Raspberry ketones are found in red raspberries

There has been a lot of buzz in the media about raspberry ketones lately, especially ever since Dr. Oz mentioned these substances on his TV show and touted them as a wonderful fat burning aid recently. So what are they, what do they do and can they really help you burn more fat and achieve the lean body you want? I will explain what these substances are and what kind of action they have in our bodies in just a moment. But the exciting news is that they do seem to be able to help us burn fat and stay leaner. Let’s explore these this wonderfully aromatic compounds closely so you can understand their actions and what impact they can have on your body goals.

Raspberry ketones are substances found in red raspberries and are responsible for many flavoring and aromatic qualities in cosmetics and processed foods. They actually have a wonderful raspberry smell as their name suggests. They can be ingested orally and and metabolized. Once they are in the blood stream they have effects on lipolysis and our fat cells.

Just like other ketone bodies, raspberry ketones encourage our bodies to free up lipids or fats for fuel. Raspberry ketones seem to do this by increasing the amount of glycerol in our adipose tissue (from fatty acid separation) as much as threefold. Additionally, they increase fatty acid oxidation while suppressing triglyceride accumulation. Simply put, they give our fat cells the signals to more freely release fat as fuel, and help our bodies resist fat accumulation. More precisely, red raspberry ketones do all this action by increasing the levels of a protein hormone called adiponectin.

Effects of adiponectin

Adiponectin is a hormone produced by our fat cells that regulates the metabolism of lipids and glucose in the fat cell, and also influences our own body’s response to insulin. This hormone decreases triglyceride production, has an anti-inflammatory effect in arterial walls, decreases glucose production in the liver, and increases insulin sensitivity. Adiponectin is the protein product of an adipose tissue-specific factor, isolated and termed APM1. Low levels of adiponectin are found in people who are obese, and high levels are seen in people who have a tough time storing fat. The net of this is that if your adiponectin levels are higher then you will more than likely have an easier time getting lean and staying lean. The higher amounts of raspberry ketones in your body means higher amounts of adiponectin, which means more fat released as fuel. Now you should know that these things don’t work in a vacuum and if your diet isn’t complimentary to fat burning then your results will be poor. After all, you can’t eat ten pizzas, take some rasberry ketones and think that your body won’t want to store extra calories as fat. But if your diet is right, and you are exerting more energy than you are taking in, then adding raspberry ketones can help you effectively raise adiponectin levels and in turn help you lose a much higher amount of body fat.

Can taking more red raspberry ketones help us stay lean, burn fat and achieve some to the body goals that we want? As  you have probably already guessed from our earlier discussion the answer is yes. The evidence seems to suggest that raspberry ketones can help us lose fat and keep it off. While most of the scientific data has been done with rats or in test tubes, the evidence is more than promising. However, I want to stress that there hasn’t been any human trials that I am aware of, and this is not in any way a super fat burner miracle pill. I do believe that adding red raspberry ketones to your good daily diet in the form of a fat burner like Scorch or similar product can have a positive impact on your body’s ability to burn fat faster and help you keep it off.

Cassie Burchett 2012 NPC Gold Coast bikini masters overall champion

I have written many times over the years on this topic and it is something that I am very passionate about. Success and being a champion seem to go hand-in-hand in most peoples minds when they think of any winner of any competition or anyone who is victorious in just about any en-devour. However I challenge you to re-define your notions of what it means to be a champion or what is means to be successful. For me being a champion is all about your attitude toward yourself and others. It is easy to define champions by who is elected into a position or one who wins a title, but does that mean there is only one champion or victor that day? I can not speak for anyone else but myself when I say that I know being a champion means knowing my own sense of self worth, my need to continually strive for excellence in everything that I do, and most importantly my sense of compassion toward others who are on this similar journey.

I have personally competed in bodybuilding since 1989 and I can remember the feelings of dread and failure throughout my career each time I didn’t win a competition. For me everything seemingly was held in the balance on each win or loss. If I won or was victorious, I felt powerful, confident and I felt like I was making my life exactly what I wanted it to be. But the times I lost (which was more than I won), I can remember my feelings of disappointment, despair, and my incredible sense of failure. After some years of this kind of extreme yo-yo emotional roller-coaster ride, I came to a point in my life where I had to re-evaluate and analyze what I was doing to myself. Was there a better way for me to ensure that I could be a success? And was there a way for me to ensure that I was the champion that I knew I was on the inside.

