HINT: It's about building LOTS of muscle and losing LOTS of body fat simultaneously. I've written about trying to build muscle and lose body fat at the same time – it's very difficult. But what I"m about to share with you will make the task immensely easier.

Stay tuned. More tonight or tomorrow.

I got an email from a reader recently and wanted to share with you the general recommendations I have for simultaneously building muscle and losing body fat.

Rules of thumb for gaining muscle and losing fat simultaneously are:

• High protein
• Low carb
• Moderate to high fat (kind of comes with the high-protein territory, so to speak)
• Plenty of milk, eggs, beef, poultry, fish, nuts, protein powder (for between-meal snacks)
• 3 days a week weight training
• 3 days a week high-intensity cardio, coupled with 3-4 days of moderate-intensity cardio

How much protein? I'd shoot for an average of 1 gram per pound of body weight. This may sound high, but it's really not that hard to consume, if you're taking in 3 regular meals and 3 snacks a day. Even easier if you break it into 8 meals.

I'm a big proponent of cycling diet, supplementation, and training. By this, I mean that you should eat big 3 days in a row, then take off a day (same with training). Cut out all the supplementation (except for the joint supplements and daily vitamin/mineral) on this "off day" to give your body a chance to rest a little. I have had good success actually juice fasting on this "4th day" where I only ingest juice and water. It really sets the body up to load up on carbs the following day.

Your muscles will really swell the next day.

As for dieting "clean" – I do believe in cheating. On your diet! Meaning, once a week, eat nearly whatever you want in any portion you want.

All other days, eat virtually whatever you want, but in smaller portions than you may like. You'll get the flavors you need but you won't be taking in excess calories.

If you're interested, I've got some meal plans posted up on the User Forum – http://ow.ly/189YQ

You'll need about 3300 calories to maintain your weight (this is a rough estimate – there are a lot of factors that play into this) – if you want to gain weight, add 500 calories; if you want to lose weight, subtract 500 cals.

You may be in a situation where you want to maintain your weight, but just redistribute body fat weight to muscle weight…modify accordingly.

Over at the forum, I wrote a piece on Goal Getting. It has a link in it to a goal getting product that – get this – is totally free. Now, it was written with business people in mind, but if you use your imagination and view the system as a process, then you'll go far in your bodybuilding and/or fitness goals.

Plus, you might just get what you want out of life. I get nothing whether or not you pick up the product. You don't even have to optin there. It's free as in beer, speech and dinero.

The important thing to note is that you not only have to have goals, but you also have to have a system in place for achieving them.

This might help.

HINT: Work backwards from your goals.

With the holiday season over and just a few more college football bowl games left, it's time to stop watching others complete their goals and for you to set and then smash your goals.

If you've ever been in the corporate world, you know that goal-setting is a must-do. It's also given just lip service in most companies:

• You go through a lengthy goal-setting exercise, learning all about setting goals
• You set some goals
• Your supervisor approves them
• You go back to doing your everyday job, only revisiting your goals near quarter- or (worse yet) year-end

That's all a bunch of crap!

Don't get me wrong – I'm a firm believer in setting goals. But you gotta do more than just set arbitrary goals. You have to set goals that are SMART:

S = Specific
M = Measurable
A = Attainable
R = Realistic
T = Timely

In other words, a goal needs to be realistic and acheivable, very specific, with measurable output.

Here's an example of something some people would call a goal but that isn't:

Win the lottery

Obvious questions: which lottery? When? How realistic is it to expect to win the lottery? How do you go about acheiving this goal? How do you know you're making progress? How do you know if you're not? How do you make adjustments when you're not making progress?

No, winning the lottery is a pipe dream. First off, it's a game of chance. Poor chance. Your odds of winning the lottery are less than your odds of getting struck by lightning. And it's relatively easy to get struck by lightning if that's your goal

Just go play golf in a lightning storm. Simple. SMART, but not smart.

A goal could be:

Lose 10 pounds by February 28

This is certainly attainable, realistic, specific, measurable, and timely. The key is setting realistic goals that you can adjust for when you're not making the progress needed to acheive the goal in the specified time.

Plus, it's important to be able to be able to ascertain your progress at any time within the specified time window. That is to say, while it's certainly not necessary to weigh yourself every day (in all honesty, it's counterproductive because our weights fluctuate up and down over short periods of time), it is possible.

Another SMART goal might be:

Add 10 pounds to my MAX bench press by March 1

This is most definitely a SMART goal: Specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely.

A couple of other important things:

It's very helpful to write your goal down on paper and pin it up somewhere that you see it frequently. For example, if you're trying to lose those 10 pounds by the end of February, write down your goal on a nice big sheet of paper and tape it to your refrigerator door. Make sure it's prominent; ideally, it will be the ONLY thing on your door.

Another way to solidify the goal in your mind is to post it to a public forum (hint hint). Making your goals public makes you try a little harder because it is human nature not to fail in front of others. We want to succeed, but it's easy to rationalize why you didn't meet a goal if the goal was only known to you: I was sick, other things came up, etc.

Those serve as reasons if the goal is known only to you; they sound like excuses if the goal has been made public. And nobody likes hearing, or giving, excuses.

Head on over to the User Forum to share your goals with the group. We'll help you get there. Ask questions, commiserate, share your successes.