This week’s call is jam-packed with weight loss research tips…it’s really a different call. You’ll get a lot of proven ideas…

By the way, the 7th Turbulence Training Transformation Contest ends and the 8th contest begins on May 3rd & May 31st.

Until then…

If things aren’t going great, what’s at least one thing you can do to start making a change. You don’t have to tell me, just tell yourself, and then get started on making the change. That’s how you get things done.

Click here to listen to the call…

And now, our fat loss tips.

Monday – April 12th

Transformation Tip of the Week:

“You can do more; you’re better than that. You can dare to dream even bigger…aim higher, do more, be more, earn more, and go further. If nobody else believes you can do it, I believe you can do it, I believe you can. But whatever you do, commit with all your heart & don’t stop until you get where you want to go.”
George Foreman

Now for our first research study…

The Fat Burning Power of Kettlebells

Finally…some research on kettlebell workouts…

Reference:

Farrar, RE, Mayhew, JL, and Koch, AJ. Oxygen cost of kettlebell swings. J Strength Cond Res 24(4): 1034-1036, 2010.Health & Exercise Sciences Department, Human Performance Laboratory, Truman State University, Kirksville, Missouri.

10 college guys with VO2max of 52.78 completed a kettlebell exercise routine consisting of as many 2-handed swings as could be completed in 12 minutes using a 16-kg kettlebell.

Subjects completed 265 +/- 68 swings during the 12 minutes and achieved an average V02 of 34.31 +/- 5.67 ml.kg.min and an average HR of 165 +/- 13 b.min.

Kettlebells provide a useful tool with which coaches may improve the cardiorespiratory fitness of their athletes.

Interesting…BUT…don’t jump into kettlebell swings too fast though…make sure you work your way up doing 3 minutes, 6 minutes, 9 minutes, and 12 minutes. Also, start light. The guys here used only a 35lbs kb.

Tuesday
Get 30 minutes of fun activity – now grab a Green Tea and let’s do this week’s main research review.

Reference:
Krieger, JW. Single vs. multiple sets of resistance exercise for muscle hypertrophy: a meta-analysis. J Strength Cond Res 24(4): 1150-1159, 2010

For years people have wasted their lives arguing over 1 vs 3 sets…but anyways, this review of research studies concluded that multiple sets are associated with 40% greater hypertrophy-related than 1 set, in both trained and untrained subjects. However, the big difference is in going from 1 to 3 sets. On the other hand, there is no difference when you go from 3 to 4-6 sets. So no need to go overboard, like they do in Flex magazine.

So when possible, do more sets for more muscle growth.

For those not interested in muscle growth, cut back to one set and see how that goes.

Wednesday

Another study! This one shows that you can get fit playing sports – novel concept, huh? Having fun and getting fit…better than the treadmill…just watch out for after game beer and wings.

European Journal of Applied Physiology. Muscle adaptations and performance enhancements of soccer training for untrained men.  Peter Krustrup1 , Jesper F. Christensen1, Morten B. Randers1, Henrik Pedersen1, Emil Sundstrup1, 2, Markus D. Jakobsen1, 2, Birgitte R. Krustrup1, Jens J. Nielsen1, Charlotte Suetta2, Lars Nybo1 and Jens Bangsbo1

Our nerdy, sporty scientist friends from Denmark did this study on 38 untrained guys. The subjects were randomized into a soccer (SO – small sided rec games) group, a running (RU) group, and a control (CO) group.

Both the running and soccer groups had 2-3 weekly workouts, lasting an hour each.

But the soccer group had better results in every aspect…

• Soccer had higher lactate levels – might increase GH & fat burning – and heart rates.
• Soccer increased muscle fiber size a little (nothing massive).
• Soccer increased muscle aerobic enzyme activity.
• Soccer and running both increased aerobic fitness after 4 & 8 weeks, but only soccer increased again after 12 weeks.
• Soccer increased 30-meter sprint performance.

Soccer is best! It sure beats running…

Thursday
Do 30 minutes of fun activity…and remember this:

“Don’t go depending on the “cardio confessional”…you can’t burn off a 2500 calorie binge with 30 minutes on a cardio machine. Just forget about it. So instead of dreading a cardio workout, do a TT workout that gets you pumped.”

For all of the TT workouts, check out the archives here:

=> Turbulence Training Workouts

And today’s kick-butt mindset tip:

“Don’t be satisfied with the norm if you want more. It’s okay to want to achieve special results. The world needs folks who dream and achieve big things. Keep pushing to reach your full potential. Persevere. Never give up. And don’t let anyone hold you back.”

Friday

Chill out time…now for a surprising message…

The 5 Reasons Why Yoga Works for Fat Loss

1. The “Yoga Lifestyle” is associated with better diet and lifestyle habits.
2. People who do yoga are more in tune with body and realize how certain foods and meals make them feel, and also probably recognize the feeling of fullness better.
3. Social support – When you do yoga in a class setting, you are going to end up hanging around healthier people and adopting their behaviors.
4. It decreases stress – and if that “really” has an effect on belly fat loss, then good!
5. If you’re stretching, you’re not eating. That’s a big one…sometimes we just need to keep busy so we keep out of the kitchen at night!

Social Support Saturday!
30 minutes of fun activity…and check out this interesting info from Nicholas Christakis, at Harvard.

(I read this in Wired magazine last winter…)

Interestingly, your weight status is associated with…

• Your friend’s weight
• Your friend’s friend’s weight
• Your friend’s friend’s friend’s weight

We are influenced by networks. If your friends gain weight, you’ll gain weight. And the opposite too, if friends lose weight, we lose weight.

So…if we get one person to lose, others around them may lose – a snowball effect. If one spouse apples healthy behavior, chances are the other will too. Improving 1 person’s life should improve others connected to them.

