My 3 Months Body Transformation

Four years ago, I actually did this for around 3 months. My motto in our fraternity lifting group was “every day is pull-up day”, and every lifter in the fraternity knew me as the pull-up guy. I would do 5 sets to failure of full range dead-hang no-kip pull-ups every night and sometimes both morning and night. At that point I wasn’t lifting anything else. Weighed 130 pounds, could barely bench my body weight, couldn’t squat even 100 pounds and never tried deadlifting before.

So here’s what happened:

1. My max pull-ups per set increased from 4 to 19 in 3 months. My recovery time between sets dropped drastically as well, and I could do 81 full range of motion reps in 5 sets with 5 minutes rest between each set.
2. With a huge swing and big kip, I did my first muscle up after 3 months.
3. My shoulders started developing some instability that sometimes hurts a bit if I do too many pull-ups, or drop from a muscle-up too hard. I stopped doing them every day after this became a problem. This largely became a problem because I would ignore any pain outside soreness. and do my pull-ups every day no matter what.
4. My lats got pretty big, while every other part of me was still small and skinny. I had tiny legs, chest, and arms. Even the upper part of my back and shoulders, trapezius and deltoids, were small in comparison to my lats. This made me look really out of proportion.
5. My shirts stopped fitting well around my back, but my arms weren’t big enough to fill out any shirt sleeves. Again, I developed really strange proportions.
6. I went to the gym and picked up some dumbbells for the first time in months, and to my surprise realized my curling rep weight almost doubled.
7. Witnessing the significant gains from dedication to pull-ups, I learned that the body is very responsive to any hard work you put into it. I applied similar dedication to other exercises (push-ups, deadlifting), and managed to even out my physique a bit more.
8. Stopped having issues with opening bottles with screw-on caps, and wasn’t particularly hindered when the wheels on my luggage broke.
9. I don’t have a before picture, but here’s a picture taken two summers after all the pull-ups and also after my bro drew a “palm tree penis” (yes I knew he was doing it, and no I didn’t care) on my back with sunscreen at the beach. I am standing naturally and weighed 145 pounds at the time:

I found another picture taken during my pull-up obsession days. It was around this time that I could do close to 30 full range-of-motion reps in one set:

In conclusion, I wouldn’t really recommend doing pull-ups every day, but if you do you’ll see results fast. If you use good form and fight for those last reps, your lats will grow quickly. In my experience, doing pull-ups when you are really sore is no problem at all. Your body will just grow even more and you will see gains faster. HOWEVER, if you experience joint pain in your shoulders and elbows, do not ignore it. Take a break, and listen to your body please. Even to this day my shoulders still feel a bit funky sometimes when I do pull-ups. Do not make the same mistake I did. Good luck!

EDIT: The image here is in no way edited. I really did have that tanned into my back and it took over half a year for it to fade. I only posted it because it is the only picture I have that shows my back musculature

4 Proven Ways to Build Muscle

Just so you know I am not a dinggleberry blowing smoke up your bunghole via the internet, here is my own transformation (no this photo is not photoshopped and no I’ve never used any illegal substances)…

My Internal Shift:

1. Define Your “Why”

Here is the kicker though, in order for your “why” to power your vehicle it must have enough horsepower.

For example, 4 a cylinder 100 horsepower “Why” = “I want to get in shape to look sexy”

Pretty generic why….

Our job is to take another step further and unearth your deepest desire and motivation for wanting to get fit.

On the flipside a supercharged V12 “Why” = “I want to get in shape so I can show up in my life authentically. I want to build a body which awakens my inner confidence and allows my greatness to shine through to the world. I am tired of hiding and feel uncomfortable in my body, I am ready to level up and become the best me”

See the difference?

Here is the deal, even with a successful training/nutrition plan and a clearly defined “why”

Sh*t is still going to be hard along your path.

You’ll have ups.

And you’ll most definitely have downs.

The key is to have a “why” so powerful and inspiring that it will propel you through the natural undulations.

2. Have a plan

Cliche I know, but this is ground zero along your fitness journey.

After coaching over 112 clients in the last 12 months, I have learned that nearly every single one of my clients struggled immensely before joining Thrive Coaching for one reason...

