Post workout meals to burn fat and build muscle – Finale

We have discussed 3 different types of post workout meals - One for muscle building and the others for increasing fat loss. These diets need to be incorporated with the right kind of exercises to get maximum results. I wanted to give you a few examples of all these types of the post workout meals so here goes:

Muscle Building

Whey protein powder with water and sugar
Hour later – Whole wheat chicken breast sandwich
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Double Banana smoothie (with yogurt)
Hour later – Chicken lasagna

Fat loss method 1

Whole wheat turkey salad sandwich
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Chicken steak with mashed potatoes and mixed vegetables

Fat loss method 2

Egg whites
Hour to two hours later – Apple and orange smoothie with whey
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Whey protein shake with minimum carbs
Hour to two hours later – Grilled fish and vegetables

Now these are just examples to let you know what kind of things you should be looking for. You can find a great deal of information on the net about what foods are simple carbs, complex carbs, High and Low GI carbs etc.

Create your own meal plan based on what your aims are. Write down what you want to achieve and don’t compromise on it at any cost. Read the article – ‘Are all calories the same’ to get some understanding of the calories and then select accordingly.

I hope this was useful for you. People often don’t give importance to the post workout meals thinking that we will gain whatever we have just lost during the workout. It doesn’t work that way. Post workout meals are extremely important – Some experts call it the second most important meal of the day. So make sure you take the right kind of meal for your aims and goals otherwise all your hard work may go to complete waste.

Let me know what you thought about the post. If you need more information, please give me a shout :-).

Post workout meals to burn fat and build muscle - Part 2

In the previous post, I discussed the best post workout meal for building muscle. If you haven’t read it already, you can read it here. I did a lot of research on the best post workout meals to burn fat. There are just too many theories out there, but I finally read an article by Tom Venuto which stated that the best post workout meal for fat loss is just a normal meal with complex and natural carbs. I personally would say that one should take low GI carbs with protein and unsaturated fats. Here’s why.

After a fat loss workout – which should include full body workouts, you use up quite a bit of your muscle glycogen and you raise your metabolism due to the EPOC effect. Now your body needs the fuel. If you eat a normal meal as mentioned above, you will send the message to your body that you have some food coming, so don’t go to the muscle for fuel and don’t increase cortisol levels. Now, slowly and steadily the food that you have eaten will start getting absorbed and continue to get absorbed for quite some time. Because you are taking low GI carbs with proteins and unsaturated fats, you will slow down the absorption and during that time, a vast majority of the energy will come from the stored fats. This process will continue till such time that all the food has been absorbed.

Personally speaking this is a very good method to lose fat. Do keep in mind that you need to control the portion size. Don’t overdo it. However, you don’t get all the benefits from this method.

Once you do full body workouts or HIIT sessions, you get both the effects mentioned above i.e. using up of glycogen and raising the metabolism. But at the same time, it is known that if you work your entire body especially through HIIT, you increase your HGH (Human Growth Hormone) levels to amazing levels. The HGH is good for muscle building but at the same time, to is amazing for fat breakdown. The two peak timings of HGH are post workout and during deep sleep. If you eat carbs right after your workout, you stop the release of HGH. This is something you don’t want to do. The HGH forces your body to use fat as the primary source of energy instead of the carbs that have been taken and are in the blood stream. The best way to avoid lower your HGH is by:

- Taking only protein after a workout
- Taking in carbohydrates an hour or two after the workout (Low GI)
- Not taking any fats an hour before the workout

The above points will help you keep HGH raised after the workouts. Some people may say that you should take carbs after a workout an ANY COST. I disagree with that because our body is very smart. If you need fuel in your body and you don’t have carbs in your system or the carbs are very low, it will look for alternatives. We have processes like glycogenolysis, gloconeogenesis and lipolysis that increase the levels of carbohydrates or fuel in our system from fats and stored glycogen. If you do not have any stored glycogen, then most of it comes from fats. If you take in proteins, the body knows that you are not starving and will not increase cortisol (muscle breaking hormone). Basically, in very simple terms, you can breakdown fat and use it as energy and also provide some amounts of glycogen to the muscles. This will be particularly useful if you have quite a bit of fat.

I hope you didn’t fall asleep reading all that. I would recommend (personally) going with the second method as it includes the effects of the first method plus lots more. Stay tuned for some more details and meal examples.

