LAS SHRED THE. How to adjust your diet like a pro to reach single digit body fat

Transcription

1 THE LAS SHRED How to adjust your diet like a pro to reach single digit body fat

2 Why Successful People Don t Just Make Random Cuts To Their Calorie Intake TABLE OF CONTENT Foreword by Eric Helms... 4 Preface... 6 Introduction...8 Part 1 Why Successful People Don t Just Make Random Cuts To Their Calorie Intake...10 Part 2 Forget Your Calculations Why We Need To Track & Make Adjustments As We Diet Part 3 Expect Fluctuations, Identify Stalls, And Anticipate Whooshes Part 4 How I Recommend You Track Your Progress Part 5 How Quickly Should I Cut? Part 6 Short-term Weight Manipulations Part 7 The Role Of The Diet Break Part 8 When & How To Make Adjustments To Your Calorie Intake...37 Part 9 Full Examples Of How I Coached The Clients You Voted On Part 10 Coming Back Up To Maintenance To Maximally Maintain Your Shreds Bonus: Coaching tes For Coaches And Prospective Coaches

3 This book is not intended for the treatment or prevention of disease, nor as a substitute for medical treatment, nor as an alternative to medical advice. Use of the guidelines herein is at the sole choice and risk of the reader. Copyright: 2015 by Andrew Morgan. All rights reserved. This book or any part thereof, may not be reproduced or recorded in any form without permission, except for brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information contact: andy@rippedbody.com

4 When & How To Make Adjustments To Your Calorie Intake Weight & Measurement Checklist Section 1 Did the scale weight suddenly stop changing? Have the stomach measurements continued to decline at the same average rate as previously? Don t worry about the scale weight not changing for now. It is probably just due to a random change in glycogen/water balance, with the possibility of some muscle growth. Reassess in two weeks. Are you under an unusual period of stress, and/or have you been sleeping poorly? Though unusual, this is likely to be water retention, so keep things as they are for a couple of weeks and if no change then consider making a reduction. (See following section, How To Make A Reduction. ) Take a diet break, two weeks minimum. During your break do your best to mitigate whatever is stressing you out. Consider 10 minutes of meditation in the mornings. (I use a phone app. called 'Headspace.') Sleep more if you can. Consider cutting back on training volume, but keep the loading the same. (I.e. reduce the number of sets performed, but keep the total weight on the bar if you can.) Come back to this and see how you feel after your break. If you feel fine to continue then do so. If you still feel stressed then consider taking a longer break from dieting for now. Have you been consistent with your diet? Get more consistent with your diet. Come back and reassess in two weeks. Binges on the weekend, or cheat meals can easily wipe out an entire week s caloric deficit. Skip to section 2. Is the stressful situation likely to continue? If you feel you are ok to continue then carry on as you are. It s likely that you just have water retention and need to wait for it to pass. You will probably wake up one morning in the next couple of weeks a few pounds lighter. If you don t feel ok to continue then consider taking a diet break for a week, possibly two. Then come back to this and see how you feel. 4

5 When & How To Make Adjustments To Your Calorie Intake Weight & Measurement Checklist Section 2 (Skip this unless you were instructed to read it in the checklist section 1.) Has the rate of scale weight change been gradually decreasing? Recall that as we get leaner if we wish to retain muscle mass the rate that we should target fat loss needs to be reduced. By your best estimation of your drop in body fat, is the new, lower rate of weight change consistent with the recommended range of fat loss for the new, lower body-fat percentage that you are at? Good. Stay as you are then. Have the measurements continued to decline at the same rate? problem then. You re definitely losing fat, and are probably just experiencing some muscle growth at the same time. Reassess in two weeks and see where you are then. See section 1. Have you been consistent with your diet? Are you under an unusual period of stress? Take one. Resume your diet for two weeks afterwards and see if your weight starts to drop. Are you due a diet break? Re-read from the start of this section, you probably missed the relevant part. See section 1. It s probably time to make a reduction then. 5

6 Good. Skip to section 2. Alright, that is more than likely the reason. Consider taking a diet break or upping the calorie intake if this situation continues. Training Checklist Section 1 Has your strength been maintained at the minimum? When & How To Make Adjustments To Your Calorie Intake Were poor sleep, stress, or poor quality of diet possibly to blame? This could just be due to the mechanical inefficiency of getting leaner. Anthropometrics (relative limb lengths) differ from person to person and this will affect different lifts in different ways, so it is hard to put numbers on what is normal here. However, losing ~1% on your lifting total, per 1% of body fat you drop, doesn t seem like a bad rule of thumb. Good, continue with your diet. Good, continue with your diet. If it was just a single bad workout, ignore it. These happen at random. If not, Has the reduction in your lifts been small and gradual? 1) Residual fatigue may be masking fitness (strength). 2) It could be that you are coming down with the flu but just haven t shown any of the obvious symptoms yet. (This is going to happen once a year on average.) Reduce training volume for a week by 1/3. This is a deload*. Continue with training as normal the following week. Reassess two weeks from now. (If it was the flu, then stay out of the gym and rest.) Did this fix the issue? Try reducing training volume by ~15-25%. Did this fix the issue? Try increasing calorie intake 5-10%. If this didn t fix the issue, try a break from training combined with a diet break. If that doesn t work then it s probably something entirely unrelated to dieting. Consider seeing a doctor. (*If you have a copy of The Muscle & Strength Training Pyramid then see the chapter on progression for more specific examples. You ll see it s split across 28 pages.) 6

7 When & How To Make Adjustments To Your Calorie Intake Training Checklist Section 2 (Skip this unless you were instructed to read it in the checklist section 1.) Were you reasonably* expecting to progress with your training? (*See next section.) Have you been sleeping well? Is stress low at the moment? Have you been eating well recently? Do you feel well recovered? Try increasing overall training volume. You may need more training stimulus to keep progressing. Good. Keep onwards good soldier! Fine then. Continue as you have been. That s likely the issue. Work to fix these things as you continue onwards. If in doubt, take a diet break. Residual fatigue might be masking fitness (strength). Reduce training volume for a week by 1/3. See how you feel the next week. Reassess two weeks from now. Did this fix the issue? (i.e. Are you now progressing again?) Possibility 1: You may have reached the end of your capacity to make training progress while at your current caloric deficit. Either, increase calorie intake and accept a slower rate of fat loss, or accept that you are no longer going to make gains. If the latter, work to maintain your strength as far as possible for the rest of the cut and look forward to the sweet gains you will make when you come to bulk later. Possibility 2: There is something wrong with your training plan s programming. This is far beyond the scope of this book however. You can check out The Muscle & Strength Training Pyramid book (~170 pages) that I co-authored with Eric Helms, or watch his free video lectures on the topic on the site I created for it here. 7

8 Thank you for reading. You can pick up your full copy here.