce yourself into sticking to the plan, even when the motivation wanes.

Enter "the best kept secret in weight loss."

Finally, today, I have one last post to share.

In this one, Dr Berardi talks about how you can actually vaccinate yourself against body fat. Hint: it doesn't involve needles!

Learn how to vaccinate yourself against body fat

The best kept secret in weight and fat loss

2009-12-23T01:00:00.000-08:00

The other day in the last post I posted link to a video of Dr John Berardi talking about his two latest programs - Lean Eating For Men and Lean Eating For Women.

Far and away, the most frequent questions had to do with his $40,000 is prize money. $10,000 to the top female winner and $10,000 to the top male winner. Plus, 5k to each of a few runners up.

Click here to check out the blog post announcing this amazing prize:

Now, today, I want to share with you a post covering the flip side of the 10K prize. In other words, if the prize is the carrot, today's video talks about the stick.

You see, Dr. Berardi's a coaching expert. In fact, he's probably the most successful nutrition coach in the health and fitness business.

And after speaking with him, I realized that there's something powerful to this idea.

You see, the biggest transformations - body transformations or otherwise - are accomplished when people have big incentives.

And I'd say 10 thousand bucks qualifies as a big incentive all right. But big inspiring goals also need some potential punishment.

Or, some risk.

And in today's video, Dr Berardi shows you how to coerce yourself into sticking to the plan, even when the motivation wanes.

Enter "the best kept secret in weight loss."

So, if you're REALLY interested in changing your body and you'd like a little extra incentive for doing so, this is definitely a program you need to check out.

Again, this message is time sensitive. From what I hear there are A LOT of people clamoring to get in on the program.

So check out these posts. I know you won't be disappointed.

Could The Chance To Win $10,000 Help You Get In Shape?

The Best Kept Secret In Weight Loss

From Platform to Stage with Christian Thibaudeau

2009-12-20T01:31:00.000-08:00

Q & A with Christian Thibaudeau

Precision Nutrition: Hey Christian, what are you up to?

Christian Thibaudeau: Actually I’m just typing an email to a friend of mine. The guy is a bodybuilding coach and he’s upset because one of his athletes placed lower than he thought she should have. He’s mad and thinks that the judging was “fixed” or something like that. So I’m trying to calm him down.

PN: He thinks his athlete got robbed?

CT: Well, he thought so. She’s a figure athlete and placed 4th out of 12 or something like that. He thought she should have placed higher as she had more definition than some of the other girls who placed ahead of her. He thought she should be in the top three – even first or second. He thinks that maybe because the other girls were friendlier with the judges, his athlete was placed lower.

PN: How much of a part do you think that plays in all of this? Do you have to befriend the judges to get ahead in fitness and bodybuilding competition?

CT: Well, that’s what I’m emailing him about. I don’t think it’s a huge part of winning, but it does exist to a certain extent. I don’t think judges favor an athlete because they’re personal friends, or because the coach is a friend. What I think happens more often is that a judge knows a specific athlete is coming, and so they might pay more attention to them. For example, if a specific athlete or athlete’s coach trains where a judge trains, they might chat about the upcoming competition. And it’s just human nature, on contest day, the judge looks for that athlete and pays more attention to them. And especially when there’s a big class of athletes, that can help someone stand out.

PN: Have you ever experienced that yourself? People in bodybuilding – more than other sports – seem to think there’s a lot of politics involved.

CT: Well, I think there are some politics there – especially on the women’s side of things, because the judging criteria are always changing. Some years the judges choose more muscular girls, other years more “feminine” girls. Some years “softer” women are chosen and some years “leaner” women are chosen. And when the standards are always changing, any judging decision can be justified. So specific judges could play favorites for sure, and get away with it.

So yes, I do see more politics on the female level. But there’s a bit of it on the men’s side too. The bodybuilding federations are interested in the growth of the sport and, by extension, more money. So they’ll often want to see certain people win, people who can make the sport more marketable or popular.

For example, Arnold Schwarzenegger won a few Mr. Olympia titles that perhaps he shouldn’t have. But of course, he was a charismatic guy and his victories were always good for the sport. So I believe some politics were involved in those decisions.

PN: Speaking of bodybuilding, you’re now training bodybuilders and even competing yourself. You’re also a former competitive Olympic lifter. Has it been hard for you to shift from an objective standard – you lift the weight or you don’t – to these more subjective standards?

CT: Personally, it doesn’t make a difference to me. I’m mostly in this for the fun of it and for changing my body. For me, winning or losing doesn’t really matter all that much. But I know how it is. I’ve been involved in subjective sports before. In fact, I’ve trained a lot of figure skaters, and there’s no sport more subjective than figure skating. So I’ve coached and participated in both types of events, and I understand the frustrations involved in subjective assessments. In Olympic weight lifting, there’s no subjectivity. You either lift the weight or you don’t. It’s clean. Cut and dry. Subjective sports are so different and leave a lot of room for argument and even error. So I look at subjective events less as “sport” and more as “competition.” But really I enjoy both, they both offer something to me as an athlete.

PN: I want to chat a little about your books. You’ve written two very highly regarded books: The Black Book of Training Secrets and Theory and Application of Modern Strength and Power Methods. Also, your latest book, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: Body Transformation from Both Sides of the Force, is causing quite a splash. What inspired you to become an author and write about training?

CT: I think I got into writing more because of my creativity than my desire to be a strength coach. Training wasn’t even my first passion. My first passion was film. When I was 17 or 18 years old, I actually wrote 2 screenplays. One was for a movie and one was for a play. Now, I never ended up submitting either of them but I obviously loved and still do love the creative process. When I got more serious about my weight training, I found a way to combine both the training side and the creative side. That’s when I started writing books and articles on training. So it was the creative process that got me into writing in the first place. It just kind of grew from there, and now I’ve got three books published and a few more on the way.

PN: Tell me a little about your last book, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Interesting title.

CT: Well, the book covers training for body transformation from a few different perspectives. And, to be honest, I think the training material in there is the best I’ve ever written.

PN: Really? Given the excellent quality of your previous work, I’d say that’s saying something.

CT: Well, I really delve into the science of gaining size and strength in there. Also, the programs in the book are likely my best. But basically I wrote the training component of the book, the “good” side of the force, so to speak. Anthony Roberts wrote the other component, the “dark” side of the force: anabolic steroids. Now, I’m a strength coach first and foremost and don’t really want to be associated with anabolic steroids. But when Anthony pitched this idea to me, I decided to do it anyway, because I know that lots of bodybuilders do use steroids, often knowing nothing about them, and often in very harmful ways. So as steroids get more and more popular, I think it’s important to help people avoid some of the dangers associated with using them in an uneducated way. Most guys who end up using steroids just blindly follow the “big guy” at the gym. So Anthony’s idea was basically to make good, credible information available to show the people who are going to use this stuff anyway how to use it without killing themselves.

So that’s his side of the book. My side is the training side, and this book goes into much more depth than the Black Book of Training Secrets. It’s more scientific and really explains the process of muscle growth. It talks about what’s going on in your body to make your muscles bigger. And it also covers what you can do in the gym to stimulate those changes. In that regard, it’s much more thorough than anything I’ve ever written about hypertrophy.

PN: I know you’re a busy guy and always have a bunch of new projects on the go. Tell me something about what’s coming up next?

CT: The book I’ve almost completed is a body transformation book in written in French, so it’ll be sold in Quebec and in France. I have a lot of contacts in both places, and I work with many French bodybuilders as well, so this is a fun project for me to work on.

But I’m also working on a series of books I hope to finish next year all about body part training, and I think they’ll eventually be my most popular books. They’re kind of like what Charles Poliquin did with his arm training book, but I’ll have a different book for each segment of the body.

The first book is going to be about arm training, biceps, triceps, and forearms. The second will be about torso training, chest and back. The third will be about leg training, and the last one will be about training shoulders.

These books are more practical than theoretical. They’ll have two or three chapters on the science of hypertrophy, and there will be a couple of chapters about the muscles specifically and the role of each muscle in the segment you want to train. But the meat of the book will be the specialized programs – there will be about 20 or so – and readers will be able to chose the programs best suited to their level of development, body type, and goals. So they’ll be very thorough, and very practical.

PN: Those sound fantastic! You mentioned Charles Poliquin, another great coach originally from Quebec. What’s going on there, what’s that industry like in Quebec right now? Are there a lot of talented coaches in that area?

CT: Well, the environment is still a bit like Siberia in terms of training. Especially in smaller towns. In Montreal, there are some good trainers who are charging a lot of money ($50-60/hour) for training. But then again, to do that you have to rent space in a big gym, which can be costly. For example, the Pro Gym in Montreal, which is one of the biggest gyms in the world, rents space to coaches who want to train clients there, and I think it costs about $800/month for a small office. And in the smaller towns, if you charge more than $15/hour, you’re considered a crook. [Laughs.] So it’s hard to make a decent living as a personal trainer or strength coach here. But it’s a little better as a strength coach, and that’s an advantage I have, because although I’m writing a lot about bodybuilding lately and coaching a lot of bodybuilders, my biggest clientele is still athletes. I work with a big sports study program, training athletes from 26 different sports. So most of my income here in Quebec comes from being a strength coach and working with athletes.

PN: That’s interesting – if most of your work is still with athletes, why have you shifted your writing toward bodybuilding? It seems like lately a lot of your writing is moving in that direction and you’re working with more and more bodybuilders through your coaching. What prompted that change?

CT: Well, to be honest, personally I’ve always liked bodybuilding more than performance training. Even when I was a football player, I always did more arm training than anyone else on the team, just to look good in my jersey. [Laughs.] And even before football training, I was using the old Weider plastic barbell set to build my body for aesthetics. I’d even pump up before school in the morning because of course you can’t go to school without being pumped up. [Laughs.] And then I’d train during lunch. And when I got back from school I would be training again. And I always liked muscular bodies. But even training three times a day, I never built the body I wanted. And even after over a year of training, I was what you would call “skinny fat.” And I kind of gave up on my goals of having a lean aesthetic body.

But the thing was that, even though I was training 3x per day, I wasn’t eating well. I would eat chips and candy bars, I would eat pastries, I would skip meals. It was a mess. So with all that exercise, I got maybe 2,000 calories all day long, and most of that was junk. [Laughs.] So it’s no surprise that I didn’t look good. No amount of training could make up for my diet. But rather than learn about and improve my nutrition, I was stupid. I just blamed my genetics and assumed I was just built for strength and not muscle size. So I decided to concentrate on training for strength. And after some success in Olympic weightlifting, I became pretty strong.

It wasn’t until after an injury to my biceps retired me from that sport, that I decided to learn how to diet properly. And when I did, I built a pretty decent body. Funny how that works. [Laughs.] It takes both good training and good diet to build a great body. So after seeing that my body had some potential, I decided to learn all I could about training and nutrition for aesthetics. And that’s what I’m teaching now.

PN: Do you think a lot of people make the same mistake? Do you think they confuse poor genetics with poor nutrition?

CT: Oh yeah, definitely! I’d say that 95% of the people who say they have bad genetics simply don’t eat what they need to eat to improve their bodies. I see it every day – hundreds of people of all ages who train pretty hard but don’t look like it because they eat poorly, stay out all night, and ignore 2 parts of the training puzzle, nutrition and recovery. So these people think that they’re “hard gainers,” and they end up either giving up or going on steroids because they think their genetics are to blame. But really, if they slept more than 4hrs per night and ate more than 1500 calories per day, they would see better results. I think that nutrition is the biggest problem for most people.

And not everyone is built the same way. I don’t need the same amount of carbs that JB does. And we probably need different amounts of total calories, and so on. So even if people try to cut and paste a good nutrition program that a friend or expert uses themselves, they won’t get the same results. So again they figure that it must be their genetics. They figure that they’ve got poor genetics, while all their friends must have got the good genes. But that’s not it at all. It’s that they simply aren’t using a nutrition program built around their own needs. So identifying what your body needs to grow or lose fat is the key to great results. And that’s what I think Precision Nutrition does so well.

PN: Okay, let’s go the next step from being lean and muscular to actually stepping on stage and competing. When someone wants to make that step, how does their training have to change? Or does it?

CT: Training probably shouldn’t change too much when leading up to a contest. I think the biggest mistake that most people make is that they change their training drastically leading up to a show. I actually made that mistake myself leading up to my first competition. I figured I had to up the volume, do more drop sets, do more reps, things like that. But the body actually has a reduced capacity to recover from training when dieting down with lower calories and carbs. So that needs to be taken into account.

I think your volume should actually go down when you’re getting ready for the stage. But, then again, if you decrease volume and intensity, then you’re going to lose muscle mass, no question. So I think the first priority is to maintain or gain strength, that’s the best way to stop muscle loss during a dieting period.

Now, let’s be clear on one thing. When we’re talking about serious bodybuilding, there’s a big difference between looking “jacked” and training for the stage. If you just want to look good naked, during the off-season you can train all muscle groups the same way. But when you really want to be competitive on stage, your training needs to correct weaknesses, or at least hide them. If any body part is lagging, you have to focus on making it bigger and in proportion to the rest of your body.

So the biggest difference between serious bodybuilding and just training for looks is emphasizing what the judges what to see and being able to identify your own weaknesses and work on them. And these things should be considered year-round.

PN: How do you identify your own weaknesses? Do you write your own training and nutrition programs or do you have other people help you?

CT: I write my own training programs with the help of a friend, who’s also a bodybuilding coach. He doesn’t tell me what exercises to do, but he does tell me what parts of my body to work on – whether I need more deltoid mass, or lower lat size, or whatever. Then I take that advice, and I select the exercises I think will best work on these areas. Because I don’t think you can be 100% objective with yourself, you’ll end up focusing more on what you want than what you really need. So you need an external eye keeping you honest.

Now that’s training. But when it comes to nutrition – you cannot do your own nutrition plan! [Laughs.] You will always freak out as the contest approaches. You’ll look at yourself in the mirror and start fearing that you’re not lean enough or big enough or whatever. And then you’ll cut calories or carbs or make some dumb decisions and ruin your physique progress. You step on stage, place poorer than you should have, and then all that time you spent is out the window and you have to start again. So ideally you shouldn’t be your own coach for something like this. It’s possible, you can be your own coach and get decent results, but you’re unlikely to get peak results without someone else helping along the way.

PN: We’ve talked about training and nutrition for competition. How about lifestyle, attitude, etc? How does that have to change when getting ready for the stage?

CT: You become egotistical – there’s no way around it. [Laughs.] It’s very important to have either no life at all or a very understanding life partner – especially in the last few months, because you can really become an asshole. [Laughs.] I know I did. And actually my relationship was in danger at one point, and I had to take a break because of it.

When you’re cutting calories you get freaked out about getting into shape and you always want to do more. Lower calories, drop carbs, cut fat, etc. So it’s very difficult mentally. Further, if you get invited out to the bar or the movies, you often say no because people will be drinking and eating popcorn and you can’t – so you stay home to avoid the temptation. So there are some mental and social things that have to change leading up to the show.

The truth is, though, that the leaner you stay in the off-season, the less impact it has on your lifestyle. If you stay 8-10% body fat or less during the off-season, you can still go out, still have the occasional cheat day, etc. You won’t have to do cardio twice a day to lose the fat because you’re staying pretty lean. And the mood swings can be minimized when you stay in better shape, because your diet doesn’t have to be as severe, the carbs can stay higher, etc. So not going to extremes is key, and you have to start off lean to avoid these extremes. The biggest problems arise when people get way, way out of shape in the off-season. When you have to lose 50 lbs or so to get in shape for the stage it’s a miserable pre-contest period.

See for some people, bodybuilding is life. They want to be professionals, and so they have to live like a professional should live. Training and eating becomes their job. But for most people, bodybuilding is just a fun hobby. And I think that if you want it to stay fun, you’re going to have to have a life outside of your preparation.

PN: Now that you’re both a coach and a bodybuilder, how do the two affect each other? Does being a good coach make you a better bodybuilder or does being a good bodybuilder make you a better coach?

CT: Being a good bodybuilder makes me a better coach. But I think that being a good coach actually hurts me as a bodybuilder. I think that sometimes being a good coach, having a good reputation, and getting good results tends to make me believe my own crap, you know? [Laughs.] I start thinking I don’t need to go look for outside help. And that leads to mistakes and problems. So I always remind myself to keep an open mind.

But I think that on the other hand, competing, stepping on stage, feeling the pains of preparation, all that stuff, that’s helped me with my athletes. Some athletes have eating disorders, some athletes have to make weight for their sport, some athletes are stressed about competition. And my own preparation helps me understand what they’re going through.

For example, when you’re on stage or during the period leading up to it, you look fantastic. You’re lean, there’s no fat. You look the way you always wanted to look. But of course, there’s no way to hold onto that year round. So after the contest is over, you gain fat and pretty soon you start to dislike your body, and that can be really hard. And I think that’s similar to a figure skater who thinks she’s fat even though she’s only 90 pounds. So you start to identify with what causes eating disorders and body image problems in young athletes – especially females.

PN: You mentioned that sometimes coaches need to keep an open mind and look for outside help when needed. What else makes a great coach?

CT: A great coach is someone who’s not self-centered, someone who doesn’t think that one piece of advice is the only way to go. It’s interesting to me that many complaints I receive are based on my advice changing over the years. Sometimes I hear things like, “That program is different than the one you wrote 2 years ago!” Or, “What’s with the carbs? You used to recommend low carbs!” But, I think those changes highlight my strength, which is keeping an open mind. And I think most coaches should strive for that. We have to understand that we don’t always have all the answers. So if I read a book or article by a coach, like say Chad Waterbury, someone with different methodologies, I’m looking to learn something. I like to try out what they say. And if it works, I try to incorporate it into what I do. So I think a great coach is open to changes, is always learning, and is willing to adapt his methods in order to get the most out of his athletes.

Take a sport like football, for example. The difference between the good football coaches and the great football coaches is this: the great coach builds his offensive or defensive system around the athletes that he has. So if a great coach has a great running back and a mediocre quarterback, he won’t use a run and shoot offence, he’ll use a ground-based attack.

Well the same is true with training. You have to work with the athlete’s strengths and weaknesses. So as a coach, you need to understand what your athletes need, and train them accordingly. Your long limbed athletes will have to train differently than your short limbed. Your ectomorphs need to eat differently than your endomorphs. There are all kinds of differences. So the great coach quickly assesses the needs of the athlete as an individual and changes his program accordingly.

PN: Over your career you’ve worked with a large spectrum of clients and athletes and have probably observed certain characteristics that most successful athletes share. What do you see as the common denominator between those who succeed and those who don’t?

CT: Cockiness. I think the common factor is that those who succeed, whether it’s in bodybuilding or sport, are very self-confident. But it’s a very strong self-confidence, it’s unshakeable. And it’s not really arrogance. Successful individuals are just very confident that they’ll succeed. Like in football, the cockiest guys on the field are the defensive backs. They have to be, because even if they’re burned for a long touchdown pass, they have to come back on the field with the same confidence they had before. That’s the mindset that most top athletes have. Nice guys are fine and well as teammates, but if you want to reach the top, you have to believe that you’re never going to fail.

PN: Okay Christian, I’ve gone through most of what I wanted to ask about. Now, I know you do a ton of these interviews and I know that often times the guy doing the interview is asking the wrong questions. So, if you were in my shoes and had to ask yourself one question, which would you ask yourself and what would the answer be?

CT: How do you look so good? [Laughs.] Actually, one question I get from a lot of people is, “Where did you get your knowledge from? What sources do you have?”

A lot of strength coaches base their information and methods on the Russian literature. Others will base it on what they learned in college. Others on some coach they’ve interned with. Me, I’ve accumulated knowledge by learning from everyone. Everyone can teach you something about training. Even the smallest guy in the gym may have some method that can be used successfully. This is where keeping an open mind comes into play. But beyond that, I think you have to read everything you can get your hands on. And if you learn only one new thing in a book, that’s one more thing that you knew yesterday, so the book was worth reading. You do have to be able to understand what’s going to work and what’s not, so that means developing your critical thinking skills. But reading helps with that too. So as a coach, or even as an athlete, you can never stop learning and can never be satisfied with your current level of knowledge.

One thing that always impressed me about the Soviet system was that they also trained their athletes to be coaches, even while they were still just athletes. After coaching sessions, they got physiology lessons, periodization lessons, biomechanics lessons, this great education. So they learned about why they were doing what they were doing, why they were training so hard, and more. And they learned about the differences and similarities between theory and application. Well, no surprise, those athletes made great coaches because while they were building their bodies, they were learning the fundamental knowledge that training is built upon. So anyone with coaching aspirations should do the same.

PN: Christian, this has been awesome. Thanks so much for taking the time out of your day to talk with us, and thanks again for the great program you’ve designed for our Precision Nutrition members!

CT: No problem!

–

On behalf of all the Precision Nutrition members, a big thanks to Christian for putting together such a thorough training program. To read more from Christian, browse the archives at t-nation.com, where you’ll find years worth of his articles. And to find out more about his books and to order a copies for yourself, visit www.muscledrivethru.com.

Under The Bar with Dave Tate

2009-12-19T10:22:00.000-08:00

Q&A with Dave Tate

Precision Nutrition: You’ve spent a career in powerlifting. You’ve been an elite-level competitor, you’ve coach hundreds if not thousands, you’ve written books and hundreds of articles, you’re an entrepreneur – all around if not directly in the world of powerlifting. What drew you to the sport?

