Tag Archive: Diets


FREE Cutting & Building diets for a ripped muscled physique

Filed under: DIET stuff — Leave a comment
September 8, 2017

Click here to watch video “FREE Cutting & Building diets”

As discussed in previous videos the Cutting and Building phases/diets are done in a 3 month cycle. Three months Cutting diet followed by 3 months Building diet. This is called a cycle. Then after each cycle repeat the cycle again, and again and so on.

The purpose of the Cutting diet is to drop body fat while keeping muscles safe. Typical targets in a 3 month Cutting diet period is to drop the body fat with roughly 6% – 8%.

The purpose of the Building diet is to increase both the body fat and muscle size. Reason for the body fat increase is simply to stimulate better muscle growth. Muscle growth happens most effectively in a caloric surplus environment. The aim with the Building diet is to add roughly 4% – 5% body fat to help muscle growth.

Both diets stick to a small frequent meal system. For the simple reason that a frequent meal system keeps the digestive track activated continuously and thus results in a significant higher metabolic rate for the body which equals better fat loss. It is MUCH better for fat loss to take 5-7 small meals instead of 1-2 huge meals. It results in better fat loss plus you never feel bloated or uncomfortable from big servings plus you crave food much less.

The same following rules apply to both diets:

  1. NEVER exceed your daily calories.
  2. You MUST perform EVERY 14 DAYS a body monitoring with fat calipers, weighing scale and tape measurements to determine how your body responded to the previous 14 days daily calories.
  3. Never increase or decrease your diets calories with more than 10% in a 14 day period.

The body monitoring process is the CRITICAL part of the diet. If you do not do this thoroughly your diet will NEVER be correctly aligned for your body. You must remember that no 2 people’s metabolic rates are exactly the same. There are a magnitude of factors determine each of us metabolic rates. So if you do not align the diet for YOUR metabolic rate…the diet WILL FAIL!

Now the next step is to interpret the results from the 14 day body monitoring intelligently.

For the CUTTING DIET you do it as follows:

RESULT: lost muscle, ANALYSIS: very bad, ACTION REQUIRED: increase daily calories across the board with 10%

RESULT: lost muscle & fat, ANALYSIS: very bad, ACTION REQUIRED: increase daily calories across the board with 10%

RESULT: lost fat but muscle stayed the same, ANALYSIS: good, ACTION REQUIRED: this is where you want to be during your cutting diet. No change, but redo monitoring every 14 days to ensure you stay in this sweet spot.

RESULT: gain fat & muscle, ANALYSIS: very bad, ACTION REQUIRED: decrease daily calories across the board with 10%.

 

For the BUILDING DIET you do it as follows:

RESULT: lost muscle, ANALYSIS: very bad, ACTION REQUIRED: increase daily calories across the board with 10%

RESULT: lost muscle & fat, ANALYSIS: very bad, ACTION REQUIRED: increase daily calories across the board with 10%

RESULT: lost fat but muscle stayed the same, ANALYSIS: bad, ACTION REQUIRED: increase daily calories across the board with 10%

RESULT: gain fat & muscle, ANALYSIS: good, ACTION REQUIRED: this is where you want to be in the building diet. But be careful that you do not add too much fat so do the body monitoring  every 14 days to ensure you do not pick up too much fat.

WANT A HOLISTIC TRANSFORMATION SYSTEM FULLY CUSTOMIZED?  The program I am following for the past 6 years (age 46 to 52), available now fully customised on all levels. before-and-after-dec2016Every little secret, every hard-earned practical fact, every scientific study that actually support the (very) few supplements between all the thousand ridiculous advertisement claims have been filtered en incorporated into one system that MAKES A DIFFERENCE click here: 

https://gertlouw.com/my-transformation-secrets/

 

Right now on to the actual diets. Both have a complete breakdown with detailed caloric values and protein/carb/fat content. This enable you to exchange food easily to spice up the diet. But be warned! Do NOT exceed the calories when exchanging food and ensure you stick to the protein/carb/fat ratios.

You will see there are 3 days provided for each diet. The Monday and Tuesday you must shuffle between all the weekdays except for Saturday. The Saturday menu plan must ONLY be followed for Saturday. It is meant to be a more relaxed menu plan that will enable you to socialize a bit. You can also squeeze two meals in one or even 3 into one ONLY on Saturday. Again…do NOT exceed calories.

