Truly incredible information here. TMC recommends everybody read this article and try it out for yourself. Especially those of us dieting and watching every carb that enters their body.
An epic blog on Transhumanism (employing scientific methods to improve the human condition). This site is one everybody should check out at twice a week if you value logic and reason.
The never ending fraud that is the CIA AKA Osama Bin Laden. <NOTE>Washington’s Blog is an incredibly thorough journalistic expose into “what’s really going on” daily around the world from a fact finding perspective, politically, culturally and historically.
Anh has been feeding these suckers to Alex for the last year and half to make sure she was regular due to her typical 2 year old inconsistent eating habits. Alex would normally bring one for me to eat and I would always oblige being I’m a sucker for Gummy Bears anyway.
The other day I examined the label on the bottle and realized it was actually made for adults lacking in the recommended amount of daily fiber.
The RDA (Recommended Daily Allowance) for adults is 25 gms of fiber for women and 38 for men!!!
Remember, the RDA was formulated in the 1930′s when the average American was around 5-8 and 165 pounds. Before Big Macs and Vitamin D Milk loaded with Steroids and other super growth additives.
That was a lot of Fiber back then. Imagine what the requirements are today for a hard training fitness enthusiast?
Most of us are deficient in fiber due to the difficulty in finding it in the modern western diet. As has been stated here many times before, consuming fiber in supplemental form is an easy way to avoid excess kcal consumption. It also dramatically benefits folks on a strict or lowered carb diet as it leads to feelings of satiety(fullness) and will maintain bowel regularity.
Two of these “Fiber Gummies” gives an adult 5 grams of soluble fiber. They also are “sugar free” and taste great.
The Muscle Couple Recommends Supplementing with 4-6 of these daily (spread out throughout the day). Assess your tolerance by how often you hit the bathroom and/or how your stomach feels. Some folks may need a bit more and some less.
We think our recommendation is right on the money due to the fiber you should get from a “decently balanced diet”. We do presume as a reader of this site, you’re nutritional habits are better than most.
This is a GREAT SUPPLEMENT for the DIETING ATHLETE, BODYBUILDER, FITNESS COMPETITOR, or FAT LOSS ENTHUSIAST and much more convenient than swallowing fiber capsules or powder.
We recommend you pick up a bottle at Costco or online and feel free to “carve out a new space” in your supplement container today.
The Muscle Couple has been asked for years by many people from all walks of life on the quickest way to attain “6 Pack Abs”.
We’ve wanted to do a blog to set the record straight.
It really is possible for anybody to attain 6 pack abs.
What is required is determination, focus, and a scientific approach practiced over a lifetime. We define this scientific approach as the TMC 3 PRONG AB SOLUTION (revealed in full detail below)
Maybe the best way for us to write/explain how to achieve this look is to analyze this incredible video from Scooby found on youtube.
Scooby has done an excellent job dispelling 6 myths about attaining 6 pack abs in the video.
TMC offers our own unique commentary expounding upon and digging deeper into his myths and even adding one of our own.
Without further adieu.
Myth #1-You Only Need to Perform Regular Ab Exercises to Get 6 Pack Abs-
Scooby’s advice here about lowering your body fat to see your abs is essentially right on the money. You absolutely must create a negative caloric balance (net caloric deficit) from either eating less calories, doing more cardio or optimally a combination of both.
There is much debate in health and nutrition circles about the type of diet best to reduce body fat the fastest. Low Carb, High Fat, Iso-Caloric (Zone), Mediterranean all provide studies proving their effectiveness.
In truth, it’s all about the amount of kcals you consume more than the type observing the all important rule of 1 gram of protein per # of lean body weight. This allows for peak metabolic efficiency and maintenance of muscle even when eating below maintenance kcals.
Myth #2-You Can Get Abs in 8 Minutes a Day-
Again, Scooby’s advice is solid. Anybody who says you can get abs in 8 minutes is a day is complete charlatan and to be avoided. It takes years of practicing the TMC 3 PRONGED AB SOLUTION
Daily, intelligent clean eating (observing periods of below maintenance calories)getting 1 gm of Protein per pound of lean body weight, high EFA consumption, and carbs from green vegies and low glycemic sources
Daily HIT/or intense cardio
EOD productive ab training contracting your rectus on every rep
Without all 3 of the above, 8 minutes a day of any form of ab training won’t get you anywhere.
