The Ultimate Eating Out Survival Guide.

So you’re on a diet, but an occasion comes up in which sticking to it becomes difficult. It might be a night out, a party, a wedding or maybe you’re just travelling and don’t have the ability to cook. The opportunity to say ah fu*k it shows itself, do you give in? I’m going to help you screw the ah fu*k it and stay on track. The key to results is consistency, so if you let occasions like this take you off track too often, you’ll lose that consistency and therefore any potential results.

Here is your Step by Step Eating Out Survival Guide:

1) Follow a Flexible Diet

This hopefully isn’t new to you, but if it is, flexible dieting essentially means that you give yourself a break. You screw up one day, or maybe just one meal, as long as you’re consistent with the majority of your meals you’re A OK.

Basically, when an occasion like this crops up, you do your best and then the next day, you get back on your nutrition plan.

The great thing with this approach is that because you allow yourself some flexibility you never feel the need to stray from your diet. You know as long as you’re on the straight and narrow most of the time, you will see results. You have the bigger picture in mind. Thus, we avoid binges or cheat meals, so instead when you screw up one day you don’t say ah f*ck it and just drop your diet, you get back on it the next.

2) Plan Ahead

So you get flexible dieting, but you’re extra eager to stay on track, you want results as fast as they can come. Therefore, you want to plan ahead. Know you’re eating out with friends in the evening?

Why not check out the restaurants menu beforehand, select something that fits within your diet and then work your day around it.

That way you know you’ll be on track. However, restaurant food is not like home cooked food, the chef doesn’t care about your fitness goals, they only care about making food taste good. That means they’ll not worry about adding extra butter, oil or sugar to your food. So expect the food you eat out to be higher in total calories than meals you would make yourself.

Some insider tips:
– Many chains give you the nutritional breakdown of their meals, so make sure to do a google search beforehand.
– Pick easy to guestimate meals e.g. steak and chips, pasta with tomato sauce, Margherita pizza etc.
– Ask for any dressings on the side & vegetables without added butter.
– Search for the meal in question on myfitnesspal & use a suggestion that looks about right.
– Over-estimate fats & under-estimate protein.
– Enter the components of the meal into myfitnesspal & use cups to guestimate quantities e.g. a cup of rice, half a cup of chips etc.

As you eat out more often, you’ll get better. Like anything practice makes perfect. For example, I love pizza so I used to eat out at Pizza Express a lot because they provide their nutritional information. Great! But I wanted to try other joints, so overtime I became more confident in my ability to guestimate other pizzas. You too can do the same with any meals. If you’re someone who weighs their food and tracks the nutrition, you should have a good idea of how many calories are in different foods. Plus remember tip number 1, you should be following a flexible diet, and by estimating you’re doing really well, and if you’re off by a little bit it isn’t a worry as long as you get back to your home cooking soon enough.

3) Create Buffer

This one I find very handy, and makes complete sense, make yourself some buffer room so you can enjoy more grub.

Basically, you change your calorie output or intake in and around the event, thus creating a buffer.

While I do not advise doing a bunch of what I call ‘guilt cardio’ I don’t see anything wrong with trying to increase your NEAT (Non Exercise Activity Thermogenesis). Doing extra cardio for me rings alarm bells. In my past I remember binge drinking and then doing very long runs the next morning, this is what I call ‘guilt cardio’. To me this is an unhealthy relationship to have with food, and in future can lead to problems. However, making sure you don’t just sit on your butt all day and actually get up and go for a walk I do agree with. For example, you have a takeaway with friends or family, instead of falling asleep on the sofa, maybe you go for a 30 minute walk.

Or during the day before the event you decide to do some housework you have been putting off, or clean the car. That way you can nail two birds with one stone, getting something productive done while giving yourself some extra buffer for the event. For me the big difference between this and doing the extra cardio work is that you don’t measure this NEAT, you are just more aware of your activity in the day, whereas with the cardio you might be tempted to think ‘Oh I must have burnt 1000 calories doing that’ and then overeat at the event, and I feel that sets you up for failure.

Another way you can create buffer is to use one of the ‘Flexible Pillars’ from Get Big, Stay Lean. I use this Pillar with all my clients, and it is moving up to 20% of your calories from one day to another. Why 20%? Well I think this is enough to give a decent amount of room, but not so much that it messes with another day. Say you’re usually on 2000 calories a day, you can take up to 400 calories and move them from one day to another, so you would consume say 1600 calories before the event and then on the day of the event 2400 calories. You could even take this a step further and spread those calories, so still having 2400 calories on the day, but taking 100 calories from 4 other days, having 1900 calories. Obviously the more calories you have to play with the more buffer this method will provide, thus someone bulking has a lot of leeway. For me that is a very easy, and sustainable approach, and gives a lot of potential buffer while keeping you right on track.

There are many other potential ways you could give yourself buffer, like doing extra exercise. For example, you could really restrict your calories around the event, sticking to say just protein and vegetables in and around, making for very low calorie days. However, just like the exercise example, I don’t really like this because I think it doesn’t provide a healthy relationship with food. For me this sets you up for failure, you think ‘oh I’ve basically starved myself for 2 days’ and therefore binge like crazy on the day of event.

