Lets face it, most people severely cut calories when they try to lose weight, and end up ruining their metabolisms. Nutritionally unbalanced diets are bad overall, and are even worse when calories are being restricted. However, a well-balanced low calorie diet can be a good way to lose fat (not just weight) quickly, but it must very carefully planned and managed.

The way I see it, when I’m carrying a lot of bodyfat, I’m in caloric surplus anyway! My spare tyre could have has much as as 35,000 calories at one time! Its getting your body to liberate those calories that is both the goal and the ideal when on a weight loss plan.

So, how to do that?

Add the correct type and amount of exercise

Yes, it’s that simple.

Choosing the correct type of exercise (and the correct exercises) is one of the most important components of a workable low calorie weight loss plan. This post briefly outlines a way to choose exercises that will prevent muscle loss, while maximizing the metabolic rate, and thus fat loss.

By FAR, the best type of exercise while on a low calorie diet is resistance exercise. Resistance exercise, and especially free weight training, has been shown to prevent muscle loss while on a low calorie diet. In fact, it can even cause a tiny GAIN in muscle tissue even when calories are severely restricted. Yes, that can happen. There is a scientific study that showed that people who ate only 800 calories but did strength training actually gained muscle while losing fat!

Just goes to show that we underestimate what our bodies can and cannot do…

The calorie burning furnace

Now, as you probably know, muscle tissue is a major consumer of calories, which shows that strength training will protect your metabolism by protecting your muscle tissue. A further bonus is that somewhat intense strength training causes calories to be burned for several hours, even days, after the exercise session. It also appears that the body favors feeding muscle cells while starving the fat cells, which will cause the fat cells to shrink. EXACTLY what the extreme dieters want. The human body is no stranger to ultra-low calories combined with hard work.

In the harsh paleolithic era, that was just a reality of everyday life. As I keep saying, our genome remembers…

Strength training guidelines

Here are some guidelines for strength training while on a calorie-restricted diet:

• do the BIG movements (barbell or dumbell) e.g. squats, deadlifts, cleans, presses, rows, etc.
• multi-joint body-weight exercises are excellent alternatives, e.g. squats, burpees, pushups, chinups, dips, ab-wheel. Moving the body through space provides a much better degree of neuromuscular activation than those silly isolation exercises, and therefore:
  • limit using machines
  • skip the isolation work
• do no more than three 20-minute sessions a week – very important to prevent burnout
• always choose strength work over ‘cardio’, but for best results do a bit of both (‘anaerobic’ cardio) for a maximum of 45 minutes TOTAL per session. Shorter is even better!

All in all, strength training + a balanced low calorie diet can have you losing huge amounts of fat in a very short period of time WITHOUT damaging your metabolism.

Just be smart about it…

Cheers,

Junaid

PS. A zig-zag type of diet that varies calorie intake to prevent metabolic shutdown is a good idea, and again just mimics a reality of life in the paleolithic era. However, to lose weight fast one can take that to extreme measures. Grab a free copy of my ‘NukeThatFat’ eBook to find out how – you can’t miss the picture on the side of the page. Its not a ‘paleo’ approach, but it works nonetheless – and VERY quickly.

This post is a bit of a mini-rant, but I promise that you’ll learn something anyway…

Proper post-workout nutrition has gotten a lot of press over the past few years. Hell, several supplement companies can thank their lucky stars that many exercise (especially muscle development) gurus came out in support of the idea of having a ‘postworkout shake’. But does the idea have merit? Or is it just a stupid theory that goes against our genetic programming?

WTF?

OK. Lemme explain where all this is coming from…

As you know from my previous posts, I am very supportive of a paleolithic diet approach to eating. In other words, try to eat the way our ancestors did – our genome and therefore our bodies is set up to thrive on it. Of course, since I don’t know everything, I read other blogs and sites on the topic. There is one that I held in particularly high regard. It promotes a lifestyle that sounds like ‘revolutionary fitness’ without the ‘r’.

