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Get Back to Basics to Get in Shape

January 4, 2012 by

It’s the first week after New Years and the gyms will be overflowing with New Years resolutioners. The resolutions are usually some vague goal such as ‘lose some weight’ or ‘get in shape’ etc. These people are well intentioned no doubt, but one of the problems I see with this sort of action is a lack of a defined goal and a lack of a structured plan to get there.

Watch TV at the gym instead of at home with snacks...it's a basic change that can go a long way

This is the time of year that reminds me how confusing and complicated the diet and fitness media has made things. It’s becoming apparent that people think getting in shape must be significantly more complicated than it has to be.

In reality, there are just a few basic items that need to be taken care of to reach any diet and fitness goal. Unfortunately most people look right past these fundamental basics and instead, clutter their minds and lives with the minutiae and trivial things written in the pages of fitness magazines and blogs.

If you don’t have the basics under control none of the fancy techniques you read about will be of any value.

First and foremost you have to get back to basics, and get a base of effective principles and habits in place before you even think of messing around with fancy diet or advanced training techniques.

For example, do you even get an hour of movement in per day? If not, then that is your first order of business…forget about ‘functional training’ or a periodized workout routine, just get out of your house and get moving for a start.

After that you need to get calories in control, if you don’t know how many calories you consume on a daily basis then you must get this under control before you start reading about vegetarianism, or paleo this, and low carb that, and the latest diet fads. No matter what a marketing claim has told you…calories matter, and you have to get a handle on them if you’re serious about making a change in your body.

These are the most basic items that you must get a handle on if you want to change your body. If you’re struggling to make a change in your body and you don’t know where to start, then make your resolution to get back to basics and build effective habits for the new year.

In today’s podcast, we’ll discuss the basic principles that are essential for getting in shape, it’s simpler than you think.

John

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Filed Under: Podcasts, Uncensored Podcasts S01 Tagged With: ,

Commitment Equals Results, So Are You Committed Enough?

January 2, 2012 by

Today’s interview is with Andrew Peters, who won the sixth Adonis Index Transformation Contest.

Check out his pictures:

Adonis Index - Andrew front picture

Andrew is still getting over the fact that this is how he looks now. No kidding, when you undergo such an amazing transformation, it might take some time until you get used to that new look.

Adonis Index - Andrew back picture

Andrew has a great muscle definition.

Adonis Index Andrew front picture

Want to win the next contest? This is how you take the photos.

Andrew is 24 and has spent the past few years playing rugby and lifting weights, however his training lacked structure, a goal, and a serious commitment. As a result he didn’t have the body he wanted.

He realized that in order to succeed he had to changes his approach. He wanted to get in shape, but didn’t wanted to look like some huge bodybuilder.

He was after more of a model body shape and it was also obvious that something had to change in his life.

He searched for a workout program that would meet this requirements and that search lead him to the Adonis Index. What might surprise you is that he wasn’t a believer at the beginning and it took him almost two years until he decided to try the contest and the workout…and in as little as three months he completely transformed his body. The only things he regrets is not trying this approach sooner and wasting two years of his life doing other workouts.

Before training with the Adonis Index he was trying to change, but his effort was misplaced.

This is probably the most common issue with muscle building. Guys don’t understand that it’s crucial to have a well-designed workout program, not the newest or the most expensive supplement. While certain supplements like Creatine might help, if you don’t have a good workout plan then nothing else really matters. But since supplements are easier to sell and people seem to want magic pills most of the marketing is focused on selling them…this leads to a belief that supplements are the building blocks of muscles.

Well, they’re not.

You should make it a priority to get a workout that:

  1. Has purpose behind the training and targets some specific goal you want (ex.: building a V-shape dominant body with the perfect AI)
  2. Is designed by someone who looks the way you want to look (assuming it’s not a performance based workout)
  3. Focus on certain muscle groups more than others to build an overall shape and look
  4. Have variety of exercises, reps and sets (if you’re doing the same thing week after week, you will get bored and won’t stick to it for very long, plus variety can help you hit the muscle from different angles)
  5. Difficulty gradually advances (aka Progressive resistance)
  6. Doesn’t requires you to buy expensive supplements or follow some insane high protein diets

The thing that won’t hurt you either is having a deadline. For Andrew there just wasn’t enough urgency, but when he decided to participate in the Adonis Index Contest, the training suddenly had a deadline and things got serious. Plus he was putting his money on the line now since he booked a session with a photographer three weeks in advance.