Dave Tate: Chaos, I guess. When I was eleven or twelve years old, I got a weight set for Christmas. It was one of those plastic sets. I think it was an uncle that got it for me. And I loved that shit. That was all I did, I trained for like 8 hours a day, did every exercise I could possibly think of. My dad noticed that I really enjoyed doing the stuff, and he happened to be the friend of the chief of narcotics in our town. And this chief was part of this club, called Findlay Barbell Club, which was maybe 800 square feet, a hardcore powerlifting club kinda like a Westside Barbell Club. They set it up so that I could go in and train with these guys. I think I was 13 years old at the time. And when I went in they kinda took me under their wing, and within six months or so I lifted in my first meet. I never really trained with anyone my own age. Everyone was always much older than me. So really from the get go, aside from that time training in my bedroom with the plastic weights, I never really had a time when I would just go into the gym and fuck around. I would go into the gym, and that was it, that was what we were doing: we were training for powerlifting.

For me, I used it to train for wrestling, or to train for football, but then I fell more in love with powerlifting. It got to where I couldn’t wait for the other sports to be over so that I could get back to the gym. So I guess I was just thrown right into the sport at a young age. I loved it.

PN: You started as such a young guy, do remember feeling intimidated walking in to the gym with a bunch of big guys lifting huge weights?

DT: No.

PN: Not at all?

DT: None. I mean, it was a small club, there were only five or six guys. They were strong, but the thing I remember when I walked in there, seeing these guys lift these weights, they seemed like big weights, you know 600 pound squats or whatever it was. But I just wanted to do it. I wanted to be able to be better than they were, stronger than they were. In my twisted 13 year old mind, I figured, “I’m younger than they are, they’re just a bunch of old guys,” you know? I figured that I should easily be able to beat them, and I strove to do that. So they really didn’t intimidate me, but at the same time, they also embraced me. From the minute I walked in there, they were like, “You’re Dave, right?” “Yeah.” “Skip’s son, right?” “Yeah.” “Play football, right?” “Yeah.” “Do you have any idea what you should be doing in here?” “No fucking idea whatsoever.” [Laughs.] Or they’d say, “Do you read the muscle and fitness magazines?” “Sometimes.” “Well don’t read them anymore.” And I’d be like, “Okay, well what are we doing then?” “We’re squatting.” And they just took me in and showed me how to squat, how to bench, how to deadlift. I’m not going to say I picked up on it quickly, it took a while to really get the form locked in, at least to where we thought it was good at the time. I learned 12 years later with Louie Simmons that it wasn’t that good. But it got me going. I just felt like I belonged.

PN: Do you remember your worst day in the gym?

DT: Nah [laughs.] Everyday is a good day in the gym. I mean, I remember injuries, bad workouts, you know, stuff like that. But I can’t remember any specific event that strikes me as bad. And I’ve kinda got this philosophy anyhow that it’s the bad days that make the good days what they are. If they were all good days, then what would a good day really be worth? I remember tons of funny stuff, though. And I guess funny can be bad. I remember doing some chins a long time ago, this was way back in high school, and I threw a bar over the top of the power rack for my chin-up bar. I did the set, no problem. So then after the set I’m standing there talking to one of the guys, and the bar rolls off the rack, hits me square on the head and knocks me out. [Laughs.] That was kinda bad.

PN: How about your best day?

DT: It’s tough to say, there are always days where everything seems to click, everything feels right. But the more experience I got in the sport, the more I realized that when those days come around, those are the days to stop and pull back the reins a little. On those days when everything was going, when you’re on fire, when you’re on top of the world, a lot of times I just closed it down. Because that’s a really strong indicator that everything’s going in the direction you want, and there’s nothing you can do to make it better. All you can do is ruin it, you know, by overtraining or overreaching. Or just by taking advantage of it. A lot of people will have a day where, say their best bench is 405 and they’ve got a meet coming up in six weeks, and they just mash 385. I mean, kill it. The natural tendency is to go 415, 425. But the meet isn’t today. So sometimes it’s better to just pull back on the reins and put it in the meet, which is where it’s supposed to be. There were a lot of days like that.

PN: You’ve had to overcome a ton of obstacles. Even your injuries alone, I can safely say that almost anyone else would have just given up. What keeps you going when things aren’t going your way – when it looks like the deck is totally stacked against you?

DT: That’s interesting, you know. Let me step back a second and say that the injury thing has kinda been taken out of context. People need to remember that I started competing in 1984. I totaled my Elite sometime around ’87. I didn’t have an injury, outside of one pec tear which was actually a result of taking an air conditioning unit down from the ceiling in a bar, I didn’t really have an injury until 1999 or 2000. So you’re looking at 15 to 16 years, totaling elite, with no injuries. So the injuries are more a function of time, in terms of years under the bar, than it is a lack of mobility or warm-up or whatever. And I will challenge anyone who thinks any differently to compete at the top of their game for 16 years injury-free. But the injury thing, it’s just part of the game. It’s a shitty part of the game. Pulling muscles and little mild things like that, it’s more a matter of managing them, because you know they’re going to come. It’s just the severity and the timing that changes. There’s nothing worse than straining a pec four weeks out from a meet. I’d rather strain it two weeks after. But to answer the question, I think it’s just part of the game. If you’re involved in any sport that involves extreme overreaching, and powerlifting is one of those, you have to be able to walk to the edge and see what lies beyond. Too many people don’t get close enough to the edge, and so they never excel. The difference between first place and third place is a really, really fine line, especially in extreme sports. I would say that extends to things like skateboarding, BMX, motocross, anything like that. That edge is there. Now obviously a football player doesn’t want to go to that edge in the weightroom, he wants to be on the edge when he’s on the field. But it’s there, it’s part of it. That’s just how I operate, I guess.

PN: Well even outside the injuries, you talk in your book having a learning disability, but then you’ve gone on to accomplish so much, not only in powerlifting but also as an author, in business, and so on. Do you think that ability to walk to the edge in powerlifting translates to the world outside the gym?

DT: Yeah, I think it does. But it goes beyond that, too. A couple of weeks ago, I was asked what the secret to success is. And the first thing that crossed my mind was, “What the fuck is success to you?” If you think I’m successful, man . . . I don’t. So that may be the first secret, if there is one, that you’re never satisfied. But there are a couple of other things that have helped me over the years. The first is that, well, I know I don’t know anything. While I may think I do from time to time, I don’t. The only thing I really, truly know, is how to test what I’m doing. I know how to quantify it. So be it training, nutrition, business, whatever. I go into everything thinking that I don’t know a fucking thing. Then I start talking to people who claim to know, and I’ll implement what they say. And then I’ll test it. I’ll have indicators I measure to tell me if it’s going in the direction I want, so I can tell if it’s working. And because I don’t know anything, because I don’t allow myself to make intellectual decisions, if those indicators don’t go the way I want them to, I change things! I try to remind myself that I don’t know anything, I try to stay detached enough to view things objectively. If you don’t do that, you’ll never change things, even when they’re not working. You just get stuck in, “It’s gonna work, it’s gonna work, it’s gonna work.” And it’s not.

And in business, everything I’ve ever done, I started by getting in way over my head. I just figured I’d find the people to help me if and when I needed it. And I did. I found advisors, I found mentors, I found consultants. I paid who I had to. I built relationships with who I needed to. And this is key: I don’t take their advice with a “grain of salt.” I don’t pick and choose what to use and what not to, or modify it or whatever. I just listen to them and put it all into play, then I test the outcome. If the outcome is going in the direction I want it to go, we’re good. If not, well, how can I say this politely? “Fuck you. See you later, I’m finding something else to do.” Life’s too short to be banging your head against wall.

A lot of this I’ve learned through the weightroom, most definitely. That’s what strength training is. It doesn’t matter how you lift the weight when the meet comes around, or how you trained to do it, all that matters is whether or not you did it.

PN: I remember back at SWIS last year, you had this great way of categorizing people into four categories, four levels of excellence — or lack thereof, in some cases…

DT: Shit, suck, good, great.

PN: Yeah, that was it. [Laughs.] Can you tell us about those four levels, the difference between them, and how you get from one to the next?

DT: I think that no matter what you’re doing, you fall into one of those levels. Now, I mean, within the realm that we’re discussing, that is. This isn’t a blanket judgment of the person as a whole, like the person is totally shit or whatever. I mean within a specific area, or skill set, or endeavor. Their training may be totally shit, but their diet may be great. Or vice versa. So we need to establish that we’re talking about specific skills here.

But yeah, shit, suck, good, great. I’ll use the example of general fitness. Most people in the United States are shit. I mean, diabetes is on the rise, and . . . well, never mind, everything that could possibly go wrong is going wrong. Diet is definitely a huge problem. And it’s not the only problem. These people aren’t doing anything! They stay indoors, they’re not active, they watch TV, they don’t even walk to their neighbor’s house to talk or maintain any sort of relationship with those around them. If you ask most people who their neighbors are, they don’t even know their names. Everyone is becoming a house rat. Which, by the way, if you’re in the e-commerce industry is not a bad thing. [Laughs.] But that’s kind of what we’ve become. So their fitness is complete shit.

Now if they take the first step, join a gym and so on, well yeah, then they go to suck, because the first step is a big thing. But personally I don’t give a shit about the person who took the first step, I really don’t. [Laughs.] I don’t praise them, and I don’t want to praise them. I know that 99% of people that take that first step are never going to go any further. In fact, they’re probably going to regress. I’m sure you’ve seen this, every trainer or weightlifter in the world has seen it: you’re sitting around the table with some friends and they start asking you about training or nutrition or whatever. First thing that goes through your mind is, “Is this guy really serious, or is he just wasting my time?” because you know it’s going to take more than two minutes to answer the question. So right off the bat you’re trying to gauge if he’s even willing to do what it takes to move past the first step. 99% of the time you’re going to give him the short answer, because you already know it will never go past that. You’ve already spent thousands of conversations laying shit out for people, family members, friends, whoever it is, to have your time just essentially fucking wasted. [Laughs.] Which is what it is! And to make matters worse, they don’t understand that your time is of value, and that it’s what you do for a living. So that’s why I don’t care about those people. You say you’re going to start working out? Great. Your New Year’s resolution is to start working out? Great. I don’t give a shit. In fact, in my business I don’t even target those people. That’s where the biggest market is, by the way, but I don’t want to deal with them.

Now “good.” These people have stuck for a while. They’re actually going to the gym, three or four days a week, for a couple of years. And they’re good. You go in the gym, you’ll find ‘em. Just sit there at five o’clock, during the busy time of any commercial gym. You’re going to see “shit” out the ass. You’re going to see “suck” out the ass. But you’ll also find about five or six “good.” And by “good” in the weight room, what I mean is you’ll see movements that are fluid, that look like they have purpose, they’ll have muscles that are actually contracting, they have control of their body. You could go over and ask them, “Hey, flex your triceps for me,” and they can do it without moving their shoulder or biceps. These people have been doing it for a while, and they’ve got a bit of a passion for it. Those are the people I like. Because those are the people that will take the advice that you give and actually try to use it. Those are the people that you can take from good to great – if they’re willing to put the effort in. But here too, most of these people will just stay at “good,” they won’t be willing to go the distance.

Shit to suck is say 50 or 60 stairs, big stairs. And suck to good, that’s another 50, 60 stairs. I mean, there’s a big difference between the guy who just walked in the gym and says, “I’m gonna do this,” and the guy who actually does it for a few years, and has fluid movements and knows how to control his body. That’s going from a beginner to an intermediate in weight training, and that can be three to five years for some people. More, for others. And a lot of people are content to stay there, and I’m happy with that. I’m cool with that, because for most people, it’s not their life, it’s not their driving passion. It’s just something they really, really love to do. And so that’s where they stay.

Now to go from good to great? That’s only three or four steps. But they’re three or four steps that people aren’t willing to take. Getting down to 10% body fat is no big deal. Going to 3%? That’s a big fucking deal. But the process isn’t any different. The suffering is. You just have to suffer more, suffer longer. You think 30 grams of carbs is bad? Wait until you drop down to none. You’re suffering. Those three steps are when you’re sitting there at night, with cravings out the ass, and the best you can do is cheat and have a sugar-free popsicle, and you have to be content with that. Those three steps are the difference. And those three steps are what make the competitive athlete.

Now there is another step: the extraordinary. And that’s a whole other world. That’s only about half a step. Those are the great athletes that step up and those who go out and change the landscape. And obviously, they’re rare. Real rare. It’s not even another step, it’s just a different intellectual level that most people will never, ever get to in anything they ever do in their lives. But we can see it, we can admire it. That’s when you get the goosebumps, the feeling like you’re watching something truly special. That’s the epitome of sport, the epitome of fitness. And it really has nothing to do with fitness, it’s just heart. You can have a Michael Jordan, who makes everybody want to stand up and say, “wow,” and you can have a Special Olympian do the same thing. It’s just heart. It’s a level you can’t teach, you can just observe.

PN: If you had a dream client or athlete walk into your place, what kind of attitude would you want them to have?

DT: Well, I don’t train anyone any more, I’m done with clients, so there is no dream client for me, mostly because there’s no such thing. [Laughs.] I’ve done that, I’ve worked 40 odd hours a week for seven years doing that, and that’s why I don’t like people in the “shit” category. I love ‘em to death, they’re great people, but… I’m going to change your question and ask, “What would I look for in someone I’d actually train with?” That’s what I’ve always cared about more. Louie told me one time that he’d never train with someone who didn’t scare him a little bit, and I agree with that. In other words, if I’m training with you, and at some point during the workout I think you might snap and hit me over the head with a five pound plate, that’s a good training partner. [Laughs.]

PN: Your book, Under the Bar, was as much about your life as about powerlifting or sport – it was almost a compilation of lessons learned. What compelled you to share those lessons, and your story, with others?

DT: My kids. At the time time that it was written, my health variables weren’t really that good. But my injuries were okay. So I didn’t see “not competing” any time soon. And I’ve been in the sport long enough to know that I’m not that strong, and that the weights that I lifted had a lot to do with mental fortitude and leverage. So I wasn’t going to be competitive if I went down in body weight. And if I’m not competitive, after 20 years, I don’t want to be a part of it. It’s time to step away. So I basically wrote that thinking, my blood pressure’s through the roof, my cholesterol’s through the roof, my enzymes are through the roof – I may not be around that long. And the sick part is that I just accepted that. And I figured, if my kids could just see me compete, then it would be okay, because the greatest lesson I could teach them would be just letting them see me compete. And it took me a long time to realize that this isn’t about me. And when that finally started to come into focus, that’s when I wrote that book. Because who knows what could happen, or when it could happen. Hell, I’m healthy right now, but I could walk out right now and get hit by one of our forklifts. So I wanted to be able to pass on the things that I’ve learned, because nothing for me has been easy. Nothing. And to be honest I don’t think it is for anybody. Some people act like things are easy, and maybe there are a small few who really do have have it easy, but for the vast majority, it’s not that way at all. You’re going to struggle for everything you get. You’re going to have to work for everything you get. So I thought I would write down some of the things I’ve learned, so they’d be able to read it and say, “Here are the values I should build my life around.” They’re the same values I talk about on my website, the same values I built my company around, the same values my employees live by. So that’s how it came about, it wasn’t written to be sold, or even given away, it was written for them. But then a few people read it, and they said, “You have to publish this.” And that’s kind of how it came about.

PN: Not too long ago, you contacted JB and started basically a complete body transformation: from elite powerlifter to a leaner physique built primarily around aesthetics, rehab and getting healthier. What prompted that change?

DT: Actually, I wasn’t an elite lifter when I started, I had already stopped competing. I wasn’t going into it as awful as I might have, but I wasn’t going into it in great shape either. My metabolism wasn’t as high as it once was, but I was consuming the same amount of calories. I feel great now, it’s just different. It was a huge challenge, and I like that, that’s what drives me. For me, I have to test myself, or I won’t stay focused. Even after dieting for 14 weeks doing the Precision Nutrition stuff, I still had to try John’s Get Shredded Plan . I had to. And I’ve learned more from that phase than anything I’ve done diet-wise in my entire life. Because I learned how to get flat. [Laughs.] And how to reload. And if somebody is dieting and worried about how they look, and I know you guys are big on individualization and it’s one of the hardest things to teach, but if you can learn how to push to getting flat, and then stop right at the point right where you don’t get flat, but you’re about to, and then add the carbs to reload, you’ll maintain the same energy but you keep burning fat. I also learned that when it comes to reloading, my body does way better on simple sugars. When I tried reloading on Fruit Loops, my god, it was insane how I looked the next day. But when I tried to reload on rice and pastas, it hardly did anything.

And when that phase was over, I was so depleted in calories that I freaked. My body went from 257 to 285 in three weeks. Which is actually kinda fun. [Laughs.] I remember an email from John saying something like, “Holy shit, you would have had to have eaten in excess of 5500 calories per day, above your actual daily requirements.” And I just thought, “Yeah, that sounds about right.” [Laughs.] But that was also a lesson learned though, because when I started getting ready for this phase, I thought it wouldn’t be hard to get back to where I was. Boy, that’s a crock of shit. [Laughs.] You can put on 30 pounds of pure fat in three weeks. But it’s not coming back off in three weeks. [Laughs.] It took like 12 weeks! Of serious shit! [Laughs.] So I also learned this time through to not get so extreme in the final few weeks so I don’t freak like that. And I had the Get Unshredded Plan , you know. [Editor's note: The Get Unshredded Plan helps you come out of an extreme, temporary diet without rapidly putting weight back on.] You think I’m going to fucking follow that? [Laughs.] When there’s an end date, and I know there’s caramel apples around the corner? [Laughs.]

But I learned a lot, I do feel good. And the one thing that I really noticed is that before I used to basically fall asleep throughout the day, just have crashes all the time, eating like shit. I just didn’t have the energy. But now I have tons of energy. And even though I do take in carbs, it’s still not more than 150 or 200 grams per day, on a high day. It’s funny because people are saying I’m now on a high carb diet, and I’m thinking, what the fuck do you consider high carb? [Laughs.] Because if you think 150 grams is high carb, you’re out of your mind! I’ll show you high carbs! [Laughs.] So yeah, I do feel better, a lot better.

Strength-wise, I don’t have comparisons, because I don’t do anything that even resembles what I used to do. I don’t squat, I don’t bench, I don’t deadlift. And a lot of times people are shocked to hear that. I explain it this way. I heard Jack Nicklaus say in an interview the other day, someone asked if he was playing a lot of golf now that he’s retired. And he just rolled his eyes. He said, “No, I spend time with my kids.” He said, “I might go out on the golf course a couple times a year, that’s it. I spent my whole life golfing.” Well I spent my whole life squatting, benching and deadlifting. So aside from the fact that my shoulder can’t handle them, I really don’t even have a desire to do them. Plus I know now that if I tried to, my strength would be way off what it was before, because now the focus of my training is completely different.

PN: Looking at your journals, looking at your progress reports during that transformation, it’s a pretty amazing change – cholesterol and triglycerides, body fat, all way down. What role did nutrition play in that transformation? How important is nutrition when you’re trying to get healthy and basically transform your entire body?

DT: From a body transformation perspective, it’s fucking huge. It’s huge. People need to have guidelines to help them get going, like the Precision Nutrition kit. They have to have something to get them going. And they also need to pay attention to how they feel, to watch their body fat levels, to watch their skinfold measurements, to watch their circumferences, watch their strength measurements. And to watch the circumference of your leanest body part. Say your skinfold measurements show that your arm is the leanest site on your body. You want to watch the circumference of your arm, because that’s going to give you a great indication of how your muscle mass is changing. There’s not a lot of fat there, so if it gets smaller, you’re fucked. [Laughs.] So you gotta pay attention.

PN: And what if you were still competing in powerlifting, how important would nutrition be there?

DT: I would tend to say that, at least for the super heavyweights, it’s not important at all. I just know what all the guys at the top of the game do. You tell some super heavyweight to eat vegetables, well that’s fine, but they eat the vegetables, which have a low caloric density, and they end up replacing high calorie foods with low calorie foods. And what works for you in things like bodybuilding, body transformation, fat loss, or whatever, that works against you in super heavyweight powerlifting. Plus, the big guys, they’re taking in 10,000 calories. So if they’re not getting the nutrients they need in 10,000 calories, something’s wrong. I mean even a Ho-Ho has to have vitamins in it somewhere. [Laughs.] The one thing I do tell them is, “Look, I’ve been there. I know you’re not going to eat vegetables unless they’re on your hamburger. But let’s at least put some Greens+ and some fiber caps in there. Let’s do something.” I think that’s the first step with these guys, to supplement what they’re not getting. And it’s a band-aid solution, but I think it’s about as much as you’re going to get out of those guys. Now the lighter guys, they need fucking education. Because these are the guys that will wake up, have a hamburger patty for breakfast, a hamburger patty for lunch, and a hamburger patty for dinner. And not eat anything else all day. Because they’re so afraid that they’re going to gain weight and grow out of their weight class. So they need some serious help to get that metabolism back up. So it’s much more important for the lighter guys.

PN: When you got Precision Nutrition, what were your first thoughts about it?

DT: [Laughing.] My first thought? “Fucking John. Why didn’t he just give me the diet? I don’t want to read this shit, just tell me what to do.” [Laughs.] That was my first thought. But then I started looking through it, and reading it, and I really liked it. What I liked is that it gave me choices. Which is kind of a fun thing, because you have all these meals to choose from, all these different ways to get the food you need. I’m a creature of habit, so no matter what choices you give me, I’m still eating a fucking apple every day. [Laughs.] But I know, and it’s refreshing to know, that when I want the choices, I have them. I’m not stuck eating a certain thing, or eating a certain way. And I like how it’s presented in short chunks, because it’s easier for me to digest the information. That’s where Precision Nutrition stands out. The other cool thing about it is the backup services, the forum, the add-on items that you guys keep posting, I mean it’s much more than even the manuals and the cookbook you get in the mail. I’m a raving fan, I’m all about Precision Nutrition. I recommend it to everybody. It’s not about gaining muscle or losing fat, it’s about all of it. It’s about building the baseline for all of those things, and once you’ve got the baseline, the rest is straightforward. People say, “Dave, you’re not on it right now though.” The hell I’m not! It’s the baseline, and I just make adjustments to the baseline to achieve my goals. That’s it.

