In my last article I’ve outlined the benefits of creating you own custom fat cutting diet and in this article I’m presenting the fundamentals for creating your first custom diet plan. The benefits are obvious and there’s not need to repeat them however even though the calories in and out protocol applies here there’s still some basic ground rules which will ensure proper results.

So here are the fundamental rules of creating your very first diet for fat loss.

8 Rules for creating your first custom diet plan

• Rule #1 - 40% of your daily calorie intake should comes from protein, minimum 2 grams per kg of body weight. Tip: Use protein shakes to help you reach the goal.
• Rule #2 - Do weight lifting 4 times per week. Tip: Do 12-15 sets per workout, the entire workout shouldn’t last longer than 45 min.
• Rule #3 - Walk a lot, if there’s anything that can be described as magic pill to weight loss than it’s walking. It helps you burn more fat, keeps the metabolism higher and improves your recovery.
• Rule #4 - Drink more than 3,5 liters of water per day.
• Rule #5 - Avoid liquid calories at all cost. Remove fruit drinks, coffee, sodas, anything that is sweet and processed. Only fluids you should be drinking are tea and water. Tip: You can add Stevia to green tea if you want to make it sweeter.
• Rule #6 - Eat vegetables with every meal to supply your body with vitamins and minerals. Even if you have to eat a places like McDonalds, KFC or Subway there’s still options to get salads and vegetables. Just don’t use the dressing because that stuff is calorie bomb. Tip: Also include a multivitamin and mineral supplement. Don’t pick the cheapest, usually higher price means better quality.
• Rule #7 - Be able to roughly estimate how many calories you eat every day. So that you are aware if you can afford to eat that slice of cake today or you can leave it for tomorrow where you can reduce quantity of other meals.
• Rule #8 - Keep track of how much you weight every week on Monday morning as soon as you wake up after toilet. Tip: Use a notebook or mobile phone Notes app like Evernote.

So now that we established some rules what let’s answer some common questions people have when it comes to diets.

Daily calorie intake calculator

I personally use this calculator here http://www.1percentedge.com/ifcalc because it kinda gives me a nice overview and graphs of calories. However these number should be used only as a starting point. None of these calculators are accurate enough to lead your all the way but they can serve to define the starting points of a new diet goal.

How many times should you eat per day?

It doesn’t matter, you can eat all your food just before bed late night it won’t make any difference. The key is energy balance, if you eat less than what you’ve spent that day your body will be burning fat. So you can have all your calories in 1 meal or split them up into 10 meals it won’t make a different.

A good start however is to have 3 meals. Basically lunch around noon (Yes, you can skip breakfast), meal before workout and a meal after workout. Those are 3 times I personally use and it works great but you can do whatever you feel like. So as far as this you don’t need to change your current meal frequency!

Personally I love to have an 8 hours eating window and a 16 hour fasting window. So I will make sure to ingest all my food within the 8 hours from 12 PM till 8 PM. Intermittent Fasting helps you maintain energy levels, more focus, better fat burning and you don’t feel hungry. You can read a review of a Intermittent Fasting plan called Lean Gains which I personally use here.

How much should you eat?

Since you are doing a fat cutting diet plan just make sure it is less than what you are spending. How to know if it’s less? Measure yourself on the same weight scale every 2 weeks Monday morning after toilet (empty stomach) and write down the number on your mobile phone or a simple note book. You will know your maintenance when you have the same weight 2 weeks in a row. If you are losing 0,2 – 0,5 kg per week you know that you are on the right track. So the key here is just to use the same weight scale at the same time so you know exactly what’s going on.

Note: Weight loss isn’t liner so sometimes you might now lose anything for a week but then after 2 or 3 weeks you lose 1 kg. Be ready for this and just trust the process. That’s why it’s good to measure yourself every week so you know how your body reacts.

If you notice weight gain on the weight scale just reduce food intake the next week and re-measure. The best method is to lose 0,6-0,8 kg per 2 weeks, once you hit this goal just stick by that until it stops then reduce food further.

What type of food should you choose?

It can be anything as long as you are spending more calories than eating. Typically a good diet is that 80% of fat loss comes from energy balance and only 20% is attributed to exercise so since food controls the weight loss process it’s always good to pick high volume less calorie foods like vegetables just because they’ll make you feel less hungry.

Imagine eating a medium sized chocolate compared to 3 scrambled eggs, some almonds and a bowl of mixed salad, the 2nd meal will make you feel full for hours while with chocolate you’ll be hungry after 40 min. Key to eliminating hunger while still having low enough calorie intake to burn fat is to increase vegetables, they have the best volume/calorie ratio.

The most healthy choices you make the better results you’ll have, this doesn’t mean that you should avoid having pizza sometimes or a tiramisu but those times should be exceptions to the rule. Anywhere around 70% “healthy food” and 30% calories from “unhealthy food” is good enough to for fat loss.

Conclusion – Custom Diet Plan rocks

You basically get to eat what you want, when you want as long as you stick to these rules the results will come. This type of custom diet plan is primarily made for people who casually workout and focus on other things in their lives. For competitors or those who are looking to reach 6-7% body fat levels this diet is not the best option, to achieve such low body fat percentages naturally and keeping as much muscle as possible you need to have a much more complex strategy than this.

The beauty of this custom diet plan strategy is that it’s extremely flexible and will allow you to quickly adapt to new situations in life such as travel or moving to a new place.

Thanks for reading my article, I’d love to hear what you think in the comments section below.

The post Fundamentals of Creating your Custom Diet Plan for Fat Loss appeared first on ShockingFit.com.

There are thousands of fat cutting diet plans available freely for download so why bother reading this article? First of all creating your own fat cutting diet plan isn’t as nearly as hard as most people think. Secondly, it’s more likely that you’ll succeed if you know exactly what you’re doing and what needs to be changed in order to reach your goal.

Creating any diet is a skill, it’s doesn’t matter if it’s a fat cutting diet plan or a weight/muscle gain diet, like any other skill it takes a bit of practice and time to master it but this skill is far less complicated than the so called experts have you believe. All you need is the right knowledge of making the right adjustments to the diet so you can easily alter your body composition how you want it to be.

The only down side is the initial effort you need to put in to learn this, for example learning to count calories roughly takes hour or two but the first time you count calories it will take you 30 minutes to count a meal, the 2nd time it will be 10 minutes, the 3rd time probably 5 minutes and as you go on you’ll be able to roughly estimate calories for any meal just by looking at it.