Doing ‘guilt cardio’ or ‘starvation intakes’ around these events for me is not a healthy mindset to have, I do not ever advise my clients to do it, or anyone else. I believe it sets you up for binges, because in your eyes you’re making them OK, but believe me, binging is never OK. It is an eating disorder. So if anyone tells me they’ve binged and want to do a tonne of ‘guilt cardio’ to burn it off, I tell them NO, just get back to your usual diet and activity the next day.

4) Take a Diet Deload

Next up is for those of you who may be or have been on quite a strict diet for a long period of time. You may be on really low calories, and therefore even with all of the above you’re still struggling with how to tackle eating off plan. Well, for you guys I think it may be a perfect time for a ‘diet deload’, similar to a training deload;

you’re reducing the stress to allow you to continue making progress.

So in a training deload you tend to drop volume and maybe intensity too, these are the main stressors, this then allows you to recover for further progression. So the diet deload uses the same principles, except your stress is the restraint on calories, so in this case you simply reduce this stress by eating a bit more. By taking a day off plan you give your body and mind some time to recover, refresh and therefore continue onwards with your diet. This is not an excuse for a binge, this is to prevent exactly that, to give yourself a break from dieting.

This could be used for just one meal, for example Lyle McDonald recommends free meals to be incorporated into your plan. Essentially it is one meal during the day, that would not be at home, in which you can eat what you like, and then be done with it. Get back to your diet the next day. What if it is longer than a day, well this would be more along the lines of a ‘diet break’ in which you take 1 or more weeks of eating at maintenance. This would really help your body ramp up all the things that come down during a diet, it would also give you a really nice mental break. Which of these you choose will depend on the occasion and on where you are in your diet. Just like with training deloads, they may only be one lighter session, but they could be up to a month of lighter work, it all depends on the stress accumulated before. If you’ve been training really hard for a long time, or dieting in this case, then you would probably warrant a longer deload. Personally for my clients, I tend to introduce 1-2 week long diet breaks every 3 months, and then free meals are used sparingly, because they have all the tools described above and they’re usually enough for one off events.

5) Day of Tool Kit

Right so it’s the day of the event where you’re not eating on plan. How do you go about tracking your grub? I use a lot of the tools I am going to talk about on a weekly basis, for example this weekend I am away with family in the Lake District, so eating is far from routine. Last weekend my girlfriend and I went to a food festival, there were samples from homemade cheeses to flavoured ciders, and I enjoyed it all. This weekend I’m not taking my scales weighing every portion of food, and I’m eating with family, whether it be out at a restaurant or homemade grub.

My first tool is a pre-event protein shake, or if it is a holiday or prolonged period away from home, take some protein powder. This is just handy, because protein is expensive and whereas picking up some bread is easy, finding lean protein sources isn’t. For example, when I was going to the food festival I wanted to make sure I wasn’t ravenous, so I had a protein shake before leaving. Want to make this extra filling? Add some xanthum gum, this adds fibre, will thicken up the shake and slow digestion. Another option is to have casien protein, this is very slow to digest when compared to whey protein, therefore keeping you satiated for longer. The idea of this is that you are not starving hungry when going to the occasion so you’ll be less likely to overeat, but still haven’t consumed a tonne of calories and made a massive dent in your intake for the day.

Along the same lines is portable protein. You might think I have some sort of fetish with protein, and well you’d be right, it is awesome. Not only is it only 4kcals per gram, it is also the most satiating macronutrient. Portable protein comes in handy because sometimes you just want a snack, but most things you can easily pick up are not overly diet friendly, although you can get some very suitable bars. Such as a quest bar, they’re reasonably low in fat (sub 10g), high in fibre (around 20g) and have a decent hit of protein (20g) which makes them quite ideal when you might be lacking fibre and protein during your vacation. You might think chucking some in your suitcase is a waste of time, but for me whenever I’m away they’re a life saver.

OK so now we’re onto actually tracking on the day. So when I was at the food festival I was trying all sorts of things, and every time I had something I made a mental note. Then when I got a spare moment I would jot it down in my notepad on my phone. This enabled me once home to tot everything up. But, how did I know how much I was eating of the food and how did I workout the nutrition of the food items? Well this is where guestimation has to come into play. As said before, if you have been tracking your intake somewhat for a period of time you get a good awareness of how many calories are in things, or at least what an amount of food looks like. So I ate some random homemade cheese, I had some samples of cider and picked at some brownies. When I got home I searched for generic versions of all these that looked roughly right, we follow flexible diets and so don’t sweat the small stuff, so this is good enough. I then entered amounts that matched up with my thoughts of the foods. You could take this a step version and take a picture of everything you ate to help assist once home. Once you have come to a guestimated amount you can then fit the rest of your diet around this.

This next tool is even more flexible and is for those of you who don’t want to have to track in your notes, and try and add things up afterwards. For you guys I recommend just setting aside a good number of calories for the event. Like if you know you’re eating out, you make sure to leave yourself a good 1000 calories or so, and then choose foods that hit that allowance. This can be tricky if it is an evening event, as you might not leave sufficient room, but then you can use the ‘Flexible Pillar’ that is your 20% swaps if you wanted, thus lowing your intake the next day.