PN: Last couple of questions. Tell me a bit about the history of your website, www.elitefts.com. By now it’s far and away the best site for strength training equipment, books and products, and you guys supply some of the top training centers in world. How did it come about, and why did you start it?

DT: Years ago, I’d have to say ’98 or ’99, I didn’t even own a computer. I didn’t even really know what a computer was. But my brother worked in the networking department of a major company, and he built a computer for me from spare parts. I think it had like a 486 processor or something. [Laughs.] So I got used to the computer, figured out how to get online, and I start searching for strength training information like any meathead would do. And I find stuff on Westside Barbell and Louie Simmons. And the best site for that at the time was called deepsquatter.com. So I start reading this, and a lot of the information was kind of fucked up. It wasn’t what we were doing. And I knew it wasn’t what we were doing, because I was doing it. [Laughs.] So I sent Jason Burnell an email and said, “Let me send you a template on what we’re doing.” And then that turned into a little Q&A thing where he would send me questions and I would email him the reply. From that Q&A, I was contacted to do a seminar in South Carolina, and at the seminar a bunch of us went out to dinner and a guy asked me if I had ever thought of doing a website. And I said, “Yeah, I’ve thought about it, but I don’t even have a computer that’s worth a shit.” But he told me he had a buddy who had just left a major web development firm to start his own, and he was looking for a project, a beta site or something to use as a portfolio piece to build his business. So he told me he could work something out that would be extremely affordable. So we set up this website, and it was basically Q&A, a lot like the format we still have now, except it was just me answering questions. And after a while, people started asking about products that we used. And I thought, well, why don’t I just get the products? So we put together an online store, and I borrowed some money to buy my first inventory. I think it was something like $500 from my mother-in-law. And so we got started. And then from there, over the next three years, I didn’t make any money, I didn’t lose any money, I didn’t borrow any money. I just did it all myself. I reinvested everything I made in the company. Every dollar that came in just went into new inventory. And new inventory. And new inventory. Then I sought out some good consultants. And we just kept building on the idea that the business we’re in is not the fitness industry, it’s not the equipment industry, it’s not even training. We’re in the PR business: we help people set personal records. That’s what we do. We do that with our equipment, we do that with our articles, we do that with our Q&A. That’s the essence of it, and we’ve stuck to that framework. There are other companies selling equipment. We’re selling a lifestyle. We’re helping people achieve what they set out to achieve, and we help them every way we can.

PN: Well it looks like it’s working, because it’s grown tremendously.

DT: Man, I’m totally amazed at what I’ve been able to accomplish. I believe the more you give out, the more you get in return. I really, truly believe that. And my life is an example. So I’m huge on contribution, and giving back what I’ve been given. Most of things I’ve learned in my life, whether in training, or business or life in general, were gifts given to me by other people. It was the guys taking the 13 year old and not making him feel intimidated in the gym. It was all these people in my life, stepping up at the right time, and saying, “You know what? You’re not stupid. You’re fucking lazy.” And being there for me, helping to guide me along the right path. So I owe them so much. And every time I walk in to work, or I go home, or I get in my car, or I look at my kids and my wife, it acts as a reminder. It’s like a knife twisting in my back, constantly reminding me: “Pay those guys back. Pay them back, pay them back.” Because without that help, I wouldn’t have anything right now. That’s why the Q&A on the site is for free, that’s why I try to help as many people as I can. I try to express that gratitude every day.

PN: Well you’ve definitely shown that again with this program for our members. Dave, thanks again, and thanks so much for taking the time out of your day to talk, I know you’re a busy guy and this is the busiest time of year for you. This has been a real pleasure for me.

DT: Hey, no problem at all. My pleasure.

Our thanks to Dave for putting together this fantastic program. To find out more about Dave, to read his free articles and Q&A’s, and to browse the most comprehesive catalog of strength training equipment and products on the web, visit his site at www.elitefts.com.

Off-Season Training for Athletes with Eric Cressey

2009-12-18T11:50:00.000-08:00

Q&A with Eric Cressey

Precision Nutrition: I remember, years ago now, you wrote an article for johnberardi.com called Budgeting for Bodybuilders. I loved that article, because a lot of times that’s people’s main excuse for not doing this stuff: “I can’t afford it.” You always seem to be coming up with these cool ways of approaching problems, even tackling the problem outside the gym. I think “strength coach” doesn’t quite capture what you do. If you had to give yourself a different title, what would it be?

Eric Cressey: That’s a good question, I often get another one that gets tossed around a lot now, “Performance Enhancement Specialist.” But even then, I’m not sure that expresses the right sentiment. [Laughs.] But you do these days end up going beyond strength and conditioning, you do end up doing budgeting, because there is a cost associated with this stuff, or sports management, or sports psychology, and you’re working with athletic trainers and head coaches and so many different specialists, and you have to be able to understand where they’re all coming from. So the fitness industry does need to find some way of better classifying people, but I’m not sure there’s an easy way to do it. But it’s funny, when I wrote that article, I actually wanted to be an accountant. [Laughs.] But I realized about two years into business school that I was more interested in counting plates on the bar than numbers and figures in an office all day. So it worked out well, I got into sports management and exercise science, the things I was more passionate about.

PN: What did your counselor in high school tell you you’d be?

EC: Actually, it’s interesting because I didn’t take any science classes in my last year of high school. I was pretty dead set on accounting. I have three accountants in my family, so it might have been genetic or something. I just liked the black and white, crunch-the-numbers aspect of it, and I remember my counselor was all for it. Accounting is a career path that counselors feel comfortable recommending and supporting. I did well in math, I did well in accounting classes, so studying to be an accountant was the next logical step. But I had some health problems near the end of high school and in my freshman year of college, and as a result I lost a lot of weight. It was one of those critical life experiences, and I wanted to gain it back and gain it back the right way. And in doing that, I started to realize how passionate I was, not only about the exercise part of it, but about nutrition as well. So I started to figure out how to put it all together. And ultimately I discovered t-nation.com, and I started talking more and more with John Berardi, and that led to that first article. And it just kind of snowballed from there. It’s been an interesting couple of years, that’s for sure.

PN: Do you remember the first day you picked up a weight?

EC: I do, actually. This is the irony of it all. I was in eighth grade, and my brother, who was a senior in high school at the time, he was a pretty big guy at the time. He was into lifting and everything. He brought me into the high school weight room after school one day. And the irony of it is that now my brother’s an accountant, and he weighs about a buck thirty-five, a buck forty. [Laughs.] He doesn’t really lift any more, not as much as he should, and here I am making a profession of it, and competing as a powerlifter. Times change I guess. But that first day, yeah, it was during one of those stages where you want to piss off your parents, whether it’s right or not. And so I had grown my hair out nice and long, and I have really wiry, curly hair, so it was pretty much a big afro. And I was kind of a pudgy kid at the time. Sure enough I go in and get on the bench press, and it was like a 45 pound bar, and I just got pinned. So here’s this big kid, big afro, beet red face, just squirming like a fish out of water under the bar. [Laughing.] So I’m sure they got a good laugh out of it. But in retrospect, it was a pretty influential moment.

PN: Do you remember maybe your worst mishap in the gym?

EC: Oh yeah, sure. I’ve done some silly stuff. But looking back, it’s always taught me something. I’d say probably the biggest downer was when I pulled 400 pounds for the first time back in 2002, and then about a week later I was in the gym doing my warmup sets on a cold November day, and I was anxious to get back to the house and watch some football, so I didn’t warm up like I should have. And I ended up herniating my L5-S1 disc doing a warm up set of 185. [Laughs.] A long story short, I ended up learning a lot about lower back rehabilitation, I did all my own rehab, and I wound up bouncing back. And I’m pulling right around 650 right now. So in retrospect, it was really a blessing in disguise. You never think it’s going to be like that, but that’s how it goes, you know. I learned so much about how to warm up properly, and it turned out that I had some imbalances that were predisposing me to the problem in the first place. But hindsight is 20/20. Like I said, I learned a lot from the experience.

PN: Do you remember maybe your best day, a day where you thought to yourself, “Yep, this is what I want to do”?

EC: Oh yeah, I have those all the time. A lot of them for me have been as a coach, and not just as a lifter. I mean, I’ve had meets where I went 8 for 9, you know, really performed well and everything. Times when I really felt in sync. But I’ve felt it more so as a coach, you know, you get in the groove, and you barely realize you’re having so much fun, because you’re so into what you’re doing. But from a lifter’s standpoint, my first meet stands out, it really had a big impact on how my career went, and it forced me to look at how I did things and really change for the better. I had a lot of experienced lifters who I’d never met before take me under their wing, teach me things I didn’t really know. I learned about the fitness-fatigue model, and how you know, I had accumulated a lot of fatigue over the years, and maybe that bodybuilding stuff had caught up to me. So it was really critical to just get out there and compete for the first time, to go through the whole process.

PN: You work one-on-one with a ton of athletes as sort of a cross between strength coach and physical therapist. Where do you fit in along that spectrum?

EC: Well I’m not a therapist, I’m not a PT or anything like that, but that’s a good question because a lot of what I do does fall somewhere between the two ends. I think I have a keen eye for dysfunction, and helping out with that. I mean, if someone tears a labrum, there’s not a whole lot I can do about that, but what I can do is look at someone and see a scapular dysfunction that might make them susceptible to a tear, and I can definitely work with that. And at the other end of the spectrum, you know, often you have people getting acute treatments from the medical profession, and you still have to know how to produce a training effect in the meantime. You still have to shore up the weaknesses and deficiencies that got them there in the first place, and that’s where I come in, I think. A lot of people don’t realize that 80% of Americans have back pain at some point in their lives. But we can’t send 80% of the population to physical therapy. There’s a lot we can do to address that in the gym, so I see myself covering that gap. But at the same time, I’ve got plenty of athletes who are healthy and just looking to improve their performance, so that’s still a big part of what I do.

PN: Who are you doing most of your work with these days?

EC: Everyone from elite athletes to weekend warriors, I’ve worked with NBA guys, NFL combine guys, D1 baseball guys. Athletes of all ages, really. Boston has a big endurance training community, so I work with a lot of cyclists, runners, and triathletes. And I really enjoy working with my high school athletes. Actually we’re just going to start working with the Blue Man group next week, so that will be interesting. So it’s not even just athletes. I’m lucky, I get a lot of variety in my day.

PN: Were you always strong and athletic growing up?

EC: No, I wasn’t necessarily your typical athletic kid. I didn’t really eat very well. But I was always out there, moving around, doing a lot of different things, so I was athletic, but I didn’t really get into weight training until after high school. So I didn’t have that early start that some people had. But I feel like I’ve still got a lot of good years ahead of me, I’m still making good progress. And I find it exciting, you know, because I’m always trying out different methodologies and things like that. I do consider myself an athlete first and a powerlifter second. I’m not really sure that I want to be a powerlifter forever, I might want to try some strongman soon, or do some vertical jump stuff, you know, I just want to go out there and enjoy being athletic. It’s cool training around here, because I’ll jump in with the athletes and train with them too. I just want to keep pushing myself, keep trying new things, and keep going for many years to come.

PN: Yeah, you’re still pretty young – what’s your secret to national recognition at such a young age?

EC: Probably sacrificing the social life, I’d say. [Laughs.] No, I’ve just been really fortunate, and I’m lucky enough to have a job I love. I get to train athletes. To me, there’s nothing better than that. But if there’s one thing, I think it’s that I keep trying to learn more. I’m not satisfied with what I know now. One of the problems with training clients and charging an hourly rate is that you get working so hard, you’re training clients all the time, and yeah it may be all well and good from an income standpoint, but you’re not really continuing to educate yourself. You train people all day, go to sleep, wake up in the morning and do it again. And that does you no favors. Where’s your chance to read? Where’s your chance to call other coaches, or attend seminars, or things like that? So for me, the Internet has actually been helpful in the sense that it’s opened my life up to other opportunities to get better as a coach. So I’ll try to regularly set aside a day to go travel, maybe up to UConn or to see Mike Boyle over at BU, or even set aside a day to call other coaches just to talk about what they’re doing, what I’m doing, what’s working and what’s not working. So that’s helpful. A lot of trainers can get swept up in training people and don’t leave the time for continuing education. But apart from the time commitment, I think I also approach things from a writer’s mindset, I’m always looking for new ways to do things, new insights and interesting ideas to bring to the public, and I think that forces me to stay on the ball. And the thing about writing for the Internet is that you get instant feedback. I mean I’m sure you guys see this, you publish something and you can get people from all over the world giving you feedback instantaneously, and it pushes you to respond to them, to address their questions and to refine your ideas. There’s no other way I could get that kind of feedback in person, and I definitely couldn’t get it in those kinds of numbers. There’s no other way to test your programs and ideas on a sample size that large. So on the Internet you have more opportunities to test out your ideas and see if they have merit. And it’s iterative, you can go back and forth, bring things from the net into the gym with your local athletes, and from the local athletes back to the net and that huge sample size, constantly testing and refining. You guys have probably found the same thing with nutrition. So the web has played a big role in speeding up the process for me, for sure.

PN: Speaking of nutrition, how big a part does nutrition play into what you do on a daily basis, both personally as an athlete and professionally as a coach?

EC: It’s huge, in fact I don’t think people realize how important it is to their overall progress. The overwhelming majority of problems we see in our society are related to systemic inflammation to some degree. Just look at omega-3 to omega-6 ratios, I’ve seen people dramatically improve arthritis and a number of other conditions with just the addition of fish oil. And really it just comes down to this: if you put junk in your body, you’re going to get junk results. When I was writing this program for the Precision Nutrition members, one of the first things I say in there is that, you know, this is a good program, but it will be an incredible program if you dial in your nutrition. And that’s what Precision Nutrition is all about. We sit down and have conversations with all of our combine guys, and we say to them flat out, “For the next couple of months, you’re going to drop what you’re doing now cold turkey, and you’re going to eat the way we tell you to eat.” We have this one kid who just started up with us, and the first meeting, he walks in with Twizzlers in one hand and M&M’s in the other. [Laughs.] And the thing is sometimes they can get away with it for a short time, or while you’re young. This kid in particular is lean, he’s a monster in the gym. But so is everyone else at the highest level, and if you want to beat those guys, you can’t leave any stone unturned. You’ve got to provide your body with the raw materials it needs to push the outer limits of human performance. If your nutrition is poor, or mediocre, or just okay, and really for most athletes it is, then you have a lot of untapped potential in there. There’s a big difference between acceptable and optimal, and it’s those who realize that and take that step who really set themselves apart.

PN: You have almost an obsession with biomechanics. Were you calculating joint forces on your GI Joes at age 6?

EC: No, I hope not. [Laughs.] Maybe subsconsciously I was. But for me the real turning point was when I transferred out of business school to do my exercise science degree at the University of New England, which happened to have one of the best medicine programs in the country. And so I got to take Gross Anatomy, and I spent 6 months of my life working with cadavers. I was surrounded by physical therapists, athletic trainers, occupational therapists, pre-med students. I was immersed in an environment where anatomy was first and foremost. And then I started to learn how the body moves, I started going beyond the anatomy itself. Structure dictates function, and function obviously dictates dysfunction, so it’s important to differentiate between functional anatomy and the stuff you find in an anatomy textbook. The body isn’t a two-dimensional sheet of paper. You also have to understand compensation patterns, things like that, and the only way to do that is to look at a lot of different athletes, to experiment and see what works and what doesn’t. And that’s led to a lot of the things that Mike [Robertson] and I have done, like the seminars and DVDs. It’s not just about origin, insertion, innervation and action, it’s also about what happens when muscle A doesn’t work. What does muscle B do to compensate? Does it shut down, or ball up, etc? And most importantly, what can you do to correct it?

PN: Speaking of which, you guys have put out some great stuff. We recommend the Magnificent Mobility DVD and the Ultimate Off-Season Training Manual to all our athletes. What inspired you to put these together, and what else can we expect from you in the future?

EC: Well, I guess the Mobility DVD was kind of the first step in all of this, and for Mike and I it was our first venture into information products. There’s a lot of stuff that we use with our clients and athletes, and also just stuff that we picked up from our interactions with physical therapists, chiropractors, and a lot of others professionals. And so this was a comprehensive way to bring all of those ideas together. The cool thing about it was, when we originally introduced it, it was intended to be sort of a warm-up DVD, something to teach people how to get the body moving more efficiently, something to get people prepared before they lift, but after the fact we got all this feedback and email from people saying things like, “Hey thanks guys, my hamstring problem is gone,” or, “Awesome, my back doesn’t hurt now.” And we never intended it to be a rehabilitation program. We hoped it would have a moderate impact, but we never promoted it as some sort of way to treat injuries. But sure enough people were contacting us and thanking us for having solved this or that problem. That was a little unexpected to be honest, but very cool. So it’s been pretty successful. You know, it’s funny though, after that was published, I kind of got labeled, “The Mobility Guy.” People want to pigeonhole you. So the Off-Season Manual is nice because it allows people to see the overall programming for athletes, and mobility work is maybe 3-5% of that. The Off-Season Manual opens people up to the other 95% of what I do with our athletes. Everything has its place, and it’s important to get perspective, to see what components are involved and to see what the place is for each component that goes into preparing an athlete for elite sport. So that’s what the Off-Season Manual does, it looks at the complete program, and that’s been a lot of fun for me.

PN: What are your ultimate career and athletic goals?

EC: Well, athletically, I think competing as a strongman would be fun. I mean, ultimately I’d like to be a guy who can say I deadlifted 700 pounds, I had a 40” vertical, and I competed as a strongman. To me that would be ideal. I like the variety. And also, I train athletes with a lot of different goals, and I want to have a frame of reference for everything that they have to go through. So I think having that experience and staying competitive will help me with my athletes. Professionally, you know, I never expected the Internet stuff to take off like this. I actually had to bring someone on to help me with it, because I don’t have it in me to be an Internet-only kind of guy. I need to be in the gym, or on the field, I need to be working with athletes. I have to train people. I’m a coach first and foremost, a writer or whatever else second. I would ideally love to work with athletes all day, and that’s pretty much where I’m going. So I’d just like to stay the course and see where it goes, keep giving everything I’ve got to any athlete who’s motivated enough to put in the work, and just let it snowball from there. Hopefully that somehow that results in a huge empire. [Laughs.]

PN: If you had a dream client, what kind of attitude would you want them to have?

EC: If you read Brian Grasso’s stuff, he talks about how you can classify every athlete according to motivation and skill. So obviously your high motivation, high skill athlete is ideal. The low motivation athlete, you definitely don’t want to work with those. They need to convince themselves that they need to be there before you can help them. Personally, I like any athlete with high motivation, whether they’re low skill or high skill doesn’t matter. The difference is that it’s pretty easy to bring the low skill guys up if they’re motivated. And I like a challenge, so I really enjoy working with the high skill guys because it really pushes you to be that much better. Because really if you’re working with low skill athletes, you can give them mediocre programs and they’re still going to get better. But I’m working with a kid now, for example, who squats 675 at just under 200 pounds. He’s a D-III kid who wants to go to the NFL. And it’s going to be a big stretch for him. He’s a great weight room guy, great attitude, but he’s coming from a D-III program, so he’s not going to get the attention he deserves. So he’s high motivation, high skill. So that pushes me, I’ve got to put together an optimal program for him. It’s not going to do much for him to take his squat from 675 to 700. Does that really matter in the grand scheme of things? Not really. What I need to do is look at the other components that are really going to make him better, because he’s so strong it might actually be slowing him down out there. So we’re doing a lot of work with rate of force development, hit mobility, pure soft tissue work, a lot of reactive stimuli, things like that. What would work for a high motivation, low skill athlete, there’s no way it would work for him. So it forces me to really be on the ball with my program, to adapt my programming a lot quicker, and I like that a lot. And typically a high motivation, high skill athlete will come in and they’ll have questions. They don’t just want to know what, they want to know why, they want to know when, they want to know everything they can do to get better. And luckily we’ve got a lot of guys down here who are great like that.

PN: What’s the common denominator among those who achieve the lofty goals they set for themselves, be it in strength training or athletics, fat loss, whatever — what separates them for the rest?

EC: I think the key is synergy among all the different components. They understand how the nutrition interacts with training, how it interacts with supplementation, with warm ups, soft tissue work, all that. Everything. And that to a large extent is how we try to model our business. Working with Carl Valle, Carl’s an excellent strength coach, obviously, he’s excellent with recovery protocols, regeneration, etc., and that really complements my abilities, like biomechanics, building maximal strength, working with athletes in the weight room context. So I know that in a combine situation, for example, we might have a kid in, and I can help him with his diet and do all this weight room work, and when the time is right, we can pass him out to the track and Carl can do more work with him out there. And all along, Carl is optimizing his recovery. It’s critical to have your bases covered, to have that synergistic process. These days, the ones that don’t have that are likely going to fall short. And for the lay population, people who don’t have one-on-one coaches covering all these different facets all the time, those are the people who really need to go out and get smart about all these areas. They need to learn everything they can about nutrition and nutrient timing, training methodologies, supplementation, and how they all interact. If you can do that and put it into practice every day, you’ll accomplish way more than you ever thought possible.

PN: Eric, thanks again for taking time out of your day, and thanks again for the fantastic program you put together for the Precision Nutrition members. We really appreciate it.

