Scott Tom Super Lean2

Copyright © 2008 Fitness Renaissance, LLC
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, except for the inclusion of brief
quotations in a review, without permission in writing from the author or publisher.
Published by Tom Venuto and Burn The Fat Enterprises (a division of Fitness Renaissance, LLC)
in the United States of America.
Editor: Lee A. Howard (lee_allen_howard@yahoo.com)
A WORD OF CAUTION: DISCLAIMER
This book is for reference and informational purposes only and is no way intended as medical
counseling or medical advice. The information contained herein should not be used to treat,
diagnose, or prevent a disease or medical condition without the advice of a competent medical
professional. This book deals with in-depth information on health, fitness, and nutrition. Most of
the information applies to everyone in general; however, not everyone has the same body type.
We each have different responses to exercise depending on our choice of intensity and diet.
Before making any changes in your lifestyle, you should consult with a physician to discover the
best solution for your individual body type. The author, writer, editors, and graphic designer shall
have neither liability nor responsibility to any person or entity with respect to any damage or
injury alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by the information contained in this book.
Super Lean 2
Secrets of Achieving Very Low Body Fat
This special e-book is one of many Burn the Fat interviews

featured inside the Burn the Fat Inner Circle: The Internet’s
Premier Fat Loss Support Community and Education Center.
To see more incredible resources like this one, visit:
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BURN
THE FAT
FEED
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THE MUSCLE
auction, share, or give away this ebook.Violators will be prosecuted to the fullest
extent of the law!
Super Lean 2
Introduction
In January of 2007, I was invited by my colleague Scott Colby to
take part in what turned out to be the most popular fitness
teleseminar of the year, The Ultimate Body Makeover. I was in
good company among about a dozen of the world’s top fitness
experts who were each interviewed live for one hour. After the
teleseminar was over, we reformatted our interview into a special
MP3 audio and PDF e-book program called Super Lean: Secrets of
Achieving Very Low Body Fat.
In November of 2007, I was invited back to speak a second time

on a new teleseminar series called Amazing Abs Formula. Due to
the immense popularity of the first seminar, we received far more
questions than we could answer. After hearing so much positive
feedback about the subject matter, we decided that instead of
changing the theme, we would pick up right where we left off and
continue to answer the rest of the questions we had received for
the first seminar. The final result was a total of two hours of
spoken material about one important topic: How to reach very low
body fat levels. Once again, we transcribed the second audio into
this e-book format so you could enjoy reading this information as
well as listening to it.
Part two of the Super Lean program begins by exposing the truth
about fat loss plateaus. Most people hit a plateau in progress and
they blame it on all the wrong things. The truth is, it all boils down
to one factor, which is revealed in the first part of this program. By
understanding the biological basis for slow fat loss and plateaus,
you will never have to guess about the best plateau-breaking
strategy ever again. Should you do more cardio, do more weight
training, manipulate your diet, or something completely different?
Now you’ll know for sure.
Next, you’ll hear some advanced tactics to prepare for the final
week before a photo shoot or competition, including strategies for
timing the peak, advice on water, sodium, and carb intake, as well
as the proper final week training approach. There are also a few
things you shouldn’t do, which could destroy weeks or months of
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illegal to re-sell, auction, share, or give away this ebook.Violators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law!
Super Lean 2
hard work and actually make you look worse. If you compete, or if
you just want to look your best on one day for a special event or
photo shoot, this is must-know information.
A part of this program that may surprise you is when you learn
that you can eat chocolate, ice cream, or pizza and still get six-
pack abs. It all has to do with the laws of thermodynamics and
how they apply to nutrition. There is a critical difference between
saying “calories don’t count” and “don’t count calories.” If you
don’t get this, you will probably continue to struggle with fat loss.
If you do get this, you’ll realize that you never have to deny or
deprive yourself again as long as you obey one important rule
about calories.
In Super Lean part 2, you’ll also learn about the “health/body fat
paradox,” “the 10% solution”, the “buffet effect,” the facts about
dieting and muscle loss (and 7 ways to prevent it), the truth about
concurrent endurance and strength training, the pros and cons of
eating the same thing every day, and much, much more. This
interview is jam-packed with tips and goes into great detail about
how and why every one of these fat burning strategies works so
well.
Last, but not least, when you get near the end, be sure that you take
my closing comments to heart because success is an attitude and
mindset, not just a technique or a strategy.
I believe this is one of the most valuable and informative

interviews I have ever done. It’s a great mix of the practical and
the scientific, so you’ll know what to do to get super lean as well
as why you’re doing it.
Train hard and expect success always,
Tom Venuto
www.BurnTheFat.com
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Super Lean 2
Super Lean 2
Secrets of Achieving Very Low Body Fat
SCOTT COLBY: Welcome, everybody, again, to the Amazing Abs Formula

Teleseminar. My name is Scott Colby, and we are here with a
really special guest, Tom Venuto. Many people on this call are
probably familiar with Tom, because he’s very well known as a
fat-loss expert, natural bodybuilder and the author of the
bestselling e-book, Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle, which you
can find online at www.BurnTheFat.com. Tom’s newest website
is www.BurnTheFatInnerCircle.com, which is a members-only
online fitness community for people following the Burn the Fat
program, or for anyone who wants answers to questions about diet
and training and anyone who wants ongoing support and
motivation.
Tom has been in the trenches himself for years, but he also has the
academic background to go with it. He received his bachelor’s
degree in Exercise Science. He’s certified through the NSCA as a
Personal Trainer and a Strength and Conditioning Specialist, and
he’s a member of the American College of Sports Medicine, the
International Sports Sciences Association, and all of the major
obesity research societies. Tom is a lifetime natural bodybuilder,
so he definitely practices what he preaches. He’s had his body fat
tested numerous times at below 4%, and on that note, this call
today is going to focus primarily on questions about how to get
very lean, single-digit body fat, or even competition or photo-
shoot ready. So it’s with great pleasure that I welcome Tom Venuto
to the call. Tom, thanks for being with us.
TOM VENUTO: Thank you, Scott. I appreciate you asking me back for a second
call.
SCOTT COLBY: Definitely, and I know you’re busy, so I appreciate you taking an
hour of your time to be here. Like we alluded to, Tom was a guest
on the Ultimate Body Makeover Teleseminar Series. We got so
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many questions we didn’t really have time to finish them, and in

that call we talked about how to get single-digit body fat levels. So
for this second call, we decided to take some of the questions that
we didn’t get around to last time and keep going on the same
theme. We got a lot of great questions from listeners, and I’m
excited to have you on the call, Tom. So are you ready to rock ‘n
roll?
TOM VENUTO: I’m ready.
SCOTT COLBY: All right, perfect. The first question says, “Tom, I know you often
say that to get to the point to be able to see your abs, you need to
get to single-digit body fat. What if I hit a plateau at about 11-12%
body fat? What do I need to do to get over the hump and get it
down to single digits? Should I do more cardio, more weight
training, manipulate my diet somehow? Thank you for your
answer.”
TOM VENUTO: You could do any of the above. You could manipulate your diet.
You could add cardio, the duration or frequency. You could
increase cardio intensity. You could change your weight training.
You really shouldn’t limit yourself. One of the things I see with
quite a few weight loss programs is that they’re too dogmatic. If
you hit a plateau, the person who has the most flexibility in their
approach is the person who’s going to be most likely to succeed at
getting through that plateau. The first thing though is to
understand what a plateau really is. This is important, because if
you were losing weight, but now you’re not losing weight, there’s
only one thing that this could mean: you were in a calorie deficit
but you’re no longer in a calorie deficit. You may be wondering
why that happens.
First, your metabolism can slow down. If you’ve been cutting

calories, especially if you cut them severely, your body adapts by
decreasing the metabolic rate. That’s sometimes known as the
starvation response. But that’s never enough to completely cause a
plateau. So you can’t say, “I’ve been on a very low calorie diet, so
my metabolism slowed down and that’s why I’m at a plateau.” It is
one factor, though, and your deficit could have gotten smaller as a
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result, so your weight loss may have slowed down, but it won’t
completely plateau.
The second thing to realize is that your calorie needs are directly
tied into your body weight. One problem is that when people lose
a lot of weight, they tend to keep eating the same way they were
eating when they were heavier. So they’re feeding a smaller
person the way they were when they were a bigger person. And
the problem is when you’re a smaller person, you don’t need as
many calories because calorie needs are not just tied into lean
body mass, but tied into total body mass. So that’s another thing
that has shrunk your calorie deficit.
A third thing is that when you move that smaller body, you’re not
burning as many calories. If you strap on a weighted vest, like an
X Vest and go out and hike up a hill, you can tell, obviously, that if
you’re lugging around extra weight, you’re burning more calories.
It’s the same when you have a lot of body weight. That’s a third
reason.
Fourth, and this one requires a little bit of intellectual honesty, is