The Bigger Picture

Just remember, your diet should be flexible enough to allow you to enjoy whatever occasions come up. Sure there will be some people that doesn’t apply to, such as those in competition prep, but then you are not intending to sustain the diet you’re currently on. Most of us however are trying to somewhat sustain how we are eating now, and if we can’t we should question our diet.

My advice above is meant to allow you to enjoy your life while sticking to your diet, pick the approach above that causes you the least stress.

You may find that some tools suit different occasions, like for me if I was eating a meal out I would simply plan ahead of time, but if I was on a 2 week holiday I’d utilise tools 3, 4 and 5. However, always remember Tool Number 1; that is a Flexible Diet, which means we can slip up now and then, so long as we get back on track and we remain on track the majority of the time. So I actively encourage you to take some time off now and then, because like when you take time off training, taking a break from your diet will help you in the long run.

So there you have it, the Ultimate Eating Out Survival Guide, now you can enjoy all the food and stay on track with your nutrition. No all out binges, no food restrictions, no carrying around weighing scales required.

If you found this helpful, or think others would too, I actively encourage you to share it. If you have any questions on the above, or anything relating to health and fitness, please email me, I will respond to every single person.

Further Reading:

– [NEW] Podcast – Discussing Get Big, Stay Lean with Jay Scott. 
– [NEW] Website – http://www.revivestronger.com
– [NEW] Blog post – Meal Frequency Part 2 
– [NEW] Fat Loss Success story – Chris Janssen 

[Beat] the [Heat] with these 5 [Treats]!

So it’s hot, bloody scorching, shorts, t shirts, flip flops…the works, it still doesn’t get you cool. What’s colder than the weather right now? Boiling water, a radiator, the oven, tea, coffee, that microwaved meal….everything.

I’m about to make your day, with these five awesome treats to beat the heat:

1) FROZEN FRUIT

Yup, just good old fruit, but instead of eating it straight outta the bag, you chuck it in the freezer over night and the next day you wake to ice cold fruity goodness.

Personal Favourites: Grapes, Bananas, Blueberries.

Watch me chuck one in a protein shake:

2) FAT FREE MILKSHAKE

We all want ice cold, thick, creamy milkshakes in this weather. But, these are typically high in fat and therefore high in calories, and maybe they just don’t sit well with our current diet. Well I have a special treat for you, my low calorie milkshake:

Macronutrients: 10g Protein, 17g Carbs (2g Fibre), 0g Fat – 112kcal

Ingredients: 2g Xanthum Gum, 300ml Skimmed Milk, 1 Cup of Ice, MyProtein FlavDrops.

Method: Combine & Blend for a good 5 minutes, or till thick.

Click this link to see it in video.

 

 

3) ICED COFFEE

Let’s face it, we still want to drink coffee, but it’s piping hot and that just doesn’t sit well in this weather. So throw custom in the face and make it cold, ice cold.

Macronutrients: 1g Protein, 0.8g Carbs, 2.4g Fat – 28kcal

Ingredients: 1/2 cup cold brewed coffee, 200ml cup Unsweetened Almond Milk, 1/2 Cup Ice, MyProtein Vanilla FlavDrops.

Method: Combine & Stir.

To find out whether coffee could potentially be [bad for you] check this out. <–

4) LOWER CALORIE ICE-CREAM

You know what’s all the rage nowadays? #WholeTubClub yeaaa if you wanna get down with the kids you need to start consuming whole tubs of ice cream. Or maybe you just want more than a scoop or two, but don’t want to kill your calorie count. I’ve got your back with these top low calorie ice cream picks:

• Walls Big Bite
  • Per 100g – 2g Protein, 27g Carbs, 4.6g Fat – 158kcal
• Carte Dor Vanilla Light Ice Cream
  • Per 100g – 2.5g Protein, 22g Carbs, 4.5g Fat – 140kcal
• Waitrose Love Life Chocolate Frozen Yoghurt
  • Per 100ml – 4.3g Protein, 14g Carbs, 1.7g Fat – 89kcal

To find out where the above might fit in your diet check your [your macro budget.]

Insider tips:

• Walls Big Bites is currently on offer in Iceland 2 for under £2, and in Tesco £1. If they are not in your local, check out Tesco Express stores, that is where I got mine.

• Carte Dor do Eton Mess, Chocolate Inspirations and more and these are all typically under 200kcal per 100g, which is really low for an ice cream with chunks.

• Most supermarkets do their own version of frozen yoghurt, so if you haven’t got a Waitrose near you, check out you local Asda (e.g. Count on Us range) etc. as they more than likely stock their own.

• When nutrition is in mls as opposed to grams, either eat the whole tub, or weigh the tub, remove 15g for the weight of the tub. Then use that figure as you’re 100% and then workout how much you want in grams, find the % that is of the whole tub, and then use that % on the ml number, for example:
  • 500ml tub weighed 600g
  • 600 – 15 = 585
  • 585g = 500ml
  • You want 200g –> (200/585)x100 = 34% of the tub
  • 500 x 0.34 = 170 –> you consumed 170mls

5) DIET DRINKS

What couldn’t be more simple than having a can of your chosen diet soft drink in the fridge? Personally I like cans, 1) because I can practice moderation better 2) because they are cold and I can rub the can on my body.

