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This is just a quick reminder to let you know that today is the last day on the special 3-day offer where you can get “The Holy Grail Body Transformation System" for free at:

Holy Grail Body Transformation

The Holy Grail is Tom Venuto's new 74 page ebook that is destined to set the record straight in such a way that you could say it's the LAST WORD on gaining muscle and burning fat at the same time.

Tom has competed in bodybuilding 28 times, going through season after season of gaining muscle and competition after competition of getting cut – sometimes as low as 4% body fat or less.

So, when a guy like Tom speaks about losing fat AND gaining muscle, you definitely want to hear what he has to say.

From now until midnight (PST) tonight, you can get a copy of the “Holy Grail body transformation system" PDF ebook format, absolutely free when you purchase Tom’s Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle e-book from:

Holy Grail Body Transformation

Burn The Fat is often referred to as “the bible of fat burning nutrition” and if you don’t have a copy yet, then this is a better opportunity than ever because you will get the new ebook as a bonus along with the classic best selling Burn The Fat program.

This offer is almost over, so I highly recommend you visit the Burn The Fat website today and jump on this deal while you still can. Tom doesn't make offers like this often, and this is one you don't want to miss.

Here’s the link again:

Holy Grail Body Transformation

If you want to learn as much as possible about building muscle and losing body fat, then this is the no-brainer of the year. I'll make this short and simple:

Buy Burn the Fat Feed the Muscle by pro bodybuilder Tom Venuto and get all this for FREE -

1. The Holy Grail Body Transformation System (learn more about this killer fat-burning and muscle-building system here),
2. Foods that Burn Fat,
3. Foods that Turn to Fat,
4. The A food B food lecture: How to get good grades on your food choices,
5. FREE Updates to the Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle,
6. How To Measure Your Body Fat in The Privacy of Your Own Home,
7. The Hardgainer Manifesto,
8. Mega Arms,
9. Muscle-Building Meal Plans,
10. Body Transformation Tracker,
11. Exclusive access to the Muscle-Build.com User Forum

I won't put a phony value on these bonuses. I will tell you, however, that I sell #7, #8, and #11 for a combined total of $74.

Here's how this works:

1. Use THIS LINK to buy Burn the Fat
   
2. Get Bonuses #1 through #6 instantly delivered to your email inbox
3. Email me with your ClickBank receipt # (put Holy Grail in the Subject line) and I'll set you up with #7 through #11. I'll ask you to fill out a form; once you do, I'll send you the bonus package.

Note that The Holy Grail promotion from Ton is only good through May 13. After that, he shuts it down and sells it by itself for $47 (maybe more, who knows).

How can I gain muscle and lose fat at the same time?

That’s right up there with “How do I get six pack abs” as one of the most frequently asked fitness questions of all time. The problem is, when you ask it, you get all kinds of conflicting answers – even from experts who are supposed to know these things. So what’s the deal? Is it really possible to lose fat and build muscle simultaneously?

Short answer: Yes, you can gain muscle and lose fat at the “same time.”

Long answer: It’s difficult and it’s complicated. Allow me to explain…

First we have the issue of whether you really lose fat and gain muscle at the “same time.”

Well, yes, if your definition of the “same time” is say, a month or 12 weeks. But in that case, you’re probably not gaining muscle at the “same time” literally speaking, as in, right now this very moment you are reading this, or 7 days a week, 24 hours a day for months in a row.

The best explanation for what’s really happening is that you alternate between periods of caloric surplus (anabolism) and caloric deficit (catabolism) and the net result is a gain in muscle and a loss in body fat.

You see, if you stay in a calorie surplus, it’s the body’s natural tendency for body fat and lean body mass to go up together. And if you stay in a calorie deficit, it’s your body’s natural tendency for body fat and lean body mass to go down together.

There may be exceptions, but the general rule is that it is very difficult to gain muscle and lose fat at the same time – the mechanisms are mostly antagonistic to one another. When it does happen, it’s almost always the result of “unusual conditions” – I call them X factors.

The 4 X-Factors

The first X-factor is “training age” . Ever hear of “newbie gains?” The less trained your body is and the further you are from your genetic potential, the easier it is to gain muscle. The reverse is also true – an advanced bodybuilder with 20 years experience would be thrilled just to gain a few pounds of solid dry muscle in a year!

The second x factor is muscle memory. It’s easier to regain muscle you’ve lost than it is to gain new muscle in the first place (ergo, the fat out of shape semi retired bodybuilder who starts training again and blows up and gets ripped “overnight”).

The third X factor is genetics (or somatotype). Ever heard of the “genetic freak?” That’s the dude who sprouts muscle like weeds even when he’s on the “50-50 diet” (50% McDonald’s and 50% pizza)… and he never gets fat. (That dude chose the right parents!)

The fourth X factor is drugs. It would stun (or sadden) you if you knew how many people take performance and physique-enhancing drugs. I’m not just talking about pro bodybuilders, I’m talking about “Joe six pack” in the gym – not to mention those fitness models you idolize in the magazines. How did they get large muscle gains with concurrent fat loss? Chemicals.