that most people either cheat on their diets or forget to record part
of their food intake. Even if they don’t do it intentionally and they
don’t “cheat” per se, unconsciously, we’re all pretty terrible at
estimating how much food we eat. Some studies have showed
underreporting as much as 50%. In other words, you say, “I’m at a
plateau, and I’m only eating 1,200 calories a day,” but you’re
really eating 1,800 calories a day and this is very, very common,
and it’s been tested many times in the scientific research. The
thing is, all of this gets amplified in the later stages of a diet,
because biologically speaking, your body is doing everything it
possibly can to get you to go off your diet and to get weight loss to
slow down, because your body likes being in a state of
homeostasis.
I’m really big on personal responsibility and never making

excuses. But if you want to blame your biology in this case, you
wouldn’t be wrong because, after a long period of dieting and after
a large weight loss, your body cranks up the appetite, your body
tries to trick you into eating more. It’s controlled by hormones and
there’s not too much you can do about it. The leaner you get, the
Super Lean 2
more aggressively your body tends to defend its weight and any
remaining body fat. So it’s really common to hit that plateau when
you’re leaner. Usually it’s nowhere near as difficult for the
overweight person to start losing weight as it is for the lean person
to get ripped. If you think about it, it’s pretty unnatural from a
biological perspective to walk around with really low single-digit
body fat. Your body just doesn’t want to be there. So this
metabolic adaptation becomes more pronounced and you’re also at
a higher risk of losing muscle. If you look at it all from this
perspective, it gets really clear about why that last 10 pounds is so
hard to lose and why it’s hard to break into those single digits.
The answer is, you were in a deficit but for all of the reasons we
mentioned, you’re no longer in deficit. The way to break a plateau
then is simply to re-establish the deficit. The question was, “How
do I do that? More cardio, more weight training, manipulate my
diet?” You could do all of the above. Eating less or exercising
more can both increase a deficit. The one thing you might want to
do first, if you’ve been dieting for a long period of time, is give
yourself a little diet break. Take your calories up to maintenance
level, maybe for a week. The idea there is not to try to accelerate
fat loss, because what you’re actually doing is removing your
calorie deficit for a short period of time. What you’re trying to do
is facilitate the weight loss when you jump back into it. So give
yourself a little bit of a break. It gives your mind a break. It gives
your body a physiological break. It resets some of those starvation
hormones and stimulates your metabolism so when you go back to
the calorie deficit, your body responds again.
I also recommend, because so many people underestimate how

much they eat, that you don’t take any chances. Count your
calories, or at least become really aware of the portion sizes and
maybe even consider keeping a journal. You’ve probably been told
many times by a lot of different experts that you don’t have to
count calories. But when you’re in a plateau, I’d recommend that
you stop guessing and really get serious about what you’re taking
in.
What you need to do is reestablish that calorie deficit. Make sure

you’re in a deficit and use every tool at your disposal. Use both
sides of the energy balance equation. Use nutrition by pulling back
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Super Lean 2
your portion sizes. Or use cardio. And by increased cardio, I mean

increased energy expenditure. That’s not necessarily doing more
time. You could add days a week. You could increase your
frequency. You could increase your duration. But you could also
take the same amount of time that you’re spending right now and
increase your intensity. The whole idea is to increase energy
expenditure, which gives you your deficit back again or you can
pull back your food intake and give yourself a deficit again from
the food side. There’s more than one way to do it and I don’t think
that you should lock yourself in. Use all of the variables.
SCOTT COLBY: Tom, you make some great points. We could probably talk for an
hour just on that one question. But I wanted to make a couple of
comments myself. I think you make a great point about people
underestimating the amount of calories they’re eating. I just saw
an article on the Internet. It was actually like one of those video
news stories and it was about Subway, the restaurant chain. And it
was how many people think they’re eating healthy when they go
to Subway. And there are ways to eat healthy when you do go
there. But there was a medical expert who was interviewing
people who were eating there who had a foot-long sub with a lot of
fixings on it. They added mayonnaise and things like that, and they
had potato chips and a soda. And these people were estimating
they were eating about 400 calories, but in reality, they were eating
about 1,350 calories, and they were shocked at how many calories
they were eating and they were underestimating by about
1,000 calories. So I think you make a great point—especially
when people eat out—you don’t really know how many grams of
fat, how many calories you’re putting in your body when you’re
eating out.
As far as your cardio goes, to manipulate the intensity is a great

idea. I just finished my own 12-week body transformation where I
was trying to get my abs as lean as possible. I’m fairly fit to begin
with so I do a lot of interval training on a treadmill. So I was able
to, pretty much from the beginning, set the treadmill speed as fast
as the machine would allow me to, which was about 11 miles an
hour when I was doing my intense portion of the intervals. But if I
just maintained that 11 miles an hour for my intense portion of the
interval training all 12 weeks, eventually I was probably going to
Super Lean 2
hit a plateau. So I had to do what you suggested and manipulate

the intensity. Since I was already going as fast the machine would
allow, I would do other things like increase the incline while I was
running fast or put on a weighted vest, like you mentioned, while I
was doing my interval training. As you become familiar with
weight training, you get stronger, so you need to increase weight
as you go along. With your interval training, or any type of cardio
training, you’re going to have to adjust the intensity as you get
more fit. I think people listening will definitely see differences in
their abs if they just do some of the things that Tom suggested. So
this is really good; I liked your answers on those questions.
We had another question come in. It says, “If you were going for a
photo-shoot, what are some of the things you can do on that week
before your photo-shoot to look as lean and ripped as possible?”
I’ve heard things like you can change your hydration level; how
much water you’re drinking or you shouldn’t eat salt. Any tricks
you can share with the listeners on how to look as lean and ripped
as possible about a week before a photo-shoot?
TOM VENUTO: Sure. A lot of things you’d do before a photo-shoot would be the
same things a bodybuilder like myself would do before a
competition. So, for any event where you want to peak, some of
these same principles would apply. But the real answer is to be
lean and ripped, at least a week before the shoot or competition,
and even better still, 2 weeks before.
If I had a dime for every person who said they were “holding
water” the week before a show, but they still were carrying body
fat, I’d be a very rich man. The real question first, before anything
else is, “Are you lean enough?” A lot of that has to do with
allowing enough time to get ready. There’s nothing much you can
do in the last week that’s going to take care of excess body fat.
There’s only so much body fat you can lose in the final week.
What happens is people will get to 7 days out and look at
themselves and say, “Man, I need to look better,” and that will
trigger what I call “scrambling behaviors.” I have seen people do
all kinds of crazy “voodoo” stuff the week before a show, to try
and get in shape at the last minute. I’m sure you know what I’m
talking about, because it happens in everyday life all the time. Any
time you wait till the last minute for anything, as soon as you start
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Super Lean 2
facing a deadline, you start running around like a maniac and you
do things you normally wouldn’t do, and you end up messing
things up and looking worse in the case of your body.
The fat has to be gone a week, better yet, 2 weeks out. Ultimately,
if you want to look your best, you’ve got to time it like that. The
timing is everything. You’ve got to get that fat off. Some people
are worried about that because they say, “I don’t want to peak too
early. If I get too lean too soon, then I’m going to be dieting myself
down further and I’ll look worse.” But that’s not really a concern
because if it were, then bodybuilders wouldn’t be able to hit 3 or 4
shows in a row and look better at each show, but they do that all
the time.
So number one is to make sure you’re lean enough, then you can
think about manipulating water and carbohydrates the last week.
What you want to do the final week is look full and dry. Those are
the two words to remember. That’s the opposite of looking flat and
bloated.
“Full” simply means that your glycogen levels are topped off,
which you achieve with some kind of carb-up, especially if you’ve
been on a low-carb diet. Most people with a goal to be totally
ripped are going to be on at least some kind of moderate carb
restriction. Some people are on severe carb restriction. One thing
you might do to look fuller is to carb up for 1 to 3 days before the
event, and then glycogen fills up in your muscles. The best
analogy is to think of what happens with a balloon when you blow
it up with air. The balloon, when it’s nearly empty and only has a
little bit of air in it, it’s kind of soft to the touch and it’s smaller
too. That’s the equivalent of having flat muscles. If you blow up
the balloon with air, it gets larger, but if you touch it when it’s
filled with air, it’s harder too. That’s the equivalent of having full
muscles. That’s exactly what happens when your muscles fill up
with glycogen.
The most common carb-up is about 3 days before the event. So, if
the event is on Saturday, you might carb up on Wednesday,
Thursday, and Friday. The amount of carbs is so individual it’s
hard to make a blanket recommendation. In my case, I might take
500 grams of carbs on a Wednesday and then adjust that according
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to how I look. To play it safe, I might do 400 grams on Thursday,