My Top Picks:

• Pepsi Max
• Pepsi Max Cherry
• Diet Ginger Beer
• Diet Mountain Dew
• Diet Dr Pepper

Diet drinks ain’t gonna kill ya, don’t worry, I made this video years ago and the information still stands (my poor acting skills however…actually they still stand)

[High Protein] Almond Butter [Fudge]

When I was a kid I absolutely LOVED fudge.

Unfortunately, fudge isn’t the most macro friendly treat out there. Sure it’s fine to have as a treat every now and then, and could be enjoyed regularly within flexible dieting. However the macros on Fudge, when cutting, would take some severe flexibility to fit into your macro budget for the day. I tend to just avoid it all together when I’m cutting!

So I got my muscle chef hat on and came up with this.

An almond butter, high protein, white chocolate & raspberry home made fudge. Almond butter you hear me say…

Oh yeah… I’m kind of a peanut butter addict. Infact any kind of nut butter or sweet spread I enjoy. I’m a bit obsessed I started hoarding them, building a stash, and compiled a nut butter review series (only a peanut butter addict would understand).

So to be able to combine some almond butter, white chocolate, fruit, protein aaaaaand make a fudge out of it? Winner!

Ingredients

• 50g of Vanilla Whey Protein Powder (any flavour is fine, but make it whey)
• 100g Natural Smooth Almond Butter (any nut butter will do)
• 150ml-200ml Almond Milk (or any milk you like)
• 15g White Chocolate Chips & 34g Dried Raspberries (to your taste/macro budget)

The Process

1 – Add your whey protein & almond butter into a mixing bowl, combine.

2 – Slowly add your almond milk, and continue to mix.

3 – Add your white chocolate & raspberries to the “mixture” and thoroughly stir in.

4 – Place the mixture onto some greese proof paper, placed onto a tray.

5 – Leave it to set in the fridge for a minimum of 1 hour.

6 – Cut & Serve

Macronutrient Breakdown 

Per 1/6th: 10g Protein 10g Carbs 12g Fat – 190kcal

Notes about this recipe

This is such a versatile recipe, that can be experimented & tinkered with to get any number of flavours, and combinations. Here are some of my recommendations;

Different Flavoured Protein Powder

Change up the entire flavour of the fudge by changing up your protein powder. The vanilla is a good “starting point” however, you can create some really indulgent chocolate flavoured ones if you were to use chocolate flavoured protein powder.

Another suggestion I would make is to add 2 different flavours of protein powder to get a nice blend in the base flavour of the fudge.

Different Nut Butters

I prefer smooth fudge, however I know some people love it with nuts in. Swapping your smooth nut butter for a crunchy version will cover your crunchy desires.

By using a high protein nut butter, you can boost the protein content of the fudge, without having to add more protein powder and thus spoiling the consistency and ratio of the recipe.

Melting

Only remove from the fridge when you’re ready to eat. The gloopy consistency of the nut butter will quickly start to melt on your fingers and go claggy.

About Adam Foster

Adam Foster is an aspiring bodybuilder, wanna-be Gordon Ramsay and all round geek. If he’s not curling in the squat rack, or watching 90’s cartoons, he can be found publishing recipes & supplement reviews on his website http://www.cheapproteindiscountcodes.co.uk or uploading videos over at his Shreddybrek Youtube Channel http://www.youtube.com/shreddybrek

Follow Adam over on social at

• http://www.facebook.com/shreddybreklol
• http://www.twitter.com/shreddybrekgym
• http://www.instagram.co.uk/shreddybrekgym

How to [Eat Pizza Daily] & Stay Lean

Achieving Adaptability

The person who can eat anything they like, and often does, without any problems, can consume the most amazing food combinations without any issues.

This individual must have amazing metabolic health and adaptability. Everyone has this ability (bar those rare few with dietary misfortunes) to eat everything and anything, yet remain healthier than ever.

Achieving Amazing Metabolic Health

Your metabolism is a wonderful thing, it is incredibly adaptable and will change according to what it is given. It’s simply the total sum of energy burnt by our bodies. Whether it be brushing your teeth, digesting food, lifting weights or keeping you warm, all of these things add up to be your metabolism.
So how do we make our metabolisms amazing, so we can eat pizza daily? The most important thing you can do is to not restrict food intake needlessly. If you are constantly eating less than your body needs, your metabolism, being the adaptable bugger it is, will adjust downwards, meaning you will burn less total energy. So make sure to eat well, and by well I mean do not needlessly restrict intake.

Another simple addition to the above can be to move. It doesn’t need to be a load, but please avoid being sedentary for long periods of time. The largest component of our metabolic burn is our Non Exercise Activity Thermogensis or NEAT. This is the energy used for all movement outside of formal exercise, so it is the walking to the shops, cleaning our rooms and getting down in the bed room. That stuff really adds up! Stop laughing…

To take it a step further you can further ramp your metabolic rate up by implementing a few dietary changes. Protein out of all the macronutrients takes the most energy to be digested. So by changing the macro composition of our diet we can increase our metabolic rate. Also make sure you’re eating in a balanced way, that means not restricting any foods unnecessarily. Our body loves carbs, they provide the best fuel for us to perform exercise. You should be eating them if you want to get the most from your training.

