I sometimes get asked how it "feels to be lean" or hear remarks like "it must be awesome to be lean all the time".

I reply that I feel great and that being lean feels great. But that's not the whole truth.

People with a remote interest in fitness and health usually aspire to get lean and maintain that condition. They may also assume that reaching a satisfactory or awe-inspiring condition will elevate their lives to a new level. Much like people assume that winning the lottery will make their lives indefinitely better in just about every aspect.

In striving towards this goal, some people have an ideal body weight in mind. Others may have a mental image of their physique or an arbitrary body fat percentage in mind. Goals may vary a lot but expectations do not. Once the goal is reached, everything will be great.

I was only slightly different than the Average Joe in this regard. The difference being that I had been fairly lean for a good while. Most people would probably settle for that perfectly respectable condition. So while I didn't expect my life to improve much once I reached my ultimate goal, the goal was more like an itch that needed to be scratched until it went away. And once the itch was gone, I think I expected that it would elevate me to new heights in some vague undefined ways.

I reached my goal a few days before Christmas 2007. It was a great anticlimax.

The anticlimax

I was content and proud of myself for the fact that I finally conquered the goal I've had for several years. That I had reached a condition that I would be perfectly content to maintain rather than to seek constant improvement.



I decided this was good enough.

But the experience was disappointing in many ways. Is this it? It left me with a sense of a void inside myself. After all, I had invested a fair amount of energy in this over the years. Mental energy first and foremost. Having had to master thoughts of doubt (Am I really losing body fat? Should I be cutting calories further?). Spending time thinking about how to tackle social events without affecting progress negatively. At times having to exert restraint when cravings came.

In the final weeks maintaining the diet was not an issue. Intermittent fasting made it a breeze relatively speaking. But I was still plagued with doubt and worried whether I would reach my goal before Christmas. I was adamant in reaching my goal before Christmas, since I wanted to switch to maintenance before the ensuing food fest on Christmas Eve. Trust me, ending a diet on a holiday such as Christmas is a bad idea.

The secret benefit of being lean

It wasn't until after a few weeks that it dawned upon me what the real benefit of being lean is. That is, lean enough for you to be completely content and happy about your physical condition.

Are you ready? Because I'm about to reveal to you something that is rarely talked about. Something few people might not understand before they've been through the same experience.

The secret benefit of being lean is that it's an immense time saver.

Be honest with yourself: if you're on a diet, you spend a fair amount of time thinking about it. Being perfectly content saves up an astounding amount of mental energy. Gone are the worries, doubts and obsessions about diet, weight and all other issues pertaining to reaching your goal. The itch is gone. No need to scratch it anymore.

But that void needs to be filled with something. You will suddenly rediscover new interests and hobbies - I did. Don't fill the void with more training*. Fill it with reading, family, friends or whatever you like. Learn to be content once your ultimate goal is reached. Set new goals**, but learn to accept slower, gradual progress.

* Guys have a tendency to fill the void with more training in order to pack on more muscle once they consider themselves done dieting. If they're not dieting, they're training themselves into the ground. Yes, I used to be that guy a long time ago.

** I set a few new goals related to relative strength. Progress in relative strength is in my opinion the best measure of lean muscle gain while maintaining low body fat.

What's the lesson here?

After my experience, I tend to view fitness related goals as means to self-improvement, not happiness. Setting goals and conquering them leads to a sense of achievement and it teaches you things about yourself. If your "itch" is to achieve and maintain an extraordinary physique, getting there will make you a better person. But not for the reasons you might initially think. If the goal is of particular importance to you, as it was for me, it frees up an immense amount of time once the goal is reached - time that can be spent on improving yourself in other areas of life.

Related resources:

Maintaining Low Body Fat
Intermittent Fasting, Set-Point and Leptin
The Marshmallow Test
How To Look Awesome Every Day

I ranted a little about diet approach, leptin and the set-point theory on bodybuilding.com.

Figured it could make for a decent post here. I added some extras in the form of a short review on the effects of intermittent fasting on leptin.