THE CUTTING DIET

cd 1cd 2cd 3

THE BUILDING DIET

bd 1bd 2bd 3

Now you got all the diet tools to go and get shredded and add muscle.

MAKE IT HAPPEN!

Gert Louw

gert b&A 12May2016

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Diet tricks for fat loss – intermittent fast & carb cycling

Filed under: DIET stuff — Leave a comment
July 4, 2017

Diet tricks for fat loss

I get many guys asking me about “intermittent fasting” and “carb cycling” and similar “tricks” in the search to drop body fat.

Let’s look at this objectively.

I am not going to shoot any of these methods down, I think there are enough counter-proof that at least for some it is working.

However the people contacting me is never advanced athletes but Joe average who plays around with bodybuilding and want to get a quick road to loosing fat.

This is where the problem comes in.

The advanced athletes employing these diet tricks are already at very low body fat and are preparing for a show or event. In their toolbox which they use constantly, are their fat-callipers, tape measure and weighing scale and caloric counter. They approach this very scientifically and got the whole process down to a tee. They hardly ever make a mistake. But even then some do make a mistake and the consequences are close to disastrous. The truth is that with these tricks they are walking a thin line and it is very easy to make a mistake. You really need to know what you are doing and monitor the body extremely closely. You need to be very scientific about it to the extreme!

But Joe average is not a guy who will put in the time and effort these guys do with these tricks. He will not daily pull out the fat calipers, the tape measurement and scale and double-check calories etc. He just wants a simple to follow solution that will allow him to shed fat. And this is NEVER a simple solution. This is a hardcore solution. And nearly 99% of Joe average who have tried these hardcore solutions have badly burned their fingers. By burned fingers I mean training derailed, getting sick (due to immune system dropping as a result of too much required from the body) or losing all the hard-earned muscle in the process.

If you want my complete training/diet/supps system customised specifically for your body and goals, have a look here: https://gertlouw.com/my-transformation-secrets/

The risks simply outweight the benefits for Joe average …by far.

It is not worth it.

For Joe average and most advanced athletes it makes sense to follow a proven sensible approach.

Such a sensible approach is to monitor the body every 14 days with fat calipers and a weighing scale. Then to interpret the results with wisdom and make the necessary caloric adjustments to reach your goal.

In the cutting phase you want to lose fat and keep muscles safe (not necessarily build muscle but definitely not losing muscle!).

In the building phase the goal is adding a little body fat (2%-4%) and built muscle. Whenever you have to adjust calories, never do it with more than 10% in 14 day period up or down. The body need time to adjust and by adjusting calories with more than 10% will throw the body’s normal responses off for up to 1 month which makes the 14 day monitoring very difficult to interpret correctly.

The type of diet to follow is simple.

For cutting: https://gertlouw.com/2014/08/16/cutting-diet-challenges/

For building: https://gertlouw.com/2014/10/27/muscle-building-phase-sample-diets/

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Now I hope this let’s you think twice about venturing these risky paths. If you want to use me as an example…I have never done these diet tricks, simply because they are too risky! I am not about to sacrifice my hard-worked by slipping up once.

Wish you all happy training!

Gert Louw

GUYS & GIRLS DREAM BODYc

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19 Tips to built Muscle

Filed under: TRAINING stuff — 3 Comments
January 12, 2015

Hey guys and girls, 2015 in full swing.

Hope all back at gym and training going good. Make sure that diet is fully in check!

If u want a cutting diet, click here: http://gertlouw.com/2014/08/16/cutting-diet-challenges/

If you want a building diet, click here: http://gertlouw.com/2014/10/27/muscle-building-phase-sample-diets/

If you ant to know how to start a transformation from scratch, click here: http://gertlouw.com/2014/06/02/how-do-i-start-a-body-transformation-from-scratch/

 

To help you get focussed, here is a free e-book on some great bodybuilding advice.

Just click the link below:

19 Tips To Build Muscle

 

Wish u much success.

