…pounds that is.  And lots of them.

Building is a myth of epic proportions for women.  Not so much for men, but for women–oh yeah it is.  Whenever I talk to a woman who’s in a building phase, I normally stand there silent, in awe of what she thinks is going on vs. what really is going down.  Typically her trainer has her taking more pills than a senior in assisted living, eating enough food for a small army and lifting like a psycho while she “builds” this ginormous amount of muscle in 8 to 10 weeks.  On the surface, some of that is true.  You will build some muscle in that time period; but nowhere near the amount that you think you’re going to build if you are doing it naturally and you will be left wondering if the price was worth it.

I want to remind you that I am all about all natural before I go on any further.  I mean no fat burners or hormonal help in any way other than all natural sources.  I have no issues with things like creatine and bcaa’s but I will not even entertain the idea of anything else you can dream up that’s on the market today that serves as some type of precursor to testosterone or the like.  This makes a huge difference as you read on because I’m sure you are going to say in your head that this isn’t true and that you know of such and such who did so and so in 10 weeks and she looks amazing.  And then you find out she took xyz and that just killed this comparison.  And trust me; if she looked like that in 10 weeks, she was taking xyz.

As a coach, building in the traditional sense is a kiss of death.  If you tell me you want to take time to build, you are essentially telling me you are preparing yourself to walk the plank and end your fitness training right then and there.  Why the drama?  (Besides the fact that that is my middle name?) Read on…

WHAT IT IS

Building is a period of time where you lift heavy and eat in a caloric surplus to support your lifting.  Recovery is essential during this time in terms of both food and rest and ample attention needs to be paid to how much you are gaining weekly vs. how much you originally weighed so you are not just gaining fat during this time.  This is done through carefully increasing the amount of food that you eat over a period of time while watching the scale for major increases in weight.  Extra activity is cut back and becoming a hermit is a must.  Short of not shaving your legs anymore and letting your eyebrows grow out, you basically adopt a life of baseball hats and big sweatshirts.

TECHNICAL FACTS TO CHEW ON

Training:  Heavy.

Food:  A lot.  Like a wicka-lah.

Supplements:  Expensive. No seriously.  Don’t buy a house or condo before you embark on a building program.  You may not make the payments.

Rest:  Minimum 8 hours of sleep but really, you’ll need more than that.

THE FINE PRINT

Honestly, the program itself is not the thing that I want you to focus on.  You can find a great building program from some of the most notable names out there so there’s no need spending time quibbling those facts.  What I want to talk about is what you WON’T find on the web about building, being natural and being a woman.

First, if you are interested in a building program, you most likely have already gone through a dieting program of some kind and realized you ain’t got no muskel.  NONE.  If you did, you would not be so concerned with building.  You probably lost a good amount of body fat and realized that you were all lower body and no upper and you need take 12 weeks to “build some shoulders”.   This is pretty straight forward, just eat a little extra and lift a little heavier and you’ll be on your way to the new and improved you.  Only it doesn’t go down that way and the amount of weight you can gain in the first few weeks of building can send you into a tailspin that sets up the next 16 weeks of dieting to get it off.

Second, if you are natural and female and you spent the entire year lifting in a building phase, you’d be lucky if you put on 2 pounds of muscle.  Go read the titles of your average man’s magazine:  “Gain 5 pounds of muscle in a year!”, “Follow this protocol for the ultimate gains”, “Max gains in minimum time” and “Gain X pounds of muscle in 6 months”.  Now that’s for men…on the cover of a non-natural man’s magazine…that’s what they’d gain in a year…and they are genetically predisposed to gain muscle.  So stop and think about what this says about you…a female…who wants to build for 10 weeks…naturally…while you have the genetic disposition of a noodle.  So you put on say 10 pounds of weight only to gain less than a half pound of muscle.  Yeah…good luck with that.

Lastly, you have no idea what  you are about to take on emotionally.  This all sounds fine and dandy on paper, but when you put this into practice—you lose your mind.

• You eat more so you feel full.  Feeling full makes you feel fat.  It doesn’t make you fat, you just feel fat.

• You typically eat more carbohydrate than normal.  You don’t have to go crazy with it, but you have more ST than you normally would.  This means you carry more water and you will feel it all over.  Instantaneously your thighs are bigger.  In real life they aren’t, but as far as you’re concerned they just became water filled Lincoln logs.  You will think that everyone can see that you just swallowed a baby beluga and you are ready to deliver it at any second.

