Meal Prep.  Those two words evoke mixed emotions for me.  As someone who has competed in natural, competitive bodybuilding nearly a decade ago, I think back to the 8-10 weeks leading up to a show in which I would prepare chicken breast, tilapia, egg whites, brown rice, oatmeal, sweet potatoes, broccoli, and asparagus every single Sunday.  It was a huge time commitment and having to eat the same bland foods for 8-10 weeks made for a pretty mundane palate as well as social life.  Sure I got really, really lean and looked great on stage and in pictures but it wasn't a sustainable way of life and you can even make a case and say that it was unhealthy (yes, there is such a thing as  getting too lean)! 

​Nowadays, one word sums up my perspective towards health and fitness..BALANCE.  I encourage my clients and members at my gym to stay on point 80% of the time with regards to nutrition and to not feel bad about having a few cheat meals each week or having 2-3 drinks of alcohol.  Where people really get into trouble is when they start to binge eat.  Binging is typically a result of being super stringent on a meal plan and ultimately reaching your breaking point with it.  You see, extremism is rarely a good approach to take with anything in life and a more middle of the road nutrition strategy will still enable a person to make strides towards their body sculpting goals while not causing them to feel alienated in other aspects of their life.'
   
As a gym owner, professional trainer, and single man it's quite easy for me to get pulled in several different directions and lose sight of the ever so important element of life balance.  This is where having my meals prepared ahead of time becomes so vital.  We've all heard the saying, "time is money."  As I'm sure many of you can relate to, I find this to be oh so true these days and long ago came to the realization that I am not Bobby Flay in the kitchen.  Fortunately, I recently stumbled upon a local meal prep company called Fresh & Fit Meals on Instagram and reached out to them to see how they could help take the burden off of me.  One of the owners, Matt Zozoya, responded immediately and I couldn't be happier with the service he and his company have provided. ​

Since getting my nutrition back on point with the help of Fresh and Fit Meals it really has helped re-solidify the framework for my balanced life approach.  As I say to my clients and members, "You have to feed the beast" and in giving your body the nutrients it needs you in turn become more productive in other aspects of your life and your body composition starts to improve.  Across the board, life gets better when you eat clean, regimented meals and if you're a busy, working professional like myself I highly encourage you to give them a shot, you will not be disappointed! ​

Q:  Denise, first off, please tell the readers a little bit about what you do, your background with regards to exercise, anything else that you'd like to share that could be helpful for the readers in understanding the magnitude of your transformation. 
A:  As a kid and through high school I was always very active and never had a problem with my weight or figure.  After getting married about 3 years ago, between working at a desk and going out to dinner on a frequent basis, I started gaining weight.  Over the course of 2 years I picked up 30 lbs and people didn’t recognize me.   After work all I wanted to do was eat and drink, I was always tired and self-conscious.   I became so self-conscious that I constantly wore a jacket and avoided social situations.  It was a nonstop burden, and uncomfortable carrying around all that weight.  I cried when I had to buy bigger clothes.    
Q:  So we're approaching the two year mark of training together and it's truly been a 180 in terms of what you're accomplishing in the gym and how your physique has changed but the truth is that it really wasn't until after your first year of working with me that the weight started to come off.  In that first year you certainly got a lot stronger and were more physically fit but explain to the readers why at that pivotal moment in time the weight finally started to come off. 
A: It takes your body time to adjust.   During the first year I gained strength but I had not fully mentally and physically committed to really getting into shape.  After about a year I started to change my diet, thanks to your help.  I also started enjoying work outs more and looked forward to the endorphin rush.  After working out, I felt great and I felt proud of myself.   
Don’t expect results overnight, it takes time and dedicated.  Your entire mindset and attitude towards working out shifts.   Once I started losing weight I felt much better about myself and it was somewhat addictive.  I finally could see result which encouraged me even more. ​

Q:  Denise, I just want to say thank you for everything that you've done these past two years and I'm sure the readers appreciate your firsthand account into your fitness journey.  Is there anything else you'd like to tell people out there that are perhaps on the fence with starting an exercise regimen? 
A: Just like during our workouts, sometimes you say to me, “Just start” and it resonates with me.  Just get going, start moving and don’t expect immediate results.   The discipline you will learn and long term health benefits cannot be quantified.   ​

