Portage Porter Pot Roast with New Belgium Brewing & Callicrate Beef

The “BIG GAME” falls on a perfect day for me, it marks just about five weeks before I leave for the Arnold Sports Festival and gives me a chance to toss back a few cold beers and reap the rewards of busting my ass in the gym. I live Life & I don’t believe in elimination of food groups, plus I really enjoy drinking craft beers, to be 100% honest I would rather eat a solid meal and have a few cold brews than eat a pizza or have dessert when it comes time to bump the calories up a bit.  So this morning after a few hours of online coaching I schemed up this slow cooker recipe so I could get on with the day and have it ready in time for dare I say “SUPERBOWL49”  #Hopeidonegetsued

Raw Ingredients. Callicrate Beef, New Belgium Portage Porter Spring Seasonal, Savory Spices Bakers Brew Coffee Spice & Woody Creek BBQ Seasoning, Garlic Sea Salt, Olive Oil, Sweet Potato, Organic Vegetables, Garlic and Vegetable stock

The off the top of my head recipe is

2 bottles New Belgium Brewing Portage Porter Spring Seasonal (1 to marinate overnight and 1 for crock pot)

3 lb Eye of Round from Ranch Foods Direct / Callicrate Beef – THE ONLY meat I will eat

4 cups Organic Vegetable Stock

2 TBSP Olive Oil

1 Tsp Each Savory Spice Shop Bakers Brew Coffee Spice and Woody Creek BBQ Seasoning

1 Tsp  Garlic Sea Salt

1 TBSP Coarse Ground Black Pepper

Combine all of the above in a crock pot with Sweet Potato, carrots, celery, sweet onion, garlic and top with a fresh sprig of rosemary and let cook for 6 hours or until beef is at your desired tenderness.

Ready to roll

Finished Product. Real Food, Real Training Fuel with a little Portage Porter Au Jus

That’s what I have for you today folks.  Enjoy the night, enjoy the game even if your team isn’t playing and remember that it’s just a professional sports match & for 99.999% of my readers it has ZERO impact on your day tomorrow, so don’t get to riled up and stay focused on what YOU want to accomplish this coming month. As I posted up today on my social media sites,

February 1st. Start the new month strong

You know the saying “work until your idols become your rivals.”

Look up to those who lead you, respect them, observe them, but do not worship them, believe you can surpass the success and status that they have achieved, believe in yourself today and you will soon find your current idols being your rivals

HappY Sunday

Stevie T

Play time in Stevie T’s Kitchen. Oatmeal Protein Brownie Bites!

I’ve been getting into the habit of taking a little lunch time walk on Saturday’s,  So after starting the weekend off with my training and spending a few more hours at Vital working with clients I roll down to a place called Epicentral Coworking that is downtown Colorado Springs to get caught up on online clients, write blogs etc.. Saturday’s are perfect for me because there are no distractions, the office is generally pretty empty and I can put my head down and knock out a good amount of work.  Anyway back to my walk, I’ve been on a roll with training and eating and have recently decided that instead of rewarding myself with some sort of “cheat meal” I am going to start rewarding a solid weeks worth of fitness life with a weekly purchase at the best cookware store in Colorado Springs that happens to also be locally owned – Sparrowhawk Cookware, Cooking is one of my passions, right up there with training and writing so I figure by doing this I will little by little add a necessary piece of cookware to my kitchen collection each week to give me more options and someday live out my desire to make cooking for the fitness life a bigger staple in my world.

The full moon this week has been seeing me wake up between 3 and 4 am everyday, I’m not just waking up, I am waking up charged up and ready to kill it.  So as I was doing my early morning cardio I thought about what I could make food wise that might be a little different and came up with an idea to use all the different brands of protein powder that I have at the house right now in a recipe with oatmeal and make little brownie bites.  So yesterday’s purchase was a sixteen spot tin that proved to be perfect for the task.  Below is my first stab at making a video, and below I am posting still shots, a written explanation of how I did it, the brands and products used and the macro nutrient content of the batch

Ingredients ( you can use any brand & flavor of powder(s) that sounds good, These are some of my favorites and what I have around right now and I wanted to make a few varieties with the first batch to see how they cooked up and tasted.

