There are many fantastic ways to get focused and motivated to begin a diet or exercise program, but often the most difficult thing to do is keep that drive and ambition alive for more than a few weeks and see your goal through to completion.

Within just weeks of starting, many people have already hit their first snag or setback, and as a result, have slipped backwards in the mental focus and motivation department. Setting goals in writing is an essential step to success, but how do you stay focused on them? One technique I have used ever since my very first bodybuilding competition 18 years ago, is...

The "contest countdown calendar."

I have used it ever since, through 28 competitions and it will work for you too, for any fitness goal.

I purchase a desk or wall calendar - the type that shows each week stretching horizontally across the page with an open block of space for each day.

After I set my goal and place a deadline on it, I do NOT stop there. I take out my calendar and start counting backwards from my target goal deadline to the present day.

T-minus 117 days....

T-minus 116 days...

T-minus 115 days....

I also fill in my workouts for the entire 3-4 month period, which is the typical length I allow for my mid-range goals like contest prep.

you would be shocked - pleasantly so - just how focused this keeps you. Even better still, you get MORE and MORE motivated with each passing day you countdown because the deadline is getting closer

Deadlines are absolutely critical to your success. Little gets done without deadlines.

There is a saying in management and psychology that "work will always expand to fill the time allowed for it's completion."

Remember term papers in school? when you were given a term paper assignment and you had the entire semeseter to do it, did you run home that first night and get crankin on it?

How about after a week? two weeks? A month? TWO MONTHS?

probably not, eh?

If youre like most people, you put it off until the last minute and you barely got it turned in on time. In fact, there are always a few people who pull all nighters the night before!

Alas, the power of the deadline!

In your fitness endeavors, if you dont have IMPENDING deadlines that give you that twinge in your stomach that says "take action now, or else!" then you find it very easy to say to yourself, ' I have plenty of time so this one cheat meal doesnt matter... it doesnt make much difference at this point if I skip this one workout... I have time to make it up..."

And then, just like the term paper, you are scrambling at the last minute to reach your weight goal. But in the case of a your body, the consequences are more severe and painful than just a bad grade or late penalty.

Inevitably, you succumb to crash dieting and overtraining or other unhealthy fast-weight-loss madness, which eats up your own muscle like a hungry cannibal and sends you spiraling into the dark pit of metabolic damage and the inevitable plateau and weight gain that follow.

But the solution is so simple: Count your way down to success!

Don't stop with setting goals. Put your goal countdown on paper, review your goals every single day, AND know, every single day, how many days there are until your target goal date. You will stay more consciously focused and even better, your unconscious mind will go to work for you in keeping you motivated, on track, and on schedule. You'll come in for a landing on your goal deadline date like an F-16 landing on an aircraft carrier.

I just did my countdown calendar earlier this week... T minus 117 days til my next bodybuilding competition, and thanks to this simple but powerful technique, I'm already focused like a laser beam and have been making steady progress without so much as a hiccup...

Don't under-estimate this simple technique... Give it an honest test... because it's often the simplest motivational techniques that are the most powerful of all!.

About the Author:

Tom Venuto is a natural bodybuilder and author of the #1 best selling e-book, "Burn the Fat, Feed The Muscle," which teaches you how to burn fat without drugs or supplements using the little-known secrets of the world's best bodybuilders and fitness models. Learn how to get rid of stubborn fat and turbo-charge your metabolism by visiting: www.burnthefat.com.

Why would you go to all the trouble? Well, each various food color is indicative of the phytonutrients and other healthful nutritional compounds found within these foods. According to the textbook Sports & Exercise Nutrition by Katch, Katch & McArdle), over 4000 phytochemicals have been identified, and 150 of them have been studied in detail.
By definition, phytonutrients (also called phytochemicals) are naturally occurring, health promoting compounds found in the plant kingdom. There has been much research on the functional properties of these compounds, proving that they play important and diverse roles in maintaining your health and protecting you from disease.
Foods such as tomatoes (red), carrots (orange), broccoli (green), blueberries (blue) all contain important phytochemicals that play specific roles in health and disease prevention. Onions, whole grains, herbs, spices and other foods also contain their own special types of protective phytochemicals.
Here are some of the phytochemicals and naturally health-promoting compounds and the foods they correspond to:
FLAVONOIDS (quercitin, kaempferol, myricetin, catechins)
Fruits
Vegetables
Berries
Citrus fruits
Onions
Purple grapes
Tea
CAROTENOIDS (luten, lycopene, zeaxanthin, a-carotene, b-carotene)
Carrots
Tomatoes
Cantaloupe Apricots
GLUCOSINOLATES (glucobrassicin, isothiocyanates, indoles)
Cruciferous vegetables
Broccoli
Brussel sprouts
Cabbage
SULFIDES (allium compounds, dithiolthiones)
Onions
Garlic
Leeks
scallions
Each of these compounds has a health promoting role in the body ranging from antioxidant activity to cancer protection. There is much more going on here than just building muscle and shedding body fat. Eating a wide variety of fruits, vegetables and other natural foods has major health and quality of life implications.
It's great news to know how much control we can take over our health and physical fitness simply with proper food choices (and proper exercise). The only thing about these discoveries that saddens and disappoints me is that it seems each time our scientists discover something, such as lycopene in tomatoes for example, someone wants to put it in a bottle and sell it to us. (Why not just go to the source and eat the tomatoes???)
I believe in an intelligent creator, and I believe that the creator of our bodies and this universe we live in, knew exactly what he was doing when he created the marvelous diversity of plants and animals that comprise

If there is any drawback to the Burn The Fat ebook, it's that it contains so much information that some readers may find it a bit overwhelming,it's 340 pages, plus the special bonus ebooks and reports that come with it. Those who are looking for a "cliff's Note's" quick start type of fat loss program, might be a bit intimated at first. The good part however, is that even these types of readers can feel confident and assured that it will be worth the effort because this will literally be the last book they ever have to buy on the subject.