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Short background on leptin and set-point

Leptin is a master-hormone with downstream effects on other hormones related to metabolism (T3/T4, neuropeptide-Y, epinephrine, among many others).

In the long-term, leptin is regulated by total amount of fat mass. A drop in leptin affects the other hormones negatively and vice versa. Low leptin leads to an increase in hunger and a decrease in metabolic rate, much like high leptin leads to a decrease in hunger and an increase in metabolic rate.

Generally speaking, lean people have low levels of leptin while obese have high levels of leptin. However, in the latter case, leptin resistance develops. This is likely an effect of chronically elevated leptin, much like insulin resistance is an effect of chronically elevated insulin.

The set-point theory of body weight-regulation is intimately connected to leptin and has a strong genetic component to it. Naturally lean people maintain a low body fat set-point by being leptin-sensitive; they can maintain a low body fat percentage and function optimally even with low leptin. But most of us aren't so lucky, which is why getting really lean is typically a difficult task.

Dieting in the single digit body fat-range

Lyle McDonald paints a dark picture of life in the low body fat percentage-range. Yet I and my clients maintain a low body fat % without any of the often cited symptoms, such as anhedonia, low libido and a general sense of weakness. It's hard to argue against the literature on the topic, since it's substantial and shows that these side-effects indeed occur. However, it bears mentioning that the studies looking at leptin levels after dieting are limited in the sense that they often use conventional dieting strategies that entail a pronounced weekly calorie deficit for both men and women.

I too experienced the aforementioned side-effects in the past, That is, before I finally "got it right." What does that mean exactly?


Me at a skinny 165 lbs. Editorial work in Milan. My approach to dieting back then wasn't exactly ideal.

During my last cutting diet, that is the one that took me to 5.5% where I have hovered ever since, I did the following things right:

1. I lost the final pounds of fat very slowly and the weekly calorie deficit was subtle. The scale moved down as slow as one pound every other week. On the other hand, I barely felt like I was dieting and I maintained strength and muscle surprisingly well.

2. I was able to make a smooth transition into maintenance. I did not count the days until the diet ended, and I did not sit and plan a big refeed to celebrate when I was done. I didn't feel deprived, daydreaming about food.

3. I would do a extremely controlled and modest refeed 3x/week or 3x/8 day (on training days).

Now contrast this to what I did in the past, which caused me to feel miserable during the whole process and experience rebound weight gain:

1. I wanted to lose as fast as possible so I could work on muscle gaining. The weekly calorie deficit was fairly substantial given my already low body fat percentage - I was losing in the range of 1-1.5 lbs/week. I felt deprived and just wanted to get it over with. Strength and muscle loss was substantial.



Another one. From a shoot in Münich. Weight around 165 lbs or so.

2. I would sit and plan my big refeed meal at the end of the diet. I would count every day like an inmate counting the days to his release from prison. And once I reached my goal, I would go bonkers, eat a bunch of crap, take several steps back and then go back to dieting in a feeble attempt to make up for my screwed up "refeed" (aka binge in my case).

3. I did no refeeds during the diet.

So what's the lesson here and how does it relate to the topic at hand?

Leptin: science versus real world

Leptin is controlled primarily by two things, which are

a) Short term: acute energy balance. A high calorie deficit causes leptin to drop lower than what can be explained by fat loss, and a caloric surplus raises leptin higher than what can be explained by fat gain.

b) Long term: total amount of fat mass. Fat cells are factories for leptin production. Not having many factories obviously impairs production and the aboslute amount of leptin in circulation.

If A can be manipulated via a subtle energy deficit and regular refeeds of the right macrocomposition (carb refeeds acutely increase leptin, while fat has no effect), this should prove beneficial to circulating leptin levels during the diet. It might prove fruitful to "trick" the last few pounds of fat off while venturing into the single digits. Another cyclical diet that has much in common with this strategy is The Ultimate Diet 2.0 though I'm in favor of more frequent, more modest, refeeds and no glycogen depletion outside what occurs with a low-moderate training volume.

