How Hard Is It To Lose Body Fat And Build Muscle?

“Isn’t that hard?” is a question that I get almost every day when I tell someone about an aspect of my lifestyle and my answer is always the same – “No it really isn’t hard.”

When I show someone my food for the day or explain to them the truth of what it takes to get results, most people invariably think that it is tough, challenging, hard and takes discipline, willpower and fanaticism to do what I do. How our society get so brainwashed into thinking this way about preparing and eating a few simple meals of brown rice vegetables and meat is beyond words.

Yes there are hard things in life. I would consider something like climbing Everest as hard or living in Darfur as terribly hard but being lucky enough to buy some and cook clean food and shock horror eat the same thing 4 times in a day somehow makes me some sort of heroic freak to the masses who have been lied to and can’t get the body they want.

The reality is that people have been lied to with regard to how hard getting a lean muscular body for life is and it becomes a self fulfiling prophecy. The companies then can sell you an ‘easy way’ out of the ‘hard’ situation facing you.

Look at it objectively. Is learning how your body works then eating clean and training smart so hard? How tough are people doing it around the world in warzones and dozens of other countries where life is an ordeal?

The fact of the matter is that losing fat and gaining muscle is not hard. They require knowledge and willingess to take action but nothing more. Once you make the choice to transform your body, all you need to do is learn how to create the changes you want and then just do it. There is no inherent difficulty just a simple series of cause and effect processes that you undertake to get what you want.

You either create the body you want or you don’t. Not because it is too hard but because deep down, despite what you may think, you don’t want to change enough to make the choice of a lean muscular body for life.

Losing fat and gaining muscle is not hard. Never was and never will be.

Tell Them It’s Healthy And They’ll Eat It By The Boxful

Tell them it’s healthy and they’ll eat it by the boxful.”

This slogan is the slogan for a famous cereal brand and is the precise formula that many companies have discovered to spin junk into gold. It doesn’t require any proof and caters to the most base human laziness with such microscopic precision that the whole idea of marketing food as ‘healthy’ has to be the most effective marketing strategy in human history.

Diet drinks, “low fat” processed junk, low carb everything and pseudo “health food” that will get your body nowhere; the list just keeps getting longer because society will believe anything and buy anything – as long as they are told it’s healthy. It’s all social conditioning indoctrinated into use from when we are young. To have any hope you MUST break free and be able to think for yourself and feed your body on your own terms to make it look how you want.

I was asked today whether crumpets were healthy. I guess despite the marketing there still must be some doubts, but more telling is that it is strong enough to create the belief that crumpets are a health food (though I can’t say I understand how that logic was reasoned personally). Thinking back I seem to recall seeing ‘low fat’ on a packet once – maybe that was it, if not the smiling Mr Crumpet on the packet perhaps? Either is equally likely and I could spend all day trying to figure out the logic, but I won’t.

Anyway, I asked what the person meant and why were they asking me why if crumpets of all things were healthy (hoping in all my research that somehow beyond all boundaries of this reality that I would say yes?). I discovered that their goal was to “bulk up” whereupon I suggested they look at more natural foods such as sweet potato etc for their carbs. “Why not just crumpets?” I was asked, “carbs are the same aren’t they?” Well no I explained, if we want to be a bit more specific I assume that they wanted to put on quality muscle mass not just get fat then they need a specific nutritional plan to do the job – not just vague tips and if their starting point is crumpets, they probably need some good detailed advice. I don’t know whether they fully understood the need to be specific, precise and consistent.

This is a perfect illustration of how the advertising and social conditioning robs so many of getting the body they want. To get the body you want, at the most basic level you need to eat clean natural food that is specific, precise and consistent. You need to create a food plan to get you where you want to go WITHOUT the need to feel like you must include certain foods or the false beliefs that the foods the marketers sell to you are created to be specifically tailored towards helping you towards your goals.

All those ‘low fat’ ‘healthy’ snacks aren’t created because they want to help you get the body you want – they are made because they know you are confused, frustrated, craving and feeling insecure or guilty about your body and are thus vulnerable and (temporarily) dumb enough to buy it. They don’t care about your results. They are telling you its healthy because they want you to buy it, not because it is. Think about it: THEY are telling you – the people with a specific vested financial interest in you purchasing the product.

The marketers will continue to tell us as long as there are people who desparately want to believe in another way apart from the truth that simply doesn’t exist. The only way to break the cycle is to stop listening. The only way to stop listening is to first stop believing that there is another way. There isn’t. You will only become a lean muscualr version of yourself if you also do the specific things that everyone else who has achieved the body they want for life.

