Cutting Tips from the Rugged Staff (and some other fat dudes)

Compiled by John Romaniello

Well, it's March. If we actually update on schedule this month (*coughcough McDougal get your stuff in on time coughcough*), it's March 1st, and that means two things. First, you have 30 days to find a birthday present for Joel (he wants season 1 of Queer Eye on DVD, or some Tonka trucks, so his mom told me) so get to shopping. Secondly, the dawn of March 1st means the sun has risen on that oh-so-fun time of year which brings with it something aside from hayfever: dieting.

While for many of us there is still some snow on the ground and it may seem like going shirtless is a world away, you and I know that such is not truly the case. For most people reading this, there are only about 8-12 weeks until the unofficial start of Beach Season. What a coincidence! That's just about the same length of time as a standard dieting phase.

So, put away your fat boy sweaters and any pants with an elastic waist. It's time to ditch those Pop-Tarts, thunderchunk, and get shredded. But, fear not, my tubby friends, for you shall not ride forth on this quest alone. Most of our staff has walked this road quite often (too often, for many of us), and after discovering both blunders and blessings along the way, we've learned a few things.

And thus, because we at Rugged love our readers and want you to send us your first-born children for our unholy rites, we have decided to help out. To that end, I've polled our staff members and complied a list of training and nutrition tips, tricks, and tactics that will help you along the way to gettin' all ripped and purdy-looking.

Since you're not getting any leaner just sitting there reading, let's end the banter and get on with the show.

Tricks. You know...like that ping pong thing your girlfriend does.

Make Breakfast Your Largest Meal

At the risk of repeating something you've heard a quite a bit, this simple strategy is so effective that it bears the need for redundancy. Studies have shown that people who eat large(r) morning meals then to feel much less hungry throughout the day. As a result, less desire (and tendency) to have unscheduled snacks between meals, or just sit there and eat out of boredom.

It would be hard to say exactly how much more you should be eating at breakfast time, but as a general rule of thumb I normally try to make my first meal about 50% more calorically dense than the rest of my meals. Hence, if we diet at roughly 3,250 Calories, and we eat about six times per day, breakfast would be about 750 Calories, whereas each subsequent meal is in the 500 Calorie area.

Eat the Same Breakfast Everyday

Given the fairly limited selection of foods one can normally eat on a typical bodybuilding diet, most of us seek to incorporate as much variety as possible into our diets so that we don't get completely sick of the things we're forced by default to put in our faces. We fully support this idea of dietary variety, at all other times except breakfast.

The rationale for this distinction is really pretty basic. Simply put: it's easier to STAY on track when you START on track.

When you've already gotten your diet off on the right foot within an hour of rolling out of bed, you're off to a great start. People who incorporate this strategy into their dieting arsenal are much less likely to fall of the metaphorical wagon later in the day.

The best way to make this part of your lifestyle is to develop a personalized, nutritious, diet-friendly meal (one that you actually enjoy eating), that'll knock you out of your metabolic coma and fuel you for a good part of the morning.

Never Combine Carbohydrates and Fats (in significant amounts) in a Single Meal

This dietary strategy recommended by exercise and nutritional biochemist John M. Berardi has helped many athletes, myself included, shovel down boatloads of calories while keeping fat gain to a minimum. While primarily used for the aforementioned purpose (i.e. to limit fat gain during a bulking phase), the tactic can be extremely useful when trying to "cut up."

By combining macronutrients in this fashion, you avoid the worst possible dieting scenario: high levels of insulin and triglycerides with the blood simultaneously. Although insulin's primary function is to shuttle glucose into skeletal muscle, it also carries many other nutrients to their storage sites; this includes lipids (fat). Carbohydrate ingestion stimulates a large insulin secretion and fat ingestion raises blood lipid levels; therefore, the combination is a no-no.