As some of you may know, a little over 5 weeks ago I instinctively decided to take the necessary steps to drop body fat, restart my cardiovascular system, and make my own workouts a priority once again.  You see, the preceding 5 months of my life the my focus was largely directed towards my business endeavor of opening a gym.  Sure, I was still working out 3 times per week with weights and eating properly 50 percent of the time but for someone who is at an advanced fitness level like I was, these curtailed efforts eventually took their toll on my physique and I started to backslide.  In that time frame, I would guess that I gained 6-8lbs. of fat and lost 4-5lbs. of muscle.  My goal was to reverse that process--in 28 days!
​I knew that the nutrition component needed to be the cornerstone for this transformation process but I also knew that with the new responsibility of being a gym owner, things wouldn't always go according to plan and I'd have to adjust and adapt.  The staples of my nutrition would be my first and last meal of the day--the meals I knew I could always eat at my home. 

Breakfast consisted of:
4 egg whites, 1 whole egg, iodized salt and pepper
​2 strips of turkey bacon
2/3 cup of oats with unsweetened almond milk, cinnamon
​chobani greek yogurt-individual container
​8oz. orange juice

​For lunch, I would typically eat out at one of the following restaurants in San Diego: Chipotle, SanSai, Flame Broiler, Crazy Bowls and Wraps, Panda Express.  The constant at all of these restaurants was a lean chicken breast, rice, vegetables, and beans if I were doing chipotle.  I omitted the sauces and other additions like guacamole, etc.
 
​I would workout at mid-day and drink a protein shake afterwards that consisted of:
​12 oz. of unsweetened almond milk
30g of protein powder
​10g of L-Glutamine
2/3 cup of oats

​My late afternoon to early evening meal which I would also eat at my home would be:
​8oz. 93/7 ground turkey
​1 boil-in-bag brown or white rice
1/3 cup of pinto beans

My last meal of the day would be a chef salad:
​iceberg lettuce
chopped ham and turkey
mozzarella cheese
​small amount of ranch dressing
1 cup of cottage cheese
​1/4 cup of mixed nuts

​To summarize my nutrition, I was getting at least 1 gram per 1lb. of bodyweight daily and keeping my total fat intake during the day to less than 50 or 60 grams.  My daily carb intake was always dependent upon my activity level and some days would be as high as 400g and others as low as 200g.  What made the biggest difference for me was eliminating snacks in the evening.  It's incredible how the calories can really add from chips, etc.

​The exercise component shifted quite dramatically for me as well when I started this transformation process.  I went from training very heavy for low repetitions(3-5) to training moderately to light for high repetitions (15-20).  My exercise selections also shifted as I now had incredible equipment to train with in my new gym and had to rely less upon basic barbell workouts.  I still incorporated free weight movements but also incorporated a lot more isolation, muscle-group specific exercises.  I would train with weights 4-5 days per week and have 1-2 days be devoted to cardio.  I would do either the stationary bike or step mill for 45 minutes and keep my heartrate around 150 for the duration.  Each week I made sure that I took one complete day off from exercise but this certainly wasn't a lounge on the couch day.  It was productive in it's own rite--running errands, tending to business items, and trying to stay as domesticated as a single man can these days.

​Some additional things to mention were that I consumed 1 gallon of water per day and only consumed two drinks of alcohol and a few slices of pizza in this time frame.  I was working from about 9am until 10pm at my gym so it didn't allow for many social situations in which I would have to resist a temptation and in the little free time that I did have I used it to tear through a few series on Netflix.  
​The biggest takeaway for me that I'd like to share with you is that my aforementioned approach to nutrition and exercise during this transformation process made it a breeze to cruise right through the 28 days of this Anti-Diet, Diet.  It brought me back to routinely making good food choices and prioritizing my own workouts.  Now that I've gotten my body fat back down I hope to keep it in check because I feel so much lighter on my feet, enjoy the added definition to my physique, and appreciate the improved function in my cardiovascular system.