What Andrew Had to Change in His Lifestyle

You might guess that winning a fitness competition and transforming your body would require some supper-strict lifestyle without any social interactions and you would have to be focused on the diet and training only.

While it obviously requires more effort and focus to get in shape than to maintain your look, it’s still about finding a balance with your social life.

The only things that Andrew did was walking every day, cutting a few calories and training on the Adonis Index system a few times per week. He was already hanging out in the gym, so this wasn’t such a stretch.

Getting in shape is not that time dependent.

Cutting calories doesn’t require any extra time, quite the opposite, because it can free you from constantly preparing food, eating and washing the dishes. Just think for a while how much time you spend doing those things every day.

What about the workouts?

Well, even if the workout session took you 90 minutes and you trained let’s say 5 times a week then it would still only be an 8 hours commitment per WEEK.

A week has 168 hours, so 8 hours of focused training dedicated to improving your body and possibly your social life doesn’t sound that much, does it?

Most people spend at three times that many hours in front of a TV or playing video games, so if you are one of them you only need to cut out 1/3rd of that and you suddenly have the time needed to work out.

Just be honest with yourself.

Some people get up at 5 am just to squeeze in the workout session before their work.

Find that time, it’s worth the effort.

It Was Mostly a Mental Game

While any change requires physical effort, usually the hardest part is mental.

You might guess that somebody who is in shape is motivated 24/7, however like Andrew discovered, it couldn’t be further from the truth. There will be days when you will wake up in 6 AM feeling like crap, annoyed by the rain and cold and definitely not feeling like working out or doing something worthwhile.

This is something that you have to expect to happen and find a way to punch through it.

Sometimes you will look at yourself and won’t see any results. You will trick yourself into thinking that it’s pointless to continue dieting, because in your mind it’ll seem like nothing is improving in the mirror or because the scale is still the same. You will find a reason to quit. It’s those who stay on track and push through these moments that succeed.

Andrew had the same problem, he wanted to quit the diet, but he decided to adjust the amount of calories he ate everyday and kept on going. He knew this would work and that it was just a matter of time and consistency.

The result?

After 12 weeks he got ripped.

Take home message from Andrew:
  • You don’t just wake up totally motivated every single day, there are tough times too, but you’ll get there
  • If you’re having a hard time with really low calories , you may consider eating more closer to your BMR more often
  • It’s best to focus your workouts on building muscle and let your diet take care of fat loss
  • If you want to create an even bigger deficit then try some low intensity walking for few hours per week
  • Listen to podcasts to keep motivated during the contest
  • Don’t stress yourself about progress, it takes time. Just keep going and compare results after weeks or months of consistent work
  • You won’t get ripped after just one workout, remember it’s just one of the next eighty days so you need to keep going to see significant results
  • Three months are nothing compared to the years you were out of shape
  • Diet and workouts are not effortless, but the real challenge is the psychological side of the transformation
  • You have to build certain habits to reach your desired shape (ex: waking up at 5am and going to the gym first thing in the morning)
  • Limit you alcohol and fast food intake
  • Realize why you eat, usually it’s not because you are hungry
  • Get in shape first, because once you see what you are capable of in the mirror, it’s easier to improve other areas of your life
  • Find out your core reason behind your workout and diet, why do you want to get in shape? (ex: happiness, being confident and calm with yourself in social interactions etc.)
  • Write down your goals, you will make it more real when you physically write them down on a paper
  • Some people will not like you improving yourself, the problem is in them not in you. They are just rationalizing why they are not in shape and you are
  • There is no secret to getting in shape, just eat less and work out properly, if you keep doing that for few months, you will see amazing results
  • Book a session with a photographer or a friend who will volunteer to take your pictures in advanced to have a deadline
  • Make a commitment that you will do whatever it takes to achieve your goals
  • There is never going be the perfect time to get in shape so START NOW!
  • Participate in a fitness contest and challenge yourself
Words & phases mentioned in the podcast:
Listen to the interview here:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Android | RSS

Filed Under: Contest, Podcasts, Transformation Tagged With: , ,

A Picture is Worth 1000 Words: Interview With Lauren Jacobsen

December 28, 2011 by

When you’re browsing a fitness magazine or the interwebs for diet and fitness information you will no doubt be exposed to pictures of fitness models.