Who will benefit most from Burn the Fat?

In the broadest sense, anyone and everyone who needs to lose weight will benefit from Burn The Fat. Men, women, bodybuilders, fitness enthusiasts, and especially motivated individuals and avid readers will love this book. Although it was written by a bodybuilder, this book is certainly NOT just for bodybuilders.

You will find no "30 lbs. in 30 days" miracles at work here. It's all about intelligent eating choices, planning, hard work and lifestyle change. As Burn The Fat author Tom Venuto says,...

"Burn the Fat is simple, but it's not easy."

The Bottom line?

Anyone looking for a quick fix solution to fat loss, anyone looking to be told fairy-tales, and anyone looking for a "magic bullet" offered by the likes of body wraps, fat burning pills, diet shakes, or "fat-burning" creams and gels might be best advised to steer clear of Burn the Fat.

On the other hand, anyone tired of "spinning their wheels" going nowhere, who wants the truth about fat loss and who is ready and willing to put in the hard work and discipline and make the lifestyle changes necessary to get a fat free body, will find Burn The fat to be one of the best investments they ever made in their lives. Click here to learn more about Tom Venuto's Burn The Fat!

Burn The Fat!

Ever since the independent film, Super Size Me was released, research on the relationship between increasing obesity and increasing portion sizes has skyrocketed and the results have been virtually unanimous.

There have been numerous well-designed studies published just in the last several years which confirmed exactly what we suspected (and much of what the movie suggested):

* Portion sizes have increased in restaurants and fast food venues on a major scale over the last several decades

* We self-serve ourselves larger portions in the home than we used to

* When more food is put in front of us, we almost always eat more

* most people underestimate how many calories they are eating

* All of these factors have contributed to the growing obesity problem and the related health problems that come along with it

The obvious solution would seem to be to decrease portion sizes across the board, and indeed awareness of and control over portion sizes in general is important.

However, research has demonstrated that perhaps an even better solution is to keep the portion sizes generous, but decrease the energy density (calories per unit of volume) in the foods you put on your plate.

Several studies revealed that eating more low calorie density foods, especially green vegetables, salad vegetables and other fibrous carbs, as well as very lean proteins, maintains a feeling of fullness while reducing energy intake.

In other words, large portions of highly nutritious, low calorie foods displaced the less nutritious, calorie-dense foods! Most people allow the bad foods to push out the good foods, but you can actually do the same in reverse!

In a study published in the Journal of The American Dietetic Association, researchers fed one group a compulsory first course salad which was kept low in energy density by using very low calorie dressing with no high calorie toppings no bacon, cheese or croutons, etc).

After the salad, the subjects were allowed to eat as much pasta as they wanted.

A second group was also allowed to eat as much pasta as they wanted but was not given a compulsory salad to eat beforehand.

The results: As you might guess, eating a low energy density first course enhanced satiety (fullness) and reduced the overall amount of calories that were eaten during the whole meal.

Burn The Fat!

Since the research has repeatedly discovered that almost everyone will eat more when served larger portions from a larger plate or container, and there is obviously a serious issue of "portion distortion" occurring, another group of scientists and psychologists decided to test this even further by providing larger plates or containers of low energy density, high nutrient density foods before the main course and or in between meals.

When more of the low energy density foods were made available first, the subjects ate even more of these healthy foods, which filled them up even more and decreased the amount of high calorie density foods eaten in the main course.

Reporting their findings in the Journal of Nutrition Education And Behavior, the researchers said that there is a silver lining to all the negative findings about super sized portions and overeating that we have discoverd inrecent years:

That is, although we eat more when more is put in front of us, We can use this phenomenon in reverse by serving large plates, bowls or containers of healthy, low energy density foods like fruits, salads and raw vegetables as snacks and first courses.

"While a small bowl of raw carrots might make for a good afternoon snack", said one of the researchers, "a large bowl might even be better."

You can learn more about calorie density, low energy density foods (thermogenic foods), and choosing your portion and meal sizes with precision inside the Burn The Fat ebook. For more information, visit: Burn The Fat!

About the Author:

Tom Venuto is a natural bodybuilder and author of the #1 best selling e-book, "Burn the Fat, Feed The Muscle," which teaches you how to burn fat without drugs or supplements using the little-known secrets of the world's best bodybuilders and fitness models. Learn how to get rid of stubborn fat and turbo-charge your metabolism by visiting:

Burn The Fat!

If you've caused metabolic damage as a result of following starvation diets or losing weight too rapidly in the past, it can be extremely difficult to achieve any further fat loss at all. The good news is, metabolic damage can be repaired. All it takes is the right combination of metabolism stimulating exercise and metabolism stimulating nutrition (NOT just a diet), all done consistently over time.

