Mark Lauren is a certified Military Physical Training Specialist, Special Op-erations Combat Controller, triathlete, and champion Thai boxer. He has ef-fectively prepared nearly a thousand trainees for the extreme demands of themost elite levels of the Special Operations community. As an experienced op-erator in mission planning and execution of airfield seizures, combat search& rescue, close air support, and reconnaissance & surveillance missions, hetrained troops capable of immediate deployment into areas of forward com-bat operation by military freefall, static-line, all-terrain vehicles, overland,scuba, and other amphibious means.Joshua Clark is the author of Heart Like Water: Surviving Katrina and Life in itsDisaster Zone, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle award. His workhas appeared in many newspapers, magazines, and anthologies. He is also acertified personal trainer who has not set foot in a gym since Hurricane Ka-trina closed his fitness center; yet thanks to working on this book, he neverstopped training, and is now in the best shape of his life.Come say hi at MarkLauren.comOther books from Light of New Orleans Publishing:French Quarter Fiction: The Newest Stories of America’s Oldest BohemiaSouthern Fried Divorce by Judy ConnerBack in America by Barry GiffordHow You Can Kill Al Qaeda (in 3 easy steps) by Howard ClarkCome see us at LightOfNewOrleans.comto order signed books with free shipping.YouAreYourOwnGymMark Laurenand Joshua ClarkLight of New Orleans Publishing, LLC828 Royal Street, Suite 307New Orleans, LA 70116 USACopyright ! 2010 by Mark Lauren and Joshua ClarkAll rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronicor mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system without priorwritten permission from the publisher.Manufactured in the United States of America.You Are Your Own Gym is intended for healthy adults, age eighteen and over. These exercises and programs aresolely for educational and informational purposes. This information is in no way intended to be medical advice.Please consult a medical or health professional before you begin any new exercise or nutrition program, or if youhave any questions or concerns about your health. The publisher and the authors do not assume any responsibilityfor your use of information in this book.While the authors have made every effort to provide accurate Internet addresses at the time of publication, neitherthe publisher nor the authors assume any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication.Back cover photograph by ZenShui/Frederic Cirou, courtesy of Getty Images.Outdoor photographs of Mark Lauren: Laura Wong.Exercise demonstration female model: Shea Garrison.Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataLauren, Mark, 1972-You are your own gym : the bible of bodyweight exercises / Mark Lauren and Joshua Clark.p. cm.ISBN 978-0-9714076-1-9 (alk. paper)1. Bodybuilding. 2. Weight training. I. Clark, Joshua, 1975- II. Title.GV546.6.W64L38 2010613.7'13--dc222010003875C ONTENTSForward!1 ! ! Mission Success: Lean, Strong, and Confident …12 ! ! How I Got Here …43 ! ! Why Bodyweight Exercises? …94 ! ! Why Strength Training? …125 ! ! So What Is “Fitness,” Anyway? …166 ! ! Nutrition …197 ! ! Common Strength Training Myths ...348 ! ! Motivation ...399 ! ! Intensity ...4510 ! ! Training Tools ...4911 ! ! The Exercises ...5312 ! ! The Program ...138Appendix 1: Household Equipment ...166Appendix 2: The 6 Necessary Training Principlesbehind Any Successful Fitness Program ...168Appendix 3: The Science behind the Program ...169In Memory ofMajor William “Brian” DownsCaptain Jeremy J. Fresques “FS”Captain Derek M. Argel “AL”&Staff Sergeant Casey J. Crate “CE”Forward!by John T. Carney Jr., Colonel USAFColonel Carney has received numerous medals and awards for being at the forefront ofevery mission involving our nation’s Special Operations Forces since the mid-1970s.I can unequivocally state You Are Your Own Gym is a must read for anyone trulyinterested in their well-being. These principles, exercises, and programs will guide you toyour highest fitness potential.The credibility of all fitness authors comes from the men and women they havetrained, typically movie stars and other famous persona. But the fitness of these celebritiesis only achieved through countless hours spent one-on-one with a high-priced Hollywoodtrainer, while cooks are preparing their meals, housekeepers cleaning their homes, and as-sistants looking after their every need. Lauren’s method, on the other hand, is for real menand women with real lives. You Are Your Own Gym separates itself from all other books bygiving its readers the ability to train alone anywhere, any time, without the crutch of per-sonal trainers and gyms.In my book No Room for Error, I detail the involvement of U.S. Special Tactics Forces inoperations ranging from the Iran hostage rescue to more recent ones in Afghanistan. Thedeath-defying tasks that these troops accomplished and the hardships they endured weredue to the incredible physical ability that matched their iron wills. Without it, theirchances of success and survival would have been greatly compromised. It is only throughthe use of bodyweight exercises and sound training principles that these elite forces are ableto maintain their astounding fitness at all times, regardless of time and equipment con-straints.The Special Operations community has developed the most effective and time efficientmethods of training out of necessity. More than thirty years ago I was a fitness instructor atsome of the same schools as Mark. I have seen the old and the new, and the methods ofdeveloping elite athletes have come a very long way, due in great part to Mark’s leadership.Through the continuous application of the most up-to-date principles in sports physiology,attrition and injuries have been minimized while producing faster, stronger, and leaner sol-diers.This book comes to us at a time when, despite their best intentions, most people aretoo crunched for time and money to devote enough of either to attaining their fitnessgoals. In this age of information we are bombarded with incorrect advice, useless gadgetsand pills, and pure hype. The methods outlined by Mark Lauren are proven and timetested. I know because I’ve seen his results. I’ve commanded the best of the best, andMark’s training has helped make them that way. Now he has honed his program into onefor every man and woman.In the 1970s Arnold Schwarzenegger showed the world the gym’s potential, and it issaid that he launched a thousand of them. Now it’s time to harness the body’s potential.This is the new fitness revolution.1. M ISSION  S UCCESS :Lean, Strong, and ConfidentI WANT YOU TO UNDERSTAND , unlike many other fitness authors, I do not train moviestars, television celebrities, models, or other personalities whose livelihoods hinge on beingfit. I train those whose lives do. For a decade I’ve used bodyweight exercises to create theleanest, strongest, most confident people of our civilization.I honed the programs and myriad exercises in this book while preparing hundreds oftrainees for the extreme demands of the most elite levels of the United States Special Op-erations community. I have spent years developing new training principles, and observingthe results. A stellar record lead the top command to buy into my system. The military’smost advanced forces—from Navy SEALs to Army Green Berets to Air Force Special TacticsOperators—use these exercises as the backbone to their strength training, and now I bringthem to you. Now, for the first time, men and women outside SpecOps have the opportu-nity to reach the pinnacle of fitness, with an amazingly small sacrifice of your time. Clear,concise, and complete, I bring these exercises into your living room, bedroom, hotel