subtitute a meal replacement drink or a lower-carb meal for
your postworkout drink. That will keep your carbs over 100
grams so you continue to fill glycogen stores, but not so much
that you blunt fat burning. With that strategy we always had
plenty of energy for training—in fact, we got stronger on many
e x e rcises as we got closer to our shoot date—and we never
got the cloudy mental condition associated with severe low-
carb diets, and rarely did we ever get cravings for sweets.
The most interesting thing is that during our last month, our
photos show that we gained muscle as we continued to lose
fat. As we said, the first phases of a diet tend to burn visceral
fat, which is in muscle tissue. That last month, as the remaining
fat came off from below the skin, our muscle size appeared to
i n c rease—and we got stro n g e r. Many experts believe it’s
impossible to build muscle on a low-calorie diet. Look at our
last two photos in the sequence and you be the judge.
Of course, during that last month, when we took the final
two photos in the sequence, we began using X Reps. We ’ re
sure that had something to do with building more muscle as we
continued to drop fat. Using power partials at the end of a set
at the max-force-generation point in the stroke does everything
f rom increase muscle-fiber re c ruitment to stimulate anabolic
hormones, such as growth hormone and testosterone. (Those
two hormones are potent fat burners, so you’ll definitely want
to use X Reps!) We’ll have more on X Reps later in this book.
They can superc h a rge your fat-burning and muscle-building
efforts, getting you to X-treme Lean condition faster! Even we
w e re stunned with how fast they worked in combination with
our other X-treme Lean strategies.
By the way, the last two photos in each of our series at the
beginning of this chapter drive home another point: Just how
much your appearance can change without a fluctuation in
bodyweight. Jonathan’s bodyweight was the same in both
photos, about 204, and Steve’s stayed at about 194. Obviously,
if you gain muscle as you lose fat, the scale won’t register a
fluctuation. Don’t use the scale to guage your progress.
frankie
(Frankie)
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