EC: No worries, great chatting with you. It’s been my pleasure.

–

Our thanks to Eric for all his hard work in putting together this program for our members. To learn more about Eric, visit his website at www.ericcressey.com. Eric can also be found training clients at Excel Sport & Fitness in the Boston area, and is the co-creator of the Magnificent Mobility DVD and the author of the Ultimate Off-Season Training Manual for athletes, both of which are uniformly excellent and highly recommended.

Program Design For Women with Krista Scott Dixon

2009-12-18T10:01:00.000-08:00

Q & A with Krista Scott-Dixon

Precision Nutrition: You have a very unique career. You’re a professor, a researcher, a writer, a coach, and more: it’s a mix of academia with all kinds of expertise outside the classroom, like for example your expertise in health and fitness. So I’m curious: what career did your guidance counselor suggest for you?

Krista Scott-Dixon: Wow, that’s a really good question. I actually thought I wanted to be an artist for a while. I did my undergrad in fine arts. I guess because my father was an academic, I always had a sense that I would at least get my PhD. I don’t know that I had a clear plan that I was going to be an academic, per se, but I always sort of had the sense that I would go on and do a PhD, so I would always have this home in academia. But yeah, originally I thought I would be an artist.

PN: Did you ever take those tests that tell you what you’re supposed to be?

KSD: I remember those, it was something like I should go into social services, or something. Like I’d be a teacher, that was another thing people figured I’d be, and I guess I kind of am now. Some kind of social service or teaching job, I guess. And certainly no one ever suggested health and fitness, because I was always like the last-pick-for-the-team kinda person. Actually, no, I was never the last, I was always like the second last. There’s almost always someone worse off than you. [Laughs.] But yeah, certainly health and fitness would not have been up there.

PN: In a number of places you talk about “coming out” as a feminist. Is there pressure not to be one?

KSD: Oh totally. Totally. I think if you move in certain circles, like if you’re part of the liberal elite, it’s not really such a bad thing, but there’s such misunderstanding about it, and there are so many negative connotations about it. You know, when you go outside your little urban world, people are afraid of that word. They associate it with such negative things. Even my students, when they tell their families, or their friends or their boyfriends or whatever, that they enrolled in a women’s studies course, their friends and families freak. They’re like, “I can’t believe you’re taking that.” There’s just so much stigma. And that’s not even naming yourself as a feminist, that’s just taking a course. It’s brutal. So every year we have to deal with the fallout from some family fights. [Laughs.] And breakups happen – literally, I’m not kidding. It’s just very bizarre. So yeah, there is a lot of pressure, and I think that’s because of the negative connotations people have with the term if they’re not familiar with the area.

PN: Most of the problems we face are multi-factorial. On your site, you tell your readers and students that they can mix women’s studies with other studies, be they medicine, law, economics, etc. And certainly you’ve done that yourself with health and fitness. Do you think in general that we’re too narrow-minded and contained in education today?

KSD: That’s an interesting question. I do definitely think there tends to be a focus on purity of discipline, and so people tend to be quite resistant to the idea that you would work across disciplines. Engineering is one example I can think of that’s very rigid about it. Like, if you’re in engineering, you don’t do humanities or anything else like that, you just do engineering. And not only do you just do engineering, you’re taught to think everything outside engineering is crap. [Laughs.] And many universities are heavily invested in this. You actually have discussions like, “Where is sociology going, and how can we make it real sociology again?” People are really, really into that purity. And I think the concept of interdisciplinary work is threatening to a lot of people. York University is a bit different, because they do talk about interdisciplinary work, and that’s sort of their brand, if you will. Not that it’s necessarily always deployed in real life. But I do definitely think that interdisciplinary studies are frowned up, especially between the arts and sciences. There’s science on the one hand, and then there’s sort of a devaluing of what humanities can offer.

PN: What got you interested originally in health and fitness?

KSD: Hmmm. Well, my mom used to be a science teacher, she has a science degree – and her science degree was food science. So she taught regular science, like chemistry and all that sort of stuff, but also she had worked as a nutritionist. And so we had a very science-oriented household. Like, we didn’t say, “I have to go pee,” we’d say, “I have to urinate.” [Laughs.] Or like on family vacations, we’d walk down the beach, and there’d be something gross on the beach like a jellyfish or something. And my mother would pick it up, and look at it, and tell us all about jellyfish. So there was a science-friendly mindset. And also a lot of emphasis placed on things like eating right and being active. Not that either of my parents were athletes or anything. But you would just go for a walk every night, that kind of stuff, and that’s just how it was done. Or you would eat vegetables because that’s the right thing to do, so that was kind of the value that circulated in my house. And the interest in science was something that I shared with my mother. So if I had to kind of pinpoint the origins, that where I would say it came from. But certainly I was never interested in athletics, or team sports, or anything like that. I was very averse to those. And then, I guess I got interested in weight training in high school when I had a chance to take a weight training course. That was something that was kind of different from the other team sports. Because I can’t throw a ball. Actually, I’m a good thrower, not a good catcher. [Laughs.] Anything that involves catching a ball is just disastrous for me. But individual sports, I was actually pretty good at, like gymnastics or whatever. And in the moments I was able to participate in that, I really enjoyed it.

PN: Do you remember the first day you picked up a weight?

KSD: No . . . but I remember my first entrance into the weight room. I was in grade nine, and I was taking an aerobics class as my gym class, it was like an all-girls aerobics class, and one day there was some reason we couldn’t use the gym so the gym teacher took us to the weight room instead. And I remember sitting in there, and there were a couple of older girls in there, and they looked really cool. And one of them was talking about how she wanted to be a female bodybuilder. And I remember thinking that was the coolest thing ever. I guess that would be my first sort of moment in the weight room.

PN: Most of your readers and probably the vast majority of people you’ve helped know you exclusively through the web. How do you think the advent of the web has changed the fitness industry?

KSD: Well, you know it’s interesting. I think it’s been a little bit contradictory in certain ways. It’s been so good in so many ways, because it’s enabled connections and knowledge exchange that wouldn’t otherwise be possible. For instance, I got to be on a conversational basis with Mel Siff, and people have emailed me over the years, like Dave Draper, whom I never would have met otherwise. And whom I may or may not ever meet in person. But you can build these relationships online, relationships that wouldn’t otherwise be built because of geographical location. And you wouldn’t talk to people who are professionals, necessarily, like Michael Yessis, or someone like that – you wouldn’t have access to them. So there’s been that.

And also, the access to information now is so much better. You can get on PubMed and read studies and abstracts. I get the tables of contents of physiology journals emailed to me every month, so I don’t even have to go looking for it. It’s just that much easier. So there’s that too.

But then of course, you have this proliferation of crap. Sites that are all about selling stuff. And you’re still confronted with the problem of knowing what’s good information and what’s not.

PN: Hey, we sell stuff! [Laughs.] But seriously, where do you think the balance is? We had a woman email us the other day, and for whatever reason she was like, “How dare you not offer free advice?” And I was thinking . . .

KSD: Did she miss johnberardi.com?

PN: Yeah exactly, I was thinking, perhaps you missed the over 200 free articles we’ve put online?

KSD: No kidding!

PN: Well, yeah and for Precision Nutrition customers we have this whole free forum, and all kinds of other stuff, like the training program you designed. In any case, people take this very seriously. On the one hand you want to help people, and on the other hand if you’re doing this professionally, you have to make a living. So where do you think that line is drawn?

KSD: You know it’s interesting because a lot of it relates to people’s expectations of things. In my case, people are often surprised to find that it is free . . .

PN: And it’s awesome, your site is so comprehensive.

KSD: And your site too! People are often surprised when stuff is free. So it’s an interesting question. Sometimes people feel that if you’re not charging for it, it’s not worthwhile. On the other hand there’s sometimes that sense of entitlement to free stuff. So it’s hard to balance it, I guess. I always send people to the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Nutritional Programs, like constantly. It’s one of my favorite links to send people to, because it just lays it out so clearly. If John ever takes that article down, I’m screwed. [Laughs.]

PN: Well, it’s funny because I remember back in the early days, before a lot of the big fitness websites had taken off, I remember that people used to recommend two sites. One was exrx.net, and the other was your site, www.stumptuous.com. A lot of people would link to those two sites in their signatures. Obviously it’s great for women, but I remember even some of the stubborn old men of the early web days were like, “Yeah, a lot of it is for chicks, but you’ll still learn a lot.” So they would recommend it anyway, even begrudgingly. So tell me a bit about your site, and how it came about.

KSD: Well my site started I think in 1996. Because I had taken this weight training course in high school – and the guy who taught it was a real advocate of women’s training – I knew when I decided to start the site that the information I was finding elsewhere on the web was crap. I also knew where to find good information, because I worked at a university, and I could go and read academic textbooks on physiology, coaching, kinesiology, and so forth. So I knew where to find the good stuff, and I became increasingly resentful of the proliferation of bad stuff. And I thought, I can’t be the only one in this situation. So that’s how I got started. It was a very modest little thing. I mean, it might have had five articles on it or something. And it was just dedicated to being an information resource for people who are looking for factual, evidence-based information on women’s training. And then it just kind of grew and grew, and my knowledge base grew, and I started building this expertise and broadening my focus. So I don’t know, it was a very organic process. I just wrote about what people were interested in. I might get ten questions about the same thing, so I would write an article about that. Or there would be some domain of knowledge that seemed unique to me, like for example how to do a pull-up. The stuff you wouldn’t find in a mainstream magazine. So that went up too.

I also wanted to provide an alternative representation, because when you think fitness for women, you think “fitness model.” And that’s so meaningless for most women. They don’t identify with it. They even resent it, you know, and for most women it’s not inspiring at all. And it’s not reality either. 99% of fit women don’t look like that. So I wanted to sort of provide alternative images of fit women, so other women could read about them and go, “Hey, there’s a 60 year old women powerlifting – I can do that, I’m a 60 year old woman too.” Things like that, things to make it more meaningful to them.

PN: Okay, I’m going to put you on the spot. Is fat beautiful, or should people just get in shape?

KSD: Well, that’s an interesting question. I think that fit is beautiful, and I think that fit comes in many sizes. Fat is too broad, too. You can be fat and out of shape, or fat and in pretty good shape, and those things look and feel very different. It’s about what people do with their bodies, how they carry themselves and so on. A big shot putter is different than an average couch potato, but they could both be covered under the rubric of “fat.” The thing with biology is that there’s usually a sweet spot. You don’t want too much or too little of anything. But there’s a range within which certain things are optimized. And I think that the range that culturally we’re happy with, in terms of fatness – put it this way, we’ve got a very narrow range that we’re willing to accept in our representations, our images, but we seem satisfied with a much wider range in real life. I mean, so many people are fat now that it’s almost the norm. To me, though, fit is attractive, and fit comes in different sizes for sure.

PN: When it comes to this stuff, stuff related to body image, people take it very seriously – especially in reference to themselves. Do you think it’s possible, or necessary, or advisable even, to separate who we are from what we look like?

KSD: That’s a really interesting question. I don’t think it’s possible. To try to do it sort of a false Cartesianism. I think physical culture is about unifying all these dimensions of ourselves. I think the problem comes when we define aesthetics in a very narrow way, when we give it very narrow parameters of what’s okay. But I think this idea that giving a shit what you look like is somehow unfeminist, somehow beneath you as an intellectual – and I sometimes hear colleagues talking about this – it’s plain wrong. The reality is that we have eyes for a reason, right? And we are invested in how we look. And how we look has two components, too: how we actually look to other people, and how we think we look or how we want to look. There’s this sort of interior/exterior dynamic. So I don’t think it’s possible to separate the two, and anyone who says they can is either full of it or mentally unhealthy. But I think there are different ways to come to terms with that divide, and I think that people sometimes come to terms with it in ways that are unhealthy. But I don’t think that our appearance itself is the problem.

PN: Let’s talk nutrition for a second. When it comes to our relationship with food, do you see a difference between men and women?

KSD: Oh yeah. It’s huge. It’s absolutely different. Although what’s interesting is that I’m seeing now more and more men becoming like women. Now, they’re not there yet. But the things I’m hearing from them, especially young men, are becoming remarkably similar. And I think that has to do with the fact that men’s bodies are becoming much more commodified than they were. A generation ago, men didn’t know what their abs were, or what their pecs were, but now of course every man knows. And you have this sense now that it’s much more explicit what you’re supposed to look like. And you have images presented to you, depicting exactly what you’re supposed to look like. So I think that the concern is actually emergent with men, but it’s not quite where it is with women just yet. We’ve taken it to a whole new level. [Laughs.] Naomi Wolf had this interesting study in her book, The Beauty Myth. She talked about a study that was done to men subjected to food deprivation. These were regular college guys from up the street. Well they put them in a close environment and deprived them of food. They were very under-nourished, an intake of 600 or 800 calories, something like that. After a fairly short time, about a week, the men became obsessed with food in the same way that women are now. They continually talked about food, they had all this guilt and these moral associations with food, they fantasized about food, they exchanged recipes – food became a much more central thing. And I think the point of it all is that women’s behaviors around food set up this self-replicating thing. You have a dysfunctional relationship with food, which then reproduces itself. But also the study showed that it’s not necessarily a gender thing – I think a lot of it has to do with cultural norms and behaviors for sure.

PN: What’s the role of nutrition in the overall picture? If we understand that our identities are tied up with how we look, and we want to change that, what role do you think nutrition plays in that process?

KSD: I think it’s fundamental. I don’t think you can overstate the importance of nutrition. I think it’s absolutely central. And I think a big missing piece for me in nutrition – there’s this focus on eating this or that number of calories – but for me it’s about wellness and self-care. I always tell people, if you care for your insides, the outside will take care of itself. Even things like food quality. Are you eating a lot of chemical crap, or are you eating good food, unprocessed food? Are you eating the best quality of food that you can eat? Even like, if you have a piece of chocolate, are you eating Lindt 85%, or are you eating some piece of crap Cadbury wax, mostly-paraffin substance? So that’s a dimension I don’t hear a lot of. Nutrition is absolutely critical. You cannot be healthy, you cannot be fit, if your nutrition isn’t at least passable. It’s just not possible. Maybe it’s possible temporarily if you’re fifteen and in that kind of state of immortality that teenagers are in. But eventually, it just catches up to you.

PN: We try to cover that in PN. Speaking of which, I remember you telling me once, and I quote, you “pimp Precision Nutrition pretty hard.” Did that involve alligator shoes and a cane of some sort?

KSD: [Laughing] Well you know, the style’s gotta fit the job right? I gotta look good. There was definitely some sex work occurring.

PN: You once told me that you estimate that something like 30% to 40% of girls have an eating disorder. Um, what the hell’s going on?

KSD: Totally. I think there are a lot of reasons for it. I think eating disorders are very multi-factorial. In a way, they’re just symptoms. Food and eating are like languages we use to express certain things. We can express love, we can express refusal, we can express all kinds of things, and so I think it’s partly a physiological thing because in disordered eating you often see disorders in serotonin and dopamine and the neurotransmitter axes and so forth, but it’s so much more a symptom of other things. It’s a culturally sanctioned way of acting out all the other pressures that young women are experiencing. What you see is that boys tend to act outwardly, whereas girls tend to turn inward. Girls are much more likely to self-harm, to cut themselves, starve themselves, all kinds of stuff like that. Boys are more likely to go out and hit something, crash a car, whatever. So you have these differently gendered patterns.

You have this spectrum. Yes, on the one hand you have this super-anorexic 86 pounder, but that’s only the extreme manifestation. That’s only 1% or 2% of the problem. So many people have what could be considered disordered eating. It’s just immense. Partially it’s ignorance, partially it’s a way of expressing cultural pressures, partially it’s a way of acting out, it’s a way of attempting to manage your body, it’s a way of exerting control in a world where you feel like you don’t have a lot of control. And it’s just a function of living in our society, where the body has become so commodified and our ideas of fitness now have nothing to do with function. Most people have no concept of their bodies as functional anymore. It’s all about decorative. There has to be a balance.

PN: So given that, do you think that there is anything that can be done, be it with training or nutrition or what have you, to right the ship, or are people more or less at the mercy of the larger cultural landscape?

KSD: My mother, as I said, was a science teacher and is now a high school principal. So she’s a long-time educator, and I said to her once, “How do you build self-esteem?” Because I think we have this sense that self-esteem is built through affirmations, and saying to yourself, “I’m okay,” and whatever. I’m good enough, smart enough, whatever. But she said something interesting, which was that self-esteem is built through skills. And I thought that was actually a rather profound statement. And what I’ve noticed in my own practice is that if you demonstrate to people that they can gain the skills, and that their bodies are functional, then that can actually be life changing for the majority of people that do it. Weight training is one way. But I also know a lot of people who are involved with boxing, and that’s been an amazing experience. It really transforms women’s relationships with their bodies. So I do think that the potential is there even with training alone – if the training is the right kind of training. If the training focuses on functionality and performance, then I think it actually can be life changing.

PN: In other words, modalities that take the emphasis off how you look and place it instead on what you’re able to achieve?

KSD: Yeah, exactly. Because girls never get to have bodies that do stuff. It’s always about what you look like. It’s extremely disempowering. And it disguises the fact that having a body that’s non-functional is a problem. I work in an all-female workplace – actually there are a couple of guys – and even just lifting boxes, everyone is like, “Oh I can’t lift that.” And I’m like, “You should be embarrassed to say that.” We’re talking about 20 pound boxes, I mean, what’s the problem here? But there’s this sense that that’s normal, that’s okay. I’m currently taking a yoga class, and there are some women in the class that can’t support their own body weight on their hands. But they’re not saying, “Oh my God, I really need to fix this.” They’re saying, “Oh well, that’s normal.” So I think the sense of what’s normal for women is so flawed. But part of it’s a class thing too: no one does manual labor anymore. Our grandmothers and great-grandmothers would think all of us are pathetic. [Laughs.] So the standards of functionality have all been decreased because there is this sense, which is a very middle class sense, that women are supposed to be ornamental. That norm was never applied to working class women who had to go out and earn a living, often dong pretty heavy stuff. In general, that’s the problem: there’s just no emphasis on functionality at all.

PN: What’s it like for a woman in the average commercial gym?

KSD: I think it can be pretty intimidating for sure, and I think it can be pretty negative if you feel like you don’t know what you’re doing, or if you don’t look like other people, or if you’re just anxious about your whole self-presentation. We all have so much body angst. So I think it can be quite intimidating. The commercial fitness industry thrives on making people feel like they don’t know what they’re doing, or that they’re going to hurt themselves. It’s like the burden of self-reliance is shifted off the consumer. The consumer walks in the gym and they’re confronted with stuff they don’t know about, stuff they’re scared of, stuff that might hurt them. Again, it’s very disempowering. They’re thinking, “I don’t know how to use this,” which is stupid because training is about movement, and we all know how to move, we all know how to squat, we all know how to sit down, and stuff like that. But somehow this idea came about that we have to outsource this to other people. So to me that’s what the commercial gyms are fostering: this sense that you have to outsource responsibility for your own body to other people. And not that you can’t benefit from other people’s expertise. But it’s more this feeling like, “I don’t have to know, I don’t have to care, I don’t have to learn, because someone else will do it for me.” The “hurting yourself” discourse always bothers me. There’s that sort of baseline that everyone encounters when they walk into a commercial gym. And then there’s the more gendered dimensions. So like, how do you command your space in the weightroom, how do you get the equipment you want, how do you keep creepy guys away from you. [Laughs]. There’s definitely that as well.

PN: How do you keep creepy guys away from you, by the way?

KSD: You know, to be honest, I’ve never really had that much of a problem with it. I’m a very direct kind of person. I make eye contact. I think about my body language, and I don’t use submissive body language, I just go in and dominate the space. I’m polite about it, I’m not a jerk, but a lot of women I think are so intimidated that they’re not really sure how to respond to it. They’ll just wear a walkman – oh my god, I just dated myself – I mean an iPod! [Laughs.] But they’ll have headphones on so no one talks to them, sort of a passive-aggressive kind of thing. People respond to it differently. But I don’t know, maybe it’s just my glasses.

PN: Are the glasses your “walkman”?

KSD: [Laughs.] I don’t know, possibly!

PN: There’s a time for self-reliance and a time for seeking expertise. What do you think is the role of a good coach?

KSD: I think a good coach is kind of like a midwife. You provide people the resources they need, you provide them the guidance, but you also provide them with the sense that they themselves are responsible for doing it. And I think that’s the reality too. You can’t make people eat healthy, right? All you can do is provide them with the information and the guidance they need, in other words the support they need to do it, whether that’s information support, structural support like giving them a plan, or emotional support – the you-can-do-it, rah-rah stuff. A good coach is someone who facilitates rather than imposes their will. A good coach is someone who’s able to bring out the best in people, so you’re able to locate that nugget of whatever someone is good at and develop it into something greater. A good coach doesn’t try to turn an endurance athlete into a sprinter, they recognize that the person is a really good endurance athlete and they steer them towards that. You identify the features that each person has, and you work to make those blossom. That’s how I see it.

PN: Can men and women be coached the same way, or are there differences they have to take into account?

KSD: I think that if you want to paint it in broad strokes, I think that men and women tend on average to respond to different things. But at the same time a good coach understands that everyone is an individual and that no two people are exactly equal. For example, I respond really well to what you might call a male style of coaching, which is the whole drill sergeant, alright-ladies-stop-your-crying, drop-and-give-me-fifty sort of thing. That’s the sort of coaching I like. Although on the other hand, while I don’t need someone to hold my hand, I have had coaches who have had a gentler style, which also really worked well for me. So I think a lot of it is about the individual. Coaches do have to be cognizant of gender differences, however. For example, a coach who coaches women should never comment on their weight. Just don’t go there. They should understand that in general it’s a sensitive issue. On the other hand, though, let’s say you’re coaching a specialized group of women, like boxers. Every one of them knows their body weight, and they don’t give a shit about it. They know they fight at 175 or whatever, and they don’t have those same issues. So there’s a negotiation between social values and individual attributes, I would say.