room,garage, yard, office, wherever you like. They are for people of all athletic ability levels, tai-lored to suit the needs and lifestyles of today’s busy women and men.No book like this has existed before. Yet for thousands of years—from Ancient Greece’sOlympic athletes to tomorrow’s Special Operations forces—humanity’s greatest physicalspecimens have not relied on fitness centers in their towns or dumbbells in their homes.What if I told you that you already have the most advanced fitness machine ever cre-ated? Your own body. And what’s so great about this fitness machine is that it’s always2  Y OU  A RE  Y OUR  O WN  G YMthere. It is the one and only thing you are never without. And now you’re holding in yourhand all the additional exercise equipment you’ll ever need again. It’s no longer necessaryto spend hours and hours at a gym. In fact, you won’t have to go to a gym at all. The timespent training, wherever you may be, will be minimal. Two hours per week. That’s it. Withthese workouts you will not waste a single moment of your valued time using ineffectivetraining methods. And no longer will you be able to use the #1 excuse for not training: “Idon’t have the time.”Whether you’re a part-time fitness enthusiast, Olympic gymnast, bodybuilder, yogi, orsomeone who hasn’t lifted anything but the groceries in years, my program will get you intothe best shape of your life. You’ll find an incomparable selection of the 111 most effectiveexercises to work any muscle you want, anywhere you want, for the rest of your life. Withthese clearly demonstrated and explained exercises you’ll be able to construct your owntraining programs, catering to your needs and desires, that can be changed and modified ina virtually infinite amount of ways. Keeping your muscles guessing is how you keep themgrowing.But for those who want the direction, I’ve laid out 10-week programs for all levels offitness, programs that will lead to success where others have failed you before. You’ll onlyworkout 20 to 30 minutes a day, 4 or 5 times a week. I strongly recommend at least startingout with one of these programs. They combine the secrets to what made ancient warriorsso strong, with the world’s most effective and modern training principles.These programs will increase the strength of important muscle groups needed in every-day living, keep your muscles and joints supple and flexible, improve the efficiency and ca-pacity of the heart, lungs and other body organs, reduce susceptibility to common injuriesas well as degenerative heart diseases, and reduce emotional and nervous tension. Thebenefits are never-ending. And success in your fitness program will inevitably lead to suc-cess in the other aspects of your life, both work and play.This book can replace all other fitness programs in a person’s life, or be used as a sup-plement to your regular program, as a way to change things up from the same ol’borrrrrrrring routine in your fitness center, or even just to take on the road when you can’tfind a gym. Variety is the spice of life. Forget about doing the same sets and exercises day inand day out, maybe hitting the same treadmill every day, like a gerbil trapped in a wheel.And there’s no need to change clothes, pack a gym bag, drive, park, find a locker, find anopen machine… then, after a long, boring workout, do the whole process in reverse. Youjust start, whether at home, in your office, or a hotel room, and 20 – 30 minutes lateryou’re finished.You’ll find no rhetorical filler in this book. No “before” photos of people pale andfrowning with their glasses on, next to “after” photos of them tanned, smiling, flexing, andsucking their shaved and oiled tummies in. The proof has been before our eyes since manbecame man. In fact, even before that—why do you think monkeys are pound for poundstronger than humans? (Hint: It’s not because they have Gold’s Gym memberships.)Mission Success  3Do you really think that we evolved or were created to require machines in order tostay fit? It’s lack of knowledge about your own body’s potential that drives modern man-kind’s endless demand for useless fitness gimmicks. When in fact the solution to ultimatefitness is surprisingly simple. Though it’s up to you to apply it. Free yourself from the de-pendency on gadgets, trainers, and common misconceptions. They are all crutches, keepingyou from getting into the best shape possible. It’s a call back to nature.Your fitness should be dependent on nothing other than yourself.2. H OW I G OT  H EREM Y TEAMMATES WERE SPREAD throughout the length of the pool, ready to pull me up, be-cause I was eventually going to pass out underwater. But for now, I stood in the waterbreathing and relaxing, getting ready to try to break the military’s long-standing underwaterrecord. I would need to swim underwater, on a single breath, for more than 116 meters.That’s a good deal more than a football field, with the end zones included. Four monthsbefore, I could barely make 25 meters.Everyone in the pool and on the deck was quiet, patiently waiting and watching me as Istood chest deep in the water. I knew this was going to suck, but I was committed. For thefirst time, I was alone in this, just me, without my team. It was surreal. I was calm, relaxed,aware. I was ready. My anxiety had evaporated. Without a thought, I took my last deepbreath, went subsurface, and pushed off the pool wall.You had to graduate one of the military’s toughest selection courses to get on the recordboard, and with an 85% attrition rate, weekly evaluations, and an instructor staff dedicatedto exploiting your weaknesses, graduation was far from a sure thing. In fact, it had alreadyeluded me once.My first time around, for 9 grueling weeks I fought tooth and nail to stay in the course.I’d be lying if I said quitting never tempted me. It tempted me every day, especially at theHow I Got Here 5pool and in the mornings when a full night’s rest felt like a 5-minute nap. Every weekend,my precious time off was spent learning to swim with fins and performing the various un-derwater exercises. At last, my final evaluation consisted of a 6-mile run in 42.5 minutes,14 Pull Ups, 65 Push Ups, 12 Chin Ups, 70 Sit Ups, a 4000-meter fin swim in 80 minutes,and 7 torturous underwater confidence or “water-con” events. The fin swim was done withbig thick rubber fins and booties that could push a large man with uniform and equipmentthrough the water. You could not use your arms since it wouldn’t be strategic for a team toswim ashore with arms flailing and splashing above the water. All calisthenics had to bedone with perfect form. Each student’s repetitions were counted and scrutinized by an in-structor, and improperly executed reps weren’t counted. Instructors shouted, “Didn’tcount, didn’t count… Those didn’t count... Your back is slouching... Not all the way up...Not all the way down!”Staff Sergeant Pope counted my Sit Ups during the final evaluation, and of all thecadre, he was the most feared for his unreasonable treatment of trainees. “Those didn’tcount, Lauren. Your hands are too high up on your head,” he said, shortly before failingme by 2 Sit Ups because of the position of my hands. That was all it took. On the last dayof training, I got sent back to the junior class that was in week 1. My original class gradu-ated 4 out of an initial 86. I walked back to the dorm as my team ran by in formation sing-ing a jody about their last day. I seriously considered quitting.But the last nine weeks had taught me something I would use for the rest of my life. Asuccessful team was one that was made up of individuals that were able to set themselvesaside. We were trained to set aside personal comfort for the common goal of the team.And that training applied as much to a team as it did an individual. Success is about you—and no one but you—letting go of everything that conflicts with your goal.So I started over from scratch. Daily, we got smoked for hours doing exercises in theSan Antonio summer sun, on top of the course’s regularly scheduled workouts that con-sisted of a 60-minute run, 2 hours of cals, water-con, and an hour of finning. But it was al-ways getting started in the morning that was the hardest.On average, we did an extra 500 team Push Ups throughout the day, but really it didn’tmatter. We eventually learned that no matter how tired, stiff, and lethargic we felt, once wegot warmed-up again, we were alright. Every time we entered or left the school house wehad to do either 15 Pull Ups, 13 Chin Ups, 20 Dips, or 20 Chinese Push Ups. Once weeach had to do 1000 team Push Ups without getting up except once for 5 minutes to usethe latrine. For three and half hours, as a team, we did 5 Push Ups at a time, resting be-tween sets by putting our butts in the air or slouching at the waist. 