Joe's 6 Month Change

Before

After

6 months ago Joe weighed 146 pounds and was 12% body fat. He had never lifted a weight in his life and had a very unhealthy diet. He came to me one day asking me to get him in shape, and I had an idea. I decided that what I would do was create a diet and work out with him, to try and get results. So over this period of time, his lifestyle has completely changed. Midway through, his results were incredible; he weighed 172 pounds, and had lost fat. His exact numbers were that he gained 28 pounds of muscle and lost 2 pounds of fat, while getting his body fat down to around 10%. The crazy thing was that he still looked little. His progress since then is still completely stunning he has put on a total of 30 pounds. By the end his numbers were 29 pounds of muscle and 1 pound of fat. His body fat has gone down to 9% and his bench max went from 95 pounds to 160 pounds, adding a stunning 65 pounds in 6 months. Joe is living proof of how successful the Wiefit diet is. In 6 months Joe completely changed his body health and composition. He is more confident and will continue to grow. His diets varied between the different bulk up diets Brian and I decided to put him on and towards the end a diet more for leaning out and adding just muscle while cutting fat. Joe’s confidence has risen and he is much happier now than he was 6 months ago. Towards the end, Joe was beginning to add more fat onto his body, so for the next 6 weeks he will be on a lower carb diet to get the glycogen out of his muscles and to burn fat. This will cause his body to go back into muscle building mode, and in 6 weeks he will be back on a bulk up diet.  He feels better and he eats much healthier. Without this diet Joe would probably still be in the same eating cycles. 

Chest Workout

Carb Cycling

As promised this blog will be about carb cycling. This plays a huge role in the Wiefit diet for losing fat. Again it is an idea that is fairly new to the nutrition world and is becoming more and more popular. Basically how it works is by cycling carbs. It can be a day to day thing or even month to month. If it is day to day, the person on the diet may go 4 days with little or no carbs then the next three eat healthy carbs in their diet. In a month to month scenario the person will go a month with a low carb diet then a month with a healthy diet involving carbs. This works by tricking the body into using fat for energy. Once again I stress that the first source of energy the body wants to use is the glycogen stored in the body. By cutting carbohydrates, the glycogen is removed from the muscle and the body turns to the fat for energy. However, before your body goes to muscle for the energy, you will give your body carbs again which will be stored as glycogen, because your muscles are running low on it. With this process, you will get similar results to a low carb diet without cannibalizing muscle mass and without the many other drawbacks associated with a low-carb diet.

Creatine

Many are very cautious to begin using creatine as a supplement in their training and diet programs. They hear many false rumors and some even compare it to steroids.However for many it can be a very useful aid in their training and can very quickly help you pick your workout up if you have hit a plateau. Creatine does two major things for your body to help build muscle. One is allow for your muscles to absorb more water. This will make muscles look bigger and be harder as well as allow for them to be more powerful. The other use in the body is in the aid of making ATP. ATP is the major source of energy. Creatine is stored in the muscles as creatine phosphate. When your muscles run out of ATP during exercise creatine helps the body create ATP in a quicker manor allowing the muscles to keep working. For a more in depth explanation of this idea go to http://www.building-muscle101.com/how-does-creatine-work.html.

Why are no Carb Diets not good for building muscle? Why do they usually fail?

The body uses carbs for 2 main things. The first use is energy. Carbs are stored as glycogen in muscle and when using those muscles the glycogen is burned as energy. The second is fat storage, which is where no carb diets are correct. Unused carbs are stored in the body as adipose (fat) tissue. If you eat no carbs the body will use your stored fat for energy because there are no carbs to be harvested. The problem here is that the body also uses proteins and muscle that you have for energy. On a no carb diet you will lose a lot of weight, but it won't all be fat. You may lose 30 pounds but 5 or 7 of those pounds may be muscle. The other problem is that your body needs and craves carbs when you are on this diet. So the second that you begin eating carbs again, the body will absorb more carbs than it usually would. For this reason most people gain back more weight than they lost after these no carb diets. The better way to lose fat and keep/build muscle is to carb cycle. I will provide another post about carb cycling in a couple days...

Heavy Whipping Cream's Use

Many people that are on a certain nutrition diet at Wiefit see heavy whipping cream as an ingredient in their protein shakes, and automatically question it because of the amount of fat that it contains. The thing that they don't understand is it's use in the body. The fats in the heavy whipping cream raise testosterone levels in the body, which aid in muscle growth. The amount of muscle gained on the diets involving heavy whipping cream far outweighs the minor amount of fat that is put on because of the whipping cream. So next time you guys trying to put on muscle quickly, rethink putting heavy whipping cream in where the diet tells you too!

