How to Get Free of Belly Fat
Good Morning,
Yesterday I told you about The FREE report 15 Foods That Shred Stomach Fat if you didn’t it yet click the link now so you don’t miss out. Some of what you will see today is Craig Ballantyne and The belly fat coach Josh Bezoni cover the following surprising nutrition info:
- How big food companies are hiding obesity-causing additives in the
food supply…and this is keeping America – and the world – overweight.
- The most important of the 7 dangerous obesity additives
- Josh’s controversial thoughts on cheat meals & fat loss
- The biggest (nasty) food SURPRISES in your grocery cart
An Exclusive Interview with Craig Ballantyne and Josh Bezoni, former Transformation Contest Judge for Body-For-Life
Craig: Hey, everyone. This is Craig Ballantyne from Turbulence Training and I’m here with my friend Josh Bezoni who has the website GetBellyFatFree.com. We’re going to be talking about his nutrition program today.
Josh and I met just about last month. I saw him speak a couple years ago on his transformation contest, so we’re going to talk about that a little bit to start here and then get into the nutrition stuff. Josh, welcome to the call.
Josh: Thanks, Craig. Thrilled to be on.
Craig: It’s really good to speak with you again. Josh has a great seminar for a whole bunch of fitness guys and we all met down there and it was a really great time down in Austin, Texas. Thanks for doing that.
Josh: Yeah, it was great to have you and to meet everybody. We all have similar goals to help people. I like hanging out with people that like to help people.
Craig: It was really cool. Why don’t you tell us about your experience in the health and fitness industry and a little bit about your transformation contest, then we’ll get into some more details about that.
Josh: Sure. I started out as a personal trainer really young. Before I even got certified I’ve always been really interested in health and fitness. I lived in Iowa and I used to do a lot of Iowa teenage bodybuilding contests and power lifting contests and I was really into all that stuff as a youth.
Then I went to college and got a double major in Biology Nutrition. Right after college my first job was with a gentleman by the name of Bill Phillips, he wrote a book called Body for Life and he had a company called Body for Life, EAS is another one of his companies and Muscle Media, they’re all together in one building in Golden Colorado.
While working with Bill, you’ve got to imagine I was right off the farm in Iowa, so to speak, my first day on the job I go down to the gym at EAS headquarters and John Elway is working out. You know, John Elway the famous football player, and Terrell Davis and Shannon Sharp and all these people. Then we also had a chance to work with Brad Pitt and Demi Moore and all these stars through Bill, but the cool things was we got to help millions of people through Bill’s transformation contest.
It was just a great education, a great first place to begin working. Since then I started my own publishing and nutrition company, about 12 years ago now, so I’ve been doing this with a passion for quite awhile.
Craig: It was really cool, the connection with Bill. You had a connection with him that helped me get an interview with him and so a lot of people listening to this call have heard my interview with Bill about the transformations and some of them are pretty stoked about this stuff.
Josh, you have run quite a few contests in the past, so why don’t you tell us your top transformation tips and when you do that keep in mind that there’s a lot of beginners on the call who want a nice quick start and then there’s also a lot of listeners who are in an advanced stage or ready to make that advanced transformation and they really want to get maximum results for those after photos. So, top tips for both beginner and advanced.
Josh: Well, I was a judge for a lot of Bill’s contests, I was one of the transformation judges. He had a movie called Body of Work and I was actually one of the one of the judges in that movie. From a judges perspective the first thing is just to make sure your photos are clear and there’s no clutter in the background, because judges don’t even look at the photos that much if there’s all this clutter and you can’t see the transformation.
Craig: I would say for the beginner what are some of the things they can do, they’re going from zero to 60 overnight, so someone who has been really struggling, they’re eating fast food, they’re overweight, they’re tired, and all of a sudden they see this, whether it’s my website or whether it’s your website or whether it’s a magazine.
They see this and they go, “Okay, I’m going to do this. That person looks just like me, if they can do it then I can do it.” What are the first steps? Obviously they’re going to need workout and nutrition programs, but what are the most important things that a beginner should do at the start?