If anecdotal reports mean something, this is my standard approach for clients and it's working well. I'm not an isolated case. For example, have a look at Andreaz in this post on maintaining low body fat. And we're no ectomorphs by any means. I grew up fat. Science dictates I wouldn't be able to stay this way (low body fat) without feeling completely miserable, but that's just not the case. The avatar pic was taken at the end of 2007, and I've stayed that way ever since. But I failed many times in the past. Only when I learned patience did I attain my goal.

Now, this little theory of mine, that fat needs to be lost very slowly in the single digit range, still leaves questions as it pertains to B, which is that leptin is ultimately controlled by total amount of fat mass.



Several years and 30 lbs later, I finally "got it right".

Low fat mass equals low leptin. Can leptin sensitivity increase if weight is maintained on a low body fat % for a prolonged period of time? Sadly, there are no studies to suggest that for the time being. Can it increase through other means? Well, exercise and fish oil seem to improve leptin transport, so there's that.

But what I think people really want to know is how intermittent fasting affects leptin levels and there's some interesting research on that topic.

Intermittent fasting and leptin

Generally speaking, studies show a neutral effect on average leptin levels during intermittent fasting. While the fasting period decreases circulating leptin, this is compensated by a big boost when refeeding. In comparison to conventional meal frequencies, intermittent fasting induces a "peak and valley"-pattern in leptin synthesis. Leptin secretion is thus entrained to the meal pattern and shifting meal timing causes a comparable shift in plasma leptin rhythm.

However, there are some interesting discrepancies here in that women actually show a big increase in mean leptin levels during intermittent fasting. This occurs even in the absence of weight gain which is all the more fascinating. In the quoted study, despite calorie intake being elevated in comparison to baseline intake, the women actually lost weight and lowered waist circumference and body fat percentage. Intermittent fasting was also shown to decrease neuropeptide-Y, a hormone that stimulates hunger. This could probably be explained by elevated leptin levels, but there was no linear correlation between the two in this case.

Similar effects have also been shown to occur in men. That is, fat loss occurred without any reduction in leptin - and these were fairly lean athletes to begin with.

Intermittent fasting may also be of benefit when dieting in the single digit range due to the effect of fasting on the fat mobilizing hormones epinephrine and norepinephrine. When you’re in the single digit body fat range, you’re likely to have low circulating levels of leptin. One of leptin’s downstream effects is on epinephrine and norepinephrine output. Low leptin equals impaired output of the aforementioned hormones. This is part of how leptin regulates metabolic rate. However, it seems that these hormones increase regardless during fasting. That is, leptin is not able to exert it’s usual power over these hormones. In this case, their increase cannot be mediated by leptin which allows fat mobilization to go on unabated during fasting.

That's it for now. There's plenty more on this topic, but I'll save that for some other time.

Summary

* Fat loss in the single digit body fat-range needs to be slow and tempered. In my experience, this allows for a smooth transition into maintenance and minimizes muscle loss. I also believe it might lessen the negative effect of dieting on leptin, which ultimately makes maintenance of low body fat achievable. I think most people diet too hard, which has a profoundly negative effect on leptin - and this is part of the reason why the weight gain rebound is so common in folks who finally manage to reach their goal (and then screw up everything by binging).

* Planned and regular refeeds should be in place. This affects leptin positively and allows for maintenance of muscle and strength. Even if your goal ultimately is fat loss, entering an anabolic phase with post-workout overfeeding will serve you well.

* Intermittent fasting seems to have interesting effects on leptin synthesis. Whether this has benefits for low body fat maintenance or circulating mean leptin levels is up for speculation for the time being.

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For more on leptin and set-point, read this and this. I've also talked about the effects of our obesogenic environment on set-point and weight regulation in this post. Somewhat related to the topic at hand, I've also posted on strategies for maintaining low body fat.

February was a busy month and I didn't get around to posting much.

Since things have cooled down a bit and I need to get back into the habit of writing, I'm gonna kick off this month with an article that touches on a few factors that I believe are important for anyone wanting to maintain a lean appearance at all times of the year.