But you should focus on helping hubs of networks lose weight. According to this researcher, we should be targeting  groups for change because it is more effective than targeting individuals because you create social ties. Essentially, you are spreading weight loss like a germ. And that’s the benefit of weight watchers, TT Members, and bootcamps.

Sunday – Plan, Shop & Prepare
30 minutes activity and plan, shop, & prepare…now for some eating research from the book, “59 Seconds”.

Essentially, we eat until we are finished, no matter how much is there.

Let’s take a look at the soup bowl study (Wansink, B., et al. Obes. Res. 13:93-, 2005).

In this study, subjects ate soup for 20 minutes…and in one group, the soup bowl was refilled (sneakily, through a tube under the table). This group that ate from the “never ending bowl” ate 75% more soup, but they were no more satisfied!

So the tip is to make sure that you don’t eat from a massive bowl, because you’ll just keep eating and eating.

The 2nd study found that drinking from tall, narrow glasses will cause you to drink less, when compared to smaller, wider glasses. (Wansink, B., et al. Br Med J 331:1512.)

And finally, “Out of sight, out of mind” helps you avoid junk food. (Wansink, B., et al. Int J Obes 3:871). Obviously, don’t keep junk in the house if possible, but if you do put it out of sight & in difficult to access areas.

That’s it, enjoy!

Next week!

• TT Workout – TT Big 6 Circuit
• Research Review – The comparison between supersets & traditional resistance training
• Nutrition – Dr. Chris Mohr’s #1 diet tip
• #1 Factor Experts agree on for fat loss – Before photo
• TT user feedback on the most important changes they made to lose fat

Big news to go along with this funny picture…I’ll be releasing my TT Gauntlet weight loss workout soon for FREE…

…but ONLY to members of my Turbulence Training Facebook Fanpage (or membership site).

If you use Facebook, visit this link to become a fan of TT…and wait for that workout to be out soon.

=> Click here for the Turbulence Training Fanpage

The TT Gauntlet features…

The Abs Gauntlet workout that includes…

Stability Ball Ab Exercises
Some advanced pushups and chinups
A unique pullup exercise

I did this workout over 48 hours ago and my lower abs are still screaming…

More about this and all of the cool fat loss tips in this week’s coaching call.

Click here to listen to the TT Fat Loss call

And now, our fat loss tips.

Monday – March 22nd

Transformation Tip of the Week:
“Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action.” – Benjamin Disraeli

And CB says, “you will need to make hard, uncomfortable choices in the short term in order to have long-term success, progress, and happiness. But don’t worry, it’ll only hurt a bit right now, but you’ll feel better for a long, long, long, long time.”

You can do it. I believe in you. Let me know about your success.

Now let’s hit a cool weight loss workout…

TT 2K10 – Workout A

1A) Squat Jumps – 8 reps (1-0-X)
1B) Decline Pushup – 1 rep short of failure (2-0-1)
1C) WYT – 8 reps per movement (1-0-1)
Rest 1 minute before repeating the circuit 2 more times.

2A) Barbell Squat or DB Split Squat – 8 reps (3-0-1) + CRASH Set**
2B) Stability Ball Ab Pike – 8 reps (2-0-2)
Rest 1 minute before repeating the circuit 2 more times.
**CRASH Set – When you have finished your 3rd round of the squat exercise, drop the weight by 25% and perform one more set of 8 reps.

3A) 1-Leg Hip Extension – 15 reps per side (2-0-1)
3B) 1-Leg Stability Ball Leg Curl – 10 reps per side (1-0-1)
3C) Stability Ball Plank – 45 second hold
Rest 1 minute before repeating the circuit 2 more times.

4) 10 Minutes of KB Swings – 40 seconds swings + 20 seconds recovery x 10 rounds

That’s it. Don’t hate me.

Tuesday
Get 30 minutes of fun activity – now grab a Green Tea and let’s do this week’s research review

Reference:
Patient Educ Couns. Initial weight loss is the best predictor for success in obesity treatment and sociodemographic liabilities increase risk for drop-out. Elfhag K, Rössner S. Obesity Unit, Karolinska University Hospital Huddinge, Stockholm, Sweden.

OBJECTIVE: To figure out what predicts weight loss.

METHODS: 247 subjects went through 3 phases…a Pre-Treatment screening visit, a 5-week lecture series, and a longer term weight loss treatment.

RESULTS: The strongest factor for predicting weight loss in the Step II treatment was initial Step I weight loss.

That means if you lost weight early, you lost more weight over the long-term…meaning you really want to plan ahead with your nutrition and exercise and mindset to get off to an amazing start with your program.

BUT…the drop out rate was huge – 63% quit the study. OUCH.

Dropouts were most closely associated with:

• lower education
• being an immigrant
• lack of occupation
• fewer previous weight losses
• higher body dissatisfaction.

Some of those you can change, some you can’t. Don’t focus on the ones you can change, but DO EVERYTHING to change the ones you can.

Bottom line:
Initial weight loss is the most certain factor for predicting treatment outcome.

Therefore, do everything you can to start with the BEST exercise and nutrition program so that you get immediate weight loss because that predicts future success.

Turbulence Training, anyone?

Wednesday

Another great, but slightly different TT weight loss workout program today…

TT 2K10 – Workout B

1) KB 1-Arm Swing or KB 1-Arm Snatch – 15 reps per side
Do NOT rest between arms (start with weak-side first).
Rest 1 minute & repeat 2 more times for a total of 3 sets.

2A) DB Low-Incline Press – 8 reps (3-0-1) + **CRASH SET
No rest.
2B) DB CSR [Chest Supported Row] – 12 reps (2-0-1) + **CRASH SET
Rest 1 minute & repeat 2 more times for a total of 3 supersets.
**CRASH Set – When you have finished your 3rd round of these exercises, drop the weight by 25% and perform one more set of 8 reps.

3A) Chin-Up with Knee-Up – 12 reps (3-0-1)
No rest.
3B) Dips – 1 rep short of failure (2-0-1)
Rest 1 minute & repeat 2 more times for a total of 3 supersets.