PN: Alright, a few more quick questions. One: can a guy pick up a girl in a women’s studies class?

KSD: [Laughs.] Well, jeez, why not, your playing field is going to be huge! They’ll see you as a snag, you’d be this new age guy or whatever, so why not? [Laughs.]

PN: The word “women”: spelled with an ‘e’ or with a ‘y’?

KSD: [Laughs.] Oh God. I’m more of an ‘e’ person myself. You know, it’s so funny, I just did an interview for the National Post yesterday. The University of Waterloo has just changed its Women’s Center from ‘y’ to ‘e’. And they called me up as an expert commentator on the significance of that shift. [Laughs.] It was rather bizarre actually.

PN: What’s the common denominator among people who achieve great things?

KSD: There are probably lots. Great things don’t happen by accident. Yes, it helps to have an intrinsic predisposition. No one ever won a gold medal in the Olympics who wasn’t genetically suited for it. But in general, great things come from a lot of good, or okay, or even bad things – reiterated over and over, and over and over again. Times a billion. [Laughs.] There’s this myth that a great thing is a one-time deal. But the achievement is just the tip of the iceberg, it’s less than 1% of what took place. So it’s doing a lot of little things, doing them well, and if you do them poorly, learning from them and remedying them the next time. But above all it’s the knowledge that the great things don’t happen by accident.

PN: If you had a dream client, what kind of attitude would you want them to have?

KSD: Oh, I can actually think of a couple of dream clients I’ve had. Both of them were boxers. They’re willing to bust their ass. They’re willing to do what I tell them. It’s a combination of self-reliance and handing themselves over to me. So they’re willing to put their trust in me, and follow my advice completely. They’re willing to say, “I trust that you have the expertise I need,” but at the same time they’re willing to advocate for themselves, ask questions, and ultimately do the work. So a dream client would certainly be a hard-working one. And one who enters into it with abandon. They’re just gung-ho, let’s go, give ‘er. That to me is a total dream client. You don’t have to work through issues like, “What if I get too big,” “I don’t like fish,” whatever. They’re just willing to trust you and to go for it.

PN: Krista, this has been great. Thanks so much for taking the time to do this interview, and to design the awesome program you’ve put together for the Precision Nutrition members. We really appreciate it.

KSD: No problem, you’re welcome!

Could the chance to win $10,000 help you get in shape?

2009-12-16T01:00:00.000-08:00

Has Dr. John Berardi lost his mind.

Dr. John Berardi recognized as one of the top nutrition coaches in the world. And his programs get people results. Fast.

He's giving away $40,000 of his own money.

Check out this for yourself.

Now, to qualify for this reward, you have to participate in the Lean Eating program. But that's a no brainer. You should want to do that ANYWAY if you're interested in body transformation because there is nothing else like it.

You get 6 months of world class coaching, the type of coaching you can't find, well, anywhere. And, during these 6 months, if you achieve the best body transformation, you'll win 10K.

Worst case scenario, you come out with the best body of your life. Best case scenario, you come out with the best body of your life, and 10 GRAND.

Dr. Berardi shares with you two critical components for body transformation success.

And then he tells you exactly how one man and one woman are going to swoop in and claim $10 G's of his own money.

Now, this message is time sensitive. No, it's not gonna self-destruct or anything. However, spots are limited in this program. And LOTS of people want in.

So, if you're interested in finding out exactly how to eat to get in the best shape of your life, click the link. 10 grand may be waiting for you on the other side.

Check out these pictures - and vote

2009-12-14T07:10:00.000-08:00

Two Mondays ago, Dr John Berardi and the folks at Precision Nutrition wrapped up a big $20,000 body transformation contest.

According to Dr Berardi, over 10,000 pounds were lost during the contest. And, as of today, photos of the finalists have been posted online.

Whether you're looking to kick off a body transformation of your own. Or whether you're in the process of accomplishing an awesome transformation, the photos are sure to provide you with some serious motivation.

So click here to check out the male finalists

And click here to check out the female finalists

Plus, if you have a second, feel free to vote for your favorites. It's your vote that'll help determine who walks away with $20,000 of Dr Berardi's money.

Eating on the Road: Nutritional Travel Strategies

2009-12-05T04:48:00.000-08:00

by Dr John M Berardi, CSCS

More and more the biggest challenge my clients face is sticking to their nutritional plan while on the road. Therefore in this article, I’ve compiled a list of my top 10 favorite strategies for maintaining your nutritional discipline when traveling.

Strategy #1 — Location, Location, Location
If you’re planning to take to the road for sport or for business, your first item of business is this—ensure that everything you need is in close proximity to where you’ll be working or playing. Location is key.

So let’s say you’re going to a week long conference at the Indiana Convention Centre and RCA Dome. Well first, get on the internet and find all the hotels nearest the Convention Centre. Next, give these hotels a call to find out where the nearest grocery stores, restaurants and gyms are located. Pick the hotel with the best combination of nearby resources. This way, even if you don’t get a rental car, you can easily walk or cab to your fitness and nutritional havens.

Skip this strategy and you’re giving yourself big excuses to skip workouts, miss meals, and make poor food selections while on the road.

Strategy #2 — The Penthouse Suite?
While you don’t necessarily have to stay at a 5 star hotel or choose the penthouse suite, one great strategy for you road warriors is to choose a hotel chain that offers rooms/suites with kitchens or kitchenettes. If you know a nice kitchen set-up is waiting for you, you won’t have much difficulty sticking to your meal plan.

Just have your cabbie drop you at the grocery store on your way from the airport. Once you get to your hotel room you can rest assured that you’ll be able to eat as well as when you’re at home.

If you’re looking for a good hotel chain, Marriott Residence Inns are a nice
choice. You can find other hotels that meet your needs as well. I recommend Marriott because my clients have always had great experiences with them.

Now, if you absolutely can’t find or afford a hotel that has a kitchen or kitchenette, make sure that your hotel room has, at the very least, a refrigerator (most do). As long as you’ve got a refrigerator, you can stock your hotel room with good snacks. My athletes and I pick up fresh fruits and vegetables, bottled water, cottage cheese, plain yogurt, regular cheese, natural peanut butter, whole grain breads and mixed nuts on our way into town and snack on these during our weeks on the road.

Strategy #3 — Can You Ship Egg Whites Next Day?
Here’s a great strategy I picked up former client and current good friend, Austin. This guy is a bona fide road warrior himself and has a ton of great strategies for eating on the road. Instead of going shopping when he gets to town, Austin actually ships his food and supplements via UPS or Fed Ex.

He gets a medium sized cold shipping box, loads it up with ice, protein powders, fruits and veggies, mixed nuts, legumes, meat, eggs, cottage cheese, yogurt, cooking pans, utensils, shaker bottles and non-stick cooking spray and ships it to his hotel before leaving home.

By doing this, Austin doesn’t need to worry about where grocery stores and restaurants are located. As soon as he arrives in town, he’s good to go—nutritionally, at least. All he needs to find is a gym and he’s set. Again, although the shipping option may seem a bit pricey, you’ll end up saving money on restaurants and the price may work out in the end.

Strategy #4 — The Big Cooler
Here’s another strategy I picked up from my buddy Austin that helps ya’ transport both luggage and groceries simultaneously for shorter trips that might last only a day or two.

Pick up a big cooler with an extendible handle and wheels (much like the wheeled luggage so popular nowadays), put a little partition down the middle, and you’ve got a ready made combined cooler/suitcase that can act as a carry-on. Put your cottage cheese on one side and your drawers on the other!

Strategy #5 — What’s On The Menu?
If you decide to have others prepare your meals for you when on the road, make sure you use Strategy #1 above to find out where the restaurants nearest your hotel are located. Next, visit them on the web for downloadable menus. If they don’t have downloadable menus, call them and ask them to send a menu over to your hotel for when you arrive.

By having the restaurant menus, you’ll know exactly what types of food you can have access to at all times. Also, when dining with a group, you’ll be able to suggest places that conform to your nutritional requirements.

Strategy #6 — You Don’t Have To Order From The Menu
Here’s a hot tip that most people fail to realize. Most restaurants can easily provide a meal custom to your specifications even if it’s not on the menu. So don’t become a slave to the menu offerings. Ordering a specific number from the menu is almost always a recipe for disaster unless the menu is designed for "healthy eating" or whatever the restaurant is calling it. Most normal dishes have too much fat and too many processed carbohydrates for most body-conscious individuals.

Instead of ordering an item directly from the menu, either ask for an item that you like prepared without the sauces or high carbohydrate portions or simply ask for a portion of protein and a few servings of vegetables and fruit on the side. Remember, you’re paying top dollar for your meal and you’re about to tip your waitress. So don’t feel bad asking them to meet your needs, uh, nutritionally, that is.

Strategy #7 —Protein and Energy Supplements
Using some combination of the strategies above, you should be able to ensure that good meal options are always around the corner. But sometimes when you’re on the road it’s impossible to slip back to your room or to get to a restaurant.

For times like this, you’ll need to consider a few supplement options.

ypically, when at home I only use 1-2 scoops of protein powder per day, but when on the road, I may use up to 6 scoops if necessary. Protein choices are both hard to come by and more expensive than other options. So increasing your dietary energy with protein powders is a good fall-back option.

Strategy #8 — Powdered Veggies
Normally, at home, I get about 10 servings of fruits and veggies per day. But when I’m on the road that amount is usually reduced to somewhere around 2-4 servings unless I’m very conscious of my intake. A great way to make up for this reduction in my micronutrient intake is to use a powdered vegetable supplement such as Greens+.

If I’m on the road, these products help make up for the deficit I may be experiencing. An added bonus is that I seem to better digest my protein supplements when adding some greens+ to my protein shakes.

Strategy #9 — Homemade Bars
If you’re not into drinking numerous protein shakes per day, another great option is to bring some homemade snacks with you. In fact, homemade protein/energy bars are a fantastic alternative to the mostly crappy, store bought, sugar laden, artificial ingredient containin’, protein bars.

Strategy #10 — Sleep Pills
Jet lag, time zone changes, unfamiliar sleeping environments, poor nutrition, altered exercise habits, and the stress associated with big business meetings or competitions can all really impair your ability to get adequate rest when on the road.

Following the previous nine steps will help you take care of your nutritional intake. Making sure not to skip workouts will also help. So will the addition of a ZMA supplement. While research hasn’t provided direct evidence to support a relationship between zinc and/or magnesium status and sleep quality, most ZMA users find dramatically improved sleep quality when taking this supplement. Three capsules before bed should do the trick.

If you’re going to be successful in maintaining a good nutritional plan, no matter what the circumstances, you’re going to have to plan for the unplanned and display adaptability to all circumstances. The guidelines included in this article should help get you thinking about how to become a successful road warrior.

SEE ALSO:
For more great training and nutrition wisdom, check out our complete system, Precision Nutrition. Containing system manuals, gourmet cookbook, digital audio/video library, online membership, and more, Precision Nutrition will teach you everything you need to know to get the body you want -- guaranteed.

And what's more, your online access allows you to talk exercise and nutrition 24/7 with thousands of fellow members and the Precision Nutrition coaches. Find out more about Precision Nutrition.

Order Precision Nutrition now and get $50 off!

Changing the Rules of Good Nutrition

2009-12-02T09:41:00.000-08:00

by Dr John M Berardi, CSCS

What are the rules of good nutrition ? What types of things must you absolutely do to succeed – and what types of things must you avoid?

Seriously, take a moment and think about it.

What rules do you think you’ll need to follow if you want to eat in a healthy way – a way that will improve the way your body looks and the way it feels.

Come up with that list in your mind right now.

Now that you’ve considered these rules, I want you to take a second and think about your list. Specifically, think about where you learned these rules.

Certainly your rules have been influenced by how you were raised, no? Certainly they’ve been influenced by your experiences dining with friends and relatives – comfort foods, right? Of course, no set of nutrition rules is immune to media influences – you can’t help but be bombarded by those Got Milk ads! Your rules have probably also been influenced by what you’ve heard others say – heck, every 3rd episode of Dr. Phil is about food and dieting. And, no doubt, your nutrition rules have probably been influenced by your own past attempts at changing your body – whether you’ve been successful or unsuccessful.

I could sit here all day and list potential nutritional influences. But I’ll stop here since there are probably hundreds of ‘em and to enumerate them all would bore your socks off.

At this junction, I’d just like to go ahead and make my point. And the point is this - very few of your “Good Nutrition Rules” have been influenced by those who know anything about good nutrition – let alone about long-term success and about what it really means to eat in a healthy way! And worse yet, most of those rules have been hammered home without you even knowing it!

It’s time to change the rules.

The Triple S Criterion

Now I’ll admit it. Changing the rules – just like changing your habits – is difficult. Not only does it take a desire to change – “want to” – but it takes a strategy for change – “how to”.

The “want to” is all your own. But the “how to” is what I do best. I’ve committed my career to helping people do just this – to change their rules and change their habits – and have gotten pretty good at it. In changing these rules and habits, everything changes – the way clients eat, the way they sleep, they way they look, the way they feel when they wake up in the morning, and they way they perform in day-to-day activities or during athletic events.

Today, I’m going to teach you a good part of that system – a system based on my Triple S Criterion.

What’s the Triple S Criterion? Well, it represents a three step way of evaluating a strategy for its usefulness.

Step 1 – Simplicity:

Are the rules easy to follow?

Step 2 – Science

Are the rules based on sound scientific principles?

Step 3 – Success

Have the rules produced success in past clients?

Using this criterion, the systems developed for my clients always produce a positive result.

Think again about your nutritional rules – rules that you might be quite attached to. Which criterion did you use when determining your rules? Are your rules based on Simplicity, Science, and Success? Have your rules produced the desired effect – a lean, healthy body that you’re able to maintain; a body that you’re happy with when looking in the mirror?

If not, perhaps they could use a re-evaluation.

Dr. Berardi’s Good Nutrition Rules

Below, I’d like to present my 10 Good Nutrition Rules, rules based on the Triple S Criterion above. In doing so, I hope to accomplish 2 goals.

• First, I want to help you rethink your whole nutrition approach – providing you with a new set of nutrition rules and habits – a set that swiftly moves you in the direction of your goals.
• Secondly, I want to show specifically how the recipes, cooking tips, and strategies can integrate together to represent a complete success system, fully integrated into the basic habits of good nutrition.

So here are the 10 rules:

1) Eat every 2-3 hours - no matter what.

Are you doing this – no matter what? Now, you don’t need to eat a full mealevery 2-3 hours but you do need to eat 6-8 meals and snacks that conform to the other rules below.

2) Ingest complete, lean protein each time you eat.

Are you eating something this is an animal or comes from an animal – every time you feed yourself? If not, make the change. Note: If you’re a vegetarian, this rule still applies – you need complete protein and need to find non-animal sources.

3) Ingest vegetables every time you eat.

That’s right, every time you eat (every 2-3 hours, right), in addition to a complete, lean protein source, you need to eat some vegetables. You can toss in a piece of fruit here and there as well. But don’t skip the veggies.

4) If want to eat a carbohydrate that’s not a fruit or a vegetable (this includes things like things rice, pasta, potatoes, quinoa, etc), you can – but you’ll need to save it until after you’ve exercised.

Although these often heavily processed grains are dietary staples in North America, heart disease, diabetes and cancer are North American medical staples – there’s a relationship between the two! To stop heading down the heart disease highway, reward yourself for a good workout with a good carbohydrate meal right after (your body best tolerates these carbohydrates after exercise). For the rest of the day, eat your lean protein and a delicious selection of fruits and veggies.

5) A good percentage of your diet must come from fat. Just be sure it’s the right kind.

There are 3 types of fat – saturated, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated. Eating all three kinds in a healthy balance can dramatically improve your health and even help you lose fat.

Your saturated fat should come from your animal products and you can even toss in some butter or coconut oil for cooking. Your monounsaturated fat should come from mixed nuts, olives, and olive oil. And your polyunsaturated fat should from flaxseed oil, fish oil, and mixed nuts.

6) Ditch the calorie containing drinks (including fruit juice).

In fact, all of your drinks should come from non-calorie containing beverages. Fruit juice, alcoholic drinks, and sodas – these are all to be removed from your daily fare. Your absolute best choices are water and green tea.

7) Focus on whole foods.

Most of your dietary intake should come from whole foods. There are a few times where supplement drinks and shakes are useful. But most of the time, you’ll do best with whole, largely unprocessed foods.

8) Have 10% foods.

I know you cringed at a few of the rules above – perhaps #6 in particular. But here’s a bit of a reprieve. 10% foods are foods that don’t necessarily follow the rules above – but food’s you’re still allowed to eat (or drink) 10% of the time.

100% nutritional discipline is never required for optimal progress. The difference, in results, between 90% adherence to your nutrition program and 100% adherence is negligible.

Just make sure you do the math and determine what 10% of the time really means. For example, if you’re eating 6 meals per day for 7 days of the week – that’s 42 meals. 10% of 42 is about 4. Therefore you’re allowed to “break the rules” 4 meals each week.

9) Develop food preparation strategies.

The hardest part about eating well is making sure you can follow the 8 rules above consistently. And this is where preparation comes in. You might know what to eat, but if isn’t available, you’ll blow it when it’s time for a meal.

10) Balance daily food choices with healthy variety.

Let’s face it; during the week –when you’re busy – you’re not going to be spending a ton of time whipping up gourmet meals. During these times you’re going to need a set of tasty, easy to make foods that you can eat day in and day out. However, once every day or a few times a week – you need to eat something different – something unique.

So, what about calories, or macronutrient ratios, or any number of other things that I’ve covered in many other articles on my own web site and elsewhere? The short answer is that if you aren’t already practicing the above-mentioned habits, and by practicing them I mean putting them to use over 90% of the time (i.e., no more than 4 meals out of an average 42 meals per week violate any of those rules), everything else is pretty pointless.

Moreover, many people can achieve the health and the body composition they desire using the habits alone. No kidding! In fact, with some of my paying clients I spend the first few months just supervising their adherence to these 7 rules—an effective but costly way to learn them.

If you’ve reached the 90% threshold, you may need a bit more individualization beyond the habits. If so, visit my web site. Many of these little tricks can be found in my many articles published there. But before looking for them, before assuming you’re ready for individualization; make sure you’ve truly mastered the habits. Then, while keeping the habits as the consistent foundation, tweak away.

The "Great" Nutrition Debates

2009-12-01T21:59:00.000-08:00

by Dr John M Berardi, CSCS

While displacement foods (unhealthy foods that fill us up, knocking healthy foods out of our diets) are probably at the root of many of our health and body composition crises, what I call "displacement debates" have also become a real problem in today’s information age.

For example, the average North American barely knows what a carbohydrate, protein, or fat is, yet when they hear well-respected experts at the ADA recommend high carb diets and the highly (though not universally) respected Atkins group recommend low carb diets, they get so confused and frustrated they ultimately do little or nothing proactive to improve their health.

This argument is an example of a displacing debate: an academic argument that pushes the more important problems out of the public discourse. For the average North American, following either the ADA recommendations or the Atkins recommendations would go a long way toward improving their health. But instead of suggesting that people just do something, these groups continue to bicker about who’s right at the expense of an ever-growing obesity rate.

Below I’ve presented six of the interesting displacing debates I’ve heard argued lately. Hopefully by discussing them I can put to rest the idea that these issues are of critical importance to your overall health and body composition. I’d like you to understand that these represent small, fine tuning details which are only relevant to a small percentage of the population, if that. On the whole, these debates do more to confuse and paralyze people than to encourage them to take their health into their own hands.

The Top 6 Displacing Debates

1. Fruit is Bad Now?
We all know fruit provides fiber, vitamins, minerals, and low glycemic index carbohydrates, so it should be no surprise that many experts recommend eating a few servings of fruit each day. Heck, this notion has even been turned into a clichéd rhyme:

"An apple a day keeps the doctor away!"

Yet some experts out there actually suggest that fruit might be bad for us! That’s utter nonsense. So, imagine you’re someone with a lifetime of eating habits that are less than optimal (for some of you, it might not be so hard to do) and you’re exposed to this debate. What do you do? Well, nine times out of ten, you figure that if there’s a chance fruit is bad for you, you might as well stay away from it — probably better to reach for a Big Mac instead. After all, it does taste better.

What to do? Eat the damn fruit – but, as with everything else, don’t overeat!

2. Raw? Organic?
Speaking again of fruits (and vegetables), it’s recommended that the average person consume two pieces of fruit and three servings of vegetables per day as a bare minimum. I recommend 10-15 servings per day. Yet most North Americans (athletes included) consume far less than the standard recommendation of five servings of fruits and vegetables.

However, rather than simply recommend more fruit and veggies (no matter how you can get them, for any fruits and vegetables are better than none), experts spend their time fighting about canned fruits and veggies vs. raw fruits and veggies. And then they fight about raw fruits and veggies vs. organic fruits and veggies! Sure, I agree that raw, organic fruits and vegetables are best since they probably have a higher micronutrient count, but let’s face the facts: any fruits and veggies are better than none!

So again, imagine you’re someone with a lifetime of bad eating habits and you’re exposed to all this bickering. What do you do? Well, you'll probably avoid the fruits and veggies, wait for the experts to finish dueling it out, and reach for a Snickers bar instead.

What to do? Get sufficient fruits and vegetables in your diet before worrying about whether they’re organic or not. Once you’ve done that, worry on.

