7 Secrets To Lose Belly Fat
Ladies and Gentlemen – I would like to present to you Brad Gouthro!
Sexy Abs, Clean Living, Canadian Fitness Guru and one of my most favorite personal trainers around who motivates ME to get MY butt to the gym.
Brad and I met a few months back and really clicked as we tend to have a lot of the same views and opinions when it comes to health and fitness. In spirit of the release of his new book “Awaken The Abs Within – 7 Secrets to Losing Belly Fat“, I thought it would be fun to interview him and introduce him to you all.
I am VERY excited for the launch of his book and after writing this post, I will be buying it immediately. Brad isn’t just a pretty face ladies – He has the smarts to back it up and I am very interested to know his approach towards getting lean abs. He told me he poured his heart and soul and everything he has learned into this book and I truly value and trust his opinion. I hope that he will be able to teach me some new tricks and tips that will help me help my own clients reach their goals of flat tummys!
M: Brad, tell my readers a little bit about yourself including your fitness and nutrition background – a lot of people believe that all personal trainers are just genetically gifted – what’s your story?
B: As a kid I was always involved in competitive sports. Even though I was a decent athlete, I was always self-conscience of my body. I had one of those hybrid body types where I was skinny all over EXCEPT my pudgy belly. This low self-esteem turned me into the kid who would never be seen with his shirt off. Fortunately, one of the things I did have going for me was my ambition and drive to continuously improve in all aspects of my life. The area I needed most help with was my self-esteem. This began my journey to become properly educated in health, fitness, and nutrition.
I began training over 12 years ago. But believe me, I wasn’t training SMART for those entire 12 years. I became so confused and frustrated with all the conflicting information and lack of results that I almost gave up. I then had an epiphany. Why should I listen to other people’s advice when I was in better shape than most of them (and that wasn’t saying much)? I finally realized that I needed ONE (and only one) mentor that was getting the results that I wanted. Once I found this mentor and got properly educated in fitness and nutrition, my body transformation literally took off. I’m currently a certified personal trainer and a certified nutrition and wellness specialist with clients all over the world. I’m owner of Brad Gouthro Fitness, a publishing and training company that specializes in helping people lose belly fat, build six pack abs, and live life to their fullest potential. I was voted one of the top trainers based on my nutrition and exercise techniques, and was featured as a cover model on the Lean Muscle Hybrid fitness system. In Awaken The Abs Within – 7 Secrets To Lose Belly Fat, I share these exact secrets that I use everyday that transformed my physique.
M: In your program you say low calorie diets, excessive cardio, and countless crunches ARE NOT the way to a flat stomach and six pack abs. Your approach would surprise a lot of people. Can you explain this further?
B: In the Awaken The Abs Within program, cardio and abs training ARE a component of the program. But it’s not the main piece of the puzzle that most people should be focusing the majority of their time on. This is where too many people get confused. To find your abs you first need to lose the excessive belly fat covering them. Focusing the majority of your time on crunches will not burn enough calories to burn belly fat. To get the most out of your workouts, people should be focusing on multi-joint exercises that recruit more than one muscle. This will stimulate the greatest fat burning and hormonal response in the body, sparks your metabolism at a higher rate, and thus burns more overall calories.
After you focus the majority of your time on these multi-joint exercises, you can then spend the final 5-10 minutes directly strengthening your abs. The point is, abdominal training should be a smaller portion of your overall training session.
With regards to cardio, too many people (especially females) are missing out on the golden nugget of adding lean muscle mass. Lean muscle is the metabolic driver of the body. This simply means the more muscle you have on your body, the more calories you’ll burn throughout the day. If you’re a female, you WILL NOT grow He-Man like muscles by lifting weights. Females don’t produce enough testosterone to grow large muscle like males.
Excessive cardio can also catabolize (breakdown) muscle tissue. This will slow your metabolism and essentially creates a smaller fat version of your original self.
Finally, one of the most important aspects of the program is diet. Most people think in order to lose fat they need to starve themselves. This couldn’t be further from the truth. When you starve yourself, you’re actually creating a fat storing environment within your body. Essentially your body enters starvation mode and holds on to everything. Your body then attacks your muscle cells, thus reducing lean muscle tissue, which decreases your metabolism and throws your fat burning hormones and enzymes out of whack. For optimal fat loss, you need to consistently eat healthy whole foods.
If you’re looking to get lean, focus your time on eating the right TYPES of foods, in the right QUANTITIES, at the right TIMES. And make sure you spend the majority of your exercise time performing the right kind of multi-joint exercises and compliment that with a few minutes of ab work and a few sessions of cardio per week.
I show you all the right types of fat loss foods, full body and abdominal workouts, and cardio programs to burn belly fat and much morein the Awaken The Abs Within program.
M: How many times per week do you recommend people train their abs? Should people change their abs routine?