I've never been a fan of the bulk and cut approach. An approach often taken to the extreme by some of my peers, with the net result being that they only look decent during the summer months. Simply not my style. Perhaps it's a consequence of growing up fat. Perhaps it's because I'm more impressed by feats of great relative strength, for which leanness is critical. I'm not sure. It is what it is, like the saying goes.

Once I cut down to 5.5% body fat by late December 2007, I decided I wanted to stay that way if it was possible. Possible in this case meaning if I could maintain my sanity, social life and not feel miserable. I questioned the possibility since I failed many times in the past. Sure, I got plenty lean before. That wasn't the problem. I managed to get very lean for shows and photo-shoots back when I was modelling. Getting there wasn't the problem. Staying there was.

But I'd come a long way since my semi-starved modelling career and had managed to adopt a new perspective on things. It would prove to be crucial for my success this time.

This is my current condition. I'm a little heavier than I was in October, but not by much.

Maintaining the lean state

I use and work with four different approaches to intermittent fasting. All of them entails a 16 hour fast followed by 8 hours of feeding. 3 meals usually, 2 or 4 meals less usually.

1. Fat loss. Maximizing fat loss and minimizing muscle loss.

2. Lean gains. Maximizing muscle gain and minimizing fat gain.

3. Bodyrecomposition. Simultaneous muscle gain and fat loss.

4. Lifestyle (or maintenance). Incorporating intermittent fasting as a lifestyle diet that is very sustainable in the long run. The difference between this and other approaches are in the form of much looser guidelines and lessened focus on macronutrient and calorie-cycling. Slow bodyrecomposition can still occur.

The diet changes depending on what my clients favor, but they have many things in common. There's a system to it - specific guidelines for each approach. There's no guesswork. I'm fairly specific. Left are the lowest common denominators that I believe are conducive to maintaining, or achieving, the lean state. I will cover a few of them below.

One of my clients, Andreaz, after months on a lean gains phase. As you can see, he remained lean throughout the whole process. Weight gain was slow, but fat gain almost non-existent. This picture was taken a few days before we switched to a fat loss diet.

Intermittent Fasting

Well, this one was fairly predictable. Nevertheless, it needs to be addressed first and foremost in this article since it played such an important role for me. Intermittent fasting was a key factor in allowing me to stay very lean and looking great 365 days a year. It was the golden ticket. While I don't think intermittent fasting is for everyone, it released me from the chains of feeling the need to eat every 2-3 hours. It spared me the torture from having to be content with tiny kindergarten-style meals that would only leave me wanting more.

Some people may feel differently. Maybe they feel "just right" after a small meal every so often, and maybe they maintain a low body fat doing just that. But I never really felt satisfied with that approach. I always failed when I tried, and I tried for years. I did 5-6 meals of 400-500 calories or so and still felt like I was dieting. Sooner or later I'd blow my diet and overeat (a lot).

I prefer to eat big. When I eat, I eat. When I don't, I don't. That's how I'm wired and trying to fight against my natural inclinations always caused me to fail.

Intermittent fasting is in my opinion a very effective way to maintain some hedonism in your life while staying lean. I'm able to eat awesome meals (some go as high as 2000 kcal) without adding body fat. I wouldn't be able to do that on the six-meal-a-day-diets I tried to maintain on in the past. I never get cravings anymore. I don't fiend around for snacks. I don't need them.

Diet

The foundation of a diet conducive to maintaining and achieving the lean state needs to be built on a few specific dietary fundamentals.

My framework contains a few rules that I adhere to most of the time. Following these rules makes maintenance of the lean state possible and enjoyable. These dietary fundamentals can be said to establish a low body fat settling point (not the same as set point). This is what you can control to make sure you remain lean despite not having the genetic makeup for it. I sure don't. I grew up fat. But with the following strategies, I've remained very lean for years now. And it feels great.

However, I should note that these rules are meant to be broken from time to time. Life will come in the way some days. Flexibility and a non-rigid mindset are important traits to make this work.