4A) DB Curls – 8 reps (2-0-1) + **CRASH SET
No rest.
4B) DB Overhead Triceps Extension – 12 reps (2-0-1) + **CRASH SET
No rest.
4C) DB Rear-Deltoid Raise – 10 reps (2-0-1)
Rest 1 minute & repeat 2 more times for a total of 3 supersets.
**CRASH Set – When you have finished your 3rd round of these exercises, drop the weight by 25% and perform one more set of 8 reps.

Thursday
Do 30 minutes of fun activity…now one question that came up over and over again today was, “What should I do on my off-day workouts?”

The answer:
Its up to the individual…just don’t do so much that you can’t recover from – or prepare for – the real workouts in your program. That’s a big mistake folks make, going too hard on off-days and hurting the quality of their real training.

Here’s a circuit from TT2K10 to be done on your off-days…

Bodyweight Squats – 15 reps
Stick-up – 10 reps
Mountain Climbers – 10 reps per side
Calf Rolling – 10 reps
Foam Rolling – 10 reps
All upper body stretches from end of manual
Hip Extension Hold – 30 seconds
Plank – 60 seconds
Side Plank – 45 seconds per side
All lower body stretches from end of manual
Rest 1 minute before repeating one more time

Friday
The dumbbell alternatives for the Deadlift and Military Press are the DB Squat and DB 1-Arm Press with Palm-In (see photo section of the manual).

TT 2K10 – Workout C

1A) Deadlift – 8 reps (2-1-1) + **LIGHT CRASH SET
1B) Military Press – 6 reps (2-0-1)
Rest 1 minute & repeat 2 more times for a total of 3 supersets.
**CRASH Set – When you have finished your 3rd round of the deadlift, drop the weight by 50% and perform one more set of 8 reps.

2A) Forward Lunge 1 & ½ reps – 8 reps per side (2-0-1)
2B) Renegade Row – 10 reps per side (1-0-1)
Rest 1 minute & repeat 2 more times for a total of 3 supersets.

3A) BB Rollout – 8 reps (3-0-1)
3B) Side Plank + DB Lateral Raise – 10 reps per side (2-0-1)
Rest 1 minute & repeat 2 more times for a total of 3 supersets.

4) 5-Minute Suicides/Short Sprints – 15 seconds sprint + 15 second rest x 10 rounds

There is a 4th workout, but we’ll save for next week.

Social Support Saturday!
30 minutes of fun activity…and now for a nutrition public service announcement…

So it’s the weekend…the time when everyone who is struggling to lose fat falls off their nutrition plan…

Here’s something to consider:

If there is junk food in your house, you’re going to eat it.

So if you don’t want to eat it, get it out of your house. Otherwise, accept the fact you’re going to eat it eventually. That’s just the way it is, and that’s how good diets go bad. It’s like putting water on a gremlin after midnight.

And if family brings it in, then you put it in a place that is extremely difficult for you to access. A high cupboard, out of sight, out of mind. Research shows the harder it is to access, the less you eat. So stop accepting it and make it the next-best-thing-to-not-being-there-at-all.

To avoid night time binges:
Research shows the harder you make it to access these foods, the less you will eat of them. Opaque containers, stored in high cabinets or the basement, etc. will help you reduce intake. Also, use a food journal, and post what you eat online.

A post dinner snack like plain yogurt plus chocolate protein powder plus a couple of peanuts or some melted peanut butter is better than ice cream.

Sunday – Plan, Shop & Prepare
30 minutes activity and then plan, shop, & prepare.

Recently I’ve tried some new blender drink experiments…and the cucumber & kale versions didn’t work out…although I’ve been surprised to find that adding flax oil doesn’t mess up the shakes. I also use flax meal and walnuts to get healthy fats…but I try and switch it up often.

Finally, I’m always adding berries, and to keep the costs down, I just make sure that my mom picks a LOT in the summer and then freezes them – and then I steal them from her freezer when I visit.

Ok, that’s it…

Next week! – The Metabolism & Muscle Building Call

• TT Workout – We’ll review 1 of my personal muscle building programs from my 2006 peak
• Weekly Research Review – Hormone & Resistance Training Study
• Nutrition – Muscle Building Nutrition
• The Truth About Your Metabolism
• I’ll share the 4th TT 2K10 workout

Have a great week,

Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS

Can we really indulge in savory, high calorie cheat meals once a week, and still continue to reap the fat loss rewards of flat abs, sexy arms and a nice tight booty? I’m here once again with transformation expert, John Alvino, who is giving us the lowdown on the very best tips and secrets to transform your body fast.

If you’re a beginner and thinking about participating in a transformation contest, then you’ll want to go back to part 2 of this interview and read John’s advice on how to start off on the right foot.

So, let’s hear John’s take on cheat meals, shall we….

********************

Craig Ballantyne:  Right.  And one other thing you talked about there was cheat meals.  What are your thoughts on the cheat meal?  Is it just one meal?  What’s it there for?  Is it there for physiological purposes or is it just there for mental purposes?  Can you talk about that for a bit John?

John Alvino: Sure.  I don’t prescribe cheat meals when people are training for a body building competition and we’re looking to get into the low single digits of body fat percentage relatively quickly.

If you’re taking, for example, a photo shoot and you’re going to lose 20 pounds of fat for a transformation contest or you’re just looking to get in shape for yourself, I find cheat meals are important.  More so psychologically than physiologically.  It gives you something to look forward to. You don’t feel as deprived and when you cheat, you’re a lot less likely to binge eat.

For example, let’s say a client is married and they go out with their spouse every Saturday night.  Saturday night would be a great opportunity to have a cheat meal.  I tell them that this is your meal to enjoy, if you want to have wine, dessert, bread or anything else that you want, go for it.  Oftentimes this flexibility is enough to have clients stay on a plan for the long haul.