This may seem daunting and overwhelming (but it really isn’t when you know how and have a system) so why am I telling you? Because I have no junk to sell you that I have to lie and defraud you into thinking it’s ‘healthy’. All I have is the truth to share. Your choice: get the results you have always wanted or keep buying what they sell you – after all it is “healthy…”

Are You Sure You’re On The Right Track To Getting The Lean Muscular Body You Want?

Is your world flat or is it round?

How to know instantly whether you are on the right track to getting the lean muscular body that you want.

It never ceases to amaze me that in this information age there is still so much confusion and misinformation in the realm of fat loss and muscle building that it’s no wonder the average person is overwhelmed, confused and frustrated. It’s little wonder there is a 90%+ failure rate when it comes to getting the body people actually want. Even people who have been ‘gym junkies’ for years still come up with some unbelievable feats of bizarre logic that make me shake my head in amazement – more on that one later.

The prevailing level of knowledge about muscle building and fat loss in society is akin to when everyone was convinced that the world was flat and that if you sailed off the end there would be a bunch of dragons. We rule the planet as the dominant species and can send men into space and yet we are still in the dark about getting in control of our own bodies. This situation just astounds me so much that I have to stop thinking about the complete absurdity of it because it shakes me to the very core.

As a society we go on diets and pump away in the gym for very very little in the way of real results. Fleeting improvements, an up and down spiral of spinning your wheels, maybe a few solid months or a year of two if you are one of the few more dedicated ones but nothing like the life long health, vitality and a lean muscular body for life that the fitness elite enjoy. As a society we are an abject failure when it comes to muscle gain and fat loss endeavors. If it’s not your thing that’s totally fine but for those that want to succeed in this area, the prospects statistically are extremely bleak.

But it doesn’t have to be.

Here’s a thought. Instead of jumping off the cliff into dieting and exercising, why don’t you learn about how the human body actually builds muscle and burns fat best FIRST.

If you are ‘eating healthy’ and ‘training’ and you CANNOT explain exactly how the human body builds muscle and loses fat in clear, concise, scientific terms with a thorough understanding of how it all fits together and the necessary actions to stimulate various body systems and processes such as metabolism and protein synthesis then HOW ON EARTH DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING? If you don’t know WHY you are doing something then WHY are you doing it at all?

To give you an example, I recently overheard a guy who is reasonably big but with body fat around 15-20% say that he had not eaten anything in FOUR DAYS “to try and get his abs to come out a bit” and then “shock his body” by eating up a heap in the following days. Now this is not a rank beginner, he’s probably been training for years and still he somehow comes up with something like that. This phenomenon is not unique though – in our information age a little bit of knowledge can be a dangerous thing. When people have no idea of how it all really works, it’s an endless cycle of ‘doing stuff’ such as bizarre exercises, weird diets and magic routines that ends inevitably in failure.

The reason people fail in their droves to get the body they want is that they don’t really know what they are doing and everything is just a guess or hearsay. When you take the time to understand and learn how the body works you instantly realize that the world is round and not flat. You are able to understand and explain how muscle growth and fat loss occur as well as any skilled personal trainer and because of this knowledge you have a system to create a specific exercise program, nutritional plan and lifestyle that will give you a lean muscular body for life.

The One Key Thing You Must Know To Have The Lean Muscular Body You Want

What should I do to….?

What is healthy?

The two most common questions I get asked each and every day without fail. But these two questions are concrete proof that most of the so called ‘fitness information’ out there. It’s information overload and most of it is not good information at that. In fact what is passed off as information or tips are merely commercial messages to get you to think a certain way that will you lead you to buy their product. The rest is basically opinions on various subjects that will vary widely in relevance to you. Though an article might be well researched and informative, all too often it is not directly relevant to your unique situation.

To succeed in developing the lean muscular body you want you only to know one thing. No other area of knowledge matters.

All that you need is the specific knowledge of how YOUR body sheds body fat and builds muscle best. All that you need to know is how to get yourself results.

That’s it. Nothing else. It doesn’t matter what the latest fad or research is unless there is something that is specifically relevant to your unique physiology. Someone else’s opinion on what you ‘should do’ or what they do has no bearing unless it is clear that it will specifically help YOU to burn fat and build muscle better.

What you really need is not opinions but a concrete understanding of how the human body works in factual scientific terms of losing body fat and gaining muscle. Then you need to apply this broader knowledge to discover what methods work specifically for you.