Well, the owner of that site has a thing against postworkout nutrition. That’s OK. To each his own. I have been trying to see the point of his argument for years now. Recently, he posted a scientific study that ’supports’ his theory.

Well, me being a scientist myself that has a bit of an obsession with these things, I read the article. Found several holes in it, and posted a comment to his post. It took me 30 minutes to write that comment in as diplomatic a style as possible. The aim was to point out the article’s weakness, as well as the weakness of his theory (he is very aggressive with his point of view, but I myself was more than civil). In a nutshell, I said (subtly) that one cannot frame a nutritional philosophy around an ancient hunter-gatherer lifestyle and not believe in consuming nutrients postworkout. Well, he did not approve my comment, since it went against his theory (I commented on another post, agreeing with him, and that was approved). And the man calls himself a scientist…

So, I am no longer a fan, but more importantly I feel that I need to give my readers a different point of view so that they can judge for themselves.

Screw the science for just a sec!

Lets just take a common sense approach to seeing if our ancestors waited for several hours after ‘exercising’.

What would have been the equivalent of ‘intense’ exercise in the old days? The hunt. Without rifles and sophisticated hunting equipment, getting meat was one hell of a task! Several sprints. Wounding the animal enough to be able to wrestle it to the ground. Killing it as quickly as possible. Dragging it to a place where the chances of defending it against predators and scavengers. Can you say ‘ANAEROBIC EXERCISE‘?

Now I just can’t see Joe Paleo waiting for a few hours for his body to ‘burn fat’ from all that activity before he ate. Can you? Makes no sense right?

Our early ancestors shared the earth with super-predators and super-scavengers. We were not top of the food chain yet. It is likely that our ancestors did what even the mighty lion does today to avoid being bullied out of its meal by the ‘lowly’ hyena – they ate as much as they could, as quickly as they could. AFTER THE HUNT. Which for all intents and purposes means POST-WORKOUT.

Hey, it seems to me that most nutrition was post-workout nutrition back then – especially when it came to protein consumption. Our genome remembers that…

Recommendations

I’m not going to write a thesis on post-workout nutrition here. Others have written fantastic pieces on that. I just want to end off with a few points about the post-workout shake:

• do take a protein shake
• if your goal is fat loss, don’t add carbs, but do go for pre-digested whey
  • stimulates protein synthesis
  • fosters quicker recovery (can thus train more often)
  • bumps up basal caloric expenditure – protein synthesis is energetically costly
• if you’re building muscle, also don’t have carbs in your post-workout shake
  • but do have them in a PRE-workout shake (I’ll elaborate on this in my newsletter)
  • do have a second post-workout shake an hour after the first
    • if you need more calories because you’re naturally skinny, then add a tablespoon of flax oil and a tablespoon of olive oil to this shake
    • doesn’t taste that good, but the benefits rock!
  • then have a solid meal an hour after that
  • trust me, if your workout was good, you WILL grow muscle on this strategy

About comments

Listen, no one knows everything there is to know in the strength and fitness game. If you want to disagree with me, then please post a comment. That’s how we progress!

Just keep it clean.

Newsletter

Other than the occasional bit of breaking news or rant, I will not be posing here much. This blog was orinally meant to keep me on track in my effort rid myself of the ‘fat suit’ that I dressed myself in over several years.

I am going to be posting most of my tips in my newsletter. I’m working on a theory (and testing on myself), that will allow anyone to put their body in constant ‘fat burning mode’. Only my subscribers will get tips and updates from that.

Click here to sign up.

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Excess Post-exercise Oxygen consumption or EPOC. A lot has been written about it recently. Some of the best rapid fat burning courses attribute their successes to it (see my previous post: The ‘Big Three’ Fatloss eBooks – Which Is Best?). But is that really the case? Something doesn’t quite add up. Before I discuss that point, lets look the EPOC theory a bit closer first:

EPOC – burn calories for hours after you exercise?

