Q: I need to drop some bodyfat! Do you have any tips?
A: Your note didn’t indicate whether you’re currently involved in an exercise program, but the fact that you’re reading IRON MAN tells me that you’re headed in the right direction. If you’re not working out at the moment, I suggest you start your day with an early morning cardio session. I usually recommend beginning with 20 to 30 minutes per day, but even 10 to 15 minutes will get your metabolism cranking the first thing in the morning.
A weight-training program is also crucial for increasing your resting metabolic rate—the calories that your body burns at rest. If you don’t already have a good weight-training program in place, you should check out my e-book, The Texas Shredder Mass Workout, for some basic programs. By combining early-morning cardio, a solid weight-training plan and a good, clean diet, you’ll quickly turn your body into a fat-burning machine!
Here are my diet tips. First of all, start recording everything you put into your mouth. I’ve had clients who could talk a really good diet, but they weren’t fully aware of how much they were eating until they started writing it down. I had one particular young woman who knew what to eat and trained like an animal on both weights and cardio but was still carrying about 25 to 30 pounds of extra bodyfat. When I finally convinced her to start writing down everything that she ate—and she turned it in for my review on a weekly basis—she started losing two pounds per week, even though she was still eating some things that she wasn’t supposed to eat.
The act of recording it made her acutely aware of exactly what she was consuming, and it improved her diet dramatically (she ended up losing 17 pounds of fat in the first two months).
You can carry a small spiral notebook and write down the foods and drinks as you eat them, or you can use one of the many nutrition apps that are available for your smart phone. In 2009 I started using “Lose It” on my iPod Touch. I’ve found it to be extremely convenient and user-friendly—even for someone as technologically challenged as I am.
On a really simple level, here are the things I tell my new clients who are coming from an ordinary American diet and want to lose bodyfat.
• Cut out fried foods. Eating fried foods is not even a last resort—it’s not an option!
• Drop anything that’s greasy. That includes pizza, hamburgers, sausage and tacos.
• Switch from high-calorie desserts to fresh fruit. If you absolutely have to satisfy that sweet tooth, slice up some fruit or take a bowl of berries and sprinkle Splenda on it.
• Cut the amount of starches you are eating in half.
• Eat a relatively lowfat protein at every meal—for example, poultry breast, fish, lean red meat, egg whites.
• Supplement with essential fatty acids before meals (Udo’s Oil 3-6-9 Blend is my favorite). Note: Next month I will talk more about the benefits of supplementing with EFAs.
Just following the first four suggestions will make a major dent in the number of calories that you’re getting and put you on the road to dropping a significant amount of bodyfat.
Once again, record your food intake. It will make you much more aware of what you’re taking in and when you hit a plateau in your fat loss, you will be able to see where you can make cuts and fine-tune your diet.
Start your day with an invigorating session of cardiovascular exercise to fire up your fat-burning furnace—and don’t fail to stoke that furnace with regular kick-butt weight-training workouts. Be patient and persistent. Before you know, it you’ll be the guy on the beach who everyone else wants to look like.
Train hard and eat clean!
Note: Dave’s new e-book, The Texas Shredder Mass Workout, is available at www.X-Workouts.com. His DVD, “Dave Goodin’s Texas Shredder Contest Prep”, is available at www.Home-Gym.com.
Editor’s Note: See Dave Goodin’s blog at www.IronManMagazine.com. Click on the blog selection in the top menu bar. To contact Dave directly, send e-mail to [email protected]. IM
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