Robert has been on a lean gains diet for almost four months without any noticeable fat gain. He's made substantial strength gains despite only gaining 4 lbs.

Protein

Some people rely heavily on cardio in order to maintain their leanness. This allows them to be somewhat more lenient with their diet. I am however no fan of cardio and don't use it to stay lean. In my view cardio as a strategy to maintain a low body fat percentage is not only time-consuming, but also a sure-fire way to hamper muscle and strength gains. If nor time or muscle gain is a concern then by all means continue your cardio regimen. But considering my priorities and those of my clients, I focus on the macrocomposition of the diet to maintain the lean state.

You'll often hear that 1 g protein/lb body weight is a good guideline for muscle gain. That's true. Studies show no additional benefit in going higher than that, assuming adequate calorie intake. But protein has other important qualities. I put great emphasis on it in every diet I design and believe it needs to be kept higher than the generic guidelines.

First and foremost, the effect on satiety is far superior to both carbs and fat. This ensures good diet compliance, since you won't get hungry and risk overeating.

Secondly, TEF (Thermic Effect of Food) is much greater for protein than for both carbs and fat. It's so significant that a researcher named Livesey proposed that protein should actually be counted as 3.2 kcal and not 4 kcal as the current guidelines state. In simple terms, in comparing two hypo-energetic diets at the same calorie intake, the diet with the highest protein percentage of total calorie intake will show superior results.

Last but not least, a high protein intake is absolutely crucial during fat loss if you want to optimize retention of muscle mass while losing weight.

A high protein diet is a key strategy to prevent overeating and warding off fat gain when attempting to gain qualitative weight. For fat loss additional benefits arise in terms of greater satiety, accelerated fat loss and sparing of lean mass.

Food choices

Most of your diet should consist of whole and unprocessed foods. One critical mistake people make when transitioning from dieting to (failed) maintenance or a muscle gaining diet is changing the food composition of the diet significantly. Out goes the fibrous veggies and whole food protein and in comes the refined carbs and protein shakes. Such foods invite overeating sooner or later. Most people don't have a problem gaining weight, they have trouble keeping it off - especially after dieting and reaching a low body fat percentage.

What you ate during your fat loss diet, satiating foods like veggies, fruit, berries, meat and cottage cheese, should also be a staple of your diet regardless of goal (muscle gain, bodyrecomposition, lifestyle). And minimize liquid calorie intake. Chew your calories, don't drink them.

While I'm not big on supplements, there are a select few that should be added to your diet if there is a need for it. For example, calcium increases fat excretion and Vitamin D plays an important role for metabolism. Making sure there is no lack of these micronutrients is therefore conducive to maintaining the lean state. For more on this, check out my supplement guide where I list the stuff I consider useful.

Calories and macronutrients: timing and cycling.

I've talked about this numerous times on the site, but in short I believe macronutrient and calorie cycling is an important part of a proper intermittent fasting setup. I've mentioned the potential benefits with regards to partitioning in the past, but this time I'd like to put a little more focus on the behavioral aspects. Simply put, there's a tendency for people to go lax and take too many liberties on diet setups and don't cycle phases of over-and underfeeding cycles.

Surplus calories should not be consumed each and every day, but in conjunction with training - when they are likely to be used for repair of damaged muscle tissues and recovery of glycogen stores. Conversely, slight underfeeding on rest days may have benefits mediated via mechanisms that kick in during calorie restriction (on top of the independent and positive effects of intermittent fasting), such as improvement in blood lipids and other health markers.

And then there's the fact that people simply get more productive with a lessened focus on food on rest days - they get stuff done. But this effect is unique for the short term. It's certainly not something that occurs with prolonged dieting, where thoughts of food may become overwhelming and obsessive. I actually prefer to have a few dieting days now and then. I've noticed I am at my most productive during those days and I certainly don't experience "dieting" symptoms such as increases in hunger.

So, cycling between overfeeding (training days) and slight underfeeding (rest days) is another excellent strategy to remain lean regardless of your goal. The benefits are not only physiological, but also behavioral.

