The problem is that there are many easy diet mistakes you can make unintentionally that can destroy your dreams of ever having that sexy, ripped midsection you are after. The good thing is that today I am going to tell you what they are so that you can avoid making them alltogther

1. Eat Carbs all the Time

Carbs are a double-edged sword when it comes to creating a great physique.  On the one hand, they’re instrumental in building mass and allowing your muscles to recover from heavy training.  They’re also important for sustained energy during workouts.  On the other hand, eating too many carbs can make it impossible to lose body fat.

Eating carbs all day long – even the healthy ones – will cause your body to constantly secrete insulin.  Insulin is crucial for muscle growth, but it also makes it impossible for your body to burn its own fat stores.  If you want to actually make some progress with your diet, restrict your carbohydrate intake to the meals around your training sessions.  On off days, avoid eating starchy carbs altogether.

2. Avoid All Fats

Fats don’t make you fat!  Eating too much does.  In fact, fat is an essential nutrient which is important for maintaining proper hormone levels.  Eating a decent amount of monounsaturated, polyunsaturated, and even saturated fat is crucial for keeping your testosterone high and your metabolism revving at full speed.  If you really want to suffer during your diet and have no results to show for it, go on a super-low-fat diet.

Otherwise, make sure to include healthy fats in your daily meal plan.  Use olive oil when you cook, and add nuts or avocados to your meals.  Also, make sure to eat some fatty fish like salmon or trout two to three times per week.  Not only are these fish great sources of protein, they contain tons of Omega-3 fatty acids, which can actually accelerate your fat loss.  If you can’t afford fish, find a quality fish oil supplement and use it daily.

3. Skimp on the Protein

Whether you’re gaining muscle or stripping body fat, protein is the most important nutrient in your diet.  Protein is composed of amino acids, the building blocks your body uses to regenerate muscle tissue after weight training.  In fact, when you eat meat, you’re essentially eating an animal’s muscles to build your own!

When you’re on a calorie-restricted diet, maintaining your muscle mass and strength is a constant struggle.  Skimping on the protein will make it even harder.  Unless you want to end up a smaller, yet still-flabby version of your current self, keep eating plenty of lean protein.  Protein-rich foods are filling, too, so following this tip will keep you satisfied enough to resist your cravings.

4. Don’t Worry About Vegetables

Most bodybuilders don’t eat nearly enough vegetables.  While this may not be much of an issue when you’re trying to gain weight, avoiding veggies on a cutting diet is a huge mistake.  They contain essential vitamins and minerals which you’re not going to be getting from your otherwise-limited food intake.

Green, fibrous vegetables like broccoli and spinach also contain nearly zero calories.  Considering that the calories they do contain are mostly fiber, you can think of green veggies as “free” food – eat as much as you want!  Even green beans can seem like a godsend when you’ve finished your meat and don’t get to eat any more “real” food for another few hours.  Keeping lots of vegetables in your fridge will help you stay strict with your portions of carbs, fats, and protein.

5. Starve Yourself

The BIGGEST mistake you can make during your diet is to go too low in calories.  Fat loss requires a slight caloric deficit, but more is not better in this case.  Your body is high adaptive, and starving yourself will only cause your metabolism to slow down.  A super-restrictive diet might allow for rapid fat loss for a week or two, but your progress will soon come to a screeching halt.

You need to maintain a decent rate of fat loss long enough to get ripped and see your abs.  The only way to do that is to start slow with your diet and focus on losing a pound or two per week.  You also need to make sure you keep your strength up.  If you start getting weaker as you lose weight, you’re almost certainly losing muscle mass and working AGAINST your goals – not towards them.

Article by Sixpackfactory’s Muscle Building Expert and Top Fitness Model Justin Woltering. Get more info on Justin at: http://www.justinwoltering.com/

Hi Everyone!

Welcome to our brand new series of videos called 6 Minute Six Pack Meals. In this very first episode I show you one of my favourite meals for dinner. It is a great low carb meal with some good high quality protein and healthy fats, perfect for 6 pack abs. Even more important is that it’s easy, simple and fast to make and I also like the fact this this six pack meal is scalable. So whether you want to make it just for yourself or for the whole family, it takes the same amount of time.

So if you are looking for a great 6 pack abs Approved meal to eat at night time then this is one of the best out there!

Ingredients

Main

• Chicken Breasts
• 1/2 Avocado
• 2 Cups of Mixed Veggies

Other

• Sweet Chilly Sauce
• Salt
• Pepper

It’s also important to modify your diet to make sure the weight you’re gaining is solid muscle – not useless body fat. Here are four advanced rules for gaining pure muscle mass.