Josh: A beginner should do this in my experience. We’re all a product of our environment and most people’s kitchens are a mess. I mean you go through most people’s kitchens in the world today, or in America at least, and you find all this processed food and all this junk food, chips, frozen pizza, chocolates, ice creams, and it goes on and on. They’re full of what I call obesity additives.
Obesity additives are basically manmade chemicals that a lot of science and research has shown add a lot of fat to the body and makes it very unhealthy and makes you susceptible to a lot of disease. Anyway, the first thing to do, the first step would be to go in your kitchen, get your family’s support and make a family event out of it, or if you live by yourself do it by yourself, collect all that food.
You can give it away to some needy families or you can just get it off the face of the earth and replace it with foods that are from Mother Nature. I’m talking about foods with one or two, maybe three ingredients in them like lean meats, low fat cottage cheese, grass fed beef, free range chicken, organic foods if you can afford it, fruits and vegetables, healthy whole grainsthings of that nature, healthy fats and we can more into that, especially certain nuts like pistachios and walnuts.
Then get yourself a great cookbook that’s really easy to use and you can make quick healthy recipes. Doing that alone is a huge first step for most people.
Craig: Yes. I really like what you said there about making it a family event because so many people have very little social support. I’m going to put you on the spot here and ask you about it, this is one of the toughest questions that I’ll ever get.
How can these people with no social support make a transformation? When they’re doing this at home how can they get their family involved, their friends involved, what have you seen that has worked?
Josh: Well, to back up a little bit, if you don’t have support you’re right, you’re chances of succeeding are very small. I’ve seen it over and over again. It’s even hard for me after having done this for the majority of my life to stick to programs if I don’t have a workout partner or an accountability partner that I talk to quite a bit about what we’re doing.
So, the first step is either get online at a website and try to find an accountability partner or somebody at your local fitness center or somebody that wants to go through this transformation with you where you can talk on a regular basis and say, “Hey, what did you eat today? Did you exercise today? Why didn’t you exercise today?” To keep you accountable, to help keep each other accountable.
It just becomes twice as easy when you do that, so find someone, anyone, a close friend, someone from a community center, someone online, anywhere. Get at least one accountability partner and try your best to limit your time with negative people that tend to tell you that you can’t do things and maybe kind of erode your confidence a little bit.
Craig: That’s so powerful. You talked about those obesity additives and I want to go back to those. Are there certain foods that people are eating that people can get really hooked on and how can they get rid of those obesity additive foods, overcome those cravings, and what are some really good substitutions foods that they can get in that will get them kind of on the right path?
I know a lot of eating is really about routine and ritual. Like 8:00 at night American Idol comes on, I’m going to grab a bag of chips and sit in front of the TV. So, what can people do, what are some strategies that they can use to overcome this negative eating spiral?
Josh: I think a lot of it in the beginning is awareness. I think a lot of people are eating by accident, by that I mean they don’t even really consider what they’re eating or what’s in the foods that they’re eating. They’re just doing like you said, they’re sitting down grabbing their ice cream sundae or they’re grabbing a bag of chips and they’re eating without any awareness.
So, the first thing is just start checking out some food labels. Maybe jump online a little bit and look at CalorieKing.com or one of these other websites and just see what’s in the food you’re eating. It will shock you.
Here’s an example. I was in New York City and they put all the calorie content in the menus, it’s a required law in New York City. It opens your eyes to how many calories are in things. I thought I was going to eat a somewhat healthy meal and it had like 2,400 calories in it. So, education awareness first and foremost is important.
As far as obesity additives there’s a very simple thing to do here. In my program Seven Day Belly Blast Diet that’s coming up here I talk about obesity additives, there’s seven of them. The first one, public enemy number one is sugar. It’s what I call stripped carbohydrates. This is really America’s number one problem, our number one problem in America anyway, I know you’re in Canada. Are you in Canada right now?
Craig: I certainly am.