Post workout meals to burn fat and build muscle - Part 1

There are a number of views about post workout meals like it is the most important meal of the day (after the breakfast), it needs to have lots of carbs, it needs to have lots of proteins and bla bla bla. There is so much information on the internet, that you never know what is right for you. I remember when I was doing my own research I found people basing there arguments on things like you should not eat too much protein because it will turn into carbs and you will get fat. I almost fell off my chair laughing when I read this. What I intend to do is give you some basic scientific facts about your what goal goes with which post workout meal so that you can make your own decision.

Ok…so our topic today is post workout meals to burn fat and builds muscle. The most common type of muscle building post workout meal is - high GI carbs followed by low GI carbs and high protein and no fats. The idea is - after a muscle building workout, you are completely drained of the muscle glycogen (carbs) which is the primary source of energy for your body and you need to repair the muscles as you have put stress on them during the workout and created microscopic muscle tears. If you take the high GI carbs right after a workout and then take the low GI carbs and protein, you get the following effects.

- You raise you blood sugar levels
- You raise insulin levels
- You get low GI carbs and protein in your system for muscle repair

The sugar will rush to the muscles, get used up and fill the glycogen pools, which means that you will store the carbs/glycogen in the muscles rather than as fats. There is a lot behind this as well, but I don’t want to bore you unless you ask me to :-). Insulin is an anabolic (cell building) hormone and also promotes muscle synthesis (muscle building) - it will use the protein that you have taken and push it to repair the muscle (i.e. build the muscle). The remaining low GI carbs will provide continuous energy to your body in order to get the muscle repaired and not feel lethargic. This is the most widely used approach for muscle building. The mix of high GI and low GI carbohydrates is used to provide your body with quick regeneration properties and also getting constant energy so that you don’t feel tired. There are a lot more details to this but you get the gist of it :-).

This method is excellent for muscle building, but is it good for fat loss? The insulin level tells your body, not to use any stored fat as the body has too many carbohydrates anyway, so the majority of the energy comes from carbohydrates. How will you lose fat using this method? The answer is that you can lose fat and weight using this method only if the meal is very small. Once the high GI carbs run to the muscles and there are no carbs in the blood stream, the body may get some energy from the fats. However, it is important to note that the insulin levels will be raised (to some extent) which will minimize the fat usage but nonetheless, some fat can be used. Once you take the low GI carbs and proteins, you will slow down the usage of fats even more. Basically, this method is not all that great for fat loss. There are other more effective methods for fat loss.

Stay tuned for the next post there I will discuss a post workout meal that can help you burn fat. I want to know what you guys think so, please don’t forget to leave comments. Till next time :-).

The EPOC effect

I have written a number of articles where I mentioned the EPOC effect, but I never wrote an article on what EPOC actually is. I won’t go into A LOT of detail at this point. It really depends on you. If you want to know more, leave a comment asking questions or just tell me that I should write more about EPOC.

EPOC stands for Excess Post-exercise Oxygen Consumption, which means that the usage or need of oxygen increases after an exercise session. The extra oxygen is used to get your body back to its resting state. A number of operations take place in our body such as hormone balancing, replenishment of fuel stores and anabolism. The main thing that we should be concerned with is that it increases our metabolism after a workout. Depending on how strenuous the exercise was the length of the EPOC effect varies. The strenuous the exercise, the longer the EPOC effect. This is where the concept of burning fat during rest and sleep came from. So if you workout really hard, you will burn fat till hours after the workout and even while you sleep.

The common concept is that you just do cardio to lose fat as it increases your metabolism during the workout and an hour or so after. However, latest research shows us that you can increase your fat loss dramatically through strength training. Anaerobic training increases your EPOC effect for hours and hours after the workout, which means that your metabolism increases for a long long time and you burn more fat. The more and larger the muscle groups fatigued, the longer the EPOC effect.
According to research, the absolute best kind of workout for EPOC is HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training). I have already written quite a bit about HIIT so I won’t go into any details to bore you :-).

My recommendation to get the most out of the EPOC effect, is to workout as many muscle groups as you can at one time and completely drain yourself (you don’t need to workout for hours to do this…this can be done short and high intensity workouts. You can find examples in my previous posts) and do HIIT the following day. You will be amazed with the results.

Hope this was useful. Let me know what you think about this post. Let me know if you want to know more. Stay tuned for some very interesting posts, still to come.

How to design your own strength circuit training program part 2

I hope you guys found the last post useful. Here are a couple more samples of circuit training.

Routine 1
Squats 20
Pushups 30
Lunges 20 each side
Rows 20
Donkey kicks 20 each side
Shoulder pushups 20
Jump squats 10
Pullups max
Squat n Row 20
1 minute rest

Plank 15 - 30 seconds
Pushups 10
Mountain Climbers 30 seconds
Repeat 1 - 3 times

This routine is one of my absolute favorites. If I haven’t worked out in quite a while, I do the above to make sure I hit every muscle group. In the second bit of this routine, your body is always tensed – especially the core. You will really feel this, so be prepared to get really sore the next day ;).

