I am in Quebec City airport right now waiting for my connecting flight to Toronto for my weekend Mastermind meetings for Dad Fitness.

Hopefully I don’t encounter any flight delays as there is a snow storm forecasted to hit Toronto sometime tonight and tomorrow!

So seeing as I am on the road I have a great article that I wanted to share with you from Dr. John Berardi.

Eating on the Road: Nutritional Travel Strategies
by Dr John M Berardi, CSCS

More and more the biggest challenge my clients face is sticking to their nutritional plan while on the road. Therefore in this article, I’ve compiled a list of my top 10 favorite strategies for maintaining your nutritional discipline when traveling.

Strategy #1 — Location, Location, Location
If you’re planning to take to the road for sport or for business, your first item of business is this—ensure that everything you need is in close proximity to where you’ll be working or playing. Location is key.

So let’s say you’re going to a week long conference at the Indiana Convention Centre and RCA Dome. Well first, get on the internet and find all the hotels nearest the Convention Centre. Next, give these hotels a call to find out where the nearest grocery stores, restaurants and gyms are located. Pick the hotel with the best combination of nearby resources. This way, even if you don’t get a rental car, you can easily walk or cab to your fitness and nutritional havens.

Skip this strategy and you’re giving yourself big excuses to skip workouts, miss meals, and make poor food selections while on the road.

Strategy #2 — The Penthouse Suite?
While you don’t necessarily have to stay at a 5 star hotel or choose the penthouse suite, one great strategy for you road warriors is to choose a hotel chain that offers rooms/suites with kitchens or kitchenettes. If you know a nice kitchen set-up is waiting for you, you won’t have much difficulty sticking to your meal plan.

Just have your cabbie drop you at the grocery store on your way from the airport. Once you get to your hotel room you can rest assured that you’ll be able to eat as well as when you’re at home.

If you’re looking for a good hotel chain, Marriott Residence Inns are a nice
choice. You can find other hotels that meet your needs as well. I recommend Marriott because my clients have always had great experiences with them.

Now, if you absolutely can’t find or afford a hotel that has a kitchen or kitchenette, make sure that your hotel room has, at the very least, a refrigerator (most do). As long as you’ve got a refrigerator, you can stock your hotel room with good snacks. My athletes and I pick up fresh fruits and vegetables, bottled water, cottage cheese, plain yogurt, regular cheese, natural peanut butter, whole grain breads and mixed nuts on our way into town and snack on these during our weeks on the road.

Strategy #3 — Can You Ship Egg Whites Next Day?
Here’s a great strategy I picked up former client and current good friend, Austin. This guy is a bona fide road warrior himself and has a ton of great strategies for eating on the road. Instead of going shopping when he gets to town, Austin actually ships his food and supplements via UPS or Fed Ex.
He gets a medium sized cold shipping box, loads it up with ice, protein powders, fruits and veggies, mixed nuts, legumes, meat, eggs, cottage cheese, yogurt, cooking pans, utensils, shaker bottles and non-stick cooking spray and ships it to his hotel before leaving home.

By doing this, Austin doesn’t need to worry about where grocery stores and restaurants are located. As soon as he arrives in town, he’s good to go—nutritionally, at least. All he needs to find is a gym and he’s set. Again, although the shipping option may seem a bit pricey, you’ll end up saving money on restaurants and the price may work out in the end.

Strategy #4 — The Big Cooler
Here’s another strategy I picked up from my buddy Austin that helps ya’ transport both luggage and groceries simultaneously for shorter trips that might last only a day or two.

Pick up a big cooler with an extendible handle and wheels (much like the wheeled luggage so popular nowadays), put a little partition down the middle, and you’ve got a ready made combined cooler/suitcase that can act as a carry-on. Put your cottage cheese on one side and your drawers on the other!

Strategy #5 — What’s On The Menu?
If you decide to have others prepare your meals for you when on the road, make sure you use Strategy #1 above to find out where the restaurants nearest your hotel are located. Next, visit them on the web for downloadable menus. If they don’t have downloadable menus, call them and ask them to send a menu over to your hotel for when you arrive.

By having the restaurant menus, you’ll know exactly what types of food you can have access to at all times. Also, when dining with a group, you’ll be able to suggest places that conform to your nutritional requirements.

Strategy #6 — You Don’t Have To Order From The Menu
Here’s a hot tip that most people fail to realize. Most restaurants can easily provide a meal custom to your specifications even if it’s not on the menu. So don’t become a slave to the menu offerings. Ordering a specific number from the menu is almost always a recipe for disaster unless the menu is designed for “healthy eating” or whatever the restaurant is calling it. Most normal dishes have too much fat and too many processed carbohydrates for most body-conscious individuals.

Instead of ordering an item directly from the menu, either ask for an item that you like prepared without the sauces or high carbohydrate portions or simply ask for a portion of protein and a few servings of vegetables and fruit on the side. Remember, you’re paying top dollar for your meal and you’re about to tip your waitress. So don’t feel bad asking them to meet your needs, uh, nutritionally, that is.