Biological Value of Protein in Food

Over this Spring Break, my dad and I went on a fishing trip, and caught a bunch of fish to eat. When thinking about the fish, I began to think about something Brian was talking about called the biological value of proteins. The biological value of a food refers to how quickly and effectively the protein in the food can be digested and used by the human body. Brian spoke about a couple foods, and one he referred to was fish. He said it had a very high biological value, so i decided to see just how high it and other foods were. I found that eggs are one of the highest at 94%, with fish slightly ahead of beef at 76% with beef at 74%. What these numbers show is the percent of the nitrogen that is absorbed by the body.  A ratio of nitrogen incorporated into the body over nitrogen absorbed gives a measure of protein 'usability' - the BV.

Isolates vs. Concentrates

In protein supplements, the powder that you have is usually an isolate, concentrate or mixture of the two. They come from the same source, but they are slightly different.

Concentrates are not as pure of a protein and are a fair amount cheaper than isolates. They are only about 70% protein, and have a higher fat content than isolates. Isolates are about 90-95% protein and are more costly. But they are also a much more quality protein supplement than concentrates. In terms of whey protein, a very popular type of protein, concentrates have a higher amount of lactose in them, because whey is a milk protein. Not that this is bad, but it is better for those who are lactose intolerant to take an isolate whey protein supplement.

In the end, both are good and will provide you with the protein you want, its just that the isolate proteins are much higher quality and much more pure.

Carb Back Loading

Many people have heard that carbs are becoming very crucial in many diet plans. Everyone knows about the no carb diets (which are horrible), carb loading, and carb cycling. A very new and recent trend in utilizing carbohydrates in fat loss/muscle gain is called carbohydrate back loading. I find this to be very interesting, and many people who are on it now love it even more. This kind of diet is made for those who work out later in the day, between 3 and 6. During the early morning and day, our bodies are very sensitive to carbs and are more likely to store them as fat rather than as glycogen in the muscle cells. Also, after workouts our bodies are more likely to store carbohydrates as glycogen. So knowing this, we can figure that the best time to have carbs in our diet is later at night (in the couple hours following your workout). These carbs as crazy as it seems can even be sugar as long as it is fat free. Fat free ice cream and cereal, anything that is fat free can be eaten. In the morning and day you want to stick strictly to vegetables, proteins, and healthy fats. Again don't go crazy, an example of a breakfast for a male athlete would be 4 egg whites, 1 whole egg, and 1 oz of cheese. Don't overdo the fats during the day time, but you can do a fair amount of carb loading in the hours following your workout. Workout hard and this kind of diet will help you lose fat and gain muscle.

Staying on Track During Vacation

It can be hard for many to stay on track with their fitness and nutrition plan over vacation, with all of the reasons not to. In complete honesty a week off of your diet will not kill you, so feel free to live a little, but don't go crazy. Fitness however can be very easy to keep going on vacation. I am going to Florida this year, and I'm excited to do some different kind of workouts that I do not get to do as often up here. I plan to do a lot of push ups with different hand placement (wide, close, and shoulder width), crunches, squat jumps, and even some sprinting on the beach. It is very difficult to run in the sand, so I am looking forward to doing some speed training that is virtually impossible to do in my hometown. I also plan to do some swimming in the ocean for cardio purposes, because I don't want my cardio to suffer either. It can be very easy to let yourself go crazy, but make sure that you at least keep your fitness plan going over vacation. In addition, make sure once you are home you get back into the nutrition plan you had before vacation, because it is very easy to fall into bad habits.

Sleep

The key thing that most people lack in their everyday lives is sleep. Very often we see people only getting three or four hours of sleep, which is not nearly enough for anyone. Younger guys trying to bulk up really need sleep, because when you are asleep, your testosterone levels are at their highest. This means that when sleeping, human growth hormones are at their highest in your body, so getting enough is very beneficial towards bulking up and growing muscle. For those not trying to build muscle, sleep is very important for staying healthy, because studies show that during sleep, your body's immune system is much stronger. Therefore sleeping enough will help you fight off infections and illness. Also, sleep helps with memory and attentiveness. Those who sleep more are much more likely to be able to store things in their mind and will be more mentally active throughout the day. This would help you in school and in your workouts. If you can keep your mind active during school, your are much more likely to understand the ideas being taught in class. The most important thing about getting the right amount of rest is that your body requires energy to work, and sleep allows your body to regenerate. Being active is very important to living a healthy life, and your body requires rest to stay active, so make sure you get about 7-9 hours of sleep every night.