1000 Push Ups (+1 forteamwork) for having too much tape on our snorkels.But bad as any of these smoke sessions ever were, the worst was always the pool. Duringthe first few weeks of training, trainees would joke and chat on the way to the pool. Byweek 6, the bus rides were filled with silent dread. You could here a pin drop. It was thepool that caused the majority of the course’s tremendous attrition rate. You could quit at6  Y OU  A RE  Y OUR  O WN  G YMany time. If you decide that it isn’t for you, just say it: “I quit.” In the middle of any eventyou could get out of the pool and go eat pizza in your room.Monday through Friday we went to the pool, and trainees could only get out of thepool one of three ways: Successfully complete the events, quit, or pass out trying—in whichcase you would get pulled out just long enough to regain consciousness before going backin to accomplish the task, quit, or pass out again. Screwing up an event meant that youwould have to do it again and each following attempt got harder and harder, especiallyevents like equipment recovery—diving to the bottom of the pool, removing all our equip-ment and placing it in perfect order on the bottom, then putting it all on again before in-spection—or knot-tying—we had to tie three different knots perfectly 12’ underwater—thatrequired you to tread water between dives. We learned to commit, stay down, and getthrough it the first time no matter how bad it hurt. It was all about being fully committed.Commitment equaled success.This was  INDOC —9 weeks of sucking it up for the team while 9 instructors tried to makeas many of us quit as possible. My second time around, a team of 12 made it to the finalevaluation and all passed but one. A teammate failed the 4000-meter fin. We would be go-ing back to the pool one last time so he could take his re’eval. My time had come.I remember sitting on the bus, regretting that I had mentioned challenging the under-water record. I knew my teammates wouldn’t let it slide, and before long, one called meout. “So you really want a shot at the record?” he asked. “You really gonna do it?” I wantedto break his nose, but instead choked out a “Yeah.” I was committed, and he laughed at myupcoming misery. But he was right, it was time to walk the walk.As our teammate took his re’eval finning for 78 minutes, I sat on the side of the poolrelaxing and breathing. I had a daunting task ahead of me. The discomfort of not breath-ing is overwhelming, and I knew that once I started, I wasn’t going to be above the surfaceof that water until my teammates pulled me out unconscious. I had committed myself tobreaking one hell of a record. A1C Switzer, a 6’ 3” collegiate swimmer, had set the record at116 meters. When I first got into the course, I remember saying that of all the records, theunderwater record was the most impressive. A 116-meter underwater to a trainee that isstruggling with 25-meter underwaters seems god-like, and here I was, four months later, atthe end of my second class, getting ready to challenge it.With my feet on the gunnel, I sounded off: “Ready to enter the water, Sergeant!”“Enter the water!” replied the instructor.“Entering the water, Sergeant!”I stood at the side of the pool breathing and relaxing for a few more minutes as myteammates waited for me, ready to pull me out when the time came. I took my last deepbreath, went subsurface, and pushed off the wall.I was utterly alone. After two months of nonstop teamwork, I could suddenly neithersee nor hear anyone or anything but myself. My total focus was on my stroke and relax-How I Got Here 7ing. Stroke, glide, relax… Stroke, glide, relax… until finally my body started cursing me fornot breathing. But my goal was in place. And my comfort would not interfere.At the 50-meter point, just as the discomfort was starting to seriously crank up, I had afleeting thought of standing up out of the water and laughing it off, but I couldn’t do it.Your mind always looks for a way out when things really get difficult. Relaxing, maintain-ing good form, and pressing on when the body and mind beg you to do otherwise testsyour resolve. Stroke, glide, relax… Stroke, glide, relax… Tension, panic, anxiety make massivewithdrawals on a very limited and precious oxygen supply. I had to stay relaxed longenough to get through the worst of it. Stroke, glide, relax… Stroke, glide, relax… Eventually thediscomfort eases once your brain and other body tissues are starved of oxygen and you be-come hypoxic. It seemed an eternity before I got to that point, but eventually the lightsdimmed, my peripherals vanished, things weren’t so bad after all, and the tunnel gotsmaller and smaller until...I woke up on the other side of the pool, pale and blue-lipped. “Did I get it?” I mum-bled. I wasn’t able to remember swimming the whole length of the pool, nor passing outjust as I reached the wall. I had started sinking at that point, and my teammates jumped inand yanked me out. I began breathing again. I had just set the new record—one I still hold—at 133 meters, after swimming subsurface, on one breath, for two minutes and twenty-threeseconds.I feel your pain. Years later, I became the instructor.8  Y OU  A RE  Y OUR  O WN  G YMI’ LL ADMIT , MY FIRST FORAY INTO FITNESS was driven by nothing more than body image. Iwas 13, a scrawny, shy kid, and I wanted to do something about it. I set out to change myphysique into one I could show off with pride. I had no access to weights, so I did PushUps and Sit Ups in my bedroom before dinner. Until I could do 75 non-stop Push Upsand 600 Sit Ups. Then I did more. I became a stronger version of myself in every way, andconfidence in all I did soared, including winning regional high school bodybuilding titles.Many years later, at the Pararescue & Combat Control Indoctrination Course, if weweren’t running, swimming, or holding our breath, we were performing some type ofbodyweight exercise. Training lasted from 5 am to 6 pm, Monday through Saturday, and bythe end of the nine week course there was only a small handful of us remaining, less than15%. The high rate of attrition was largely due to overtraining. Though the training men-tality of that time was amazingly effective at shattering young men’s perceived limitations, itwas not ideal for optimal fitness.Once on team, at the 22 nd Special Tactics Squadron, I continued to use bodyweight ex-ercises to keep myself physically fit and able to meet the extreme demands of airfield sei-zures, combat search & rescue, and reconnaissance & surveillance missions.Five days before September 11, I left my team to become a full-time Military PhysicalTraining Specialist. It became my responsibility to prepare trainees to meet the demands ofimmediate deployment into areas of forward combat operation.After Sep 11 th , the demand for SpecOps soldiers went through the roof. The careerfield needed numbers. The days of graduating only 5 - 