If you are familiar with Tom Venuto, you know that his ebook “Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle” has been answering the tough fitness questions for the past 7 years. Questions like:

“How can I gain muscle and lose fat at the same time?” and

“How do I get six pack abs?”

Because you get so many conflicting answers to these questions, they are asked constantly.  So what’s the deal? Is it really possible to lose fat and build muscle simultaneously? How does Tom answer this?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The 4 X-Factors

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The other way you can get a copy is by joining the Burn the Fat Inner Circle.

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

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

Technorati Tags: build muscle, burn fat, burn fat feed muscle, Diet, lose fat, nutrition, Tom Venuto

I really owe Jon Benson how keeps  writing who graciously gave me permission to share it with you. I hope you enjoy Jon’s take on fitness and nutrition as much as I do.

Believe it or not you can get lean by eating fast food.

I know, it sounds crazy… but in a few weeks I’m going to prove it to the world with the release of my newest mini e-book “Fast Food Fitness: How I Dropped 40lbs Eating Fast Food Every Day.”

Do you think I’m joking?  I’m not.

Of course there’s a WAY to eat fast food and drop the pounds. You can’t just eat like everyone else does. That’s common sense.

And believe me, there are more healthy ways to drop the pounds than eating fast food… for sure.

But the way I figure it: Would you rather be healthIER and lean or UNhealthy and overfat?

Silly question… so consider “Fast Food Fitness” a path to the lesser of two evils… and one that actually got me to 10% bodyfat (that’s pretty lean!) a few years ago.

Here’s how it started:

I simply hate to cook!  I have since solved that problem… I hired a part-time chef (it’s cheaper than it sounds)… but until two years ago I was eating out every single meal… I mean EVERY MEAL.

Most of the time… not all of the time, but most of the time… these meals were fast food joints like burger joints and even fried chicken places.

But I had to keep my physique, so … what to do?

Well… you’ll have to wait. At least a few weeks.

If you want the book for half-price, you have to own a copy of “Every Other Day Dietplan”… everyone who owns a copy before “Fast Food Fitness” hits the Internet will get half-off.

So go here if you don’t have EODD yet …

click—–>  My Favorite Foods Fatloss-Plan

Here’s 3 of my top 25 fast-food diet-tips… just these 3 will take you 1/3 of the way there…

First, use my Half-n-Half Principle. Order whatever you are going to order and then have the person behind the counter cut the order exactly in HALF.

Half to go… half to eat there.

Eat half now…. then the other half 3-4 hours later. Believe it or not you will store less bodyfat and even increase your metabolism eating like this.

Simple trick… give it a shot.

Second, ditch all the starch. That means buns, bread and anything made of flour. BUT here’s the “still tastes good” trick I use. I keep ONE of the pieces of bread from, say, my hamburger. Then I “pick” at it while I enjoy the meat and either a small diet soda or tea. Eat no more than 5 “picks” at the bread… about half a slice. You still get the exact taste of a burger with none of the stuff that makes most people over-fat.

Third, for you chicken lovers, split your order between fried and baked chicken. KFC has excellent baked chicken… try it. Then strip most of the skin off the fried chicken. Not all… most.

You still get the taste, but with far fewer bad food-stuffs and calories…. make sense?

Enjoy the tips… but remember, the healthiest (and tastiest) way to eat is still my Every Other Day Dietplan, which works in your favorite foods each week….

click—–>  My Favorite Foods Fatloss-Plan

Technorati Tags: Diet, Every Other Day Diet, Fast Food

Is there such a thing as “too much protein”? Not if you subscribe to a few bodybuilding mags, stop by the shake bar at your gym or visit the health food store.

Protein bars, shakes and supplements are the grease that turns the axles on many muscle building machines – and muscle empires.

But I am sure you must have stopped and asked yourself at some time, “Is this really doing me any good? Am I taking in too little or maybe too much protein?”.

Well, I am happy to have found a pretty definitive article by the Muscle Nerd that sheds a little light on the subject. I know that Jeff Anderson always has something to sell but he really does back up everything he tells you with studies and science. That’s why he is referred to as the Muscle Nerd!

Following is his article intact, with no editing. Enjoy while chomping down that protein bar.

