Your Ultimate Body Transformation Plan
Page 15
WHEN? Post-workout to help lower cortisol levels, or my preferred way in a dosage of 400–800mg at night before bed.
WHY? Lowering cortisol levels at the right times (later in the day or after training) is crucial in this over-stressed and over-ramped-up world that we live in. Maximising sleep and balancing out your hormonal system should be a priority for anyone wanting to improve their physique, and PS is a useful tool in helping you achieve this goal.
In the dosage I have recommended, higher than most studies have used, you get a calming effect, possibly from the lowered cortisol, and sleep and rest are improved. For best use, and to keep the cost down if you are on a budget as it isn’t the cheapest product in the world, I would use it three nights a week or at times of higher physical or emotional stress.
Health: 4/20
Performance: 8/20
Body composition: 10/20
Overall: 22/60
PROBIOTICS
WHAT? Healthy bacteria for your gut.
WHEN? Standard dose is to take 1–2 caps on an empty stomach before breakfast.
WHY? I don’t like the typical body-building supplements that all seem to be aimed at making you ‘swole’ or ‘ripped’ as their defining purpose. The best way to use most supplements is to optimise your health so that then you have the very best platform from which to build your body. Probiotics are a perfect example of this and in my opinion should be in every single person’s supplement cupboard, regardless of goal or fitness/health levels.
Probiotics improve the health of your gut (where up to 80 per cent of your immune health derives from), and these microbiota contribute to crucial factors such as the regulation of fat storage, and numerous other metabolic functions such as the all-important (for muscle building) protein synthesis.
The healthier your gut the easier it is for you to eliminate waste products, such as lactic acid and inflammatory markers caused by training. In turn, you will recover more rapidly and the increased protein synthesis will boost your overall anabolic response.
Health: 20/20
Performance: 1/20
Body composition: 5/20
OVERALL: 26/60
SULBUTIAMINE
WHAT? A synthetic derivative of thiamine (vitamin B1).
WHEN? 20–200mg pre-workout or early in the morning.
WHY? Sulbutiamine is a neurotransmitter potentiator so it reportedly improves many functions in the brain and body. Certainly you should feel more focus and drive when using it, but it has been used in the treatment of chronic fatigue and erectile dysfunction and for improved memory.
Health: 10/20
Performance: 19/20
Body composition: 5/20
OVERALL: 34/60
UP ESTROGEN CONTROL
WHAT? DIM/resveratrol/broccophane/green tea/turmeric/calcium-D-glucarate.
WHEN? 1–2 caps with breakfast.
WHY? We swim in a sea of estrogen in this modern world. This product contains proven nutraceuticals that assist the body in healthy estrogen management, leading to improved health, testosterone balance, and reduced female fat deposits such as ‘man boobs’.
Health: 15/20
Performance: 4/20
Body composition: 14/20
OVERALL: 33/60
UP SLEEP ENHANCE
WHAT? L-theanine/phenibut/valerian extract.
WHEN? 1–2 caps at bedtime.
WHY? You do not need this supplement if you are able to fall asleep quickly and stay asleep for the duration of your time in bed. If your sleep is impaired, however, then this will limit your body composition results, and experimenting with supplements that help relax the nervous system and improve your circadian clock can be of significant benefit. Before buying any sleep-enhancing supplements please refer to the advice in Chapter 2 on how to improve your sleep.
Health: 10/20
Performance: 5/20
Body composition: 10/20
OVERALL: 25/60
UP TESTOSTERONE CONTROL
WHAT? Maca/tribulus/fenugreek.
WHEN? 2 caps twice daily, cycle on and off every two weeks.
WHY? Eliminate the idea that a supplement such as this can have a dramatic effect on your testosterone levels. In real terms it cannot, and the supplement company hype that promises ‘steroid-like effects’ is just shameless marketing lies. However, the right balance of herbs can temporarily improve the neurotransmitter dopamine, leading to improved focus, energy and sex drive.
Health: 4/20
Performance: 6/20
Body composition: 10/20
OVERALL: 20/60
WHEY PROTEIN
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WHAT? A type of quickly absorbed protein derived from dairy products, typically found in powder form.
WHEN? 30–50g in a shake post-workout.
WHY? Whey protein is the king of all the protein powders. The reason for its importance is due to its extremely high score in something called the Biological Value scale. The BV scale is a measure of the quality of a specific protein source. The higher the score the more nitrogen your body would retain after eating it and the better it would help you stay anabolic (and, for our purposes, grow!).
Whey makes a great addition to your nutritional arsenal. As I have said in other parts of the book, never get so hooked on supplements that they replace food – this is a huge rookie error. However, whey post-workout is great because of its rapid absorption, and if you are caught short and unable to eat a solid meal then a whey shake plus a handful of nuts makes a great and healthy option.