Myth #3-You Can Spot Fat Reduce
We’re going to go against a bit of Scooby’s advice here and tell you it is physically possible to “spot fat reduce” through the usage of drugs and specialized training protocols. His advice about “cardio and caloric reduction” eventually leading to gradual fat loss and even pulling off the last bit of stubborn fat is however correct.
There have been a few studies performing incredibly high reps targeting the resistant area shown to accelerate fat loss and increase lipolysis at the stubborn sites. By in large, spot fat removal is a complete myth for all but a select few.
Only an advanced dieter/athlete utilizing growth hormone and/or newer chemical agents injected at the stubborn site, combined with advanced thermogenic and lipotropic lotions (designed to work through trans-dermal absorption) can achieve any success of preferentially reducing adipose/visceral fat from the stubborn area. (Realizing these are only ancillaries to speed up the process when the dieter is still maintaining a significant net caloric deficit and probably consuming additional multi-phasic thermogenic supplements)
Myth #4-To Get Abs, You Have to Buy Something-
It is impossible to disagree with Scooby’s advice here. You don’t need to buy anything to achieve abs. You just have to maintain a NET CALORIC DEFICIT and consistently observe the TMC 3 PRONGED AB SOLUTION.
You should not underestimate the importance of using thermogenic supplements in order to boost metabolism and dull appetite. These would be the only “recommended ancillaries” to buy when embarking on a rigorous diet designed to shed body fat to attain noticeable 6 pack abs.
Myth #5-To See Your Lower Abs, Requires the Performance of Special Exercises-
Scooby is right for the most part. It’s impossible to effectively isolate the “lower abs” as the rectus abdominus is one muscle and is recruited as one unit in full force.
Where he errs is in not explaining differing lower abdominal muscle fiber appearance. Hopefully the pictures displayed of lower ab muscle hypertrophy show the various and different structures based on genetics.
All of these pictures portray maximum body fat reduction and intelligent ab training. Unfortunately, not all men/women are created equal when it comes to having visible, defined, ripped midsections.
GENETICS plays a HUGE ROLE in lower ab development/aesthetics even when a NET CALORIC DEFICIT and the TMC 3 PRONGED AB SOLUTION is utilized effectively.
“6 Pack” of normal abdominal musculature
“8 Pack” Abdominal wall of genetically blessed
“5 Pack” of a “Diverse” Abdominal Muscle Structure
“4 Pack” of genetically inferior lower ab structure
Myth #6-You Need Long, Grueling Ab Workouts to Get 6 Pack Abs-
This is completely false. As Scooby reiterated multiple times in the video, caloric reduction and cardio creating a continual “net caloric deficit” will shed the body fat over your midsection. What will then be visible is your genetic abdominal wall. In order to reveal a “6 pack abs look” you must train your abs with purpose and intensity to make them hard and etched.
Your rectus abdominus although much smaller than larger body part muscles, still needs to be effectively trained in order to develop full, thick and rigid (ripped)muscular walls. You must learn to contract your rectus and utilize the principle of progressive overload when training. Train your abs to be bigger, thicker and harder(utilizing weights or progressively harder resistance) just like you were training any other muscle group.
Myth #7-This Image is A Realistic Portrait of “Everyday Walking Around Abs”
Folks this is a picture of a Contest Ready Bodybuilder/Physique Competitor who has dieted down to the last remaining day or two before his contest. This requires enormous sacrifice, water and electrolyte restriction, carb depletion and a multitude of other restrictive practices and nutrient increases/decreases like diuretics etc.
Nobody on this earth save for the MOST GENETICALLY BLESSED MUTANT MESOMORPH can actually walk around looking like this on a day in day out basis. Also remember most of the pictures you see of “ripped abs” are guys flexing or isometrically contracting their rectus to make it more pronounced and noticeable.
