Archivi tag: figure model

The Low Body Fat Secret Of Bodybuilders & Fitness Models

Title: The Low Body Fat Secret Of Bodybuilders And Fitness Models
By line: By Tom Venuto, CSCS, NSCA-CPT
URL #1: www.BurnTheFat.com
URL #2www.Burnthefatinnercircle.com
Word count: 1322 words

The Low Body Fat Secret Of Bodybuilders And Fitness Models
By Tom Venuto, NSCA-CPT, CSCS
www.BurnTheFat.com
www.Burnthefatinnercircle.com

The secret to getting super lean – I’m talking about being RIPPED, not just “average body fat” – is all about mastering the art of “peaking.” Most people do not have a clue about what it takes to reach the type of low body fat levels that reveal ripped six-pack abs, muscle striations, vascularity and extreme muscular definition, so they go about it completely the wrong way.

Here’s a case in point: One of my newsletter subscribers recently sent me this question:

Tom, on your www.burnthefat.com website, you wrote:

‘Who better to model than bodybuilders and fitness competitors? No athletes in the world get as lean as quickly as bodybuilders and fitness competitors. The transformations they undergo in 12 weeks prior to competition would boggle your mind! Only ultra-endurance athletes come close in terms of low body fat levels, but endurance athletes like triathaletes and marathoners often get lean at the expense of chewing up all their muscle. Some of them are nothing but skin and bone.’

“There seems to be a contradiction unless I’m missing something. Why do bodybuilders and fitness competitors have to go through a 12 week ‘transformation’ prior to every event instead of staying ‘lean and mean’ all the time? If they practice the secrets exposed in your book, they should be staying in shape all the time instead of having to work at losing fat prior to every competitive event, correct?”

There is a logical explanation for why bodybuilders and other physique athletes (fitness and figure competitors), don’t remain completely ripped all year round, and it’s the very reason they are able to get so ripped on the day of a contest…

You can’t hold a peak forever or it’s not a “peak”, right? What is the definition of a peak? It’s a high point surrounded by two lower points isn’t it?

Therefore, any shape you can stay in all year round is NOT your “peak” condition.

The intelligent approach to nutrition and training (which almost all bodybuilders and fitness/figure competitors use), is to train and diet in a seasonal or cyclical fashion and build up to a peak, then ease off to a maintenance or growth phase.

I am NOT talking about bulking up and getting fat and out of shape every year, then dieting it all off every year. What I’m talking about is going from good shape to great (peak) shape, then easing back off to good shape…. but never getting “out of shape.” Makes a lot of sense, doesn’t it?

Here’s an example: I have no intentions whatsoever of walking around 365 days a year at 4% body fat like I appear in the photo on my website. Off-season, when I’m not competing, my body fat is usually between 8 – 10%. Mind you, that’s very lean and still single digit body fat.

I don’t stray too far from competition shape, but I don’t maintain contest shape all the time. It takes me 12-14 weeks or so to gradually drop from 9.5% to 3.5%-4.0% body fat to “peak” for competition with NO loss of lean body mass…using the same techniques I reveal in my e-book.

It would be almost impossible to maintain 4% body fat, and even if I could, why would I want to? For the few weeks prior to competition I’m so depleted, ripped, and even “drawn” in the face, that complete strangers walk up and offer to feed me.

Okay, so I’m just kidding about that, but let’s just say being “being ripped to shreds” isn’t a desirable condition to maintain because it takes such a monumental effort to stay there. It’s probably not even healthy to try forcing yourself to hold extreme low body fat. Unless you’re a natural “ectomorph” (skinny, fast metabolism body type), your body will fight you. Not only that, anabolic hormones may drop and sometimes your immune system is affected as well. It’s just not “normal” to walk around all the time with literally no subcutaneous body fat.

Instead of attempting to hold the peak, I cycle back into a less demanding off-season program and avoid creeping beyond 9.9% body fat. Some years I’ve stayed leaner – like 6-7%, (which takes effort), especially when I knew I would be photographed, but I don’t let my body fat go over 10%.

This practice isn’t just restricted to bodybuilders. Athletes in all sports use periodization to build themselves up to their best shape for competition. Is a pro football player in the same condition in March-April as he is in August-September? Not a chance. Many show up fat and out of shape (relatively speaking) for training camp, others just need fine tuning, but none are in peak form… that’s why they have training camp!!!

There’s another reason you wouldn’t want to maintain a “ripped to shreds” physique all year round – you’d have to be dieting (calorie restricted) all the time. And this is one of the reasons that 95% of people can’t lose weight and keep it off –they are CHRONIC dieters… always on some type of diet. Know anyone like that?