3. Raw Milk vs. Regular Milk
What about milk? In my opinion, it’s not necessary, doesn’t always "do the body good," and should be minimized in the diet (although I see no need for total elimination unless you’re lactose intolerant).

However, if we could simply get more people to drink milk instead of sugary soda, we’d have less obesity and disease. But instead of focusing on healthy behaviors, experts will bicker on and on about regular milk vs. raw milk. Of course, all this does is serve to draw negative attention to milk and away from the other healthy decisions people could be making.

Sure, if it were possible to get raw milk that was guaranteed aseptic, it would be better than processed, pasteurized milk. But faced with the confusion, what do you, the hypothetical sub-optimal eater, do? Well, nine times out of ten, you avoid both kinds of milk and drink another Coca-Cola instead.

What to do? Limit milk, and drink calorie-free beverages like water and green tea instead.

4. Tap Water vs. Bottled Water
Speaking of beverage consumption, people are dehydrated because they drink too little water while drinking too many caffeinated, diuretic drinks (coffee, soda, and alcohol). Dehydration leads to all sorts of health problems for the inactive, not to mention the decrements in athletic performance seen in dehydrated athletes.

But rather than simply promoting the heck out of water consumption, experts will bicker on and on about tap water vs. bottled water. Sure, good quality bottled water is usually a better choice, but don’t be one of these people who stay away from tap water, forget to pick up their bottled water, and simply remain dehydrated.

What to do? Drink sufficient water first; worry about the source later. (Of course, you may want to avoid drinking out of puddles next to pig farms in Uganda.) Put a water filter on your tap or buy one of those filter jugs you store in your fridge and be done with it.

5. Glass vs. Plastic
And how about the bottles the water comes in? That’s right, the glass vs. plastic debate. Just the other day, I was recommending that a group of my athletes pick up some Tupperware so they could whip up all of their meals and shakes in the morning. It’s easy to make a good food choice during the day when you’ve got all your good food with you, pre-cooked, pre-wrapped, and ready to be eaten.

After the talk, one of the athletes came up to me and told me he avoids Tupperware altogether because of the potential leeching of xenoestrogens into his food. When I asked what he uses to store his food in, he told me he doesn’t even preplan his meals. He also told me he needed to lose fifteen pounds and that he was overweight because his nutrition sucked!

Buddy, I agree that glass containers may be marginally better than plastic, but for the love of God, pick up some plastic if it'll help you plan your meals! And this was a world-class athlete! You can imagine how the average guy fares!

What to do? Plan your meals in advance, storing them in woven baskets if necessary. Buy the best containers you can afford. If you can get the glass versions, great; if not, the generic plastic ones will do just fine.

6 . Free Range vs. Extremely Limited Range Meat
Most weightlifters eat lots of protein and that’s no mistake. One of the best ways to get all that protein is by eating a lot of protein and micronutrient-rich lean meat. Protein supplements are okay to supplement your diet, but real food should be your nutritional mainstay and there’s nothing better than good ol’ fashioned lean meat.

Since eating more protein can increase metabolic rate, improve your weight loss profile, increase protein turnover, accelerate exercise adaptation, and (when replacing dietary carbohydrate) decrease the chance of cardiovascular disease, it should be clear that most people would do well to increase their consumption of lean meat.

So imagine the dismay someone might experience when hearing that the experts are now bickering about the type of meat we consume. Many experts muddy the waters when discussing free range vs. grain fed meat, telling people that grain fed meat (the only kind you can find in many grocery stores in North America) is full of toxins, bad fats, and hormones.

Sure, free-range meat is probably a better choice, although there’s little proof the supposed toxins and hormones actually get passed on to us. But again, imagine you’re someone with a lifetime of eating habits that are less than optimal and you’re exposed to all this bickering about lean protein. What do you do? Well, when you’re afraid of the meat you have access to, you shy away from all types of lean meat and reach for another bagel. Bad choice!

What to do? Find the best meat you can by going around to various grocery shops and butchers. Owners of health food stores may also be able to help you locate the best stuff. But don’t be afraid to eat the meat you find in your grocery store — the reports of your impending death are greatly exaggerated.

These are just a few of the displacing debates gaining momentum in the nutrition world. Do your best to get past the marginalia, to get past the differences between all the new programs, and try to discover for yourself the basic principles all the successful programs seem to be built upon. Most importantly, when faced with a choice between two good options, one of which may be marginally better than the other, but both of which would be an improvement over what you're currently doing, just pick one and go with it. You can optimize later, as long as you make an improvement now.

There's no debating that.

SEE ALSO:
For more great training and nutrition wisdom, check out our complete system, Precision Nutrition. Containing system manuals, gourmet cookbook, digital audio/video library, online membership, and more, Precision Nutrition will teach you everything you need to know to get the body you want -- guaranteed.

And what's more, your online access allows you to talk exercise and nutrition 24/7 with thousands of fellow members and the Precision Nutrition coaches. Find out more about Precision Nutrition.

Order Precision Nutrition now and get $50 off!

Body Optimization

2009-11-29T19:49:00.000-08:00

with Carter Schoffer

by Phil Caravaggio ,

About Carter Schoffer

Carter Schoffer

Carter Schoffer is a strength and conditioning coach living in London, Ontario, and the Director of Sports Nutrition and Performance for Science Link, Inc., the parent company of Precision Nutrition.

As Director of Sports Nutrition and Performance, Carter designs and manages the training and nutritional programs of clients from around the globe, from recreational exercisers of all levels to elite athletes competing in collegiate, Olympic and professional sport.

Q & A with Carter Schoffer

Precision Nutrition: You’re a pretty young guy, and yet you’ve been working with clients and athletes for a long time now. Did you always know you wanted to work in the strength and conditioning field?

Carter Schoffer: Uh, can you refer to me as handsome rather than pretty? [Laughs.] But yeah, now that I think of it, it has been a long time. I’ve always had a passion for this stuff, athletics, training, all of it, but I had no idea I’d make a career out of it. I’ve been really fortunate in that sense, I guess, because a lot of people never get to make a living doing what they love.

PN: What compelled you to get into the field?

CS: Sports. And girls. [Laughs.] No, let me think…well even back as a teenager, I’d already begun designing programs for friends and teammates. I mean, I just put things together from what I saw in the muscle magazines or what I saw in the gym. They weren’t works of art by any means, but that’s how I got started. But really, if I had to pinpoint it, I’d say it all started with a high school class. I had this great teacher, he was my Biology teacher, but he also taught this class that was called “Physical Education: The Bioscientific Method.” And to me, that was the greatest class in the history of the world. [Laughs.] It still is. It was no joke, we were taught applied upper year university nutrition, kinesiology and physiology. In high school. In fact, it’s funny, I still have my binder for that course. I still consult it from time to time. [Laughs.] It’s actually on my shelf here, hang on. Yeah, listen to this breakdown. These were the topics: Human Anatomy, Muscle Physiology and Mechanisms of Contraction, Energy Pathways for Muscle Contraction, Nutrition and Body Composition, Physical Fitness and Exercise, Cardiorespiratory Physiology, Biomechanics, Motor Ability and Motor Learning. How good is that? For a kid like me, I mean I was just devouring anything training-related that I could get my hands on, that was like an epiphany. It was my first exposure to the scientific side of exercise, and just thinking back to it, I was really fortunate to have a teacher like that.

PN: And how did you get started doing this professionally?

CS: Well, about seven years ago now, I had the good fortune to meet John Berardi at the University of Western Ontario. The university is actually in my hometown of London, and JB was working on his PhD there. At the time, I was training hard myself, plus I was writing programs for friends, that sort of stuff. I’m also a voracious reader, and I had read his articles on t-mag.com, which was what t-nation.com was called at the time, and I saw that he was studying at UWO. And it’s not often that we Canadians get experts in our own backyard. So I thought, “Why not?” I just dropped him an email. And he was really cool about it, he got back to me with something like, “Come by the lab and we’ll talk.” But I had no idea where or what “the lab” was. And you don’t ask for directions, right? [Laughs.] So I spent a good couple of hours wandering around until I found it. But it was definitely worth it, in fact it turned out to be a key moment for me. JB was looking for well-trained individuals to be subjects in his studies, so of course I volunteered…

PN: So you were actually a subject in the post-workout nutrition studies?

CS: Yeah, in fact I think I was the very first participant. JB was doing mock-up studies, trying to come up with the protocols to use to test this workout drink he was formulating, which eventually would be the basis for Biotest Surge. And he was trying to decide what to use as the exercise modality. Originally it was going to be weightlifting, and so he had me come out to the gym. And of course, this is only the second time I’ve met the guy, and I want to impress. So he had us doing these volume circuits, real hard volume circuits, and I’m going all out, whipping the weights around, acting like it’s nothing. And about halfway through the workout, I start to feel nauseous, and he kinda looks over, and all the sudden, “Blaaahhhh!” – I’m puking all over the gym floor. [Laughs.]

PN: So that’s why he changed the protocol!

CS: Yeah, exactly, I guess he wasn’t too fond of mopping up vomit. [Laughs.] He ended up changing it to a cycling protocol, which was actually still very tough. I did that one too. But he could control it a bit better.

PN: What exactly was the circuit he had you doing?

CS: If I recall correctly, it was barbell back squat, standing barbell shoulder press, pulldowns, flat barbell bench press and bent-over row for 3 non-stop circuits of 10 reps per exercise. I think I threw up after completing the bent-over rows during the second circuit. [Laughs.]

PN: Couldn’t have been all bad, you ended up working together not to long after that.

CS: Well, after everything was mopped up, I actually did go on and complete the workout, so maybe that had something to do with it. [Laughs.] But yeah, I think he was impressed by my efforts, or at least I hope he was, and we got along really well. I talked a big game the first meeting, and I tried to back it up in the gym. I mean, I always try to make sure that I walk the talk, and JB is the same way, so I think that was some common ground between us. So anyway, he asked me what I was doing for training, I think he was going to offer to draw me up a plan or something, so I showed him my latest design. And I think he was impressed, because I ended up designing his training plan for the next few months. [Laughs.]

But it was great, because he was designing my nutrition programs, and I got to pick his brain the whole time. We’d go back and forth, discussing the research, figuring out ways to apply it in real life. We were both doing our studies, but we’d meet up on campus and talk shop. I was working with a bunch of local athletes, and John had all these clients from around the world who he would consult with over email and all these teams he worked with.

Over a couple of years, it turned out to be this massive number of case studies. And since John had access to all the lab equipment, we were able to test everything in detail, and when you do that you really start seeing what works and what doesn’t. And we started to come up with this way to codify the process. Like, how do you take someone from point A to point B? There are virtually infinite point A’s and infinite point B’s, but it’s always the same logical process going from one to the other. It doesn’t matter whether you’re an athlete looking to get faster, or a guy looking to get big, or a woman looking to lose fat or get healthier or whatever. It’s always a series of interventions, then a series of tests to measure what happened. So we started putting it all together and systematizing it.

Eventually, once John got his PhD and we were both out of school, we began to build this coaching program that existed entirely online, first at johnberardi.com and now with precisionnutrition.com. We would sit down together and design programs, pour over results, plan out strategies. Then I would have tell the clients to shut up and do it, sort of thing. [Laughs.] John became the good cop, I sort of became the bad cop. But really, that’s how I got started, it just kind of came about naturally.

PN: If you had to give yourself a job title, what would it be?

CS: Well, it’s interesting because traditionally you’re either a personal trainer or you’re a strength and conditioning coach. And I’m neither of those, really. I think if I had my druthers I’d call myself a body optimization consultant, as highfalutin as that may sound. What I do is almost exclusively distance-based. I coach, I design programs, I monitor progress, I provide support. But I don’t go into the gym with clients, which makes it fundamentally different. So really I’m a consultant you bring in to either supplement or replace the expertise available to you locally. I mean, you know what you’re getting with us, you can read all the articles on the site, you can read the books, you can see the teams we work with, in fact, you can even talk to clients and members on the Precision Nutrition forum. With us you can be certain you’re going to get the best. Walk into the average commercial gym and it’s a total crapshoot. You really have no idea what you’re going to get. Some trainers are superb, and some are just awful. And it’s really hard for people to differentiate. We get clients who deal with both, some are really unhappy with the advice they’re being given, and some are also working with the best coaches in the world, like some of our Olympic athletes, and they just want another expert on their team of advisors. So that’s the “consultant” part of the title.

As for the “body optimization” part, that’s the best way I can describe what a good trainer or coach really does. You take a client and figure out what they want, what their goals are. You look at where they’re at now, what their life is like, what their body is like, what their strengths and weaknesses are. And then you show them how to build the best body they can possibly have, and you use every tool available to do it. And it goes beyond training, that’s the thing. You work it all, training, nutrition, supplements, all of it has to work together. That’s critical.

PN: So body optimization requires bringing the training, nutrition and supplement components together in one program.

CS: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, they’re components, yes, but they’re only pieces in the larger puzzle, and really the only way to get results is to make sure all of them are optimized individually and then to make sure that they’re completely integrated with one another. How you train in the gym will affect how you have to eat and what supplements you should take. Take one guy who works a desk job and lifts weights four times a week, his plan will look totally different than a guy who trains five hours a day for elite athletics, even if they’re the same age, body type, whatever. He’s going to be taking different supplements, too.

And vice versa, how you eat will determine to a large extent how you’re able to train: how much, how hard, how often, and so forth. And it even goes beyond that. We have to look at the person’s life in general. What do they do for a living? How active are they? How much time do they have for food preparation? How much sleep are they getting? Do they have a family, how many kids, and so forth. Do they have a good training partner, do they have friends who are also interested in health and fitness? There are hundreds of other variables at play in all of our lives. So body optimization, to use that term again, involves all of them. It really does. My job is to create a plan that optimizes that client’s body, how it looks, how healthy it is, how strong it is, how well it performs, how it responds to stress, everything. And to do that I have to influence every single variable I can, and make them all work together.

That’s one of the advantages to having some distance from our clients. A lot of people fall into the trap of focusing only on one of those broad categories. It’s like, “I’m going to go on a diet,” or, “I’m going to step it up in the gym,” or “I’m going to take this or that supplement.” I mean, it’s just easier that way, it’s much easier for our minds to focus on a single thing. Unfortunately that’s not how it works. As a distance-based consultant, I can kind of remove myself from that and look at the grand scheme of things. I can take a client’s feedback, requests, complaints, that sort of thing, and make sure everything I do is focused on the bigger picture, the overall body optimization. I don’t have to act or respond immediately, and I don’t have to make a split-second decision just to please the person. To work with us, you have to retain us for at least four months, sometimes longer, so I have that freedom. Unfortunately, a lot of trainers or coaches who get paid by the hour, they sometimes feel compelled to keep a client happy in the short-term, even if it means compromising their progress in the long-term. That’s a typical rookie mistake. The experienced trainers, the good ones, they don’t care, they’ll just tell it like it is. If you can find one like that, consider yourself lucky.

But even if people aren’t working with a trainer or coach, one of the best things they can do for themselves is understand that all of these things are interconnected. They can learn how they interact, they can learn how to put together a plan for themselves that covers all these facets, and then learn how to test it to see if the thing is actually working or not. I mean, in a nutshell, that’s exactly what I do.

PN: Okay, let’s rewind a little bit. Do you remember the first day you picked up a weight?

CS: Oh yeah, I remember. [Laughs.] I still get a laugh thinking about it. I was probably about 10 years old or so. One of my close friends, who happened to be a couple years older than me, he had a bench set up with those old-school concrete-filled plastic weight sets. I remember benching something like 100lbs for a few reps per set. My friend and I were going back and forth for what was probably 2 hours. Anyway, we ended up doing something like 37 reps each. So I remember later, some older kids were talking about lifting, and I’m trying to get in the conversation. And they ask me how much I bench, and I’m like, “Oh, about 3700 pounds.” [Laughs.]

But my first real experience in iron game came in the 9th grade. My football coach, and that biology teacher I mentioned, they ran the weightlifting club. So I joined after the football season was over. I was fortunate enough to be taught how to properly squat, deadlift, military press, bench and row. The majority of my workouts focused on those lifts. Which was great, I was lucky enough not to be one of those guys who had to learn on the Universal.

PN: Were you an athletic kid growing up? Were you one of those guys who were always in great shape?

CS: No, not at all. I mean, simply put, I was fat. I was 5’5, 175lbs by the time I reached the 4th grade. And I didn’t really get into organized sport until much later. Eventually I was really into baseball and football, so that started to help me lose weight. I could throw a fastball in the low 80’s at age 13, but needless to say, I never really learned to locate it. [Laughs.] I played both sides of the line in like the Canadian version of a Pop Warner league. So I started to get more athletic, more active, as I got older, and it did start to help my body composition.

But at one point I actually became anorexic. I just stopped eating. It wasn’t a body distortion issue, the truth was I was fat, no two ways about it. Like it wasn’t this kind of “I’m not thin enough” thing when you’re 97 pounds. And fortunately, it was controlled, in the sense that once I had I lost the weight, I did start eating again. But really for most of the eighth grade, I wasn’t eating anything. I lost the weight, but it was terrible for my overall growth. Every man in my family is over 6 feet tall, but I topped out at 5’9”. So I ended up losing all this weight, but totally the wrong way, I mean the unhealthiest possible way. And in the end, I wasn’t jacked or lean or anything. I still didn’t look the way I wanted to look, and I still had no idea what I was doing. But I was at least self-aware enough to know that I had to find a better way, fast.

And so from a very young age, I knew that I would have to learn everything there is to know about exercise, nutrition, physiology, everything I possibly could, because it would never come easy for me. I knew that the only way for me to be healthy and athletic and in great shape was to learn everything, and to figure out how to make it work for me.

PN: Now having lived through an eating disorder, has that helped you as a coach?

CS: Well I hope it allows me to relate to people who are struggling, because I’ve been there myself. I’ve had to work for every little bit of progress I ever got. I’m not one of these genetic freaks who never have to train and can eat garbage without consequence. I’ve been down, I know what it’s like. So hopefully it helps me understand them better, to know what they’re going through. But I think it also helps me intervene when I have to. Because as a coach, you do have to intervene. I was lucky enough to have people step in and help me when necessary, I had great mentors and coaches and teachers, people who wouldn’t accept anything but my best. So I feel comfortable stepping in for others, because I know they need it, and I know without it they’re in big trouble. So if I can help clients the way I’ve been helped in my life, then I’ve done my job well.

PN: What’s the difference between the people who get it done and those who don’t?

CS: Putting a plan of attack, whatever the plan may be, into action. Far too often people succumb to paralysis by analysis. They wait for the perfect plan before getting off their butts. And the successful people, they attach their goals with tenacity, but they also understand that these are lifelong pursuits. You might be initially motivated by a specific goal, losing ten pounds or benching such and such, or whatever, but I think what makes the difference is the understanding that eating well and exercising consistently are worthy pursuits in and of themselves. The people who get it done find ways to enjoy the process, they find satisfaction in the meals they eat or in their workouts or whatever. They enjoy the life they’re living.

So it’s really about having the proper perspective. I sometimes use an example with clients who are feeling down for not having made a drastic transformation in a few short weeks or even months. I’ll calculate how old they are in weeks. For example, a 30 year old has been living for well over 1500 weeks. If that 30 year old has been making a concerted effort for about three months, that’s still just 12 of those 1500+ weeks! For more than 1488 weeks of their lives they didn’t have a goal, weren’t working towards it, or were actively doing counterproductive things. So in that person’s lifetime, they’ve done one week of productive work for every 124 weeks of counterproductive or ineffective work. So don’t get down about the 12 good weeks! Get down about the 1488 bad ones and start replacing them with good ones! That’s the proper perspective, and while it’s important to get short-term results to keep fueling the fire, it’s also very important to keep that in mind.

PN: What makes an ideal client?

CS: Someone who is intrinsically motivated. Someone who has definitively made the decision to do this. Because we’ve worked with the whole gamut of individuals, athletes of virtually every sport, business execs, students, retirees, stay at home parents. And it really doesn’t matter where you’re at right now, if you’re novice or elite, rail thin or morbidly obese, or whether you’re looking for performance gains or just to improve your quality of life. It really doesn’t matter what the goal is, or who the person is. All that matters is their willingness to put forth and maintain the effort. That’s all I ask.

PN: And what about the coach? What makes for an ideal coach?

CS: Well, a couple of things, I think. First, you have to be good with psychology, you need to be able to understand, motivate and influence people. It would be so easy if it were just about program design. All the top coaches, consultants or trainers know that you have to be able to read people and play on their mental and emotional strengths and weaknesses. A relationship has to be built, you have to know each other, what gets them going and what doesn’t. The ideal coach is like the ideal teacher. Most of us have that one teacher that sticks out in our mind. The one that made you believe that they believed in you and in turn gave you reason to believe in yourself; the one that didn’t give up on you when you were struggling and the one that knew when and how to light a fire under your butt when you were dogging it. That’s what a good coach has to do.

And the other main requirement is flexibility. A good coach has to be flexible in who they train, how they train them, the methodologies they use, their approaches or strategies. Great coaches figure out what that person needs and adapt their programs to produce the required result. And it’s the required result, not necessarily the desired one. A good coach sometimes has to overrule the client. You may get a client who wants to bench three times a week but really needs to work on their posterior chain and subscapular stability. So you have to figure out what a client needs, see if that meshes with their wants, and from there make use of as many different approaches as necessary until you find one that works.

As Bruce Lee once said, “Use no way as the way.” When asked about his fighting style, Bruce told people that he had no style. Instead he tried to be like water, flowing and adapting to the opponent and altering his approach until the opponent is vanquished. Well, same thing with coaching. You don’t want to vanquish your clients, but you definitely do need to adapt to them. [Laughs.]

