nutrition – Yass For Fitness http://yass4fitness.com Fitness Programs Reviews From a Personal Point of View Thu, 01 Sep 2016 20:03:22 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.7.2 73211564 Mind vs Body http://yass4fitness.com/2016/08/mind-vs-body/ http://yass4fitness.com/2016/08/mind-vs-body/#respond Tue, 16 Aug 2016 20:24:39 +0000 http://yass4fitness.com/?p=307 The mind is a major bitch if you think about it. It is the one thing that gets us out of shape and tries its best to keep us there, completely out of shape and hating our bodies. Whether you’re working out and your mind keeps telling you it is enough, to stop because it hurts, because it isn’t worth it, because maybe you don’t need to keep pushing. OR when your stomach is already full, yet your mind keeps telling you you’re still hungry, a little more will be great because it tastes good and it won’t make a big difference, or because that good tasting food will somehow help your emotions get better (and actually give you a pleasant sensation after you eat when the reality is, the reason you’re not feeling good emotionally is still there and sooner than later you’ll start feeling down again) pushing you towards a physical state you hate.

Add to this the constant negative attacks from society, friends, significant other and family members. People will question your motives, will tell you the opposite of encouraging comments, will try to hold you down from growing and achieving your goals.

This is why it is so important to work on the mental attitude, to train yourself to ignore your mind, to stop listening to that “quitter” voice inside your head and from those around you, that will constantly to drag you back down to that place you hate to be. Surrounding yourself with people who will encourage you either with words, their hard work or both, and who won’t judge you, will also help you achieve this.

Some people say fitness is 70% eating and 30% workouts. I’d say for most it is 50% mental, 35% eating and 15% fitness.

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Lee Lebrada’s week one progress http://yass4fitness.com/2016/08/lee-lebradas-week1/ http://yass4fitness.com/2016/08/lee-lebradas-week1/#respond Tue, 16 Aug 2016 02:25:12 +0000 http://yass4fitness.com/?p=300 And it’s been officially a week…. and one day since I started Lee Lebrada’s 12-week lean body trainer. Although the plan doesn’t follow a 7 days a week format, I’m counting each week since the program’s length is 12 weeks, besides, it is easier to check progress this way.

So! What are my first impressions and what results did I get, if any? Well, while I’ve been used to longer workouts, with way more sets, mainly because I try to focus on lower reps since I aim for heavier weights (except for a few specific exercises that I do higher reps), I have to say this plan has felt great. I have personally added extra sets to some of the exercises, again, because I’m used to more sets, so for me it has been easier and more effective to add a forth set to some of the exercises. If you’re not familiar with this plan, so far it seems each exercises consist of 3 sets only, with 10 to 12 reps per set.

When it comes to cardio, I have to admit the only cardio I’m used to do is going mountain biking (more like off road biking, since we don’t have mountains in Miami) on Sundays. So having to do cardio one day after a weight lifting session, and on my two rest days is kind of a challenge. To make it more challenging and efficient, I decided that my cardio sessions on my rest days should follow Lyle McDonald’s protocol for the stubborn body fat. I’m not gonna get into the details of the protocol (you can either Google it, or buy his book), but I’ll just say it is cardio on an empty stomach. Tomorrow, which is my cardio day, I will implement the supplements suggested by him as well. Needless to say, cardio on an empty stomach is a pain!

Now, what about the results? Well, although it’s been just one week, I was expecting some sort of visual changes, even if they were minimal. As you will see in the picture below, I took the picture on the left Monday morning last week, and the one on the right this Monday morning. The reason I only show this area is because this is where I see the most significant change in my body. The “love handle” area and mid-side torso are where I notice the bigger change. A visible fat reduction that is definitely a good sign. I also want to mention, I’ve only lost exactly 1 lb since I started the program. Hopefully this isn’t much from muscle mass and mostly from body fat. In any case, I’m now looking forward to see what week 2 brings to the plate.

Until next time!

(Click the picture to expand)

IMG_9639

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Mr. Lyle McDonald Interviews http://yass4fitness.com/2016/08/mr-lyle-mcdonald-interviews/ http://yass4fitness.com/2016/08/mr-lyle-mcdonald-interviews/#respond Wed, 10 Aug 2016 04:50:07 +0000 http://yass4fitness.com/?p=297 I’ve been looking into Lyle McDonald books, since it seems the guy is a really knowledgable about burning body fat and coming up with some great protocol to burn body fat fast. I came across this guy thanks to my friend who tried Lyle’s protocol and she got awesome results.