Strategy #7 —Protein and Energy Supplements
Using some combination of the strategies above, you should be able to ensure that good meal options are always around the corner. But sometimes when you’re on the road it’s impossible to slip back to your room or to get to a restaurant.

For times like this, you’ll need to consider a few supplement options.

ypically, when at home I only use 1-2 scoops of protein
powder per day, but when on the road, I may use up to 6 scoops if necessary. Protein choices are both hard to come by and more expensive than other options. So increasing your dietary energy with protein powders is a good fall-back option.

Strategy #8 — Powdered Veggies
Normally, at home, I get about 10 servings of fruits and veggies per day. But when I’m on the road that amount is usually reduced to somewhere around 2-4 servings unless I’m very conscious of my intake. A great way to make up for this reduction in my micronutrient intake is to use a powdered vegetable supplement such as Greens+.

If I’m on the road, these products help make up for the deficit I may be experiencing. An added bonus is that I seem to better digest my protein supplements when adding some greens+ to my protein shakes.

Strategy #9 — Homemade Bars
If you’re not into drinking numerous protein shakes per day, another great option is to bring some homemade snacks with you. In fact, homemade protein/energy bars are a fantastic alternative to the mostly crappy, store bought, sugar laden, artificial ingredient containin’, protein bars.

Strategy #10 — Sleep Pills
Jet lag, time zone changes, unfamiliar sleeping environments, poor nutrition, altered exercise habits, and the stress associated with big business meetings or competitions can all really impair your ability to get adequate rest when on the road.

Following the previous nine steps will help you take care of your nutritional intake. Making sure not to skip workouts will also help. So will the addition of a ZMA supplement. While research hasn’t provided direct evidence to support a relationship between zinc and/or magnesium status and sleep quality, most ZMA users find dramatically improved sleep quality when taking this supplement. Three capsules before bed should do the trick.

If you’re going to be successful in maintaining a good nutritional plan, no matter what the circumstances, you’re going to have to plan for the unplanned and display adaptability to all circumstances. The guidelines included in this article should help get you thinking about how to become a successful road warrior.

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Sean Barker, CPT

Learn the “The Truth On Fat Loss, How To Finally Lose That Beer Belly” in this FREE report from Sean Barker at www.dadfitness.com

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Things are quiet in the house this weekend with my wife and baby daughter gone out of town to visit family.

So I headed to the gym bright and early on this Saturday morning.

Today was Workout B or lower body from the book Built For Show.

It was a high rep day of all 12 reps of front squats, step ups and abs.

Even though the weights were light, the short 45 sec rest periods were hardly enough time to catch my breath.

This was definitely a short and intense fat burning workout!

That’s it for today, gotta go get ready to pack for my business trip to Toronto.

But before I go I will leave you with the what I like to call the

The Dad Fitness Top 10 Tips to Change Your Body

Sean Barker, CPT

Learn the “The Truth On Fat Loss, How To Finally Lose That Beer Belly” in this FREE report from Sean Barker at www.dadfitness.com

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Yes, you read that right. My wife took our 6 month old daughter Matea, packed her bags and left me!

…to go and visit her sister in New Brunswick for a week.

This is the first time daddy’s little girl will be away from me since she was born.

I certainly miss them both so much already. But was just talking to my wife and they arrived safe and sound which is what really matters.

As for me I will be heading out of town on Sunday to attend a weekend mastermind meeting in Toronto with Craig Ballantyne, Men’s Health expert and creator of TurbulenceTraining.com

It will be a weekend of networking with 10 other fitness professionals to enhance and grow our fitness businesses to help more people worldwide get fit for life.

No matter how much you think you know or what fitness level you may be at, always strive to learn more from the top experts in the health and fitness industry.

Don’t try and design exercise programs for yourself if you don’t have the experience and expertise to do so. Even myself as well as lots of the top trainers in the world look to other trainers in the industry to design exercise programs for them.

I also do the same every now and then and use workouts from other top trainers because they say the hardest person to design an exercise program for is YOURSELF!

Let me do the work for you and start using professionally designed fat burning workouts that are designed for busy dads.

Click this link to==>Download 16 weeks of fat burning workouts

…Tonight I will be heading to a buffet dinner with some friends.

So I thought I would share with you an awesome tip when you are attending any holiday buffets this Christmas.

It’s actually from a great book called “Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think”

It’s called the Rule of Two. You can choose anything you want at the buffet, but you can never have more than two items on your plate. If you want to load it up with nuts and cake, go ahead. If you want to go back for seconds and load it up again with chips and carrots, go ahead.

Although this sounds like a recipe for disaster, it actually works quite well for people for three reasons:

• You tend to take the two types of food you want most. People who love desserts don’t work their way up to desserts. They’ll start with the desserts, and then stop.

