On the Book Shelf: Body By Science

I read a lot. Religion, conspiracies, comic books, cartooning, and fitness books fill my rather substantial amount of book shelves. My trainer, Ellington Darden, had this book on his shelf recently and I borrowed it over a weekend. I couldn't put it down! It's been a long time since I've borrowed a book I then decided I HAD to own, but MY copy of "Body By Science" came in from Amazon just this week.

This is truly a manual for the science of building muscle. Over the past six months, since I've been with Dr. Darden, I have taken a crash course on the correct way to build muscle, burn fat, and work out the High Intensity Training ( HIT) way. "Body By Science", and Darden's many books, have made an incredible impact on me.

I think, for me, "Body By Science" really hit home because it helped explain further some concepts that Darden has been talking to me about for months. First, with HIT, it's all about brief, intense exercise with proper rest and diet. Then there's how that training affects different people, depending on their age, sex, and genetics.

In particular, it helped me understand fast muscle fibers. Darden has said for awhile that I have more of this type, but I didn't understand exactly what that meant, or what it meant for my training. After "Body By Science", I do. Suffice it to say, fast twitch muscles fibers exhibit a lot of strength, and can grow bigger than slower twitch fibers. However, they also tire quicker, get more sore, and take longer to heal. This is exactly the reason I am now continuing to make gains ( five pounds of muscle in three weeks) while on a "one workout every two weeks" schedule.


Think of "Body By Science" as a handbook for getting your body in shape. It's not a shallow read... believe me, some of the scientic jargon in it takes a while to understand. But go grab a copy, and you won't be sorry!

Neckline Slimmer: REALLY?

Being a cartoonist, I like to stay up late and work when the phones aren't ringing here in the studio, and then watch a bit of TV or read before bed. The problem with watching TV? Weird infomercials late at night. A popular one right now is the "neckline slimmer". I don't know if you've seen it, but it runs where I live all night long.

Supposedly, with this little device you can take years from your face, firming your jawline, etc. Now I don't want to be skeptical, but.... REALLY? Come on!

If anyone has used one of these and HAS had the desired results, feel free to let me know.


REALLY????

In the Fridge... : GREEK YOGURT

Man, I love this stuff! I discovered Greek Yogurt about a year ago, and was blown away by it.
My favorite brand is FAGE, pictured here. I like the "Total" and the "0 %" varieties. In a cup serving ( 2 cups per container) of the " 0%", which I currently have in the fridge, there's:

Calories- 120
Fat- 0g
Carbs- 9 g
Protein- 20 WHOMPING grams!

I've had protein mixes and protein bars that don't have as good a breakdown as this! With a consistency that's somewhere between sour cream and cool whip, plus all the live active cultures of good yogurt, this stuff is awesome. Try it!

Right at Ten Percent....

These pix were taken May 1st. By the calipers, I am realllll close to 10% body fat here.
The plan at this point became to raise my calories in order to put on some mass. Also, creatine loading. As you can see if you look closely, my genetic predisposition to store fat right in the lower front of my abs continues to foil my attempts at a six pack. Grrr......

Bodyshop Reccomendations: Flat Stomach ASAP

I'm going to start adding more reviews to this site of books and products that I reccommend, for those of you who are interested. This book, that I mentioned in my previous post on here, is by Dr. Darden ( my personal trainer and good friend), and was basically the "Textbook" for my entire transformation these past few months. Like I said, it's out of print now, but still available through a couple of outlets ( I grabbed this photo from Amazon, where I think it's available thru their partners).

Again, it covers EVERYTHING Darden had me do. From the weekly calorie variations (important to keep your body guessing, so it doesn't think it's in a starvation mode and will therefore keep burning fat), to SUPERhydration ( a GALLON of icecold water per day), to some beginning HIT workouts, and the philosophies and science behind all of it, everything is in here. If you too want to work out less, rest more, and get BETTER results, I can't reccommend this book highly enough.

HIT training Results

Each time Dr. Darden and I have taken photos ( an absolute MUST for keeping track of your real progress), we've repeated certain poses, so the photos were easier to compare. These are two of them: the first is basically relaxed, with hands on head, and the second is a double biceps pose.

There's a substantial loss of fat, as you can see, but what's really been interesting to me is that as I've lost weight, I actually look bigger, muscle-wise. I'm over twenty pounds different between the first and last in these photos. Yet I look bigger.

Maybe I've said this before, maybe I haven't, but I worked out with Dr. Darden just once a week. For a maximum of 30 minutes. These days, we work out for about twenty minutes. No cardio, ever. The reason for that is HIT training is so intense, you are breathing like a racehorse after the first one or two exercises. Cardio is uncecessary ( not to mention, when it comes to running and the like, often DANGEROUS to your joints, bones, and everything else).

Another key thing with our program was SUPERHYDRATION. As in a GALLON of ice cold water each and every day. Dr. Darden went over all of this and other aspects of this eating plan ( I don't say the word "diet" anymore) in detail in his book " Flat Stomach ASAP" that is now out of print but still available online, by the way. A gallon may seem like a lot to some people, but I've always been a heavy drinker. I guess I was just dehydrated was the reason why! I went to CVS pharmacy and found a handy 1/2 gallon jug and just filled it up twice a day. It's been a lot easier that way.

Over the years, I had done everything from starving myself, to low fat, to low carb dieting. Atkins, Zone, South Beach, I tried them all at various times. They ALL worked. For awhile. But it's funny, I realized that the only one that really worked for me was the starving thing. It's effects were the most dramatic, and lasted the longest. But I did NOT want to starve again ( that was back in my modeling days ), just because I don't like it (who does?) and I didn't want to lose muscle mass. What I did with Darden, though, along with the crazy intense HIT workouts once a week, was to greatly reduce my calorie intake and cycle it, to keep the body guessing. I learned that it's amazing how many calories we ingest every day in the Western World, and how we really don't need that many. All the studies on calories restriction show that it prolongs longevity and lifespan.

We started at 1500 calories for a week, them 1400, 1300, and 1200. Then 1400 again ( I lost a lot of my weight this week, when my body started thinking "Okay, I'm not starving... I can drop fat again"), 1300, and 1200. That dropped me to 12% BF, and 174 pounds, which was our original goal. We did another week at 1500 calories, just to see what would happen...

To be continued....

HIT training works....

Man, does it work! This is me on April 3rd.
This one was on March 16th (sorry they photos are out of order). So two months, almost to the day, of when I started with Darden. I went from right at 196lbs to 174 lbs. From 25% BF to 12%.
This one is on March 3rd again, and at about 11% BF, 170 lbs. At a certain percentage, the bodyfat loss starts slowing down of course, as there's less to lose. I'll try to get a big collage picture of all of my before and after shots up here for you all soon. Then we can really compare
them to see my results.