Stage 4 Surges & Maximizing Your Winners

(My Original Blog Post: http://mikeroussell.com/stage-4-surges-maximizing-your-winners/)
In regards to health and weight loss what is everyone’s actual goal? Lose the weight AND keep it off. The ‘lose the weight’ part is easy. It is the ‘keep is off’ part that isn’t. The scientific community, nutrition community, and fitness community have all been woefully unsuccessful at helping you keep it off. I think this is for several different reasons. Over the next two days I want to explore a solution to one of these reasons that I call ‘Stage 4 Surges’ and while doing so expose a major flaw is most people’s approach to dieting.

As a primer to this post watch this quick recap on the Stages of Nutrition

The Stages of Nutrition:

• Nutritional Freestyling: You eat whatever you want whenever you want.


• Proper Food Choices Varying Compliance: You try to eat the right stuff but you just don’t do it consistently.


• Proper Food Choices 90% Compliance: You eat the right stuff and you rarely falter (this is the target stage for most people).


• Calorie/Portion Counting, Proper Food Choices 90% Compliance: You need to fine tune your diet more for a specific purpose (weight loss, health, performance) so you start counting calories or portions and you stay on your plan just about all the time.

So as you can see what your diet approach looks like should depend on where you are. If you are just starting out and nutritional freestyling then there is no need to worry about how many grams of protein, carbohydrates or fats that you are eating. In fact this could hinder your progress. What you need to be doing is focusing on consistently eating more fruits, vegetables, and lean proteins throughout the day. The key word in that phrase was consistent.

If you can’t consistently do this then the gram quantities of anything don’t matter as you probably won’t have the discipline or skill set to consistently hit those targets.

The best part is that once you DO start consistently eating better (better defined as in line with the 6 Pillars of Nutrition – video below), your body is going to start changing for the good. It will probably change so much for the good that you’ll think ‘Jeez, why bother counting calories when I can just eat in line with the 6 Pillars of nutrition and get the body that I want’ (Okay, you may not choose those exact words when talking to yourself but you get what I mean).

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mkAQGr8sAE[/youtube]

The key point and one that I stress again and again in my seminars is that the 3rd Stage of Nutrition should be your target Stage.

A couple months ago I was giving a seminar at the Fitness Circuit in State College, PA. During this seminar I introduced the attendees to the Stages of Nutrition and the 6 Pillars of Nutrition. After the presentation, I got into a conversation with the gym owner, Scott Ludwig, he loved the idea of the Stages of Nutrition - obvious he’s a smart guy :).  He went on to talk about how he could see the Stages being used in a back and forth type fashion. Exactly! (told you he was a smart guy)

Let me digress from my conversation with Scott to emphasize that nothing in life in linear. Not your weight loss, not your progress through the Stages of Nutrition, nothing. You will find yourself moving from Stage 2 (good food choices, less than optimal compliance) to Stage 3 (the target stage – good food choices, optimal compliance) and then maybe back to Stage 2. Hopefully never falling all the way back to Nutritional Freestyling. This ebb and flow of your compliance will most likely change depending on what is going on in your life. That is fine, it happens. When you find yourself slipping just step your game up, re-align your focus and achieve your compliance goals. Simple.

Back to my conversation with Scott. He wasn’t talking about the movement from Stages 2 to 3 to 2 and such but more using Stage 4 (Counting calories/portions, and optimal compliance) as a means for peaking. Good idea, right?

Think about the past 12 months. There have been times where you have been uber motivated to eat right and train, correct? There have been other times when you have been less than motivated or preoccupied with other things in your life such that you diet and training had to take a back seat (hopefully this wasn’t too far of a back seat and you were still hitting your compliance and training goals but they were just not as aggressively set).

Think about those highly motivated times. What could you have done if you really would have stepped your game up? How much extra weight could you have lost? How much extra muscle could you have built? There is a phrase that a business coach once told me that has always stuck with me….

“Maximize your winners.”

That is what I want you to do. Maximize your winners. Maximize those periods of high motivation and drive. Maximize the amount of calories you can burn. Maximize your ability to get that extra rep and burn off that extra layer of fat. Maximize the extra will power that you will have to ratchet down and tighten up your diet.

Tomorrow, I’ll finish up this post/article with what exactly is Stage 4 Surges how you can use them, and a major flaw is most people’s approach to dieting.

3 More Ways to Help Control Appetite

(My Original Blog Post: http://ping.fm/Ni1GV)
Today I'm going to continue on with sharing with you some of the ways that Naked Nutrition folks on Facebook

5. Sugar Free Gum - While often laughably touted on the TV show The Biggest Losers as the ultimate weight loss secret, chewing gum is a very effective option for many people - especially if you are prone to snacking.

6. Eating More Often - Increasing how often you eat is an extremely effective way to curb appetite. This again plays to the mental aspect of hunger, if you are constantly eating (or every 2-3 hours), your brain gets a different message about food and its availability than if you were only eating once or twice a day.

7. Exercise - I have seen this work both ways for people. Some find that exercise makes them more hungry while others find that it takes their appetite away. It is good know find out which type of person that you are so that you are prepared because you need to exercise regardless. A recent study showed that exercising in hotter temperatures results in people eating less. I'm not sure the answer to the exercise/appetite question requires that you pretend you are a high school wrestler and workout in a 95 degree room, but exercising in hotter temperatures did lead to the release of more peptide YY, a compound released by your intestines which reduces appetite something is going on at a biochemical level.

I wish I could tell you different, but there isn't a magic bullet to zapping appetite and you aren't going to 'get over it.' Hunger pangs will always be there while dieting. My best advice is to diet and get it over with. Lose the weight that you need to lose and then stop dieting and eat lots of healthy calories while maintaining your new weight. If you haven't already make sure to read my Lifetime Fat Loss post as Jack's story has rung true with many people.

4 Ways to Help Control Appetite

(My Original Blog Post: http://ping.fm/z7K6n)
Sometimes you just need to eat less. While I do everything possible in my writings and research to find ways to help you eat more food, still lose weight, improve your health, there is a limit to this. If you are not losing weight and want to lose 5, 10, or 15lbs you will need to eat less food than you currently are to make this happen.

The biggest stumbling block for most in this area is appetite and how to curb it. The bad news is that when you are dieting and eating less food you will always be hungry.Sorry to be the bearer of bad news here.

In a perfect world our body's would get used to the concept of eating less food and your brain would stop sending the 'I'm hungry' signal. Sort of like when you get a cut, it hurts for a little bit but then after a while your body stops transmitting the pain signal. Unfortunately, the human body's response to hunger is not the same as its response to a paper cut.

If you have been reading my blog for a while you will know that when looking at scientific research for an answer to a question, I like to use human research. Unfortunately, it is prohibitively difficult to continually restrict a group of people's calories and measure their appetite and hunger signals/cues in the brain to see how long they last. People have a tendency not so enroll in studies that would force them to under eat for decade.

So the best data we have to go on comes from animals. Studies from mice show that even after being underfed the equivalent of 7 human years (I say 'human' years because the lifespan of a mouse if much shorter - same concept as 'dog years'), the area in the brain responsible for sending the 'I'm hungry' signal is working just as hard sending that signal as it was on day 1.

Since it looks like our desire to eat more when we are eating less is always going to be there and considering that the brain is the driving force behind these feelings, we need to revert to tips, tricks, and other strategies to fool the brain into thinking we're not eating less. I took an informal poll on the Naked Nutrition Facebook page to see what people are doing to suppress appetite and fight this hardwired hunger response. Here's what's working for people:

1. Drinking Lots of Tea (Green, Black, Mate, etc) - While probably not as effective as all the ads on the internet claim, but tea has been used for hundreds of years as an appetite suppressant.



2. Fiber, Fiber, Fiber - Taking advantage of the satiating effects of fiber is also very important. One person adds ground flax to meals throughout the day. This is a great tip. Ground flax can be easily added to lots of things, it full of fiber, omega-3s, and other phytonutrients. In addition most fiber rich foods are generally not calorie dense foods which means that you can eat more without eating more calories.

3. Drinking More Water - While drinking water at a meal has not really been shown in scientific studies to make people eat less calories, it is still a widely used strategy by many people. What is really interesting is that if you take that same glass of water and use it to make a soup with the vegetables at that meal (so you are basically eating the same things just in a different form), studies show that you will then eat less - wild huh? Researchers think it has to do with visual cues and a glass of water just does not scream 'I'm going to make you full' to the brain (I know that it doesn't to mine).

