Today we have an interview with Al Sandoval who placed 6th in the Open category in the latest Adonis Index Contest.

Check out his pictures:

And in case you forgot how Al looked when he originally started, check this out:

This was Al’s second contest. He won the transformation category in a previous contest.

There really seems to be a pattern in this. It looks like guys get rid of a few pounds, get into a contest, get lean and then they focus on building more muscle and moving towards a specific shape.

If you’re like Al, you might actually be just two contests away from your ideal body shape.

Al’s Insights from His Second Contest

Al was very proud of his final pictures and incredibly impressed with his first change. He wanted to take some time off, but convinced himself to do next contest.

What is is like going from one contest to another one?

Hard, but doable.

He says motivation was tougher this time. Which is understandable, because putting so much energy and focus into this for so long without any break is really tough.

It doesn’t mean that you will do just one contest and then you are done for the rest of your life, no not at all, you obviously will have to maintain your look and will still have a lot to work on, but getting ready for a fitness photoshoot requires way more energy and attention, which is why most guys don’t do two back-to-back contests.

When you take some time off and just work out and eat to stay where you are, your desire to take your physique to the next level and compete gets bigger.

But Al decided to give this a shot and showed up with some amazing pictures.

During the preparation for the first contest he would look at his before pictures and at his “hate handles” as he calls them to keep himself motivated and to stick to his diet plan. This time he knew he looked good, so there was the temptation to slip a bit, since it wouldn’t do any damage.

And that’s exactly it.

Just because you get from overweight to a decent shape, it doesn’t mean all of your life problems and everything will be solved. No, that’s not how it works.

Once you get over one challenge the next one will appear and so on, this is how you move forward and with a bit of determination you can get some amazing results. Most people will give up after a while, even if they get past the first few challenges…and with that said “most people” don’t have extraordinary results and don’t live extraordinary lives, do they?

Once Al got in shape, his new challenge to face was finding a reason why he should continue when he already looks good, what goal should he aim for.

He decided that he want’s a six pack, because that is something he never had in his life and that’s a goal worth pursing. And even now he is still on track and determined to get to that goal.

The Leaner You Get, The Harder It Is to Lose Weight

To get decent muscle definition and a six pack, you need to be willing to persist and take it further than most people.

This is a point where we are seeing similar feedback from pretty much all the contestants. The leaner you get, the harder the fat loss actually becomes.

When you have to lose 50 pounds, it will be quick and pretty easy compared to slow progress of going from average/lean to ripped/shredded.

Water plays a huge role in this. When you are overweight, your body retains literally pounds of water that wouldn’t normally be there. Second reason why it’s easier at first is because your body has enormous energy storage that it can use. When you get to about 12% bodyfat, this changes. Suddenly there is very little bodyfat on you, your desire to eat increases because your body wants you to eat at your energy expenditure and it’s really hard to limit your calories intake.

On top of that when you get lean, certain metrics like the scale or waist measurement suddenly become useless.

This doesn’t mean it’s impossible to get ripped, it just means it’s a bit harder and there are different challenges you will face along the way.

You may have to reduce the hours of your fasting, you may have to optimize your calories on eating days closer to your maintenance and probably use exercise to create the deficit.

It will take a longer time and will be harder to measure, but you absolutely CAN get there.

Another thing that goes hand in hand with this is the idea of maintenance. Once you go from overeating to eating for fat loss, the only way of eating you need to learn is eating in a way to keep you where you are. Sounds simple, but is tricky.

There will always be some ups and downs, however the idea is to be in striking distance to your contest body.

If your waist is 34, but for the contest was 32,5, you should be able to get there in 4-5 days if you were going to the beach or vacation.

Maintenance allows flexibility in your diet, enjoying more food on a few days and limiting yourself on others a bit.

