Phase 2

[Liteliner]

Well I quit smoking and have been clean for a little over a month now. Im feeling confidant I wont light up again anytime soon. I've decided to go ahead and proceed with phase 2. Phase 2??? Yeah Phase 2. Get ripped.......:EyePop::EyePop::EyePop:

Im not getting any younger and I wanna be cut up for once. Ive tried workouts before and none have gotten me to anywhere near what I wanted. Anybody suggestions? I was thinkin p90.

Is rice also really that bad for someone to eat if dieting???

[Santa Fe Eric]

Yeah Phase 2. Get ripped.......:EyePop::EyePop::EyePop:

Is rice also really that bad for someone to eat if dieting???

Heck no dude! I eat rice just about everyday. It hasn't effected my diet one bit!
http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/kk176/Santafeeric/grannyssurfrumble118.jpg

[Flying]

My doctor recommended I switch to brown rice. Once you get used to it its so much better than that mushy bland white stuff.

It takes a while to get used to it and to get the mixture down right. You have to use more water and let it soak a lot longer. Go half and half white/brown at first to get used to it.

I also switched to whole grain vs white bread. Never knew what I was missing all these years.

[WaterBound]

Well let me first say that I AM NOT RIPPED! Nor have I ever been RIPPED! I used to play a lot of football and tennis and after college I got really out of shape, not that I am in great shape now. So I started working out and learning about the different methods and theories on developing the human body. So for your benefit I will give you the basic general concepts that can BEGIN to guide you on your journey. First you must understand that getting ripped is not exactly the same as getting strong. Although ripped physiques look impressive it DOES NOT personify REAL POWER. That is not to say that body builders are not strong. They most certainly are strong, however they are not the best examples of POWER or STRENGTH. You see modern technology provides us with supplements to dehydrate our cells. You see those ripped body builders are NOT NATURAL! Some people have great genes and thus are really defined. However most of what you see today is examples of cell dehydration. The water is squeezed out of the system and the result is greater muscle definition, ripped. It is about image. For example we know from history that some of the most ferocious and best fighters in Roman history were the gladiators. They were famous for their power and fighting skills. Now the Romans copied the Greek aesthetic appreciation for defined physiques. However the gladiators, who were the most feared and respected fighters, actually were very CHUBBY! We know from historical records such as diet, barley, and art. That they ate a lot of CARBOHYDRATES. These excess carbs easily store as fat in the body. This extra layer of fat provided better protection from injuries. This protection came not from the density of the fat, but just the mere extra mass that provided more organ protection. Now the point I am really trying to make here is that understanding the glycerin, glycolic, index is very important when considering your dietary needs. Your diet has a major effect on the homeostasis of your body. An efficient diet can greatly improve your metabolic rate, rate at which you burn calories. So when eating carbohydrates you need to consider how the carbohydrate was formed in the first place. Where does it lie on the glycerin index and how much are you consuming. You see the more you break down or process a carbohydrate the faster it converts into sugars and the easier it is to absorb in the system. This spikes your insulin levels and hence increases your rate of absorption by the body. Now basically at the polar ends of the scale lie complex and simple carbohydrates. Now you can take a piece of whole wheat bread and chew it in your mouth for let us say 20 minutes straight. The enzymes in your saliva will help break down the complex carbohydrate and it will be converted into sugar. You will be able to taste the sugar. You swallow; this sugar spikes your insulin and hence spikes the absorption rate of all nutrients ingested within a short time frame, which varies from person to person. Now chew on a piece of white French bread for let us say 10-15 minutes. You will notice that the conversion to sugars is faster with the more processed white French bread. Now you can apply this concept to ALL carbohydrates. Depending on where the carb lies on the glycolic index, you can have variable absorption rates. So think of noodles for example. Italian pasta using semolina flour is HORRIBLE for you. I know it tastes good, but it is more easily converted into sugars and you absorb more of its caloric value. Now Soba, buckwheat, noodles is lower on the glycolic index and hence better for you. Now all this talk about calories leads me to explain what exactly a calorie is. It is the amount of energy needed to move water 1 degree. You see we maintain a thermal signature of 98.6 degrees. This is because the process of digesting our food gives off heat as a bi-product. Now generally speaking when trying to get in shape or ripped, as you want to be. You need to consider increasing your metabolic rate. In order to facilitate this increase, you can increase your meals to 6 a day. However you still need to watch your caloric intake. Not just total calories for the day, but the amount at any one time. For example some people eat one 1,000-calorie meal a day. Another person eats 2,000 calories a day. However this person spaces out their calories over 6 meals a day. And none of those meals exceeds 500 calories. The second person eating the 2,000-calorie a day diet will lose more fat and keep more lean protein. The first person that only ate one meal a day will lose more lean protein and gain a higher percentage of fat. The first person may over time still lose weight, but