My transformation after 3 years

Still 99% of people don’t know how to do this and don’t bother to learn. That initial fear keeps them from doing what it’s necessary while at the same time their mind will justify it by saying it’s too complex, there’s no time, it’s only for athletes or thousands of other reasons.

I’m hoping you are not one of those people and that you are willing to take control of your diet and make it a part of your lifestyle to be able to see food as it is, just energy to fuel your needs which can be controlled and optimized.

Why do I want you to learn to create custom diet plans?

I believe that if you apply the “Do it yourself” mindset and go through the effort to learn this skill the chances of you achieving your goals are 10 or 100 times higher. Creating a fat cutting diet plan is in essence very simple and honestly once you reach that single digit body fat level it gets so easy to maintain.

Most people however like everything to be taken care of for them, this might work for a car wash but as far as diets especially those aimed at fat loss it’s very difficult to apply. If you don’t know your body well enough how can you expect some random anonymous guy over the internet to know? Think about it, if you are having trouble putting in the effort to learn your body what are the chances someone else will do that for you and give you the right advice.

The biggest problem with 99% of online fat cutting diet plans

I’d say the biggest problem is that they are made just too damn generic to produce any results. It’s actually more like a gamble, it might work for some people but if you aren’t the lucky one then say bye to the results.

Let’s analyze a typical online diet:

• Instead of saying eat less calories than you spend they say: eat “healthy food” and keep your carbs low.
• Instead of modifying calories as time goes by they say: cut calories to 1800 or 500 below maintenance
• Instead of focusing on long term sustainable fat loss they focus on getting fast results like dropping 2 kilos every week then everything stops after 4 weeks.
• Instead of reducing or increasing your food they say add tons of cardio every day which is nonsense  Isn’t it easier just to eat a little bit less than spending more time running around losing muscle mass you worked so hard to gain?
• Instead of using tools like cheat meals, re-feeds and walking they have a special supplement that burns fat while you are sitting and doing nothing.

It’s no wonder why most people fail, they just blindly follow that crappy advice without ever questioning it and learning what’s actually going on in their boy. There’s even people who are willing to go through tons of pain like hours of running on empty stomach wrapped with some plastic around belly that’s supposed to make it warm and burn more fat (complete Bullsh**) or unbearable hunger and all this just because someone told them it gives results.

But when it comes to sitting down and learning what happens in your body there’s not many who are willing to do it. The reason why a custom fat cutting diet plan works best is because you can have the power to add how much activity you can do, which foods you want to eat and how much weight you want to lose. Once you experience this type of control over your body you’ll regret for not learning it earlier as I have.

I don’t advocate eating all your calories from junk food every day but a diet should be flexible enough to allow you to pre-plan or create a calorie buffer large enough for situations where you don’t have access to healthy food. Same goes for exercise, if you are traveling you might have time to do only 3 workouts a week or even 2, for these situations it’s very important to be flexible with your diet so you can reduce your calories to match the expenditure and still reach your goal.

But doesn’t “unhealthy” food make you gain fat and prevent weight loss? If you over eat it doesn’t matter if the food is “healthy” or “unhealthy” the same goes if you eat less than what you spend. So as far as body composition goes food is just energy, fat loss or fat gain depends on how much energy (calories) you eat and spend. The main benefit of healthy food over junk food is that it just has far more nutrients which allow your body to operate optimal but weight loss comes down to one basic thing, how much you eat and how much you spend.

Conclusion

The key point from this article is that any meal plan can be modified to become a fat cutting diet plan. The core of everything is energy balance, if we want to shed fat the amount of energy spent must be larger than the amount of food we eat. Measure this on a weekly basis, so if you find yourself overeating one day you can catch up with less food in the next couple of days.

The second major point is that you have measure and track your progress, stepping on a weight scale every 2 weeks on Monday morning and writing it down takes 3 minutes and it’s the only way of knowing if you are on the right track.

I’d love to hear what you think about this article, leave a comment below.

The post Why You Should Make Your Own Custom Fat Cutting Diet Plan? appeared first on ShockingFit.com.

Time to clear up the old protein shake timing myth! The question when to drink protein shakes is one of the most common asked on forums and Q&A sites. As I’m a member of a few of those “respected” sites I can’t help to notice how these keyboard jockeys with 5000 posts give out completely retarded advice based on zero scientific research or personal experience. I mean, dude if you are going to advise someone either do it from experience or at least have some studies that back up your claims.

I’ve decided it’s about time someone puts an end to the broscience surrounding the topic when to drink protein shakes and gives a guide for all the people out there. In this article you’ll find the most common questions that people have when it comes to protein timing. Also I’m assuming that you are already having a protein shake straight after workout so I’m gonna cover those timings that are less known.

Should you drink protein shakes while working out?

Research has shown that there’s an possible that intake of essential amino acid rich in L-Leucine during workout can boost muscle protein synthesis. You can read a study that supports these claims here.

This supplementation of protein during exercise goes more into the realm of hardcore fitness/bodybuilding enthusiast. By that I mean those who believe in min-maxing everything and not leaving anything to chance.

My take on this is to do it only if you can afford to supplement BCAA, EAA or whey during workout do it as it might help you gain muscle. If you are one of those then go for it.

Drink protein shakes or other amino acid supplements during workouts as there is no negative side-effects and you can only benefit.

As for the amounts it’s sufficient to add 10-15 grams of BCAA in your gym water bottle. Try to roughly estimate the amount of water you drink by looking at your prior workouts and add an appropriate amount so the BCAA mixture doesn’t go to waste.

Should you drink protein shakes before workout?

The answer is yes, it helps both fat loss and muscle protein synthesis. Study presented here suggests that timing your protein shake before heavy workout can increase your resting energy expenditure and help you burn more fat in the next 24 hours.

These findings go hand in hand with numerous studies showing that pre-workout intake of essential amino acids boosts protein synthesis which does take up some energy.

So basically what happens is that you build muscle and burn fat at the same time which is awesome. How to benefit from this?

• Take 10-15 grams of BCAA 20 minutes before workout
• Drink 1 scoop of whey protein shake with water 30 minutes before workout. If you are using isolate or hydro-isolate whey reduce that time to 20 minutes, if you are using whey concentrate do 30 minutes.