15% of the original class had to end.The cadre was forced to look at its training methods. We used to be old school: More isbetter—run the trainees into the dirt and make them hard, or get rid of them. Changing to“less is more” wasn’t easy, but necessity forced us, and we were in the perfect environmentto learn quickly what worked and what didn’t. Every six weeks I got a new shipment of un-trained recruits. Most came to me soft and weak. By the end of the course, they were lean,strong, and confident.By applying the most up-to-date strength and conditioning principles and sports sci-ence, I was able to produce better results with only a fraction of the time and less injuries. Iexperimented with varied volume and intensity, day to day, week to week, and includedsensible recovery and progression. I revamped the courses’ physical training programs, andpersonally tailored these programs and diets to suit the individual needs of candidates, andthen monitored their progress.Amazingly, despite limited space, time, and equipment, as well as larger classes, I wasable to cut the course’s attrition rate by 40%. And in every class I taught, at least one of mystudents captured the coveted Army Special Forces Honor Graduate award. Quite simply, Ibuilt a training method superior to any other in developing muscular, lean, physically fitbodies as fast as possible. And now I share it with you.Embrace the exercises and principles in this book and you will become fitter andstronger than you’ve ever been. It’s in your hands, literally, starting right now.3. W HY B ODYWEIGHT E XERCISES ?T HE POPULARITY OF TRAINING EQUIPMENT , systems, and fad diets is mostly the result ofmarketing—not a genuine attempt to help a generally out-of-shape society reach higher lev-els of fitness and well-being. In this age, where our homes and gyms are cluttered with fit-ness gadgets, the simplest and most effective method for developing strength and losing fathas been largely overlooked—knowing how to train using nothing more than your body.Even outside of SpecOps, the efficacy of bodyweight exercises has been proven timeand again. Take, for example, Madonna, Bruce Lee, or the USSR’s two-time Olympic goldmedalist Alexeev—arguably the strongest man in the world in his time—who was the first toclean and jerk 500 pounds, or Dallas Cowboys running back Herschel Walker who gainedmore yards than anyone in professional football history (and had a body to match). They,and countless others, primarily used bodyweight exercises to attain their ultimate physiqueand fitness.Most weight training exercises isolate only certain muscles, requiring a fairly small por-tion of your body’s total muscle mass, unlike bodyweight exercises that incorporate many atonce. These exercises have the added benefit of being much more demanding of corestrength (6-pack anyone?) than exercises that require weights and machines.Bodyweight exercises also use motions that keep you safe from the many chronic inju-ries, like joint problems, that come over time with weightlifting and other unnatural exer-cises which have little functional value in our daily lives. For an exercise or workout to befunctional, it must resemble the event being trained for as closely as possible. The perform-ance demands of the average person consist mainly of manipulating their own bodyweightthroughout the day. So what could be more functional for developing better strength inday-to-day activities than bodyweight movements? But between couch potatoing and benchpressing—sitting on your butt and lying on your back—we’ve got a nation of functional10  Y OU  A RE  Y OUR  O WN  G YMweaklings. Seriously, when was the last time, outside of using gym benches or machines,that you exerted yourself while sitting or lying down? (While you were alone, I mean. ;-) )For too long these exercises have gone largely unnoticed by popular culture. Other thanrunning and swimming, most people haven’t been raised to use their body alone for exer-cise. The exploding popularity of yoga and pilates is a great example of the worth of body-weight movements, although these methods, when used alone, utterly lack a systematic ap-proach to developing all-around fitness.My program has the advantage of making you proficient at using the one thing that youare never without: Your body. You will develop greater strength, power, muscular and car-diovascular endurance, speed, balance, coordination, and flexibility. Combined with agood diet and consistency, it will reward you with continuous results, challenges, and muchgreater body control.The workouts can be done anywhere, anytime, and without costly gym memberships orequipment. With that said, even for those that insist on lifting weights, these exercises are avaluable addition.You will be training as Achilles did before battle on the shores of Troy, training as an-cient warriors the world over knew was best, training as future SpecOps warriors will tomeet their own foes. Why? Because it works.M YTH :B ODYWEIGHT EXERCISES DON ’ T ALLOW YOU TO ADJUST THE DIFFICULTY OF AN EXERCISEThere’s a common misperception out there that bodyweight exercise options are limited.Push Ups, Pull Ups, Sit Ups—and not much else. Hmmmm… Did I mention that there’sover 111 different exercises in this book? And that’s not including their variations. The factis there’s a far wider array of exercises in this book than there are machines in any gym inthe world.Other people think it’s impossible to work certain muscle groups with bodyweight ex-ercises. Wrong again. Every single muscle group, and some you didn’t know existed can beworked without weights—from getting rid of a pencil neck to using your shin muscles toround out your calves.The only limiting factor with bodyweight exercises is your creativity. Every weightliftingmotion can be mimicked, made harder or easier, with your own bodyweight. And unlikethose machines in the gym, there are seemingly infinite ways to vary any of my exercises,keeping your muscles guessing and growing for the rest of your life.For example, I detail Push Ups that even a 600-pound man (or 70 year-old woman, forthat matter) could do. And then there’s ones, like the Planche Push Up, most professionalbodybuilders won’t be able to execute without lots of practice. My 10-week program actu-Why Bodyweight Exercises? 11ally comes with specific workouts laid out for different ability groups, so that everyone willbe challenged equally.Here are the four simple ways of changing the difficulty of an exercise without addingweight:• Increase or decrease the amount of leverage.• Perform an exercise on an unstable platform.• Use pauses at the beginning, end, and/or middle of a movement.• Turn an exercise into a single limb movement.Again, let’s take the Push Up, a standard exercise that works your chest, shoulders, tri-ceps, abs, obliques, and lower back (unlike benching which only works half of these). If youdo Push Ups standing up with your hands against a wall a couple of feet in front of you,the exercise is pretty easy. Then try them with your hands on an elevated surface, like theedge of a bureau or windowsill. The lower the surface you use—a desk, a couch, a coffee ta-ble, telephone books—the harder it gets. Putting your hands on the floor, like a standardPush Up, is harder. If we put our feet on the coffee table and our hands on the ground, theexercise becomes significantly more difficult. This is using leverage to increase the exercise’sdifficulty.To make the exercise still harder we could place our hands on one or two balls, like abasketball. Now we’re using an unstable surface.Still harder would be to do basketball Push Ups with pauses at the bottom. Still nothard enough? Try doing them one-handed on the floor. Then one-handed with your feeton the couch. Then on an unstable surface. Then with pauses... You get the idea.And this is only a simple example that can be repeated with many of my exercises.You’ll see the possibilities are endless.So there you have it: We’ve gone from one variation of an exercise, that probably eve-ryone reading this book can do, to a more difficult variation that probably no one readingthis book can do right off the bat. The difficulty of bodyweight exercises can be tailored tosuit the needs of virtually anyone. You have total control of the resistance.4. W HY  S TRENGTH  T RAINING ?