• Coach’s Oats
• Whole Eggs
• Muscle Fortress Muscle Grub (Cinnamon Bun & Orange Creamsicle) – Whey Protein Concentrate
• Bodybuilding.com Protogen (Vanilla) – Whey Isolate, Micellar Casein, Milk Protein Isolate, Egg Albumin
• Ryno Power Protein  (Swiss Chocolate) – Whey Concentrate, Whey Isolate, Hydrolyzed Whey Protein Isolate
• Isatori Bio Grow (unflavored
• Water

From there it was super easy, I started with 2/3 cup Coach’s Oats and 10 oz of water in the magic bullet and blended until the consistency looked like milky water, I added 3 oz of this mixture to each of the (4) seperate mixing bowls that I had lined up along with (1) egg per bowl and (1) serving of each flavor protein. I then used a 10 speed mixer to get the egg and protein to hit a batter like “fluffy” consistency and poured each flavor into the brownie tin.  I set the oven for 425 and bake them for five minutes, dropped the temperature to 400 for another five minutes and finally dropped it to 350 for the remaining five minutes, they popped right out of the tin perfectly.

The total macro count for my experiment are.

1. 16 brownie bite servings
2. 1,178 total calories
3. 74 calories per bite = 2 grams of fat. 5 grams of carbs. 8.5 grams of protein Each
4. 310 calories / 34.5 grams of fat / 26% of the total calories
5. 320 calories / 80 grams of carbohydrates / 11 grams of sugar / 8 grams of fiber / 27% of the total calories
6. 548 calories / 137 grams of protein / 47%  of the total calories

Ingredients and batter

Ready to hit the oven

 

Ten minutes into baking

 

 

Finished Product.

 

 

 

Q & A Holiday Fitness

I’m not sure if it is due to the up coming holidays or if it’s just coincidence but I’ve been getting a ton of emails and messages regarding what foods to eat, how to train and how to manage time most effectively for starting and lasting fitness results so I am just going to lump it all into one and ramble on instead of answering each specific question individually.

The number one key in lasting fitness results is what you put in your mouth, I have said it before and I will say it many more times again I am sure…. FOOD – It all starts here, what you fuel your body with determines how hard you can train, what kind of lean mass to body fat ratio you have and eventually what you look like in the mirror and naked!  Everyone has different goals, everyone has different ideals in their heads as to how they want to look and perform, everyone has a different level of dedication to those goals, there is no one size fits all & I’m not going to sit here and tell you exactly how or what to eat because I don’t know your goals and more importantly I don’t know how serious you are about achieving them or what your level of commitment is.  If you are serious about getting to a certain “look” or level of performance my recommendation is to seek out an online calculator that you can punch in your fitness goals to & it will give you a great starting point on where to set calories and grams of (Protein – Carbohydrates & Fat) OR seek out a professional to do the same thing for you.  85% of the time I live off of the same 10-12 foods in specific quantities, the other 15% of time is filled with whatever I feel like eating or what is available in a social setting or while eating out etc. My staples are eggs, lean ground beef, chicken breast, ground turkey, fish, protein powder, ALL types of green vegetables, olive oil, almonds, avocado, long grain rice (both white and brown) oatmeal & sweet potato’s. For condiments I rely on natural herbs and seasonings, lots of cinnamon and cayenne pepper, red and green salsa and I’m quite obsessed with a jalapeno mustard that I get at Whole Foods so that is pretty much it. Because of my long days I eat 6-7 times per day and spend about 60-90 minutes on Sunday and Wednesday cooking up and portioning out meals out for the next few days so I don’t have to mess with it on a daily basis, this way I can get up in the morning, grab a few containers out of the refrigerator and roll out the door. YOU just have to get into a routine, get into a routine that YOU can stick with and DON’T quit after 5 days because it’s hard or because your co workers want you to go drink and have deep-fried mushrooms after work on Friday, YOU DON’T have to perfect but you have to be better more often that not, be mentally strong, stick to your plan and this time finish what YOU started!

