Articles & Guides
Learn how to build muscle, burn fat and stay motivated.
Reverse Dieting: The Secret to Long Term Fat Loss
Recently, the term “reverse dieting” is starting to catch wind with most people who oversee their nutrition. Reverse dieting is an approach to upgrade the body’s metabolism which will enable it to make use of more calories. This method is a sound approach to restore your own metabolism, and help kee...
The Case for Refeed Days: A Secret to Successful Dieting?
Have you been dieting for as long as you can remember? Are you following a very low-calorie diet? Are you struggling to break through a fat loss plateau? If you answered yes to any of these, you might need a refeed day. If you’ve ever tried to lose weight, you might have experienced the seemingly in...
Forging Elite Fitness: The Real Reason You're Not Shredded
More often than not guys (or girls) who want to transform their body and put on massive amounts of muscle and/or get ripped eventually realize that they must put in 100% effort at the gym every single training session. No matter what the training goal is, intensity is absolutely necessary to be succ...
Rapid Backload Peaking: The Cliff Wilson Approach To Pre-Contest Dieting
Rapid Backload Peaking: CARBS, WATER, and SODIUM Bodybuilders always want more - more muscle, more fat loss, more results. In this constant quest for more, many bodybuilders sabotage themselves. To show you what I mean, imagine you are running a marathon. You have trained for years to prepare for th...
A Quick & Simple Guide to Starting Intermittent Fasting
Intermittent fasting (IF) is an eating pattern where you cycle between periods of eating and fasting. Also known as intermediate fasting, it is not a diet but rather a style of eating. You already fast every day while you sleep. Intermittent fasting simply extends that fast a little bit longer. For...
Protein Intake Per Meal: How Much Can You Digest?
One of the more common questions that many gym enthusiasts bring up is “How much protein can the body digest at one time?” For some odd reason this purported, arbitrary amount of protein seems to land somewhere between 30-50g for all humans, regardless of body mass. If that supposition isn’t already...
Prevent A Slowing Metabolism: Understanding Metabolic Slowdown And Adaptation
I see it ALL…THE…TIME! Metabolic damage and serious metabolic issues are rampant in the sport of bodybuilding. Metabolic damage is essentially a drastic slowing of the metabolism that is caused by excessive calorie restriction, excessive cardio, and stress on the body. I think I can speak for all go...
Pre-Workout Nutrition: 4 Strategies to Improve Performance & Maximize Results
A shrill noise rouses me from a night of fitful sleep. It’s 4:30 AM: Sleep or gains? The answer to that question is easy. I throw on some spandex leggings (yup I rock those bad boys), shorts, a shirt and hoodie, and my socks. The shaker bottle is on the night stand. I grab it, open my gym bag, and c...
Pre-Workout Nutrition 101: Fuel Your Training Any Time of Day
Would you rather work out first thing in the morning or late in the evening? The time of day that makes the most sense for you to work out depends on your own preference and schedule. In general, a balanced meal 1-2 hours before a workout is sufficient pre-workout nutrition no matter what time of da...
4 Post-Workout Nutrition Myths (That Are Actually Relevant)
It’s the last set of your training session. You push hard as you grind out the last couple reps. You hastily re-rack the weight and make a mad dash toward the locker room to get your shaker cup filled with protein. Precious seconds tick off the clock as you race against time trying to get some prote...
Post Workout Nutrition: The Window Of Opportunity
Throughout the 25 years I've been bodybuilding, there is one theory regarding muscle growth that has struck fear into the hearts of bodybuilders, and anyone else who goes to the gym and puts forth lots of gut wrenching effort pumping iron in order to build muscle. This long standing theory printed i...
How To Plan Your Muscle Building Diet
Diet is the single most important part of muscle building. Yes, there are many other important factors to consider but none of them are as important at the correct diet and nutrition plan. Your training may be perfect, but without the correct fuel to feed your muscles to grow you will have little pr...
Overnight Oats: The Best Post-Workout Nutrition Solution
It’s no surprise, you work lots of long hours. You're up before the sun rises and still working long after it sets. But yet, even in spite of all of that, you somehow find a way to fit in your workouts during the week. Whether it be a crossfit WOD, insane circuit, or maybe just lots of heavy deadlif...
Train Hard, Recover Harder: Optimizing Carb Intake for Performance
Something strange has happened in the fitness world in the past several years: huge swaths of people have started training harder (awesome) and cutting out carbohydrates (not awesome). It may seem like a good idea in theory, but in the real world, significantly reducing carbohydrates can seriously i...
Determining Optimal Protein Intake For Muscle Growth
Examining protein change theory and the upper limits of protein intake. Throughout the years it is a question that is asked by both scientists, and laymen alike, yet a one true answer still remains to be clear. No, it’s not “what is the meaning of life?” There are more important things to worry abou...
Nutrition For Optimal Recovery
One way to achieve optimum performance is to focus on post exercise food choices. Since carbohydrates are the primary source of fuel during intense activities and are also used during endurance activities, the restoration of muscle and liver glycogen (the body’s storage form of carbohydrates) stores...
Nutrition For Beginners - Part II
Welcome to the second part of Nutrition for beginners. In part one there is a list of foods that are recommended to eat as part of a nutritious eating plan, these foods are classified as the food groups: Protein, Carbohydrates and Fats. But how much of each part of the food groups do we need? We alr...
Nutrition Basics and the Importance of Protein
In order to see your best gains from your training program, proper nutrition is essential. This means the proper intake of calories, the proper ratio of macro nutrients - protein, carbs, and fats - and the proper timing of these macro nutrients. As well, this also means understanding and maintainin...
Nutrition For Beginners - Part I
Ok. So now you So by now we can work out our BMR (Basal metabolic rate) plus the calories that we use up in our physical activity, then we add 10% for the TEF (thermic effect of food) So our calculation goes like this BMR + calories used in activity = ? + 10% = Total calories required in the day. On...
Can Nutrition Actually Boost Your Testosterone Levels?
If you frequent the main-stream fitness publications and blogs you might think we have an epidemic of “mandropause” slowly making us become a nation of men with low testosterone. Now to be frank, there is a lot of hyperbole in those articles and the real truth is that low testosterone levels probabl...
Video: Nichole Ohrablo - "Why a Vegan Diet?"
NPC Fitness competitor, Trainer and Lifestyle & Conditioning Coach Nichole Ohrablo talks about her Vegan lifestyle. Anyone can benefit from including vegan food sources in their diet! Have any questions for Nichole Ohrablo? Post them below!
Video: Nichole Ohrablo - Vegan Protein Sources Part 3
NPC Fitness competitor, Trainer and Lifestyle & Conditioning Coach Nichole Ohrablo talks about great vegan protein sources in part 3 of a 3 part series. Anyone can benefit from including these vegan proteins in their diet! Have any questions for Nichole Ohrablo? Post them below!
Video: Nichole Ohrablo - Vegan Protein Sources Part 2
NPC Fitness competitor, Trainer and Lifestyle & Conditioning Coach Nichole Ohrablo talks about great vegan protein sources in part 2 of a 3 part series. Anyone can benefit from including these vegan proteins in their diet! Have any questions for Nichole Ohrablo? Post them below!
Video: Nichole Ohrablo - Vegan Protein Sources Part 1
NPC Fitness competitor, Trainer and Lifestyle & Conditioning Coach Nichole Ohrablo talks about great vegan protein sources in part 1 of a 3 part series. Anyone can benefit from including these vegan proteins in their diet! Have any questions for Nichole Ohrablo? Post them below!