4. Sugar Free Jello - This tip also fall under the category of eating foods that aren't calorie dense. Sugar free Jello is devoid of calories but the act of eating itself can help signal the brain that you should not be as hungry because you just ate. If there is one thing that research has shown us about eating behaviors, it is that calories don't matter. We are a very visually driven species, so seeing a big bowl of food that is low in calories (like Jello or a salad) will result in us thinking we ate a lot despite the fact that the actual amount of calories we ate weren't that much.

Tomorrow we'll look at the last 3 tips. If you have something that works for you that wasn't mentioned above please post a comment below so we all can benefit.

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Effects of Energy Drinks & Functional Foods - Fact or Fiction?

(My Original Blog Post: http://ping.fm/HRLgU)
The label reads "improves brain function."

I don't know if it is sleep deprivation causing a reduction in my brain function or the fact that I'm very trust, either way I reach into the cooler and grab a can of Brain TonIQ (pronounced tonic).

Image via Wikipedia

The newest energy drink in an ever growing class of $2 miracle in a can products promising increased energy, fat loss, and improved brain function. It is amazing to think that Red Bull used to be the only game in town and before that the only drink you could by which promised anything was Jolt Cola (and that just promised to have 2x the caffeine of Coke - which12 year old Mike Roussell thought was both a scary and cool proposition).

Now there is Red Bull, 5 Hour Energy, 6 Hour Power Energy (apparently the makers of 6 Hour Power Energy took the advice of Harland William's character in There's Something About Mary regarding 7 Minute Abs and applied it to energy drinks, Rock Star, Monster Energy, Full Throttle, Crunk, NOS, and my perennial favorite for long driving trips -the Spike Shooter. While many of the products that I just listed only promise an instant surge of energy, which is easily accomplished by stuffing the can full of sugar and caffeine, more and more products are being placed on store shelves, like Brain TonIQ, that seemingly promise a short term benefit that could only be accomplished via long term consumption.

The great promises of physiological superiority are not limited to the energy drink aisle of your local convenience store or super market. It is a growing trend in functional foods that people like us need to be aware of in order to prevent being sent to the poor house due to our quest for good health without even the consolation of better health (more on that in a minute).

Instant Benefit Through Chronic Use

One of the reasons that energy drinks like Red Bull are so popular is because you get an instant result.

Drink it, get energy.

You feel different after to drink it almost instantly. Due to the miracle of caffeine this is not the placebo effect, you actually have more energy. The problem for food and beverage companies arises when they try to develop products that cannot rely on the instant feedback that caffeine gives in order to convince you, the consumer, that the food or beverage is working.

So with the caffeine angle out the window, the next trick in the tool box is scientific research. Add a bunch of stuff to product that has been shown or theorized to have a benefit in a can or tub, sprinkle on the label some technical jargon, and you're good to go. With the ridiculous popularity of energy drinks Field of Dreams 'formulate it and they will drink' mantra actually works! But I want you to stop and think next time you go to shell out $2 in hopes of thinking more clearly.

Let's look at Brain TonIQ for a minute to illustrate my point. The tag line for this product is "Fuel Your Cranium. Get Thinking Again." So what is in this can that is going to make you start thinking more clearly?

• Sugar. Organic Agave Nectar to be exact.


• DMAE,


• Choline (a classic ingredient in 'brain' drinks),


• blue green algae,


• eleutherococcus extract (aka Siberian ginseng)


• rhodiola rosea

I'm not going to get into the details of the formulation, I just want to point out the flaw in our thinking as consumers. The though process we go through is this. I need to improve my brain function. Brain TonIQ says it will do this. It contains Ginseng and Rhodiola Rosea both should help with this. I'll drink it and be on point for my test/presentation/[insert reason for needing to think better].

The problem with this mentality/thought process is that things like Ginseng, Rhodioloa Rosea, or just about anything except caffeine don't work instantly and don't work after one dose and they may not even have enough of the active ingredient to make a difference.

Not to keeping going at the nice people that make Brain TonIQ (I just happen to have the can in front of me) but, there are 1.8 grams of the proprietary herbal blend with the ingredients that I listed above in each can. Studies looking at the effect of Siberian Ginseng use 1-3 gram per day for up to 12 weeks. So it is important to ask yourself, for any supplement you are taking,

'Is there enough active ingredient in here to make an impact?'

and

'How long do I need to take this to see the effects?'

Functional Foods - Looking Beyond Energy Drinks

As I alluded to this 'now contains [insert hot nutrient of the week]' phenomenon is running rampant in our supermarkets and the end result could be you just paying more but not getting any added benefit. Another example that we can look at is Benecol. Benecol is a butter substitute/margarine product that contains plant stanol esters. Plant stanols/sterols have been shown in several different clinical trials to reduce your cholesterol levels.

1 TBSP of Benecol contains 0.85 grams of stanols. You need at least 2 grams/ day of stanols to get a cholesterol lower effect. This means that you need to take 2-3 TBSP per day to reap the benefit of this product. The company behind Benecol clearly state this on their site but that is the kind of stuff we often ignore and chalk up to the company trying to make us consume more of their products ('rinse and repeat' anyone?).

The take home message here for this article is to not get sucked into purchases because of buzz words or 'Instant Benefit Despite Chronic Use Needed' promises. If you are going to go the route of using functional foods (which I do recommend as they can be beneficial), make sure that you know the usage needed to get the desired effect so that you aren't wasting your money.

I'd love to hear your thoughts?

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Overlooked Weight Loss Factors Pt 1: Eating with Others

(My Original Blog Post: http://nakednutritionnetwork.com/overlooked-weight-loss-factors-pt-1-eating-with-others/)
[caption id="attachment_2758" align="alignright" width="127" caption="One of the best books you'll read this year"][/caption]

There is always a lot of talk about diet and exercise when it comes to weight loss. Certain ratios of protein and carbohydrates seem to be important. Whether or not you need to be doing 4, 10, or 20 minute metabolic workouts is currently a much talked about topic. Last night I started re-reading Tom Venuto's "The Body Fat Solution" and the introduction got me thinking about the factors that are over looked in most weight loss programs. These overlooked areas (many of which Tom does an excellent job of covering in his book) are really the key to success.

As I have said before, losing weight is self isn't that hard. Keeping the weight you lost is difficult. What are the overlooked factors in both the areas of weight loss and weight maintenance that if you were to just pay a little bit of attention to could make all the difference? Over the next couple posts I'd like to explore some of theses with you to better your chances of permanent success and living a strong, fit, and healthy life.

Environment

I"m not talking about the feng shui of your dinner plate but factors that drive your eating environment. Researchers have identified 4 key factors in your eating environmental:

• Eating Atmospherics (Lighting, Noise & Music, etc)


• Eating Effort


• Eating with others


• Eating distractions.

For the most part I recommend that you do your best to control what you eat through proper planning and preparation which can take eating atmospheric influences such as "people will eat more in colder rooms and drink more in warmer rooms" (I didn't make that up) out of the equation as you just eat what you had planed regardless of the humidity level in the room.

But even with all the best planning in the world you can't (and wouldn't want to) eat alone; thus it is important to recognize the under the radar factors that come into play when eating with others. Combine this with the fact that a lot of eating in larger groups occurs at restaurants or parties where the food selection can be less than ideal and it is pretty easy to fall off the wagon.

Now, I don't have to work very hard to convince you that the presence of other people will influence both what and how much is eaten.  I'm sure you've had the experience where you were going to order one particular dish but the person you were with orders a different dish and you end up saying something like "oh, I'll have that to."

What I find really interesting is that research from Georgia State University shows that people can eat up to 33% more when eating with someone else compared to eating alone and that percentage increases as the size of the group increases. Brian Wansink, author of Mindless Eating, has also pointed out that the variance associated with how much is eaten in these group situations becomes smaller as the group get bigger; which basically means that people are more consistent about eating more food as the size of the group they are in gets bigger.

Here are some other stats from Dr. de Castro at Georgie State University. We eat more people close to use compared to just having random people around:

• Spouse - 22% more


• Family - 23% more


• Friend - 14% more

But we eat less around coworkers (16% less).

[caption id="attachment_2764" align="aligncenter" width="298" caption="Do you eat more with certain people?"][/caption]

While some may argue the exact percentages and statistics, go ahead as those don't matter as much to me. Look at the big picture. Are you unknowingly eating more around certain people? Are you unknowingly making different food choices when you eat with certain people. Just take a couple minutes today to think about this and apply it to your life. Recognizing these situations in your life and making sure that you don't succumb to under the radar influences will help you live a strong, fit, and healthy life while maintaining the body weight you want.