I will tackle the what’s your training split and time management all in one because for me they go together like peanut butter and jelly, my days are structured mainly because they have to be due to meeting clients at a set time and also because I love structure.  I stack my clients up back to back to back all day long which means I eat on the fly, take my supplements on the fly and have to be ready to turn everything else off when it finally comes my time to train. The mantra that I stick to is one that just came to me one day a long time ago ( TRAIN with INTENTION * TRAIN with INTENSITY) EVERY training session, EVERY rep, maximize the time that you are there instead of just showing up and going through the motions! Once you adapt a mentality like this and focus on the mind/muscle connection you will see changes much faster than just going in and counting reps until you are done

An average day business day looks like this for me

• Wake up at 4:30 take thermogenic pill and or make espresso
• Cook oatmeal. make a shake and grab prepared meals that I will need until I get a break 5& chance to go home
• 5:15-5:45 ( 30 minutes of cardio )
• 6am – First client of the day / eat oats and whey protein
• 7 to 11 am continue training clients
• 11 am – Training session #1 + post workout recovery meal & catch up on social media sites
• noon to two more clients
• 2-3pm Break to come home, run to bank etc
• 4pm  training session #2 + post workout recovery meal
• 5-8pm more clients
• Home to cook dinner, check emails and online clients needs/progress

I generally change my training routine and exercises every six to eight weeks max, this length of time gives me a chance to have a couple short periodization cycles – ( Periodization is the systematic planning of athletic or physical training. The aim is to reach the best possible performance in the most important competition of the year. It involves progressive cycling of various aspects of a training program during a specific period )  Currently I am doing a split that looks like this with each session lasting between 20-30 minutes ~ Note: My body responds best to a high volume/high load training & because I split most days into two sessions I’m fresh for each one & can train with all out intensity every session, my sets vary from 2 to 6 per exercise and reps go as low as 6 and as high as 30-40 during drop sets and rest pause days

• Day 1 – Session 1 – Pressing Chest – Session 2 – Isolation Chest
• Day 2 – Session 1 – Horizontal Pull (Back/Rows) – Session 2 – Vertical Pull (Back/Pull ups etc) & Core
• Day 3 – Session 1 – Compound Legs (Squats, Romanian Deadlifts et) Session 2 – Glute/Hamstring/Quad specific moves
• Day 4 – Session 1 – Pressing Shoulders – Session 2 – Isolation Shoulders & Core
• Day 5 – Only 1 session – Triceps & Biceps
• Day 6 – Athletic Training Circuit ( lots of plyometrics, sprinting, and core work )
• Day 7 – Active Recovery ( a nice easy bike ride, hike or walk )

So there you have it, nothing super special and definitely nothing that is out of the norm.

I can sum this all up and answer all the questions I’ve received about it with a few more words…. Set a realistic goal, a goal that is unique to you and one that is far enough in the distance to challenge you but not so far away that it is virtually unattainable where you get frustrated for not reaching and give up on.  Set a goal keeping in mind your daily life and what you are willing to follow along with for the long haul.

SEVEN STEPS to Fitness SUCCESS

1. Set goal(s) Specific to YOU
2. Commit to said goal (commitment means even when it is not convenient)
3. Plan out your training and food intake according to your goal
4. Prepare your mind
5. Plan your days
6. Execute
7. REPEAT!!!!

Thanks for the questions and feedback, next time I will tackle some more in depth questions regarding BMI measurements, Hormones & More

Cheers – Stevie T

Artwork by Sleepless Art

 

**always consult with your physician before starting or changing a current workout routine , nutrition program or supplement.  The advice and programs that are talked about on this site are not recommended for use by any individuals with any medical condition(s) that might be compromised by intense exercise or resistance training.  If you feel any abnormal pain, nausea or dizziness please discontinue training and consult your health care professional immediately **

Food, Eat Real Food, It is really that Simple

I’ve got two requests and suggestions lately 1. Post more food pictures and ideas 2. Have a Q & A Session – so tonight is probably not the ideal night for it but I have the time and let’s roll.  Here is my evening food, so there is a ton of talk about how to eat, you have the Vegan/Vegetarians, the Paleo & Primal, you have the Flexible Dieters aka If It Fits Your Macros (which in short just means you have precise protein, fat and carbohydrate goals each day and you hit them how you want to with real food and or foods most would not consider “diet food” And then there are 300 other diets out there that develop some sort of cult following, actually for most of them it is more like a ” I want to be a part of something ” and tell the world about it program.  Here are my thoughts on food because everyone uses it for a different reason, some to aid in and maintain performance, others to just get by, some to satisfy a sense, some as an escape, some give thought to it and have questions about where it comes from and others could care less and will buy anything and anything they want with zero thought.

