THE PROGRAM
To start the program for five days, target everything about your training and nutrition towards fat loss.12
FAT LOSS12
Intermittent fasting boosts testosterone by increasing the expression of satiety hormones including insulin, leptin, adiponectin, glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1), cholecystokinin (CKK) and melanocortins, all of which are known to potentiate healthy testosterone actions, increase libido and prevent age-related testosterone decline.11
1. Reduce Calories
The expenditure of calories is to be greater than the intake of calories to promote fat burning. Likewise, limit the amount of processed sugar in your diet, as there is mounting evidence that excess sugar, and fructose in particular, is the primary driving factor in the obesity epidemic. Therefore, cut soda from your diet, both sugar and artificially sweetened soft drinks. There is mounting evidence that artificial sweeteners can lead to excess body weight [Mercola.com, December 2014]. Further, limit fructose found in processed foods, fruit juice, and excessive fruit. Dr. Perricone suggests reducing simple carbohydrates like breakfast cereals, bagels, waffles, pretzels, and processed foods that will quickly break down to sugar, leading to increase insulin levels, which in turn will lead to insulin resistance, which is the number one underlying factor of nearly every chronic disease and condition known to man, including weight gain.
2. Reduce Rest Periods
During your resistance (weight lifting) exercise: “You will reduce the rest periods between sets in your weight training to increase the intensity of the workload and boost the metabolism.” 12
3. Increase Training Volume
“You will increase your training volume, performing more sets for each body part”.12
4. Do Not Push To Muscular Failure
“You will not push your body to muscular failure – pushing to failure can be too stressful to the muscles when on a reduced-calorie diet. Stop one rep short of this point.” 12 Specifically, you will perform 15 to 25 repetitions in each set.
5. Include HIIT
You will include cardio training, preferably High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) which will provide the best results, to burn calories and further boost your metabolism.
“Here’s a summary of what a typical high-intensity Peak Fitness routine might look like:
- Warm up for three minutes
- Exercise as hard and fast as you can for 30 seconds. You should feel like you couldn’t possibly go on another few seconds
- Recover at a slow to moderate pace for 90 seconds
- Repeat the high intensity exercise and recovery 7 more times
As you can see, the entire workout is only 20 minutes. Twenty minutes! That really is a beautiful thing. And within those 20 minutes, 75 percent of that time is warming up, recovering or cooling down. You’re really only working out intensely for four minutes. It’s hard to believe if you have never done this that you can actually get that much benefit from four minutes of exercise. That’s all it is”.11
CYCLE TWO
For the next five days target everything about your training and nutrition toward muscle building.
MUSCLE BUILDING12
1. Increase Calories & Protein
Increase your caloric and protein intake to promote gains in muscle mass.
“Research suggests that BCAAs result in higher testosterone levels, particularly when taken along with resistance training. While BCAAs are available in supplement form, you’ll find the highest concentrations of BCAAs like leucine in dairy products – especially quality cheeses and whey protein. Even when getting leucine from your natural food supply, it’s often wasted or used as a building block instead of an anabolic agent. So to create the correct anabolic environment, you need to boost leucine consumption way beyond mere maintenance levels. That said, keep in mind that using leucine as a free form amino acid can be highly counterproductive as when free form amino acids are artificially administrated, they rapidly enter your circulation while disrupting insulin function, and impairing your body’s glycemic control. Food-based leucine is really the ideal form that can benefit your muscles without side effects.” 11
By healthy, this means not only mono- and polyunsaturated fats, like that found in avocados and nuts, but also saturated, as these are essential for building testosterone. Research shows that a diet with less than 40 percent of energy as fat (and that mainly from animal sources, i.e. saturated) lead to a decrease in testosterone levels. Personal diet is about 60-70 percent healthy fat, and other experts agree that the ideal diet includes somewhere between 50-70 percent fat. It’s important to understand that your body requires saturated fats from animal and vegetable sources (such as meat, dairy, certain oils, and tropical plants like coconut) for optimal functioning, and if you neglect this important food group in favor of sugar, grains and other starchy carbs, your health and weight are almost guaranteed to suffer.11
2. Increase Rest Periods
Focus on strength training and allow for increase rest periods in between sets. Specifically the exercise performed will be done at 85% of the weight that is determined to cause muscle failure. The set is to have 4 to 6 repetitions. The rest period is to be a a minimum 3 to 5 minutes.
3. Decrease Training Volume
Reduce sets and increase intensity, always maintaining proper form. Push your muscles to their limits.
“Strength training is also known to boost testosterone levels, provided you are doing so intensely enough. When strength training to boost testosterone, you’ll want to increase the weight and lower your number of reps, and then focus on exercises that work a large number of muscles, such as dead lifts or squats. You can “turbo-charge” your weight training by going slower. By slowing down your movement, you’re actually turning it into a high-intensity exercise. Super Slow movement allows your muscle, at the microscopic level, to access the maximum number of cross-bridges between the protein filaments that produce movement in the muscle.“ 11
4. Eliminate Cardio
Doing Cardio training during this rebuilding process will be counter-productive because it will burn calories that should be used for the muscle building process. You want nutrient dense carbohydrates to maximize muscle gain, promoting insulin release that will deliver protein and nutrients into the muscle, allowing the glycogen stores to build in the muscles.
After five days of this training, your metabolism will be cranking along, happily building muscle. Now switch back into fat-loss training for five days. The 30 day program will complete THREE rounds of these cycles taking full advantage of your body’s natural reaction and rapid adaptation to massive change.12
REFERENCES
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8Glennemeller K. and Denver R. 2001. Sublethal effects of chronic exposure to an organochlorine compound on northern leopard frog (Rana pipiens) tadpoles. Environmental Toxicology 16:287-297.
9Kaltreider RC, Davis AM, Lariviere JP, and Hamilton JW. 2001. Arsenic alters the function of the glucocorticoid receptor as a transcription factor. Environmental Health Perspectives 109(March):245-251.
10Healthscope. Functional pathology. Practitioner Manual 2011
11Mercola, J. Nine Natural Ways to Boost Testosterone. July 28, 2012.
12 Nielson, N. How to Lose the Most Fat and Build the Most Muscle in 30 Days. BodyBuilding.com. Jan. 11, 2013.
Dr. Brancato’s cumulative experience in nutrition, alternative medicine, chemistry, toxicology, physiology directed him to holistic approaches in human physiology to correct system imbalances. He maintains his professional certifications as a Naturopath from the American Naturopathic Medical Certification and Accreditation Board; the National Federation of Professional Trainers; Black belts in Kick Boxing and Kenpo.