By avoiding the above, you will be able to consume more calories while still achieving the same rate of fat loss. This translates into greater satiation and increased lean body mass retention-- two very welcomed benefits while dieting. So, on training days, your three P + C meals should be breakfast, your pre/post workout shake, and a whole food meal 60-90 minutes after your training. On non-training days, your first three meals should be P + C and your final three would then be P + F.

Brush Yo' Teef

This is an interesting trick that one of our staff members picked up in high school from a fellow wrestler--one who seemed to have a much easier time dieting down to make weight than anyone else. Here's the skinny.

If you ever find yourself teetering on the edge of committing a dietary faux pas, grab your toothbrush and start scrubbing your chompers. There are a few reasons this works, and we're gonna lay the knowledge down.

First, nothing kills a Krispy Kreme craving like a mouth full of peroxide. To make this more effective, get yourself a few tubes of the strongest, nastiest-tasting baking soda/peroxide/hydrochloric acid combination toothpaste you can get your hands on. Something else you can do is pick up a tooth-whitening product. In much the same vein, you can toss these on when you're feeling a craving, and (aside from not being able to even speak, let alone eat for 30 minutes), you won't want to eat anything. That stuff tastes terrible.

The second reason the teeth-brushing trick is effective stems from psychology. Like it or not, much like a bunch of salivating Pavlovian dogs, we have all been conditioned to some extent to have specific reactions to specific stimuli. In this case, assuming you have decent dental hygiene, you've grown up with the habit of brushing your teeth after you've eaten. Again: do this AFTER you've eaten--when you have been fed and are no longer hungry.

As a result of the fundamental tenets of operant conditioning, we have formed an association between brushing our teeth and feeling sated. By brushing your teeth in the face of a craving, you can often trick yourself into thinking that you're not even hungry.

Of course, this has the added benefit of making your pearly whites even more pearly white. A pretty sweet bonus, considering that most people diet is to look better, and nothing says, "I'm sooooo pretty" like a shining white smile.

Keep Your Activity Level High

Sadly, most of us have pretty standard American lives, with the exception of training. We wake up, sit around at work, go home, sit around there, too. At some point we do cardio and/or hit the gym. It's good, but it's not great.

If you really want to optimize your dieting to lose the most fat in the shortest amount of time, one simple way is to stop being so damn sedentary! And, please, don't misunderstand. We do not merely mean to increase your daily activity and thereby your energy expenditure in the sense of adding in some extra cardio (although that will help). I'm talking about increase your activity level throughout the entire day.

This is a highly effective strategy that will not only create an energy deficit because you're doing more physical activity, but, done properly will also increase your metabolism slightly and keep that fat usage going a bit stronger all day long.

The easiest way to incorporate this into your dieting is break up your "sitting" periods with bouts of exercise. Programs that require you to do a certain amount of push-ups, etc, every so often fit very well into this plan. An example of this is Chad Waterbury's "100 Reps" program.

Another fun trick is something we usually do when we're vegging out on the weekends and just being a bum in front of my TV, and it's a great way to incorporate a little physical activity. Here's what to do. Get yourself a deck of regular playing cards; most everyone has at least one deck lying around. Set yourself up with a specific interval. Either every 10 minutes, or at every commercial break--whatever works for you. Every time that interval expires, draw a card from the deck. Whatever the number on the card, you perform that number of push-ups, sit-ups, and one more bodyweight exercise of your choice (burpees, up-downs, 1-legged squats, and pull-ups are all good choices). Face cards are worth ten, as in Black Jack, but, unfortunately the Ace is always eleven.

This is a cool way to help combat your blatant fat-assery without making you miss too many episodes of Newlyweds: Nick and Jessica. Shut up, I know you watch it, too.

Learn How to Use "Cheating" to Your Advantage

Unless you're like super hardcore, you're bound to give into a craving(s) and binge your ass off at some point during your quest to rippedness. Don't sweat it though, because if planned appropriately, these bad boys can make your dieting efforts a hell of a lot less psychologically taxing and can even accelerate your rate of fat loss.