Josh: Okay. Canadians too, because we pass all this junk across the border and to a lot of other countries now too. Sugar, people are consuming huge amounts of sugar these days, like 173 grams a day. We’re talking 140 pounds a year of straight sugar.
What sugar does when it enters the body is it causes a storage hormone called insulin to immediately grab hold of the sugar and either stuff it in muscle cells as energy or if the muscle cells are already stuffed full, which most people’s are, it converts it to fat.
So, people are consuming this very toxic very negative thing called sugar and stripped carbohydrates, and what I mean by stripped carbohydrates are like white breads and these milled processed flours and things that are really bad and they act just like sugar in the body. Something very simple to do is reduce your sugar intake dramatically.
If someone did nothing else after this call but reduce their sugar intake The American Heart Association says 30 grams of sugar a day on average. When you consider a can of Coca-Cola has 40 grams all by itself, that’s not a lot of sugar. So, I have a 30/30 rule, 30 grams of sugar and 30 grams or more of fiber a day, which most people aren’t getting. That’s another topic we can talk about.
But, if you follow the 30/30 rule and nothing else you can get tremendous results very quickly. So, public enemy number one is sugar. One quick note too on the Coca-Cola, 40 grams of sugar, 4 grams of sugar is a teaspoon, so drinking a can of Coke or any other soft drink, I’m not picking on Coke, is like taking 10 teaspoons of sugar and dumping it into a glass of water, mixing it up and drinking it. So, soft drinks, energy drinks, even fruit drinks out there, fruit juice are really not good choices for hydration.
Craig: While we’re there why don’t we cover real fruit and where that plays in, in your experience, for people getting results and also in your plan?
Josh: Real fruit is for the typical average person out there that’s eating all this junk food and eating all this bad food real fruit is a great substitute because it’s still sweet, but it has fiber, which kind of blunts this insulin effect I was talking about, an fruit is full of vitamins and minerals and vital nutrients and phytochemicals, which gives them their color and they’re very important for disease prevention.
So, fruit I think is great. A couple pieces, a couple servings of fruit a day are fine. You’ve got some more advanced people out there that are maybe trying to get contest ready, they might want to start limiting their fruit intake, but as an overall health protocol you definitely want to have at least two servings of fruit a day.
Craig: To get those 30 grams of fiber is there some foods in there, you know when most people hear that word they go, “Oh my god, it’s going to be some type of crazy Metamucil drink,” what can they do to really enjoy the foods that they’re eating and to increase their fiber intake? I know that the average American is getting 12 grams or 13 grams of fiber per day, which is significantly below what’s recommended not only for fat loss purposes, but to avoid cancer, which is a really big thing.
Josh: Here’s the deal with fiber and how it play a role in weight loss and everything else. A lot of people don’t realize it, but back in the cavemen days we were eating 60 or 70 grams of fiber a day, so we were eating a lot of fiber. If you’re eating a lot of fiber your digestive tract works as it’s supposed to, you clear your body of what I call toxic waste.
In my program I tell people that they can lose up to 10 pounds in seven days. Now, that sounds impossible, but what I’m talking about and I clarify it is really excess water including this toxic waste that a lot of people have in their digestive tracts and including fat over seven days.
A lot of people that only are eating seven grams of fiber a day or eight, nine, 10 grams of fiber a day, their digestive tract holds onto this food they’re eating in a very inefficient manner, so they have really pounds of undigested food. It’s not a pretty topic to talk about by any means, but that fiber helps to cleanse out your system and it’s very important.
It’s also important for nutrient uptake. If you’re taking in nutrients, but your digestive tract is just full of this toxic waste you’re not going to absorb the nutrients like you should. So, getting at least 30 grams of fiber a day is going to help with that tremendously.
A lot of women talk about this pouch area and guys talk about this belly bulge, it’s not all fat. You really need to take that fiber and you’ll feel healthier, you’ll absorb more nutrients, you’ll have proper digestion, you won’t get all this bloating and stuff, you won’t be as likely too anyway unless it’s a food allergy, but that’s another subject.
