Why does it seem like you have been working out for quite a while now but haven’t been able to build muscle? All the heavy days of weight lifting seem to have gone to nothing because your muscles are flat and you haven’t made much progress. If this describes you then you probably need to re-evaluate what you are doing both in, and out of, the gym.

YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT

It may sound cliché but it’s true. Breakfast, lunch and dinner as your only meals aren’t cutting it anymore these days. You have to be eating more often, at least 5-6 meals a day, splitting up your meals to every 2-3 hours. Doing this will help your body’s metabolism to keep burning fat because you’ll be using the food for fuel to build muscle instead of letting it turn to flab.

Your daily diet should consist of high amounts of protein such as chicken, lean meats, fish, egg whites, and dairy. You should also be balancing out every meal with complex carbs such as brown rice, quinoa, or yams as well as eating lots of servings of vegetables. Spinach, asparagus, broccoli and salads are all part of my meal plan on a daily basis because of the vitamins and nutrients they provide.

Adding supplements to your workout regime will also help to build muscle. However, they can be costly and if you are already eating a lot of meats and vegetables, chances are you are getting quite a bit of the support your body needs to continue to build muscle and grow. Even though I am getting ample nutrtients from my meals, I still like to add a whey-isolate protein drink during the day which can deliver needed protein to muscles when they are in need. I also add creatine to my protein shakes which help give my muscles the sustenance they need when they are being worked out to the max.

Your body needs protein first thing in the morning after a long night’s fasting. After your work out is another time to take a dose of protein as well as before you go to sleep.

TRAIN THE RIGHT WAY TO BUILD MUSCLE

Your muscles needs to experience shock in order to grow. Blasting them with rep and rep and forcing yourself to go beyond what you’re comfortable with will cause your muscle fibers to break, causing room for more growth. Now I am not talking about using a heavy weight and practically killing yourself, but more so lifting with the strictest form on exercises that normally you can do 10-12 and trying to get 12-15 reps instead. If you can get to 15 reps and can still do more, you may want to try and up the weight a bit, but not much because you don’t want to sacrifice the quality for quantity.

Aside from proper form, make sure you are doing compound exercises; Squats, bench press, pull ups, Dead lifts. These are the fundamental old-school bodybuilder exercises that help to build muscle and put on size as well as increase your strength. These compound movements require your body to use more muscles, therefore require more strength from your body, which helps to build overall muscle density. For example, with Dead lifts, the muscles in your back, legs, shoulders as well as your bis and tris are all involved in the process of lifting and lowering the weight. This will help with your overall body growth.

I typically don’t lift for more than 60-75 minutes. Besides, if you can still continue lifting after that amount of time, you either aren’t lifting heavy enough or you aren’t working out hard enough.

SLEEP TO BUILD MUSCLE

8 hours of sleep isn’t just for babies anymore. Your body needs ample recovery time for the muscles to recover and grow. Sleeping is essential to your body’s ability to build muscle, and when you start jeopardizing your sleep, you will sacrifice your gains.
If you don’t rest, your muscles won’t grow.

That being said, it’s really pretty simple to pack some muscle onto your frame. Just remember that you have to push yourself out of your comfort zone with your rep count, use strict form, eat enough, and get plenty of rest. Doing these things will you help you build muscle that is lean and hard, and they’ll be bulging out of your shirt in no time.

No matter how often you tell yourself tomorrow is the day you’re going to start on your journey, something always comes up and you end up making another excuse of why you can’t do it.

This seems to be the biggest obstacle that most people face which prevents them from achieving their weight loss goals.

If this sounds like you, whether you are trying to lose 5 lbs or 50 lbs, then now is the time to take action. I hope I struck a nerve within you and this helps put you in the right direction to start achieving your weight loss goals.

That being said, the most important and crucial step to successfully losing weight is to set a goal for yourself. Write it down and put it all over the place where you are live, where you work, in your car, or anywhere else where you will see it on a regular basis. The bathroom mirror and the refrigerator are the 2 places where I set my own goals because I visit those 2 places the most in my house. Doing this will help you hold yourself accountable if you don’t move forward towards your goal. Also, find a picture of the type of body that you want. It could be a model, a bodybuilder or a physique competitor, or even Kim Kardashian; whoever it is, putting the picture next to your goals will help you to visualize yourself attaining the body you want.

