You Must Have the Wrong Guy

January 28, 2010

Not surprisingly, a lot of people get offended by the fact that I am not in the business of promoting fitness. When I post something to this effect on FaceBook or Twitter some people get very upset and even call me mean names. (I have feelings, ya know)

Now I know this may come as an odd statement, considering what I do for a living and the fact that I am a part of the fitness industry. But I really don’t care to “give the gift of fitness” to people. I’m not going to be showing up at your front door dressed as Richard Simmons and telling you to pull your fanny of the couch because “it’s time to get fit!”

I don’t give a shit.

Before I go any further I should point out that I am not talking to most of my regular readers because, obviously you wouldn’t be here if you fit the description. Rather, I am pointing out the fact that people have often mistaken me for the wrong guy and I am trying to clear that up.

If you want to sit around and eat donuts all day why would that possibly bother me? And why would I want to motivate you? I’m not Jenny Craig or Matt Foley the motivational speaker who lives in a van down by the river. What you do is your choice. Sure I will make fun of you, laugh at you and encourage others to do the same; but it’s your life, not mine.

If you are too stupid to realize that regular exercise and a healthy diet is a necessary part of life I’m not going to waste my time telling you. Get on some prescription drugs, order a sausage pizza and watch another episode of Friends.

People ask me all kinds of questions when they find out what I do for a living.

“How do I lose this?” (grabbing a handful of a 48 inch waist)

“I don’t know.”

“How long should I do the stair climber for?”

“I don’t know.”

“I can’t give up carbs but I want to get lean. What should I do?”

“I don’t know.”

“I only have twenty minutes to train, twice a week. What should I do?”

“I don’t know.”

“I know you’re into all that heavy lifting but I can’t do that. What can I do instead?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’m a girl and I don’t want to get too bulky so how should I lift?”

“I don’t know.”

“How do I get motivated to go to the gym?”

“I don’t know.”

You either want to do something or you don’t. I’m not in the business of motivating people. Sure, I’ll shout some words of encouragement to serious trainees before they attempt a new squat max, and may even question their manhood in an attempt to get them even angrier. And I’ll cheer a guy on during a grueling conditioning finisher, but if you are not internally motivated already, you’re looking toward the wrong guy for help. I just don’t care enough to waste my time on those types of people.

Often times people will tell me that they want to train with me and that I if they hire me or come to my gym I really need to push them. No, I don’t. You need to push yourself. You’re hiring me for my program design skills which are based on 16 years of experience. I am not a cheerleader. Any nitwit can yell at someone like a drill sergeant. Just because a workout is hard doesn’t mean it’s effective. Just because a coach yells loudly it doesn’t mean he’s smart.

If you can’t find it within yourself and are not driven to excel, there is nothing I can do for you.

I’ll give hard working, motivated, intelligent people everything I have. But for everyone else I have no time or patience. I know this offends many people. But it’s just me being honest.

If someone needs to lose 15 pounds of fat in order to compete at a higher level in a weight class sport I’m all for helping them. If someone needs to lose 150 pounds I don’t have a clue what they should do. All I know is they shouldn’t have gotten into that situation in the first place. And allowing themselves to do so shows me they are undisciplined and lazy. I have little tolerance for these types of people.

There’s nothing I like more than helping guys get bigger, stronger and faster. Taking a new guys squat from 225 to 455 is a lot of fun for me. I know how to do that. But I don’t know what fat people should do. I don’t know what lazy people should do. And it doesn’t interest me to find out.

I told some fat people recently that they couldn’t out train a bad diet. Some were offended. They thought that as long as they trained hard on some high intensity circuit type workout a few days a week they would get lean.

They won’t. Nobody gets lean from doing kettlebell swings and burpees. If you’re eating clean, these will help, but unless your diet is spot on you aint losing an ounce. All the exercise in the world will do you no good without eating properly. These are the cold, hard facts, my friends.

So before you send me another email telling me that I am discouraging fat, lazy people from even trying to get fit in the first place, please realize that I don’t care. These are not my kind of people and that is not my market.

You must have the wrong guy.

Please leave your comments below.

Written by jasonferruggia · Filed Under Uncategorized | 137 Comments

UFC Fighter Mac Danzig’s Vegan Diet

January 20, 2010

12274 UFC Fighter Mac Danzigs Vegan Diet By Mac Danzig

Although there are other people at the controls, manning and updating my websites, I do read all of the mail, and the questions I get asked most often (hundreds upon hundreds of times now) are about my diet. All of the emails and letters are so hard to keep up with, so I finally sat down and decided to write a comprehensive look at my diet. I’m writing this on the fly, so even though it’s long, I will most certainly leave some important things out.. ‘Sorry’ about that in advance.