What is EPOC? Well, its just a fancy way of saying that more oxygen than usual is used by your body after a bout of exercise. The theory is that this extra oxygen is used to replenish, repair and adapt the body to the stress (workout) that it has just encountered. Since these all require energy, the excitement around EPOC is that it is a sign that you’re burning calories (fat?) while you’re resting. An afterburn effect. (Whoohoo!)

Or so it seems…

Anaerobic exercise produces a higher EPOC

Studies show clearly that anaerobic exercise (resistance training, interval training, complexes, etc) increases EPOC more than aerobic exercise (long, slow cardio – BLEGH!) does. Aerobic exercise burns more calories while you do it, but there is supposedly higher calorie burn during the EPOC that follows anaerobic exercise. Studies have also found that anaerobic exercise results more lost fat, even though much less calories are burnt during exercise. Most people, and many ‘experts’ just give EPOC the credit for that.

But is it really so?

Lets see…

OK, so oxygen usage can be elevated for a long time after exercise. It does taper off, but has been shown to still be elevated at the 36 hour mark! But how does that relate to calories burnt? Well, I have seen many people (myself included) lose 2kg or more of fat per week (not just weight – FAT) from weight training and ‘anaerobic cardio’, with almost no regular cardio. So lets add that up:

• 2 kg = 4.4 pounds
• 3500 calories in a pound of fat = 4.4 * 3500 = ±15,400 calories extra burnt in 1 week?!
• Lets say 1500 of those calories were burnt while working out that week (its much lower in reality)

So EPOC accounted for about 14000 calories over 7 days = ±2000 calories per day? HUH? 2000 calories actually burnt at rest? Sounds wrong to me.

Well, here’s the kicker.

None of the studies that found significant increases in EPOC when comparing anaerobic vs aerobic exercise reported an earth shattering calorie ‘afterburn’. In one study it was only 32 calories! Yes, 32! Where did the other almost 2000 calories per day from the missing fat go?

Well, it had to go somewhere. And I think I have an idea where.

Irritable muscle bullies fat cells?

I think that the old nutrient partitioning theory needs revisiting. You know, the one where the body rather feeds muscle, thereby starving fat cells. But I think its even more than that, I think that fat cells are forced to give up their lunch (stored fat) and their milk money too (‘normal’ daily nutrient allocation). There is definitely a very powerful hormone and neurotransmitter cocktail being produced in response to intense anaerobic training. While recovery is one of their targets, I think that forced confiscation of fat from fat cells is another.

I also don’t think that all the extra calories that the body is even being used/burnt. There is some wasting going on. And not purely in the form of heat, since that implies burning of calories.

In my opinion, EPOC is just a signal. A sign that something is happening ‘under the hood’. That a syndicate of very irritated muscle tissue is ‘bullying’ fat cells and wasting the calories that they rob from them, causing fat cells to shrink. I know, it sounds crazy, bt the EPOC theory has huge holes.

Do I have all (or any) the real answers? Dunno. All I know is that this can be exploited. And I have been for a while.

More next time..

Newsletter

My instincts are telling me that I am onto a powerful way of getting these effects (signalled but not caused by EPOC) to last as long as possible. A powerful way of burning fat AND building muscle tissue AND raising resting metabolism on ridiculously short training routines.

This blog was originally intended to keep me on track with my personal efforts to get back into peak shape. Away to hold me accountable. I want to use primarily to track my progress. So, I’ve started a newsletter where I share advice and tips. Subscribers have the benefit of getting ultra-short fat burning workout programs that they can ‘plug and play’ – at no cost.

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I am frequently asked which of the popular eBooks on fat loss that are for sale on the Internet I would recommend.

