The mind is everything. What you think you become.

Below is a great article with bodybuilding expert, Tom Venuto on how to get rid of stubborn lower abdominal fat. This guy knows his stuff. You need to search high and low to find everything Tom says about building 6-pack abs.

'How to see your lower abs'
By Tom Venuto

Seeing your abs, or any other muscle group, for that matter – is almost entirely the result of having low body fat levels. You get low body fat from proper diet (as well as cardio and strength training), not from doing hundreds of ab exercises every day. [ Read More ]

"eatclean-staylean" - BK

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Green Faces and Marriage??

“Green Faces” is a three week phase to get your body burning more fat, clean up your nutrition, cut the junk from your diet and help cut any cravings you may have. You can eat anything that had a face or will have a face and anything that grew green from the ground. Pretty simple!

It is very important that you are extremely strict about following the guidelines. You must eat 5/6 meals a day and have a good source of protein at each meal and drink the recommended water.

Myself and Seamus along with all the Biggest Loser 3 Challenge crew and a bunch of my clients and friends all undertook the challenging 3 week period. For myself it was an ideal time after the Rugby season to really clean up my diet. For me personally it was the best thing I could have done with my body riddled with inflammation after the footy season eating nothing but super clean protein, veggies and fats, along with the super food MonaVie, I feel 25 again. I thought I was feeling great, but after the 21 days, my training, recovery, and energy are through the roof. I have added Organic Oats and Ezekiel Cereal to my morning meal but other than that every other meal is the same.

For the challenge crew it is definitely a more difficult assignment, but everyone is in good spirits, training the house down and losing inches, which is the ultimate goal. The majority of people I know are obsessed about weighing themselves. If you must weigh yourself once weekly or....do you head in and do it daily!

Note: On my previous blog 'goals and the subconscious' I wrote about sailing with my “best mate and fiancé”.

Yesterday Cherri Hannon wrote me asking a question and asked about my fiancé?? and this morning she along with James inquired again. Now before my Mum calls me blowing up, no I am not engaged. It should have read “my best mate and HIS fiancé”. Marty is an Aussie who met Leah here in the US and they are now living on the Northern Beaches of Sydney. I will be his best man at their wedding next October here in CT and I cant wait to see them both at Chrissy.

"eatclean-staylean" - BK

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21 Days on Green Faces Diet - Before and After

WEIGHT 21O LEAN MUSCLE MASS 190 FAT MASS 20 POUNDS 9.5% BODY FAT Abdomen 35 inches Waist 34 inches Butt 41 inches	WEIGHT 204 LEAN MUCLE MASS 189 FAT MASS 15 POUNDS 7.6% BODY FAT Abdomen 34 inches Waist 33 inches Butt 40 inches
WEIGHT 184 LEAN MUSCLE MASS 160 FAT MASS 21 POUNDS BODY FAT 13.8% ABDOMEN 36.5 inches WAIST 35 inches BUTT 37 inches	WEIGHT 180 LEAN MUSCLE MASS 159 FAT MASS 21 POUNDS BODY FAT 12.2% AB 35.5 inches WAIST 34 inches BUTT 36.5 inches

"eatclean-staylean" - BK

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Your Goals and the Subconscious

This morning I was in my morning solace reading an article “The Science of Goal Achievement” when it dawned on me that I hadn’t set any goals since the end of footy season. This 4 page article from my Fitness Success Coach Mentor, Tom Venuto I give to all my clients when they start with me. I had read the article for a year at least but I am glad I did, because it sent a rocket into my end of year plans.

Jim Rohn once said, “I find it fascinating that most people plan their vacations with better care than they plan their lives. Perhaps its because escape is easier than change.”

Here I am planning my Aussie holiday, surfing trips with my bro and cousin, sailing the Great Barrier Reef, fishing with my best mate and fiancé, but not living in the present, not setting any goals for better achievement. I was doing the exact thing 95% of the population does and fails.

YOU CANT HIT A TARGET YOU CANT SEE, AND IF YOU AIM AT NOTHING YOU'LL HIT IT EVERY TIME!!!!

So I have set my goals and the next 7 weeks are going to be super productive and very effective to finish this great year with a bang. Set your goals now. It should read like this:

By Dec 16th

I am so happy and thankful now that I am 8% body fat. My size 30” jeans fit perfectly on my slim, trim waistline. I am super-lean with a rock hard, flat stomach and I can clearly see the razor-sharp definition in my six pack abs-and everyone else notices my awesomely ripped abs too.

