This weekend I'll be competing in my first strongman show
since my injury back in 2010.

 

Back then I was a pro strongman at almost 250 pounds!

 

As a result of my injury I decided to take a break from
competing for a while.  In the time that I took off I also
chose to lose the 50 extra pounds I was carrying.

 

 

It worked... I did lose weight.  But I also became much,
much weaker than before.

 

At first I thought the strength loss was due to the loss of
weight.  But later I discovered that it wasn't true.

 

A few months ago when I decided to get back into
strongman training I set a goal of becoming just as strong
as I was before the injury... but at a body weight of only

200 pounds!  (50 pounds less)

 

But it didn't work.

 

The problem I ran into was that I was still following the
low carb diet that I followed to lose the weight.  Because
my carbs were so low I had no strength to lift the heavy
weights I needed to.

 

Then my uncle told me to add two HUGE sweet potatoes
to my daily food intake!

 

Not only was that a ton more carbs, but far more calories
than I had been eating for the past year.

 

 

time... AND I still continued to lose body fat.

 

I was getting leaner by eating more carbs!!

This may seem like a "duh Elliott, you should have known"
statement... but I have finally come to see how eating the
RIGHT kinds of carbs at the RIGHT TIME means all the
difference in the world! 

While I was on my fat loss battle last year I also hired and
worked one on one with another trainer that you may be
familiar with, John Romanellio.

 

John told me the same thing about carbs back then and I
should have listened to him.  But hey, there is no growth

without mistakes or challenge, right? 

 

Anyway, John has a new fat loss program out right now
that is very similar to the one that I have been following
for the past few months.

 

 

The cool thing about the "hybrid" approach to diet that
John also takes is that, like me, you can lose fat AND
continue to get stronger at the same time.

 

You can see it here: 

http://leanhybridmuscle.com/goto/dont-eat

 

 

PS -  John is way smarter than I am about how to get
really, super-duper shredded... so there are a ton of new
ideas in his book that I'm gonna try next week.

 

I'm constantly learning new stuff and am not afraid to
admit when I was wrong, or to change my mind.

 

Here is a great plan that I'll be doing some experimenting
with for the next several months, I'll keep you posted.

 

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