The Ultra Get Ripped Diet

The Ultra Get Ripped Diet

By Michael W. (Mick) Stewart BST CFT

Several of you have asked me about the diet I used prior to having the photographs taken in late May, 2008. I hate to call it a "crash" diet ... and as most of you know I do *not* like diets such as this. But lets be honest. It is a crash diet!

Here it is:

Breakfast (meal 1): one grande-size Starbucks coffee and pastry. 830am

Snack (meal 2): 4 eggs fried in canola oil with 1 peice of wheat toast w/butter. 1030am

Lunch (meal 3): 1 small salad. 1pm

Snack (meal 4): 1 banana and 1 handful of green or red grapes. 3pm

Dinner (meal 5): 1 small salad. 5pm

First, this style of eating is considered "european" -- a number of small meals, about 3-6, spaced sufficiently throughout the day. Second, I did not (and currently do not) keep a running tally of calories, carbs or protein. I gave that up when I began "portion sizing" my food. So no need to do that unless you have to or want to. Third, each meal is roughly the size of my hand (give or take) so that I am eating small portions throughout the day. Fourth, yes that is a pastry. I long ago gave up big breakfasts for a pastry and coffee. Thats all my body will accept in the morning! You may be different. If you want to take in eggs, toast and fruit - go ahead. Each person is different. You'll find that as you get older (I am now 41) we eat less. A pastry and coffee is enough and it spikes my insulin along with my usual caffeine high. Lastly, give your body a rest. No carbs past 5pm and no eating past 7pm!

The key to making this diet work for you is this:

(1.) You must have 1-2 protein items;
(2.) You must eat "portion size" - that means SMALL.
(3.) You must eat in stages throughout the day.
(4.) You must drink a minimum of 4-5 glasses of water per day.
(5.) GIVE YOUR BODY A REST and stop eating at 5 or 6pm!

** This is probably the most important point of all. STOP EATING. Close the fridge. STOP EATING. Close the cupboards. STOP EATING. Close your mouth ... push the food away. Let your body begin to metabolize all that food you've fed it and properly assimiliate and dissimenate it throughout the body while you sleep. Give your body a rest! ***

This is how I got my six pack back.

In order to have those abs show through, you have to eat less, workout, do a small amount of cardio per day and continue to lift moderate weight.

The combination that best works for me (and may work for you) may be:

1. Eat 3-6 small, nutritious meals per day.
2. Do cardio 3-4 x per week (running, walking or stairs). Maximum of 30 minutes.
3. Lift moderate weight. Maximum of one (1) hour.
4. Stick with it.

(c) copyright. mikestewartfitness.com

2001-2008. eat healthy * lift heavy

all rights reserved.

Getting Ripped on CARBOHYDRATES! By Chris Aceto (Bodybuilder)

Here is an article I found online from bodybuilder Chris Aceto. Its a bit more complex than my nutrition or dietary guidelines, but its good for reading... -Mike

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The idea that someone can get ripped to the bone while eating plenty of carbohydrates may sound ludicrous. Heck, with the overwhelming popularity of low-carb diets, you'd think it would be nearly impossible to eat carbs and shed bodyfat. I say you can shed a lot of fat, and even get ripped, on high carbs as long as you take the right approach. The first things to consider are two crucial issues: energy deficits and muscle maintenance. Both are integral to a successful high-carb bodybuilding diet.

* Create an Energy Deficit The formula for shedding bodyfat is remarkably simple: When you eat fewer calories than your body needs on a daily basis, you'll lose bodyfat because it becomes a major source of energy. As long as you keep your total caloric intake below the threshold for bodyweight maintenance, you can lose unwanted bodyfat even while maintaining a relatively higher carbohydrate intake.

* Avoid Losing Muscle Mass. When calories drop--whether from cutting carbs or from cutting any source of energy--the risk is losing muscle. That's because muscle growth and retention are strongly correlated with calorie surpluses. Maintaining an adequate carb intake (in addition to protein) while lowering your overall intake of calories helps prevent the loss of muscle mass, as carbs spare the breakdown of muscle tissue.

With that in mind, follow these guidelines to drop fat and get cut while enjoying a much higher carb intake than you might expect.

1 Minimize dietary fat
When you follow a higher-carbohydrate diet to cut up, you must eliminate calories derived from dietary fat. There are two reasons for that. First, you have to create an energy deficit to spark fat burning. By eliminating as much dietary fat as possible, you'll gain control over your caloric intake. Since many protein foods are also sources of dietary fat, you should emphasize very low-fat protein sources, such as egg whites, protein powders and turkey breast. Good seafood choices include flounder, tuna, hake, scallops and shrimp. The second reason to avoid dietary fat concerns insulin. Insulin helps drive fatty acids from dietary fat into fat cells. With an extremely low-fat diet, the body is starved of fatty acids, making it difficult to gain fat as long as calories remain lower.

2 Choose the right carbs
The best carbohydrates for controlling and shedding bodyfat are slow-burning carbs. Slow burners help sidestep insulin bursts. Instead of dramatically kicking up insulin levels--which can cause fat storage--slow-burning carbs take longer to digest. That favors muscle growth and retention without stimulating the body's fat-storing machinery. Oatmeal, oat bran cereal, red beans, buckwheat noodles, buckwheat pancakes and red potatoes are some of the best slower-burning won't-make-you-fat carbs around.