Social events/eating

Some of my clients get anxious about attending social events, such as big family gatherings, parties and weddings. There will be tempting foods, maybe alcohol and various snacks and they will likely deviate from their diet. And when some people deviate from their diet, they lose control and overeat (usually on a plethora of sub par foods and snacks). Learning how to tackle social events that involve eating is therefore important for anyone wanting to get lean and remain lean - unless you plan on living your life like a hermit.

These events can be made into smaller issues with a good dose of self-control. But I can't assume that everyone is able to "eat in moderation." No, I have special strategy for such occasions. Assuming the event is in the evening, and that the client initiates his feeding phase around noon, I tell them to eat their full allotment of protein for the day before attending the event. They should keep everything else low; fat and carbs are consumed in whatever low amounts that are contained in the high protein foods eaten before the event. This creates a big caloric buffer for social eating AND ensures that the client comes to the party reasonably satiated and less prone to eat a bunch of junk.

Consider this easy and non-challenging strategy yourself. It has been a great help for myself and many clients.

Summary

* I follow intermittent fasting to maintain a shredded physique 365 days a year. For me and many others, it's an excellent way to enjoy dietary freedom without feeling deprived and constrained to your diet.

* I maintain a high protein diet and cycle carbs and fat depending on day. I chew most of my calories and my diet consists of whole foods primarily. By doing this, I'm rarely hungry and the diet is enjoyable and varied. I also believe that there physiological and behavioral benefits to macronutrient/calorie-cycling.

* I'm flexible and never let my diet rule my life get in the way of enjoying myself. Remember, it's the diet that you maintain 80% of the time that will dictate how you look. Not the occasional indulgences.

* There are easy strategies for tackling social situations, such as saving up for a "caloric buffer" later in the day.

So that's all for today. There's a little more to it, but I might save that for another article. Or my book, whenever the hell that will be out.

It's been a while now, so here's a few recent ones.

This is more or less the condition I maintain at all times of the year. Weight is approximately 195-200 lbs. I'm not sure of the exact number, since my scale is broke.

When it comes to training, I'm a minimalist.

I don't "attack the bi's from different angles". I do chins with an extra 100 lbs around my waist.

I don't spend any time "working the core". I never do ab work. I squat and do triple body weight deadlifts.

I don't "feel the burn". I give every set a 100% and only concern myself with adding an extra rep, or another 5 lbs, on the bar.

And most importantly, I don't go to the gym to have a nice and cozy time.

Sometimes people ask me things in between sets.

"Nice arms, man. How do you get that veiny look - do you go for the pump to really bring those cuts out? And what's the lowdown on preacher curls with a straight bar vs the EZ-bar?"

"I don't curl"

"Yeah right, c'mon..."

I then give them The Look. The Look let's them know I am dead serious and that the conversation is over.*

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I think it was Iron Addict that once said

"The people that should not be touching a high volume/high frequency routine are usually the first people to do them"

That was true for me back in the days, wasting my time in the gym 5-6 times a week. While I did gain a bit the first few months, I certainly didn't get the same results as most of my buddies I trained with at the time.

Now, I am competitive by nature. I couldn't stand watching my friends outlift me. I figured if I can't beat them in the genetics department, I have to beat them on smarts. I needed to find a superior training routine or suffer humiliation every time I went training with them.

I started looking around online, and was lucky enough to come across a site called Cyberpump. Here, I found a very different perspective on weight training. Articles by Ken Leistner, Arthur Jones and others, talking about high intensity training and how people screw up by trying to emulate the genetic elite.

A minimalist approach, very different from what I had been doing up until then. I had my doubts of course, but I figured I didn't have have much to lose. And boy, did my gains take off.

Now, if I remember correctly, this is how my training routine looked back then.

A (day 1)

Bench press
1 set to failure
Immediately followed by pushups to failure
Followed by another set of bench (with a lot less weight)
Immediately followed by pushups to failure
and repeated one more round.
10 mins rest
Chins for 2-3 sets to failure

B (day 4)

Breathing Squats (20 reps)
Leg extensions, 1 set to failure

C (day 7)

Deadlifts (started at 20 reps here, added weight and decreased reps until I was working in the 3-5 rep range after several months).
10 min rest
Pullups for 2-3 sets to failure

And then days 8-10 were spent resting. And eating.

