How to Lose 20 lbs. of Fat in 30 Days… Without Doing Any Exercise

Fat Loss via Better Science and Simplicity

It is possible to lose 20 lbs. of bodyfat in 30 days by optimizing any of three factors: exercise, diet, or drug/supplement regimen. I’ve seen the elite implementation of all three in working with professional athletes. In this post, we’ll explore what I refer to as the “slow-carb diet”.

In the last six weeks, I have cut from about 180 lbs. to 165 lbs., while adding about 10 lbs. of muscle, which means I’ve lost about 25 lbs. of fat. This is the only diet besides the rather extreme Cyclical Ketogenic Diet (CKD) that has produced veins across my abdomen, which is the last place I lose fat (damn you, Scandinavian genetics). Here are the four simple rules I followed…

Rule #1: Avoid “white” carbohydrates

Avoid any carbohydrate that is — or can be — white. The following foods are thus prohibited, except for within 1.5 hours of finishing a resistance-training workout of at least 20 minutes in length: bread, rice, cereal, potatoes, pasta, and fried food with breading. If you avoid eating anything white, you’ll be safe.

Rule #2: Eat the same few meals over and over again

The most successful dieters, regardless of whether their goal is muscle gain or fat loss, eat the same few meals over and over again. Mix and match, constructing each meal with one from each of the three following groups:

Proteins:
Egg whites with one whole egg for flavor
Chicken breast or thigh
Grass-fed organic beef
Pork

Legumes:
Lentils
Black beans
Pinto beans

Vegetables:
Spinach
Asparagus
Peas
Mixed vegetables

Eat as much as you like of the above food items. Just remember: keep it simple. Pick three or four meals and repeat them. Almost all restaurants can give you a salad or vegetables in place of french fries or potatoes. Surprisingly, I have found Mexican food, swapping out rice for vegetables, to be one of the cuisines most conducive to the “slow carb” diet.

Most people who go on “low” carbohydrate diets complain of low energy and quit, not because such diets can’t work, but because they consume insufficient calories. A 1/2 cup of rice is 300 calories, whereas a 1/2 cup of spinach is 15 calories! Vegetables are not calorically dense, so it is critical that you add legumes for caloric load.

Some athletes eat 6-8x per day to break up caloric load and avoid fat gain. I think this is ridiculously inconvenient. I eat 4x per day:

10am – breakfast
1pm – lunch
5pm – smaller second lunch
7:30-9pm – sports training
10pm – dinner
12am – glass of wine and Discovery Channel before bed

Here are some of my meals that recur again and again:

Scrambled Eggology pourable egg whites with one whole egg, black beans, and microwaved mixed vegetables

Grass-fed organic beef, pinto beans, mixed vegetables, and extra guacamole (Mexican restaurant)

Grass-fed organic beef (from Trader Joe’s), lentils, and mixed vegetables

Rule #3: Don’t drink calories

Drink massive quantities of water and as much unsweetened iced tea, tea, diet sodas, coffee (without white cream), or other no-calorie/low-calorie beverages as you like. Do not drink milk, normal soft drinks, or fruit juice. I’m a wine fanatic and have at least one glass of wine each evening, which I believe actually aids sports recovery and fat-loss. Recent research into resveratrol supports this.

Rule #4: Take one day off per week

I recommend Saturdays as your “Dieters Gone Wild” day. I am allowed to eat whatever I want on Saturdays, and I go out of my way to eat ice cream, Snickers, Take 5, and all of my other vices in excess. I make myself a little sick and don’t want to look at any of it for the rest of the week. Paradoxically, dramatically spiking caloric intake in this way once per week increases fat loss by ensuring that your metabolic rate (thyroid function, etc.) doesn’t downregulate from extended caloric restriction. That’s right: eating pure crap can help you lose fat. Welcome to Utopia.

Flipkart.com Arjun Rampal's Workout Mantras For a Sculpted Body In Ra.One

Superb villain Workout: Arjun Rampal sculpted his delicious body in Ra.One on the back of an injury. He lets us in on his workout mantras

For Ra.One, Arjun Rampal spent countless hours in the gym bulking up and chiselling his body to ridiculous perfection. But like a balloon that is happy to not be at its inflated best, Arjun says he has never liked the ‘body-builder look’.

“The minute my chest goes to 42 or 43, I feel like I would need a bra (laughs). It doesn’t feel natural,” Arjun says, adding that one must understand what kind of a body they are happy with. “I can bulk up very fast. I can lift heavy weights because, like most people, I started off with heavy workouts. That’s stayed in my muscle memory.” Pinching his denims, he says, “I feel horrible when I feel my jeans are getting tight. Work outs peace me out.”

A skinny boy in his school years, Arjun was always an athlete and used to work out during college. “I think it is easier for thinner people to build on a frame once you get lean muscle. I get bored lifting weights at the gym and it isn’t enough as your body becomes stiff. So I train in different ways such as core training, cardio with weights, playing sports such as tennis, cycling, swimming and running 10 kms once a week.”

STOP BEFORE YOU DROP

Upholding a dizzying level of fitness hasn’t been injury-free for Arjun. He winces as he recollects the excruciating pain that slipped discs brought him on two occasions. “The worst was when I was squatting, about to lift weights. And as I bent… pop… my spinal disc popped. I felt a biting bolt of current shoot through my legs,” recounts Arjun, who was then shooting for Housefull. “I took painkillers and continued shooting. The lesson here is you must listen to your body, because it can go into a spasm otherwise.”