Safety, efficiency, AND a heavy load while squatting and overhead pressing: Are you serious?  With the landmine thruster you better believe I am!  Here's how to get the job done.
​
by Keith Diedrich  

I went into yesterday's workout with a 5-day layoff from exercise and felt remarkably fresh. The break was inadvertent as I had traveled over the weekend and had caught a bit of a cold so I wanted to recover from that before attempting to workout again. I was in a bit of a predicament as I had missed a shoulder workout from the previous week and was slated to train legs as my first body part in the current week.  In giving this some thought, I aggressively elected to recruit both muscle groups in my first workout back to the gym!  Now I certainly wasn't going to do a full shoulder workout combined with a full leg workout--that would have been overkill.  However, I did  want to get the most bang for my buck with my first workout back and incorporating the landmine thruster was a sure-fire way to do this.  ​

The term landmine refers to the positioning of one end of the barbell into either the corner of a wall or into an apparatus that is specifically designed to house the end of the barbell such as this one: https://thefitnessoutlet.com/xtreme-monkey-commercial-landmine-45lbs. Either way will get the job done.  A thruster is a movement that combines a front squat with an overhead press (typically done with a barbell) and requires a great deal of wrist mobility and can have a high incidence of injury if not performed correctly.  The landmine thruster is a nice alternative to the barbell thruster as it has a smaller learning curve and will still produce the same benefits while minimizing the chance of injury.
You should start the exercise by taking a stance outside of shoulder width and pointing the toes outward 10-15 degrees.  Additionally, your weight should be distributed to the ball or heel of the foot and along the outer edge of your shoe.  By keeping the chin tucked, you should be able to keep your focal point fixed on the outer rim of the weight plate to ensure proper alignment through the cervical spine.  The end of the barbell should be an inch or two below the clavicle and the palms of your hands should cushion the bar as you interlock your fingers to secure it in place.  ​

From here, take a deep breath, filling the stomach full of air and begin to push the hips back gradually as you lower into the bottom portion of the squat. The torso should remain as upright as possible and the upper arms should remain close to the sides while continuing to hold your breath until you get to the bottom of the squat (the midpoint) in which the elbows come in contact with the lower quads.

Once you've reached proper depth, a great deal of stored energy should exist assuming you're keeping every muscle from trap to calf tensed to maintain the right body position.  In this bottom position, imagine yourself as a spring that has been fully compressed and is waiting to burst back to the top.  With controlled explosion, begin to drive out of the hole with the glutes and hamstrings and when you get to about 3/4 of the way to the top thrust the hips forward (you can see this in the video at the bottom) while simultaneously pressing the weight up to full extension. ​

The Workout
I began my workout with 15 minutes on the cross trainer and then stretched for about 5 minutes prior to my first set of landmine thrusters.  I used a pyramid scheme in my set progressions, going from a light weight with 12 reps up to a heavy weight for 3 reps. I believe I did a total of 12-15 sets. I followed this exercise up with 4-5 sets  x 12 reps of trap bar shrugs to conclude my workout.    ​

The foods listed above were all things that I enjoyed eating. It’s important to select foods that you don’t hate or strongly dislike as the likelihood of adhering to the meal plan only goes down. Next, I had to determine roughly what my daily basal caloric intake would be. Through tracking food in the past, I knew that it would take ~3,400 calories per day to maintain my bodyweight (whatever this number may be is your basal caloric intake). For those of you that would be spiffballing, an easy way to give you a ballpark figure is to multiply your bodyweight x 17. I next subtracted 500 calories from my baseline.  Why 500? Well, if you recall from the goals stated above, I wanted to drop 10 lbs. by day 28 and each pound of fat is comprised of 3,500 calories. This means over the course of 4 weeks I’d need to burn 35,000 more calories than I took in! My strategy was to create a daily caloric deficit of 1,000 calories (500 from food restrictions and the other 500 from increasing my activity level..i.e. weights and/or cardio). This would equate to a weekly calorie deficit of 7,000 calories which also equates to a weekly reduction of 2 lbs. of fat!  Now I know you’re thinking that would only yield a total weight loss of 8 lbs. by day 28 but I had a few tricks up my sleeve that I knew would help chip away at that remaining 2 lbs. which I will get into later.  Now that I knew how many calories to consume each day (2,900) I needed to decide where I wanted those calories to come from (protein, carbs, fat). This is the part that most people struggle with and is highly individualistic but a decade of troubleshooting the impact that different foods have on myself as well as clients of mine helped me arrive at a ratio of 50/35/15.  50% of my calories would come from carbs (~350g), 35% would come from protein (~250g) and 15% (~50g) would come from fats.  A lot of people these days think that carbs are the devil but fail to realize that carbs are as much if not more muscle sparing than protein.  And remember, this program is 100% done naturally so you must have all of your ducks in a row to shed fat rapidly while concurrently maintaining lean mass. Additionally, carbs are your body’s primary energy source.  Even your brain needs some carbs to function optimally. Therefore, with the goal of holding onto your hard earned muscle and not walking around like a zombie, as mine was, it is imperative to keep carbs at least on the moderate side.  Going into more detail, I would make it a point to consume 60-70% of my daily carb intake prior to my weight lifting session. This was to ensure that my workout performance was as high as possible and that I was giving my body the energy when it needed it the most. I would consume 4-5 meals per day and tried to space the meals out every 3-5 hours.