• Eating becomes a full time job and it begins to wear you down.  You will hate chewing, chicken and choices.  Everything seems the same and all you want is a break from eating another meal.

• You become stressed from the amount of pills you are swallowing.  Every meal is just another reminder of the pill sac sitting in your purse that you need to chug down sometime during the day and you look like you have a major illness when you’re out to lunch with a friend popping them all.

• Every time you go somewhere and run into someone who saw you when you were leaner, you say hi to them with a caveat attached:  “Hey girl, how are you?  I’m good.  I’m building right now.”  As in…that’s-why-I-am-in-a-baseball-cap-and-sweat-suit.  Soon you’ll just put a name tag on yourself and carry a picture of what you used to look like before you started building.  Really right now?

Once you are lean, stay lean.  Tomorrow we talk about what this really needs to look like for you to make it happen, how it varies by your age, how much you can truly gain before you are setting yourself up for failure and how to get around constantly making an excuse for how you look.  Cool?  Woop woop! )

I know you heard the saying “you are what you eat” but I am here to take it a bit further and say you are what you do, as well.

I think many of us sort of evolved down the same path to the way we eat and workout:  we wanted more out of our body and whatever we were doing at the time just didn’t cut it.  Like I mentioned in my last post, there are two types of weight gain out there and you would probably think then that there would be two types of weight loss, too, but no…there’s a bunch.  (There are also more types of weight gain but that really gives a good synopsis.)

Ok, so maybe you’re not running in the Olympics but some of you are racking up that kind of mileage without any “Olympic” results.

One of the ways I see all the time (and watch endless frustration with) is running to get a great body.  Now notice I did not say to lose weight.  You definitely can decide to get up tomorrow and start running and possibly lose some weight but the odds of you getting that body that you desire are slim and the risk you run with injury and overuse is quite high.  Running for a hot body without a concise plan is like heading to the bakery “to pick something up” for a party you’re going to later on—we all know that ends badly with bread tasting and cupcake snacking so let’s just be honest about it.  Go with a dessert already set in your mind, get in and get out or bring someone with you to bail you out when you go down hard.

Running is addictive to many women.  It’s easy, cheap, hard in the beginning so it is a great challenge, relaxing, rewarding and… *completely unsatisfying in the weight maintenance department* so the more we run, the more we have to.  We keep looking at the covers of the running magazines wondering why they have a hot body and we don’t although we log mile after mile after mile.  Yes, from the waist up you are getting there…from the waist down though you look like a Land O Lakes advertisement for their latest cheese product.  With cellulite and dimples abound, you run and run and run and run.  You have every color capris there is to own and you are an expert at tying your jacket around your waist.

But now you have solved that problem—or so you thought–because you became a savvy reader.  You started following the girls out there who have the hot bodies and began to mimic what they do.  You dropped your starches, cleaned up the diet, you lift now and yet, still…nothing.  Instead, you have no energy, you binge on carbs every 2 or 3 days because you just can’t take not eating them and you don’t know how to fit lifting into your schedule the way they do it.  What gives??

YOU HAVE AN IDENTITY CRISIS

• You are not a runner. You are a woman who enjoys using running as a means to getting the body that she desires.

• You are not a figure girl. You have no desire to get on stage—you want to run—but you want that body too.

• You are not your average consumer. You are willing to put in the work of eating clean and working out so following magazines that are telling you the same ole same ole like “top 10 superfoods” and so on is not helping much.

• You’re not a world class runner. You are quite competitive and have no desire to be the slowest runner out there but you are not a run-nut either.  You don’t own the latest heart rate monitor and you just want to enjoy your run.

Honestly, girl.  You need to know who you are so you can get what you want.  Taking pieces of everyone’s plans and trying to make them work is frustrating and unproductive.  I’m sure you’ve also noticed that the more you run the harder it is to lose weight.  So what does the running world say about that?  Run more.  Ummm…how’s that working for you?  Because at some point, you need to go to work.

We have much to develop over the next few weeks: nutrition, training, psychological warfare, supplements and so on.

Obviously this is an issue we need to really put on the table with some serious solutions for you.  This is one of the top questions I am asking no matter where I go.  Follow this series that I will talk about over the next few weeks and we’ll talk about taking off 5 pounds per 5K and tightening that bum.  Cool?

I’m looking forward to it!!  Woop woop!

Next Post in Series

What?

Where are we going, you ask?

IT’S SUMMER TIME!!