How much did I gain on such a routine? I remember that quite well. I started benching 135 for a few reps, ended up with 225 lbs after a few months. Squats went from about 200 lbs for 8-10 reps to 300 x 15-17 and deads from 175 x 6 to 380 x 3. Weights jumping op 5-10 lbs each session and often with a few extra reps to boot. It was amazing; like newbie gains multiplied by ten.

Was it a walk in the park and do I think everyone should be doing HIT from now on? No. The intensity used for each set was ridiculous. The sessions were painful and I dreaded them every single time. Was it productive? Yes, it was time extremely well spent. Since the training frequency was low, I made sure every session counted. It wasn't long before I outlifted my friends who were still in the gym 5-6x per week.

Since then, I've always taken a minimalist approach to training. Though I've added some lifts to my arsenal, my training routine is still quite spartan by any conventional standard; however, the few lifts I train, I give a 100%.

My point in writing this isn't to say that high intensity training is superior to any other form of sensible training ideology. There are other training approaches out there that I agree with; Starting Strength, 5x5, DC, RPT, and so forth. All of these put focus on principles that really makes the difference (hint: it's not about swiss balls or working different angles). HIT just happened to be the turning point for me, and has influended my view on training ever since.

The take away message here is twofold.

Part of it is a homage to abbreviated training routines, which I feel deserve more attention. You can go a long way just focusing on pressing, squatting, deadlifting and chinning. Throw in some calf and ab work if it makes you feel better.

Another part of it is encouraging change. If your training routine isn't working for you, ditch it and maybe start at the other end of the spectrum of whatever the hell you were doing before. You have nothing to lose.


*Ok, I made that up. I don't really give people The Look. The rest of it is true though.

What I am, the stuff I went through and what I've grown to become. Yup, this post got it all.

I apologize in advance for any incoherent ranting - I'll probably edit this post later on to improve on it.

This post will give a brief summary on my training history, for whoever gives a damn.

Some random points I'd like to make beforehand:

* I've never touched any drugs that may be considered performance enhancing, besides ephedrine/ephedra, back when that was legal and easily obtained in various supplements.

* The pics here aren't the best and poses certainly aren't ideal for comparisons. Some numbers might be a bit off as well. However, I pieced it together to the best of my ability and tried to make a brief, descriptive summary on what I was doing during each phase.

* New readers would be best served to read the this interview to get a grasp on what the hell I'm talking about with regards to intermittent fasting and all that hoopla.




Starting out: age 16-18



"You're so lean, you must have one of those ectomorph genes"

I hear that one too often these days. Well, this is me before I put my foot in the gym and started paying attention to what I ate - there's not a iota of skinny boy genes in my dna, trust me on that one. I was fat throughout most of my teens and when first stepped into a gym, I was close to 225 lbs of blubber. Ectomorph genes, my ass.

So I started pushing some weight, leaned down a bit and gained some muscle. It was clear from the start that I wasn't a prodigy when it came to lifting weights either, despite my size. I remember starting off with about 75 lbs bench presses, 135 lbs squats and about 175 lbs deads. One key thing here is that I started off with the basics, and didn't waste too much time on working chest, abs and arms like my friends did. I was also consistent, and sought to constantly improve myself and learn the nuts and bolts of the iron game. This would turn out to pay off in a few years.

I don't have any good pics from this phase, but I basically looked like a slightly leaner and more muscular version of the above picture on the beach. I looked big in clothes, fat with my shirt off, and I wasn't very pleased with my appearance either way. So I decided to go on a diet.