Ketogenic Diets - Effective, But Are They Healthy?

(My Original Blog Post: http://ping.fm/95TC3)
There has been a lot more QnA going on at the Naked Nutrition Facebook Page (If you haven't already, make sure to head over, click image below, and 'Like It') and so I'll start answering some of the questions in more depth here on the blog.

Today's question comes from Shawn and it is about the ketogenic diets and if they are healthy?

"I know that keto diets are effective for losing fat, but is it a healthy way of eating otherwise? After staying true to the WSFL diet for a while, I may have lost some weight, but I just don't feel like I'm giving my body what it needs to be healthy (specifically, enough vegetables; for one, I don't feel like I get enough dietary fiber on this diet, not to mention all the other good stuff veggies bring to the table). I'm completely off the starchy and grainy carbs, but do fibrous carbs actually prevent ketosis as well?"

Let me answer the second part of your question, then the first. The normal timeline of a ketogenic diet is a 2 week 'induction' followed by several phases (of in determinant length) with increased levels of carbohydrates. During the induction phase you would only take in <20g/d of carbohydrates. This is really the only time you would need to worry about monitoring whether or not you are in ketosis. You can monitor your ketotic status (I don't think ketotic is an actual word but you know what I mean) with Ketostix. During this time period you really do need to be careful about your carbohydrate intake and the ketostix are useful at monitoring your ketone production.

[caption id="attachment_2749" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Ketostix Bayer Reagent Strips for Urinalysis"][/caption]

After the two week period you can increase your carbs up to 50g/d. These carbs should come mainly in the form of vegetables so you shouldn't feel like you are restricting you vegetable intake too much because 50 grams of carbs give you...

• 12.5 cups of broccoli florets or


• 7 cups of cooked spinach or


• 1 head of cabbage or


• 7 medium size red bell peppers or


• 8 cups of cherry tomatoes

So the answer to the second part of your questions is...No, you don't need to restrict your intake of fibrous carb because as you can see from the list above it would require a lot of fibrous carbs to top 50 grams/day. You don't need to worrying about monitoring urinary ketosis beyond the induction peroid anyway, just monitor your fat loss.

Now to transition to the first part of your question regarding getting ample antioxidant and 'goodies' from vegetables.  1 serving of broccoli is acutally only 1/2 a cup so if you ate only broccoli you would be getting 25 servings of vegetables per day (not that I'm recommending eating only broccoli - the math is just easy with that as an example). The current recommendations for vegetable intake is only 5 servings (2.5 cups) per day!

My clients and other people that use Naked Nutrition always eat way more fruits and vegetables than are currently recommended even when on lower carbohydrate diets. Also Dr. Jeff Volek anecdotally told me once that the people whom participate in the low carb diet studies he runs at the University of Connecticut always find themselves eating more vegetables on the low carb diets compared to their normal eating habits.

As you transition away from weight loss to a diet maintenance phase you will increase your carbohydrate intake even more. I recommend that you do this by adding more fruits and vegetables as well as fiber rich grains (for breakfast and following workouts per the 6th Pillar of Nutrition). For more specifics on this transition check out my chapter in the Warp Speed Fat Loss Nutrition Manual called "Life After Warp Speed Fat Loss."

Dead-On Weight Loss Advice From an Unusual Source

(My Original Blog Post: http://ping.fm/1D5aV)
The other day on some social networking site (Twitter, Facebook, I don't remember exactly) someone made a post.  It post was titled "The Public Humiliation Diet." I had to read it. How could you not?

So I clicked the link.Where does it take me?

Deadspin.com (not necessarily a site I would tell my mother to read)

I read on.

The article was by one of the sites editors, Drew Magary, who has lost 60lbs in the last 5 months. Here's brief excerpt that describes his story and rationale for his diet.

I've struggled with my weight for my entire life. I went to hospital fat camp in seventh grade. I have stretch marks all along my sides and gut (fire belly!). I spend the majority of my day thinking about food, and that's unlikely to change anytime soon, even now. I love eating and have a hard time controlling myself when presented with cakes and pies and bags of Doritos. Oh, Doritos. Oh God, how I adore you. You hear about alcoholics who can't stop drinking until they're blackout drunk. I'm that way with food. I can't stop eating until I'm blackout fat.

So I needed to set some ground rules for myself to lose weight, ground rules that I felt were reasonable to follow for the rest of my adult life.

Here are 2  key strategies that Drew used to lose 2.5 toddlers worth of weight from his midsection (with my comments).

4. I never ate after dinner. 6 p.m., to be precise, because I eat with my kids. That may not be realistic for you. But there are plenty of people out there who advocate not eating too much at night. For me, it used to be that dinner was the start of my nightly eating. There'd be dessert. Then the after-dessert dessert. Then a bowl of cereal. Then shots of ranch dressing...This rule...I really stuck to. The only times I ate dinner late were when I was out with friends or whatever and had no choice.

This is great. I've written before about not eating after a certain time at night, not because of some magical fat burning property but because of the exact reason that Drew illustrated above - post dinner snacking. Drew was able to identify that for him, a huge caloric load was being consumed after he ate dinner. A simple way to curb that was to allow no wiggle room and just make the 'rule' that he wasn't going to eat after dinner.

Oftentimes, identifying a particular bad habit and making a hard and fast 'life rule' to stop it is a great way to instantly change your behavior for the best.

10. I made sure everything I ate was AWESOME. If I'm only getting three legit meals a day, they better be good. So I made sure of that. Did you know two slices of bacon only have 70 calories? Combine that with a fried egg and you've got a breakfast of less than 200 calories, far less than a bowl of granola. So I went the bacon route. I also learned to braise short ribs,  make my own pulled pork, make Thai steak sauces, and all this other crazy stuff because I wanted to lose weight and still enjoy what I was eating. None of this grilled-chicken-breast-every-night crap that NFL players do. I still love food and I LIKE it that way. (Note: This is not an exact quote as I editted out the f-bombs)

Diet foods or the foods that you eat when on a diet do not often conjure up images that make your mouth water. For whatever reason many people feel that the only way to eat healthy is by consuming the same bland food day in and day out. It does not have to be that way. You just need to learn to eat less of certain things that you love (like Drew did with Bacon) and cook differently (also like Drew did with homemade BBQ sauce) so the food that you do eat fits in with your plan.

I personally love cheese. There is no way that I'm cutting cheese out of my diet, even if my calories are low because I'm dieting down. A year or so ago I was teaching a nutrition course and got into a conversation with the class about this exact topic. They were surprised that I didn't recommend you eat low fat cheese,instead just less full fat cheese. Let's be real here, low fat cheese is disgusting. Maybe (let me repeat...Maybe) I'll use a low fat shredded cheddar cheese in a recipe but as a general rule reduced fat cheeses taste like rubber.

Why would you want to eat that? Wouldn't you much rather eat 1/2 an oz of delicious full fat Vermont Cabot Cheddar Cheese than suffer through a full ounce of fat free Kraft Cheddar cheese?

Losing weight needs to involve a calorie deficit, which will require you to eat less calories. It does not require that you deprive yourself of food that tastes good.

Take a look at your diet. Are you suffering through any meals? How can you make them better?

Here is the link to the  original article (again, there is a bunch of 'colorful' language in the post so if that bothers you then I wouldn't recommend clicking the link).

Post a comment and let me know your favorite delicious diet food or recipe.

Top 5 Most Popular Posts

(My Original Blog Post: http://nakednutritionnetwork.com/top-5-most-popular-posts/)
I recently went back and looked at all the past Naked Nutrition past posts to see what has been the most popular. I was surprised to see certain posts there (namely that the most popular post has nothing to do with nutrition) and certain posts NOT there. Here are the top 5 most popular posts of all time with some key nutrition (or exercise) nuggets from each of them

1. Tabata Protocol – Complete Exercise Guide

[caption id="attachment_2724" align="alignleft" width="446" caption="The Tabata Protocol was originally tested on Speed Skaters"][/caption]

It was surprising that my most popular post has been exercise related but understandable as the Tabata Protocol has reached such mainstream appeal that distance runners are even using it to improve their fitness levels. Here are 3 Key excerpts:

"A Tabata workout is a timed workout that is only 4 minutes long. It consists of 20 seconds of hard (intense) exercise followed by 10 seconds of rest, and then you repeat this 8 times. Seems simple but it is really tough."

"...in order complete a full Tabata, really complete it like in the study, you need to be in decent shape. Fortunately, you can work your way up to the full 20 seconds on/10 seconds off protocol by using different time variations.