Anyway, I found a couple of videos on YouTube that I feel are pretty interesting and provide really good information.

 

Interview focusing mostly on diet.

 

Interview focusing on training.

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MyFitnessPal Guide For Newbies http://yass4fitness.com/2016/03/mfp-help/ http://yass4fitness.com/2016/03/mfp-help/#respond Wed, 16 Mar 2016 05:46:53 +0000 http://yass4fitness.com/?p=272 unnamedSince every once in a while I get new friends asking me for help and advices as to how to use MFP to lose weight or calculate calories and macros (macronutrients), etc., I decided to write the last message I sent, in a way I could use it for a blog post. One thing I really want to let you guys know, fitness is not easy, and by that I mean, don’t expect to learn all there is about fitness in a 5 words sentence. What I mean with this is, as much as I like to help everyone who needs it, there’s no way I can summarize it all in one sentence, therefore this post will be VERY LONG, but I will try my best to keep it somehow interesting and save you from having to visit another 100 websites/pages by giving you possible scenarios and possibilities, so you can choose what works best for you. All this information will come from my own research and paid programs, so I do hope you appreciate all the info I’m providing here.

Be aware though, some of the info I’m providing here has been extensively criticized by the “know it all douches” from the MFPhqdefault forums (I can’t wait for the day they get to see this post), the same people who also claim GMO, soda and McDonalds are as healthy and nutritive as organic food, and the same people who will criticize any approach or study other than the ones they chose to believe in. Truth is, at the end of the day we all believe whatever we want to believe, and it is all a matter of perspective. At least for me, it seems to work pretty good, to the point I’m pretty healthy, my blood test results shows everything perfect (even sometimes red blood count and potassium a little higher than what’s consider normal), and my fitness progress always seem to work as planned.

Before I continue, I want to clarify something. First and most importantly, at no point I consider myself an expert. Everything I’m writing here is either based on my own experience or what I have read/seen before. Results will vary from individual to individual, and even what works for you at some point might not work the same way after a while, which is why I always suggest flexibility, adjustment and experimentation, keeping in mind that undesired changes are NOT a cause to freak out, but just a sign to reverse the change made and head towards the opposite direction or simply try a different approach. And always be patient. Fitness takes time, and there is this absurd idea that if it doesn’t show out of this world progress in a short period of time, it doesn’t work. This same idea is what lead people to make the terrible mistake of eating too little hoping to get results faster.

With that out of the way, I want to start with something many new people to MFP don’t understand…. “Why to eat your workout calories back?” So here’s why:

I’m sure most of you got your numbers (calories) from entering your info in the MFP app, which calculates your calories based on your weight, age, gender, etc, and how many lbs a week you want to lose. Did you choose 1 or 2 lbs per week? Most people choose 2 lbs because they are dying to get rid of the extra weight as fast as possible, but here’s what you need to understand. MFP gives you an estimate based on what you selected (how active you are during the day and how many times a week you are willing to workout). Selecting a level of activity doesn’t really mean you’re being accurate and MFP only uses a range of numbers to come up with how much you should eat. What happens is, MFP calculates how many calories you should eat giving you a deficit so you lose that weight you selected (1 or 2 lbs per week) without exercising but knowing you will workout X amount of times a week, BUT (and this is the important part), the calories are calculated without knowing how much you will burn with each workout because even if you had the option to select a workout plan, each person burns different amounts of calories, therefore MFP leaves those burned calories out of the equation, and that’s why when you burn the X amount of calories, you need to eat them back, otherwise the deficit will be much bigger and it could be unhealthy to your body.

In other words, if MFP already had you with a 500 calories deficit and you burned 300 calories that you won’t eat back, your deficit increases to 800 (500+300), and while you might think the bigger the deficit the better to lose weight, you need to understand your body needs to eat and needs nutrients to work and perform properly, otherwise it will either store some of what you eat as body fat (body fat is nothing but stored energy) for whenever it needs the extra energy, or start using muscle fibers as a source of energy as well along with body fat, costing you some of that lean muscle you want or have.