Unlike last summer, this summer we are taking it off.  Why?  Because we are all about quality and not quantity. 

Every single one of us is up to our whazoo in projects and traveling and posting for us is becoming harder and harder.  Knowing this, it’s easier to cut this off before we get two weeks into the summer and there isn’t a post to be found with no explanation why.   So what does this mean for you?

Just like our last hiatus, if you are signed up on the blog, you will receive emails from me all summer long.  I have not sent any out for a while so you don’t have to sign up again.  You haven’t missed anything.  What’s sitting in my laptop now and going out in the next week or so is “Lean Going Leaner”.  It’s all about the pitfalls, what you need to know, how hard it is and answers to your questions.  That will take a week or two.  I will also cover a few other hot topics like Staying on Track–For Real.  If you have been eating clean for a while, you know that you can fall off the wagon for weeks at a time and not be able to get back on track and it can incredibly frustrating.  We’ll talk about what you can do to get around that and why it happens. 

We want to thank everyone who reads this blog all the time.  When we jumped into the blogging world we had no idea what to expect nor did we know what we were doing (ummm…and we still don’t!).  Almost two years later, our readership is up over 300% (WOW!) and our email list is up about 400%! We are blown away by your response to us.  Why?  Because we’re not your typical bloggers nor are we your typical company:

• We do not really advertise.  Yes, every so often we’ll tell you what’s coming, but we’re not all ‘in your face’ about it.
• You have no idea what we do.  And we’re kind of ok with that for now.  What you do know is that we love what we do.  We’re real.  And we know what we’re talking about.
• We are consistent.  We’re not a blog that showed up for 10 min and then disappeared.  We’ve been in this location and at Model Per4mance for 2 full years and I pray we have a few more left in us.
• We are low key.  What most of you do not realize (and why should you–read bullet #1) is that Jodiojo & Co. is a thriving company behind the scenes.  While all the world is shouting at you for your attention, we are quietly doing our thing one body at a time.  We will be a bit more flashy when we come back, but not by much.  I am so not the flashy type and I am deeply committed to our clients.  This means I am not trying to pull in a billion clients we cannot service just to say my numbers are up.  (I am SURE there is an internet marketer reading my blog right now CRINGEING over what I am saying.  I am supposed to tell you all kinds of things to make you *think* otherwise. *sigh*)  

So while we will miss you for the next 8 weeks or so, we are happy to take time off to renew our minds, relax and think about the next series or topic we’re going to talk about.  I will be honest with you and tell you that I do not know the format of Jodiojo when we return.  We have a bunch of ideas on the table and we are exploring them all.  If you have anything you would like to see, let us know!  We always want to know what you would like to have us chat about.

In the mean time, I have been doing a ton of consulting lately (funny how this happens) and I thought I would let you know what I do, what it entails and how much it costs.  If it is of interest to you, our contact info will be at the bottom of the post and you can get us at that email address.

I am always asked: “What am I doing wrong?”  “How could I do this better?”  “I want to be healthier, what do I change?”  “How do I take this to the next level” and so on.  Sometimes you just want to know that without having to invest in a full program.  You like what you’re doing and are not ready to change OR you cannot afford the commitment right now because it’s summer and that’s not in the budget OR you’re deciding whether I am serial killer masquerading as an internet guru who is going to run off with all your money so this is the safest way to check me out.  I understand the last one more than you can imagine.  But regardless your reason, what you are searching for is answers.  Things like:

• How much protein should I be getting?
• Am I doing enough?
• Am I doing too much?
• How many calories should I be eating?
• How do I go from lean to leaner?
• What supplements should I be taking?
• How do I incorporate running into my schedule?
• The weight is not coming off like it did before…why?  And how do I change that?
• How do I put my schedule for the week together?

I will answer these questions for you and more in two phone calls:

Phone Call #1:  30 minutes in length

Initially I will send you a questionnaire for you to fill out.  Tell me as much about you and what you’re doing as possible.  Email it back to me and I will call you at the time we agree upon.  During that call I will drill you like a bolt to a beam and get the real truth.  Ok, not really–but it sounded compelling.  I will actually get the details that I need to help you out and I will also get to know what your true goals are–there’s always more than what’s written;).  Then, I need about a week depending on what you have going on because I am going to be VERY detailed in my answer to you.  This is not a general plan or canned phone call.

