fatlossandmusclebuilding Blog

This is an exciting time, a brand new year, a chance to wipe the slate clean and set your self up for a successful year ahead. To ensure that you get on the way to success in your fat loss and muscle building goals, you should ensure you do the following:-

 1. Get back to it ASAP! - It is so easy to delay getting back into training after those Christmas Holidays, the earlier you get back to the gym and get back on a good diet the faster you will on your way to having a successful year!

2. Decide upon your goals - what are your aims? are you trying to lose fat or build muscle? You need to be sure as to what your aims are so that you can focus your training and dieting for that specific aim.

3. Plan you diet and workouts - Alot of people don’t plan there workouts or their diets, this can be a huge mistake. If you don’t pre-plan your workouts, you can find yourself wondering aimlessly around the gym, using random machines with no particluar format. Your workouts should be focused and planned for best results. It is also a very good idea to plan your food, this will prevent you from unhealthy eating just because it is convienient. I find it best to make my food for the next day the night before.

4. Develop positive habits - This is important. It is a New Year, a chance to start a fresh, so do it right. Get straight into the habit of eating right, making every single gym session you plan. You do this long enough and it will become second nature!

I have an exciting year planned for the Blog, expect to see loads of diet and training advice and techniques. Also my secret projest will finally be revealed in 2010! So please keep visiting us so you don’t miss a thing!

Also remember to send me any questions or problems you have and will do my best to answer them for you, email me at jallmark@fatlossandmusclebuilding.com.

There is an abundance of mixed information out there for both losing and gaining muscle, which ever your current goals may lie in. Unfortunately although there is a lot of good stuff out there, the majority of the information is absolutely useless! This is a huge reason why people struggle to achieve any good results in fat loss or muscle building. Alot of the time it really isn’t your fault that you are failing to reach your potential, it is down to being given bad information and advice.

The huge growth of the internet over the last few years, has made it possible to find out near enough anything you want, but only if you know exactly where to look! The fitness industry is a huge business,with ALOT of cash being thrown around, and unfortuanely due to this you are not always getting what you are led to believe that you are…

The fitness industry has become a billion dollar market, with big companies spending millions onmarketing and sales to bump up their profit margins, and they are very good at it! They are experienced and ruthless, they will make all sorts of promises to get you to hand over your hard earned cash. The supplementation company is one of the worse, trying to sell you products that “guarentee” you miracle results. The only guarentee that you really have is that willlead you disappointed! That is not to say that all supplements are useless, there are a small few products that may help improve your results, but even these can be done without.

Another problem which you may have is following the latest big thing in dieting. Alot of which will only give you short term results, that do not last. They involve following some crazy diet theory, which will just be impossible to stick to long term, and more than likely will leave you worse off than you were in the first place!    

When it comes to building muscle, it is easy to think that advice given by a guy who seems to have achieved excellence when it comes to their own body will work the same for you. When in fact you may end up trying to follow a plan that is either designed for a seasoned bodybuilder, or even a drug user! A routine that may be ok for a competetive bodybuilder with years of training behind them, will not work for a normal person.

I myself have made every mistake in the book, due to following bad advice and buying into numerous miracle products (the miracle was they didn’t work!). I eventually, after many painstaking years, and more cash than i’d like to remember, managed to sift through all the b.s and find what worked for me. By me I mean an average guy, not a genetic freak who can easily build muscle and lose fat at the same time and not a drug user. Once I had thrown out all of the useless info, I realised that the basics that had been used for years were what a normal guy like me need to concentrate on.

I have now managed to shed my unwanted body fat, and build lbs of new muscle, and all it really took was a bit of dedication and sticking with good training and diet practices. I’m now trying to use my blog to share all the great information that is out there with you. I want my blog to be a source of good information, that isn’t designed  toencourage you to buy the latest supplementation product available, but instead is designed to help the average person to achieve the results that I have managed to achieve myself. So please pay us regular visits, so I can pass my knowledge on to you. If you have any questions or would like any advice on a particular subject, please send me an email and I will try to resolve them for you in future blogs.

I have mentioned recently that I’m working on a bit of a project at the moment, which I am very close to finishing. Stay tuned and I will reveal all in then next couple of months… 

Gaining fat when trying to put on muscle is a big concern for many people. If you have worked hard to get yourself a nice little six pack, but then decided that you want to put on some more muscle, forcing yourself to over eat can be hard. The thought of losing that six pack, that you worked so hard for can be unbareable!

I came across this excellent post on Tom Venutos Burn the Fat Blog, which may interest you. He gives some great advice to do with the subject of gaining muscle without gaining too much fat. He mentions the importance of controlling your calorie intake, which is a vital factor in muscle growth. There is some great advice here, definately worth a look…

I’m not one for over promoting supplementation, but I have recently recieved a few questions about the Glutamine-L supplement. For those of you who are interested in this supplement I’d like to point you in the direction of this useful article on Glutamine-L. This is an interesting little supplement, that has become extremely popular among the bodybuilding community. Glutamine-L raises the bodys natural growth hormones, which increase the body s ability to produce new muscle tissue.