Is it good to take protein shakes before bed?

The diagram on left compares the concentration of essential amino-acids in 2 groups of adults, one marked as “PRO”  took 40 grams of casein protein prior bed while the other just drank water.

Both groups had the same diet and fitness experience, as you can see the concentration of available amino-acids in the blood stream was significantly higher in the casein group

Further the researches also took sample of leg muscle tissue before and after bed to compare if there were any muscle protein synthesis and recovery benefits from casein intake.

And there was, seems that if you drink protein shakes with slow digesting properties like casein before bed you can boost recovery and muscle growth.

The study at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22330017 confirms these claims and shows significant improvement not only improved protein synthesis rates but also net protein balance.

I suggest an intake of 30 grams of whey casein before bed with water. You could also use whey concentrate but it digests a lot faster than casein and won’t stay in your blood stream throughout the night to give you all the benefits.

So when to drink protein shakes for best results?

Timing protein shakes sorted by priority

As you’ve seen above timing protein shakes does matter to a certain extent if our goal is to reach maximum muscle growth potential. Now it’s time to set priorities for timing and I’m gonna give you mine.

1. Post-workout – If you are still figuring out when to drink protein shakes this is absolutely the best time to drink protein in liquid form. Also this is the ideal time to add an appropriate amount of fast carbohydrates and creatine. My post workout shakes consists of: 2 scoops of whey isolate, 10 grams of purified creatine monohydrate, 10 grams of BCAA and 20 grams of dextrose.
2. Pre-workout or before bed – I personally prefer pre-workout because of Lain gains style of eating before bed is outside of my 8 hour eating window but both are beneficial. Keep in mind that if you do pre-workout ideally choose BCAA while before bed you should be taking casein
3. During workout – As you seen above there might be benefits of doing this but if you have to choose between this or the above 2 options I prefer the above.
4. Meal replacement shakes – This is good if you don’t have time for a solid meal and as we all know life is very unpredictable. In this case I prefer to have casein protein as it will reduce hunger more. The amount of meals you have per day doesn’t really matter but total protein daily intake does. To avoid having to intake 150 grams of protein in 1 taking I’ll rather have a shake sometime during the day.
5. Between meals – I wouldn’t do it because it makes no sense and no benefits to do it, if you can do 3 meals per day it’s better to split your protein accordingly. You should be ingesting most of protein after workout or on rest days in the morning

Those are my priorities, they should help you decide when to drink protein shakes. Just to be clear what matter most here is the total daily intake which from my experience should be around 2 grams per kg when bulking/maintenance or 3 grams per kg if you are cutting. One more topic I’d like to quickly address is the effect of protein on weight loss and if you should drink protein shakes while dieting.

When to drink protein shakes to improve weight loss?

Here are top 3 reasons why you should be taking at least 30% of your daily energy from protein and the easiest way to do that is just to plan out when to drink protein shakes and follow the plan. Also make sure that most of your protein intake still comes from solid food like learn chicken breast, egg white or fish.

Reason 1 – Practical benefits of using liquid protein source

A while ago I decided to do a 6 month diet without protein shakes, basically this thought me that I need to spend more of my free time to eat solid food and get the same results as with supplements. Not to mention how this is not flexible for travelling, business meetings or other unpredictable stuff that happens in life all the time.

Those 6 months without whey my daily protein intake was set to 250 grams and it was insanely difficult to get all that from solid food. I was eating 40 egg whites every day and tons of lean chicken. Not only was it more expensive it was very hard to plan out my days. I’d have to ensure that my meals will have enough protein and always have at least 10 egg whites ready to eat (they don’t smell so nice after a while).

Can’t really imagine doing this regime now as I’m on 3 meals per day following the Lean Gains style of eating. Would have to eat roughly 150 grams of protein from solid food in my post workout meal, that would be more than 500 grams of lean chicken! That’s too much chewing for me.

Reason 2 – Protect your lean muscle mass

A study that shows the power of high protein intake when it comes to lean mass protection was conducted by a team at School of Sport and Exercise Sciences, University of Birmingham. They took 20 healthy trained athletes then split up those athletes into 2 groups to do a 2 week cutting diet  with 35% calorie deficit. Group 1 continued ate 15% of calories from protein while Group 2 had increased protein intake to 35% of total calories.

Both groups continued to do the same training as before the only difference was the macro nutrient ratios in their diets. After 2 weeks both groups didn’t show any difference in performance, hormones or other body function. Further, both groups experienced the same amount of fat loss. However the group with low protein/high carb intake lost 1,6 kg of lean body mass compared to 0,3 kg lost by the High protein group. Both groups lost around 1,5 kg of fat.

Reason 3 – Protein Satiety and Themogenic effect

From my own experience I can tell you that protein does wonders as far as satiety levels, normally after I have a high protein meal (50 grams of protein) it will take a minimum of 4 h for me to start feeling any hunger at all.

As for the themorgenic effect studies shown that a diet with 30% from protein had a thermic effect of 34 kj/hour higher than a diet consisting of 15% protein. The effect doesn’t only work while training but also while resting so eating a high protein diet actually makes you burn fat while doing nothing.

If you are interested in scientific proof around protein satiety and thermic effect check out a study by Thomas L. Halton and Frank B. Hu, MD, PhD at http://www.jacn.org/content/23/5/373.full

Summary

To summarize, the timings do matter if you are looking to get the best out of your protein shakes. If you are deciding when to drink a protein shakes consider the priorities listed above and you should be good. My goal and I hope your goal too is to find something that works and stick by that. I hate changing my diet and it takes a lot of convincing for me to implement new things as I feel like I found something that is working. Thing I’m considering now is adding BCAA during my workouts and will probably test that to see if there is any difference.

I’d love to hear what you think about this topic so please leave a comment below.

The post When to Drink Protein Shakes for Weight Loss And Muscle Gain? appeared first on ShockingFit.com.

Like him or not the echo and legend of Zyzz still lives, bodybuilding enthusiast quote him, print out t-shirts, call themselves Zyzz on Facebook and all sorts of crazy stuff. It’s a cult of people supporting a certain lifestyle and not caring what anybody else thinks of them. We could look at Zyzz as sort of a rebel against laziness and an motivational figure for young generations. In this article I’m gonna list all my personal favorite Zyzz quotes and others I’ve managed to find from his writing and videos.