Phone Call #2: 60 to 90 minutes in length

This phone call will be your life spoken back to you in an orderly and optimized format.  You will have all your questions answered and then some, a detailed schedule that you may change and solid, implementable recommendations.  Typically the call is 60 min in length, but I pad the time by 30 minutes because I am a yapper so I allot for that and I don’t want you to feel like the clock is ticking.  If you have questions–this call is the time to ask them.

What I will not and cannot do in the phone calls is give you custom programming.  I can, however, give you a sample program of some type if you want one or feel that it will help you in any way.  I also cannot give medical advice, I am not a doctor.  But I can tell you what questions to ask your doctor or tell you what specialist can help you more than another based on past experience. 

I am offering this special for the summer only while we disappear off the blogging radar.  Quantity is limited and this will fill up fast because it already has and I have not even advertised it!  Hop on it while you can.

SUMMER SUMMIT CONSULTATION PACKAGE:  $100

If you are interested or have any questions, hit me at jodi@trans4mationstation.com and I will get right back to you with either the questionnaire or answer to your question about this service.  If you would like this with Heather, let me know when you email.  She has a different set of pricing but I will put you in touch with her and you can go from there. 

Thank you again for making this blog awesome!  We had no idea that it would go this far and it has…  Thank you!!  Have an awesome summer and we will see in you September!

A false sense of security mixed with a fragile self image makes for a desperate woman on cardio.

Last week I spoke of how hard it is to get lean the second time around. How you think you will just do all that you did the weeks before and it will just magically fall off again. Umm…WRONG. As we go full steam ahead into this series, let me dispel some myths so we can all be on the same page for this series:

Law of Equitability
Basically, you cannot ask the body to less and somehow you miraculously get more out of it without some type of major “reset” in your system. This is a very hard concept to get through to people but I will try my hardest to explain.

If you just spent 12 to 16 weeks eating 1200 cals/day, doing 60 min of cardio/day, lifting 4 days/week, you are not going to lose weight doing anything less than that any time soon. So let’s say you gain 10 pounds back and you are ready to lose it again. It’s been about 2 to 3 months since you hit goal weight and you have been at this new weight that long. You decide it is time to get back to that miraculous weight you were at before and you think you are just going to start back up again and the weight will fall off. Most of us now know that it does not and what actually happens is that we can stay at that weight doing all that we were doing before forever. Why? Because your body responds to *change*–not absolutes. Whatever you were doing before now must be equal or greater to be able to affect a change in your body. The danger in this is that you can find yourself down to 1000, 900, 800 calories while doing 1, 2, possibly 3 hours of cardio/day to get the scale to move. Do not fall into this trap.

No matter how much water you pour in here, it can only hold 20 ounces.

Law of Diminishing Return
There is a point where no matter how much more you do, you got whatchu got. You ain’t gettin’ no mo. Got me? If you are lean for the first time, hear me as I speak: Pull back on what you are doing to do the least amount that you need to do to get what you want. Don’t get on a cardio “high” and start banging out more than necessary. Or even worse, don’t become paranoid that you need to do a small Olympic trial every week to maintain what you have. You are setting yourself up for failure when you go to lose weight again—and I can guarantee you you will have to lose weight again. The more you do now, you will have to do at least that and most likely more to get lean again. So if you start out gang busters at an hour of cardio/day, guess what? You own that now and then some later on and that is a slippery slope that is not going anywhere good, fast.

Law of Continuation
Taking a fat burner? Tried some other stuff here and there? Messing around with hormones or supplements? If you have introduced them into your diet for any significant amount of time (and this varies/substance) they directly reduce your chances of being able to lose the weight again without them. And just like the law of equitability, you must have more, use more, etc. to get more.

Yes, we’re jackasses.  But we’re still cute.

Law of JackAssery
Unfortunately, we all suffer from this one. Here is what this looks like…

You lose a ton of weight and you look great. To do this you are doing cardio 7 days/week, eating very clean—almost no cheats and lifting like a pscycho. You hit goal weight and your event/wedding/vacation comes and goes. You begin to slip on your program. At this point, what we all should do is enter into a place of maintenance where we back our plan down a bit and settle into a comfortable weight we can maintain. Sometimes that might be 2 or 3 pounds more than what you are right now but you still look good. But mentally we can’t do that. We’ve either been beaten into submission by the scale or have such a fragile self image now that the mere thought of giving up where we are sends us right to the stair master. So we begin to cheat and fall apart WHILE still doing 7 days of cardio, super clean diet and lifting like a psycho. We have more and more days of cheating, we become more and more tired and then suddenly we are up 7 to 10 pounds. But now, shoot to the law of equitability and we see that we’re in trouble. We have gained weight *within* our “cleanness” and now there’s nowhere to go but extreme. Whatever you do, when you know you cannot hang on or it is time to call “uncle”, open up your diet and back your cardio down. Let me repeat that, open up your diet and back your cardio down.