• 10 seconds on, 20 seconds off x 8


• 15 seconds on, 15 seconds off x 8


• 20 seconds on, 10 seconds off x 8"

"Coach Robert Dos Remedios a.k.a. The Tabata Master also emphasizes the importance of intensity when completing a Tabata session. He jokes that if you can do 2 Tabatas after your workout then your training session isn’t tough enough or you aren’t hitting your first Tabata hard enough. He recommends adding a Tabata to the end of your workout as a great way of ‘finishing your body off.’"

You can read the rest of this post here.

2. Fast Safe Weight Loss – How To Lose 3-6 Pounds of Fat Per Week

With the popularity of the Warp Speed Fat Loss program it is no surprise that one of this site's most popular post centered around the the concept that it IS possible to safely lose more than 2lbs per week. Here are a couple key points about metabolic exercise.

"Since you aren’t on the Biggest Loser and probably can’t workout 5-7 hrs/day tweaking your metabolism so that you burn calories when you aren’t exercising is key."

"Go for time. Metabolic circuits are ’self regulating’ in that you do as much work as you can. Do as many sets as you can within a give time frame. 10 minutes is a good place to start."

"Do better each time. While there isn’t a target number of a sets that you should do, strive to do more sets/reps each workout. Push yourself to burn more calories each workout and you will be greatly rewarded by burning more calories after each workout."

You can read the rest of this post here.

3. Whey Protein Isolate vs. Whey Protein Concentrate

The popularity of this post really speaks to the lack of educational information there is surrounding protein powders. The Concentrate vs. Isolate question is evergreen and I"m glad that I could clarify it here for people. The difference between concentrates and isolates is really important for people from a digestive perspective. I recently helped a friend relief a good deal of digestive discomfort from switching protein powders.

"Protein concentrates. Protein concentrates are created by pushing the protein source (milk, whey, etc.) through a very small filter that allows water, minerals, and other organic materials to pass though. The proteins, which are too big to pass through the filter, are collected, resulting in protein powder. When this process is used to make whey protein concentrate, it yields a protein powder that is 70-80% protein and up to 5% lactose. People with lactose intolerance will have trouble consuming large amounts of whey protein concentrate."

"Protein isolates. This is the next step up in purification; the protein is purified again using more filtration or a technique called ion-exchange or cross-flow microfiltration. Protein isolates have very low levels of carbohydrates and fat and are almost exclusively pure protein. People with lactose intolerance usually don’t have trouble with whey protein isolates. Many companies that make whey protein isolates will certify that their product is lactose free or they add lactase (the enzyme that breaks down lactose) to the protein powder to help with digestion."

You can read the rest of this post here.

4. Female Body Breakthrough – Rachel Cosgrove’s New Book

I was not surprised to see that out of all the different books and resources that I have written about, Rachel Cosgrove's book 'The Female Body Breakthrough' is in the top 5. Why? Because it is easily the best training book for women written to date. Rachel is a great advocate for the proper way to women to develop the bodies that they desire. Her book is very comprehensive and she doesn't pull any punches about the hard work that is required to get the body you desire. My favorite quote beings "In order to look like a fox you need to sweat like a pig." Here is an excerpt from the post in which Rachel outlines what weight loss program for women SHOULD DO (weight loss programs for men should also do these things"

• "Metabolically demanding full body strength training program lifting challenging weights. This should be their priority workouts 2-4 days a week.


• Boost their intensity and drop the duration on their cardio sessions performing interval style workouts for no more than 30 minutes at a time.


• Fuel their body with healthy food every couple hours getting their metabolism revving.


• Focus on how her clothes fit and how she looks and feels and not on a number on the scale. Focus on Fat Loss, not Weight Loss"

You can read the rest of this post here.

5. How To Lose Body Fat Without Losing Muscle

When dieting the number concern that people have, aside from 'how fast can I lose weight' usually centers on preventing muscle loss. To do this you really need to reconcile the the differences between your body's objectives/problems and yours when your calories are low.

"First let’s look at why your body would breakdown muscle to use as fuel when dieting. There are three main reason.

• Body’s Problem: Needs energy.


• Body’s Problem: Needs enough amino acids to maintain important bodily functions.


• Body’s Problem: Energy is low thus needs to only keep around essential parts that require calories.

You have your own set of problems in regards to how your body acts when it comes to functioning on low calories.

• Your Problem: You want it to specifically use store fat to fill the energy void.


• Your Problem: You want the body to get amino acids from places other than hard earned muscle.


• Your Problem: Need to convince your body that lean muscle is essential."

You can read the rest of this post here.

Is there a post that isn't is the top 5 but it is your favorite? Let me know and I'll put together a 'reader' favorites list.

Fat Loss Essential- Protect Yourself From Yourself

(My Original Blog Post: http://nakednutritionnetwork.com/fat-loss-essential-protect-yourself-from-yourself/)
Yes, I'm back after a long blogging hiatus. My PhD studies combined with a lot of movement behind the scenes at Naked Nutrition has been just about all my time over the past several weeks but I should be back blogging on a regular basis now.



Last weekend I made a trip up to my alma mater, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, (which I have since learned made the list of America's 50 Most Expensive Colleges) as my little sister (who is slowly becoming not so 'little') was graduating. The weekend festivities were great, especially because I got to catch up with a lot of family that I hadn't seen in a while. One conversation was especially relevant to the Naked Nutrition Approach and knew I wanted to share with it you right away.

I was talking with a family friend about his sleeping problems and if he had been able to crack the insomnia code to get more sleep. He said he was getting better but hadn't reconciled the problem completely. He did say that the one strategy that had provided him the most benefit was a sleep journal. What he did was each morning, upon waking, he recorded that nights events - about when he fell asleep, when he woke up, how long he was up, when he fell back asleep, etc.

This was so powerful because he realized that he actually was sleeping more than he thought. Knowing this relieved a significant about of anxiety surround his insomnia.

I instantly saw this as a perfect analogy for compliance charts. I've written about the 90% rule and compliance here, here, here, and numerous other places and I keep bringing it up because it is a make or break strategy that I don't see enough people using.

Just as my friend was under the impression that he was hardly sleeping at all, I have never met something who didn't think there diet was better than it really was. Once my friend took the time to quantify his sleeping habits he was able to see the truth of the situation and then employ more strategies that were appropriate for his actual situation.

Until you take the time and quantify your nutritional compliance, you really have no idea how well or poor you are adhering to your diet. If you don't know how well you are following your plan then any adjustment or 'fixes' that you apply to your diet is essentially throwing darts in the dark at your weight loss target.

Do yourself a favor, save yourself a lot of frustration and this week take the time to track your compliance before you try any new exercise plans, diet modifications, or supplements.

Apple Cider Vinegar

(My Original Blog Post: http://ping.fm/ARAik)
Before we get into today's post I wanted to follow up on Monday's contest. In response to my "3 Foods To Always Stock in Your Cupboards" post

The winner is Petra with her post :

Unfortunately, I'm not a huge fan of most grains, but I do like oatmeal, so my cupboard is always stocked with oatmeal. In addition, I have raw nuts, mainly almonds and walnuts, and raw, unfiltered apple cider vinegar. I don't know if it provides all the health benefits that I have heard about, but it makes a great vinaigrette when mixed with olive oil, garlic, herbs and spices.

(Petra - email me at support [at] nakednutritionnetwork.com and I'll send you the Fat Loss Edge Audio recording)


In regards to her question about apple cider vinegar...there are some amazing claims about this floating around the internet from its ability t0 slice open fat cells so that the fat drains out to and curing the flu (yes, the flu).

Most of the claims are completely unsupported and some are rather misleading. A perfect example of this is the claim that apple cider vinegar reduces cholesterol levels. The support for this uses one of my favorite tactics, the good ol' if it worked in rats then it'll work in humans justifications. Unfortunately if it works in rats, it does not mean that it will work in humans. Let's be a little reasonable here, even interventions that work in some humans don't work in all humans.

Back to the cholesterol issue.

WebMD.com summarizes this for us:

High cholesterol. A 2006 study showed evidence that vinegar could lower cholesterol. However, the study was done in rats, so it's too early to know how it might work in people.

So is apple cider vinegar good? Definitely. As Petra pointed out, it makes a great vinaigrette. For a while I was Balsamic vinegared out on my salads and apple cider vinegar is a good change of pace.

Despite all the unsupported claims about apple cider vinegar, don't let that turn you off completely from its health benefits as vinegar in general (not unique to apple cider vinegar) can slow the rate in which food leaves your stomach, helping your better control your blood sugar levels.

