"RippedBody.com" by Andy Morgan

• Sometimes it takes an outsider to point out the obvious.
• A training or diet method is merely a means of achieving your goal.
• The ability of the body to recover is hampered when dieting as it stresses the central nervous system.
• When overfeeding we will always gain some fat with the muscle, and when underfeeding we'll always burn some muscle with the fat.
• Looking ripped or shredded is a function of two things: low levels of body fat and sufficient muscle mass.
• What we're going to do different:
• Shift the focus to diet rather than training.
• Physique is 70% diet, and 30% training. So, we'll focus on things in that proportion.
• Purposefully skip breakfast.
• Eating fewer meals allows you to have larger meals, feel full, and still maintain a deficit.
• Eat more food when your body needs it.
• Eat more carbs on training days to help with recovering, and eat more post-workout to take advantage of nutrient uptake.
• Simple Set-up: The Diet
• skip breakfast; just eat lunch and dinner (i.e. 8-hour window)
• don't eat anything the other 16-hours of the day (tea is okay)
• getting it right 90% of the time is good enough
• meal frequency doesn't matter (two meals is just simpler)
• weight-train 3 days a week, rest 4 days a week
• training days: eat more carbs, less fat
• rest days: eat more fat, less carbs
• keep protein high both days
• Simple Set-up: The Training
• strength-train 3 days a week
• training times can vary.
• The only requirement is that you have time to eat after training and before going to bed.
• don't bother with cardio
• In the short-term, anything [training] will provide a training effect, this is why there is so much BS out there.
• Barbells are better for incremental loading then dumbbells.
• Do big compound movements and forget about the rest.
• The hierarchy of importance for diet: calorie balance > macros > micros > meal timing & frequency > supplements.
• Counting macros is just a more detailed way of counting calories.
• Muscle weighs more than fat. If you're gaining muscle and losing fat you're changing your body, but the scale won't show it.
• Eat the same meals frequently and often for ease. This way you only have to count the macros in each of your favorite meals once.
• An effective training routine must follow the principle of progressive overload.
• A beginner needs less overall training volume to bring about change than an advanced lifter. Do the minimum you can do to keep progressing at a sustainable rate.
• The most important thing for a beginner trainee is that you get a good strength training program then stick to it.
• The most important thing for the intermediate and advanced trainee becomes not what program you follow, but how you tweak it to follow the principle of progressive overload so you can keep advancing with your training.
• Programming ADHD--the search for the perfect training program--is the cause of the phenomenon of the perpetual beginner.
• Adaptation of the body to progressive increasing load is essential.
• There are a variety of ways you can create overload to force adaptation.
• Continuing to workout with the same load is called 'exercise', not 'training'.
• The "principle of overload" tells you that it is necessary to stimulate the body with a stimulus (overload) which exceeds the stimulus the body receives on a regular basis in order to make the body adapt for your intended purpose.
• There are several ways to create overload in resistance training, such as: increasing the weight lifted, increasing the number of reps per set, increasing the number of sets, shortening rest times, increasing the difficulty of the exercise, expanding the range of motion, increasing the frequency of training.
• If continued training adaptation is desired, it is necessary to increase the training load little by little (progressively) in line with increases in physical strength.
• Novice or experienced trainee, if you are cutting you want to be using a linear progression routine.
• Novices will gain strength for a time regardless of whether they are in a caloric surplus or deficit.
• Gains in strength cannot continue forever in an energy deficit, no matter how smart the programming.
• Your goal is to maintain your strength gains for the duration of the cut, until you achieve your desired level of leanness and then start increasing calorie intake.
• For muscle mass retention purposes, I see no reason that someone needs to strength train more frequently than three days a week.
• You can't continue to progress forever on a linear progression routine because it gets to the point where the stress from the training is too high for you to be able to recover from.
• To increase work capacity, instead of trying to increase the amount of weight you're lifting, increase the amount of volume you handle each week or each session.
• When ripped you may look bigger due to the increased definition, but the chest and limb measurements will go down.
• Experienced trainees shouldn't panic if their lifts go down a little [while cutting].
