Store bought round vanilla ice cream sandwiches make this cool and creamy dessert super simple to prepare. For more chocolate flavor, substitute chocolate ice cream sandwiches for the vanilla.

1/4 cup light chocolate syrup, divided
4 (4-oz) low fat round ice cream sandwiches
1/4 cup strawberry preserves
1/2 cup light canned refrigerated whipped topping (such as Reddi Whip)
4 strawberries (optional)

Drizzle 1/2 tablespoon syrup on each of 4 individual plates. Arrange 1 ice cream sandwich on each plate. Top each sandwich with 1 tablespoon strawberry preserves, 2 tablespoons whipped topping and 1/2 tablespoon syrup. Add a strawberry, if desired. Yield: 4 servings

Per serving: Calories 230; Fat 3.1g; Protein 4.1g; Carbs 53g; Fiber 4g; Chol 0mg; Sodium 158mg; Calcium 82mg

“How can I gain muscle and lose fat at the same time?” That’s right up there with “How do I get six pack abs” as one of the most frequently asked fitness questions of all time. The problem is, when you ask it, you get all kinds of conflicting answers – even from experts who are supposed to know these things. So what’s the deal? Is it really possible to lose fat and build muscle simultaneously?

Short answer: Yes, you can gain muscle and lose fat at the “same time.”

Long answer: It’s difficult and it’s complicated. Allow me to explain….

First we have the issue of whether you really lose fat and gain muscle at the “same time.”

Well, yes, if your definition of the “same time” is say, a month or 12 weeks. But in that case, you’re probably not gaining muscle at the “same time” literally speaking, as in, right now this very moment you are reading this, or 7 days a week, 24 hours a day for months in a row.

The best explanation for what’s really happening is that you alternate between periods of caloric surplus (anabolism) and caloric deficit (catabolism) and the net result is a gain in muscle and a loss in body fat.

You see, if you stay in a calorie surplus, it’s the body’s natural tendency for body fat and lean body mass to go up together. And if you stay in a calorie deficit, it’s your body’s natural tendency for body fat and lean body mass to go down together.

There may be exceptions, but the general rule is that it is very difficult to gain muscle and lose fat at the same time – the mechanisms are mostly antagonistic to one another. When it does happen, it’s almost always the result of “unusual conditions” – I call them X factors.

The 4 X-Factors

The first X-factor is “training age” . Ever hear of “newbie gains?” The less trained your body is and the further you are from your genetic potential, the easier it is to gain muscle. The reverse is also true – an advanced bodybuilder with 20 years experience would be thrilled just to gain a few pounds of solid dry muscle in a year!

The second x factor is muscle memory. It’s easier to regain muscle you’ve lost than it is to gain new muscle in the first place (ergo, the fat out of shape semi retired bodybuilder who starts training again and blows up and gets ripped “overnight”).

The third X factor is genetics (or somatotype). Ever heard of the “genetic freak?” That’s the dude who sprouts muscle like weeds even when he’s on the “50-50 diet” (50% McDonald’s and 50% pizza)… and he never gets fat. (That dude chose the right parents!)

The fourth X factor is drugs. It would stun (or sadden) you if you knew how many people take performance and physique-enhancing drugs. I’m not just talking about pro bodybuilders, I’m talking about “Joe six pack” in the gym – not to mention those fitness models you idolize in the magazines. How did they get large muscle gains with concurrent fat loss? Chemicals.

I’m not a gambling man, but I’ll place a wager on this any day: I’ll bet that in 99% of the cases of large muscle gains with concurrent large fat losses, one or more of these x factors were present.

That’s not all! There are actually 5 more X factors related to your body composition and diet status (the X2 factors). But I’ll have to talk about those later.

So you’re not a beginner, you don’t take roids, you’re not a genetic freak and you have no muscle memory to take advantage of. Are you S.O.L? Well, I do want you to be realistic about your goals, but…

There IS a way for the average person to gain muscle and lose fat at the same time.

The Secret: You have to change your “temporal perspective!”

Traditionally nutritionists and fitness pros have only looked at calorie balance in terms of 24 hour periods. At midnight, you could tally up the calories like a shopkeeper closing out his register, and if the balance were positive, you’d say you were in a surplus for the day. If the balance were negative, you’d say you were in a deficit for the day.