Most people are by now very familiar with “The Big Three”:

1. Mike Greary’s “Truth About 6-pack Abs”
2. Craig Ballantyne’s “Turbulence Training”
3. Tom Venuto’s “Feed The Muscle, Burn The Fat”

Well, I have bought and used all of them. And to be honest, all of them are scientifically quite sound. The philosophies are just different, but they all work. Ballantyne and Greary are closer to each other in philosophy than they are to Venuto.

Venuto is very ‘old school’ in a “bodybuilders know best” type of way. His training program is essentially a bodybuilding routine. Even his preferred cardio style is – he believes that long and frequent cardio routines are best. I disagree, since I often put myself through ultra-short but very intense muscle building + cardio routines. I rely on the ‘afterburn’, where my body burns a lot of calories even while I’m resting. Also, I have a life and cannot dedicate so much of my day to training. Nevertheless, bodybuilders are the leanest athletes ever (on contest day), so they do know a thing or two. Its just not for the average person. That said, its a HUGE book, with tons of really good information. I really liked the full chapter about the psychological aspects of fat loss, and the very powerful self-programming formula in it.

Now, “Turbulence Training” and “Truth About 6-pack Abs” both agree with my own philosophies. Craig and Mike aim to minimize time spent training, and rely heavily on the ‘afterburn effect’. The “Truth About Abs” book is a more complete package. The nutritional aspects are presented more thoroughly. However, “Turbulence Training” is right on the cutting edge of exercise science in my opinion.

Since I already have a nutrition system that works exceptionally well, “Turbulence Training” comes up tops with me. I can very happily do a routine from Craig’s system (especially since its usually a maximum of 45 minutes long). Also, his workout designs are very ‘functional’. If one is not athletic starting out, you will be at the end. Sure, some people only want the cosmetic improvements. So they’ll get the other benefits as a bonus

So, how do you choose?

Well:

• “Turbulence Training”, if you prefer shorter workouts and agree with my nutrition recommendations (or have a good philosophy of your own)
• “Truth About Abs”, if you prefer shortish workouts (45-60 minutes) and would like a solid nutritional system (but not mine )
• “Feed The Muscle, Burn The Fat”, if you prefer bodybuilding workouts and/or longer cardio sessions.

I hope that clears things up. Just remember, they all work. But also remember, the best training system is one that you would actually stick with! Choose based on that…

Best,

Junaid

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PS. None of the Big Three are pure fat loss systems. All of them realize that you need to build a bigger fat burning furnace, i.e. more muscle mass. Now while you will not gain lots of muscle on a calorie controlled diet (note: I did not say calorie-restricted), you will gain some muscle. And it will look good too.

PPS. There is another VERY popular system (at the moment) called “Top Secret Fatloss Secret”. In my opinion, its just a ‘me too’ system that copies the top guys, and uses scare tactic to fuel its marketing machine. (I asked for a refund…)

PPPS. Another cool thing about Turbulence Training is that Craig offers a 21 day risk free trial for only $4.95 (you get your money back if you don’t like it).

Note: All the programs come with a 60 day moneyback guarantee.

PPPPS. Just in case you forgot how quickly you can change your body (don’t believe that 2lbs max fat loss per week JUNK), here’s what I did it only 5 weeks:

	Day 0 125kg/275lbs
	Day 35 115.5kg /254.1lbs

Several bouts of illness back2back actually.

First it was viral gastroenteritis, which set me up for gastritis, after which my resistance was so low that I got a bad case of the flu accompanied by a mild (but irritating) lung infection.

Bloody hell! Talk about bad luck!

I couldn’t eat much without feeling really crap, and my training has been pathetic to say the least. Still, I’ve managed to keep off most of the weight I had lost so quickly. But I have lost a bit of muscle. Oh, and my metabolism back to being pretty crap…

Well, that’s why I haven’t been posting here. I didn’t want to come on here to whine!