• Top 10 nutrition myths:
• bread/carbs are bad
• eggs are bad
• red meat causes cancer
• saturated fat is bad
• salt causes high blood pressure and should be avoided
• whole-grain is better than white
• high-fructose corn syrup is worse than sugar
• too much protein can cause kidney damage
• vitamins from food are better then supplemented vitamins
• eating small meals throughout the day "stokes the metabolism"
• Less refined foods will keep you fuller longer.
• Casein [protein], being absorbed slowest is best with the last meal of the day.
• Whey [protein], being absorbed the quickest is better with the other meals.
• As a general rule, weigh your un-cooked meats and carbs and eyeball everything else.
• Snacking won't make a difference in your diet as long as it fits your macros.
• You need to get a consistent 7-9 hours of sleep each night for fat loss to work well.
• Sleep 'deficits' cannot be recovered from with a long rest.
• More sleep improves everything. Make it a priority.
• Research to date has shown that meal frequency really isn't as important as we once thought.
• When in a deficit, protein needs are higher.
• Training is the catalyst for change; diet allows the change to happen.
• If a particular diet is suggesting you eliminate any food group in excess, your BS meter should go up.
• The single most important piece of the puzzle is getting your energy intake right.
• Deficits can (and arguably should be) greater than surpluses.
• Fat can be lost quicker than muscle is gained, so those cutting will experience quicker and more obvious visual changes than those looking to gain muscle.
• Diet should determine whether you are in an energy surplus or deficit, not training.
• Training should be determined by goal, not used to address the energy balance equation.
• It's essential to realize that any [BMR] calculation will just be a best guess.
• How to get calorie intake right:
• Set weight loss targets based on current body fat percentage, and weight gain targets based on training status (beginner, intermediate, advanced).
• Calculate the theoretical deficit or surplus needed to achieve that.
• Adjust energy intake upwards or downwards accordingly based on how the scale weight changes over a few weeks of consistent implementation.
• There is a theoretical limit to how much fat can be released from the fat stores in a single day, and this is inversely proportionate to how lean you are.
• Just because you can lose more, doesn't mean that you should if it makes your life miserable.
• Unlike fat loss, where body-fat percentage determines how quickly we can lose weight, rates of potential muscle growth are determined by how advanced someone is with their training.
• Whereas fat can be lost relatively quickly, muscle gain happens slowly.
• Muscle growth potential:
• beginner: 2-3 lbs/month -> +200-300 kCals/day
• intermediate: 1-2 lbs/month -> +100-200 kCals/day
• advanced: 0.5 lbs/month -> slight surplus
• If your weight doesn't change on a cut, decrease calorie intake by 100-200 kCals/day, or 5-10%.
• If weight is lost too quickly, there is a risk of muscle loss, so increase calories.
• Macro recommendations:
• cutting:
• protein: 1.1-1.4 g/lb
• fat: 0.4-0.6 g/lb
• carbs: the rest
• bulking:
• protein: 0.8-1.0 g/lb
• fat: 20-30% of calories
• carbs: the rest
• Protein helps us recover from workouts, it preserves lean tissue when dieting, helps us grow more muscle when bulking, and has the highest effect on satiety of all the macronutrients.
• The most important factor in determining our protein intake requirement is lean body mass. The more you have, the more you need.
• Determine lean body mass by taking your weight and subtracting your body fat.
• Protein helps spare muscle mass when in a calorie deficit, so the requirements are higher when cutting.
• Consumption of dietary fat is important for regular hormonal function, especially testosterone production.
• Fat is the most energy dense macronutrient, so decreasing fat intake is an easy way to make large changes to your overall energy intake.
• Carbohydrates are the only macronutrient we can live without. However, carbs have a positive impact on hormones, help fuel us through our workouts, replace muscle glycogen, and make life a lot tastier.
• You need to eat enough carbohydrates to still get effective workouts so that you can maintain your muscle mass--which a lot of people find isn't possible when restricting carbs severely.
• Fiber is a classification of carbohydrate. Fiber keeps us feeling fuller without adding significantly to the calorie content of food, lowers blood sugar levels and delays digestion of food, lowers cholesterol, helps us avoid constipation, and reduces colon cancer risk.