They were lost in the gym.

They felt as though their workouts weren’t bringing them closer to their goals.

And on top of all that, they felt blindfolded in the kitchen.

In the majority of cases, they knew exactly the results they desired for themselves

but they simply didn’t know how to obtain them.

They would dabble with some random workout they found from scrolling through instagram...only to leave the gym feeling hopeless and confused.

Feeling as though their efforts did little to bring them closer to their dream body.

Same was true in the kitchen.

The all to common pattern was to jump from one fad diet to the next, in hopes that one of these silver bullet diets would give them the results they were looking for.

Keto one week followed by Whole30 a month later.

They were on the figurative fitness hamster wheel.

Trying hard, but getting nowhere.

Sound familiar to you?

The central issue here is that their efforts were hodge podged and lacked any clear direction.

Pretty difficult to have consistency and motivation when you don’t have a clear plan of attack, huh?

3) Honest Assessment

Once you have clarified your “why” and have a plan which will drive you towards your vision, you need to take an honest inventory of yourself and your efforts.

Are you training with proper form/executing your exercises conciously or letting your ego get in the way?

Good form and execution is grossly underrated IMO.

Are you listening to your body or aggressively training through injuries?

Nothing will put the brakes on your progress faster than a long term neglected injury.

Are you truly bringing your A game to your workouts or half heartedly putting in effort?

Effort…most don’t go it. Do you?

Are you stay consistent and trusting the process or constantly getting sucked into new fads and trends like an caffeine infused ADD chimpanzee?

In an age of social media influencers spreading information which is equivalent to a steaming pilling of horse dung, you must be careful who you listen to and how often you change things up.

Side note: most times, changing things simply for the sake of “changing things” is a horrible idea. Please avoid this rookie mistake of program hopping frequently.

My Practical Shifts:

1. Train Progressively

Without a shadow of doubt, mechanical tension based training should occupy 40–60% of your time in the gym.

The reality is, your body wants to stay in homeostasis.

It does not want to change.

For a natural lifter, simply getting a “sick pump” in the gym with your bros is not enough to kick your body out of this state of wanting to be unchanged.

You must apply a stimulus which is truly challenging.

There are many ways to implement progressive overload, but far and away the most “scalable” long gains producing strategy is to consistently get stronger on your compound lifts overtime.

Our bodies have mechanosensors which sensitive to the magnitude and temporal aspect of load (weight on the bar).

These magical internal little gains producing gremlins spark anabolic and anti-catabolic signaling pathways through mechanotransduction.

In layman terms….

Lift heavy things.

Eventually lift heavier things.

Do this with enough volume, and you will get bigger.

2. Periodize your training

Your training program should not be binary.

It must be dynamic.

It must account for changes in volume, intensity, and rest overtime.

Training is stressful…like really stressful.

In order for your body to adapt your must periodize your training.

This can be done via deloading, or simply having periods of high volume training followed by lower volume training.

3. Focus on your shadow

Let’s be honest….

Most peoples only metric for success in the gym is simply how “good” you look.

If you fall into this category (myself included at times), you want to maximize your shadow.

What the heck do I mean by this?

This means prioritizing development in the illusory muscle groups.

This includes your: deltoids, lats, calves, and the like.

These are the muscles which when trained properly can give you the illusion of having a supernatural physique.

4. Protein is actually important

This is perhaps the only point which the “bro scientists” have gotten right.

No, you do not need to be slamming protein shakes immediately post workout or eating 300g of it daily…

but you must be conscious of your macronutrient balance (carbs, fats, and protein).

For my first two years of training, my post workout meal was peanut butter and a bowl of cereal.

Yikes…

(FYI In a perfect world this post workout meal would have been 20–40g of easily absorbed protein , 40g o f starchy carbs, and little fat. )

As a blanket statement, I recommend .6–1g of protein per pound of bodyweight daily.

While it is hard to quantify the exact benefits I saw after I began tracking my macros two years into my fitness journey, what I do is that my results began to skyrocket around the exact same time.

Food for thought (literally).

Hope that helped:)

How to Get Toned Abs

In order to have defined Abs, you need first to reduce your body fat levels to around 10–12% for most people. And you will need to do it the right way.

