7 Day Fat Loss and Lifestyle Guide

I am off to Panama this weekend for 7 days and the trip should be very interesting. I’ve already looked online for gyms, and apparently I’ll be trying the PowerClub. I’m disappointed there is not a Gold’s Gym. I’m also taking some unique bodyweight workouts too. Full report next week.

Click here to listen to the call…

Let’s get started with…

Monday – Feb 21st

Transformation Tip of the Week
You could just as easily change your life today as you can on New Year’s Day…”New opportunity is matter of choice not calendar.” – Dan Kennedy

‎”It’s easy to postpone the decision to make changes and construct a solid plan. Life has a way of keeping everyone very busy and often focused on short-term issues that blur long-term needs. I really want to impress upon you the need to take action now.” – Simon Black, www.SovereignMan.com

I’ll be attending Simon’s Sovereign Man conference in Panama.

Training Tips

Did I ever tell you about the one time I watched a trainer instruct his client to stand on a Bosu ball, wearing boxing gloves, and then do some type of whacky reverse punch/backhand slap while the trainer stood BEHIND him holding the pads?

I was speechless…until – at the same gym – I watched a different trainer instruct his client to put his back foot on a Bosu ball and his front foot on an upended dumbbell (!!!) and do split squats.

We need to train smarter!

Part of my smarter training has been the addition of longer warmups. For example, before squatting, I now do:

Bodyweight Squats, Bird Dogs, Duck Unders, Glute Squeezes, Plank, Prisonger Lunge, Cossack Lunge, and stretches.

My “real” workout then consists of:

Box Squat (5 RM) or Regular Squats (5 reps)
Glute-Ham Raises (3 sets)
A single-leg exercise (sets)
Ball Plank (3×45 seconds)

Tuesday
•    Get 30 minutes of fun activity – now grab a Green Tea and do this week’s research review.

Reference:
Tjønna AE, Lee SJ, Rognmo O. Aerobic Interval Training Versus Continuous Moderate Exercise as a Treatment for the Metabolic Syndrome. A pilot study. Circulation, Jul 2008

In a pilot study published on-line this week in Circulation, researchers compared the effects of Aerobic Interval Training vs Continuous Moderate Exercise for the treatment for the metabolic syndrome.

NOTE: Aerobic intervals are longer, slightly less intense intervals compared to the fat loss intervals we use in Turbulence Training.

The metabolic syndrome consists of a group of metabolic risk factors…high blood pressure, insulin resistance, high cholesterol and triglycerides, abdominal obesity, arterial inflammation etc…that are a precursor for type II diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

After 16 weeks, AIT was shown to improve aerobic capacity and reverse the risk factors of the metabolic syndrome significantly more than CME, even though the AIT workouts were of shorter duration.

And again, the subjects were overweight/obese people in their 50’s.

So…another reason to promote high intensity interval training over slow steady cardio, even for middle aged persons.

We now have many significant scientific studies recently published in highly regarded peer review journals that support high intensity interval training over steady state cardio. These aren’t your usual flunky “studies” published in some questionably credible publication. These are the real deal.

So why wouldn’t a person do a quick, interesting 20 minute interval instead of 40 minutes of long, boring cardio?

Wednesday Workout Tip

Lots of upper body warmup as well…tubing rotator has been quite helpful…and the 100 band pulls from Joe DeFranco (described here with photo).

On my upper body warm-up list are: Arm Crossess, Prone Stick-ups, Band Pulls, Upper body stretches, T-Pushups, WYT’s, and External rotations with the band.

My real workout consists of:

1A) Bench with Chains (2×6)
1B) DB Row (3×6)

2A) Close-Grip Foam Press (2×2-3)
2B) DB CSR (3×10)

3A) Decline Pushups (3×20)
3B) Band Pulls

Trainer Thursday
•    Do 30 minutes of fun activity…

Trainers, I want to show you how little it takes for most brand new beginner clients to lose weight.

Reference:
Am J Prev Med. 2008 Aug;35(2):118-26. Weight loss during the intensive intervention phase of the weight-loss maintenance trial.

From the “Center for Health Research, Kaiser Permanente Northwest, Portland, Oregon”.

1685 overweight/obese adults…79% were obese (BMI>/=30), 87% were taking anti-hypertensive medications, and 38% were taking antidyslipidemia medications.