The big irony is that most of the diet programs that claim to help you get rid of excess weight, only end up making it harder for you in the long run because they use harsh metabolism-decreasing diets and not enough exercise (almost never any weight training).

It may take a little longer if you have really messed things up with severe starvation dieting in the past, especially if you've lost a lot of lean body mass, but it is never hopeless. Anyone can increase their metabolism.

Most people get an almost immediate boost in metabolic rate when they start the Burn The Fat program. However, the results are not going to be "overnight." Give it a little time...

Within 3 weeks your metabolism will already be more efficient. Within 6-8 weeks, it's burning hot. Give me 12 weeks of consistent diligent effort, sticking with all the metabolism boosting strategies I teach, and your metabolism really will become like a turbo charged engine, and I'm not exaggerating when I say that.

What's most important for upping your metabolism is CONSISTENCY in applying the Burn The Fat nutrition and training principles every single day.

That includes:

Meal frequency: eat 5-6 small meals per day
Meal timing: eat approximately every 3 hours, with a substantial breakfast and a substantial post workout meal.
Sufficient Caloric Intake: maintain a small calorie deficit and avoid starvation-level diets (suggested safe levels for fat loss: 2100-2500 calories per day for men, 1400-1800 calories per day for women; adjust as needed)
Food choices: Select natural, unprocessed foods with high thermic effect (lean proteins like chicken, turkey, egg whites and fish are highly thermic, as are all green vegetables, salad vegetables and other fibrous carbs)
Cardio training: Push up the intensity a bit if you really want to get a metabolic boost. Walking and low intensity cardio is fine, but higher intensity is more metabolism-stimulating

If you've caused metabolic damage as a result of following starvation diets or losing weight too rapidly in the past, it can be extremely difficult to achieve any further fat loss at all. The good news is, metabolic damage can be repaired. All it takes is the right combination of metabolism stimulating exercise and metabolism stimulating nutrition (NOT just a diet), all done consistently over time.

The big irony is that most of the diet programs that claim to help you get rid of excess weight, only end up making it harder for you in the long run because they use harsh metabolism-decreasing diets and not enough exercise (almost never any weight training).

It may take a little longer if you have really messed things up with severe starvation dieting in the past, especially if you've lost a lot of lean body mass, but it is never hopeless. Anyone can increase their metabolism.

Most people get an almost immediate boost in metabolic rate when they start the Burn The Fat program. However, the results are not going to be "overnight." Give it a little time...

Within 3 weeks your metabolism will already be more efficient. Within 6-8 weeks, it's burning hot. Give me 12 weeks of consistent diligent effort, sticking with all the metabolism boosting strategies I teach, and your metabolism really will become like a turbo charged engine, and I'm not exaggerating when I say that.

What's most important for upping your metabolism is CONSISTENCY in applying the Burn The Fat nutrition and training principles every single day.

That includes:

Meal frequency: eat 5-6 small meals per day
Meal timing: eat approximately every 3 hours, with a substantial breakfast and a substantial post workout meal.
Sufficient Caloric Intake: maintain a small calorie deficit and avoid starvation-level diets (suggested safe levels for fat loss: 2100-2500 calories per day for men, 1400-1800 calories per day for women; adjust as needed)
Food choices: Select natural, unprocessed foods with high thermic effect (lean proteins like chicken, turkey, egg whites and fish are highly thermic, as are all green vegetables, salad vegetables and other fibrous carbs)
Cardio training: Push up the intensity a bit if you really want to get a metabolic boost. Walking and low intensity cardio is fine, but higher intensity is more metabolism-stimulating
Weight training: The basic exercises that include the largest muscle groups or even call into play the entire body as a unit (squats, front squats, split squats, deadlifts, stiff legged deadlifts, overhead presses, all kinds of rows and core-activation exercises) will have a much greater metabolism stimulating effect than isolation exercises (concentration curls, calf raises, etc)
The weight training is extremely important in cases of "metabolic damage" because this is the stimulus to keep the muscle you have and begin rebuilding new muscle tissue, which is the engine that drives your metabolism.

The men don't usually have a problem with the weight training, but I still hear women say they don't want to lift weights as part of their fat loss programs. Well, people who wont lift weights can expect a very, very long metabolism "repair process" if they achieve it at all.

Consistency is the key.

Nothing will undermine the "re-building" of your metabolism like inconsistency. If you stop and start, or skip meals and workouts often, you will not even get off the ground.

After your metabolism is back up where it should be, it takes continued "stoking" of the metabolic furnace to keep it there. Once you get your metabolic engine running, you've got to keep feeding it fuel or the fire will die down.

Picture an old fashioned wood burning stove...

Imagine you're in a cabin up in the mountains in the winter. It's cold in there and you want to keep the cabin warm. Can you achieve this by feeding the fire once or twice per day? Nope. Not enough fuel to burn, so not much heat is generated.

What if you just toss an entire pile of wood in the stove all at once? Will that work? Nope. Lots of fuel, but can't all be used at once... it just smothers the fire and the excess just sits there.

How about if you throw some tissue paper or crumpled newspaper in the stove, will that work? Nope - too quickly burning.

You have to keep putting small amounts of wood (the right type of fuel) on the fire at regular intervals or the fire burns out.

It's also difficult to get the fire lit again. In the case of metabolism, it's like going through that initial few weeks of overcoming inertia all over again.