I love watching those crazy stunt videos on YouTube and lately I’ve been stumbling upon a lot of Zyzz quotes with pictures so I decided to make a small compilation for all the fans out there. Also you should definitely check out my Zyzz workout review article which has been one of the most popular pieces written on this site.

Best Zyzz Quotes (Last Updated 18.3.2013.)

Personally I’m a very friendly and happy person, and believe that people need to lighten up and enjoy life more. Even though I put on a lot of size and to some look intimidating, I’m one of the friendliest people you can meet. I love playing up my perceived stereotype, and at the end of the day, never take myself seriously, which is one of the reasons I have accrued the fan base that I have.”

My message is to train hard, don’t be a hard cunt, enjoy life and don’t take yourself too seriously. If there were more people like me, the world will be a happier place. Id rather do what i do and have fun then sit back hating on someone achieving something.”

I don’t workout for chicks, i workout to create an aura, when i walk into a room,
introduce myself to someone, go for a job interview, i love looking dominant, in
charge, and in control. I love walking past and having people point and talk about
me, i love the fact that when i go somewhere with thousands of people, almost all
of them will remember who i am when it is over, and i didn’t even have to say
a word.”

There are normal people. There are try hards. There are hard cunts. Then there are sick cunts. Sick cunts are the best, friendly, sexy, aesthetic, party hard and live it up without being staunch and get along with everyone.”

Everybody, one day, will die and be forgotten. Act and behave in a way that will make life interesting and fun, fuck a mundane, predictable life working Monday to Friday with something you derive no pleasure from; just living life out till you grow old and wither away. Find a passion, form relationships, don’t be afraid to get out there and fuck what everyone else thinks, trust me it’s a lot more fun that way.” This here is for me one of my personal favorite Zyzz quotes.

At the end off the day bro you got to listen to this, if your a fucking shredded sick kunt you can get away with anything bro. If your some fat kunt making this shit up people will be like aww yeahh zyzz bro yeah, they wont give a fuck man.”

I want to move my life in other directions and have found myself far too involved in a lifestyle with no genuine substance, meeting far too many fake people/girls who if i didn’t look the way i did, would have never given me the time of day.. Time to get back to studying, there’s more to life than partying.”

Everyone has a little bit of Zyzz in them.”

Don’t ever pay people out or put people down. Instead just put yourself up and let the haters do their thing. Id rather be a person that’s hated on, than a person that does the hating. A wise man one said.. Haters gonna hate!”

Stop giving a fuck what girls think and say whatever the fuck you want to say and do whatever you want to do.”

None of this will make sense to any of you once you get the physique and know whats its like,
i know it sounds like im bragging, but think of it as driving a ferrari in real life. why do
people drive ferrarris? to get attention, looks, extert dominance and superiority from the
norm, and to get people talking… but it also inspires jealousy and haters on the person driving.
thats exactly what i experience irl.”

I always feel i have to train and diet my hardest now because i have a look/image to live up to. People talk and already have high expectations from what they hear about me, so i would never let myself look sloppy. If anything, all this has made me want to train harder, and diet more intensely. Fuk ‘good enough’,, perfection is my goal.”

Bonus: Zyzz Favorite Songs Playlist

Here’s a cool music compilation with songs that Zyzz liked, sometimes I like to listen to while in the gym.

Hope you liked this collection of Zyzz quotes and if you have some that are missing post them in comments and I’ll add them to the article. Also don’t forget to check out Zyzz workout routine and Zyzz supplement reviews.

The post Zyzz Quotes Compilation – Fuark, Come At Me Bro appeared first on ShockingFit.com.

There’s just so much confusing information about breakfast and weight loss on the Internet it used to drive me crazy to compare all these different articles on how to pick the best foods to use in the morning so I decided to write down what I eat for breakfast when dieting.

My breakfast has changed over the years and probably the best word to describe this process is evolved as I’ve been continuously learning about new ingredients and what to use to start off my day but in the last couple of months I didn’t make any changes. I feel like I found what’s working for me so I want to share that with you.

Currently I’m following a way of eating called Lean Gains and breakfast in this diet doesn’t really exist but I’ll still use this word when I’m talking about my first meal of the day. Also just so you know even before Lean Gains I’ve used to eat the same thing in my first meal so this is something you can apply no matter why style of eating you do.

Lean gains is an interment fasting type of eating with an 8 hour long eating window and 16 hours of fasting, you can read all about my experiences and why I switched from normal 6-8 small meals per day to this at Lean Gains Guide with Sample Meals.

So let’s start off by breaking down all the macro-nutrients and choices of food.

Choosing the nutrients for the best weight loss Breakfast

Every breakfast no matter what diet you follow should contain all 3 macro-nutrients: protein, carbs and fat. The difference is in the ratios.

My current macros for breakfast are 60 grams of protein, 55 grams of carbs and 27 grams of fat. These macros fit greatly in my diet and the energy levels are amazing. Total calories are 700 and it’s around 30% of my total daily intake.

What’s the ideal protein source for breakfast?

As far as I’m concerned there’s only 2 choices here, whey powdered protein or eggs. And I use both. For powdered protein I like to use unflavored Whey Protein Concentrate as I don’t have any problems digesting the trace amount of lactose in it, for those who are milk intolerant any Whey Protein Isolate will do the trick.

But to vary things a bit I’ve decided to also use egg whites and combine them with whey, egg whites seem to be the perfect choice for breakfast. They digest slower than whey protein and it’s the highest quality protein source in nature.

So to sum it up, my breakfast protein source is a mixture of Concentrate Whey powdered and boiled Egg Whites.

Carbohydrate choices for breakfast

There’s only one choice here and that is Oats. As far as I’m concerned oats are the overall best source of carbohydrates for breakfast. I’ve tried many options, including different mixtures of Muesli, Corn, Seed mixtures and all sort of combinations with oats just to find that the plain simple Oat meal is the best of them all.

The key is to purchase the most complex organic whole Oats and leave them a bit to soak up before you eat them to make them easily digestible. Also when you soak them up you get rid of the Phytic Acid content which then allows minerals to be freely absorbed. Here’s a study that has shown the Effects of phytic acid on mineral availability.

If you are in need for calories breakfast is the best meal in the day to add some fruit. Ideally a banana as it’s a mixture of glucose and fructose plus you get Vitamin B and it helps to maintain your sodium/potassium balance.

