Bill Phillips Answers Your Health and Fitness Questions

July 22, 2013 by 17 Comments

QUESTION: I’m just making sure the deadline to start the challenge was extended to today. I hope so. I put my email in to follow this Bill Phillips Fitness News Blog to officially enter and I’m ready to start transforming my body and life! I’m in it to win it this time… for me finishing the 12 weeks and achieving my health goal is winning. I wouldn’t mind getting the $10,000 top prize also! =)

ANSWER: How exciting! You made it in just in time! Yes, by following this blog you are officially signed up and eligible to win the $10,000 top prize! Just get started today by taking your before photo (which I want you to hang onto for 12 weeks before you send it in — Click Here to see the Rules and Regulations for all the details).

Winners CertificateWhen you do complete all 12 weeks, I guarantee you will feel healthier and happier. And who knows… somebody’s going to get that $10,000 top prize… it really could be you! Don’t forget, everyone who finishes the Summer Challenge and sends in their before and after photos will receive an Official Certificate of Achievement, a Transformation-blue workout shirt, and a Challenge Finishers Honor Medal. (I always say that the best prize Challenge Finishers will get is a renewed healthy body! =)

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QUESTION: Bill, I have a lot of body fat to lose, is it ok to do cardio everyday along with the resistance training every other day?

ANSWER: Thank you for your question. You can do more cardio of course but I usually don’t recommend it. Over the past couple decades, what I have found works best is to keep the workouts brief but intense and most of all, CONSISTENT. I like to see people alternating days of weight training with days of cardio. For example, weight training on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and cardio on Tuesday, and Thursday with the Saturday cardio workout being optional.

Intense Interval Exercise stimulates the metabolism by positively affecting cellular mitochondria energy production. This means that your body is burning more stored fat all day long and not just during the workout. Intense Exercise is powerful medicine and too much is akin to overdose — it can actually backfire and slow the metabolism. However, even the best exercise methods won’t make up for bad nutrition. It is imperative that we exercise AND eat right.

I have a friend, George, who has become 135 pounds lighter over the last year. He works out at my Transformation Center in Colorado and follows my 5/25 program to the T — he gets in 25 minutes of intense exercise, 5 days a week. He has 3 Right Light nutrition shakes a day and 2 or 3 portion-controlled Eating for Life meals.

Incredible before to after photos

George is 135 pounds lighter — he works out 25 minutes a day!

George’s body and life transformation is stunning because he did the right things very consistently for an entire year. He is stronger and healthier and has burned off 135 pounds, as I mentioned above. It seems like so much weight but when you get down to it, it’s just about 11 pounds per month. You don’t have to starve yourself or exercise for hours a day to trim off 11 pounds of unhealthy weight each month. I’m a big proponent of a balanced, practical approach.

Big progress is simply little progress compounded over time. It’s more important that your workouts are consistent than long. Whatever you do, just promise me you’ll combine exercise and eating right, and you’ll stick with it long enough to reach your goals and then some. You can do it!

~Bill Phillips

P.S. You can read my blog about George’s stunning transformation by clicking here.

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QUESTION: Which is better… the Body-for-Life weight-lifting routine, or your new 5/25 workout? I’m 46 years old and I want to lose 30 to 40 pounds of fat while getting my muscle definition back.

ANSWER: Both routines will give you a great workout. Both will help build muscle.

My newer version of the Body-For-LIFE free-weight workout is called 5/25 and it is the first program I’ve developed which is completely based on the science of High-Intensity Interval Strength Training.

Intense Interval Training has been proven in scientific studies to be the most effective exercise method when it comes to preventing heart disease, preventing stroke, accelerating the burning of bodyfat, and most important of all (in my opinion), increasing the size, number, and energy production of cellular mitochondria which is THE key to longevity. At age 48, my big reasons for working out are to prevent disease and keep my body as young, strong, and lean as possible — 5/25 High-Intensity Interval Strength Training helps me accomplish all that in one workout.

Bill Working Out

At Age 48, 5/25 Training Works Great for Me! ~Bill

Also, 5/25 works for me because I need a training method that hits the muscles hard but is easy on my tendons and ligaments. With 5/25 I can use less weight and still blast the muscles without injury. With BFL workouts I can lift quite a bit more weight  (because of the rest between sets) and that’s not necessarily a good thing for me because I’m just strong enough to damage some nagging shoulder and knee tendon injuries that I’ve recovered from.

Learn more about 5/25 Training by reading my blog about it here on Bill Phillips Fitness News — just Click Here to go there! =)

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QUESTION: Hi Bill, I started the challenge Monday and am super excited. I read your nutrition blog that showed your meal plans for a day and that helped me a lot. What are your thoughts on diet soda and alcohol? Complete no-no’s or moderation? Thanks for everything!