( or Why Cardio Is a Waste of Your Time)W HETHER YOU WANT TO LOSE FAT , gain muscle, or do both, strength training should bethe core of your conditioning. Aerobic activity, on the other hand, is inefficient and inef-fective no matter your goal.It is a myth that doing prolonged steady state training—usually maintaining a targetheart rate for 30 to 60 minutes—like aerobics or “cardio” is the best way to burn caloriesand achieve cardiovascular health. Ever plod along on a treadmill that tells you the numberof calories burned? You might go 45 minutes before you hit 300 calories. Well, guess what?That’s 300 total calories burned in that time, and not 300 calories above what your baselinemetabolism would have burned anyway, even while at rest. That’s the reason the exercisemachine asks your weight: To calculate your baseline metabolic rate. The average maleburns 105 calories at rest in 45 minutes. Those 195 extra calories that the exercise actuallyburned—only 195 calories more than if you had been taking a nap—can be undone by half aplain bagel in half a minute. And aerobic exercise typically spurns your appetite enough tomore than offset those few actual calories burned.Here’s the skinny: One pound of fat can fuel the body for up to 10 hours of continu-ous activity. If we were so metabolically inefficient as to burn calories at the rate the exer-cise equipment advertises, we would never have survived for so long, and certainly not en-dured the hardship of the Ice Ages. The calories expended hunting and gathering wouldhave caused us to die of starvation long before we ever found a Wooly Mammoth. By to-day’s standards, we would hardly have enough metabolic economy to survive a trip to thesuper market, let alone hump it across enemy lines for a week-long reconnaissance missionwith 120 pounds of gear.More bad news for aerobic activity: Whether it’s running, cycling, or a step class, themain reason it gets easier the more you do it, is not because of improved cardiovascularconditioning, but because of improved economy of motion. For the most part, it doesn’tget easier because of muscular endurance, but because your body is becoming more effi-cient at that particular movement. You require less strength and oxygen than you did be-Why Strength Training? 13fore because your body’s nervous system is adapting. Wasted movements are eliminated,necessary movements are refined, and muscles that don’t need to be tensed are relaxed andeventually atrophied. This is why marathon runners will huff and puff if they cycle for thefirst time in years.Aerobic training actually causes muscle wasting because the body is programmed toadapt to whatever demands we place on it. Long low-intensity aerobic training only re-quires the smallest and weakest, “slow-twitch” muscle fibers to fire off again and again. Theother, stronger and larger, “fast-twitch” muscle fibers are not necessary for the task and be-come a burden to carry and supply with oxygen. The body has no demand for extra musclebeyond what is needed to perform a relatively easy movement over and over. So your bodyadapts by actually burning muscle.The reason many people gain weight as they age, especially beginning in their 30s, isbecause they have less muscle than they had in their late teens and early twenties. As weage, our bodies naturally lose muscle, especially as we are less active in our lives. This mus-cle tissue loss results in a decreasing metabolic rate. And then, if you continue to eat likeyou did when you were younger… well, you’ll slowly gain weight, pound by pound, monthby month, year by year, until one day you look in the mirror and wonder, “What hap-pened?” The key to eliminating accumulated body fat is regaining your youthful metabo-lism by regaining your muscle.Muscle is the most metabolically expensive tissue we have: It takes between 50 and 100calories a day just to keep one pound of muscle alive, for both men and women, even ifyou are completely inactive. An extra five pounds of muscle can burn up to 15,000 caloriesin a month—that’s the equivalent of two pounds of fat. Muscle is the single greatest tool forweight loss. Increased muscle mass let’s you lose weight with less attention paid to caloriecounting and food selection.But with consistent aerobic exercise, over time, you’re far more likely to burn fivepounds of muscle. That means your body will burn at least 250 less calories a day. And asyour body becomes more efficient at running, that 195 calories you burn on the treadmillwill decrease to about 125. So let’s do the math: You burn 125 calories above your restingmetabolic rate each day you do aerobic exercise. Then add the minimum 250 calories youdo not burn due to muscle loss caused by this exercise. After all your huffing and puffingyou are now 125 calories in the wrong direction!T HE  A NSWER : I NTERVAL  S TRENGTH  T RAININGInterval training is the repeated performance of high-intensity exercises, for set periods, fol-lowed by set periods of rest. Intervals can consist of any variety of movements with anyvariation of work and rest times. It burns far more calories and produces positive changesin body composition with much less time than aerobic training.14  Y OU  A RE  Y OUR  O WN  G YMThis is not only because of the muscle it builds, but also the effect it has on the me-tabolism following the workouts. Strength training gives your metabolism a boost far beyondthe duration of the actual workout, for as long as 48 hours. In contrast, after aerobic train-ing your metabolism returns to normal almost immediately. So with interval training we’renot only building muscle, but we’re also able to kick up our metabolism for the rest of theday—even when sleeping!Many people believe aerobic activity strengthens their heart, and decreases the chanceof things like coronary artery disease. Yet, after much research, even U.S. Air Force Cardi-ologist Dr. Kenneth Cooper—the very man who coined the term "aerobics”—now believesthere is no correlation between aerobic performance and health, longevity, or protectionagainst heart-disease.On the other hand, aerobic activities do carry with them a great risk of injury. Most,even so-called “low impact” classes or activities like stationary cycling, are not necessarilylow-force. And things like running are extremely high-force, damaging to your knees, hipsand back. Aerobic dance is even worse. Sure, you’ll hear the occasional genetic exceptiondeclare that they’ve never ever been injured doing these exercises. But overuse injuries arecumulative and often build undetected over years until it’s too late, leading to a decrease orloss of mobility as you age, which, in turn, too often leads to a shortened lifespan.Any effect you are seeking from aerobic activity can be achieved more safely and effi-ciently with high-intensity strength training. Remember, your cardiovascular system sup-ports your muscular system, not the other way around. An elevated heart rate means noth-ing by itself. Being nervous before a full combat equipment nighttime High Altitude LowOpening (HALO) formation jump always sent my heart rate skyrocketing, but it didn’tmake my belt any looser. And even if you insisted on measuring the efficacy of an exerciseby an increase in heart rate, I dare you to get it up higher than with my “Stappers.”So there we have it: Interval strength training is superior to aerobic activity in burningfat, as well as building strength, speed, power, and even cardiovascular endurance. All thisin far less time than tedious “cardio” sessions.Why Strength Training? 