You can’t stay on restricted low calories indefinitely. Sooner or later your metabolism slows down and you plateau as your body adapts to the chronically lowered food intake. But if you diet for fat loss and push incredibly hard for 3 months, then ease off for a while and eat a little more (healthy food, not “pigging out”), your metabolic rate is re-stimulated. In a few weeks or months, you can return to another fat loss phase and reach an even lower body fat level, until you finally reach the point that’s your happy maintenance level for life – a level that is healthy and realistic – as well as visually appealing.

Bodybuilders have discovered a methodology for losing fat that’s so effective, it puts them in complete control of their body composition. They’ve mastered this area of their lives and will never have to worry about it again. If they ever “slip” and fall off the wagon like all humans do at times … no problem! They know how to get back into shape fast.

Bodybuilders have the tools and knowledge to hold a low body fat all year round (such as 9% for men, or about 15% for women), and then at a whim, to reach a temporary “peak” of extremely low body fat for the purpose of competition. Maybe most important of all, they have the power and control to slowly ease back from peak shape into maintenance, and not balloon up and yo-yo like most conventional dieters!

What if you had the power to stay lean all year round, and then get super lean when summer rolled around, or when you took your vacation to the Caribbean, or when your wedding date was coming up? Wouldn’t you like to be in control of your body like that? Isn’t that the same thing that bodybuilders and fitness/figure competitors do, only on a more practical, real-world level?

So even if you have no competitive aspirations whatsoever, don’t you agree that there’s something of value everyone could learn from physique athletes? Don’t model yourself after the huge crowd of losers who gobble diet pills, buy exercise gimmicks and suffer through starvation diets like automatons, only to gain back everything they lost! Instead, learn from the leanest athletes on Earth – natural bodybuilders and fitness competitors…

These physique athletes get as ripped as they want to be, exactly when they want to, simply by manipulating their diets in a cyclical fashion between pre-contest “cutting” programs and off season “maintenance” or “muscle growth” programs. Even if you have no desire to ever compete, try this seasonal “peaking” approach yourself and you’ll see that it can work as well for you as it does for elite bodybuilders.

If you’re interested in learning even more secrets of bodybuilders and fitness models, visit the Burn The Fat website at: www.BurnTheFat.com

 

About the Author:

Tom Venuto is a lifetime natural bodybuilder, an NSCA-certified personal trainer (CPT)Tom Venuto 8

and a certified strength& conditioning specialist (CSCS).

Tom is the author of the #1 best-selling e-book, “Burn the

Fat, Feed The Muscle,” which teaches you how to get lean

without drugs or supplements using the secrets of the

world’s best bodybuilders and fitness models. Learn how

to get rid of stubborn body fat and increase your

metabolism by visiting: www.BurnTheFat.com. To learn more about Tom’s Fat Loss

Support Community, visit: www.Burnthefatinnercircle.com

Bodybuilding Nutrition:The World’s Most Balanced Diet Program?

Title: Bodybuilding Nutrition:The World’s Most Balanced Diet Program?

By line: By Tom Venuto, CSCS, NSCA-CPT

URL: www.BurnTheFat.com!

Word count: 2037 words

If I said that bodybuilding nutrition is the world’s most balanced and flexible way of eating, some people might think I was crazy.

I mean, aren’t bodybuilders notorious for eating totally bland foods, following highly restrictive diets and even sacrificing all their social life (never eat at restaurants, etc)?

Unfortunately, a lot of people believe those myths due to decades of stereotyping and more recently due to misinformation being spread on the internet.

Actually, with the possible exception of the final phases of the pre-contest bodybuilding diet (where a lot of discipline really is required – just like any competitive sport), nothing could be further from the truth!

Why should you care? Especially if you’re not a bodybuilder? Simple – the body building lifestyle, in my opinion and experience, is the most effective way of building muscle and burning fat on planet Earth. Want more muscle and less fat? If so, then this is for YOU.

I contend that bodybuilding nutrition has not only been unjustly criticized and misunderstood, but that INDEED bodybuilding nutrition it is the most balanced, flexible, healthy and fun way to eat. It has been for me.

First, Let’s Re-define Body Building!

Most people have a preconceived notion of what bodybuilding is. They envision some beefcake, like the dude in that recent Geico commercial (pretty damn funny actually, but comedy aside for a moment, it does portray the stereotypical bodybuilder).