Anyway, this is the year life has to stop getting in the way for me, and so I am finally back on the horse. Just had my first workout yesterday, and my body is hating me today

The cure for my metabolism? Again, fruit-heavy meals and short but intense workouts as I outlined in my early posts. That works really well and will work for just about anyone.

Wish me luck…

Junaid

Excellent article in the online bodybuilding magazine, Testosterone Nation, which highlights some excellent nutritional recommendations in The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan. The book explores the American food manufacturing system and based on this article and reviews I have seen, is a ‘must-read’.

It provides clear evidence that despite our personal opinions on evolution, and hence a nutritional plan based on it, any of the ‘ancestral diets’ proposed by the paleonutrition community is going to be head and shoulders above the ‘modern diet’. And I don’t only mean ‘western’ diets, since nutrition in the east is going to the dogs too…

	Day 0 125kg/275lbs
	Day 21 117kg / 257.4lbs
	Day 35 115.5kg /254.1lbs

Training:

• 5 days a week now
• still no more than 30 minutes per day
  • ±15 minutes of weight training (very short rest between sets):
    • 10 sets of 3 reps / 15 sets of 2 reps (heavier) on one of the following:
      • barbell clean and push press
      • single dumbell clean and push press
      • barbell snatch
      • deadlift
      • John Davies’ “BEAR” (its a killer!) – its hard to do ‘cardio’ after this one, so I do sets on the ab wheel
    • + 1 set of bodyweight dips to failure (up to 18 reps now)
    • + 1 set to failure of a single biceps and triceps exercise if I feel like some ‘beach work’
  • ± 15 minutes of very high intensity cardio
    • Tabata sprints (12 cycles instead of 8 )
    • Tabata squats
    • Tabata squats + pushups (as described in my previous post)

Note: I intentionally avoid training legs with a lot of weight as they grow too fast. I need to keep them at a size where I can still perform leg chokes when I start grappling again.

General Notes:

• Only 1.5kg lost in 2 weeks. Expected that. Its OK, all of it (and more) is fat. I think I’m still gaining some muscle anyway.
• Lost an enormous amount of internal (visceral) fat in the 5 weeks. Cardiac episode and other risks are now dramatically reduced.
• Loose skin will be an issue in the belly and lower chest area – been overweight for way too long. No matter, I’ll take the loose skin over a heart attack any day!
• Face is going thinner (Yaaayy!!!!)
• Can’t believe how easy this is. I’m never hungry, except when I skip meals or only eat fruit during the day (both intentionally).
• Knees and ankles don’t hurt anymore – an untrained 125kg was clearly too much for my frame.
• Feel much better overall.

Notes to self:

• Up protein intake a bit. Daily average is a bit too low.
• Fat intake may be a bit too low too.
• Need to up fish oil intake as well.
• I’m now ready to start doing some Javorek complexes. That should get me in good enough shape to start grappling classes in about a month (after a 5-year ‘absence’).
• Possibly a good idea to have a few longer and less intense cardio sessions just to prevent burnout.

Next progress report in 2 weeks time.

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My buddy Reza and I are starting to have more frequent discussions about fitness, training, diet and health. A recent topic got me thinking about what it takes to keep someone on a fitness program. Naturally, I analyzed my own decline (which I am thankfully turning around quite nicely) and uncovered something very strange, which I’ll tell you about below.

First, something that I have noticed. Most ‘high-profile’ strength and conditioning professionals neglect or even dismiss a very important thing about the average person who exercises:

Even professional athletes who are genuinely training for performance and train hard and often, while eating very clean, end up looking very good. And you can be sure that looking good makes them feel good. Why else do many athletes (OK, the males) at the Olympics rip off their tops and ’strike a pose’ when they’re victorious? Haha!

But what about the average person?

I have found that for most people, myself included, even when good health and longevity are the primary motivators, the promise of looking fit is what keeps the motivation up. As strange as that sounds, its true more often than not.

