Hi fellow PUAs, I'm Slywalker, a PUA and a personal trainer + nutrition advisor. I now a lot of guys here want help or advice with diet and exercise, so instead of answering every single post or to post a 10page long book, I figured I just offer my help to answer your questions in this thread.
If you have any questions about diet and exercise just post it here and I'll answer it as soon as I can, Im sure that there are more experts here that will also gladely help out.

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Slywalker

10 things I wish someone taught me about Pick Up 10-things-i-wish-someone-taught-me-vt53087.html

How do I get a six pack? Like foods, how often to work out, how often to eat, is it possible?

thanks

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Getting the Hang of things

It is absolutely possible you just have to work hard. As a personal trainer I work with many clients who all have many different goals, but the six pack is the goal that you commonly will have to work the hardest to achieve, but once you get it, nothing makes you feel better, it is by far the most important piece needed for a man to have a good body.

A hot six pack is about 80% diet and 20% workout, what most people have problem with is that extra layer of bodyfat around the gut area, you might even look thin but your hypodermis (innerskin layer) is too thick (stored fat) so the abs lying underneath simply don't show. You may even have abs strong enough and all you need is diet and cardio to burn off those last pounds. Enough with the anatomy, here is what you should do.

When it comes to diet, I recommend, Mypyramid.gov, there is a link here (hope it works)

http://www.mypyramid.gov

If you type in you information (weight, height etc) you will get a diet plan suitable for you, this website is great, I recommend you follow it, I visit this website together with clients to help them structure a diet plan and it has proved to be very effective. The main thing you need to look out for is saturated fats (read food labels), they are high in read meat (four legged animals), eggs, fried foods, and dairy (you can still eat nonfat dairy) I reached my perfect six pack a few months after I cut out saturated fats from my diet. Oh yeah and fyi you should eat every 3-4 hours, and not within 2 hours of bed time.

When it comes to training, regular crunches won't be enough, I recommend you to do some form of cardio (like running) for at least 45 minutes twice a week. And work out at a gym 3-4 times a week, don't forget to workout your entire body for best result.
The ab exercises you should do should be of large variation, crunches, leg lifts etc. To get you in to the right spirit of ab workouts I recommend you to do the classic 8 minute abs once everyday, it is actually quite good, (just search it on you tube).
When you get stronger you can start doing leg lifts while hanging from a pull-up bar, and do variation of that exercise, like rotating your legs 360degrees while hanging. Work hard and stick to your diet, get back to me if you have questions or tell me about your results. Remember this won't happen over night, even after you burned the fat, tuned the abs it might be a while before they show, beause your skin have been stretched, it takes a month or two to adjust to you new hot body
Good luck.

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Slywalker

10 things I wish someone taught me about Pick Up 10-things-i-wish-someone-taught-me-vt53087.html

Slywalker that was a great post, made good reading. My question to you is how to gain muscle while losing fat at the same time? I have being training on and off for past year and a half, and although stronger, I still have man boobs and a gut with wide hips. I do a lot of benching but still have the man handles. What time of the day would you recommend cardio, after or before training and how often is required per week?

Many thanks in advance. [/quote]

Thanks for offering your help man. After putting on the unavoidable Christmas weight, I'm back on track and trying to work off the last 3-4 pounds before getting my 6-pack back (the hardest pounds...). However, I've got a question about balance: is it possible to compensate for a bad diet with more cardio, or is there a certain amount of fat that will never go away as long as I keep eating like a slob?

I eat pretty wholesome (no junk food), but I love booze, red meat, and cheese too much to give them up. Not to mention, I'm living in Germany, so it's pretty much impossible to get away from beer & sausage. I do a lot of cardio (10km 3-4 times a week while averaging a 7.5 minute mile), and I'll be starting with soccer in a few months which will boost my weekly cardio even more.

I can't stress enough how important diet is, especially controlling your sodium intake. Also, in order to have visible abdominals you need to be in the sub 12% body fat range...just takes motivation and dedication

I PMed you a question, hope you dont mind repling to it via PM.
Madals

First of all, let me clarify something, some people will say "turn the fat into muscles" this is not possible!
Muscles are made of protein and nothing else. Having said that I can give you a straight answer to your question.

