Day 460: 40 Days And 40 Nights...Of Super Lean Shredding!

G'day Shredders,

It's crunch time! If this sixer is gonna happen by Day 500 the work will have to be done every single one of these 40 days.

Orlando Shred Planning

I'll especially have to get the job done on my upcoming 2-week trip to Orlando. I'll have to resist the free buffet breakfasts, lunches and dinners and stick 100% to my nutrition plan. Of course I'll also have to do a lot of Double Shredding as well, even if the seminar days are long.

There are no excuses, there is only a lack of commitment and planning.

In light of this 40 Day & Night Shred I have something to share with you today. As you know I am a fan (putting it mildly!) of Tom Venuto and his cutting-edge fat loss information.

Super Lean With The Super Shredder!

Call it fate (or great timing!), but for the next 3 days only (Until midnight February 13) the Super Shredder (that's Tom!) is running a special Super Lean MP3 Audio Seminar promotion for his best-selling eBook, Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle.

I have already devoured the audios and transcripts from this audio series previously, but I took the time today to review this Super Lean Seminar Series and picked up a few more tips. Tom's is a "walking encyclopedia" of fat loss knowledge so sometimes it does take a few listens for his info to sink in!

Super Lean Seminar Excerpt

I am re-printing (with permission from Tom) Part 1 of an excerpt of the Super Lean Seminar (Part 2 & 3 to come soon) below to give you a first-hand taste of this Super Lean Seminar along with actionable information that you can use immediately to burn the fat.

Hint: If you haven't bought BFFM yet, now is THE perfect time, as the Super Lean MP3 Seminar Series promotion will expire on February 13.

The clock is ticking...


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Super Lean Seminar Excerpt:
Part 1 - Breaking Fat Loss Plateaus

QUESTION: "Our first question says, “Tom, I know you often say that to get to the point to be able to see your abs, you need to get to single-digit body fat. What if I hit a plateau at about 12% body fat? What do I need to do to break the plateau and get my fat% down to single digits? Should I do more cardio, more weight-training, manipulate my diet somehow?”

ANSWER: "You could do any of the above. You could manipulate your calories, change type of cardio, add cardio duration or frequency. You could increase cardio intensity. You could change your weight-training. You shouldn’t limit yourself.

One of the problems I see with quite a few programs is that they’re too dogmatic. If you hit a plateau, the person with the most flexibility in their approach is the person who’s going to be most likely to get through that plateau.

The first thing though is to understand what a plateau really is. This is important, because if you were losing weight, but now you’re not, there’s only one thing that that could mean; you were in a calorie deficit but you’re no longer in a calorie deficit.

You may be wondering why that happens.

There are four primary reasons you hit a plateau:

1) The first reason you hit a plateau is because your metabolism decreases. While this does not completely stop fat loss, it does slow down fat loss. If you’ve been cutting calories, especially if you cut them severely, your body adapts by decreasing the metabolic rate. That’s sometimes known as the “starvation response” or “Adaptive thermogenesis.”

2) The second reason is that you need fewer calories after you lose weight. Calorie needs are directly tied into your body weight. One problem is that after people lose a lot of weight, they tend to keep eating the same way they were eating when they were heavier.

So they’re feeding a smaller person the way they were when they were a bigger person, but when you’re a smaller person, you don’t need as many calories, even at rest (your basal metabolic rate is lower).

3) A third reason is that when you move that smaller body, you’re not burning as many calories. If you strap on a weighted vest or heavy backpack and go out and hike up a hill, you can tell, obviously, that if you’re lugging around extra weight, you’re burning more calories. So now can you see why, after you lose weight, you burn fewer calories?

4) The fourth reason is that most people either cheat on their diets or they forget to record part of their food intake. This one requires a little bit of honesty with yourself. Even if you don’t do it intentionally and you don’t “cheat” per se, unconsciously, we’re all terrible at estimating how much food we eat.

Some studies have even showed underreporting calorie intake as much as 50%. In other words, you say, “I’m only eating 1,200 calories a day, but i’m stuck at a plateau!” but you’re really eating 1,800 calories a day which doesn’t give you much of a deficit.

All of these reasons for plateaus get amplified in the later stages of a diet, because biologically speaking, your body is doing everything it possibly can to get you to go off your diet and to get weight to stabilize.

After a long period of dieting and after a large weight loss, your body cranks up the appetite, stimulates cravings and tries to trick you into eating more.

The leaner you get, the longer you've been dieting and the more aggressively you cut calories, the more your body tends to defend its weight, and hold on to remaining body fat.

So it’s really common to hit that plateau when you’re dieted down and leaner. Usually it’s nowhere near as difficult for the overweight person to start losing weight as it is for the lean person to get even more lean. The last 10 lbs is usually a lot harder than the first 10.

If you think about it, it’s pretty unnatural from a biological perspective to walk around with really low single-digit body fat. It’s not beneficial from a survival-of-the-species point of view to have low body fat. So this metabolic adaptation becomes more pronounced the leaner you get.

You’re also at a higher risk of losing muscle, because extra muscle is not economical when there’s a calorie shortage. Having extra muscle is like having an engine that’s bigger than you need - It’s like a gas guzzler.

The ultimate answer to why you plateau, why that last 10 pounds is so hard to lose and why it’s hard to break into those single digits is that you were in a calorie deficit but for all of the reasons mentioned above, you’re no longer in deficit.

In tomorrow's excerpt Tom will discuss the best way to break a plateau.

Click here for my detailed Day 166 Post on my personal experience with Tom and how Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle changed my life!

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Day 49 of 84

Nutrition: My meal plan was spot on today.

Training: I also did my Upper Body Fat Loss Circuit Training in the afternoon.

M4 Shred:
Real-Time Accountability

Status:

Day 49 of 84

Click Here to learn more about the origin
and theory of RTP Real-Time Accountability.

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*Important:

Feel free to use this plan as a template that you can follow. However, this plan is is based on my own personal experience over 3 physique transformation missions. In other words, what works for me may not work for you in the same way.

Success in this game requires research, individual design, real-world testing, monitoring results and making adjustments when necessary. This is your responsibility, no one else can do it for you. However, if you'd like to research further the exact programs I have used (over my first 3 Missions) and will use for M4 Shred you can do so at the links below.

M4 Shred Components: Click each link to learn more.

1) Fat Burning: 16 Principles of BFFM: nutrition, mindset and cardio.

2) Weight Training: Metabolic Surge: 36 Day Rapid Fat Loss System.

3) Six-Pack Training: Flatten Your Abs: 7-Level Training System.

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Shredder Pact:

We will focus on the single daily actions that produce results.

We will "burn our bridges" and not look back.

We will never surrender.

Eat Clean,
Shred Hard,
Think BIG!

Cheers,
Adam Waters, NESTA-CPT

P.S. Below are Day 460 RTP Blog Daily Pictures for February 11, 2008: Mission 4 - Day 85 of 125 (M4 Shred: Day 49 of 84).