Those of you that know me, know that I am a man of science and WILL NOT attach my name and reputation to just anything. They have gone through the extra effort of becoming GMP certified. GMP means Good Manufacturing Practices. Nutritional supplements are not FDA regulated. In the absence of that, a GMP certification with third party auditors ensures inspections of dietary supplement manufacturing facilities to determine whether specified performance standards on a number of measures—including quality control, cleanliness, receiving and testing of raw materials—are being met.

All of the ingredients are something I feel comfortable ingesting, myself. In fact, they don’t use artificial sweetners (aspartame) which make other supplements like workout shakes taste crappy. They use Stevia which is a non-caloric sweetner which also has a nutritional content and contains fiber. And there aren’t any strange herbs or anything. It’s very good stuff. Just good old fashioned nutrients.
Like I said, I won’t attach my name to just anything and after nearly 3 years of research, this is it!

S.P.A.R.T.A.’s Pro Grade Nutritional Supplement Line

Today is the first day of the launch. We’ve started with the basics like men’s and women’s line of multivitamins, whey protein powder, and pre and post workout drink.
BE SURE TO STAY TUNED because in the following days, I’ll be releasing a new product each day.

Tuesday - Meal Replacement with 35 grams protein and 8 grams of fiber.

Wednesday - Nutritional bars “Cravers” only 180 cals. No trans fats and comes in peanut butter, almond butter, and spirulina. Healthy dark chocolate to satisfy that chocolate craving.

Thursday – Essential Fatty Acids. Reduce your risk of early death from cardiovascular disease by 50%. It’s krill oil which is just as effective and won’t give you “fish burps”. I’m a huge supporter of essential fatty acids for everything from brain health to it’s anti-inflammatory properties.

Friday – The week will be culminating in the release of the weight loss product, METABOLISM. This link will come with one of the best articles on metabolic effects of certain nutrients I’ve ever read. This is a great natural product at the right dosage so as not to cause the side effects of other weight loss products.

This is big. If you’d like a reasonably priced supplement line that you can feel safe taking and expect good results, I’ve found it for you through my own research. I’m very skeptical and I haven’t seen anything that would make me not want to be a part of this or not want to attach my name and reputation to it.

So here’s that link again. Come in and check out what we’ve got available. Thank you.

S.P.A.R.T.A.’s Prograde Nutritional Supplement Product Line

Now, a much better strategy is to control how many calories go in in the first place. It doesn’t take a lot either. Even just a modest reduction can result in significant fat loss over time. It’s got to be lower than what you need to maintain your weight though, not just lower than what you normally eat. If you need 2000 calories, eating around 1500 will cause you to lose about one pound per week. Let’s say that you use S.P.A.R.T.A. Training and put on a few pounds of lean tissue and can now your metabolism is 500 calories higher a day. You’re consuming 1500, but now your body needs 2500. Where does the extra 1000 calories it needs come from? Your gut, hips, thighs, butt, etc. This is a good example of how you can lose fat on a comprehensive program even without large amounts of “cardio”. In fact, endurance exercise has been shown to reduce lean tissue lowering a person’s metabolism. That’s the opposite of what we want to do. You will also need to know what your unique metabolism is. This is where a metabolic test can come in handy. And for tracking your calories going forward, use our free tool here. I hope you enjoyed the video.

Be sure to sign up here.

Wanted to share this video with you today to show you 2 things.

1. The awesome snow storm we got in VA that’s at 2 feet and counting. Supposed to go until tomorrow morning.

And..

2. Our 28 Day Rapid Fat Loss Program coming up starting Jan. 2nd. Listen for the details below.

Go to 28 Day Rapid Fat Loss Program to sign up.

If you’re not local on the East coast in VA and can’t get in on this killer program, you can get the same routiness and advice through our online training solution. Perfect for people at distance and a fraction of the cost too. Only $19. Go here to sign up.

Many of you have probably heard me mention the word metabolism and have asked room fulls of you before if you know what your’s is. I’ve asked a room full of 40 people before if anyone in the room knows what their metabolism is and only 1 or 2 hands go up. However, almost 100% of the people in that room would like to lose more than a few pounds of body fat. How could these people ever hope to control their weight, let alone lose a significant amount, unless they know this number? The answer is that they can’t.

It pains me to see people put all of their efforts and try really hard at things that have little to no effect on fat loss. Or worse, they try to avoid what they think are fattening foods (also happens to be the ones they like), but still consume too many calories and nothing happens or they get fatter. That’s because the type of food has literally nothing to do with short term fat loss. The truth is that you MUST know your metabolism if you want to have any hope of ever controlling your weight and looking good.

