MY DEFINITION OF INTERMITTENT FASTING (IF)

The dietary practice of periodically going for extended periods of time without eating. Since we all fast every single day for 12 hours (if your last meal is at 8pm and your next meal is at 8am). This is known as a 12/12 fast. You eat for 12 hours a day and fast for 12 hours a day. It’s just one technique of thousands of fat loss techniques to contribute towards a caloric deficit – the determining factor of whether you lose fat or not.

IF IS SIMPLY ANOTHER TOOL… 

Just like any other training or diet tool, intermittent fasting is simply another tool in your tool box for building your dream body. Intermittent fasting can be a tremendous addition to certain individuals and completely unnecessary for other individuals.  This article will take an unbiased stance and touch on some of the pros, cons and my own personal experience, which I think you’ll find quite interesting.

Just like My Complete Opinion On Cheat Days and Fat Loss article, I do not have any emotional attachment to intermittent fasting and I’m not attempting to argue for or against the benefits of IF. I admit that it can be a very effective approach for solving a number of health and body composition related problems. However, after reviewing some research, it’s still very spotty and an approach I believe is extremely dependent on the individual. This will make sense shortly… 

For me, it’s very hard to say if  it’s a more superior or inferior method because I’ve experienced exceptional results with intermittent fasting and without intermittent fasting. Take a look at my results….

195 lbs & 5.5% Body Fat – 14 Weeks Of Dieting Without IF 

Not Sure My Stats – 3 Weeks Of Dieting With Fast Days Every 5th Day!

My Complete Opinion Of Cheat Meals & Fat Loss
By Vince Del Monte

Is it really possible to eat your favourite foods and still lose fat?

It depends.

I believe that cheat meals and cheat days are absolutely necessary for some people and a massive mistake for others.

This article is not designed to lead you any one way because in my nine years of bodybuilding I’ve used cheat days to get under 6% body fat and just recently I did not use cheat days at all to get under 5% body fat.

Interesting, right?

195 lbs & 5.5% Body Fat – 14 Weeks Of Dieting With No Cheat Meals

Not Sure My Stats – 3 Weeks Of Dieting With Cheat Days Every 5th Day!

I have no emotional attachment to cheat days and could care less if use them or not.

As you can see I look great in both sets of pictures and it wasn’t the cheat strategy that was the determining factor.  I personally think I look better in the first picture but some people think I look better in the second picture.

Just like every training and diet technique, you can only learn so much from reading about it. At some point you just need to take action and find out for yourself and that’s what I did and have the pictures and experience to prove it.

If you have not experimented with cheat days before, they can become the focal point of a diet. Let’s dive into what I’ve discovered from being a cheater and not being a cheater!

8 Insights, From Personal Experience, On Cheating…

1. The leaner you are, the more often you can cheat.

2. Fat people (30 lbs overweight) are better off with cheat meals, not cheat days.

3. Cheat meals should not be an excuse to “force down food” and eat to the point where you become sick.

4. Skinny guys can schedule one cheat meal a day to help them grow big and muscular.

5. If you are eating clean the majority of time than your hormones will be in balance and you won’t crave or desire crappy food.

6. If you’re going to cheat, it’s better to do it in the second half of the day (from 4pm till midnight) than the first half of the day.  If you start earlier and go crazy than you can set yourself back a few days.  It’s very challenging to cheat on the first half of a day and than eat clean the second half.  Trust me!

7. For some people, psychologically, it’s very difficult to stay disciplined after a cheat meal.  After you have “starved” your sugar craving, which have started to lose their grip, are charged back to life.

8. In my opinion, you should be striving for a lifestyle that is not dependant on cheat days to keep you going.  You should not feel like you’d go insane without a cheat meal or cheat day.  Your goal is to find yourself not wanting them and not walk into a grocery store and see a bag of cookies and say, “Wow, I would love to eat those right now!”  You should strive to a level that allows you to walk into any party, restaurant or grocery store and not want to eat the crap food.  Sound impossible? It’s not. It will take months and years of good nutrition habits to reach this level, which very few attain.

Factors That Determine If A Cheat Day a.k.a. Treat Day Is Warranted!

a) Your metabolic rate. For example, a hardgainer i.e. ultra skinny guy, could afford to have at least one cheat meal every single day.  In fact, when I bulked up from 214 lbs to 227 lbs, my coach had me eating one “freebie meal” every day and this could consist of anything I wanted.  A few slices of pizza, a burger and fries or anything I was craving.  Scheduling one freebie meal a day for a endomorph i.e. someone who has a hard time losing fat, could set you back weeks.

