Sorry to start on a bit of a downer but getting ripped is not easy.
Otherwise, everyone would be ripped, but in my opinion, it’s not entirely our own fault.
But let me clarify what I mean by that.
I think there are big holes in the education system which have started this problem.
And even big holes in terms of nutritional information and how we get it.
These days we get the majority of our nutritional advice from advertising.
And who decides what’s being said in the ads?
The people who want to sell you their product.
So when we have a system that is fueled by making a profit you can see why the information we get might not be the best for us.
There’s also been the long-standing fat vs sugar debate.
When it’s so unclear what we should and shouldn’t be eating it’s easy to see why so many people have it wrong.
Whatever product has the best ad campaign or the prettiest packaging wins regardless of how truthful they are about the health benefits.
I’m talking so much about food because that is the most important part when it comes to getting ripped.
How you exercise comes second to what you actually put into your body.
So the first piece of advice I want to give you is to stick to the outsides at the supermarket.
When you go down the aisles you find less food and more products.
9 times out of 10 if it’s in a box it’s not food anymore, it’s a product.
And when it has an ingredient list longer than a church phone book you know it can’t be great for you.
Why we eat so many products with more ingredients than vegetables is actually quite amazing.
We’ve become so used to reading the front of a box and assuming they’re telling us the truth.
Getting ripped at home without equipment is no different than getting ripped at a gym with equipment.
If you’re not fueling your body correctly you’re pushing mud uphill.
So how do we get ripped at home then?
You eat whole foods, you throw out anything in your pantry that’s in a box and you start tracking your calories and macronutrients.
Check this article that teaches you more about tracking what you eat.
But what are whole foods?
Whole foods are foods that are either not processed or processed minimally. Fruit, vegetables, grains, and legumes.
All the stuff grandma used to cook with.
The Mediterranean diet gets spoken about a lot as being one of the healthiest diets.
And I’m not trying to dispute that, but when you look at what it is it’s mainly whole foods.
We’ve become too used to cooking from packets and forgotten how to cook for ourselves.
But here’s another great little tip for you.
Flip the box around and look at what the actual ingredients are.
I’m talking about the stuff you understand, not all the numbers and chemicals.
But if you read what actual whole food they put in your microwave meals all you need is the recipe.
Another little tip for you, now you’re getting value for the dollar!
Google the recipe, and hey presto it’s all sorted.
You probably don’t even need to read the ingredients, to be honest.
But all those microwave meals give me new ideas to cook.
Youtube and google are awesome tools for getting free information, that’s how you found me right?
And now tracking calories and macronutrients.
This takes a little bit of time to get used to so it’s best to do it in steps.
Start off by using the app myfitnesspal.
All you need to do is put your information into the app.
How tall you are, your weight, age, sex, and activity level.
The app is going to give you a number of calories to eat every day.
So you need to log everything you eat and drink.
For the first week just aim to stay under that number.
Now that you’re used to logging your food and staying under that number we can expand a little bit and start trying to stick within our allotted macronutrients.
Your macronutrients are fats, carbs, and proteins.
Everything we eat and drink is going to be made up of a percentage of these 3 things.
When you stick to your numbers you will start seeing results.
Check out this video that gives you some great high-protein breakfast options.
Ok, so you understand that food is the most important part to get right.
So now what exercise should you be doing?
Honestly, it’s best to get in a mix of strength and cardio.
But how do we do that without equipment?
Well, my friends, that’s easy.
Push-ups, squats, lunges, table rows the list goes on.
But people have been building muscle and burning fat with just their body forever.
Let’s talk about push-ups first.
A great movement for building strength in your chest, arms, and core.
And if you slow the movement down, spending more time under tension you’ll get every greater bang for your buck.
Or you can do them in intervals.
Do as many as you can in 30 seconds then rest for 30 seconds.
Do that 10 times and you’re going to feel your heart pounding in your throat.
Just like we’ve got 2 ways to use the same movement to build muscle or burning calories. So let’s do some legs now aye.
Follow the same method with squats, slow the movement down and let the muscles spend more time under tension and you’re going to be building bigger stronger legs.
Go to your 30 seconds intervals again only this time to just squats and now we’re doing cardio.
I’ll pop a video up here for you to give it a go.
It’s a 12-minute ab workout you can do at home with no equipment.
No, you don’t.
But you need to give your muscles some resistance and lifting heavy weights is the easiest way to do that.
I’ve been doing a big portion of my training with minimal equipment for a while now and I’ve been building muscle just fine.
In fact, get your FREE copy of my EBook ‘Train Wherever The F*ck You Want‘ And see just how I do it.
With just a packet of resistance, I can give my full-body an amazing workout anywhere!
Just by slowing down bodyweight movements and spending more time under tension, you are going to be building muscle.
And as long as you pair this kind of training with a high protein, calories surplus diet you will build muscle.
A calorie surplus is when you eat more than your body is burning.
This is one part of how we build muscle.
It’s not going to matter what sort of training you’re doing if you’re not eating enough to fuel muscle growth.
Even using steroids is not going to do much if you’re not eating enough.
Your muscles need protein to repair the damage done to them by training.
And they need fuel to grow.
When you train our muscles we are quite literally tearing them.
So when we rest our body goes into repair mode, ensuring that our muscles grow back bigger and stronger to handle the same tasks again.
Without protein and enough fuel to assist the repair work you’re really not achieving as much as you think in your workout.
Remember you gain weight you need to eat in a calorie surplus.
But to lose weight you need to eat in a calorie deficit.
But be careful, if you don’t have much muscle on you and decide you want abs, you’ll burn a whole lot of fat and end up looking gaunt.
Having low body fat is how you see your abs.
But if you don’t have muscle size in your muscles your abs aren’t going to look that great are they.
You’ll just be another skinny guy with abs.
So check out my article on being skinny fat to see my solution to this common problem.
Getting ripped at home without equipment is fine.
Using minimal equipment is fine as well.
