Carbs make you fat! FALSE

Doughnuts make you fat! FALSE

POP-TARTS MAKE YOU FAT! NOPE!

Eating a caloric surplus according to YOUR number will make you gain weight. Let’s take a quick look at the Law of Conservation of Energy (aka law of thermodynamics.)

ENERGY CAN NEITHER BE CREATED NOR DESTROYED, ENERGY CAN ONLY BE TRANSFERRED OR CHANGED FROM ONE FORM TO ANOTHER.

When was the lat time you ate a BAG of Broccoli? What about two Pop-tarts? Did you know there’s 100 calories in a bag of broccoli compared to 400 calories in two Pop-tarts? Society says JUNK FOOD is bad, but I think it’s our lack of awareness and will power. I’m not advocating the consumption of Pop tarts, more so the awareness of quantity over quality. It’s extremely difficult to eat an entire bag of nutrient dense broccoli, but very easy to eat two, four, or even ten, Pop-tarts. Therefore, we conclude that Pop-tarts are bad because our waistline increases after eating them week after week. We LOVE to generalize entire food groups (carbs, fat, junk food, sugar) as bad, but HERE’S A LITTLE SECRETE… YOU ONLY LIVE ONCE! If you want to eat a fucking pop-tart, EAT ONE, OR TWO, but don’t be ignorant at the fact that’s probably 1/3 – 1/4 of your total intake for the day (avg. girl weights 167lbs / males 191lbs, which is roughly 1,200 calories for fatloss (girl), and 1,500 (male) if you’re not lifting weights.)

I’ll address calories and knowing your number in a second, but let’s check out a shirtless Zac Efron first, Oo La La…

Much to Mr. Efron’s credit, he looks AWESOME! He must have worked hard and look at him; I can’t wait to see Baywatch! According to his diet, he didn’t eat any carbs and everything was ORGANIC- DAMMIT ZAC, why did you have to say that? People will extrapolate that in order to get shredded, you have to buy $500 dollar organic chicken breasts and $25 watermelon (but wait, fruit is sugar which is bad for you, right?) AHHHHHHH, this is soooooooooooooooo far from the truth. We are going to put this hypothesis to the test by having Bret Lusis, a Show Up Fitness Santa Monica personal trainer, training as if he were a celebrity who’s preparing for a film- hard work, calorie deficit (according to his number), and no alcohol. Bret is going to show y’all what’s possible when you’re incentivized by cold-hard-cash, working hard, and knowing your number. I have no clue, but I’m guessing Zac made a few million for that blockbuster- probably closer to ten. I told Bret I would give him a million dollars if he can make a better transition than Zac (SHHHHHHHH don’t tell him I was fabricating the truth; I will do no such thing. BUT, I will give him one of my infamous bear hugs which is worth a million dollars.)

Me on the other hand, I’ll be taking a slightly different approach- I will get shredded while consuming “JUNK FOOD.” My plan is to look like a HUNK, by eating JUNK! During week one, I ate a doughnut a day (alongside some whiskey & wine on a few nights.) Week two, I was eating Pop-Tarts. Next week, I’ve got myself a HUGE dilemma, Toaster Strudel’s or cereals like Captain Crunch / Lucky Charms? I know what you thinking, it’s not possible to lose weight while eating JUNK, but in the name of science, were here to prove you wrong.

Here’s what happened during the first 10-days…

Bret – 198.7lbs / 15.2 % Body Fat WEEK 2 – 190.8 / 14.4%

Chris – 207.6lbs / 16.4 % Body Fat WEEK 2 – 200.2lbs / 15.3%

Everything was exactly as expected- significant scale loss and slight BF % loss. We both consued around 3,500 – 4,000 calories before the SHRED, now, we’ve dropped our calories to 3,000 (Bret) and 2,200 – 2,800 (Chris.) We’ve upped our energy expenditure via our workouts & NEAT by working out twice a day (total 12 workouts a week vs 8 prior) and biking / walking more which is referred to as NEAT (Non-Exercise Activity thermogenesis.)

Bret – 198.7 x .152 = 30.2 lbs of fat 190.8 x .144 = 27.47 lbs of fat = 2.7 lbs of fat loss

Chris – 207.6 x .164 = 34.05 lbs of fat 200.2 x .153 = 30.63 lbs of fat = 3.42 lbs of fat loss

OPTIMAL FAT LOSS = 1-2lbs per week OR 1-2% of Body Weight. 3,500 calories = 1 lb fat

In the first ten days, we both lost a significant amount of weight and some fat without compromising strength (if you know Bret and I, we’re two meatheads who love pushing and pulling a lot of weight. We wouldn’t be for having a shredded mid-section in lieu of strength gainz! Unless Hollywood wants to pay us a few million, WHO CARES ABOUT HOW MUCH YOU CAN BENCH!) We DID NOT follow Mr. Efron’s plan by NOT eating carbs and eating ORGANIC. We calculated our BMR and subtracted calories out, and then ate based off of how we were feeling. The breakdown was as follows (generic formula is weight x 10 for males, 9 for females with multiplier factors OR use the bmr-calculator.net):

Bret 198 = 1998 calories -500 calories = 1,500 calories on NON-workout days (1-day a week) 1998 x 1.725 = 3446 – 500 calories = 3,000 calories on the other 6-days. My numbers were similar so we will just use Bret’s. One day during the week, we had a hypocaloric day with intermittent fasting of which we ate around 1,200 calories! One day of this will not induce much atrophy- RELAX.

Macronutrient Breakdown:

According to Helms et. al, we will need around 1.4g of protein per fat free mass, so Bret and I are aiming for an upper limit of 250g daily.

250 x 4 (1g of protein = 4cal) = 1,000 calories. 250g of carbs = 1,000 calories. 1g of fat = 9cal so if we work backwards towards our goal 9 / 1000 = 110g of fat. I will be consuming my carbs in 1/2 JUNK and the other 1/2 vegetables, fruit and grains. Guess what? SO FAR IT’S WORKING. You may wonder about the other 3.5-5lbs of scale weight loss? More than likely, that’s coming from water loss due to the decrease in carbs (for every 1 g of carbs that you consume, the body holds between 2.7 – 3 g of water.) HENCE ALL THE SCALE WEIGHT LOSS when you take out CARBS… SCIENCE!

IN SUMMARY, FOOD = FUEL. There are better choices (broccoli over pop-tarts, home made burger vs In and Out and water over soda) BUT, we’re human and sometimes we want to indulge. If you take the time to calculate YOUR NUMBER based on YOUR GOALS, you can achieve whatever you desire. Ohh ya, YOU NEED TO WORKOUT HARD, LIFT HEAVY SHIT, and SHOW UP! Turning a blind eye isn’t the answer, EDUCATE YOURSELF…..

Don’t DIET or try some supplement to lose weight. Educate yourself by maintaining a positive fucking mindset, SHOWING UP, Win the Week by lifting heavy shit 4x a week, KNOW YOUR NUMBER and then after 52-weeks, you’ll be a NEW YOU!