And finally there is exercise, most people think that this has a dramatic impact on our total energy burn, but as I said previously NEAT is the biggest factor. However, it is an important aspect of having amazing metabolic health. I am going to start with the exercise to avoid, and that is slow, utterly boring, steady state cardio. That stuff really aint going to to do much for your metabolism. Our bodies will adapt to it in a jiffy, one month you might be burning 300 calories doing an incline walk for 30 minutes at 5mph, the next month you will definitely be burning less.

You want to be purposely increasing the intensity, volume and or distance of your chosen exercise. This way your body is continually adapting upwards, and you’ll be getting stronger and fitter. However, this is where the catch 22 comes in, now you’re fitter and stronger, that means you’ll burn less energy doing day to day activities. BUT, you can now perform at higher intensities, recover faster and handle more work all of which leads to burning more calories. Don’t over think it, do exercise, make sure to get outside of your comfort zone. 

So now you have the knowledge of how to get amazing metabolic health, how do you go about achieving amazing adaptability?

Amazing Adaptability

Remember how I said our bodies are incredibly adaptable? This can work against us, I am going to show you how. If you eat an all vegetable diet, you will adapt to that, if you eat an all meat diet, you’ll adapt to that. If you eat an all raw food diet, you will get sick if you consume cooked food. If you want to consume wonderful worldly combinations of any food and remain healthy, you need to adapt to the modern food environment and be able to handle pretty much anything.

Do you really want to feel like crap when you eat out, or go to a friends for dinner because you’re not eating your special diet food? On the other hand, do you want to get stomach ache when you eat any sort of vegetable, due to only being used to eating processed food? No of course not. You want to be healthy, and have it all.The number of people who can eat whatever they want without becoming fat or ill doesn’t need to be just a ‘lucky’ few.

How do we get to that point? It really is simple; be sure to eat a diet that is varied, that means it includes processed foods, high fibre foods, calorie dense foods, low GI carbs, high GI carbs, you get the picture.

Now You are an Adaptable Metabolic Animal

If you follow the above, you will have the digestive and metabolic machinery to annihilate anything. You want to do your best to feed yourself well, be active and eat a varied diet that consists of mainly wholesome nutritious foods but with the occasional meal out, bowl of ice cream and take away pizza.

Go eat some great food, get out of breath, enjoy life and #ReviveStronger

Further Reading:

• Body Fat set point – fact or fiction?
• 2 Rules to a getting a 6 pack
• Why we suck in the short term

K Ponti – ‘I’m learning and participating in my own physical development’

K Ponti, what were your goals when signing up with me?

I have always struggled losing weight since I was a teenager. Additionally, I’m a really busy guy. I work 40+ hours in a sedentary office job and commute an hour to and from work daily. In my off time I tend to my family, girlfriend, and friends and I am also a musician, often having strange hours and eating schedules. I had been training on my own for a couple years but I kept running into training plateaus or injuries and would get set back months at a time.It felt like a grind and I decided I would look into getting an online coach.

 I was interested in working with Steve because he seemed to be a refreshing alternative to the ego-driven, fat-shaming coaching I typically ran into in the United States. Our focus has been two-fold: to cut my body fat down, and to gain strength to compete in a powerlifting meet.

What reservations if any did you have before we started working together?

I was worried it may be a scam (but I’m paranoid), I was worried I wouldn’t see results, and I was worried I would have to give up flexibility in my life around food.

How was I able to help you with your reservations?

Steve never skipped a beat. He started adapting things to me right away. I like that there are several different ways to get towards my goals and that it is always an option to try something different if things aren’t working. Also, Steve has a good understanding and compassion for the psychological aspect of this.

I’m a really busy guy, and Steve has worked with me to find routines that fit my schedule, lifestyle, and ability, and always tells me he can change things up if something does not work. And he’s always been very accessible. I can send him an email and he gets back to me within the day despite being across seas. Also, in the rare occasion I can’t reach Steve, I have access to the Team Revive community and can run my questions by them. They are a positive bunch of folks and I’m happy to be a part of that learning community.

In point form, can you list your achievements training with me thus far?

• Lost a lot of fat, dropping 14lbs.
• Stronger and with improved form, despite injuries and a caloric deficit.
• More knowledge about my own body.
• New eating habits that will sustain me in my long-term health.

Is there anything else you’d like to add?

Steve is incredibly body-positive, non-shaming, encouraging, and focused on helping me reach my goals. He also has an incredible amount of knowledge that he is willing to share, and for me that’s what sold me: I’m not a mindless robot being told how to eat and how to train, I’m learning and participating in my own physical development, which is empowering.

I’m stoked with how my body has been progressing and with how much strength I’ve gained in such a short amount of time. I have more knowledge about my own body, and have gained new eating habits that will sustain me in my long-term health.

Steve is truly a pleasure to work with and I would recommend him to other male and female strength athletes, and anyone looking to transform the way they think about dieting and health.

I look forward to the next phase of my training and competing in a powerlifting meet this next year!

