portion control

yes, it's true. we simply eat too much these days. portion control can go a long way when it comes to weight loss efforts. but in order to properly control portions, we first have to know what a portion is. the following are some good visuals to help understand what a portion really is...always a good reminder!

1 serving of fruit or vegetables = 1 cup, or the size of a tennis ball

1 serving of chicken, fish, or meat = 3 ounces, or the size of a woman’s palm or a deck of cards

1 serving of whole grains = 1/2 cup of cooked grains or 1 slice of 100% whole grain bread

1 serving of pancakes = 1 4-inch pancake, about the size of a CD

1 serving of pasta or rice = 1 cup of cooked pasta, or the size of a woman’s fist

1 serving of dressing = 1 tablespoon, or the size of your thumb, tip to the top joint (1 teaspoon is about the size of your thumbnail)

1 serving of potatoes = 1 small (3-ounce) baked potato or ½ cup mashed potatoes, about the size of a small computer mouse

1 serving of cheese = 1 ounce, or about 4 dice stacked on top of each other

1 serving of nuts = 1 ounce, or the size of child’s handful

bacon anyone?

Q: what diet will allow you to eat burgers, bacon, eggs and butter all week long and then sit down to a big plate of pancakes on the weekend with a clear conscience?

A: welcome to the anabolic diet.

today is day 7 and i'm really psyched that i finally decided to give this a try. the basic premise of the anabolic diet is that you eat lots of protein and fats during the week and keep carbs to a minimum (under 30g/day) to deplete your muscles' glycogen stores and then you eat whatever you want on the weekends focusing on eating higher carb foods. glycogen stores are sufficiently depleted by the weekend that the body sends the glycogen straight into the muscles to replenish glycogen stores instead of storing the carbs as body fat. the diet allows your body to switch from burning carbs for energy to burning fat since there are essentially no carbs available.

the anabolic diet is a great fit for me right now for so many reasons. like eat stop eat, no foods are off limits and you can pretty much eat as much as you want (as long as you are eating the right foods at the right times). in fact, on the anabolic diet, you are supposed to eat a lot. the recommendation runs somewhere around 15 to 18 calories per pound of bodyweight. for me that's somewhere around 1950 to 2340 daily calories. which is (for me) a lot of food. let's keep in mind that during my first month and a half of my last transformation, i was eating 6 small meals a day at a caloric deficit which was about 1600 calories a day. also fat and protein don't spike your insulin levels the way that carbs do and i've found in the past that higher fat tends to work well for my body. the other thing that i love is that the diet allows me to be social without having to put so much thought into what i'm eating. if i'm going out with friends, there's always something i can eat...during the week meat with green veggies (it's never hard to find a steak or burger) and on the weekends pasta, rice dishes, sushi, beans...as well some junk food if i so please.

i guess the other thing to mention is the results. i haven't taken measurements in a long time and my scale is still in storage, but i can absolutely see visible results after only a week on the diet. i have lost weight (some of it is water, i'm sure) and i'm already starting to see muscle definition in places that had become just a little too soft. i'm pretty excited to see where i am at this time next week. for now, i'll be enjoying the rest of my carb-fest.

still alive.

okay, so to be perfectly honest the last month has been one of the most stressful and emotionally trying of my life. getting home and trying to redefine my place in the world has been more difficult than i ever could have imagined and i've been an emotional wreck. it's been so difficult for me to maintain everything that i created and worked towards over my last few months in spain, especially being someone who is hardwired to turn to food when i get emotionally overwhelmed. i have to admit that i've done my fair share of that over these past few weeks. what have i learned from it all? well, that eating to escape my emotions didn't work in the past and it still doesn't work. in fact, it sends me into a state of feeling so unbalanced that i literally can't think straight. last week i finally got fed up with feeling that way and decided that it's time to get serious about my training and nutrition again. with everything in my life feeling so uncertain (my career, my relationship, my faith), this is the one area that i know i can control and that taking control of it inevitably makes everything else make more sense. there is this strange correlation between those two and i notice such a difference between my mental state when i'm eating right and exercising that i sometimes wonder if i have a chemical imbalance that exercise corrects...i'm not sure why, but it makes it blindingly clear that i need to make this a # 1 priority in my life. so, at the beginning of this week, i re-committed to the bare minimum of 3 turbulence training workouts per week. i'm combining that with the anabolic diet (low carb/high protein/high fat) because i've wanted to try it for a while and it somehow is what feels most manageable at this point. i'll go into more details about the diet soon for those of you who are unfamiliar. at this point, suffice it to say that today is day 4 on the diet and i feel better than i have in weeks. will try to get pictures up again soon and get back to posting my progress. the bruises hurt a bit but i'm getting my butt back on the bandwagon.