300 on Friday. That’s an average for me of about 2 to 2-1/2 grams
each day, per pound of body weight. It’s not the type of carb-
loading that a marathon runner might do. This is for physique. We
don’t want to take in too many carbs. When the glycogen is
already full, if you keep taking in more carbs, what happens is
what we call in bodybuilding, “spillover,” where you start
retaining water. So if you look flat 1 or 2 days before, just eat a
little bit more carbs. Take a look in the mirror and see how you
look. You should look full. And remember that balloon analogy if
you want to know if you’re full.
Now as far as being dry, this is where you have to be careful,

because when I say “dry,” it doesn’t necessary mean dehydrated; it
just means you don’t look bloated and you’re not retaining water
underneath the skin. What most people do is just avoid high
sodium foods in the 3 days before the event. To give you one
example, in the off season, I like to use the stuff called “Braggs
Liquid Amino Acids.” It sounds like a protein supplement, but
actually it’s really an all-natural type of soy sauce, and it’s loaded
with sodium. So high sodium condiments like this I cut out 3 days
beforehand. I don’t do any kind of fancy sodium-loading or
depletion, I just back off the high sodium foods. It helps to make
sure that you’re not retaining water the last few days.
With the water intake, there’s a lot of controversy about this. You
hear everything from “drink tons of water right up to the event” or
“cut back water only the night before” or “taper down over a few
days.” I’ve seen them all work, which just goes to show it’s very
individual and depends on the person. The best thing you could do
would be to take a dry run, maybe 3 weeks out, and see how you
body responds. To play it safe, most people can’t go wrong with
continuing to drink water and simply cutting water the night
before the show, just to make sure. Combined with your cutting
back on the sodium and carbing up, that’ll make sure that you’re
not retaining water underneath your skin.
The last thing is some people take an herbal diuretic. I’m talking
about the stuff you get in a health food store; I’m not talking about
prescription drugs. In the most popular ones, the ingredients
include uva ursi and dandelion root, or a mix of some other herbs
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Super Lean 2
and vitamins like B-6. Don’t take a prescription diuretic. I don’t

really know much about drugs, but I do know that they can be very
dangerous in the hands of somebody who doesn’t know how to use
them. I also know it’s a matter of public record that at least one pro
bodybuilder has died on the day of a competition because of using
prescription diuretics like Lasix, so don’t mess around. We’re
talking about natural herbs that can be found in the health food
store, and that might help a little bit, taken the day before.
To summarize the whole process, first, make sure you’re lean and
then come in full by carbing up and then come in dry, by knowing
how your body responds to water and backing off on sodium for a
few days. You also might experiment with an herbal diuretic. The
worst thing you can do is start scrambling at the last minute. So no
voodoo, no weird stuff the last week. Start soon enough with your
dieting.
SCOTT COLBY: Cool. And then would you change anything in you in your
workouts that last week? Or keep everything the same there?
TOM VENUTO: What you want to do is taper down your training the last few days.
Let’s say your event is on Saturday. If you’re still pounding in the
gym on Thursday and Friday, you’re putting those extra carbs in
your body but you’re continuing to deplete them. The whole idea
is to carb up and fill out those last few days. Remember you want
that full look, that “stretched-out-balloon,” “thin-skin look.”
Usually what I recommend is that you don’t train the 2 days before
the show, possibly even 3 days before the show or the event.
That’s really hard for a lot of people to accept, but it’s a very well
established method. If you ask anybody in bodybuilding or fitness
or figure, they’ll tell you to not train. For people who are just
doing this casually, like for a photo-shoot or an event, they may
have a hard time with that and they just keep pounding in the gym
those last couple of days, scrambling to try to get in better shape at
the last minute, but you really want to back off.
In the beginning of the week, you have a couple of approaches.

Some people do full body workouts for glycogen depletion and
they do high reps. Some people just stay on their regular workout
program and they hit their last workout on a Wednesday before a
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Saturday event. In either case, you want to be starting to taper a

little bit. Again, you want to stay away from these last-minute
scrambling behaviors, where you’re pushing harder in the last
week, because it usually backfires. You usually end up looking
flatter and smaller and more depleted. And the idea on that last
week is to get yourself to fill out and to not deplete yourself.
SCOTT COLBY: That’s great advice. I didn’t know some of that myself. So I’ve
learned something here as well. Now we’ve got a question here
which is going to be useful for everybody, because probably
everybody listening has their favorite foods that they don’t want to
give up. For example, I love chocolate. This is a great question.
This person wants to know, “Is it possible to get a flat stomach and
six-pack abs and single-digit body fat while still enjoying your
favorite foods like chocolate or pizza?” We actually had Jon
Benson on a couple of weeks ago talking about this very thing.
What’s your take on that, Tom?
TOM VENUTO: Of course it’s possible. You just have to eat small enough portions
of chocolate or pizza so you’re still in a calorie deficit. In fact, you
could eat a 100% pizza or 100% chocolate diet and still lose
weight. All you need is a calorie deficit. I don’t recommend you
do that. I’m simply trying to make the point that it all revolves
around that calorie deficit. We have some diet book authors, some
of them even bestsellers at the top of the charts right now, who are
spreading the same myth that diet gurus have been saying for
decades; they’re saying calories don’t count. That’s utter,
complete, total B.S. Calories in versus calories out is stating the
first law of thermodynamics but apparently we have a group of
people who claim to have figured out a way to avoid the laws of
physics. But energy balance is a physical law. It’s a natural law.
It’s unbreakable. You can’t turn physical laws like this off,
anymore than you can turn off the law of gravity.
There’s actually an explanation of why they say that, though. What

these guys are really doing is they’re giving you a list of eating
rules which makes it almost impossible to overeat. You could say
that they’re “tricking you” into eating less. I wouldn’t say that’s
necessarily a bad thing. If the foods you choose spontaneously
make you feel fuller on fewer calories, I might even argue that’s a
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good thing. A diet book author can say, “Calories don’t count.
Don’t count calories,” and their diet can work very well. But
they’re misrepresenting how it works because there’s a huge
difference between saying that you don’t have to count calories
and calories don’t count. Do you see the difference? If anybody
listening doesn’t see the difference, then make sure that you get
the difference, because it’s huge.
Suppose I tell you that the only thing you can eat is lean proteins
(like egg whites, chicken, fish) and green salads and other
vegetables—lean plus green and maybe I’ll let you take in some
essential fats and oils, to make sure you get all the essential
nutrients. And I say, “Don’t count calories; you can eat as much as
you want.” I bet you’re going to have a really hard time eating in a
calorie surplus, because I’ve removed food groups that are dense
in calories, like starches and grains and sugars. But does that mean
that calories don’t count? No. It means that instead of counting
calories I gave you a bunch of eating rules that usually curb caloric
intake automatically, but again, that doesn’t mean calories don’t
count.
“Calories don’t count” is one of the worst myths out there because,
if people don’t understand the calories in versus calories out
equation, they’re not going to be able to get past the plateaus that
we just talked about, and they’re going to start thinking there’s a
cause-and-effect relationship between specific foods and gaining
fat. They’re going to figure, “Eating pizza equals getting fat.” It
doesn’t. They’re going to think that eating chocolate equals getting
fat. It doesn’t. It’s not a cause-and-effect relationship. Eating too
many calories equals gaining fat. Now if you take a pizza and you
load that thing up with triple cheese and sausage and pepperoni
and olives and just stack the calories in there, then you have a very
calorie-dense food. Even though no food in itself makes you fat,
calorie-dense foods, if you eat them frequently, are more likely to
give you a calorie surplus. Or some foods stimulate your appetite
or don’t keep you full for long, so you end up eating more of other
stuff later, and again, you’re likely to have a calorie surplus.
The bottom line? As far as your favorite foods go, my philosophy

is that depriving yourself completely of your favorite foods is a
great way to make yourself miserable and to be almost certain that
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you fall off your diet very quickly. My philosophy is, allow
yourself your favorite foods as long as you acknowledge that
calories count and you obey the law of calorie balance. This is one
reason that I don’t prefer the full day off the diet or the free-for-all
cheat day, because some people might interpret that loosely and
they may almost feel obligated to see how much food they can eat
and how much they can shove down their throats. They say, “Hey,
it’s cheat day, so I have to cheat real good. I don’t want to miss out
on this!” They end up in a huge surplus and if they go so far over
on the cheat day, when it all averages out over the week, they’re
even and they haven’t lost any body fat.
Answering this question is a matter of understanding the calorie