PS. I’ve used to add some dark chocolate (86% cocoa)  to my breakfast, it’s a great antioxidant and the substances really keep your mind sharp.

There’s tons of things you can experiment that work great with oats but just remember to maintain your calories balance so you don’t over do the amounts.

Healthy fat to start off the day

For fat sources I use 5 different types of organic nuts and fish oil capsules. It’s interesting how nuts are really cheap if you buy them separate but when they are included in products like bread and oats it increases the base product price by a lot. My suggestion is that you stock up on Flax, Sesame, Sunflower, Pumpkin Seeds And Almonds. A mix of these should cover all the needs for seeds, if you really want to experiment you can add any.

For fish oil I use the normal capsules which contain 180 mg EPA plus 120 mg DHA, I take 10 of these to make the combined dosage 3 grams which has shown to have some benefits. You can do less if it’s too expensive just to act as a health filler to make sure your omega 6/omega 3 balance isn’t completely out of line but the real benefits for weight loss and muscle gain happen around 3-4 grams of EPA + DHA.

Dry healthy spices and other things I add to my power breakfast

Beside the mention ingredients above I like to add some more power foods to the breakfast bowl just to take the maximum benefits of these ultra low calorie things like dry spices.

So I add dry ginger, celery, curry, cocoa, parsley, oregano and cinnamon. It probably sounds weird when you think about all these ingredients mixed together but I found that they really enrich the taste and not to mention the countless health benefits each of these substances have. I mean you can easily search for any one of these on Google and you’d be surprised to find out how powerful they are.

Conclusion

To sum everything up let’s see it’s Oats mixed with Whey protein, tons of seeds, nuts, dry spices with added egg whites in the end. As liquid I use only water as I don’t use any dairy in my diet, ever since I stopped eating dairy I feel a lot healthier and it’s easier to burn fat.

Try to mix all of these with water, avoid milk for now especially if your goal is to lose weight.

Here is how it all looks.

Calorie breakdown of foods included in breakfast

This is a list and calories for all the ingredients used in making breakfast. The calories can vary per products so make sure you check the labels on products you purchase to see if they match these.

This breakfast covers around 25% of my total calorie intake and my other 2 meals in the day will cover the rest. I tend to eat 50% of my entire calorie intake in my post workout meal, and also that meal contains the majority of carbs and protein which are needed after workout.

If you are interested in how you can apply this style of eating check out Lean Gains Guide with Sample Meals where you’ll also find a sample diet made with calorie calculator for download.

3 Things that you must avoid when eating breakfast

1. Cereal  - Stay away from any brand, packing or whatever. These products are sh** and buying all of the things mentioned above separate will save you a lot of money and your health.
2. Adding Milk- I personally don’t like any dairy. There is no reason why a human being should drink milk that has been chemically processed 100 times to stay fresh longer and which includes substances like antibiotics. Dropping milk and other dairy has been the best nutritional choice in my life. Try it, you’ll be thanking me.
3. Liquid calories after breakfast - Drinks like Red Bull or similar caffeine sugar loaded drinks might help you feel more energetic for a while but they also destroy your insulin sensitivity and add useless calories to the daily intake. The only 2 things your should be drinking are water and tea.

Ok guys, that’s all for today. You can leave your questions, tips or suggestions in the comments below, I’d be happy to discuss them with you. Have a nice day and good luck with your fitness and health goals.

The post What Is The Best Food to Eat for Breakfast to Lose Weight? appeared first on ShockingFit.com.

The barbell bench press, king of all exercises in the gym and also the exercise that 98% of the guys do completely wrong. It’s funny though, I’ve met girls and old people asking me how much I can push on bench press, interesting that no one in the gym ever asked me about dead-lifts or squat numbers. What’s even more ridiculous is the fact that most guys, even the experienced ones never really learn how to maximize the growth by using this amazing chest exercise.

So taking all this into consideration I wanted to write a small guide which you can actually use as a cheat sheet if you’re just starting out and have no idea how to do this. I know there are tons of videos on YouTube that show proper form but having this stuff written down helps a lot, I’ve personally used cheats sheets for some exercises when I first started going to the gym and I have feeling that it always kept me on the right track.

Don’t get me wrong even if you are advanced in the gym you still might want to read this article, it never hurts to read up the basics and to be honest exercises like the bench press are the fundamentals of any good workout routine.

Why am I writing about bench press in the first place?

First off, I’m having a hell of hard time bringing my pecs to the level I want them to be. Even though I can push some pretty impressive numbers at bench press I’ve found that my chest muscle growth doesn’t really follow the increase of strength.

So to keep a long story short, a month ago I pushed my ultimate bench press weight goal, which was x 1.5 times my ideal body weight. At the time that number was 120 kilos and I weighted around 75 kg. I felt really good about that and it took me months to build up strength week by week just to notice that my pecs haven’t improved much from when I was pushing 80 kg. To push 120 kg my technique resembled to that used by power lifters, basically you utilize whatever muscles you have to push as much weight as possible for 5-6 repetitions. It does have some effect on chest growth but it’s almost as if my chest muscles weren’t growing at all during this period.

Bench press big numbers (power lifting) or proper form (bodybuilding)

The results you get from performing the bench press actually only depends on a single decision. That decisions is defining what your goals are. There are 2 most common ways to do this exercise. First is to impress people and second is to actually get results.

If your goal is to impress your friends, gym members or yourself by putting three 20 kg plates on each side I respect that, then you shouldn’t cry like bit** if your chest doesn’t grow. Although that can in some cases help you grow an awesome chest if you have some rare superior genetics. To be honest I didn’t see too many chest genetic freaks in my life and if you are one I sincerely envy you. You can stop reading now and carry on :)

Anyway, the reality is if your chest didn’t grow like mushrooms after a rainy season in the first year of training it’s time for a change. It’s a fact and common sense that if you continue doing what you’ve always done you’ll get the same results that,no results. My chest muscles are extremely stubborn and have always lagged behind other muscle groups, the amount of techniques and “secrets” I’ve tried to overcome this is insane.

So the second way (The way I do it now.) is to approach the exercise in a smart way and use it to build a rock solid chest. To do this first you need to make a decision that you are going to stop wasting your time by focusing on the numbers and actually starting putting all effort into learning to perform the exercise in way that will grow your chest muscles. Not that we got that handled let’s get into the juicy stuff. (PS. If your chest routine by some chance doesn’t contain bench press then you need to change it as soon as possible and start doing it. Period.)