If I completely deprive them, they’re never going to stay on a plan consistently year round.  Now, on the other hand, I don’t mind depriving a bodybuilder who is getting ready for a competition because we have a very specific and short term goal.  This is also a pretty extreme goal and the preparation is only going to be between 12 and 16 weeks.  After that then we can incorporate our cheat meals again.

So, I’ve had a problem prescribing cheat meals in the past.  In the past, I didn’t make clear distinctions on what exactly a cheat meal was.  This was a big mistake!

Without GUIDELINES, cheat meals became cheat weekends.

This resulted in clients taking a step forward and a step backward every week.  They essentially went nowhere.  The distinction I now make and stick by is simply this; a cheat meal consists of you sitting down, you eating what you want, and as soon as your ass leaves the seat, your cheat meal is over. You don’t get up, you don’t watch a show and then come back for more.  Even if you get up to go to the bathroom, the meal is over.  It’s one sitting, one meal.

For clients who have a good or efficient metabolism, they can enjoy a cheat meal where basically their appetites dictate when they should stop eating.  When you’re full, but not stuffed, you’re done.

On the other hand, if your metabolism is sluggish, your cheat meal will have to be controlled.  In these cases, I will simply put a caloric total on the cheat meal.  So it still gives them that psychological break, but it’s also controlled enough that it’s not going to negate their results for the week.

For MAINTENANCE, cheat meals are absolutely not a problem at all.  In fact, during a maintenance plan, sometimes you can have more than one cheat meal per week.

It’s important for clients to know that during the accelerated fat loss phase, there will be some degree of deprivation. But once you accomplish your goal, maintenance is going to be much easier.

For example, I have some people who can have two cheat meals.  I have one guy right now who has three cheat meals a week.  Friday night he goes out, he cheats.  Saturday night he goes out, he cheats.  And then Sunday he cheats a meal.  He’s been maintaining his body fat which right now is 9%.  He’s very content there.  He looks great.  All of his other meals are clean, he’s still working out hard, but he basically has the whole weekend to eat what he wants.  But, when he started with me he was in the high teens.  I think he was at 18.4%.  And we didn’t cheat once until we got down to 10%.

So cheat meals definitely have their place.  The question is, when do we use them and how much do we eat during them.  Those things do have to be discussed, because if these meals are done in excess, it will bring your results to a grinding halt.

Craig Ballantyne:  Great stuff John.  I just want to make a point to people reading that you have to get into the mindset that there is going to be some SACRIFICE, but the key to what John just said is that it is better to sacrifice for 12 weeks and get down to the body fat that you want to, and then maintain for the rest of your life, than it is to never put the effort into the 12 weeks at all.

If you think about what 12 WEEKS are over the course of your entire lifetime, it’s NOTHING.

I mean, you have probably forgotten what happened in the last 12 weeks, and you also probably said, wow, look how fast those 12 weeks went.  So people who are reading and listening, get it into your mindset that hey, I want to make a transformation, 12 weeks hard, maybe a cheat meal one every two weeks.

You know, we’re not doing body building competitions, but we are really changing your body.  Then you may be able to reduce that intensity and relative deprivation, and get back into more relatively relaxed eating.

It is much better to get into one focused period where you make a lot of changes, build some great habits, and then maintain that until you want to get more advanced again.

John let’s get back to starting the process…

What are your TIPS for people who want to document the process properly?  Let’s say somebody is going into a transformation contest or a “before and after” or doing general photo shoots.  What are some advanced measurement tips as well for people who want to DOCUMENT their PROGRESS just for their own recording purposes?  What do you recommend people do when they start a transformation process?

John Alvino: I like to keep it simple.  Let’s start with some PHOTOS.

• Take a front shot, a side shot, and a back shot.  So have someone take three pictures of you.  Sometimes people get a little bit embarrassed to take pictures when they’re out of shape, but these are just for your own purposes.
• Wear a bathing suit or something else revealing so you have something to compare it to.
• Take the pictures in the same spot with the same lightening.  This way you are comparing apples to apples and you really are seeing what your results are.

Besides the pictures, I do have people take MEASUREMENTS.  These again are for you.  Men and women take the same measurements with one exception.  I have women take a hip measurement which I don’t have men take.

The key when you’re doing measurements is to be really consistent. You want to always measure in the same exact spot.

• So for the thigh measurement I will go exactly halfway between the knee and the hip bone.  I take the tape measure and I measure the distance between their hip and their knee.  At exactly the halfway mark I’ll take the measurement.
• Then for the waist measurement I use the belly button as a reference.  It’s going to be in the same spot all the time.
• For the hip measurement I just have women take the measurement at the widest point.  It’s a pretty easy reference.
• For your chest measurement a good reference is your nipple for men and women.  Just wrap it around your chest and back making sure the tape is directly across the nipple.
• For arm measurements I measure the distance between the shoulder to elbow and halfway down is where I’ll take the measurement.  I don’t think you need to take more measurements unless they are just of interest to you.  For example, if you’re trying to build up your calves you certainly could take a calf measurement.

I generally take those measurements because for fat loss specifically those are the measurements we’re really looking at.  As long as you’re consistent with where you’re measuring, it’s a real good gauge.

Scale weight is something else we definitely do use.

I find if people get a little bit TOO OBSESSED with it, we just take scale weight from the beginning of the process and then we can take it every couple weeks to make sure we’re going in the right direction.  After that, we just step on the scale once a month.  If you step on it every day, if you’re going to do a diet for two months, you’re not going to lose a pound every day.  That would be 60 pounds in 60 days!  So you’re going to have a lot of days where you step on the scale and feel disappointed and disheartened and that is often enough to mess you up psychologically.  So the scale I do use, but sparingly.

Body fat percentage is something that I definitely use quite frequently.