In some cases the models are in an ad openly endorsing a given product like a supplement or workout system or device, but in many other cases the models are simply displayed within articles about training or nutrition. In both cases we learn to associate the look of the model to have something to do with the information we’re reading.

A Picture Chronology from Rookie Model In 2006 to Seasoned Pro In 2011

2006 - Laurens first photoshoot

2009 - 3 months from her next figure competition

 

2010 - On stage at the Arnold Classic Figure Competition

 

2010 - Day after national figure competition

 

2011 - 8 Weeks from Arnold Classic Figure Competition

Each of these pictures is taken at a different degree of content conditioning

—————————————————————————————————————————

This can be very misleading if you don’t know the story behind the picture and the model in that picture. Today Lauren will reveal the story behind the pictures you see here.

Lauren Jacobsen is a national level figure competitor and has been working in the supplement industry for the better part of the last 10 years. She’s knows what goes into making a professional ad and photoshoot both from the marketing side and the model side. She has been a model in multiple photoshoots and today she will reveal some of the ‘secrets’ behind them.

When it comes to fitness photoshoots a picture is truly worth 1000 words, and today those words are going to be Lauren explaining to you what really goes into a photoshoot and the look of a fitness/figure model.

Guys this will be a revelation about the images you see of women in magazines and online. The truth is these models look a lot more like a ‘normal’ woman than you think. The image you see is the result of a specific look attained on a specific diet, on a specific day with a professional photographer and a lot of extra help.

Even fitness and figure models don’t expect to look like their photoshoot pictures on a daily basis so we certainly shouldn’t expect them or any woman in our lives to be a walking photoshoot model either!

This is a revealing expose on the layers and unspoken truth behind the images of women in the fitness industry. Listen up and learn.

John

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Filed Under: Podcasts, Uncensored Podcasts S01 Tagged With: , ,

Contest Winner Shares His Best Tips & Tricks

December 26, 2011 by

Today’s podcast is very special. It’s an interview with the Adonis Index Open Contest winner Ryan Williams.

Ryan has been on board for several months now and he didn’t have a long way to go, but he definitely took it to the next level.

Check out his pictures:

Adonis Index Contest - Ryan William

Ryan not only got in an exceptional shape, but he also took great pictures.

Adonis Index Contest - Ryan William

Ryan's back shot.

 

Ryan thought that it’s near to impossible to get ripped and look like a Hollywood action movie star. He thought that it would require a very strict lifestyle and an incredible amount of work, which would be impossible to fit into his work schedule which requires a lot of traveling.

However, with two kids (six and two year old), wife and regular trips across continents he managed to get in a great shape, a cover model shape you would say.

The best part?

He is willing to share how he did it.

You have a chance to learn how he planned his workout, structured his diet and the other stuff he did to get in shape, you can take his best tricks and tweak them to fit to your own lifestyle.

New Approach Got Him Results

Ryan revealed that before finding the Adonis Index he was eating a lot, definitely more than his body could burn.

He, like many other guys, thought that he can muscle his way to leanness, he thought that if he got big enough and built enough muscle, his metabolism would be so fast that it would burn all the fat on his body. On top of that in the past he read in a fitness magazine that he should never eat below 2000 calories. He never really weighed himself, but Ryan’s estimate is that at one time he must have been way over 200 pounds, probably even close to 250.

It wasn’t until he found Eat Stop Eat and Adonis Index that he realized this is probably not the best approach to take to get in shape.

Probably the biggest revelation for Ryan was that he could just diet once and stay like that forever, just do some micro diet management for maintenance and that would be it.

He set his daily calories intake at 1800 calories and added two fasts on top of that. He wasn’t counting calories, he was doing more of calorie guessing and just eye balling the food to know the rough calorie content.

In the past he never followed a real muscle building program either. It was always just a mix of bodybuilding splits that he thought he should do from what he read in fitness magazines. In his own words: “I just trained the mirror muscles, that was it.”

The biggest shock once he started doing the Adonis Index workouts was of course the training volume. He thought that he was over-training and doubted that he could do it. However, after a few weeks the soreness went away and he realized that it wasn’t over-training, but rather under-conditioning, he just wasn’t used to such a physical stress before, so his muscles needed some time to get accustomed to such a high volume and intensity of training.

Another important fact Ryan mentions in the interview is the importance of periodization, which is crucial, because if you don’t change your workout often enough, you will get bored and you will not enjoy your workouts.

