Fitness Newsletter - April 15, 2009

	Hiperfit featured on NBC's hit show The Biggest Loser as the training team that helped finalist, Wylie lose 129 lbs! More Success Stories

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JHB

The High Performance Fitness Newsletter
Health News You Can Use

Eat More, Get Lean

Listen, if you’re like most people—

EVERYTHING YOU KNOW ABOUT DIET IS WRONG!

That’s right. How many people do you know that go to a gym… actually get in shape? Or how many “dieters” do you know that actually shed pounds and keep them off?

Not many, I’ll warrant.

Surprisingly, most folks who exercise think it’s the weights or aerobics that gets ‘em in shape; they’re pretty blasé about diet. (Oddly enough, lifting weights is the last thing you should be concerned with in the weight-room, but more on that in another issue.)

Paradoxically, eating more is the best way to lose fat the fastest!

While we’re at it, let’s use correct terminology when tossing around words like “weight” and “pounds” and “diet.” What we’re really talking about here is bodyfat, and more specifically, losing it. Now, most ‘dieters’ (talk about one of your more futile endeavors!) think that “losing weight” means caloric deprivation, starvation, willpower, sacrifice—adjectives I don’t even like, let alone incorporate into my diet.

Whence comes their naiveté?

Truth is, the cornerstone of any muscle-building or weight loss program is a diet that includes a lot of eating.

The Big Three of Getting in Shape
Adding muscle or shedding fat isn’t rocket science, but there are three essentials you must have: Strength-training, cardiovascular activity, and the right diet.

Of those 3 elements, diet—listen to me—is by far the hands-down most important.

Here’s how important diet is. Go to the finish line of any marathon 5, 6 hours after it starts. That’s when the fat people start coming in. Here’s the kicker: these folks just finished a marathon---an ass-kicking endurance run of 26.2 miles! They’re very fit aerobically, yet their bodyfat percentages are through the roof. That’s because the reality is that diet trumps even extreme cardiovascular conditioning.

What do we even mean by diet?

Note the lowercase d. This denotes eating as a purposeful lifestyle and differentiates it from capital D Atkins, South Beach and whatever-the-latest-fad-is Diets.

Newsflash: You actually have a better chance of winning the lottery than of succeeding with any Diet.

Just listen to the way people talk about them. “Oh, yeah—I tried that once…” before they mumble about maybe starting it again because, you know, they’re overweight.

It’s all flapdoodle. NO diet can succeed for more than a couple of weeks because your body adapts and  defies any attempt at losing anything more. Here’s why: Your body doesn’t know from hunger or death. To it, if you’re starving, you’re dying.

See, we’re all still on caveman time, biologically-speaking. Back then the only thing between you and an early grave was a nice layer of fat. So bodyfat, to the body, is good; in fact, it’s the last line of defense before going ka-put! (It’s a fact that you can go over a month without eating.) Your body’s quite happy—programmed even—to pack on the fat and keep you alive.

I didn’t invent this stuff; it’s hardwired in. So don’t shoot the messenger.

Even if you’re just hungry your body goes into protective mode. Wha-aa?! It’s true. But hold on—there’s a way to make all of this work for you.

It’s about tricking the body into believing that everything is OK, that there’s no threat of starvation. How? Simple, and repeat after me—Never hungry, never full. That’s all there is to it. And “never hungry, never full” means exactly what it says: Don’t let yourself get hungry, or full. Why? Let’s recap. If you’re hungry your body goes into survival mode... which drops your metabolism, or set point (you can’t escape it; it’s Darwinian)… which means that whatever you eat gets turned immediately into survival-enhancing bodyfat... which means making even more fat cells to stuff that bounty into... which means, well, you get the picture.

There’s more. If you’re full—putting aside the fact that you shouldn’t eat more than 500 calories anyway at any one sitting because your body stores the excess calories as, guess what?—if you’re full, I say, then your body will use metabolic energy for digesting, instead of what we want it to use it for, burning fat.