So much to talk about and so little time!

I want to welcome all the new people to the blog, we appreciate you reading us. And we want to welcome all the new ladies who have signed up for updates, we appreciate you as well. I have not sent out anything on this series, yet, because so many new folks were signing up but I will now. Too much to talk about!

Start looking at where you are in your plan right now. Is it sustainable? Is it reasonable? Do you need an intervention? If you can relate to any of this, I want to hear about it below or email me at Jodi@trans4mationstation.com and I will be happy to chat with you.

Maybe it’s me, but as I age I want to keep everything where it is started: high. I’m just sayin’. I have no desire to get up in the morning and locate my backside, unravel my middle and fold up my arms to bring them with me wherever I go. And let us all be so honest and say this happens! Gravity is more powerful than we like to admit and it’s constant; it never gives up. Knowing this, we need to be prepared for the battle and for those of you who have already succumbed to the grips of gravity, there is help.
I am going to spare you a long, drawn out story that I am good for telling. I am not going to tell you anything about someone’s childhood when their butt was high or anything like that and now it’s their my basement and they visit it every-so-often. Nor am I going to describe what happens as you age and have babies or age and don’t have babies but how you may have an accordion for a belly now, a flour sack for a bum or mud flaps for arms. I refuse to give in to the strong desire to provide visuals of examples or horrifying details of how it can happen and scary stories from high school reunions. I had to talk myself out of giving you a two paragraph anatomy and physiology lesson about brown fat, insulin resistance and cavemen (insert whatever else is a popular topic right now…I’m drawing a blank) because it seems the industry demands this. Basically, I was having massive drama when I sat down to write this post and I decided to keep it simple. Here it is in a nutbag—shell, shell…sorry…here it is in a nutshell. Whoopsie.

• You care about how you look in AND out of clothes.
• You work hard in the gym and you watch what you eat. But it’s not enough. There’s something missing.
• You have had a few babies or were/are once heavier than you like and it left you with loose, sagging skin that does not seem to ever go away.
• You workout like a madman but you are not interested in competing in any sport so you really would not consider yourself an athlete per se. But you love a good workout and you diet like a pro.
• You want to lose the weight once and for all and you want someone to walk you through it every step of the way because you do great the first (X) amount of weeks and then it’s in the crapper from there.
• You have a wedding/shower/vacation/maternity leave coming and want to look great for it. I mean not just in your clothes, but the body parts that are not covered, too (arms, legs, abs, etc.).
• You like living on the wild side and think there’s something about this wack ball chic writing that’s appealing to you…like picking a scab or chewing on a hang nail. Hey…I’m being honest here. I will say, though, the other girls are much more sane than I.

Whatever the case may be, here it is: Trans4mation Station.

We set your goal together, we agree upon it and then we put it into action. We ask for at least 3 months full dedication and will tell you if we need more time than that, how long it may take and how it plays out. We are more concerned with your health than we are your results and we will tell you that. If what you desire is extreme, we’ll shut you down from the beginning. This is why we agree upon the goal together. Again, we’re women. We get it. We’ve either been there or are fighting like mad not to be and know what you fear. Happy, well adjusted women are our passion and hope to get you there by the end of your journey with us.
This site will be launching in the next few weeks although the business has been in existence for over a year now. This is what you can expect from a plan:
A customized nutrition plan
Weight training program
Functional Training program
Cardio schedule
Supplementation recommendations (all natural)
Snack list and recipes
Glossary of exercises
A bi-weekly phone call

The training changes monthly, the nutrition changes when necessary (sooner or later than a month, your results decide). I am sure at this point you are thinking, “Sounds great…how much? A million bucks?” Nope.

$199 down (programming fee), $67/month and you may cancel at any time.

I am sure you are tired of counting points, avoiding food groups and endlessly googling only to end up with the same body you started with but maybe a bit smaller. Let’s really transform that body together and get back to who you were before life hit you with a sack of potatoes . Hit me up as soon as possible: Jodi@trans4mationstation.com.

Because of the phone call and the level of detail we provide, we limit the amount of clients we take on. We only have a few spots open now but because enrollment is ongoing, check in with us whenever you are ready to see if we have new openings. In the mean time, I am going to go lift my derriere with a great metabolic lift this morning. Have a great day!