This is not going to be political or preachy. I am not here to push my beliefs on anybody. This is a chance for all of you who have asked for diet advice from me, to get some ideas and hopefully gain a better understanding of how easy it is for me to maintain athletic performance with the foods I consume. In the mean time, I will simply lead by example.

I noticed that a lot of fighters write down what they may generically eat on a given day and simply post that as their “diet”. I’m sure this leads to confusion with most readers and still leaves many questions unanswered. My diet, in particular is extremely varied and also very specialized.

As you will see, I eat completely differently when I am cutting to 155, than when I am simply in training without having a weight-cut… And even more differently than when I am lazying around, eating whatever I want and getting fat…

By no means whatsoever, is this ‘the gospel’ of vegan eating… I am just sharing what I do… It may work for you, it may not… Take what works and discard the rest.

I can tell you right now, I don’t spend nearly as much time doting over my diet as most people think.. I know what to eat and what not to, and following those guidelines, I’m looking to get it done with and get on with my day…

I usually don’t have the time to cook, so unless my girlfriend is cooking for me (she’s great), or I am eating at a restaurant, I am usually looking for something quick and easy…

A few articles on me have gone into detail on what my daily diet is like… This one in particular stands out: MMA digest article

Also, Mike Mahler happens to be the one person whose diet I followed in the beginning of my change to a vegan diet. He inspired me and I hope I can do the same for some of you… I urge you to check out his diet if you’re interested in mine.

Before I get into specifics, I’d like to address something that ties into the same discussion…

For the record, I cut dairy completely out of my diet in 1999 (over 5 years before I ever committed to a full-Vegan diet)… This was due to an allergy that I developed in my adolescent years to dairy that affected my sinuses and everything connecting to them. For a good part of my teenage years, I suffered from severe ear infections and chronic Vertigo (which is completely miserable). It took me a few years of to finally realize that the antibiotics were only temporarily subduing a much bigger problem. I did my research and finally found the source. A lot of people don’t realize how hard milk, whey, and other dairy products are on the sinuses and respiratory system, and the dairy industry would like you to believe that you need milk to get calcium. That notion is as oxymoronic as you can get. Although not everybody has as severe an allergy to dairy products as I did, I just wanted to point out that after years of battling with ear and sinus infections, eliminating dairy completely cured my problems. Anyone with similar problems may want to try it for a while.

Also, let me just say that although protein intake is important, especially for athletes, I find the usual listed “requirements” for protein are blown completely out of proportion, and the thought of consuming “1.5 grams of protein per pound of body weight” during down time seems ridiculous to me… I truly feel that all the articles telling people to eat that way are written by people who copied the diets of fanatical body-builders and tried to present them to the general public. If you ingest that much protein a day, you’re taxing your liver and kidneys big-time… For example, I walk at 168lbs and I usually eat between 100 and 140 grams of protein per day when I’m in grueling, peak training… When I’m taking time off, I don’t pay attention to it and I’d say it’s usually around 70 grams a day, give or take…

One thing I consciously try and do is eat a higher amount of Alkaline-forming foods than acid-forming foods throughout each day… I don’t have time to get into the whole “alkaline foods” discussion, but I’ll just leave it out there, that there is plenty of info about it on ‘teh interweb’…

Ok, first here, I’m going to list some regular foods that I eat a lot of, along with an explanation on each one. Essentially these are of some basics that really make up a large portion of my weekly caloric intake…

Afterwards, I’ll list some broader ideas of diet, some supplements, then list some junk foods I eat and finally some daily examples…

Brown Rice: One of my main sources of complex carbs along with Oatmeal… I buy the ‘microwave in the bag’ frozen brown rice from Trader Joe’s… It’s pretty easy to make and can be added to almost any meal.
Wild Rice (actually a grass seed) is even better if you can get ahold of it.

Portobello mushrooms: These are great. Good protein source, low calories, low sodium… Can be sauteed or stir-fried with vegetables. I eat many of these when cutting weight.

