If you’re hosting a Halloween party this year, chances are, you’re serving your guests a few Halloween inspired treats. Typically, the quality of the appetizers gets sacrificed in the name of this fun filled holiday. Why not try something different this year, and opt for a healthier, more refined gourmet foods hors d’oeuvres table.
With domestic prices on gourmet goods at an all time low, you can achieve this without breaking the bank and with these tips, you won’t have to worry about having to skip on any the fun ghoul and goblin spooky flair. Instead of the endless amount of sugar cookies caked with sugar and frosting, why not invite your guests to partake in delicious puff pastries or blinis topped with crème fraîche and orange Salmon roe and black caviar to look like pumpkins. This way, your guests will feel guilt free because they are eating a high protein snack, rather than a fatty cookie.
Keeping with your Halloween gourmet theme, substitute your bagged chips for tasty Crescent Moon inspired toast topped with sour cream or a low fat aioli spread and then topped with black caviar. The caviar will give your moons just the right amount of that Halloween feel.
Nowadays, it seems everyone is after a toned midsection. Some people won’t even stop until they achieve shredded washboard abs. A six pack has come to be an important quest for many persons, however, many are misled as to the method to obtain it.
One common misconception is that cardiovascular exercise is the most important aspect of dialing in a six pack. Another misconception is that doing 1000 crunches a day is most important. Wrong on both accounts! Diet possibly plays the greatest role in obtaining a six pack. Let’s see why.
Transitioning from bulking to cutting can be complicated. Most often, the transition is done improperly and we end up either losing precious muscle mass during a cut or gaining too much fat during a bulk. I’ve been there and so have you, don’t kid yourself.
When switching from cut to bulk, we might overestimate the rate at which we can gain muscle, which results from a lack of knowledge about the human physiological response to dieting. Some inexperienced bodybuilders might make an immediate switch from a strict diet to free eating, which results in the immediate reversal of any recent diet progress.
Of course strategies will differ dependent on the individual, but the basic concept should remain the same. You will have to accept that your first couple attempts at bulking will result in either very little muscle gain or unnecessary fat gain. It is all a matter of trial and error.
Let’s examine a couple different diet transition strategies.
First a quote, then an excerpt from Henry Rollins’ The Iron
“Strength is the product of struggle, you must do what others don’t to achieve what others won’t.”
“Through the years, I have combined meditation, action, and the Iron into a single strength. I believe that when the body is strong, the mind thinks strong thoughts. Time spent away from the Iron makes my mind degenerate. I wallow in a thick depression. My body shuts down my mind.
The Iron is the best antidepressant I have ever found. There is no better way to fight weakness than with strength. Once the mind and body have been awakened to their true potential, it’s impossible to turn back.
The Iron never lies to you. You can walk outside and listen to all kinds of talk, get told that you’re a god or a total bastard. The Iron will always kick you the real deal. The Iron is the great reference point, the all-knowing perspective giver. Always there like a beacon in the pitch black. I have found the Iron to be my greatest friend. It never freaks out on me, never runs. Friends may come and go. But two hundred pounds is always two hundred pounds.”
Going to the gym and doing the same workout over and over again is a sure way to prevent progress when it comes on to muscle growth. Repetition is a surefire way to make progress… in moderation. Too much repetition will leave you tired, bored, sore, lazy, and overtrained. Enough emphasis cannot be placed on the necessity of having a properly designed fitness program.
Since the late 1990’s Dr. John Berardi has published 8 scientific abstracts; 15 scientific papers and textbook chapters; presented at nearly 50 scientific, exercise, and nutrition related conferences; and published countless articles online.
His first articles at Testosterone Magazine so many years ago, provided me with the basis for everything I know about nutrition today. Over the past couple years I have published Dr. Berardi’s popular nutrition tips with much success. Today I want to give you a link to his extremely interesting review of the Intermittent Fasting diet protocol.
Basically, Dr. Berardi sets about to lose 20 pounds of fat by following an Intermittent Fasting diet. He tries the following popular IF programs:
Alternate day fasting (ADF) – 36-hour fast/12-hour feed
Eat Stop Eat – 24-hour fast, 1 or 2 times per week
Warrior Diet – 20-hour fast/4-hour feed
Leangains – 16-hour fast/8-hour feed
Random meal skipping
As the experiment spans several months, Berardi logs his meals, moods, workouts, and even 23 health markers including blood glucose, cholesterol, tryglicerides, and testosterone level. You can see his final progress pics as well – check out the back shot, his back is simply shredded at the end of the experiment.
Dr. Berardi ultimately decides that a combination of the different programs works best for him. He liked 5 days of Leangains followed by a Warrior Diet weekend, and he liked Eat Stop Eat with a 1-day per week fast but hated the 2-day per week fast.
Trust me. Read the whole ‘book’. You will learn more than you might think.
How to Drop Weight If You Are Tired of Restrictive Diets
If you’ve had trouble following your current diet plan, you might do well with a diet that is tracked on a weekly basis.
It’s hard to follow a strict diet plan every day. The demands of most popular diets require users to keep a log of everything they consume and keep constant track of calories – and many times, people fail at their diets because they don’t fee like they’re able to keep up with all the details. Constantly monitoring caloric intake is simply too tedious for most individuals.
Strict Diets Often End in Failure
Here’s an illustration: An article published in the International Journal of Obesity in 2007 shared the results of a study of several diet plans with strict calorie tracking requirements. The study gathered 311 overweight females and randomly placed each of them on either the Atkins Diet, the Zone Diet, the Ornish Diet, or the LEARN Diet.
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OK, so the triceps kickbacks are not the king of all triceps exercises, but in a recent study performed by the American Council of Exercise (ACE), triceps kickbacks are ranked 2nd, tied with dips. The very best triceps exercise is the diamond push up.
Don’t underestimate this study just because I grabbed your attention by starting with kickbacks. The study also used legit exercises like close grip bench, dips, and various push downs and extensions. See the table below, and then I’ll explain.
Table 1 Average EMG of the Entire Movement (Concentric and Eccentric)
Triceps Exercise
Combined Means
Long Head
Lateral Head
Triangle Push-up
100
100
100
Kickbacks
87 ± 26.58
88 ± 33.0
87 ± 23.7
Dips
87 ± 19.87
87 ± 21.3
88 ± 20.0
Overhead Triceps Extensions
76 ± 16.09 *
81 ± 21.4 *
72 ± 16.5 *
Rope Pushdowns
74 ± 22.64 *
81 ± 32.3 *
67 ± 15.7 *†
Bar Pushdowns
67 ± 20.48 *
75 ± 29.3 *
59 ± 14.3 *†
Lying Barbell Triceps Extensions
62 ± 16.25 *
70 ± 20.9 *
55 ± 14.1 *†
Close Grip Bench Press
62 ± 15.88 *
61 ± 16.9 *
63 ± 15.5 *
* Significantly lower than the Triangle Push-up (p < 0.05) † Significantly lower than the Long Head (p < 0.05)
For those who still don’t believe Werewolf Muscle Training works, here is more support of my theory that increased frequency combined with stopping short of fatigue, produces equal if not better results that training a muscle once a week for an hour, with a ton of volume, going to failure on most sets.
The central nervous system is extremely important for performance, and should be stimulated aggressively and frequently, but should not often be fatigued. This also helps explain why you can train muscles when they’re sore… it works just as long as the CNS has recovered.
In this video you will find Christian Thibaudeau from T-Nation. He is way stronger than you or I, and he is just about as ripped as I could ever hope to be. A true inspiration.