Intense strength training, if done right, can burn double the amount of calories per hour than jogging.
However, you can't just go in to the gym and workout hard nonstop if you haven't done it before, as I said, it can burn twice the amount of calories as jogging and therefore it is also twice as hard to do (at least).
So what I have most of my clients do is build up a good stamina by doing cardio before you can start working out the way you should, in other words you have to get in shape to work out.
Sounds strange right? Well not that strange, because you have to prepare your body for a tougher workout that will give the results you want.
Start by doing cardio (for at least 30min) at least three times a week, if you are working out the same day I would do the cardio immediately after the workout.

The best advice I can give you to increase the intensity level of your workout, so that you will burn fat while building muscle is to get a stopwatch (just any wrist watch) and reduce your resting time between sets and exercises, start with 1 minute rest between all sets and exercises, then work your way down to 45seconds (don't go lower it won't do you any good).
Work out for about 45 - 60 min with with only this short rest about 4times per week, it will be the most exhausting workout you've experienced but the results will show fast and they will be great, give it a try and get back to me with any questions!
Good luck!

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Slywalker

10 things I wish someone taught me about Pick Up 10-things-i-wish-someone-taught-me-vt53087.html

Rigoberto wrote Depending on your age it is possible to eat some high fat foods and maintaining your weigth, it is usually easier when you are younger than 30, after that your body starts to gain more fat than before.

However it is hard if not impossible to lose weight while still eating "like a slob" so if you want to lose a few pounds I would recommend you to stay away from the unhealthy foods and alcoholic beverages at least for a month, with your level of cardio I'm sure you would drop those undesired pounds fast and after that I believe that you can find a balance between cardio and "eating like a slob" that will work for you. Hope this helps!

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Slywalker

10 things I wish someone taught me about Pick Up 10-things-i-wish-someone-taught-me-vt53087.html

Thanks, this definitely helps. I just hit 34 over the holidays, and I can absolutely feel the ole metabolism slowing down and making things harder than they used to be. Anyhow, I think I'm going to have to take your advice and go "clean" for a month or so. Damn it, why can't broccoli taste like steak???

^^^^^Lol

Thanks for replying to my post and I'll let you know how it goes. Another question is I smoke cigarettes and weed so do either of these have an effect on me as far as diet and exercise go

Thanks

Another quick question

Working out is kind of difficult for me because I have work most days of the week so I kind of have trouble going to work sore. Tips?

Thanks

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Getting the Hang of things

I as well do the same. If anything cigarettes supress your appetite, so no worries there. The only thing that could affect you is your cardiovascular endurance which you can overcome with time. As you know weed will hit you with hunger cravings, and sometimes these become unbearable. What I do is before I smoke I either prepare a healthy meal so I won't eat unhealthy foods, or I'll have a protein shake waiting on standby. Just plan it out and you should be fine.
Well soreness will really only occur in 2 situations; when you first begin a lifting regimen after a long break, or when you put yourself through vigorous training. My advice would to be suck it up for a week or two and just do normal workouts, nothing too crazy. Even a short workout is better then no workout at all.

Cool alright

Does stretching or anything help so Im not as sore?
Is sore what Im going for?

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Getting the Hang of things

I always stretch, but I do it to help prevent injury. Typically muscle soreness is when your body is building new muscle or have a reduced level of glycogen. I always find my workouts to be more effective when consuming l-glutamine throughout the workout (mixes right into my water bottle) or take Scivation Xtend.

Whats up man, thanks for your reply last time Adam. I got a question for you, my knees are sore from doing heavy squats, and my joints were also getting sore, so i took a rest. But my knees ache, i'm giving them 1 week rest. So well i guess its 2 questions, i'm a ectomorph, how am i going to lift heavy weights if my joints can't keep up with me? did u have the same problem when u started? I'm going to start off with machine squats to take it easy once my knees heal. And another question is how are knees bands? do they actually make a big difference? i don't want to spend 30 bucks if they don't help my knees. And i choose not to wear them if my knees grow dependent on them. Thanks for your help man.

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"Crushing requires a crushing mood" Miyamoto Musashi