day 4...why i love green beans

another good day so far except that i talked to brian on the phone this morning instead of doing yoga, so i've gotta practice tonight to keep a clean tt conscience. also had another unplanned run in with the museli and cashew butter (is cereal a serious trigger food for anyone else?), but i am definitely noticing progress and i refuse to freak out until i take first week numbers. i'm easing into the challenge this time around to avoid burnout and figure i can always tighten things up towards the end as that is also when i'll be working off that last bit of fat that loves to stick around. and although raisins and dried fruit have a lot of sugar, there are definitely less healthy things that i could be "cheating" with than museli and i get such an immense amount of pleasure out of a few handfuls. besides, if i can get to where i want to be without having to be so neurotic about my nutrition (isn't that the point of ese anyway?) then all the better. and i feel like i eat enough vegetables to feed a small country so i'm not worried about getting the proper nutrition. interestingly enough, i usually go grocery shopping with my roommate because he has a car and it's almost a little embarrassing the difference in the quantity of food that we buy. usually we end up with a 2:1 ratio of bags (keep in mind that he is 1. male and 2. bigger than me) and i often leave pondering how in the world i can consume so much food. then i always have this ah ha moment that more than half of what i'm bringing home is vegetables. sneaky, eh?

seriously though, increased veggie consumption is a pretty easy way to fat loss. i was reflecting on this the other day when i made a super low maintenance meal of green beans, chickpeas, and tahini (um, i was in a hurry). i was sitting down to an enormous plate of food, which is really psychological satisfying for me. but as most of it was green beans i was able to fill up on few calories. i know this is sort of common knowledge (hmm...you can eat more of foods with less calories...really!?!) but i kind of still forget sometimes. but when i'm making a really solid effort to eat clean i it always hits me that, hey, it's pretty cool to be able to put two more cups of food on my plate guilt free, even if it's all green :).

fasting for fat loss...my thoughts on eat stop eat

if you've been following along, you know that i decided to test drive brad pilon's eat stop eat during my transformation. i have to admit that i was a bit skeptical at first, but probably not for the typical reasons. having done several 7-14 day fasts in the past, i wasn't worried about whether i'd be able to manage not eating for a few hours. i do believe in the benefits of fasting when done properly, but all of my past fasting attempts were always subconsciously driven by a desperate attempt to lose weight. and since i was struggling with my relationship with food the fasts would inevitably set me up for binging sooner or later. i found myself in this destructive binge-fast-binge cycle and finally reached the point where i promised myself that i was not going to fast anymore and that i would find a healthy way to lose weight and get into shape. when i came across eat stop eat, i hadn't fasted for almost two years. but what brad said in eat stop eat made so much sense to me that i decided to give it a go. i think what really struck me was that brad presented eat stop eat as a solution to what he has coined "obsessive compulsive eating," which really hit home with me because i had been obsessing over food for as long as i could remember. and in my one month test drive i discovered so many reasons to love eat stop eat. let's see if i can narrow them down to my top 5:

1. it works. i switched over to eat stop eat from 6 meals a day in a caloric deficit. i continued to lose weight at the same, and sometimes even faster rate.
2. it's sooo simple. do your fasts, strength train, and eat sensibly the rest of the time. no calorie counting, no crazy foods, no complicated eating schedules.
3. it saves time. one of my favorite things about eat stop eat is all the time i save on my non-fasting days because i don't have to cook (and clean up after!) five or six meals.
4. it's flexible. if it doesn't work in your schedule to fast one day, you can do it the next. some weeks you can fast more, other weeks less. you can combine it with another healthy nutritional plan (highly recommended!) and only use it occasionally to help your results along. there are so many ways to work it into your lifestyle.
5. it's healthy. brad goes into great detail about all the different benefits that you'll get from adopting the eat stop eat lifestyle, and many of these are directly related to your health. you might be surprised to find how good it feels to give your body a break from eating.

to sum up, i've been really happy with the results of eat stop eat thus far and it seems to fit my lifestyle really well at the moment. in terms of having different tools in my fat loss arsenal, eat stop eat is a definite keeper.

why interval training is your friend.

here's a great article from craig that gives an overview of turbulence training and how he created this amazing system...

The Evolution of Cardio

By: Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS
www.TurbulenceTraining.com

I've been meaning to write this email for a long time. Today I'm
going to give you the story of how I solved the problem of getting an efficient and effective fat loss program finished in 45 minutes. Essentially, how I invented Turbulence Training.

And then I'll end with a sample TT workout for you...

But first, let's take a trip down memory lane to the winter of
98-99. I was but a lowly grad student, studying the effects of
androstenedione (the supplement taken by the might Mark McGwire during his record-breaking home run quest in '98).

In my study (which was published in the Canadian Journal of Applied Physiology for any science nerds like myself out there), we had guys use the supplement and go through a couple of weight training sessions. By February of '99 I was stuck in the lab, analyzing the blood samples using some fancy radio-active isotopes.

And when I say stuck in the lab, I mean STUCK. I'd get there at
7am, and record my last data point at 11pm. Sixteen hours of
mad science. And if I wasn't there, I was downstairs in the
medical library, studying papers on testosterone and training.

Now coming from a very athletic background, this sedentary
lifestyle didn't sit well with me. But there I was, studing for a
degree in Exercise Physiology and left with no time for exercise.
Or so I thought.

Fortunately, I actually had a 50 minute window once per day of
"down-time" while the lab's gamma-counter analyzed blood samples.

That left me 50 minutes to get to the gym (5 minutes across campus) and get a workout in the remaining 40 or so minutes. I knew that if I applied my studies to the workout, I could get maximum results in minimum time.

As a former athlete, I knew that I had to find a way to stay fit
and to avoid the fat gain that comes with working long hours in a
sedentary environment. And I also had to stay true to the
high-school bodybuilder I once was, so there was no way I was
willing to sacrifice my muscle to one of those long-cardio, low
protein fat-loss plans that were popular at the time.

Instead, I had to draw on my academic studies and my experiences working with athletes as the school's Strength & Conditioning Coach.

I knew that sprint intervals were associated with more fat loss
than slow cardio, and I knew that you could also increase aerobic fitness by doing sprints (but you can't increase sprint performance by doing aerobic training).

So clearly, intervals were (and ARE!) superior to long slow cardio.

I had seen first hand the incredible results of sprint intervals in
the summer and fall, as the athletes made huge fitness improvements and shed winter fat in a short time using my interval programs. I knew that intervals had to be the next step in the evolution of cardio.

The biggest benefit of intervals? A lot of results in a short
amount of time. I knew that I only had 40 minutes to train, and
therefore I could only spend 15-20 minutes doing intervals.

Now onto the strength training portion of the workouts. I knew that a high-volume bodybuilding program wasn't going to cut it - I just didn't have time. But in the past year I had read so many lifting studies, that I knew exactly what exercises I needed to do to maximize my lifting time in the gym.

Those exercises were standing, multi-muscle, movements such as squats, presses, rows, power cleans, and plenty of other standing single-leg exercises. I knew that those exercises would bring me far more results than those people sitting on machines would ever achieve.

And I also knew that I had to lift heavier than the average Joe or Jane Gym-goer lifts. I just knew that doing lighter weights and high-reps wasn't going to cut it. And a research study from 2001 later showed that I was right - when women did 8 reps per set, they had a significantly greater increase in post-workout metabolism than if they did 15 reps per set.