A Simple Guide to Perfect Barbell Bench press for Maximum chest growth

If you scrolled to this section without reading the above part of the article you suck :) (I do that all the time), but seriously go back and read it, don’t be lazy I’ve wrote it for you.

I’ll assume bench press is the first exercise in your chest routine, if so make sure you do 10 minutes of active warm up to get body temperature up and also perform 3 ultra-light weight sets 15 reps each. Use 30% of the weight you use for your normal first set for these warm ups. Now that settled, let’s go.

1. Start with lower weight than normally - I’ve found that when applying the proper technique the weight from my usual power-lifting style went down by 30%. So use that as a starting point. You should be using a weight that you can push 15 times while maintaining perfect form throughout the movement.
2. Place your hands just a bit wider than shoulder width. - The key is to find your perfect position a bit further than shoulder width apart, experiment what works the best for you. Grip width means a lot in this exercise.
3. Slightly arch your back, just so that someone can slide their hand behind your lower back - It’s important that you do this before starting the exercise, the body shouldn’t be making any adjustments during the reps.
4. Keep your feet firm on the group - It’s important that your body is correctly placed and not moving during the movement.
5. Move your shoulder blades together - This is key and something that most people do wrong. Make this adjustment before you start the movement, shoulder blades shouldn’t be moving apart. It’s difficult to correct this after you started lifting so do it before.
6. Lower the bar to your chest slowly and controlled - Control the weights as they come down, at first it’s going to be hard and your hands might shake. This means that you haven’t been doing it properly, it doesn’t have to last 10 seconds but keep it slow and steady.
   
7. DO NOT let the bar touch your chest - Almost everybody does this as you probably seen, it’s BAD, don’t do it. Move the bar as close as possible to the chest but DO NOT let it touch the chest.
8. DO NOT grip the bar hard, hands should be relaxed - I say relax but that doesn’t mean that you should let the bar fall on you. Apply common sense and just don’t force the grip on the bar, keep the thumb around the bar but do not squeeze it. This will engage your chest more than ever.
9. Press the bar up slowly - This is important, the pushing movement has to be slow and controlled, image your chest contracting while keeping your hands relaxed all the time. Pushing the bar should last 3-4 seconds.
10. Squeeze your chest muscles at the top to make the connection while keeping your elbows slightly bent. NEVER LOCK OUT THE ELBOWS! - This is also a very common thing people do. Why? Because it’s easier if you lock out, don’t do it. Note: Remember that your shoulder blades are close together all the time, even at the top of the movement.
11. Lower the bar down slowly and controlled again - Thought the movement you are keeping your back arched, hands relaxed, shoulder blades tucked in and controlling the weights.

Congratulations, you now know the perfect bench press form. Also you might already know this or tried it yourself but you never followed through. It’s not flashy, you’ll probably have to decrease the weight you use. But it will get you results and I’d rather pick having a developed chest than 20 kg more in my workout log.

Thanks for the reading, I hope you enjoyed it. As always leave your comments if you liked the article below and feel free to ask me anything I’ll do my sincere best to answer it.

The post A Guide to Perfect Barbell Bench Press Technique for Stubborn Chest Muscles appeared first on ShockingFit.com.

Hey all, long time no hear. The topic that I wanna cover today is related to the a phenomena I see a lot in all gym. It’s a growing obsession with pre workout supplements. Are these supplements really necessary or just a welcome luxury for those who don’t know what to spend money on. I really have a hard time believing that someone is dumb enough to actually think you can get super human strength by spending 30 bucks on Creatine mixture it sure feels like those type ads are working. (If they didn’t we wouldn’t see them everywhere?)

Anyway the issue is, is your money better invested elsewhere like food or other supplement and is using pre workout supplements good for your health?

Do Pre Workout supplements cause any health side-effects?

I personally never had any issues with pre workout supplements and I’ve tried most of the available formulas out there. From my experience only people I’ve ever seen that encountered problems were if they didn’t stick to the recommended dosage. Some guys had massive problems with Jack3d after ingesting 3 scoops of it pre-workout, those side-effects include feeling of weakness, nausea, dizziness which I guess was an issue with blood pressure dropping too low.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with Jack3d it was probably the most popular pre-workout supplement ever, it got removed from the market recently because it contained DMAA (dimethylamylamine) which is itself linked to many possible side-effects. Many will say that it was the best supplement ever made but as you can see the saying “Too good to be true” applies pretty good here. Although the side-effects probably occurred in those who used above recommended dosage is it really that safe to be sold as a natural supplement?

I honestly don’t think it’s worth to gamble with your health for that extra 5% boost you get from these supplements, in the end the results just don’t justify all the trouble. If you notice any side-effects it’s important that you stop using the supplement, throw it in the toilet and trust me you aren’t missing out on anything.

The money is better invested in some quality organic food like broccoli or omega 3 fish.Besides Jack3d other pre-workout supplements have similar formulas without DMAA of course but the major active substance in most of these is Caffeine. So if you are intolerant to high dosages of Caffeine you should read up on the label and see how much of it is inside.

Buying supplements vs buying proper food

This one probably deserves an entire article but I want to mention this topic here as well as it kinda goes with everything said above.

IF your diet isn’t good DO NOT buy any supplements. It’s like building a house without the foundations, it will never work. What do I mean by having a good diet? It’s quite simple, your diet should contain the highest quality vegetable, protein and omega 3 sources available for purchase. Any time someone asks me if they should buy N.O. xplode my answer is “How much broccoli do you eat?” or “Where does your protein come from?”. You hear some crazy answers, and in most cases these people feed their body with the cheapest available food and eat junk.

I see this shit all the time, guys throwing away hundreds of dollars on pre workout boosters and all sorts of amino supplements but they don’t even eat a proper salad with a meal. Why is it so tempting to spend money on powdered stuff?

Get a brain people, supplements are for people who already have everything in line. If your dilemma is between grass-feed beef or BCAA powder take the damn beef, your body will be glad you did.

Cheap Pre Workout I personally use

Alright so now I’m gonna share a little secret with you, it’s something I personally use before my workouts and it’s not a supplements more of a ritual I’d say. So here it goes.