I’m not a gambling man, but I’ll place a wager on this any day: I’ll bet that in 99% of the cases of large muscle gains with concurrent large fat losses, one or more of these x factors were present.

That’s not all! There are actually 5 more X factors related to your body composition and diet status (the X2 factors). But I’ll have to talk about those later.

So you’re not a beginner, you don’t take roids, you’re not a genetic freak and you have no muscle memory to take advantage of. Are you S.O.L? Well, I do want you to be realistic about your goals, but…

There IS a way for the average person to gain muscle and lose fat at the same time.

The Secret: You have to change your “temporal perspective!”

Traditionally nutritionists and fitness pros have only looked at calorie balance in terms of 24 hour periods. At midnight, you could tally up the calories like a shopkeeper closing out his register, and if the balance were positive, you’d say you were in a surplus for the day. If the balance were negative, you’d say you were in a deficit for the day.

But it’s entirely possible that you might pass through periods of “within-day” surplus where you were in a highly anabolic state (for example, you eat the biggest, highest carb meal of the day after your workout), and you were in a deficit the rest of the day.

If you did intense weight training, and you timed your nutrient intake appropriately, it is possible that you could gain a small amount of muscle during those anabolic hours, while losing fat the rest of the day. Granted it might only be grams or ounces – but what if you kept that up for a week? A month? Three months?

As you pan out and look at the bigger picture, what if most days of the week you were in a deficit for the entire day, and on some days you were in a surplus? If so, then isn’t it possible that over the course of the week, you’d have a small net gain of muscle and loss of body fat a a result of the caloric fluctuation?

These within-day and within-week phases are called microcycles and mesocycles. If you also had a primary goal with a longer term focus of several months, say 12 weeks or 16 weeks, that would be a macrocycle.

What I’ve just described is nutritional periodization. Some people call it cyclical dieting. It’s where you manipulate your calories (primarily by fluctuating carbohydrate intake, hence “carb cycling”) in order to intentionally zig zag your way through periods of surplus and deficit and create specific hormonal responses.

The end result: muscle gain and fat loss during the same time period!

I know that someone out there is having a hissy fit because I’ve only talked about calories: deficits and surpluses. Rightfully so. Calories matter but there’s more to it than calories – most importantly, hormones and “nutrient partitioning.”

If you’re in a calorie deficit you are going to pull energy from your body. The question is: From WHERE? If your hormones are out of whack and you’re eating crap, you could lose more muscle than fat in a deficit and gain almost pure fat, not muscle, in a surplus!

But WHAT IF you could manipulate within-day energy balance, use nutritional periodization AND control your hormones with food and lifestyle strategies?

Make no mistake – concurrent muscle gain and fat loss is a difficult goal to achieve. The good news: Difficult does not mean impossible. Or as George Santayana said, “The difficult is that which can be done immediately, the impossible, that which takes a little longer.”

The Holy Grail Body Transformation Program: How to Gain Muscle and Lose Fat at The Same Time

You can learn more about gaining muscle and losing fat at the same time in Tom Venuto's new e-book called, "The Holy Grail Body Transformation System."

You’ll learn all about nutritional periodization, cyclical dieting, hormonal manipulation, within-day energy balance, nutrient partitioning, AND the all the X factors, including the 5 “X2-Factors” – which are the keys to gaining muscle and losing fat at the same time.

You’ll also get Tom's new “TNB” training system, as seen in Men’s Fitness magazine (the complete, expanded version that Men’s Fitness didn’t have room to print).

At the moment, The Holy Grail ebook is not for sale separately and there is only one way you can get it.

From now until Midnight (PST), May 13th, 2010, you can get a copy of the Holy Grail Body Transformation program ebook for FREE when you purchase the Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle e-book from this web page:

www.BurnTheFat.com

After May 13th, 2010 at midnight PST The Holy Grail will be taken off the market for a period of time while Tom is collecting case studies and getting feedback from users, to include in the final edition – which WILL be released for sale separately later this year.

Visit the Burn The Fat website now and jump on this deal while you still can.

Tom Venuto

Tom Venuto, author of Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle, and natural bodybuilding champion, did his first interview in years. Here’s the link –

Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle Interview with Tom Venuto

It’s a good read, if only for the story of how he got to where he is today. But if you read a little deeper, you’ll find some good information there about losing bodyfat while maintaining your muscle mass.

Summer is upon us; it’s time to “rip up” and show off the muscle you build over the winter. Tom’s expertise can help you get there.

By Tom Venuto, NSCA-CPT, CSCS
Burn The Fat

At least 7 scientific studies have provided strong evidence that energy containing beverages (i.e., “liquid calories”) do not properly activate the satiety mechanisms in the body and brain and do not satisfy the appetite as well as food in solid form.