What I came up with was a new definition that fit into my own life and one in which I feel equalizes the playing field of genetics, money and anything else that creates that sense of unfairness when you compete against others who may have advantages over you. There are only two things in life that you can control when it comes to physique competing; your attitude and the work that you do. Almost everything that you will encounter in the competition that will influence your ability to win or lose at a contest will be out of your control. Who you compete against, what the judges think of you, and how your body expresses itself genetically is all out of your hands. The only factors that can sway your own sense of victory is your own attitude and your work ethic.

What’s in the Attitude of a Champion?

The attitude of a champion sees competition as the playground for work that has been done. What I mean by this is that competition isn’t the test of a champion or the way in which champions are revealed, as most see it. The champions have already been created, the forum of competition is just where we, the spectators, get to see a kind of comparative analysis or aggregate of excellence. Winning and losing competitions are the consequences of champions but they aren’t the only consequences nor are all the champions rewarded by a first place trophy. I contend that anyone who applies them selves in earnest, and with conviction, not giving up, dedicating to themselves to being better than they are, and holding others who want this same endeavor with compassion and honor to be a champion.

Champions compete because it is the most natural expression of the competitors need to exhibit all the hard work and effort that has been applied toward the pursuit of excellence. Additionally, competition is the forum where this kind of comparative exhibition exists. Someone is rewarded for rising above but this doesn’t mean that every competitor can’t be seen as a champion or have the sense of value that comes with being excellent at something. What matters most in this case is how you hold your attitude and what effort you have put into your pursuit.

What kind of effort makes a champion?

Everybody who competes tries, but this doesn’t make them a champion necessarily. Aside from the attitude of the competitor, it is the raw effort that makes a champion who he or she is. The kind of effort that I am talking about is the kind that didn’t give up when it got hard. With continual obstacles being thrown in front of them they still persevered. When everyone around them seemed to say they couldn’t do it, they plugged on. When their own self-doubt poked its ugly head up and said you can’t do this, they did it anyway. And when they fell flat on their face after giving everything they thought they had into something, they got up and tried again. This is the effort of a champion.

This kind of effort is special because it assumes that there will be challenges and obstacles that will cross your path. This kind of effort is special because it doesn’t listen to anyone but the voice inside you that tells you that “… this can be done!” Most importantly, it is the kind of effort that simply doesn’t give in or give up in spite of anything that comes its way. It is a wonderfully ignorant kind of effort that only knows what it needs to do.

Cassie Burchett competing at the 2012 NPC Gold Coast Championships

Champions are people who understand that being a champion might result in holding the 1st place trophy but not necessarily. Champions define themselves by their own meter and know that the value in being a champion comes from your own unique perspective. Only you know where you came from, what emotional obstacles you have overcome, what things you had to conquer and how hard it was to do it.  Only you have been present every moment of every day that you have been on this journey. And only you know how hard it has been, how much you had to learn, overcome, and ignore just to step on stage. This is a champion, and it is possible every time YOU step on stage, go to the gym or do anything everyday, you simply have to know it and feel it.

Former Team Tadster IFBB Pro Lionel Brown knows the value of pre-workout supplementation!

Whenever I go to the gym to workout in the off season my main goal is to have the most intense workout that I possibly can and stimulate my body to gaining as much muscle as possible in the shortest period of time. In order to do this in the most effective way I have to set up the proper internal environment that will enable me to workout intensely and preserve my hard earned muscle. While I workout I am actually setting into motion a series of events in my body that is actually counter productive to building muscle on one-hand and completely necessary to muscle building on the other hand. It is because of this that I have to be careful that I don’t burn off precious muscle and that I also give my body the energy nutrients and other components that can empower me to maintain my muscle that I already have, but break down this tissue enough to stimulate the growth adaptation that I want as a bodybuilder. Part of the formula for handling this precarious situation is in my pre-workout stack that I take before I train.