Also, in regards to salad dressings. I'm in the final stages of my first Naked Nutrition Cookbook and would love to include recipes from readers. If you have a salad dressing that you would like to have featured in the book post it below.

I look forward to your recipes and have a good one!

-Mike

3 Foods To Always Stock in Your Cupboard

(My Original Blog Post: http://nakednutritionnetwork.com/3-foods-to-always-stock-in-your-cupboard/)
Having healthy fat burning food on hand at all times is essential for success with your diet. In order to hit the 90% percent rule week after week you need to make your nutrition be automatic and delicious. If you are truly going to change the way that you eat for the rest of your life and adopt the Naked Nutrition eating plan as a permanent change and not just an 'I need to lose a couple pounds so I'll do this for a couple weeks' then eating delicious food is another must

Today I wanted to share with you 5 foods that I always make sure that we have on hand in our cupboards.

1. Quinoa - Quinoa is second favorite grain (second to oats - my favorite is the steel cut variety). This 'ancient' grain has found main stream popularity over the past couple years. In has all but replaced brown rice in my diet. Compared to brown rice quinoa has a lighter, nuttier flavor. In addition it one of the only grains that is a complete protein (meaning that it has all the essential amino acids). Plus, if you are a busy person you'll love quinoa as it cooks in half of the time it would take for you to make brown rice.

2. Walnuts - Walnuts are hands down my favorite nut. They contains a wide spectrum of health boosting fats, including the ever popular omega-3 fat alpha linolenic acid. Walnuts are great in shakes as they blend up and dissolve into your shake with out a trace (unlike almonds which often will settle to the bottom of the blender). If you aren't going to use walnuts in shakes, they go great on salads and you can crush them into a powder (they make a texture similar to moist corn meal), and stuff chicken breasts for a great twist on an old stand by protein.

3. Chickpeas - Like walnuts, chickpeas are very versatile. Whether you are eating them blended up with olive oil and tahaini in the form of hummus, added cold to your salad for extra fiber and protein, or in chili in place of black beans - Chickpeas are my favorite legume.

What else do you consider essential for your fat burning cupboard? Post below and the person with the best top 3 get a copy of my Fat Loss Edge Seminar Audio Recording.

Resource: In each issue of Strong, Fit, & Healthy I share with you 2 new delicious Naked Nutrition approved recipes - you can become a member and get instant access to the entire Strong, Fit, & Healthy archives here.

7 Personal Lessons for Losing Fat

(My Original Blog Post: http://ping.fm/oQ5EV)
There Are 7 Lessons From My Story That You Can Use Yourself To Lose Fat or Even Get Ripped Like I Did... - Guest Blog from Jason Ferruggia

I want to share these with you because even if you have a different personal history than I do (most of my readers are NOT bodybuilders), these 7 lessons are the keys to achieving any previously elusive fitness goal for the first time and I know they apply to everyone.

1. Set the big goal and go for it. If your goal doesn’t excite you and scare you at the same time, your goal is too small. If you don’t feel fear or uncertainty, you’re inside your comfort zone. Puny goals aren’t motivating. Sometimes it takes a competition or a big challenge of some kind to get your blood boiling.

2. Align your values with your goals. I understood my values and made a decision to be congruent with who I really was and who I wanted to be. When you know your values, get your priorities straight and align your goals with your values, then doing what it takes is easy.

3. Do the math. Stop looking for magic. A lean body does not come from ONE "magic" type of exercise or one "magic" type of food or food group, it’s the calories burned vs calories consumed that determines weight loss or weight gain. Don't get me wrong - the strength training is crucial for optimizing body composition, and you might do better by decreasing the calories consumed, whereas I depended more on increasing the calories burned, but either way, it’s still a math equation. Deny it at your own peril.

4. Get social support and social accountability. Support and encouragement from your friends can help get you through anything. Real time accountability to a training partner or trainer can make all the difference.

5. Be consistent. Nothing will ever work if you don’t work at it every day. Sporadic efforts don’t just produce sporadic results, sometimes they produce zero results.

6. Persist through difficulty and self doubt. If you think it’s going to be smooth sailing all the way with no ups and downs, you’re fooling yourself. For every sunny day, there’s going to be a storm. If you can’t weather the storms, you’ll never reach new shores.

7. Redeem yourself. Non-achievers sit on the couch and wallow in past failures. Winners use past failures as motivational rocket fuel. It always feels good to achieve a goal, but nothing feels as good as achieving a goal with redemption.

Note from Mike: This is flat out great advice. #6 and #7 are my favorite of the bunch and are rarely talked about.

Additional Resources from Jason

Two years ago I decided to start experimenting on a large number of my clients and coaching group members. I wanted to see if I could create an athletic based muscle building system and help average guys get the same kind of results elite athletes get from their training. The only difference is the average guy doesn’t have the genetics, recovery ability or schedule of a professional athlete. But they all want to look like them.

So I took it upon myself to create the ultimate system that would help Average Joe’s and weekend warriors get a little bit closer to looking and performing like Reggie Bush or Georges St. Pierre.

I know how to help skinny guys get jacked. That’s old hat to me. I can do it in my sleep. As long as someone listens and does what I say they will pack on size.

But Triple Threat Muscle is a little different. Not only is the program focused on size gains, but also the development of explosive power and unrelenting endurance. So you get the jacked, muscular physique and the athleticism to go with it.

Get Triple Threat Muscle now and save $30. Click Here to Get Started Now

In the process of updated my Naked Nutrition for Fat Loss Program - It is going to be so much more comprehensive.

Bodybuilding.com delivered my order in less than 24hrs! Wow

just answered some rapid weight loss diet questions in regards to carbohdyrates http://readnow.at/18mm3

Testing out ping.fm. Hope you're having a great weekend

We're Moving!!!

Well my wife and I aren't moving (yet). But this blog is. The entire contents of this blog have been moved over to a new site --> http://blog.nakednutritionguide.com

If you have subscribed via RSS feed don't worry about changing your feed or re-subscribing as I've already taken care of that for you. Head over to the new blog's home and let me know what you think!

This will be the last post here at the blogger account so if you have linked to the blog on your blog or webpage please update the link to http://blog.nakednutritionguide.com

See you over there,
Mike

Video Friday - Bob Paris

I'm going to be traveling tomorrow for Memorial Day Weekend so I thought I'd post the video for Video Friday early.

Bob Paris is one of my favorite bodybuilders of all-time. He isn't a mass monster. Bob has the kind of physique that many men would aspire to - symmetrical, proportional, and not over the top. Today's video is a great as it is one of Bob's posing routines. If you have read Bob Paris' book Gorilla Suit then I highly recommend that you check it out. It is one of the few good books written on bodybuilding.

Tags: bob paris, bodybuilding, youtube, good books

Rooibos - Better Than Green Tea??

I've been getting a lot of emails lately about Rooibos tea. People are wondering what it is and if it is better than green tea (especially because a talk a bunch about Green Tea in Your Naked Nutrition Guide).

Rooibos (pronounced Roy-bus) isn't necessarily better than green tea but it is good. Rooibos comes from a South Africian legume. It is naturally caffeine free and brews up a dark rich red cup of tea. Rooibos is also loaded with antioxidants. Many of the health claims surrounding Rooibos tea and Rooibos extract are from animal and cell culture studies and thus should be taken as suggestive and not definitive.

While reading up on the research regarding Rooibos, I found a study that showed that Rooibos tea inhibited the activation of the COX-2 enzyme in human cells. The COX-2 enzyme is a major gateway for inflammation. Aspirin, Advil, and DHA (one of the fatty acids in fish oil) all also exhibit anti-inflammatory actions through inhibiting COX-2. This research is interesting as it suggests that Rooibos has anti-inflammatory properties.

So should you throw out your green tea for Rooibos?? Nope. Drink them both. Because Rooibos tea is naturally decaffeinated and Green Tea is naturally caffeinated they both can find a place in your day. Green Tea in the morning and Rooibos at night. Plus they both contain different types of antioxidants so drinking them both will give you a nice blend of antioxidant in your diet.

On a completely different note - NSCA Strength Coach of the Year Robert Dos Remedios has just launched a blog and website - www.CoachDos.com

Tags: rooibos tea, green tea, anti-inflammatory, health, nutrition

Black Cohosh - uber Supplement For Women or Not?

One of the most popular supplements for females is Black Cohosh. Black Cohosh is a member of the buttercup family and was originally used by Native Americans. Black Cohosh is now commonly sold as a dietary supplement with the claim of increase estrogen production/action. As a result Black Cohosh is popular among women under undergoing menopause.