But it’s entirely possible that you might pass through periods of “within-day” surplus where you were in a highly anabolic state (for example, you eat the biggest, highest carb meal of the day after your workout), and you were in a deficit the rest of the day.

If you did intense weight training, and you timed your nutrient intake appropriately, Isn’t it possible that you could gain a small amount of muscle during those anabolic hours, while losing fat the rest of the day? Granted it might only be grams or ounces – but what if you kept that up for a week? A month? Three months?

As you pan out and look at the bigger picture, what if most days of the week you were in a deficit for the entire day, and on some days you were in a surplus? If so, then isn’t it possible that over the course of the week, you’d have a small net gain of muscle and loss of body fat a a result of the caloric fluctuation?

These within-day and within-week phases are called microcycles and mesocycles. If you also had a primary goal with a longer term focus of several months, say 12 weeks or 16 weeks, that would be a macrocycle.

What I’ve just described is nutritional periodization. Some people call it cyclical dieting. it’s where you manipulate your calories (primarily by fluctuating carbohydrate intake, hence “carb cycling”) in order to intentionally zig zag your way through periods of surplus and deficit and create specific hormonal responses.

The end result: muscle gain and fat loss during the same time period!

I know that someone out there is having a hissy fit because I’ve only talked about calories: deficits and surpluses. Rightfully so. Calories matter but there’s more to it than calories – most importantly, hormones and “nutrient partitioning.”

If you’re in a calorie deficit you are going to pull energy from your body.The question is: From WHERE? If your hormones are out of whack and you’re eating crap, you could lose more muscle than fat in a deficit and gain almost pure fat, not muscle, in a surplus!

But WHAT IF you could manipulate within day energy balance, use nutritional periodization AND control your hormones with food and lifestyle strategies?

AHA! NOW you can see how concurrent muscle gain and fat loss are starting to look possible!

Make no mistake – concurrent muscle gain and fat loss is a difficult goal to achieve. The good news: difficult does not mean impossible. Or as George Santayana said, “The difficult is that which can be done immediately, the impossible, that which takes a little longer.”

The Holy Grail Body Transformation Program: How to Gain Muscle and Lose Fat at The Same Time

You can learn more about gaining muscle and losing fat at the same time in Tom Venuto’s new e-book called, “The Holy Grail Body Transformation System.”

You’ll learn all about nutritional periodization, cyclical dieting, hormonal manipulation, within day energy balance, nutrient partitioning, AND the all the X factors, including the 5 “X2-Factors” – which are the keys to gaining muscle and losing fat at the same time.

You’ll also get Tom’s new “TNB” training system, as seen in Men’s Fitness magazine (the complete, expanded version that Men’s Fitness didn’t have room to print).

At the moment, The Holy Grail ebook is not for sale separately and there are only two ways you can get it.

From now until Midnight (PST), May 13th, 2010, you can get a copy of the Holy Grail Body Transformation program ebook for FREE when you purchase the Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle e-book from this web page:
www.BurnTheFat.com

The other way you can a a copy is by joining the Burn the Fat Inner Circle at:
www.BurnTheFat.com/innercircle

After May 13th, 2010 at midnight PST The Holy Grail will be taken off the market for a period of time while Tom is collecting case studies and getting feedback from users, to include in the final edition – which WILL be released for sale separately later this year.

Visit the Burn The Fat website now and jump on this deal while you still can.

I injured my ankle last year and it sidelined my workouts for a long time. Needless to say, I lost a good bit of muscle and am now trying hard to gain it back.

I’m currently doing the Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle program and following the suggested workouts. It is still hard for me to do a lot of aerobic-type cardio because of  my ankle, but I’m doing what I can. Lifting weights will always be my first love and I have no problems lifting weights. However, we must do cardio to assist with losing fat and keeping our heart and lungs healthy.

Each week, I’m going to share my successes (or failures) with you in hopes that it will hold me more accountable with my way of eating (WOE) and workouts.

Please feel free to join me. All you have to do is comment at the bottom of my posts. Thanks so much for allowing me to share my ups and downs with you.