Muscle is comprised of roughly 75% water. Blood is comprised of roughly 70% water.  When you’re exercising, what is happening? In a nutshell, blood is being pumped to the muscle to perform a task and so it should come as no surprise that performance and even more important, quality of living, is going to suffer if you are not giving your body enough water!  Which is why I made it a point to consume 1 gallon of water each day during my first week of dieting and increased my daily water consumption by .25 gallons each successive week (by week 4 I was drinking 2 gallons per day).   ​

As I went into my final assessment on Day 29 I knew I was close to attaining my goals but wasn’t quite sure if I had dropped enough fat. I had received numerous compliments from people throughout the process, felt mentally sharper than I have in years, and could see the difference in the mirror myself so regardless of what the final numbers were it was a major victory for me. Ultimately, I ended up dropping 9.5 lbs. of scale weight and reduced my body fat percentage by 3.4%. I also lost an inch and a half off my waist, and maintained virtually every ounce of muscle.  ​

I love to travel and so do many of my clients. In fact, to ensure proper balance in one’s life I strongly encourage it! However, if done frequently or for extended periods of time it can significantly push back the timeline you had originally set to accomplish your fitness goals. Here are my 3 suggestions on how to transition back into workout mode as smoothly as possible when returning from a vacation...

Rick: Paramedic by day amateur comedian by night.Inspired by his roommate Paul's success, Rick is committed to reversing the clock and getting back into the best shape of his life.

Scott: Former collegiate gymnast. Master of the inverted crunch and could very well have the best legs in the contest.

Jonathan: Full-time student by day and bartender by night. Has a very fresh rivalry with Donovan. You could say these two did not quite hit it off so well.

Keith: Road biking enthusiast new to San Diego. Can he make a name for himself?

Paul: Quite possibly the hardest worker in the contest. When he commits himself anything is possible.

Justin: Man of many talents. Namely, trash-talking. Enough said.

Brad: Estate attorney with a few secrets up his sleeve..when his arms will fit into his shirt. This humble guy arguably has the best arms in the contest.

Anna: First female ever to be awarded the honor of being transformation of the month. August 2013. She's already called out the male competitors and told them to "bring it." 

Hiram: He's made some ridiculous transformations before. He's back to do it all over again and is stopping for no one-especially Justin.

Mike: Chef by day but mostly known as Justin's arch nemesis.These two have a history of bad blood.

Donnie: Real estate mogul by day and bartender by night. He really has the potential to add some significant muscle.

Ashley: She's already made quite a transformation but with her wedding approaching she's not done just yet.

Donovan: Future police officer and former transformation of the month winner (June '14). He has a plan to take down Justin first and then Jonathan will be his next order of business.

The winner will be decided by Jeremy Sims, Cellucor Regional VP and nationally ranked bodybuilder who is on the verge of turning pro. He has one of the best eyes for aesthetics and will be able to give an unbiased opinion on which person has the most impressive transformation in their before/after photos. 6 weeks is not an insurmountable amount of time to commit to something but is just enough time for a person to make a noticeable physique transformation, provided they are committed to their goal.  No roadblocks should stand in your way as this contest wraps up just before the 4th of July. Good luck!

​Getting to the gym is half the battle, but once you’ve arrived just how long should your workout last?  Unfortunately there is no simple, one size fits all, quantitative answer to this question.  To figure out the most optimal duration for a workout, we need to look at several things, but first and foremost you need to define what kind of a workout you PLAN on doing at the gym.  Feel free to re-read that last sentence, because I did in fact just say you need to have a plan before you stroll through the doors of your local fitness center.  Decide whether your workout for the day will be strength training based, targeting the major muscle groups or cardiovascular based, testing the endurance of your heart and lungs.  Since a lot of my readers despise cardio, let’s save that topic for another day and assume your workout will be centered on weight training.  Here are some things to consider.