You see there is no way anyone can tell you what you should do unless they have a through understanding of your unique physiology. But once you know the biological science behind fat loss and muscle gain and how to eat, train and live your life according to what needs to be done, that’s it.

Forget about sifting through piles of online and offline information and just learn about the scientific basic facts of how human’s lose fat and build muscle and work on understanding the best ways for you to do both through practical application. You don’t need to know about everything, just how to get results.

Fat Loss In A Box: The Real Story You’re Not Told

If any of these scams actually worked then the first company that ever made a prepackaged diet shake would be bigger than Microsoft.

But the fact is that they don’t. These things have been around for ages and there has been a strong resurgence of late due to the new ‘weight loss celebrities’ from the Biggest Loser who didn’t win the prize and are thus pimping for cash. As an interesting aside many of them are pimping these products as helping them lose the ton of weight they put back on after the show. It actually gets worse as now doctors and pharmacies are touting their own products as well, using their position of trust in the community to cash in.

The ridiculous thing is that virtually all the products are the same – a low carb poor quality protein shake with some vitamins and minerals thrown in. The protein technology alone in most of these things is 20 years old and taste about the same too.

And the premise is even sillier – replace some of your meals with this low calorie shake that will leave you feeling hungry and deprived. Yes you will forcing yourself to take in less calories so you should drop a bit of weight, probably muscle though not fat which only serves to slow your metabolism down. Of course as well in this hungry deprived state you are expected to diet on your other meals as well. This of course won’t lead to overeating on the other meals or snacking and binging that will completely negate the whole point of a meal replacement diet shake will it?

If you are tough and masochistic enough to last a few days then you find some weight on the scale has fallen off. So it must be working right. Well yes you have lost some weight but as mentioned before it’s likely some muscle and your lowered calorie intake has also caused some changes in your physiology. Congratulations you are the proud new owner of a slower metabolism! But they don’t tell you that do they? So you keep pressing along and fall into the low calorie trap.

This downward spiral fortunately is not endless. Once you hit rock bottom, this is where the fun part comes. You throw the shakes out the window as you finally crack it and start eating again. Your metabolism though is still on survival mode and thus happily puts all the weight that you lost back on and then some just to be safe for the next time you convince yourself that the stuff that they are selling must really work this time – after all it is new and improved and surely those endorsers wouldn’t outright lie to your face would they?

Fat loss is fundamentally very simple but the nature of our society and lifestyles have made it a complex challenge for many. Thus the prevalence of those offering a solution to your problems at a steep price is not surprising. The stark reality is this though – despite the thousands of products that you can use or consume or equipment you can buy there is not a single one that will deliver you to get the body you want, no matter what they say. There is no magic solution, there never has been.

The only way and all that there ever has been is understanding how your body works and then living your life in a way that gives you the body you want. End of story.

The Truly Huge Interview Part 7

Q. Is there anything else you would like to say?

A. It’s time for all of the misinformation to end. There are more and more sources of good solid training information out there and the more people that can put it into place and get results to become living examples of what is possible and share how they did it. Human nature is a strange beast and is always looking for the quick fix. But for decades, the ‘quick fix’ has become the dominant discourse, the main stream message that everyone hears and is duped to believe in. People’s minds don’t want to believe in solid training, clean food and becoming mentally strong whilst maintaining an easy going emotional balance is what will finally once and for all time get them the body they want. That’s the ‘alternative’ for the serious or the ‘hard core’.

To that I say: No more.

We realized that the Earth is not flat a long time ago and yet for the masses this is precisely the state
of play in terms of their fitness knowledge when it comes to getting the body they want.

I just can’t abide that as a species we have completely lost control of what we put into our mouths to
function at our best. Powerful forces have hijacked the average person’s body to the point where they
are in a daily maze of confusion when it comes to what to eat (because these same powers have been
smart and also told people they need to look a certain way). It’s a wonder at all that we are the masters
 of the planet at all as the average person doesn’t even know how to feed themselves properly.

It’s time that the TRUTH about health, fitness and nutrition became public knowledge so that people can
make informed choices. To each their own but everyone deserves to at least learn how their body actually
works without any vested interest as a birthright.

The Truly Huge Interview Part 6

Q. What are your future goals?

A. My first major goal is of course to see Ultimate Body Success grow and develop and impact as many people as possible whilst constantly refining all aspects of the program to ensure that they are the best they can be. Secondly I want to realise my full potential as a Les Mills Instructor as even after training alone all these years this is a fresh new challenge. My final goal is when time and circumstances permit to compete in body building once again and earn a WNBF Pro Card.