Routine 2
Pushups 15
Squats 15
Pushups 15
Squats 15
Jump rope 1 Minute

DB rows 12 Each side
DB rows 12 Each side
Jump rope 1 Minute

Shoulder press 12
Upright rows 12
Shoulder press 12
Upright rows 12
Jump rope 1 Minute

This is a fat loss circuit that is supposed burn a lot of fat, increase stamina and improve your overall body conditioning. Try these routines and tell me how you get on with them. I want to know what you think about these routines. Were they effective for you? Did you enjoy doing them?

Stay tuned for the EPOC effect post. Till next time.

How to design your own strength circuit training program part 1

Circuit training is an excellent way to increases metabolism, elevates heart rate, burn fat, get an EPOC effect and get a full body workout. It is a type of interval training where you alternate between strength training and cardio vascular training. However, recently a number of other types of circuit trainings have come into play where you alternate between high intensity and low intensity exercises (both strength training), alternate between smaller and larger muscle groups and simply doing strength training for maximum reps, for one set and moving on to the next body part.


I would like to think that the best kind of circuit training is where you concentrate large muscle group, then the attached smaller muscle groups and finally a cardio movement. But this is not cast in stone. All circuit trainings are useful...heck...you can come up with your own circuit training method. The main concept is do one thing after the other. Here is a routine that I have often used.

Set 1:
Pushups
Triceps dips
Speed ball punches (imagine you are hitting a speed ball that boxers use)

Set 2:
Jump squats (with weights if too easy)Calf raises
Run in place with knees as high as possible

Set 3:
Rows
Bicep curls
Speed punches (Stand in a TAE KWON DO punching position and imagine you are trying to hit the person in front of you in the stomach really hard and fast)

Set 4:
Shoulder press
Lateral raises
Jumping backs

Set 5:
Hanging side leg raises (for the obliques)
Plank
Burpees

This is a routine that has given excellent results. Now it is up to you how you want to do it (or something similar). I usually do 20 reps per exercise, 1 minute for the cardio and 10 second rest per set and repeat the entire workout twice. You can do 30 reps, 30 seconds for the cardio and 30 seconds rest or any other method. The idea is to exhaust. Mix it up and make it interesting. I will be posting two more circuit training routine which are different to one above so stay tuned. Also, let me know what you think about this routine. Do you think it is unrealistic, too hard or is it exactly what you are looking for. Please leave a comment and do let me know. See you next time.

Brides Made Fit Reviews Nintendo's Wii Fit

Burn Fat 'n' Build Muscle is proud to be associated with Brides Made Fit. A website that provide you with all the information you need to get rid of those extra pounds before your big day. Please visit Brides Made Fit at http://www.bridesmadefit.com



In a country where 60% of its people are overweight, it's no surprise that Americans would turn to an interactive video game to remedy the situation: Nintendo Wii Fit.

This $89 fringe from the Nintendo Wii uses an electronic balance board to measure players' health stats. This includes weight, body mass index (BMI), center of gravity, posture, strength, and agility. In order to improve results, players tackle objectives in yoga, strength, aerobics, and balance.

The more you play, the more minutes you bank up to unlock more challenging tasks. It's a great concept, but does a profession personal trainer, like myself, find it effective for the average American? Check out my podcast to watch me play the game and hear my review.

If anything, you'll get a few good laughs!

How to create your own fat loss exercise plan

A number of you guys really appreciated the last ‘How to’ post…here comes another one :-). The best way to lose fat and keep it off is to have a good diet and exercise regularly. The last post mentioned ‘how to create your own fat loss diet plan’ and today I will discuss ‘how to create your own fat loss exercise plan’.

The first step is to establish when you can workout. Some say that the best time to workout is in the morning before breakfast when glycogen stores are very low. Others say that you should try to workout in the evening as you don’t have enough energy in the morning and you will burn what you have eaten throughout the day. Which one is better? Answer to this is – It doesn’t matter. Do what suits you best. Both have their benefits and working out is more important thing than the time.

Match time with diet plan: We have discussed what your diet should be like, so you need to match the timings with your diet. At the same time, you need to see what is possible for YOU to do. What I mean to say is that if you workout in the morning, your breakfast need to be different to when you workout in the evening.