Timing Your Carbs

Carbohydrates are the double-edged sword in bodybuilding nutrition. They’re damn-near essential for building muscle mass, but they can also make you fat and bloated. Even lifters who eat nothing but “healthy” carbs like oats, rice, and potatoes can still find themselves gaining fat at an unacceptable rate.

If you really want to harness the muscle-building power of carbs without piling on the body fat, you’ve got to eat them at the right times. First, eat a meal rich in complex carbs an hour or two before you train. That will give you sustained energy throughout the workout, and you won’t crash like you would from eating sugar or simple starches.

After you train, load up on the carbs for one to two hours afterwards. Don’t go crazy, but this is the time when rice, potatoes, and other healthy starches are going to be put to use for muscle repair and growth – not fat gain. Of course, all of these carb meals should have plenty of protein, as well.

Other than those times, avoid most carbs throughout the rest of your day. Vegetables are fine, but starches and fruits are for workout energy only. On your off days, eat carbs only in your first meal – or not at all. Focusing on protein and healthy fats during your non-training meals will allow you to get the calories you need to grow without spiking your insulin.

The Right Kind of Protein

Everybody knows protein is essential for muscle growth, but not all sources are equal. First of all, the tiny amounts you get from oats, breads, and other plant-based products do NOT count. Those proteins do not have the complete amino acid profile which actually helps you build muscle. If you’re shooting for a certain number of protein grams per day, don’t include these in your totals.

Also, stop relying so much on powders! Whey protein is great in a pinch, and its quick digestion rate is especially good for your post-workout shake. However, meat, fish, and eggs are where it’s at for building quality mass. Take some more time to cook, prep, and pack these foods, and watch your gains really start to take off. It takes extra work, but this is one of the things that sets the advanced guys apart from the beginners.

Rethinking Meal Frequency

Most bodybuilders and general fitness enthusiasts have become indoctrinated with the idea that you have to eat six to eight small meals per day, and that going more than three hours without protein is going to kill your progress. Some people even make arbitrary claims that your body can only process thirty or forty grams of protein per meal. Nonsense!

The main reason why you’d want to eat so often when trying to get bigger is that you simply can’t force more food down at each meal. If you like to eat bigger, less frequent meals, then go for it!

Some people are never hungry when they first wake up, and the morning can actually be an ideal time for fat burning. If you’re trying to stay lean while gaining tons of muscle, you might want to try holding off on the food for four to six hours after waking. This will also allow you to put more calories in the meals that matter most – pre and post-workout! This may sound crazy, but a lot of big, strong lifters are having success with this method.

Overall, you’ve got to find the meal frequency that fits with your caloric needs, schedule, and hunger. Some people like lots of tiny meals, others like a couple of feasts. The important things are that you get all your protein in and eat your carbs around workouts.

Fight Inflammation With Fats

Eating the rights fats is key for building a great physique. Essential fatty acids are important for fat loss, healthy skin, and even proper brain function. What you may not know is that they’re also crucial for muscle growth! Soreness in your muscles and joints is caused by inflammation, and a decent fat intake will help both to recover from heavy training. You need to make olive oil, nuts, avocados, and other healthy fat sources staples in your diet if you want to be big and lean.

Contrary to what people stuck in the 1980s might say, saturated fat is also an important nutrient for muscle growth. Not only does it NOT cause obesity, it is responsible for high levels of testosterone – a hormone conducive to building a lean, muscular physique. A good rule of thumb is to make saturated fat roughly one third of your total fat intake. Animal products like steak and eggs are good, but you should try to eat some coconut oil and other plant sources, too.

Article by Sixpackfactory’s Muscle Building Expert and Top Fitness Model Justin Woltering. Get more info on Justin at: http://www.justinwoltering.com/

Hi Everyone!

In this episode of Kitchen Quickies I am going to show you how to make my special Thai Chicken Salad Wrap! It is a great meal to have as a second snack or even lunch time ( If you follow The6PackDiet you will know what I mean by this ). The best part is that this abs meal will only take you 3 to 5 mins to make and it tastes so good you won’t believe that it is actually healthy!

Watch the video to see how to make this meal. Below I will list all the food in this meal.

Ingredients

• 1 Chicken Breast
• Rice Paper
• Lettuce
• Spring Onions
• Yellow Peppers ( Or any peppers really )
• Tomato
• Organic Peanut Butter
• Low Sodium Soya Sauce
• Half a Lemon
• Fruit Salsa

Hi Everyone!