The thing is that everyone on the planet has to use food to maintain life to some extent, yes water is more important short term but water will not sustain you forever.  I don’t care how you eat, it is really none of my business and it has very little effect on my life, I understand different views on food and why people eat a certain way and I am no one to judge you for the plan you follow, I do have a problem with people who claim to be any of the above yet are only that person when it is convenient or they are alone and won’t face questions from others.

Grass fed Ranch Foods Direct ground sirloin sliders on a collard green bun, cayenne & cinnamon sweet potato chips, raw organic vegetables. Then a glass of Cabernet and my dessert that consists of Ronnie Coleman Signature Series Double Chocolate Cookie protein infused with dark chocolate, dark cherries

My thing is really quite simple, Eat as much real food as you can, the less ingredients the better, choose real butter over margarine, choose raw sugar over splenda, don’t flood your system with artificial ingredients for the sake of following a low fat or low carb “label”  go with meats that are grass fed and grass finished to avoid the ingestion of hormones and eat from an animal that got to live off the land as opposed to stand in a feed yard eating GMO Corn and causing a methane problem.  Go with Wild caught fish over farm raised cesspool fish like tilapia – yeah go ahead and look that one up.  You get the point, just eat real food, in the right portions and your body will thank you.

If you want recopies for this meal just let me know.

Cheers

STEVIE T

Home

 

Fueling and Training on the road.

Good day to you!

I am going to write tonight in response to a suggested topic from one of my awesome readers, the question was about traveling and not missing out on too much training.  This is a great topic and I think that I can elaborate, shed some light on and offer up suggestions to most circumstances that can be an issue while traveling, I am going to free hand/think this as I go and keep it brief so hopefully it comes out in a good order and makes sense. Keep in mind this is based towards work and family travel that is not like a week in the tropics where you have no intention of staying on track.

I will start with what I feel is the most important aspect of traveling and maintaining your fitness and that’s what you put in your mouth, In my opinion if you are going to have to choose between training and eating like crap or not being able to train, but be able to make solid choices at the table then that is the route you should go.  So eating on the road can be tricky but that is when you just need to plan ahead (use the internet to find menu’s and look at nutrition facts)  or have a good sense of what methods most restaurants use to make their food taste good…as they should, they are selling a product and need to appeal to the masses,  but in today’s day and age there isn’t a single quality establishment that won’t go out of their way to make you as close to what you need as you can get.  The responsibility falls on you to ask them for what you want even if you don’t see it on the menu, you know the answer is always no until the question is asked!  Ask for grilled meats, ask for steamed not sautéed vegetables, ask for real toppings like real butter on the side along with any dressings or other condiments. You can duplicate how you eat at home while on the road, you just have to think about it and ask for it.  The last step is to back your supplement powders in individually marked bags so they are labeled and portioned, with all these options you should be able to stay pretty well on track.

So on to training, There really is NO EXCUSE for not training on the road in any circumstance other than a death or serious health issue of a family member when everyone needs to come together and be supportive and unselfish.  Aside from that you have so many options when you travel, yes they may not be what is in your routine, but its activity and often a nice change from the constant. First option is always the “fitness center” at any given lodging setup, sometimes these can be laid out like a miniature gym and others can include a treadmill and universal machine but almost all have something these days.  You might have to think outside of your normal and try to include more bodyweight movements for both resistance and cardio but it can be done if you want it bad enough.  Second option is to use the hotel room and do chest presses against the wall, bench dips off a chair, towel resistance movements done unilaterally, plank and core work on the floor and then take it outside for a short cardio session where you sprint a block, rest a block and repeat 10 times.  Or a better option is if you are in a big city with high rise hotels…..RUN THE STAIRS, UP AND DOWN 2+ times depending on the number of flights – if you go hard enough that will be all the workout you need for the day.

For enough of you who read my posts on a regular basis know I don’t have a whole lot of sympathy for excuses, and traveling is no exception, if you want to Get Shit Done and you want to be a healthier more fit version of you tomorrow, then you will do what it takes and for anyone who disagrees with your requirements isn’t a real supporter of you, so stand your ground and focus on the goal, Every Damn Day!

I will test this theory once again next weekend when I travel to Dallas, Texas for the Europa Games to see a bunch of industry friends and hang out with the brand I am currently reviewing Ronnie Coleman Signature Series – I expect to have a great weekend, and come back with more knowledge and staying hungry for more.