Gert

gert smiling white

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Supercharging your METABOLISM

Filed under: DIET stuff — 11 Comments
February 10, 2013

Supercharging your METABOLISM

Is that at all possible? Let me put it this way…not by sitting on the coach with the bag of crisps in your hand it’s not!
Most of you are aware that I am preaching a complete lifestyle change but with this article I am going to focus on how you can get your metabolism fired up to function at its peak level.
I think it is common knowledge that the higher you’re resting metabolism is the quicker you are going get rid of that unwanted fat layer.
Before we get to the nitty-gritty of the how, let’s quickly delve into why a lot of people are sitting with these slow metabolisms. I’ve already touched on some reasons in some of my earlier articles.
Granted, for some people it might actually be genetic, but for the most (and I claim easily 95%) they have enough control over the metabolic rate to make a very big difference weight wise.

metabolism1The slow metabolism origins

 

The first main reason
In my article DIET IS FOR LOSERS I already discussed how people are training their body in a complete negative way by following short-term diets. Each diet train the body to drop the resting metabolic rate since it senses it might be in a famine period. After the diet target weight is reached and you revert back to your normal eating habits, your body is adding on as much fat as possible to prepare for the next approaching “famine” period and it then lowers the resting metabolic rate every time you hit a new diet…for good!
Therefore DIETS is one of the main reasons the resting metabolic rate is slowing down year after year.
One should never follow a diet (or short-term solution) but make a long-term lifestyle change if you want a healthy metabolic rate.

 

The second main reason
In conjunction with above problem, the same people will tend to become more and more inactive due to various reasons:

  • Our western lifestyle is that of coach potatoes in front of tv.
  • Being more overweight year after year make it even more difficult to become active.
  • Time and work may sometimes be limiting factors.

 

How are you going to get this slow resting metabolic rate fired up for peak performance?

If you are not ready to make a complete lifestyle change, skip this article…but be aware there is absolutely NO quick fix available anywhere in our little spot of the universe. The closest you will get to a quick and last fix (not to get a healthy metabolic rate but get rid of the fat layer) is the operation that restrict your amount of food uptake by your body…serious stuff…..we were designed a certain way, alter with that design and you ask for serious problems. That being said, there are success stories out there of people who did the operation…
So a lifestyle change is a basic need to start the process of correcting your resting metabolic rate.

Part of a lifestyle change is eating a small balanced meal every 3-4 hours (from waking up to going to bed). Why? Well, the body was designed that way. The 3 meals a day plan most people follow is far from what the body need to act optimally. It allows your blood sugar levels to drop too low and also does not give the food in the correct way for your body to grow/lose fat and function optimally.
After you’ve ate a meal, even small, your resting metabolic rate will be much higher than normal for the next 3 hours. That is due to all the functions your body is performing to get the food from your stomach to your blood to feed the body. Your digestive system uses a lot of energy to do it’s job. Whether it is a small or big meal does not matter so much. Therefore the more frequent you can keep this system active the more energy you will burn and the higher your metabolic rate. But please, this is not a ticket to hit the fridge on the hour! You must stick religiously to the 3-4 hour rule and the meals must be small and balanced and ONLY what your body need. No more, no less.

But that alone is not going to solve the problem. There is much damage done and that damage need to be undone.

For years on end your body has been trained to slow down you’re resting metabolic rate and no matter what you do now that metabolism will need time to adapt. There is no quick way out. The more the damage the longer it will take. Let me put it to you like this, the more diets you’ve tried in the past the longer it is going to take to get your metabolism to function optimally.
No two people will react the same, but a general guideline is it can take between 6 to 8 months for worse case scenarios metabolic rates to start functioning optimally again. But don’t fear, on average it take 2 – 3 months to sort out the metabolism for most people.

Put the scale away!

Another point I want to raise at this stage is weighing yourself too often.
Put that scale away. You are aware of the damage that has been done to your metabolism and that will take some time to repair. Implement your lifestyle change and religiously stick to it.
I suggest that you never weight yourself more than once a month – at the same time every month.

Think about it…
It allow yourself to slip up once or twice, it gives enough breathing space for woman to avoid problems about periods etc. Your scale is not going to tell you the true story of what is busy happening in your body for the first couple of months. You need to re-program your body and while that new program is being written you do NOT want the scale to show you week after week a negative picture that will demotivate you within the first month.
You’ve made that lifestyle change (with all that goes along with it) – stick to it and once a month you can check yourself. Even measurements must only be done not more than once a month.
NEVER let the scale or measurements rule your lifestyle change. That is one of the quickest ways to fail and fall back. With the lifestyle change you eat right, train right, supplement right and do all in the right combinations and frequentcy…your body WILL respond.

