Natty Power

Eliminate all junk food from your diet. Reduce amount of carbohydrate intake. Start regular practice of intense aerobic activities. Be persistent and results will come.

Excessive body fat is not healthy and certainly not natural. After all, it doesn’t look nice either. Too much junk food and lazy lifestyle are the main causes why many of us are overweight. While it may be easy to conclude what are the causes, elimination of junk food from the diet and regular physical activity may be a hard task for some of us. Establishing this as a lifelong habit may be even harder, but it will pay off for sure. Just don’t choose the “easy solutions” offered by modern chemistry, rather stay natty and stay healthy. So, regardless if you train for power, strength, speed or any other goal, the war against body fat will occur on two fronts: diet and physical activity. Each of these two fronts will consist of two smaller battles. Here they are:

1. Elimination of all junk food.
2. Reduction of food high in carbohydrates.
3. Regular training for power, strength and speed.
4. Incorporation of aerobic conditioning.

If you win these 4 battles, there is no doubt that you will be lean. Even if you don’t care much about good looks or physical aesthetics in general, keep in mind that being lean is both, natural and healthy. Remember that we are all built differently, so do not attempt to forcefully change your natural predispositions to be lean, no matter what. Sometimes it may be too hard, but sometimes it may not be possible at all. Anyway, investing some effort to become lean would be wise and well worth sacrificing a few bad habits. Now, let’s explore all 4 prerequisites to a lean body in more details.

1. Elimination of All Junk Food

We all know this one, it is logical and wise thing to do for general health, not just getting a lean body. Simply eliminate all junk and highly processed food from your diet and never look back. It may well be the best single thing you ever did for your health and the lean body will an award. So, you have to stop eating donuts, sweets, candies, cookies, cakes, crackers, biscuits, snacks, corn flakes, icecreams, milkshakes, puddings, chips, snacks, peanut butter, sauces, ketchup, mayonnaise, sausages, mortadella, hotdogs, etc Also, stop drinking alcohol and all drinks with added sugar.

2. Reduction of Carbohydrates

Eating too much fat and carbs will cause accumulation of excessive body fat. In contrast to fat, carbs can be easily eaten in very large amounts, which in turn may become a very dangerous addiction. Therefore, lowering overall amount of consumed carbs will bring numerous health benefits and eventually, muscle definition of a bodybuilder. For most people, reduction of carbs can be carried out relatively easily and without any problems. On the other side, drastic reduction or total elimination are almost impossible to sustain for longer periods of time and could be potentially dangerous.

Not all carbs are created equal. Simple carbs represent the bad guys and complex carbs represent the good guys. Simple carbs are the main ingredient of junk and processed food, so the same recommendation applies for them as well - completely eliminate all simple carbs:

• All kinds of sugar and food containing added sugar.
• White wheat flour and products made of white flour.
• Beverages containing added sugar.

Complex sugar can be eaten in small to moderate amounts:

• All kinds of vegetables.
• All kinds of fruit.
• All kinds of legumes.
• All kinds of grains.

If you decide to reduce carb intake, you should eat more protein and fat to counterbalance carb reduction. In this case, adding vitamin and mineral supplements during the diet regimen may prove helpful. Rest and sleep whenever possible to recuperate and save energy.

First and foremost, your diet should mainly consist of lean meat and non-starchy vegetables. Eat that in high quantities. For variety in protein sources, add eggs and lactose-free milk products. For energy and health, add some nuts, seeds, superfoods and spices. This will make your carb reduction diet complete:

• Meat: beef, pork, bacon, chicken, turkey, fish, squid, shrimps…
• Non-starchy vegetables: spinach, chard, kale, ruccola, lettuce, valerianella, grape vine leaves, cabbage, sauerkraut, broccoli, cauliflower, cucumbers, tomatoes, green onions, mushrooms, celery, asparagus, peppers, olives…
• Eggs: chicken eggs, duck eggs, goose eggs, caviar…
• Lactose-free milk products: milk, kefir, yogurt, aged cheese, butter…
• Nuts and seeds: all kinds of nuts and seeds.
• Superfoods and spices: ginger, curcumin/turmeric, garlic, kombucha, tamari, aloe vera, oregano, basilico, rosemary…

Occasionally and in smaller amounts, you can also eat the following foods:

• Starchy vegetables: potatoes, carrots, beets, pumpkin, squash, peas….
• Legumes: beans, peas, lentils, chickpeas, soy…
• Fruit: all kinds of fruit.

