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Follow These 10 Rules to Get Shredded

June 20th, 2008 Posted in Diet, Martial Arts, Weight Training

How to Forget About Healthy Eating Habits and Get Straight Up Ripped

Screw healthy lifestyle eating habits. It’s great to eat healthy and maintain a low body fat. But what if you only have 2 months to lose 20 lbs? What if you are trying to get from a decent 12% bodyfat to a ripped 6% bodyfat? Well now it’s time to talk about jumping on a hardcore diet to melt off the fat and show those hard earned abs.

10 Tips to Just Get Shredded

1. Eat fewer calories. Diet is responsible for 75% of your progress, if not more. Start my multiplying your DESIRED bodyweight by 12. This is your daily maintenance calorie intake. Eat this many calories for a week, then…
   • If you don’t lose any weight, subtract 400 calories.
   • If you only lose 1-2 lbs, subtract 200 calories.
   • If you lose 3 or more pounds, don’t change a thing.
   • If you lose more than 5% of your total bodyweight in a week, you might want to consider actually adding a 200-300 calories back into your diet because you do NOT want to lose muscle mass.
2. Eat more often. Divide up your total calories equally, and eat every 3 hours.
3. Target carbohydrate intake. Cut carbs out of your diet completely except for during and immediately after your workout. To clarify…
   • Eat 1 apple within 15 minutes of your weightlifting or sprinting workout.
   • Sip Gatorade or 1/2 a Serving of Biotest Surge during your weightlifting or sprinting workout.
   • Drink 1 Serving of Biotest Surge within 20 minutes of the end of your weightlifting or sprinting workout.
   • If you must eat carbs during the day, make them complex fibrous carbs such as green veggies, brown rice, and unflavored oatmeal.
4. Eat protein and healthy fats. Eat any and all meats and cheeses. Choose fish and chicken as often as possible, but all meat is sanctioned on this kind of diet. Just don’t eat too much of it. Consider supplementing with Fish Oil and Flax Oil supplements, or choose Biotest Flameout and protect against inflammation too.
5. Increase fluid consumption. Drink 1 gallon of water or Crystal Lite each day. You might drink more than a gallon during a workout day.
6. Don’t skip or skimp workouts. Weightlifting and/or sprinting should occur at a minimum of 3 days per week, for a minimum of 45 minutes per session.
7. Move more. Anything extra that you do to burn calories will help. Try these ideas…
   • Instead of watching TV, take a walk or play a sport.
   • Instead of playing online, go outside and play with a kid.
   • Instead of the elevator, take the stairs.
   • Add 30 minutes of moderately intense cardio whenever possible. (Moderate intensity is because you don’t want to over-tax your body into over-training on a hypo-caloric diet.) However, I do not agree with adding cardio to the end of your weight training session. I believe the concerns should be separate: cardio in the morning, weightlifting at night, or vice versa.
8. Stick to a Routine. If you stick to a plan you will have more success than if you try to include too much variety. Have ham and eggs for breakfast, protein bar for snack, chicken salad for lunch, fruit for snack, exercise, high protein low carb meal for dinner, cottage cheese or meat for a snack, then go to bed early. Clearly you can modify what I’ve written here, but you get the idea.
9. Track your progress. Setting goals and tracking your weights and measurements will go a long way to keeping you motivated throughout your diet. Here are some tracking ideas…
   • Body weight vs. body fat. Go to a gym and have a trainer test you with calipers. It’s not that accurate, but if you have the same person do it, at the same time of day, once a week, you will have an accurate measure of progress.
   • Measure all your body stats including neck, arm, chest, waist, thigh, and calf.
   • Record each workout in a workout log, specifically the main lifts. Try bringing a notebook to the gym.

     If you lose body fat and maintain everything else, they you’ll know you’re doing something right. If you lose body fat; lose inches in the waist; gain inches on the neck, arms, chest, or legs; and increase your training weights; well then you’ll know you’re doing everything right.

   • Snap before and after photos. Try taking a picture once a week, perhaps on the day you get your bodyfat tested.
   • Also consider recording your diet. Write down what you eat, how much you eat, and how many total calories, fat, and protein you ingest. It’s a pain in the ass, but keeping nutrition logs in my 20s contributed to my vast knowledge of nutritional information to this day.
10. Intelligent use of supplements. You might want to use some supplements to help the fat loss process, give you more energy, and decrease or reverse muscle loss in a hypo-caloric state. Here is what I recommend in order of importance…
    • A multivitamin.
    • Protein powder to make protein shakes, or protein bars for snacks.
    • Biotest Hot Rox Extreme. It gives you energy, facilitates fat loss, and helps maintain muscle on a low-calorie diet. What else do I need to say?
    • Biotest Branched Chain Amino Acids, or any other Amino Acid Complex. I also enjoy XTend by Scivation.
    • Biotest’s Flameout. It’s good for your joints and contains healthy fatty acids.
    • An antioxidant compound. If you can afford it, try out Biotest’s Superfood.

By the way, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I get nothing out of promoting Biotest. They have just exceeding my expectations when it comes to quality supplements that actually work. I didn’t always believe this, but the supplement line they have now is outstanding.

So that does it. Just stay strict, keep on top of your calories, eat good and eat often, monitor progress, and don’t touch carbs unless you are using them to benefit your workouts.

Written by Steve
Steve is a formerly ISSA certified personal trainer and sport nutritionist, who has been studying, practicing, and experimenting since 1994. Please use the content at Project Swole to supplement the advice of your doctor or physician. All medical questions should be directed towards a qualified medical professional, and the advice provided at Project Swole should be used at your own discretion.

At Project Swole you will Build Muscle and Lose Fat with articles on weightlifting, conditioning, nutrition, diets, martial arts, and all forms of exercise.

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