Tempeh: This is a Tofu-based food and a good source of protein and fiber… Although a little bitter when eaten plain, I find that some flavorings can really make this good…

Quinoa: This grain is sometimes a chore to cook, and if you live in the middle of nowhere, it might be hard to find, but it’s a great source of not only carbs and protein, but fiber as well. This is one of the most nutritionally complete foods out there with a full, balanced set of amino acids…

Black Beans, lentils, etc: Really, many Mexican foods I find to be pretty substantial as long as there’s some beans and rice in it… Lentils are great in soup and have some decent protein and fiber… My girlfriend makes some really good lentil soup as well as squash soup.

Now, here are some things I will simply list and then explain how they work with my system.

Drinks: I drink water 99.9% of the time… Rarely do I ever feel the need for soft drinks or juices, although I might add some orange juice to a protein shake to make it taste better…
I drink in excess of 1.5 gallons of H2O per day when I’m training hard and about 1 gallon per day on the regular.

Wheat: My diet is not “wheat-free” but I do my best to avoid it… It’s an allergen (mild for most people) and not as easily digested you might think… Every now and then I have something that has wheat gluten in it as well… I’m not really into sandwiches, so bread is easy to avoid. I do eat pasta every once in a while and I might have some wheat tortillas, but if I had my choice of carbs, it’d be brown rice or quinoa. On a side note, they have come out with some good rice-based pastas that are identical to normal wheat pastas in every way.

Fake meat products: These are usually geared towards people making the change to vegetarianism and are made to mimic various meat products… I usually don’t mess with these all that much, with the exception of “riblets” made by Gardenburger brand… Most of the stuff out there doesn’t taste anything like meat to me (unless it’s seitan) and I don’t need my food to. Unfortunately, if you live in the midwest, or any place who’s stores haven’t adapted to vegetarian diets, you may find that these are the only things sold in the frozen section without meat or dairy… On the other side of this, many vegan restaurants have great fake meat products that are much more palatable than the stuff sold in the stores.

Vegetables: These are very necessary. I don’t eat them as much as I should, but when I do, it’s broccoli, peas, corn, green beans and spinach most of the time. Whenever I have a salad, I do my best to use organic kale or baby spinach as the main source rather than romain or iceberg lettuce. The leafy greens like collards, spinach and kale are extremely good for you.. Don’t sleep on them.

Nuts & seeds: I find almonds are the best for me. Some articles have stated that they boost testosterone… I can’t say that’s true or false, but I do find almonds to be superior to most of the other nuts and seeds out there…
Trader Joes sells raw, sliced almond flakes that can be turned into powder (if you have a chopper) and put into a protein shake.

I do eat peanuts sometimes, and natural peanut butter, but too many peanuts can be bad for you because of the naturally-occurring toxins in them. I eat cashews in moderation, and I usually stay away from Macadamias when I’m cutting weight because of their high fat content. I don’t eat as much seeds as I probably should, but Pumpkin seeds are definitely recommended… They are high in iron, which is important, because as an athlete, iron can be lost rapidly through sweat. Sunflower seeds are also pretty good and are a decent source of protein and vitamin E…

Seitan: although this stuff is delicious and has the most meat-like texture, it is essentially just wheat gluten and is pretty hard to digest… I stay away from it when I’m in hard training, but during the off-season, it’s fair play. Many restaurants have good meals with seitan.

Soy milk, almond milk, etc: I don’t eat cereal all that much, but when I do, I prefer almond milk and rice milk over soy milk… Just a personal preference. These can be added to protein shakes too. Rice milk is a little thinner that almond and soy usually…

Sodium: Many of the foods I really enjoy have a lot of sodium in them. I have no problem eating moderately sodium-rich foods until I get close to cutting to lightweight… Sodium causes you to retain water, so it’s pointless to consume if you want to drop water weight. 3 weeks before a fight, I start watching my sodium intake, and by the week of the fight, I’m down to less than 100 grams per day.

Supplements:
Vega : This is awesome. It has everything I need and it’s quick and easy. Although not ideal, I could really live off of this with no problems. Full nutrition. Vega makes powdered whole food meal replacements and energy bars that I eat pretty much every day. Their meal replacement uses hemp protein and pea protein as a base. When I’m taking this and/or The Ultimate Meal (see below) I find there’s no reason for a multi-vitamin.

The Ultimate Meal : I swear by this stuff, it’s a whole meal and has made up a huge part of my diet for 3 years now. It’s a bit of an acquired taste, but I truly notice myself feeling better when I use it daily. Remember to follow the directions and add the apple and banana. (This is not your normal “add powder to water” supplement)

Organic food bar : These are great for cutting weight… there is some fat but it’s good fat, and there’s hardly any sodium. Made of mostly almond butter and date paste.

