From One Of My Favorite Books

Flat Abs

Getting six-pack abs has been one of the most difficult goals for me to achieve. I am not there yet, but I believe i'm slowly (very slowly) getting there. According to my research, there are three things that we must work at in order to get the flat abdomen and definition we regularly see in magazines and television.

1) Get rid of the fat on top of the muscles

This is the fat just under the skin on top of the rectus abdominus and obliques. Most people know this, what some people do not know is that it abdominal exercises do not get rid of the fat on top of your ab muscles. To get rid of this layer of fat you have to get to a single digit body fat percentage. The only way that I know how to do this is trough dieting.

2) Definition

According to some experts including Frank Zane, the only way to get defined abs is to work them out as much as 6 days a week starting with 100 leg raises and 100 crunches. After you can do these two exercises easily, then you need to do them for a month. After a month, you can add more advanced exercises.

3) Flatten your belly

In order to get a truly flat belly you also need to workout a muscle that is beneath the obliques and rectus abdominus. This muscle is called the transversus abdominis muscle. The TVA muscle runs horizontal around your mid-section. The TVA muscle also has the effect of pulling in what would otherwise be a protruding abdomen (hence its nickname, the “corset muscle”). The most well known method of strengthening the TVA is the vacuum exercise.

Transversus abdominis and stomach vacums

High Intensity Training Explained by Drew Baye

Adding Lean Gains to My Simple Diet

A few weeks ago I posted My Simple Diet Guidelines. About a week ago I added intermittent fasting to the diet and I have been able to see faster results. I still follow a once a week weightlifting protocol, but I added a little walking everyday. I made these modifications to slowly move to Martin Berhkan's LeanGains Protocol. The supplements stay the same but I take them with my first meal of the day instead of breakfast like I used to.

Additions (Non-Workout Day):

• Eat my last meal of the day between 6:00PM  and 8:00PM.
• The next day take 10g of BCAA 15min before I go for a 30 to 60 minute walk at around 11:30AM.
• Eat my first meal of the day after my walk with about 50% of the calories calculated in My Simple Diet Guidelines.
• Have a snack in the middle of the afternoon if I have something available.
• And start over by eating my last meal of the day between 6:00PM  and 8:00PM.

Additions (Workout Day):

• Eat my last meal of the day between 6:00PM  and 8:00PM the day before the workout.
• The next day take 10g of BCAA 15min before I go for a 30 to 60 minute walk at around 11:30AM.
• Eat my first meal of the day after my walk with about 25% of the calories calculated in My Simple Diet Guidelines.
• Have a snack at around 3:00PM if I have something available. A very small snack.
• Take 10g of BCAA 20min before my workout.
• Take 10g of BCAA after my workout.
• Eat a large meal high in carbohydrates such as rice. Even tough I add more carbs on this day I still do not go over the total calories calculated in my guidelines.
• Take 10g of BCAA before going to sleep.
• And start over by eating my last meal of the day between 6:00PM  and 8:00PM.

I added 1 to 3 glasses of red wine and one low-fat ice-cream cone on Saturday and like Martin Berkhan says:

The Minimalist's Guide to Fitness: IF, HIT, and Much More

Book Review

The Minimalist's Guide to Fitness: Intermittent Fasting, High Intensity Training, and Much More
By Thomas Hilmersen


The author has done his research. I have read most of the material presented here in other books and some of the books referenced in this book and it is all accurate. Save yourself some time and just read this book to learn the most effective way to workout and to eat healthy.

I have been doing high intensity workouts for the past three months while following a slightly different version of the slow carb diet (mine does not include cheat days and alcohol) and I have gotten great results. I have been looking for somebody that explains IF (intermittent fasting) and HIT (High Intensity Training) and this is it.

The book even has a chapters about optimizing sleep and how to dress well. These chapters are short, but do not underestimate the power of the advice given there.

I have been able to double my strength in 13 twenty minute workouts following the advice on this book and have lost almost 4 inches from my waist eating in a similar way. I cant wait to see the results in another 3 months now that i will be adding IF.