About 30 mins before I train, I have several things that I know are critical for me to have a great muscle building workout. Let’s tackle them one by one:

• BCAA’s -

Taking branched-chain amino acids before you train is a great way to hold on to that muscle that you have worked so hard to build. When you workout and your activity level and caloric demand go up during exercise, your body will tap into several different fuels in order to satisfy your energy demand. Our bodies are always burning a mixture of fuels during exercise. We are continuously burning carbohydrates, lipids and of course proteins. The proteins that our bodies will recruit for energy are: leucine, isoleucine and valine. These three amino acids are the branched-chain amino acids and they are particularly abundant in muscle tissue. Taking 5-15 grams of these from a product like Figure Fuel before a workout or cardio session will ensure that you are providing the nutrients that your body will use instead of tapping into your own natural reserves, namely muscle tissue. Depending on how much muscle you have on your frame you should assume 5-10 gm for ladies and 10-15 gm for most men.

• Creatine -

I have used creatine for about twenty years and it has made a profound impact on my workouts and my overall progress. Over the years there have been several versions of creatine that have had some value to bodybuilders and weight lifters. Today I use a combination of TriCreatine Orotate and a standard creatine monohydrate mixture. I use Clout, which has TriCreatine Orotate as my base creatine and then I add an additional 10 gm of creatine monohydrate to it. This is my own mixture and while I think the Clout product is fine by itself for most individuals, I have an elevated lean body mass and so I benefit from higher amounts of creatine pre-workout.

Why this mixture? As we age, the chemistry of our muscles change and as this happens our ability to contain the contractile forces within our muscles diminishes over time. Part of this is due to losing our ability to hold onto creatine in our muscles (among other nutrients). Using a mixture of 3 parts creatine and 1 part orotic acid helps to change the pH of the muscle and thus encouraging more creatine to be held in the muscle. Again, I add extra creatine to this mixture because I to make absolute sure that I am providing enough of the raw materials that my muscles need to make ATP and thus have the most powerful workouts that I can.

• Fat Burner

I have used fat burners longer than I have used creatine and again this is another supplement that has added tremendous value to my program over the years whether I have been contest prepping or just wanted a boost of intensity in my workouts in the off-season. I typically don’t encourage my athletes to use a lot of fat burners or stimulants in the off-season because I want the best effect for them with these supplements during contest prep time. I also don’t want any abuse of fat burners, which is so common out there. At the heart of it, most fat burners are stimulant based and are a mixture of caffeine products to stimulate metabolism and thermogenesis. If you use this kind of supplement for extended periods of time you run the risk of not only diminishing your fat burning response with these products, but more importantly you risk stressing important systems in your body such as your adrenal glands. Over use and abuse of fat burners can lead you to adrenal fatigue. Some of the symptoms you can suffer from, if you have adrenal fatigue are the following:

1. Morning fatigue (you can’t seem to get yourself awake and alive until after 3 hours after you have awoke)
2. Cravings for foods high in salt and fat
3. Sugar cravings
4. Mild depression
5. Mood swings
6. Memory problems
7. Muscular weakness
8. Slow to recover from illness
9. Increased food allergies
10. Decrease in sex drive

Like I said, what I suggest is using fat burners like Scorch for contest prep primarily, and use it sparingly during the off-season for the occasional boost when you need it. Another method you might use is the cycling of this supplement throughout your training year. This can be a great way to use this fat burner all year around. Here is what you do; use your fat burner like Scorch for 2 weeks then take 2 weeks off from it, then repeat this. This is an easy way to use fat burners continuously throughout the year and not over stress your system.

AAKG molecular structure

Finally, I add in about 3000 mg of arginine alpha-ketoglutarate or AAKG. This is basically two arginine molecules bound to an alpha-ketoglutarate molecule. In the body, AAKG increases nitric oxide in the muscles, has a glutamine sparring effect directly in the muscle, encourages gh response, helps improve free radical scavenging, and enhances fat metabolism. Most athletes who use AAKG notice the increase in their muscle pump during exercise but most of the great things this compound does or contributes to are unseen.

For me getting the best workout, recovering the quickest that I can and growing or preserving muscles are always on the top of my list when I think of workout supplementation. This pre-workout cocktail is a fantastic way to help you get the best out of your workouts that you can every time you enter the gym. Good luck and hit it hard!

