Basil for Swine Flu?
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 . . .
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 . . .
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 . . .
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
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
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
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.
Tip #4 Revving Up Metabolism
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.
Check out these transformations
Lean Eating 2009 - The Winners
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Lean Eating 2010 - Results So Far
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--- average workout completion is 68%
--- average nutrition habit compliance is 79%
Preventing physical breakdown with age
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.
Check it out.
The Lean Eating Coaching Program is finally open
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:
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.
-JB
Making Healthy Eating Work - Food Preparation Strategies
Making Healthy Eating Work -
Food Preparation Strategies
by Dr John M Berardi, CSCS
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Balancing Out Those Dietary Acids
by Dr John M Berardi, CSCS
• 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)
• Decreased IGF1 activity (4)
• GH resistance (4)
• Mild hypothyroidism (4)
• Hypercortisolemia (4,5)
• 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.
SEE ALSO:
Vaccinating yourself against 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
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
Q & A with Christian Thibaudeau
Precision Nutrition: Hey Christian, what are you up to?
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: 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: Tell me a little about your last book, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Interesting title.
PN: Really? Given the excellent quality of your previous work, I’d say that’s saying something.
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: 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: 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: 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.
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.