Identify equipment: You may have some exercise equipment at home, you may be a gym goer (or thinking of joining a gym) or you may simple want to use your own body to do the workouts. Regardless of what you choose, you need to identify which one suits you best. You can work each and every body part with absolutely no equipment, so you don't have any equipment excuse.

Identify strength trainings: As a beginner, all you need to concentrate on is 4 major muscle groups. These are the chest, shoulders, back and thighs (or the entire lower body). Don’t break up your workout, do full body every time you do strength training. Look for compound exercises for these muscle groups. If you have some kind of exercise equipment, try and see how you can use that to work these muscles. Make sure that all are compound movements and not isolation. Compound movements use more than 1 muscle group. It can be 1 major muscle and 2 or 3 minor muscles or can be 2 major muscle groups. The key point here is that – the more muscle movement, the more the calorie burn. Try and make a plan where you completely exhaust these muscle groups. Start off with one exercise per muscle group then introduce supper sets, then alternate between upper body lower body. Whatever you think will exhaust these muscles. Exhausting is very important for EPOC (I will discuss EPOC in a later post). Don't do strength training everyday. I suggest doing it on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. If you want to lose fat from your stomach, thighs or butt, don’t just do crunches or donkey kicks. Spot reduction is one of the biggest myths of the fitness industry. You need to do full body workouts.

Identify cardio: Do any cardio you like. It can be jumping jacks, cycling, walking etc. - whatever you like. However, you need to do it in an HIIT and varying format. During the beginning stages, do the HIIT training on days when you are not doing strength training. Once you think you are fit enough, do HIIT right after your strength workouts. This will burn calories like you cannot even imagine. On the other days i.e. the non-strength/HIIT days, do any kind of cardio for about 20 – 30 minutes, but keep changing your speed every minute or so. Go very fast, then very slow, then medium. Basically, mix it up a bit.

Resting days: I usually take Sundays off. It is very important to take ATLEAST one day off from working out. Too much of anything is bad for you. Take a day's rest and be sureto cheat as well :-). Good, isn’t it.

Write down your plan and see how best you can follow it. Shoot me with any questions you have and I will try my level best to help you out.

The Power Of The Eccentric Motion

The following post is taken from http://www.weightgain4you.blogspot.com/

In this article I will be talking to you about a simple tip that was used years ago for explosive muscle growth, but for some reason it's not used as much these days and it should be!

This popular weight training technique was used by muscle building enthusiasts long before you where lifting and even walking for that matter. For it not to be used as much now is a real downer and people are missing out on the results it can bring them. So, follow me and read on below to start seeing more in your muscle building efforts.

In weight training, in order for the muscle to grow and develop, there needs to be a high tension and stimulus placed on the muscles (well durrr!). When the muscles are overloaded with more tension than they were put through the last time round the musculatory system requires your muscles to undergo hypotrophy, or increase in mass. Therefore, resulting in an increase in both muscle size and strength.

The larger the force of tension put on your muscles, the larger more they muscle tissue is stimulated. So in order for your muscles to get the best possible chance of growth, you need to implement a good stimulating technique into your weight training program.

Now, that’s enough of me babbling on, I guess you wanna here this old super powerful technique this whole article is about.

Well....Have you ever heard of the negative lift? Or eccentric contraction training? It's a weight training technique that places a huge demand on the muscle, even more so than just lifting a conventional weight. This increased amount of stress on the muscle is what is responsible for delivering increased results in muscle growth.

An eccentric contraction or negative contraction is the lowering position of a lift. When you lift a weight, the strain on the muscle is less than that of when you lower the weight. The increased tension on the muscle when lowering is because the muscle fibres are lengthened and the strain on each individual muscle fibre is increased. Thus, resulting in an increase in muscle growth potential.

Another example of this is included in a bench press. When you lift the bar up to the point of full extension, and then you begin to lower it again, trying not to let it come down too fast and smack you in the throat, this is what is known as an eccentric contraction. The longer you take to lower the bar the more muscle fibres are stimulated, and the chance of muscle growth are increased.

Check out this example of the negative lift. In this case the guy is doing chin ups on the rack:

Negative Lift Example




The human muscles are a wonderful thing, they can lift up to 40% more weight during the negative motion (or eccentric contraction) than they can do during the positive muscle contraction. The positive contraction of the lift is when there is a shortening of the muscle fibres. In other words, the concentric contraction (which is the positive contraction) is when you undergo lifts such as curling, pressing, or pulling down resistance.

That 40% of extra weight which can be lifted on a negative contraction increases your weight training intensity, and places a higher stimuli on the muscles. Therefore, resulting in optimum tension and stimulus for maximum muscle growth and development.

