DangerouslyHardcore.com presents:
By John Kiefer
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The “Content” presented herein is for informational purposes only and intended for use by adults capable of understanding the Content and capable of seeking medical advice from appropriately licensed professionals when necessary or appropriate. Although I have researched various topics extensively and attempted to organize numerous issues associated with diet and exercise in a clarifying manner, the Content is not intended as a substitute for professional medical input or action. Always seek the advice of a qualified health provider regarding a medical condition or your ability to apply the Content in a safe manner. Please never disregard professional medical advice or fail to seek it in a timely manner because of something you have read anywhere, including here.
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I’m glad you decided to plunge into a new world of success by downloading this free report. Myths, pseudo‐science and unchecked gym‐lore have plagued your progress for long enough. By teaching you how the body works, I will supercharge your progress. What I’m going to share might destabilize your faith in everything you think you know about eating. You’ve been sabotaged by parents and teachers, and now that you’re on your own, you continue to sabotage your performance and aesthetic goals. And even worse: you may be passing it around. And no, I’m not talking about those Twinkies and Ho‐Hos stashed away in your cabinets, so don’t dart to the kitchen to throw out all the junk food. Frankly, even those foods can be used for good. It’s time to twist your concept of good, bad, and ugly and share how to accelerate your progress.
That’s right: the king of daily nutrition, the preeminent meal of the day, the home of Lucky the Leprechaun, Trix the Rabbit and Snap, Crackle, and Pop thwarts your efforts to get bigger, stronger and leaner . Even if you think you’re playing it safe with oatmeal and egg whites, or a bowl of fruit and cup of Weight Watcher’s® yogurt, eating food at the very beginning of your day is making you fatter, slower, weaker and dumber.
B r e ak f a s t i s m a k i n g y ou fatt er, slow er, w e a k e r an d dumber.
I’m not bucking an American tradition to be sensational or to say something intriguing just to get your attention. Like you, I ate breakfast religiously, but after 3
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reading volumes of scientific studies, I realized that breakfast is the ultimate goal crippler . Every one of my clients who had a desire to be stronger, faster, leaner—or even just needed extra brainpower for the LSAT—achieved instantaneous results by following my guidelines for breakfast, which is no breakfast at all. I don’t act on someone’s pet theory without proof, and I don’t think you should either. My pet theory’s got scientific teeth. So, why skip breakfast?
Everybody and their kid sister knows the breakfast‐ boosts‐your‐metabolism rationale and repeats it ad nauseam, but does it make sense? Science says no.
Let’s think in terms of metabolism instead of hunger for a minute. Your metabolism when you wake is not burning carbs. I don’t care what you ate before going to bed, or how much, your body is burning fat by morning. First thing in the morning your metabolism is ripping through fat like a hot knife through butter (ref 1) . Fat is the fuel, the body’s the furnace and hormones stoke the flames. Here’s a quick run‐down of the average personʹs hormonal happenings around 7AM: •
Cortisol levels elevate through the night and peak (ref 2) .
•
Ghrelin levels, the main hunger‐control hormone, peak (ref 3) .
•
Human Growth Hormone levels peak (ref 4) .
•
Insulin levels remain extremely low from the night of fasting (ref 5) .
All four of these effects stimulate massive fat burning. 4
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Trust me, I know you’re hungry in the morning, but you should be thankful. Ghrelin may spark hunger, but it also stimulates growth hormone release (ref 6) , which in turn, ignites more fat burning (ref 7) ! Hunger and fat burning go hand in hand first thing in the morning and if you endure the hunger, your body rewards you with a six pack—of abs.
Ea t i n g b re a k f a s t
e l e v at e s c o r t i s o l Even cortisol, normally thought of as a muscle burner, and insulin l e v e ls , w h i c h
breaks down body fat when insulin levels are low (ref 8) , which means cortisol in the morning is a monster fat burner.
m a k e s y o u fa t .
Accelerated fat burning lasts all morning…unless you eat, which invariably raises insulin levels. The resulting hormonal cocktail, particularly the simultaneously elevated cortisol and insulin, conspires to make you fat. Breakfast can reduce fat burning for the entire rest of the day (ref 9) , and while cortisol levels remain high, the insulin release causes new empty fat cells to be created (ref 10) . As the insulin continues to rise, growth hormone subsides (ref 11) and body‐fat burning grinds to a halt. Skipping breakfast is a way to lose body fat faster and keep it off.
Skipping breakfast and eating more food at the end of the day instead leads to more fat loss when leaning down. And this isn’t conjecture… Research proves that eating breakfast makes you fatter.
So what happens when researchers test two groups, one that eats most of their calories in the beginning of the day, to simulate the no‐eating‐after‐seven routine,
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and the other that skips breakfast, eating most of their meals in the latter half of the day? By looking at body composition instead of just body weight, researchers found that the big ‐breakfast ‐eating group lost more weight but lost a lot more muscle and a lot less fat . The night group actually lost more fat and kept their muscle (ref 12) . Breakfast not only can make you fat, but it keeps you fat.
Strength coaches typically resist the idea of training without breakfast, arguing over it until they’re blue in the face. Then, for some reason—I guess because it’s free to try—they decide to test it out. Suddenly, they’re stronger. They’re leaner. They’re more focused. After a month, they won’t shut up about breakfast—the awesomeness of skipping it. The central nervous system functions with greater efficiency when not shoved from equilibrium with food.
