As many of you guys know, I am a big fan of proper nutrition with whole foods. Good meats, veggies, fruits and nuts as well as whole eggs, cream and unrefined carbs are the basis of all good nutrition plans and diets.
Customizing how much of each, as well as what supplements and herbs each person should take, is what I do for our personal training and weight loss clients.
However the best diet is the one that you can do!
We don’t live in the Olympic training center and we don’t have the perfect life for mass building, weight loss or fat burning. 3x a day training, perfect meals, lots of sleep.
So I need to modify things according to what each client can do.
Recently one of my clients wrote me a great email with lots of questions. I won’t use his real name here, but you will be able to relate to this.
My reply and advice is given at the bottom of the post. Is it the same as my usual advice…? probably not, but its the BEST that this client can do at the moment and that is what matters.
This is not a guy who is trying to find an easy way out, it’s a client with real trouble, so I’m going to help him find a good, or at least “least bad” solution so he gets results.
Hi Coach Jon,
I am finding it difficult to stick to the diet plan.
I can’t seem to find a suitable breakfast. I get up at 6:30am and hit out to your gym by 7:00am so that I can work out before work. Cooking breakfast just is not an option for me. The only choice I have around me conveniently is to grab some breakfast on the way out at the Kopitiam, i.e. Horlicks and Half boiled egss. I thought some instant oats or cereal would be a good choice. Or would some berries and fruit be a better choice.
As for lunch, I normally take customers out to lunch. Meaning I can grab Japanese or a Steak, which is presentable enough for customers. I avoid rice, bread and potatoes. So I guess this is ok.
As for dinner, I am not much of a dinner person on the weekdays, because I am either stuck in the office, where I have only instant drinks or muesli bars or biscuits with me. If I manage to go home on time, (rarely), I grab dinner at the nearby kopitiam, i.e. mixed rice, where I normally have half a bowl of rice, meats and veggies.
I would like to be more committed to a sustainable diet plan but I am lack of choices.
Are meal replacement drink advisable? Or any other alternative?
Thanks. My reply:
Hi Jack (name changed), I appreciate your desire, dedication and great attitude! Nutrition is a super important part of success.
The best diet is the one that you can do!
Best option – prepare food on weekends for the entire week
Next best option – Whatever you can do…:)
Unfortunately from what you described as your food intake, its pretty far from what you need to do to get good results. So here is what I would do If I were you:)
I would get an organic protein shake called “Whey Stronger” and another one called “Primal Clear Px” along with what are known as “branch chained amino acids”, you can use these to replace meals.
For breakfast, One day I would take the whey stronger, the next day, the primal clear. I would get both so that I don’t eat the same thing everyday which can lead to allergy.
While it’s not as good as meat, a good shake + some nuts is a decent option for those meals that you skip.
I would also get an organic veggie and fruit drink called “primal greens” and “primal reds” so that your alkaline and anti-oxidant needs are met. I would drink this 2-3x/day and it tastes pretty nice (for a veggie drink!!).
Lunch seems ok. Steaks or sashimi are great. Fries + sushi or rice filled handrolls are not:) So just beware of your food choices. Remember to eat the ginger with the sashimi because the pickled ginger helps prevent absorption of heavy metals found in the fish.
For dinner, instant drinks + museli = instantly fat so we need to work on that.
You can have another shake for dinner that would be fine.
For snacks you can have the veggie drink, a few nuts, eggs if possible, and 10-20 amino acid capsules. This snack should keep your body in fat burning and muscle building mode!
Just over a month ago I attended a seminar/internship with Canadian National Weightlifting Coach Pierre Roy. His method of teaching the very technical Olympic lifts was the fastest and most effective I have ever seen.
My own technique has improved alot ever since practicing for a few weeks since I’ve been back from this internship.
The way Coach Roy teaches, may be equivalent technically to what is used in other countries Olympic lifting coaching. But the main point is that it can be taught in … 1 hour as opposed to 1 year! (For a fairly coordinated guy).
Just the same for anyone trying to achieve their fitness goals. Both our fitness bootcamp and personal training programs have the same idea – time saving, maximum efficiency and world class results.
The world is a toxic place for sure. That is why I am fond of detoxing and asking my personal training clients to do the same perhaps 2 weeks per year. But toxicity not only applies to humans, but also to animals. The animals that we get our wonderful omega-3 oils from are also contaminated. So we need to get out supplements from the best possible sources. Even some repuatble brands that many internet stores sell, are implicated in the above report.
