Cheers,
Miche

Is having headaches normal? Is it due to using fat energy or is it simly just fatigue? I dont have headaches when I eat carbs (on the days when i eat chocolate and cookies.. yummy )

I am 5 6 and 130 I wanna go down to 117 by summer.

Thanks for the great posts!

Andy,

The good news is that this type of fat is pretty easy to lose. Women have it tougher when it comes to losing body fat on their legs. What you are going to want to do is work on increasing HGH and "afterburn effect" from your workout. Honestly…go into your workouts in a fasted state (a proven way to get a better HGH response)…do an abbreviated lifting routine, but then hit intervals hard on a treadmill or exercise bike. Make sure you hit it hard.

Ben,

Thanks a bunch…too much of the fitness info out there is bodybuilding related….I am just trying to balance things out.

Alexis,

I wouldn't consume too much soy. It tends to increase estrogen to unnatural levels.

Craig,

I bet the walk in Hollywood is very entertaining! That place is full of a mix of different types of people.

Keith,

I haven't used creatine in a while, but plan to this summer. It works well. I like it for the ability to quickly add some muscle volume. I would only recommend taking it when you are really lean, because then it makes a dramatic impact.

Jason,

You can drink the light beers, but you will have to subtract that from your total daily calories. On your ESE days, don't drink the light beer at night…make that the low calorie day…this is how I have found that it works best. You can get lean while drinking light beers. A great light beer is Corona Light, without lime. I don't even like Corona that much, but this stuff is great. That being said…you will lose body fat at a quicker rate without the light beers. If you can go 4 weeks with minimal drinking you will jump start your fat loss.

Bobby,

The water retention is a temporary thing. Maybe eat carbs and dairy on the days you know you will play basketball…and then just sweat out the sodium. Makes sense to me anyway.

Dave,

Thanks for the compliments…I am glad that you are enjoying the site (thanks for reading). My advice about eating before working out? No calories whatsoever 3-4 hours before training. The less "carb energy" in your system the better…this will insure you use body fat for fuel and well as spike HGH (which helps you burn fat while sparing muscle). I should do a post on swimming…good point.

Clement,

I am not a hardcore paleo guy at all. I like a lot of the general principles, but I am more modest in fat and meat consumption. The paleo approach I like to use is more like Bova from Spartan Health…fruits, veggies, etc…with just modest amounts of meat and protein. I also enjoy potatoes, rice, grandma's cooking, etc. I am with you when it comes to whole food.

Gavin,

Part of the reason I like to stay lean year round is to avoid this effect. It kind of makes me queasy just thinking about it (I'm bad with too much blood talk).

Martin,

Great to hear from you Martin…I have been an admirer of your site for a couple of years now.

Sherah,

I love forums too. I may at some point set one up, but I will have to outsource full-time moderation. Unfortunately a lot of the fitness forums have people who post homo-phobic, sexist, and racist comments…especially the big bodybuilding forums. IF I do launch a forum, I will hire 3-4 moderators to insure that things stay friendly and clean.

Ryan,

I take pride in having good pictures. Thanks for noticing

Chris,

Yeah…it pays to keep your eyes open and not be too quick to trust. Great points!

shailja,

I am not an expert when it comes to vegetarian eating. Really, just do your best to keep the calories low enough to create a deficit…and you should be good.

Deanna,

Yes, it is important to have beer and pizza! Completely agree and plan on having that magic combo tonight.

Mandy,

Thanks for spreading the word. Planks are a great ab exercise for sure. Those 2 minutes go by pretty slowly, don't they? Austin looks like a great city. I love live music and at some point me and my girlfriend need to go the South By Southwest music festival in Austin.

LD,

As long as you are in deficit you would be fine. I like the way you put this…"All that saturated fats you burn when you are in a calorie deficit were things you ate months or years ago. I guess you can't escape from your past."

gus,

I am down-the-middle with food. I like to eat whole foods 2/3 to 3/4 of the time…and mix it with "junkier" foods. The main idea is to create a calorie deficit when you are trying to lose weight. The advantages that paleo offers is steady energy and accessing body fat for energy by keeping insulin levels stable.

bec,

I don't necessarily think he is recommending adding more fat…Richard just likes to get people to look at things in different ways. Glad you like the site.

Tim,

Yes…to a certain extent you can. I would always have some protein per day, but you can certainly have low days and high days and it works well.

Spanaird,

Good point…and I enjoy foods from all of those countries. You are right about portion sizes in the US…they are out of control.

Greg,

I like carbs as well. I can see the benefits of going low carb at times.

Paul,

The diet plan looks good. I did Mentzer Heavy Duty Workout for 1.5 years back in the early 90's. I got strong as heck on a few exercises, but didn't like how sore the workouts made me feel. It is well written book and he makes a strong case for his one-set-to-failure approach.

Donkey Lips,

I don't have a Truth About 6 Pack Abs Review. I have e-mailed Mike Geary before and I can tell he does really care about the results people get with his product. It is a good course for sure. Maybe I will do a review at some point…I have just been gun-shy about this…since so many others have done a Truth About Abs Review on their blogs already. Glad you like "Visual Impact"…only Phase I and the Bonus Phase will be painful….Phase II and Phase III are more about tension and less about fatigue…so the lifting part won't hurt or burn like in Phase I.

Lupe,

Download my free report "Vacation Body Blueprint"…it has exactly what you will need. There is a description of a body weight routine you can do at home that works very well.

Aaron,

Those are great blogs. Mark Sisson is also a great guy. I've chatted with him a few times on e-mail and he really wants to help as many people as possible with his site. Thanks for the compliment. You have a nice blog growing as well.

