Lean Bodies Consulting Newsletter

Welcome to the very first Lean Bodies Consulting Newsletter! My goal with this newsletter is to provide you with valuable and useful information that will help you reach all your fitness goals by way of interviews, Q&As, relevant product recommendations and news updates. I'm also excited to announce that I've set up a new bodybuilding and fitness forum. It can be accessed at leanbodiesfitness.com. Please stop by, register, introduce yourselves and dig right in.

What's new at Lean Bodies Consulting this month?

Check out the blogs created by three of my competitive clients and join them on their road to competition:
Ali: http://leanbodiesconsulting.wordpress.com/tag/authors/aliswanson/
Noel: http://leanbodiesconsulting.wordpress.com/tag/authors/autiger/
Jen: http://leanbodiesconsulting.wordpress.com/tag/authors/jenhamilton/

Bridezilla Update:

Who hasn't confronted a woman who's behavior has turned outrageous during the course of planning her wedding? Recently termed a 'bridezilla' by the show on WE with the same name, this reality series takes us inside the hectic wedding preparations of brides- to-be who are determined to have the perfect wedding. Planning the perfect wedding usually includes getting in perfect shape and after being contacted by WellNx Life Sciences - producers of NVT, a weight loss supplement, I was given the opportunity to work with not one, but two 'bridezillas'.

I wasn't given very much time to 'get the job done' and it turned out to be just a little more difficult than I expected, but in the end it was a very interesting experience.

In November 2006, I took on the task of transforming these brides-to-be for their upcoming nuptials which were to take place in December and January. The goal was to get a significant amount of weight off each of the girls before their wedding days. As such, I put together what I felt was the best nutritional and exercise strategy needed to achieve this goal. The issue then would be ... how well they adhered to their plans. All I could do was provide a plan to get the job done; it was up to them to execute it.

About half way through each of the programs, I traveled to the home towns of each of the girls, which happened to be Clearwater, FL and Myrtle Beach, SC. I had a chance to meet up with the girls, discuss how their programs were going and be filmed by WE TV training them in the gym for the upcoming Bridezilla episodes.

There were a few moments during one of the tapings where I really thought I was in the twilight zone or that at any minute, people would jump out of the corners and either say 'Surprise, you're on Candid Camera' or 'You've been punked.' When the camera man gave me a bit of an advanced warning saying that he wasn't sure how 'into this' she'd be, I figured we were in trouble. So we started off with some short cardio and then moved into the weights. Now, as far as I knew, this young girl had been following her program and was familiar with the various exercises. That turned out to be, well, not exactly true. I really think this was the first time she'd ever lifted weights, and we were supposed to be about 4 weeks in at this point. Add to that the fact that I was reminded on more than a couple occasions that I was working with a ... princess. I was also told that she didn't want to turn into Fabio, yes, Fabio of all people. And I was reminded of this again, more than once. Some other highlights:

• We were doing barbell curls and she stopped the set after a few reps because it was hurting her hands and she had just had her nails done.
• When doing triceps pushdowns, she said she wanted to stop because she was feeling it was starting to bulk her up.
• Stopping mid set to check the time on her watch.
• Stopping mid set to check her finger nails and hands.
• And so on ...

Yes, quite fun indeed. In addition, I'll soon begin taping vignettes for future episodes of Bridezilla, focusing on nutrition and training tips. Check out the Women's Entertainment (WE-TV) site to for more information on when you can catch future episodes of Bridezilla. When I find out, I'll be sure to update you.

The 90% Necessity

The following is a short write up that I borrowed from the newsletter of a friend of mine, Craig Ballantyne of Turbulence Training fame. I've shared this with a number of my personal clients already, and without fail, each has found it to be a very useful, to the point, wake up call on the importance of adhering to a plan. Any plan, no matter how well it's designed, is only as good as the person following it. Anything worth achieving is going to take some sacrifice and hard work.