1. 45 min before workout – Take 2 fresh lemons, squeeze the juice out and mix it with 5g of baking soda. Add water until the mixture settles
2. Take a 15 min power nap right after you had your lemon mix
3. 30 min before workout -  Drink 0,3l of warm Green Tea
4. 20 min before workout - Drink a 200 mg Caffeine capsule (These are extremely cheap, 100 capsules is like 10$)
5. Enjoy your super human strength

That’s it, that’s all I do. It’s cheap and extremely effective, most of the expensive supplements contain caffeine anyway and the lemons + nap really cleanses your body and keeps the mind sharp and focused.

I’m curious to see how this ritual affects you, if you are bold enough to try it you can leave your results in the comments section of this article.

Anyway that’s it for today, I hope you enjoy reading this. I’ll probably be writing about this more, especially the dilemma between food and supplements which seems to be a never ending problem.

The post Are Pre Workout Supplements Good and Necessary for You? Find out what I use. appeared first on ShockingFit.com.

About 3 months ago my body was in somewhat of a state. Over the winter period I’d been eating terribly, the kind of eating that you know is bad, and then as if to punish yourself you do it more. Anyway, the net result was my body was flabby and at least 5 kgs overweight.

The strange thing was though, that in the right conditions (usually dehydrated), my physique didn’t actually look too bad. I wasn’t 100% happy with it, but at the same time it wasn’t the worst figure in the world. It felt ‘tight’, if a little flabby.

Deciding to change things, I started doing a rigorous interval training cardio program, figuring that my main goal was just to burn the excess fat I’d put on during winter. This program was essentially a combination of yoga, plyometrics and regular cardio in short bursts, and if the amount I was sweating each workout was anything to go by, it seemed to be quite effective.

And then, around three weeks into this program, a strange thing happened. I looked in the mirror, and my body was the worst I’d ever seen it. It was unbelievable, just how flabby every part of my body was.

Athletic 26 year old got a fat belly from exercising?!

My gut had drooped into a ‘pouch’, and looked like something you’d expect on a middle aged man, not a relatively fit 26 year old. My chest had also drooped to look more like breasts, and there wasn’t a ‘firm’ part of my body to be found.

I couldn’t believe it. You can imagine the disappointment I felt after enduring such a grueling cardio routine for almost a month, only to seemingly go backwards! It wasn’t until I did a little research that I figured out what was actually happening, and all I can say is it is one ugly sign of progress.

Soft fat vs Hard Fat: Understanding the process behind weight loss

Basically what was happening is my body was finally starting to process the old stored fat, in a very big way. As a result of this, blood was starting to circulate around the fatty areas and a long term buildup of ‘hard’ fat was beginning to soften up as it became ready to be consumed by my body. I never really thought about it but then I realized that in some areas of my body I had really low blood circulation and one of those areas was my lower belly. Even after intense workouts that area would still remain colder than the rest of the body.

So to allow the fat in this area to finally burn and be used as energy, your body needs to start opening up capillaries near your skin’s surface and allowing blood to flow through. When you are in a fairly dormant state of little or no exercise, these capillaries close over time as the fatty areas of our body are very hardy and don’t require much in the way of circulation. This increase in circulation and opening of capillaries leads to softening of your subcutaneous fat.

The second factor at play is that you have a certain number of fat cells in your body regardless of your current body composition. The reason your actual fat levels vary is to do with what state the fat cells are in. They can either be filled with fat, or shriveled up and empty, as well as any state in between.

The strange process of replacing burnt fat with water

One theory regarding the appearance of ‘soft’ fat is that when you lose fat deposits quickly from your fat cells, they haven’t had time to get smaller to accommodate, so they fill the extra space with water. This theory was based on a preliminary study, and which admitted to being inconclusive.

To me though this theory of filling with water makes sense purely from a ‘how I felt’ perspective, as I didn’t seem to get bigger or smaller, but rather the weight on me just became very jiggly and soft.

This period lasted for about a week as I continued my routine, but after this time I did start to lose weight appreciably and my body got much more toned and lean.

If you are in a state of sudden exercise-fuelled weight loss, be aware of the potential for this soft fat phenomenon to occur, and just know that there is nothing much more you can do than ‘ride it out’.

At the end of the day it is a very good sign that your body is increasing circulation through old hard fat stores, and this is just an unfortunately ugly road bump on the way to weight loss.

This post was written by Sam Matthews who is a fitness blogger based in New Zealand. Check out his site here.

The post Soft Belly Fat One of The Most Demoralising Signs Of Weight Loss Progress appeared first on ShockingFit.com.

The following products in the natural appetite stimulant supplement category were chosen based on the ease of finding each product on the web under the various search phrases related to Appetite Stimulants. In each test group for the various supplements we review, we approach each category from the perspective of the potential user who is trying to solve a problem- i.e. Fat loss, strength gain, or in this case appetite stimulation. In the case of this test group I took each supplement for 20 days, varying the dosages to optimize effect when necessary, and as a control I am a 230 man with no need for weight gain or appetite increase, so there is zero exterior motive for any of the products to work or placebo effect.

EATMOR by VH Nutrition Review

From what I could tell from EATMOR’s proliferation on the web this is the most popular product in the appetite stimulant category, and after using it for 20 days I know why. Surprisingly I got a noticeable effect on the first dosage. I began by taking 2 capsules as suggested between meals for the first 2 days and could feel my stomach growling after about 30 minutes. Naturally after a few days I doubled the dose to 4 capsules, because I am a bigger guy and often the effectiveness of supplements can vary with body-weight  The 4 capsules actually made me starving. I probably ate the equivalent of 2 extra full meals a day for the final 16 days of the test and by the end had gained 9 lbs. I am not a hard gainer by any means, but I wasn’t trying to gain weight either, so getting that strong of an effect was a little surprising. Especially when you consider the price, which was reasonable at 27 bucks a bottle. I probably spent 4 times that in extra food as a result of using EATMOR, but if what you are after is weight gain then I imagine it’s well worth it. On the whole this product was a great value and actually did what it said it would.

BLACK HOLE by Controlled Labs Review

I had high hopes for Black Hole when I read all of its marketing. Its strongest premise is that it contains compounds in the Canniboid family, and will induce a similar effect on hunger as Marijuana. Essentially “the munchies” in a bottle with some digestive enzymes thrown in to speed gastric emptying. I began by taking as directed and unfortunately felt little in the way of hunger change. As usual I began altering the dosing and changing the time I would take it- on an empty stomach, between meals, before meals. No noticeable effects whatsoever…just to make sure it wasn’t me I lent 5 days worth of product to a friend who is 150 lbs and after a week it was the same result for him. Black Hole was a big disappointment across the board, other than having a decent price point. Of course it matters little how cheap a product is if it fails to do what it claims. In 20 days I gained 0 lbs.