Please don’t ever believe the pictures of bodybuilders and athletes you see in the various muscle mags depict a realistic every day condition of somebody who has great abs.
Even somebody performing all the work to get a great 6 pack still holds a bit of water, sodium and skin over the top of them “most of the time”. Think of that natural look as something like this:
TMC trains abs “at least” 4x a week.
Usually we finish our rest pause lifting programs with either 3 sets of hanging leg raises til failure by themselves or sometimes super-setted with rope cable crunches til failure. This is determined by our level of fatigue from the prior training session.
When we’re dieting down really hard for a show<HINT-HINT> or photo shoot, we will also perform abs at the end of our cardio workout.
We’ll provide much more in an upcoming article detailing the type of diet and cardio necessary to maximize the TMC 3 PRONG AB SOLUTION.
We hope this helps clear some things up for many of you.
As always, we’re available for questions or commentary about any of this.
In a 10-week study, Peter Havel and colleagues, at the University of California at Davis, Davis, have provided evidence that human consumption of fructose-sweetened but not glucose-sweetened beverages can adversely affect both sensitivity to the hormone insulin and how the body handles fats, creating medical conditions that increase susceptibility to heart attack and stroke.
This is pretty scary considering how many “Fruit Juices/Beverages” on the market are laden with Fructose as their primary “sugar/sweetener”.
Start scanning the back of Juice and Beverage cartons at your local grocery store to see how much Fructose is in “Apple Juice, Orange Juice, Children’s Fruit Drinks etc. High Fructose Syrup is really hard to avoid.
Simply put, consuming too much fructose will definitely prevent you from getting leaner.
Two papers in the journal PNAS in 2007 and 2008 showed that glucose and fructose act quite differently in the brain (hypothalamus) – glucose decreasing food intake and fructose increasing food intake. Both of these sugars signal in the brain through the malonyl-CoA signaling pathway and have inverse effects on food intake.
“We feel that these findings may have particular relevance to the massive increase in the use of high fructose sweeteners (both high fructose corn syrup and table sugar) in virtually all sweetened foods, most notably soft drinks. The per capita consumption of these sweeteners in the USA is about 145 lbs/year and is probably much higher in teenagers/youth that have a high level of consumption of soft drinks. There is a large literature now that correlates, but does not prove that a culprit in the rise of teenage obesity may be fructose.”
We encourage you to read these studies in their entirety. It’s obviously simple to summarize their findings.
Consuming too much fructose will lead to unwanted fat gain and potentially obesity.
Drinking sodas and other sweetened juices with “High Fructose Corn Syrup” is devastating when trying to lose body fat or maintain a healthy and lean figure.
If you are struggling in your ability to lean out, eliminate all soda’s or fruit juices from your diet for a couple of weeks and see what happens. We think you’ll be surprised at how quickly your body fat sheds.
Stay tuned for some new and exciting changes to the TMC site.
But we’re not just “niched” into the realms of HEALTH, FITNESS and FAMILY LIFE.
Our goal with LINKS HAPPEN is to give you some insight into our “minds eye”.
Every Thursday we’ll be offering you links to the most eye-opening, informative and sometimes esoteric bits of information we think are worthy of your attention.
Without further adieu, here is TMC’s first rendition.
TMC loves its Alexa toolbar because it gives us views of “trending topics” throughout the day.
Evidently, some silly celebrity who knows very little about proper dieting, caloric restriction and exercise is raving about the effectiveness of the Hcg Diet!
The Muscle Couple wants to make it loud and clear to all of our readers and anybody who is considering the Hcg Diet as a body fat loss approach.
STAY AWAY!
It will cause horrible rebound weight gain and may POTENTIALLY cause thyroid and other metabolic problems due to the extremely low calorie levels required to follow it.
There is no PROVEN SCIENCE substantiating any of the claims being made on the web about its effectiveness.
Please read the following article we published more than 8 months ago for a thorough analysis and recommendation.
"The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society.
Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.
In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons . . . who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses.
It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind."
Edward Bernay's
Propaganda
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