Don’t underestimate the power of the subconscious mind. This might sound silly, but affirmations like these are the ULTIMATE SECRET to impressing what you want upon your subconscious mind. This is the way your brain works and nothing will ever change that. We humans are simply “wired” this way.

Write it in pack card, laminate it if possible and read it morning and night, or any time of the day, have it on you at all times and watch your fitness, professional, personal goals materialize.

Have a phenomenal day.

"eatclean-staylean" - BK

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Weight Loss Challenge Update

The challenge crew members are doing fantastic. We have just completed Phase 1 of green faces and everyone has lost inches and plenty of em. The teams were given the option of adding a starch Monday morning to one of their morning meals, but some have kept with phase 1 which is fine with me. All of them are vigorously attacking the nutrition and exercise challenge that we have given them.

My Team “The Magnificent 7” have really excelled this week. I threw in a volume week (lot more work in same time) and they soaked it right up. Liz Carr is leading this baby at 16 pounds reduction and a host of others are hot on her heels. Sandra’s team “What About Rob” is kicking our arses 80-64 but Tom put it in perspective “we are at the top of the 4th inning” long way to go....

Tomorrow we are doing Bikram Yoga where the room is cooking at 110 degrees; it is going to be invigorating.

Enjoy a magical weekend

"eatclean-staylean" - BK

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Why do you miss workouts?

I wanted to talk in today's blog about excuses for why many people don't workout or miss workouts.

Here's a common theme I see all the time at the gym...and believe it or not I have PAID clients not show for sessions.....they don’t last long with me. Somebody that was doing well working out and finally starting to get results at the gym will all of the sudden stop coming in for several months.

When they eventually come back and start working out again a couple months later, they're usually back in horrible shape, have gained back all the weight or more, and lost most of their strength gains that they worked so hard for.

So while talking to them, I'll ask where they have been the last couple months, and that's when the excuses start...and there are plenty of 'em:

• Perhaps it was that they had a special assignment at work and have been 'too busy' to work out lately
• Or perhaps it was that they had a shoulder or arm injury so they thought that they couldn't work out during this time
• Or perhaps they had a knee, ankle, or leg injury so they thought they couldn't work out.
• Or perhaps they were busy with house renovations, or family issues, or too busy with the kids, etc, etc, etc... excuse, excuse, excuse

You can see where I'm going with this... if your health & fitness and how you look and feel is important to you, then there is no such thing as an excuse. Either you want it, or you don't, and it's either going to be a priority in your life, or it's not!

After all, your health and fitness determines not only how good you're going look and feel every day that you're on this planet, but also how long you'll exist on this earth to enjoy the time you have with your friends and family... So with all of that said, why wouldn't you make your fitness a priority in your life!

Here's my opinion on the example excuses above...

Excuse #1 - Too busy at work:

Ok, so why don't you squeeze in really brief but really intense 5 minute workouts before and after work each day... after all, that's only 10 minutes of your time, and despite popular belief you CAN stay in excellent shape working out as little as 5 or 10 minutes a day (as long as your time is well spent with the right exercises and right intensity).

'Too busy at work' excuse busted!

Excuse #2 - Shoulder or arm injury so haven't worked out:

Bum shoulder... so what... are you saying your legs and abs don't work all of the sudden just because your arm or shoulder is hurt? After all, most of your fat loss and metabolism-boosting results come from lower body based exercises anyway, as they burn more calories due to the larger muscle groups involved.

Your upper body injury just gives you a good reason to focus even more intensely on your lower body, abs, and interval training during this period when you won't be able to do upper body exercises.

Shoulder injury excuse busted!

Excuse #3 - Knee, ankle, or leg injury so haven't worked out:

Ok, so now you're saying that just because you have a leg injury, that somehow your upper body no longer works? Even if you need to walk in there on crutches, and then do nothing but seated upper body exercises, that's a lot better than doing nothing and letting your entire body get weak and soft during while your leg heals.

Knee or leg injury excuse busted!

Excuse #4 - Too busy with the house, family, kids, etc:

Once again we need to get back to priorities. If your house and kids are priorities, why wouldn't your health and fitness be top priorities also, so that you can enjoy your life and everything and everyone in it!

Remember, you don't need to work out for hours every day to be in great shape. It's all about maximizing the intensity and amount of full body musculature you work in a given time period, even if that time period is just a brief 4 minute daily workout.

