1.  I would be willing to bet that most people probably gain about 5 pounds between Thanksgiving and New Year’s each year.  Moreoever, I would also be willing to guess that a vast majority fail to lose those pounds before the following Thanksgiving.  If those 5 pounds accounted for all of the additional fat gain for each person for a year they could easily accumulate 50 extra pounds in a matter of 10 years even if they prevented any further fat gain for the rest of the year.  Just something to ponder.

2.  I was recently being interviewed and one question that came up was what kinds of things I do with my clients so they don’t have to extensive amounts of mind numbing cardio.  Of course, I quoted the usual stuff.  Interval training, medicine ball circuits, outdoor sprints, and so on.

But there is one thing I’ve been doing so long that I completely forgot to mention it because it is just something that has become automatic.  When someone comes to me for fat loss I’ll often have them skip between sets for the entire workout to maximize energy expenditure. 

For total beginners I’ll just have them step up and down on an aerobic step instead.  For those who can skip like Buddy Lee on crack I’ll have them doing double unders until I can collect buckets of sweat.

Of course, you might argue that this isn’t the best way to build strength or gain muscle and I’d fully agree.  When you prioritize fat loss you need to maximize your output and that’s exactly what this does.  If you’re trying to lose fat and haven’t had a jump rope in your hands since childhood I’d highly suggest you pick one up.

Take it to the gym and see how many stares you can get.  But when your abs start to come in, don’t forget to send me a thank you note.

This past weekend was Thanksgiving here in Canada and last night I was able to celebrate my way into a self induced turkey coma with full fledged meat sweats.  Still, I was able to recover enough today to write this post before enjoying the rest of my 3 day weekend.

As I’ve blogged before, I’m not a huge fan of rapid fat loss transformations.  Granted, it is incredible to see what can be accomplished in 12 weeks, but  most people just gain the weight back right after they’re done.  If you’ve been around the fitness industry long enough, you’ve probably seen this numerous times.

Truthfully, I very much prefer the slow and steady approach to fat loss.  My client Jeff is just one shining example of that.

Jeff came and asked me to help him get ripped without building too much muscle mass in the progress (Yes, I’m serious, there are people who really just wanted to get shredded).  After about a year of training I managed to snap a couple shots of Jeff at our facility.

All in all, Jeff was pretty happy with how things turned out and I was too.  What is even better to me though, is that when I saw him a year after these photos were taken his body fat percentage was almost exactly the same!  In fact, it was literally decimal places away from where it was a year previous.  Here is a recent photo to demonstrate my point.

To me, this is the biggest success.  Anyone can lose fat for 12 weeks.  The real test is losing it for life. 

Thoughts and comments are welcome below.

To be quite honest, I don’t like rapid fat loss programs very much.  No matter what the sales copy says, the person is going to lose some muscle unless they’re jacked up on gear.

In my experience, the majority of people who follow these “12 week” programs also rebound rapidly gaining all the weight back within a fraction of the time it took them to get it off in the first place.

Still, every once in a while people come to me asking to help them lose fat quickly.  I give them the above warnings, but they’re set on a certain time frame and my job is to provide the results people want.  Below is a friend named Tyler who had only 11 weeks to get into the best shape possible.

During that time he lost an incredible 43 pounds and 6.75 inches off his waist.  Granted, because his program was almost entirely geared towards fat loss, I didn’t have time to put the size on his legs like I wanted, but I still think the results are pretty damn impressive.

Of course, you could give the guy a hard time for the bad choice of briefs or for the new Batman tatoo (believe me…I did).  However, you simply can’t argue with his results.

Nice work brother!

A while back I posted a three part series on the use of interval training for fat loss.  You can check them out here:  Part I, Part II, Part III.

However, I got a couple emails suggesting that it was a little difficult to transition from steady state cardio if you’re just getting into intervals.  I also got an email telling me that intervals are not for beginners.

Fortunately, I was recently speaking to Craig Ballantyne of TurbulanceTraining.com and he mentioned that he’s had great success with intervals for beginners and he was kind enough to share his ideas with me.  Although neither of us is really a huge fan of treadmills, I’ll use this as an example because it is pretty easy to understand.

Let’s say that a beginner can walk on a treadmill at a steady pace of 3.5 for twenty minutes.  You could start to implement intervals by having that person performing at a higher level than usual (3.8) followed for about one minute followed by a minute at a lower level (3.2).

By doing this you’re gradually increasing the intensity at which someone can work.  Over time you’ll be able to increase the intervals to higher and higher levels until they can go full tilt with a true interval protocol.

So if you’re just getting started you can definitely give this a go.  Also, I’d highly recommend checking out Craig’s website at TurbulanceTraining.com

Let’s face it.  You hate doing cardio and it makes you feel like a hamster on a wheel.

  Check out this article that I had posted yesterday at T-Nation.com for 7 cardio drills that don’t suck.