May I add that I have found that people on the forums are confusing themselves big time and for no necessary reason. Rob, are you following the information mentioned in the book or mentioned on shakes?

The book is clear, easy and straight forward. Is this why it is confusing everyone who "knows too much"?

On the other hand, Bill said have a free day, not all you can eat day! I remember him writing "if you want pizza for lunch, if you want a big ice cream for lunch, if you want a burger for dinner" or something to that effect. He didn'tr write "and one hundred snacks in between".

We just need to use common sense and stop inventing and adding and topping up with all the information we know from other programs and diet magazines and exercise routines, etc etc.

There are a million ways to Rome. From low intensity training to HIIT to hundreds of diets that make you lose weight without exercise and all of them work if you stick to them.

If there are people on the forums not happy with Bill Philip's book, why are they on the BFL website in a first place?!!

The "objections" some of us made are to notions and inferrences they made from the book, not from anything Bill actually said at all!

My goals are to lose 20 lbs of fat and gain some muscle.  Fat loss is not my only goal as I am not too far from my ideal weight.  But at the same time, I want to put on some muscle to gain strength and improve functionality.  I'm a scoutmaster and keeping up with those boys is no small trick.

Having said that, what Bill says makes total sense to me, but I'm not a physiologist.  It makes sense that after a workout, your blood is pumping hard and your system is much more alive for an hour or so.  It also makes sense that while you are sweating more and requiring more fluid that you end up starving something.  If there is food sitting in your system, will your body use the food more than your fat to burn?  If there is not food in your system, does it revert and eat off your body fat more?

Its not a matter of blind believe for me, its a matter of what makes sense.  The problem is that what Charlie is saying also makes sense to me.  It just leaves out the question whether burning fat during and after exercise is at a heightened state.  I agree you burn fat all day long and improving your health improves the rate that you burn all day long.  But is there a heightened period of burning fat after exercise.  Bill says yes.  Thoughts?

when I called EAS to ask about the fasted state cardio and waiting for 1 hr after workouts to eat, the response was things have been updated since then. Best idea is within 30 min to 1 hour after workout get some sustenance otherwise cortisol levels rise and the meal eaten may be inefficiently used...

people have been successful both ways. Choose what is best for you and what you are comfortable with.

I am only here to help, but I have to firmly state that this above quote is false. "Wait an hour if you want to lose fat, drink the shake in half an hour if you do not want to lose fat."

So you are saying that if I wait only 30 minutes after my workout that I will not lose bodyfat regardless of a caloric deficit?

For the person who started this thread, here is my answer and this is what I instruct all my clients to do as well.

Do your workout, then drive home and make your first meal. I would say on average that by the time you get home from the gym, cook your meal and it is ready to eat this will be around 20-30 minutes.

Don't stress over details that do not really matter.

Just do your workout then go eat, it's that simple. Fat loss comes from a calorie deficit and energy expenditure. Would we not all agree that after an intense workout your body needs nutrients? That our body uses food to recover? Well if you believe this is true, then wouldn't it make sense to eat sooner than later?

I promise you that if you eat when it is convenient, and for me that is not waiting an hour, that it will not hinder your fat loss results.

Would you say my fat loss was hindered for eating right after a workout?

Apparently timing does matter when it comes to muscle recovery immediately following a workout.  I drink a whey protien shake in within 30 minutes of a resistance workout.  Apparenly the protien is needed for muscle recovery.  Probably doesn't make much difference in terms of weight loss.

Kahoona is onto something, I just didn't wanna stray form the topic. The window is an hour, if you can get it in sooner, then by all means do so.

Im having another "I miss Mike moments"

The Cardio Trap!

by: Michael Harris 9/24/2007

Men and women definitely work out differently, most likely because of the essential anatomic differences and hormonal differences! For example, most men really lift weights more intensely than most women do. In the area of cardio, women seem to be much more dedicated and also more sold on the idea of doing lots of cardio and doing it daily.

What seems like a good idea, though, can really become a trap. What happens when you do lots of cardio is you create increasing physical efficiency in the body. When you exercise for a long time at a pulse rate elevated sufficiently to produce a cardio effect, this makes the heart, lungs and vascular system of the body more efficient. So, at rest your heart rate is slower; your respiration rate is slower, and your resting metabolic rate becomes much slower. The combination of all this is that you burn very little fat or calories at rest compared to most others. And, unless you continually raise the work rate at which you do cardio with your more efficient body, the actual amount of calories and fat burned during the workout will drop slightly as well.