ANSWER: With nutrition, it is what we do most of the time, not some of the time, that shapes us. So drinking a diet soda from time to time (like I do) isn’t going to make or break your fitness.

Regarding alcohol, I use to drink on the weekends when I was in my 30’s and I stayed in really good shape virtually all decade. But once I got in my 40’s, my body’s response to alcohol changed — I felt awful the next day and drinking totally threw off my appetite for healthy foods. I stopped drinking alcohol  6 years ago and it’s been one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. Nowadays, I just don’t crave it or want it. I’ve tried drinking beer and wine again a handful of times over the years and each time it just made me feel unhealthy. I can’t figure out how I ever enjoyed it, but back when I was younger, I could get away with it somehow.

Anyways, there are some people who can have a beer or a glass of wine somewhat regularly, and do just great with their fitness transformations. More often than not, what I see is people who have a group of unhealthy habits which are often triggered by drinking and so I suggest that people who want to lose weight and get in shape at least consider giving up beer and alcohol for a few weeks and see how they feel. You can always go back to it if it doesn’t feel right for you, or just enjoy your drinks on Free Day (that one day a week you don’t have to workout or follow any rules).

All that being said, ultimately, what we’re trying to create here is a healthy, realistic, enjoyable new lifestyle for YOU. The key to long-term success is to like your new, healthy habits better than the old ones; in fact, if you don’t like them better, odds are, you’ll go back to your old patterns and way of living. ~Bill

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QUESTION:  Hey Bill, quick question about STRONGEVITY Rx. I’m a woman who is on the way to becoming 50 pounds lighter and healthier. I’ve been taking 1 serving a day for a week now and I’m experiencing crazy amounts of energy during my workouts. Since I saw you at Transformation Camp, I am 30 pounds lighter. Now I’ve set a new 12-week goal of losing 20 more pounds of unhealthy weight. This past week though, my scale hasn’t moved. I’m eating 4 Right Light nutrition shakes, 1 serving of STRONGEVITY Rx, and 2 Eating for Life meals each day. I’m also following your 5/25 workouts and drinking 10+ glasses of water per day. I heard someone say that STRONGEVITY Rx might interfere with my weight loss. Does that make sense? Should I be using STRONGEVITY Rx while I’m trying to get rid of this next 20 pounds?

ANSWER: First thing’s first — You are doing incredibly well — 30 pounds lighter in just three and a half months is excellent progress! You’re losing the bodyfat, strengthening the muscles, and literally re-sculpting your body — not just losing weight. Congratulations!

STRONGEVITY RxRegarding STRONGEVITY Rx, we know it is a scientific truth that it will absolutely not cause a gain of bodyfat; in fact, studies show that biologically active cholecalciferol (Vit-D3) which is in STRONGEVITY Rx, increases the rate at which the body will burn stored fat as fuel.

The Creatine and CoQ10 combination in STRONGEVITY Rx , after the 4 to 6 week mark, will noticeably increase your metabolism (an increase in metabolism is caused by increased energy production by the cellular mitochondria). The ingredients I mentioned here, as well as L-Glutamine, do initially create a cell hydrating/cell-volumizing effect, and that’s a good thing! It means that there is more energy within the cell and even a slight increase in cytoplasm which, when we multiply times 75 trillion cells in the body, can add up to an initial kilogram increase in lean body mass for women (and up to 3 kg for men because of our higher number of mitochondria-rich muscle cells).

The increase in cellular hydration plateaus after the STRONGEVITY Rx nutrients have reached saturation levels within each cell. That typically happens within 2 weeks. So, this may be some of what you’re feeling. Keep in mind that it is a healthy process even though you might not see the scale go down for a week or two. The increase in lean body mass and cellular energy will kick your metabolism up a notch and allow you to train with even more intensity during your interval workouts, this will even further increase your metabolic rate, which of course, is also a good thing!

One thing I do want to suggest though… let’s try cutting back to three nutrition shakes a day for the next week and see how that feels. I’d like to see your daily meal plan consist of 3 nutrition shakes, 1 serving of STRONGEVITY Rx, and 2 protein and carbohydrate balanced, portion controlled meals. I think this might be just right for you at this point in your transformation.

Lastly, make sure you’re giving yourself credit for the incredible progress you’ve made so far. I guarantee that if you keep working hard and remain consistent, you WILL reach your next 12 week goal in championship style!

~Bill Phillips

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If you like the information in this blog and want to receive, by email, my daily updates, tips, and news about fitness, please sign up to follow my blog right here at www.BillPhillipsNews.com — it’s completely FREE!