However, a recent study from the Annals of Internal Medicine showed quite the opposite result. 351 women ages 45-55 who had reported getting hot flashes at least twice a day were given 1 of 5 treatments. The treatments ranged from 160mg of Black Cohosh to multi-herbal mixtures containing 200mg of Black Cohosh to Estrogen replacement therapy, to nothing (placebo).

After 1 year none of the herbal treatment groups had any reduction in symptoms while the estrogen replacement therapy group did.

Tags: supplements, black cohosh, estrogen, menopause

Workout Music - myTunes Part II

My last entry prompted a lot of messages into my inbox wondering what else is on my training muscle playlist. Here are some more songs that will boost your workout intensity.


Blood Pressure - LOX
Where the Hood At (Remix) - DMX
There It Go (The Whistle Song) - Juelz Santana
Last Ones Left - Tupac
Bump Heads - Eminem feat G Unit
So Much Pain - Tupac (this is hard to find)
Is That Yo Chick - Memphis Bleek, Jay-Z, Twista
Trill Recognize Trill - Bun B
Touch It (Remix) - Busta Rhymes & DMX
Rite Where You Stand - Gangstarr & Jadakiss
Wu-Gambinos - Wu-Tang Clan
Certified Gangsta - Jim Jones
It's Mine - Mobb Deep feat Nas
Triumph - Wu-Tang Clan
I'ma Hustla - Cassidy
Blaze of Glory - Bon Jovi

...now that's good music.

Tags: workout music, ipod

Workout Music - myTunes

I've mentioned it previously on this blog that I currently workout at one of the gyms on the Penn State campus. It has A LOT more equipment and space that when I worked out in our basement in Vermont but I would give anything to be back in the basement with a wobbly squat rack, 450lbs of weight, 1 olympic bar, and two plate loading dumbbells. It was low budget but the atmosphere was amazing. Fast forward to now. The gym is full of fancy machines, guys in polo shirts talking on their cell phones between sets, other guys talking to girls during sets of dumbbell curls (I'm not making that up!), and the music...don't get me started.



Fortunately, I have Maximus. Maximus is my red 8GB iPod Nano. I currently have 86 songs on my Training Music playlist with more songs being added everyday. Here are some of my current favorites:

Ebonics - Big L
Sunday Bloody Sunday - U2
Hoody Hoo - TRU
The Ruler's Back - Jay-Z
Diamonds Is Forever - Jay-Z
Tell Me Where to Go - E-40
Break Ya Neck - Busta Rhymes
Wanted Dead or Alive - Bon Jovi
Deliverance - Bubba Sparxxx
Built this City - Diplomats
Quiet Money Anthem - AZ
Black Repulbican - Jay-Z & Nas
Blackout - DMX
Keep It Thoro - Prodigy (from Mobb Deep)
Why We Thugs - Ice Cube
Let's Go - Trick Daddy
Paradise City - Guns and Roses


Have a great weekend! Remember to take time to plan your meals this weekend. It will greatly improve your chances of success.

Tags: ipod nano, workout music, weight training

Plan Your Nutrition Ahead

A key component to nutritional success throughout the week is making your nutrition a no brainer. When I was in Washington DC at the Experimental Biology conference I came across a poster presentation by the graduate students of Brian Wansink (the author of Mindless Eating)

They were reporting the results of a study that showed how people think they make ~15 food decisions a day but in reality they make >200. Whether or not these numbers are accurate is debatable but you get the point. We make a lot of decisions about food whether we like it or not.

This is why planning your meals ahead of time is so important. It takes all the thinking out of nutrition for the week. In the morning you get up, pull your pre-prepared meals out of the refrigerator or freezer, put them in your mini cooler and you're off. No cooking, portioning, or thinking.

Take the time on Sunday to cook and prepare your meals. You will find that your nutrition is much more consistent and you'll stay on track during the week as a result. Here's a picture of what I grilled up this past Sunday.




If you want more information about nutrition planning and strategies for success check out my new manual Your Naked Nutrition Guide.

Resveratrol Does Damage Control

Resveratrol is one of the hottest up and coming antioxidants. Resveratrol is a polyphenol that is most notably found in grapes and red wine. For a long time many people believe that red wine was a superior type of alcohol because of its high resveratrol content. Recently I co-authored a scientific manuscript in which we found that resveratrol has little to nothing to do with the increase in "good" cholesterol found with moderate red wine (or any alcohol for that matter) consumption.

Regardless of resveratrol's lack of influence on HDL cholesterol it has been shown to have powerful anti-aging and anti-inflammatory effects in animal and in vitro studies. This is where I see the main problem with Resveratrol research to date. There is a complete lack of direct human data. The amounts of resveratrol being given to mice and rats in the animal studies far exceeds the amounts one can consume by drinking red wine. Resveratrol supplements are now becoming more popular and those dosages are more comparable to the ones used in animal studies.

Most recently I came across a new study from the Journal of Applied Physiology in which researchers found that when human endothelial cells were exposed to oxidized LDL cholesterol (oxLDL) particles (these are thought to be one of the molecules that begins the cascade of events leading to heart disease) in the presence of resveratrol. The oxLDL had a decreased ablilty to cause the generation of reactive oxygen species. Reactive oxygen species are molecules turned rouge that fly around our system causing cellular and DNA damage until are quenched by anti-oxidants. From this research is seems that resveratol can protect against oxidative damage by

1. Quenching reactive oxygen species
2. Slowing down the cellular machinery that produces reactive oxygen species

This is just another feather in the cap of resveratrol and with data like this being produced every month you can bet that resveratrol will have a central role in the prevention and treatment of many diseases in the future.

Tags: resveratrol, heart disease, antioxidants, DNA damage

Crockpot Questions

On a previous edition of Max-Out Radio I featured a recipe remix using a crockpot. Crockpots are a great tool for busy people as you can prepare the food ahead of time, leave it to cook during the day, and then when you get home your house smell great and dinner is ready. Here are some questions I received from a listener regarding using crockpots.


Can you prepare the food the night before? Yes, definitely. That is the beauty of using a crockpot. You can prepare all the food, put it in the crockpot liner, and stick it in the refrigerator until it is ready be used.


Is it only a matter of an hour or two longer cooking time if you do so? Yes. Because I leave the crockpot in the refrigerator over night it is a little cold and that may require a little longer cooking. What I do is remove it from the refrigerator when I get up and just put it on the counter. When I’m ready to leave the house I'll put it on the base and it is usually cooled down to room temperature (or close to it)


Does the crock-pot have a timer so you can put it to turn on itselfe, say 3 hours after you left home? They do have timers usually 8 and 10 hours. If you leave it longer than that then they will just go into warm mode. So if you are out of the house for 11 hours it won't matter.

What people are saying about Naked Nutrition

The launch of Your Naked Nutrition Guide has definitely generated some buzz. Here are some links to what people some people are saying:

http://forums.jpfitness.com/showthread.php?t=25142


http://alwyncosgrove.blogspot.com/2007/05/six-pillars-of-naked-nutrition.html


http://tonygentilcore.blogspot.com/2007/05/your-naked-nutrition-guide.html


http://billhartman.blogspot.com/2007/05/get-naked-nutrition-now.html

Tags: Naked Nutrition

It is time!

After months and months of writing, rewriting, planning, and drafting...Your Naked Nutrition Guide is now available at

http://www.NakedNutritionGuide.com

Click on the link and go pick up your copy.

Get "Naked".....Tomorrow

Tomorrow is the day that I know many of you (by the volume of emails in my inbox) have been waiting for. Yes, Your Naked Nutrition Guide will be available tomorrow at NakedNutritionGuide.com.

I was up late last night formating the bonus workout plans from Alwyn Cosgrove, Nate Green, and Jimmy Smith. This is a dynamite package that will allow you to stop with the nutritional guess work and get results.

10:00am EST Tomorrow.

See you there (figuratively of course)

I'm Hungry...How 'bout 1,000 calories?

I've had this article sitting in my bookmarks for some time now and thought I should post it. "Hungry Girl" (someone who blogs for Yahoo!) complied a list of +1,000 calories entrees that are served at various food joints. It is pretty scary and definitely worth reading.

------------------------


Attack of the 1,000-Calorie Entrees!
Posted Mon, Feb 26, 2007, 6:00 am PST


Think salads are safe? That grilled always equals guilt-free? Even healthy-sounding entrees can be cleverly disguised diet disasters! Here are some of the worst offenders, courtesy of your pal HG.