So, How Do I Lose Bodyfat Properly?

This is one of the most questions I usually hear as a Personal trainer and Strength Coach.

People seem to be overwhelmed by the amount of information spread all over the Internet. Various techniques and methodologies had been shared by many experts all over the years, and while some of them are great, others were a complete scam and that left people lost in terms of what is the right way to do it.

How To Lose Bodyfat:

First of all, fat loss can be achieved through various methods. However, some are faster than others, and Faster doesn’t always mean better, especially when we are talking about fat loss, because the truth is, the faster the process the less healthy it is. I mean DIETS like the original PSMF or Protein Sparing Modified Fast can make you lose up to 10 lbs in one week, of course, most of those will be water weight but you still can lose up to 3 maybe 4 lbs of pure fat in one week which is crazy.

But the charm end there, because this type of Diets will only give you diminishing returns in the long run and they may cause some serious health issues, so what i am going to discuss here is the proper way to reduce bodyfat. instead of the fastest way to do so.

So, I will try to give you a comprehensive guide on how to set your own fat loss plan:

1-Establish a Caloric Deficit:

After establishing a caloric deficit, the most important thing is to get an adequate amount of protein, because you don’t want to lose your hard earned muscles alongside your bodyfat, unless you love being skinny then you don’t need much protein.

But even if you are not interested in looking muscular, losing muscle is a bad move because muscle is active metabolic tissue that will increase your BMR at rest.

Generally, try to get at least 0.8 gram per lb of lean body weight. This should be a good starting point for most people. But, if you are in a very huge deficit you may need to up it to something like 1.5 gram per lb of bodyweight.

Best protein sources include Eggs, Chicken and Turkey Breasts, Beef, Fish and Whey protein supplements. If you are vegan then try pea protein powder.

3-Choose your Cardio Wisely:

There is basically two types of cardio: LISS cardio or Low-Intensity Steady State Cardio and HIIT or High-Intensity Interval Training. Both can get you shredded.

However, choosing which cardio you need will depend on so many factors like:

-Your current fitness level.

-Daily caloric intake: is it high or too low.

-Gym routine: is it moderate or draining.

-Your preferences because those play a role as well.

Generally, people will use HIIT at the beginning of the cut to quickly deplete glycogen levels. Then they will switch to LISS in the final weeks when their energy level is at all time low.

4-Get Enough Sleep:

It may seem like an outdated advice but trust me it is crucial. I can tell you by experience that the most roadblock I had to overcome when trying to get shredded is to adopt good sleeping habits.

Sleep deprivation will do basically two things:

1-Increase Cortisol production:

which is your stress hormone and it is a catabolic hormone, unlike testosterone. Also, high Cortisol levels will inhibit testosterone production since they are both made from the same enzymes. Also, cortisol is the hormone responsible for you holding fat on your lower abs.

2-It decreases Insulin Sensitivity:

Decreased insulin sensitivity will make the process of burning stubborn bodyfat nearly impossible. heck some people may even get leaner by just improving their Insulin Sensitivity. Because it improves fat distribution.

5-Eat A Lot Of Vegetables and greens:

I think I don’t need to clarify why it is so important to eat enough veggies every day. Eeveryone, even the regular folks, know how vital they are in the process of building a healthy body.

And they are even more important when you are in a caloric deficit and your body is struggling with a lot of stress and deprivation. So make sure get at least 3 cups of veggies per day. Also, try to vary your sources as much as possible to get a wide spectrum of micronutrients.

GOOD LUCK.

Intermittent Fasting

Can intermittent fasting help with weight loss and how can one go about it?

Ah Intermittent Fasting…one of the newest popular routes to weight loss.

Yes, intermittent fasting (IF) can help with weight loss.

But…

While most pedants will insist that you normally fast intermittently when you sleep, IF is usually defined as maintaining a longer fast than normal. The most commonly used IF strategy is a 16 hour fast with 8 hours of eating. Others include eating every other day or simply occasionally fasting for a day or even going as far as an 18–20 hour window or even One Meal A Day (OMAD).