B: It really depends on your current situation and goals. As mentioned earlier, direct training of your abs is just a small piece of the overall puzzle. Once you get your body fat levels low enough, you can begin to create more definition by directly training your abs. I personally, train my abs 4-5 times a week and continuously train them using different variations, reps, sets, etc. However, for someone that is carrying a lot of body fat over their abs, I recommend they spend more time performing multi-joint exercises to create a higher caloric burn.
M: How important is diet in getting a lean stomach and six pack abs? Can you provide any diet tips/insights from your book?
B: Diet is the area that most people are confused about. Getting abs is 80% diet and 20% exercise. This is why I’ve devoted such a large percentage of this book to nutrition. I always say, “Abs are made in the kitchen…not in the gym”. I see many of the same people in the gym everyday. But the thing is, their body never changes. Even though they may be working out hard at the gym, they probably have terrible eating habits. In Awaken The Abs Within, I’ve created a unique nutrition principle called TQT. It stands for eating the right TYPES of food, in the right QUANTITIES, at the right TIMES. Most people will be surprised at the quantity of food they should be eating to lose belly fat. You will never starve on this program. Following the TQT principles outlined in this book will ensure you keep your hormones balanced and create a fat burning environment within your body.
In this program I also provide a full list of the best fat burning foods including their protein, carb, fat, and calorie breakdown. I provide a sample meal plan and take you step by step through how to create your very own customized meal plan. I also show you how to calculate the quantity of food you should be eating at each meal based on your current body characteristics and lifestyle requirements. Lastly, I discuss when certain foods should be eaten and the types of foods to avoid at other times. By following the principles outlined in Awaken The Abs Within, it will take all the confusion out of proper nutrition planning. Most importantly, these strategies are implementable over the long-term and can be apart of your everyday lifestyle.
My main nutrition tip is to eat natural whole foods. You’d be amazed at the results you can get from adding more lean protein and dropping processed junk food and soda out of your diet.
M: Do your 7 secrets to lose belly fat apply to both males and females? What about beginners and more advanced fitness enthusiasts?
B: Yes. It doesn’t matter if you’re male or female, beginner or advanced. There is something for everyone in Awaken The Abs Within. I include over 30 weeks of workouts in this book. If you’re a beginner, you can start from week one. You don’t even need a gym membership to do these workouts. If you’re more advanced, you can skip right to the intermediate or advanced workouts. All of these workouts are designed to stimulate the body to burn fat and build lean muscle.
I also provide meal planning examples based on male and female requirements.
M: What inspired you to write this book?
B: Fitness and nutrition is my passion. I live and breathe this stuff every day. More importantly, I understand the confusion and frustration that so many people are going through when it comes to fitness and nutrition. I experienced it first hand during my journey to a healthier lifestyle. Based on questions I receive daily from my clients, my social networks, and people at the gym, it’s apparent there is mass confusion surrounding fitness and nutrition. To help clear up all this confusion, I’ve literally downloaded everything that has worked for me and my clients in this book. It’s my hope that other people can take what I’ve learned and apply it to their current situation to create a healthier lifestyle.
M: There are a lot of fitness and nutrition books/programs on the market. What can people expect from “Awaken The Abs Within – 7 Steps To Lose Belly Fat”, what makes it different, and how can they get a copy of the book/program?
B: I don’t make any false claims. I’m very upfront that Awaken The Abs Within creates a lifestyle that is implementable over the long-term. I promise, you won’t starve, you won’t be at the gym for 4 hours a day, and you won’t be stuck eating only celery sticks. You can accomplish incredible things by having a good balance of exercise, a kitchen full of healthy whole foods, and most importantly, a positive can-do attitude. I teach you how to accomplish all aspects of this in this book. To this day, I still incorporate all 7 secrets into my everyday lifestyle and I love the maintainable results that I’m getting.
You can pick up a copy of the full Awaken The Abs Within e-book program at www.awakentheabswithin.com. There’s also a 60 day money back guarantee if you’re not satisfied with all the hard work that I’ve spent over the last year writing this book.
M: Finally, what are your top 3 pieces of advice to lose belly fat and awaken the abs within that you’d like to leave my readers with?
B: Even though Awaken The Abs Within is packed with tips and strategies to lose belly fat and get a flat stomach, here are my 3 top tips:
1. Eat whole foods. Get the processed foods out of your kitchen. Don’t even bring them into your house. This especially includes soda.
2. Make the most of your time in the gym. Always try to improve on the previous workout by doing one more rep, increasing the weight, or increasing the intensity of your routine. Always be improving!
3. Believe you can do it. I know it sounds cheesy but it’s so incredibly important. Find people getting the results you want (I hope I can be that person) and study what they’re doing in their lifestyle.
Thank you SO much Brad for taking the time to answer some of my questions – I am really excited to start reading your book!
And OF COURSE when i’m done reading I will definitely do a review!
– Although this diet is slightly higher and fat that what I would personally choose, I love that they teach MAINTENANCE and work in phases. It’s within safe parameters and most people don’t find it too difficult to follow.