When I say “body building” I’m NOT talking about looking like that guy. (Well, unless that’s what YOU want). That’s only competitive bodybuilding at the top of the pro level – a tiny corner of the “Body – Building” Universe.

Do you want to build your body? Build strength? Build muscle? Build HEALTH? If so, YOU ARE A BODY-BUILDER!

Who doesn’t think building your body is a GOOD thing? So please, broaden your definition and allow your mind to open!

The truth about bodybuilding nutrition
When I started eating and training like a body builder decades ago, all we had was men’s bodybuilding and women’s bodybuilding.

Today, we have men’s bodybuilding, physique and fitness model. The women have even more options: bodybuilding, physique, fitness, figure, fitness model and bikini divisions.
Today, it’s no longer just “bodybuilding” – the competitive bodybuilding universe has spread to a whole group of new “physique sports” and each one has different levels of muscularity to match the judging criteria.
This is fantastic, because now the public appeal is much wider.
Millions of men and women would love to have the “Men’s Fitness” or “Figure Athlete” look rather than the much bulkier competitive bodybuilder look. But in all these physique contests, though they differ in size, you still see the leanest, most muscular bodies in the world.

How do all these bodybuilders and fitness models get so lean? How do they get such chiseled bodies?

What they have in common is that the vast majority of these physique athletes eat the same way – traditional bodybuilding nutrition.
Unfortunately, the greatest misconceptions and stereotypes of all are about how body-builders eat and what that means to how you live your lifestyle…

More than ever before – because of the way misinformation (and personal idealology) is spread on the internet – bodybuilding nutrition has been portrayed as some kind of jail sentence.
There are online gurus (and hordes of their “sheeple” followers) who make it sound like we bodybuilders are somehow “locked up” by our disciplined lifestyle and we need to be “liberated.”

I’m telling you, this is not only total nonsense, the exact opposite is true. I’m the most free and liberated eater I know. Everything I do is by choice, and I have NO hang-ups about food whatsoever.

And when it comes to contest dieting (which IS a different animal), since when did discipline stop being a virtue? When did leaving no stone unturned stop being what EVERY competitive athlete MUST do to win?
I believe that bodybuilding nutrition is the most balanced and flexible of all the diet programs. I could write for pages about this, but looking at what we eat alone makes the case as clear as crystal.

Allowed foods vs. forbidden foods

In the current issue of Alan Aragon’s excellent monthly research review, Alan writes:
“Complete food avoidance – regardless of the food – often does more harm than good. People tend to place a taboo mystique upon foods that they are not on the “allowed” list. It’s as if people become young children again, and do what it takes to pry open or climb up to the cookie jar of forbidden goodies instead of learning how to moderate their intake.”
Right there, Alan has nailed the biggest problem in the diet industry today. Almost every diet program – and especially the fear-based advertising campaigns they rely on – are based on naming dietary scapegoats and banishing them from your life…. completely… forbidden.. as in “The 5 foods to NEVER eat” and so on.
Guess what? We don’t do that in bodybuilding nutrition – people just erroneously believe we do.
On the year round muscle-building and maintenance phase, I eat from every food group on a regular basis and – let me say it again – NOTHING IS FORBIDDEN on a bodybuilding nutrition program, such as Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle. It’s a simple matter, as Alan wrote, of learning how – and how much – to moderate your intake.
Compare it and see for yourself:

Cave man Diet? Let’s suppose you go on one of those popular “stone age” or “hunter-gatherer” diets. You want some milk or yogurt or cheese? No sir. Not allowed! Our cave man ancestors didn’t drink milk, they say, so YOU certainly can’t have any!

Low carb diets? What if you want some oatmeal for breakfast? Nope, can’t have it. How about some rice – a staple food of the longest living Asian cultures in the world? Nope, can’t have it! A banana? surely you can have THAT? … NOPE! BANNED!

Low glycemic index (GI) diets? What if you want a nice baked white potato with that chicken and vegetable? NO SIR! FORBIDDEN!

I could go on and on through a dozen more diet programs, but by now you should see what’s going on here. Traditional diet programs are all about taking things away from you – stealing your freedom… demonizing entire food groups. In bodybuilding nutrition, ALL the food groups are represented.

Naturally of course, there are health and medical reasons why people need to eliminate certain foods. If you’re allergic or intolerant to a food, I’m not suggesting you eat those foods “in moderation.” I often tell my readers that it’s the dose that makes the poison. However, if something is toxic to me, I reckon that the best dose of that food is zero.

I’m with you on that. But health and medical conditions are not what I’m talking about here. I’m not a doctor. I’m talking about transforming your physique, not treating medical problems.