While the report is not outright against these brands, my tolerance for contamination in supplements is… ZERO! I mean… how much poison would you like to eat? Just a little? Of course not… NONE at all! (Or at least as little as is humanly possible). Because the supplement industry is so unregulated, I choose carefully which products and which brands to sell. And my clients never have to worry about reports like the one in this link to ABC news.
After all, the bulk of the cost of producing fish oils is not the extraction of the oil. It is the PURIFICATION of the oil. So that is where the sub par companies (all except a few in the world) will cut costs.
Supplements are not something you want to save a few dollars on. The great supplements cost just a bit more, but have alot less nonsense in them, and have alot better potency!
Body fat (everybody wants to know this!): 1-2% drop. 2mm on the 1 site supra illiac. 2mm on the abs. I did not biosig myself (because I can’t self measure 12 sites!) but there is a clear difference.
Waist drop 3cm each down to 78cm (smallest point) and 81cm (around belly button)
Weight down 2kg total.
I did the same food today, and I feel quite drained (did not take an off day the last 7 days to keep the lymph fluid flowing) so I just did some lower weight prowler pushes. Anaerobic capacity was not bad I still managed 8 laps of my gym’s 35m track with only a slight desire to throw up haha.
Bowel movements were good, I am also getting great sleep. At least 7 hours straight at night and a nap in the day. Once again, the topical magnesium + capsule magnesium combination seems to do very well. I highly recommend this combination especially if you KNOW that your digestive system has issues. The topical application (on skin) is wonderful for absorption.
I would probably do shorter cleanses of 1-3 days every month for health. In the future I will rotate the “extra supplements” to detox new things. I have a package for detoxing heavy metals, one for plastics and one for estrogen. All the detoxes will start when my far-infra red sauna comes in.
I am a healthy and quite a “clean” guy and I benefitted. Imagine somebody who has not taken care of themselves in the past or has worked/lived in a more toxic area or has genetic tendencies to store/be affected by toxins. They will benefit even more!
I lost a bit of fat although this is NOT I repeat NOT a fat burning plan. There are ways to burn fat faster. It is just that those ways get “stuck” by poor health or toxicity. That is that this plan is for. Detox removes obstacles to future progress. And that is part of reaching your goals!
Athletes benefit because toxicity can affect tendon and muscle strength. As well as aerobic and anaerobic endurance as it prevents cells from producing energy effectively. So guys and girls wanting to be strong should be on a detox at least twice a year as well.
THE END of detox!
I will slowly reintroduce food to my life! I think I need to put some fat back into my diet ASAP. I miss it even more than protein.
A question came in about carbohydrate levels, yes they are quite high during the detox because the protein used is rice based and will have some carbs. But its only 100+g which is not going to help you strip fat, but its not high enough to make you a tubby either. Also the carbs are always with protein and often with fiber so its not so bad:)
Day 2 went well. Sleep is better. Usually I can sleep 6+ hours then I wake up automatically, even the herbs that work for many of my personal training clients and nutritional consultation clients did not work for me. But last night I did close to 8 hours straight. Very Good.
The amount of bowel movement continues to amaze me. The volume is so much. Sorry again for the graphic description, but it is true. There must be a lot of toxins to clear out!
Food is same. But I change the timings of the shakes around according to which time of the day I am going to train. I take more shakes and amino acids around that time.
I used a slightly different form of fiber this morning to avoid any chance of allergies.
Another piece of good news is that the supplements last a little longer than I expected counting the servings on the bottles. This may reduce the overall cost in the end which is also good news.
Urine smells funny and different, could be the curcumin in the supplements but it also feels like its clearing out bad stuff.
Breath does not smell bad (I think!) and sweat is normal not more or less.
Today I will do a bit of olympic lift practice (just to work on technique, I just a bit too much back and not up…) and I will do high rep upper body work with chinups and presses to get the lymph flowing.
Day 1 went well. I ate the items as required. I also did the micro-current liver cleanse. I don’t think any particular item is magical, but they all do work together to clean up the entire system.
Sleep was excellent! In fact I had to force myself to wake up for morning clients. I will nap on day 2. I did feel a little light headed earlier during day 1 because the liver was getting warmed up to clear out bad stuff.
