How to Lose Excess Body Fat
And Get Ripped Muscles

Ok, so you've spent the past few months bulking up and packing on the muscle mass, and you're size and strength is at a level which you're happy with. Ripped Muscles is what you're after now, because along with all that muscle you've gained came a little bit of a fat, or a lot of fat (depending on how much you've been eating). And that fat is hiding your hard-earned muscles.

No need to worry, as you should have learned before you started bulking up, gaining some excess body fat is natural and something you can't avoid.

No matter what anyone tells you, it's near impossible to pack on muscle mass AND lose fat at the same time. You can minimize your fat gains during your bulking-up phase, but you can't avoid it completely.

What's the point of having a large and powerful muscular body if you are soft and flabby all over. If you're like most people you will want to go into what's called a "cutting phase" to burn away your excess body fat so that your hard-earned muscles are revealed. This is called getting ripped muscles. Your 6 pack abs will also show up if you do this (assuming you've developed them well enough through proper exercise).

Ok, so how do you actually go about getting ripped? The thing is, a lot of people are misinformed about what to do. The biggest mistake and most common dilemma I see with people is them thinking this: "If I use a lighter weight and perform more repititions, my muscles will become more defined".

This couldn't be more wrong. They think that they can target certain areas of the body to become more toned, or defined as they like to say. For example, if their aim was to tone their arms they would do barbell curls with a lighter weight and do lots of reps.

Or if they wanted to show that 6 pack then they would do lots and lots of situps and crunches. It sometimes hurts to see how misguided they are! Sure, doing lots of situps/crunches will make your ab muscles big and strong, but it won't burn fat in that particular area so that you can actually see your abs!

You can even find personal trainers at the gym who say the same myth to you "heavy weights and low reps to put on mass, and light weights and lots of reps to get ripped muscles". As I said, this couldn't be further from the truth.

This wrong information, or should I say myth, is called "spot reducing", and spot reducing does not work. I repeat, you cannot target certain areas of the body for fat loss.

So now you understand how not to get ripped, let's take a look at how you can get ripped, the real way.

The Truth About Getting Ripped

Lowering your bodyfat can be achieved with two methods:

Lower Your Caloric Intake

If you lower your daily caloric intake to about 11 to 13 times your bodyweight your body will be triggered to start burning fat. Make sure to focus on having smaller, more frequent meals throughout the day to keep your metabolism raised. This will help keeping your body in a fat-burning state.

One thing to keep in mind is that your diet needs to be stricter when you're on your cutting phase, as opposed to your bulking up phase where you don't need to be as strict. For example, you need to pay more attention to the type and amount of fat you comsume.

Cardio Workouts

Performing short but high intensity cardio workouts about 3 or 4 times a week will trigger fat burning. I would recommend keeping these workouts 15 minutes or less. The longer your cardio workouts last, the more chance you have of losing your precious muscle size and strength.

That's what getting ripped muscles is all about in a nutshell, slightly lowering the amount of food you eat and doing cardiovascular workouts. So when people tell you to use light weights and lots of reps to achieve toned muscles, you know better than to listen.

Return to Building Muscle Guide from Ripped Muscles.

Learn The Truth About Building Muscle

Sean Nalewanyj was once an awkward, underweight, 125-pound "loser" who couldn't talk to a woman if his life depended on it. He was bullied endlessly as a kid, and was on the verge of being diagnosed as clinically depressed.

Now, he's a rock-solid, 195-pound renowned natural bodybuilding expert and fitness author and is the creator of the online best-selling muscle-building program, The Muscle Gain Truth No-Fail System.

He did it without drugs or steroids, and without spending endless hours in the gym. He has helped thousands of people around the world achieve an impressive physique and want to teach YOU to do the same.

Sean's program is a best-seller and I couldn't recommend it any higher. I can personally back up his program because I have used it myself to pack on 40 pounds of lean muscle mass in 6 short months. Reading his book and following his advice helped me transform my body and change my life for the better.

Check out his site at The Muscle Gain Truth or if you want to read more of what I think about the program then check out our full product review.