Fat Loss Secret Revealed!!

This is what everybody out there wants to know, right? How do you burn more fat? The answer isn't raspberry ketones or the stupid fucking Tracy Anderson Method. I'm not even going to be a smart-ass and tell you that the secret is deadlifts and squats; those help, but they aren't the solution. Ready?...

 

Quite simply, the answer is carb manipulation. It sounds fancier than it is, too. It simply means that you alter how many carbs you eat, and when you eat them. The most basic way to lose fat is to limit the amount of carbs that you eat. For someone who is overweight/obese this will provide significant results. For someone who is already fairly lean and wants to get leaner, this will often leave them feeling like a dog turd sandwich. 

For these people, we need to manipulate more about their carbs than just how much they are eating. We need to manipulate the time of consumption as well. I've talked about it before, but by monitoring when we eat carbs we can benefit from the hormonal response to food. Your body will secrete various hormones (insulin, testosterone, growth hormone, leptin, etc) depending on the foods you eat, so we want to take advantage of that. When insulin is released it gives your body the "grow and store" signal, so we want to avoid that as much as possible. Protein and fat will keep your body running anbolically which will help to burn some fat while preserving lean body mass. 

This idea of carb manipulation / hormonal response is the basis of some of the more popular diet plans out there today: The Anabolic Diet, Carb Nite, Carb Backloading, Intermittent Fasting and the Warrior Diet. Even the Paleo Diet uses around the idea that by cutting out the majority of (shitty) carbs you will be limiting your insulin response. Fewer carbs at the wrong time and more at the right time and you'll get leaner.

So when is the right time to eat carbs? Fully dependent on your schedule. Kelsi needs to consume a lot more carbs than many people because of her training schedule; she fits in her runs and lifts around her work schedule, and they aren't always back to back. Her energy needs are higher than most, so she needs more carbs throughout the day. Still, she should be aiming to eat them post-training as often as possible.

For most people, I suggest consuming their carbs post-training. If insulin tells your body to "store and grow", then it makes sense that you spike your insulin after you lifted weights and done some damage to your muscles. That way "store and grow" becomes "huge and awesome". Give yourself a 3-4 hour window post-workout to consume the majority of your carbs for the day and then go back to protein, fat and veggies. If you train in the middle of the day, some carbs before bed will help you fall asleep and are ok to have then. Outside of that 3-4 hour period though, you should be consuming mainly protein and fat. 

It's not rocket science, just regular science. Eat more carbs and get fatter, eat less carbs and get leaner. Have a great day and go lift some heavy shit!

Where's All The T&A???

Before you get your pants all in a twist, I'm not talking about what you think I am.

Well, not totally at least. Where have all the Traps and Asses gone??

Kelsi and I just made a 28-hour drive to spend a few days at her home in Ohio and had a very nice time. The drive went perfectly and the event we attended was great. During the 28 hours we drove we obviously made quite a few stops; when you're sucking down caffeine faster than you can spell it, you're going to have to pee a lot. During the entire trip, I couldn't help but notice that something significant was missing from essentially every person we encountered: any semblance of muscle mass.

There were skinny people and there were fat people. Short people and tall people. People who looked athletic and people who had not moved off of their couch for the entirety of their lives. Whether or not you use weights to train for sports, to look good naked or to be healthier there are certain adaptations that will happen to your body: your ass will get bigger, your traps/shoulders/chest will get bigger, and (unless you never actually hold a bar) your forearms will get bigger. Assuming that you don't train like a chuckledick, these adaptations will 100% occur. So, why then, are they missing consistently in most of our population? Well, just about everyone is fat. Or skinny fat. And they certainly don't know how to move athletically.

I just read that the American Medical Association has officially classified obesity as a disease, so that's great. While fat people keep getting fatter, the information presented to the public doesn't do them a lick of fucking good. You know why? Because they tell them that 20-minutes of raking leaves counts as exercise. Because the fucking food pyramid that people are supposed to use to guide their eating habits tells them that the majority of their diet should be made up of grains and that meat and fat is bad for them.

Oh, well it looks like that's working out well for America so far, huh? People keep getting fatter and costing us more money in medical bills and the government tells people to eat a bunch of cereal and do for a brisk 10 minute walk 4-5 times per week.

Can we please just all get our heads out of our sphincters? Eat stuff that came out of the ground. Go lift some fucking weights and run and jump a little bit. Either God or Darwin was kind enough to provide us with a "brain" to use to figure things out, please respect what they did and USE it. I'll help a little bit:

- If you're fat, stop eating all the shitty food-like-products that your diet consists of and go do some squats.
- If you're so thin and weak that you aren't strong enough to carry your laundry upstairs, please go eat a steak and do some squats.
- If your head sits atop some big ol' traps and you wear sweatpants/yoga pants all the time because your ass won't fit into your jeans, please spread the word about the health benefits of a barbell to the poor souls you encounter on the street.

Have a great day and please go lift something heavy.