K Ponti came to me seeking to drop fat without it impacting his strength, but further to that he wanted to learn. His application form was incredibly detailed and I could tell he had put a lot of time and effort into his training a nutrition already. I changed things up pretty quickly, dropping his previously high fat intake and prioritising carbohydrates. Also K Ponti was doing a horrible cardio protocol 6 times a week, which I dropped right down as well. I am so proud of the results we have achieved together, it hasn’t been without its hardships but through K Ponti’s positive attitude and hard work we have got through it. I can also proudly say that when/if K Ponti decides to take the reigns of his own nutrition and training he has the knowledge of how to successfully do so.

Interested in online coaching? You can check out what I have to offer here.

The Supplement All Hardgainers Need

Struggling to gain weight? You need to consume more calories. Simple fact is, if you are not consuming more than you are burning, you ain’t gonna put on size son. I have found the ultimate solution to every hardgainers problem; sugar laden soft drinks. Fruit juices, ‘full fat’ Coke, none of that ‘diet’ sugar free rubbish.

If I catch any dude in the gym who says ‘I eat loads but never put on weight’ I am gonna hand them a coke. Why?

1) Sugary soft drinks contain a lot of calories. As said before you need to consume more calories than you burn if you want to gain weight. Liquid calories such as those from fruit juices or even better lucozade are very easy to consume and they are macronutrient dense.

2) They have no impact on our appetite. Studies have shown that people who drank full fat variety soft drinks didn’t compensate by eating less later on. That means they ate what they normally would and had these drinks on top of that. For the hard gainer this is mega handy, it means you can effortlessly increase your calorie intake.

3) Sugar sweetened soft drinks can increase our consumption. Yup they can actually make you eat more than you normally would, a double whammy for weight gain. Studies have even shown that if you feed people the same number of calories in sweet form rather than sugary drink form you’ll compensate and eat less. So as a hard gainer you are better off drinking your sugar than eating it.

So there you have it, sugary drinks are not just easy to consume in addition to our diet, they actually make us eat even more. Hence why they are the hardgainers solution, they ultimately will lead to weight gain.

What can we learn from the above?

Sugary drinks if awesome for hardgainers, those actively seeking to put on weight, who have a hard time eating enough, are therefore pretty awful for the rest of us.

1) They are ’empty calories’. They provide zero micronutrition, unless of course you opt for a fruit juice, but you would still be better off eating the whole fruit. Plus by eating the whole fruit you get fibre, which is very important for a healthy digestive system.

2) We don’t get any fullness from them. I suspect due to the lack of fibre and the ease of digestion our bodies don’t compensate for their consumption. This means we could easily end up over consuming total calories for the day and putting on weight.

The Solution

Right now I hope if you are a hardgainer you are sipping on a can of Coke, but anyone else reading this you are hopefully thinking sugary drinks are a no no. However, there are some ways around this fact.

1) If you track your nutrition they can be incorporated. The fact is our bodies might not be good for compensating for the sugary drink, but if you actively track your calorie intake then you will force a compensation. This is how a lot of my online clients drop fat, gain muscle and get in terrific shape, we track our nutrition. This also means we can enjoy everything and everything, just not always the amount we want. This approach to dieting is called flexible dieting or some know it as IIFYM (if it fits your macros).

2) Milk does get compensated for. Any liquid drink that contains milk or milk proteins has shown to be the equivalent to food. So our bodies do compensate for those calories by eating less. So please do not stop drinking milk.

3) Drink diet drinks. In the video below, that I made years ago and probably look and sound like an idiot, I explain how the current scientific studies don’t show any reason why we cannot drink diet sodas in moderation. Personally I drink a can of Pepsi Max once or twice a day. This also gives us a solution to those who currently drink sugary drinks and want to lose weight. Switch to a diet variety. A simple switch of 2 cans of Coke vs. Diet Coke would save you around 300 calories, if you drank 2 a day, over the course of a week that would save you 2100 calories, enough to spur weight loss.

Further Reading:

– If you want to gain Lean Muscle mass effectively or Lose Fat guaranteed then these two articles will get you in the right place Need to know nutrition Part 1 & Need to know nutrition Part 2 Practical Application.

– If you want to know how anything can be health or healthy given the right context then this article is for you The Importance of Context.

The Powerlifting Newb Series – Part 2 – Picking your attempts

So in Part 1 you got to see how the day went and some key lessons I learnt; make a plan, know the process and stay composed. I am going to touch on each of these in more detail to help the new powerlifter out.

First things first, I want you to have a plan of what numbers you are going to attempt for each lift. The only numbers set in stone are the openers, all the others can change on the day, but we will have a plan for that too. Using the below you will a guide that will get you a 100% success rate and give you the best chance of doing well in your meet.

What Weight?

Right, so you have been training with a meet in mind for many weeks or months. All the hard work you have put in is being put to the test on this one day. Hopefully you have been increasing your intensity slowly and have built up a good amount of volume prior to the meet. The last few weeks should have got you pretty well prepared for shifting heavy weights.

In the video below you can see how I recorded my main lifts and noted down how each set was feeling, information and footage like this is very helpful when picking your lifts.