My opinion on this supplement is the same as alot of others, if you are achieving good results using it, then go ahead and use it. I will say that as with any other supplement, it is not a miracle product and will not suddenly make your muscles huge. As with all supplements they are not a substitute for good diet and exercise, they are simple to be taken in addition to them if you want that extra bit of help to achieve your results.

I personally like to keep my supplementation to a minimum, and use natural food sources to get every thing that my body needs. Remember although the fitness industry may tell you otherwise, supplements are not a necessity, and great results are achieved without any help from any supplements all of the time.

Hey Guys,

I wanted to talk to you today about a touchy subject in the bodybuilding/sporting world… Steroids.

Steroids are well known for their miracle affects on muscle growth. They have unfortunately become a widely used easy answer to building pounds of muscle. With all the seen to be positive affects of this ILLEGAL drug, people often ignore the negative affects that steroids can have. I am proud to say I have personally never used steroids and I never ever would!

I firmly believe that they answer to building the body that you dream of is to work hard work in the gym, and eat well. For those of you who have ever been, or still are tempted to use steroids, I just wanted to point you in the direction of this article on steroids. Here you can clearly see the dangers of using this drug. It lists the many possible side affects that can occur if you use this drug.

Train naturally to achieve muscle growth, although it may be tough at times, when you do achieve your goals (and you will if you put your mind to it) you can be proud to know that you have done it through hard work, not cheating using illegal drugs. Trust me you will feel a far greater sense of achievement!

I’m sure they I will have upset many drug enhanced bodybuilders with my comments, oh well sure they’ll get over it! You stay natural it is the best and safest way! Is getting big muscles really worth risking your health over?…

Quick post just before I pack up and go to sleep…

Getting enough sleep can really help improve your results with both fat loss and muscle building. Sleeping is when your body repairs and recovers from what ever you may have put it through during the day.

If you are trying to build muscle, when you are sleeping is when the majority of the repair and growth of your muscles will occur. Not getting enough sleep can affect your results. If you are notgiving your body enough of this ‘rest time’, it can even lead to over training, which can have negative affects on your body.

Also lack of sleep can seriously affect your energy levels, making a huge difference to your training, and even your motivation to train.

You should be aiming to get at least 8 hours sleep each night, this is what the body needs to fully recover from the previous days activities. 

Well that’s me done for the night, i’m off to get my full 8 hours! Night everyone!

Who should train with weights…? In my opinion everyone should!

Weight training used to be shyed away from by everyone except bodybuilders and strongmen. It was thought that anyone else should keep away from lifting around heavy weights, as people associated weight lift with becoming muscle bound. Even professional trainers would keep their athletes clear of weight lifting in there training routines.

As advances in training techniques and more importantly research into weight training was made, the true benefits of training with weights was realised. It was discovered that training your muscles with weights can improve muscle tone, increase muscle size, increase strength, increase body weight and improve endurance. With these benefits being discovered, weight training soon became massively popular outside of  the bodybuilding world and into the main stream, from pro athletes and even the public. 

Now days almost every single athlete in any physical sport will have some sort weight training in their training schedules, in fact it is vital for them to complete at their highest possible levels.

The advanges of weight training should not only be used by athletes/sportsman. As mentioned the advantages of weight training include improved muscle tone, increase in muscle size, increase in strength, increase in body weight and improvement in endurance. If you are trying to improve your body, whether that is by building muscle or losing fat, weight training is essential. When trying to lose weight, or fat to be more specific, weight training will help prevent muscle loss that often occurs when people diet. The advantages of keeping muscle when you are losing weight are numerous. Maintaining and toning muscle whilst you are losing weight will prevent you from getting that scrawny, tired, unhealthy look to you. You often see people who have lost weight fast and look like a bag of bones! Also muscle actually burns calories! Even when you are resting your muscles burn calories, this will help in your fat loss.

Even if you are happy with the way you look and are not interested in altering the look of your body, weight training can still be an important part of your bodies well being. Having a strong musclular system can help reduce the likeliness of problems when you are older, including back problems. Through weight training you can build a strong core, which includes your lower back and abdominal muscles, which supports your whole upper body. This can reduce the chance of injury in every tasks, including mowing the lawn and even getting out of bed, you’d be suprised how many people injure themselves doing simple tasks.

So i’ll ask you again… ”who should train with weights?”…that’s right EVERYONE! Everyone can benefit from weight training, whether you are a professional athlete, a recreational athlete or even a none sporting person who wants to just stay healthy.  

Hi Everyone!

Well I’ve returned from my two week caravan holiday in the South of France, had a lovely time could have stayed a lot longer! The only things i missed was the comfort of my own bed and my gym!

