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The Way I Chow

I have a huge appetite and I have to be very strict when it comes to food choices and portion control. I’ve been eating 4 - 5 meals a day for a few years now to cope with being constantly hungry.

Tom Venuto (the fat-loss guru) focuses on metabolism and it’s rate to tackle the problem. I haven’t read the actual e-book “Burn the Fat Feed the Muscle” but I’ve read tons of his articles and find them very motivational. While it’s arguable that the metabolic rate is the key, there is no doubt that he possesses a wealth of knowledge on nutrition and exercise as well as how to motivate people to exercise and keep a calorie deficit.

Similarly, reading Muscle Chow confirmed some of my practices and motivated me to stay away from fattening processed foods. I’ve been doing the ripped phase for a week now and can see a visible result. Although I’m not ripped yet the fat tissue on my body softened considerably and decreased.

Below are some of the highlights for me, things that I’m putting into practice:

• I like the 2-month-cycle idea with it’s 3 phases – relaxed, lean and ripped.

• The daily meal breakdown really helped me. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner stay as the pillar meals but are reduced to 2/3 in size and healthy protein snacks are added 3 hours after each pillar meal. I tailored it to fit my day by starting at 9:00 a.m. breakfast vs. 7 a.m. and skipping the midmorning snack.

• All meals are built around a protein source while including as much veggies as possible. If enjoying a complex carbs meal (pasta, bread, potatoes) do it immediately after a workout. Here is an example:

o 9:00 a.m.: Breakfast – oats and whey protein powder
o 12:00 p.m.: Lunch – meat or poultry and veggies
o 3:00 p.m.: Midafternoon Snack – small salad and tuna
o 5:00 p.m.: Preworkout Snack – eggs & a piece of fruit
o 7:30 p.m.: Postworkout Snack – whole grain flowerless sandwich
o 8:30 p.m.: Dinner – salad w fish or chicken
o 10:30 P.m.: Evening Snack – cottage cheese w fruit

• You can eat up to 6 eggs at a sitting but have to throw away at least 4 of the yolks.

o Yolks are not bad for you but have a lot of calories so if you are trying to stay lean keep a ratio 6/1 whites to yolks.
o Always keep hardboiled eggs as an available snack in your fridge.

• No beef or pork while trying to get ripped.

• A serving of meat, poultry, or fish is around 6 ounces (1 pond = 16 ounces); add a cup of veggies and you have a meal. I gage it by a cup of cubed meat too.

• I stopped using salt – cold turkey – I put the salt away in the unreachable cupboard above the stove vent. I’m also trying to buy low sodium or no sodium condiments. This is not believed to make you lose weight but helps you get read of some of the retained water.

Muscle Chow by Gregg Avedon

I shared that I got a book about nutrition, how to eat in order to get rid off body fat but keep the muscle. I found out about Gregg Avedon’s Muscle Chow book while reading Marc David’s blog -Bodybuilding Secrets Live. He had a nice, intense entry about it and grabbed my attention.

I cook a lot, I enjoy it, I know a great deal about cooking, but needed a fresh perspective. What sold it for me in Marc’s blog entry was the variety of quick recipes he mentions.

What I love about the book is that it contains no fluff and it’s very much to the point. I really dislike books full of factless pages of pep talk and endless paraphrases. Greg writes non of that.

Muscle Chow is a well rounded tool, which provides explanations of how things work, a program and “150 easy to follow recipes.” As Marc David explains the book is for guys who workout, don’t have a lot of time to cook but want to stay healthy, burn fat and feed their muscles.

I was familiar with most of the information in the book but it’s very motivational. I read it in one seating, it’s very engaging and informative. One of the best 20 bucks I ever spent, I strongly recommend it! I’ll share some of the changes I mad in my eating habits as a result.

A Few Pointers for the CPA Exam

• Find your pace in grasping the concepts and make your main goal to solve all the questions in the software.

• When you schedule your exam, taka a calendar and graph the chapters. Keep track of your progress and make sure you have at least 2 weeks to review. You can also use the Becker “Set up study plan” tool.

• You should get familiar with the Becker software. You should know the following:

o Review Class Notes
o Progress Test
o Simulated Exam
o Work Simulations
o Final Exams

• Skim thought the material for a subchapter in the textbook, and do the question for this subchapter before moving to the next one.

• Don’t spend a lot of time reading the book or making notes, focus on answering 100% of the questions to the best of your abilities.

• Do a s many questions per day as possible (this is your main goal). Also know why an answer is the correct and why the incorrect are so; read the explanations and study them. This is more efficient way of using your time than studying the book. Of course, if unfamiliar with a concept refer to the book.