If I’m training a competitor there are times I’m taking it as much as once a week.  If not, definitely every other week.  And there are a bunch of reliable methods that you could use.  Some of them are a little bit unrealistic and expensive.  So if you go to a gym, even a lot of health clinics and health fairs they will take your body fat for free with just the use of skin calibers.  I find that is relatively reliable if the same person does it every time and they are skilled at it.

There are other methods.  For example, in my book I have charts in there that only require you to take a waist or hip measurement, and to know your weight and your height.  It couldn’t be simpler, and the chart is relatively accurate.  It’s not like getting dunked under water and weighed and having your body fat analyzed to the tenth of a percent perfectly accurately, but it’s relatively accurate, it’s super simple and you can do it in your own home without the help of anybody.

Back to the photos for a second.  If your photos are being submitted to a magazine or they are taken for a contest, then there are tricks you can do to make the photos look even more drastic.  I myself just went through a body transformation program because I wanted to be completely honest and up front with all my readers.  I used the same exact lighting, I had the same exact background, I did not want to deviate at all.

But for a competition you will want to have the greatest contrast between your before and after photos.  Things like getting a good tan for example, that’s important.  In before pictures you don’t want a tan at all and then after pictures you want a great tan.  You should look like you just got back from two weeks in the Caribbean!    A good tan will show more detail and shadowing so you can see any type of muscle definition much more clearly.

For women especially, hairstyle is important.  So maybe you could wear your hair up if your back and shoulders look great.  Adding subtle highlights helps as well.

Body hair needs to be addressed.  Are you going to shave or wax? Do you get razor burn?  Before you take the after pics, you must experiment.

Before taking your after pics, I recommend that you perform several sets of upper body exercises until you start to get a pump.  This helps to bring out muscle fullness and vascularity.

And believe it or not, even though we are talking about body transformation, one thing I do have people do is also log in their strength.  So for their weight training workouts, I do have them log in how much weight was used and how many reps were performed, because we want to try to improve upon our performance week to week, even during a fat loss stage.  That is just going to ensure that we’re not going to be burning up lean tissue while we diet, and that all the weight that we’re losing is truly body fat, rather than lean muscle, which we want to maintain.  That’s another one people don’t generally do or think to do, but I do like to have a well kept record of my clients’ strength.

Craig Ballantyne:  Okay, just to clarify what John said there, he wants people to record their strength training workouts and to note that they’re getting stronger because if you’re getting stronger during your weight training workouts it should mean that you’re not losing muscle mass.

John didn’t stop there with the diet and nutrition tips.  Check out what advice he had for beginners in part 4 of our interview.

Welcome to part 2 of my interview with New Jersey transformation expert, John Alvino.  In part 1 of this interview series, John revealed some very insightful body transformation secrets to help anyone reshape their body quickly, and today he continues to deliver incredibly useful fat loss tips, especially for beginners.

*************

Craig Ballantyne:  Okay, now I’m going to ask you the most difficult question to answer of all time!  What percentage of fat loss is diet and what percentage is exercise?

John Alvino: Ah..that question again!

I remember reading about this debate in a magazine that was published back in the sixties.  So this is an old one.  I have seen many different scenarios with all the people I’ve worked with.  This is how I come up with my conclusion.

Some people I have trained have been able to diet very, very strictly, but they’ve hated to train hard.  Others would train their asses off, but they hated to diet strictly, so they definitely deviated a bit too often.

The people who did better in the long run were the people who were able to diet strictly and train pretty good. 

Don’t get me wrong, they still train, but not as intensely as I would have liked them to.  But they still did better than the people who trained very intensely, but were not strict enough on their diets.

So for fat loss there’s a bit more emphasis on your DIET.

The percentage is really difficult to say.  If you want to nail me down to a number I will take a guess at it, but it’s difficult to say because everybody is different to some degree.  The idea that 80% of your results come from nutrition has been thrown out quite a bit.  From a body weight standpoint, that’s probably true, but when we factor in lean muscle and fat loss I think that number is going to have to come down a bit, and probably come closer to maybe 65% or 70%.

Diet does get the emphasis.  If you’re eating Big Mac’s, even if you’re working out a lot, there is no way that you’re going to get that lean physique you desire.

Craig Ballantyne:  Great stuff, John.  Okay, let’s go through some processes, especially for BEGINNERS now.  If somebody wants to start a TRANSFORMATION, you know, whether it’s this woman that comes in or whether it’s a guy who weighs 300 pounds, what do you tell them to do first in terms of GETTING PREPARED?

What foods do they need to buy, what foods they need to throw out?

If they’re not coming to you for workout info, where should they go?

If they’re going to a gym, like let’s say you’re talking to somebody over the holidays and they can’t come to you because they live 100 miles away, what do you tell them to look for in work out equipment or a gym membership, etc. ?

John Alvino: Well, first of all, before someone starts a plan like this, I give them a brief overview of what they’re going to have to do.

I like to make sure that psychologically, they are ready to make this commitment to themselves.

So once we get that out of the way then we start talking about things that are pretty obvious to some, but if you’ve never gone through this before, you might not know.

I also like to have them WRITE DOWN EVERYTHING they’re eating.  Then we add up the calories, and we also see how many grams of fat, protein, and carbs they’re eating.  A lot of times if people just pick all day, like a lot of people do in our society now, they don’t even know how much they’re eating.  A lot of this is psychological for them and a lot of this helps me design a plan because I can see where their metabolism is at.

So for this purpose, a three day dietary log is sufficient.  We take a look at that and then we design a plan.  If you don’t see what the client was eating prior, sometimes you can make too drastic a change in their diets.  For example, let’s say I wanted someone to eat 1500 calories per day.  If after looking at her dietary log, she was only eating 800 calories, I would not want to increase her calories by that much initially.  If I did this, it would result in weight gain and she would probably FREAK OUT and quit before she even got started.

The next thing that they have to do is to get all the JUNK FOOD out of the house.  If it’s not on your plan, don’t keep it in the house!

This way, you won’t be tempted to cheat on your diet during a moment of weakness.