So, yes, fiber is vitally important, 30/30, 30 grams or less of sugar unless you’re an athlete, there’s something I call sugar loophole unless you’re exercising, which we can talk about, 30 grams or more of fiber.
Craig: Perfect. Just before we move along from this little topic here, what are some of the biggest food surprises out there, and I mean negative food surprises that there are in people’s diets? For example, I’ll give you a little bit of time to think while I come up with one of my own. One of them is granola bars.
For example, the really tasty granola bars often have a lot of sugar, they’re high in calories, yet I’ve never met a single person who gets full on one of those granola bars, so usually they end up eating two or there are two in a package and they eat both. They next thing you know they’re 300 or 400 calories down and they’re barely even satisfied.
What are some other nasty food surprises like those granola bars that I just mentioned?
Josh: Anything processed. The first thing that comes to mind is Lay’s potato chips. You know the old commercial, you can’t eat just one. People sit down with these bags of chips or even pretzels, which people think pretzels are somewhat healthy and really they’re just refined flour.
What people should not think of is just calories. What people should be focusing on is nutrients, because your body is like a machine, it’s like a car. If your car doesn’t have enough oil in it the engine is going to lock up and you’re going to destroy your engine. That’s what people do every day. There’s something like 160,000 deaths attributed to obesity and obesity related diseases in America alone every single day.
What these people aren’t doing is they’re not getting the nutrients they need to function properly long term. If you have certain nutrient deficiencies you’re much more likely to get cancer, diabetes, heart disease, stroke, the list goes on and on. So, rather than just look at calories you want to try to choose these natural food choices that are going to give you the most bang for your buck, there’s going to give you all these nutrients and vitamins and minerals right in the foods without having to supplement your diet.
But, other things besides granola bars, a lot of people think tofu is healthy and it’s not necessarily healthy. A lot of soy products out there, people think soy is really healthy and there are some estrogen problems with soy. A lot of people think milk is extremely healthy and I drink a lot of almond milk, but it has a completely different nutrition profile.
Milk has a lot of sugar in it, it’s a different kind of sugar, it’s lactose, it doesn’t have as high as what’s called a glycemic index, but a lot of dairy products aren’t very good for you. Think about yogurt, if you grab a yogurt a lot of times they have 20, 30, even 40 grams of sugar in a yogurt. So, they have maybe eight grams of protein and 40 grams of sugar. You might as well go have an ice cream cone.
Craig: Yes, absolutely. That was a really great one there. The fruit in the bottom yogurt ones just have tablespoons of sugar in there. That’s a real good one, I’m glad you caught that one.
When I was younger, when I was in high school I was like the pretzel, I used to eat those things all the time. Around 16 or 17 that’s when I started working out and I’m reading the magazines and in the mid-1990’s we’re talking about everything was high carbohydrate, and that was back in the day when as long as it was low fat or fat free you were good to go, so I made a bad judgment call there eating too many pretzels and too much processed bread when I was in high school.
Josh: I did the same thing, I was totally deficient in essential fatty acid, which are extremely important, because I used to eat nothing but protein and carbs, and I used to just eat carbs that didn’t have fat in them without realizing it.
It goes back to that idea that it’s not just about reducing calories, it’s about balanced food that fuels your body and it’s about staying away from these obesity additives I talk about, this junk and these chemicals that can erode your health and your waistline.
Craig: Back then they were using that phrase, “eat clean,” like they were using that phrase 20 years ago before it became a big book. So, that’s why I really don’t like the phrase, because it can just be so generic. Eat clean to a guy in the mid-1990’s was rice and chicken breasts, which these days we know is not necessarily the best way to eat. You have to have healthy fats, which back in the mid-1990’s eating clean included zero fat, so I really hate that phrase to be honest with you.
Josh: I do too. I ate a ton of white rice back in the day, and white rice is refined rice with the fiber taken off of it, so it absorbs much faster in the body and has very little if any nutritional value.
