Get Ripped to Shreds in 6 Short Weeks!!!

The time is coming… you just turned 28 and your 10-year high school reunion is just around the corner. You’re going to Cabo in 2 months! Or maybe you just want to Get Ripped for summer? Who cares what the reason is! We’re all in the same boat and we need to Get Ripped FAST!

A wise man once told me that when a person won’t do something, it’s for one of 3 reasons. They either 1. Don’t know how to do it, 2. Don’t know why they should do it, or 3. They simply just don’t care. I’m going to assume that you don’t know how, or you would already be ripped to shreds. Be it to get the chicks, personal satisfaction, a reunion… everyone has their own reason why. But if your reason is the last one, you should just stop reading this right now. Because if you simply don’t care enough, you aren’t going to get anywhere. And there’s nothing I, or anyone else for that matter, can do to help! So, “go start an ant farm!”

I’m going to tell you how to Get Shredded Fast and explain why these 5 steps work! What you are about to read may or may not be news to you… I don’t know. But I do know this, if you follow these 5 steps – you wont be disappointed!

1) Nutrition:focus on your metabolism!
I put this first on the list for a reason. It is the absolute most important part of any successfully shredded man or woman’s lifestyle. Your nutritional choices directly affect your metabolism and through it alone, you can totally change your physical appearance! But, whether you are a bodybuilder, a swimmer, a football player, or an every day average overweight American, keeping a consistently clean diet is as hard as it gets… and I’m sure we all can attest to that.

Eat 5-6 Meals per day:
It’s funny… I have this friend who swears this 5 or 6 meal-a-day rule is the “Catch” that all the nutrition companies are throwing out there. He says that no one can consistently eat 5 small meals a day and the nutrition companies know this – so they put this rule out there as a fail-safe to ensure that, if their diet program doesn’t work, they can blame its failure on the customer! The ironic thing about it is if the customer had followed the rules of their diet program, they would have succeeded!

And the reason they would have succeeded is because the “eat 5 small meals a day” rule works… just probably not in the way you think. You see, it’s not really the 5 meals that does it… it’s the fact that you aren’t relying on 2 or 3 meals to fuel your body for a full 24-hour period. Think about it; your body uses a fairly steady stream of energy all day, so when you feed it in spurts, your body adjusts and begins to store energy instead of using it. Eating 5-6 smaller meals throughout the day ultimately conditions your body to use the energy you provide it – and use it now – because it knows that more is coming soon. There is no need to store the energy (fat) for later… make sense?

Eat Low Glycemic Carbs:
Eating 5-6 small meals per day is a great start. But (there’s always a ‘but’ isn’t there?) that’s not the only thing you have to do. Something else you’ve probably heard before but hasn’t been explained fully… the benefit of low GI carbohydrates. Low GI carbs being carbs low on the Glycemic Index (GI). People usually confuse this with an ultra-low carb diet but its not! All you need to do is control the types of carbs you eat… not lose them altogether! Approximately 40% of your total calories should come from low GI carbs. A low GI carb diet will regulate your insulin levels in your body. This is important because your body uses insulin to burn the food you have for immediate energy. To explain it further, when you eat carbs, your body digests them and turns them into glucose. Then insulin is released to metabolize the glucose for energy. High GI carbs have a very fast glucose response, which tells your body to release a lot of insulin quickly. The result, you digest your food very fast… a bad thing! You want your food to digest slowly! And you can control this by eating low GI carbs. Knowing which carbs are low and high GI is pretty easy too. As a general rule, the more processed it is, the higher it is and the more natural (unprocessed) it is, the lower it is.

Here are a few examples.
Low GI Carbohydrates
FRUITS:
Berries
Apples
Barley
Pears

VEGETABLES:
Asparagus
Black beans
All lettuces

GRAINS:
All bran cereals
Whole grain breads
Whole grain pastas
Wild rice

DAIRY:
Organic milk
Organic plain yogurt
Low-fat cottage cheese

BEVERAGES:
Fresh vegetable juice
Grapefruit juice
Green tea
Water

SWEETENERS:
Fructose
Stevia

Moderate GI Carbohydrates
FRUITS:
Grapes
Watermelons
Mangos
Kiwis

VEGETABLES:
Carrots
Corn (on the cob)
Lima beans
Yams

GRAINS:
Brown rice
Oatmeal
Most pastas
Popcorn
Sourdough bread

DAIRY:
Custard

BEVERAGES:
Apple juice
Orange juice

SWEETENERS:
Unrefined raw honey
Organic brown sugar
Barely malt
Organic maple syrup