• You tend to not overfill you plate. Putting only two things on our plate helps keep our serving sizes somewhat small because we psychologically don’t want to overload on a particular item.

• You tend to not go back more than two times. In one study did on the Rule of Two, 83 percent of people only made one or two additional returns to the buffet.

This morning I also had a great workout at the gym. It was short and intense and was a high rep day with short rest periods of 45 secs!

That’s it for today I am heading outdoors to start putting up our Christmas lights!

PS. If you feel like you ate a little too much yesterday and want to get back on track you can get your workouts instantly at DadFitness.com so you can burn off those extra calories.

…Or if you are like me and love the convenience of online shopping from the comfort of your own home the Dad Fitness System is just the thing to give to someone who is also a busy dad looking to get in shape in the New Year.

Sean Barker, CPT

Learn the “The Truth On Fat Loss, How To Finally Lose That Beer Belly” in this FREE report from Sean Barker at www.dadfitness.com

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The Weight Training Triangle
-The Secret to Building Maximum Muscle
by Sean Barker,CPT
=============================================

The process of building muscle is pretty simple. It’s so simple actually; that people have a hard time believing how they can train less and grow more.

Find out the secret to building maximum muscle in minimum time.

I like to refer to the whole process of building muscle as the Training Triangle. It is basically the 24 hour a day process that your body will be undergoing when you begin weight training. It has three components, Training, Nutrition, and Recovery, each one no more important than the other. If one of these is not given 100%, the Training Triangle begins to crumble.

Weight Training is about stimulating muscle growth, plain and simple. It only provides the stimulus for your muscles to grow. Muscles DO NOT grow when you are in the gym. The other two corners of the Training Triangle take care of that. Weight Training exercise provides overload to the muscles, breaking down the muscle tissue on a microscopic level. It responds when subjected to levels of exercise beyond what it is accustomed to in order for an adaptation process to occur. The human body then attempts to adapt to this stimulus by getting stronger and growing more muscle tissue. This is where the next corner of the Triangle takes over.

Nutrition is the next vital step in the Training Triangle. Through eating the proper foods you supply your body with the nutrients it needs for energy replenishment, cell growth and repair, as well as the basic metabolic functions your body undergoes on a daily basis. Back in 400 B.C., Hippocrates said, “Let food be your medicine and medicine be your food.” Today, good nutrition is more important than ever. At least four of the 10 leading causes of death in the U.S.–heart disease, cancer, stroke and diabetes–are directly related to way we eat. Focus on eating lean proteins such as chicken, beef, pork and fish. Get lots of of fiber and antioxidants through fruits, veggies and 100% whole grains. Consume healthy omega 3 fats daily such as olive oil, flaxseed oil and fish oil. The key components to good nutrition and living a healthy lifestyle are balance, variety and moderation.

Recovery is probably the most neglected step in the Training Triangle. It is a fantastic feeling to be motivated and have a gung-ho attitude when beginning a weight training program, but some control and moderation must be included with that eagerness in order to see results. Remember the story of the tortuous and the hare? The lesson was that slow and steady, wins the race. Society has conditioned us to think more is better. But, in terms of weight training and building muscle, training too often can bring any gains to a screeching halt, as well as increase chance of injury and adrenal burnout. Rest and recovery is essential for maximum muscle growth. During recovery we build muscle in response to the stimulus we created while training. If you fail to take adequate recovery time into consideration, you will be greatly limiting your results.

The Training Triangle is the foundation of any successful weight-training program. Understanding each element and its importance, will directly dictate the results you will achieve.

…As for me, it looks like I am finally kicking this cold to the curb and had a great workout today.

Today I continued with my buddy Nate Green’s Built For Show workouts.

I am rotating through upper body and lower body workouts found in his “Fall Season” workouts.

Workout A- Upper Body
Workout B- Lower Body

I felt strong and focused today in the gym as I pumped out rows, db bench presses, chinups, shoulder presses and some abs work.

Sean Barker, CPT

Learn the “The Truth On Fat Loss, How To Finally Lose That Beer Belly” in this FREE report from Sean Barker at www.dadfitness.com

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After being up since 4:30am this morning with little Matea as she has the sniffles as well, I managed to hit the gym this morning around 9am.

Despite feeling all stuffed up in the head I wasn’t feeling too bad. Let’s hope I am kicking this cold to the curb!

I did Workout B of the Fall workout in Nate Green’s new book Built For Show.

It was a short and intense lower body workout and went pretty well. I found it a little hard to recover in 60 seconds between sets as my breathing capacity is not 100% from the cold.

I will rest up this weekend and I am looking forward to getting back to my Dad Fitness Workouts.

Sean Barker, CPT

Learn the “The Truth On Fat Loss, How To Finally Lose That Beer Belly” in this FREE report from Sean Barker at www.dadfitness.com

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