3 Add vegetables to the mix
How can you get slow-burning carbs to digest even more slowly? One way is to consume plenty of vegetables, such as broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, green beans, wax beans and asparagus. The fiber content of these vegetables can dramatically slow the passage of carbohydrates from the stomach into the intestines, where the carbs are absorbed. Moderating your insulin release will help you lean out your physique. A good rule of thumb is to add one cup of vegetables for every cup of rice, pasta or potatoes you eat. Although rice, pasta and potatoes don't fit the bill as ideal slow-burning carbs, including the right amount of vegetables will slow down the absorption process, allowing for greater fat loss than when eating starchy carbs on their own. Plus, vegetables are filling and low in calories.

4 Eat complex carbs in the morning
Carbs are less likely to be deposited as bodyfat when you consume them in the morning, because blood sugar and glycogen levels tend to be lower at that time. Lower blood sugar and glycogen levels typically mean the carbs you eat will primarily be stored as muscle and liver glycogen, not bodyfat. For this reason, you can get away with eating more than your fair share of carbs at breakfast, say 75-100 grams (g). Again, emphasize slow-burning complex carbs, such as oatmeal, buckwheat pancakes and whole-grain breads.

5 Limit carbs before training
This may contradict our customary advice, but keep in mind that this diet plan is different from many we have given you in FLEX. With a high-carb approach to getting cut, you won't need as many carbs before you work out. The trick here is to encourage your body to use fat as energy, instead of turning to preworkout carbs. When carbs are controlled before training, your body relies on bodyfat as a fuel reserve. The fewer carbs immediately before activity, the more likely you'll tap additional bodyfat.

6 Eat more carbs after your workout
Implementing point five ensures both an increase in fat burning and lower glycogen stores. When glycogen stores fall, carbs are rarely stored as bodyfat. Therefore, include 75-100 g of carbs at the meal following hard training to jump-start recovery and help drive amino acids from protein for muscle repair. Emphasize simple sugars such as dextrose, commonly found in workout shakes, at this time.

7 Avoid carbs at night
When following a higher-carbohydrate diet to reduce bodyfat, glycogen levels begin to elevate as the day progresses. The closer your glycogen levels are to being "full," the more readily carbohydrates are stored as bodyfat. For this reason, stick with lean protein and vegetables or a carb-free protein shake for your final meals of the day.

8 Include intense cardio
Unless you have a tremendous metabolic rate, you'll need cardio work to augment your progress. I recommend only high-intensity cardio to create the greatest calorie burn possible and to stimulate glycogen-storing enzymes. The harder you work, the more calories you'll burn--plus, you'll increase the activity of glycogen synthase, the enzyme that stores carbohydrates as muscle glycogen. The more you can coax the body to store carbohydrates in muscle, the less likely it will store them as bodyfat.

MEAL ONE: Breakfast75-100 g of carbs
35 g of protein

MEAL TWO: Lunch50 g of carbs*
35 g of protein

MEAL THREE: PreworkoutNo carbs or less than 25 g
35 g of protein

MEAL FOUR: Postworkout75-100 g of carbs
35 g of protein

MEAL FIVE: Dinner50 g of carbs*
35 g of protein

MEAL SIX: Bedtime SnackNo carbs
35 g of protein

* At these meals, at least 15 g should be derived from low-calorie vegetables, which slow the digestion of carbohydrates.

visit http://www.nutramedia.com/

COPYRIGHT 2004 Weider Publications

Common Dieting Tips

* Drink lots of water (with every meal and between every meal). Try to drink at least a gallon of water a day. If you cant do that - 3-4 glasses - minimum.

* Avoid consuming liquid carbs (soft drinks, juice, and milk) after 5pm.

* Avoid simple sugars (sucrose and especially fructose). Fructose is used to refill liver glycogen stores, where as complex carbs (glucose) is used to refill muscle glycogen stores. Muscle glycogen does not hamper fat burning, but liver glycogen does.

* Eat a meal every 2 to 3 hours. Have chewy protein foods (such as meat), be your main source of protein, not liquid protein (such as protein shakes, or egg whites).

* Avoid eating carbs after 7pm (or before you sleep) because this will interfere with growth hormone (GH) release while you sleep. If you do eat a meal close to when you sleep, have it be just some slow digesting protein and fat. Protein also interferes with GH release slightly, but fat does not.

* Consume enough EFA’s (essential fatty acids), you can get them from fatty fish, nuts, or from fish oil supplements, such as flax seed oil.

* Increase your consumption of monounsaturated fats and decrease your intake of saturated fats, a good source of monounsaturated fat is extra virgin olive oil.

* If you have a job that requires lots of physical activity (manual labor), then make sure that every day for work, have a carb-loaded breakfast. Make sure you have plenty of muscle glycogen before you do lots of physical work, other wise, if you stick to the common low carb diets, you’ll lose muscle.

* Eat whole foods, such as chicken, steak, tuna, pork for protein, rice, pasta, bread, wheat, oatmeal, vegetables, grits for carbs, and make sure your getting enough healthy fats such as nuts and fats from fish. I recommend putting extra virgin olive oil on vegetables all the time, and supplement your fat intake with some EFAs (essential fatty acids) from flax seed oil.

* Do NOT cook your vegetables! Buy them fresh and eat them fresh, this is important. By doing this you are getting more nutrients such vitamins, minerals, potassium and antioxidants into your body, cooking them, or steaming them takes away vital nutrients from them. Eating them fresh will also increase your metabolism more since they will be harder to digest (remember the chew factor?). TIP: add some extra virgin olive oil over your vegetables to give them some better taste (I do this all the time). The same thing can apply to protein foods, for example, do not leave meats in a crockpot all day, that softens them up big time and makes it REALLY easy for your body to digest them. Only lightly cook your meat, just enough so that it is actually cooked, nothing more. Remember the more chewy the better!

(c) copyright. mikestewartfitness.com

eat healthy * lift heavy.

all rights reserved.