Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle---Highly Recommended

I'm sure people have talked about this ebook here and there, I believe it's the most popular fitness ebook sold online. But I just bought this a few weeks ago and absolutely love it. Tom Venuto, the writer, takes a real sensible approach to training/nutrition and backs pretty much everything he says with studies. Also kind of nice is that he's not pushing any supplements, in fact he pretty much says that he doesn't use them himself.

Here are the basic high points of the book. But for me the big thing was the weekly body fat measurements and the importance of that.

---He's REALLY into setting goals and obviously pretty schooled in personal development, but not to the point of being real new age about it. Like other things, all his stances come from studies about how the human brain works. He's got some really good stuff on emotional eating and changing the way you look at food/nutrition.

---On the topic of goal setting, he is a firm believer in daily, weekly, monthly, 12 week, and annual goals. But the game-changer for me was the weekly goals. He recommends a weekly weigh-in with a body comp. test. Personally, I bought the Omron body fat tester, which isn't exact, but it's consistent. And it's been great to have the feedback and KNOW that the weight you're stripping off is body-fat.

---His meal plans are typical protein/carbs/fat that you'd see in most bodybuilder plans. He recommends starting with a 50% carb, 30% protein, and 20% fat diet and then, depending on results, using Carbs as the X-Factor. If you need to cut calories, you cut the carbs first.

--The really nice thing about his program is that it's not set in stone. A lot of the newer trainers online will say "Don't use protein supplements, eat real food!" or "Don't do cardio, it's a waste" or "Always lift heavy". His approach is more balanced. He says that if you start out with a beginners routine and each weigh-in, you lose 2 pounds of fat...then keep doing it. If you lose too much muscle, up the calories. If you don't lose anything, cut the calories (carbs) and increase cardio.

--He's pretty adamant about calorie counting, mostly because he thinks that anything else is guessing. Also about aiming for 1-2 pounds of fat loss per week...or up to 1% of your body weight.

--His recommendation is not for "free days", but instead he recommends a 90/10 compliance. So 10% of the time you can eat whatever, but make sure you still watch calories. For me, this is great. Because I love Chex Mix. And in the past, if I cheated and ate a bunch, I'd just say "Well, I'll start again next week". But now I just use those towards the 10%. The author says that the flaw with Cheat Days is people literally undo an entire week's calorie deficit in one day, when there's really no reason to go that crazy.

--He says that it's absolutely essential to weight train while you're in a calorie deficit because the loss of lean muscle is accelerated when your body is in a caloric deficit.

--Every fourth day, he recommends eating at your maintenance level for calories. Not a free day, but just eating more of what you're eating now. He says that there are numerous studies that show that certain hormones critical to fat loss stop firing when you're in a prolonged caloric deficit.

Anyways, check it out if you're looking for a really solid foundation. I personally loved it and I've seen really great results. (down 12 pounds in 2.5 weeks while maintaining lean muscle).