Q. What is the toughest part about fitness for you?

A. It’s all easy really. Seriously though, everything becomes effortless after a while. One of the secrets of Ultimate Body Success is a bit of an esoteric concept but has a huge impact in practical day to day life. The key is that for life long results it’s not about what you do but it’s about who you are. To get the body you want you simply have to become the person in totality with the body you want. This means not only how they train and eat but also their beliefs, their work/life balance, their family and relationships. It might seem like semantics but if I had to do everything that I needed to do to be where I’m at, that’s a lot of effort. But because of who I am, all that I need to do simply ‘gets done’ and it honestly feels like no effort to get up in the morning and cook my food every day etc. It’s just a state of being not doing. We are human beings not human doings.

If the above sounds too ‘Zen’ of an answer (true as it is) then I’ll have to say perfecting my Les Mills presentation and choreography. For someone who is pretty ‘beat deaf’ I have to work hard at nailing that whilst coaching everyone in my class, remembering what comes next and working harder than anyone else in the class.

Q. Tell us about your Ultimate Body Success program?

A. Ultimate Body Success is a complete, impossible to fail system to create a lean muscular body and keep it for life. It gives you a total understanding of how your body works so that you know and then can do exactly what is required to transform your body. It is a complete system that covers all aspects of nutrition, training, supplementation, mental attitude and practical logistics such as choosing a gym, hiring a trainer, equipment and even cooking.

Every single principle is distilled from countless years and experiences of what I call the ‘Fitness Elite’. These are the people that you see at the gym with the great physiques, that train hard with clock work consistency and yet they have a simple easy lifestyle that is worlds away from the diet deprivation gung ho training and injury cycle that the average person endures. Simply put, the Fitness Elite do certain things that make them successful, Ultimate Body Success is about meticulously detailing what they do and the science in simple terms behind why they do it. The program also gives you an insight into how they think and how they live as people, which believe it or not is the one thing that I have found in all my years is the real secret to success. Most importantly though it shows you how to do exactly the same to get your best results ever.

On top of the secrets of the Fitness Elite, Ultimate Body Success crams in everything that we know you will need to be successful in the real world. For example instead of some useless ‘healthy recipe book’ - I don’t know what you like to eat or if you can even cook, we created a practical kitchen guide to give anyone the ‘big picture’ as well as to details such as knife and frypan choices that you need to have in place to prepare clean food on a daily basis. We then even go into how to carry your food with you. It is these small practicalities that often trip people up. We make it impossible to fail because we don’t leave even the smallest detail to chance. You get the whole picture from start to finish.

The Ultimate Body Success Program is the result of not only my 15 years of training but 15 years of research plus the countless years of wisdom I have been fortunate to be exposed to from the many great sources of information that I have hunted down from around the world and people I have met. It is a complete, step-by-step blue print that is guaranteed to produce results by giving you the complete arsenal of knowledge and tools to take control of your body once and for all.

The Truly Huge Interview Part 1

Hey,

Here’s the transcript of the interview I was asked to do for www.trulyhuge.com

I really enjoyed doing this, Truly Huge has been around for a long time, they realize the value of the Ultimate Body Success philosophy it’s quite long, so I’ll break it up over parts.

Here it is:

Q.  Can you give us some background about yourself?

 A. I am a dedicated full time fitness professional and business owner
with a passion for bringing the TRUTH, WITHOUT ANY HIDDEN AGENDA of what REALLY works and
what doesn’t to anyone and everyone who wants to make a REAL, LIFE LONG
difference to their health and fitness by transforming their body into what
they have always desired.

I am a fully qualified Personal Trainer with client base ranging from
international level body shapers, power lifting national record holders, ex-Olympians and
Master’s Games athletes to corporate executives and clients who simply want to maximize their
results in the gym from a diverse range of backgrounds. I am also a group fitness instructor
teaching fourteen classes per week ranging from Pilates and Fitball to Les Mills RPM Indoor
Cycling and BODYPUMP. On top of all this is of course my work to create and
develop my Ultimate Body Success Program and constantly refine my knowledge base to be as cutting edge as
possible whilst seeking the simple truths that are the keys for anyone to 
unlock their own potential. distributorship of the best indoor bike in the world bar none: the Body Bike.
Finally because fitness is a way of life for me I also squeeze in some supplement
sourcing and sales just to round everything out.