****Warning: Language may not be suitable for those in denial. No sugar coating in this article at ALL.****

If you have recently lost a large amount of weight and find yourself with your own built in hammock on your tummy (no, I’m not being funny, I’m being serious here) and are wondering (translate that as ‘panicking while searching for answers’) if there is anything you can do about it there is…wait a while. In time, it will resolve itself. Make sure you are eating right and exercising and it will begin to tighten. However, if you have not recently lost a large amount of weight and have gone through the waiting period and that kangaroo pouch (again, if you have never seen this you need a visual to understand how upsetting this can truly be) is still there and now you are no longer fervently searching the web but instead slowly searching for a real solution because you are tired of the gimmicks…read on.

Excess skin on the tummy is unsightly and frustrating. When you first started out on your journey to being hot you honestly thought the only obstacle you had was being fat (however you want to dress that up, go ahead, and trust me—I can relate). Suddenly, you find yourself at your goal weight but now instead of being hot, you now have your dream body with parts of a shar pei stuck to it. Not fun.

Loose skin is a combination of dieting, muscle loss, genetics and deficiencies. You can do something about 3 of those issues, I’m sorry but I have no cure for who you have as parents, but you also have to realize that you may not be able to achieve all of what you would like so be ready for that.

The most common place for loose skin to appear is on the tummy, in the gluteal fold or on the back of the arms. (For all intents and purposes in this post, we’re going to tackle the skin on the tummy.) Usually I see a woman frantically performing hundreds of crunches in the gym in an effort to change the appearance of loose skin and I am always amazed at where this myth came from. If you want to rid yourself of that skin, doing crunches isn’t going to do anything for you so please stop thickening your waist and wasting your time. Instead focus on your food choices, supplementation, water consumption and attention to detail. The girl who can dot her I’s and cross her T’s is going to cross the finish line faster than anyone else in this race. Let’s pick apart what you need to do and why:

1) Give it more time: What? Girl, if I am reading this then I have qualified myself as one who has “gone through a waiting period” so stop yanking my chain! Well I beg to differ. Have you really been patiently waiting? Have you been on point the entire time and have seen no change? Are you tracking your body fat percentage accurately? Did it take you 3 months to lose 70 pounds and now 2 months later you think you should look amazing? Has it been longer than 6 to 9 months at your current weight with steady changes in body fat levels? Are you dotting your I’s and crossing your T’s? Do you know what you are eating daily and do you track what you do in the gym? No? Ok, take a ticket and step aside. I’m serving #2 right now and your number is 1015. It’ll be a small wait.

Honestly, changing body composition on a level such as this can take upwards of a year of consistent dieting and exercise. Not weight loss dieting, just healthy maintenance eating.

2) Lose more body fat: Are you kidding me? I look like an accordion was fastened to my stomach and you want me to increase that more by losing more fat? Yes. And notice I said body fat and not weight. Big difference and also why I said above that you had to wait some time before you really had exhausted all of your avenues. Losing body fat takes time and the leaner you are, the more resistant your body is to giving up the last little bit. It can take months for your body to re-compose itself and during that time, you will see your skin slowly but surely tightening. You cannot control where your body loses fat so if you want a particular area to have less body fat, then you must lose it overall. Sometimes this is easier said than done. Your best defense: increase your lean body mass. Who wants me to go through this rant again? I didn’t think so. Get to liftin’, girl, and you will see your body comp change magically—but not overnight.;)

3) Something’s fishy about this article: Yeah, it’s printed on salmon colored paper with olive colored ink. You know where I am going here and if you are new to reading my blog (welcome, btw) you will soon find out that I am obsessed with good fats. Why? Because they are the fountain of youth! Our skin is composed of layers and as we age the fat cells in some of the layers begin to thin out causing wrinkles, drooping, loss of elasticity, etc. EFA’s fill in the gaps and help skin to have a smoother, tauter appearance. Want that dewy skin we had when we were kids (some of us had; some of y’alls just didn’t wash regularly therefore lacked a dewy look but we can bring that up another time), then start throwing back flax oil like it was Zarex in black plastic bottle and you’ll be on your way.