I know I take a hard-nosed approach with this stuff, but if finally getting into shape is important to you, nothing less will do, than to adopt a true fitness lifestyle and mindset.

I hope today's blog helps trigger some new motivation if you've struggled in the past with excuses or procrastination to getting in shape.

"eatclean-be happy-staylean" - BK

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MonaVie Madness

In my role as fitness director at CHF I also handle all the purchasing of the products you see on the shelves and in the fridges. I get asked to endorse /promote /flog/ loads of products. I get salespeople coming in with Protein bar/powders/shakes/pills the whole nine yards. It’s not a bad gig because you get thrown plenty of free product, but let me tell you folks, 98% of everything I see is garbage, crap, junk, nutrients, tops! 2 years ago I would take all samples and give them to staff and clients to try but not anymore. There are only a few products that I wholeheartedly endorse and I will give you links to all later.

Here is the exciting news. I started taking MonaVie 10 weeks ago to get an edge on the other fellas in Rugby leading in to the Nationals. I don’t eat much fruit because of the quality here in the north east ,so after looking into MonaVie and its purported benefits I begun taking the Active Blend which has the most biologically available Glucosamine and esterified fatty acids for healthy joint function. Paying a one-time $39 dollar fee to enable to get it wholesale I then took the plunge and ordered 1 case (4 bottles).

We won the National 4 weeks later, but still with travel and schedule I was not consistent with taking the 2oz morning and night. Since August 26th I have taken MonaVie religiously morning and night, still somewhat skeptical of its powers. Now, for those of you who haven’t seen me recently I went in to get my snorkel straightened after years of getting smashed around the melon playing the greatest game of all Rugby League 12 days ago. Two days after surgery my face was swollen like a balloon, barely being able to see through my eyelids. Knowing the Anti-inflammatory benefits of MonaVie I upped my dosage to 6 ounces every morning and 4 ounces at night. The swelling went down very quickly and the bruising subsided in record time. So much so that when I went back to see Dr. Chen at his office, he was amazed at how quickly I had recovered. I told him about the MonaVie and gave him a bottle to try.

So, on Monday here I am training a client and a funny thing occurred. Showing Lisa how to perform walking lunges I noticed that I had no pain in my knee joints and my pain the arse right hip was feeling great. My knees ALWAYS HURT performing the dreaded Bulgarian Split Squat (back foot on bench) but I had nothing, nada. I couldn’t believe it, like “what the hell is going on here”, I was floored! I was babbling, mumbling, laughing could not believe what was feeling which was NOTHING!! Pain free! I have had some sort of pain for a good 5 years; it’s just the nature of the beast (greatest game in the world Rugby League) and old father time catching up with me after beating myself into a pulp playing for 30 years.

Now I am not saying that MonaVie solely is responsible because I had 1 full week off exercising and I have been eating Green Faces for 10 days now (which eliminates toxicity from your body) but it’s definitely helped my joint pain and general well being without a doubt 110%. Its nature’s perfect anti-inflammatory full of antioxidants and every amino acid that your body needs to perform at optimum levels.

Try it for yourself, I passionately recommend and endorse this product for you and your loved ones.

Liquid dynamite in a bottle!!

There are two companies that I love www.proteinfactory.com. This company is SOOOO FAR AHEAD of the field it’s not funny. Top of the line grade protein powders where they have made formulas or you can custom make your own little concoction. A little bit confusing if you are making your own, but I will gladly advise anyone who needs some assistance in the right on to take. Top grade nutrients.

The other is www.cocochia.com Their Double Chocolate bar is made up of only clean, raw, organic, and all natural ingredients. Organic - non dairy - raw food bar - rich in phytonutrients - Gluten free - high in fiber - low GI - low cal - essential fats.

It’s touch expensive 12 bars $36, but you are getting top class fuel for your body, and they taste sensational, really really good (I am craving one right now).

The 3 products above are A+ grade nutrients, I wouldn’t recommend them if they were not. There is a lot of junk out there but these 3 are the bomb.

Enjoy!

The New Science of Weight Loss

Part 4: Put It All Together, Now

That's a lot of science, which I now give you permission to forget. Just remember these five rules that derive from it.

