Big News!

As you might have heard, my friend Craig Ballantyne of Turbulence Training fame has been running his first ever transformation contest.

The contest is now closed, the results are in and let me tell you some of these transformations are MIND BLOWING!

I am so proud and impressed by these people, they all truly did an amazing job transforming their bodies and their lives!

What's more, a couple of the finalists used EAT STOP EAT to get their great results ( I'm not going to tell you who, because I don't want to bias your choices).

What's even more exciting is that it is now up to you to vote for the winner!

Please visit Craig's transformation site and place your vote for who you should think the winner should be.

CLICK HERE ==> The Turbulence Training Transformation Contest

BP

3 "Magic" Fat Loss Ingredients

Every morning I go through the exact same routine.

I get up. I make some oatmeal. Clean the kitchen. Go up stairs. Brush my teeth. Turn on my computer. Check my email. Then I laugh (or sometimes cry) while reading all of the new stories about the latest and greatest "fat loss" ingredients.

It is an absolute mystery to me why, after over 20 years of failed promises, we still turn to magic ingredients and magic foods for fat loss.

What shocks me even more is that we are still hoping to find something we can eat that will cause us to lose fat. It is almost becoming an oxymoron.

We are looking for something to consume that will make us consume less!

Here are just some examples of magic foods and ingredients in the new today:

Recent research (performed in a test tube) suggests that extract from Chilli peppers may stop fat growth. According to this research Chilli extract may hold the key to preventing immature fat cells from developing into mature fat cells.

In a different study, it was suggested that spearmint tea can not only lower a man's sex drive but can also decrease the amount of hair on a women's body. (Admittedly, this isn't fat loss research but if you think the body builders in your gym smell bad now, wait till they read this research and stop brushing their teeth for fear that they may be lowering their T levels!)

Finally, more research shows that dairy calcium (but not calcium supplements) can cause a decrease in the amount of fat in your blood after a meal.

I can't really tell you too much about this study because I stopped reading after the first page that mentioned that the study was funded by the Danish Dairy Research Foundation and the Dutch Dairy Association!

A Dairy Foundation and a Dairy Association funded the study, and the study found that dairy calcium, but not calcium supplements had weight loss benefits? Please.

Now honestly, there is some merit to this research. Eating more spices on your food is definitely a good idea. Eating foods that contain calcium is also a good idea.

However, thinking that taking chilli extract pills or consuming 3 bowls of ice-cream per day will make you lose weight IS NOT what you should be taking away from this research. (Nor is skipping your morning tooth brushing!)

If you want to lose weight there are only three things you need to do, and you don't need to read any research to do them.

Firstly, find a nutrition plan that works for you.

Secondly, get active. And I don't mean walk on the elliptical for half an hour every other day, I mean get a real work-out program and challenge yourself.

The third and last thing you need to do is to stop (or don't start) falling for the media's version of the latest and greatest fat loss research. It will only lead to disappointment and is usually a very poor and hyped up version of what the research was really telling us.

These are the real 3 "magic" fat loss ingredients!

BP

Eat Stop Eat

Lessons from Ottawa - Nutrition For Fat Loss

I just spend the last couple days helping out at a hockey skills camp in Ottawa, Canada. Now that I'm back, I'd like to share some observations with you.

The key thing that I noted from this years camp is that the athlete with the lowest body fat is rarely the athlete with the best conditioning. In fact, if you were to rank the athletes I was working with last weekend, the leanest most shredded athlete wouldn't have even been in the top three for conditioning.

It is true that you can have incredible conditioning, whether it is aerobic or anaerobic, and not be "shredded".

Now, I’m not saying that body composition isn't important in sports. If you take the really well conditioned athlete and melt twenty pounds of fat off him or her, they become an even better athlete. They will still be highly conditioned, only now they will have less weight that they have to move around with them.

That's were nutrition comes into play. Nutrition is the key to losing body fat, especially for highly trained athletes.

If you are already training for two or three hours a day on almost every day of the week, adding in some more exercise with the hopes of losing weight may just not be possible and will definitely not be effective.

While most people understand the importance of keeping a workout log, I think that keeping a nutrition log is far more important for an anyone who is trying to lose some fat.

Just like with a workout log, a nutrition log allows you to look back on the last week, month or year and really examine what worked for you and what didn't work for you. It allows you to quickly identify why you had stalls in progress or dips in performance.

Bottom line: If you are trying to lose weight but are not keeping a nutrition log, you are making the process a hundred times harder then it needs to be. Keep a log and you will be able to lose fat without compromising any of your conditioning or performance.

BP

Fasting Diet, Circuit Training