And how do you plan on sticking to something if you don’t enjoy it?

You Need to Have a Flexible Approach

Ryan said that what got him hooked about Adonis Index was the fact that it is oriented on aesthetics and proportions, the goal isn’t to just get big, but to actually achieve a specific shape.

Ryan is an opera singer and sometimes he needs to perform without his shirt on, in the past he would do some crazy strict fitness stuff like eating six times a day, eating tons of protein, because he was afraid of losing his muscles for the show and training a lot. Basically this made him a slave to his diet and gym routine for the sake of looking good on stage, however after the show he would always go back to looking pretty average.

The big mind shift came once he tried the program.

Six months is all he needed to get in the best shape of his life (sounds like something several previous contestants have in common). Don’t get me wrong, Ryan has some training history, but once he got in decent shape for his show, he gained all the weight back right after that show, he could never keep that shape for more than a short period of time.

Basically this lifestyle was killing him and he couldn’t sustain it for long term. He travels a lot and of course wants to spend some time with his wife and two kids when he is finally at home, so you can imagine he is not interested in preparing his six meals every day and spending half the day in the gym.

He combined the Eat Stop Eat and Anything Goes Diet principles into his workout routines and almost without any significant effort lost more than 20 pounds of fat. No countless hours spent on cardio, which he could never do for more than a month in the past anyway.

He let the diet take care of the fat loss and dedicated just 90 minutes, five times a week to training for muscle gain and aesthetics.

Obviously this worked almost like a magic and at the end he has a cover model body.

The best part?

He is able to sustain this after the show and keep his abs visible.

You need to find a flexible approach that allows you to change things as you go, is easy to implement into your lifestyle and is sustainable for years not just weeks.

You do want to look great for the rest of your life, don’t you?

In that case you need to find a way to stay in shape with very little effort while being able to enjoy your life in its fullest way possible.

Let’s clarify one thing though, there is a difference between your “regular look” and your “photo-shoot look”. Sometimes guys have a hard time getting over this one, so let’s break this down.

When fitness models are preparing for a contest or a photo-shoot, they know they will be in that shape for just a few hours. When you get down to single digit body fat, your look becomes transient based on the physical activity you do and the specific food you eat. Not that eating tacos would make you fat, but if you have a visible six pack abs and you can see different muscle fibers on your shoulders, each food will have a different affect on your look. Some foods will make you look sharper, some will make you more bloated. This is something you will have to experiment with once you get to this level.

And fitness models know this, they know exactly what foods affects them and how. They know what time a day and after what amount of hours after training they look the best, most cut, and most shredded. Put aside the drugs and photo editing, they know their bodies well and they surely know how to take advantage of that for the photo shoot. So, the point is that if you think that you are going to look like a cover model 24/7, you have some big disbelief that you need to get over.

You will look different in the morning, in the evening, after eating a big steak with fries, and after eating a bowl of apples. That is just how your body works, it changes it’s look very frequently based on your action. If you are over 10% body fat you may have not noticed those change. The reason for that is simple, you have fat on your muscles that prevents you from seeing those changes.

The fitness industry and it’s models are extreme, they’re like looking at a concept car at an auto show, it’s got wings and all sorts of fancy stuff that looks like it’s borrowed from Star Trek, but the car you buy doesn’t look like that, even if you buy a Ferrari, it still looks like a car compared to the concept models at the show. Your body is pretty much the same, the body you “buy” or build and live with on a daily basis is different from the one that fitness magazines are “selling” you.

Bear that in mind when reading magazines and looking at the models.

This is why it’s pointless to compare your pictures you took on your vacation with the one on a cover of a fitness magazine.

You Don’t Need to Hire a Professional Photographer to Get Good Photos

While some people decide that once they put the effort into the training and diet, they want to maximize the outcome by getting a professional photographer, Ryan did it almost all by himself. For him it would be too complicated to get a photographer, so he borrowed a camera from a friend, got up a bit earlier before his kids woke up, hung a lamp from the ceiling, put some black clothes behind him as a background and asked his wife to take the pictures.

And the result is pretty good. He proved that if you can’t get a photographer and a studio, you can take great pics yourself and still win. Don’t let the opportunity of winning a contest and some money slip through your fingers just because you think you need a photographer.