1. Eat five or six times a day, avoiding large gaps between meals and snacks. Don't allow yourself to get ravenously hungry, and don't stuff yourself. If you find you're slipping into a bad mood before a meal, that's a pretty good sign you've waited too long to eat.
2. Eat some protein at every meal and snack, and some calcium-rich dairy at several of them.
3. Always eat something shortly before exercising; you'll burn more calories that way. Then eat something soon after. This will speed up the repair process, which also costs your body some caloric capital.
4. Lift weights two to four times a week, focusing on the largest muscle groups. Three total-body workouts a week is ideal for creating a metabolic challenge; that way, you use all your big muscles every time you hit the gym.
5. Try to do something active on two or three of your non-lifting days. If you have the energy, interval workouts are best. But if these additional workouts leave you feeling wiped, it's far better to conserve your energy for three tough strength workouts a week, rather than spread it out over six half-assed exercise sessions.

I wish I could conclude this by telling you that weight loss is fast and easy, rather than slow and strenuous. But the exciting news is that science has found a straighter path to steady, successful weight loss--no starvation or death marches required.

"eatclean-staylean" - BK

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The New Science of Weight Loss

Part 3: Diet and Exercise Turn Your Body Into A Fat-Burning Machine

Efficiency is a good thing when you're talking about running your business. But it sucks the benefits out of your diet and workout. The more efficient your body is at exercise, the fewer calories it burns. Think of the guy in your health club who does the exact same workout every time you see him, with the exact same weights. He never looks better from one year to the next because his body has become so efficient at doing those moves that it doesn't need to grow bigger muscles or burn more fat in order to finish the workout.

Science has shown us some good strategies for making exercise less efficient:

Strength training.

You can make your lifts less efficient in two ways--by increasing the amount of weight you're lifting, or by choosing exercises that are more challenging to your balance and coordination.

Let's say your maximum bench press is 200 pounds. Lifting 200 pounds once is very inefficient; your body throws every muscle fiber into it. But lifting 50 pounds four times is very easy, and thus efficient. The metabolic cost of lifting 200 pounds once is thus greater than the cost of lifting 50 pounds four times. Doing maximum-effort sets of three to six repetitions with, say, 165 to 185 pounds would be a better way to overload your metabolism than doing sets of 10 to 12 reps with lighter weights.

The least efficient lifts are those in which the weight is over your head. This would include standing shoulder presses, as well as exercises such as squats or lunges in which you hold a weight overhead. So instead of doing shoulder presses in a machine or sitting on a bench, stand and crank them out.

Endurance exercise.

No surprises here: If you perform intervals, in which you go hard, then easy, then hard again, you take the efficiency out of your run, swim, or ride. You can call this the 'Old Science of Weight Loss,' since studies have shown the fat-burning benefits of intervals since the early '90s.

Your diet, too, can be made less efficient, and thus more calorically costly. I showed in the previous section how a higher-protein diet kicks up your metabolism, a sign that your body is burning calories inefficiently. But if that protein comes in the form of high-calcium dairy--milk, yogurt, cheese--you take the inefficiency one giant step further.

"eatclean-staylean" - BK

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The New Science of Weight Loss

Part 2: Energy Flux Drives Your Metabolism

You probably know that your resting metabolism--the number of calories you burn in the 23 hours a day when you aren't exercising--slows as you get older. That's the reason most of us gain weight as we age. However, a 2001 University of Colorado study found that older men who exercise and eat as much as younger men have similar metabolic rates.

This doesn't mean you have to work out the way you did a decade ago, or drop your Healthy Choice dinners in favor of the Big Macs of your youth. It just means that the number of calories coming into your body has an influence on the number of calories going out. Two mechanisms are at work.

The first is what textbooks call the 'thermic effect of feeding'--the caloric cost of digesting the food you eat. On average, it accounts for about 10 percent of the total calories you burn each day. But that's just an average. It can dip if you eat less, and it can rise if you eat more, or eat more often, or eat different types of foods.

The second is the effect of exercise and other movement throughout the day. This is the part of the equation most weight-loss experts focus on. But if you combine increased feeding with increased movement, you increase your 'energy flux,' and this is the key to maintaining a fast, muscle-friendly, fat-starving metabolism.

It's no more complicated than balancing your checkbook, which (in my experience, anyway) is a lot easier to do when you have plenty of money coming in than it is when you're unemployed. Some types of food are better at creating energy flux than others. Protein, for example, takes more calories to digest than either carbohydrates or fat. And studies show that protein from animal sources (steak!) seems to have a bigger bang than soy protein (tofu).