SALAD INSANITY

Bob Evans Cranberry Pecan Chicken Salad
(1,108 calories, 63g fat, 2,741mg sodium, 63g carbs, 7g fiber, 43g sugars, 40g protein)

Fruit, nuts, and sliced chicken...on lettuce? This salad sounds wholesome enough. But don't be fooled! Bacon, bleu cheese, and gobs of Italian dressing all play a part in this salad's pitiful nutritionals. Over 1,100 calories for a salad?! We're on to you, Bob.

Hardee's Southwest Chicken Salad
(1,100 calories, 83g fat, 1,910mg sodium, 59g carbs, 4g fiber, 6g sugars, 29g protein)

Yes, Southwest chicken salads are delicious, but one with 83 fat grams is embarrassing. You may as well have a fat hamburger and a giant order of fries. Sheesh!

Bob Evans Chili & Cheese Taco Salad
(1,381 calories, 72g fat, 3,263mg sodium, 182g carbs, 23g fiber, 30g sugars, 42g protein)

Aha! Another salad sure to screw up your day, courtesy of Bob Evans. This one's slightly more suspicious sounding, with a double whammy of chili and cheese right there in the title. Mounds of cheddar and sausage chili smothered in avocado ranch dressing make this plate of fatty goo one you don't wanna mess with!

Chili's Mesquite Chicken Salad with Dressing
(1,050 calories, 69g fat, 3,110 sodium, 56g carbs, 11g fiber, 58g protein)

You might have guessed that their famous Baby Back Ribs are bad for those battling the bulge (and you'd have guessed right), but a mesquite chicken salad, too?!? Yep. Layers of bacon and cheese, complete with a thick blob of fat-packed ranch dressing, all adds up to over 1,000 calories of horribleness.


CRIMES AGAINST CHICKEN

McDonald's Chicken Selects Premium Breast Strips (10 piece)
(1,270 calories, 66g fat, 3,100mg sodium, 92g carbs, 0g fiber, 77g protein)


Premium Breast Strips? That's just a fancy way of saying fried chicken fingers! Call 'em what you want, Ronald, but your Chicken Selects are a clucking MESS! And you KNOW people dip those things in your sugary BBQ sauce or creamy honey mustard, too. And those just take this already offensive meal FAR over the edge.

P.F. Chang's Orange Peel Chicken
(1,151 calories, 47g fat, 127g carbs, 61g protein)

Here's another seemingly healthful offering. Chicken "tossed with chili peppers and fresh orange peel" -- how bad could that be? Upon closer inspection, we uncovered that this particular chicken dish contains both Kung Pao and Sichuan sauces, two notoriously high-cal condiments. By the time this bird hits your plate, it's dragging more than eleven hundred calories with it. Yeech!

Macaroni Grill Honey Balsamic Chicken
(1,220 calories, 67g fat, 2,750mg sodium, 94g carbs, 10g fiber, 57g protein)

Think choosing poultry over pasta at Macaroni Grill will keep you fitting into your skinny jeans? Not if this dish is any indication. Here's a little tip: Instead order something called Pollo Magra (Skinny Chicken), and save yourself more than 900 calories and over 60 grams of fat!

Chili's Monterey Chicken
(1,170 calories, 71g fat, 3,530mg sodium, 70g carbs, 8g fiber, 72g protein)

Yet another of Chili's calorically challenged chicken dishes. Their Monterey Chicken, a cheese, bacon, and BBQ sauce smothered entree, packs in an alarming 1,170 calories and more than 70 grams of fat. Gross!


BROCCOLI BEHAVING BADLY

P.F. Chang's Beef with Broccoli (dinner portion)
(1,120 calories, 65g fat, 38g carbs, 93g protein)

Come on, Chang! Beef with Broccoli is one of those Asian entrees even WE were sure we could safely chew! But it just isn't so. P.F.'s meat 'n mini trees are suffocated with sugar, sauce, cornstarch, and oil. That's just wrong.

Ruby Tuesday Fresh Chicken & Broccoli Pasta
(2,061 calories, 128g fat, 109g net carbs, 13g fiber)

Yikes! It's official; we have a winner (well, actually a loser). This dish has broken the calorie barrier, racking up more than any other on the list. Chicken and broccoli were clearly assaulted over at Ruby T, and emerged as a freakishly fattening entree with more than 2,000 calories and nearly 130 fat grams! How on Earth can Ruby T's get away with this?!


GRILLS GONE WILD


Macaroni Grill Grilled Salmon (Teriyaki)
(1,290 calories, 81g fat, 6,600mg sodium, 79g carbs, 5g fiber, 57g protein)

Record highs were reached on the sodium scale the day this dish was born. There's nearly three times the daily recommended allowance of the stuff swimming around with this salmon. And even if we could get past the icky amounts of salt, we're deeply offended by the crazy calorie and fat counts attached to this simple grilled fish dish. Yikes!

Macaroni Grill Grilled Pork Chops
(1,800 calories, 107g fat, 4,950mg sodium, 92g carbs, 8g fiber, 115g protein)

Yep, a third entree on our thou-cal-plus list from those maniacs at Macaroni Grill. This one contains more than 100 grams of fat and a horrifying 1,800 calories. Uhh, pork, the other white meat?! Not in this case...


AFTERNOON OFFENDERS

P.F. Chang's Lo Mein Combo (lunch portion)
(1,740 calories, 122g fat, 98g carbs, 55g protein)


If you think ordering up the lunch portion keeps you safe out there, you are sadly mistaken. Chang's downsized order of Lo Mein includes beef, chicken, pork, shrimp, and enough fat and calories to feed an entire family. Can you even IMAGINE how many calories and fat grams the dinner size packs in?!

Burger King TRIPLE WHOPPER Sandwich
(1,130 calories, 74g fat, 1,160mg sodium, 51g carbs, 3g fiber, 11g sugars, 67g protein)

And rounding out our list is a true triple threat. This BK burger's a royal mess of a meal. But then again, would you expect anything less from a TRIPLE WHOPPER?!

Tags: 1, 000 calorie meals, yahoo, eating out, triple whopper

Move or Your Fat Cells Will!

I've got bad news....You can't ever stop exercising....Well, you can but you'll get fat.

What am I talking about? A recent study published in the Journal of Applied Physiology made rats run for about a month and a half increasing their distance such that the last week they were running 9km/d. The rats were then forced to be sedentary from anywhere between 5hours-7days on either a controlled diet or eating as much as they wanted.

The rats on a controlled diet had an increase in abdominal fat independent of food intake. The rats that ate as much as they wanted had an increase in fat cell number. Usually our fat cells just fill up - this is the better option because once a fat cell is produced it never goes away.

This study is interesting. Because it was done in animals it should be taken with a grain of salt. However, what are the implications of these findings?

*It could possibly mean that running is an even worse form of exercise than I previously expected. It would be interesting to have seen a group that did weight training but have you ever seen a rat trying to deadlift...not pretty.

*These findings could also caution us against overeating during periods of being sedentary as it could possibly result in fat cell hyperplasia (increase in numbers).

If anything this is a glowing recommendation for life long exercise and not a quick fix approach followed by being sedentary and overeating.

Tags: fat, weight gain, running, weight training, rats

I'm a knucklehead!

If you have tried to subscribe to my blog via the RSS feeds on the right hand column of the page but were unsuccessful I'm sorry. Last night it came to my attention that when you click the "add to google" or "add to yahoo" chicklets that you get subscribed to Max-Out Radio and not the blog. I've fixed the problem and do apologize.

-Mike

No More Trans Fat in KFC Chicken - Does it Matter?

It is official. KFC has eliminated the trans fat from their chicken as reported by Healthday.com

KFC restaurants announced Monday that all 5,500 of its U.S. outlets have stopped using artery-clogging trans fat to fry chicken, the Associated Press reported.

...I'm sorry did they say that KFC has "stopped using artery-clogging trans fat"? So KFC isn't going to clog your arteries?? The problem here isn't trans fat in KFC chicken, but the entire KFC menu. Trans fat is a hot issue and it has become a political agenda for some people. I'm not saying that we shouldn't get rid of trans fat but aren't there more important things from a big picture stand point? You know like getting crack off the streets.

Plus, this news story is a little misleading as the only prodcuts that aren't going to contain trans fat is the chicken

"...its non-fried items -- including pot pies, biscuits, macaroni and cheese, and some desserts -- still contain trans fat."

Tags: KFC, trans fat

Fat Loss Q & A

Here is a good fat loss Q & A from my most recent article on T-Nation.


Q: When dieting down and finding that fat loss progress has stalled, how long a time period would be recommended for slightly ramping up caloric intake?