In the past nine years I’ve invested thousands of dollars into nutritional and training research, books, seminars, schooling and even personal trainers.  I’ve experimented with everything from low carb, zero carb, high carb, carb cycling, cheat days, and intermittent fasting diet plans and I decided it was time to bring someone alongside to work with me on my next stage of developement.

I have not stepped on stage since June 2008 and I don’t believe in competing unless I look significantly better. This would require me to do two things:

1) Build new mass by bulking to 230 lbs
2) Cut the fat and get under 5% body fat

I wanted to get access to the best coaching in the world no matter what the financial investment and I wanted to work with someone who had plenty of experience working with drug free athletes.  I considered virtually all the options available to me – the guys who coach the pro bodybuilders and the pro bodybuilders themselves.

Before we get started, I want to share a killer audio resource that I’ve been gaining a lot of higher level learning from lately:  The Adonis Lifestyle Podcast. It’s 100% free and the content is very high end and the topic below was inspired by one of their recent pod casts.

Genetic Limitations vs Lifestyle Limitations
By Vince Del Monte

Here’s a picture of me the day after the WBFF Fitness Atlantic Championships August 16, 2011.  I’ve been getting a lot of questions from guys asking me, “How did you transform your body from 227 to 195 in only 14 weeks?”

Simple. I executed my plan to near perfection. The biggest challenge was overcoming many lifestyle limitations and I felt those presented a more significant challenge than genetic limitations.

Today’s blog post is designed to show you that you don’t have the body of your dreams because of your lifestyle, not because of your genetics.  It’s your lifestyle choices that are the major limiting factor in whether or not you build bigger and stronger muscles and attain that chiseled look. 

10 Strange Reasons I Decided To Get On Stage & Compete at Brian Cannone’s Fitness Atlantic Championships This Saturday April 16th in Connecticut

If it’s been said before, it’s been said 937 times – if you want to succeed, you are going to have to take chances.

Take the turtle for example. Poor creature moves as fast as a stone. If he wanted, he could stay inside his shell all day and relax. But it knows it’s missing out on the action; so the turtle sticks its head out and does something about it.

When we stay complacent with our lives, or pass up on opportunities we are interested in, we are the ones relaxing inside the shell. We are missing out on the action. But if you stick your neck out of the shell, there are so many possibilities waiting for you.

Memorize this:

“Behold the turtle. He only makes progress when he sticks his neck out.”

- James Bryant Conant

10 Strange Reasons I’m Competing On Stage…

1. I believe I only make progress in life when I stick my neck out. Not just my neck but I’ll be sticking out every body part for the world to either critique or applaud.  Contrary to what you might think, it’s not normal for the majority of physique athletes to prance around the stage in virtually no clothing while a panel of judges scores you on your overall marketability, physique, stage presence, level of confidence, overall health, symmetry, colour, choice of clothing and probably a few more things I’m missing.  So by getting up on stage – believe me when I say I’m OUTSIDE MY COMFORT ZONE.  Now the key is to become a different character and put on a show so that on lookers have no idea I’m actually nervous inside!

2. I don’t believe in competing unless I know I can or will look better than my last show. To me, competing over and over while bringing the same physique to the stage is like running  a 5km road race in the same finishing time.  Where is the improvement?  I compete to take my body to new heights and to win.  I don’t treat a physique competition like a recreational activity or hobby.  It’s a sport and I treat it like a full time professional athlete.

3. I want to win my Pro Fitness Model Status so I can compete against the best of the best August 27th at the World WBFF Championships in Toronto, Ontario.  I believe I need to get first place this weekend (and you never know who’s going to show up at these shows… guys come out of the wood works!) and in physique competitions anything can happen!  A lot of people ask me who I look up to and their is a small handful of physique athletes I’ve grown to know personally, whom I consider friends and guys who keep me focused on my goals because their bodies are so inspirational.  Who are they?  ”Six Pack” Artus Shakur, Rob Riches and Obi Obadike.  These guys are all first class gentleman and I would be honoured and humbled to be on the same stage with all of them one day!  I could name off a series of other guys who are truly in a class of their own and would be honoured to compete against them but I don’t want them to know I’m spying on them too I am a true competitor so would love to see how I fair against the best of the best.  If you think you have a body that can compete with the best fitness model physiques in the world, check out http://www.wbffshows.com for more info.  This is the organization that has impressed me the most, does the most for the athletes, hosts in great venues, gives away decent prizes and attracts the highest caliber of athlete.