Wh e n w e l e t t h e body manage its
Without the morning disruption of food, motor‐
blood sugar, the
signals from the central nervous system (CNS)
nervous syst em
increase in amplitude (ref 13) , allowing an increase in single‐rep power production, and fine‐motor
s t a y s f i n e -t u n e d and ready t o
control (ref 14) .
perform. When you skip breakfast and train, the enhanced precision and amplification of your CNS augments your ability to coordinate movement. You’ll hold perfect form while lowering 315 lbs into the groove and launch the weight from your chest for a personal record on the bench press.
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So what happens to your nervous system when you eat that breakfast, forcing your body to switch from burning fat to burning Fruity Pebbles? The body’s internal doling‐out of fuel with an external source that hits all at once. The body must work to disperse the load of food and achieve a new balance point. Since neurons possess the ability to burn glucose without the help of insulin, fluctuations in blood sugar seriously affect firing efficiency. When the body manages its own production and usage of blood sugar, the nervous system stays fine‐tuned and ready to perform.
No matter what I say about fat loss, someone will say that skipping breakfast turns people into mental sloths. Does it really? You think so? I disagree. So does science. When I talk about the mental benefits of skipping breakfast in a public forum, someone always says, “Well, I design tests for grade schools and the kids that eat breakfast always perform the best; I have the studies but I don’t have the time to show you.” Even if they
Wh e n k i d s s k i p
have them, they’re observational studies. They’re not
breakfast they
experiments.
pay att ention, behave, and p e r f or m b e t t e r all day.
Are there any experiments showing that breakfast improves cognitive
abilities? Yes,
when those
experiments involve severely malnourished people (ref 15) .
What about healthy kids? Researchers withheld breakfast from one group of kids, letting them eat at lunch, while the other group had a “balanced breakfast”. They found that when kids
skip breakfast they pay attention, behave, and perform better throughout the entire school day (ref 16) . 7
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Skipping breakfast sharpens your focus.
All the help you think that Powerbar® and banana you down as you rush out the door and drive through traffic to the gym is a lark. A pre‐training morning snack is keeping you puny! That’s right: I’m going straight for the jugular on this one. Maybe you’re okay losing a little strength. Maybe you’re married and content and don’t feel like you need to look your best all the time so fat loss doesn’t matter (which sucks for your spouse, but no judgments here). And frankly, IQ has
Skipping
never been your number‐one concern, so if a stack of
b r ea k f a s t c a n
pancakes throws off your cognitive powers, so be
double your
it—those fluffy, butter‐drenched flap jacks justify being a dunce on “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire”.
m u s c u l a r g r ow t h
But to give up size, mass, and bulging biceps just so
potential.
you can keep eating breakfast? If you’re willing to train on an empty stomach or after having just a cup of coffee or two, the sacrifice and hunger pangs will pay dividends. Training without breakfast doubles the growth response compared to training on a full stomach.
You read that correctly. By training first thing in the morning fasted, lifting weights triggers twice the genetic growth factor activation compared to eating a meal before training (ref 17) .
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As you can see, I’m not some crazed anti‐ breakfast zealot. To be honest, I used to be a total breakfast Nazi. I wouldn’t start the day without downing some sort of nutrition, like oatmeal, egg whites and a protein shake, and I wouldn’t let anyone I worked with skip the supposed anabolic window that occurs when you wake. But after a decade of research and experience, I discovered breakfast slows down my results. If I want to get leaner, stay lean or get big, then I ditch breakfast. In other words, I always skip breakfast. I do admit that I miss starting the day with pancakes, biscuits and gravy, eggs Benedict or French toast or hashbrowns. Sometimes I even crave large bowl of Cocoa Puffs. I don’t mind going without, however. The results are worth the sacrifice. What am I saying? Being bigger, stronger and smarter than I’ve ever been with far less effort is no sacrifice.
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John Kiefer is a highly sought after training and nutrition consultant. His goal to achieve super‐human results for himself and others, and to discover the extremes of human performance through training and nutrition keeps him at the cutting edge. He has read over 40,000 medical research papers covering various facets of human biology to guide his work. His extensive knowledge of human nutrition and performance is tempered by 15 years of experience applying, observing and refining his methodology. He prefers being called by his surname, Kiefer. Kiefer graduated Magna Cum Laude with a B.A. in Mathematics and a B.A. in Physics from Otterbein College in 1997 in under three years. He received his Master of Science degree from the University of Florida in December 2001. In 2000‐2001, he took a hiatus in his studies to develop web‐ based software. He published his first diet book for radical fat loss, The Carb Nite® Solution , in 2005 and introduced his second dieting method for strength and lean muscle gain, Carb Back‐Loading™ in 2010. Because of his extensive knowledge base, Kiefer advises athletes across several disciplines. In addition to working with every‐day people, his current client list includes world‐record holding power lifters, strongmen, bodybuilders, fitness and figure competitors, IronMan® athletes, marathon runners, collegiate strength coaches and even editors of some of the most prestigious fitness magazines in the industry. You can learn more about Kiefer and his philosophy at Dangerously Hardcore.
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