Your goal is to get your metabolism burning hot and keep it burning and this cannot be achieved by missing meals, missing workouts or with sporadic, infrequent training.

I have only seen a handful of cases where all these things were done properly and there was still a longer "repair" process.

For example, one case was former ballet dancer. At 5' 5", she was previously 110 lbs and had increased to about 145 or so. She didn't want to reach her previous 110, but find a happy medium of about 125 lbs.

I figured with 20 lbs to cut, this would be a simple and predictable process, but she had a challenging time (and I didn't know why at first).

I later found out that she had been anorexic and bulimic for many years. This had caused a lot of damage, and although she did reach her goal, it took about twice as long as we had anticipated.

The good news is, even in this extreme case, the same nutrition and training principles worked! It just took a little longer. And by the way her program included some serious training with free weights and she ate a lot more (clean) food than she had ever eaten before. No "starvation!"

That's the power of burning the fat and feeding the muscles... Trying to starve the fat with crash diets is what causes the metabolic damage in the first place!

If you're interested in the healthy, sensible way to take off the fat, while keeping all your muscle and actually increasing your metabolism in the process, then my Burn the Fat, Feed The Muscle program can teach you how. No gimmicks or false promises. Just the truth - you have to work at it and you have to be patient. www.burnthefat.com

About the Author:

Tom Venuto is a natural bodybuilder and author of the #1 best selling e-book, "Burn the Fat, Feed The Muscle," which teaches you how to burn fat without drugs or supplements using the little-known secrets of the world's best bodybuilders and fitness models. Learn how to get rid of stubborn fat and turbo-charge your metabolism by visiting: www.burnthefat.com.

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Metaphysics & Brain science merge and prove that positive thinking and goal setting literally create your body and your entire life experience
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On recently broadcast special edition of CNN's Larry King Live, Mr. King interviewed a panel of "mind experts" about how the thoughts you think literally turn into the events you experience, the material things you possess... AND even the health of your body.

For years, "positive thinking" and goal-setting were often criticized as "pollyanna" and "the law of attraction" was relegated into the category of "new age" fluff.

On the recent Larry King show, panel experts Bob Proctor, John Assaraf and others who were featured in the movie 'The Secret' explained that recent breakthroughs in neuroscience along with understanding mental laws, reveal why goal setting, the "law of attraction" and "positive thinking" all work, regardless of whether you look at them from a metaphysical or a scientific perspective.

Scientists have even identified specific parts of the brain, such as the reticular activating system (RAS), which works with the visual parts of our brain to call our conscious attention to things that are important to reaching our goals and to filter out those things that are unimportant.

The RAS is activated by "programming" goals into our sub-conscious minds. Our sub concscious mind is the "power center" and THIS is the mechanism that explains why goal setting and positive thinking are now being accepted as scientific methods for change.

We are discovering that our brain is cybernetic in nature, which means that it is literally like a computer, waiting for a program to be installed.

Here's the kicker - the subconcsious is completely neutral and impartial - it will carry out any instructions you give it.

Unfortunately, many of us are still running negative programs we picked up from others as children when our non-conscious minds were totally open and impressionable, or which we developed over the years as a result of repetition of our own negative thinking.

As it turns out, our own thoughts, repeated daily, are one of the primary ways that our "mental computer" is programmed on a sub-conscious level, which is the level of beliefs, habits and automatic behavior.

Continued....

Burn The Fat!

To change your results, you must overwrite old negative programming and install positive new programming into your subconscious.

This can be achived through such techniques as written goal setting, positive self-talk (affirmations), and mental imagery (visualization).

In the 1970's, the Soviets and East Germans were the first to formally use structured mental rehearsal, and at that time, they dominated in several olympic sports. This was reported in great detail in Charles Garfield's landmark book, "Peak Performance." Today, virtually all elite athletes use visualization extensively, as we now know that the brain cannot differentiate between real practice and practice that is vividly imagined.

If you are getting more of the same negative results in your life - such as the same health problems, or the same body fat continues to return even after you lose it, then you have probably been un-consciously running old negative programs and re-inforcing them with negative thought patterns.

You can begin the positive mental reprogramming process by writing down your goals, changing your internal dialogue and taking a few minutes to relax, quiet your mind and perform a session of visualization or mental rehearsal every day (seeing yourself in your "mind's eye" not as you currently are, but as you ideally would like to be).

These methods, repeated often enough, will begin to program the non- conscious portion of the mind, which is the same part of the mind that controls your heart beat, digestion and new cell production, all on "automatic pilot."

In the last decade, neuroscientists discovered that you have the capacity to create an almost infinite number of new neural connections in your brain when you run new thought patterns.

The Old neural pathways are like grooves in a record, and if you are struggling with your health related behaviors or behaviors in any other area of your life, you have been playing the "old records" over and over again.

If you were to carve a new groove into that record, it would never play the same way again. the old pattern would weaken and the new one would take over. Brand new, positive thoughts, feelings and images begin to create new neural patterns.

Continued...

Burn The Fat!

Psychologists estimate that it takes 21 to 30 days to establish a new pattern in your brain. During this time, the focus on sticking with your practice and repeating your new thought patterns is critical.

Is this easy? For most people, no it's not. In fact, controlling your thinking and keeping it constructive may be one of the most difficult challenges you have ever faced. Fortunately, writing goals and reading affirmations can help get you started.