The type of exercise you do also affects energy flux. Strength training, for example, can create enormous increases in your resting metabolic rate that last a day or two after your workout. Aerobic exercise doesn't do much, if anything, to boost your metabolic rate, beyond the calories you burn while aerobicizing and for a brief time afterward.

This brings up the obvious question: What is it about strength training that creates a multiday afterburn? The most important factor is muscle repair. An hour of iron therapy causes your muscle tissues to break down at a higher rate than normal. But, thanks to the protein you've eaten after your workout, your muscles are also rebuilding themselves faster than they ordinarily would. So you have energy flux going on within the muscles themselves. A 2003 Finnish study found that protein synthesis (the process that builds bigger muscles) increases by 21 percent 3 hours after a workout, while protein breakdown increases 17 percent. The combination is called 'protein turnover,' and it uses up a lot of energy.

The type of workout that raises metabolism in studies is usually long and hard, although a recent Ohio University study used a short-but-hard workout and got similar results. The men in the study did circuits of power cleans, bench presses, and squats (a circuit being one exercise right after the other) for 31 minutes. They were still burning more calories than normal 38 hours after the workout.

"eatclean-staylean" - BK

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The New Science of Weight Loss

Over the next 4 days I will send some solid info about the ''new science of fat loss''.
Positive action will make dramatic improvements in your lifestyle.

Part 1: Energy Balance Is The Key To Weight Control

If you want to understand energy balance in an instant, think of your body as a car that operates 24 hours a day, says Dan Benardot, Ph.D., R.D., a nutrition researcher at Georgia State University in Atlanta. You would never expect your car to get you from one place to the next without systematic refueling, just as you know there's no point in putting more gas in the tank than it's designed to hold. But that's how many of us operate our bodies.

We try to run on empty for hours, then dump in more fuel than we can handle. Benardot's research shows how self-destructive this strategy is.

Let's say you really want to lose fat, and decide to jog first thing in the morning, on an empty stomach. 'The easiest way to get energy is to break down muscle mass,' Benardot says. Your body can convert specific amino acids--the building blocks of muscle--to glucose, the sugar that powers human activity. 'Someone running before eating may actually be breaking down the very tissue he's trying to improve. Sounds counterproductive to me.'

The second way is probably more typical of most of us. You can call this one the 'fat gain' diet. You wait a long time between meals, and then, when you're ravenously hungry, you wipe out an entire buffet line. This guarantees that you'll get a larger surge of the hormone insulin than you ordinarily would. That means more fat storage.

And you can probably combine the 'muscle loss' and 'fat gain' strategies and turn your body into a perfect muscle-burning, fat-storing machine. Hard exercise slows down appetite in the short term, but as you get used to it, your appetite matches your exertion level. So if you go out and run 10 miles on an empty stomach, then eat enough to fuel a 15-mile run, the net effect is that you've lost muscle on the run and gained fat from the postrun meal.

Energy balance, the focus of Benardot's research, is the answer to both of these dilemmas. The athletes in his studies get the best results when they stay within 300 to 500 calories of perfect energy balance throughout the day.

This means . . .

One of Benardot's studies showed that athletes who added three daily snacks to their three squares lost fat and gained muscle, on top of improving in all the other things that are important to athletes, such as power and endurance. Of course, you can't simply add a few hundred calories to your diet and lose weight, but you can redistribute your daily calories so you're eating more often but consuming less at individual meals.

However you do it, it's clear to Benardot that the worst strategy is cutting out tons of calories indiscriminately in hopes of sudden, dramatic weight loss. 'If you're more subtle and try to lose a pound a week or 1 pound in 2 weeks, not only can you do it, but you'll be less likely to regain the weight,' he says.

"eatclean-staylean" - BK

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Revolution-before the resolution.

This morning we had our first official weigh in 10 days after starting. Everyone was amping to get weighed in and there was no disappointment let me tell you.

109 smacking pounds was the result!

14 people dropping serious mass is an outstanding effort. Sandra and I lost 11 pounds combined as well on the program. The talk amongst everyone in the room this morning was that they are all feeling really good, everyone gives me their word that they are true to the program and the look in there eyes tells me they are rock solid. Eating only meat, fibrous veggies and, healthy fats combined with the MonaVie Active blend (more on that tomorrow) for 21 days is very challenging but the results are there for all to see.

Awesome effort crew!

"eatclean-staylean" - BK

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