Having a week off the training and dieting doesn’t hurt every now and again, but any longer may start to eat away at your hard earned results. As I had a two week holiday this year I decided that I was going to still try to eat fairly well and get as much exercise as I could fit in without cutting into my relaxing holiday too much.

I decided to put together a whole body resistance routine which I could complete first thing in the morning without cutting into the days activities, and also without the use of gym equipment. My routine was as follows:-

Bodyweight Full Squat (performed very slowly and controlled) - 3 sets 12-20 reps
Calve Raises (performed on the caravan step!) - 3 sets 12-20 reps
Press ups - 3 sets of 12-20 reps
Pull ups (performed hanging from a branch by our caravan!) - 3 sets 12-20 reps
Tricep dips (performed on the side of my bed!) - 3 sets 0f 12-20 reps
Shoulder side raises (performed with 2 shopping bags) - 3 sets of 12-20 reps
Ab crunches - 3 sets of 12-20 reps

I performed this routine 3 mornings a week. It was designed to keep my muscles active and to prevent muscle loss, not to build any new muscle.

Along with this resistance routine I tried to keep myself as active as possible. I decided to give myself a rest from my usual cardio which involves mainly running, and include alot of swimming, walking, tennis and a few other holiday activaties that me and the family could enjoy together.

I have to say that doing this allowed me to enjoy my holiday to it’s maximum, and I am very pleased to say after taking some measurements now i’m back to normality, that I have had no muscle loss or fat gain during my holiday!

If you are coming up to your holidays, and you want to keep in shape while you are away, I would highly recommend that you throw in as many fun exercise activities that you enjoy as possible. Also why not try my holiday routine above, it will prevent muscle loss on long holidays and only takes 30 mins to complete.

If you are having a short break, a week or less, then having a rest from weight training especially will do you no harm at all. In fact it will give your body chance to recover from your training.

If you are off on your hols, have fun! I’ve got no more planned for a while so the posts will be coming thick and fast again!

So many people try and fail to build muscle, the most common reason why is so simple to correct. More often than not if someone isn’t putting any muscle, or in fact any weight of any kind, it is simply because they aren’t eating enough.

If you are not consuming enough calories (or energy to put it another way), you will not build any new muscle. You need to be in a state of overfeeding for your body to produce new muscle growth. The amount you need to overfeed by varies from person to person, and can vary anywhere from just over your maintenance level (this is the amount of calories you consume to stay at the same weight) to over 500 calories. It really is something that you need to experiment with to find out where you threshold lies.

If you are failing to gain muscle, this is the first thing you need to look at, are you eating enough calories?! No?! then eat more!After that if you are still struggling, then you should start to look at your nutrition, workout and if you are giving you muscles enough rest (this is when they grow, not in the gym!).

If you are a keen follower of my blog, I’m sure that you have heard me countless times going on and on about the importance of taking your measurements to monitor your progress. Just to recap the most vital measurements that you should be taking on a weekly basis are your weight and your bodyfat percentage. This is so important whether you are training to burn fat or to build muscle. From these measurements you can work out your body composition (i.e. how much of your weight is from fat and how much is from lean weight, then depending on what your goals are, you can make adjustments to your diet to improve them the next week. For example, if you are trying to burn fat and you find from your measurements that you have lost some muscle that week. That means that you are not getting enough calories so will need to increase your calorie intake, or that you are not getting enough protein to sustain your muscle. On the other side if you are trying to gain muscle and your measurements reveal that you haven’t put on any weight at all, again you will need to increase your calorie intake.

Now as we know weighing yourself is very easy. Whether you weigh yourself at the gym or at home on your own scales, so long as you use the same scales each time and weigh yourself at the same time each day, that is fine. Now when it comes to measuring your bodyfat there are several different methods available. Under water weighing, bioelectric impedance, bodyfat calipers to name just a few.

In my opinion the best method, because of it’s convenience and also because it is quite accurate, is the use of a set bodyfat calipers. They are also fairly cheap to buy, you can pick up a good set for between $20-$80. For the most accurate reading you should be taking measurements at multi points on your body. A good set of calipers will give detailed instructions on how to take the most accurate bodyfat measurement, measuring points may include chest, abdomen, tricep and thigh.

As with anything practice is required to become good at taking a good accurate bodyfat reading. You need to aim to pinch the same amount of skin at the same points, this will then give you a good representation on your bodyfat levels, and more importantly whether they are going up or down. Repeating your measurements a few times, to make sure that they are the sameeach time isalso a good way tomakesureyou are getting a good reading. 

I’m not going to recommend a certain make of bodyfat caliper to you, as i’m not trying to make money off you. What I will say though is that I recommend that you do a bit of research for yourself before you spend your money. Look for calipers that are made by a reputable company, and see if they are endorsed by an official governing body, such as the World NaturalBodybuilding Foundation, this should ensure that you get a good set.

P.S don’t forget about my Fat loss and muscle building Q & A follow the link for details.