In our latest Kitchen Quickies video I show you how to make low carb meal in just 2 minutes that will also help those abs to show faster. It has all the nutrients you will need for a late afternoon snack or even dinner.

So if you are a busy person and you still want to eat right, then this simple meal that will only take a you a few minutes to make is just for you.

Watch the video above for all the ingredients and instructions.

After posting a photo of the daily JUICE I drink I had lots of people asking for the ingredients and how to make it. Below I will list all the ingredients with some tips on how to make the perfect “ Live to 100 Juice “.

Now you can use this as a Detox Juice however I drink this juice every morning of my life because it brings a lot of nutrients to the table and it also helps alkalizing my body which is very important as a meat eater. See if your body becomes too acidic it can cause some serious health problems  and many cancers are directly related to too much acid it one’s body.  

Find out more about how to use this juice effectively at THIS LINK

So don’t think of this just as a DETOX juice, but as a healthy way to start each day that will serve you well as you get older and provide you with lots of energy every single day. When I can get my hands on it I also add some wheatgrass to the mix ( Read here more about wheatgrass ).

Ok let’s look at the actual juice.

Ingredients

1. Celery: 5 to 6 short sticks of celery
2. Spinach: A Large Bunch of spinach leaves
3. Radish:  4 radishes
4. Beetroot: 3 to 4 medium size beetroots
5. Carrots: 5 to 6 medium size carrots
6. Ginger: Small size of fresh ginger
7. Apples: 1 apple

Tips

• A grinding type juicer works best as you won’t get any of the fiber. This is especially important if you use this juice for detox purposes.
• Make sure you don’t add to much ginger as it will burn so much that you won’t be able to drink the juice.
• Wash all your ingredients before you start to juice them.
• All the ingrained above makes ONE juice.

However, as with most things in life preparation is everything and if you follow the 5 diet tips below you will be able to eat healthy and get results, no matter how hectic your life gets.

Cook in Bulk

Nothing is going to set you up for success when it comes to your diet as cooking your food in bulk. I actually shot a video ( I am busy editing it and will upload it when I am done ) where I prepared all my meals, 6 of them, in less than 10 minutes.  Every single meal had the exact amount of proteins, fats and carbs that I needed for each specific meal. How was I able to do it? I had cooked chicken breast, cooked sweet potatoes and raw foods like almonds and salads all ready in my fridge. See when you have food that is already cooked, you can literally put together complete meals in seconds!

Prepare your food the night before

I am sure you have heard this one before, yet I see very few people actually do it. In fact the second most common excuse after “I don’t Have Time” is “ I don’t have time in the morning”. Trying to squeeze out just an extra 15 minutes in the morning can sometimes be hard if you have children and you wanted to also do a workout in there somewhere. But you can easily spend 15 to 20 minutes before you go to bed to quickly just pack yourself ( And the children while you’re at it ) a lunch box for tomorrow. Put it in the fridge, and you will actually have a meal that is still nice, fresh and cold by lunchtime.  When I have a busy day I actually drive with a small cooler bag which allows me to keep all my food and drinks cold all day long.

Find a restaurant or Takeaway that will make food your way

Now you are not going to get your local McDonalds to prepare your food the way you want it. And maybe you don’t have this option available. But I have found that if you go to a proper restaurant or healthy takeaway regularly and they get to know you, they will be more than happy to change their menu a little to help you out. Heck, these days I will tell the restaurant I go to exactly what I want, even if it is not on their menu and they will do it for me.  The nice thing about this is that if you get home late or have a busy day, you can get a takeaway that won’t destroy your healthy eating plan or results.

Stock up on foods that can be used for emergency meals

Another bunch of videos I have just shot ( I just need to get the dam time to edit all of them ) is 5 minute meals. Most of these meals are made with what I call emergency ingredients. For example, one of my favorite meals is one pack of drained tuna, mixed in with avocado. Yip I know I can sound gross but it is in fact very tasty. Now as you can see, both ingredients in this meal are things that you can just keep in your house or fridge and that can be used instantly to create a meal.  So any type of food that you can keep in and around your house that can be used as and when is needed and that is still healthy falls under “Foods that can be used for Emergency Meals” e.g. Tuna, Canned Peas, Beans, Nuts etc

Always have Fruits & healthy snacks around

Fruits are obviously foods that can be eaten quickly without any preparation, but be careful, you don’t want to go and eat fruits all day long as they can still be high in sugars. However, for a quick snack or to just get you from one meal to another, they can be great. Another good snack to have are nuts, especially almonds. They are sweet and without a doubt the king of all nuts when it comes to the nutrients they bring to the party. Another great snack is beef jerky as it is high in protein and if you get the lean, low sodium variety it makes the perfect snack whenever you just need to fill the gap! Be careful for things like Protein Bars or Snack Bars as they are normally very high in fats and sugars.