Health: 10/20
Performance: 10/20
Body composition: 10/20
OVERALL: 30/60
ZINC
WHAT? Zinc is an essential mineral we can only get through our diet.
WHEN? 10mg per day.
WHY? We need zinc for hundreds of essential biological functions, not least for the production of testosterone, but many men have low levels. No one quite knows the reason why as yet but zinc appears, on a cellular level, to govern testosterone metabolism. This supplement restores adequate zinc levels for better muscle-building potential.
Health: 14/20
Performance: 5/20
Body composition: 12/20
OVERALL: 31/60
09 Frequently Asked Questions
If you have a specific question for me then as long as it is about the programmes in this book, and you put the book cover as your profile picture when asking the question, I will answer you on Twitter (@HeyNickMitchell).
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What’s the deal with meal plans?
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Let me make one thing abundantly clear to you. I hate meal plans!
I want you to think about this for a second: you probably can accept that you’re a unique human being. You have unique goals, a unique tolerance for the boredom of a diet, and a truly unique set of daily circumstances that govern the how, the when and very often the ‘what’ of what goes into your mouth. And yet you expect me to be able to write you a meal plan that fits around all that?
What I want to do with my dietary advice is to give you an education, not prescriptive dogma. A meal plan doesn't allow you to deviate, to use common sense, or to adapt when things inevitably don't go exactly according to plan. If the meal plan says ‘chicken and broccoli’ and you've accidentally put in ‘beef and carrots’, what do you do? Sometimes it seems that 50 per cent of people panic and eat nothing, and the other 50 per cent think ‘F*** it, let's eat chocolate.’ Neither is the optimal choice.
Eating a healthy diet is pretty straightforward if you can stay focused enough to follow my basic rules. I know this is easier said than done because we are bombarded every day with marketing messages that ‘low fat is best’, ‘cereals are healthy’, and that something that is purple and you can squeeze out of a tube can count as part of our ‘five a day’. Stick to my nutritional foundations and I promise you that it will be hard to go wrong and that you'll feel more energetic, sh
arper and leaner for the rest of your life.
Admittedly, things start to get a bit more complicated when we get into how to start to manipulate your diet for more aggressive fat loss and muscle building, but even then education and understanding are the key things to ensure your success.
And now I will proceed to completely contradict myself by referring you to Chapter 7 where you can find an extensive array of meal plans to suit all your transformation needs.
Why am I making such contradictory noises? Because experience has taught me that many people respond best to set rules over flexible choices. It’s as simple as that.
Many of you won’t need to use a meal plan as a guide, but some will find it mentally easier to just switch off and follow a fully laid-out plan. Neither option makes you a bad person. I care only about one thing: doing whatever it takes to help you achieve maximum results in minimum time.
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Why did you list so many supplements?
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We have listed a range of supplements covering a multitude of eventualities to give you a broader understanding of what is out there.
You are not expected or advised to take a plethora of supplements and you should note that during his 12-week programme our cover model only ever used a handful of products throughout the entire process.
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I am on a tight budget. Shall I save up for supplements?
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In a word – no. You should save your money for the best-quality food possible and forget about supplements. They are, by their very definition, ‘supplementary’ and come way behind spending money on the optimal training environment and good, real and wholesome food.
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Can I substitute a shake for a meal?
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In a perfect world you would be focusing on solid food for every meal other than the protein shake that you ingest immediately after a training session. However, many of you are busy, on the go, or struggle to chow down huge quantities of meat. I sympathise because this is an issue that I too struggle with.
Can we compromise and swap a meal for a shake? Yes we can, although we need to be aware of a few rules.
1. Other than post-workout try to have a whey shake with some sort of fibre: nuts if you are looking to keep calories higher, or some greens if getting lean is the primary aim. Of course, how many nuts and sundries you take is going to be down to your own specific diet so it’s impossible to give you quantities. Even a very small handful can make a positive difference to your blood sugar.
2. I can accept one shake substitute a day (as well as your post-workout shake), but really try your best not to slip too far past that.
3. If you are struggling with eating your protein goal then finishing off a smaller meal with a protein shake that allows you to hit your protein goals is definitely a good idea.
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Will my results be the same as Joe’s?
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Some people will do better than Joe and some won’t quite achieve his heady heights of physical perfection. There are numerous reasons for this. The most obvious is that every single one of us is different – biochemically, hormonally, physiologically and mentally. I could take 1,000 members of the public and if I did exactly the same thing with each one of them (which, of course, I would never do) then we would have 1,000 different results.