 

**always consult with your physician before starting or changing a current workout routine , nutrition program or supplement.  The advice and programs that are talked about on this site are not recommended for use by any individuals with any medical condition(s) that might be compromised by intense exercise or resistance training.  If you feel any abnormal pain, nausea or dizziness please discontinue training and consult your health care professional immediately **

 

 

The Holiday’s – eat as you feel, and as you wish!

Pre & During workout Nutrient loading

Hello There.

It is a global holiday and I will treat it as such, there is always going to be topics for people to debate, the meanings of Holidays will always carry a different definition based on the fact that there are individuals on both ends of a very broad spectrum so I hope you spent it however you wished!

What I wanted to write about tonight was eating on the holidays, I wanted to wait for the holiday to pass before I wrote this so that it would make you take a look at yourself and what you want out of YOU.   I waited so it would not be a presumed judgement issue or to put an idea in your head. But just as the above mentioned conflicts there will always be another when it comes to how you should fuel your body to perform and look as you want it to be, everyone has different ideals on how they want to look and feel and with that poses the question about how much thought and effort you want to put in to achieve this desired look.  The holidays come and go and for most it is a day to eat traditional foods that you might not get on a weekly or monthly basis, but there are some people who refuse to vary from their “meal plan” based on the fear that one day will ruin everything.

I personally am on the side of, if you treat this as holiday then you should eat what ever feels good to you because you might not see it again for a long time unless you go out of your way to make it on a non holiday day. Which brings us back the question above regarding how you want to look and feel and also touches on one of my biggest preaching’s about Personal Accountability. so if you’ve been on a hot streak and have had a series of days or weeks where you can look back and say YES I have been on point and getting closer to your goals and you feel that some indulgences will do your body AND mind some good, then go for it. On the other hand if you’ve been less than spectacular as of late or had a big Friday and Saturday night and you aren’t really feeling it, then don’t just use it as an excuse to eat more,  save it for a guys/girls night out or other occasion in the future,  just because someone else is eating a certain way, ie. “family” doesn’t mean that you have to follow along.  So eat what’s going to get you one day closer to your short or long-term goal and put aside the fact that it is a holiday where you are expected to stuff yourself.

For me I ate mostly healthy foods, in fairly large quantities and also had a small square of German chocolate cake bar.  I started the day with a great arm workout where I started a re-feed process with two big shakers filled with fast absorbing carbohydrates and powdered protein and just continued eating high quality foods in large volumes all the way through my dinner and then finished it off with some oatmeal and protein pudding for dessert.  I have been on a good streak as of late and wasn’t really craving chocolates or any of the Easter candy business,  my dinner was a treat to me and different from what I normally prepare, so in a sense I did indulge a bit just in my own way.  By the end of the day and especially a couple of hours after dinner I could feel my skin tightening up and my muscle bellies getting fuller as a result from the additional amounts of calories taken in over a typical day and woke up this morning looking better than I did Sunday, so for me it was a success!

Here is the evening food in Pictures

 

Dinner: Marinated flank steak, shrimp ceviche, spring roll stuffed with ceviche and some greens

 

Made enough dinner for Two to GO, cook more – less often to maximize your time efficiency

 

 

Dessert pudding. Oats and Ronnie Coleman Signature Series Chocolate Pro Antium

My main purpose of this post was to get you to evaluate your goals and give you something to think about when the topic of Holiday eating comes up.

I need a topic to write about next week so send me some ideas.

Thanks and have a Get Shit Done kind of week

Stevie T !

www.ronniecoleman.net

www.skratchlabs.com

**always consult with your physician before starting or changing a current workout routine , nutrition program or supplement.  The advice and programs that are talked about on this site are not recommended for use by any individuals with any medical condition(s) that might be compromised by intense exercise or resistance training.  If you feel any abnormal pain, nausea or dizziness please discontinue training and consult your health care professional immediately **

Celebrating a Birthday, Fitness Anniversary & A Sweet Video.

I realized earlier this month that along with celebrating another birthday I would also be having a personal anniversary of sorts.

Twenty years ago, for my 18th birthday I asked for a gym membership, at that time I never had the intention of fitness turning into my life and making a career out of it.

I simply wanted to change up my lifestyle and build a strong physique, at this time I had no friends who were into the gym thing so I went at it alone and taught myself  by reading everything that I could get my hands on regarding different training methods and proper nutrition,  I caught the bug real fast when I started to see changes in my body and performance and wanted more and more from it.

