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RMR Testing Results

March 28, 2012 by

Burning fat requires a caloric deficit. In simple terms this means you must consume less total calories that you expend/burn in a given period of time. Most diet/fitness commentators will speak in terms of calories per day, but this seems even too short of time frame for most people to keep on top of. I like to teach people to view their calorie needs on a weekly basis and try to create a deficit as measured from the stand point of their weekly calories instead of their daily calories.

This means you can have a day or two of being even or even slightly above your daily calorie total as long as you have more days below your calorie total need. This way you can bank on having a few days per week where you get to eat a little more than other days. You can more easily accommodate a social eating schedule in this pattern of higher calorie days and lower calories days vs a specific strict calorie total that is the same every day.

So, if you accept that a caloric deficit is what is required in order to reduce the amount of body fat you are carrying the first step is to get some sort of idea of how many calories your body needs to maintain your current weight. In most cases this number will be slightly above your Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR).

You can find many RMR calculators online with wildly different results, this is because these calculators are based on equations that have various assumptions built into them. They are good for producing an approximate average for ‘most’ people, but they are never 100% accurate for any one person. Add an even more erroneous ‘activity’ factor calculation and these calculators can have you believing that you need to eat hundreds of calories more than you really do.

Question: How do you find out what your RMR likely is?

Answer: Have it clinically tested!

RMR Test Via Indirect Calorimetry

This is me getting my RMR tested...We have to breathe into this machine for 10 mins

Brad and I went to get our RMR’s clinically tested and in todays podcast we’ll talk about the procedure, the results, and the inherent biases, and margin of error that are associated with even a clinical RMR test. It’s not perfect but it’s the closet estimate you’re going to get to your real RMR and depending where you live it’s not that expensive either.

John

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Filed Under: metabolism, Podcasts, Uncensored Podcasts S01 Tagged With:

Body Composition Testing Results

March 21, 2012 by

Understanding what makes up the look and shape of your body can help you determine what your focus should be with your diet and training program. There are multiple tools you can use to learn about your body including simple items like a scale, camera, mirror, measuring tape, and fat callipers. These tools are cheap and give you some quick metrics to help guide you towards your fitness goals. I’m biased towards the measuring tape and mirror as I believe the Adonis Index measurements and the look you have in the mirror the most useful metrics you can possibly get. The combination of your AI measurements and your visual look should be the final say however there are other more sophisticated measurements that can also be of benefit if you want to learn more about your body. The two we will be talking about today are called DEXA and BodPod.

 

DEXA – Dual Energy X-Ray Absoptiometry

This is Brad getting instructions prepping him for his DEXA scan (at The Bone Wellness Centre, Toronto ON)

Me in the DEXA scanner (at The Bone Wellness Centre, Toronto On)

[Special thanks to Salima and Sarah at the Bone Wellness Centre for their service and expertise with the DEXA procedure…if you live in the Southern Ontario area and are interested in getting a DEXA done I encourage you to go to the Bone Wellness Centre)

Both of the measurements techniques require an appointment at a clinicians office as well as a small fee for use. Both devices provide very accurate measurements of fat mass vs lean body mass and will give results within 1-2% of each other. The DEXA specifically gives very detailed data on where your body holds it’s fat mass as well as showing your bone density and if you have any imbalances from one side of your body to the other in lean mass.

BODPOD – Air Displacement

Brad in the "Bodpod"

If you’ve got the time and cash I recommend getting a DEXA scan to find out what your true body fat % is and where that fat is stored on your body. No other device can give you this level of detailed information. If you really want to know how your body is built, the DEXA is the new gold standard for finding out.

Combining the information from the DEXA with your mirror look and your Adonis Index measurements will be the most informative set of data you can possibly get about your body composition.

Here are some pictures of Brad and I after we got our DEXA scans done.

I’m 10.6% bodyfat in these pictures (as measured by DEXA).

 

A pic from our recent photoshoot March 1st 2012

 

This is another pic from our March 1st Photoshoot

Brad is 12.3% bodyfat in his pictures (as measured by DEXA).

 

Brads front double bicep shot

Brads side triceps shot...awesome pic

John

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Filed Under: Podcasts, Uncensored Podcasts S01 Tagged With: , ,

Body Image is Relative

March 14, 2012 by

The modern industrialized western civilizations that most of live in share a common characteristic..and that is the label of being an ‘obesogenic environments’. It seems that as our societies become wealthier the people that live in them eventually become heavier.

Food abundance, variety, accessibility and low cost make it almost impossible to avoid overeating without some degree of self restraint and attention.

As an analogy you could imagine that you’re a fish in a fast flowing stream. If you go with the stream you will gain weight. If you swim hard enough to stay in the same spot you’ll maintain your weight…and if you swim even harder you can actually start moving up stream and lose weight.

This is generally how you must view the environment you are living it. It’s a constant flow or push towards weight gain. If you don’t actively put energy into fighting this you can easily be washed away into the flow and start gaining weight just like the rest of the population.

Until we find a way to overhaul the entire society that you live in, it will always take some amount of effort on your part to either lose weight or maintain your weight without gaining unwanted fat. This is a fact of life and of the current societies we live in so you might as well accept it and get used to it.

In todays uncensored podcast we’ll discuss how this unrelenting force towards weight gain seeps into almost every social interaction and how you can learn to deal with it.

You’ll learn how feelings of envy, guilt, pride, shame, and suffering all play a role in the way people will react and interact with you.

It's All Relative!

It’s All Relative

The look and shape of your body will be viewed from a relative standpoint compared to everyone else. You can be the most ‘in shape’ person in one room, but then be the most ‘out of shape’ person in another room depending on the company you are keeping.

The type of social reactions and interactions you experience are also dependent to some degree on where your body and fitness level is compared to everyone you’re surrounded by.