equation and also looking at quantity versus quality. I call this “the
health/body fat paradox.” What I mean by that is, eating for health
and eating for body composition are separate things. Your body fat
and your body mass are dictated by energy balance or the quantity
of food you eat. But your health is dictated by the nutrient balance
or the quality of the calories you eat. When I say “quality foods,”
I’m usually talking about natural foods that are not processed or
refined—foods that are very nutrient-dense, especially fruits and
vegetables. Some people would just call it “clean eating.”
It’s been a pretty big debate, the whole “clean eating” thing.
Bodybuilders, even myself at one time, have been programmed to
believe that you can’t have pizza. You can’t have chocolate. You
must eat 100% clean or close to 100% clean to get lean. But that’s
not true. You only need the calorie deficit. But there’s a problem
on either extreme. If you get so caught up with calories that you
focus on just the quantity and not the quality, then you’re going to
start heading down a slippery slope toward health problems or a
nutrient deficiency because you’re not taking in the quality
calories, you’re taking in empty calories. When you’re going for
fat loss, this whole issue is so much more important because, if
you have a limited calorie budget, you don’t want to spend too
many of those calories on low quality foods.
You want to get the essentials in first. You don’t want to fill up too
much on pizza and chocolate and alcohol and soda, if you haven’t
gotten all the essentials in first. That means the essential amino
acids, which is the protein, and essential fatty acids, which means
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you’re going to get the fish, or fish oil, or nuts or seeds. Also, you
need essential vitamins and minerals, which means you get
especially the fruits and vegetables first. Those are all the
essentials. If you fill up your calorie budget with junk food first,
you’re pushing out or displacing all those essentials and those high
quality calories.
Your best approach is to know your calorie target, or at least the

ballpark, and inside that calorie target, give yourself a compliance
rule. One that works really well for me and for my clients is 90%
compliance. I give you a list of clean foods like the ones that I
mentioned before that include high nutrient-density foods with all
the essentials and I say, “Eat these 90% of the time. The other 10%
of the time, eat whatever you want.” If you look at it from this
perspective, then you can see that there’s no such thing as
forbidden foods. If you’re a competitive bodybuilder and you have
no emotional connection to food and you don’t eat for taste and
pleasure, you eat for fuel and building material, you don’t really
need this conversation. But for most people, in the long run, any
diet that gives you flexibility is going to work better than a diet
that demands 100% clean eating.
SCOTT COLBY: All great points, Tom. I just wanted to follow up on something you
said in the middle of your answer, when you talked about how you
don’t advocate the all-day cheat day. I don’t either. I used to do
that for myself. I used to take one day where I just cheated all day.
Like you said, I tried to eat all my favorite foods in one 24-hour
period. First of all, I didn’t feel very good after it was all done. It
didn’t allow me to get the results that I was looking for.
Now when I recently did my own 12-week transformation, I did

more like what you were talking about. I took a cheat meal, maybe
on a Saturday and then maybe added another one Sunday or
during the week, but I ate pretty clean the rest of the time and that
made a really big difference as far as the results that I got. I just
wanted to follow up with you. Do you like to have your least
nutritious foods somewhere around your workout? Like either an
hour before or an hour after your workout? Is that going to give
you better benefits?
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TOM VENUTO: That’s a great point. We have a ton of research about post-workout
nutrition. It’s always surprising to the clean eating fanatics when
they hear that the research says you should take sugar in after your
workout. They have a really hard time with that one. I’ll admit it,
even I did when I first heard it. Then a few years back, I started to
study all those papers. You know, they’re recommending a
maltodextrin or a dextrose-glucose drink. They’re basically just
suggesting pure sugar after your workout. That’s a good time to
get your sugar fix. If you combine that with a fast-acting protein,
and usually the protein of choice is whey, and if you take that right
after your workout, you’re going to get more benefit than
detriment because those carbs are going to shoot right into
glycogen. It’s called nutrient partitioning, which is where the
calories go. Even if you eat a surplus of calories, the surplus taken
at that time is more likely to go toward building muscle.
You also mentioned before the workout too. I’m very much in
favor of “bracketing” your workout with more calories and more
carbs. I personally prefer to keep 90% or more of my carbs clean.
But if you’re going to relax a little on your diet and you want to
choose the best time to do it and to have more food, do it before
and after your workout. You can go with the simple sugars after
your workout. And I’m talking strength-training workouts.
SCOTT COLBY: Okay, Tom. Your body fat has been under 4% several times. The
audience probably would love to know that you’re human. What
have you eaten that’s bad, like in the last week? Anything?
TOM VENUTO: Well, we just had Thanksgiving. I had a slice of pumpkin pie.
SCOTT COLBY: Awesome. Tom is eating pie!
TOM VENUTO: There you have it.
SCOTT COLBY: So you can eat some of your favorite sweets and the other types of
food and still get great results. Cool. The next question is a really
good one as well. Let’s say, in the context of wanting to get your
stomach as lean as possible and maybe a six-pack if you’re a man,
or just a real flat stomach if you’re a woman. How much cardio
should somebody be doing in relationship to weight training?
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TOM VENUTO: That’s a good question, the way it was phrased, how much should
you be doing in relationship to weight training. I’ve been known
to definitely favor larger amounts of cardio. Some people even
quoted me as saying the key to burning more fat is doing more
cardio. That was said under the assumption that weight training is
already in place. So the best way to describe weight training, as far
as the relationship is, weight training is first, and weight training is
a constant.
Most people will probably set their weight training frequency at 3

days a week; some people might go with 4. Not many will do
much more weight training than that, except maybe a competitive
bodybuilder if they’re doing a body part split routine, like the one-
muscle-group-a-day type of thing. But a typical person, especially
someone who wants fat loss, a non-bodybuilder, it’s typically
Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for the weight training. That’s a
fairly constant fixed schedule. Naturally, the workouts need to
change, because your body adapts. So the training variables like
exercises, sets, reps, poundage, rest intervals, tempo, all that stuff
can change frequently, and the more advanced you are, the more
often it has to change. But the weight training schedule stays fixed.
That part of your routine is constant and it plays a really important
role in achieving good body composition, maintaining lean body
mass, gaining lean body mass, maintaining a healthy metabolism,
and actually burning fat because of what weight training does for
your metabolism.
Now the relationship to cardio is that first you’ve got nutrition and
weight training in place; let’s make that assumption. The cardio is
one of the ways that you can expand your caloric deficit. Going
back to what we said before, you’ve got to have a calorie deficit.
Cardio is how you increase the deficit on the energy expenditure
side. You can increase your deficit by decreasing your food intake
or by increasing your cardio and other activity. I would
recommend, as a starting point, that on top of the weight training
and nutrition, you add in 3 days a week of cardio, and call that a
good starting point for a fat loss program. From there, how much
should you be doing? Look at your results. If you’re doing 3 days
a week of cardio and you’re doing 3 days a week of weight
training, and you’re following your nutrition program and the fat’s
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just coming right off on schedule, you don’t do anymore cardio.

For example let’s say your goal is 2 pounds a week—if weight is
coming off at 2 pounds a week, it’s working, so you don’t change
what’s not broken.
The cardio is just a tool that you can use to increase the deficit if
you need to. If you hit a plateau or if fat loss decreases and you
want to accelerate it, you can increase your deficit by increasing
cardio. You always have that choice. It doesn’t even need to be an
increase in cardio. It could be a decrease in calories. But my
personal belief is that it’s better to work a little bit more on the
energy expenditure side, if it’s feasible for you, than the food
reduction side. That’s because, if the calories go down lower and
lower and lower, you’re giving your body less and less nutrition,
especially when you were already in a calorie deficit to begin with.
I mean, how low are you going to go? What’s going to happen to
all those essentials that are supposed to be going in: essential
vitamins, minerals, all the antioxidants and the phytonutrients and
the carotenoids, and the essential aminos and the essential fatty
acids? The more you cut your food, the less nutrition is going in.
So we’re talking about your health for one thing.
If you get really severe with the caloric deficit, if you don’t want
to do more cardio and you start pulling your calorie deficit down
with the food decrease, then you also start to get that metabolic
adaptation happening. Then your weight loss starts to slow down,
and you’re forced to do something else. You’re either going to
have to cut calories again, or then you’ll have to increase the
calorie expenditure.
What I would recommend is when you’re thinking about how

much cardio to do, don’t think one-dimensionally. Think of cardio
as a variable, and manipulate all the variables as a way to increase
your energy expenditure. Don’t lock yourself into one cardio
routine. Again, I see dogmatic recommendations, not only in
nutrition but also in training, all the time. For example, a really
common recommendation is when you’re given a program of 3
days a week of 20 minutes of cardio and the expert says, “This is
the program. Don’t deviate.” That doesn’t make any sense to me
because, if you’re stuck with 3 days a week for 20 minutes on
cardio, what’s the only thing you’re left with to get past your
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plateau? Calorie cutting. I don’t want one hand tied behind my

back. I want to be able to increase my deficit any way I choose to.
So with cardio, you can increase that deficit by manipulating the

