Thursday, February 28, 2008

Ultimate How to Get Ripped Guide


The fastest way to look muscular is to get lean. People with average muscle mass look great if they are cut. But nothing looks better than seeing the clean lines of hard muscle. The number one most popular fitness goal is chiseled abs, but really everything looks better when you're ripped. Here's how to do it.
First, let's define "ripped" in realistic terms. Anything at or less than 20% body fat will show definition very nicely. Doctors consider anything from 14-20% to be in the healthy range. But if you want abs to show through you have to be below 14%. I can tell you from experience the average, not obese person is between 25-30%, with fairly serious regular lifters in the 18-23% range, and serious ones in the 12-17% range. The real point here is that 5% one way or the other is a lot. Here's why: a 200 lb guy with 25% body fat has 50 lbs of fat. To get down to 20% body fat he must lose 13 lbs of ALL fat. Now he weighs 187 lbs with 37 lbs of fat. If this 13 lb loss is half fat and half muscle your fat percent is still 23%. So as you can see a 5% body fat reduction is hard to come by, unless you are losing ONLY FAT. There's the million dollar question. How do you lose only fat? Answer:
Very, very slowly.
They say you can lose two lbs a week of fat, without losing muscle mass. They are wrong. Millionaires with dieticians and chefs can. You and I can't. Unless you are either a millionaire or a professional body builder your goal is a pound of fat a week. Now there are many who will tell you that you can cut in 6-8 weeks, and they are right. Just be prepared to lose 50/50 fat to muscle, and to only eat 1000-1300 calories a day. No thanks.
The healthy correct way is to drop 500 calories a day from your current intake. Have as many of these 500 calories as possible come from processed carbs and sugars. Spread your remaining calorie intake evenly through the day (though a higher percent in the AM verses the PM speeds up fat loss) and finally a slow release (not whey, but milk, egg or soy) protein shake an hour before bed. This results in a 2% body fat loss. In 3 months your muscle mass will be the same and your body fat percent will have dropped enough to show it off!

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