• Fiber recommendation: 25g or 20% of carb intake.
• Alcohol has calories. 1g contains 7kCal and that is usually combined with carbs.
• Macronutrients are protein, fat, and carbohydrates.
• Micronutrients are vitamins and minerals.
• Macronutrients are generally measured in grams, while micronutrients are generally measured in milligrams.
• Vitamins are organic. Minerals are non-organic.
• The industry profits from our desire to feel special by inventing issues for us to imagine we have and then selling solutions to these invented problems.
• Water is important for fat loss and performance.
• How many meals should you be eating: 2-3 when cutting, 2-4 when bulking.
• I suggest you eat the minimum number of meals that you can get away with without compromising your goals.
• Simpler -> higher adherence rate -> higher long-term success rate
• It can be beneficial psychologically to have fewer meals because you can eat more at each meal.
• When should you be eating: within two hours of finishing your training, more calories post workout then before, some carbs post workout, not completely fasted.
• Fasted training: 10g BCAAs pre-workout, then 10g BCAAs every two hours until your first meal. Split calories between meals evenly.
• Evening training: Lunch ~40% calories, training, dinner ~60% calories.
• Calorie cycling is the purposeful increase and decrease of calorie intake relative to the days you train, while maintaining the calorie balance for the week.
• Macro cycling is the purposeful repositioning of certain macronutrients across your training week--with a goal to improve body composition, training effect, or performance--while maintaining the macronutrient balance for the week.
• You want to give yourself more calories on your training days, less on your rest days. Try anywhere from 25% to a 50% difference between the two days.
• How to implement calorie/macro cycling:
• Decide how much you'd like the calorie split to be.
• Add calories to the daily energy intake for the training day and subtract for the rest day.
• Adjust to maintain the calorie intake target for the week.
• Significantly more carbs should be consumed on the training days than the rest days.
• Significantly less fat should be consumed on the training days than the rest days.
• There is a definite window of opportunity for nutrient partitioning in the post workout window.
• Supplements are not needed to transform your physique and in many cases constitute an unnecessary expense.
• No single supplements is going to have more impact on your diet than getting your diet right in the first place.
• Protein powder is convenient, BCAAs are arguably necessary for fasted training, caffeine can give you the right kick to make a more effective workout, and by many standards, fish oil seems to improve just about everything to a small degree which makes them worth considering. The end.
• Creatine is probably the most researched supplement out there. It is safe, cheap, can boost strength and has neroprotective and cardioprotective properties.
• Creatine: 5g a day, taken with meals. Loading isn't necessary. The standard creatine monohydrate is the cheapest and just as effective as any other type. Creatine cycling isn't necessary.
• Fat loss happens in pretty much a predetermined order. As we get leaner, it gets more and more difficult to shift the fat. The very last places where fat comes off are like that due to poorer blood flow in these areas and the alpha/beta receptor ratio.
• Protein powders are a cheap way to hit your protein targets but food is going to keep you fuller.
• Whey in the day, casein at night.
• I highly advise you to go for a 'cut' first, as starting a 'slow-bulk' when 'abs lean' gives you significant hormonal advantages for gaining muscle with minimal fat.
• Body-recomp: +20% kCals on training days, -20% kCals on rest days.
• The key to keeping abs with slow bulking is quite simple, make sure you have enough of a deficit on your rest-day so that you burn the stored fat from the training day.
• There is not one perfect macro-ratio.
• When eating above maintenance calories, the fat we consume is easier to be stored, so it is best to keep fat intake lower on this day.
• If a food fits your macros for the day, then you can eat it.
• If you can make it simple and have success on the simplified system you can continue it in the long term.
• Skipping breakfast allows for bigger, more satisfying meals.
• Simple Steps for lean gains:
• Calculate BMR.
• Adjust for activity (calc TDEE).
• Chose goal: cut/slow-bulk/body-recomp.
• Calculate training-day/rest-day calories.
• Calc training-day/rest-day macronutrients.
• Make your menu to fit your macros.