type of cardio because some types are just more energy-
demanding than others. You can manipulate the program, where
you’re doing steady-state versus intervals or other types of
programs. You can manipulate the duration you’re going to spend
in your sessions. You can manipulate your frequency, which is add
more sessions. Or you can manipulate your intensity, so you burn
more calories in the same amount of time.
Intensity is getting talked about and written about the most lately
because high-intensity interval training is very popular. If you’re
healthy and you don’t have any orthopedic problems, higher
intensity cardio is the most efficient way to do things because
you’re just getting more done in less time. Not only are you
burning more calories for a given period of time, you’re getting
the increase in metabolism that occurs after an intense workout.
But don’t lock yourself in to just one mode of training. You have
all these variables at your disposal. And also remember that
whether you change anything at all in your workout program
depends on your results. If you’re getting the results you want,
don’t change a thing.
SCOTT COLBY: Tom, from my own personal experience, I can’t say enough about
how good it is to do various routines and not be locked into one
thing, like you were talking about. I often will wake up and just do
what I feel like doing that day. It’s not dictated by a specific
program or what somebody told me to do; it’s what I feel like
doing. For my cardio, sometimes I’ll do traditional interval
training. Sometimes I’ll go outside and run wind sprints.
Sometimes I will do some jump rope intervals. Sometimes I do
stair climbing. Sometimes I get on a treadmill and put it at a high
incline and walk. Sometimes I go outside into a field and do some
medicine ball relays, where I’m throwing a medicine ball and
running after it. And to me, all those things are fun. But I just did
what I felt like when I woke up. I didn’t plan out a whole 12-week
routine in advance and say, “This is exactly how I’m going to do it
and I’m not going to deviate from it.” It’s basically what I felt like
doing at the time and, because I changed it up so much, I think that
was one of the reasons I got pretty good results on my program.
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The next question is, “I’ve been eating a set diet of canned chicken
and brown rice and vegetables for 5 meals a day, for a number of
months. I occasionally mix it up on weekends and some nights
when I get home from work. I was curious if the same food, on
such a regular basis, is okay or if the body gets used to it and it
should be changed?” So we’ve talked about the body getting used
to a workout and the workout needing to be changed. How about
the food? What if you eat the same diet month after month?
TOM VENUTO: There are a few different issues to look at here. I’ve heard some
nutrition experts say that they believe you could develop food
allergies or intolerances from eating the same foods all the time. I
haven’t found anything in the scientific literature about that, so
I’m really not sure about the validity. That’s one concern that has
been brought up. There are other pros and cons to eating the same
foods all the time.
The big advantage of eating a variety of foods is you get a variety

of nutrients. You could always take a multivitamin, but I don’t
think there’s any question that it’s ideal to take as many of your
nutrients as possible in the form of whole food and a wide variety
of food. Even though you see all these ads for individual vitamins
and nutrient pills all the time, there’s a lot of evidence, even some
brand new studies coming out, saying that it’s food that our body
needs and not nutrients. If you separate those nutrients from the
whole food and take them by themselves, you may not get the
same benefits as you did from the food. The research may be done
on a certain carotenoid or antioxidant, but when you take that in
the form of the whole food in the package it came from in nature,
you’re getting one effect. But then if you isolate it and take it as a
pill, you may not get the same benefit.
So often, they’re selling you the pill based on research about the
food. But we don’t know if the taking the nutrient in a pill is going
to do what the same nutrient in a whole food does. There are so
many of these substances. In addition to the vitamins and minerals,
there are 4,000 different phytonutrients. The more food you eat,
the more nutritional value you’re going to take in. From a nutrient
perspective, it’s a good idea to eat a variety of foods and to eat
whole foods as much as possible. You also get fiber and the bulk
from the food, so you get the satisfaction that comes from eating.
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It satisfies your appetite. As opposed to all the other foods groups

you might be eating in your diet, the best way to get a lot of
nutrient variety is with the fruit and vegetable groups in particular.
It might sound a little hokey to some people when they hear a
recommendation to eat the fruits and veggies that cover every
color of the rainbow. I thought that was a little hokey the first time
I heard it. But once you start doing some research on the
phytonutrients that are in each food, you see it’s good advice.
There’s really something to it, because each color in the food
represents specific nutrients and antioxidants and so on. That’s on
the nutrition side.
Now on the body fat side, does your body adapt to eating the same
foods? No, because cutting body fat is really a matter of calories.
Your body adapts to the energy. It’s an energy balance adaptation,
not a certain food adaptation. Definitely you need certain nutrients
for the fat burning process to take place, but we’re focusing on
calories in versus calories out when it comes to fat reduction. Now
with that said, a lot of people find it easier to control calories if
they eat the same thing every day. When you eat the same every
day, you know exactly what you’re taking in. It’s habitual.
Because it’s habitual, you tend to establish a baseline very easily,
and when you have a baseline, it’s easy to make changes and
measure the effects of those changes. If your diet is random,
anything about your diet—the foods you eat, your meal frequency,
anything—it’s really harder to keep track because you never had a
baseline to begin with.
Another thing that we see in the research is something scientists

call “the buffet effect,” which basically says if you’re given a ton
of choices—literally, like when you think of the cafeteria or buffet
line—you almost always eat more. So in that respect, when you’re
given a lot of choices, you tend to eat more, and if you restrict
your choices, which equates to eating the same thing every day,
you eat less. So there are pros and cons.
One problem with eating the same thing every day is that some
people get bored. But assuming you don’t get bored, the only big
problem might be that you just don’t get enough nutrients. So you
want to make sure you’re covered nutritionally. If you do eat the
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same menu every day, I recommend that within each day, get as
much variety from meal to meal as possible.
Coming from the bodybuilding world myself, I can’t tell you how
many times I’ve seen bodybuilders who eat exactly the same thing
all day long, meal after meal, like chicken and rice, chicken and
rice, chicken and rice, chicken and rice. I saw a YouTube video
recently, and I was cracking up because an amateur bodybuilder
was being interviewed about what he ate. He went through his 7
meals a day and he said, “Okay. For meal one, I have fish. For
meal two, I have fish. Let me think. What was meal three? Let me
think about it. Uh, fish. And meal four, wait. Let me see if I can
remember. Oh, fish.” And he went on for the whole day and at he
ate nothing but fish at every meal. That’s the type of thing you’d
probably want to avoid because you’re just not getting enough
variety. It would be really easy to quantify and control calories, so
it might actually help fat loss in that regard, but it’s also easy
enough to do substitutions on the lean proteins and fruits and
vegetables throughout the week. If you normally eat grapefruit for
breakfast, it’s not too hard to make a swap one day and have
blueberries, and then make a swap another day and have apples. It
just makes it more interesting and you’re going to get more
nutritional value.
But if you’re asking, “Does your body get used to eating the same
thing every day and can that cause a plateau?” No, fat loss would
be a calorie issue not a food variety issue. We’re talking about the
health and nutrient issue more than anything, and finding a diet
that’s easier for you to stick with. So if you get bored and that
makes you fall off your diet, then focus on the variety even more.
SCOTT COLBY: Those are all good points. For me personally, I need a little bit
more variety, but it’s commendable that this person can stick to
that for such a long time. That means they have some really good
kind of mindset characteristics going on to be able to do that. I
think, like you said, most people would probably get bored and
need a little bit more variety than that, especially if they’re eating
the same meals each day, as far as meal one, meal two, meal three
being all the same.
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Let’s try to get in a few more questions, Tom. I’ve got 3 really
good ones for you. This next one, I’ve heard a lot of people ask.
They say, “I know it mainly depends on your genetics, but I’m a
naturally lean person and I’ve worked hard to put on quite a bit of
muscle for my upcoming first-time bodybuilding competition. I’m
wondering how probable is it to get lean enough for a competition
without burning away a lot of muscle in the process? That’s a big
fear for a guy with a naturally high metabolism such as myself.”
TOM VENUTO: Well, when you’re really lean, that fear of losing muscle is a
legitimate concern. On more than one occasion, I’ve heard some
experts saying as a blanket statement that, “This fear of losing
muscle and dieting is all blown out of proportion.” That’s probably
true for overweight and obese people. The reason is, overweight
people have this huge energy reserve. They have all these calories
stored up. So from a biological point of view, they’re not really in
danger of starvation, are they? Of course, if they’re really extreme
with calorie-cutting and they’re on low protein, they may lose
muscle. And if they’re not weight training and they’re in an
aggressive calorie deficit, sure, an overweight or obese person
could lose muscle. But it’s not the obese person that really has to
worry so much about muscle loss. It’s the person who wants to get
lean for a competition and especially that naturally high-
metabolism person you mentioned, which we usually call an
ectomorph. That’s even more case for caution.
Some really interesting studies have been done on nutrient