With the Adonis Index we remove this fitness relativity competition between individuals and give you a metric to only compete and compare yourself to yourself. This is a key factor to learning to be proud of your own body and not worry about what other people think.

If you allow the judgement of other people to affect the way you view your own body you will quickly become just like them. It’s your job to take your health and fitness into your own hands and also be proud of your accomplishment.

You’ve got to be satisfied with your body and building a great physique has to be a positive and motivating experience. It’s the only body you’ve got and the effect it can have on your life is too important to leave your satisfaction up to the subjective feedback of other people.

Your body, your success.

John

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Filed Under: Podcasts, Uncensored Podcasts S01

Has Bulking Ever Worked for You? Try the Opposite

March 5, 2012 by

Today we have an interview with John Jordan who placed 2nd in the latest Adonis Index Transformation Contest.

Check out his pictures:

Adonis Index - John

This is how you gotta show up to get second place.

Adonis Index - John

You don't have to pay for a studio and a professional photographer if you don't want to; you can take great pictures at home.

John’s transformation was quite impressive and he has a reason to be happy and proud of himself.

At first he wasn’t sure what to expect, but since he worked out really hard, followed his diet plan and did everything he could to show his hard work in his photos he placed second in the transformation contest.

And it’s absolutely natural to have doubts about your progress and not be sure how you are going to end up. Especially if you have never done anything like this and you really have no idea how well you will look once you lean out and get a tan.

The only way to find out is to do your best, take the pictures and see.

You can’t really tell a lot at the beginning, you may start seeing some minor changes about a midway through, however most people see the results right at the end in the final week.

And if you don’t have much to go, maybe just a couple of pounds to lose, build a bit of muscle and basically get photoshoot ready, you won’t necessarily notice any changes on daily basis. You see yourself in the mirror all the time and those daily changes will be subtle and require patience on your part.

…But when you take the final pictures after 12 weeks that’s when you get blown away by the overall change.

One of the few metrics or tracking tools you’ve got that can help you determine whether you are building more muscle or not is an increase in strength. Strength usually comes first followed by a change in the size/shape/look of your body. You can be strong without necessarily gaining more muscle at first. Gaining strength means that you are on the right track and will ultimately translate into visibly more muscle mass.

John says he didn’t feel any change at the midway point of the contest…then he noticed some really good strength improvements in the gym.

That feeling of strength helped him stay the course and push through to the end of the contest.

The Illusion of Being Bigger

How many pounds did John gain?

Not how many pounds of muscle, but how much heavier do you think he is in his after pictures?

Really…pick a number before reading any further, you might be surprised by the actual answer.

So, how much do you think?

10, 15 pounds?

And remember we are talking overall weight, not muscle alone.

Well, whatever number you had in mind, it was wrong.

Why is that?

Because he didn’t gain any weight, not a pound. John actually lost several pounds to get to this shape. That being said, it doesn’t mean he didn’t gain any muscle at all.

The point is that to look really good, you need to gain only few pounds of muscle, not 20 or 30 like some supplement claims say, which in most cases is impossible without any pharmaceuticals.

A few pounds of real muscle gained in the right places and in the right proportion will make an incredible difference. Most people don’t even realize how much or how big one pound of muscle can actually be or look like. Little note, next time you go to a grocery store, take a pound of steak and put it next to your arm to really see this.

Once you see that that pound is the size of your whole biceps you will understand that expecting to gain 30lbs of muscle is a bit ridiculous and the only people that can gain so much are in their teens or early 20’s and have never worked out before.

And since John got totally shredded he had to lose several pounds.

Without boring you with the math now, when you’d calculate this he actually LOST WEIGHT to get to the shape in his after pictures…even though he looks significantly bigger and most muscular.

This is the illusion of leanness and well-proportioned muscles. Once you get in shape and really lean…six pack lean, when other people will see you without your shirt they will constantly guess that you weigh more than you do. The goal isn’t to actually BE heavier, it’s to LOOK heavier.

Just Do It

The concept of a fitness contest was completely new to John, but he was so impressed with the transformations of the previous winners that he decided to jump right in and give it a try.

In the entire 12-week challenge he never missed a workout.

He understood why he was doing what he was doing.

He always woke up at 5am and did the workout first thing in the morning, so he couldn’t make excuses about being tired later in the day.

He followed the Muscle Building Foundation from Adonis Index Workout, trained from Monday to Friday and took the weekends off.

Before AI, John had no rest time incorporated in his workouts. This time he had a pretty specific program and like he said he did way better on a fully designed workout that gave him exact amount of seconds in between sets, so he wouldn’t rest for too long.

He improved week after week, and for the first time in his life he viewed the time spent in the gym as “training” and not just a workout.

At the end he showed everyone his pictures and got great feedback from his friends and family. His mother told him that she is glad he is doing something healthy for himself. His sister noticed he lost weight, was really impressed with his results and wanted to know how he did it.

Take home message from John:

  • Get a program that has a good structure, is specific about what you should do, has exact set/reps/rest scheme laid out
  • Focus on building a specific shape, don’t just aim to get big, you can actually create an illusion of being big by being ripped and having proportioned muscles
  • If you have a program, you have to be consistent and stick to it
  • Early on you may not see dramatic changes but stick with it and they will come later
  • Take your measurements weekly so you have some objective data that you can compare and analyze
  • Believe in what you are doing
  • There is a difference between the look you have shirt on and shirt off
  • Keep it simple, goal oriented, know why you’re doing this and JUST DO IT

Useful links:

  • Adonis Index Workout – Here are the original workout plans that have been responsible for some of the most amazing transformations online.

Listen to the interview here:

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Filed Under: Contest, Podcasts, Transformation Tagged With: , ,
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