If you are severely lacking in EFA’s (and many of you are), you will notice a difference when you eat more than the normal 1 serving per day of omega 3. Some of you will see great results just going up to two servings in a day. Some of you may need to put a piece of salmon in a bong and smoke it like crack because you need so much. Make sure it’s Wild Alaskan when you stuff it in the jar…

4) Supplement for success: Again, you may not know how I feel about calcium (and if you go here and throw in your email addy, you can pick up my free report on it) because you are new, but if not you know in my past life I was married to it. Calcium, fish oil, magnesium, BCAA’s and multi vitamins are your best secret weapons in the fight against stubborn body fat. All of them in some way, shape or form increase your metabolism—some of them on the cellular level way down deep inside. That’s some good stuff right there and when you are talking about losing more body fat, needing your body operating at optimum levels or requiring top conditions for cell production/skin regeneration, you need all the help you can get.

Hold up, though! Do not go to the Vitamin Shoppe, pick up a ton of vitamins and start popping them like candy. No, find out from your doc what’s good for you and what’s not first. From there, do your homework and be responsible.

5) Exfoliate and massage the skin regularly: This is number 5 for a reason. Although worthwhile, it’s not a deal breaker. But exfoliating and massage cause your skin to have to regenerate at a faster rate. If you begin to be incredibly regimented about the amount of water you drink, the fat you consume and the overall healthy diet filled with endless variety while scrubbing and rubbing yourself silly, you will be on the right path to a smoother belly and should truly see some progress within 3 months or so.

The following steps are what you need to be doing for at least 3 to 6 months religiously before you can even say you have done all that you can and throw in the towel. What’s missing in this article? What NOT to eat when you are trying to tighten the tummy and/or any other kind of loose skin and we will get to that soon enough. Woop woop!!:o)

Adding supplements to your daily regimen while worthwhile can be expensive and a shot in the dark if you are not sure what you are doing.  Try not to add in every supplement you read about in your favorite monthly magazines.  I find athletes are privy to fake food supplements more than pills and dieters are more likely to pop a pill than select a drink.  Before you decide to put any of these things in your diet, know why you are doing it and how you should put them in to be safe.

The Fabulous Four:

Multivitamins

Although you may hear that you can get all you need from your food that is pure fiction.  You would have to eat the broad side of a barn to get enough vitamins in a multi and that’s not very comfortable.  As an athlete, you need more than the general public in terms of nutrients so find a high quality, USP certified multivitamin to add into your regimen.

Fish Oils

Can’t say enough about fish oil capsules.  Buying a good one goes a long way towards avoiding the burps and such, so look for pharmaceutical grade quality and it should be 3^rd party tested.  Besides making you more insulin sensitive, fish oils help boost your memory, soften your skin and shine up your hair.  They are invaluable but not the same as good fat so don’t try to sub one for the other. 

Calcium

The ultimate fat burner is a definite must in your diet.  Better taken throughout the day than in one big lump, calcium’s primary role is an obvious one with bone health but not so obvious with the other roles it plays in your body.  Flexing muscles, aiding in blood clotting and moving nutrients in and out of cells are other benefits from having enough calcium in your diet.  Since it is not readily absorbed, make sure your supplement has Vitamin D in it to get all the benefits.

BCAA’s

Branched chain amino acids are by far one of the most essential nutrients in an athlete’s diet when it comes to performance.  Leucine, Isoleucine and valine are the amino acids that make up the trio but it’s leucine that’s causing all the hype.  Known to enhance performance in endurance athletes and provide muscle back up for strength athletes, leucine and the other 2 keep the Energizer bunny going long after the energy is gone.

The Notables

Supplement:      Creatine

Worth it?           YES

Backed in studies?        Yes

Benefits:           Athletic performance, increased strength, increased hypertrophy, less muscle soreness, etc.

Downfalls:         Water retention…if you think Willy Wonka with the Oompas you are on the right path…

Supplement:      Caffeine

Worth it?           As a pick me up, yes.  Fat burner? No

Backed in studies:         Yes, but for certain things.  Do your homework here.

Benefits:           Get up and go, improved athletic performance, some weight loss benefit

Downfalls:         There can be many.  When taken in moderation like coffee, not much.  If you decide to venture into the world of designer coffees and energy drinks, know what you are taking before you start.

Supplement:      Glutamine

Worth it?           Yes if you can afford it.  No if you cannot.

Backed in studies:         Yes, but very few correlate directly with exercise.

Benefits:           Increased immunity.  Taking it keeps you from depleting your own.

Downfalls:         You could be increasing the value of your urine and that’s about it.  Very hard to prove it is “working”.