High GI Carbohydrates
FRUITS:
Raisins
Bananas (ripe)

VEGETABLES:
Potato (baked)
French fries
Sweet corn

GRAINS:
White bread
Whole wheat bread
Bagels
Breakfast cereals
Hamburger and hotdog buns
White rice
Pancakes

DAIRY:
Ice cream

BEVERAGES:
Soft drinks and sport drinks
Carrot juice

SWEETENERS:
Corn syrup solids
Sucrose (table sugar)
maltodextrin
Maltose
High-fructose corn syrup

There is, however, one time when you want to digest your food fast! Immediately following a workout, your body is goes into a “need food now!” state and requires a lot of nutrients to begin repairing the muscle that has been broken down. This is the perfect time to ingest 40-50 grams of high GI carbs. Actually, if you don’t, you are taking a risk that your body will go into a catabolic state and start breaking down muscle for energy instead of fat. Timing is important!

Increase Protein Intake:
The final part of the diet is to increase your protein intake. Again this is something we have all heard before… but do we really know why? First of all, we all know protein is a crucial part of muscle growth. But what we all don’t know is that protein is a good fat burner too! Protein digestion takes a lot of time and a lot of energy! You might be doing this already and if you are… don’t stop. A good rule of thumb is to consume 1 gram of protein for each pound of bodyweight. So if you are 200 pounds, you need 200 grams of protein.

2) Workout!
More cardio!
Increasing the intensity of your cardiovascular workouts will no doubt make a vast impact on your fat burning productivity. When it comes to burning fat, the more intense the cardio the better! A lot of fitness trainers and other self proclaimed fitness guru’s will tell you to be careful not to over do the cardio, but they don’t explain how you should do it. Here’s how.

It’s a little something I call Anabolic Cardio. You will burn more fat, faster, doing “anabolic cardio”. Anabolic cardio is often called HIIT or High Intensity Interval Training. HIIT is short burst, sprinter-like interval training. Here is a great example of HIIT that can be used doing any form of cardio; treadmill, elliptical trainer, or even an old school Health Rider!

Start off with 3 minutes working at a moderate 60% pace. This will get you warmed up and ready for the rest of the workout. Start the “interval portion” of the workout on minute number 4 going AS HARD AS YOU CAN without falling down or losing your running form (I’m talking 95%) for 1 full minute. Don’t pace yourself here, if you can go longer than a minute or two, you probably aren't going hard enough! However, if you can only go at this pace for 20-30 seconds, that is ok... Just go as long as you can, you will improve fast! After the first minute, slow the pace to about 40% of your max. This should be a light jog or even a brisk walk for a minute or two until you recover your breathing. During the slower, recovery interval, try to focus on controlling your breathing and relaxing as much as possible.

Keep this interval of 1-2 minutes at 95% followed by 1-2 minutes at 40% for 10-15 more minutes. Like it or not, Anabolic Cardio is a key component to building a strong, lean, hard body!

Intensify Your Resistance Training
Believe it or not… weight training actually burns more fat than cardio! In fact there have been numerous studies to prove it. This doesn’t mean you should just drop cardio work altogether, but that you should have a balance between cardio and weight training. Hopefully you are lifting weights already. If you are… great! If you aren’t you really need to. Resistance Weight Training is only way to permanently raise your metabolism! You see… muscle burns fat. Not just when you are working out, but all the time – every day! One pound of muscle alone can burn up to 500 calories per week – that’s without doing anything! Lets put it this way: Without resistance training, the best you will ever be is “skinny fat”.

The best way to use weight training to get shredded is to stick to the basics! Hit the gym 4 times per week and focus all your efforts on doing compound muscle group movements like Squats, Deadlifts, Military Press, and Power Cleans. In fact, you could do 20 minutes of anabolic cardio then 6 sets of 8 reps on each of these exercises (one exercise per day 4 days per week), you would be in great shape easily in 6 weeks. These are easy to learn movements that use a lot of muscle groups and burn fat like CRAZY!

3) Get more sleep!
Sleep is probably the most overlooked factor in the quest to get shredded. Everyone knows the importance of getting “a good nights sleep” but not many of us go out of our way to be sure we get it. I read somewhere that the average adult gets approximately 7 hours of sleep at night! Not bad… but if you’re anything like me; 7 hours of sleep would be a blessing! And 7 hours is fine for the average adult, but if you’re an athlete you need more than normal! How much do you need? Well… that’s something you’ll have to experiment with and find out on your own. 7 hours of sleep might be enough for you – but it likely isn’t! I do know this - if you don’t get enough sleep, you are limiting your potential to build muscle. Sleep is very anabolic and you need it in order to efficiently recover from grueling workouts and stressful days! Be sure you get enough… it could be the difference maker.