So now twenty years later, thousands of days in the gym, hundreds of thousands of reps in the body bank, I sit here and still have the desire to perform at the highest level  I possibly can, I still have the desire to look my absolute best and will without question be in the best shape of my life this summer.

Fitness has provided me with a very good life, like all things there have been ups and downs, there have been times I questioned the path I chose, but at the end of every day I know that I have had a positive impact on hundreds of people, It has not yet made me a millionaire but the reward of changing people’s lives and health for the better is something you can’t put a value on.  I am humbled by the comments and positive feedback I get daily from everyone, I will continue to inspire, motivate and push you all to be your personal best as we continue this journey together.

– Thanks to Kyle Koziol for the sweet video, The whole thing was his idea and It couldn’t have come at a better time, If you like it please help us spread it.

My six rules to life long fitness success.

1. Accountability – you must place personal accountability at the top of your list if you want to succeed, It’s no one else’s job to put food in your mouth or get you to the gym. If you can be accountable for your own actions you will succeed, period!

2.Structure – Structure within your daily life goes a long way towards fitness success,  develop a routine, stick to the plan and reap the rewards

3. Moderation – Probably the most difficult rule to follow, to often WE and I mean every last one of us takes things to an extreme, in the context of your personal fitness it is very easy to think more is better with resistance training and or cardiovascular work but the truth is that recovery is vital to achieving your goals. The same goes for fueling your body, over eating will get you fat and starving your body to speed up the weight loss process will get you nothing but a jacked up metabolism that could take a year to fix.  Find the Balance!

4. Be Flexible – Eat healthy foods and Eat unhealthy foods!  Finding the balance is key on this one, but when you figure out the ratio that works for you, it will change the way you see food and eliminate the stresses that come with my least favorite word “dieting”

5. Stay Positive –  If you take an unplanned detour from your routine don’t beat yourself up about it, refocus, try to determine the root of the detour and learn from it.  Again do not stress out about it, get back on track and stay positive about your direction and the goals you are trying to achieve.

6. Involvement & Intensity – I add this one in because everyone has to be honest with themselves, some people have aspirations of being an elite athlete, others are on this fitness journey as preventative medicine, Others are working towards fitting into a dress or pair of pants you wore in your 20′s.   Whatever YOUR goals are, will and should determine the level of personal involvement & intensity you put into your fitness keeping in mind that you want to set goals that almost seem unattainable!  Be realistic about the amount of time you are willing to dedicate and bring a level of intensity to every workout that forces you to break out of your comfort zone.

Thanks

Stevie T.

**always consult with your physician before starting or changing a current workout routine , nutrition program or supplement.  The advice and programs that are talked about on this site are not recommended for use by any individuals with any medical condition(s) that might be compromised by intense exercise or resistance training.  If you feel any abnormal pain, nausea or dizziness please discontinue training and consult your health care professional immediately **

Ronnie Coleman Signature Series progress.

Three weeks into the Ronnie Coleman Signature Series stack.

Ronnie Coleman Signature Series Crepes

This was today’s brunch.  Pro Antium & IsoTropic Max Crepes.

I used 1/2 cup old fashioned oats that I put in the magic bullet to make into a powder, I added 2 tbsp of coconut flour, 1 cup all whites, 3 whole eggs, 1 scoop each Pro Antium Vanilla wafer crisp & 1 scoop Isotropic max Toasted Almond.  Put them on the griddle like normal and then simmered down a coconut oil, real butter and cinnamon topping to avoid any added sugars.

Yielded me twelve (4) inch Crepes – 814 calories in the whole batch/ 68 calories per crepe coming from 22.5 grams of fat, 49 grams of carbohydrates and 104 grams of protein, if you add my topping it increases the fat by 21 more grams, another great topping would be any nut  butter and cinnamon.

So far I am a very impressed with this stack, the protein taste great and I can tell it is digesting well, the Testogen XR tablet/powder combination is starting to kick in and give me more strength and a good pump, and the amino tone has been a great product that makes you want to drink water and stay hydrated during training sessions.

I had a great week of eating and training, Got in four short, less than 30 minute all out efforts plus this insane circuit I did on Saturday.