Now, your body does change things up after fasting for a while. In some studies, HGH and Testosterone levels elevate after around 16 hours of fasting. Additionally Adrenaline may be released around this time elevating your metabolism after this time as well. Now, don’t get too excited, these boosts are not extreme or long lived. It’s thought that this happens to spurn you into action to go get food.

After 36–72 hours, though, your metabolism crashes as your body tries to maintain what energy stores it has for famine protection.

These hormonal changes aren’t actually the big deal about IF. I’m not sure they’re really significant enough to make a difference.

IF is just an eating pattern. You can actually gain weight on IF if you eat too much.

So what is it good for?

One thing about people is that we are terrible at controlling our eating. If we allow ourselves we’ll graze and eat more without being able to track it (because we’re also terrible at remembering how much we’ve eaten).

IF sets a hard boundary around when we can eat and if you can set that in your head, you’ll most likely eat much less.

I did IF for about 6 months, only eating between 12 and 8. I lost about 6% body fat (I’m at 14% now). Most of that was at the beginning, but I was able to maintain around 13.5% for most of the time.

Even with IF, how much you eat is very important

It’s just with IF you have better controls over this since you can only eat between particular hours of the day.

With even shorter eating windows you may also run into some other benefits since you’re getting all your food in such a short amount of time that you can’t eat too much and your body can’t digest the food enough to use it all.

---

I wouldn’t bank on the metabolic benefits, but you can definitely control your eating much better with IF allowing you to lose and control your weight better.

I wouldn’t bank on the metabolic benefits, but you can definitely control your eating much better with IF allowing you to lose and control your weight better.

UPDATE:

I’ve had a few submissions to this question that address how it “helps you get into a low insulin state.” While this is true…it’s kind of redundant when you address it in terms of fat loss since in order to burn fat you have to be in a low insulin state, generally.

I say generally, because when you eat, your insulin levels spike because your glucose levels increase, particularly with a meal heavy in simple glucose. In between meals your body will maintain strict controls over your glucose levels and it will continue to do so for 36–80 hours before you go into ketosis.

What this means is that by intermittent fasting you’re avoiding those spikes for as long as possible, keeping yourself in a fasted state for a longer amount of time giving your body more time to get rid of those fat stores…

But like I said, if you eat too much, you’re not going to burn off as much fat during your fasted time as you’re adding back to them during the eating time.

It’s like if you had a funnel that drains at 10 mL/s but you fill it up at 15 mL/s, it’s never going to completely empty. Even if you optimize the funnel and it starts draining at 14 mL/s it will still fill up.

IF helps…but it’s still not magic.

17 natural ways to boost fertility and get pregnant faster

Here are 17 natural ways to boost fertility and get pregnant faster.

1.Eat Foods That Are Rich in Antioxidants.
2.Eat a Bigger Breakfast.
3.Avoid Trans Fats.
4.Cut Down on Carbs.
5.Eat Less Refined Carbs.
6.Eat More Fiber.
7.Swap Protein Sources.
8.Choose High-Fat Diary.
9.Try a Multivitamin.

10.Get Active.
11.Take Time to Relax.
12.Cut the Caffeine.
13.Achieve a Healthy Weight.
14.Increase Your Iron Intake.
15.Avoid Excess Alcohol.
16.Avoid Unfermented Soy Products.
17.Natural Supplements.
Anything Else?

Good nutrition is vital for a healthy body and reproductive system.
In fact, studies have shown that eating a nutritious diet and making positive lifestyle changes can help boost fertility and prepare your body for pregnancy.
What's more, how you choose to live and eat today will influence sperm and egg quality 90 days from now.
If you're trying to get pregnant, it's important that you begin making healthy nutrition and lifestyle choices today.

The secret to long-term weight loss

The secret to long-term weight loss is doing the same healthy things over and over again.

Have you noticed that some people who have a personal trainer and consistently workout do not look any look different?

That’s because it’s what we do between exercise that really makes the difference. That being said 70% of weight loss comes from changes in diet.

There are three "ingredients" to weight loss.

1. Eating right (or Diet)
2. Exercising
3. Consistency

The third ingredient: Consistency is easily the most important, and the most difficult to accomplish. It takes accountability and a measured pace.

There’s a huge difference between knowing what to do, and actually doing it.