I am very thankful to the author for taking the time to write this book.

Very Low Carb Performance

Here is an interesting video I found for those interested in running, swimming, biking, etc.

Body Fat Measuring with a DXA (DEXA) Scan

About a year ago I got a body fat test using a DEXA scan machine. I was able to get very accurate measurements and It helped me looked for other cheaper but just as accurate way to measure body fat. Check out my post on tracking progress to find out the methods that I currently use.

DXA scans are used primarily to evaluate bone mineral density. DXA scans can also be used to measure total body composition and fat content with a high degree of accuracy comparable to hydrostatic weighing with a few important caveats.

In the first picture below you can see one of the scans that shows my bones in blue, muscle in red and fat in orange. It is easy to tell that most of my body fat is in my mid-section. This comes at no surprise since, my legs and arms have always been pretty lean and most men have a predisposition to store fat in the mid-section easily and it is hard to get rid of once is there. The body fat result shown here is about 22% (I am currently around 13%).

In the second picture you can see my bone structure and a little bit of my muscles and fat.

During this time, the doctor calculated my maintenance calories to be 1,830 a day. It was close, but now I know that it is actually 2,600 calories a day on a low-carb diet.

Working Out To Failure

I had a really good workout last Friday. It was a great example of how to workout to muscle failure. I have been doing one exercise session per week for the last 8 weeks and increasing the resistance by 5% or more every week. I have increased my strength on the leg press by 49% in just 8 workouts.

I have a trainer help me load the weights in between exercises and time each exercise and repetitions using a chronometer. Last Friday I got a new trainer named Mike because the regular one went on spring break vacation. I told him the usual instructions of how I work out  and we got started.

Leg Press

We started with the planned weight  doing one repetition every 20 seconds for a goal of six repetitions or 2 minutes of exercise. I made sure my legs where always under tension careful not to give them a rest on the positive or negative part of the repetition.

At about 90 seconds, my legs started to get a burning sensation, (this is the point where I would usually quit) there was still strength left so I kept going past the burning sensation trying to keep my pace. While the burning sensation in my legs was still there, I start to feel my legs getting warm like when you get into a hot tub. My arms start to get a tingling sensation, I'm breathing quickly and this does not feel like fun anymore. My heart monitor started sounding an alarm letting me know that my heart rate is now above 170 beats per minute (my maximum hearth rate is 188).

I kept pushing the weights as much as I could until the point where all I was doing was holding the weights and they were not moving at all. At this point I imagined the weights being a rock that is about to crush me if I don't hold it in place. After a few seconds of just holding the weight in place, the weight starts to move backwards (I can't hold it anymore), I wait a few seconds and this is where I rack the weights and finished the exercise.

I tried to stand up right after my exercise, but in between my heavy breathing and not being able to speak, my legs where not able to hold my own body weight and I had to sit down. I took a 30 second rest and I was able to stand up again. I was not able to catch my breath for the next 10 to 15 minutes.

This is one of the best workouts I have had.

Gaining Muscle On A Low-Carb Diet

I was doing some research online about whether is possible to gain muscle while on a low-carb diet and I found this interesting post.

Meetza Is The Low-Carb Pizza

I have not been able to eat pizza for a while and I ran into a recipe for a "Meetza" online, so I decided to give it a try. Surprisingly, this recipe turned out to be pretty tasty and easy to do. It makes 8 servings enough for 4 adults.

Nutrition Facts Per Serving 

• 318 calories, 19g of fat, 3g net carbohydrates and 33g of protein

Ingredients

• 2 lbs of ground beef
• 5oz of mushrooms
• 3oz of green bell peppers
• 4oz of shredded Parmesan cheese
• 2 eggs
• 6oz of low carb tomato basil (about 6 net carbohydrates per half a cup)

Seasonings

• 4oz of grated Parmesan cheese
• 1tsp of salt
• 1tsp of caraway seeds
• 1tsp of oregano
• 1tsp of garlic salt
• 1tsp of coarse ground pepper
• 1tsp of crushed red pepper 