What if I told you that you could take a 10 min. test and have a 10 min. conversation and you would know just about everything you need to know to control your weight and body fat level for the rest of your life? Even without exercise! When will you hear a personal trainer say that? It’s not the best and your body will deteriorate and not function at some point, but it is possible.

I’ll teach you the single most powerful and important number and technique for you to lose as much fat as you want or maintain once you are there. I am one of a few professionals who can accurately test your metabolism and tell you this information. Again, unless you know what this single number is, everything is a round about effort or a guess at best. Once you know this number, it will last a lifetime. Your metabolism won’t change significantly for at least a decade. It could, however, change positively in a matter of a few workouts if you decided to add proper exercise to this plan. Sure you could figure this out with a formula, but why haven’t you done that already? And if you have any doubts about the accuracy or your specific metabolism, this test will tell us for sure. It’s no mystery, let’s figure out that number once and for all.

To prove this is not junk and is accurate and reliable information (I wouldn’t sell you something that wasn’t), here is the link to the validation studies.

The test is $49 and once you have the number, you are off and running (so to speak). What’s it going to be? No other piece of information could have such power over your own general well being and looks.

However, each test requires a single personal disposable mouthpiece and I only have 12 of them left. I don’t know if I’ll continue this service once they are gone because we have a registered dietician on staff. You can sign up NOW for a metabolic test.

After you’ve done that make sure you engage in regular high intensity circuit resistance training to BOOST your resting metabolism. Make no mistake about it, building lean tissue is the ONLY way to raise your resting metabolism (your biggest calorie burner).

I’ll be following this up with a video soon and a more descriptive book with one of my favorite routines in it. Stay tuned!

I want to talk about an idea that I had that might be a successful strategy for some of you. Many people wake up each day trying to lose fat and put in a lot of effort to restrict, restrict, restrict calorie intake. The only trouble with this is it’s kind of a negative emotion evoking way to think.

So as I’ve talked with many of you lots of times, your body is not operating on exactly a 24 hour basis so even if you are averaging a deficit over 3-5 days, you’ll still lose. I figure that if you would like to lose 10 lbs, that equals a solid block of 35,000 calories. Start your fat loss with that chunk in mind and each day you are below your limit, subtract that out of the original chunk. If you are in a surplus, add that back into the original. There is a caveat here. You cannot go too low either. If you don’t eat enough and go below your lower limit, ADD that amount back in. Going too low and delving into shutdown mode is just as bad, if not worse, than consistently eating too much.

The idea here is to gradually whittle down that origninal chunk. And because there will be some good days and some ones where you over do it, just keep whittling down. On average, as you whittle down, you’ll lose. The act of whittling down should feel like a success in your mind (like winning a game) versus constantly thinking negatively that you have to restrict what your are consuming, or avoiding foods you like, etc.

Of course, this is going to require that you know what your metabolism is to begin with. Be sure to pay attention over the next couple days as I’ll be putting up another post especially about accurately determining what your specific metabolism is.

Enjoy your holiday with you family and don’t stress about how much you are consuming. If you’ve been doing well up until now, you should have a nice deficit built up and a bigger cushion going into the big day. We’ll get right back on track after the holiday is over.

When you exercise, your body pulls glycogen from the muscles. Glycogen is your body’s storage form of glucose or sugar, which is the primary fuel for exercise depending on the type and the intensity level. If you workout at a higher intensity or are involved in anaerobic exercise (short, powerful bursts of energy such as strength training or certain sports), then your body primarily uses glycogen for energy. If you are involved in low or moderate intensity exercise, your body will use fat along with glycogen for energy. Once you are done exercising, you must replete the glycogen. If you don’t, you won’t have enough energy to do your next workout or the one after that. Or maybe you will but your performance will be less than ideal and you won’t last as long as you might usually do. So bottom line, you must replete that glycogen!

You have a window of opportunity to replete glycogen and ideally it’s within 30 minutes. Within that 30 minutes when you finish exercising, you should have a snack that is comprised of carbohydrate and protein. Ideally you don’t want carbohydrate that is full of fiber because fiber slows digestion. You actually want the carbs to be digested rather quickly so they get to your muscles. Protein is important to include as it helps your body digest the carbs and it allows your muscles to absorb the glucose for storage.