Saturday’s Shred sesh

This was workout #5 for the week, It nearly crushed me and in most instances I dropped down to a very low weight to complete the 100 rep drop/strip sets I was performing.  With the added rowing and 13 minutes of jump rope it took me an hour and 27 minutes to complete.  I was on day 13 of the high fat and moderate to high protein with no added carbohydrate trial but had full intention of drilling myself into the ground with this session and then heading straight to my healthy cheat place Tokyo Joes’s – That has become the Saturday ritual for myself and one of my great friends that works along side me at my training facility, “Big Robert the red beard Mitchell”

Tokyo Joe’s

Pictured is the Yo roll and a Boulder veggie bowl with added chicken breast with Joe’s dragon sauce.   I do the math on all my training and nutrition and have a very good idea of what to order when I get there each week.  Today I anticipated needing a little  bit of a carb up after two weeks of very limited carbohydrate intake, this meal provided me with 760 recovery calories coming from 16 grams of fat 100 grams of carbohydrates and 51 grams of protein.   Joe’s with out question the go to place for anyone who wants to know what they are eating, all nutrient stats are posted on the website and there is no sacrifice in the flavor/calorie department.

That’s all I have for you today, I’ve been getting quite a few inquiries about what exactly I do on a daily basis, I will get into that in the next post.

Until Then, Kill everything you do on the daily & sleep like babies.  #everydamnday

SteviE T

**always consult with your physician before starting or changing a current workout routine , nutrition program or supplement.  The advice and programs that are talked about on this site are not recommended for use by any individuals with any medical condition(s) that might be compromised by intense exercise or resistance training.  If you feel any abnormal pain, nausea or dizziness please discontinue training and consult your health care professional immediately **

Eat Fat, Lots of natures fat, and get Lean!

First off, let me foreword this by stating that I’m not telling you what to do or to follow my lead but I am however just asking for you to think away from the mainstream or the latest fad diet and simply sharing my thoughts while passing along my experience with the life long journey in pursuit of physical near perfection.  I say this up front because it seems whenever I post anything, I get some sort of backlash from someone who has different beliefs and theories on eating and training, look I don’t give two squirts of piss what you do with your body, It’s not mine, I don’t have to live within its skin, you do.  I like to see people challenge themselves, think outside the box a bit and give different methods a fair shot, but by no means am I asking you to drink “the Kool Aid”  I’m extremely in tune with my body and I like to see how it reacts on all levels to different programs, both training wise and nutritionally.

Ok Rant over, let’s get to business

BEFORE

Tonight’s dinner:  3 whole cage free pasture eggs + whites, real butter, avocado, broccoli and asparagus ( 41 grams of fat – 40 grams of protein and a negligible amount of carbohydrates from the green vegetables)

I’ve been eating like this for the past 10 days now, 50% of my calories are coming from fat, saturated fat, monounsaturated, polyunsaturated) I’ve been eating real butter, olive oil, coconut oil, avocado, cashews, almonds, walnuts, brazil nuts, macadamia nuts, peanut butter and lots of animal fat from 90% grass fed/finished beef, whole eggs, chicken, salmon, and bacon!

I have not been eating very many carbohydrates, none have been added to my plan but the nuts, avocado and variety of vegetables do contain a very small amount with a good amount of fiber taking up the carbo space.

My protein intake is moderately high at 260 or so grams per day. I have been starting every day with a fresh brewed Yerba Mate drink, followed by taking in 4 tablespoons of peanut butter and making a shake that contains  70 grams of protein powder coming from 7 different protein sources that the Pro Antium and IsoTropic Max powders from Ronnie Coleman Signature Series provide. I eat this over the course of the first hour I am awake, so by 545am

I continue this trend all day with high fat and moderate to high protein intake and at the end of my 4 daily meals I have consumed roughly 155 grams of fat, 260 grams of protein and about 65 grams of the carbs I spoke of earlier.  Along with this I’ve been doing 4 very short and very intense resistance & cardio training sessions (14 minutes up to 26)  per week and 1 long and extremely intense session that lasts about 70 minutes.

What is my goal with all of this?  I’m just trying to determine if eating bigger high calorie, high satiety meals coming mainly from real food products when combined with very little time spent at the gym or performing activities will yield better gains and provide you with much more free time, thus theoretically improving your quality of life along with personal and family free time.

I haven’t been on it long enough to give you a big breakdown, but I have already seen very noticeable changes in a few area’s of my body, both inside and out.  These include, better quality of sleep, zero sugar cravings, decreased stiffness in my joints, an elevated level of testosterone/libido and in the gym less muscle fatigue, great stamina and lower body-fat %

So stay tuned as I am going to start writing about this process a few times a week and give you a look at exactly how my day goes down both on the plate and in the gym or on the mountain bike.