Today, food was the same, I will do 2 training sessions, lighter ones. Legs and posterior chain. I will do hamstring curls, cable split squats, back extensions, trap bar deadlifts and squats in the 8-15 rep range depending on the exercise (lower reps for hamstring curls).
There must be something going on, because even though I only ate quite small amounts of total food (just the shakes and organic veggie powder), bowel movements (without too much details) were alot! must be some stuff getting flushed out. But that does feel really good.
Just a note on Alpha-Lipoic-Acid. I think it is one of the keys to the detox and that is why I am taking so much of it. (Yang and Yin R-Ala supplements) Here are some of its characteristics:
It is an anti oxidant that works on both fat and water soluble tissues. Most other anti-oxidants work on either. For e.g. Vitamin E works on fats, and vitamin C works on water based tissues.
It recycles other anti oxidants like glutathion, alpha tocopherol, ascorbic acid and coq10, so they can be used again
It improves insulin sensitivity
It chelates (binds) heavy metals like cadmium and mercury
It reduces inflamation and risk of disease (cancer, HIV, atherosclerosis, diabetes) – this is through a genetic pathway
And all this is in medical journals! There is no reason not to be taking R form ALA no matter if you’re detoxing, or just a person interested in health.
Do you think you would get a better workout in a park? Or at the best gym in Singapore?
Although the quality of the coach who designs your personal training or weight loss fitness program is the top priority, I would admit that the quality of your fitness program design is influenced by the tools available to the coach.
Imagine…If you only gave me a 5 kg dumbbell, I would run out of useful exercises faster than if you gave me a complete gym set up with the right mix of different dumbbells, varieties of barbells, lifting platforms, power racks, machines and accessories like gym balls, bands, lifting pins, grip training equipment, etc (oops that just describes my Gym in Singapore).
In my experience, it is almost impossible for a in home personal trainer or a fitness instructor who trains out of a condo gym or a hotel gym, or a community center gym, to match the results we get at the Genesis Performance Center.
Just think for a moment why this would be so?…They would need to match both my program design ability, knowledge of health, understanding of anatomy, thousands of hours of study and seminars, as well as have the right gym equipment to do the job! This is a problem because these gyms were not designed by a person with 16 years of drug-free training study and experience.
It is also hard for any outdoor boot camp in a park to match the results we get at our indoor fitness boot camp which fully utilizes all the equipment available to us. In fact one bootcamp member recently commented “I’ve tried all the other bootcamps in Singapore and yours is way more value” … well of course:) We only design good programs and will ALWAYS get the equipment needed to support it.
This year 2010 alone, I plan to spend much of our business budget on upgrading our equipment to continue to lead Singapore Gyms as the best equipped (with the most useful stuff!) so that I have the greatest variety of gym equipment, so that I can design the greatest variety of personal training fitness programs, so that I can help the greatest amount of people get the weight loss, mass gaining or sports performance goals they deserve.
When choosing a gym, like in the rest of life, there are three groups of people.
Those who read and make the right choice (check out the remainder of my Singapore fitness blog to read more!)
Those who observe others and make the right choice (check out our success stories on the Singapore fitness homepage, or the success stories page)
And those who “piss on the electric fence to learn for themselves” – unfortunately some people try other methods and places to try and get results but are disappointed, frustrated and upset. In the end, after some pain and unfortunate experiences, they end up at Singapore’s best Gym, The Genesis Performance Center.
I just finished a phone consult with one of the finest natural medicine and detox specialists in the world. Dr Bob Rakowski. I wanted to know more about natural solutions to cancer because recently I have several family members/friends who have it. All kinds – breast, colon, liver, pancreas etc. From our 30min consultation, I learned a few things…
Cancer LOVES sugar – in fact it loves it 15x more than any other nutrient. And what were my friends/relatives on? “Ensure” Whats that – it’s 60% SUGAR!! It’s mad that this food is recommended to help give the cancer patient energy when all it does is feed cancer cells the nutrient it loves most!
Digestive tract health is so important, and the nutrient that helps digestive tract health (Glutamine) also helps fix cancer via 7 pathways – one of the most important is that, being an amino acid, it maintains muscle mass which is good for immunity.
Pancreatic enzymes are GOOD! They break down the protein coating of cancer cells and KILL THEM! Yay!