A client of mine came to me with 2 goals. She told me that she wanted to win races (she’s a triathlete) and she wanted to lose some weight. One catch though….she wanted to keep her Starbucks skim caramel macchiato in her diet. When it comes to weight loss, that might be something that would need to be cut out more frequently than she would have liked. However because she already exercises regularly, I encouraged her that the ideal time to include the Starbucks coffee would be right after her workouts. It includes carbohydrate from the syrup and protein from the milk. Of course there are other snacks that are of better quality nutrition however keeping this coffee in her diet is extremely important to her. So we made it work to her benefit. If you like to eat foods that contain a lot of simple sugar, the best time to do that would be after a workout. You still need to control the portion size however make consumption of these foods work to your advantage. For example, if you like to eat chocolate, have 1 or 2 small pieces along with some milk as your post workout snack.

A few other suggestions for snacks include: a glass of chocolate milk, cottage cheese and fruit, a cup of yogurt, a toasted bagel with slices of cheese on top, a sandwich with turkey and cheese, or a piece of fruit and a glass of milk. Of course these are just a few suggestions. Think about what you like to eat and be sure to get a combination of carbohydrate and protein after your workouts to reward your muscles for their hard work. You’ll notice the difference in your strength and muscle tone for eating a proper snack after exercising.

Chris here again. Thanks Stephanie for contributing this piece! I’m especially in favor of the glass of chocolate milk after a workout. Next to crab legs, that’s my second favorite thing on the planet as far as food goes. Stephanie is the dietician I have chosen to work with (after years of looking) for S.P.A.R.T.A.’s nutrition program. Her website is SMull Nutrition. Current S.P.A.R.T.A. clients ask your trainer about how to set up your initial meeting with Stephanie to get on a guaranteed results nutrition regimen!

This is an absolute must read for anyone taking or that has taken weight loss products that they assume to be natural or herbal. These products are quite pervasive in the market lately and chances are many people are consuming them daily thinking that they may be harmless because of those natural or herbal labels. The FDA’s list has grown to 72 of these products that contain undeclared and ACTIVE pharmaceutical drugs.

Read FDA Uncovers Additional Tainted Weight Loss Products

S.P.A.R.T.A.’s position is that with proper education and calorie control, reasonable and safe fat loss will occur. There are very few supplements we might recommend outside of multi-vitamin and fish oil or calcium. Many of these products labeled thermogenic are stimulants at best. If you have questions about this subject or something similar, we can refer you to a registered dietician who can provide a more detailed answer.

First and foremost, fat loss requires a calorie deficit. What does this mean? It means that we have to figure out how many calories your body needs to maintain your weight. You can use a formula based on your height, weight, age, and sex to determine this number, but a better way is to perform an accurate metabolic test using the Body Gem. Ask a S.P.A.R.T.A. trainer about how to set one up. From that number, we can determine exactly how many calories you need to LOSE fat. In the short run, this is the one and only thing that matters in terms of fat loss. These calories can come from anywhere as long as they are within your limit. It could be pure chocolate, but if an average size woman ate about 1400 calories of it, she would most definitely lose fat. Obviously, not the best nutritional thing to do, but calories are how your metabolism is measured and it doesn’t matter where they come from. If you put your body in a deficit, your body has to use its stores (fat) to make up the difference and keep you alive assuming you are not too low and in shut down mode.

Step 2.

Get some of each of the food stuffs at each meal and snack. Now we get into a little more detail and a little more long term effects. There is a lot of talk lately about Carbs causing an insulin spike and triggering fat storage, etc. That’s all true, but it’s a half truth. As long as there are not too many calories and you have a nice mix of some good carbohydrates like whole grains (containing fiber too), some lean proteins, and some good fats, you will slow digestion and hold off an insulin surge. You will also feel more full for a longer time. A mix of anywhere from 40-30-30 to 60-20-20 is acceptable. But, don’t get hung up on percentages. The simpler, the better. If you are going to track anything closely, make it where it will count most, the calories. The good carbohydrates should be the slight majority and about equal amounts of protein and fat. Not equal in volume, but calories. Fat has more than twice as many calories per gram than protein or carbohydrate. Just a dash of an oil can be equal to a few ounces of lean meat. Or if you have an oily fish like Salmon, you may kill two birds with one stone and get your protein and good fats in one shot. Couple that with some good carbohydrate and/or some veggie, and you have a meal. It’s the same thing with snacks, a small handful of something like peanuts has good vegetable protein, nut oils, carbohydrates, and fiber to boot. It’s a perfect snack in its own package.

Step 3.

