BodyBlitz 10 Rep EZ

Alright BodyBlitzers - Last week was TOUGH!  I thought this would be a good week to ease up, but just a bit! We're ditching the timer this week and going with a 10 rep per move workout.

Here it is - tons of new moves, get ready!

Letter: Should I try the Primal Blueprint?

Question: Should I try the Primal Blueprint?  I'm close to my goal weight and lift weights regularly.  I don't want to get any smaller (more like a runner) and just want to tone, but I'm concerned about losing energy.  Do you struggle with energy since you went Primal?

Steve: My exact diet is a combination of Primal and The Anabolic Diet.  With my goals being lose about 2% body fat and gain muscle, I'm pretty close to as small as I would like to be (173.6 today - which is getting close to my all time smallest).  I did feel a reduction in energy for the first week or 10 days, but then it bounced back.  Here's the thing though - you can't go "kind of" low carb.  Or you'll most likely feel like crap.

It takes about 2-5 days (everyone's different) to switch from burning glycogen (carbs) for fuel to burning fat (both dietary and body fat) for fuel.  During this time, your energy will dip because your body is still looking for new glycogen reserves to burn.  During that depletion time, it's normal to be tired and have workouts suffer, but after you make that fundamental switch, your energy will bounce back better than ever.  Why better?

We only carry a very small amount of glycogen at any time.  When you eat a huge carb meal, your body replaces what glycogen you need, then stores the rest as fat... that's no good.  Then when you run out of glycogen, you will get tired, and need to replenish it with more carbs.  This is why so many people really have to eat every 3 hours - to replace the small amount of glycogen that we can store in the body.  Also, this is why you often get tired after eating a huge carb meal (in addition to a minor gluten intolerance that many people have).

When you're fully converted to living off fat, you won't run out of energy to burn.  Ever!  We have so so so much fat to use for energy that you can go all day.  My endurance is better than ever, even for long runs, or multiple training sessions.  You don't run out of fat, not only because you have basically unlimited, but also because 1g of fat contains 9 calories (energy) where 1g of carbs = only 4.  You get a lot more bang for you buck (or pound for you I suppose!)

Some people who go primal never quite get here though because their carb intake is still too high for the initial cross over.  For the first 2 weeks, the Anabolic Diet recommends going almost no carb.  I still ate a big amount of spinach to help my bathroom situation be more regular, but kept it to under 30g for the first 12 days.   Then I do a weekly carb up.  This is strictly for muscle building.

When you're on a ketogenic (extremely low carb) diet, you primarily lose fat, but there is a small muscle loss as well.  Since I don't want this, I do a weekly carb up, in order to fill my muscles with a big glycogen stores for 2 big weight training sessions Mon-Tue (I carb up on Sunday usually).  I can lift and build huge muscle, then by Wednesday, I'm back in ketosis, leading to fat loss again, but the glycogen left over in my muscles is the first to go out, rather than my newly made muscle size.

I have yet to find anything that proves that eating low carb for the long haul shows any risk at all.  There are study after study that fail to show eating high fat diets as raising LDL, hardening arteries, increased risk of heart disease and in fact, many of them show a decreased risk of cancer.  Even saturated fat (which you eat a lot of on Primal and Anabolic Diet) is not shown to increase risk of heart disease.  The U.S. government recommendations to eat low saturated fat (and low fat in general) is actually based on..... get ready for this - only 2 studies.  1 showed a very slight advantage to eating low fat and the other showed that eating low fat, high carb actually INCREASES your chances to die from heart disease.  The American Heart Association threw out the findings of the second study (actually done in England).

I would recommend, first, reading the book The Primal Blueprint (or researching it on the web - most of the information is there) and then deciding to go all in or not.  Marginally primal will leave you drained and still looking for carbs/glycogen - I won't lie, the first week is tough - but if you make it through, it gets so easy!

Speaking of that, I'm going to hit the treadmill for some weighted walking before my training session.

Have fun,

Steve

Letter: How should I eat while doing Insanity?

Question: How should I eat while doing P90X or Insanity.  I've been following 40% Protein / 40% Carbs / 20% Fat and 1200 calories.  (I'm actually combining two emails I got today here)

Steve: That sounds like the right percentages.  I kind of think the fat is low and carbs are high - but for what Insanity recommends, that's on it.  I think many people who are doing P90X and Insanity are looking to lose weight (obviously) and thus under eating.  Since I nearly doubled my calories from what I was doing at the end of P90X the first round, I weigh slightly less and look much better.

I use the Anabolic Diet formula for calories - it's easy and quick.

Realistic Goal Bodyweight x12 for losing fat
Realistic Goal Bodyweight x15 for maintaining
Realistic Goal Bodyweight x18 for gaining muscle

As long as your food is super clean, don't worry about gaining while working out.  However, if you have a treat a day (for example, an ice cream sandwich at night if you can afford the calories) then this probably will be too high.  I never ever have treats Sunday-Friday, then Saturday I carb load, which includes sometimes a treat or two.  If your food is crazy clean, you can eat a lot more than you probably think you can!

When I say realistic goal bodyweight - what I mean is.... if you're currently 230 pounds and want to get to 115.... well, you'll get there - but that's not your realistic goal!  Think more like 190 or so, then shoot for that, when you accomplish that, move it to 150 etc.

Letter of Advice to a Woman Seeking Weight Loss

I write a lot of emails with my advice, and it just occurred to me, there are likely more people out there with the same questions.  I'll start putting some of the interesting questions up here, of course, I'll edit out names.

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Nutrition Identical Days - EZ Style

Cardio day - I gotta be honest, I was going to do legs today, but finally my sore butt kicked in from the Sunday 400 Rep Challenge.  It's weird, I wasn't sore at all on Monday, so I changed the plan of P90X Chest/Shoulders/Tri and did just heavy lifting CST as well.  After 400 burpees, I expected my chest/arms to be super sore, but really it was my butt today.  The plan was going to be 500 kettlebell swings, but as I was warming up, my glutes were screaming.  After thinking about doing BodyBlitz about 2 hours later, I decided it was not a good choice to swing the KB today.  I'll knock it out tomorrow or Thursday.

I'm still hovering around 3,000 calories every day and 35% Protein, 65% Fat and basically no carbs.  The only carbs I eat each day is one or two bowls of baby spinach or spring mix greens from a bag with some sort of meat seasoned over top.  I was talking to a friend about what to eat on the Primal/Anabolic Diet.  She is so confused on what to eat.  I don't know why, but I honestly have no issue eating almost the same thing every day.

BodyBlitz Good Luck With That

Hell... We're all going to hurt a lot.

BodyBlitz Super Destruction Time

OK, BodyBlitzers.  Here's a preview of this week's workout.  Lots of Abs/Core work here - you're gonna love it.  (well.... maybe)