So unrelated to this post but so worth sharing, this morning my husband was in the kitchen making my youngest son’s lunch (yes, read that and weep—woop woop!) when he dropped some of what he was putting in the lunch box on the floor.  My son, in the sweetest tone and facial expression said to him, ”It’s ok daddy.  It’s your fault, but it’s ok any way.” 

Honestly, don’t you wish you could have someone like that follow you around in life and just make you feel better about anything you may do “wrong” knowing you’d have that kind of support? 

Jail clerk, “It’s ok Ms. Jones.  You did take a baseball bat to the car in front of you at the light because it cut you off at the previous intersection—so yes it is your fault, but it’s ok any way.  Let me get you a soft pillow for your cell.”  *Sigh*

On to other things like six pack abs and a stellar performance!

“Ordering” your food (and I don’t mean, “I’ll take a large steak and cheese with pickles and tomatoes”) can make the difference in the outcome you want to achieve either aesthetically or performance-wise.  There are many different ways to align your food choices to elicit a different effect such as more definition, greater muscle gain and excellent recovery.  The following will give you some guidance as to how to put your menu together to get the most out of it:

Six Pack Abs:

I am constantly asked not ‘how can I get six pack abs?’ or even ‘can I get six pack abs?’ but ‘Can I have her six pack abs?  I want hers.’  I say the same thing every time I am asked, “Sure, go find her parents and ask them if they have any spare DNA.”  When it comes to definition, musculature, symmetry and etc. you are at the mercy of the genetic gods.  Get over it.  Wait…you missed this…

GET OVER IT.

If you have abs, you have them.  If you don’t, you don’t.  If you are female and 10% bodyfat and smooth as smooth in the belly but ripped up shoulders—guess what…you missed the ab boat.  If you are 18% bodyfat, large on the bottom, nice shoulders with a visible outline of a 6 pack—guess what…you just hit the lottery.  Where you wear your bodyfat is specific to you.  You can alter this (although be careful of what you wish for sometimes) if you stick with it long enough, but it requires due diligence.  So how can you maximize the chances of getting 6 pack abs?  Do not mix your starches with your fats. 

When you order your foods for the day, put a protein and a fruit/veggie in every meal and then decide which meal will get the starch that day and which meal will get the fat.  i.e.

MEAL 1                        ST

MEAL 2                        ST

MEAL 3                       

MEAL 4                        GFAT

MEAL 5                                               

Do you need to have your starches all in the morning?  Not necessarily, depends on when you are working out.  But I would separate them from your major serving of fat by at least one meal.  This does not kick into effect until you get within 5 to 10 pounds of goal weight.  If you have 30 to lose, head over to Order In the Court.

Stronger, Faster:

I am sure you have figured out by now that I do not believe that you need to sacrifice your physique to perform well.  I believe you can go for both without having to have to choose until you want to go to the highest level for either.  Whenever I say this I always get the person who points out many an athlete who is on the national circuit who looks fabulous.  These athletes are always the elite athletes who again, were blessed by the genetic gods in both talent and body.  They don’t count.  However, their parents DNA is for sale–hurry up and get it while it’s in stock. 

Now, if you’re reading this you are not one of them therefore you must think about you and your situation which requires a bit more attention than theirs does.  If you want to perform beautifully, then you need to think in terms of recovering and in terms of dieting.  So you end up with a hodge podge of days:

                    TRAINING                    TRANSITION                    DIETING

MEAL 1             ST                                ST                                ST

MEAL 2             ST                                ST                                ST

MEAL 3             ST/GFAT                      (GFAT)                        

MEAL 4                                                ST                               GFAT

MEAL 5             ST/GFAT                      (GFAT)                                    

MEAL 6 (TR)

Training is a day where your activity extends longer than 90 min. and you need maximum recovery.  Transition is an active day where your training is 90min. or less so you need to fuel but not too much.  Dieting is a day where your activity is an hour or less and you are just like everybody else doing cardio. 

When you mix up your days like this, you are truly serious about performing well and looking good both at the same time.

Behemoth:

Muscle gain.  Man is this a loaded subject or what?  It’s the hardest thing to get folks to understand–even more so than the elusive 6 pack abs.  If you want more muscle you need to eat more food. Simple as that. You know and I know there is more to it than that but 9 out of ten times when I get a client, male or female, who wants to get “bigger” and I check out their diet they are not eating enough.  Why?  “I want to get bigger but I don’t want to gain any weight.”  Really?  I want to pay my mortgage but I don’t want to use my money.  Do you think the bank wants a great diet plan to help them out instead?

I don’t know where this started but I honestly would pay money to make it go away.  Please, resign yourself to the fact that if you want to put on muscle, you will have to gain some weight.  Do you need to go up 25?  No, total waste of your time because you will lose much of what you gain in muscle having to diet that long to get off all that extra poundage.  But you will need to go up by *something*.  That means you cannot have 6 pack abs during a building phase.  So…

GET OVER IT.

Same concept as stronger faster but no transition day:

                        TRAINING                               DIETING

MEAL 1               ST                                          ST

MEAL 2               ST/GFAT                                ST

MEAL 3               ST                                                       

MEAL 4                                                            GFAT

MEAL 5               ST/GFAT                                                         

MEAL 6(TR)     

I Want What I Want

I do understand how this may seem easy to me because I do this all day long and so much work for you because this is the first time you are seeing it, but I cannot stress enough that if you want something more than what you have right now you are going to have to WORK for it.  If you want to do this on your own, you will truly have to learn how to do it.  There are short cuts and diet programs and etc. but they are made for the masses.  If you want to just complete the goal then please go that route.  It will simplify things and give you a foundation for you to build upon.  But if you have done that already and are looking for more, take the time to learn about what works for you and what does not.  You can do it with someone’s guidance or without.  To me, that’s a preference thing. Regardless, it will be work for you none-the-less.  Remember, there is JOY in the completion!

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