• Since you are not likely to answer the subchapter questions @ 100%, do not redo the incorrectly answered ones immediately. Instead, continue with the next subchapter. I tend to remember the position of the correct answer and this is why I don’t recommend redoing the questions the same day. Give yourself a day or two to forget the sequential position of the correct answer and test yourself again. Let’s say you were able to plug through the questions of 4 subchapters with a 60% success rate in a day. Do not get discouraged because you are learning not testing! The next day, use the “Review Class Notes” as a glossary and redo the incorrectly answered question and move to the next subchapters. At the end of the day redo the still incorrectly answered questions from the day before. This way you would redo the difficult for you questions but would work on memorizing the concepts not the sequential position of the multiple choice answers.

• While speed is imperative for the exam itself, I wouldn’t worry with timing myself. Speed becomes a natural side effect of having to do thousands of questions. You’ll get so burned out on doing questions that you would automatically specialize in reading and solving them as quickly as possible.

• A very good trick for speed is to read the question part of the problem first and search for the answer based on that.

• Keep an eye on the Becker website for updates on the material.

• I only find it helpful to make notes of formulas and mnemonics that help me answer the questions, rather than while going over the textbook.

• I always did the supplementary questions before moving onto the next chapter because thy are include in the progress tests and the simulated tests.

• Do a progress test to-date before moving to the next chapter. For example, run a chapter 1- 3 progress test before moving onto chapter 4.

• Break up your question doing with looking at the simulations. Don’t be afraid of them because they are simply multiple choice questions but in a different format. Learn how to work the different tabs and get familiar with them.

• If you have followed your schedule and have 2 weeks to review start by doing a few Simulated Exams. The software generates 100 question tests covering all the chapters. I would refrain from doing anymore progress tests because I feel they are limited on the range of questions drawn. Then use 2 days to do the 2 Final Exams that look and feel exactly as the actual exam. Do not get discouraged if you score lower than you expect because these exams are extra difficult.

• Here is where the note-taking is crucial. Make notes on all incorrect answers, and study them.

• Continue with the Simulated Exams and make notes for each incorrect answer.

• Do the AICPA released questions that can be found on the Becker website as a make-me-feel-good tool in contrast of the Final Exam.

• At this point you should be at minimum of a 86% success rate on your Simulated Exams.

For the actual exam I can only give the following general but very important pointers:

• Get enough sleep the night before.

• Do not go on empty stomach, but don’t drink coffee, if possible, since is a diuretic and ideally you shouldn’t break because every second is literary precious.

• Get to the examination facility at least 30 min prior your scheduled appointment, there is paperwork and procedures, which could easily upset you if running late.

• Make sure you wear your most comfortable cloths.

• You cannot bring anything with you, including watch, calculator, earplugs, your lucky pen, etc. You will be provided with them by the facility.

• Under no circumstances dwell on a question, always move forward and keep in mind that you have a better chance of guessing than not answering, because unanswered questions is counted as incorrect.

• Do your best to get enough time to work on both simulations.

I’m a 4/4 CPA

Originally I was aiming to sit for all 4 parts of the CPA exam within a year (2008). I wanted to space them 3 months apart – end of February, May, August and November. However, I went home to Bulgaria for a month and a half in September and started a new job upon my return in mid October, so I pushed the last part of the exam in January of 2009.

I had passed BEC, FAR (the hardest and most voluminous part), and Audit exams from the first try. I had a system of studying and I had a lot of time to study for the Regulation or REG part (Federal taxation and Business Law, both strong subjects for me), I felt prepared and I was confident I’ll pass. So, why did I fail, falling short by 1 point?

Since I had a lot of time to prepare and I used it very wisely it’s is very difficult to answer the above question. In short, it had to do with feeling relaxed at the exam and bad luck. I really hate to say that there is a luck factor to the exam but I can’t help it. I was really disturbed, not by the sheer failing but by the fact that I had studied very hard, I didn’t omit anything from the material, not event the minutest detail. I was trying to figure what I should do differently because I started studying the material over the day I found out my score.

Here are a couple of things to keep in mind if you take longer than a year: the Becker software expires in a year and you only have 18 months to pass all 4 parts of the exam before you start loosing parts. If you stretch over a year you are running the risk of not being able to use your one most important tool – the Becker software – you cannot do the questions. Also if for whatever reason you fail a part, that gives you only 2 other attempts to pass it.

Fortunately, the luck of the draw has nothing to do with solid knowledge acquired with a lot of effort and perseverance. I sat for REG in the beginning of January ’09 and didn’t get my results until the end of March ’09. That makes for whole 3 months to forget. My biggest problem was the worry that I had studied so hard the firs time around and that I must have done something wrong but didn’t know what. I struggled with this for the first few days but then submerged in studying and got encouraged by the fact that I remembered most everything and didn’t need to refer to the book but just did the problems. I sat for REG again on May 1, 2009 and passed it with strong 85 points! The score is not really important but in this case it felt like a retribution because I knew the material.

Fitness Research

I officially opened the 4th-of-July-Madness season in the beginning of March with my first outdoors run on 03/07/09 but my real work started 2 months later on the internet.