A very simple: “Wow! What did you do to lose so much weight?” or “You’re pecs have really improved a lot!” from someone that hasn’t seen you in a while can be much more motivating than a doctor telling you that your blood pressure had dropped 5 points.

Who cares if its ‘messed up’? And who is anyone to judge anyway? We’re human. Lets just work with it! I think that for the average person, doing entire workouts of isolation work or adding such exercises to existing routines should not be neglected and should even be emphasized.

My personal experience

20 years ago, I was a skinny 16-year old starting my final year of high-school – 70kg at 1.8m tall. That’s when I became interested in weight training. That interest very quickly turned into obsession, and by the time I finished my undergraduate degree in biology, I weighed a hard, lean 95kg! Not bad – 25kg of pure muscle in four years. And I was much, much fitter – surfing, my other obsession kept the strength/general fitness/health balance right on target.

I kept progressing and by the time I finished my M.Sc. in 1996, I weighed 105kg – also got married at the end of that year. At that point, I was walking notebook of ways to build muscle and get fit – my science training was a great bullshit-o-meter.

Soon after, I traded surfing for a new obsession – martial arts – eventually finding mixed martial arts. I loved the submission wrestling component, and totally immersed myself in it, I even went so far as to travel to the US to learn catch-as-catch-can. Eventually, I became proficient enough to win gold in the heavyweight and open divisions in the top grappling competition in our province.

That was a turning point. I became obsessed with ‘functional’ training to further improve my strength for grappling. I convinced myself that I needed to drop all the ‘narcissistic’ beach work. While doing that didn’t change the way I looked, I didn’t enjoy my gym work as much anymore. By the time I finished my PhD, I lost my drive for gym training, and started going less and less. I know why now:

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How in heavens name can you get a good workout that does all of the above in only 20 minutes? Its all in choosing the right tools and then doing them at specific points of the workout, with the right amount of intensity. Nonono, this has nothing to do with the grunting and screaming types of so-called ‘intensity’ you see in commercial gyms – a lot of that is just ego building and attention seeking. What I mean is doing the chosen exercises with enough effort to make them worth your while. Hey, we’re mortal and have only so much time on this planet, so why just go through the motions with anything? Especially when doing something that could very well improve the quality (and maybe the length) of your time here?

How is it possible?

You want the afterburn effect. Exercise scientists call it excess post-exercise oxygen consumption (EPOC). All it means is that with certain types of exercise, you burn extra calories long after you’ve finished – as much as 16 hours after! But that’s not all, you can also use exercise to manipulate what your body does with nutrients, so that it feeds muscle and starves the fat (nutrient partitioning). Do that and you have it made – especially if you’re already using your diet to do that do the same (check out my article ‘Carbs are not the enemy! Just get the timing right…‘).

Tool selection

I’m not even going to enter into the weights versus ’sprint-cardio’ versus ‘long-slow-distance’ cardio debate at all. I’ll just make a statement instead.

Done correctly:

• weight training is the undisputed champion since it builds a bigger fat-burning furnace
• bodyweight exercises and sprint training are the number one contenders – just look at some photos of gymnasts and sprinters (running, swimming, skating, cycling, it doesn’t matter..)
• slow cardio is only good as a ‘break-in’ or as an add-on. Sure, advanced marathoners and other distance athletes are lean, but the average person just does not have the amount of time needed to get to the elite level and thus that level of bodyfat. Also, distance athletes have much less muscle mass than strength or sprint athletes. I would go so far as to say that some are ’skinny-fat’ – they’re thin, but with a high bodyfat percentage. If we already lose muscle as we age, why help it along with long, slow training methods?

So to get back to the point, the tools we’ll use are:

• weight training for strength + muscle development
• bodyweight training or sprint training for ‘cardio’ + muscle development
• slow cardio as a cooldown

Yes, all of that in a single short, but powerful workout.