Lean Mass and resting metabolic rategert3

A very important factor that determines the resting metabolic rate will be the amount of lean mass your body carries. The more lean mass the higher you’re resting metabolic rate.
Now I already hear (once agin) many women (and men) crying out, “we don’t wanna built any muscle just tone a bit”. Well, “toning” IS BUILDING MUSCLE! An inactive person losing all the unwanted fat would need to built at least 15 – 30% muscle to reach his/her target for a “toning” look/appearance. There is NOT something like toning, toning IS building muscle. So adding 15-30% muscle will have a dramatic effect on your resting metabolic rate and will give you that “toning” look.
This is also why I always recommend to overweight guys, to first focus on building decent muscle, then the process of losing the fat will be MUCH easier. In fact, without you even trying, you will loose fat because you’ve change your lifestyle.

Body builders generally have this aspect very good under control and that is also one of the reasons they are so successful in cutting to low body fat levels.

Now let’s return to get a shortlist of what you need to do to supercharge your metabolism:

  1. Lifestyle change (eating + training + supplements + vitamins + spirituality). In some of my earlier posts I dealt in detail with what lifestyle chances involves.
  2. Eating every 3-4 hours [keep metabolic rate fired up for up to 3 hours after eating]
  3. Training 4-5 days a week [resting metabolic rate raised for up to 24 hours after training]
  4. Grow muscle as much as you can but 15-30% minimum fore real change = toning. [more muscle = higher resting metabolic rate].

The above WILL kick start your metabolism into overdrive. It again is the combination of ALL the above and not any single item that makes the difference. You need to cover ALL THE ANGLES if you want to get your metabolism fired up and restored to function optimally.

 

As you can see, you cannot get away from some key changes in your life if you want to get rid of fat, look good and have a great body. These factors will always remain constant because it brings us back to how we were designed and suppose to live. Not as chips eating coach potatoes but as active people eating right and small meals every 3-4 hours.

Yes there are other supplements out there can can have a positive effect on your resting metabolism for a couple of hours (caffeine pills, green tea extract, etc…) but this should be ignored at first. Focus purerly on getting to grips with all aspects of your lifestyle change. Once you have that fully under control (I reckon it will take you at least 3 months) then by all means investigate other avenues of boosting your resting metabolic rate. But remember: NOTHING is a substitute other than above to fire up your metabolism in the correct way. Do not try to take any shortcuts!

 

Fire up that metabolism guys and girls and make 2013 the year that you become the best you can be…for good!

 

Wish you success
Gert

gert2

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What! Get off my butt and train?

Filed under: TRAINING stuff — 9 Comments
January 23, 2013

What! Get off my butt and train?

It is the beginning of a new year…into the 3rd week already and many people are already failing on grand new years resolutions made.

I boldly make this statement: “There is no bigger gift you can give yourself than by making a serious lifestyle change.”

But I have to give up watching tv, sitting on the couch and eat my favorite crisps, drinking with the guys, partying, eating my favorite pudding everyday…and I am waaay to fat and old to start with such stuff…that is only for the youngsters, in any case I don’t really want to look muscly!

Let’s take a tour…

This is me when I “followed” the typical above lifestyle.

Image

 

Now this is me after making a serious lifestyle change. (granted a few years later…)

 

Image

 

I am 48 now…and I look and feel the best in my whole life…and also very healthy.

If I did not make this change…imagine how bad I would have look now…

 

My goal with this post is to help some of you realize your dream of a total new you are very close and very much possible.

 

First, let’s get down to the basics.

 

What benefits does such a lifestyle change have (to name just a few):

1)       Better self image.

2)       Better self control

3)       Learning to eat healthy.

4)       Lower cholesterol

5)       Significant lower blood pressure.

6)       Sharper brain function.

7)       More energy.

8)       Stronger bone structure.

9)       Healthier heart, kidneys and liver – longer lifespan.

10)    Younger looking skin.

11)    Better sexual ability

12)    People start noticing and envy you.

13)    Dramatic decreased change of getting diabetes or similar conditions.

14)    New lust for life.

…alas for the bald heads…the hair does not grow back no matter how big a lifestyle change you make. Some things are just inevitable. Accept it, it makes life easier.

 

What do I have to give up:

1)       Smoking!

2)       Regular drinking (The odd – one or two glasses a wine per week is fine).