PN: You coach your clients exclusively over the web. In fact, most of them would have an easier time recognizing your writing than recognizing your face on the street. How has the web changed your job?

CS: Well, it provides a platform for an expert to reach a broader range of people, and vice versa, for that broad range of people to reach experts they otherwise couldn’t have. But it certainly wasn’t an easy transition. I think we were one of, if not the very first, to go the distance-based Internet route. We were basically making it up as we went along. The great thing is that it opens up the world to the trainer or coach. We’ve had clients from Africa, Australia, Japan, Brazil, Portugal, Mexico, the Czech Republic, England, Germany and the list goes on. So it allows me to say that I’m world-renowned. [Laughs.] But it definitely makes it more global. So you have these interesting scenarios, like for example I had a client in Ghana who had remote Internet access, but no real access to a modern gym or Western medicine, that sort of thing. That’s an extreme case, but in general you have to be more aware of the client’s lifestyle, because it may be much different than your own. It creates challenges I could never have imagined. And it also let’s you collaborate in ways that weren’t possible before. Prior to all web, there would be no real way to have a skill coach, a sports psychologist, a doctor, a strength coach, a nutrition coach, and all these specialists all working with the same athlete. Now we have ways to monitor someone’s progress on the web, and share that information with whoever needs to see it. So you can have the top experts in each field monitoring you, kind of like your own personal board of advisors.

And the other thing it does is force us to track everything. All of my programs are written, and I have to go into great written detail for them to make sense. And that forces me to clarify my own thought process and to be able to explain every part of the program. And since I’m not in the gym with my clients, when I want to know how someone is doing, I can’t just eyeball it, or listen to their tone of voice, or read his or her body language. I have to know for sure. I have to be able to quantify it. And so we have all these measures that we track regularly, be it body composition, recovery, blood work, strength, flexibility, whatever. We even have this web-based software that we’re working on called the Results Tracker [Ed: accessible only to beta testers], which basically tracks everything for you online. So everything is there in black and white, it’s either working or it’s not. And I think that forces me to stay on the ball, and it keeps the client on track. Even things like taking digital photos. All our clients have to take photos and send them to me, and of course they have to look at them themselves, and often that alone is motivating.

PN: Do you ever get tired of looking at other men in their underwear?

CS: No comment. [Laughs.]

PN: How do you think the web has changed things for the fitness enthusiast?

CS: Much more direct access to the experts. Prior to the web, for example, if you wanted to learn the Westside Barbell methodology, you’d have to actually go to Westside Barbell or know Louie Simmons personally. And that’s if you were even fortunate enough to know what Westside was. But now, good information spreads fast, and you can read everything by Dave Tate and learn a lot about probably the most innovative powerlifting system around without ever leaving your desk. [Laughs.] And so it’s fantastic, if you actually use it. It’s a double-edged sword though. Now every keyboard jockey can position themselves as an expert. Hang around any forum for more than a couple posts and you’ll see that this is true. A guy that weighs 140lbs @ 20%+ bodyfat is preaching about how one should best eat and train to be a 220lb bodybuilder @ 5%. Or a 300lb self-proclaimed powerlifter, who can’t bench a plate, is preaching to others how best to utilize bands or weight releasers. So the problem is still learning who to trust, and basically holding them accountable by testing their advice.

PN: Say someone comes up to you and tells you they’ve been doing this for a few years now, trying to get lean, or muscular, or both – but they say they haven’t had any luck at it. If you had to wager on what they’ve been doing wrong, what’s your guess?

CS: Well, first of all, luck has nothing to do with it. But generally I would say that if results are lacking, the person is either not changing his approach, or changing it way too often, in other words changing for the sake of change rather than the sake of need. Those are two problems that I see all the time, but obviously those are just generalities and there are a ton of other possibilities. Another problem is a simple lack of intensity in the gym, people going way too easy on themselves. It’s supposed to be hard, at least some of the time, and if it’s not, that’s a problem right there. But there are more, and that’s why we have a whole screening process, to figure out exactly what’s holding the person back.

PN: Is that person likely to be doing some things right, or is a full overhaul of the entire plan usually necessary?

CS: If you’re eating whole foods and lifting weights than you’re doing a lot of things right. That’s the foundation. From there on out it’s about optimizing how one lifts those weights, in other words the exercises they use; how much or the volume one uses, how heavy or how intense the lifts are and how often they lift the weights. And of course what they’re eating, how much of it and at what time. As to how far the individual might be off from optimization, it depends. Some just require a few tweaks and someone evaluating the big picture for them while others require a slap upside the back of the head. [Laughs.]

PN: How important is nutrition in the body transformation process?

CS: Absolutely critical. Nutrition is 100% important just as exercise is 100% important. I mean, you often hear people say things like, “Nutrition is 90% while training is 10%,” or even, “Nutrition is 50% while training is an equal 50%.” I think they’re missing the point. It’s like asking, “What’s more important, the lungs or the heart?” Bottom line is that if you can’t breathe, you die, just like you die if you can’t pump blood. They’re both necessary, and there’s no room for fractions of importance, it’s an absolute. But which do I see people neglecting the most? Definitely nutrition.

PN: Carter, this has been great, thanks for taking the time out to do this.

CS: No problem, any time.

Training and Nutrition For Muscle Size

2009-11-27T19:45:00.000-08:00

An Interview with Dr John M Berardi, CSCS

Whenever Dr Berardi gives an interview, you're bound to learn a thing or two. Here are a few choice questions and answers Dr Berardi provided for an interview with Craig Ballentyne of cbathletics.com

CB: John, you've truly advanced the science of "getting big" without getting fat. Can you give a synopsis of your philosophy?

JB: Thanks for being so generous with your words. While I wouldn’t be so dramatic as to say I’ve “truly advanced the science,” I think one thing I have been able to do is reach a lot of individuals and help them understand the science and art of “getting big”. My nutritional philosophy (whether you’re after weight gain or weight loss) is made up of 3 central tenets:

1. The human body best responds to structure. You’ll successfully gain weight or lose weight only when you learn to structure your training and nutritional intake in such a way that your eating and training behaviors are consistent from one day to the next.

2. Reaching your goals requires an integrated approach. Training programs, nutrition programs, and supplement programs should be highly integrated in such a way that they all work well together. If there is no integration, it’s a case of the left arm not knowing what the right is doing. This component of success is the hardest for most people to grasp because expertise in all 3 areas is rare. A fully integrated approach usually requires a coach.

3. It’s true that managing total calorie balance is critical to success. Both exercise and nutritional intake affect total energy balance (energy spent vs. energy ingested). It’s true that if you want to gain weight, you simply have to eat more and/or train less. And if you want to lose weight, you simply have to train more and/or eat less. But since we’re not interested in weight gain or loss but the gain of lean mass and the loss of fat mass, we can improve this relationship by paying close attention to the types of foods we eat and the timing of this ingestion.

CB: Briefly, what are your thoughts on training for muscle mass?

JB: Wow, it’s hard to describe my entire training philosophy “briefly” but I’ll try. As most experts would agree, there is not a single type of program that’s effective for increasing muscle mass. In my clients, I’ve found that some guys gain mass rapidly on the conventional 3 sets of 10 reps, “bodybuilding” style programs. Others do much better on more conventional 5 sets of 5 reps, strength type programs. Unfortunately, it’s difficult to know who will respond to each type of program without some trial and error.

With most clients, I find that their muscle strength and power is a major limiting factor in their quest for bigger muscles. As a result, we usually start them out on hybrid strength and power program incorporating exercises like cleans, snatches, push and drop presses, and speed dead lifts for power and squats, bench presses, dead lifts for max strength. After their muscle strength and power improves tremendously (and it always does), we re-assess their goals. If they want to continue working on strength and power (most guys LOVE this type of training), we continue on this path. If they want to focus on size exclusively, we then begin to incorporate programs that are 25-50% devoted to strength and power, and 50-75% devoted to “bodybuilding” training. We rarely ever drop the strength and power movements entirely. Take, for example, a client of mine who just competed in the Canadian National Bodybuilding Championships. I had this guy doing cleans and snatches right up to the week before the show.

In the end, though, you can have your training optimized but if you aren’t eating properly, you won’t gain a pound.

CB: Okay, now for the good stuff. What are some of the secrets that you have uncovered in the lab and over the years "in the trenches" when it comes to optimal muscle hypertrophy gains?

JB: After optimizing your training program, the next step is optimizing your nutritional plan. While conventional dietetics suggests that all one needs to do is focus on total energy intake, that idea is far too simplistic. Sure, most athletes chronically under eat – to their detriment – but it’s no surprise why they under eat. Conventional nutritional strategies ensure that when an athlete eats enough, fat gain will go hand in hand with the muscle gain. I’ve tried to discover ways of allowing an athlete to eat enough without promoting a lot of fat gain. Here are a few strategies I’ve used with great success.

1. Try to avoid meals that are high in both fat and carbohydrate. In other words, meals that contain combinations like steak, eggs, home fries, and toast are not the way to maximize your lean gain to fat gain ratio. Of course, eEach daily meal should be rich in protein.

2. Eat most of your carbohydrates within 3 hours of training. One of the best ways to gain lean mass while avoiding fat gain is to eat most of your dietary carbohydrates during the 3 hours after training. During the rest of the day, the diet high in protein and good fats. Veggies are also a must during this time. A small amount of fruit is acceptable during this time as well.

3. Workout Nutrition! Sip a drink containing whey protein and carbohydrate during training. Also sip a drink of the same composition after training. A good starting point is to consume 0.4g/kg protein and 0.8g/kg carbohydrate during the workout and another 0.4g/kg protein and 0.8kg carbohydrate directly after. Then, 1 hour later, eat a meal containing the same nutritional breakdown. For a 180lb guy, that’s about 32g protein and 64g carbohydrate.

CB: How can the typical Men's Health-type reader apply your knowledge to his everyday routine, considering he might be "chained" to his phone and desk for 10-12 hours each day, and a 2 hour round trip commute? What are his top snack options and post-workout meal options?

JB: While this lifestyle presents a challenge, it’s not impossible to eat properly, train hard, and balance work and family. One strategy is to hire a food preparation service. In most cities, if you look hard enough, you can find a caterer who will provide made-to-order meals for health conscious individuals. While many people balk at the cost, I propose this question – how much is your health worth to you? Forget muscle mass, most guys in situations similar to what you’ve described aren’t even eating well enough to prevent disease.

Beyond this scenario, protein drinks do come in handy although I prefer it if people can eat mostly real food. If you absolutely refuse to find a way, though, most people can find time to prepare and eat 3 meals per day. In addition to these meals, 3-5 additional liquid meals can round out one’s muscle gain strategy as follows:

* Breakfast

* Snack: 2 scoops protein + ½ cup yogurt + 1 serving greens + 1 tbsp flax seeds + 1 tbsp mixed nuts

* Lunch

* Snack: 2 scoops protein + ½ cup yogurt + 1 serving greens + 1 tbsp flax seeds + 1 tbsp mixed nuts

* Workout Drink: 1 serving recovery drink

* Post-Workout Drink: 1 serving recovery drink

* Dinner

* Snack: 2 scoops protein + ½ cup yogurt + 1 serving greens + 1 tbsp flax seeds + 1 tbsp mixed nuts

CB: Let's look at another scenario. The massive bodybuilder that still wants to add another 10 pounds to his frame prior to starting his pre-contest preparation. However, this guy thinks he's stuck; he's tried all avenues. What approach do you have him take?

JB: Massive juicing. Ok – I’m just kidding! Actually, check out this scenario. One of my competitive bodybuilders hired me after winning a provincial bodybuilding championship in Ontario. Since he had about 10 weeks to prepare for Canadian Nationals he wanted me to help him get leaner for the next show. But since I knew his main weakness was muscle mass, I convinced him that we would spend the first 6 weeks getting him bigger and the last 4 getting him shredded. Upon hearing this and then seeing his first program, I think he was re-thinking his decision to hire me. However, after some encouragement, he bought into my strategy. The result - he entered his show noticeably leaner, drier, and 3 lbs heavier than his last show, only 10 weeks prior.

So, what did we do? Well, I immediately switched his routine to a strength and power program including all the exercises discussed above. The first week was comical, as he had never done a clean or a snatch before. However, he was a fast learner. In addition, rather than conventional cardio, I had him doing high intensity interval sprints on a bike and a rowing machine. Furthermore, I added the workout nutrition strategies from above. The first 6 weeks were very successful as he gained about 10-12 lbs.

With 4 weeks to go, he was a little worried about his conditioning so, at this point, we dropped the workout nutrition (to eliminate extra calories), we put him on a low carbohydrate diet, and we increased his workout frequency to 2x per day (higher volume lower intensity). This worked wonders and he entered the show in the best shape of his life, with a net muscle gain of at least 5-7 lbs in 10 weeks of contest dieting! And for the record, no drugs were used during this process!

CB: And our final scenario, the University athlete and in-season post-workout nutrition. Can these athletes still gain muscle while playing once a week and practicing 4 times per week? What approach do they take, and where do they load up on cost-effective calories? Any pre-game or game time tips for performance nutrition?

JB: Yes, they can still gain muscle. In fact, as you may have noticed, many of them can certainly gain fat during the season. With training volumes reduced from pre-season, many athletes actually detrain a bit and spend some of the season in positive energy balance. Since the season is hectic, their diet is usually crappy and therefore they gain fat. By focusing on good food selections, appropriate meal timing, and supplemental workouts in the gym, these athletes can easily improve throughout the season.

Getting into a full program is probably beyond the scope of this interview, but simply, if they follow the strategies from above (i.e. not eating lots of carbs and fats together, eating most carbs during the 6 hours post-workout, and using proper workout nutrition), they will be on the right track. Furthermore, I usually have my athletes add 3-5 gym workouts in per week. Two of these workouts are strength workouts while the rest are cardio work designed to maintain fitness and keep body fat low. This strategy is unique to the athlete and his/her needs, though.

As far as pre-game strategies, there isn’t anything magical there. It takes a consistent eating program to ensure good performance on game day – no magic elixirs can remedy a week of poor training and nutrition.

CB: Thanks for the great interview!

SEE ALSO:
For more great training and nutrition wisdom, check out our complete system, Precision Nutrition. Containing system manuals, gourmet cookbook, digital audio/video library, online membership, and more, Precision Nutrition will teach you everything you need to know to get the body you want -- guaranteed.

And what's more, your online access allows you to talk exercise and nutrition 24/7 with thousands of fellow members and the Precision Nutrition coaches. Find out more about Precision Nutrition.

Order Precision Nutrition now and get $50 off!

A Brief History of Oats - And How You Should Eat Them

2009-11-03T04:32:00.000-08:00

By John K. Williams, Ph.D.
First published at www.johnberardi.com, Sept 5 2003.

Despite their widespread praise by nutritionists and bodybuilders alike, oats have a humble origin. They were the last of the major cereal grains to be domesticated, around 3,000 years ago in Europe, and apparently originated as weeds that grew within cultivated fields of various other crops.

Part of the reason why people were slow to embrace oats is because they go rancid very quickly, due to the presence of natural fats and a fat dissolving enzyme present in the grain. As a result, they have to be processed immediately after harvesting. The fats in oats are relatively healthy, with a lipid breakdown of 21% saturated, 37% monounsaturated, and 43% polyunsaturated.

Greeks and Romans considered oats to be nothing more than a diseased version of wheat. Oats were a lowly horse food for the Romans, who scoffed at the "oat-eating barbarians", or those pesky Germanic tribes who eventually toppled the West Roman Empire. Come to think of it, the Romans were never able to conquer the Scots. Big oat eaters, those Scots. Oats 2, Romans 0.

Even today, less than 5% of the oats now grown commercially are for human consumption. The chief value of oats remains as a pasturage and hay crop, especially for horses. Thousands of years and several empires later, most people still haven’t caught-on.

Oats, What’s So Good About Them?

Oats contain more soluble fiber than any other grain. Soluble fiber is the kind that dissolves in water, so the body turns it into a kind of thick, viscous gel, which moves very slowly through your body. One of the benefits is that your stomach stays fuller longer, providing satiety. Soluble fiber also slows the absorption of glucose into the body, which means you're going to avoid those nasty sugar highs and lows. Last but not least, it inhibits the re-absorption of bile into the system, forcing your liver to get its cholesterol fix from your blood. This serves to lower your blood-serum cholesterol. See what the Romans were missing?

Oats also have anti-inflammatory properties, and have been clinically shown to help heal dry, itchy skin. Oats are also highly absorptive, hypoallergenic, and help to soften skin, if you’re into that kind of thing. They have the best amino acid balance of all the cereal grains, and thus can be used as water-binding agents in skin care products. Oat grains and straw appear in shampoos, dusting powders, moisturizers, cleansing bars, breast implants, and astronaut suits. OK, maybe those last two are figments of my imagination.

Varieties of Oats

From least to most processed:

Oat groats, or whole oats: These are minimally processed, only by removing the outer hull. They are very nutritious, but need to be cooked and/or soaked for a long period of time to so you don’t break your teeth on them.

Oat bran: This is the outer casing that is removed from the groats. The bran is particularly high in soluble fiber. Oat bran is very versatile, and can be used with groats or alone, and as an addition to baking recipes, or even raw in shakes.

Steel-cut oats, or Irish oats: These are groats that have been chopped into small pieces. They have a firmer texture than rolled oats, and people in the know often prefer them for hot oatmeal cereals and muesli. A tip on purchasing steel-cut oats: some of the name brand varieties are prohibitively expensive, so search for them in bulk, where you can fill an entire tub of protein powder (empty it first!) for $5 US.

Rolled oats, or old-fashioned oats: These are oat groats that are steamed and flattened with huge rollers so that they cook quicker, in about 5 to 15 minutes.

Quick oats: These are groats that have been cut into several pieces before being steamed and rolled into thinner flakes, thus reducing the cooking time to 3-5 minutes. While they cook quicker, any oat aficionado will tell you that they lack the hearty texture and nutty flavor of the less-processed varieties.

Instant oats: These are made by chopping groats into tiny pieces, precooking them, drying them, then smashing them with a big roller. They need only be mixed with a hot liquid. They usually have flavorings and salt added. All of this processing removes all traces of the original texture and rich flavor of the groats.

Oat flour: Oat flour is made from groats that have been ground into a powder, and contains no gluten so it does not rise like wheat flour. It can also be made at home by grinding rolled oats into a powder in a blender.

Recipes

Enough rambling-on about fallen empires and baby-soft skin, it’s time for the lowdown on how to cook these little miracle grains. I’m always baffled when I hear people say how much they despise oats. Maybe they’re not so good if you use the quick oats, plain, cooked in the microwave, with dishwater, while being whipped by giant fish heads. I’ve never met a person who wasn’t impressed with the taste of my blueberry oatmeal. And I’ve introduced it to a lot of people. Roommates, parents, friends, friends of friends, girlfriends, roommate’s girlfriends, family and friends of girlfriends; nary an unsatisfied consumer, yet.

By the way, all of these recipes are compatible with John Berardi’s dietary advice outlined in his Massive Eating and Don’t Diet plans. In other words, protein is included with every meal, and large amounts of carbs and fat are avoided in the same meal. In case you weren’t paying attention earlier, the oat is a grain, thus making it a carbohydrate source. So all of the following recipes are for P+C meals.

Blueberry Oatmeal

Here it is, the breakfast that fulfills your every nutritional want and desire. A little warning: once you go steel-cut, there’s no going back. This recipe makes a large bowl of oatmeal, which I usually eat during Massive Eating phases. You can reduce the ingredients if you want fewer carbs and overall k/cals during dieting phases.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup steel-cut oats
1/3 cup oat bran
1/2 cup frozen blueberries
1.5 scoops chocolate whey protein powder
Water, as directed
¼ teaspoon salt
Dash of cinnamon (big dash)
Dash of Splenda (big dash)

Instructions:

Add steel cut oats into 3 to 4 cups of water at night before you go to bed. Bring to a boil, simmer a couple of minutes, then remove from heat, cover the pot, and hit the hay. The longer you simmer and/or the more water you use, the larger the bowl of oatmeal, as the oats tend to soak up water like a sponge.

In the AM, bring the oats to a simmer once again on medium-low heat, adding the salt, cinnamon, and raw oat bran. Continue stirring and simmering for 5 minutes, or until you get the desired thickness (you may have to simmer for longer to boil-off some of the water). Turn off the heat, then add the frozen blueberries and some Splenda.

Stir until the blueberries are melted, thus cooling the oatmeal and allowing the protein powder to be added. The consistency should be fairly thick, especially after the oat bran has been added and cooked a bit. You might need to add some water in the AM, depending on how much was boiled-off the night before.

Macronutrient Profile:

k/cal: 699
Fat (g): 13 (2.5s, 4.7m, 4.6p)
Carbs: 111 (20 fiber)
Protein: 54

Strawberry-Banana Oatmeal

Given that you will probably never tire of the blueberry oatmeal, you might be tempted to neglect this recipe. But give it a try; variety is good!

Ingredients:

1/2 cup steel-cut oats
1/3 cup oat bran
3/4 cup frozen or fresh strawberries
1 medium banana, sliced
1.5 scoops strawberry or vanilla whey protein powder
Water, as directed
¼ teaspoon salt
Dash of cinnamon (big dash)

Instructions:

In the evening, prepare the oats in the same manner as the Blueberry Oatmeal recipe. Again in the morning, bring the oats to a simmer and add the banana, salt, cinnamon, and oat bran. Keep stirring and simmer until you have the desired consistency (10 minutes or so), remove from heat, and stir-in the strawberries and protein powder.