Here’s my second advice. I would personally try to use multiple online formulas to calculate what’s your maintenance amount of calories in order to get an average from all the results you get. I don’t trust MFP calculations at all. Every time I have done a plan, whether to bulk up or lean down, the macros/calories I need to eat based on the program I’m doing are completely different from what MFP always suggest me to eat, and I always get the results I’m looking for when I follow the plans. So, if using these plans work, and they differ from MFP numbers, it could only means MFP is most probably wrong.

Update:
Although at the end of this post I have provided a link to a really good article posted on BodyBuilding.com about calculating calories and macros (which I suggest you to read), I’m feeling the need to clarify a couple of very important points you need to know in order to get as accurate as possible with your calories.

BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate) is the amount of calories you need to consume to maintain if you were comatose. Please, do not confuse this with the amount of calories you need on a daily basis. BMR only calculates what you need to live while in complete rest, or coma state. If you use your BMR as your maintenance for a regular day of your life, you’re already under-eating big time.

NEAT (Non-Exercise Associated Thermogenesis) is the calorie of daily activity that is NOT exercise (eg: washing, walking, talking, shopping, working).

EAT (Exercise Associated Thermogenesis) is the calorie requirements associated with planned exercise.

TEF (Thermic effect of feeding) is the calorie expenditure associated with eating.

TEE (Total Energy Expenditure) is the total calories you require. It = sum of the above (BMR + NEAT + EAT + TEF). This could also be known as TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure).

This is why it is VERY important to know what you’re calculating in order to get your REAL and HEALTHY maintenance calorie amount. Again, you will find the formulas in this article Calories and Macro’s 

In regards to this topic, someone on MFP also suggested me to provide you (the readers) with a few formulas from different sources. I won’t be doing that. I rather you guys go online, look up different pages, and try them yourselves. What I will do at some point is, put together a small Excel or Google sheet with multiple hidden formulas (so you don’t have to worry about which is which), and provide you with an average result from all the formulas I end up using.

Now, to lose weight you need to eat with a deficit. Once you know how many calories is your maintenance, I personally believe a safe deficit would be no more than 500 calories a day for most people, but this depends on how many calories you need to eat for maintenance, which means, you have to eat your workout calories to avoid increasing that deficit goal. Something very important, when calculating your maintenance, you need to be as brutally accurate and realistic as possible with the information you provide to any calculating system you get to use. Considering the fact 3500 calories equal 1 pound, the more accurate your calculation is, the better results you’ll get assuming you end up using a 500 calories deficit a day, which means you could be losing one pound per week). So let’s assume you say “But Yass, I want to lose more than 1 pound a week”, and I’ll say, “Let’s focus first on adjusting your macros/calories first, and then focus on how much you want to lose”. The truth is, I’m keeping a secret from you, which is while you might have burned 300 calories during your workout and you ate those 300 calories back, your metabolism will continue to burn extra calories after your workout, which will increase the deficit whether you are aware of it or not.

So, let’s say you already have your maintenance and deficit figured out and you’re ready to lose that stupid body fat. Now you need to understand weight loss and goals, something many people overlook. Losing weight could mean losing body fat or losing body fat with muscle. Which one is the good and which one is the bad? I think it is pretty obvious. Scales don’t know the difference between losing fat only or fat with muscle, so weight can be irrelevant in most cases, especially when you don’t lose any weight, yet your clothes fit better than they did two weeks before. But how can this be? Well, since muscle is denser than fat (the eternal online debate that will last for as long as humanity exist), if you put 1 lb of fat next to 1 lb of muscle, the size difference is huge (see the image below). Basically, gaining a little bit of muscle can replace the equivalent weight of a bigger amount of fat you might lose, making the scale show you little to no weight you loss or maybe even weight gain. But who cares when you’re looking better and clothes fit better, right?

Fat vs Muscle
musfat

Now that you understand this, the weight number you had in mind originally might not be as important now since finally know it is more important to look great and be able to fit in whatever you might have in your closet that you haven’t been able to wear in centuries (ok ok not that long, but you get the point). So finally it is time to work on macros/calories adjustments.