“Eh?”, you say? Check it out. Remember: never hungry, never full. If your body is humming along oblivious to threat of starvation (never hungry) and has nothing to do by way of digestion (never full), it’ll happily give up the bodyfat (an excellent source of fuel) to keep your metabolism burning at a nice high steady set point... which is just what we wanted—metabolism burning up bodyfat for fuel!

Follow me, here: the impossible-sounding begins to make sense. Remember my opening line, Eat More, Get Lean? Well, how do you think you trick your body into converting bodyfat as fuel? You got it—Never hungry, never full!

And the way you stay never hungry or full is by eating equal-size portions constantly over the course of the day, spacing 5 to 7 small meals every 3 hours.

That’s every 3 hours, as in you-can-set-your-watch-by-it every 3 hours. It’s got to be.

Here’s how important diet is. I don’t care how calorically hideous your diet is right now. If you do nothing else but take and divide it into 6 same-sized meals spaced every 3 hours, you’ll go down a dress size or cinch your belt up tighter by a loop inside of two weeks. Guaranteed.

Sure, it takes a little effort. You’ll probably spend Sunday afternoons cooking a lot of food for the week and putting it up in little blue-cover Tupperware squares, the perfect meal size. (This way, you can pop ‘em in the freezer and pull one out every three hours.) That serving size is critical. Make your protein portion  the size of your palm, your starchy carb the size of your fist, and your leafy greens the same. 

Fact is, I was thinking of calling this the Tupperware Diet—I know, I know, Capital D—but the damn name is patented.

Maybe you could lend a hand. What can I call it? The Workingman’s Diet? The Lunchbucket Diet? The So Simple Even A Caveman Can Do It Diet? Help a trainer out. Send me your ideas and suggestions—the best one gets a free workout on me.

Where was I? Right: Never hungry, never full.

Savvy?

Here’s the thing. Just about everybody already knows enough about eating right to concoct a diet or fitness program that’ll actually work a bit. 

The information is out there. So why are you still having trouble? 

Here’s why. You’re missing action and urgency! 

Wanting it isn’t enough. A burning desire is just part of the equation. The most important aspect is action. Nothing happens until you do it. 

You can want it, think about it, mull it over, ponder it, plan and re-plan it again and again. But you’ve got to take the action. 

Here’s what I want to share with you…

While I don't know everybody’s back story, it's probably safe to assume you’d like to build a little lean muscle—but most certainly you want to drop your bodyfat. Who doesn’t? You know you can improve yourself, and you want a trimmer waistline, toned glutes, defined arms and firmer legs. But do you have the urgency? Or are you going to do what so many people fail to do—take the action? 

Do this: Come to HIPERFIT. Call (305) 674-9899. Take advantage of our free assessment. Tell us your goals, and we’ll show  how we can help get you from here to there fast. Master our system of hard work and accountability in a fun environment, and reap the rewards.

That’s taking massive action! 

The Now For Something Completely Different Department
April’s only a couple of weeks old, and we’re already nearing a VIP Referrals contest winner. This HIPERFITster’s in the lead with three of his referrals signing up for one of our packages. This means that he’s ahead for the 10 free training sessions. But we have half a month to go, so there’s still time to catch him.

Here’s how. Just send your friends or family by our training center at 465 41 Street and have them say you referred them. That’s it! They get 3 absolutely free half-hour personal training sessions with a qualified trainer, or a complimentary spinning class. (Of course, they get to refer you for the same deal.) Whenever your referral signs a HIPERFIT personal-training package you get 2 free sessions. Whoever sends the most referrals that sign up by May 1 gets an additional 10 free sessions!

BTW We don’t call our clients ‘members’—there are no membership fees—but HIPERFITsters. It’s easy to become one! Just forward this email to your friends, and make sure they mention your name.

Yours in health.
Jeffrey

Next issue: “THE DIRTY DOZEN VINDICTIVE VEGGIES”