​First, if your goal is to build muscle and/or get stronger, please be sure that you have an appropriate amount of food in your system as well as enough rest/sleep going into the workout.  If these two variables are not on point, your workout quality is going to suffer and muscle/strength building most likely will not occur.  Going further, be mindful of how close your pre-workout meal is to the start time of your workout.  I suggest a minimum of 60 minutes for a medium sized meal and ideally closer to 90 minutes to ensure proper food digestion.  Messing this up will shunt the pumping of blood into the muscles for contractions and instead the body will innately push the blood into the stomach for digestion.  

​Provided that food intake and rest is where it needs to be, a moderate to high intensity strength training workout in my opinion should not exceed 1 hour and 15 minutes and could possibly extend out to 90 minutes on a leg day.  The rationale for this is the body seems to reach the law of diminishing returns near this point and there is very little to be gained from going any longer.  Muscle eating hormones such as cortisol really start to sky rocket and too much tissue damage can be a bad thing.  For instance, often times in crossfit circles rhabdomyolysis, the breakdown of muscle fibers that leads to the release of muscle fiber contents into the blood, can occur.  This is an extreme state but just be forewarned that it can cause serious kidney damage and even cause you to die.  If you feel like you are able to lift weights longer than this period of time, don't fool yourself into thinking you're superhuman or some kind of mutation.  Most likely, the reality is your intensity is not high enough and you need to step it up a notch.  Some quick tips to increase your intensity can be decreasing your rest time between sets, increasing the load on exercises that you have mastered proper technique, and focus more on the mind to muscle connection by emphasizing the stretch and squeeze of every repetition.

​My experience as a professional trainer has shown me that the mentality of a novice exerciser is usually of the thought "more is better."  Please be advised that over-exercising is the wrong approach to take and not only can it stall your progress in the gym, but more seriously it could lead to a muscular injury.  An injury will in turn prevent you from exercising and before you know it you're backsliding instead of progressing.
So do yourself a favor and keep the intensity appropriately high in strength training workouts and if you do, your workout should last no longer than 1 hour and 30 minutes. (large muscles like back and legs) and probably closer to 1 hour for smaller muscles like chest and arms.  Check back in next week as I’ll dive into some of the questions I typically field in regards to cardio.

​The reality is that the majority of the population who “exercise” regularly will not experience overtraining as they simply do not place strong enough demands on their body.  Conversely, the gym rat or competitive bodybuilder/powerlifter who takes their exercise programming quite serious because of their extreme goals most definitely can and at some point likely experience overtraining.  This typically occurs unintentionally when a block of training is too grueling on the body and is typically ignored by the individual as the line of thinking “more is better” gets perpetuated.  Periodization, which is the progressive cycling of various aspects of your exercise program for specific amounts of time should minimize the chance of overtraining.  

​With that said, I personally feel a defined block of overtraining can be a good thing.  I don’t have any scientific evidence to support this but anecdotally I’ve seen numerous bodybuilders and powerlifters go through a phase of overtraining and subsequently end up busting through plateaus.  This may sound counterintuitive so for example, let’s look at a bodybuilder who diets for 12 weeks leading up to a bodybuilding contest:  The individual’s goal is to get their bodyfat percentage as low as possible while maintaining as much lean mass as possible.  To do this, they will restrict their calories and/or increase energy expenditure (activity level) to a point at which the body is in a calorie deficit.  Typically in the latter weeks of a contest prep the individual will feel lethargic and weak in the gym and rightfully so as a 3 month food restriction accompanied by excessive weight training and cardio can be grueling on the mind, body, and central nervous system.  The good news is that the individual can burst through plateaus if they transition out of this phase properly.  The most important aspect of rebounding from such a depleted state is adequate rest.  I usually recommend 5-7 days away from intense exercise along with a modest bump in caloric intake, around 500 calories.  Once regular exercise is resumed I suggest slowly adding back in calories and ramping up intensity in your workouts.  The key is to be patient after the overtraining phase and not go on a one week binge and eat everything in sight. With that said, I’d like to make a point for the readers out there that aren’t looking to compete in a fitness contest and just want to change their body composition and become more muscular and less fat:  When the time comes that you make a true decision to change the way you look and how you feel you will implement similar practices that a bodybuilder would such as slowly reducing calories and increasing activity level but do not fear that you will look like a bodybuilder as these individuals have an extreme goal and have been working towards that in an extreme manner for most likely an extremely extended period of time.