• There is roughly 3500 kCals in one pound of fat.
• The core of building a strong body is the squat, deadlift, bench and their variants. Anybody that tells you otherwise is simple ill-informed.
• Big 3 workout:
• squat 5x5
• bench 5x5
• deadlift 5x5
• Same weight across each set.
• Perform 3-days per week.
• [Weight] increases need to be slow and incremental to allow your body to adapt to the load. This is not just about muscle growth, but the connecting tissues, nervous system, and bone density changes.
• To have success in dieting tracking your progress is vital.
• You're either as lean as you like or you aren't. I strongly recommend you forget about body-fat percentage.
• To make objective decisions you need consistent data and that will lead you to success.
• Consistency is key to accurate tracking. This means that measurements need to be taken at the same time of the day, under the same circumstances. The best time to measure is in the morning, after you wake.
• Tense/flex your muscles for each measurement as this enables more consistent results.
• Measure to the nearest 0.1 centimeter.
• Nine areas to measure:
• chest (nipple line)
• right arm (flexed, widest point)
• left arm (flexed, widest point)
• 2" above navel (two fingers)
• navel
• 2" below navel (two fingers)
• hips (widest point)
• right thigh (widest point)
• left thigh (widest point)
• Your weight will fluctuate throughout the week, so weigh yourself every morning after using the toilet. Average this value at the end of the week.
• Take two photos, front and side, once every four weeks.
• Always look to gauge progress by looking at data over a four week period and assessing the trend, never before. There will always be fluctuations during the initial weeks.
• When around 15% body fat or lower, fat comes off the upper abs first, before that there doesn't seem to be any pattern.
• Strength increases correlate well to muscle gains.
• Muscle growth will hide fat loss, so don't just rely on the scale.
• For more experienced trainees that are cutting the goal is muscle preservation. Strength maintenance is a good sign of muscle maintenance, however there is the mechanical inefficiency of getting leaner that you need to be aware of.
• The goal should always be to have the smallest calorie deficit that you can get away with while still progressing with your diet.
• The best diet is the one you can keep.
• The leaner you get, the less body fat you can burn a day.
• Carbs suck in 3-4x their weight in water.
• The lighter you get the fewer calories you burn.
• Lack of patience leads to rushed decisions.
• Cardio, as a tool for fat loss, is over-rated, over-used, and overall a very poor time investment for the I.F. user.
• Stubborn body fat is physiologically different from other fat in your body and this makes removal difficult.
• Typically, stubborn fat is found in the lower abs, back and glutes in men; thighs, glutes and hips in women.
• There is a theoretical limit on how much fat can be oxidized (burned) before the body will fuel itself by breaking down muscle mass.
• For fat loss, three things need to happen.
• Fat needs to be broken down into free fatty acids (FFAs) and released from the fat cell into the blood stream (lipolysis).
• The FFAs need to be transported through the blood to somewhere where they can be used for fuel.
• Tissues somewhere in the body need to pluck these FFAs from the blood stream and use them for energy (oxidation).
• Unfavorable alpha/beta receptor ratio differences in the stubborn fat areas of the body are what makes it difficult for lipolysis to take place.
• Morning fasting, by increasing catecholamine output and lowering insulin in the blood stream, creates circumstances which help get around the receptor issues to allow the fat to escape the fat cells.
• Blood flow to the stubborn fat areas is poorer. Cardio can increase blood flow to these areas. Yohimbine HCL can also increase blood flow to these areas.
• Reverse Pyramid Training (RPT) is a style of set-rep pattern where the trainee puts their heaviest set first, then 'pyramids down' to a lighter weight, usually with more reps for the latter sets.
• Exaggerate a problem, call it a scary name and people will flock to it.
• We want to make the minimum changes required when dieting to keep fat loses going to avoid unnecessarily high levels of metabolic slow-down.
• Before looking to cut your energy intake, consider taking a diet break.
• Reduce energy intake primarily via your fat and carb macros.
• Don't go below 0.4 g/lb-LBM of fat.
• When you can't make any more reductions from your rest days, start making reductions from your training days.