When you set your goals, you must truly define:

1. How many pounds or inches do you want to lose?

2. What is the date that you want to achieve your weight loss by?

Writing these goals down will help you commit them to your mind, and the more you read and look at them, the more they will seep into your sub-conscious.

You must be sure to write realistic weight loss goals for yourself because ones that aren’t achievable will de-motivate you when you don’t reach them as well as discourage you from wanting to keep you on your path to weight loss success. 50 pounds in a month is not going happen, but 8-10 lbs in a month is possible.

Setting an attainable goal for yourself is going to leave you much more motivated when you achieve it, and keep you on track to want to keep losing more. However, don’t forget to reward yourself when you reach small goals on your journey. By rewarding yourself, you have something to look forward to for every set amount of lbs that you end up losing. When you do this, it will help you maintain your motivation and ensure you are successful in your weight goal success.

Here is just a quick intro of my plan to diet for an NPC physique competition later on in the year in San Diego. My quest for Fat loss and muscle building will be updated through video blogs to show people what they should be eating, what kind of workouts work, and what obstacles people can face.

By no means am I anti-alcohol. I love a glass of red wine with a nice filet or having a beer or 2 on a hot, sunny day at the beach with friends. The issue really comes down to, can you drink and party while still trying to maintain or obtain a fit, shredded physique?

When I first started on my quest to attain a six pack, I looked everywhere on the web to determine whether or not I could still drink and be fit at the same time. If you look at any of the workout and bodybuilding forums online today, including Bodybuilding.com, almost every person with a lean, hard physique will say if you want to get a six pack, then you can absolutely not drink excessive amounts of alcohol! Even more than a few drinks in a week is counter-productive.

Alcohol is terrible for muscle gains and weight loss and only hurts your chances to get a six pack. It slows down your metabolism, dehydrates your body (and your brain) as well as creates the opposite effects on your body of what you’re trying to accomplish with getting into great shape.

What you will find is that any of the professional or amateur fitness competitors that you read about; shredded physiques with six-pack abs and striations throughout every muscle of their body, refrain from drinking alcohol. If you check out certain blogs or websites where people say it is OK to drink larger amounts of booze, or drink more frequently, I would recommend taking a better look at their pics and seeing if they really do walk the walk. Chances are, they don’t.

Having a drink or 2 in a week isn’t going to kill you, sabotage your gains, or affect your overall physique. Certain studies recommend at least having a glass or 2 of wine in a week for a healthy heart. It’s what happens when you start trying to relive the college days by playing Beirut (beer pong) on the weekend or seeing who can take the most shots in a night. Once you start playing that game, you will experience a surge in belly fat and weight gain immediately.

WHY?

Because drinking alcohol numbs your stomach and makes you hungry. Have you ever noticed that every time you go out and drink a bit too much and are a little drunk, you end up going and grabbing a bite to eat on your way home?

Drunk food = Junk food.

All of those calories from alcohol and fattening, unhealthy foods are sitting there in your stomach, not being used for anything but storage in your body as you drift asleep. Your metabolism slows down and your food sits there, creating the perfect “fat storm”.

If you are serious about getting a leaner, more muscular physique with six pack abs, you will have to cut out the alcohol from your diet, even in moderation on the weekends, in order to fulfill your body’s potential. Cutting out the partying, the late junk food binges, and focusing on getting your shredded physique will help you to realize the potential much quicker and easier.

Don’t you think it’s about time you started to get serious on getting your six pack?

The hcG diet has been around for decades, but it’s become more prevalent in the mainstream media as we become more aware of how difficult the battle of the bulge really is. hCG is found in both men and women, but very elevated levels are found in pregnant women during the beginning stages of pregnancy. It helps to control the female’s metabolic functions, which is why people take hCG to simulate the metabolism of a pregnant female. Thousands of calories found in stored fat cells are released into the body which are then used as fuel.