You can take some of the pressure off yourself by simply accepting that negative thoughts and self criticisms will pop up from time to time. Just observe them, without mulling over them or adding to them, and change the polarity of the thought by quickly repeating one of your positive affirmations or by changing your mental pictures.

So is there something to this whole "positive thinking" thing?

The philosophers and theologians have been saying yes for the entire span of recorded history: "As you think, so shall you be." Variations on this proverb can be found in every spiritual and philosophical tradition.

But... if you are the left-brained, "prove-it-to-me" type, you dont have to go on faith anymore. Scientists are beginning to prove more and more convincingly that thoughts are powerful things. Even Larry King seemed impressed with what his panel of "mind mentors" had to say.

So how soon are you going to begin your mental training right alongside your physical training? When are you going to learn how to harness this power locked up inside your mind?

Guess what? You're already using this force every day because you cannot turn it off. Whatever you are thinking and picturing in your mind repeatedly on a daily basis is already on it's way to you, so it's simply a matter of HOW you are using it, not IF you are using it.

What do you say to yourself every day? Do you say, "I am becoming leaner, healthier and more muscular every day?"... or do you say "I am a fat person - Ive tried everything, nothing ever works?"

The fact is - you can think yourself thin and healthy or you can think yourself obese and ill. Maybe not in the literal sense...but most certainly as the critical part in the chain of causation...

You see, there's a lot of talk these days in the personal improvement world about law of attraction, manifesting, intention, visualization, affirmations and of course, positive thinking.

Continued...

Without understanding that there is an orderly, scientific basis underneath all of these things, many people will simply remain skeptics, while on the opposite extreme, others may get the idea that you can sit around meditating and visualizing, then expect a mystical "law of attraction" to kick in and then "poof!" a great body materializes out of thin air... along with the perfect relationship, a nice bank account and fantastic career success.

What really happens is "Positive thinking" and related methods quite literally re-program your brain, which in turn creates new behaviors that move you physically toward whatever you have been thinking about and focusing on.

So success is achieved through positive thinking + positive doing.... attraction + action. There are two sides to the coin. Without paying attention to both, you may continue to struggle... often against nothing but yourself.

If you want to transform your body or any other aspect of your life, then you have to change on the inside (the mind) first and then everything else will follow.

This process of *scientific* goal setting and mental reconditioning through emotionally charged mental imagery (visualization) and internal mental dialogue (affirmations) is the very first thing I have always taught my clients and the first thing I wrote about in my book, Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle You can learn all of these techniques in detail in chapter 1. Learn more about the psychology of body transormation inside the Burn The Fat ebook:

About the Author:

Tom Venuto is a natural bodybuilder and author of the #1 best selling e-book, "Burn the Fat, Feed The Muscle," which teaches you how to burn fat without drugs or supplements using the little-known secrets of the world's best bodybuilders and fitness models. Learn how to get rid of stubborn fat and turbo-charge your metabolism by visiting:

Burn The Fat!

Fit Over 40!

My goal and yours, should be to rebuild our bodies to a 20 to 30 year old's level. If you are a 50 something, like me, times a wasting. Any anti aging program needs to be started ASAP.

This book, along with Burn the Fat, will help us experience an energy explosion, supercharging our metabolic engine, burning calories at an accelerated rate and feeling like a teenager again! Feeling like a teenager would be great, myself, I would pick 29 or 30, only because it took me until that period of time to realize strength was a good thing, and that I actually had some of it.

What are some of the most important factors in any anti aging program?

Getting an Immune System boost, vital in maintaining good health

Razor sharp mental functions

Avoiding depression

Maintaining or improving bone density

Getting a Self Confidence Boost

And last, but not least, Recharging your Sex Life.

But there are really many other aspects of our lives that can be improved if we get truly fit.

So let's get started. If you are ready, please leave a comment and tell us your situation now and what your goals are as far as getting fit.

How do I start bodybuilding is a question often asked, along with how to lose weight rapidly, foods to eat to lose weight fast and how to get a flat stomache fast. But there is a right way to approach weight loss and fitness and also a wrong way. So the question, how to get a flat stomach in less than 24 hours can only be answered in this way, flat stomachs along with weight loss is a long term project, not 24 hours.

As you will learn in "Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle" the question, how do I start bodybuilding will be answered. In the book, he will show as said before, your goal should not be to lose weight but to lose fat. When losing fat is your goal, there is a better chance of success.

This is a 4 part audio class put on by Tom Venuto, to complement his best selling book "Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle". I know that getting momentum in your weight loss and muscle building program and sustaining that momentum is difficult for most of us, especially if we have fallen for the weight loss gimmicks found so often, and then we fail after using the "super duper Miracle weight loss" whatever. It will make you lose your motivation after a while.

Tom debunked all the weight loss and muscle building myths and b.s, and showed you a proven strategy for rapidly transforming your body, burning fat, and building muscle, to help you create the body you know you deserve.