partitioning and calorie deficits, which basically prove that the
obese person can handle a larger calorie deficit without worrying
as much about losing muscle. So I would have no problem telling
the overweight person, “Take an aggressive calorie deficit, 30%
below your maintenance, or even 3 pounds a week of weight loss.”
But I would recommend a smaller deficit for the person getting
ready for the competition who’s already lean (especially the
ectomorph) and aim for 1 or 1-1/2 pounds per week of weight loss
for the lean person, and that’s going to help prevent the loss of lean
body mass.
It’s definitely no coincidence that most bodybuilders and figure or

fitness competitors set a goal to lose only one pound a week before
a competition. On TV, they may be losing 25 pounds a week, but
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you’re never going to see that with a bodybuilder. They’re not

getting more than 10-12, or hopefully no more than 15 pounds out
of contest condition. So that’s 10, 12, 15 weeks out, they’re going
to start and they’re going to take the body fat off really slow. This
is a physique athlete and for a physique athlete, especially the
bodybuilder, the game isn’t to lose weight. The game is to be as
lean as possible while retaining as much muscle as possible. They
can’t afford to lose muscle.
You can’t afford faster weight loss if you sacrifice muscle along
with it. If you’re already lean, you’re more likely to lose lean
mass. Think about it from a biological perspective and you’ll
really understand it. If you have really low body fat, your body
sees that alone as starvation. But your body gets feedback about
your state of energy balance in 2 ways: The amount of body fat
you have left and also the amount of calories coming in. So if the
calories go too low, your body thinks that’s starvation, and there’s
metabolic adaptation and your hunger hormones go haywire.
But if you’re really lean and you have almost no body fat left,
that’s also a starvation signal in and of itself. A low body fat level
signals your brain, “Hey, we’re starving, there’s no energy
reserves down here.” At that point, if there’s hardly any food
coming in and there’s hardly any fat stores, is that a cause for
alarm in biological terms? Heck, yeah. What if food stopped
coming in all of a sudden, from the evolutionary perspective? If
you’re in that situation 10,000 years ago, where there’s a famine
and food just stops coming in, and you hardly have any body fat
stored, who is more likely to survive longer, the lean guy or the fat
guy? The fat guy, definitely. Body fat has survival value. So that’s
why the biologically programmed response—when you’re that
lean and you’re not taking in a lot of calories—is to slow down fat
loss, increase appetite, and shed muscle.
So what do you do if you’re concerned about muscle loss? I’ve

been asked this question a lot lately. So I put together a 7-point
punch list and I’ve given it to a lot of people:
1. Use a conservative calorie deficit.

2. Adjust the deficit so you’re only losing a pound a week or a
pound and a half a week at the most.
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3. Forget about bulking up. Stay as lean as you can. It’s just too
much work to have to diet down. Think of it this way: The
more body fat you have on you, the longer your period of
dieting is going to be leading up to the show. The longer the
amount of time you spend in caloric deficit, the more problems
that can come up. Do you really want to be in caloric deficit for
4 months, 5 months, 6 months? Isn’t it easier to go from 9%
down to 4%, than it is to go from 18% to 4%? It’s a lot easier.
4. Eat very high protein. Protein has a muscle-sparing effect. In

fact, if you look at some of the medically supervised very-low-
calorie diets, you can almost call them protein fasts or protein-
sparing modified fasts. These physician-supervised liquid diets
are almost all high protein because, when the calories go that
low, where these doctors are giving obese people maybe 800
calories a day, most of that is going to be protein. You may still
be losing body mass when you do something that extreme, but
it’s going to minimize the body mass loss when the protein is
high.
5. Pull back your intensity and volume a little bit when you
get really lean. Some bodybuilders and people who are really
into their weight training attack their workouts every time.
When you do really intense weight training like that, it breaks
down muscle tissue. That’s part of the muscle growth
process—you get microtears, which is microtrauma to the
muscles. You’re literally breaking down muscle tissue. The
muscle gets rebuilt based on recovery and nutrition and a
positive hormonal situation. However, if you tear down
muscle, but you’re not putting in the nutrition that you need for
“reconstruction,” then you’re just tearing down muscle and
tearing down muscle and tearing down muscle. So pull back on
the intensity and/or the volume a bit as you get leaner and
leaner. When you’re well fed, you can push the envelope
sometimes on overtraining, but when you’re already lean, you
should err on the side of less training if you’re in doubt about
how much.
6. Use refeeds, which we talked about on the other call. It

basically means to use a carb cycling approach. Once or twice
a week, just bring your calories, mostly from carbs, back up to
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maintenance level. The idea is to tell your body you’re not

starving. That can help you retain some muscle too.
7. Balance your deficit. Keep in mind that, if you’re not losing

that last bit of body fat, you’ve got to reestablish a calorie
deficit. You do need the calorie deficit. It’s just sort of a
balancing act between how much calorie cutting is enough to
lose the body fat while keeping the calories high enough for
retaining the lean body mass.
When you’re already lean, the bottom line is to be conservative.
SCOTT COLBY: As far as the different body types, the next question relates to an
endurance body type versus a bodybuilder. And this person said,
“Tom, is it possible to be an endurance runner and yet look like
you’re a bodybuilder? The reason I ask is that all marathon runners
seem to be lean, wiry ectomorphs rather than your traditional solid
muscular body types.”
Tom, before you answer that, when I’ve talked to my clients about
what type of body they want and I’m trying to teach them the
differences with long, slow cardio training, like walking on a
treadmill for an hour versus doing something like short sprint-type
training, I always tell them, “Look at a sprinter’s body. It seems to
be nice and lean and muscular versus a marathon runner’s body,
which is usually thin and doesn’t really have very good muscle
tone.” So what’s your take on the differences with an endurance
runner’s body? Can you be an endurance runner and actually look
like a bodybuilder?
TOM VENUTO: I’m going to say yes and no. I’m going to say yes first because I
know people who compete in bodybuilding who are endurance
athletes. So right away, there’s the answer. In fact, I just bumped
into a friend of mine. His name is Rob and he recently decided he
wanted to compete in a bodybuilding competition for his 50th
birthday. He wanted to make a comeback in bodybuilding. He did
3 competitions this year and he placed in the top 3 in 1 of them. He
won the other 2 competitions at 50 years old. It’s not just his age
that’s the point. He is a serious marathon runner who runs races. I
don’t know if he’s done a full marathon this year. But he has done
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long-distance running, he runs regularly, and he also competed in

bodybuilding the same year. So that’s why I’ll say yes.
Now to qualify that a little bit, he’s not the most massive guy. He
competes in the bantamweight division. But he is absolutely
ripped. He absolutely does look like a bodybuilder. When you put
him up on stage, standing by himself, he could pass for a guy
many, many pounds heavier because bodybuilding is all about
symmetry. With bodybuilding, it’s putting muscle in the right
places to create an illusion. When that muscle is very defined, you
look a lot bigger. He looks fantastic. Sure, you could look at him
and say, “If he didn’t run, he could be a lot bigger.” I’m sure that’s
absolutely true, especially his legs. But he’s doing it and he won
two contests.
SCOTT COLBY: You don’t hear about that very often, though, do you?
TOM VENUTO: You don’t. He’s probably an exception. But he’s not the only one.
I’m just playing devil’s advocate here and saying that you can’t
say the two can’t be done, because I’ve seen it done. Okay, that
was the yes answer.
The no answer is because, no, you cannot get 100% optimal

results for bodybuilding with muscle mass and especially with
strength and 100% optimal results for running at the same time.
The two goals are at completely opposite ends of the physiological
adaptation spectrum. Not only do they require different training
methods that compromise one another, but also the runner is
simply not going to perform well if he or she is carrying too much
muscle mass. It’s basically a normal adaptation for the runner’s
body to shed muscle because that excess muscle is slowing them
down. It’s making them work harder to move more body mass.
There is some very interesting research about concurrent strength

and endurance training that shows us there is a middle point. Most
of the research that I’ve looked at—well, actually the whole body
of research is conflicting—but most of the research on concurrent
strength and endurance exercise will agree that you can do
moderate amounts of cardio, such as 3 days a week along with
strength training and bodybuilding, and not only is there no
negative effect, it could probably increase muscle growth for
Super Lean 2
various reasons. However, as you begin to increase the endurance

training volume, when you reach a point, there starts to be a
compromise. The first thing to get compromised is your strength,
and the next thing compromised is muscle growth. You’re talking
about extremes. If you want to be the best at what you do, your
best bet is to prioritize and focus as much as you can on your goal
or sport. But you can’t say it can’t be done because I’ve seen it
with my own eyes.
SCOTT COLBY: I didn’t know that there were people out there who did that. That’s
definitely good to know that you can have both things going for
you.
Our last question comes from a female, and this is likely a

question you’ve heard a lot from your clients, Tom, and I’ve
definitely heard it too. It probably relates to a lot of people
listening.
She says, “I’m a 32-year-old female who weighs approximately