AFTER

Stay Focused and Find Your Strong.

STEVIE T

**always consult with your physician before starting or changing a current workout routine , nutrition program or supplement.  The advice and programs that are talked about on this site are not recommended for use by any individuals with any medical condition(s) that might be compromised by intense exercise or resistance training.  If you feel any abnormal pain, nausea or dizziness please discontinue training and consult your health care professional immediately **

Bpi Sports Report, Adding strength on the daily!

I haven’t written a ton about the BPI Sports stack that I have been on for the past five weeks in a few because of a couple of reasons.

1. I’ve been inundated with reader questions and have a full boat of clients to keep on the path to success.

2. I’ve been in partial disbelief about the effectiveness of it.

I’ll start of with talking about my training as of late, mountain bike season is around the corner and I’m in the middle of the last “heavy phase” I will do prior to the season starting.  Right now I am training on a nine day cycle that involves three straight days of multi-joint exercises with increasing weights and decreasing reps, followed by a day of 15 minutes HIIT Cardio then three more days of single-joint movements with increasing reps and decreasing weight, I follow that up with a day off and more HIIT Cardio the following day before repeating the cycle.  The tempo of all the workouts is fast paced with rest periods that are filled with jumping rope, the last set of every movement all through the training cycle I add in a technique called rest pause which involves hitting failure, then taking 15-20 seconds before picking up the same weight and going to failure once again.  If you have questions about any of this reach out to me and I will explain it to you in detail or post about it again.

Part of the reason I haven’t written about the BPI stack in a week or so is again due to me questioning the progress that I am seeing, my bodyweight is staying steady at 205-07, while my strength is going through the roof at the same time that my bodyfat levels are dropping.  So I wanted to give it a couple more weeks to see if it would level off & it hasn’t, even when I am supposed to be dropping weight to add reps, I’m finding that I can push more weight for more reps than I did the week before, It’s insane!

My food intake has been consistent, I’ve been following a old go-to of mine that has me eating 2500 calories a day with it coming from almost equal amounts (calorie wise) of 800 calories from Protein,  900 calories from Fat and 800 from Carbohydrates.  I’ve been eating lots of red meat, real butter, whole eggs, almond butter, rice, quinoa, tortillas and cottage cheese on top of blueberries, dark chocolate, ice cream and ample amounts of coconut oil.  So the diet hasn’t changed at all in the past month which eliminates it as a factor in my success.

Here’s a breakdown of the stack and what I feel I am getting out of it

• Pump-HD – I take this 30-45 minutes before every lifting session and get a big boost of energy plus amazing amounts of blood flow to the area that I am training that day.  Some Days the pump is so big that it’s almost painful and lasts for quite a while after the training session
• BLOX & Best Bcaa’s – I use a serving of Blox at some point during the day, generally between meal times or If I have gone a exceptionally long time with out eating some protein.  I use the Best Bcaa’s during my training session and sip on it from start to finish.  I don’t “feel” anything from these two products but I have no doubt that they work because with the amount of volume and intensity that I have been training with combined with the lack of days off I should be a lot more sore than I am. What this means is they are doing their job and helping prevent breakdown and speeding up recovery.
• Anabolic Elite – I take the anabolic elite throughout the day with meals on lifting days, I’m convinced that this is the product that has led to strength increases because I can tell my testosterone levels are up due to an increase in hunger and my libido being out of control, both of those are to be expected with elevated testosterone levels.

So there you have the breakdown and current results of this stack, I just ran out of the Anabolic Elite and started up BPI’s Get Hard Stack to finish out this 8 week trial.  I’m Pumped (pun intended) to see what the next few weeks brings.

Until Next Time, Eat Real Food & Train Insane

Stevie T

today’s dinner of Lean beef, whole eggs, vegetables, avocado and soup.  Used up all my carbohydrate allotment on some cookies a client brought in earlier in the day so none for dinner, and dang they were good and worth every bite!

**always consult with your physician before starting or changing a current workout routine , nutrition program or supplement.  The advice and programs that are talked about on this site are not recommended for use by any individuals with any medical condition(s) that might be compromised by intense exercise or resistance training.  If you feel any abnormal pain, nausea or dizziness please discontinue training and consult your health care professional immediately **