Cliff Builders Bar : As far as protein bars go, these are the best tasting and pretty addictive… There’s a decent amount of sodium and calories, so they’re not ideal when you’re cutting weight.

Protein powders: I stay away from soy as a powdered protein supplement, and not because of the idiotic claim that it is “bad for men because it boosts estrogen” (which is complete nonsense), but because it doesn’t have a full amino acid spectrum and has less protein content percentage… Instead of soy powder, I use brown rice protein from Nutri-Biotic brand when I’m looking for plain protein supplement. Nutri-Biotic Rice protein has an 80% protein content and all the amino acids. I also find that Rice protein is digested a lot easire than soy.

Junk Food:

I eat a ton of soy ice cream and vegan cookies when I’m not dieting… This is my weakness, but my metabolism burns most of it off…

Also, I eat a lot of Thai food from vegan restaurants that, although normally not considered ‘junk-food’, certainly has a lot of fat and sodium. Example: Yellow Curry (made with coconut milk) with tofu and deep fried soy “chicken”… Oh yeah, I’m a potato chip fiend too…

Even with all the sugary stuff I indulge in, I do my best to completely avoid high fructose corn syrup.

Examples:

Ok, here is an example of just one day of my diet leading up to a lightweight fight that I posted on a blog a while back…

You must remember that this week and next are atypical of what I’d normally eat calorie-wise daily compared to, say, a month or more out… There is no way I could sustain this low-calorie diet for long periods of time… I love vegan cookies and Thai Food too much.

Morning: woke up at 166lbs and after a short 35 minute run and some calisthenics, I had The Ultimate Meal, which is a pulverized meal replacement. I swear by this stuff. There isn’t a single other product out there that comes close to this as far as recovery goes in training. Put it in a blender, add some water, an extra scoop of rice protein powder, an apple and a banana and I’m good to go. 400 cal

Noon time: Organic food bar 300 cal

Afternoon: Low-carb tortilla chips with Salsa. Soy yogurt with Fresh Pinapple. 350 cal

Mid Day: After working a private lesson at 3pm, and then at 4:00 sparring, consisting of five 5-minute rounds with 30 seconds rest and finishing with jump-rope interval training, I had a Clif Bar immediately to replace glycogen and help speed up recovery so I can function in my third workout. 250 cal

Evening: Rice Noodle mushroom soup with sautéed high-protein tofu added. Fresh pineapple. 300 cal

Night: After my Night workout in west LA, which consisted of 45 mins grappling, followed by ab work, I had a Clif Builders Bar and a rice protein shake. 350 cal

Last meal: Salad w/ baby greens, artichoke, olives, mushrooms, high-protein grilled tofu and light goddess dressing. Fresh strawberries and grapes for dessert. 300 cal

So that’s 2250 calories total, which is fine since I’m training 3x a day. The next week I’ll start to taper off my training and cut out all the sodium, so that I’m not retaining water.

_______________________________________________

Here’s an example of a typical (non-weight cutting) training day:

Breakfast: Oatmeal and soy yogurt with fruit.

Snack: almonds and dried cranberries

Lunch:
Barley salad
Sauteed zucchini and mushroom and ‘garden’ flavor tempeh with curry dipping sauce.

Midday:
Vega shake, Clif Builder Bar.

Snack: Tortilla chips and Guacamole

Dinner:
Brown rice pasta with fresh portabello’s and eggplant and marinara sauce.

Late night:
Coconut sorbet with pineapples.

Ok… well, I hope this answers at least a few of the diet questions some of you may have, and if not, I don’t know what to say… It took me almost 7 months to get around to writing this, so who knows when my lazy ass might get around to writing more…

Thanks for all the feedback and positive emails, you guys… Even though I can’t always write back, I hope all of you understand that I’m grateful to have such loyal and intelligent fans!

Take care,

Mac

For more information on Mac check out www.MacDanzig.net.