Other factors that may mean your results differ from Joe’s is that he had the advantage of training under me. Hopefully I am allowed to call myself a good coach, and what that means is that I know when to push hard, when to back off, and when to grind Joe through the floor. I also have my own gym so I can set things up perfectly. Both Joe and I know that the vast majority of you don’t have that luxury and it is one of the reasons why we are giving as much information as possible in this book, and why we constantly make ourselves available via social media.
One of the things that I hear a lot is that person X follows programme Y ‘perfectly’ and doesn’t get ‘any’ results. First of all, I have very rarely met someone who knows how to push as hard as possible in the gym, so that should always be the first thing to address. Second, so many of you cheat on your diets without ever realising it. This is where a food diary becomes supremely useful.
And finally, the expectations of results and reality can sometimes be ludicrously distorted. We have had people who spent 20 years getting overweight and who maybe have 50 pounds of fat to shift before they can ever see even an outline of abdominal muscle, complaining that there is no six-pack after a week.
Slow and steady wins the race with body-compositional improvements, and if you were to drop a very creditable 1.5lb of fat every week for 12 weeks you would be 18lb lighter and look and feel like a wholly different person.
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What happens if I get injured?
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If you are unfortunate enough to sustain an injury during the plan you have two choices – either crumble, undo all your hard work, and consume your bodyweight in junk food every day, or step up to the challenge, find a way to work around the injury, pay even more attention to your nutrition, and keep on improving, albeit at a reduced rate. The choice is yours, so don’t BS yourself by self-indulgently thinking you can give up. Even being laid up in a hospital bed doesn’t preclude you from eating properly.
As for how to treat an injury, I cannot give any specific information on that for obvious reasons. If you feel consulting a doctor would help then you must do that without hesitation, and if it is a niggle (or something more) that can be worked around then be sensible and avoid any movement at all that exacerbates the problem area.
As a little ‘injury’ bonus, my one piece of advice that I have seen help alleviate aches and pains more than anything else is the easiest and most straightforward for you to manage. Do everything that you can to minimise inflammation of your tissues, and the best way to do this is to eat a clean diet, with minimal sugar and junk food.
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What will happen if I break my diet, and can I have a cheat meal?
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Breaking your diet is not the end of the world and you should not let it signal a wholesale capitulation that sees you embark on a three-day bingeing frenzy. As soon as you break it, get back on the wagon and try to identify the triggers that caused you to stray in the first place so that you can avoid them next time.
One of the big problems that I see with people who are trying to radically alter their body composition is that too many are always asking ‘When can I cheat?’ This is the completely wrong mindset to have. Joe Warner didn’t cheat once during his 12-week transformation, but he wanted to. In fact, at times he was a whining, moaning wreck craving certain foods. But he stayed strong because he had such a specific goal in mind and he had pushed the ‘fear factor’ onto himself of making his actions accountable to others (always a great lesson for getting a hard job done well).
I know that many of you have read about the concept of cheat meals ‘stoking the metabolism’. This is true and not just some convenient urban dieter’s myth. However, you need to be lean, mean and far into a strict diet before a cheat meal has any metabolic advantage. Of course, if a once-a-week modest cheat meal keeps you sane then by all means go for it, but stop kidding yourself that you ‘need’ it.
You can find many examples of how to use cheat meals and spike days at www.UltimateTransformation.Guide.
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I can’t stand bland foods!
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You can spice foods to your heart’s content. Just avoid too many excess calories, and sugary seasonings are best steered clear of altogether.
Many a bland diet has been saved with the liberal use of salt, garlic, onion, paprika, chilli, rosemary, thyme, vinegars, oregano, basil, cayenne pepper and cinnamon, to name but a few options.
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Low carbs make me feel like a zombie!
Assuming you are sleeping correctly and not falling into the common pitfall of eating only protein (with both minimal fat and carbs) now is the time to start carb cycling.
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I’m carb cycling for fat loss and progress has stalled!
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The first thing to look at if you feel the plan isn’t working is your food diary. What, you haven’t been keeping one? This could be your first mistake. All too often we are surprised by what we eat when we keep a careful log. Some of you will be eating too much and some will be eating too little.
Assuming that you’ve been keeping a food diary and it looks OK, then we need to address training intensity. Have you been doing enough, and have you been training with sufficient intensity?
You also need to consider sleep and stress. Both are hugely influential factors in body composition progress.
If every box has been ticked off and carb cycling has still stalled then we have two obvious options. We go harder or we go easier. The harder option might mean dropping calories by a further 20 per cent for five days before returning to normal, and the easier option may be the entire opposite – increase calories by 20 per cent for five days before resuming your diet.