Another thing that lengthy and/or daily cardio does is to discourage your body from gaining muscle and even promote the burning of muscle under some circumstances. So, for a person wishing to produce more body muscle, and to burn fat without burning muscle, lengthy cardio is NOT the way to go. High intensity interval training will NOT get you fit in a way that will allow you to run 10 k races or compete in long events such as soccer games or basketball games, but it IS ideal for burning fat and preserving muscle at the same time.

On the other hand, high intensity interval training done three times a week is ideal, especially if done early in the morning in a fasted stated, having had no food for at least 8 hours. The fasted state encourages the immediate burning of body fat since there is little sugar in the blood or in the muscle and liver stores. It is done intensely enough to create lots of body heat and thereby burn lots of fat, and not muscle. Further, it just doesn’t let you get into that efficiency trap in the same way that the long slower cardio does.

For creating a lean and sculpted body, there is nothing like HIIT cardio.

Another repost from a man I admired and I hope his opinion is respected by others too...

The current state of thinking (this stuff changes all the time!) is that a post workout meal, which you can actually begin sipping even before you finish the workout) that has whey protein and quickly digested sugary carbs will really help the body the most. The whey protein gets right to work repairing and rebuilding muscle that is stressed during the training, and the sugars act not only as a transport for the protein but also they quickly replenish the glycogen supplies in muscles and liver that can be depleted during a strenuous workout.

For my post workout meals I take either Phosphagen Elite, which is creatine, Beta Alanine and sugar, or Muscle Armor, which is HMB, Taurine, glutamine and some other stuff along with sugar. When I use Juven, I mix it with milk or juice, because the milk sugar and juice sugar act like the sugar in Muscle Armor. Juven is the patented, active ingredients that are in Muscle Armor.

If you take the sugar right after or right before a resistance training session, it will be used in the glycogen replenishing process and will not get stored as fat. On the other hand, if you eat a sugary or bready meal late in the day, you certainly will spike the blood sugar which then spikes the insulin, which in turn stores the excess blood sugar in the fat cells!

 BFLMike

,

2/10/2010

E-mail M

Hey Leggs,

I miss Mike to in 'moments like these' too.  It always had a way of settling a point.

I have some frustrations like 15yearshortcut also.  But first I'd like to say that when anyone makes great strides and has success regardless of method, I say woo hoo and congrats big time!  In my former life I lost 76 pounds on a 40 year old Weight Watchers program.  So I know there are other programs that work (although I'd throw in, not as good as BFL!) and I wish people well on them.

However, when I come to this site - a Body for Life site - I'm looking for BFL support.  I'm looking to follow THIS program, not another.  It confuses me, and I admit frustrates me, when there is so much 'other' information here.  Not that we don't all like to hear of all sorts of little helps here and there.  (Bill's book isn't that rigid!)  Does that make sense at all?  Like you like to say, "just sayin'".

"Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out." - Robert Collier

there ya go Legs, pics are above.

bonwitty - bfl is not that rigid and like I said above, if you want to wait an hour, then by all means do so. However for those who are hungry after a workout, eating directly after will not hinder fat loss.

And since we are on the topic of following bfl and having other outside opinions which frustrate you, I can understand this. I have spoke with more than a dozen BFL champions and only 2 people that I have spoken with have followed BFL by the book. Emily Alvers and Tracy Jeffries. This does not even include the other handfuls of champions who I have found meal plans and routines which do not in any way resemble what BFL outlines.

However, they all achieved the goals they set out to do. I was a bit confused and distraught when I found out and almost started to question BFL. Drew Avery was one in particular. Found out he does an Anabolic Diet, where you eat protein and fat and then on one day, end of the week you have a carb loading meal. Scott LaPierre never ate starchy carbs, only green beans for his carbs that and a myoplex. He subbed udo's flaxseed oil in place of starchy carbs. He also did a 5 day split and did cardio 6 days a week too. Nowhere near how BFL outlines it.

The main point that they all hit was, they trained with weights 3 days a week, they did cardiovascular training, and they had a caloric deficit eating nutritious food.

This is a long list of examples, but I wanted to prove my point, which is....

You can get fantastic results adhering to every detail of Body-for-LIFE, but as long as you adhere to the principles of weight training, cardio training, nutritious food (deficit if you need to lose fat, surplus if you need to gain), proper rest, plenty of water, then everyone will achieve their goal.

- Charlie Wigington Jr

2011 Body-for-LIFE Champion

Charlie:  Why not 2010 BFL Champion?

Ok guys.. it doesn't matter.

YOU BURN more for LONGER after strength training... not cardio.

because obviously the challenge dates are done for this year and more importantly, it is going to take more time to get to 3-4% body fat.

false. stop making things up.

Charlie - no matter how you did it or how long it took you - congratulations!!  Thank you for putting a face to the posts. :)

You made huge progress physically - huge!