130. I’ve never been overweight. However, just like most other
women, I’m stuck with the belly fat. It’s not bulging out
excessively, but I want to get rid of it. I exercise regularly but I’m
pretty sure it’s my eating habits or lack thereof. I don’t eat a lot,
probably not even enough. My main problem is I’m allergic to
gluten and I’m trying to eat less meat due to borderline high
cholesterol. Just as a side note, and to help you understand my
situation, I don’t like to cook much and I usually go a pretty long
time without eating. I eat 2, maybe 3 times a day. Where or who
can I go to help me with my eating habits, especially with what I
can eat is limited? Please help.”
TOM VENUTO: For help with eating habits, if you are allergic to gluten, if you
have gluten intolerances, borderline high cholesterol, or any
clinical issues, I would recommend that you speak to a registered
dietician, possibly in conjunction with your doctor. But that said, I
know that you can work around any allergy or any food
intolerance. In fact, gluten intolerance, which is allergy to the
protein in wheat and some other products, is extremely common.
Lots of people have it and they work around it. Lactose intolerance
is even more common. That’s where people can’t eat dairy
29
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Super Lean 2
products. People can have all kinds of intolerances and allergies

and have to work around them and they find a way.
You mentioned you’re not eating meat. Well, that’s not an issue
either because I’ve seen vegetarians get super lean, ripped abs. I
have even seen strict vegans who not only don’t eat meat, they
don’t eat any animal products, but they get really lean. If you
asked me years ago if a strict vegan would be able to get a lean
body like a bodybuilder, I’d have said no, but I’ve seen that with
my own eyes too. These things aren’t limiting you. It’s just a
matter of how. It’s not a matter of if you can. It’s a matter of how.
If you’re stuck with fat loss and if you know you don’t have any
thyroid problems and if you don’t have any other medical issues,
then you’re just not in a calorie deficit. I hate to sound like a
broken record when I keep coming back to that, but it is that
simple. If you’re stuck at a plateau, if your body fat is not going
down, then you’re not in a calorie deficit. You may think you are
but you’re not. And you’re not stuck with belly fat. Nobody is
stuck with belly fat. Nobody is stuck with body fat.
One thing that I hope everyone listening has gathered from this
call is that losing that last little bit of fat is much harder than losing
the first body fat in the beginning. Almost all the questions that
came in for this call and most of the questions that came in last
time were about those last 10 pounds, that last bit of body fat or
reaching single-digit body fat or losing the last bit of belly fat, and
the first body fat is the easiest to go and the last body fat is the
hardest to go. That’s just the way our bodies were designed,
biologically speaking, but the fat will go. Sometimes it just takes a
different strategy. Sometimes it takes a break, if you’ve been going
at it for a long time, because if you get a break mentally and
physically, when you dive back in with a new plan of attack you
feel fresh and you start getting results again.
Sometimes you just need to get aggressive about it. You have to
attack the situation. I usually try to avoid the analogy of a war on
something, like a war on fat. I prefer to focus on what I want to
achieve instead of what I’m fighting against. But in this case,
when it’s that last bit of fat and it’s six-pack abs and single-digit
body fat you want, you have to accept that it is a challenge and it is
Super Lean 2
difficult. So I’m going to say that you must declare war on that last
bit of fat, and you just have to go in and attack it.
Everybody has unique challenges. Everybody. But don’t hang

your hat on them. Don’t line up excuses like, “I don’t eat red
meat,” “I’m gluten intolerant,” “I’m lactose intolerant,” “I’m not a
good cook,” “I don’t like very many foods,” “I can’t eat 6 times a
day,” “I don’t have a lot of time,” or whatever. Everybody has their
own challenges, but you can work around anything if you’re
committed to it. Just don’t be passive. Don’t sit around and wish it
were easier, don’t sit around and complain about how hard it is.
Decide, then go in there and get it done, because that is really the
only secret there is in the end.
SCOTT COLBY: Tom, great advice. I think that’s an excellent way to close up this
call because it really summarizes your beliefs and my beliefs.
We covered a lot of ground today and a lot of ground on our last

call, and I really want to thank you for being here. You’re one of
the people I study for information on fat loss and muscle building,
and you’ve done a great job with your Burn the Fat Inner Circle
membership site and your bestselling Burn the Fat, Feed the
Muscle e-book, and it was really an honor and pleasure having
you on the call. It was very educational to me and I’m sure for all
the listeners with all your information that you’ve given. I know
you’ve spent weeks, months, and years doing research and
accumulating information, and I really appreciate it and I know
everyone else does. So thank you again.
TOM VENUTO: Thank you, Scott.
SCOTT COLBY: For everybody listening, I hope you got a lot of information and
education out of this call and that you’ll put it to all good use. This
has been Scott Colby with Tom Venuto, and we’ll talk to you again
soon. Thanks again, and goodbye.
31
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Super Lean 2
About Tom Venuto

Tom Venuto is an internationally recognized fat loss expert, a
natural bodybuilder, freelance writer, and the author of the
bestselling e-book, Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle. Tom is also
the founder and CEO of the Burn the Fat Inner Circle—the
Internet’s premier fat loss support community.
Tom received his bachelor’s degree in Exercise Science, and he is

certified by the National Strength and Conditioning Association as
a personal trainer (CPT) and a strength and conditioning specialist
(CSCS). Tom is also a member of the American College of Sports
Medicine, the International Sports Sciences Association, and all of
the major obesity research societies.
Tom has been a health club manager and owner for many years,
and he’s an author and freelance writer with over 200 published
articles to his credit on the subjects of bodybuilding, weight loss,
and fitness motivation. His work has been featured in IRONMAN
Magazine, Australian IRONMAN, Italian IRONMAN
(“Olympian’s News”), Natural Bodybuilding, Muscular
Development, Exercise for Men, and Men’s Exercise. Tom’s
inspiring and informative articles have also appeared on hundreds
of websites worldwide.
Tom has been training for 24 years and competing in drug-free

bodybuilding for 17 years. He has 28 contests under his belt and
has had his body fat tested numerous times at below 4%. Some of
his previous titles include the Natural New Jersey, Natural New
York State, Natural Pennsylvania, Natural Mid-Atlantic States,
and the NPC Natural Eastern Classic.
For more information on Tom’s Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle
e-book, visit www.BurnTheFat.com. To learn more about the
Burn the Fat Inner Circle, visit:
www.BurnTheFatInnerCircle.com.
Super Lean 2
Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle by Tom Venuto