There are things Tom reveals in the audio that are not in his book, so it would be good to have both. Click on Burn the Fat mp3

QUESTION: Dear Tom: I've seen quite a few diet books lately that are based on the color of the foods you eat, including the rainbow diet, the color diet and the "color code" (sounds like the Da Vinci code, LOL!) Anyway, I've been reading your newsletters for a long time and I know how you feel about diet pills, books and gimmicks and I was wondering what you thought about these programs. Is it just another gimmick?
ANSWER: Based on the clever titles, it might be tempting to dismiss these programs as gimmicks, and in fact when your weekly menus are literally "color coded," it might seem that the diet book authors are just scrambling for a new hook or premise on which to base an entire eating program.
I have not read any of those books you mentioned yet, so I can't comment on any of them specifically. However, as "gimmicky" as eating from every color in the rainbow may sound at first, there is some very legitimate and scientific evidence that this is a great idea.
We are often given the advice to eat a lot of fruits and vegetables (which have a variety of different colors). Good advice of course; even common sense would tell us that. However, "eat a lot of fruits and vegetables"is vague advice because it could mean eating only apples and broccoli (red and green), and nothing else, but eating "a lot" of them. To take that advice to the next level, a better recommendation would be to eat a WIDE VARIETY of fruits and vegetables (not just "a lot").
Even "wide variety" is not really defined. What is a wide variety? Did you know that there are hundreds of different types of fruits and veggies? To make an even greater distinction, you could begin to sort your fruits and vegetables by color and eat a wide variety every day (at least 5 to 9 servings) and an even wider variety spread over the span of each week.

If you think about what the discovery of all these naturally occurring compounds really means, you will have to agree that food truly is the most powerful drug. Combine that with recent discoveries in physiology and psychoneoruoimmunology proving that our bodies are their own self-regulating natural pharmacies, and you also have to agree that the natural way is the best way.
In any case, it's definitely not enough to think only in terms of calories and macronutrients (proteins, carbohydrates and fats). Energy needs and macronutrient needs are important, but also think about your nutrition in terms of a wide variety of natural foods, and that includes a wide variety of colors.
For more information about the all natural way to fat loss and better health, read about the Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle program at www.BurnTheFat.com
About the Author:
Tom Venuto is a lifetime natural bodybuilder, an NSCA-certified personal trainer (CPT), certified strength & conditioning specialist (CSCS), and author of the #1 best-selling e-book, "Burn the Fat, Feed The Muscle." Tom has written more than 200 articles and has been featured in print magazines such as IRONMAN, Australian IRONMAN, Natural Bodybuilding, Muscular Development, Exercise for Men and Men's Exercise, as well as on hundreds of websites worldwide. For information on Tom's Fat Loss program, visit: www.burnthefat.com

Are protein supplements really better than protein foods? Before attempting to answer this question, I should first preface it by mentioning that I do not sell supplements, nor am I associated with any supplement company, so you're getting an honest and unbiased opinion. Don't get me wrong; I am not anti-supplement by any means. It would simply be more accurate to say that I am "pro-food." There are a lot of good supplements on the market, and I've used many of them, including a multi vitamin, creatine and essential fatty acid (EFA) supplements such as Flaxseed oil. Protein powders and meal replacements can also be indispensable if you don't have time to eat every three hours. However, protein supplements are not the master key to your success, real food is!

Did you ever notice how articles about protein in certain bodybuilding magazines are seldom objective? Instead, they all seem to be slanted towards hyping some "revolutionary" new product. Did you ever wonder why? In my opinion, most articles on protein supplements are nothing more than thinly disguised advertisements (some very thinly). Sometimes they give you a very persuasive-sounding argument, replete with dozens of references from scientific studies (mostly done on rodents, of course). They even give you an 800 number at the end of the article to order. (How convenient!)

When protein manufacturers throw around fancy words like cross flow microfiltration, oligopeptides, ion-exchange, protein efficiency ratio, biological value, nitrogen retention and glycomacropeptides, it sure sounds convincing, especially when scores of scientific references are cited. But don't forget that the supplement industry is big business and most magazines are the supplement industry. Lyle McDonald, author of "The Ketogenic Diet," hit the nail on the head when he wrote "Unfortunately, the obsession that bodybuilders have with protein has made them susceptible to all kinds of marketing hype. Like most aspects of bodybuilding (and the supplement industry in general), the issue of protein is driven more by marketing hype than physiological reality and marketing types know how to push a bodybuilder's button when it comes to protein ".

Many nutrition "experts" (read: people who sell supplements), state that there are distinct advantages of protein supplements (powders and amino acid tablets) over whole foods. For example, they argue that whey, a by-product of the cheese-making process, is a higher quality protein than most whole food sources. There are many different methods of determining protein quality, including biological value (BV), protein efficiency ratio (PER), Net Protein Utilization (NPU), chemical score, and protein digestibility corrected amino acid score (PDCAAS). If you have ever seen advertisements for protein powders and supplements, you have undoubtedly heard of one or more of these measures of protein quality.

BV is one of the most commonly used and is arguably, the best measure of a protein's quality. BV is based on how much of the protein consumed is actually absorbed and utilized by the body. The higher the amount of protein (nitrogen) that is actually retained, the greater the BV. If a protein has a BV of 100, it means that all of the protein absorbed has been utilized with none lost. Whole eggs score the highest of all foods with a BV of 100, while beans have a BV of only 49.

Protein quality is certainly an important issue, but it is one that has been enormously overstated and even distorted for marketing purposes. Whey protein is truly an excellent protein with a biological value at or near 100. Many advertisements list whey as having a BV between 104 and 157, but if you look in any nutrition textbook it will tell you that it is impossible to have a BV over 100. In "Advanced Nutrition and Human Metabolism," BV is defined as "a measure of nitrogen retained for growth and/or maintenance that is expressed as a percentage of nitrogen absorbed."