Supplement:      L-Carnitine

Worth it?           Only if you are deficient

Backed in studies:         Not as far as I can see…

Benefits:           Supposed to increase fat burning

Downfalls:         No reported health risks other than what happens to your wallet.

There are many more that I could go on and on with but I am saving that for when I do the series on vitamins and ergogenic aids.  I have not covered any of the performance enhancing supplements or the latest in goos/gels/powders and drinks.  When I do, I will go a bit more into detail and how they are taken.  In the mean time, think about the fab four, run it by your doc and then get to improving your performance immediately!

Previous Series Post

You’ve researched your meal plan.

You’ve done metabolic testing.

You wear a heart rate monitor, pedometer, compass, ipod, satellite dish—you get my point.

You know what you are having post workout on lifting days vs. game days.

You have a new workout wardrobe.

You are all set right?  NOPE!

Now you’re like the woman who got all dressed up and forgot to put on earrings.  You are missing something and it is in the form of supplementation.

Supplements are a billion dollar industry and if you don’t think that they work hard for your money, think again.

Right now you can buy a supplement that does just about anything you want it to do.  Or better yet, it will SAY it can do just about anything you want it to do, but that doesn’t MEAN it can do everything that is says it can.  So what’s good and what’s not?  As always with me, it depends on what your goals are!

Keep in mind that there are two camps out there:  those that feel you do not need to supplement if your nutrition is in line and those that feel food is never enough and no one ever has perfect nutrition.  I am in the second camp.  I also firmly believe that we cannot eat enough at times to support the abuse we put to our bodies.  Please keep that in mind, as well, as I give you some very basic guidelines below and when you read next week’s recommendations for supplements.  Need I remind you that I am not a doctor, I cannot diagnose—nor do I try and anything that I speak about with supplements is for information purposes only.  You need to work this out with your doc! 

Here are some statements that you can bank on:

Not all supplements are garbage.  In fact, there are many that are worth your time.

Supplements are not closely regulated so if you are performing in sport that tests participants, it behooves you to know what you are taking.

If it is has a neutral or positive effect on you and you can afford it—take it. 

You must track your progress while taking them or you are wasting your time.

Don’t be numbnut!  Run your supplements by your doc to make sure they are not interfering with anything else.

Make sure you know what interferes with what so that you do not take supps together that cancel each other out.

Rotate them in and out so that you may reap the benefits of many supps and keep the cost down at the same time.

No matter what you may want to experiment with, you should always take a multi vitamin.

Do your research!  Know the company and know the product!  Do not get caught out there taking something dangerous!

The best ergogenic aid to date is still caffeine.  Throw your fat burners away and get a cup of coffee!!

Next week I will wrap up this series by giving you the best supps for performance, weight loss, weight gain and immunity.  Hang tight until then!

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I am asked every day ‘what supplements should I be taking?’  I am always blown away by this question.  Mostly because those who ask me are typically eating the same foods day in and day out–and not necessarily bad, but definitely not close to the best diet out there.  But I get the draw to supplements:  let me take a pill that will solve my problem of having to think.  I don’t want to think about adding variety to my menu. I don’t want to think about eating lots of fruits and vegetables.  I don’t want to think of another type of starchy carb to eat so I will just eat oatmeal everyday, 3 times a day. 

Supplements solve problems.  Need your omegas?  Have a fish oil cap.  Brittle bones?  Try some calcium.  Knees hurt?  How about some glucosamine.  Whether it works or not, pills are simple.  Who wants to try and cook fish for some healthy omegas, resistance train for bone health or take care of their extremeties via icing, wrapping and proper foot wear.  For crying out loud, that’s work!

I think we should have supplements for everything:  Divorce?  Take a St. John’s Lawyer at least once a day to ensure a good settlement.  Unexpected pregancy in marriage?  Have 1000 mg of Emergen-C and quickly get some Calm yourself tea (decaffinated of course!).  Need to drop dime on a scandalous coworker?  Take 2 Milk Whistle (blowers) per day and avoid them in the lunch room. 

If only we could solve a million issues with suppies and it didn’t cost an arm and a leg, I would invest in a supplement company.  But they really don’t solve all those issues and most of the time they make a whole new set of issues for you instead.  I am not saying that multi vitamins and fish oil caps are a waste of time.  On the contrary, they are fabulous additions to your daily regimen.  All I am saying is before you want to invest $30 in the latest vitamin trend, clean up your own diet first.  It’s much more effective (and cheaper) in the long run.