In terms of my training background, I have trained for over fifteen
years and over that time I have covered the full spectrum of olympic lifting,
power lifting and body building (2005 Under  65kg NPFC-IFBB Australian Champion) as well as obtaining 

my level 10 in
Shaolin Jee Shin Wing Chun Kung Fu. At the moment my classes are my main
training focus as I strive to be the best role model I can be each and every class – riding over 120km
per week of hard intervals and pumping out 500 plus squats, 400 odd reps of
chest presses and a few hundred reps on all the other body parts whilst motivating others to do the same
with a smile on my face does me just fine.

The Unethical Hijacking Of Your Health And Fitness

Watching some early morning US breakfast show I came across the latest ‘health food’ scam that is just another con that takes a fairly sound principle and bastardises it for mass market appeal.

It seems the latest fad after the low-carb mania of years past (don’t get me wrong it still persists today) is a warped twist on the idea of portion control. Now portion control itself is a reasonable idea, combine it with clean food and specific nutrient balancing to meet your individual needs and it’s even better.

However what the giant multi-national processed food scammers have done is applied portion control to the garbage they sell and are trying to convince people it’s healthy. What they have come up with is to repackage all of their junk in 100 calorie ‘portion controlled’ servings.

What they have come up with is so flawed yet will appeal to the masses extremely well because they will be feeling good about themselves whilst poisoning their bodies and believing that these 100 calorie potions are some how magically healthy because they are ‘portion controlled. Many biscuits are over 100 calories apiece. Having high calorie junk food laced with addictive chemicals means miniscule servings. Any person with half a brain can see that the average person is just now going to eat 3 or more packs instead of one, there is no way that they can just eat one. Guess what as well? The increased cost of packaging means that they are paying more for less as well. It’s a free world and if someone wants to eat the way they do then that’s their choice, I have nothing against them and moreover I definitely don’t think it’s right that they should be ripped off.

This is a classic case of a fairly sound principle being manipulated by those with a vested interest in keeping you fat, sick and spinning your wheels with no hope of getting the body you desire and deserve. To get the body you want for life, you need to break free from the lies that are sold to you. By understanding once and for all how your body works and modelling the success of the fitness elite you will find your freedom.

Eating Out For A Healthy Body – A Heavenly Or Hellish Experience

 It never ceases to amaze me how so many people almost despair when they have to eat out if they are trying to achieve some sort of physical result. Celebrations and social occasions lose all their joy as they are obsessed about how ‘eating out’ will impact on their results.

One of two things will naturally happen here, either they will ‘crack’ and binge eat more than they normally would or just as bad if not worse, they will use ‘will power’ to deny themselves. Why is this denial so bad even if so many derive some sort of false pride from having avoided ‘temptation’?

It’s bad because it warps your relationship with food and creates strong negative emotions towards doing what is necessary to achieve the body you want. Here’s the critical point though, denying yourself is not the ‘necessary’ part of getting the body you want, eating clean is. However if you deny yourself when you eat out or at any other time you will see it as part of eating clean – which it most certainly is not.There are many healthy eating plans and programs that have various ‘strategies’ about making the best choice that you can when eating out which works fine for a time or if you have some deadline but it’s not really a sustainable plan of attack, especially if you like food as much as I do. There is only so many times you can order the chicken salad and not feel like you are in purgatory. Sure sometimes you might really want the chicken salad but at other times it’s all just the same old denial again.

So what’s the answer?

Yesterday the problem question was: “Now what?” today though salvation comes in the form of the question: “So what?” When it comes to eating out, when you understand how the body works and you are on the right lifestyle path your guiding principle should be a big “So what?”

Here’s some numbers to think about. You were going to eat a meal anyway which would be anywhere from 350-500 calories. Say you enjoy yourself for a full 3 courses clocking in at 1000 calories. This leaves you with 500 calories more than normal for this meal. Does it mean you will be 500 over for the day, not necessarily. If you really wanted to then you could shave all your other meals slightly and you still would be in balance or only slightly over. Or don’t even bother. The metabolism can respond well to a variance in calories and a cycling strategy is often used by bodybuilders preparing for competition. You may even actually be in a slight calorie deficit for the day (say 250 calories under) as your metabolism may have ramped up from eating clean and training smart meaning that satisfying enjoyable 3 course meal put you just 250 calories over which is nothing.

Think about this: food is made up of protein, carbs and fats – if you have been training hard a little extra of everything is not going to hurt you is it? Finally the metabolism is very complex and in all likelihood any excess calories will be processed to the point where the meal makes no difference to your physical progress once you have made eating clean a part of your lifestyle.

Go ahead, eat what you really want and leave the chicken salad for those who don’t know any better.