The Routines

Option A

Warmup

Warmup with bodyweight exercises – all done back to back with no rest. The aim here is to raise the core temperature slightly, which makes muscles and connective tissue more elastic. Moving the body, as opposed to lying on a bench or using a machine, also activates the neuromuscular pathways needed to do the weight training safely.

• Jumping jacks (20 reps)
• Bodyweight squat (20 reps)
• Pushup – do them from your knees if necessary (20 reps)
• Situp – 10 reps
• Jumping jacks – 20 reps

Strength/muscle building

Now choose one ‘big-money’ exercise – something that works the body as a whole. Suggested exercises:

• Barbell/dumbell/kettlebell clean and press (the barbell version is my personal favorite and tool of choice on this routine)
• Barbell/dumbell/kettlebell snatch
• Deadlift
• Barbell squat

You’ll either do 5 sets of 5 reps (heavy), or 10 sets of 2 reps (heavier still). I like the latter, purely because its tougher and because I have done these exercises for several years so they feel very natural.

Do a single light warmup set of 8-10 reps just to get into a ‘groove’. Rest 45 seconds between sets on the 5 sets of 5, and 30 seconds on the 10 sets of 2. Move explosively! The strength component of the workout should take about 7-10 minutes. The short rest intervals, combined with the explosive movements will create a good muscle building situation, and produce a hormone response that will stimulate the afterburn and nutrient partitioning.

Cardio/muscle building

This option uses sprint intervals to burn a lot of calories quickly, but more importantly to really stimulate the afterburn. Speed training speeds up the metabolism too! This section is simple – just go as hard as you can for 45 seconds and then go slow for 45 seconds Do that 5 times.

Suggested exercises:

• Running (track/field/etc)
• Swimming. Not always possible, but a fantastic workout. I tie myself to the side of my pool (its easy to make a DIY version of this) and then swim on one place – it can get very rough when you’re sprinting all out!
• Elliptical machine (set the resistance up just enough to prevent you from going so fast that you feel nothing in the muscles – they must feel like they’re working too – not only the cardiovascular system!)
• Rowing machine – ditto for resistance settings
• Stationary (or real) bike – ditto for resistance settings
• Treadmill – its OK, but not easy to take breaks on the motorized treadmills.

Cooldown (you can skip this if you are really pushed for time)

Pick a ‘cardio’ exercise, and do it at a somewhat brisk pace for 3 minutes. It’ll help get your heartrate down slowly, and burn a few more calories.

There you go. A decent workout in 20 minutes, and it hits your muscles, your cardiovascular system and your fat stores.

Option B

The warmup and weight training outlines are identical to Option A, but the cardio component is 8 minutes of bodyweight exercises. It uses the Tabata protocol, which in a nutshell is:

• one exercise (can be anything really)
• 20 seconds effort interspersed with 10 seconds of rest
• repeated 8 times = 4 minutes of hell (on some exercises)

However, we want more calories burnt in the workout + more afterburn + make it more doable, so we do it differently:

• 2 exercises – bodyweight squats (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDh1Cspl0jI) + pushups (do them from your knees if you have to – its perfectly OK)
• 20 seconds of exercise 1
• 10 seconds of rest
• 20 seconds of exercise 2
• 10 seconds of rest
• repeat for a total of 8 sets per exercise = 8 minutes

Bodyweight-only squats, Crossfit style

Pushups, Crossfit style

Notes:

• move explosively – try to squeeze as many reps into 20 seconds as you can
• do your cooldown if you wish – or if you are able to

Important Notes

• I use this myself when I am pressed for time. Its not just a theoretical workout. It works! And its much better than doing nothing when you have little time!
• Its not for those of us who are just starting out
  • you can tackle it after about a 3 week breakin-period where you do more ‘traditional’ workouts.
  • I recommend getting a medical examination even before that…
• This should not be a staple workout (Option B could be though) but you can easily make it so by adding a few extra weight exercises, and 5 extra sprints. Then you have a killer fat burner!
• Use this short version when you have little time, or feel really drained
• However, if you do a version of this 6 days a week, you’ll get the benefit of longer less-frequent workouts, but in much less time per day! Also, much smaller risk of overtraining. Just change the exercises each day.
• Its fantastic on low calorie or fasting days. The hormone cocktail produced preserves muscle, and really targets the stubborn fat!
• Keep your ego in check when selecting a weight to use. The short rests will cause your form to break down if you go too heavy.