will still dramatically alter their fat to lean protein ratio. More fat then muscle. You see as homo sapiens, our nutritional needs evolved. Hence as a survival mechanism we NEVER lose any fat cells. As a survival mechanism, when we start to starve our bodies. Our bodies think we are going to die. So as a defense mechanism we start to store the fewer calories we get as fat rather than burning it off. Now your body cannibalizes upon your own muscles for the protein it needs. That is why when you starve yourself for weight loss instead of managing diet and exercise. You lose muscle before fat. In fact fat by design is even harder to digest for energy. The ONLY WAY to remove fat cells from the body is to have them physically removed through liposuction. When you lose fat weight, really what you are doing is squeezing the oil from the fat cells themselves. The shriveled cells look nasty. That is an example of cellulite. So if you are starting REALLY OBESE you can forget about ever getting ripped without plastic surgery for skin removal and laser treatment. Now all this talk about fat warrants an explanation of fat itself. Like for example we have all heard about mono-saturated versus poly-saturated fats. Like HDL, High Density Level, cholesterol and LDL, Low Density Level, cholesterol. One facilitates the processing and expulsion of the other from the body. So mono-saturated fats that contain HDL cholesterol are good for the processing and expulsion of poly-saturated fats that contain LDL cholesterol. It is more about balance. OK now since you are trying to get ripped, you should remember that your body needs more protein. You can either eat it or you can take protein supplements. Make sure you use good quality stuff. The lower grade stuff definitely gets absorbed less by the body. You need to ingest between 1 and 1.5 grams of protein per pound of body weight per day minimum. The best time to take supplements is first thing in the morning and right after a workout. Those meals will generally get processed more efficiently than any of your other meals. Right after your workout you have about 2 hours to ingest up to 2 meals. During those first two hours your system will absorb and process anything you ingest at a faster rate. And as everyone nagged you since birth, breakfast is the MOST important meal of the day. You have been without calories for the longest period of time, hopefully that is I know some people munch in the night. Now going on to insulin and absorption. You can increase the absorption rate of your supplements by taking them at the two already described times. You can also spike your insulin levels with some boost of sugars. I prefer juice, but some companies use LOTS of sugar to spike your insulin and hence absorption. So the more sugar you intake through simple carbs or straight sugar the more you store the calories that you intake with the sugar. So a big meal with that nice tasty sugary soda is just compounding the problem of weight loss. Or more correctly fat loss and lean muscle gain. Muscle weighs more than fat so sometimes you gain weight or stay the same weight even though you worked your *** off. You may have lost fat but the weight gains in muscle have offset any losses. Now for your workout schedule, you should work the hell out of your separate muscle groups. You should be sore out of that muscle group for a few days and not work that same group until the next week. So different sets of muscles are worked on different days. You are basically tearing and breaking down your muscles. They regenerate and grow bigger and hence you get stronger. So the object is tearing it down to grow back stronger. This is just like pruning your plants. It stimulates growth. I know some guys who are strong who workout many muscle groups in one day every day. They obviously are not stressing their muscles enough for massive regeneration. They may get strong for the amount of work they do. However they could get even more massive results by stressing their muscles out more and actually resting for at least one day a week. That resting day has been proven to aid in faster regeneration. Now some people believe that you do more repetitions in order to increase your stamina and definition. And if you add more weight resistance you increase your size in terms of mass. Others prefer more of a combination. I personally believe in doing sets to FAILURE gives the best results. If you can do more than 15 a set, then you are using WAY TOO LITTLE weight. Decrease the weight on each successive set but still max out each set to FAILURE. Now another thing some people do is a massive cardio workout first thing in the morning. This jump-start to your day increases your metabolic rate. Your late day workout should still include cardio though. Everyone is different. I prefer 1-1.5 hours of weights to .5-1 hour of cardio. Now after you start working out. Your joints will definitely hurt you. The breakdown of cartilage and inflammation will cause you discomfort. You should supplement with glucosamine and chondroitin. You should also consider a hot tub or a rub down. The key is circulation. I hope this helps you out. There are so many more theories and techniques that I am sure you will learn along the way. Everyone has his or her own methods. You might want to look up someone named Lonnie Teaper. He is the MC at the Arnold Classic. He writes for a lot of body building magazines and has the hook up on supplements. I have not talked to him in YEARS. He is real approachable and very helpful. I am sure if you sought him out he would be willing to help you. Good Luck on your RIPPED JOURNEY!
BTW-White rice has had the husk polished off. It has a worse glycemic rating than brown rice. You could also germinate your brown rice before you cook it and increase your gamma-amino-butaric-acid.

[KaliDawgFan]

If you do eat rice, eat it before your workout. Carbs are good fuel.