Macronutrient Profile:

k/cal: 696
Fat (g): 11 (2.3s, 3.9m, 3.7p)
Carbs: 116 (19 fiber)
Protein: 50

Baked Apple-Cinnamon Oatmeal

If you’re in the mood for a hearty meal to feed that insatiable P+C demon inside of you, this one might just appease the beast.

Ingredients:

3 cups old fashioned oats
1 cup oat bran
1 large apple, chopped (I prefer Macintosh)
4 scoops vanilla or strawberry protein powder
1 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup pitted dates, chopped
4 cups water
1 tsp vanilla extract

Instructions:

Combine dry ingredients in a bowl and mix well. In a separate container combine water and vanilla. Combine all ingredients, stirring gently. Pour into 8" x 8" baking dish, coated with cooking spray. Bake at 350 degrees F for 35 minutes, or until the liquid has been absorbed and the oatmeal is tender. Over baking will result in dry oatmeal.

If you really want to make it special, put it in a bowl and pour a little milk over it. The two go hand in hand.

Makes 4 servings

Macronutrient Profile, per serving:

k/cal: 520
Fat (g): 9 (2s, 3m, 4p)
Carbs: 85 (15 fiber)
Protein: 35

Apple Cobbler Protein Bars

I took great pains to create a P+C protein bar that is not as dry and chewy as Fido’s rubber bone. These bars provide a multi-layer gooey goodness that appeases even the most finicky of eaters. Just leave out the “protein bars” in the title if you’re feeding them to a disbeliever.

Ingredients:
1 cup oat flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
6 scoops strawberry or vanilla whey protein powder
2/3 cup nonfat plain yogurt
1 jumbo egg white
1 cup oat bran
1 cup granulated Splenda
1 cup applesauce, unsweetened
2 tbsp honey
1 large apple, chopped
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 tsp cinnamon
½ teaspoon salt
1 tbsp olive oil

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350-degrees F.

Combine these in a large bowl: oat flour, whole wheat flour, salt, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, and most of the Splenda, leaving a couple of tablespoons for later. Stir these dry ingredients together.

Put the yogurt, egg white, vanilla extract, and olive oil in a blender, and turn it on low. Add the protein powder 1 scoop at a time, until thoroughly blended. Pour this mixture into the bowl, and stir together until it has the consistency of dough.

Coat a 8X12 inch baking pan with cooking spray, then pour the mixture into the pan, flattening it up to the edges.

Next, mix the applesauce, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, chopped apple, and honey together, and pour over the top of the dough mixture in the pan, spreading evenly.

Sprinkle the oat bran over the top, until thoroughly and evenly covered, then sprinkle the remaining Splenda over the top.

Bake for 15 minutes at 350-degrees F, and then switch to broil for 3-4 minutes, just until top is slightly browned. Be careful not to overcook.

Makes 12 bars.

Macronutrient Profile (each serving)

K/cal: 183
Fat: 3 g (1s, 1m, 1p)
Carbs: 27g (4 fiber)
Protein: 16 g

Cranberry Oat Brownies

These are simple, quick, and delicious, combining nutritious ingredients that all compliment one another.

Ingredients:
1 ½ cups rolled oats, ground into a powder in a food processor
1 cup whole wheat flour
5 scoops chocolate protein powder
1 cup granulated Splenda
1/3 cup dried cranberries
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp salt
2/3 cup nonfat plain yogurt
1/3 cup applesauce
2 tbsp honey
1 tbsp olive oil

Combine the dry ingredients in a large bowl, mixing briefly. Add the yogurt, applesauce, and oil to a food processor, and mix on low.

Add the protein powder into this mixture, while blending, one scoop at a time, until thoroughly blended.

Pour this mixture into the dry ingredients, add the honey, and stir together until everything is mixed well.

Pour the dough into a 8X12 inch cooking dish, and bake at 350-degrees F for 10-12 minutes (don’t cook it too long or it will lose it’s chewy texture and moisture).

Makes 8 brownies.

Macronutrient Profile, per brownie:
k/cal: 253
Fat (g): 4 (0.8s, 2.2m, 0.9p)
Carbs: 37 (4 fiber)
Protein: 18

Cranberry-Orange Whole Grain Loaf

If you want to surprise your family with a tasty side dish at Thanksgiving, throw one of these on the table. Or make a loaf any other time of the year to fulfill those macronutrient requirements.

Ingredients:
1.5 cups rolled oats
1 cup whole wheat flour
½ cup nonfat dry milk powder
4 scoops strawberry or vanilla whey protein powder (for the love of God, don’t use chocolate, ech!)
0.5 cups water
Juice from 1 orange
Grated peel from 1 orange (don’t go overboard on the peel, or it gets bitter)
½ cup applesauce
½ tbsp canola oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp baking powder
Dash of ground nutmeg (small dash)
½ tsp salt
¾ cup dried cranberries
2 teaspoons whole flax seeds*
½ cup granulated Splenda

Instructions:

Combine the dry ingredients in a large bowl, and mix with a large wooden spoon.

Add the water, applesauce, oil, vanilla, and mix thoroughly. Using a fine grater, shave the outer skin from an orange, until obtaining about 2 tablespoons of grated peel. Add the grated peel, and squeeze the orange into the mix, removing any seeds.

Divide the mixture into two loaf pans, coated with cooking spray. Cook for 20-25 minutes at 350 degrees.

*Whole flax seeds are not digested, unless you spend 20 minutes chewing every bite. They are added to this recipe more for texture, so don’t worry about the chewing thing. For the nutritional information, half of the given seeds were included in the macronutrient profile, which is based on the assumption that half of the seeds will pass straight through you.

Macronutrient Profile, per 1/3 loaf:

k/cal: 327
Fat (g): 5 (1s, 2m, 2p)
Carbs: 53 (7 fiber)
Protein: 22

Ginger Apricot Scones

Well, well…aren’t we fancy with our homemade scones? Don’t worry, if the guys in the gym ask you what you’re eating, you can just call them “protein pucks”.

1 cup whole-wheat flour, plus ½ cup of wheat flour, set aside
1 cup rolled oats
1 cup oat flour
6 scoops strawberry whey protein powder
¾ cup dried apricots, chopped
½ cup applesauce
2-inch cube of fresh ginger root, peeled and chopped
¼ cup granulated Splenda
1 ¼ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
¼ cup nonfat dry milk powder
½ cup water
½ tbsp canola or olive oil

Instructions:

Combine the dry ingredients in a large bowl (except the ½ cup whole wheat flour). To make the oat flour, process 1 cup of rolled oats in a blender on high, until transformed into a fine powder.

Add the applesauce and water, and mix until a soft dough is formed. Spoon-out 1/3 of the dough and place on a floured surface. Sprinkle flour over the top of the pile, and flatten into a 3/4 –inch thick circular patty. Cut the circle into four wedges (twice crosswise). Place each wedge on a cookie sheet coated with cooking spray. Repeat for the remaining 3rds of the dough.

Cook for 10-12 minutes at 350 degrees F.

Makes 12 scones

Macronutrient Profile, per scone:

k/cal: 189
Fat (g): 3 (0.5s, 1.5m, 1p)
Carbs: 27 (4 fiber)
Protein: 14

Savory Oatmeal Recipes

All right, there are enough recipes above to satisfy the sweet tooth of your average Krispy Kreme junkie. But don’t be fooled into thinking that oats are synonymous with the adjectives “fruity” or “sugary”. The versatility of oats is endless, and the following savory recipes will put to rest any misperceptions of some schmaltzy sucrose addict feverishly devouring a tray of oat brownies. Here are some recipes that hark back to the time of the “oat-eating barbarians”.

Shakshuka

You won’t find many Levantines eating a sugary bowl of cereal for breakfast. Shakshuka, a seasoned mixture of tomatoes and eggs, is a common breakfast in the Eastern Mediterranean. Here is a version with the added goodness of oats.

Ingredients:
1/3 cup steel-cut oats
2 large tomatoes, chopped
2 tbsp tomato paste
1 medium onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 large egg, whole
¾ cup raw egg whites
salt and pepper, to taste

Instructions:

Bring the oats, tomatoes, and tomato paste to a boil in 2 cups of water. Cover and reduce heat to a simmer for 25 minutes.

Sauté the onion and garlic in a skillet coated with cooking spray and add these to the pot when the oats have finished cooking. The consistency should be thick, but a little soupy. More water may need to be added at this point to achieve the desired consistency.

Spread the whole egg and egg whites over the surface, stirring gently to break the yolk. Cover and simmer for an additional 3-4 minutes. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and serve it up.

Macronutrient Profile:

k/cal: 516
Fat (g): 10 (2.3s, 3.2m, 2.5p)
Carbs: 71 (13 fiber)
Protein: 40

Oat-Chicken Salad

This recipe is light and refreshing, for those hot August days when a steaming bowl of oats is the last thing on your mind.

Ingredients:
Chicken breast, 6 oz cooked
½ cup steel-cut oats
1 large tomato, chopped
1 large cucumber, chopped
2 scallions, diced
1/3 cup fresh mint and/or parsley, chopped
Juice from 1 fresh lemon
Dash of salt
2 large romaine leaves

Instructions:

I usually grill a few pounds of chicken breasts and store them in Ziploc bags in the fridge for a quick protein fix. Slice one of these chicken breasts and put aside for later.

Place the oats in a pot and cover with boiling water. Allow to sit for 20 minutes, then drain. When well drained and slightly cooled, mix the oats with the tomato, cucumber, scallions, mint/parsley, lemon juice and salt. Cover and refrigerate until cool.

Serve over the romaine leaves and top with the sliced chicken breast.

Macronutrient Profile:

k/cal: 700
Fat (g): 13 (2.9s, 3.9m, 3.7p)
Carbs: 77 (15 fiber)
Protein: 72

Stuffed Bell Peppers

Here is a hearty recipe that combines the goodness of oats, good quality protein, and plenty of antioxidants from the veggies and spices.

12 oz ground turkey breast (98% lean)
1 cup whole groats, or steel-cut oats
1 medium onion, chopped
2 large tomatoes, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
4 whole green bell peppers
1 tsp ground cumin
1 dash dried red chili pepper
Salt and pepper, to taste
3 cups chicken broth, from bouillon

Preheat oven to 325-degrees F.

Sauté the oats and garlic in a nonstick skillet coated with cooking spray on medium high heat for about 5 minutes, until they start to brown. Begin adding the chicken broth to the skillet ½ cup at a time, until 2 cups of broth have been absorbed. Set the oats aside in a large bowl.

In the same skillet, stir-fry the ground turkey with the onions until the turkey is cooked throughout, and then add the chopped tomatoes, cumin, ground chili pepper, and salt/pepper. Add this turkey mixture to the oats, and stir together.

Cut the top off each bell pepper and scoop out the seeds and membrane, being careful not to break the peppers. Fill each pepper with the ground turkey-oat mixture and place in a baking dish. Add the remaining 1 cup of chicken broth to the baking dish, and cover first with plastic wrap and then tin foil (the plastic wrap will not allow the tin foil to stick to the peppers). Bake the stuffed chili peppers for 30 minutes at 325 degrees.

Makes 2 servings.

Macronutrient Profile, per serving:

k/cal: 709
Fat (g): 11 (2.3s, 2.9m, 3.8p)
Carbs: 95 (18 fiber)
Protein: 61

Tex-Mex Chicken-Vegetable-Grain Medley

If you’re short on time and need a quick fix, this one’s easy to prepare and is tasty to boot. If you really want to decrease your cooking time, you can make the oats in bulk at the beginning of the week.

Ingredients:
Chicken breast, grilled, 6 oz. cooked weight, cubed
Whole groats or steel-cut oats, ½ cup dry
Frozen vegetable mix (corn, peas, and carrots), ½ cup
1 stalk celery, chopped
Red bell pepper, ½ medium, chopped
2 tbsp barbecue sauce

Instructions:
Boil the oats in 2 cups of water for 30 minutes, or until most of the water is absorbed. When the oats are cooked, it’s very simple: just stir all of the ingredients together in a pot on medium-low heat, until everything is warm. It can also be nuked.

Macronutrient Profile:
k/cal: 770
Fat (g): 13 (2.3s, 4m, 3.5p)
Carbs: 91 (14 fiber)
Protein: 71

These recipes should provide plenty of opportunities to turn those oats into something much more than a mushy, tasteless breakfast. Now it’s time to go out and buy enough of these grains to fill all of the empty protein powder tubs that litter your house. Bon appetite!

John Williams is an archaeologist by training but his free time is occupied with eating well, training hard, and learning more about fitness and nutrition. John can be contacted at johnkew@yahoo.com .

Beef Braised in a Red Wine Sauce

2009-10-29T01:13:00.000-07:00

By Dr. John M. Berardi, Ph.D. and Dr. John K. Williams, Ph.D., authors of the bestselling optimal nutrition ebook, Gourmet Nutrition.

Few meals are as hearty as slow-cooked beef smothered in a red wine sauce. For this recipe, we used a bottle of cabernet sauvignon, given its powerful flavor that is able to withstand 3 hours in the Crock-Pot. If you’re willing to part with a bottle of Barolo, it is the ideal wine for this recipe. However, since Barolo starts at around $30/bottle, most of us would rather use a cheap but potent cabernet.

Ingredients

3 ½ pounds boneless chuck roast
1 bottle cabernet sauvignon
2 large tomatoes, chopped
2 medium onions, coarsely chopped
2 medium carrots cut into ¼-inch thick slices
3 medium celery stalks cut into ¼-inch thick slices
5 cloves garlic, chopped
Parsley, rosemary and thyme – 1 tsp each dry, or ½ cup fresh parsley, 1 tbsp fresh rosemary and 1 tbsp fresh thyme
Salt & pepper, to taste

Instructions

Divide the roast into two fairly equal pieces by splitting down the center, using the seam of fat as a guide. Trim the excess fat, leaving a thin layer above the meat. Pat the meat dry with paper towels and coat generously with salt and pepper.
Brown the meat in a large nonstick skillet over high heat in 1 tbsp olive oil. Remove the browned roast, leaving the juices and oil behind, and reduce heat to medium. Sauté the garlic, onions, carrots, and celery together with the tomato paste. Add the wine, tomatoes, rosemary, thyme, and parsley. Increase heat to high and bring mixture to a boil. Occasionally whisking, boil for about 15 minutes, or until the vegetables break down and the sauce thickens and reduces to about 3 ½ cups. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
Transfer the meat and the sauce to a Crock-Pot, cooking covered on high for 3 hours, turning the meat with tongs every 45 minutes.
After the roast is cooked, transfer it to a cutting board and let it sit for about 5 minutes. Cut the meat into ½-inch slices, and served in deep plates with sauce poured over the sliced beef.

Makes 4 servings.

Nutritional information

	Per Serving
Total Calories	615	k/cal
Protein	63	g
Total Carbohydrates	18	g
Fiber	4	g
Sugars	8	g
Total Fat	18	g
Saturated	5.6	g
Monounsaturated	8.4	g
Polyunsaturated	1.0	g
Omega-3	0.9	g
Omega-6	0.1	g

Tip: How to get the beef just right

For extra tenderness and juiciness, allow the beef to cool slightly on the cutting board, and cut it against the grain in long, diagonal pieces.

Food Fact: Cattle were domesticated earlier than crops in Africa

Archaeologists have demonstrated that cattle were domesticated as early as 9500 years ago in the marginal environments of the Sahara. This is a very early date, and it is particularly interesting when compared to the date of the first domesticated African plants, after 4000 years ago. Fiona Marshall of Washington University concludes that people during this time herded cattle because it provided a predictable resource suitable for a highly mobile lifestyle. There was just too much risk involved in trying to cultivate in arid conditions. So every time we have a nice helping of beef, we can thank the folks in the Sahara who nearly 10,000 years ago figured out a way to produce food that carries itself around.

Want to change your body -- while still eating meals that taste this good?

If you want to build the body you never thought you could have, start eating the meals you never thought you could eat! Get over 100 recipes and a no-nonsense nutrition plan that will show you how to make it work in the new ebook written by Dr. Berardi and Dr. Williams, Gourmet Nutrition .

And if you want new great tasting recipes, cooking tips and nutrition strategies delivered to your inbox every two weeks, sign up for a FREE subscription to the Gourmet Nutrition Report .

Stir Fry Veggie Extravaganza

2009-10-27T01:00:00.000-07:00

By Dr. John M. Berardi, PhD and Dr. John K. Williams, PhD, authors of the bestselling optimal nutrition ebook, Gourmet Nutrition.

Most of us could benefit from increasing our intake of fresh, whole vegetables. If the cancer-fighting properties of vegetables aren’t enough incentive, then take into consideration that they contain a ton of micronutrients that fill nutritional voids, they have small quantities of healthy fats such as omega-3’s, they counteract high acidity produced by high protein diets, and they give us a big dose of fiber.

Getting ample vegetables sounds great in theory, but in practice many of us fail utterly in finding ways to consistently consume our photosynthesizing friends. Let’s face it, the world is full of veggie haters. As the famous and sometimes gruff 20th century archaeologist Francois Bordes used to say when asked if he would like a salad with his meal, “What do I look like to you, a rabbit?”

Sure, vegetables can be downright repulsive, but given the correct method of preparation, even the most finicky of eaters can reap the benefits of these wonder foods, sow good eating habits, alleviate any seeds of doubt, and harvest superior nutritional properties. Now that the puns are out of the way, let’s move on to the recipe.

Asian stir-fry is one of the best ways to eat vegetables in both quantity and variety. Cooking the vegetables quickly over high heat keeps them crisp (no more mushy cafeteria mystery vegetable), and slightly caramelizes their surface, dramatically enhancing flavor. Another bonus is that you can cook stir-fry in bulk, storing tasty vegetable-laden meals for days at a time.

After messing around with varieties of this recipe, we finally discovered a great combination of vegetable variety, healthfulness, texture, and taste. You’ll be surprised at how easy it is to significantly increase your vegetable intake with just this one recipe.

This is a stand-alone dish that needs no rice. Just pile it high on a plate and enjoy. There is enough variety that it can even be cooked and eaten without meat, as a side dish for us omnivores, or as a main dish for a vegetarian.

Ingredients

1 lb chicken breast, sliced thin
6 cloves garlic, chopped
2 whole dried chili peppers, chopped
2 tbsp white cooking wine
2 cubic inches fresh ginger, peeled and chopped
2 tbsp corn starch, mixed together with 4 tbsp water
1 cup fresh shitake mushrooms
2 stalks celery, diagonally sliced
2 bundles scallions (green onions) (15 total), diced
1 red bell pepper, sliced
1 yellow bell pepper, sliced
2 medium carrots, sliced
2 handfuls snow peas (25-30 pods)
1 can sliced water chestnuts, rinsed and drained
1 can slivered bamboo shoots, rinsed and drained
1 head Napa cabbage, sliced
3 cups fresh bean sprouts
1 bouillon cube (chicken or vegetable), mixed with 1 cup hot water
4 tbsp soy sauce
½ cup whole roasted and salted cashews

Instructions

First slice the chicken breast and marinate it in a large bowl together with half of the chopped garlic, crushed chili peppers, white wine and a dash of salt.

Chop all of your vegetables and get them ready before the cooking process starts. Also, make your cornstarch solution in a small bowl or cup by stirring 2 tablespoons of cornstarch into 4-5 tablespoons of water. Stir until thoroughly mixed into a thick solution.

Heat a large nonstick wok over medium-high heat, and then add the sliced chicken together with the marinade. Stir-fry for a few minutes, until browned. Push the chicken up to the sides of the wok, lightly coat the surface with cooking spray, and then add the remaining garlic and chopped ginger. Stir-fry for a couple of minutes, and then add vegetables, two at a time, stir-frying about 4 minutes each batch. When the wok gets too full, place the contents into a large bowl and continue stir-frying the remaining vegetables. If the wok gets dry, you can coat it again with cooking oil, or add some soy sauce.

After you’ve worked your way through the vegetables down to the cabbage and bean sprouts, push the vegetables to the side of the wok, add the broth, and bring to a boil. Thicken the broth by stirring-in the cornstarch solution (stir it again before slowly adding).

Return all of the vegetables and chicken to the wok, and toss together with the soy sauce and cashews. Don’t add the cashews until the very end to ensure a crunchy texture. Mix thoroughly and serve.

Makes 3 large servings (or several small ones).

Nutritional information

	Per Serving
Total Calories	621	k/cal
Protein	54	g
Total Carbohydrates	74	g
Fiber	18	g
Sugars	0	g
Total Fat	15	g
Saturated	3	g
Monounsaturated	7	g
Polyunsaturated	4	g
Omega-3	1	g
Omega-6	3	g

Tip: Slicing vegetables, the safe way

This recipe requires a lot of chopping, so to ensure you don’t get bits of finger in your meal, let’s discuss how to chop vegetables quickly and safely. It’s very important to have a good knife. Sharp knives are actually safer because you don’t have to use so much force to cut the vegetables. The knife should also have a broad blade, such as a chef’s knife or a cleaver. The blade needs to be broad so that you can place the side of the knife on your knuckles as you chop. Holding the vegetable with your fingertips on the cutting board, fold your knuckles over and lightly move the knife across them while chopping, being careful not to raise the knife above the level of your knuckles (never let the side of the knife lose contact with your guiding hand). As long as you keep your fingers tucked away, then no worries.

Food Fact: Cabbage, the forgotten veggie

Cabbage is one of those veggies that is often overlooked in western diets. The good news is that it tastes great in this stir-fry, and the better news is that cabbage has great health properties. Cabbage contains a beneficial phytochemical called indole-3-carbinole (I3C), which has powerful cancer-fighting properties. I3C also helps to break down estrogen in the body, which further decreases cancer risk, particularly breast cancer in women.