15Throughout the book you’ll find  Hooya! boxes with information, facts, studies, andideas. SEALs and Special Tactics Operators yell “Hooya!”—an American Indian war crymeaning “Give me more!”—when they drive through their personal comfort to achieve theseemingly unachievable.----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Hooya!----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Izumi Tabata and his partners at the National Institute of Fitness and Sports in Tokyo,Japan, compared the effects of moderate-intensity endurance and high-intensity intervaltraining on maximal aerobic capacity—the best indicator of cardiorespiratory endurance.They conducted a six week study with two groups of randomly picked males.Group 1 did one hour of steady state training five days a week. Group 2 did only 4minutes of interval training five days a week. At the end of the six weeks, Group 1 had anincrease in maximal aerobic capacity of 10% and Group 2 had an increase of 14%. Notonly did the interval group have a 40% greater gain in aerobic capacity, they had anincrease in strength of 28% percent, as opposed to the Steady state group which had nogains in strength. And all this with just four minutes of interval training a day.Similar studies have confirmed that interval training produces higher gains in aerobicfitness, greater decreases in body fat, and gains in strength as opposed to the musclewasting that occurs with much longer sessions of steady state training.----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Hooya!----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Dr. Angelo Tremblay and his colleagues at the Physical Activities Sciences Laboratory,in Quebec, Canada, tested the popular belief that low-intensity, long-duration exercise isthe most effective program for losing fat. They compared the impact of moderate-intensityaerobic exercise and high-intensity interval training on fat loss.Skinfold measurements revealed that the interval training group lost more body fat.Moreover, when they took into account the fact that the interval training used less energyduring the workouts, the fat loss was 9 times more efficient in that program than in theaerobics program. In short, the interval training group got 9 times more fat-loss benefit forevery calorie burned exercising. How can that be?Because, after taking muscle biopsies, measuring muscle enzyme activity, and lipidutilization in the post exercise state, they found that high-intensity intermittent exercisecaused more calories and fat to be burned following the workout. In addition, they foundthat appetite is suppressed more after intense intervals.5. S O  W HAT  I S  “ F ITNESS ,” A NYWAY ?S URPRISINGLY , THERE IS NO CLEARLY DEFINED , universally accepted standard for fitness. Inthe decade I spent honing military units assigned to carry out the most dangerous missions,it was always my experience that the individual with the best development in all areas ofphysical ability succeeds the best operationally. Similarly, it is diverse ability that makes usattractive.Not to offend anyone, but I think most people would agree that a sprint athlete looksmore attractive than a powerlifter, a ballet dancer better than a marathoner. The sprinterand the dancer have a higher level of fitness than the bodybuilder and marathoner. Theirmuscles tie together in a functional way. Most people would agree that it’s the physiqueswith the most development across a spectrum of physical qualities that are most attractive,as opposed to those that have very limited usefulness. It is diversity in physical ability that ismost useful and functional, not to mention beautiful. In contrast, those who are extremelydeveloped in a certain area almost always have a weakness equivalent to their strength. Thesuper fast, skinny runners lack strength, and the bulky bodybuilder types have little endur-ance.So, my program develops the entire spectrum of physical skills: Muscular Strength,Muscular Endurance, Cardiovascular Endurance, Power, Speed, Coordination, Balance,and Flexibility. The degree to which you possess these eight physical qualities defines yourlevel of fitness.It is only by focusing on these seven skills, rather than appearance, that you will makeyour best gains, in ability, well-being, and in appearance. The washboard stomachs, bigchests, round shoulders, and shirt-sleeve-stretching biceps of my men are testament to that,as are the toned legs, tight triceps and abs of the women I’ve trained.M USCULAR  S TRENGTH : Your ability to exert a force through a given distance. Muscularstrength can be determined by the difficulty of an exercise that you are able to perform fora single repetition. For example, if Jane, with maximal effort, can perform one Classic PushSo What Is “Fitness,” Anyway? 17Up and Tarzan can perform a Handstand Push Up, then Tarzan has greater muscularstrength.P OWER : The amount of force you can exert in a specific amount of time. Power =Work/Time. If Tarzan and Jane are both able to perform only one Pull Up with theirmaximal efforts, but Jane is able to perform that one Pull Up faster, then she has morepower even though they have the same strength.M USCULAR  E NDURANCE : How long you can exert a specific force. Jane and Tarzancould compare their muscular endurance by seeing who can hold the peak position of thePull Up the longest.C ARDIOVASCULAR  E NDURANCE : Your body’s ability to supply working muscles withoxygen during prolonged activity. Jane and Tarzan challenge and improve their cardiovas-cular endurance by performing 200 non-stop Squats together.S PEED : Your ability to rapidly and repeatedly execute a movement or series of move-ments. If Jane can do 45 lunges in 30 seconds and Tarzan can do only 25, then Jane hasgreater speed.C OORDINATION : Your ability to combine more than one movement to create a single,distinct movement. For example, performing a simple jump requires that you coordinateseveral movements. The bend at the waist, knees, and ankles and then the correct exten-sion of those joints must all be combined into a single movement. Your ability to combinethese movements, with the proper timing, into one movement determines your coordina-tion, and in turn, how well you can do the exercise.B ALANCE : Your ability to maintain control of your body’s center of gravity.F LEXIBILITY : Your range of motion. If Jane, while doing a squat and using good form,can go down until her butt touches her heels, and Tarzan can only go until his thighs areparallel to the ground, then Jane has greater flexibility.Simply put, fitness is the degree to which a person possesses these seven qualities.Now, you may be thinking, “Okay great, now we know what fitness is, but what doesthat have to do with the real reason I bought this book?”I know that most people are reading this book because they want to look and feel bet-ter, not to improve their balance, flexibility, and coordination. Herein lies a common mis-take: Most programs put the cart before the horse. It is by focusing on the development ofthese seven skills, rather than appearance, that you will make your best gains, both in abil-18  Y OU  A RE  Y OUR  O WN  G YMity and in appearance. Form follows function. Well-being and healthy, attractive physiquesare tied together, and they are best created through my program that develops all the quali-ties that make up fitness.Naturally, those with the greatest all around level of fitness have always possessed thegreatest ability to survive. And it only makes sense that we would evolve to find those withthe greatest ability to survive the most attractive.So how are all these levels of