Sheila

You may have heard (or, heh, realized), that it’s more difficult for women to lose fat than men. Immediately most people think it must be estrogen or hormonal issues. But perhaps the biggest factor is NOT hormones, but the simple fact that women are usually smaller and lighter than men.

When you have a smaller body, you have lower calorie needs. When you have lower calorie needs, your relative deficit (20%, 30% etc) gives you a smaller absolute deficit and therefore you lose fat more slowly than someone who is larger and can create a large deficit more easily.

For example, if my TDEE is 3300 calories a day (I’m 5′ 8″ and moderately to very active), then a 20% deficit is 660 calories, which brings me to 2640 calories a day. On paper, that will give me about 1.3 lbs of wt loss per week, rather painlessly, I might add.

If I bumped my calorie burn up or decreased my intake by another 340 a day, that’s enough to give me a 2 lbs per week wt loss.

That’s hardly a starvation diet (Ahhh, the joys of being a man). For smaller women, the math equation is very different.

If your total daily energy expenditure is only 1970 calories, even at a VERY high exercise level, then a 20% deficit for you is only 394 calories which would put you at 1576 calories a day for (on paper) only 8/10th of a lb of fat loss/wk.

If you pursued your plan to take a more aggressive calorie deficit of 30%, that puts you at a 591 calorie deficit which would now drop you down to only 1382 calories/day.

That’s starting to get fairly low in calories. However, you would still have a fairly small calorie deficit. In fact, I would get to eat almost twice as many calories as you and I’d still get almost twice the weekly rate of fat loss!

What this all means is that women who are petite or have a small body size are going to lose fat more slowly than larger women and much more slowly than men, so you cannot compare yourself to them.

It’s great to be inspired by our success stories, but if you’re looking for someone to model yourself after, choose one of our success stories of someone your body size and wt, rather than the folks who started 100 lbs overweight and were therefore easily dropping 3 lbs a week.

ONE POUND a week of fat loss is much more in line with a realistic goal for someone of a smaller body size. Overweight people can lose it faster. The best thing you can do is to be extremely consistent with your nutrition over time.

Suggestion #1: Weigh and measure all your food any time you feel you are stuck at a plateau, just to be sure. When your calorie expenditure is on the low side, you don’t have much margin for error.

Suggestion #2:  Take your body comp measurements with a grain of salt, especially if you are using Bioelectric Impedance Analysis (BIA) scales (they are a bit wonky) and remember that body comp testing is seldom perfect. Pay attention to your circumference measurements, how your clothes fit and how you look in the mirror and in photos as well.

Suggestion #3: You might actually want to take fewer refeeds – once a week instead of every 4th day, or even just once every 10-14 days, so you can get a larger weekly deficit.

Suggestion #4: You may want to take 2 or 3 of your long cardio sessions on the treadmill and switch them to intense intervals or ANY other type of activity that has potential to burn more than 362 calories for an hour’s investment of time, or perhaps that equivalent calorie burn in less time. No need to add more days of cardio or more time – get the most out of the time you are already spending.

Suggestion #5: If you do intervals, don’t make the workout too brief (ignore the advertisements for those “4 minute miracle” workouts, etc.), or you may burn fewer calories than you were before! In fact, you might even try the method where you do HIIT
for 15-20 min, then continue for another 30-40 at slow to medium intensity. Increasing total calories burned should be your focus.

Dropping only ONE pound per week (or less) may seem excruciatingly slow, but it’s actually the same type of thing I do. As a bodybuilder, I go from lean to extremely lean when I diet and I don’t expect more than a pound a week during contest cuts.

You are in a similar situation, even if not competing. Even if you get a half a pound a week fat loss, if you get that progress every week, that’s what you’re looking for – steady progress – even if slow.

It’s entirely possible that you HAVE been making progress, only very slowly. With the way water weight and glycogen levels can fluctuate (and lean mass may increase), a half a pound or pound fat loss in a week could have been easily masked… and therefore, missed. That’s one of the drawbacks of going by the scale alone.

Understand the calorie math I explained above and be patient, watching for slow and steady progress, paying special attention to the trend over time on your progress chart.

Keep after it – the persistence will pay, I promise!