As far as dieting misconceptions go, I think too many nutritionists are trading political correctness for results. In my opinion, PC diets don't work.

Take a look at the American Diabetes Association...they still make room for sugar in a diabetic's diet - because they don't want to deprive anyone of sugar.

Well that's not going to work. You have to make sacrifices. You have to stick to at least a 90% nutrition compliance if you want big-time results.

You can't go with the political correct approach of 'having a little bit of your favorite foods everyday so that you don't deprive yourself'.

Think about the person that has your dream body - whether it's a cover model, your neighbor, a TV star, or the fittest person down at your gym. Do you think they haven't made sacrifices? Of course they have. They've done the work to get their reward.

Now its your turn!

You have to get strict and stick to whole, natural foods (fruits, vegetables, meat, fish, and nuts) if you want to succeed.

You need to accept that every action has consequences...
If you want to live a lifestyle where you don't deprive yourself of daily treats, that's fine. But realize the consequence of this action will be that you will always remain a few pounds of fat away from your goal. According to your actions, you value your treats higher than you value your fat loss success.

But if you place your desire for fat loss success above your desire to eat junk, than the consequences will be that you will reach your body composition goals. It's that simple. We all get what we deserve and unless someone is holding a fork to your mouth, you are responsible for your own success.

And my last 'non-PC' tip on dieting...almost all the people that tell me they are eating very well are lying to themselves and to me - as I mentioned before based on my client feedback experiences.

So do what Dr. John Berardi calls a compliance grid. Take a piece of paper and make a 6x7 grid (6 meals over 7 days). Then check off each time you eat according to plan and mark an 'X' for each time you miss your goals. Realize that you only have 4 mistake meals for an entire week if you want to stick to the 90% compliance. Most of the time this is a bucket-of-cold-water-to-the-face wake up call to people. They quickly realize their nutrition compliance is much closer to 75% than 90%...and that explains why they aren't getting anywhere.

Volume I Q & A:

Question:
I've been having some really good success in my attempts to lose fat and get in better shape, but I also have a goal to get stronger and to gain more muscle as well. While I have made some strength gains, they've been nothing to write home about and I really don't believe I've added any muscle either. Any suggestions?

Answer:
On the subject of simultaneous fat loss and muscle gain, in all but a few conditions, these two goals are mutually exclusive. I'll touch on strength gains while dieting a bit later, but in the mean time, to lose fat, you need to create a caloric deficit. Without this deficit, which can be created via dietary means (reduced calories) or increased expenditure, you simply cannot lose fat. Period. On the flip side, to build muscle, you generally, outside of a few conditions that will be mentioned shortly, need a caloric surplus. You simply cannot build a house out of sweat. There needs to be some raw materials available. In fact, in drug-free lifters, muscle gains are intimately tied to caloric intake. The reason you don't see more people progressing, assuming a reasonable training program (which is also asking a lot), is that they don't eat enough. Gyms everywhere are full of people that are trying to accomplish these two goals at once. They train hard (whether smart or not is another issue entirely), and then it's off for 45 minutes of cardio. They want to get big and ripped ... yesterday. And what happens? You see them a year later and they look the same. It's a year spent spinning their wheels. There's a reason competitors have off seasons and precontest seasons - the goals of each are different. The former is typically focused on increased muscle mass and improving certain aspects of one's physique as well as strength gains. The latter is typically focused on losing fat, getting in shape, and holding onto all that newly earned muscle, the last of which is a battle in itself. So, we first have the dietary obstacles to these two goals. In addition to what's been already said, there's also the issue of hormones and their response to over- and under-eating. To make a long story short, the anabolic hormones responsible for increased muscle mass are stimulated by over-feeding and increased calories. On the flip side, they fall in response to under-eating/caloric deficits, and if that wasn't bad enough the catabolic hormones rise in response to under-eating. So again, we have conditions that do not support the goals of simultaneous fat loss and muscle gain.

