I have some fairly clear ideas of what works for me when dieting and I outlined the progress I’ve made on my four-week fat-loss diet on Monday. While I was on my diet, I was always on the lookout for that extra edge or that inspiring article that gives me a bit more help.
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These are the articles I found most useful
Bearing my goals in mind, here are my current top 10 dieting articles for getting that lean and mean look in time for summer:
- Death match: you versus your body – Mike Roussell has written this article about exactly the scenario I have now found myself in: coming off a mass-gain cycle and going into a fat-loss cycle. His advice also perfectly mirrors what I have found to work for me in the past. Mike suggests that low-carb diets force your body to use stored fat as fuel, once you become fat-adapted. He notes that there is research to support the idea that high protein diets result in better fat loss and better muscle retention. And he believes that heavy lifting during a fat-loss phase is the best way of forcing your body to keep the muscle it has gained. This is pretty much what I will be doing over the next few weeks. I couldn’t have put it better myself.
- The Dave Tate Project (part one and part two) – this is just an amazing set of articles (and they’re long, too). Dave Tate transformed himself, with the assistance of John Berardi of Precision Nutrition, from a 300lb powerlifter into a lean and mean bodybuilder. Along the way, he found ways to improve his health considerably and to improve his overall mobility and joint health. I’m not so deluded as to think that what worked for someone with 250lbs of lean body mass will work for me but it’s an inspiring story none-the-less.
- How to manipulate your diet and exercise to look great naked – in this article, John Berardi explains the history of dieting and exercise for weight-loss and comes up with some basic principles that work.
- Nutritional leverage with Shelby Starnes (part one and part two) – I get the impression that Shelby has a real passion for excellence as a physique coach and isn’t interested in settling for second best. But I also like the fact that he is flexible in his advice and doesn’t get too prescriptive. This article series is set up as a Q&A and as such it’s a real mixed bag of points. You may find a gem next to a couple of points that leave you cold. I get bored reading about grass-fed beef and the latest supplements (because I can’t afford them) but I appreciate little tips like drinking diet coke to combat cravings in the evenings, what ratio of egg-whites to whole eggs to eat and how to schedule cheat meals properly.
- Fat loss for dummies (part one and part two) – I particularly like this set of articles because it reminds me that, while diet is probably 90% of body transformation, I do still have to work hard at it. And I also need to remember that working for a long time is not the same as working hard! Long, slow cardio is out. Short, hard intervals are in. Now lead me to the sled, as I have some hard work to do!
- Five reasons for failed body transformations – Christian Thibaudeau explains here what the five main reasons are for failed fat-loss projects. For those of you who may not know, Christian actually did a significant fat-loss transformation himself, which took him from being quite a chunky ex-Olympic lifter to being the unofficial face (and body) of T-Muscle. Christian talks specifics here, diving into the psychology of how the underfed body tries to trick you into breaking your diet. But you can resist these temptations. Forewarned is forearmed!
- The Marc Bartley Undertaking – here, at Elite FTS, Shelby Starnes talks about the diet that he used to get Marc Bartley into better shape. Again, a man who consumes six chicken breasts a day and still loses weight is probably from another planet to me but it is fascinating to see how Shelby starts to incorporate carb-cycling in a real-life scenario. I find generic carb-cycling articles a bit dry and difficult to get to the end of so this is a nice primer that makes the subject easy to digest.
- The get shredded diet – John Berardi talks here about what it takes to get to the next level of leanness. I always check this article before I get into the detail on my own plans just to make sure I’m not way off the mark.
- Interview with Justin Harris – I was trying to limit the number of T-Nation articles I linked to but this interview is just too good. Justin is a business partner of Shelby Starnes and sometimes I think that the two of them must have dug up a secret store of knowledge together and then refused to share it with anyone else.
- Dan John’s three principles of fat loss – Dan reminds us here that to achieve proper fat loss we need to remember that advanced training methods are for advanced trainees, that sometimes we need to think of hypertrophy to make good things happen and that ultimately fat loss is a war that we should wage for 28 days, commit totally to it and then go and do something else instead.
Have I missed your favourite fat-loss article? Just let me know in the comments.
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