GRUB ON by Anabolic Innovations Review

Conceptually Grub On takes a different route to get to the result. Instead of taking capsules, Grub on comes in an eye dropper liquid form. The user is meant to add 10 drops or so to liquid and drink. Unlike the previous 2 products however this product does not offer immediate results. They claim results in about a week. I have to admit I was a little skeptical of this one because of the waiting time but I used it as recommended and after about 8 days I did notice a general hunger increase I would describe as mild at best. Rather than hunger activation peaking at different times of day as with EATMOR, Grub On’s effects were more constant and far less noticeable…I did however manage to gain 2 lbs in 20 days. Not that bad, as it did do something, but as the most expensive of the 4 products I tested at $45 a bottle I paid roughly $21 per lb, not including food costs. A decent product but probably not worth the money.

ALTERNATIVE HEALTH & HERBS Appetite Stimulant Formula Tincture – 2 fl. oz.

I threw this “Natural Herbal” remedy into the mix because it came up no.1 in the Google shopping results for appetite stimulants. With no marketing behind it and a very low price tag I was skeptical of what its effectiveness would be. Many large Herbal Remedy companies have hundreds of products that they sell for next to nothing because the ingredients are so cheap. However the flip side is often that the products lack the potency to be effective. Unfortunately that was the case with this product. From day 1 to day 20 I felt little to nothing in the way of increased appetite. I did however feel a “relaxed” feeling in my stomach, like my gastrointestinal system was at ease, which was nice. I think this product would work great for people with intestinal problems, frequent gas, stomach irritability, etc… and if those ailments are standing in the way of eating then technically there could be a resulting increase in appetite. But as I have no stomach problems it did nothing for me. In 20 days I gained 0 lbs.

Good Luck out there getting your mind to accept eating more food. Remember to eat good healthy foods as well.

Although personally I’m not a big fan of using any supplements to stimulate appetite I found this guest post to contain a lot of nice experiences for those who want to use these products so I thought it would be cool to share it with you guys. I can’t tell that I ever had issues with appetite especially since I switched over to Leans gains style of eating less frequent bigger meals but I’m guessing if you are doing the old 6-7 meals per day style while hardcore bulking you could benefit from this.

- Mario

The post Appetite Stimulant Supplement Reviews and Test Results from Personal Experience appeared first on ShockingFit.com.

The majority of Americans are overweight and our sedentary habits are only making that statistic grow. We all can comprehend that this is a negative thing, but why do people continue to make unhealthy choices? Is it a genetic defect, a lack of knowledge, environmental causes or something else. If you asked me, I believe that most people just need to start slow, gain momentum and understand their motivation to improve.

We all have habits. Take a moment and think about your day. Odds are that you wake up about the same time each day, eat the same foods, drive the same route to work, eat at and handful of restaurants for lunch, order the same things when you go, talk to the same people, hang out at the same places, etc, etc. We all do it. It is human nature. Now when it comes to losing weight, we have to examine those habits and see if they are helping or hurting our efforts to lose weight.

I have a quote in my gym that says, “Momentum goes both ways.”

I would wager that a young child could tell the difference between a healthy meal and an unhealthy one. Given the choice between and apple and french fries, its easy to know the healthier choice. Should we go for a walk or watch television? Should you get some sleep or stay up playing video games? Should you eat ice cream every night? Is sugary cereal really helping you lose weight and feel better? As we examine our days, it becomes easier to spot unhealthy habits. Its no surprise why some succeed and others struggle with their weight. Its simply a matter of habit. Habits develop momentum, become ingrained in our days and sometimes years will pass before we address them.

Did you take a couple minutes and write down your daily habits?

If not, please do. Becoming conscious of your habits is the first step in making better choices. You can do this for every area of your life, but today I want to focus on health related habits like eating, sleep, exercise, etc.

Ask yourself the following questions:

Did I get 6-8 hours of sleep?

What did I have for breakfast?

What did I have for lunch?

Dinner?

Snacks?

Did I exercise?

How is my stress level?

What I see typically happen, is that people simply react to their day. They are like a boat without a rudder and fail victim to the days events. In order to lose weight and become healthier, its important to plan beforehand and actively navigate through your days.

For starters, lets just start with a few simple habits. After reviewing your daily habits, choose one of two major things that you see that are hurting your weight loss efforts. Maybe you drink soda, eat fast food once in a while and watch television every night. How about we replace the soda with iced tea? To avoid fast food, maybe we can put some healthier snack in the car, office and at home. And instead of watching television every night, maybe we can commit to taking a walk outside, going to a gym or simply doing something active. We don’t need to eliminate every bad habit right away, but we are going to start improving. They key is to start and over time we develop momentum.

As we continue to make better choices, our confidence grows, we start to win every week and you’ll begin to feel better about yourself. Your new awareness of your habits has opened your eyes and you understand what needs to change and how. After about a month you will start to see physical and mental improvements that get you excited. This new found excitement will give you the confidence to make more changes and to try new things. The key is to stay aware of your habits, keep making an effort to improve and never forget why you are making these improvements in the first place.

Lots of people want to lose weight, but only a few make the necessary changes. I believe that the ones who succeed are driven from within. If your motivation is high enough, you will find a way to make it happen. In addition to your small daily habits, take a few minutes and ask yourself why you want to lose wight. Why is important to you and really find the root cause. From my experience, the more emotional the reason is, the more likely you are to stick with your habits, gain positive momentum and continue making choices that lead you toward your goals.

I truly hope you become aware of your habits, develop better choices, develop some momentum and are fueled by your desire to improve. Hopefully, next year, you will look back and smile at how far you’ve come.

Corey Beasley is a strength coach and owner of Innovative Results in Costa Mesa, CA. Innovative Results was voted top Orange County personal trainers and best gym in Orange County for 2012. Their unique, fun approach to fitness has helped thousands of people around Southern California lose weight, feel better and perform at their best.

The post Momentum Goes Both Ways, Remove Habits that Prevent You from Losing Weight! appeared first on ShockingFit.com.