4. I want to hit 4.5% body fat. I have not been in “contest shape” (5-7% body fat range) since June 2008 when I competed last.  I guess you could say I got the competition bug and after watching one of my training partners, Artus Shakur, compete last September and earn his Pro Status, I told myself, “I can do this too and I’m going to give this a serious shot.”  I also brought a coach into the picture, an IFBB PRO BODYBUILDER who was a huge investment and has dialed my body in perfectly.  I’ve learned so much by working with a coach instead of doing it on my own this time.  I can’t image preparing for a show on my own ever again.  I can’t wait to see how he gets me dry to the bone by Saturday!

5. One of my life-time achievement goals is to land a cover on either Men’s Health, Men’s Fitness, Maximum Fitness, Status, REPS, Inside Fitness, Muscle & Fitness or any other fitness mag.  It’s easy to get featured inside the magazine but it’s completely different to land a cover.  The fitness industry is similar to all organizations and it’s often not “How you look but who you know!”  Competing at the big shows, meeting the organizations, athletes, photographers and inside contacts can go a long way and speed things alone.  Just like any business, people want to do business with their friends and people they know so you got to become friends and meet the people that can pull the trigger for you.  The day after the show I’ll be shooting with Jason “The King Of Covers” Ellis, GW “The Edge” Burns and Leigh “Style” Hagan.  Three big name guys that I want to make very easy to photograph me.

6.  I’m the only guy on the Internet who believes you can BLOW BEYOND YOUR GENETIC POTENTIAL so better believe that I’m going to live up to that message and disprove any monkey who says otherwise. It’s not just a cute saying to sell more of my programs – it’s something I truly believe and by taking my body to new levels I’m living proof (even after I’ve been training for almost 10 years in the gym now) that you can shatter and shred your goals from limb to limb.   I am the face of my mantra: LIVE LARGE.  I would never tell you to LIVE LARGE if I didn’t live out the message myself.

7. My beautiful wife, Flavia, has never seen me on stage prancing around and squeezing my glutes in front of a huge crowd. My wife keeps saying, “Any guy can get a six pack Vinny… I want to see you get a eight pack!”  She’s not kidding and believes in me that much.  I won’t let her down.    I have to give her this pleasure at least once in her life to drool all over a shredded eight pack!  She’s also never seen me shredded and diced so this will be a super fun experience!  She’s seen me “lean” but she’s never seen veins coming out of my chest, lower abdomen and I’m even starting to get lines on my glutes!  I really want to make her proud.

8. I’ll be in the best shape of my life by April 16th! Not a bad way to start the year eh? The 2011 Fitness Atlantic Championships are being held early in the year so I‘m going to be sitting at sub 5% body fat by mid April. I plan on doing another show, April 30th in Quebec and will be competing with a few of my training partners.  And meet organizer, Brian Cannone who’s an amazing guy, has brought in P90X creator Tony Horton to the event so I’m really hoping I can meet him (I look up to Tony for all he’s done and how he looks at 52 years of age) and shoot some vids with him.

9. I successfully bulked up my body to almost 230 lbs in November and December of 2010 and it’s time to reveal the freak and show the world what I really look like after all the water and fat is stripped off my body. Every athlete knows whether they bring their best or not and I can say I’ve never brought my absolute best to the stage.  This April 16th, I’m going to show the world what a real man looks like and reveal the freak, the savage beast, the ultimate warrior, an untamed barbarian… the heart throb Vinny D is going to show the world what it means to LIVE LARGE!  My goal is to come in under 5% body fat which will be a life time achieve accomplishment for me.  In the picture on this page I’m 199 lbs and 6.4%  I’m training like a wild pitbull right now to get the last few grams (not pounds) of fat off.  Oh yeah, their is NO SUCH THING as stubborn fat.  Fat is fat.  If you’re not lean, you simply have MORE fat to lose.

10.  This year I’m working on my hardcopy book deal and want to be the model for the exercises! Yes, majorly exciting stuff and I want to be the model for the book that will perform the exercise shot list.  This means I want to bring my best physique to the shoot and ensure I’m happy with the pictures for a long time to come.  Transformation pictures are powerful and can be used to market yourself for a lifetime.  I’ll never become that guy who uses the same “after” pictures from ten years ago! Heck, they are still using Arnold’s pics to sell magazines and his pics were taken 30+ years ago!

Wish me luck and if you live in the Connecticut area, here is the event information to get yourself some tickets and to see me BRING IT!   I’ll be on stage at 12pm for the pre judging and 6pm for the finals.  Click here to come and watch.

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Comments? Questions?  Anything you want to know about my show prep?  Let me know and I’ll do some more blog posts this week.

For now, i want to hook you up with a 50% off discount for a program called STAGE READY NUTRITION & TRAINING and in it you’ll discover the “back stage secrets” that the most successful fitness, bikini, model and bodybuilding competitors use to dominate their competitions and land on famous fitness magazines…

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