Dr Bob also gave specific supplement protocols for my “cancer clients” and I look forward to helping them get well ASAP. No more chemo, no more radiation, no more illogical food choices.
But better still, PREVENT cancer by PERUSING health! That’s what we do with our weight loss, personal training and fitness boot camp programs where we cover health, nutrition, supplementation for your genetics and body type, as well as exercise:)
Whenever I work with Singapore weight loss or fat loss clients, one of the key components of their program is nutrition. I get them off all sugary, starchy, and refined foods. Yes this is harder to do for some than others, yes it takes a willingness to change, but YES it IS effective!
Not What God Intended Us To Put In
And now I read a study that was a waste of money. The University of Minesota has concluded that sweet drinks (and if they extended that study to sweet or starchy foods, I’m sure it would give the same results) cause cancer… OF COURSE THEY DO.
More sugar, more insulin needed, over work for the pancreas and thus more pancreatic cancer.
Here is the bad news. Pancreatic cancer is one of the hardest to kill. And sometimes the “methods” I have seen recommended are just madness. A relative of mine with cancer was asked to drink “Ensure” as part of his “nutrition” plan. Unbelievable. Ensure is 55-60% SUGAR!! That is a big part of what caused this mess in the first place and now its seen as a form of treatment.
Cancer cells like sugar! So starve them (and better still prevent them from happening) by not having refined carbohydrates in your diet (meat, veggies and healthy fats is the way to go), and protecting your DNA (antioxidants, trans-resveratrol and nutrients). Also detoxing yourself of any environmental poisons.
Anybody who excels in their profession has somebody to give credit to, somebody to thank, somebody to appreciate for their success. While there is lots of studying that you can do on your own (after all, I have a book and education material collection worth a small car….) it is the moments of inspiration that come from being around the industry leaders who are the best in the world at what they do that truly allow my mind to expand by allowing me to see just how much I DO NOT KNOW! And how much more there is to learn. Just like Stephen Hawking wrote, we really are standing on the shoulders of Giants.
I’m honored to count these guys as my teachers and mentors. After attending their courses and seminars, I can truly say that all our Singapore personal training clients and boot camp members benefit alot in their health, weight loss, fat burning and strength building goals. Unfortunately, in Singapore, these guys are not very well known to the general public, but only to those who are serious about getting the best information in the world!
Coach Charles Poliquin – Olympic strength and conditioning coach. This guy knows a lot about almost any training or health topic out there. And his certifications are the hardest to obtain in the fitness industry. In fact to reach level 5 (the highest level) you need to produce a medalist (verified by the sport council) in either the world championships or the Olympic games. I am currently the only level 3 coach in Asia, that means that we have coached people to national teams. Am going for level 4 later in 2010.
Dr. Mark Houston – Cardiovascular health specialist. This guy literally “wrote the book” about how to use nutrients and lifestyle to combat high blood pressure, cholesterol issues, and all heart/cardiovascular health conditions.
Dr. Robert Rakowski – Functional Medicine Doctor. This guy is a former US marine, but has applied the discipline to study of how the human body works. I saw him treat a person for a shoulder problem… and found out that it was his LIVER that was too toxic and causing the pain…this doctor taught me alot of what I know about detoxification and cancer as well.
Coach Pierre Roy – Pierre has been coaching the Canadian Olympic weightlifting team for 35 years and has the sharpest eye for the details of training. He corrects high speed lifts to the accuracy of 0.5 cm! and the next time the lifter does it, the weight goes up effortlessly. His methods of coaching that I learned save clients HUNDREDS of hours of learning technique. Things that used to take weeks to learn, now take minutes. That’s value for money everyone!
I am constantly looking for great mentors to learn from. It really helps clients get results faster and better! And it helps keep the Genesis Performance Center Singapore best health & fitness center and personal training Gym.
Anybody who excels in their profession has somebody to give credit to, somebody to thank, somebody to appreciate for their success. While there is lots of studying that you can do on your own (after all, I have a book and education material collection worth a small car….) it is the moments of inspiration that come from being around the industry leaders who are the best in the world at what they do that truly allow my mind to expand by allowing me to see just how much I DO NOT KNOW! And how much more there is to learn. Just like Stephen Hawking wrote, we really are standing on the shoulders of Giants.
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