Rarely, in small amounts and only on training days prior to a training session, you can eat some grains and grain products:

• Whole grains: all kinds of whole grains.

Lowered carb intake will lead to a metabolic state called ketosis. Such diet is called keto diet. Ketosis occurs when body runs out of glucose and starts to utilize fat for energy. Extreme version of this diet would be a total carb elimination. While it may bring very quick results in loosing body fat, such a drastic diet must not be maintained for a long time. One week should be an absolute maximum. Be aware that you may experience weakness, dizziness, mind fog, depression, disorientation, constipation, nutrient deficiency, etc. Some muscle mass and strength will be temporarily lost too. You should never force any diet regimen, including this one too. Rather listen to body signals and be prepared to prevent total psycho-physical collapse early on. Besides, no one will blame you if you give up on total carb elimination and get back to consuming some. A cheat meal from time to time is not going to ruin the final results significantly. Maybe it will kick you out of ketosis for a while, but you can always easily get back to it after a day or two. On the other side, low carb diet can be safely maintained for months or even years without a pause, so it could be a wise option for most of amateur athletes.

It is important to gradually lower the carb intake, so give this process a little time to avoid any metabolic shocks. That way your body will be slowly accommodated to using fat as a source of energy instead of sugar. Sudden reduction or elimination of carbs would be much more stressful and could prevent you from successing. Take your time and establish low carb diet as a healthy lifelong habit. Then let the lean body be a final reward for your efforts.

Another approach which could be less stresful and even more productive for fat loss, is intermittent fasting. While occasional fasting is natural and beneficial, be careful to avoid negative consequences. Use common sense and don’t fast for too long too frequently. Aim at 24 hours once a week as a proper fasting period for ordinary people. Also, don’t push yourself hard in weight training during fasting.

3. Regular Training for Power, Strength and Speed

This one is easy. Train regularly for power and/or for strength and speed, and you will be on a good path to a lean muscular body. We learned earlier that regular training for power will build strength and speed as well, but it will also build big muscles and burn fat at the same time. Can not get any better than that.

4. Incorporation of Aerobic Conditioning

This is 4th and final prerequisite for a lean body and it is much more important then 3rd prerequisite, because regular training for power may not be sufficient physical activity for initiation of fat burning process. That is why it would be very beneficial to incorporate some kind of aerobic activity which will make you sweat, gasp for air and your heart beating fast.

General name for aerobic activities is conditioning, although a more popular one is cardio. Both terms refer to the same type of training, but conditioning seems to be more appropriate. Cardio alludes to heart and its increased beating rate, but lungs are going to work as hard as heart, so why naming it as “cardio”? The proper equivalent to conditioning would be a combination of two Greek words, “cardio & pneumono”, but it sounds ridiculous. One may ask, what about vascular system and blood in it? What about the muscles involved? Aren’t these organs engaged too? Well, to stop this pointless word game, let’s use the term “conditioning” as a more appropriate one.

To rip all the benefits of fasting during night and start burning fat for energy, always practice conditioning on an empty stomach, like early in the morning. This means no breakfast, no snacks, no protein shakes, no juices… no food at all. You can drink water as much as you need. If you simply can not stand the hunger, eat a boiled egg or two, but absolutely no carbs of any kind.

Conditioning sessions have to last long enough to start burn fat, but never too long to make you exhausted for the rest of the day. Depending on the type of activity, 10-30 minutes every other day would be optimal or 30-45 minutes every day for someone who is full of energy and rushing to get lean fast. If you are already training for power regularly, one or two aerobic conditioning session per week should be enough for maintenance of healthy cardiovascular system and fat burning state. Since the conditioning activity has to be performed for some time, it must not be too hard to carry out. You can choose any of the following activities or alternate them from time to time, for variety and avoiding boredom:

• Steady Pace Activity: This is ancient and quite simple approach to a shredded body. Typical fat loosing activity is jogging or fast pace walking, but you can also try cross country running, bicycle or mountain bike riding, swimming, rowing or any other similar aerobic activity. Since you are going to breathe a lot, it is always better to choose outdoor activities and breathe fresh air. If you must stay indoor for some reason, then run in place or punch & kick a heavy boxing bag. Go as fast as you can and preferably without rests. If you push yourself too hard and start gasping for air, slow down a little bit until you find an optimal pace. Steady pace activities are the easiest form of conditioning and can last longer then other more intense activities, so theoretically, can burn more fat. Average steady pace conditioning should last between 20-30 minutes, but you can adjust session time to your current condition.
• Tabata, HIIT, EMOM: For some people these conditioning methods may work better then steady pace. Basically, they are structured as alternating time intervals of high intensity activity and low intensity activity or rest time. Comparing to steady pace activity, these methods could be more effective, but also more demanding and lasting shorter time, so may end up being less effective. If you are overweight, older, injured, recovering from injury, out of shape, chronically tired or anything similar, rather stay with steady pace activities. Here is a modified Tabata training: sprint for 5-10 seconds and then switch to relaxed jogging for 25-20 seconds. Repeat these 30 second cycles 8 times for 4 minutes total. Feel free to modify intervals the way you like. Since these methods of conditioning are more intense then steady pace activities, they should not last longer then 10 minutes total. This makes them an excellent choice when the time is tight. If you have difficulties to accomplish the cycles, make sprint intervals shorter and jogging intervals longer or simply slow down the sprinting speed to a fast pace running and/or replace jogging with walking. Tabata method can be applied to all other aerobic sports as well, because all you have to do is alternating high and low intnsity intervals. For example, you can mix jumping, bodyweight squats or burpees with jogging, shadow boxing or situps. If you want more variety, read about bodyweight exercises bellow and perform them in the form of Tabata or HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training), which are practically the same method or try EMOM style (performing something Every Minute On the Minute).
• Aerobic Weightlifting: You can use your regular weightlifting program and modify it to become an aerobic activity: combine light weights, high repetition numbers and very short rest times between sets. This method could nicely complement your regular weightlifting program, just keep the total volume low to avoid exhaustion and overtraining. Do up to 10 minutes total of aerobic weightlifting.
• Bodyweight Exercises: If the weather is bad and you have to stay indoors, there are more options then just running in place. For example, you can experiment with these bodyweight combos for sets or time or EMOM style:
  - 5x Aussie pullup, 5x pushup, 10x squat, repeat combo to failure with no rests.
  - 10sec squats, 10sec situps, 10sec jumping jacks, 10 sec rest, repeat.
  - 1min run in place, 1min shadow boxing, 1min wall squat, no rest, repeat.
  - 8x roll back, 4x squat jump, 8x burpee, 4x squat jump, rest & repeat EMOM.
  Do these combos up to 10-15 minutes of total time. You can do these combos with rests or with no rests in between, but if you start gasping for air, include short rests immediately or prolong the existing ones.

Early morning aerobic conditioning should be an additional program to your main training program, which will be performed later in the day, probably in the afternoon or in the evening. Forget about breaking records, implementing high intensity techniques, large volumes and long training sessions, while you are on exhausting aerobic program, because aerobics drain a lot of energy. Focus your main training sessions solely on maintaining current levels of power and strength, not progressing.

Some people recommend strongman type of training for fat loss, but it seems to be a little bit crazy. While strongman training may have some potential for getting a lean body, it could be achieved only if you are on a very strict diet. If you are on a strict diet, then your strongman training will greatly suffer. This an obvious and fundamental contradiction. Not eating enough of everything and training like a strongman could literally kill you. You should ask yourself: “What is my priority at this moment? Is it to be big and powerful like a strongman or lean like a sprinter”? There is no point in getting a lean body with heavy farmer walk, while the stomach is empty and energy levels are depleted. Why risking a twisted ankle and years of recovery, just to get lean the wrong way? There are numerous sports with super lean athletes, but strongman are not among them, because they need to eat enormous amounts of food to enlarge energy capacity. Rather do it the safe way: aerobic conditioning in the morning on an empty stomach and then only maintenance of strength and power in the afternoon.