So I had my plan. Bust my tail over to the gym, through the cold, dreary Canadian winter afternoon, and do a quick but thorough warmup (specific to my lifts - none of that 5 minutes on the treadmill waste of time).

Once I got through the warm-up, I did as many sets as I could in the remainder of the 20 minutes for strength training.

At that point, I knew that supersets were the only way to go if I
wanted to maximize the number of sets I could do...so the
non-competing superset of Turbulence Training was put in place.

By non-competing, I mean that the 2 exercises in the superset don't interfere with one another. So you can use upper and lower body exercises together, or pushing and pulling exercises. Just be careful not to use two grip-intensive exercises together in a superset - otherwise, one exercise will suffer, if not both.

And then I followed up the strength training with intervals, as I
knew these had to follow the lifting, otherwise it would not be the correct exercise order. Remember, intervals first leads to
premature fatigue. Lift first, cardio later. Forget that old wives
tale about doing cardio first to burn more fat. That's junk.

You know, I remember the exact day and exact workout that this all came together into the Turbulence Training program. It hit me as I was finishing my intervals. I knew I had found something that was like fat loss magic.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find a way to put it in a pill. But I've
been able to put it down on paper in all of the TT manuals.

The exact workout I used that day went like this...

Warm-up
1 set of Bodyweight Squats
1 set of pushups
1 set of Squats with the empty bar
1 set of light dumbbell chest presses
1 set of moderate weight barbell squats
1 set of moderate weight dumbbell chest presses

Strength Training Superset #1
Barbell Squats paired with Dumbbell Chest Presses
3 supersets, aiming for 8 reps per side per set

Strength Training Superset #2
DB Rows paired with Barbell Forward Lunges
3 supersets, aiming for 8 reps per set

Stationary Bike Intervals
After a warmup, I did 6 intervals of 45 seconds work and 45 seconds rest, finishing with a cool-down.

And from that point in time, I've tried to share this and all the
other Turbulence Training workouts with as many men and women as possible. The same men and women that I would see day-in and day-out performing the same ineffective slow-cardio fat loss programs, and not making a darn change month after month. And every day they would see me, soaked in sweat, feeling great and looking lean, and finishing another TT workout.

Eventually I noticed these other men and women weren't around as consistently as before, and then soon enough they would drop out completely - after all, they weren't getting results with their slow cardio and aerobics classes (yep, those were still around in '99!).

And so here we are today...thousands of TT users later, with
national fitness magazines like Men's Health, Men's Fitness, and
Shape spreading the good word about Turbulence Training.

Thousands of TT users, dozens of personal trainers, and even
several national fitness magazines all agree with me, Turbulence
Training is the #1 way to fast fat loss.

Thanks for being a part of the TT Lifestyle Revolution, and for
sharing this new and improved fat loss training and cardio system with the world.

So when you see someone frustrated with their ineffective fat loss program, tell them there is a better way. It's research-based, efficient, and most of all, effective. And yes, it goes against the crowd. But it works.

And it's now better than ever,

Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS
Author, Turbulence Training

PS - Don't know where to start?

If you are a beginner, start by reading Dr. Mohr's nutrition
guidelines...eating properly will be the biggest factor in your
early success.

Beginners should also start with the Introductory TT workouts to prepare their muscles for the upcoming intense training.

For others, it's best to start with the Intermediate Level TT
workouts. If those aren't enough of a challenge, you can move onto the Original TT workout and follow the 16-week advanced program right through.

If at any time you need a break, try the TT Bodyweight 4-week plan.

And then finish off with the bonus programs to cap off a full 24 weeks of Advanced TT fat loss workouts.

