Reviews

How I Went From A Fat "Couch Potato" Who Tried Every Diet Gimmick on Late Night Infomercials to Losing 63 Pounds and Now Dominating the Courts on Friday Night's "Shirts vs. Skins" Pick-up Basketball Games

Today, I am healthy, lean and athletic, but just 12 months ago my life was a wreck and I had almost given up on myself. Just getting ready for work in the morning was beginning to wear on me because I had to stare at myself in the mirror, ashamed of what I had become. I looked awful no matter how well I dressed and I felt awful all the time. I couldn’t even hide that I was an unhappy fat guy anymore.

I’ve always been a success, at least in business, but my body didn’t reflect who I really was. My physical condition was bringing my whole life down. I desperately tried to convince myself that I was more than what I looked like – that I was strong, happy, and free. But I wasn’t those things, I was holding on to false hope and an even falser sense of identity. Somewhere, deep inside of me, there was a little voice that kept telling me “I’m more than this.”

There were many times that I got so fed up with myself, that I would try anything that promised to help me lose the weight I’d gained over the years. I was the customer who used to keep the infomercial companies in business.

I tried everything. Supplements, training gadgets and gizmo’s, diets, you name it. I even had a gym membership at one of the nicest health clubs in town at $119 a month. The cold hard truth is that everything I tried only left me feeling worse off than when I started because nothing worked.

The supplements didn’t work like the ads said. The fancy exercise equipment didn’t work and the training programs left me weak and exhausted, and they never helped me get any kind of a build (especially not in “just 5 minutes a day!”) The diets did nothing but dictate what I couldn’t eat, and I was starving all the time. I’ll tell you – that really messes with your head, not to mention your energy levels.

I actually enjoyed the gym membership, but every time I went in, I wasn’t sure what to do or expect. I didn’t really have a plan. I just went in to work up a sweat, and that’s all I ever got - sweaty. I blew off some steam, spent some energy, and then went home. At times, I felt a little stronger, and I would even flex in front of the mirror at home, but I knew that I hadn’t changed much at all. I was still FAT. It’s funny looking back – I actually used to reward myself with ice cream after going to the gym, as if I’d earned the right to pig out.

I stopped going to the gym after awhile, fed up with my lack of results, even though I was still locked into paying for it. My weight slowly started to creep up even more. Just when I was about to throw in the towel, one of my buddies recommend that I take a look at this new fat loss program they were on. I ignored the advice, knowing I had been fooled before, but then I began to notice he was losing weight. Every time I saw him again, he looked leaner. Not only was he losing weight, apparently he was actually loving the process too. He couldn’t stop talking about it to everyone, so finally, after a few months I decided to see what all the fuss was about.

I looked up the program, Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle on the internet and bought it late one night. It was a download and I was glad I could read it right away because I wanted to find out quickly if this was another scam or if it could really help me. I felt like this was my last chance to lose the weight, and the last time I would ever let myself be fooled again.

While reading it, I found out that the author, Tom Venuto, was a lifetime natural bodybuilder who has gotten his bodyfat percentage down to less than 4% (After reading the book, I can tell you that anything under 10% bodyfat is like super-lean!). It made sense that a bodybuilder would be one of the best people to go to for advice about fat loss problems. Venuto has had to diet down for over 25 competitions, as it turns out.

I read chapter one that night, which is the goals and motivation chapter. It was at that moment that everything in my life came into perspective – all the failed attempts, all the troubles. I realized that my mind was working against me – my own negative thoughts were preventing me from achieving my goals. Actually, I didn’t even have goals until I was done reading the first chapter. I needed to rewire my thoughts before I could even think about changing my actions.

I went to bed that night with a completely different perspective, and I already had a plan for the next day. I finished the rest of the book that week, and my life hasn’t been the same since. To say that my body has changed would be an understatement, because my entire LIFE has changed. I’m enjoying things today I thought I would never experience again. I go hiking and boating in the summertime. I take off my shirt on the basketball court without a second thought! I look and feel better than I ever have.

There was a little bit of a learning curve and some number-crunching in the beginning, but as I learned more about nutrition and tried new recipes, it got easier as I went along. The best part of this program is that it takes you by the hand, and leads you one step at a time – baby steps. I didn’t do anything crazy or drastic. Just small adjustments, and those old habits that were changing began to add up.

This program really isn’t a diet, it’s a new way of living, and I was eating way more than I had on any diet I had been on before. I think the discipline you need to follow this program in the beginning was the real wake up call for me. It made me realize I was blaming my condition on everything but myself and I had actually been lazy in the past, always looking for a quick fix.

There are a lot of garbage diet programs out there. I should know because I’ve tried them all. Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle really worked for me, and I would recommend it for anyone who has been struggling to lose weight for a long time without any success. I lost 63 pounds, but some people have lost more than 100 pounds and one guy lost 218 pounds. Take a look at click hereand you can read some more stories from other people. Check out the testimonials page. Good luck.

Foods That Burn Fat: The Top 10 Lists

Foods That Burn Fat: The Top 10 Lists

By Tom Venuto, NSCA-CPT, CSCS
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Anytime the topic of discussion in my blogs, articles or newsletters has turned to my own personal grocery shopping list, there has always been a spike in interest. It seems that many people are not only curious about what foods a natural bodybuilder eats to maintain single digit body fat, but they also want to be taken by the hand and told exactly what foods to eat themselves while on fat-burning or muscle building programs. That’s why I decided to put together four separate “top 10” lists of healthy foods that burn fat and build muscle.