Maria,

Yeah…do strength training 3 times per week, followed by 15-20 minutes HIIIT. If you can get in the gym 1-2 more times…then add in some more moderate cardio as well for 30-60 minutes. This will kill skinny fat in its tracks (as long as your diet is dialed in as well).

Jason G,

"Live on your fat every once in a while and you will become leaner."…exactly! Great quote.

Methuselah,

Awesome video…I bet this video is on tons of sites now. Quality work like this always gets spread around.

Helder,

Yeah…we have kind of come full circle. Grandma was right all along.

May,

Did you eat a big meal at night…or were you fasting through the night?

-Rusty

Talking about diet, i have started trying my very first fasting yesterday and unfortunately i had a very serious stomachache at night. Is it related to the fasting?? have you ever had similar experience when you started?

Please help as i am really not very sure now if i should go on practicing fasting twice a week. Thanks.

There are certain "paleo" populations eating lot of meat and fat. But there are also the Kitavans and the african Bushman eating mostly plants and lot of carbs. Yet they're healthy. There are the Hunza and the Okinawans, very different diets and still healthy people. There are the Zone followers and the Homo Optimus followers, one diet is 30% fat and the other is 80% and both groups are healthy. Weston Price analized several populations and suggested a diet with cereals, milk, cheese, meat and veggies. Maximilian Bircher-Benner analyzed the Alps populations and they were eating cereals, milk, cheese, bread and fruits. And they were healthy. Albert Matesz whote a book about a paleo diet which is high carb with fruits and potatoes, and he is healthy.

If we focus on the differences we just confused and will never get the point that we're omnivirous animals with a varied habitat and can thrive on whatever is edible and on many different diets.
If we look at what all these diets have in common, then we can understand their secret.

The more i learn the more i see that the old balanced nutrition that docs taught our parents were just about right. Eat a little bit of everything, all is necessary on the right amounts, eat healthy home food ( no junk, no processed foods ) and you'll be just fine no matter what your goals are.

The only thing to pay atention to is the number of cals, and eat a lot of fibers for health prevention reasons.

Moderation is the key, in nutrition, in exercise and in Life, just enjoy

I would like to be toned all over and want to know if I am going about it the right way. For the past few weeks, I have been strength training about 2-3x's a week with some results, and then realized maybe I should do HIIT as well, so this week I started doing a HIIT program (again 2-3x's a week) on the treadmill and stopped doing any strength training. Should I do a combo or one form of training over the other?

I appreciate any advice you have to offer.

I love the photo – I want to be a ghost woman in a bikini some day!! That day is a good 40 – 50 pounds away, but I'm getting there, with 17 pounds lost in three weeks on a paleo-style diet. I am finding that dropping the carbs has leveled my blood sugar issues, and made my mood so much more even. Now I have to figure out the fitness end, so I'm excited to find your blog! What would you suggest for an overweight mom of 45? I don't have money for a gym – I'm a single momma with three young boys at home – but I can do outdoor things and indoor body weight exercises.

Do you have a review on the truth about 6 pack abs product by Mike Geary. He claims chemicals have a lot to do with belly fat. Specifically foods that contain xenoestrogens cause you to store belly fat, and that vegetables like broccoli and cabbage are good for removing those toxins. Do you know if his product is legitimate or is it just another product using bogus science to appear as a high end breakthrough cutting edge product when really it's just that broccoli and cabbage are low calorie, greasy crap is not so by replacing high calorie food with low calorie food, bam, magically six pack abs appear.

Just wanted to know if you had any insight on this.

Thanks
~Mike

BTW you're Visual Impact product it awesome, I'm really enjoying doing it, it's painful and it works. Best of all it's customized to what I want and the results are already showing up.

For many people starting out, dropping from 12% bodyfat to 8% bodyfat is not the issue. It is more like dropping from 25-30% to "God HELP ME!! Anything less than that!!" For those individuals, the most important thing is getting habitual eating under control. Eating too much and too often is the cause of the obesity woes, and worrying about nutrient composition will only distract from the real deal problem……bad habits.

For the beginner, we need to clean the slate and not worry about the (admittedly interesting) science of nutrition and instead get off to a good start with a simple, habit changing approach.

Eat-Stop-Eat is a popular example of this kind of habit changing, often referenced on this site. I have a great deal of respect for Brad Pilon, but I would like to throw my vote in for http://www.nosdiet.com. A very, very simple approach for beginners that will lay the solid foundations for real sucess, if you haven't checked this out yet Rusty, you really should. Once a person gets their eating lifestyle in order with the help of http://www.nosdiet.com, then it is all too easy to take it to the next level with working on improving nutrition.

That's my two cents anyway. Since this isn't a post about weight lifting, I really shouldn't plug anything, but I can't help myself. My personal fav workout routine to go with a little "nos" diet….once a week Heavy Duty training, a la Mike Mentzer. Put the two together, and I guarantee, especially if you are just a beginner getting started, you won't go wrong.

I like the idea of paleo eating, but I can't quite demonize the carbs the way many adherents seem to.

As you can tell from my site, I'm biased against diets because they're conceptually unsustainable (or a quick fix susceptible to quick failure).

But the idea makes for an interesting paradigm.

It is true that some strength will diminish after you stop taking creatine, but it will happen gradually so that if you get stronger during the phase off, your new strength may catch up to your max on creatine. Also, creatine allows you to lift heavier/more reps, so some benefits of training your CNS to lift heavier and myofibrillar hypertrophy due to lifting heavier remain after you stop taking creatine.