TIP:

If life gets in the way or something comes along that prevents you doing a scheduled workout, just drop your calories a bit (keep protein high) and do the cardio (Tabata) portion of option B before you go to bed (or first thing in the morning if you are given enough warning). Its only 8 minutes, but your heart and muscles will still benefit.

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About 21 days ago I decided to get myself back into shape. The plan was to use all the knowledge that I had gained in about ±20 years of religiously studying weight training, human performance and nutrition in the trenches + all my formal training as a biologist to undo all the damage that I managed to do in about 3 years. Two things sparked this:

1. A few months before, I had been coaching a good friend of mine, Reza (thanks bro!), who was unbelievably motivated to get back into peak shape. My tips were spot on, but he was the one that put in the hard work and ended up losing 9 kilograms of weight while getting very fit at the same time. While my buddies and I were discussing his transformation with him, I caught myself saying: “Imagine if I only took my own advice…”. It bothered me for about a month before…
2. I took a photo of myself to see just how far I had fallen. What a shock that was! At that point I was still believing those people that said: “You’re not fat, you’re just big…”. Yeah right. I was fat. And I needed to change it. This had clearly become a health risk!

As I ran through my theories of the optimum diet, I very quickly realized that I should go back to an ‘ancestral’ diet. After all, I was doing exactly the opposite at that point. Also, my PhD research centered around genome-scale evolutionary biology and I knew that our genome is adapted for the diet our ancestors ate (it has changed very little since then). Now while I agree with most the ‘paleo crowd’ about what our ancestors ate, I disagree with most on how it should be implemented in this day and age:

1. Paleolithic scenarios were highly unpredictable, and their were no guarantees of any meal, and therefore
2. There is NO golden macronutrient ratio that one can consume day in and day out and still call it ‘paleo’, and
3. We should reconstruct plausible Paleolithic scenarios and base daily eating patterns around those, e.g.
   • intermittent fasting (lean times)
   • low carb, high protein days (exceptional hunting)
   • higher carb days, eating mostly fruit (based on a day of poor hunting)
   • nutrient timing, e.g. high carb (mostly fruit) breakfasts, low carb dinners (based on successful hunts)
   • and more…
4. Fruit should be a big part of our diets – spinach never fueled a hunt, but we can live off fruit for weeks!

Anyway, you can read more about those on my blog. Here’s what I have achieved thusfar:

Wow! Was I nervous taking these photos. I don’t trust what I see in the mirror anymore. I was so nervous that in the ‘relaxed’ photos, it looked as if I was facing a firing squad These ‘posed’ ones look acceptable :-p

Day 0 125kg/275lbs!!! The photo that snapped me back to reality!	Day 21 117kg / 257.4lbs Not bad progress. Not lean by any measure, but not bad. Just what I needed. Now I’m stoked! I can do this!!!!

All in all, not bad for 21 days! 8 kilograms lost, and it looks like its virtually all fat. I did minimal exercise, concentrating on getting into the swing of proper eating. I did 20-30 minutes of weight training twice a week (complex movements – no ‘beach work’ yet) and also 20 min of cardio (moderately intense) twice a week. Now, anyone can achieve similar results. The more you have to lose, the quicker it will come off. But one must be strict for those 21 days. The honest truth is that its dead easy. With the amount of fruit I eat, I am never hungry – ever. I will be strategically adding more fasting days though, and then that will change a bit

Next update will be in 14 days! Wish me luck until then…

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