Exact quantities and menus are not listed, just the individual foods, and of course my food intake does vary. I aim to get as many different varieties of fruits and vegetables as possible over the course of every week and there are a lot of substitutions made, so you are not seeing the full list of everything I eat, only what foods I eat most of the time.

I also want to point out that while I don’t believe that extreme low carbs are necessary or most effective when you look at the long term, research has shown that there are some definite advantages to a low to moderate carb and higher protein diet for fat loss purposes. These include reduced appetite, higher thermic effect of food and “automatic” calorie control.

Personally, I reduce my carb intake moderately and temporarily prior to bodybuilding competitions. Specifically, it’s the foods that are on the starchy carbs and grains list that go down during the brief pre-competition period when I’m working on that really “ripped” look. I keep the green and fibrous veggie intake very high however, along with large amounts of lean protein, small amounts of fruit, and adequate amounts of essential fats.

This list reflects my personal preferences, so this is not a prescription to all readers to eat as I do. It’s very important for compliance to choose foods you enjoy and to have the option for a wide variety of choices. In the past several years, nutrition and obesity research - in studying ALL types of diets - has continued to conclude that almost any hypocaloric diet that is not completely “moronic” can work, at least in the short term.

It’s not so much about the high carb - low carb argument or any other debate as much as it is about calorie control and compliance. The trouble is, restricted diets and staying in a calorie deficit is difficult, so most people can’t stick with any program and they fall off the wagon, whichever wagon that may be.

I believe that a lot of our attention needs to shift away from pointless debates (for example, low carb vs. high carb is getting really old… so like… get over it everyone, its a calorie deficit that makes you lose weight, not the amount of carbs).

Instead, our focus should shift towards these questions:

* How can we build an eating program that we can enjoy while still getting us leaner and healthier?

* How can we build an eating program that helps us control calories?

* How can we build an eating program that improves compliance?

Here’s one good answer: Eat a wide variety of high nutrient density, low calorie density foods that you enjoy which still fit within healthy, fat-burning, muscle-building guidelines!

Here are the lists of foods I choose to achieve these three outcomes. This eating plan is not difficult to stick with at all, by the way. I enjoy eating like this and it feels almost weird not to eat like this after doing it for so long.

Remember, habits work in both directions, and as motivational speaker Jim Rohn has said, “Bad habits are easy to form and hard to live with and good habits are hard to form but easy to live with.”

These are listed in the order I frequently consume them. So for example, if oatmeal is on the top of the list, it means that is the food I am most likely to eat every single day.

My 10 top natural starchy carb and whole grains

1. Oatmeal (old fashioned)
2. Yams
3. Brown rice (a favorite is basmati, a long grain aromatic rice)
4. Sweet potatoes (almost same as yams)
5. Multi grain hot cereal (mix or barley, oats, rye. titricale and a few others)
6. White potatoes
7. 100% whole wheat bread
8. 100% whole wheat pasta
9. Beans (great for healthy chili recipes)
10. Cream of rice hot cereal

My Top 10 top vegetables

1. Broccoli
2. Asparagus
3. Spinach
4. Salad greens
5. Tomatoes
6. Peppers (green, red or yellow)
7. Onions
8. Mushrooms
9. Cucumbers
10. Zucchini

My top 10 lean proteins

1. Egg whites (whole eggs in limited quantities)
2. Whey or Casein protein (protein powder supplements)
3. Chicken Breast
4. Salmon (wild Alaskan)
5. Turkey Breast
6. Top round steak (grass fed beef)
7. Flank Steak (grass fed beef)
8. Lean Ground Turkey
9. Bison/Buffalo
10. Trout

My top 10 fruits

1. Grapefruit
2. Apples
3. Blueberries
4. Canteloupe
5. Oranges
6. Bananas
7. Peaches
8. Grapes
9. Strawberries
10. Pineapple

Note: I DO include healthy fats as well, such as walnuts, almonds, extra virgin olive oil, flaxseeds, flaxseed oil (supplement - not to cook with), avocado and a few others.

Also, I do eat dairy products and have nothing against them, nor am I lactose intolerant. I simply don’t eat as much dairy as the rest of the stuff on my lists. When I eat dairy, its usually skim milk, low or non fat cottage cheese, low or non fat yogurt and low or non fat cheese (great for omelettes).

Last but not least, I usually follow a compliance rate of about 95%, which means I take two or three meals per week of whatever I want (stuff that is NOT on these lists - like pizza, sushi, big fatty restaurant steaks, etc)

I hope you found this helpful and interesting. Keep in mind, this is MY food list, and although you probably couldn’t go wrong to emulate it, you need to choose natural foods you enjoy in order to develop habits you can stick with long term. In the fruits and vegetables categories alone, there are hundreds of other choices out there, so enjoy them all!

About the Author:

Tom Venuto is a natural bodybuilder, certified strength and conditioning specialist (CSCS) and a certified personal trainer (CPT). Tom is the author of "Burn the Fat, Feed The Muscle,” which teaches you how to get lean without drugs or supplements using methods of the world's best bodybuilders and fitness models. Learn how to get rid of stubborn fat and increase your metabolism by visiting:Click Here!