How Much Protein Is “Too Much” Protein For Bodybuilders?

Protein supplements are a staple in any bodybuilder’s supplement arsenal.

Depending upon who you listen to, you’ll get different answers for “how much protein” you should consume in order to build muscle.

Bodybuilding magazines and supplement manufacturers tell you you should consume at least “2 grams of protein per pound of body weight” because you need all that protein to recover from your workouts and increase muscle mass.

But are they blowing these dosages way out of proportion?

I mean, supplement companies who promote massive dosages (I’ve seen up to 5g/lb of body weight!) couldn’t POSSIBLY be trying to get you to consume more of their product so you’ll go and buy another tub, right?

Fact is, I’ve caught a LOT of hell over the years from so called “experts” for my statements in my Optimum Anabolics (www.OptimumAnabolics.com) program where I’ve said that the body CAN’T use more than 20-30g per meal.

Well a recent study looked at just how much protein is “enough” and how much is “too much”.

Protein Study: How Much Protein Should You Consume?

A group of highly trained athletes consumed one of five different doses following a bout of resistance exercise.

* Og: The “control” group
* 5g
* 10g
* 20g
* or 40g

Following exercise, ALL groups increased muscle-protein synthesis, but the 20g dose produced nearly DOUBLE the amount of muscle-protein synthesis than the control group!

The 40g dose was even higher, but not by all that much. Therefore, it appears that even after resistance training, your body can only USE so much protein (somewhere between 20g and 40g) and then the rest gets burned up as fuel.

Even in Optimum Anabolics, I recommend way less protein than most people take in (1.17g/lb of LEAN body weight) with about 25% of your daily protein requirement taken IMMEDIATELY after training.

By not consuming “too much” protein, your body can focus on burning FAT for fuel instead of the excess protein which is why OA is considered more of a “build and burn” bodybuilding program.

So stop overdosing on protein, will you?

Consume about 20g in 5 meals throughout the day and add a separate 30-40g serving immediately after your workouts to ensure full muscle-protein synthesis when you need it the most.

What’s your take? Are you goijng overboard or are you actually using all of your protein shake to build muscle mass?

Technorati Tags: Bodybuilding Supplements, Diet, Jeff Anderson, muscle building supplements, Optimum Anabolics

Diets just don’t work but you can lose all of the fat you want if you go about it the right way. You just need to start working with you biology rather than trying to fight it.

Sean Nalewanyj, author of The Muscle Gain Truth is taking on the diet industry and telling it like it is in his new course “How To Burn Fat“. How To Burn Fat has been a monumental undertaking for Sean and he has really put a lot into it. He exposes the misleading junk and outright lies that the diet industry has been shoveling out for years to keep you hooked on their diet pills and potions.

The fact is, those pills just don’t work!

But you don’t need to toss in the towel and live in an overweight body. Not if you follow his advice and start working with your biology rather than against it.

Sean is introducing his new course on in a few days on August 5, and will offer a huge promotional reduction in price for the first 3 days. Yo get an taste of the quality content in How To Burn Fat, click on the image below for a sample lesson.

Technorati Tags: Diet, effective fat loss, Fat Loss, how to burn fat, lose the fat

Been trying to lose weight and failing? It might surprise you to know that you are in good company. If all of the low-fat diets actually worked the companies pushing them would be out of business. We wouldn’t want that, would we?

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Sean Nalewanyj, best-selling fitness author of Muscle Gain Truth thinks it is about time that someone stood up and told the truth. I am including here an email I just received from Sean:

++++++++++++++

As an individual who desires a lean, attractive and “fat-free” appearance, you most likely have the idea that your ultimate dietary goal is to limit your consumption of fat as much as possible.

And who could blame you for thinking that?

For years we’ve been told that low-fat diets are the only healthy solution and that dietary fat is somehow an evil, harmful substance that should be steered clear of at all costs.

Just walk into any grocery store and you’ll be bombarded with package after package of “low fat” and “fat free” products lining the shelves.

For those of you who point the finger at dietary fat as the major cause of a soft and flabby body, here’s an interesting fact for you…

Despite the current obesity crisis in the United States (where 7 out of 10 individuals over the age of 25 are considered overweight) our consumption of dietary fat is actually at an all-time low!