Cheat meals they can be good and good for you!

I am always asked about cheat meals, do I put them in my athlete’s diets, are they good for you, can they help you, why? Yes I do put them in almost all my client’s programs. If you adhere to a few simple rules of thumb you can make cheat meals work for you. First let me explain the value a cheat meal might have for your program, then I will explain the rules for having cheats in your diet and finally I will tell you when I take them out of a dietary plan.

As a serious and strict competitive dieter and athlete you probably follow a very strict dietary regimen. Ninety-nine percent of the time this is what you want to do in order to achieve great results with your body. For competition dieting you have to be ultra-strict and follow your plan to a “T” always. However, I know that having planned cheats in your prep process can have tremendous value. Here are several reasons why:

1. If you can’t stick to it; it doesn’t matter
2. Metabolic boost
3. Fueling up a depleted body does you good

If you can’t stick to a dietary plan, no matter how good it is, it will be worthless to you. You have to build mechanisms into your lifestyle and dieting tactics that will empower you to stick to your plan and prep. Often times when you have a planned cheat meal it can provide you with a huge motivation to stick to your plan. Looking forward to a cheat meal can act as a powerful emotional reprieve for you as you plug away day after day hitting your cardio and doing your caloric restrictive dieting practices. Like I said earlier, if you can’t stick to a diet then that diet is really no good to you no matter how good the diet plan is. You must always make your diet practices realistic and doable. Adding in a cheat meal each week is a great way to make almost any hard diet doable.

As you diet for contests, your metabolism will always try and adapt to what you are doing to your body. If your calories drop each week then your body will eventually learn to live on less. This is why we are still walking this planet. Our bodies have this wonderful ability to adapt and move toward homeostasis, always striving to stay alive and create some kind of balance. As you get four, five and six weeks into a contest prep or dieting plan, your body is now starting to try and figure out what you are doing most of the time. So throwing in a planned cheat each week can go along ways into tricking your body and your metabolism into thinking that you are getting more calories and nutrients than it really is regularly. The net result is that a good cheat meal can, in these times, help bump up your metabolism. You can tell this is happening actually as you eat your cheat meal. Most people during this phase of dieting will notice that as  they eat their cheat meals they break out in a sweat and get real hot. As a flood of nutrients hit your body’s energy systems, your body reacts quickly and can now regulate temperature better. Often times, your core temperature goes up enough, releasing more heat than normal and you sweat. This is your metabolism kicking up to accommodate for the extra calories.

More than just an emotional reprieve and more than adding fuel to your metabolic processes, cheat meals can help you reload valuable lost glycogen in your liver and skeletal muscle. Not only do you need glycogen in your body to fuel great workouts, but you also need some for your daily activities without burning muscle. ot having some of this glycogen reserves can be detrimental to holding onto all of your valuable muscle for contest time and for the healthiest metabolism possible. After all, the more muscle you waste during a diet the slower your metabolism will become simply requiring fewer and fewer calories to exist. This loss of lean tissue will in the end slow down fat loss exponentially during your diet because now your body not only requires less calories to live but now it also requires less energy to burn during your activities. Refueling these glycogen stores are vital to keeping your hard earned muscle on your body and ensuring that your metabolism is running as fast as it possibly can. All of this is under the assumption that your cheat meals have a substantial amount of carbohydrate matter in them. Which brings me to the rules of the cheat!

Cheat meals can tast good!

Rules of Cheat meals;

1. Cheat at the end of your day
2. Don’t skip any other meals
3. Make your cheat carbohydrate rich
4. Don’t let your cheat last more than 45 mins