So there you go, 5 simple tips that anyone can start using right away to continue getting great results, no matter how busy your life gets!

If you really want to get the most out of your workouts, you need to properly time your nutrients to fuel your body and take advantage of the post-workout window of opportunity. In this article I am going to share some of the most important tips on pre- and post-workout nutrition…

1. Complex Carbs for Sustained Energy

Carbophobia seems to go in and out of style these days, but the hard facts of muscle building remain the same. If you want to have great workouts day in and day out, the kind where you feel strong from the first exercise to the last, you need to get some carbs in you beforehand. High intensity, anaerobic exercise like weight lifting and sprinting relies on different energy systems from jogging or walking. You can’t burn fat while you lift; your body needs some starch!

Still, you need to be mindful of proper nutrition here. Complex carbs from whole grains or starchy vegetables are the way to go for two reasons. First, they contain vitamins, minerals, and fiber, all of which are crucial for health and longevity. Second, the big starch molecules in these foods give your body sustained energy. If you rely on simple starches or sugars before workouts, you’ll probably find that your energy and motivation tank about halfway through – not good!

2. Nutrients DURING your Workout?

You probably don’t need to take in any extra nutrients while you train, but it can be damn useful when you’ve got a long, grueling workout ahead of you. A dilute mixture of simple sugar and amino acids shuttles extra nutrients to your muscle cells, allowing them to start the repair process before you’ve even finished training. If you’re going to try a workout drink, use dextrose (also called glucose) as your sugar. Table sugar, high fructose corn syrup, and other common sweeteners are not nearly as useful for fueling workouts. For the amino acids, go with the – branched-chain variety, also known as BCAA. They have been proven time and again to be incredibly beneficial for flipping on the muscle-building “switch” inside your body.

3. The Post-Workout Window

Your body is in a special hormonal state after a workout, a state which many lifters call the post-workout “window of opportunity.” Your muscle cells are broken and battered from heavy training, but they are also primed for recovery and growth. Not only that, but your body does NOT want to store fat at this time. Can you get away with eating anything? No. But you can get away with ingesting relatively large amounts of simple sugars.

A good rule of thumb is to consume one third to one half of your bodyweight in grams of dextrose (glucose) immediately after you train. This will create a large spike in your insulin levels. That spike would normally lead to fat storage, but in this special post-workout state, your body will want to drive nutrients exclusively into your muscle cells! Therefore, you’ll want to take in some quickly-digesting protein along with that sugar. A quality whey protein with little or no fat or carbohydrate is best. With your blood insulin levels high, the amino acids from that whey protein will be shuttled straight into your aching muscle cells for some fast-acting recovery and GROWTH!

4. The Follow-Up Meal

For two to three hours after your training session, your body is still primed to use carbohydrates towards muscle-building, not fat gain. Unless you’re in the middle of a hardcore fat loss diet, you want to follow up that sugary post-workout shake with a carb-based solid meal about an hour later. Like your pre-workout meal, this one should contain complex, starchy carbs and lean protein.

It should also be your biggest meal of the day! Your muscles are like nutrient sponges at this point, so give them what they need to recover and grow bigger than before. This is when you should be eating your meat and your potatoes, your chicken and rice, a huge sub sandwhich, etc. By putting a good chunk of your daily calories into this meal, you’re maximizing your muscle gains. You’re also minimizing fat gain by keeping carbs and calories lower at other times of day when your body is not so primed for growth.

5. You’re Always Recovering

As important as your pre- and post-workout meals are, you ALWAYS need to eat with recovery in mind. If you’re training hard four or five times per week, your body is basically in a state of perpetual recovery and growth. Even when it’s not close to training time, you need to be slamming the lean protein! Make sure you’re getting plenty of healthy fats, as well. They help to up your daily calorie count, and they will drastically cut down on soreness and inflammation.

Article by Sixpackfactory’s Muscle Building Expert and Top Fitness Model Justin Woltering. Get more info on Justin at: http://www.justinwoltering.com/

Keep your Routine

The easiest way for things to go horribly wrong is for you to completely break your routine during the weekend. Now I am not saying you should follow the exact strict routine of your week days, but wake up at the same time ( Or within a hour from when you would normally wake up ), maybe even go for a workout on a Saturday morning. Then come back, have a great breakfast and then you can start to enjoy your day.