Train hard and expect success,

Tom Venuto, author of
Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle
http://www.BurnTheFat.com

PS. You can learn about more fat loss strategies (including the details about the carb cycling method) inside my e-book, Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle. Learn more and see some of the inspiring before and after success stories at:
http://www.BurnThefat.com

About the Author:

Tom Venuto is a fat loss expert, lifetime natural (steroid-free) bodybuilder, independent nutrition researcher, freelance writer, and author of the #1 best selling diet e-book, Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle: Fat-Burning Secrets of The World’s Best Bodybuilders & Fitness Models (e-book) which teaches you how to get lean without drugs or supplements using secrets of the world’s best bodybuilders and fitness models. Learn how to get rid of stubborn fat and increase your metabolism by visiting: www.burnthefat.com.

3 cups water
1/2 cup brown rice
1/2 cup bulgur
1/2 cup barley
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup onion, chopped
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 cup pecans, toasted and chopped
1/2 teaspoon thyme, dried
1/4 cup dried cranberries

Directions

Cook rice and barley together, in 2 cups of water, simmer for 40 minutes. Cook bulgur separately, in 1 cup of water, simmer about 20 minutes or until all liquid is absorbed. While grains are cooking, saute onion in olive oil in frying pan. When grains are cooked, add onion and rest of ingredients to grains and stir thoroughly. Serves 6

Nutritional Information

Calories: 267
Total Fat: 12 g
Sat Fat: 1.4g
Mono Fat: 7.2g
Poly Fat: 2.9g
Trans Fat: 0
Cholesterol: 0mg
Sodium: 220mg
Potassium: 231mg
Total Carb: 36.5g
Dietary Fiber: 6.8g
Sugars 2g
Protein: 5.7g

Recipe from Recipezaar

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Bulgur Wheat

• Prevents heart disease
• Prevents constipation
• Reduces the risk of cancer & heart disease
• Rich in vitamins

Brown Rice

• Helps control blood sugar
• Helps control cholesterol
• Beneficial to the stomach, including ulcers & diarrhea
• Rich in fiber
• A body building food

Barley

• Helps prevent diabetes
• Excellent source of fiber
• Packed with vitamins & minerals
• Contains antioxidants

Quinoa

• Great source of protein – 8 grams per cup
• Helps control weight
• Helps prevent heart disease and diabetes
• Full of vitamins
• Rich in fiber

Please see the Recipes section of this blog for some great recipes using these powerful grains.

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When I woke up this morning, I did my analysis on the monitor and did not like what it said. There are two settings: Normal and Athlete. You have to do some calculations based on your activity level to figure out which setting you need to use. Well, my calculations said that I had to use the Athlete setting.

After a pit stop in the loo, I was ready to get my fat measured. It took 7 seconds and before I knew it, I was told that my BMI is high (25.5) and that I have 29.2% body fat. HUH?! Well, that’s not good! I shook the monitor to see if it would scream, “I’m wrong! I’m wrong!” It just looked back at me with the same numbers. Sigh.

Last May, I fell down a flight of stairs and broke my ankle and sprained it and my foot really bad. Needless to say, my activity level was affected in a horrible way. After 8 weeks in a “boot,” I was allowed to do a little exercise. Do you know how much muscle loss and fat gain you can achieve in 8 short weeks? Well, I can and it ain’t pretty! I went from being in the normal BMI range to high and I don’t know how much actual fat I gained. My clothes and thighs are telling me quite a bit.

My ankle still hasn’t completely healed and it is hard for me to do aerobics to the intensity that I was doing before. I’m not using that as an excuse because my ankle didn’t force me to eat like a pig during the holiday season. I did this to myself and now I’m paying the price. I wasn’t too worried about my little fat gain because I didn’t think that I would be wearing a bikini too much this summer. Well, I was wrong! I booked a cruise last week and I will be in a bikini for 7 straight days. Oh, the horror!