I personally focus on macros and not calories (macros being carbohydrates, proteins and fats by the way). It is very important to know that 1 gram of carbs equals 4 calories, 1 gram of protein equals 4 calories and 1 gram of fat equals 9 calories. Many people use different macro ratios when putting together a meal plan. What can be yours? That’s totally up to you, but some examples are as follows:

C / P / F (carbs / proteins / fats)
35/35/30
40/35/25
40/30/30
30/40/30
35/40/25

Note: these ratios are percentages, not grams.

Now fats aren’t necessarily bad, in fact, they help a lot with metabolism, helping to burn body fat. Crazy, right? The important part is to minimize non-saturated fats and eat the good fats like those that contain Omega-3.

Honestly, you can pick whichever ration you prefer and try it out to see how it works for you, and if it doesn’t, you can always change it. By the way, I don’t want you to assume that whichever you pick will have an effect on you losing body fat faster than with another, remember that your original deficit is what counts towards your weight loss, not your macros ratio. Macro ratio helps with how much protein, carbs and fats you’ll eat and how your energy levels will be affected, since carbs are the energy source, protein your muscle builder and fats helps you boost your metabolism among other benefits.

To use as an example, let’s assume you have to eat 1600 calories a day to lose 1 pound a week, and let’s assume that you chose to eat 40% carbs, 35% protein and 25% fat a day. Now, let’s convert the calories to macros.

1600 multiplied by 0.40 (which is 40%) = 640 calories of carbs
1600 multiplied by 0.35 (which is 35%) = 560 calories of proteins
And for the fats you can either add 640 + 560 = 1200 and then subtract it from 1600 leaving you with 400 calories of fat
or multiply 1600 by 0.25 (which is 25%) = 400 calories of fats

That easy…. Oh wait, there’s more. We now need to figure out how many grams of each you need to eat a day. Well, this is even easier.

640 calories of carb divided by 4 = 160 grams
560 calories of protein divided by 4 = 140 grams
400 calories of fat divided by 9 = 44.4 grams

Now we are getting somewhere. REMEMBER, these are hypothetical numbers assuming your maintenance is 2100 calories a day and you are using a 500 calories deficit, leaving you with 1600 calories a day.

Note: Something I noticed recently, among the many issues MFP has, is that if you multiply your Diary’s total carbs and proteins by 4 and total fats by 9, adding them all to find out the total amount of calories for the day, it is different from the total amount of calories MFP shows in your Diary. The difference is small, but be aware that the calories displayed on MFP are not that accurate.

Note: At some point I had two different MFP accounts. One thing I discovered during that time was, that the nutritional facts from a specific food where different when accessed from each account. Therefore, my advice is to always go for the certified entries (they have a green circle with a check mark next to it), scan your own food’s barcodes, or enter them manually and save them if is a food you eat frequently.

The interesting part is finally here IF this post hasn’t been interesting yet. How many meals, and how much of each macro should you eat per meal?

The options are limitless and I’ll share my experience.

Some people like to split macros equally between each meal you eat, whichever amount of meals you get to eat. It could be 2, 3, 4 or 7 meals a day. Totally up to you.

Some trainers say macro timing is useless, the same as how many meals. Meaning, you can eat once a day, twice a day, 20 times a day and arrange your macros however the hell you want, and you’ll still achieve the same results, since what counts is that you eat your macros goal on a daily basis.

Some other trainers say macro timing is essential to get results and you should be eating at least 4 times a day. So let’s say you eat 6 meals a day, but you’ll need to distribute your macros in a way that your body takes full advantage of the nutrients and that way you’ll achieve the best results.

Which way do I follow? Since I got the best results with macro timing, that’s what I do. Is it really that important? Many people say it is total BS (especially the “know it all” in the MFP forums), but I choose to eat how I prefer based on my previous experience.

While lately I haven’t been super precise about macros distribution, I do follow one rule, the most amount of carbs I eat are distributed mainly before and after my workout. Carbs before working out give me the energy to workout, and after working out because they help with muscle recovery and protein absorption.

So ideally, I should be eating 5 meals a day, where proteins should be divided equally among all meals, carbs for my pre and post workout meal are around 50% total, and the other 50% should be divided between the other 3 meals. Fats should be divided equally between all meals, although I used to eat the least amount of fats with my pre and post workout meals. But that’s if you want to be ridiculously accurate like I was at one point. Now I focus more on the carbs for the pre and post workout and the rest I try to distribute between the other meals trying to keep a balance.