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Here are some of my other blogs that can help you successfully transform:

Filed Under: Challenge News, Eating Right, Mindset, Right Nutrition, STRONGEVITY Rx, Tips, Workout Programs Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

This is How I Control those Crazy Cravings!

June 12, 2013 by 15 Comments

bspinning

—- In today’s blog I answer a question about how to control those crazy cravings that often show up at night, and I share one of my personal keys to eating healthy. If you have a question that you’d like me to answer in a future blog, send it in by leaving me a comment. I hope you’re enjoying a healthy day! (Please tell me you’ve already got in your workout for the day or you’re planning to do it later. =) ~Bill—-

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Question: Bill, I need help with my eating habits. I’ve been unable to overcome cravings for junk food at night.  Each day I promise myself  I’m not going to binge or overeat. But I end up blowing it on most days which is so frustrating. How can I get away from my cravings for high-sugar and high-fat foods?

Answer: This is a question which deserves a complete answer, so here it is…

First of all, it’s important to remember, especially during the first month of making a change, that our bodies crave what they’re used to, not necessarily what they need.  And this is how eating patterns work.  Very often, these patterns go back years, even decades; they are well engrained within our “neural network” (brain circuitry), and it does take some time before we can re-wire the system.

“Our bodies crave what they’re used to, not necessarily what they need.”

Re-aligning our biological or neural pathways is one of the most powerful things people experience when they go through the transformation process.  And it happens, of course, whether you know about it or not. I believe that being consciously aware of the process can be an advantage, especially in terms of “relapse prevention.” In this context, I’ll say relapse is completely falling back into old and unhealthy eating habits.

Think of it this way – the old circuitry in our brains is like a dry river bed.  It’s always there, and as long as you’re consciously diverting the energy flow in a new direction, it’ll remain inactive. However, if we drift back into our old style of thinking, coping and behaving, slowly but surely, it’ll eventually get to a point where it’s like a damn bursts and the energy of those past patterns and it’s like water gushing through the river bed again.  When this happens, the pull of those cravings and thoughts may even be stronger than they were before.  Anyone who’s yo-yo dieted, losing weight for a few months, only to fall back into unhealthy eating habits, and subsequently gaining all the weight back and more, has first-hand experience of this.

The good news is, there’s a solution and a sustainable one at that.  A big part of it is being informed and armed with knowledge; you’re working on that right now by reading this blog. Another aspect of the solution is to complete the ‘Healthy Spaces Makeover’ I talked about in my blog a few days ago. And now, I want to tell you about something else that helps me control my cravings and it doesn’t have to do with any diet; it’s all about how intense workouts can help transform the brain and calm those crazy cravings.

“The more intensely I exercise, the more I feel like eating right.
The more I eat right, the more I feel like exercising intensely.”

When I work with people who are seemingly stuck in any unhealthy pattern, one of my first recommendations is to get moving with high-intensity interval training.  An example of this type of exercise would be climbing up a steep trail for 1 minute, then walking down, then climbing back up, walking down, then climbing again, completing about 5 intervals.  The 20-Minute Aerobic Solution which I featured years ago in Body-for-LIFE is another highly effective interval training method. And my new 5-25 workouts  (where I teach both intense interval aerobics and intense interval weight lifting) featured in my blog last week are based on the latest, greatest exercise research findings. (5-25 workouts are absolutely more effective for me, in terms of mind and body benefits, than any other exercise method I’ve ever tried!)

Intense, interval training has been scientifically shown to double, even triple, the amount of fat the body burns, compared to longer duration (an hour or more) of moderate intensity exercise.  It does this by boosting mitochondria size and number within cells and that can dramatically increase the oxidation and metabolism of stored bodyfat for many hours after your workout is over. That means the “calories burned” reading on exercise equipment is very under reported. What we really want is to burn more fat calories all day not just while we are doing our workout.

Another one of the powerful benefits of intense interval training is that is releases healthy amounts of neurotransmitters called catecholamines (dopamine, epinephrine, norepinephrine), which satisfy the primary reward centers of the brain, boost energy and further accelerate fat loss. These reward centers all too often become chemically depleted by our modern way of life (inactivity, high stress levels, all work no play lifestyles). When neurotransmitter levels burn out, it can make us vulnerable to bad habits like binge eating.

More good news: Intense training also increases endorphin and serotonin levels (which make the brain happy); so much so, that over a period of a few months, it is more effective in treating depression than the most widely prescribed  (212 million prescriptions written last year) anti-depressant drugs.  And what do you know, the intense exercise no side effects which can’t be said for the prescription drugs.

“It is what you do most of the time, not some of the time, that shapes us.”