Take home message from Al:

• Maintenance is a work in progress, a way of living your life
• Muscle takes years to build
• You can get your weight under control in a matter of weeks and months
• Diet should help you condition your body for less food and bring your appetite to its optimum
• After contest aim for staying in ‘striking distance’, meaning you should be able to get to that exact state in several days
• Your new you will be incredible and awesome,  you are gonna be happy with yourself once you transform
• You can still enjoy the food you like, Al still eats ice cream, chocolate, just keep the amount in a healthy range

Useful links:

• Adonis Index 3.0 – Workout Al used
• Al’s Fat Loss Journey: Math Doesn’t Lie – Al’s first interview
• AT5 Pictures – Pictures of all contestants from Al’s first contest

Listen to the interview here:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Android | RSS

Today we bring you an interview with Vivek. Vivek placed 3rd in the latest Adonis Index Contest in the Transformation category.

Vivek started with no experience or knowledge about exercises whatsoever. If you told him that bench press is for building bigger legs, he would probably believe you.

From a diet stand point it wasn’t so much different. Vivek is vegetarian, but he had no idea what any of the diet claims meant. Calories were basically just something the brand put on the label along with the logo.

Until 2011 dieting and exercising were unknown concepts for him.

Finally he decided to get in shape and lose some weight. He went with the conventional fitness approach and started eating “healthier food“. For two months he was basically eating brown rice, fruits and vegetables. However, since he wasn’t paying any attention to calories, he didn’t lose any weight at all. He was basically eating the same amount of calories, but from different sources of food and so called healthy sources. This “healthy eating” made absolutely no difference in how he felt or how much he weighed.

Like he said, Vivek wasn’t obese, but he was a bit overweight and needed to lose a few pounds and since eating ‘healthy’ wasn’t working, he kept looking for something different.

What Does an iPhone and Your Body Have in Common?

Vivek has an IT company, so working with software and technology he understands that the golden ratio is an important aspect in developing any application and that aesthetics are the key. Just take an iPhone, you would have a really hard time finding a phone that would be more aesthetically pleasing than the one from Apple. And it’s no coincidence either. The developers used the concept of a golden ratio in the development process. Same ratio that Vivek uses. Same ratio that Adonis Index workouts are designed to shape your body into.

When he stumbled across the Adonis Index he was excited because somebody actually  quantified and put some science around the concept of aesthetics, took concepts he knew and applied them to building the ideal body shape.

Seeing the same concept he used in technology development, for shaping his body was incredible revelation to him and he immediately knew it made sense.

He started studying the program and implementing the advice. The implementing part is important, because you don’t learn by gaining more knowledge, you learn when you change your behavior and take action.

Learn to Use the Metrics

Vivek made an interesting observation, and that is people have a poor understanding of how to use metrics, they either don’t use them at all, or they don’t use them correctly.

He created a spreadsheet, tracked what he ate and realized that eating “healthy” is not an answer. Despite what the fitness magazines, personal trainers, dietitians and other “certified experts” say, in order to lose weight you can eat whatever you like, but you have to stay in a caloric deficit.

Eat a balanced diet, with lot’s of vegetables, but stay in caloric deficit, then you will lose weight, the answer is not by eating some magic, “healthy” food.

Next thing is that your daily fluctuation will show on the scale, so the only way to know whether you are progressing or not is to measure your weight on a weekly basis. And that’s exactly what Vivek did, he looked at what he ate on weekly basis only.

He calculated his RMR multiplied it by seven and had a number of calories he burned each week without any additional exercise. And for every pound of fat he wanted to lose he would subtract 3500 from this number, being left with the calorie budget for that given week.

At the beginning he pressed for a larger deficit when he had the most fat to lose and ate really low calories the first few weeks.

It was way easier and simpler and the only thing he did was to log what he ate. He didn’t eat six meals a day, didn’t over-consume protein, didn’t count macro-nutrients, didn’t weigh food, didn’t cook all of his meals at home, non of those, just ate lower calories.

He knew that it was just a guesstimate and that there will be errors in his calculations and in what is on the food label. In order to find out how many calories her was burning he even got his RMR clinically measured. This test only cost around $100.

Now he knew the hard numbers and could work from there.