Epidemiological research also supports a positive association between calorie-containing beverage consumption and increased body weight or body mass index. New research now suggests that soda may not be the only culprit…

The primary source of liquid calories in the United States Diet is carbohydrate, namely soda. Now running a close second are specialty and dessert coffees. Did you know that a 16 ounce Frappucino can contain 500 calories or even more! That’s one-third of a typical female’s daily calorie intake while on a fat loss program.

A recent study at Purdue University published in the International Journal of Obesity set out to learn even more about this bodyfat – liquid calories relationship.

Researchers compared solid and beverage forms of foods composed primarily of carbohydrate, fat or protein in order to document the independent effect of food form in foods with different dominant macronutrient sources.

Based on previous research, some experts have recommended targeting specific beverages as being “worse” than others. High fructose corn syrup and soda has been singled out the most and you’ve probably seen that yourself in the news.

There’s no question that soda has been on top of the “hit list” for some time now, by virtue of the amounts and frequency of consumption alone.

However, this recent study says that from a pure energy balance perspective, we should be cautious about ALL liquid calories, not just soda and not just carbohydrates!

Fruit juice for example, appears to be an obvious improvement over soda, so many people have swapped out their soda for fruit juice. However, when fruit juice is compared to an equal amount of calories from whole fruit, the whole fruit satisfies appetite better (largely due to the bulk and fiber content), and so you tend to eat fewer calories for the day.
[On an interesting side note, soup does not seem to apply; soup has higher satiety value than calorie containing beverages, possibly for mere cognitive reasons.]

If you were to meticulously track your calories from beverages and you made sure that your calories remained the same for the day, whether liquid or solid, there would probably be little or no difference in your body composition.

But that’s not what usually happens in free-living humans. Most people do not accurately track or report their caloric intake. Our mistake is that we tend to drink calories IN ADDITION TO our usual food intake, not instead of it.

Men are especially guilty of this when they drink alcohol – Men tend to drink AND eat, while women tend to drink INSTEAD OF eating.

This new research found that with all three macronutrients – protein, carbs or fat – daily calorie intake was significantly greater when the beverage form was consumed as compared to the solid.

Yes, it’s true! Even protein drinks did not satisfy the appetite the way that protein foods did!

While you would think that protein drinks are purely a good thing, because protein foods have been proven to reduce appetite and increase satiety, if you turn a solid protein food into a protein drink, it loses it’s appetite suppressive properties in the same way that happens when you turn fruit into fruit juice.
[NOTE: After weight training workouts, liquid nutrition may have benefits that outweigh any downside, especially on muscle-gaining programs]

Why do liquid calories fail to elicit the same response as whole foods? Reasons include:

• high calorie density
• lower satiety value
• more calories ingested in short period of time
• lower demand for oral processing
• shorter gastrointestinal transit times
• energy in beverages has greater bioaccessibility and bioavailability
• mechanisms may include cognitive, orosensory, digestive, metabolic, endocrine and neural influences (human appetite is a complex thing!!!)
• last but not least, nowhere in our history have our ancestors had access to large amounts of liquid calories. Alcohol may have been around as far back as several thousand years BC, but even that is a blip on the evolutionary calendar of humanity.

As a result, our genetic code has never developed the physiological mechanisms to properly register the caloric content in liquids the way it does when you eat, chew and swallow whole foods.

Bottom line: This study suggests that we shouldn’t just target one type of liquid calories such as soda. If you’re trying to beat body fat, it’s wise to limit all types of liquid calories and eat whole foods as much as possible.

Start by ditching the soda. Then ditch the high calorie dessert coffees. Then cut back on the alcohol. From there, be cautious even about milk, juice and protein drinks.

Drink water or tea instead, or limited amounts of black coffee – without all the high calorie extras.

If you do consume any beverages that contain calories, such as protein shakes, be sure to account for those calories meticulously and be sure you don’t drink them in addition to your usual food intake, but in place of an equal amount of food calories.

Remember, those protein shakes you might be drinking are called “meal replacements” not “free calories!”

For many years I have suggested focusing primarily on whole foods rather than liquids, even protein shakes. Unlike so many other fat reduction programs, Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle does not require any kind of liquid meal replacement or protein drinks and our company does not exist to sell supplements; we are here to educate you and millions of others about the realities of body fat loss.

We now have even more scientific data that confirms what Burn The Fat has been teaching all along.

I hope you found this helpful. Learn more about “Burn The Fat.”

Train hard and expect success,

Tom Venuto, NSCA-CPT, CSCS
Fat Loss Coach
Burn The Fat

Reference: Effects of food form on appetite and energy intake in lean and obese young adults. International Journal of Obesity. 2007 Nov (11):1688-95. Mourao DM, Bressan J, Campbell WW, Mattes RD. Department of Foods and Nutrition, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907-2059, USA.

About the Author:

Tom Venuto is a natural bodybuilder, certified personal trainer and freelance fitness writer. Tom is the author of “Burn the Fat, Feed The Muscle,” which teaches you how to get lean without drugs or supplements using secrets of the world’s best bodybuilders and fitness models. Learn how to get rid of stubborn fat and increase your metabolism by visiting: Burn The Fat