And if you are allowed a cheat meal it can be scheduled with no leftovers.  For example, if you’re going to a dinner on Saturday night, you can be looking forward to it, knowing that you’re going to cheat, but when you come back home it’s over.

When the junk food is in the house, I find that sometimes a cheat meal can turn into a binge weekend, because your will has been broken and you kind of feel that you messed up anyway.  People often think, “I’ll just finish the weekend cheating and I’ll get strict on Monday.”  Man, if I had a dollar for every time that I heard that logic, I’d be rich!  Now you have three days of cheating under your belt, so to speak!  And you end up gaining two or three pounds of fat in some cases.  It’s no good.  So, get the junk food out, period.

The next question is do they have enough supplies in their kitchen to prepare their food?

Little things like a blender and Tupperware containers to put their meals in.  You can make things real easy and simple.  You might also want to have sauce pans and pots and spatulas, just basic stuff that you should have in the house to make preparing your food easy.

Also, when someone is initially starting a plan along these lines and it’s something completely new to them, you have to address the training environment.  So, will they be training at home or will they be going to a public gym?  It is really individual, but a gym is certainly going to give you more flexibility in regards to equipment.

I also prefer a gym because I find that once you go there, you know you’re going to be there for one hour, you’re going to train, and you’re going to get out.  If you train at home there’s a greater chance of distraction…phones ringing, children running around, or what have you.  But again, training at home is obviously more convenient so it’s a trade off.  It’s really up to the individual.

If you train at home initially, at the very least you should have a stability ball, a medicine ball, get some adjustable dumbbells and an adjustable bench.  So you can get a lot of life out of that relatively inexpensive and space efficient home gym.

If you’re going to go to a public gym, you don’t need anything fancy.  I prefer basic equipment.  I think if you go to a lot of these fancier places now, you end up paying twice the membership just because they have a towel service and they have imported tile from Italy in the locker rooms.  I don’t care about that.  Most people who train hard don’t care about that either.

What you want is just a GOOD ATMOSPHERE.

A place that plays motivating music.  A place that has some positive energy.  That makes a huge difference in your ability to train intensely and to get focused.  So you want to check out a couple of gyms locally.  And consider joining one that makes you feel comfortable and fired up to work out.

I feel that if you’re doing a fitness program that you don’t enjoy doing you’re not going to stick with it.  I see that again and again where someone will come and say I want to start this plan immediately and they go 100 miles an hour into the plan and then after a couple of weeks they say, “This is too difficult, I can’t do this”.

I like to design a fitness plan that is effective and enjoyable at the same time.  To do this you have to know the client reasonably well.

Craig Ballantyne:  That’s some pretty good stuff.

John Alvino: Some of this advice may sound obvious.  Like for me and you, we’ve been doing this a long time.  But the little things really aren’t obvious to people who haven’t done them before.  Even things like getting a few extra spices in the house can really help.  We can’t invent new protein sources for our clients.  We’re going to have chicken breasts, egg whites, and other basic protein sources.  There’s not a ton of variety there.  But you can season them in a way where you never get tired of eating them.  That’s one KEY to staying on a plan of healthy eating.

I do give people some basic recipes to start.  I also encourage them to COOK IN BULK.

Let’s say they’re going to make grilled fish.  Instead of making one meal of grilled fish and having to cook again in three hours, make enough for three days, and keep it in the fridge.  I teach them how to prepare their food.

If you have food prepared you’re much more likely to stay on the plan. If the food is not prepared and you’re out, like at work for example, someone from your office is going to be running to the pizzeria, and you’re probably going to break down, especially if you’re hungry.

So beyond teaching the client the actual diet and training routine, it’s the little stuff that becomes so important for the clients to have success.  These are little points I give people initially because I find if I don’t discuss them, I will be discussing them in the future, but after they already messed up.  I just try to eliminate those first few screw-up’s from the get-go.

Craig Ballantyne:  I think you brought up a really good point there that even advanced people can benefit from – and you’re talking about the atmosphere of the gym, the energy of the gym and the program that they’re using.  And so if people are finding right now that they’re kind of at a still point in their training, they’re at a plateau and they don’t look forward to the gym, maybe it is time to investigate a new gym in the area.

Maybe working at home has you in a rut.  Maybe it’s time to go back to the gym for three months and get fired up for training again.

John Alvino: I couldn’t agree more.  Even if you can’t find another gym, you can get a friend of yours to train with you.  Sometimes just having a training partner can give you the motivation that you were lacking.  I’ve been training for a long time and I’m just about as driven as anybody.  Yet I still train much better if I’m training with a friend and we create a fun and competitive environment.

A training partner also keeps you more committed, too, because you’re accountable to someone.  If your partner is going to meet you at 10:00, then you’re going to be there at 10:00 and not get distracted. Without this commitment, it is very easy to say, “I will train tonight or I’ll go tomorrow morning”.  A lot of times it is easier to put things off if you don’t have a committed schedule with another person.

Even hiring a trainer for a couple of sessions can give you that little push you need.  But the bottom line is, once you reach that point of burn out it’s time for a change, and you’d better do it quick, before it gets to a point where you just take a long layoff only to come back three months later, with greatly diminished results.

If you’re worried that you may not be able to follow John’s nutritional advice to perfection, then you’ll want to  check out part 3 and what John had to say about cheat meals and fat loss.

We’re continuing on with the fat loss expert interview series and this time around you’ll hear from transformation expert, John Alvino.

John starts out by revealing some mainstream mistakes that prevent people from losing fat, and then he delivers the truth about women and “bulking up”.  Also, if you’re a trainer reading this, then make sure to to read what John had to say about designing workouts.

A lot to cover so let’s get into it…

*****************

Craig Ballantyne:  This is Craig Ballantyne from Turbulence Training and TTmembers and I’m here today with John Alvino who is a transformation expert.  John is based in New Jersey, and he has helped a lot of people, including himself, make some incredible transformations.

