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

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.

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.