Why bodybuilding nutrition is more balanced than any of the popular “diet” programs

In bodybuilding nutrition, what’s missing? Tell me, what food groups are you NOT allowed to eat?

With bodybuilding nutrition we get to (and love to) eat cheese, yogurt, cottage cheese and of course milk – one of the best high quality protein sources on Earth.

On the bodybuidling diet, we enjoy chicken, turkey, fish, shellfish, egg whites, whole eggs and of course our red meat. And if it suits your value system, you can certainly choose grass fed beef, sustainable seafood only and even organic. You can even pass on the meat completely if you want – It’s YOUR choice.

Fruit? Absolutely! sure, some low carbing competitors are known to remove fruit temporarily – but fruit is absolutely a part of the lifestyle.

Starchy carbs and natural whole grains? YESSS! Even on the pre-contest diet, I still take high carb “re-feed” days (and man is that bread and pasta good!) What if you dont want grains or you dont want dairy, etc etc? NO PROBLEM! Don’t eat them! The flexiblity works both ways. On a bodybuilding nutrition program, you don’t have to eat anything you dont want, and you CAN eat just about any real food you do want!

Now, OF COURSE we don’t recommend drinking soda or eating candy bars, but come on – that’s not even real food – that’s, like Michael Pollan once said, “edible food like substances.” Processed foods and refined junk food shouldn’t even have to enter the conversation. We’re talking about REAL FOOD here.

But even with “junk food” you have leeway.

At least a couple times a week, I go out to really nice restaurants and eat any damn thing I please. Wine? Check! Bread? check! Dessert? Not often, but if I want it, SURE! Or, maybe I just go around the corner and grab a couple of big slices of cheesy pizza!

How is THAT possible? Easy. There’s a “compliance rule” built into a good bodybuilding nutrition program.

For example, If I have a list of “staple” foods that I eat every day, I stick to that about 90% of the time and then the other 10%, I eat whatever the heck I want. Absolutely NOTHING forbidden. Anything goes. AND – it’s easier for us because we train so hard. Couch potatoes can’t get away with it so much.

Welcome to bodybuilding nutrition – It’s actually not a diet at all – it’s a lifestyle!

I remember reading Joe Weider’s editorials in Muscle and Fitness magazine when I was just a teenager, and he always said it – “bodybuilding is a lifestyle.” He was right. Because now, 30 years later, I’m still living it. How about you? Have you kept up your eating style for as long? Will you? Or will whatever diet you’re on now end up being the latest passing fad and you’ll look back with embarrassment and regret?

What about that “contest prep” eating plan I mentioned before? Yes, I admit – that IS a “diet.” It’s a stricter version of the eating plan, but keep in mind, that is a not only for a tiny corner of the body-building universe, it’s also for a short period of time before the contest season.

Usually, pre contest diets DO involve cutting carbs and other restrictions. But guess what? When you understand the bodybuilding contest diet, you can not only lose weight or reach a normal or ideal body fat level – if you choose to, you can go all the way and get ripped – lean enough to see six pack abs. Any diet can take weight off. Not every diet can get you ripped while keeping all the lean body mass.

Body building nutrition is simple and it’s POWERFUL for this very reason – YOU pick the level of restriction required, depending on how intense your goal is… whether that’s a casual cut for the beach, or a shot at a national physique title. Either way, this style of eating gives you MORE flexibility and MORE choice, not less.

This bodybuilding nutrition system is exactly what I have been using myself and teaching to others for the past 3 decades

I didn’t invent this type of eating program, so I can’t take all the credit. Champion bodybuilders were using these methods long before I was. I learned it from MY mentors, and simply fine-tuned it for my own body type. Now I’m here to pass it on to you.

My part was to put the bodybuilding nutrition system on paper into what has now become the best selling fat loss ebook of it’s kind on the internet for the last 10 years: www.BurnTheFat.com!(BFFM)

To learn more about BFFM, visit the home page here:

www.BurnTheFat.com!

In the upcoming articles / newsletters, this series continues, as I teach you about the carb intolerant body type and how to tweak your carbs (starchy carbs / grains) for maximum fat loss (I’ll teach you the basics of the “contest diet.”)

I’ll cover how to make bodybuilding nutrition recipes taste zesty and delicious. Then finally, I will introduce you to my brand new meal planning software, which has been in beta all summer and is almost ready to be unleashed. Until then…

Train hard and expect success,

Tom Venuto, author of: www.BurnTheFat.com!