Would a week's time be sufficient to jump start the metabolism again? Or would more time be needed than that or, possibly,less?


A: If your fat loss has stalled (defined by caliper, girth, and scale) for 3 weeks then it is time to test a change in your program.

I would try to add an interval session to your training week and see if that gives you the boost you need. Otherwise add ~300 calories/d for 3 weeks and see if that gets you going again. If you start losing fat again don't drop your calories back down until your fat loss stalls again.

Of course you won't want to increase you calories like we've discussed until you've hit the lowest caloric intake you feel comfortable with.

So if you start at 3000 calories and eventually make it down to 2000 calories but then your fat loss stalls at 2000 calories, one of the things you can test is what happens when you increase to 2300 calories.


-Mike

Tags: fat loss, increase calories, weight loss plateau

Video Friday - Steve Cotter

Coach Dos Remedios told me about this Steve Cotter video when I was at the Fitness Summit two weeks ago. When he was describing it I didn't believe him...but its true. Check it out and you'll be just as amazed as I was.

Tags: steve cotter, youtube, pistols, kettlebells

Starbucks, Naked Nutrition, & Things I Can't Stand

It is pretty crazy around here with the semester ending and the launch of Your Naked Nutrition Guide coming closer everyday. Here are some random thoughts for today. Be prepared for some rambling as I'm not sure where this post is going.

Vente Coffee at Starbucks - I was very tired this morning and passed a Starbucks on my way to drop off some exams at the University Grading Center. On my way back I stopped in. Upon walking in the door you truly realized that this place is not about coffee but atmosphere. It made me think about gyms. Have you ever trained at a really great gym? I'm not talking about a place with great equipment but great atmosphere. Great gyms, like Starbucks, are not about the weights or equipment. They are about the atmosphere. Back to the coffee. I ordered a vente (why don't they just call it a large) of whatever the blend of the day was, no cream or sugar. Whoa! Those things are huge! Carrying around that massive coffee for the next hour or so made me feel like I was broadcasting to the world that I was over tired and trying to overcome it by self medicating with caffeine. Five hours later I'm still rev'd up.

Naked Nutrition - My inbox has been flooded over the past week with people asking about when YOUR NAKED NUTRITION GUIDE is going to be released. Very Soon. I'm going away this weekend to a scientific conference and when I get back things should be finalized with the webpage and various other tasks that are slowing the release. I appreciate your patience.


Things I can't stand - It is amazing that in one day I had two interactions with two separate people regarding the number one thing I can't stand. I can't exactly get into the details of my interactions as these people may stumble upon my blog but here's the theme.

It drives me nuts when people are so set in their ways about a topic or idea that they refuse to even entertain the idea that they are wrong or an alternate approach would work.

Mike Boyle has a great quote regarding this: "People don't want to hear new ideas, they only want to hear shit that validates the stupid they are already doing."

I work very hard to be open to all kinds of nutritional ideas and approaches but my number one turn-off it people who have "figured it out" and are not interested in any other opinions or approaches.

Tags: starbucks, Naked Nutrition Guide, rant, turn offs

Video Friday - Fitness Summit & Dave Schmitz

The video of today is from the JP Fitness Summit this past weekend. Dave is an awesome guy with a lot of great stuff to say. Here's a little taste of his energy.



P.S. This was around 8:30 in the morning. He was still working people out a 8:00pm...the guy is a machine!

Tags: band training, dave schmitz, jp fitness summit, exercise

Whole Foods Protein Powder Reviews

I'll have more on what when down at the JP Fitness Summit in the upcoming days. Here is a review that I received from a avid Street Smart Nutrition reader regarding several of the protein powders found at Whole Foods. Enjoy!


All these protein powers were taste-tested with the following smoothie ingredients:

1.5 cups vanilla soy milk
.3 cup acai paste
.5 cup frozen raspberries and blueberries
.3 cup green tea

(Blended for 30 seconds in electric blender)

Here's a short review:

Brand: Biochem Sports
Product: 100% Hemp Seed & Whey Protein Isolate
Protein per serving: 25 grams
Flavor: Vanilla

Comments: The hemp sounded interesting, and is organic, but the whey made it taste totally gross! The consistency was definitely thicker than my standard protein power, the delicious Whole Foods 365 Brand of Vanilla soy protein (24 g protein).


Brand: Peaceful Planet "The Supreme Meal"
Product: Quinoa, Millet and Amaranth, non-GMO pea protein isolate
Protein per serving: 17 grams
Flavor: Vanilla

Comments: The flavor was mild, with hints of the grains, like oak aged chardonnay. The consistency on the tonque felt like a suspension, with tiny protein-power granules grating around. Overall, a wholesome earthy powder. I woudl definitely try it again, or spring for a canister and bake with it.

Brand: Soytein
Product: Non-GMO Isolated Soy Protein
Protein per serving: 14 grams
Flavor: Vanilla

Comments:Sort of unappetizing, kind of like whey. An odd taste for a soy powder product. Not memorable, definitely would not try it again.

Brand: Nature's Life: Super-Green Pro 96 Soy Protein Power
Product: Non GMO Identity Preserved Soy Protein Isolate
Protein per serving: 25 grams
Flavor: Vanilla

Comments: No notable flavor, a little grainy in consistency, but not chunkiness or lumps, very smooth blend. Not sweet. A good neutral soy product. Left wondering what Identity Preserved soy isolate is. I would buy this again.

JP Fitness Summit - Day 1

I'm back from day one of the summit getting ready to go over my Nutrient Timing talk for tomorrow. Today was great and very informative. Here's a run down of the talks in order of appearance:

Lou Schuler - This was an amazing way to kick off the summit. Lou talked all about Fitness/Muscle magazines, how they lay out their magazines, and what effect that has on content. He also discussed how to go about getting your writing into magazines. Lou is a great guy (with a great blog).

Alwyn Cosgrove - Alwyn gave his Real World Fat Loss talk. His talk is interspersed with amazing before and after photos of clients from his facility. Alwyn has a very practical and effective approach to getting his clients lean fast. Basically harder work is better and you get done faster.

Coach Dos Remedios - Dos is the NSCA Strength coach of the year. I again was riveted by the information he had to share. Dos can get 100 football players in and out of the gym in 50 minutes with no assistance - Amazing. The premise of Dos's talk was his new soon to be released book. It was a great preview and I picked up some strategies that I am going to apply to my training starting this week.

Zig Zigler - No this isn't the famous salesman. Zig's talk was all about the feet and how foot problems can lead to other imbalances higher up the body. All in all pretty interesting.

Chad Waterbury - Again, a great talk. I love Chad's methods. He spoke about the nervous system and then started discussing some of this new theories about how to maximize hypertrophy via maximal motor unit recruitment. Chad has talked about training and the CNS before but this was totally new. We spoke about this new theory a bunch after his talk - cool stuff. Again I have some new strategies that I am going to apply to my own training this upcoming week.


Other things from today:

*Finally got to meet Lisa Holladay who edited Your Naked Nutrition Guide.

*Met and chatted with "Coach Mike" (from Precision Nutrition) a bunch. He's a very smart guy.

*Talk about smart guy's I was floored by Bill Hartman today (and he hasn't even spoken yet!). He diagnosed my shoulder problem in less than 3 minutes. He is truly is the smartest man in fitness.

*Also got to meet and speak with Nate Green a bunch. Nate is a great up and coming guy in the industry.

That's all for now. Gotta go over my talk.

Blogging from the Summit

I'm in little rock! Got in last night. The airline travel was poor as usual but I had a bag full of homemade protein bars, beef jerky, and mixed nuts. I'm off to get some breakfast but will see if I can post some updates from JP's computer at the gym.

-Mike

Lift Strong and Blog Neglect

Tomorrow morning I'm off to Little Rock (AR) for the JP Fitness Summit. Hopefully I'll be doing some blogging from the event (that would make this blog very cutting edge). When I get back I promise to update more regularly.

On a different note the Lift Strong eManual has been on sale for 1 week and almost 10,000 dollars has been raised for cancer research. If you haven't ordered a copy head over to www.LiftStrong.com

-Mike

Naked Nutrition - It Has Arrived!

More info to come....

Duh!

Quick entry...hopefully I'll be back later today as I have something interesting to write about.

I just sat down to read a journal article on binge eating and how it effects food intake patterns. The paper starts with this sentence:

"Children who report episodes of binge eating gain more weight than do children not reporting binge eating."

Not to be rude but....duh! Talk about stating the obvious!

Anyway...the much awaited project Lift Strong has been released. All proceeds go to charity. Check it out at LiftStrong.com