One more thing before I get to the last part of this post (by now you’re thinking, about damn time man, this is longer than a freaking book), I do carb cycling. What that means is, I have days with higher carbs, days with medium carbs, and days with low carbs. What’s the benefit and how do I do it? The benefit is that you should retain more muscle this way or even grow some muscle while losing body fat. Any fitness competitor would tell you carb cycling is one of the best tools they use to keep their gains from going away.

So how do I calculate it? Again, using the example numbers mentioned before, we know 1,600 calories a day is the goal. If we multiply 1600 by 7 (days of the week) we know you would be eating 11,200 calories a week. This number is magical, because no matter how you distribute your calories during the week, if you log your food and keep record of how much you can eat, you’ll always end the week with the same amount. So, when having a high carbs day, you only have those twice a week and leaving at least 2 days in between them. Then you have 5 days to decide which are the 2 days of low carbs and 3 days of medium carbs. How would your days look then?

If a normal day looks like this based on the above calculations
160 grams carbs
140 grams protein
44.4 grams fats

I would have the high day like this
220 grams carbs
140 grams protein
44.4 grams fats

And the low carb day like this
100 grams carbs
140 grams protein
44.4 grams fat

Basically what I did was, I took 60 grams of carbs from a day to make it a low carb day (from 160 grams of carbs to 100 grams) and added it to another day to make it a high carb day. You do this with 2 days, and by the end of the week you’ll still have your 11,200 calories.

Ideally, high carbs day are meant for days you either workout big group of muscles (like legs day or back) or muscles you want to maintain or get them to grow. Low carbs day on the other hand, are either rest days or cardio days, since your energy levels will be lower.

One thing I wanted to mention is, some of you found out about MyFitnessPal via the App Store or Play Store if you use Android. While the app allows you to do many things, I feel like accessing the account via a web browser (Safari, Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, etc), gives you a better display of your food diary, as well as other options like being able to upload a total of 18 photos to your album. So yes, in case you had no idea you could access your account via the browser, you definitely can and I suggest you do check it out.

Last but not least, once you get to calculate your numbers, like I said, don’t focus so much on your scale, but instead on your overall progress. Taking pics of yourself for your own record wearing underwear or swimsuit and measurements once a week is the ideal way to see your progress. Both pictures and measurements are equally important. Also, pick the same day of the week to do this, but avoid taking measurements and pics the day after high carbs, because you will be retaining water for a day after the high carbs day and lead you to think you aren’t getting any progress. So a normal day is more appropriate for that in my opinion. After two weeks, if you see you’re getting a nice progress, you can start reducing 5 grams of carbs from your daily goals for two weeks and then wait another week before you reduce another 5 grams. If the progress is somehow slow, you can reduce 10 grams of carbs one week, stay at that another week, then reduce another 10 grams of carbs, and stay there for another week. The idea is to see how your body reacts to those changes each week until you find what works best for you. Keep in mind you can always revert this changes if you see it didn’t work as you expected.

I want to finish this post with a link to a previous post where I talked about calculating calories and macros. It was written by a user on BodyBuilding.com but since the user doesn’t give permission to copy her post, even if giving her credit for the post, I can only post a link to it.

The article was written by Emma Leigh and it can be found in the following link

Calories and Macro’s

And if you ever have a hard time trying to add food to your MFP diary in a way that your total macros/calories hit your goal, just send me a message, and I’ll explain to you an easy way to achieve this.

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Week 4 of Shortcut to Shred http://yass4fitness.com/2014/09/week-4-of-shortcut-to-shred/ http://yass4fitness.com/2014/09/week-4-of-shortcut-to-shred/#comments Wed, 24 Sep 2014 04:35:19 +0000 http://yass4fitness.com/?p=143 I apologize for not posting my review and progress during week three. Between work and being busy exploring new events and activities more than I have previously, I barely had any time left to post my review. Instead, here I am, when I have officially completed week 4 of STS. Therefore, what I’m planning to do is an overview of both week 3 and week 4, going over what I consider the most important parts.