Be Active

For many the weekend will be a complete break from your normal workout routine but that does not mean you can’t be active. So plan or do fun activities that will help you burn a few calories. Get out of the house and out of the gym and just have fun. Go for a mountain bike ride, a hike or even something like scuba diving if you are into that. All these kinds of activities will help you burn a good amount of calories that can counter the effects of your not so perfect diet over the weekend.

Do Weight Training

If you are going to do a workout over the weekend then try and make it a heavy weight training workout. This way, all those extra calories you consume can help with muscle repair and maybe you can even add a small amount of muscle mass. If you push really hard your metabolism will also be high for a few hours after that and this will help even further to maintain your weight during the weekend.

Limit your Alcohol Consumption

Many people will obviously have a few drinks over the weekend, that is what weekends were created for after all, no? J  But try to not go on a binge all weekend long. You can easily, without even trying hard, drink 4000 calories in one evening. One tip I like is to always have a glass of water with you so that you can take sips of that in-between your drinks. This way you won’t just counter the effects of your hangover but also cut your drinking calories in half at least.

Stick to the Basic Diet Rules

Sure, one of the main things of a weekend is to have a break from your strict weekly diet. But try and go from your strict diet to a good diet, rather than from your strict diet to a completely BAD diet over the weekend. Stick to basics of eating breakfast, eating every 2 to 3 hours and if you are going out to eat, halve your meal at the restaurant and take the other half home for your next meal. You can also have the DIET version of anything unhealthy you are going to eat or drink like Diet Fizzy drinks or NO FAT Popcorn to still be part of the enjoyment without the extra calories.

So there you go 5 easy tips to avoid weekend weight gain. Remember that over a weekend it is not about getting results, it is about maintaining and at the worst, not to pick up too much weight. We have to have fun after all and live a little. So shift your focus from strict dieting and crazy workouts to having active fun and not eating anything that will completely destroy your results you worked so hard for the previous week!

Coffee and Caffeine

Caffeine is a stimulant, and as such is thought to boost your metabolism so you can burn more fat. If it does in fact boost the metabolism, the amount of caffeine you’d have to consume to see real results would be potentially deadly. It can however be used to give you a little kick start just before a workout but drinking it all day long hoping for some permanent 24/7 fat loss is not going to happen.

Caffeine, though a stimulant is also a diuretic. Diuretics are chemicals that pull water from the body, which in turn will dehydrate you. Ever notice you have to run to the bathroom a lot when you’ve had a lot of caffeine? That’s why. If you’ve been drinking coffee on a regular basis and see weight loss on the scale, it is likely just water weight, which will rebound quickly. It will be hard to lose fat by relying on the caffeine in coffee. The caffeine in coffee can also cause your blood pressure to rise, as well as your heart rate, and you’ll find it harder to sleep at night. You’ll eventually crash and possibly crave sweets to pick yourself back up, feeling worse than you did before you needed the boost. Fat loss tends to be a lot of water weight at first, so this is a key reason why the myth is so easy to believe.

Coffee and Appetite Suppression

Sadly, drinking a cup of coffee in the morning will not suppress your appetite any more than a cup of another liquid. It’s going to work by filling your stomach, just the way a glass of water or milk will. The difference? Coffee, especially if you pack on the cream and sugar will be much higher in calories than water or skim milk. It will not last long, and you’ll be hungry again pretty quickly. Don’t rely on it to help you feel less hungry! If you really want appetite suppression, eat higher quality foods that are good for you and filling. A bowl of whole grain oatmeal topped with some berries will keep you feeling full and give you plenty of energy until your mid-morning snack time. Eating plenty of fiber is the healthiest way to suppress your appetite, which will help with your weight loss efforts far more than coffee ever could.

So what can you do if you’re addicted to coffee and you don’t want it to ruin your health and weight loss goals or you want to use it, as I do, for a pre workout kickstart?

• Drink it black with no sugar, and limit yourself to two  cups per day. Never replace a meal with coffee.
• Consider switching to decaf coffee if you are only drinking it for pleasure.
• Skip the cappuccino s and latte’s. If you can’t, make sure to use low fat milk.
• Consider switching to green tea, which has been shown to have many health benefits.

It’s up to you what to do. We’re not telling you to completely give up your coffee, but now that you know the truth about it, make sure you use it in a way that it will help you with your fat loss goals instead of workout against you!