We’re going to talk to John today and get some secrets to help you make your best transformation ever.  So John, welcome and why don’t you give us a bit of background?

John Alvino: Thanks for the intro Craig.  I’ve been a professional fitness coach for over 15 years.  It all started in my early teens when I was training for football, which was my first obsession.

Back then, I was getting steady results with gaining muscle and increasing my strength and performance.  I attribute my early success more to raw determination and extreme effort than anything else.

Just before my senior year in high school I had shown so much desire to learn and improve that one of my best friend’s older brother (who was Mr. East Coast at the time) asked me to train with him.

I was honored and psyched to say the least.

So he kind of took me under his wing and really turned me on to body building.  He would pick me up after school and take me to Diamond Gym, which was the most hard core body building gym in New Jersey at that time.  Training there with his guidance was by far the highlight of my life up to that point.

After training with him for just a few short months, he said to me, “Hey kid you got some potential”.  My progress and his support convinced me to compete in the teenage New Jersey competition.  This gave me two years to prepare for it.  He helped me for the first year and then he and his girlfriend moved away.  At this point, I was kind of left to fend for myself.

It was from this day on that I just became completely obsessed with learning how to do everything on my own, while taking everything he taught me and improving upon it.  My journey began at this point and I just started to acquire as much knowledge as possible, and gain as much personal experience as possible.

I was in the gym almost every day experimenting with everything that I could possibly conceive of trying.  I was pretty creative back then, so I came up with some good (yet controversial) techniques.

I parlayed this experience into winning the light heavyweights in the teenage New Jersey and placed in the top six at the teenage nationals .  I competed against guys like Jay Cutler, Branch Warren and Craig Richardson, who are some of the top professional bodybuilders around right now.  For the listeners that don’t know, Jay Cutler is the current Mr. Olympia.

After my personal success, I had competitors come to me and ask me if I could help prepare them for their body building competitions.  It’s funny because up until this point I had absolutely no desire to train anyone other than myself.  But since I had such a passion for training in general, I agreed to help them.  They started to do really well, and that just kind of naturally blossomed, mostly from referrals.

That’s how I got into this business.

Looking back now I feel really grateful for everything that transpired, because this has become an incredibly rewarding profession for me.  I still to this day love helping competitors and non-competitors get into amazing shape.

Craig Ballantyne:  Great. And we’ll get into some of your own stories because you have some great stories about training and your own transformation.  Let’s start with maybe the background on the success of one of your clients, maybe someone who is not even a competitor, but just someone who has come to you and wanted to lose some body fat.

Tell us one of the best stories that you have.

John Alvino: I have a lot of really good and inspiring stories.  I’d like to share the story of my client Heidi.  She came to me about three years ago and she had NO TRAINING EXPERIENCE other than walking on a treadmill.  She had a significant amount of cellulite.  She was a career dieter, but never knew how to do it properly.

Heidi was a mother of two.  Luckily she had a lot of determination, but unfortunately, she had absolutely no direction.  And she was making a lot of the typical MAINSTREAM MISTAKES, such as long duration cardio and real extreme low calorie dieting.  This left her with no muscle tone at all, no real shape to her body and still a relatively high body fat because she was doing nothing to support her lean muscle.

So needless to say, she came in and she was completely frustrated.

She was desperate to get on a good plan and see some results.  After our initial consultation, I designed for her a custom exercise and nutritional plan.  After only about three weeks she started to see results.  Her plan was actually working better than either of us had expected.

She was performing relatively high intensity resistance training for a beginner.  She picked everything up quickly, so I didn’t have to treat her like a beginner for long.  For her nutritional plan, I actually increased her calories. If I recall correctly, I think she was eating 1,050 calories per day prior to working with me and I brought her up to 1,350 calories per day.

After just a couple of weeks she started to have better shape to her body and she was building muscle, and her energy improved dramatically.  Three weeks into her training she said to me, “I never had this goal in my life, but I think that I would love to do a fitness competition.”

So that immediately got me fired up because I knew she was really getting into it.  So we put a new plan together.  We searched the Internet for some local fitness and body building shows for natural competitors and we found one that was 14 weeks away.  With just 14 weeks to prepare we had to step it up a notch.  We tightened up the diet even further, picked up the training a bit and in 14 weeks her body fat percentage had dropped from 22% to 8%.

Craig Ballantyne:  Wow.

John Alvino: Well, she was very determined and we got her on a plan right away.  Sometimes I will break beginners in a little more slowly, as I don’t feel like they need to go pedal to the medal from day one.  But she was ready to do it psychologically, and I was with her personally, so I felt confident giving her a plan like that.

Being on stage at 8% she took second place in a master’s competition against experienced competitors.  The woman that took first place had competed nine times prior.  And most of the women that my client had beaten were also seasoned competitors.

Of course, she lost all of her cellulite. In fact, her legs looked so good that some of the judges came up to me and said “I can’t believe this is her first show, she looks unbelievable!”  This is someone who never really picked up a weight and the only dieting she did was drinking coffee for breakfast and eating a salad for dinner.

Since then she’s caught the bug, and she still looks great.  Her body fat is up only a couple percent, but that was done by design so she could have a more normal lifestyle and still look awesome.

That was probably one of the most dramatic stories in a short period of time.  I have a couple of success stories that are similar to that, but that one sticks in my mind because of her incredible results in such a short period of time.

Craig Ballantyne:  So you would say that she came in kind of SKINNY FAT and then she was almost kind of starving herself during the day and not training at all, and you switched her to eating a little bit more and training pretty hard.  How were you training with her?

John Alvino: Well, when she came in the only thing she was doing was cardiovascular work.  I didn’t want to cut that out completely, although I wanted to cut it down rather significantly.