During week three my body embraced the strength phase incredibly. During the first three days of the week, the reps goal was to stay between 2 and 5 reps per set, which allowed me to Military Shoulder Press 170 lbs, Squat 270 lbs and Deadlift 315 lbs. All of these I did without feeling out of energy after each set, but on the contrary, I was feeling super pumped to continue to the following set. My Cardio Acceleration sets didn’t affect my performance at all. In my opinion Week 3 was a major success.

Week 4, on the other hand, was kind of a disaster. The reason why is because of the drop on carbohydrates. Going from 1 gram of carbs per body weight pound to 0.5 gram makes a huge difference. The first two days were literally horrible. Deadlifting 275 lb and squatting 180 lbs felt almost impossible to do. My energy levels were super low during the whole day and my workouts weren’t as good as I wish they had been. In many occasions I had to skip the Cardio Acceleration sets because I just didn’t have the energy. By the end of the week my body was already adapting to this lack of carbs, and while I still don’t feel I have the energy I had during Week 3, at least I was able to do better than at the beginning of the week.

I’m positive I have lost certain amount of muscle mass, but for sure I have lost a lot of body fat, as you will see on the pictures below. Tomorrow, is the first day of Week 5, and the macronutrients adjustment wasn’t too big.

This is how my macros look, including how they were during Week 3

Macros Day 0 Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4
Protein 276 g 273.6 g 272.7 g 269.1 g 268.2 g
Carbs 276 g 182.4 g 181.8 g 89.7 g 89.4 g
Fats 92 g 90.9 g 91.2 g 89.7 g 89.4 g

These are my current results

Stats Day 0 Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4
Weight 184.2 182.3 181.8 179.4 178.8
Waist 33.50″ 33.00″ 32.75″ 32.37″ 32.00″
Body Fat 12.98 % 12.68 % 12.37 % 11.15 % 11.15 %

The following is a video of me deadlifting the 315 lbs and at the end of this post you can see my progress pictures, showing much better abdominal definition by the end of Week 4.

4 Weeks Progress
4 Weeks Progress
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Week 2 of Shortcut to Shred http://yass4fitness.com/2014/09/week-2-of-shortcut-to-shred/ http://yass4fitness.com/2014/09/week-2-of-shortcut-to-shred/#respond Wed, 10 Sep 2014 17:55:23 +0000 http://yass4fitness.com/?p=123 Here I am, two weeks into the program and about to start my third week of STS (or S2S like some like to call it). So, what has been different about this second week? Not much really, other than reps per set and of course decreasing my carbohydrates. While the first 3 days of training the reps range decreased, allowing me to go heavier on each exercise, during the remaining 3 days of the week the reps increased, which of course, had me using less weight to meet the reps goals. One of my concerns was how my body would react to eating 93.6 g of carbs less a day, but my body reacted nice to it, not making feel with less energy.

This week marked two main personal records which I have been looking forward to for a while already, one more than the other. Although squats have never been my favorite exercise, I had been stuck on 200 lbs for a while, and I finally was able to squat 230 lbs. My goal wasn’t about reaching that weight but at least getting over the 200 lbs. Now, my main goal was in regards to deadlifts. I have been wanting to reach the 300 lbs, not only I was able to deadlift 305 lbs for one set, but I also was able to do a second set with the same weight, not feeling out of breath, lightheaded or exhausted afterwards, as you can see on the video below.

For now, my nutrition plan virtually looks the same way, so I don’t need to make any big changes.

Macros Day 0 Week 1 Week 2
Protein 276 g 273.6 g 272.7 g
Carbs 276 g 182.4 g 181.8 g
Fats 92 g 90.9 g 91.2 g

Results
This week the weight difference was not as much, but then again, my goal is not weight loss but fat loss.

Stats Day 0 Week 1 Week 2
Weight 184.2 182.3 181.8
Waist 33.50″ 33.00″ 32.75″
Body Fat 12.98 % 12.68 % 12.37 %

Once again, this body fat percentage is very inaccurate, based on the cheap caliper I am using and the fact that I am measuring it myself. This is just for reference purposes.

And here is my photo comparison. Starting next week I will be using only the first set of pictures and the current ones after each week.