TRAINING DAYS

His regular workouts turn into relentless five-day-a-week ironpumping affairs once he is getting ready for a role. “When I was shooting for Raajneeti, Shah Rukh told me I should also start shooting for Ra.One. Some crazy training was on its way.” Training essentially means two unforgiving hours in the gym. About 40 minutes of various cardio, 10 minutes on treadmill to warm-up and then a specific body part. “I find 12 pm as the best time to work out. During training, I do two body parts a day: chestback, back-triceps or chest-biceps so that my body doesn’t get used
to a pattern,” says Arjun.

The gruelling schedule is followed by 20 more minutes on the treadmill and 10 minutes of calming down. “I always stretch before a workout and run a lot so that my heart rate accelerates. I do my lower back exercises so that my core
and back are warmed up enough because I am scared of injuring myself again. I work out very fast. I don’t take breaks and train non-stop for 80 minutes.” When Arjun does these body parts for three days, he doesn’t lift weights on the fourth but does only core, cardio and stretching. He says, “At times, I do Tabata, a high-intensity Japanese training regimen, in which I must do 20 seconds of a specific body part with 10 seconds of rest. This must be done eight times within four minutes. Your heart rate shoots through the roof but you burn a lot of fat.”

THE MAKING OF A SUPER-VILLAIN

To carve a lethal body for Ra.One, on the back of his injury, meant he had to start very slow. “No weights, no bending… only core training. It was very tough. But in 15 days, I worked out with a vengeance and made my core really strong. Zarine Watson trained me very scientifically because she had seen the seriousness of my injury in the x-rays,” he says. Freehand training and a lot of cardio with altitude training (wearing masks that simulate the effect of exertion at high altitudes) enhanced Arjun’s stamina and metabolism. “By the end of it, I was doing close to 2500 sit ups and 40 pound dumbbells while hanging from a pull-up bar. You push your body and it all happens.”

His diet had also switched to what he has in his "training mode’. Two whole wheat toasts, a dozen egg whites and a protein shake in the morning. Dry fruits such as walnuts and cashews munched on every now and then. “I would eat five small meals, as they increase my metabolic rate. For lunch, I would include some carbs. So it would be a roti or two with dal, tandoori chicken and whole wheat bread sandwiches.”

FOOD NO BAR

There is hope for even the most hardened foodies when Arjun agrees with their mantra — eat everything. “I am a foodie and I don’t avoid anything. I know guys who have an occasional kheer or chocolate cake and fall sick. Now that is ridiculous. I don’t ever want to be in that space.”A red wine connoisseur with an aversion to aerated drinks, Arjun hails salads as ‘essential food’ and recommends eating half an avocado a day, ‘because it contains good fats and burns your stubborn fat.’

Then of course is the golden rule — wrap up your dinner by 8 pm. “Avoid carbs because after 9 pm, your system shuts down. So dining late means everything you are putting in there will stay like garbage, with no nutritional value.”

SMOKES AND SHAKES

Puffing on his fourth cigarette of the hour, Arjun admits he needs to quit his ‘terrible habit’. “I think if I wasn’t smoking I would be running for the Olympics (laughs).” After making his profession an excuse for making it difficult for him to give up, Arjun points out, “When I work out rigorously, somehow my cigarette intake reduces. I can almost feel how each drag is undoing all the good I am doing to my body.”

And does he agree with the latest ‘health supplement’ fads? “I take only whey protein shakes. I haven’t ever tried amino acids or creatine, let alone steroids. I find playing with hormones very dangerous. Each of our body types are unique and special. So when none of us look alike, why should our bodies look the same?”

Weight Loss - Overview

Obesity/overweight is a global problem on rise predicted to rise by 300% in the next 25 years.


Excessive weight is a problem that has affected millions of people around the world like a plague. Obesity and excessive weight are causing health problems to people and it is now becoming an epidemic in the entire world. Keeping our weight in check and keeping ourselves healthy is becoming more and more difficult every day.


Weight loss diets, weight loss drugs, weight loss surgeries are all over the place today. Not limited any more to the high income group, these conditions are showing a dramatic rise in incidence in low and middle-income groups as well. Projections by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2001 suggested that the number of obese Indians could rise by 300% in the next 25 years.

Obesity a key that unlocks all diseases eg: Diabetes, Hypertension, cardio-vascular diseases and many more....

Being overweight or obese poses a serious risk for developing many complications like diabetes, hypertension, heart problems, weakened bones and even cancer. It's about time we do something substantial to save our society and the coming generations from this epidemic.

The good news is that you don't have to reach your ideal weight to lower your risk of developing obesity-related medical problems. Losing even 10% of your total body weight can significantly lower your risk. Losing 10% of your total body weight is a good goal to start with. You can always continue and lose more weight once you have reached your initial goal.

So what exactly is overweight and obesity?

Overweight and obesity are both labels for ranges of weight that are greater than what is generally considered healthy for a given height. The terms also identify ranges of weight that have been shown to increase the likelihood of certain diseases and other health problems.

Assess whether the weight that you carry around is healthy or unhealthy?

Body Mass Index (BMI) is a measurement that is used to check whether a person's weight falls within the normal range or not. The normal range of BMI for women is between 20 and 25. The normal range for men is between 18.7 and 23.8. BMI higher than normal indicates being overweight. A BMI of above 30 is indicative of obesity.

When you are 10-20% in excess of your Ideal Body Weight (IBW), you are overweight. When you are 30% or more in excess of your Ideal Body Weight, you are suffering from obesity (morbidly overweight).