Using your training notes you can look over the sort of weights you were achieving for a given number of reps, you can use these to look at what you estimated 1 rep maxes might look like. This will give you a good idea of what you 1 rep max on the day might be.

Rep Max Calculator

This gives you your starting point, you have your estimated 1 rep maxes. They give you a range to work from, you can set yourself a minimum and maximum for each lift. That way you know if you’re feeling crummy on the day you have a minimum you can hit and if you’re feeling super you have a maximum to aim for.

Picking Your Opener

The way I see it is that your opener is just an extension of your warm up. So this should definitely be something sub-maximal and shouldn’t take away from your next attempts. This is the only lift you have to hand in before you start, so you cannot judge how your warm up is going to give you an indication of how this lift might go. Therefore, it makes even more sense to pick something you can hit any day of the week come rain or shine. 

This should be a weight you could hit hungover wearing the clothes you had on during your night out. That means no belt, no lifting shoes, no chalk, you get the picture; no chance of failure. Furthermore, because it will be easy it will give you confidence for your next lifts going forward.

So because everyone likes rules of thumb;

• Your opener should be 80% of your final attempt (1 Rep Maximum).
• A piece of pie, whether hungover or not.

Picking Your Second Attempt

So after killing your first opener you’re ready for your second attempt. Again, we are going in with the mindset of hitting every single lift. Because, a missed attempt is as good as wiping your ass with cling film. Messy, uncomfortable, embarrassing and an all round epic fail. So 9/9 is our aim, therefore the second attempt is again something we are confident about hitting.

However, you have the first attempt to help guide you here. My advise is to have a couple of options before you get to your meet, have a feeling shitty option and a feeling good option. If your opener felt a bit slow, then opt for the feeling shitty second attempt, if it felt like it should, easy, then go for the feeling good option. Too many options will only leave you second guessing, if things are going to plan, you should be feeling good, it will be pretty clear if things aren’t.

Either way this lift again should be a no-brainer, not dead easy but not hard either. Something you could hit for a 2-3 rep max on a good day and hit for a single when you feel like utter crap.

Right so how do you go about picking these two?

• Feeling shitty 85% of your final attempt (1 Rep Maximum).
• Feeling good 90% of your final attempt (1 Rep Maximum).
• Something you could hit for a triple on a good day.

Picking Your Final Attempt

Right so now you are in a great position, whether you’re feeling good or not, you will have so far succeeded in getting every attempt, 6/6, good job! So using the 1 rep max calculator and your lifting history you have an idea of what you should be able to hit. Again I suggest having a feeling crummy attempt and a feeling good number.

As a rule of thumb set your final attempt at:

• 100 – 102.5% of your estimated 1RM.

Remember, we are going for 9/9, and especially because this is written for the powerlifting newb we are assuming a lack of meet experience. Therefore, you do not know whether you bloom under the competitive environment or crumble. It’s like those kids who know all the answers to the questions in lessons, and do well on their course work, but when it comes to exam conditions they suck. We therefore have little meet history to go off, so we are going to be conservative. As said before, a missed lift is useless, so we don’t want any second guessing.

The Take Home Message

If it wasn’t clear by now the take home from the above is that you want to avoid missing lifts. As someone new to powerlifting you want to be especially conservative, and learn from the process. Having a plan allows you to have better focus on the day, plus by having a minimum and a maximum you have a great way of selecting weights on the day, because who knows how you might be feeling.

In the parts to follow I will talk more about each lift, nutrition, weighing in and all the details of the meet day.

The Oatmeal Series – Carrot Cake

Breakfast, whether you regard it as the most important meal of the day, the most boring meal of the day or just a meal. You will end up having something, and I think a lot of people end up finding they go to the same things over and over again. One for me is oats, so to keep things interesting I like to pimp them up.

So I have for you the Oatmeal series, for which the main ingredient will be our beloved oats. If you love oats, you will love this series, if you hate them, you will probably find this series will help you discover a way to eat them that you enjoy. Don’t get me wrong, you definitely don’t have to eat oats, but they are cheap and versatile.

What You’ll Need:

70g Oats, 2 Cups of water, 1/2 Cup of grated carrot, half a banana chopped, tsp vanilla essence, tsp cinnamon, sweetener, 100g Greek Yoghurt, 10g Walnuts.

How To Do It:

1. Add the oats, water and salt to the pan and cook on a high heat, once simmering add the chopped banana and carrot, keep stirring and reduce the heat, mashing the banana against the sides is a good way to incorporate it quickly.
2. Once thickened reduce the heat further and cool till your favoured consistency, then add the vanilla, sweetener and cinnamon.
3. During the cooking process you can prepare your icing, for this add the Greek Yoghurt and Vanilla essence to a bowl and mix up, I prepared it the night before. Simply put your Oaty Carrot Cake into a bowl and dollop on the icing.
4. Sprinkle over the Walnuts and there you have it Carrot Cake with Icing.

What You’re Getting From It:

• 22g Protein, 65g Carbohydrates, 13g Fat (12g Fibre) – 467Kcal
• Banana- great source of potassium.
• Carrot- full of Beta Carotine along with many vitamins and minerals.
• Walnuts- full of Omega 3s keeping you healthy (still take your fish oils!).
• Cinnamon- this has always been a winner for me, great replacement for sugar and calorie free.
• Greek Yoghurt- higher in protein and lower in carbohydrates than other yoghurts and 100% natural, I use Fage 0% that you can get from any typical supermarket.