The training programs followed also affects these goals. Muscular gains are the result of tension placed on the muscle (weight lifted) as well as how long that tension was applied (time under tension). Basically a product of the properly managed manipulation of volume and intensity. When your calories are over maintenance and you're eating enough, your ability to recover from more work in the gym is greater. You can train with more volume, cause more protein degradation, and yet recover and hopefully grow. Contrast that to when you're in a caloric deficit; your ability to recover from strenuous exercise is reduced, due to more than likely less than optimal anabolic hormone levels, decreased glycogen stores, and just generally lower energy intake. So you simply cannot do the same amount of work that you could if you were eating in a caloric surplus. If you try to, and this is one of the most common mistakes made in training while dieting, then you're going to find yourself eventually regressing, potentially losing size and strength, and feeling overtrained. Training volume needs to be reduced while dieting and research suggests that you can maintain with a volume reduction as high as two thirds. Always keep in mind the goals of resistance training while dieting - maintenance of muscle and strength.

So, what are the conditions for when the phenomenon of simultaneous fat loss and muscle gain (often referred to as repartitioning) occur?

1. Beginner - beginners tend to be able to accomplish this feat quite easily. Resistance training is a brand new stress to the body and the body is very apt to respond positively. Remember your first year of weight training? That's likely when you experienced some of your best gains.
2. Detrained/Returning from a lay off - similar to the above, after taking an extended break from training, many of the positive adaptations experienced gradually go away. When a person returns to lifting these adaptations quickly return. Whether this is due to 'muscle memory' or some other phenomenon, the bottom line is that after a lay off, simultaneous fat loss and muscle gain is quite easy to achieve. In fact, there's support for the fact that not only will you quickly return to your previous best, but that you might even overshoot and tap into new growth.
3. New to 'Effective Training' - most people honestly are fairly clueless when it comes to smart training program design. You see it all the time in gyms - the old fashioned body part splits where you're hitting muscle groups once per week with insane amounts of volume, (25 sets for biceps anyone?), the focus on isolation exercises to 'feel' the muscle, and just straight up silly training. It's no wonder the majority of people in gyms never make any gains; they get their training programs from the latest ghost written pro bodybuilder article. When said trainee suddenly starts training properly - focus on compound exercises, more work in the heavy rep ranges, properly managed volume and intensity, increased frequency of stimulation, a move away from body part splits (outside of perhaps periods of training where they're specializing on a muscle group), etc., the next thing you know, their body starts responding positively, at least for a little while.
4. Drugs - this one is a no brainer. Steroids change the rules.
5. Cyclical Dieting/Calorie Cycling - one could argue that this isn't exactly simultaneous fat loss and muscle gain since when following such a dietary set up, you typically have periods of caloric surplus and periods of caloric restriction, so the muscle gain and fat loss that occurs is still not breaking the rules mentioned previously. But suffice to say, a properly set up plan can actually result in some fat loss and muscle gain. That said, the results tend to be less than if one were focusing solely on fat loss or solely on muscle gain.

As for strength gains while dieting, this is possible, but again, clearly not to the extent that would be possible if one were eating in a caloric surplus. Provided you're not in too great a caloric deficit, and your training program is set up properly - decreased volume, focus on heavy, low reps, compound lifts, etc., then yes some strength gains are possible. This is also the proper way to train for the maintenance of strength and size. Remember, what builds it, keeps it.

Strength gains while dieting, in the absence of muscle mass increases are the result of the effects such training has on the nervous system. Strength gains can be derived in two ways - increased muscle mass and increased efficiency of the nervous system. The latter basically meaning an improved ability to recruit and fire the high threshold motor units - those most responsible for maximum strength and size.

'There are only 2 choices:
make progress or make excuses.'
- - Ellen Mikesell

Until next time, thanks for reading.
Erik Ledin
www.leanbodiesconsulting.com

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