fitness developed? Through the use of short strength train-ing sessions using bodyweight exercises and a sound nutritional plan.6. N UTRITION :Back to BasicsI CAN JUST SEE IT : A trainee’s reply to being told that they will, at a minimum, eat a manda-tory three meals a day at the chow hall: “Excuse me Sergeant, this isn’t going to work at all.You see, I’m on the grapefruit diet…”There are too many different diet books out there, most advocating one extreme or an-other. Not only are many of these unhealthy, but folks just don’t stick with them. How onearth are you supposed to apply some of these diets at a restaurant or dinner party? Stayaway from fad diets and empty promises of magical formulas. Instead stick to the fundamen-tals of healthy eating—balancing quality sources of protein, carbohydrates and fats. Avoid thepitfalls of dieting and develop a lifetime of healthy eating habits that are in-line with yourgoals.In our age of quick fixes and empty promises, sound and reliable eating principles seemto have been lost. Instead we’re drowning in a sea of useless and unhealthy fad diets accom-panied by continuously contradicting advice from so-called “experts.” There is simply nomagic pill or ground breaking new diet that can quickly and easily solve all your problems.The only reliable method of reaching and maintaining your long-term fitness goals is by un-derstanding and consistently applying dietary fundamentals.The value of a good diet cannot be overemphasized, and it’s probably much easier topull off than you expect. Understanding the basics and getting into a routine is simple.Many people just need to break some old habits and misconceptions. You do not have to bemiserable, to eat well. The right diet should make you feel better, not worse.Whether you are trying to gain muscle, loose fat, improve athletic ability, simply stayhealthy, or all of the above, you only adjust your calorie intake according to your goals. Therest stays the same: Consistently perform short, intense, strength training sessions, and eat abalanced diet. No matter your goal, you should consistently strength train, try to get 7 – 8hours of sleep a night, and you should eat frequent meals, maintaining an even flow of en-ergy, leaving that afternoon slump at the door. Your eating habits won’t be driven by hun-ger, and your cravings will be controlled. You’re not a caveman anymore. You do not needto stuff your face, thus storing a bunch of fat for warmth, because there’s a good possibilityyou won’t find another Wooly Mammoth for a few days. Fat is your body’s way of storing20  Y OU  A RE  Y OUR  O WN  G YMenergy so you don’t starve later. If your body gets used to eating several meals a day, itquickly learns there isn’t any reason to store fat, because it knows there’s no starvation pe-riod coming up. This means five or six small meals a day, every three hours or so. Don’tworry, I’ll show you how this is practical and easy.Don’t be surprised if you find information in this chapter that runs contrary to com-monly held beliefs, the same beliefs that contribute to the runaway obesity rate in our soci-ety. First let’s start with some basic definitions. Giving these a good read will be sure to cor-rect any misconceptions you might have, and misconceptions are people’s biggest hindranceto reaching their goals.CALORIESThe amount of energy released when your body breaks down food. Proteins, carbohy-drates, fats, and alcohol contain different amounts of calories per gram. Weight gain, weightloss, and weight maintenance is, to a large degree, but not exclusively, a matter of calories(energy) in vs. calories (energy) out. Somewhat oversimplified, excess calories are stored asfat, and a calorie deficit causes stored fat to be burned for energy.WHAT YOU EAT  VS . HOW MUCH YOU EATAmong dieticians and fitness enthusiasts there is an ongoing, heated debate about whatyou eat vs. how much you eat.Some claim weight control is simply a matter of what you eat. They believe if you eat theright foods in the right proportions, you’ll be healthy. Eating the wrong things is whatcauses unhealthy cravings for excess calories. This is because bad foods can throw our hor-mones out of whack, feeling unsatisfied and under-nourishedOn the other hand, the calories in vs. calories out folks believe that weight control issimply a matter of how many calories are eaten in relation to how many calories are burned,regardless of what the food sources are. Using this theory, a person maintaining a caloriedeficit of 500 calories per day should loose one pound per week, since one pound of body-weight is equivalent to 3500 calories (500 calories x 7 days = 3500 calories).Which of these is right? They both are. But, even though it might sound funny, I haveto say that the “what you eat people” are more correct. I know this both from science andcountless trials. The proof is in the pudding.Yes, you will lose weight by creating a continual calorie deficit, but if those limited calo-ries are coming from mainly overly processed foods with little nutritional value, it will leaveyou feeling terrible and constantly craving food. Plus, such a diet will reap havoc on yourhormones causing you to cannibalize muscle instead of burning fat. This is the diet thatmost people turn to and it is the reason why weight loss is rarely permanent.As I will discuss shortly, the body’s resting metabolic rate (RMR) is a key player in ourability to stay lean, and it is affected to a large degree by our body composition with musclebeing our greatest calorie burning ally. With that said, it’s important to place the emphasisNutrition 21on a positive change in body composition and not just weight loss. Loosing muscle weight isbad and counterproductive. Using the calories in vs. calories out theory alone, can at bestgive you a temporary fix. It’s unrealistic and unhealthy to go through life following a dietthat causes you to feel tired and hungry while your hormones run amuck.Instead, use a combination of the two theories. It’s just as unrealistic to expect people toalways eat perfectly proportioned meals as it is to continually follow a restrictive diet withoutemphasis on nutritional value. Yes, it is true that consistently eating meals with the correctratio of macronutrients will minimize excess cravings, but doing so is much easier said thandone. For most of us, forever eating perfectly balanced meals at every sitting just isn’t goingto happen. We should strive for balanced meals, and if that’s not possible, we should lookto at least balance our macronutrients—carbs, fats, and proteins—throughout the day, if notin every single meal.----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Hooya!