Why Is Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle the Best Selling Ebook in Internet History,
with Thousands of Satisfied (and Now Fat Free) Users in
133 Countries from Algeria to Zimbabwe?
Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle is the #1 best selling diet and fitness
ebook in the history of the Internet. In fact, it’s one of the best
selling ebooks on any subject in the history of the Internet—and
there’s a reason why…
It’s because thousands of women and men of every age are burning
off body fat—not muscle or water weight—and they’re doing it
naturally, without supplements, pills, or “magic potions,” simply by
using the proven, scientifically accurate and common sense advice
found inside this amazing diet and fitness guidebook.
Tom Venuto, a respected fat loss expert, natural bodybuilder, and personal trainer, has not
just pumped out yet another diet program into an already over-saturated market. Tom’s Burn
the Fat is more accurately described as a “Fat Loss Bible.” It is quite simply one of the most
complete, detailed, and precise guides to fat loss you will ever read. What makes it so much
different than other weight loss publications on the market?
Well first of all, it’s not a weight loss program, it’s a fat loss program. This may seem like
semantics or wordplay at first, but once you’ve read just the first three chapters, there will be
no doubt in your mind that pursuing weight loss is not only the wrong goal, it may be the
reason that you’ve failed to reach and maintain your ideal body weight. Burn the Fat shows
you exactly why it’s fat you must lose, not weight (which includes muscle, water, and other
lean tissue) and then goes on to show you exactly how to do it.
Secondly, what makes Burn the Fat different is the amount of attention that is paid to each
and every element of successful, healthy, permanent fat loss. Burn the Fat not only
thoroughly dispels the lies, myths, and fallacies surrounding a very confusing subject, it is
simply the most detailed book about fat loss ever written. By reading Burn the Fat, Feed
the Muscle, (or better yet, studying it), you will learn more about fat loss than you could
from an entire semester of nutrition classes or from an entire shelf of mainstream diet
publications at your local bookstore.
You may be wondering, “Is this a low carb diet? A high protein diet? A high fat diet? what
type of program is it?” The truth is that Burn the Fat is neither a high protein diet, or a low
carb diet. That’s because with the information in this book, you will be able to easily
33
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Super Lean 2
determine your own ideal protein, carbs, and fats ratio. You will be able to analyze your
body type (are you an endomorph, ectomorph, or mesomorph?), you will determine your
BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate, or the amount of maintenance calories your body requires
every day), and you will discover whether you are carb tolerant or carb intolerant.
This personalized approach makes perfect sense because each of us is a unique individual,
and no two people are exactly alike in terms of body physiology and personal goals.
One of the most powerful chapters in the book is the first one called, “How to Set Powerful,
Compelling Goals That Will Propel You Forward and Charge You Up with Unstoppable
Motivation.” In this chapter, you will learn what is probably the ultimate secret to burning
fat and getting in shape… and it has nothing to do with diets, supplements, or training
programs. There’s also a great quote in this chapter from the legendary Green Bay Packers
coach, Vince Lombardi...
“The dictionary is the only place success comes before work. Hard work is the price we
must all pay for success.” This line does a nice job of expressing the “no quick fix”
philosophy behind the entire book. In the rest of the book, you’ll learn the complete and
exact mechanics of fat loss—explained on both a scientific and a practical level (which you
can easily apply in your own daily life in terms of what to eat and how to exercise to burn
fat).
If there is any drawback to the Burn the Fat ebook, it’s that it contains so much information
that some readers may find it a bit overwhelming. Those who are looking for a CliffsNotes
quick-start type of fat loss program, might be a bit intimidated at first. The good part,
however, is that even these types of readers can feel confident and assured that it will be
worth the effort because this will literally be the last book they ever have to buy on the
subject.
Who will benefit most from Burn the Fat?
In the broadest sense, anyone and everyone who needs to lose weight will benefit from Burn
the Fat. Men, women, bodybuilders, fitness enthusiasts, and especially motivated
individuals and avid readers will love this book. Although it was written by a bodybuilder,
this book is certainly not just for bodybuilders.
You will find no “30 pounds in 30 days” miracles at work here. It’s all about intelligent
eating choices, planning, hard work, and lifestyle change. As Burn the Fat author Tom
Venuto says, “Burn the Fat is simple, but it’s not easy.”
In terms of graphic design, Burn the Fat is a clean and professionally formatted PDF ebook.
It’s a little on the plain side, being just text, but that makes it ideal for printing and reading in
Super Lean 2
the comfort of your favorite chair. Because of its size, it does require a robust printer and a
good stack of paper.
Initially, some people thought that Burn the Fat was priced a little on the high side because
$39 might seem like a fair chunk of money for an ebook download. However, after they saw
the amount of information contained within Burn the Fat’s 340 pages, along with the
special bonus ebooks and reports that come with it, they said it was not only worth the $39,
but many times that amount.
As with any how-to publication, you’re not really paying for the materials used to compile
the document, but for what the information can do for you, and clearly, this publication has
changed many lives, and the hundreds of testimonials and success stories found on the Burn
the Fat website are proof of that. (I recommend you take a look at the testimonials page on
the Burn the Fat website because some of the before and after transformations are simply
incredible—as well as inspiring).
The bottom line?
Anyone looking for a quick fix solution to fat loss, anyone looking to be told fairy tales, and
anyone looking for a “magic bullet” offered by the likes of body wraps, fat burning pills, diet
shakes, or fat-burning creams and gels might be best advised to steer clear of Burn the Fat.
On the other hand, anyone tired of spinning their wheels, going nowhere, who wants the
truth about fat loss and who is ready and willing to put in the hard work and discipline and
make the lifestyle changes necessary to get a fat free body, will find Burn the Fat to be one
of the best investments they ever made in their lives. Click here to learn more about Tom
Venuto’s Burn the Fat:
www.BurnTheFat.com
35
www.BurnTheFat.com
Super Lean 2
Burn the Fat Inner Circle: The Internet’s Premier

Fat Loss Support Community
You can turn your body into a fat burning
machine and turbo-charge your motivation
power—starting today—by joining the growing
community of men and women from all over the
world who have begun the journey to better health, better bodies,
and better lives the Burn the Fat way.
Research has proven that social support is a critical part in your
fat loss success plan, and the Burn the Fat Inner Circle was
designed to put you in the most supportive environment possible to
increase your chances of success. The Inner Circle is also an
amazing information resource. If you have fat loss questions, you
will find the answers here.
As a member of the Burn the Fat Inner Circle, you will gain
access to hundreds of exclusive articles and Q & A columns, science
reviews, workout programs, downloadable journals, logs, checklists,
and other workout and diet planning tools, plus special reports, PDF
e-books, online MP3 audio interviews, Tom Venuto’s members-only
MP3 audio shows, and a whole lot more. Best of all, you also get
access to over a dozen members-only forums as part of the Internet’s
premier fat loss support community.
In addition to the main Burn the Fat discussion forum, where you
can ask questions and discuss all things related to fat-burning
nutrition, you also get access to the following forums:
Recipes forum—download and share delicious fat-burning meals
Female fat loss forum—discuss women’s issues
Fat loss over 40 forum—learn how to lose fat at any age
Motivation forum—use mind power to become unstoppable
Cardio forum—discover how to burn fat with cardio
Gaining muscle forum—get tips, tactics, and workouts to gain

mass
Science and research forum—be the first to get the latest science
breakthroughs
And many others
Super Lean 2
You will not only make social connections with likeminded

people, you can even ask Tom Venuto himself your personal fitness
and fat loss questions in the Inner Circle forums, along with Tom’s
team of expert contributors and moderators.
Membership has its privileges!
37
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Copyright © 2008 Fitness Renaissance, LLC

All rights reserved.

Editor: Lee A. Howard (lee_allen_howard@yahoo.com)

A WORD OF CAUTION: DISCLAIMER

This special e-book is one of many Burn the Fat interviews

WARNING: This ebook is protected by Federal copyright law. It is illegal to re-sell,

In November of 2007, I was invited back to speak a second time

I believe this is one of the most valuable and informative

Train hard and expect success always,

SCOTT COLBY: Welcome, everybody, again, to the Amazing Abs Formula

many questions we didn’t really have time to finish them, and in

TOM VENUTO: I’m ready.

First, your metabolism can slow down. If you’ve been cutting

Fourth, and this one requires a little bit of intellectual honesty, is

I’m really big on personal responsibility and never making

I also recommend, because so many people underestimate how

What you need to do is reestablish that calorie deficit. Make sure

your portion sizes. Or use cardio. And by increased cardio, I mean

As far as your cardio goes, to manipulate the intensity is a great

hit a plateau. So I had to do what you suggested and manipulate

to how I look. To play it safe, I might do 400 grams on Thursday,

Now as far as being dry, this is where you have to be careful,

and vitamins like B-6. Don’t take a prescription diuretic. I don’t

In the beginning of the week, you have a couple of approaches.

Saturday event. In either case, you want to be starting to taper a

There’s actually an explanation of why they say that, though. What

The bottom line? As far as your favorite foods go, my philosophy

Answering this question is a matter of understanding the calorie

Your best approach is to know your calorie target, or at least the

Now when I recently did my own 12-week transformation, I did

SCOTT COLBY: Awesome. Tom is eating pie!

TOM VENUTO: There you have it.

Most people will probably set their weight training frequency at 3

just coming right off on schedule, you don’t do anymore cardio.

What I would recommend is when you’re thinking about how

plateau? Calorie cutting. I don’t want one hand tied behind my

So with cardio, you can increase that deficit by manipulating the

The big advantage of eating a variety of foods is you get a variety

It satisfies your appetite. As opposed to all the other foods groups

Another thing that we see in the research is something scientists

Some really interesting studies have been done on nutrient

It’s definitely no coincidence that most bodybuilders and figure or

you’re never going to see that with a bodybuilder. They’re not

So what do you do if you’re concerned about muscle loss? I’ve

1. Use a conservative calorie deficit.

4. Eat very high protein. Protein has a muscle-sparing effect. In

6. Use refeeds, which we talked about on the other call. It

maintenance level. The idea is to tell your body you’re not

7. Balance your deficit. Keep in mind that, if you’re not losing

When you’re already lean, the bottom line is to be conservative.

long-distance running, he runs regularly, and he also competed in

The no answer is because, no, you cannot get 100% optimal

There is some very interesting research about concurrent strength

various reasons. However, as you begin to increase the endurance

Our last question comes from a female, and this is likely a

She says, “I’m a 32-year-old female who weighs approximately

products. People can have all kinds of intolerances and allergies

Everybody has unique challenges. Everybody. But don’t hang

We covered a lot of ground today and a lot of ground on our last

TOM VENUTO: Thank you, Scott.

Female fat loss forum—discuss women’s issues

Fat loss over 40 forum—learn how to lose fat at any age

Motivation forum—use mind power to become unstoppable

Cardio forum—discover how to burn fat with cardio

Gaining muscle forum—get tips, tactics, and workouts to gain