During busy season at work I felt demotivated at the gym and I felt like nothing can bring the excitement back. I tried the usual, changing the gym, pulling out programs that worked for me in the past, talking to my friends, working out with a buddy.

I was treating the symptoms and not the cause. I had hit an utter mental and physical plateau. The only way to get out is to shock yourself out and not merely to try variations on what have worked in the past and stay comfortable.

I’ve been actively exercising for a few years now but haven’t read consistently on the topic. I’d read bits and pieces, here and there, just enough to make me feel that there is a whole slue of new ideas and approaches to training that I’m missing on.

I needed a drastic change in my workout routine, I wanted to do it the right way by reading and educating myself but didn’t know where to start. I’m gonna save you the portrayal of the whole research process, the endless hours browsing the internet and the trips to the library. Yes, I said the library, the internet is a wonderful place to do a preliminary research and get a direction but if you want the real story you have to get it in a book. In other words there is no free lunch.

During my preliminary research I determined that I needed a current book that includes a program of exercises (this is the part you pay for) but an intermediate/advanced level book, not for beginners. Simultaneously, I realized that I can use a book that sums up the experience of a well built nutritionist. As a result of my long research, here’s what I got:

“Maximum Strength: Get Your Strongest Body in 16 Weeks with the Ultimate Weight Training Program” by Eric Cressey,

And

Men’s Health “Muscle Chow: More Than 150 Meals to Feed Your Muscles and Fuel Your Workouts” by Gregg Avedon.

In addition, I discovered some of the most credible and interesting blogs on the subject. While I’m sure there’re more, these are the 6 that I started reading and make up a somewhat diversified portfolio of knowledge base:

Performance and Health on a Whole New Level – Eric Cressey

Burn the Fat Blog – Tom Venuto

The Brinkzone Blog – Will Brink

Natural Bodybuilding with Marc David

StrongLifts.com - Mehdi

World Fitness Network

A Cyclical Pattern

I’ve noticed a cyclical pattern in my body and how I responds to the seasons. I’m less motivated, have less energy in the winter, and wake up in the spring. I don’t really deviate more than 5 – 10 lbs but it’s usually not just muscle.

Foodwise, I prepare 95% of the meals I eat year round on weekly basis. That provides me with a steady flow of healthy diet rich in raw fruits, veggies, and nuts, as well as poultry, meat and fish. This fact leads me to conclude that I gain weight /fat when I deviate from my regimen and add extra processed foods.

It’s not like I don’t have an appetite! I do and I can eat quantities. The longer I don’t eat for, the more food it takes to settle the hunger. Hence, being structured and bringing my meals is crucial. It’s easy for me to get overwhelmed when presented with many food choices, at a cafeteria, and make a bad one.

Unfortunately, I’m a all in or all out guy. If there is junk food around, I either don’t touch it at all or I EAT. Busy-season at work = stress + ton of junk food around. When I get mentally overwhelmed my guard falls and I give in to temptation. Once I start eating the pizza and the sandwiches, not far behind are rolling the bagels, the donuts with their kids the munchkins, the granola bars, and the candy.

The above is why I don’t keep junk food in my house, which is at times inconvenient because that includes everything you usually entertain guests with. I never have sweets, juice, soda, cheese or crackers in my house. For one thing it wouldn’t last long, lol.

Of course I’m also lucky in some ways. I never crave pasta, alcohol and soda. More importantly I derive an immense amount of pleasure out of eating healthy. I can eat the same exact thing for breakfast or lunch 5 time a week, no problem. I almost never get tired of eating salad. I’ve been eating salad twice a day for probably 5 years now.

Having said all of that, I had to change something. More about that in a following entry.

Trying to Workout the Tax Season Out of Me

There was the May birthdays celebration, with cake, at work that I missed because I was at the gym in my lunch break. I’m sorry I missed it because I didn’t get to greet my coworkers born in May but I’m happy I did because I’m still working the tax season fat out.

I can say that I didn’t gain as much fat as I usually do this winter but I still had a lot of fat to trim to get to bathing-suit-season shape.

I’m definitely a stress eater. While I’m sure there is much professional research on the topic, here’s my dilettante take on it:
When stressed and mentally overworked, I lose focus of healthy eating and feel hungrier. Thus I eat more. The second and most detrimental effect of losing focus is that I crave junk food, I find a way to justify it and I eat it! In other words, Losing the focus = I don’t care; it feels like the cost to benefit analysis slopes toward I rather satisfy the craving than keep lean.

I often hear people refuse to grasp the concept of discipline and how it relates to making exceptions. A good example being “what’s the harm of a singular donut or a slice of pizza? It’s not gonna make you fat!” The key is in the principle. You justify an excuse for a bad meal or skip a workout and you are sloping downwards. That is not to say that one should never make a conscious decision to eat any delicious junk food but let it be that – a conscious decision, like one a week but accounted for. There are even current theories how this can boost your metabolism.