And if you though that other people knew what he was doing, you would be wrong.

Are you anxious about telling other people? Are you afraid of what they might think of your goals or approach? Well, you don’t have tell them. They won’t even notice.

Vivek didn’t tell anyone what he was doing, all people saw was the end result.

One of his goals was to be able to have a good social life while doing all of this. He didn’t want to look weird when he was out with clients or had dinner with friends.

And that’s what this approach allowed him to do. Since he could eat anything he wanted and still keep losing weight he kept this to himself and nobody knew. Then when they saw the results it seemed like magic.

Vivek made a huge transformation for this contest, but interestingly enough he actually lost 20 pounds before it even began. Before the contest started he already went from 200 to 180 pounds.

It’s about how you change, not how well you place in the contest. If you are considering entering in the next one, don’t wait start today. You will have momentum that others who wait will not have.

What seems to work the best for most people is to lose the fat first and then focus on building muscle.

Here are two points to consider when thinking about building muscle first:

1. Muscle building takes time, especially if you are not in your teen years
2. Your muscles won’t be visible until you lose the fat that is covering them

This is why it’s better to focus on losing fat first, get it over with as quickly as possible and build muscle afterwards.

That’s where Vivek is now. He can just eat at his maintenance level, have lots of energy and focus on pushing at a gym.

What to do to transform your physique:

• Find a pattern that works for you and stick to it
• Track whatever it is you are doing
• Analyze your progress every week
• Record your weight in the morning to keep the water and food fluctuation to minimum
• If can afford it get your RMR clinically measured
• Expect your RMR to be lower than you want it to be and don’t lie to yourself that you can actually eat more and not gain weight
• Eat normally when you are out with friends or clients and watch yourself when you are alone and nobody is looking (The opposite of what most people do)
• Be rational not emotional when it comes to success, especially building the body you want, because emotions keep you from the truth and support beliefs molded by media and marketing
• Remember that your mind will try to justify any action you take or don’t take, so take actions that will ensure your personal growth
• Be brutally honest with yourself when tracking your metrics
• Have long term and short term goals
• Deal with your problem now, later never comes and there is only so many tomorrows in your life
• Don’t deny what happens, because then you get in trouble. People that ignore the results, get in debt and gain fat

Words & phrases mentioned in the interview:

• Muscle Index – Specific calculations for measuring muscle gains
• Muscle Building Foundation aka MBF is part of the Adonis Index Workout Program
• Brad Pilon’s fat and debt analogy – Big Fat Debt

Listen to the interview here:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Android | RSS

Today we have an interview with Keith Taylor who placed fifth in the Open category in the latest Adonis Index Contest.

Check out his pictures:

Never Give Up, Ever!

Keith started lifting as a kid, all of the big guys were going to the gym, so it seemed like a good idea. He was basically mirroring what they were doing, which wasn’t so hard considering they lacked any structure and always just picked the weights and pushed them up as many times a possible.

There was very little back or shoulder work, basically it was just about working the “mirror muscles” – biceps and chest, and then they tossed in some squats for good measure.

After high school Keith tried going to a public gym, but he didn’t like it very much, so he decided to invest in a home gym.

Back then he was just following advice from magazines and pretty much working out like he did at high school, without any structured program.

He got stronger, but he didn’t gain any size. You could look at him and tell that he was fit, but he was never ripped.

Keith was also eating a lot and ate his way up to 170 pounds, which at height of 5’4” is not exactly shredded.

Then a few years later in 1991 he injured a nerve in his back while trying to lift something at work. As a result of this injury he couldn’t do any lifting for the next 20 years.

Yea, you read that right, it wasn’t until 2011 that he was able to get back to weight training.

And if that wasn’t enough, he also had asthma.

He couldn’t run or do any high intensity training.

So, if someone had a good reason to pity himself and blame the world for what has happened it would be Keith. Well, that wasn’t what he did. Keith didn’t give up and started researching for a way to get rid of his asthma.