I love changing up my oats, so do my clients. Because we allow our diets to be flexible, we can swap and change foods all the time, we can eat anything we want and get great results. This is whether they are powerlifters, natural bodybuilders, mens physique competitors or just guys and gals who want to drop fat. Our diets are inclusive, and the only restrictions in place are ones that have to be to get results, calories.

The Fundamentals Make The Athlete

Back to basics

We all know those people who want to know the latest best exercise, or the new amazing supplement on the market. They are so focussed on the latest and greatest but have not taken the time to develop what matters most, and that is a strong foundation.

What makes up a strong base?

We all know that the best things in life are based of a few simple core principles. Apple products are great because they are so easy to use, this is the strong base they develop from. Costa produce some fantastic coffee variations and these all stem from top quality coffee beans. To be the best or to develop and grow you need a strong foundation to do it from. For the athlete this means perfect (or near to) technique on the main compound lifts, that’s squats, deadlifts and pressing varieties. It also requires a strong nutritional base, that’s your protein, carbs and fats, getting what you require by the end of the day, consistently. Developing these two aspects in the early stages of an athletes career pays massive dividends later on.

Stop looking for ‘training secrets’ & ‘magical supplements’
I know when I first started training I was far too concerned with the wrong things. Thinking if I took this shake and did this bicep tri-set routine I’d be cut and jacked in no time. I missed the bigger picture, and that was getting key basic principles correct. Any supplement or new training protocol is only ever going to be like the sprinkles on a cake. If you have a poor quality sponge, no matter how good those darn sprinkles are every bite will taste terrible. Just like no matter how good a supposed supplement or training method is meant to be, if you have poor technique on the main compounds or do not hit the your personal macro requirements by the end of the day, you will not see the results you desire. I know this first hand.

A coach can really help you get these aspects nailed, and keep you from straying too far from what matters. Not only do they keep you accountable for your nutrition, but if they are any good they know no matter how advanced you are as an athlete you can’t go wrong with a good squat, deadlift or pressing pattern. Making sure you are continually getting the basics right, each and every day.

‘Honey Monster Puffs’ The New Health Food?

‘Honey Monster Puffs’

The new ‘health’ food?

So Sugar Puffs are re-branding themselves to Honey Monster Puffs because sales have been driven down by the sugar scare that is currently rife. Not only that but they are changing the recipe of our beloved sugar puffs to contain 20% more honey and less added sugar.

So they will now contain 8.6g sugar per 30g serving, from the original 9.3g. Big whoop. Critics rightly pointed out that once broken down by the body, honey will do the same thing as the added sugar would have. Furthermore, there are worse offenders out there such as Coco Pops and Frosties which contain 11g of sugar per portion. Thus, we can clearly see the change is a marketing ploy, removing sugar from their brand name and assigning a ‘health halo’ by adding that the product contains honey, which is seen as natural and therefore good for you. This frustrates the hell out of me, and highlights how ignorant the consumer is and why education is still the only way to help people make wiser choices.

Education , Education, Education

People need to understand that when it comes to their diet what makes it healthy vs. unhealthy are not individual food choices, but the overall macronutrient and micronutrient contents of their entire diet. However, because the majority of the population do not understand this, they get mis-guided by companies, the news and word of mouth.

Governing Bodies are clueless
Companies are now required to put nutritional traffic lights on their products, assigning different colours to a choice of dietary aspects of the food. Typically calories, sugar, fat, saturated fat and salt.

I have a two big problems with this. One the colours are referring to a guideline daily amount, this is a generic and completely unindividualised figure. Just think, a athlete needs a load more calories and therefore fat than an office worker who is sedentary.

Second, they are focussing on some of the wrong things. I am fine with the calories and overall fat being put there, but sugar, saturated fat and salt? The governing bodies are focussing on the wrong things, they would be better off providing a macronutrient breakdown of the product i.e. fat, protein and carbohydrates.

Sugar at the end of the day is the final form of any carb, and we are not really helping by pin pointing just sugar. Why saturated fat is on there I really don’t know, as no one is sure how much we should really be getting, what we do know is we need a balance of each type of fat and that saturated fat is essential for healthy hormone function. Finally salt, this has been highlighted and vilified by the nutrition press recently, and in my view wrongly. It’s been known for over 20 years that people with high blood pressure who don’t want to lower their salt intake can consume more potassium-containing foods. It is the balance between the two minerals that matters. So if they do have salt on their, surely the potassium content should also be provided?

Confused Consumers

I feel bad for calling the general population ignorant, because I don’t think it is largely their fault. As shown above the government are focussing on the wrong things, and do not provide adequate education. So consumers only have the news, media and branding to base their choices off. And there is the problem, the news often tout complete bull, governing bodies focus on the wrong things and companies are concerned about their bottom line, not our health.

People need to educate themselves, but they need to use legit resources and question everything. This is good daily practice that can be used throughout life. Be open minded but skeptical, base your opinion on facts and if something sounds fishy, question it.