----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------E VOLUTION AND THE  D OMESTICATION OF  P LANTS AND  A NIMALSVegetables. Fruits. Nuts. Seeds. Meats. Eggs. Fish.That’s it.For millions of years our ancestors survived purely from these 7 things. Typically, thewomen gathered the nuts, seeds, fruits, and vegetables while men hunted for meat.Together these food sources provided the necessary components of a complete diet thatsustained healthy living. Climate, geography, and luck mainly determined how balancedthese sources were. But remember, regardless of how much of each food they ate,these were the only foods available to our ancestors, so naturally our bodies have adaptedto their consumption.It wasn’t until about ten thousand years ago, a blip in our time on Earth, with thecultivation of plants and domestication of animals, that large quantities of breads, potatoes,rice, pasta, and dairy became available. These relatively new sources of calories were themain reason our complex societies were able to develop, and our overabundance is to alarge degree due to them.However, for millions of years our bodies evolved on diets without any of these. Therelatively miniscule time span since the domestication of plants and animals has notprepared us to live healthy lives with diets consisting of too many breads, pastas, rice, andpotatoes. Yes, life expectancy has greatly increased in this time span, but this can beattributed not to new foods, but rather to man’s no longer having to live life on-the-gowhile dealing with hunger, thirst, illness, injuries, extreme cold, and fighting dangerousanimals with primitive tools.So think of these new calories as little more than fillers. If you find yourself over-whelmed by nutritional definitions and rules, just ask yourself this: For millions of yearsbefore the domestication of plants and animals, what did we eat?22  Y OU  A RE  Y OUR  O WN  G YMMACRONUTRIENTSMacronutrients consist of proteins, fats, and carbohydrates. Contrary to common belief,each is a necessary part of a healthy and effective diet regardless of your goals. Some populardiets advocate cutting either fats or carbohydrates out of one’s diet. At best, this only bene-fits you in the short term, since these diets are nearly impossible to maintain permanently.Each macronutrient plays a vital role in our health and well-being, and excluding any one ofthem will cause you to feel unsatisfied and tired.Whether we are trying to shed body fat and gain lean muscle mass or just trying to bulkup, our goals are best met by eating a fair share of each of the macronutrients. Daily, weshould aim to consume 1 - 1.5 grams of protein per pound of ideal bodyweight, with therest of our calories coming from an even split of good carbs and fats.CARBOHYDRATESEach gram of carbohydrate contains 4 calories. Carbs are a key source of energy, espe-cially for the brain. They include fruits, vegetables, pastas, grains, sugars, cereals, and rice.All carbs are made of sugars and classified as either simple or complex carbs based on thenumber of sugar units within a carb’s molecules. All carbs are converted to glucose, a type ofsugar, before they are absorbed into the bloodstream. Then they are either burned for en-ergy or stored for later use.Carbs are absorbed into the bloodstream at different rates. Highly glycemic carbs thatabsorb too rapidly into the bloodstream have several downfalls because of the strong insulinreaction that they produce. Insulin is an important hormone that regulates the body’s bloodsugar levels and storage of glucose as fat or glycogen (glucose that is stored in the liver andmuscles).SIMPLE AND COMPLEX CARBOHYDRATES  & THE GLYCEMIC INDEXPasta, potatoes, oats, vegetables, and grains all contain complex carbs. Complex carbsmust first be broken down into simple sugars and then those simple sugars have to be con-verted to glucose before they can be absorbed into the blood.Simple carbs are found in foods such as fruit (fructose), dairy products (lactose), and ta-ble sugar (glucose).Again, a carb’s rate of absorption into the bloodstream produces a proportionally strongrelease of the hormone insulin. Rapid absorption of glucose causes rapid secretion of insu-lin. This in turn signals your body to store fat. And this is followed by fatigue and cravingsfor more carbs due to the blood’s sudden depletion of glucose. Obviously, this isn’t what wewant. So the longer it takes for a carb to be broken down into glucose, the better.However, it’s not as simple as only eating complex carbs. For numerous reasons, manysimple carbs actually absorb at a much slower rate than many complex carbs. Most fruits, forexample, contain fiber that slows down the digestion process. Also, sugar that comes fromfruit (fructose) and dairy (lactose) must first be converted to glucose before it can be ab-Nutrition 23sorbed into the blood, causing yet another slowdown in the digestion process. You will ac-tually feel satisfied for longer by eating an apple versus an equal-sized bowl of pasta. Becauseeven though pasta contains complex carbs, those carbs are still broken down into glucosefaster than the apple’s sugars.To make all this a bit simpler, we can use a glycemic index to determine what carbs toeat. The glycemic index measures the rate of absorption of carbs. A carb that has a low gly-cemic index absorbs slowly (good), and a carb with high glycemic index absorbs rapidly(bad). For a comprehensive list of foods and their glycemic indices, see MarkLauren.com.You will find that many fruits and vegetables have a much lower glycemic index than grainsand pastas.Choosing your carbs doesn’t stop there though. Carbs should also be chosen based ontheir nutritional value. The problem with foods such as table sugar isn’t just their high gly-cemic index, it’s also that they provide no vitamins, minerals, fiber, or good bacteria. Ideally,the carbs we eat should be as close to their original form as possible, such as whole pieces offruit (not fruit juices), raw or steamed vegetables, dairy, and oats. Much of our obesity prob-lem in Western civilization can be attributed to consuming massive amounts of carbs withhigh glycemic indices and little or no nutritional value. Many people, mistakenly, believethat they can eat whatever food they want as long as it’s low in fat, regardless of the glycemicindex, nutritional value, and calorie content. Everything from cookies, yogurts, sports bars,fruit juices, cereals, and sodas contain large amounts of table sugar that should be avoided.Craving sweets from time to time is normal, but a diet with excessive sugar can causethese cravings to get out of control. Part of the problem is the insulin spike caused by thesesugars. The insulin rids your blood of its glucose leaving you feeling tired and craving moreglucose to replace the glucose that has been emptied out of your bloodstream. This creates avicious circle.The solution? Eat carbs with a low glycemic index. As much as possible, especially forthose of you looking to shed body fat, get your carbs from whole pieces of fruit and raw orsteamed vegetables, because they have the lowest glycemic index and contain valuable nutri-ents. The next best source is dairy and whole grain products.FATS (Friendlies, not enemies!)Don’t believe the hype. Dietary fat is not the enemy of weight loss. And dietary fat doesnot automatically convert to body fat. Fat is vital not only for optimal performance andweight control, but it’s absolutely necessary to sustain life.Fats are calorie rich with 9 calories per gram versus 4 calories for protein and carbs.There are two types of dietary fat: Saturated and unsaturated.Saturated fats tend to raise bad cholesterol and triglyceride levels and chances of heartdisease. They are mainly derived from animal sources and foods containing hydrogenatedoil—from margarine to muffins, fish sticks to potato chips, instant potatoes to popcorn, andtoo much of what you find at fast food chains.24  Y OU  A RE  Y OUR  O WN  G YMUnsaturated fats tend to lower bad cholesterol and triglyceride levels and chances ofheart disease. They come from plant sources such as nuts, seeds, non-hydrogenated vegeta-ble oils, soy, olives, olive oil, flax seed oil, and fish.Both types of fat provide us with added satiety, improved taste and texture, a great en-ergy source, and slowed absorption of other nutrients. These are the major reasons whymany low fat diets leave people tired and constantly craving more food. The satiety thatyou’ll get from a little extra fat in your diet will allow you to comfortably eat less caloriesthan you would without the fats.Dietary fats even contribute to the regulation of the body’s hormones. Research hasshown that men who get less than 30% of their calories from fat produce 25% less testos-terone than those who have more fat in their diets.Fat should make up 25 - 35% of our total calorie intake. But be sure to consume mainlygood, unsaturated fats. A small palmful of nuts and seeds, a bit of health