Fat Loss – Body Transformation – Advanced Nutrition

Hey San Antonio,

Zero week will be here Monday! Here are the goals of the week to begin your fat loss and body transformation.

Let me reiterate – this is a program designed to maximize body transformation! That means fat loss and muscle maintenance to maximize definition and changing the way you look. This is not a starvation program designed to make you lose 50lbs. It is for re-partitioning what you have.

The goals:
1. Keep or increase what lean body mass you have. This is extremely important. I can hear women all over the world saying “I just want to be smaller” and “I don’t want big muscles.” Here’s the kicker: you are not going to gain huge muscles at a rapid rate. It is physically and hormonally impossible. I mean, think about it – how many guys do you see in the gym that DO want huge muscles? Ok, now how many of them actually have huge muscles?

Keeping what lean body mass you have is important for metabolic reasons. The more lean body mass you have, the higher your resting metabolic rate you have. This is important, because I want your body being a fat burning furnace when you’re doing nothing. LOSING lean body mass slows the metabolism, which means you have to continue to eat less and less. What does that do? It invokes the body’s natural defense: the starvation reflex. The metabolism comes to a screeching halt, making the body more likely to metabolize muscle rather than body fat. Lean body mass looks better than fat. Skinny isn’t always desirable. If you want the toned, defined look, it is important to control where the pounds you lose comes from.

2. Burn fat. This goes without saying. But the goal is not to lose sheer weight. Remove adipose from the body – that’s it. To do this, there is a lot of nutritional timing, nutrient manipulation and training strategies that go behind this. Forget what you think you know. I don’t care about “Well, I burned 300 calories doing this” and “500 calories doing that”. You’re wasting mental capacity and effort. I am concerned about nutrient intake more than I am concerned with caloric intake. A calorie is NOT a calorie, and the body DOES pick and choose where it burns calories from based on your current nutritional/fed state or the type of exercise your doing. Oh, but there is more – the body is picky and will go out of it’s way to compensate in a way you don’t want it to. If the body feels like too much fat has been burned during a given time period, it will go into a fat preservation mode.

3. 8 Weeks is NOT a long time, so there’s no margin for error. No excuses, no “I did OK”. You either commit or you don’t. I’m laying this all out to give you what you need to make the maximum amount of progress in a very short amount of time.

4. Set your baselines NOW. What are your baselines? Over the next week, it’s important that you figure out what your capabilities are in different exercises. I’d spread this out over a week’s time to figure it out, but the point is that we have to force the body to adapt by progression.

Cardio for the first 2 weeks is simple: 20 minutes on Days 2 and 4 at a very intense effort. What is intense? Warm up for 5 minutes and then push it at an effort that requires deep breaths before speaking for 20 minutes (and then cool down for 3-5 minutes). I PREFER lower impact machines like the elliptical or recumbent bike, but if you’re a runner, run. The goal is to go all out as much as you can for 20 minutes. If you need to take a breather for a minute or two here and there, that’s fine. But the goal here is to establish an efficient cardiovascular response.

On day 6, this cardio is much less intense, yet longer in duration. 5 minute warm up, moderate intensity (you should be able to talk, but should be breathing heavy and breaking a sweat) for 35 minutes. Cool down for 5 minutes.

Exercise baselines.
-Warm up for 5 minutes on your favorite cardio machine.
-For each exercise, do 2-4 light sets to acclimate the body to the exercise.
-Once perfect form ends, the set ends and that is your baseline. No swinging, rocking, cheating, leaning, etc.
-A rep range is just that. Find a weight heavy enough that you can’t do more than the higher number and light enough to where you can at least do the minimum reps.

On Day 1:
Determine how much weight you can do for 8-12 reps on db front squats

Determine how much weight you can do on the flat db bench press for 8-10 reps

Determine much weight you can do for 12-15 reps on the lat pulldown

2 sets of standing lateral raises x 15-20 reps
3 sets of 12-15 reps of standing db curls
3 sets of tricep pressdowns for 15-20 reps

Day 3:
Determine how much weight you can do on the leg press for 12-15 reps

Determine how much weight you can do on the db incline bench press for 10-12 reps

Determine how much weight you can do on the seated cable row for 8-10 reps

Standing Ez bar curls 3 sets x 15-20 reps
Bench Dips 3 sets until failure
Front db raises 2 sets x 15-20 reps

Day 5:
Determine how much weight you can do on a bb stiff leg dead lift for 10-12 reps

Determine how much weight you can do for 6-8 reps on a flat bb bench press

Determine how much weight you can do on a bent barbell row for 6-8 reps.

Seated incline db curls 2 sets x 12-15 reps
Flat bench bb skull crushers 2 sets x 12-15 reps

These are not the only exercises you will be doing – this is just to get your baselines on a few simple exercises and are the ones you will work to progress in. Weekly, workouts will include different exercises from the list that is posted in the 8 Week Program section here on the blog, including squats, dead lifts, lunges, bench press variations and several other that really stimulate the body.

IF you don’t understand how to do some of these exercises, I would suggest to either email me and ask me where you can find a video of someone doing it properly. I am in the midst of adding an entire library of every exercise that I can think of, but it’s going to take me a little bit. At least if you email me, I can tell you where you can find the correct way to do it, and not a video of someone with terrible form.

Of course, for my online personal training clients, I do offer webcam conferencing and step by step instruction for any exercise you may need help with.

For now, choose a few core exercises that you enjoy and finish your workouts with them, but once week 1 starts, I will be adding specific core exercises to your regimen.

Questions and/or comments? Feel free to email or comment!

Boyd Myers
Personal Trainer in San Antonio
Owner, San Antonio’s Top Personal Training Studio
16613 Huebner Rd (corner of Huebner and Bitters)
210.391.1454