About the Author

Craig Ballantyne is a Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist and writes for Men's Health, Men's Fitness, Maximum Fitness, Muscle and Fitness Hers, and Oxygen magazines. His trademarked Turbulence Training fat loss workouts have been featured multiple times in Men’s Fitness and Maximum Fitness magazines, and have helped thousands of men and women around the world lose fat, gain muscle, and get lean in less than 45 minutes three times per week. For more information on the Turbulence Training workouts that will help you burn fat without long, slow cardio sessions or fancy equipment, visit www.TurbulenceTraining.com

why goals?

so i have to admit, i'm a bit of a planner. sometimes this is counterproductive as i can get a bit too bogged down with too much planning and not enough doing. but in the case of the transformation contest, taking the time beforehand to clarify my goal and pinpoint the actions that would get me there was very instrumental to setting me up for success. i'm more concerned with my body composition than scale weight, so my goal for the contest was to achieve 15% body fat and finally see my abs. i started at 24.2%. i found out a bit later that a reasonable goal when it comes to body fat loss is .5% per week. so, although my goal was a bit ambitious, it worked in my favor in the end because having a big goal kept me motivated and on track...and i was still super pleased when i came in at 18.9% at the end of my 12 weeks. the remaining 4% goes in the next challenge, but that's a whole other story.

after you clarify what it is that you want to achieve, it's really important to figure out the reasons WHY you want it. feeling connected to these reasons why will help you to stay strong and focused when the going gets rough. for example, a few of my reasons WHY that i identified before the challenge were:

1) my relationship with food has been such a source of pain for me in my life and i don't want that pain in my life anymore.

2) i am going home in june after almost two years away (i haven't been back to the states since i've been in spain). i want to blow my friends and family away with how good i look.

3) i want to prove to myself that with hard work and discipline i can achieve the unbelievable body that i've always wanted using methods that support my health and well being instead of deteriorating them.

after identifying the reasons why, what comes next is the how. i like to call them action steps. think about the behaviors or habits you need to adopt to get you to where you want to be. figure out the ones that you are willing to commit to. a few of my daily action steps for the last contest were:

1) drink four liters of water
2) avoid all processed sugar
3) eat only whole, clean foods
4) do my TT workout or off day activity
5) get 8 hours of sleep every night

so, to recap, before you jump in to a new fat loss effort, take a bit of time to clarify what you want to achieve, why you want it, and what steps you are willing to commit to in order to get there.

if you really want to get serious about achieving your goals, check out dax moy's magic 100 program. there are several people on ttmembers.com who are using it and raving. dax takes the focus off of goal setting and puts it on goal achievement and he shows you exactly how to make progress in all areas of your life, not just with your health and fitness goals. so if you're feeling a bit stuck, this could be just the injection of inspiration and motivation you need to get moving.

five keys to fat loss success

i had tried so many times in the past to lose weight and always ended up failing miserably. what was different this time? well, this time i finally managed to integrate all five of the following components of fat loss success.

1) get really clear on what you want. sit down and write out a description of your dream body, the actions that you can take to get that body, and specific date that you plan to achieve it by. never underestimate the power of having clear and specific goals and a definite time-frame for their achievement.

2) find a social support network and create accountability. this was always a missing piece of the fat loss puzzle for me in my past attempts at weight loss. the ttmembers.com forum was my support group and the transformation contest helped to keep me accountable.

3) find a nutrition plan that works for you. nutrition is a HUGE part of the fat loss puzzle. it's commonly said that "you can't out-train a bad diet." there are tons of different nutrition plans that you can follow to lose weight. a good place to start is concentrating as much as possible on eating real foods...ie foods that don't come in a can, jar, or box (ex: fruits, veggies, meat/fish/eggs, whole grains). another great step is working to eliminate refined sugars. i also incorporated brad pilon's eat stop eat into my nutritional arsenal and found it to be a very effective fat loss tool.

4) find a strength training plan that works for you. for me this is turbulence training. there are lots of good programs out there though...the important thing is to start lifting weights!

5) incorporate interval training. this has been shown time and time again to give you more bang for your fat loss buck and is an integral part of the turbulence training system.

i will be going into more detail about each of the above points in the days that follow, but this is a good primer for fat loss success.

an 84 day experiment

my final thoughts on my 84 day odyssey:

The TT transformation contest has been an unbelievable journey and an incredible learning experience for me. When I began my transformation, I had been trying for years to lose weight. I was already working out, doing intervals, and eating well much of the time, but I never seemed to make any meaningful progress. I was partially being held back by the destructive cycles that I found myself falling into over and over with food. Intellectually I knew perfectly well what I needed to be eating, but I had had such a difficult and negative relationship with food for so many years that I as soon as I would begin eating healthy and making progress I would immediately sabotage myself by binging only to end up back where I started and more frustrated with myself than before.

