Shredder Diet Book – Start here and this will serve as your fundamentals guide.

I know we have all seen it before someone curling at the squat rack or jumping around from machine to machine and I’m talking leg press, to curls, to lats, etc. No I don’t think they are doing a circuit either. Perhaps they are filled with motivation that they are going to get shredded in 8 weeks like they were told in the YouTube video they just watched. Some of you want to laugh and we should not its just they are looking for guidance, some help and fitfam community that is what we do we motivate each other and teach each other.

Haven’t you ever heard you don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great? Well that is what drives me is helping other people so our community can grow and grow its very infectious. This will be what a lot of want and thats shredding body fat and lets dive in.

I know when I first started looking back now I wasted so much time on the wrong workouts, the moves were wrong in many cases and meals were not even dialed in correctly. Some pick it up by trial and error and others actually get guided by another which I believe feedback is a gift so if someone is willing to give you advice listen and see if it can help you.

So this post will be an attempt to setup a what I would call a beginners guide to getting shredded since spring break and summer right around the corner!

Framing Where You Are

Like in any setting you must know what you are trying to do in order to setup the correct goal to go after. For example, if you are extremely over weight you are not going to start on a bulking program so this is what I mean if you are trying to get lean. Here are the three body types and that is why some of us can get away with eating a little dirtier than others and why our physiques look a little different from the start.

1. Ectomorph – skinny and light in weight, hard gainer, flat chested, small shoulders, thin, lean muscle mass
2. Mesomorph – athletic look, hard body, well defined muscles, strong, gains muscle easily, gains fat easier than ecto’s
3. Endomorph – soft and round body, gains muscle and fat easily, “stock”, round physique, finds it hard to lose fat, slow metabolism, muscles not defined

Here are two illustrations to drive a visual picture in your mind.

OK, so now you know where you want to go and now you know which body type you fall into. If you want to read more about body types and their traits here is a great article on that just opt in here and I will send you the article.

Body Composition Article

 

Understanding The Future State

Now this is easy because we all visualized very clearly what we want to look like, right?! Most of you that know me understand I always talk about setting goals but goals with clarity you must be very specific on what you want and get a picture of what you want to look like. Shoot for the stars does not matter because we will achieve it just be realistic with how long it will take you.

Laying Success Plan To Get There

Now the question because how are you going to get there? Are you trying to lose weight, tighten up, gain muscle or just shred? Well in one sentence its going to come but with hard work. To be shredded you need to have two things come into accord, being muscular and have a low body fat percentage. There is a high chance if you are just starting out that you do not have these two or one. So at first you will need a certain amount of muscle building to get your foundation then once that is built you start the cutting of body fat percentage. The basics are laid out below.

Muscle Growth Basics

For those that believe they are going to get to bulky with muscles please erase that from your mind NOW you just do not know how hard it is to gain just 1 POUND of muscle so chill out my friend. Also for every extra pound of muscle you do grow your burning an extra 75 calories a day just by sitting it increases your BMR.

So to build muscle all you are basically training to promote hypertrophy which is anything that consists of 8-12 reps. If you are lifting anything less than that you are doing more so the power lifting style and lifting heavy. So if you have a gym buddy that is lifting low reps with high weight you can laugh inside and be that coach and tell them in order to get shredded you’ve got to be building muscle and burning fat so lets peek into some rules for shred workout. So follow these simple rules here;

• Do compound exercises which are exercises like squats, bench press, dead lifts, should press, pull-ups and tricep dips. These exercises right here are the biggest muscle builders and should be the bulk of your workout you see I didn’t that’s all.
• Train all muscles equally unless your left bicep is bigger than your right train equally and please do not be one of those that skip leg day. “Oh I dont need to train legs I play football already we run a lot”. As you get a system or plan going for a while you will start to see which body part grows easier than others.
• Recovery time is critical to ensure your body is getting enough time to recover before that part gets hit again. Sleep is crucuial and for the newbies that second sore is normal gets worse on day 3 and then starts to subside. Take a good night time recovery, some glutamine and you can assist your body in getting through this and give it the nutrients it needs for growth.
• Workout to failure will assist in muscle growth and when you are stressing the muscle that is what is getting the growth. On a lot of my sets I train until I cannot do one more rep I don’t all the time but I do a lot there is a lot of debate around this topic.
• Try to stick to free weights more than machines whenever possible. Machines can be useful but think of it like this free weights will build an overall better muscle because you are utilizing all the muscle fibers in order to stabilize that weight so it doesn’t crack your head open. Maybe you start off on a machine to understand the movement then venture out to free weights.
• Never skip meals!!!! I have corrected so many that come into the shop that skipped breakfast all together and didn’t eat until 10am or lunch time just BAD. Everything we just reviewed up to this point is out the window and does not matter if you are not eating right. If you are building muscle you need to be in a caloric surplus in comparison to your BMR and of those calories your protein intake needs to be dialed in correctly. If you want to calculate that for help check out our post here where we help you do that.

Cutting Basics

So remember that picture I told you to get that you shot for the stars on how you want to look like? It could possibly take a few years to reach that not for all but for some yes. I guess some might say well let’s just get a huge bulk in get big muscle then just switch into an extreme cut to carve the body fat percentage down, but that is not as easily said as done. This year many of us do not want to be carrying around that extra weight at the pool or beach so we are trying to be efficient and feel healthy as we are going through our fitness journey.

Here are some do’s and don’ts:

• Calculate your BMR and if you are new to this slowly reduce your calorie intake. If you normally take 3,200 calories in a day and have been doing that for the last year and all of a sudden you take it down to 1,900 you could first aggrevate your motivation and more importantly put your body into starvation mode. This is where your body holds onto fat versus burning it like a furnace.
• Always shoot to get your protein in first before other foods types that is key which is one reason I love eating by my macros (shredding meal plan can be tricky). By keeping your protein high it allows you to keep and grow new lean muscle mass that you have been working so hard at the gym for and prevent current muscle breakdown.
• Cut carbs when you can but not all and do not cut fats you need fat to lose fat. I’m talking healthy fat guys! Examples – mono/poly unsaturated fats (found in oily fish, flaxseed oil, avocado etc) but make sure they fit into your macros don’t over do it because they come in at 9 calories per gram.
• Cardio – you have to get this in but do not overdo this because you can be burning muscle that you earning. Everyone is different so always start around 20 minutes for a week see your progress pics and see if you need more or if that is enough. Believe it or not some can actually get away with not doing any cardio at all and still cut when eating right. HIIT training 2-3 times a week as well can be beneficial on boosting metabolism and fat burning effects.
• Water – all I am going to say here is drink a gallon a day. Will curb appetite and help with fat loss.

Smoothie time my friends! Feel like banana, oats and berries mmmmm good!

Claudia Carrera