4) Supplements!
Getting Ripped To Shreds is not an easy task for anyone. If it was easy then everyone would be ripped don’t you think? I know for sure that, at least for me, it would be virtually impossible without the benefit of supplements. There’s no denying that genetics plays a huge role in who is shredded and who isn’t, but that’s not the only thing. If you could take a behind-the-scenes look at just about any professional athletes’ supplement regimen, you would probably be shocked!

Back to the supplements… Getting “shredded” involves keeping (or gaining) muscle mass and losing fat at the same time, two things that are best done separately! So right off the bat the odds are against you. And if you’re anything like most Americans, you’re going to need all the help you can get! I’m going to recommend 3 separate base or standard supplements and then 3 I-will-do-whatever-it-takes-to-get-there supplements.

Base Supplements:

1.A balanced Meal Replacement (MRP)
An MRP is important for the obvious reasons. Diet is the number one key and with the way life is now, it’s pretty difficult to get 6 good meals in a day. However, if you alternate 3 small meals and 3 ?cPath=23_46" MRP’s throughout the day, you’ll be indeed setting yourself up for success. The reason I say “balanced” MRP is because too much protein is a waste, too little carbs will leave you energy-less, and you need to get your vitamins somewhere. Check the label and be sure it has around 30g of protein, 20g carbs, L-Glutamine, BCAA’s, EFA’s, and an array of multi vitamins. I recommend Myoplex by EAS, KILLER MRP by IMPACT Nutrition, or Lean Mass Matrix by Labrada.

2.Creatine
No matter what you think about creatine, you can’t deny the facts. Creatine promotes muscle growth and muscle contraction energy. And even though it is thought of as a staple to only muscle building programs, it’s an effective addition to almost any program… no matter what the goal is! Just get some and take it as directed.

3.ZMA
ZMA is a formula of Zinc and Magnesium Aspartate that has been proven to increase muscle strength, stamina, and recovery. But the main reason I added it to the list is because it will help you relax and sleep better. Like I said before, sleep could be the difference maker. And ZMA’s a lot less damaging than taking a shot of tequila or cough medicine! I suggest the original ZMA by SNAC Systems.

Will-Do-Whatever-It-Takes-To-Get-There Supplements:

1.Testosterone Based Anabolic Agents
Even with all the bad things reported about using "
2.Anabolic Recovery Agent:
Like I said earlier, recovery is the KEY to building muscle. The better you recover, the faster your muscles will grow. Using an anabolic recovery agent is not a substitute for good nutrition choices or for sleep. But using a good recovery agent like RX5 by Red X Labs can put you in a more constant anabolic state between workouts. This will reduce your recovery period and allow you to get back to the gym faster. You can find these products at Zupplements.com

3.Anti-Catabolic Agent:
Anabolic means to build and catabolic means to break down. So, ANTI-Catabolic means agents are those that can help prevent the breakdown of lean muscle tissue; an important feature to anyone who is putting their body through a 6-week “Try To Get Ripped As Fast As I Can” program. You want to lose fat, remember… not muscle! Burn fat, preserve muscle, that’s the name of the game! Probably the best anti-catabolic agent available today is a veterinary injectable “supplement” called Kynoselen. There is supposedly a human version of this product too but I have yet to find it.

5) Know what not to do!
Now that I have explained all the tools you need to get ripped in 6 weeks, I feel obligated to address some of the most common mistakes people make when trying to lose fat fast! First of all you have to steer clear of the “Fab Diets” that claim you can drop 10 pounds in 48 hours. Even though these claims are true, you don’t want to do it. The weight you lose will be temporary at best! And because these diets help you lose weight, not fat, they wont get you shredded.

Fasting is another common mistake. You have to eat and eat consistently. As I pointed out before, it’s imperative that you don’t put your body in a “lets save the food for later” state. Remember, even though you are reducing your overall calories, your body will store more fat!

Oh… one more thing…. No matter what else you do over the course of the next 6-weeks… even if you mess up 10 times… even if it looks like you aren’t going to make it… no matter what… DO NOT GIVE UP!!! During the first 4 weeks you might not see one single change in your body composition. But that last 2 weeks could completely change it around! I like to think of it like coming back in the 4th quarter! Never give up because all that hard work will not go to waste! Remember what I said? People don’t do things for one of three reasons… don’t let your reason be that you simply don’t care!