Craig: Yes. Why don’t you tell us then what you’re eating these days? Because I think a lot of people are always curious to hear what’s the expert eating. So, maybe just run a couple of meals off. Let’s start with your morning now and maybe when we get through a few other questions we’ll talk about your afternoon and your evening meals. What is Josh Bezoni’s diet these days?
Josh: Sure. The first thing most people should do is they should get four or five quality meals and most Americans don’t stray from four, five, or six meals for each breakfast, lunch, dinner. So, if you get four, five, or six in your rotation that you can always make quickly you’re doing a great job and that you’ll have the ingredients for in your home at all times. That’s one important tip that you can do.
But, here’s what I had for example this morning for breakfast. I made a protein pancake, I had a scoop of protein powder mixed with slow cooked oatmeal and I put some blueberries in there and a little bit of applesauce to give it some moisture and texture, organic applesauce, and I made blueberry pancakes, and I had with that some grapes on the side. That’s what I had this morning.
Then I had a protein shake right before the call, almond milk with protein powder and a little bit of organic almond butter, it’s like peanut butter but it’s with almonds. So, that’s what I’ve had so far today But, I’ll eat five to six times a day right now because I’m trying to lose weight myself just like everybody else out there in the world. I go through stressful times and my weight will fluctuate, but the good thing is I know how to get it back in control.
That’s just an example of what I’ll eat today. Tonight I’ll probably have grilled salmon and I’ll have a medley of vegetables that have a lot of colors in it. People should try to eat the rainbow of food colors in a day. So, if you think about the rainbow and all the colors try to get fruits and vegetables during the day that cover that rainbow spectrum. Purple cocoa puffs don’t count, it’s got to be natural food.
Craig: So, not Skittles?
Josh: Skittles don’t count.
Craig: All right.
Josh: You’ll get the vitamins and minerals you need if you’re eating that rainbow, so to speak, of fruits and vegetables.
Craig: You made a really great point that people should have the recipes and the ingredients for four to six meals. So, I’ve got my four to six breakfasts I can create any time, I’ve got my four to six lunches, I’ve got my four to six dinners that the family likes and that suit my program, and if the world is coming to an end and there’s floods and I can’t get to the grocery store at least I can make this and stay on track.
Are you going to have recipes in your program or where would you recommend finding some, or where would you recommend finding these four basic standard meals for each one of your main meals?
Josh: Well, my program The Seven Day Belly Blast Diet does come with a cookbook. I think the important thing with any meal is that it’s fast, especially in today’s busy world, and it’s balanced. We can talk more about balance.
But, you can find cookbooks online. There are all kinds of great cookbooks out there. Eating for Life Cookbook from Bill Phillips is an old cookbook, you probably have some Craig, I don’t know if you do or some of our friends like Mike Geary and people do.
The important thing is you find at each meal, like you were saying, four, five, six meals that you can just keep in your rotation and they’re quality meals. Here’s an example for breakfast for me, here’s what I’ll have basically every day of the week. I’ll rotate between about three or four breakfasts and I love these breakfasts so it doesn’t bother me.
I’ll have protein pancake like I did this morning. I’ll have an egg sandwich, which I use whole grain English muffin, an egg, a little bit of turkey sausage and a little bit of cheese, very low in sugar. I’ll have scrambled eggs, natural eggs with higher Omega 3’s.
Sometimes I’ll do two eggs and two egg whites, but a lot of times I’ll just eat regular eggs because they’re not as bad as people think, they’re actually very healthy for you. So, I’ll have eggs with whole grain toast and maybe half a grapefruit. A lot of times I’ll have oatmeal with a protein drink on the side. I don’t eat just plain oatmeal, I put walnuts in it, I put blueberries in it.
So, those are some belly fat killing recipes I should say or meal ideas for breakfast. There’s three or four of them right there and I just rotate them and it really takes all the conscious effort to think you have to come up with new recipes all the time.
End of part 1 more to come later in the meantime go get your FREE report 15 Foods That Shred Belly Fat