Please be advised that the negative weight training technique is proven to increase muscle fibre damage, and in turn intensify muscle soreness. This extra muscle trauma is the result of higher intense and more targeted muscle training. Along with this increase of intensity comes shorter training times and increased speed of the muscle growth process.

Building the muscle you want is easier than you thought, as long as you utilize the negative repetition. Introduce it to your weight training program now so you can increase the speed of which you build muscle mass.


Tired of the way you look? You want to build muscle & and get stronger? Click here to download this Insane Muscle Gain Free report.

How to create your own fat loss diet plan

Here is the first of many ‘HOW TO’ posts that will help you create you own diet and exercise plans to achieve your fitness goals. It is very important for each and every one of us to know – how to go about creating our own diet plans. Following is a guide that shows you what steps to take.

Calculate your BMR: BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate) is the amount of calories used to keep you alive. There are a number of operations taking place within our bodies and we need energy/calories to keep them going. You can calculate you BMR using any online BMR/RMR calculator or use the following formulas.

English BMR Formula
Women: BMR = 655 + (4.35 x weight in pounds) + (4.7 x height in inches) - (4.7 x age in years)
Men: BMR = 66 + (6.23 x weight in pounds) + (12.7 x height in inches) - (6.8 x age in year)

Metric BMR Formula
Women: BMR = 655 + (9.6 x weight in kilos) + (1.8 x height in cm) - (4.7 x age in years)
Men: BMR = 66 + (13.7 x weight in kilos) + (5 x height in cm) - (6.8 x age in years)

Add activity level: Apart from the involuntary operations happening in your body, you need energy for the voluntary actions as well. You need energy to walk, talk, run – basically do anything. You can take this into account by adding an activity level. Research has shown that the following factors can be used for accurate results. The final result is called TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure)

Activity Multiplier
Sedentary = BMR X 1.2 (little or no exercise, desk job)
Lightly active = BMR X 1.375 (light exercise/sports 1-3 days/wk)
Mod. active = BMR X 1.55 (moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days/wk)
Very active = BMR X 1.725 (hard exercise/sports 6-7 days/wk)
Extr. active = BMR X 1.9 (hard daily exercise/sports & physical job or 2X day training, i.e. marathon, contest etc.)

Calculate your average daily intake: Take a couple of days and note down what you are eating. Use the internet to get the calorie count.

Make first diet plan: The first diet plan should help you get back to your BMR level. E.g. If your BMR is 1800, take 1800 calories (first diet plan) for 1 – 2 weeks. This means that your body will be at equilibrium. Not gaining, nor losing.

Make second plan: This should create a calorie deficit. E.g. if your TDEE is 2000 cals, you should go down to 1500 or 1700 calories, but make sure you take above 2000 cals once a week; Preferably the weekend.

Follow these steps and you should be good to go.

Rules: There are some other rules that need to be considered. These are related to the timing of calories and the type of calories you are taking in. (take most of your carbs from fruits as they are rich in minerals and vitamins as well).

Breakfast - Low GI carbohydrates Fiber Slow Protein Unsaturated fats
Snack - Protein Unsaturated fats Low or no carbohydrates
Lunch - Protein Unsaturated fats Low GI carbohydrates Fiber
Snack - Protein Unsaturated fats Low or no carbohydrates
Snack 2 (or post workout) - Protein
Supper - Slow Protein Unsaturated fats Low carbohydrates

Things you need to avoid:
Saturated fats
Trans-fats
Processed grain
Process sugar

The above method will help you increase your metabolism, regulate your hormones and get healthy.

The 2 push routine

This is a very interesting routine. There are only 2 basic pushing exercises and you do lots of variations to hit your full body to maximize calorie burning, increase metabolism, condition the muscle and boost your overall energy levels. Do this workout if you are short of time and dont have any equipment. The rules are that you are not allowed to rest and that's it.

15 speed squats
15 normal pushups
15 squats
15 narrow pushups
20 lunges each side
10 narrow pushups (use the 5 second up and 5 second down rule)
20 jump squats (jump high)
30 second T-hold (Get into a pushup position. Move your arms to the sides so that your body makes a T. Now hold)
30 second wallsit (Do a squat againt a wall and hold)

Repeat 1 - 3 times. Max rest - 1 minute.

This is an excellent routine. If you are week at pullups and chinups,you will also engage your back muscle to strengthen them, making it easier for you to do pullups. This routine is a full body fat burning routine. You can make this your only routine for a month and combine with a healthy diet plan. You will surprised with the results. The key is compound movements, high intensity and low periods of rest.

Try it and leave comments :).