What? Binge and lose more fat than Mr. I'm-Better-At-Dieting-Than-You who never ever does so much as spread a little extra BBQ sauce on his boneless, skinless chicken breasts?

Yes, that's what we said. Binging can indeed increase adipose tissue breakdown by shifting your body out of the metabolic equivalent to business at K-Mart and back into Gear a la Fat-Burning. For more information on how to effectively incorporate "cheating" into your dietary schedule, see our article Practical Cheating.

Something For the Ladies

Speaking of cheating on your diet, we often recommend overfeeding or cheating to many of our clients, many of whom are female. One thing we have begun to pick up on is that women are especially susceptible to cravings when they are at the apex of their menstrual cycle. This makes sense: hell, anyone bleeding from their vagina for five days is entitled to a little chocolate.

Which brings us to our point: a few years ago we came across an interesting bit of information in the form of a study that stated that cravings women get during their cycle are really not healthy to deny. We're not endocrinologists (exception, Norton's smart ass), but apparently these cravings are greatly influenced by the specific hormonal response the craved foods trigger. Denying yourself these cravings can possibly lead to a less than desirable hormonal environment, and makes you very cranky--which creates a less than desirable environment for those of us who have to be around you. (We can't wait for the hate mail. We're joking, ladies.)

To avoid both, if you're someone who plans cheats and/or overfeeds, make the effort to schedule one when you know your cravings are going to be the worst. We cannot say exactly when during your cycle that will be--you know your body better than we do--but assuming you keep careful tract of your menstruation, you should be able to get a general idea.

Make it easier on yourself, and have your cheat when you need it the most.

Sip on BCAAs between meals

On a low carb diet, cravings can really blow a hole in the side of your ship. BCAA's not only help to kill cravings through the slight proinsulinemic effect, but if you use one like ICE that actually tastes good, it can negate the desire to eat an entire tray of brownies washed down with 64 oz. of Kool Aid.

When cutting, muscle proteolysis is always of grand concern and needs to be avoided at all costs. Just because your personal trainer friend tells you to "expect some LBM loss" on a diet doesn't mean we're gonna let it slide. Adequate circulating levels of BCAA's and glutamine in the bloodstream signal your body to lay off the muscle tissue as a fuel source causing increased preservation of LBM.

BCAAs can also accelerate the loss of abdominal fat, so fire it up, fatty.

Make a List. Check it Twice.

Putting anything down in black and white makes it more powerful. Writing something down and keeping it creates something that an idea by itself is lacking: tangibility.

Often times, people go into a diet with only basic ideas of the "dos" and "don'ts." Without definite, tangible edicts, though, it is easy to crumble under the pressure of a home cooked meal that may not be analogous to your goals. To create something tangible, we have found it is of great benefit to make lists.

Make a list of foods you CAN eat, and post it on the fridge. Make another list of foods you CAN'T have, and post it right next to the first. As long as you follow the lists and don't step outside the guidelines you've put down on those pieces of paper, you're in-bounds. Again, the very act of even making these lists makes you more likely to stay in-bounds, even if you don't consciously use them.

Even if you go slightly over your planned calories, as long as you've been eating exclusively off the "Yes" list, you're okay, because it was "clean" food.

On the opposite side of that coin, if you find at the end of the day that you're a few hundred calories short and need/want to eat something before bed, having a "no-no" list in front of your face will make you much less susceptible to succumbing to a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch (which, for the record, is one of the greatest foods in the history of the world.)

Don't Go Food Shopping Hungry

This is something you heard from your mommy, and we heard from our mommies, and which all of our mommies stole straight outta the "Health & Beauty" section of Cosmo. Okay, probably not the best source of dietary wisdom, we admit, but it IS a very valid point.

For some people who have trouble dieting, the most effective way of resisting temptation is to remove it: out of sight, out of mind, as they say. Assuming your willpower cracks, you can't binge on junk food if there's no junk food to be found. Getting back to the point, go shopping when you're not hungry and you probably won't fill your cart up with crap.