The modeling days: age 19-22




Fast forward a few years and this is me at about 165 lbs. At 19 I started dieting, lost weight, gathered attention from a model agency and then won a nationwide competition that sent me off to Milan. I think I was about 175 lbs when they first sent me down there, but few weeks later I dropped weight quick down to 165 lbs...and then 160 lbs at my lowest point throughout these 3 years, during which I worked full time as model in several different countries. It was a great experience, but these years were basically spent overexercising and overtraining. I was in various states of leanness, but I don't think I gained a iota of muscle during this time period of my life.


Starting over again: age 22-24




So I quit modeling and decided to come home and resume my studies. I started working out again, gained back some mass and ditched the semi-anorectic look. I'm about 182-184 lbs in the above picture.


Discovering Intermittent Fasting: age 24-now

I've outlined the reasons for embarking on the intermittent fasting regime in this interview. The short story of it all was that I was basically sick of the obsessiveness with nutrition, meal timing in particular, that seemed to follow me wherever I went. I was becoming a social pariah, and I didn't think that, for all the energy I put into it, the obsessiveness provided me with anything else than misery and anxiety whenever I missed a meal. Maybe some of you can relate to this or maybe you have a more relaxed attitude towards bodybuilding nutrition than I had back then; if so, I salute your ability to keep a relaxed attitude towards this crucial aspect of the iron game. I sure as hell couldn't. The above picture is pretty much representative of how I looked when I first started the IF regime on June 2006; about 182-184 lbs, 9-10% bf or so.


Discovering Intermittent Fasting: The Summer Cut

The below picture is the result of the cut I did that summer, using an IF regime for the first time; 175-177 lbs and 5.5% bf.




For the first time in my life I was pretty damn satisfied with the results of a diet - I actually kept all my strength, while simultaneously keeping all my strength, something I had thought was just a pipe dream when cutting to the low single digits of body fat. This spurred me on to continue the IF experiment and go on a bulk in August 2006.


Discovering Intermittent Fasting: The Autumn Bulk

Before starting the IF bulk in August, I ate at maintenance calorie intake for about two weeks in order to stabilize my metabolism from the dieting stint; body weight settled at roughly 180 lbs. I then radically increased calorie intake, but stuck to the exact same meal frequency and meal timing as before; 3 big meals, eaten any time within 8 hours during the day, followed by a fasted phase with no food intake that lasted 16 hours in duration. I stayed flexible with regards to the 16/8 meal schedule - some days the feeding phase would be shorter, some days longer. I sure as hell wasn't going back to my old obsessive behaviour about timing meals perfectly.



The above picture is the result of the bulk, which lasted approximately 3 months and added 20 lbs to my frame; I went from 180 lbs @ 6% bf to 200 lbs @ 9% bf. Some fat gain followed, but overall I was very pleased with my results.


The refinement of Intermittent Fasting: The Recomposition Protocol and the birth of Leangains

This is me as of today, liberal Christmas feasting included, and after a year of meticulous tweaking and learning from past experiences with the IF regimen.





194-196 lbs @ 5.5% bf.

2007 I've gone through various cycles of IF, where I manipulated various variables in order to achieve the result that is displayed above; I've done 3-4 week stints that were either hypocaloric, eucaloric or hypercaloric in nature, varying macronutrients and calorie status for each day respectively, in order to see what has worked best for me, applied that to my clients and see how it worked for them, and drawn conclusions based on that data.

I'm hoping to summarize all these points in my forthcoming book, which will tell you the ins and outs of how to use an intermittent fasting regime for either fat loss, lean muscle gains or both. When this book will be out is still a bit up in the air, but I've started the writing process. Lyle McDonald has expressed interest in co-writing it with me, but to be completely honest, I'm not sure where we stand on the collabo anymore - basically, we pissed each other off, which temporarily has put a halt to the project, at least in the form of the discussions between the two of us. We'll see what happens though; the book will be released regardless. I'll make sure of that.

So, that concludes my wrap up for 2007 and everything that was before. I'll probably add some more stuff too this post later on, or at least try to make it more coherent.

Anyway, I'd like to wish everyone a Happy New Year. Keep checking in on my blog in the future if you're interested in some of my ideas; I've been slacking on updates lately, but I'm hoping to update on weekly, or at least bi-weekly, basis in 2008.