With the presence of hCG, a pregnant woman’s fat stores are mobilized to be used to nourish the fetus. This ensures the fetus receives the property amount of calories and nutrients it needs for growth and development, regardless of caloric intake. However, reducing the amount of daily calories helps to reduce the cells from absorbing more fat.

The hCG diet plan is used by both men and women, and aids people using the hCG diet with the ability to lose weight and burn fat quickly, allowing the body to use their stored fat cells for energy. It also helps to curb your appetite so you will eat less and consume fewer calories. Losing 1 to 2 lbs per day can be expected.

The hCG diet is administered by taking daily shots or oral drops for at least 23 days. In addition to taking hCG, you are to be on a very restricted 500 calories per day diet. 500 calories a days is the amount that you will need in order for the fat that is mobilized by the hCG to covert into the fuel your body uses for energy and help keep you moving throughout the day.
Once you start noticing the pounds fall off, it’s imperative to not let that time and energy you’ve spent losing weight go to waste. The 23 day hCG diet should help your body get accustomed to the diet incorporating a healthy eating lifestyle along with proper exercise. Doing this will help you keep the weight off.

The hCg diet is another opportunity for you or anyone else who is looking to lose a little weight and hope to have some success. If you’re interested in the hCg diet, here is some more info for you to check out and figure if it’s the right thing for you.

Here is an old video of a squat workout I did at the end of my leg day. I was really trying to get my squats a little deeper but my knees were aching pretty bad from doing a lot of long distance running. That’s why they’re wrapped tight to keep the joints snug.

Either way, 25 reps with that much weight is pretty taxing no matter how you look at it.

Enjoy!

I wrote a post shortly ago about how I had taken some time off from the gym to heal some nagging injuries and let my body recover. With having extended time off, the body naturally becomes weaker as you lose strength and muscle mass. I knew the road to getting back to Beast Mode would be treacherous, so I looked around for a pre-workout supplement that would help me get back my strength back by keeping me pumped and motivated through my workouts.

I’ve been using the Lee Labrada Stim-Force pre-workout supplement that I bought and have been very pleased with the results. I feel energized throughout my workouts and have been able to lift heavier more from each week to the next.

I plan on using the supplement for another 3 weeks while it lasts and then taking some time off to let my body take a break from it to cycle off. I will definitely keep you posted as to how the next few weeks ago.

Please feel free to comment on if you have any experience using this pre-workout product.

2) Don’t use the incorrect form!
Lots of people use herky-jerky motions, or their range of motion is very short and do not focus on the contraction and expansion of the abdominal muscles. You can do a million crunches but if you’re not using proper technique, you’re not going to gain much of anything.

3) Don’t neglect your eating lifestyle and cardio!
This is the biggest reason why very few people have ripped abs, and most people don’t. You can do a million crunches a day, but if you aren’t eating properly nor doing some form of cardio to burn the fat, you’re abs will still be hiding between layers of fat.

Deciding it was time to toss those old shoes in the garbage meant that I had to go and buy a new pair. As hard as it was trying to get rid of those things, I knew it was for the best. I tried on a bunch of shoes but nothing felt that great. However, it’s not like I could go out and run in the parking lot. Obviously that would put some wear and tear on them. So I used my phone to look up reviews on the different running shoes there were available. After reading the comments people left I decided I’d try on my very last pair for that day, which in turn, were the ones I bought. They are snug, and hugged my feet, giving me the stability I was looking for. For a guy that has dealt with knee issues due to running and foot placement, I have found these shoes to be a great buy.

I definitely recommend them.

Have you eaten there?

Pretty darn delicious.

Why did I eat there, knowing that my meal was filled with 1000+ calories?

What tempted me to eat there when I am supposed to be eating a healthy and clean lifestyle so I can be ready for summer?

Because this picture of a burger is posted right outside the entrance to my gym. What appropriate advertising placement! As I walked to my car all I could think about were those delicious, crispy onion rings on top of a cheeseburger. Throw in some fries and a drink, and Voila, regret and buyer’s remorse. The guilt I had to deal with later on that night was probably not worth it because that meant I had to go to the gym twice that next day. Cardio, Cardio, Cardio.

My only question really is, why would 24 Hour Fitness allow something like to be posted right outside their doors?