The transformation contest finally gave me the accountability and social support that I needed to jump-start permanent change and turbulence training provided me with the fastest and most effective tool to get where I wanted to be. What I appreciate most about Craig’s system is its simplicity. I am now spending less time in the gym than before and getting my best results ever. Of course, although the TT workouts are intense, fun, and incredibly effective, they were only one of several contributing factors to my success. Besides the TT workouts themselves, having a clear goals and a plan to achieve them, eating clean food consistently, finding a diet that worked for me (ESE), and social support and accountability were the other key factors in making my transformation a success. I never realized how much of a difference social support can really make but being surrounded by the other amazing people on the ttmembers.com forum who were all working towards a similar goal and facing similar challenges was an integral part of keeping me motivated and moving towards my goal. The encouragement, advice, knowledge, and inspiration I received from the forum were truly priceless.

During my 12 week journey I lost 15.5 lbs, inches off everywhere, and 5.3% body fat. I feel healthy and strong, I have completely transformed my relationship with food so that I now find that making good food choices is no longer a struggle, I’m closer than ever to my dream body, and I was able to take “after pictures” fitting comfortably into a pair of size 27 jeans that I haven’t fit into in years! And I achieved all of this despite visits from friends, an 11 day trip to Morocco where I had much less control over my nutrition, and being hit by illness at the end of my challenge. I feel confident that the lessons I have learned about goal achievement, accountability, and social support will carry over into all other areas of my life. And with the good habits that I have established over the course of the contest, along with the endless variety of turbulence training workouts, I know that it will be easy for me to make continued progress. It is hard for me to find adequate words to sum up all the different ways that my life has been positively affected by this contest and the gratitude that I feel. I guess the only thing I can say is thanks so much to Craig for creating this incredible system and to all of my fellow transformers who were an unending source of motivation, support, and inspiration. Here’s to round 2.

it's just the beginning

in january of 2008 i realized that i was beginning another year in the same place as every other...feeling out of shape, unhappy about how i looked, and ready to change. the only problem is that i had tried so many times before to lose weight and get into the best shape of my life and after making a little bit of progress, i'd always ended up falling off the wagon and winding up in the same place as (or worse of than) before. but i was determined that this year would be different. and so i went looking for the key to the puzzle that would finally allow me to make some real progress. and i found it in the form of a genius workout system that is spreading like wildfire throughout the fitness world: turbulence training. there are several reasons that i think that turbulence training is such an effective system and was "the one" that is finally getting me where i want to be. these include:

1-it's fast, efficient, and effective. you only have to commit to 3 short (45 minute) workouts a week.

2-craig knows his stuff and has created a system that works for EVERYONE (who works the system) and will get you maximum results in minimum time

3-it's simple. you can do it on a boat, you can do it in a moat. you can do it at your gym or you can do it while you swim. seriously, gym, home gym, bodyweight exercises...craig's covered it all so you can do it where you're comfortable, working with whatever equipment you have or don't have, and still get amazing results.

4-the ttmembers.com forum is incredible. the support and encouragement i received throughout the contest on this forum was highly instrumental to my success so far.

for added accountability and to be sure that i kept myself on track, i joined the first ever turbulence training transformation contest. during my 12 week challenge, i used turbulence training, combined with a clean foods diet, to lose 15.5 pounds and 5.3 percent body fat.

so, now i've made this great transformation and the question is...what's next? well i've still got some personal body composition goals that i'm chasing after, including visible abs and 15% body fat, so the transformation certainly doesn't stop here. and then i'll be moving into the wooly world of maintenance, where great fun is sure to await me. this blog will be just one more way to of keeping myself accountable and on track towards my health and fitness goals. so stay tuned, the journey has really only just begun!