In fact, in keeping with the previous tip, it is a good idea to make a very detailed shopping list of exactly what you need (you shouldn't be hungry when you make this list, either). When you hit the Piggly Wiggly, or whatever market you go to, get in, follow your list, get out. If Entamins cookies ain't on yo' list, don't buy 'em.

Eat More Red Meat

We make this recommendation for several reasons:

1) Yummy red meat makes us happy.

2) Yummy red meat fills us up.

3) Yummy red meat is high in arachidonic acid, an essential fatty acid that serves as a crucial building block for dienolic prostaglandins, a class of hormones with extensive physiological effects. Of particular importance to the Rugged audience are the effects the prostaglandins (most notably PGE2 and PGF2a) have on protein turnover, synthesis, and getting large-and-in-charge.

Without plenty of arachidonic acid, you don't get plenty of prostaglandins. Without plenty of prostaglandins, you don't build (or maintain, in the case of dieting) muscle mass.

Prostaglandin concentrations increase dramatically after resistance training; researchers believe that the eccentric component is the most important stimulus, as the stretch appears to free arachidonic acid from muscle cells for synthesis of prostaglandins. These elevations persist - PGE2 initially, and PGF2a over two or more days - after the exercise session and are correlated with protein synthesis increases.

Obviously, the more you exercise, the more arachidonic acid your body uses to synthesize prostaglandins in recovery. Therefore, one can surmise that more red meat would be an excellent idea for any hard training athlete, especially one who is upping training volume to increase energy expenditure.

Cardio = Intense, or You're Just a Wussy Nancy-boy

High-intensity intervals--with work portions being 85% VO2max to supramaximal--are finally being touted as the preferential way to go about performing energy system development for getting ripped. And an added bonus is getting into badass shape!

While the predominant substrate utilized during high-intensity interval sessions is muscle glycogen, it's important to note a few things with regard to fat loss:

1) The overriding factor in fat loss is energy deficit, and high-intensity exercise results in greater caloric expenditure relative to low- or moderate-intensity aerobics for any given duration

2) High-intensity intervals result in an excess post-exercise oxygen consumption (EPOC) that is fueled predominantly by fat oxidation (regardless of nutrient consumption post-exercise).

3) High-intensity exercise puts a great stress on the fast-twitch muscle fibers, which results in more efficient metabolic machinery in those fibers allowing you to rely more heavily on fatty acids for fuel and a greater lactic acid tolerance.

4) High-intensity exercise increases efficiency, economy, speed, and aerobic power (read: gets you into badass shape). For more information on the benefits of high-intensity interval training, how to incorporate it into your own arsenal, and on energy system development in general, check out next month's issue with articles by J-Money and T-Rock.

Make Everything Exercise

If done properly, nearly everything you do can be turned into some a more demanding physical activity. Simple things like taking the stairs in lieu of the elevator, walking instead of driving, or just parking further away can make huge differences.

Another good example comes to us from a friend of one of our staff members who asked not to be named. According to this person, you can turn nearly anything into something analogous to High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT). Here is a quote from him:

"Dude, I was totally working it. I was like, 'thrust, thrust, thrust, thrustthrustthrustthrustthrustthrustthrust, thrust, thrust, thrust. Things were going great, but then she kinda caught on around my fifth or sixth interval. She was reaaaaally mad. I don't think she's gonna call."

That's a true story, by the way. Dumbass.

We don't necessarily suggest that you follow that example, specifically, but you get the idea.

Go Get Unfat, Fatty.

Well, that about wraps it up for now. Some of these tips are grounded in science, others in pure common sense, but all of them will help you achieve your goals. If you read anything here that you are not already doing or have not already done, make the effort to at least briefly incorporate these tricks into your dieting lifestyle, and you should see some nice changes. Now, get to work.