Diet:
The right diet will can help anyone lose weight for a few weeks. The problem with most diets is that they a) become boring b) are seen as temporary c) don’t actually change your habits and behaviors. We view a diet as something we will do until we reach our goal—and then quit, and go back to “old ways”. Most people never stick to their diets.

Instead of talking about your "diet", start talking about it as a way of life. The best “diets” are the ones you can truly stick with. It has to be a way of life, otherwise, you’re going to revert back to your old ways, and regain the weight.

Ultimately, the key to this is changing your relationship with food. If the only thing we’re changing is the food we’re eating from one “diet” to the next, we’re not going to change for the long term. If you have trouble sticking to a diet and/or exercise plan, it may because of an unknown fear related to losing weight—people are often as afraid of success as they are of failure.

Exercise:
One of the biggest problems with exercise is "binging and purging." (Note: This has nothing to do with food, bulimia, or anorexia.) As an example, "John" will decide he needs to lose 15 pounds before his wedding. He buys a gym membership and starts working out every day for 2 hours (binging).

By the end of the first week, he is completely exhausted. He decides to take a day off to recuperate and that day turns into a week (purging). When John feels sufficiently guilty, he will goes back to the gym and repeats the process. Again, like your diet, it has to be sustainable. But keep in mind: no one gains weight from not exercising. People gain weight from overeating.

Why do so many people struggle with their weight?

Consistency:
People aren’t staying consistent with their diet and/or exercise.

It’s all about consistency. It's easy to start a diet, but it’s very hard to stick with it. Same for exercise.

The real key to losing weight is not a magic diet, pill or exercise contraption. Rather, the key is finding ways to be consistent with diet and exercise. 

Remember, there's a huge difference between knowing what to do, and actually doing it.

What are the benefits of keto diet?

Over the past several years, I have performed in-depth research on different diets that are popular for their claimed health-boosting and weight-loss benefits. The keto diet is among them.

To give you a quick overview, the keto diet is short for the ketogenic diet. In general, the keto diet is composed of 75% good fats, 20% protein, and 5% carbs. There are a few variations of the keto diet (like high-protein keto diet), but this is generally the standard macronutrient ratio needed in order to achieve ketosis.

Ketosis is the key to the keto diet. Ketosis is a normal metabolic process characterized by increased ketone production. Ketones are a form of energy that is alternative to carbohydrates. Carbohydrates break down into glucose, which are easy for the body to use, but can also be problematic when over-consumed, like they are in the Standard American Diet (SAD).

To understand if the keto diet is considered healthy, first, let’s take a step back to understand ketosis - since misunderstandings are often the root of the criticism of the keto diet.

This is what I have found in my research about the potential health benefits of the keto diet with links to relevant research:

1. Promotes weight loss: While a low-fat diet is often recommended for weight loss, but research shows that a high fat, moderate protein, and low-carbohydrate diet is much more effective at promoting weight loss, thanks to the beauty of ketone bodies.
2. Lowers risk factors for disease: These risk factors include high blood sugar and insulin levels, high cholesterol, and high triglycerides, among others.
3. Protects from muscle loss: a very low carbohydrate diet with adequate amounts of protein are likely protective against the loss of muscle mass.
4. Lowers the risk of type 2 diabetes: Excess fat is linked to metabolic disorders like type 2 diabetes, and weight loss spurred by the keto diet can help to lower risk factors..
5. Helps to control type 2 diabetes and other metabolic disorders: If you have diabetes, you may be turning to the ketogenic diet as a way to control your insulin and glucose levels. Early research shows that the ketogenic diet can help you significantly improve insulin sensitivity levels. One study even shows that some diabetes patients were able to stop taking their diabetes medication altogether while on the keto diet.
6. May help slow tumor growth for certain types of cancer: Early research shows that a calorically-restricted ketogenic diet is an effective alternative therapy for malignant brain cancer). Since high levels of circulating glucose in the blood are needed for tumor growth, the glucose-reducing effects of the keto diet help to slow tumor growth.
7. Improves symptoms of Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease: The ketogenic diet may help to reduce the symptoms and slow the progression of degenerative brain diseases like Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease.
8. Helps treat factors causing polycystic ovarian syndrome (POS): POS is the most common cause of infertility among women. One of the aggravating factors of POS is high levels of insulin. The ketogenic diet can help reduce insulin and glucose levels in the blood as a dietary therapy for POS.
9. Boosts recover from brain diseases: Initial animal studies show that the keto diet may boost the recovery of young people who have experienced traumatic brain injuries).
10. Reduces the severity of acne: One of the factors that can increase your risk of acne is high insulin levels in the blood. Since the ketogenic diet doesn’t allow you to eat sugar or processed foods, which up insulin levels, it may help to improve the appearance of acne.
    