Your cheat meals can be very effective in your dieting practices, but in order to make them completely effective for competition dieting and for making aggressive fat loss each week it is essential to follow these guidelines. Always eat your cheat meals at the end of your day. This seems at first to sound counter intuitive and may seem to go against common logic. But the truth of the matter is, if you are following a strict dietary regimen, you are doing cardio everyday, working out with free weights, and not cheating on your diet normally then the best time to eat a cheat meal is when it poses the least risk to your progress and gives you the most value. Eating your cheat in the evening is the best time of day because it is at the end of the day when you have less time to cheat afterwards. It has been my experience that when people cheat in the morning or earlier in the day, it is much harder for even the best dieter to keep to his or her normal meal schedule after a big cheat. Not only do you have to contend with elevated and very sensitive insulin levels (post-cheat meal), but you now are most likely bloated and full and less likely to eat your next meal on time, which is usually a couple hours later. Eating your cheat meal at the end of the day minimizes your risk of over eating this meal because you haven’t gone more than 2-3 hours between meals all day, your own natural insulin levels should be stable because of this, and you are in a good position now to enjoy a good cheat meal and get the benefits without too much risk of over doing it or gorging till you are sick.

The next important factor goes hand-in-hand with the first rule, always eat all of your other meals in your day. Don’t miss these other meals no matter how badly you think you will cheat on your diet with this free meal. The temptation is usually to minimize what you eat throughout the day to try and minimize the negative effects of eating more calories in one meal than you will probably eat in three or four prior meals. But this is never a good idea. Eat on plan and then do your cheat. If your diet is planned correctly and your body is in the right state then your cheat meal will only add value. Again, not eating your other meals will just artificially raise your insulin levels prior to your cheat and increase your risk of fat storage and more than likely cause you to overeat your cheat meal.

In every fat loss diet whether it be for competition or not, after a certain period of time you have to reduce carbohydrate matter in the diet in order to force your body to rely on other fuel sources, namely fat. During this process of slowly reducing carbs in your diet glycogen is leached from the muscles and eventually your muscles will become depleted of valuable glycogen. Planned cheat meals can become a valuable source of muscle glycogen if you eat cheat meals that are rich in good carbohydrates. Eating pastas, whole wheat breads, potatoes, rice and the like can really help replenish these glycogen stores. Not only does making your cheat rich in carbs help replenish your muscle glycogen but it also stimulates metabolism. Carbohydrates are the main macro nutrient that can motivate your metabolism to speed up when you are dieting hard. It will be natural for your metabolism to slow down through the dieting process, but eating a good cheat meal that is rich in carbs can help postpone your normal metabolic slowdown.

Final rule of thumb is really a word of common sense, don’t let your cheat meals last more than about forty-five minutes in duration. It isn’t hard to turn a cheat meal into a two hour smorgasbord of eating everything in sight. Remember the intention of your cheat meals are to add value to your dieting process. We want to stay motivated, decrease muscle wasting, increase metabolism, and achieve our goals of fat loss. This isn’t a time to go nuts! Many people start thinking that they deserve their cheats after working so hard throughout the week. I am here to tell you that you deserve NOTHING. I don’t mean to sound callus, but the truth is you deserve what you have already, not what you want. When you get achieve success with your dieting process and look the way you want to, then you will deserve it! Remember that this is a process that you have decided to follow and if you want the results of a well planned diet and you want to enjoy the benefits of a great looking, lean body then you will have to do do what is required to have that body. Deserving has nothing to do with any of this. Keeping to these rules for cheat meals will help guide you in having the most productive cheats possible, but remember all is for not if your diet isn’t designed correctly for you and if you don’t take enough time to achieve your goals. Good luck!

Some of the most common questions that I get asked are: when should I do my cardio, what intensity should I do my cardio, and how often should I do it. In order to accurately answer these questions we have to first determine what your goals are. There are really only two major goals in this sport when it comes to cardio and training: build muscle or burn fat. No matter if you are trying to lose body fat or build muscle, cardio is essential for maximal progress with either of these goals.

Most of the time we think of cardio as a tool for fat loss and so much of the focus is put on the cardio that is done during contest prep or done to burn off extra body fat so you can continue to look nice and trim. However, if performed correctly cardio can also aid in encouraging you to build muscle. First, let’s focus on fat loss. This is the most pressing reason cardio is done and it is usually why I get questions on cardio. Most people want to know how to make their cardio the most effective and get the most results.