Quick Instructions

• Pre-heat the oven at 450 degrees Fahrenheit
• Mix all the seasonings in a bowl
• Mix the ground beef with the eggs
• Add the seasonings to the ground beef and mix well
• Place the ground beef on a 12" x 17" cookie sheet. It should cover the entire cookie sheet
• Cook it in the oven for 10 minutes
• Saute the green bell pepper and mushrooms with some butter on an iron skillet, when ready put aside.
• Remove the ground beef from the oven and drain the fat carefully, put aside
• Set the oven to Broil on high
• Put a layer of tomato basil on the ground beef, then a layer of the shredded Parmesan cheese and lastly the saute mushrooms and green bell peppers evenly distributed
• Place the ground beef with all the toppings back in the oven for anywhere between 3 to 5 minutes. You need to check it often because it might burn.
• Take it out of the oven and cut it in 8 slices so that you can use the nutrition facts above

It takes about two slices per person if all you are eating is this Meetza

Photos

Ingredients

Prepared ground beef on a 12" x 7" cookie sheet

Finished Meetza

Meetza cut into 8 pieces (after we ate 3 pieces)

Low-Carb Skewers

I been making Low-Carb skewers for the last few weeks every time I see that I need some extra calories and very few carbohydrates. Everybody at the house eats them as if they were candy. The 7yr old eats two skewers.

Nutrition Facts

4.2g Net Carbohydrates, 24g of Fat and 39g of Protein for a total of 416 calories per skewer

Ingredients Per Skewer

• 1oz of Green bell peppers
• 1oz of Onions
• 6 shrimps
• 8 pieces of 1/8 of an ounce of bacon
• 8 pieces of  about 1/8 of an ounce of pork sausage
• 8 pieces of sirloin

The Sequence

Green bell pepper, onion, bacon, shrimp, sirloin, sausage

Photos

Ingredients

Skewers before cooking

Skewers cooking in a George Foreman style grill.
Don't forget  to close it and turn them every few minutes .

Cooked skewers. I usually eat two of these.

Why We Have An Obesity Epidemic

I made a shorter version of a presentation by Dr. Doug McGuff that explains what happens when we eat and exercise at a cellular level and why we get fat and cannot lose fat. The original video was over an hour long, this shorter version is 20 minutes.

Tracking Progress

Tracking progress can be very simple and you can choose any or all of the following techniques

1. Tape Measurements
2. Body Composition
3. Before and After Photos
4. Weight Scale

Tape Measurements

This is one is probably the easiest one. The objective is to measure your waist, hips and thighs and over time  your numbers should be decreasing given that started with a lot of fat in those areas.

Body Composition

I got an electronic body fat analyzer by Omron called "Omron HBF-306C Fat Loss Monitor". There are plenty out there, but I found out that this one provides very good results when I compared it with the expensive DEXA scan. Other devices like this one are inaccurate.

Before & After Photos

This is a motivator and de-motivator as nobody wants to take before pictures. Take the photos and keep them private and use them for self-motivation and as a reward to show yourself in the future where you were and that all your hard work paid off.

Weight Scale

I don't trust this one too much because I have to keep close track as to whether my weight loss is fat or muscle tissue. An example is somebody who lost  10 pounds in total of which 5 pounds where fat and 5 pounds where muscle tissue. Losing 50/50 does not allow you to look toned. Now, the closer you get to losing 100% fat, the more toned you will look because you have more muscle relative to the fat.

Low-Carb Diet Supplements

I take a "few" daily supplements to complement my low-carb diet. The first two are the most important to me.

1. Fish oil (about 6 to 9 grams a day)
2. Multi-Vitamins (I take GNC's Mega-Men Sport)
3. At least one whey protein shake first thing in the morning with less than 3 carbs and more than 24g of protein. I am currently drinking Cyto Sport Whey Protein.
4. Calcium Citrate (2 grams in the morning and 2 grams before bed, because if you don;t get enough, your body will borrow it from your bones)
5. Potasium and Magnesium
6. Vitamin E
7. Vitamin D3 ( I take this one because I usually don't get any sun)
8. Glucosamine (before bed. It has eliminated the pain in my injured knee)
9. Alpha Lipoic Acid (after every meal if possible)
10. I take a whey protein shake and 10 grams of BCAA after my workout

Low-Carb Picadillo

This is my recipe for a low-carb picadillo for those times when I want something more juicy and flavorful than just meat. In this recipe I did not add low-carb tortillas, but you can easily add a couple if you prefer to make tacos.