That’s correct, we’re consuming LESS fat, yet we’re FATTER than ever!

How could this be?

Simple: diets that focus on the extreme restriction of fat consumption are actually counterproductive to your fat burning results.

Don’t believe me?

Let me give you 5 good reasons why…

1) Low-fat diets are naturally higher in sugar.

Fats contain 9 calories per gram, and when you place severe limitations on your fat intake, you’ll naturally have to make up for those lost calories through an increased consumption of protein and carbohydrates.

For most individuals, this means piling up their intake of fruits, breads, pastas and other such items that, while low in fat, are very high in sugar. Although your body requires a certain amount of glucose to fuel its daily tasks, any excess that isn’t needed and cannot be stored in the muscles for future use will simply be stored as fat.

2) Low-fat diets increase cravings and hunger pangs.

Not only does the addition of dietary fat provide a more “filling” effect from the meals that you eat, but since your carbohydrate consumption is now naturally higher, your blood sugar levels and insulin production will be in overdrive.

Constant rising and falling of blood sugar not only lowers your energy and increases your appetite, but it increases your body’s rate of fat storage as well.

3) Low-fat diets decrease testosterone levels.

Most people are aware that testosterone plays a large role in the process of building lean muscle tissue (which in turn causes greater body fat losses), but testosterone in itself also has direct fat burning effects.

Diets that focus on significant reductions in fat consumption also produce a measurable negative effect on testosterone production.

4) Low-fat diets increase the rate of body fat storage.

Your body is a far more complex and intricate “machine” than you might think, and it has all sorts of defensive survival mechanisms in place to deal with stressful situations.

When you severely reduce your fat intake, the body perceives this lack of dietary fat as a potential threat to its survival since fat is a primary source of energy.

As a result, the body will make the necessary adjustments which include a slow-down in the fat burning metabolism (to preserve its current fat stores) and a rise in hormones that promote fat storage.

5) Low-fat diets are unhealthy.

Your body quite simply NEEDS dietary fat in order for regular and healthy functioning. Forget about your concerns with storing body fat; if you deprive your body of the fat it needs to keep you alive and healthy, you will inevitably cause problems.

Fats perform an endless array of positive functions in the body, including brain and nerve tissue development, organ insulation, immune system strengthening, anti-inflammatory effects, controlling cell membrane fluids and regulating hemoglobin production just to name a small fraction.

For all of the reasons outlined above, your dietary fat intake should NEVER drop below 10% of your total daily caloric intake. This is just a minimum, and 15-20% is probably ideal.

It’s not fat itself that is the enemy; it’s simply consuming the wrong types of fat, and consuming it in excessive amounts. However, it must be noted that an excess of ANY nutrient will lead to body fat storage.

Your goal should be to limit your intake of saturated fats (those that are solid at room temperature and are typically found in animal meats), and instead place the majority of your focus on healthy, unsaturated fats which are derived from plant sources and are liquid at room temperature.

This favorable form of fat provides a whole host of powerful fat burning, muscle building and overall health benefits and should make up the vast majority of your daily fat intake.

You can consume these fats through solid food sources such as:

- salmon – cod – sardines – mackerel – avocado – almonds – flaxseeds – olives – peanuts – pecans

Or from healthy oils such as:

- flaxseed oil – extra virgin olive oil – fish oil – canola oil – sunflower oil – hemp oil

Hopefully this lesson has cleared up some of the fat burning dietary confusion for you…

This lesson is just a very small sample of the kind of winning techniques that will be included in my long-awaited fat loss success package, “The Real Deal Body Transformation System”.

This brand new, explosive fat burning e-course will be launching on Tuesday, August 5th at my new website, HowToBurnFat.com.

And as I already mentioned in a previous email, for the first 3 days of the program going live, I’ll be offering an insane 40% discount to all of my subscribers!

If you’re ready to start slashing fat, re-shaping your body and achieving a lean and defined physique, you most definitely won’t want to miss out on this.

Don’t worry though, I’ll continue to fill you in on more details as we get closer to the big day.

All the best and I’ll talk to you again soon,

Sean Nalewanyj
HowToBurnFat.com
MuscleGainTruth.com

Technorati Tags: Diet, how to lose fat, lose weight, low-fat diet