CARDIO FOR FAT LOSS

First let’s look at cardio for fat loss and what is the most effective. Assuming that your diet is on par with losing fat, your cardio will be the second most important element in your fat loss program that will aid in burning off your unwanted body fat. In general, doing cardio in the morning before any meals and before your blood sugar level has risen is the best time to do fat burning cardio. Bar none, most athletes feel that they get more fat burning done with this kind of fasted state cardio. I also recommend that prior to your fasted cardio you should take the following: some BCAA’s so that you decrease any risk of accelerated muscle wasting, L-Carnitine which is required by your body to burn fat as fuel, and a fat burner to increase the thermogenic action during your cardio training. Here is exactly what I recommend 20 mins prior to your cardio training:

• 5-15 gm of BCAA’s (depending on lean body mass)
• 500 mg of L-Carnitine
• Scorch (fat burner)

This combination of nutrients will help you increase your thermogenic mechanism, give you the raw components to burn your fat as fuel and ensure that you preserve as much lean tissue as possible. Actually, Figure Fuel combined with Scorch will give you all these components and is a great way to ensure that you get all these together in the correct amounts.

Once you have loaded up on nutrients and you are ready to do  your cardio, how should you perform it? There are many schools of thought on this and every competitor and athlete has his or her own particular way they may like to do it. I recommend that if you are focused on fat loss then doing steady state is the tried and true way to go. You should choose the intensity level that is consistent with your fitness level and one that will get you hot and sweaty after about 12 to 15 minutes. Some people don’t sweat as much, especially if you are a small woman or if you just don’t have a lot of body mass. In this case, gauge your intensity by how hot you get. In other words, how much heat you can produce while doing your cardio. The most important aspect of fat burning cardio is heat generation. The simple truth is…the more heat you generate the more calories your body is burning and our goal is to generate as much of a energy deficit as we can by burning, burning, burning those calories.

CARDIO FOR MUSCLE GAIN

Cardio for muscle building seems like an oxymoron, but if done carefully and correctly this kind of activity can enhance some of your body’s processes, and thus aid you in building the muscle that you want. First, you have to understand that the primary type of muscle fiber that is prone for growth are your fast twitch fibers. These fast twitch fibers are generally shorter and are the fibers that contract rapidly with more force but tend to run out of steam quickly. Fast twitch fibers predominantly derive their energy anaerobically, which means they generally prefer energy pathways that don’t require oxygen such as the phosphate system and glycolysis. During activity this type of muscle fiber creates ATP (which is the energy your muscles use to contract) by first exhausting what is in the muscle (0-3 seconds worth of energy), then it turns to creatine phosphate (CP) to resynthesize ATP until the CP runs out (another 6-8 seconds of energy later). All this is magically happening as you workout continuously and the speed of which this happens is based on how you are doing your cardio or workout.

To put a fine point on this, if you do high-intensity intervals in your cardio training, this can be a great way to recall more of these fast twitch fibers that are prone for growth. By stressing them with enough intensity in your cardio session to damage them you can encourage a certain degree of growth in the end. High intensity interval training has been done for years by many athletes to help them burn more calories during a cardio sessions by increasing effort and energy output. But if done in moderation you can get muscle building benefits. Again, if your diet is right and it is supporting your nutritional needs for muscle growth, then this kind of cardio in moderation will enhance recovery and stimulate growth by creating the kind of fiber damage that causes growth.

I recommend that you do your high intensity intervals in a certain manner to have the best results. Do your cardio in a steady-state form for about 3 minutes, then increase the intensity for 90 seconds and repeat this over and over until your cardio is finished. However, I do not recommend that you do any more than 3 sessions of cardio a week if you are trying to put on muscle. I also recommend that you do no more than 30 minutes of cardio in this fashion at a time. Extended periods of cardio and cardio done too often in your week can create some recovery issues and put an extra burden on your energy systems and can work against you building muscle.

Additionally, you can encourage the best muscle building environment in your body by taking some BCAA’s and having a good abundant creatine source before your sessions. I recommend doing this by taking a serving of Figure Fuel and a serving of Clout before a cardio session or workout. One serving of each of these products should support and give you what you need to survive a rigorous 30 minute session of high intensity interval cardio.

No matter what your goals are for doing cardio, you will need to support these activities nutritionally for optimal results, and you will need to perform your cardio in the manner that is most appropriate to your goals. Good luck and happy cardio!