The Difference in Protein

There are two Beverly International protein supplements on the market. One is called Ultimate Muscle Protein and the other called Muscle Provider.  These are both high quality supplements with high quality protein. The difference that most people don't know is that they contain two different types of protein. Ultimate Muscle Protein (UMP) contains a type of protein called casein protein. This type is digested and used slower in the body. It will take longer for this protein to get used by the body; therefore it is a better protein for meals and pre-workouts. This means that if you do not have time to make chicken for a meal, UMP is what should be supplemented. Muscle Provider on the other hand contains whey protein which is absorbed by the body much faster, making this the supplement for after your workout. This is because at this after a workout you want to get protein into your muscles very quickly in the 30 minutes following your workout. 

Bulking Up

Recently I have had many football players asking me how to get bigger. They constantly ask me how I lift and what kinds of lifts I did to put on the bulk that I have. The first thing I always tell them is something my mentor teaches, "Diet is 80% of it." All this means is that in order to get big you must eat big. While you must lift along with eating big to get as strong as you can, you will only bulk up if you feed your body enough food. Muscle itself burns 50 calories a day at rest, so in order to even maintain you must eat 50 calories per pound of lean mass on your body (Realize this means adding food as you get bigger). I tried a new diet and exercise program to get my bench press strength up significantly, all you football players need to do is continue the workouts you are doing for football and follow this diet strictly. It is a lot of food, but try to get it all in, you will be so surprised with your size gain it is ridiculous. Remember only worry about the diet at the end of the article, and grapefruit is much easier than cantaloupe. Make sure you still get your pre workout meal in (1 scoop UMP and an apple) as well as post (1 scoop UMP or MP and 3 scoops of mass maker.)
http://www.beverlysupplements.com/2010/09/02/how-to-increase-your-bench-press-by-thirty-pounds-in-six-weeks/

Eating in School

When I told my mom and dad that I wanted to take 2 sandwiches, a protein shake, an apple, and multiple waters to school, they thought I was crazy and that the teachers would never be okay with me eating in their class while they were teaching. I had to explain that teachers were now okay with things like this, and that they understood how important eating healthy and often was to keeping people healthy.

Times are changing, and school is no different. When my parents were in school, they tell me that their teachers never would have let them eat in class, but this changed recently. With new knowledge of the importance of having 6 or 7 smaller healthier meals a day, schools had to change their policies towards food in class. My mentor, Brian Wiefering, was a driving force in that change at our middle school. When the district heard of the importance of this idea of many meals a day, they allowed students to have more than just water in class.

Just a small thought I decided to share...

Insane Leg Workout

The other day I was talking to a couple guys at Wiefit and I heard about this leg workout that sounded pretty intense. It is meant to hit all parts of the legs and will really shock the muscles if you haven't done something like it before. Begin by warming up and stretching to avoid injury.

It starts on the leg press, you should do 3 sets of 20 with no rest in between for a total of 60. Do 20 with your feet low and close, then 20 with them low and spread, then 20 with them high and spread apart. This will hit your quads, hamstrings, and glutes. You should do this rotation 3 times for a total of 3 sets of 60. It will be difficult, so do a weight that you can struggle with but do. Take a 2 minute break in between each set of 60.

The second life you should do is lunge walk with or without dumbbells. You should do somewhere 20-25 steps with each leg. Do 3 sets. take a minute or two break in between sets.

Next are straight leg dead lifts. Make sure to feel the stretch in your hamstrings and do proper form. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpzRX3slWjE&feature=related) <--This shows proper form. You should do 3 sets of 15 with a short break in between.

The final lift will be leg extensions. Most gyms have machines for these. Make sure you do proper form, do not try to do a bunch of weight, make sure you control the weight both up and down. If you do not the lift will not have the same effect. Again take a short break in between sets.

This workout is for athletes and fairly experienced weight lifters. It is not made for inexperienced gym goers or for those who can get injured easily. Make sure you cool down and stretch once you are done, and get your protein/post workout meal in within 30 minutes of finishing the workout.

How much water should you drink?

For my first post I'll teach you something I just recently learned:
Today I was speaking with Aaron, a trainer at Wiefit, about why people do and don't have any veins "popping" out of my arms. Many people look to have this vascularity in their arms because its shows off their hard work. Surprisingly, I found out today that water plays a huge role in vascularity. Muscles are about 80% water, so by filling them up with water, they will become larger and push your veins to the surface causing them to "pop." In your diet, make sure to include one ounce of water per pound of lean mass... make sure its lean mass, not total body weight. For example if you weigh 205 pounds, and you are 9% body fat, you have about 185 pounds of lean mass. So this person should drink 185 ounces of water per day.