Subjects attended 20 weekly group sessions to encourage calorie restriction, moderate-intensity physical activity, and the DASH (dietary approaches to stop hypertension) dietary pattern.

RESULTS:
Participants attended an average of 72% of 20 group sessions.

Self-reported 117 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity per week, kept 3.7 daily food records per week, and consumed 2.9 servings of fruits and vegetables per day.

Subjects lost an average of 5.8 kg and 69% lost at least 4 kg.

Behavioral measures (e.g., diet records and physical activity) accounted for most of the weight-loss variation.

CONCLUSIONS:
Behavioral intervention successfully achieved clinically significant short-term weight loss in a diverse population of high-risk patients.

Here are 3 recommendation you can give your clients:

1)    Keep a training journal
2)    Keep a food journal
3)    Choose the right fast food options – The Freshii restaurant chain is good. You can find their locations here: http://freshii.com

Technically, clients can also get grilled chicken sandwiches and subs from wendys, mcdonalds, subway, etc, but as any person who knows about nutrition, the quality of the food there is going to suffer from factory farming. But there are things you can eat there that aren’t that bad for fat loss. Just use your good judgement…no fries, minimize the cheese, avoid the sugary drinks, keep your chicken wing intake in the teens and not the 70’s. Normal stuff like that. And maybe even try some vegetables some day.

Facebook Friday

I’m doing a lot of QnA sessions over on Facebook at www.TurbulenceTrainingFanpage.com

Q: I work 50-70 hours per week and I have a young family. How do I fit exercise into my day?

Answer:
Commit to at least 30 minutes of exercise per day and alternate between resistance and interval training workouts. However, if you can get an hour of time 3 days per week, perform both the resistance training and intervals together. You might need to experiment with different exercise times so that you can workout without disrupting your family’s events. Fortunately, there is no magic exercise time. As long as you are consistent, you will get results. Many people have had great success by getting up early and doing the workout before everyone else gets up.

Alternatively, you can do it after the kids go to bed or during a break in the day. Schedule your workout like any other important appointment so that you don’t neglect the exercise sessions. You’ll find that the exercise will give you more energy throughout the rest of the day.

“Gain control of your time and you’ll gain control of your life.” – John L. Mason.

The most important habits I’ve adopted for “energy” and productivity are: 1) Early to bed, early to rise. And 2) Going to bed and getting up at the same time 7 days per week….Are these habits “lame”? Yes. Do they work? Absolutely. Simple solutions if you want more control of your life.

Great questions…please ask yours at: www.TurbulenceTrainingFanpage.com

Social Support Saturday!
•    30 minutes of fun activity…

Getting paid to shed those pounds…According to a 2008 study, dieters who had a financial incentive to lose weight were nearly five times as likely to meet their goal when compared with dieters who had no money on the line.

Now governments are making the case for a healthy-living voucher.

“For better or worse, we’re a rewards-based culture,” David Roddenberry told the Globe and Mail, claiming to have signed up some 75,000 dieters already, with more to come as the site expands into Canada this year. That’s why, instead of instituting shaming policies (singling out fat children in gym classes for “re-education”) and mass “carpet-bombing” public service messages, governments should be giving money directly to Canadians to get healthy, says Neil Seeman, co-author of XXL: Obesity and the Limits of Shame.

Hmmm…I dunno…I don’t think we should have to pay someone to get healthy.

Sunday – Plan, Shop & Prepare
•    30 minutes activity and plan, shop, & prepare

More QnA…

Q: What’s the right percentage mix of carbs vs protein (50/50, 40/60 etc)

Answer:
For a daily diet?

Just focus on whole, natural foods. You won’t need any more than 150 grams of protein per day, and even that is probably high. Closer to 120 grams is enough.

120 grams of protein = 480 calories.

The rest should come from fruits, vegetables, raw nuts, healthy oils, and then whole grain carbohydrates.

Q: Should I monitor/keep track of my daily calories if I want to drop weight or should I just “figure” it out?

Answer:
Spend 10-14 days tracking your calories and you’ll learn everything you need to know about calorie intake and calorie levels of certain foods to last you a lifetime. Do this intensive little study and you’ll never have to try and count calories again because you’ll have all that info in your head.

Next week!
•    Training Tips – The rest of my new workout
•    Research Review – Post-interval nutrition research & a Video Game Workout Study
•    Nutrition – Fruits & Vegetables with the fewest pesticides (i.e. don’t need to be organic)