    

For most people, the ketogenic diet could offer significant health benefits.

The two main worries of health and nutrition specialists are the following:

1. People follow the keto diet without consulting a specialist first
2. The keto diet has not been around long enough to understand its long-term effects

There are logical responses to both of these concerns and they are directly connected. Research, even if it is relatively new, is on the side of the ketogenic diet. But it is true that an unbalanced keto diet (or any unbalanced diet, for that matter) could have detrimental effects.

For that reason, it is important to:

1. Get a general medical check-up to make sure you are in good health to follow a restrictive diet.
2. Consult with a registered dietician who is a specialist in the ketogenic diet to guide you on how to build a well-balanced ketogenic diet that fills all of your nutrient needs.

Once you check these off of your list, you will very likely be able to reap the benefits of the ketogenic diet for your health.

What are the best ways to lose weight?

1. Give up sugar. 
2. Easy on foods that turn to sugar (breads, pastas, pizza, fried potatoes).
3. Start your day with warm to hot water with lemon. Helps get liver, gallbladder and digestive system releasing.
4. Drink at least half your weight in ounces of water/day (best between meals).
5. Chew food to a liquid. Will help you be satisfied with less, and help your body digest, absorb and eliminate faster.
6. Use smaller plates, helps with portion control.
   
   
   
7. Consider a side of probiotics with each meal (kombucha, sauerkraut, kimchi, lassi, kefir) or unsweetened ginger tea. All help your body digest food.
8. Cook from scratch, at the minimum go for premade meals that are real/few ingredients. Even Costco has pretty incredible looking family meals.
9. Plan a weekly menu, then buy ingredients for that and those alone.
10. Shop outer four walls of grocery store. That's where most of the real food is.
11. Never go grocery shopping on an empty stomach. Shop with your own bag or basket. NOT a shopping cart. Helps to buy no more than you can carry.
12. Pack your own snacks AND water each and every time you will be gone, especially past mealtimes.
13. Eat during hours that serve your body best (10-11am to 6-7pm).
14. Know what foods are weight gainers for your blood type. For B+ corn is one. For O's it's wheat and dairy.
15. Coffee enemas do more than help with pain and clean blood, they are INCREDIBLE for weight loss and natural healing of cancer. They are how Jack Osborne lost lots of weight, won in kickboxing AND beat his addictions. They are also what some holistic cancer clinics use. To the tune of FIVE/day. We crave what is in our blood, coffee enemas take that away. Be it food, drugs or alcohol. They are how I helped one get off three hardcore drugs. And what I use for pain.
16. Sweat and movement. Excellent way to keep puffiness off and toxins out.
     
    
17. Save treats for a special occasion (wedding, party, social gathering). They are not a treat if we are having daily.
18. Treat everyday like a special occasion. Meaning, aim to look and feel your best every day instead of for an event of sorts. Many mind their “P's & Q's" to look their best for a one day event, when it should be the other way around.
19. Ask yourself how a certain food or drink will make you look and feel. For better or worse? Helps tremendously! That and a mirror.
20. In time consider seasonal detox. It'll help what ails you, free you of cravings and keep toxic disease producing weight out and off.
21. Key to keeping weight off is by having at least one daily bowel movement. Like babies and pets that poop shortly after. Constipation is not a disease but WILL INDEED lead to one. Diet can make or break us, while detox is a win-win.
22. Eat healthy most hours of day and days of week.
23. Losing weight and keeping it off is easy with self respect alone.
24. Lastly, do inventory of your kitchen (cupboards and fridge) at least twice a year. Warmer months and colder.

Should I remember more, I will add to this list. In the meantime, CHEERS!