3)       Late nights

4)       Fast Food

5)       About 90 minutes per day (be that early morning, over lunch or evening)

 

What is it gonna cost me:

1)       Basic exercise clothing.

2)       Gym bag, towel, etc…

3)       Gym membership (I am on Discovery Vitality so it cost me R80 ($8) per month.

 

Now, look again at those 2 pictures. This is real and there are MANY other cases where people made similar changes, maybe even better!

Your biggest hurdle you will face is to break out of your comfort zone. You have trained yourself very well to be entrenched in that zone and that zone is mighty nice…but that is what is gonna be your biggest thing to overcome.

First week is fine…but then the mind and body start realizing it is not in its comfort zone anymore and the cravings start to get back into that comfort zone again.

 

You will have to decide if you are going to be a slave to this mind controlling mechanism your whole life or not. You have the power to overcome…believe me u have. But no-one is going to grab it on your behalf – YOU MUST!

 

Be the BEST you can be…rise above the rest…make yourself proud in yourself…make yourself someone u like inside and out when you look in that mirror. Make your wife and kids proud of you.

 

How can I stick to this new mindset?

1)       First you must focus your mind and entrench the new you in your mind. Visualize yourself and where you want to be. Visualize yourself training and eating right. Get yourself determined…no-one and nothing must be able to sway that determination.

2)       Take small steps!!! Climbing a ladder step by step and you will get to the top, leap and you will most probably fall very hard! So control that eagerness with wisdom.

 

How do I take these small manageable steps?

That must be done on three levels: training, diet and addressing your spirituality.

 

Training: You cannot start training from the first day like a guy who has been doing it regularly for the past 5 years. For example: You cannot use my program at my level and think it is going to work for you. It is a far to great a leap, you will burn and fall and loose that determination.

You will have to break such a plan down into very small manageable portions. If you are very unfit you must spend something like 10 min at gym for 4 days (2 days on one day off and 2 days on again) in the first week. Week two you make it 15 minutes. Week three 20 minutes.

The 3rd week is usually a week that the body start realizing something is going on, so for the 4th week keep it at 20 minutes for 4 days per week. Then the 5th week up it to 25 minutes, and so on until you reach a 50 minute workout. Be in touch with your body…if you feel the pace is to quick keep the time pinned down for 2 weeks at a time instead of increasing it.

Just make sure you get a overall body workout during each session: legs, upper body (arms, shoulders, back, abs) as well as a little cardio (treadmill, etc…) When you reached the 50 minute mark, start doing some good homework as to the type of programs (mine might be a good starting point) out there and how to start splitting the days up between the different muscle groups. Then you can start moving to the next level. By then your body and mind would have broken the comfort zone mold and you are well on your way.

 

Diet is and always will be your most important part of any lifestyle change. You cannot get muscle to grow if you do not feed them correctly.

With a diet you can make bigger leaps that the small steps required for training. However, rather take a step by step approach to get to your desired eating plan. A too big change might just through the whole body off balance and give you serious headaches, constipation, low energy, etc…

Introduce weekly a change in the diet to get to your target diet within a maximum of 2 month period.

When you reached that target diet, you can start focusing on the finer detail, like supplements, etc…

This is a lifestyle change so this will be how you will eat from now on…you can still cheat, but ONCE a week.

 

Spirituality – Make this the opportunity to become a better person inside and out. It is well know that I am a follower of Christ. You have to choose your own path. But get your life sorted in the face of God. Get Him part of everything you do. Cut out the wrong things from your life. It is one hell (excuse the pun!) of a feeling when you can look in that mirror and you like the person you see…inside and out.

I do believe this should be a critical part in your transformation process. I’ve been there and changing this aspect makes it soooo much easier!

 

What! You say you don’t want too look too “muscly”! Really?

Look at my after pic and truly tell me you think I look worse than my before picture. Here I am quite direct…I believe a man was created to be a muscled creature…leave the nice flowing shapes to the women. We are supposed to be strong, muscled creatures to lead and protect our families. Feel free to differ from me…

 

I am but one of MANY other guys who made such a transformation. I did it by a choice I made and I followed a certain process to get to the goal. I am still on my way, but never ever do I want to turn back again. Life is too precious to WASTE!

 

Here is a short video I did on some key aspects of growing muscle fast:

 

 

Contact me anytime if you need some encouragement or pointers –

ScoobyMuscle (Gert Louw)

 

gertx2

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