Lastly, eat a variety. You don’t want to eat exactly the same thing every day. You will have your preferences that you like, but you should not consume the same regimented meals every single day. If you do that, you leave yourself open for nutritional deficiencies. If you follow my 3 steps here, you should be reasonably nutritionally sound and supplementation really isn’t much of an issue. I might suggest a multi-vitamin for insurance purposes to fill any gaps, but that’s about it besides taking fish oil for its numerous benefits on every cell in the body.

I’ve had my most success with this simple 3 step approach with many of my one on one clients. Some have lost 60-70lbs using this simple strategy. Once you know these principles, you should feel empowered that you now have the knowledge to control your body weight throughout your life. In the long term, we might need to go into a little more detail about metabolism if you lose a significant amount of fat like that. That is something any S.P.A.R.T.A. trainer would be happy to discuss with you. Feel free to use the “ask a trainer” feature on our website. Of course, in addition, it is absolutely critical that you do some proper resistance training to at least maintain your lean body tissues to preserve your metabolism. If you lose those, your metabolism will be lower than if you had done nothing at all. More information about nutrition and testing your metabolism.

Breakfast: Shake
Ensure or Boost- 250 cals.

Snack: 1 med. Fruit – ~100 cals.

Choice for Lunch: Sandwich- 320 cals.
- 2 slices low cal. Wonder Wheat Light bread- 80 cals.
- 2 oz. sliced turkey- 60 cals.
- 1 slice sharp cheddar cheese – 80
- 1 Tbsp. mayo- 100cals.
- Optional: Mustard

OR Chef Salad – 320 cals.
- From any restaurant or make at home.
- 4 oz. Chicken strips-160 cals.
- 2 Tbsp. of dressing of your choice at the most.-150 cals.

Snack: 1 Nature Valley Sweet N’ Salty Nut-170 cals. (or similar)

Choice for Dinner:

Healthy Choice Classic Meat Loaf-300 cals.
1 slice Wonder wheat Light with 1 tbsp Smart Balance Light-85 cals.

Healthy Choice Chicken Parmigiana -340 cals.
2 Hershey’s kisses-50 cals.

Healthy Choice Creamy Garlic Shrimp-240 cals.
1 slice Wonder wheat light with 1 tbsp Smart Balance-85 cals.
3 Hershey’s kisses-75 cals.

Healthy Choice Country Breaded Chicken-370 cals.

Healthy Choice Beef Tips Portobello-260 cals.
1 slice Wonder wheat light with 1 tbsp Smart Balance-85 cals.
2 Hershey’s kisses-50 cals.

Healthy Choice Sweet Bourbon Steak Tips-290 cals
1 slice Wonder wheat light with 1 tbsp Smart Balance-85 cals.

Healthy Choice Chicken Fettuccini Alfredo-290 cals.
1 slice Wonder wheat light with 1 tbsp Smart Balance-85 cals.

Guidelines:
* Eat frequently.
* Stay on meal plan for 14 days.
* Drink lots of water or have non-caloric beverages with meals.
* Sleep, rest, and recover adequately.
* Perform S.P.A.R.T.A. Training™ 2-3 non consecutive days of the week (M,W,F).
* Give yourself one day off (Sunday?).
* Go to the store on Sunday evening and get everything you need for 2 weeks.

What to expect:
Dramatic fat loss! Some water loss. A little hunger is OK. Your body will adjust to the significantly less amount of calories it is receiving after 2 or 3 days. However, you may feel full by eating so frequently and so much volume. Plus, water will be helpful in promoting that feeling of fullness. This is the simplest, shortest, and most effective short term diet I have ever seen. It is meant to be a short term jump start, but the eating principles can be carried out for the long term. It is relatively low calorie so it might be advised after the first 2 weeks to gradually adjust calories back up some so as not to lose any lean mass and go for a more gradual fat loss.

Shopping list:
* (2) cases of Boost or Ensure 250 calorie shakes.
* (12) medium assorted fruits.
* (1) Loaf of Wonder Wheat Light Bread.
* (2) Packages of roasted turkey sliced meat.
* (2) Packages chicken breast strips.
* (2) Packages of sliced sharp cheddar cheese.
* (1) Small bottle of Real Mayo.
* (1) Tub Smart Balance Light Buttery spread.
* Optional choice of any mustard.
* (3) Heads of lettuce.
* (1) Box Nature Valley Sweet N’ Salty Nut bars.
* Bag of Hershey’s kisses.
* (12) Healthy Choice full meals listed above.