Week 2 STS Progress
Shortcut to Shred Progress
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One Week of Shortcut to Shred http://yass4fitness.com/2014/09/one-week-of-shortcut-to-shred/ http://yass4fitness.com/2014/09/one-week-of-shortcut-to-shred/#respond Wed, 03 Sep 2014 16:03:48 +0000 http://yass4fitness.com/?p=106 It has been a week already since I started Shortcut to Shred, and I won’t deny I was a little intimidated by the sudden caloric increase in my diet. This morning, just as I did last Wednesday as soon as I woke up, I took my new set of pictures, got on the scale, measured myself and measured my body fat % using my very cheap caliper.

Before I continue to compare today’s measurements with last week’s, I will talk a little about my experience during this first week when it.

The Workout
For me it was completely new to include any form of cardiovascular exercise in between sets. Since most complains online were in regards to these cardio exercises affecting weight load and causing trouble keeping up with the same weight during the whole set of the same exercise, I came to the conclusion that either these people suffer of lack of conditioning, or my conditioning is way better than theirs. When using the BodySpace app to track my workouts, you have the option to include or exclude these extra sets of exercise. I personally included them, and at no time my weight load was affected during my lifting. Something I’m aware of is, starting today my weight load is supposed to increase each week, so what effect cardio acceleration will have on my workout is still a mystery. The only down side was that I was sweating way too much, and I wouldn’t even consider that a bad thing.

The Nutrition
As I mentioned before, my caloric intake was raised almost 1000 calories based on the amount of macros I had to eat during this first week. From my previous experience, I distributed my macros during the day as it has worked best for me. That made it easier to schedule my meals and not feel like I was force feeding myself, expect for the first and probably second day. Although I didn’t reach the fats target, I was able to be consistent with my protein and carbohydrates.

Based on my new weight and because I’m starting Phase 2, my macros have been adjusted as shown below.

 

Macros Day 1 Day 8
Protein 276 g 273.6 g
Carbs 276 g 182.4 g
Fats 92 g 91.2 g

 

The Results
As you can see below, I was able to lower my waist measurement and even dropped some weight. My goal at this moment is to lower my body fat, and as much as I would like to stay in the weight range of 182-185 lbs, I’m not really worried about losing some weight for now. Based on the pictures, my posing might have been a little different in some cases, and while my back seems to have lost some definition, my abs look like might have gained definition and probably my thighs did as well. For only one week of training, at least there was some significant change overall.

 

Stats Day 1 Day 7
Weight 184.2 182.3
Waist 33.5″ 33.0″
Body Fat 12.98 % 12.68 %

 

 

Week 1 Progress Shortcut to Shred
Week 1 Progress Shortcut to Shred

 

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My thoughts on MyFitnessPal http://yass4fitness.com/2014/09/my-thoughts-on-myfitnesspal/ http://yass4fitness.com/2014/09/my-thoughts-on-myfitnesspal/#respond Tue, 02 Sep 2014 20:18:38 +0000 http://yass4fitness.com/?p=103 When it comes about free nutrition tools to help us keep track of our calorie and macronutrients intake, MyFitnessPal (MFP) is probably one of the most popular apps available today. A dear friend introduced me to it years ago calling it the “Facebook For Fatties”, which I thought it was brilliant. Being into fitness, and having the opportunity to use a free tool to track my calories and meet new people with the same interest, I didn’t even think twice about it and opened an account.

Although not much have change since then, other than some UI upgrades to their app, the concept remains the same, and their services can be used from both a browser and the mobile app.

MFP offers a customized food diary with up to 6 meals per day, and it allows you to track up to 5 nutrients, including proteins, fats, carbohydrates, fiber, sugars, sodium, etc. When you open a new account, you have what is called a Diet/Fitness Profile, which based on a few questions, MFP will determine for you how many calories per day you should eat in order to achieve your fitness goals, whether it is to lose, gain weight or maintain.

They also have partnered with some other companies that sell HRM, digital scales, and activity tracking devices to automatically update the amount of calories burned to your profile, making it easy to keep record of what you eat vs what you “burn”.

Other features offered by MFP are the forums or message boards (only accessible via browser) and adding other users to your friend list.

While I personally use their services and would recommend it to anyone who is struggling keeping track of what they eat, there are a few aspects of it that I truly dislike.

– First, let’s start with the browser version. While this is not MFP fault, on the forums, just like on most forums, people can be major jerks. The eternal debate whether something is healthy or not, and which source of information is legit or useless, can drive anyone crazy and turning their frustration into desperation. Not to mention many people will do their best to make you feel like crap instead of offering the support you’re probably looking for.