What am I going to do to get bikini ready? Here’s my program:

1. Only ONE cheat meal a week. Not a cheat day, but one cheat meal – big difference!
2. Eat within my calorie range to lose 1 to 1 1/2 lbs. per week. (Find out your calorie range at www.myfitnesspal.com.)
3. Eat clean as much as I can, which is normally 90% of the time.
3. Continue to lift weights 3 days a week. I have to maintain and gain muscle to keep the furnace burning.
4. Increase my cardio from 30-45 minutes to 45-60 minutes a day. It is imperative to do lots of cardio to lose fat. Since I’m limited to what cardio I can do, I use several different methods: a) My Fitness Coach game for Wii; b) Walk Away the Pounds 4-mile Super Challenge; and c) Basic Step Aerobics while watching TV.
5. Only allow myself one piece of dark chocolate a week. Think Jell-o Pudding – Sugar Free/Fat Free Chocolate!

I’ll post my progress along the way. Hopefully, this posts will show others that sometimes we all have stumbles and struggles along the way, but we can overcome them with hard work. I’ll continue to be a work in progress.

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Nutrition Facts:

Calories: 100
Total Fat: 1.5g
Cholesterol: 0mg
Sodium: 140mg
Potassium: 170mg
Total Carbohydrate: 21g
Fiber: 6g
Sugars: 9g
Sugar Alcohol: 4g
Protein: 3g

The ingredient list is not bad at all either. I normally don’t buy processed foods that are full of junk, but this one seems to be OK.

Just make sure you have these as a treat, so you don’t over-eat.

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Several countries are known for their healthy eating habits, so let’s explore what they do right. In Sweden, they eat a lot of fish. Fish contains omega-3 fatty acids, which are heart healthy. The main focus of food in Spain is seafood, vegetables, and fruit. Seafood is low in fat and high in protein. Japan’s citizens eat broth-based soups, vegetables, fish, and rice. Due to their healthy lifestyle, Japanese women and men live longer and healthier than anyone else on earth.

How can Americans improve their health and lose a few pounds?

1. Focus on portion sizes – use a salad plate for your meals instead of the larger dinner plate.
2. Limit your time spent in a fast food drive-thru – prepare your own meals at home so you know exactly what you’re eating. If you must have a drive-thru burger, limit it to once every few weeks.
3. Eat more fruits and vegetables – have two vegetables with a lean protein for a meal. You can live without the mashed potatoes loaded with butter. Instead of eating a piece of cake for dessert, enjoy some fruit instead.
4. When eating at a restaurant, order a take-out box when you order your entree. When you receive your entree, immediately cut it in half and place one-half of it in the take-out box.
5. Walk as much as possible – don’t drive around the parking lot at the mall or Wal-Mart searching for an empty space close to the store. Park at the end of the lot and walk. Not only will you get into the store faster, you will burn a few calories also. If at all possible, leave the car at home and walk to your destination.

Now, I just need to listen to my own advice and do them more often. If you have any other suggestions to add, please contact me or comment below.

Thanks for reading!
Sheila

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Black Forest Fudge Cake

1/2 cup unbleached flour
1/2 cup oat bran
1/4 cup plus 2 TBS cocoa powder
2/3 cup sugar
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/8 tsp salt
12 oz coarsely chopped frozen pitted dark sweet cherries (about 2 1/2 cups) thawed
3 TBS canola oil
3 TBS fat-free egg substitute or 1 large egg, lightly beaten
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/3 cup chopped walnuts or pecans (optional)
1 1/2 TBS powdered sugar (optional)

1. Place the flour, oat bran cocoa, sugar, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl, and stir to mix well. Add cherries, including the juice that has accumulated during thawing, oil, egg, and vanilla extract, and stir well. Set the batter aside for 10 minutes, then stir the batter again for 10 to 15 seconds. Fold in the nuts, if desired.
2. Coat an 8-inch square baking pan with non-stick cooking spray, and spread the batter evenly in the pan. Bake at 350° F for 30 to 35 minutes, or just until a wooden toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out to clean or coated with a few fudgy crumbs.
3. Let the cake cool in the pan at room temperature. If desired, sift the powdered sugar over the top of the cake just before cutting into squares and serving.

Servings: 9, Calories: 199, Carbs: 34 g, Chol: 0 mg, Fiber: 4.6 g, Protein: 5 g, Sodium: 114 mg, Calcium: 8 mg, GI Rating: Moderate

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