What I did was increase the intensity of her cardiovascular work.  Prior to coming to me, she was performing her cardio at 60% to 65% of her maximum heart rate in a steady state cardio workout for an hour twice a day.  I had her start doing only 20 minutes and had her increase the intensity to approximately 80% of her maximum heart rate.  That was the change I made with her cardio workouts.  She was doing that five days a week.

For her weight training, we were training three days a week.  We were initially doing full body workouts for the first month and then we switched to a split routine, so she would alternate between upper and lower body workouts.

Initially I started her with higher reps, and that was designed to accomplish two things.

For one, I wanted her technique to be near perfect before I started increasing the weight, and two, I knew that coming from her background, she wanted to get a cardiovascular workout and get a good sweat going.  Thus, if I gave her rep ranges of eight to ten or even six to eight, I knew she would not feel psychologically satisfied with the workout.  So I had to take that into consideration.  You see, although it’s not true, it is usually perceived by many that performing high rep workouts burns more fat.

After she started seeing the results, we were doing relatively intense weight training.  She was doing anywhere between six and ten reps.  For smaller body parts such as abs and calves we were doing higher reps.   I also increased her reps on certain lower body exercises.

But for the most part she was training pretty heavy at this point. Three days a week of weight training and five days a week of cardio.  20 minutes of cardio initially and as we got closer to competition, I increased the duration of the cardio.  We finished doing 30 minute sessions.

Craig Ballantyne:  And what types of exercises was she using?

John Alvino: We stuck with predominately free weight exercises, some body weight exercises. 

For example, for her leg routines, I would always start with a compound movement such as a barbell squat, and we would perform multiple sets.  We would then move on to exercises like split squats, lunges, step ups and leg press.  I don’t think we did a leg extension throughout the whole duration of her contest prep.

For those of you who don’t know, the leg extension is a common exercise done by competitors.  For hamstrings we were hitting exercises like dead lifts, Romanian dead lifts, and back extensions.  A lot of hip extension work.

Upper body, I started her off with mostly dumbbell work.  I find that with beginners if you start with dumbbell work, the transition to go to either a barbell or a machine is very simple.  So I limit the frustration to the first one or two workouts as a learning curve.

I don’t believe that machines are as effective as free weights.

But in addition to that, there’s always a constant learning curve when you go from a very stable machine to a less stable bar.  And then we have to go through that frustration again when you switch to an even less stable dumbbell.  So I just started her off with exercises that were a little bit more difficult to perform, but then after that, every variation of the same exercise were very easy to learn.

Craig Ballantyne:  That’s really great John.  That’s a pretty incredible story.  You brought up a couple important points there.  One, avoiding the frustrations in the LEARNING CURVES for new trainees.  But also, you MATCHED HER MINDSET to the training technique so she got what she wanted, but you still got what you wanted.  And then you eventually moved into the training methods that you wanted to get to.  That’s a pretty good tip there for trainers who are reading or listening to this call.

The last thing I want to ask about that is how much muscle did she gain?  A lot of women reading this are going to be worried, and thinking things like, “Oh, she must have gained a lot of muscle using that type of training, and especially training with such low reps.”  Did she really gain a lot of muscle, or did she just change her body by losing body fat?

John Alvino: That’s a great question.  A lot of women have misconceptions about this type of exercise, so it’s really important to set the record straight.  When I’m putting people on a fat loss phase, or if I’m writing about a fat loss phase in an article, I will often talk about the importance of weight training, which I hold in higher regard than even cardio training.

The resistance training is intended to build lean muscle or at the very least maintain lean muscle.  Now, women have two things working AGAINST them to build muscle.  One, they don’t have the same hormonal profile as men, and two, they can’t access the higher threshold muscle fibers that men can.  It is these muscle fibers that are most likely to grow.

Even with all of the intense weight training, Heidi only gained two pounds of muscle.  That’s all!  So obviously she maintained a very feminine and lean physique.

When you’re on a fat loss phase there is going to be a slight reduction in your calories so you’re not going to build a significant amount of muscle.  It’s simply impossible.  You need extra calories to lay down additional muscle tissue.  And when you’re calories are reduced that’s not going to happen.  Women are always afraid to look like that “butch girl” in the gym.  Well, that just can’t happen when you combine this type of weight training with a diet that is geared towards fat loss.  Remember, the DIET IS A HUGE COMPONENT here.

The weight training during a fat loss phase, even if it’s very intense and is perceived as relatively heavy, is really part of the protocol to just maintain muscle.  If you don’t do that while dieting, I find that you can lose a ratio of one to one.  In other words, every two pounds you lose, one of those pounds is actually lean muscle.  This will now slow your metabolism down and will prevent further fat loss from happening.  It also makes you look terrible, whether you are a man or a woman.

This whole “BULKING UP” issue is a question I get asked by women all the time.

I tell them, “If you’re afraid your thighs are going to get big, here is what we’re going to do.”  And I actually get a tape measure out before we start any of the resistance training.  I measure their thighs.

If they’re concerned about their arms getting too big, we measure their arms too.  Then we have a measurement of everything, so if at any point that they feel panicked that they’re building muscle, I just get the tape measure out, and ten out of ten times, the tape measurement actually goes down.  This puts their mind at ease.

So it’s a great point you bring up and it’s one that I do deal with quite frequently.  I can honestly say that I have never had a woman get too masculine while training with me.  When women look at fitness magazines, they generally see female competitors who are probably taking male hormones.  When a woman is not taking these hormones, she will never look like that, especially with the calorie deficit that I prescribe in a fat loss diet.

Craig Ballantyne:  Yeah, that’s a great point, and a great psychological technique that any woman can do at home.  When she’s using any type of weight training program, she can just take those measurements.  If the measurement goes up, it’s really the diet that has to be checked, rather than the exercise routine.

You made another good point there and it’s obvious.  I mean this woman, if she’s eating 1,300 calories a day, she is just not going to bulk up, no matter how many weights she lifts!

Read part 2 of the interview where John shares beginner transformation tips and discover how you can increase your fat loss results.