Back in 1980 the bodybuilding world was turned on its head by a gentleman by the name of Clarence Bass. The book was called Ripped: The Sensible Way to Achieve Ultimate Muscularity. What was the big deal you ask? Well just by looking at the cover you could tell that this guy knew how to get ultra lean. What the reader would come to find out is that not only did this person know how to get lean but he knew how to stay that way.
Clarence incorporated a way of eating and exercising that allowed him to obtain an unprecedented level of bodyfat - 2.4%! Not only did he achieve what some would consider an impossibly low level of bodyfat but he did it while remaining healthy and satisfied. He contends that starvation and deprivation should be nearly absent in any successful dieting plan.
The book was published in 1980 but that in no way means that the information is obsolete or out of date. The concepts that Clarence touches upon are just as valid today as they were thirty years ago.
Does the Ripped dieting philosophy work? Well, Clarence is a little over 70 years old today and still extraordinarily lean and muscular. He has remained this way for over thirty years and that's the key for any eating/lifestyle philosophy to work: it has to be a manageable and pleasant thing to do. Losing weight is no necessarily the hard part - keeping the weight off is. This is where I think the Ripped philosophy really shines through.
Clarence stresses that for any diet to work it has to be lower in calories and something that you can follow for a lifetime. It can't be some 1,000 calorie draconian diet that you can only follow for two months or a diet comprised only of hardboiled eggs and cabbage. Clarence stresses that your daily eating menu should be comprised of unprocessed fresh fruits and vegetables, grains, and minimal amounts of meat. His contention is that when you eat foods in their natural, unprocessed state, they will fill you up because they provide maximum bulk with minimal calories. He says that processed foods are full of salt, sugar, fats, and devoid of their natural nutrition. When we start processing foods and packaging them up we tend to strip the product of a lot of its natural nutrition. Additionally, you will become full on fewer calories when you follow this type of diet.
Clarence is also a proponent of a low-fat diet and he has several reasons for it. Primarily, fat has nine calories per gram whereas carbohydrates and protein have only four calories per gram. This makes fat twice as fattening as protein and carbohydrates. The logic is that in order to lose bodyfat one must keep their calories under control and there is no better way to do that than to keep the most calorically dense nutrient, fat, to a minimum. Clarence also recommends keeping dietary fat levels low in order to maintain a healthy blood profile. Using this program, one can eat a very large amount of food and not gain weight. You'll be satisfied and full and able to lose bodyfat.
He also touches on the low-carb diet as well. Clarence goes on to describe his brief stint with using a low-carb regimine while he prepares for a bodybuilding show and how it made him irritable and made him feel deprived. The nail in the coffin came when he describes a scene where, because of his low blood sugar levels, he gets into an argument with his wife and storms off while some fruit in hand. Once he ate some of the fruit he felt dramatically better and the fog of the low-carb diet had been lifted. He attributed his unusual behavior completely to the low-carb diet and vowed never again to attempt such a thing. He was convinced that the body needs carbohydrates.
Most diet books avoid the subject of exercise entirely or merely touch on it in such a brief way as to leave the reader with the idea that it's not important or helpful in the quest to be healthy and have a low bodyfat level. Clarence clearly states that in order for someone to become lean and maintain leaness one much include exercise in their program. The two go hand-in-hand, if you will. Of course you can lose bodyfat if you solely exercise or just go on a diet but you'll get much better results if you incorporate the two. The book has photos of several different exercises that Clarence is fond of and has his pre-competition workout listed so you can see exactly what he does. At this early stage in his career he does advocate aerobic exercise but not to the extent that he does now. Clarence clearly states that he achieved his rock-bottom 2.4% bodyfat level from his diet, weight training, and one single strenuous bike ride a week. Several years later, Clarence would come to amend his training slightly and place cardiovascular training on the same pedestal as weight training thereby giving them equal importance.
Go out and pick this book up. It's a relatively short read and it's very enjoyable as well. It comes in at around 88 pages and really is fantasic reading for anyone looking to read up about lowering their bodyfat and competitive bodybuilding. I certainly recommend this to anyone interested in health and fitness but it is geared somewhat more towards the competitive bodybuilder. Clarence has other books, which I hope to review soon, that aren't so directed towards the serious bodybuidling crowd and are more accessible to the general public. I hope to review these soon.
You can purchase this book at Clarence's site at http://www.cbass.com/. You can also purchase this at Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Ripped-Sensible-Achieve-Ultimate-Muscularity/dp/0960971408/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1240856520&sr=1-1