Written by jasonferruggia · Filed Under Nutrition | 10 Comments

Kickboxing

January 8, 2010

Question: Jason,
I bought Muscle Gaining Secrets a couple of weeks ago and so far I am incredibly happy with the results, however there is one thing that I haven’t been able to figure out. I am following the Maximum Mass in Minimum Time workout plan. What is the best timing for hour long Kickboxing sessions? I typically do Kickboxing on Tuesday evenings, Thursday evenings, and Saturday afternoons. Should I be lifting weights on the same days as Kickboxing (before or after?) or should I be lifting weights on Monday/Wednesday/Friday?
Thanks for your help!
John

Answer: John, this depends on your age, recovery ability, schedule and what you are prioritizing. I will assume that getting big and strong is of primary importance to you right now. Typically, I like guys to be doing some kind of physical activity six days per week. So lifting three times and kickboxing three times would be perfect. However, if you find that you are having a hard time recovering and aren’t making strength or size gains then we would have to explore another option. In this case I would recommend that you lift on Tuesday and Thursday mornings and then do kickboxing in the evening. You could do your other lifting session on Sunday since you do kickboxing in the afternoon on Saturdays. Now, if you don’t have the luxury of training in the morning and then again at night, doing your weight training right before kickboxing would be the only other option. I would just be sure that you drink some kind of recovery drink during and after both sessions. I know a few combat athletes who lift immediately before rolling and they say that they feel better and safer when the do this. It’s personal preference, I guess. Hopefully this somewhat vague answer helps you out.

Written by jasonferruggia · Filed Under Strength & Conditioning | 5 Comments

How To Get More Done

January 5, 2010

Here are a few random tips that will help you get more done and probably enjoy your life a little more in the process. I can’t take credit for “inventing” these tips but they are very useful and have helped me to be more productive.

Get your most important tasks done first thing in the morning- Do this before you check email or voicemail or anything like that. When you start getting sidetracked with other stuff ten minutes can turn into two hours and before you know it it’s time for your lunch break. Get the important stuff done first.

Don’t answer every phone call or text you receive- You are not required by some odd law to do so. You are not required to be at the beck and call of everyone you know. Many friends and acquaintances get upset if you don’t immediately pick up or text them back.

“That bastard! I know he has his phone with him right now!”

But these people fail to realize that a cell phone is a luxury that you have for your convenience and it is meant to make your life easier; not more difficult and more stressful. It is not meant to keep you on a leash and accountable to everyone in your life at all times.

Turn off your cell phone- Not too long ago we were somehow able to survive without cell phones. Now people can’t even turn theirs off. I was guilty of this for a while. But turning off your cell phone and unplugging completely, once in a while is a very liberating feeling. And when you do so you won’t even be tempted to answer every call or text, because you won’t even know they are coming through. When I want to be productive the first thing I do is turn off my cell phone. I also leave it off for extended periods when I’m at home which helps me to relax and just be in my own world for a while.

Check email less often- People are increasingly guilty of checking their email too often. This is an addictive trap which leads to zero productivity. Most smart productivity and business experts recommend cutting this down to twice per day, at most. Something like 10am and 4pm. Condition people to know that you only check email twice per day and that they shouldn’t expect an immediate response from you.

Get a phone that doesn’t have email or disconnect your automatic email- I had that on my phone a few years ago when it first became available because I though it was a good idea. All it did was ruin my life so I got it disconnected. You want to check email less, not every thirty seconds when it vibrates its way into your pocket. Talk about a miserable idea. There is no way you can ever unplug and live in the real world with this going on. Get rid of it and thank me later.

Don’t respond to every email you get- This is hard at first because you want to be a nice guy. But when the numbers start piling up you simply can’t answer all of them and expect to also make money and have a life. On a daily basis I now receive more emails than I could possibly answer in a month. I used to try and answer all of these personally. Then it started to make me miserable because I was getting nothing done and letting other aspects of my life suffer. So I had to start cutting it off. Answer only the most important emails and limit most of your responses to a few lines.

Delegate- With my personality this was very hard to do. But it can pay huge dividends if you are willing to turn the reigns over to others on certain aspects of your business or life. For example, I have very little artistic ability. So I don’t even try to come up with logo’s, t-shirt designs, slogans, etc. I leave that to my good friend, Mark Crook. I tell him what I need images or designs for and he goes to work on it. He is far more talented than I am and whatever he comes up with will be better than anything I could ever do on my own. Put your trust in someone else to do the things you aren’t good at or the things you don’t like doing. I also have someone else do all my web stuff because it’s not my field of expertise. I also have people answer emails for me for many of the reasons listed above. You have to do what you’re good at and let others help you with stuff you aren’t good at. I’m good at designing programs and training people. So I focus on that and let others do the stuff I don’t want to do or don’t know how to do. I highly recommend giving this a shot.

To read more about this I recommend the following books:

Written by jasonferruggia · Filed Under Business, Uncategorized | 4 Comments

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