Then one day as he was looking for something that would help with autoimmune issues he found fasting. It didn’t take long that he stumbled upon Eat Stop Eat.

He didn’t think twice about it and immediately tried it. And believe it or not, he got better in just 30 days.

Keith just couldn’t believe how much better he could breath after 30 days.

It worked, he significantly improved his asthma to a state that he could do some physical activity.

Determination Is the Key

Next step was to work on his injury. He would try to start working out every year since the injury, but it was always the same, he just couldn’t lift the weights.

Then in 2011 he noticed a difference, he could finally lift something. Not that he would be strong, but the pain was bearable and he could move the weights. This was great news.

He knew that in the Eat Stop Eat manual was a link to a workout program, so he went home opened the book and clicked on it and got to the Adonis Index website.

Since he could lift some weights and improved his asthma he decided to jump on board and give it a shot.

He started with some shoulder specializations and worked his way up to the regular workouts. After a while and with a few adjustments he could handle the volume and follow the full training program, for the first time after his injury.

Keith’s Diet and Interesting Findings about Gluten

Last thing he tried was dropping gluten. And in just 30 days he lost about 20 pounds. This basically meant cutting out most of the refined and processed stuff, but since he likes to cook, he didn’t mind. He wasn’t sure that it was really the gluten, so he decided to put it back in his diet and he got worse and started gaining again. This was an obvious proof that it worked, so he decided to cut it out and keep it that way.

He stayed away from gluten and could keep the fat off and asthma in control. Ultimately he figured out that he can have gluten a few times per week, but only a few times, because he is highly sensitive to it. And that’s how it works, most people don’t have any problem with gluten at all, some are completely intolerant, and some are just very sensitive to it. If you don’t have any issues, then good for you and you don’t have to change anything in your diet, if you do then you can try taking a similar approach and see how it works.

As a result Keith’s medical test came back at 90% of his full lung capacity and function, which was his highest number so far. And he got there just by using Eat Stop Eat and cutting gluten.

Other than cutting gluten he didn’t change much, and there was no reason to, because eating less and fasting twice a week did the job of losing weight pretty well.

He ate a lot of vegetables and about 70 grams of protein per day, which sounds pretty reasonable for someone his height. And in general, you don’t really have to consume insane amounts of protein.

And since he likes to have a large meal, he experimented with volume a bit and was trying to find the best choices that would be as low calorie as possible. At the beginning he was eating one meal a day and tapered it up later on.

He was eating more towards the end of the contest. He was basically using the principles from the new Transformation Diet protocol. He started eating low at the beginning of the contest and as things got harder and more intense, he started optimizing his calorie intake for his maintenance.

This is a pretty good approach, because a lot of fitness models try to go as extreme as possible at the end of their prep for the contest, but they often times end up gaining as much as 30 pounds afterwards. And that’s just plain stupid and ineffective, it should be about looking good, not winning a contest. So, for most people it seems like a better choice to just eat more towards the end.

This worked and at the end Keith was even shocked that he placed in the contest.

Take home message from Keith

• Lots of guys try to over analyze things, keep it simple and do what the successful people tell you to do
• Keith barely read the manual, he just went to the workouts and started there because he likes to learn from experience. He takes action!
• Nobody cares what you weigh, it’s about how you look
• Keith rarely took any measurements or weighed himself, he just takes a look in the mirror…when you get really lean the mirror will likely be your only accurate measure of progress
• Be sure that whatever approach you try it really works. Keith saw that cutting gluten works, but he wanted to be sure, so he tried adding it back up for few weeks just to be certain.
• Eat less than you burn and fast on a regular basis
• Take action, do the work, try the program, nobody can tell you what will it do for you until you try it yourself

Programs that Keith used to get in the contest shape:

Adonis Index Workout – Here are the original workout plans that have been responsible for some of the most amazing transformations online.

Eat Stop Eat – Diet and lifestyle protocol that will help you stay on track with your weight loss while enjoying social eating events at a same time.

Listen to the interview here:

 

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Android | RSS