When a protein supplement is listed as having a BV over 100, the company has intentionally manipulated the number for marketing purposes or unintentionally confused BV with another method of rating protein quality. Certain whey proponents claim that whey is "superior to whole egg" so the percentage sign on BV had to be dropped and the scale extended beyond 100. It was noted by bodybuilding writer Jerry Branium in IRONMAN magazine that in a study where the BV of whey was reported to be 157, the author confused BV with chemical score. Chemical score is a comparison of the amino acid pattern in an ideal reference protein to a test protein and therefore the number can exceed 100. 157 was actually the chemical score and not the BV.

Most bodybuilders and strength athletes already consume more than enough protein (an understatement if there ever was one), so the importance of BV to these athletes who are already consuming copious amounts of protein has been overplayed. Even though whey has a higher BV than chicken breast, fish or milk protein, if the total quantity of protein you consume is sufficient, then it is not likely that substituting whey for food proteins will result in any additional muscle growth.

Whether you choose a whole protein food or a protein supplement isn't as important as some would like you to believe. For the purposes of developing muscle, the only guidelines for protein that you must follow are: (1) consume a source of complete protein with every meal, (2) eat at frequent intervals approximately three hours apart (about six times per day) and (3) consume a minimum of .8 grams to 1 gram per pound of body weight. There are times when it would be beneficial to consume more than one gram per pound of body weight, but that will have to be the subject of another article.

Because whey protein does have a high BV, it probably offers the most benefits when you are dieting on very low calories. When your energy intake and correspondingly, your protein intake, are reduced, whey protein could help you get greater utilzation of the smaller amount of protein that you are taking in. In other words, choosing proteins of the highest quality is more of an issue when you are dieting than when you are focusing on mass gains when total calories and protein are being consumed in abundant amounts. Whey protein also provides a way to get high quality protein without the fat, which is also important when dieting.

It has been suggested that whey may have other advantages besides high protein quality, although they are frequently overstated. These benefits include enhanced immunity, increased antioxidant activity and quick absorption. Several studies in "Clinical and Investigative Science" by Dr. Gerard Bounous of Montreal have shown that whey protein provides anti carcinogenic properties, protection from infections, and other enhanced immune responses. Whey protein was also been shown to raise levels of Glutathione, an important antioxidant that can offer protection from free radical oxidative damage. While such findings are very promising, all these studies, which are frequently quoted in whey protein advertisements, were performed on mice, so it is unclear how well the results extrapolate to humans.

Another acknowledged benefit of whey protein is its fast absorption rate. Although there isn't any evidence that protein supplements digest more efficiently than whole foods (as is often claimed), they are definitely digested faster. This is most important after a training session when the rates of protein synthesis and glycogen re-synthesis are increased. This is the reason it is often recommended that a liquid meal containing protein and a high glycemic carbohydrate be consumed immediately post-workout and that whey is the ideal protein for this purpose. Even in considering post-workout nutrition, there is still little proof that a liquid protein-carb complex will actually produce better muscular growth than whole foods, as long as complete whole food protein foods and complex carbohydrates are consumed immediately after the training session and every three waking hours for a period of 24 hours thereafter.

Speaking of protein absorption rates, the discussion of fast acting versus slow acting proteins seems to be the latest hot topic these days in bodybuilding circles. The interest was sparked by studies in 1997 and 1998 that examined the differences between the absorption rates of whey versus casein. The researchers concluded that whey was a fast acting protein and was considered to be more "anabolic" while casein was slower acting and was considered to be more "anti-catabolic. " It was further hypothesized that consuming a combination of these two types of proteins could lead to greater muscle growth. These findings have prompted the supplement companies to market an entirely new category of protein supplements; casein and whey mixes. The problem with drawing such conclusions so quickly is that these studies looked at the speed of whey and casein absorption in subjects who had fasted for 10 hours before being fed the protein. Any suppositions drawn from this information are probably irrelevant if you are eating mixed whole food meals every three hours. Obviously, more research is needed.

This recent fascination with various rates of protein absorption could be compared to the interest in the glycemic index. The glycemic index is a scale that measures the rate at which the body converts various carbohydrate foods into blood glucose. The higher the glycemic index, the faster the food is converted to glucose and the larger the insulin response. Therefore it is said that high glycemic foods should be avoided in favor of low glycemic index foods. The error in relying solely on the glycemic index as your only criteria for choosing carbohydrates is that the index is based on consuming a carbohydrate food by itself in a fasted state.

When carbohydrates are consumed in mixed meals that contain protein and a little fat, the glycemic index loses some of its significance because the protein and fat slow the absorption of the carbohydrate. That's why the glycemic index is really much ado about nothing and the same could probably be said for the casein and whey argument. It's just the latest in a long string of new angles that supplement companies use to promote their protein: free-form vs peptides, concentrate vs isolate, ion exchange vs microfiltration, soy vs whey, casein and whey mix vs pure whey and so on. Every year, you can count on some new twist on the protein story to appear. Certainly there are going to be advances in nutrition science, but all too often these "new discoveries" amount to nothing more than marketing hype.