Nutrition information

425 Calories, 31g of fat, 3.4g net carbohydrates, 28g of protein

Ingredients per serving

3oz  of avocado
3.5oz ground beef (90% lean and drain the fat after browning)
1oz of shredded mexican blend cheese (zero carbs)
.5oz of tomato sauce with no salt
1-2 tbsp of pico de gallo

Photos

Ingredients

One serving

Exercise In One 20 Minute Session Per Week

For the past six weeks I have been doing only one exercise session per week of about 20 minutes long. I think I been getting pretty good results so far. It can be faster than 20 minutes if you get somebody to have the right weights on all the machines.

The Basics

It consists of 5 exercises, one set per exercise, 6 repetitions per set and each repetition should last 20 seconds (10 seconds the first half and 10 seconds the second half to avoid using momentum at all costs)

The Exercises

1. Pull-Down
2. Seated Row
3. Chest Press
4. Overhead Press
5. Leg Press Machine

The goal of this session is to do each repetition very slow (20 seconds) with a weight that if you were to finish the 6 repetitions in 2 minutes and then immediately you tried one more set it would be impossible for you to do. Each exercises is done until your muscles fail to keep carrying the weight. This means beyond the point when it starts to burn and about 5 seconds after you been pushing/pulling the weight and it has not moved an inch.

Here is an example of how a Doug McGuff did all of the exercises listed above in 10 minutes

Notice the following

• The speed at which he pushes and pulls 
• How his breathing increases towards the end of an exercise 
• How quickly he moves from one exercise to the next with almost no rest period
• How he finished all 5 exercises in almost 10 minutes

My Simple Diet Guidelines

These simple rules have helped me lose a few pounds every now and then while not limiting my food choices too much.

Basic rules

1. Calculate your basal metabolic rate ( calculator ) + activity level 
2. Eat no more than 50 grams of net carbohydrates a day (net carbohydrate = carbohydrate - fiber)
3. Eat at least 1 gram of protein per body weight
4. Calculate the calories in the carbohydrates + protein and add the rest as fat to arrive at your basal metabolic rate + activity level. 
5. Never eat less than 1,200 calories a day.

Here is my example

1. My metabolic rate is 1,784 plus my activity level for sedentary 1,784 x 1.1 = 1,962. According to this I have to eat about 2,000 calories a day to maintain my current weight.
2. 50 grams of net carbohydrates equals 200 calories (there are 4 calories per gram of carbohydrate).
3. My protein requirement is 168 grams because I weight 168 lbs (there are 4 calories per gram of protein).
4. 200 calories from carbohydrates + 672 calories from protein + 1,125 calories from fat (there are 9 calories per gram of fat) = 1,997 calories

I obviously never make it dead on, but I rarely go over my net carbohydrates and rarely go below my minimum protein requirements. After a few weeks of starting with the basic rules I realize that my actual calorie intake to maintain my body weight are about 2,500 calories.

Here is a chart that shows my daily planned calories vs my actual calories broken down by macro-nutrients. Note how Even though I have tried really hard to eat 2,600 calories a day, it is very hard for me as I am barely hungry on this diet and I almost always end up eating slightly below 2,000 calories a day.

Karim's Low-Carb Quesadilla

This is my recipe for a low-carb quesadilla that has a decent amount of calories, good cholesterol and protein.

Nutrition information

309 Calories, 22g of fat, 8g net carbohydrates, 23g of protein

Ingredients per quesadilla

1oz  of chicken
2 HEB low-carb tortillas
1oz of shredded mexican blend cheese (zero carbs)
1oz of avocado
1oz of fat free pinto beans
1/2 tbsp of sour cream
1-2 tbsp of pico de gallo

Photos