Moderate exercise like a good steady three-mile walk doesn’t completely produce this profound cascade of feel-good neurotransmitters — it doesn’t produce the level of  new energy and healing like the high intensity work does. I can tell you from direct experience that the days I get in 25 minutes of intense training are by far and away my most productive, energetic days. They’re also the days when I just naturally, without much effort, feed my body the right way.  After my workout, there’s nothing I crave more than a protein and vitamin-rich nutrition shake. And 2-3 hours after that, I’m craving a healthy meal, not junk food. And that’s a good sign. In fact, my intense interval workouts put me in a completely different state of mind. On the days when I don’t workout intensely, well… it requires much more conscious effort to eat healthy and stay on top of my game and in line with my plan.

All that being said, sometimes even I give in and overeat at dinner or late at night. Remember this: It’s all about progress not perfection! Don’t be too hard on yourself if you slip now and then. It is what you do most of the time, not some of the time, that shapes us when it comes to nutrition and eating right.

So here’s my recommendation: If you want to flip the switch from an unhealthy to a healthy appetite and enjoy all the benefits which come with that, be sure to incorporate high-intensity interval training into your body and life transformation work. It will help you break free from old patterns and crazy cravings. It will also help you create new ones.  And that, in turn, will help you enjoy improved results that you can sustain for a long, long time.

Filed Under: Eating Right Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

This is the Exact Workout I did Today!

June 5, 2013 by 109 Comments

New Method: High-Intensity Interval Strength Training

Exercise is the most incredible medicine that I know of. It not only helps us get rid of unhealthy body weight and build more shapely muscles, it significantly decreases our risk of most all preventable diseases including: diabetes, depression, heart disease, and even some forms of cancer.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of people in America don’t do any ‘voluntary’ exercise at all (by voluntary, I mean they don’t do any extra physical activity outside of what they have to do for work or what’s required in just completing everyday activities). And of course, this is one of the big reasons why nearly 7 out of 10 people in our country are suffering from overweight/obesity and the preventable ailments which come along with it.

What I’ve discovered is that many people who have considered adding exercise to their lifestyle haven’t primarily because they believe the myth that to get good results, you have to exercise for hours a day. This is a big barrier for millions of people and it shouldn’t be, because the fact is we can all experience incredible benefits from working out for just 25 minutes a day; that is, if we follow the scientifically proven Intense Interval methods which dictate that QUALITY matters more than QUANTITY when it comes to exercise.

Show Me Don’t Tell Me (I will, I will! =)

Today I did the exact workout shown in this video below. It works, big time! Your muscles get stronger, you burn fat faster because your metabolism goes up (for as much as 30 to 40 hours after your workout), your cardio-pulmonary health improves, your heart gets healthier, your brain gets more energy, and your natural growth hormone (GH) levels go up 10 fold (for hours after your intense workout).

The keys to tapping into all these benefits and more is to do weight lifting in intense intervals where we work hard for a couple minutes then rest two minutes, then work, rest, work, rest, and work, rest again. We want to get our heart rate up to 90% to 95% of our estimated cardiac maximum (220 minus our age: for me that means I am aiming for about 160 heart beats per minutes at the end of my work sets–then I rest for a couple minutes until my pulse comes down to about 120).

You’ll notice in this exercise demonstration video that I do one set right after the other, with only maybe 10-15 seconds between each. After I complete 10 repetitions of all 5 exercises, I wait a couple minutes as I mentioned above (this is just enough time for a training partner to go through their 5 sets if you’re working out with somebody) and then I repeat all 5 exercises for a total of 5 times. I finished this workout in less than a half hour today and I was toast!

With this ‘5-25 Intense Interval Strength Training’ workout I can stick with the same weight for all 5 sets (as opposed to ‘pyramiding’ or increasing weight for each set as we did with Body-for-LIFE). The way 5-25 is designed we reach ‘progressive resistance overload’ (needed for positive muscle adaptations) through fatiguing the muscles more with each set. By your 5th set of 10 reps for each muscle group you will be toast too and that is good. =)  Give it a try and let me know how you like it! In my next blog I’ll show you how I work lower body and then I’ll discuss what’s new with High Intensity Interval Aerobic Training.

 

Upper Body Workout (as shown in video)

  1. Incline Chest Press — 10 Reps
  2. Iron-Cross Shoulder Raises — 10 Reps
  3. Dumbbell Lat Rows — 10 Reps
  4. Biceps Curls — 10 Reps
  5. Triceps Extension — 10 Reps
    * Rest two minutes then repeat all 5 exercises, a total of 5 times
Filed Under: Uncategorized, Workout Programs Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,