What about amino acid pills? Amino acids pills are simply predigested protein. Proponents of amino acid supplementation claim that because the amino's are predigested, the body will absorb them better, leading to greater improvements in strength and muscle mass. It sounds logical, but this is a gross underestimation of the body's capacities and actually the reverse is true: The human digestive system was designed to efficiently process whole foods; it was not designed to digest pills and powders all day long. Amino's are absorbed more rapidly in the intestine when they are in the more complex di and tri-peptide molecules.

Your body gets better use of the aminos as protein foods are broken down and the amino's are absorbed at just the right rate for your body's needs. In "Exercise Physiology; Energy Nutrition and Human Performance," authors Katch and McArdle state that "Amino acid supplementation in any form has not been shown by adequate experimental design and methodology to increase muscle mass or significantly improve muscular strength, power, or endurance."

Furthermore, consuming predigested protein when you are seeking fat loss is not necessarily advantageous because it shortchanges you of the thermic effects of real food. Whole foods have a major advantage over protein supplements; they stimulate the metabolism more. This is known as the "thermic effect of food." Protein has the highest thermic effect of any food. Including a whole protein food with every meal can speed up your metabolic rate as much as 30% because of the energy necessary to digest, process, and absorb it. This means that out of 100 calories of a protein food such as chicken breast, the net amount of calories left over after processing it is 70. In this respect, the fact that protein foods digest slower than amino acid tablets is actually an advantage.

A final argument against amino acid supplements is the cost. Amino's are simply not cost effective. If you don't believe it, pick up a bottle and do the math yourself. One popular brand of "free form and peptide bonded amino acids" contains 150 1000mg. tablets per bottle and costs $19.95. 1000 mg. of amino acids equals 1 gram of protein, so the entire bottle contains 150 grams of protein. $19.95 divided by 150 grams is 13.3 cents per gram. Let's compare that to chicken breast. I can buy chicken breast from my local supermarket for $2.99 a pound. According to Corinne Netzer's "Complete Book of Food Counts," there are 8.8 grams of protein in each ounce of chicken, so one pound of chicken (16 oz) has about 140 grams of protein. $2.99 divided by 140 grams equals 2.1 cents per gram. The amino acids cost more than six times what the chicken breast does! I don't know about you, but I'll stick with the chicken breast.

The biggest advantage of protein supplements is not that they can build more muscle than chicken or egg whites or any other whole food protein, the biggest advantage is convenience. It is easier to drink a protein shake than it is to buy, prepare, cook and eat poultry, fish or egg whites. Consuming small, frequent meals is the optimal way to eat, regardless of whether your goal is fat loss or muscle gain. To keep your body constantly in positive nitrogen balance, you must consume a complete protein every three hours. For many people, eating this often is nearly impossible. That's when a high quality protein supplement is the most helpful.

Aside from convenience, the truth about protein supplements is that they offer few advantages over protein foods. There is no scientific evidence that you can't meet all of your protein needs for muscle growth through food. As long as you eat every three hours and you eat a complete protein such as eggs, lean meat or lowfat dairy products with every meal, it is not necessary to consume any protein supplements to get outstanding results. Whey protein does have some interesting and useful properties and supplementing with a couple scoops each day is not a bad idea, especially if you are on a low calorie diet for fat loss or when you're using a post workout shake instead of a meal. Aside from that, focus on real food and don't believe the hype.

References

1) Groff, James, et al, Advanced Nutrition and Human Metabolism, West Publishing company, 1995.

2) Fruhbeck, Gema. Slow and fast dietary proteins. Nature, 391: 843-844

3) Boirie, Y. et al. Slow and fast dietary proteins differently modulate postprandial protein accretion. Proc National Acad Sci, 94: 14930-14935, 1997

4) Lemon, Peter, Protein and Exercise: update, Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, Vol 19, No. 5, S179 - S190, 1987

5) Carraro, F., et at, Effect of exercise and recovery on muscle protein synthesis in human subjects. Amer Journal of physiology, 259: E470, 1990

6) Lemon, Peter, Is increased dietary protein necessary or beneficial for individuals with a physically active lifestyle? Nutrition reviews, 54:S 169-175, 1996

7)Bounous, G., et al, The immunoenhancing property of dietary whey protein concentrate. Clinical and Investigational Medicine, 11: 271-278. 1988.

8) Sadler, R., The benefits of dietary whey protein concentrate on the immune response and health. S Afr. J Dairy Sci, 24: No 24, 1992

9) Bounous, G., Dietary whey protein inhibits the development of dimethylhydrazine-induced malignancy. Clinical and Investigational Medicine, 12: 213-217, 1988

10) Bounous, G., et al, The biological activity of undenatured dietary whey protein; role of glutathione. Clinical and Investigational Medicine, 14: 4, 296-309, 1991

11) Netzer, Corinne. The Complete Book of Food Counts. Dell Publishing, 1997

12) Katch, Katch & McArdle, Exercise Physiology; Energy, Nutrition and Human Performance, Wiliams and Wilkins, 1996.

About the Author:

Tom Venuto is a natural bodybuilder and author of the #1 best selling e-book, "Burn the Fat, Feed The Muscle," which teaches you how to burn fat without drugs or supplements using the little-known secrets of the world's best bodybuilders and fitness models. Learn how to get rid of stubborn fat and turbo-charge your metabolism by visiting: www.burnthefat.com.