Take home message from Ryan:

  • Use the Adonis Index community, they are honest awesome and helpful people
  • “Contest was fun, it was definitely a good push that helped me to get in a better shape”
  • Figure out what is sustainable and what fits your lifestyle, it won’t be the same as thing as it is for the next guy over
  • Ryan is a “sprinter”, he can put a lot of energy into something for a short period of time, if you are the same, try to incorporate some of his tips into your routines
  • If you are tall and lean or don’t have much fat to get rid of try to guess calories rather than count them
  • You will have little slip ups, as long as you keep making progress you will get to your goal, so don’t worry it is okay to make mistakes, some would even say necessary
  • Being in shape is something you want to keep for the rest of your life, so find what works for YOU
  • The goal is to make it sustainable, fitness models can’t sustain the look for they have for the show for very long, so don’t aim for the impossible
  • Find your motivator, for Ryan it was his job and the fact that he is required to take his shirt off from time to time on stage in front of a lot of people
  • Train for aesthetics, but don’t train just your mirror muscles, train it all and just focus a little more on the muscles that make up the best AI ratio
  • Take pictures, you will see your muscles from completely different angles then you are used to and you will be able to notice how thick, wide and shaped your muscles naturally are
  • You don’t need a professional photographer to take good pictures, just play with what you got
  • Everybody looks different and have different genetics, so don’t compare yourself to others

Words & phases mentioned in the podcast:

Listen to the interview here:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Android | RSS

Filed Under: Contest, Podcasts, Transformation Tagged With: , ,

Eating for Weight Loss Over The Holidays

December 16, 2011 by

Notice: This is an oldie but goodie that we’ve pulled up to the front

Eating during the holidays is usually associated with weight gain, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be that way.

You should be able to indulge in big holiday dinners as long as you plan your eating around that dinner accordingly.

As we always say, every up needs a down. So if you’re planning on having a few big christmas feasts at the end of this week, you should take it light on the days leading up to the big meal.

Creating a calorie deficit throughout the week BEFORE you sit down to christmas dinner is a better strategy than waiting till after the holidays to work off the extra calories. <– You and I both know the latter never works.

In this podcast, we’ll talk about eating strategies that can work for weight maintenance and even weight loss over the holidays. We’ll also help you identify when people are trying to hold you back from achieving your lifestyle goals and what to do about it.

John

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Android | RSS

Filed Under: Featured Articles, Podcasts Tagged With: , ,

When Does Bodyweight Matter?

December 14, 2011 by

There are many different metrics you can use to measure a change in your body shape and composition. The short list includes, bodyweight, bodyfat %, and the circumference of your waist, hips, and shoulders. All of these measurements can be made at home relatively easily with a decent degree of accuracy.

At what point does the scale become useless?

All you need is a scale, a cheap set of bodyfat calipers, and a measuring tape and you can keep a pretty good eye on the shape and composition of your body.

These metrics can give you a snap shot of where you’re at during any given point in time, but how much information will they give you about how much you are changing over time?

The answer to this question is dependent upon where you currently are.

If you’re BMI (Body Mass Index) is in the overweight or obese category it’s likely that the only metric that is even worth measuring is bodyweight. Indeed if one is large enough calipers are problematic to use, and it may not even be obvious where to put the measuring tape to get a true ‘waist’ measurement etc.

The point is when an individual has between 50-100lbs to lose, bodyweight itself is likely your most useful measurement tool. The goal is simply weight loss, regardless of what the weight itself even is…it will likely be a mix of bodyfat, excess body water, and even some pathological forms of lean mass (remember not all lean mass is muscle mass).

Reducing total bodyweight is the key for people who are in upper range of the overweight BMI and all those in the obese range.

Once your bodyweight enters the ‘normal’ weight range of the BMI things like bodyfat % and the tape measure on the waist, hips and shoulders (as well as arms, legs, chest etc) start to tell more of the story.

Bodyweight becomes less useful as you approach the 10% bodyfat range, and becomes almost totally useless below this level. As a man enters the single digit bodyfat % range the only thing left to track changes is the mirror.

In today’s podcast we’ll discuss where the break points are for using body weight, body fat % and measurements as an accurate way to track progress. In the end the only measurement that will truly matter is the mirror.

John

Login and Download Podcast Here

For more information as well as how to get access to Adonis UNCENSORED, click the link below:

Adonis UNCENSORED Premium Podcast

 

Filed Under: Podcasts, Uncensored Podcasts S01, weight loss Tagged With: , ,
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