– Also, the forum moderators can at times do a very crappy work, locking threads, giving warning to users and deleting posts even when the topic might not be exactly violating the forum guidelines. They will never accept if they made a mistake and apologize.

– Until today I was finally able to find where to adjust my protein, carbs, fats ratio at my convenience. Something I have criticized about MFP right from the beginning, is how it always suggests a higher carbs percentage vs protein, not giving any option to adjust this ratio at all. Apparently, this can only be changed from within the mobile application and not from the website.

– If you post or comment on someone’s wall or status update, you will not get any type of notification, making it impossible to know whether someone answer you back.

– Liking any post using an iPhone or iPad’s browser (not sure if Android has the same issue), will most likely send you back to your home page instead of staying where you were before.

As for the mobile app, there are many limitations.

– You cannot access the forum at all.

– You cannot read anyone’s profile or access their photo gallery.

– You cannot access your MFP or anyone else’s blog.

– You cannot fill out your About Me section of your profile.

With that said, not everything is bad about MFP, and like I said, it is a tool I would recommend to anyone to take advantage of the huge database of meals, foods, etc (many duplicated but you can also scan the barcode of the product you will eat to find the correct one or you can add new products and even modify existing ones) that the website has. Just don’t let it get to you and most of all, don’t expect much help from other users. At the end, they are not professionals and no matter if they look fit or not, and how knowledgeable they might seem, nothing replaces those who truly are professionals.

Screen-shot-2010-01-11-at-3.55.43-PM-e1263247642439

 

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Calculating Calories and Macronutrients http://yass4fitness.com/2014/08/calculating-calories-and-macronutrients/ http://yass4fitness.com/2014/08/calculating-calories-and-macronutrients/#respond Fri, 22 Aug 2014 19:27:32 +0000 http://yass4fitness.com/?p=81 Calories (noun) – Tiny creatures that live in your closet and sew your clothes a little bit tighter every night.

 

Calories and Macros
There are probably more articles about calories and macronutrients than there are about any other trending topic online. I am sure the amount of information can be overwhelming and at times confusing, especially when most articles seem to contradict each other and everyone claim to be right while the rest are wrong. Because of that, those of us trying to understand the impact and importance calories and macronutrients have on our fitness goals, it only adds to frustration and mistakes that lead us to failed attempts to achieve our goals.

Because I understand the frustration, I want to share with all of you small article, which in my opinion describes very precisely what calories and macronutrients are, and how to properly calculate them.

The article was written by Emma Leigh and posted on BodyBuilding.com and it can be found in the following link.

http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=156380183

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My Fitness Pal – Open Food Diary http://yass4fitness.com/2014/08/my-fitness-pal/ http://yass4fitness.com/2014/08/my-fitness-pal/#respond Thu, 21 Aug 2014 12:48:55 +0000 http://yass4fitness.com/?p=68 As mentioned before on my Jim Stoppani’s Six-Week Shortcut to Shred post, I created an account with MyFitnessPal (username: yass4fitness) with an open/public food diary so people following my progress or wanting to get ideas what my meal plan looks like during this program can look at it. Since the diary is open you have the option of adding me or just save the link to your favorites so you can access it at any time. Click here to see the diary.

At the moment there is no data available, since I will start the program on August 27th. From that day on, I will be tracking every macros I have to eat based on the specifications of the program.

Using the suggested macros, and assuming my current weight will be the same along the program (which will not be and weekly adjustments will be made to my macros based on my new weight), this is what it would look like:

Week 1 (daily amount)
277.5 grams of protein
277.5 grams of  carbs
95.5 grams of fats
Total amount of calories: 3,052.5

Week 2-3 (daily amount)
277.5 grams of protein
185 grams of  carbs
95.5 grams of fats
Total amount of calories: 2,825.5

Week 4-6 (daily amount)
277.5 grams of protein
92.5 grams of  carbs
95.5 grams of fats
Total amount of calories: 2,312.5

Comparing the 2,005 calories I’m currently eating to the 3,052.5 calories I will need to eat, I already know I will have to force feed myself in order to reach that number. Although my first reaction is to think that is way too much food and I’ll probably body fat weight, I know this is how things work and it wouldn’t be the first time I eat so much food in order to achieve great results.

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