Shortcut to Shred Diet

Accompany your intense training with this proven meal and supplement plan to maximize fat loss.

Written By Jim Stoppani, PhD

Updated October 26, 2023

While six short weeks may seem like a limited period to drop considerable body fat, it’s actually an ample amount of time – that is, when you combine a well designed, intense training program with a smart diet and supplement plan. And it doesn’t get much smarter than the Shortcut To Shred Diet.

The workout, diet and supplement regimen in this program are all based on real science and real world application. As a scientist, I rely heavily on the latest research to design all my training and nutrition programs. However, just because something has been discovered in the laboratory doesn’t mean it works well in the real world. I put all such discoveries to the test on my own body as well as the bodies of thousands of people who follow my advice.

Because I’ve been designing training and diet programs in publications and websites that are read all over the world for nearly two decades, I’ve amassed data from millions of people on what works best. Few if any other experts out there can back up their programs with those kinds of numbers. What I’m getting at here is that I can guarantee you that this program will work well if you follow it to the T. Whether you’re a man or woman, teenager or middle-aged, this is a fail proof plan – as long as you give it 100%.

Macro Importance

Most of you should be fairly familiar with the basics of nutrition, but I’ll break it all down to the simplest form for those who need it, starting with the three major macronutrients: protein, fat and carbs. And yes, I’ve listed them in order of importance as you’ll learn when you read about each one below. While calories matter, when you’re dieting the real important factors start with the proper amount of each of these macronutrients. Once they’re all in line, calories will fall right where they need to be for your body.

There’s no debating the fact that to lose body fat you have to burn more calories than you consume. But due to the intensity of the Shortcut To Shred training program, you’ll be burning tons of calories during and after the workouts, basically through the entire day. In other words, calorie balance shouldn’t be an issue as long as you follow the diet fairly close.

Protein

We’ll start with protein since there’s no way around the fact that for anyone interested in building muscle size and strength, protein is the most critical macronutrient. All dietary protein – whether it be from meats, dairy, protein powders or bars or even non-animal sources – are formed by single amino acids (such as leucine, glycine, tryptophan) linked together to form a long chain. That long chain is protein. When you consume that protein chain, your body digests it by breaking apart the bonds that bind the aminos together into single amino acids, or short protein chains (usually two amino acids bound together) known as peptides.

These digested amino acids and peptides are then absorbed by the intestines where they eventually enter the blood stream to travel to your muscles, as well as other cells. In the muscle cells, these aminos are reassembled to form the protein that makes up the muscle fibers and allows them to grow bigger and stronger. This process is know as muscle protein synthesis and is how muscle grows. Bottom line: If you want to build muscle, you need to make sure to take in ample amounts of protein.

How much protein is ample? Anyone who trains with weights regularly needs at least 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight per day – emphasis on at least. Because the Shortcut to Shred program will have you training very intensely six days per week, you want to up that protein quota even more.

Training breaks down muscle tissue, and the amino acids from the protein you eat rebuild it. If you consume enough protein, you can rebuild the muscle even bigger and stronger than before it was broken down. Research confirms that athletes need about 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight (ie, 200 grams daily for a 200-pound person). Many “experts” claim that there’s no need to go beyond that amount to grow muscle despite the fact that there’s solid research confirming that going up to 1.5 grams of protein per pound daily is effective for building muscle.

Granted, there’s research showing that when people consume more than this amount of protein they don’t gain any more muscle. The problem with this research is that the subjects aren’t training as intensely as you will be training on the Shortcut To Shred program. No study would ever put their subjects through this kind of intense training because the typical subject who joins a research study is someone looking to make a few dollars. If the training was too intense, too many subjects would drop out and they wouldn’t have a study. The other problem is that most researchers don’t even train themselves, so they don’t know how to design an effective training program.

So here’s where the data that I have on hundreds of thousands (perhaps millions) of people trumps any published research study. I recommend going up to 1.5 grams of protein per pound of body weight per day to support muscle recovery and growth. (That would be 300 grams for the 200-pounder.) And the data I have shows that it clearly works.

Another reason I recommend such high protein intake is that when you’re consuming little carbohydrates in your diet, as you will be on this diet plan, you actually burn up some of the protein you eat for fuel. The body converts the amino acids into glucose (blood sugar) to fuel your brain and the rest of your nervous system, so you have to eat higher amounts of protein to ensure that you have enough to support muscle recovery from the intense training to promote size and strength gains.

Many people are confused over the safety of eating a high protein diet. Sadly, the media and some “experts” have misinformed the public that protein is dangerous for the kidneys. The research that has suggested this is based on patients with kidney disease or other kidney disorders. Yes, if you have kidney disease a higher protein diet may be less than ideal for your body. But for the rest of us, our kidneys were designed for that very function, and NO, they don’t become overburdened. Numerous research studies show that consuming high protein diets are not only safe but very effective for fat loss as well.

Fat

Fat used to be considered the other “F” word as far as healthy and get lean diets go. Again, this was due to misinformed “experts” perpetuating myths that they didn’t really understand. The main reason for the low-fat movement was due to the fact that fat is more calorie dense than protein and carbs. While one gram of protein and one gram of carb each provide only 4 calories, one gram of fat provides about 9 calories. So common sense would tell you that you should cut back on fat to keep calories in check and lose fat. Others also assumed that since fat cells are full of fat, eating fat would only cause you to store fat. Both of these rationales, as we now know, are quite wrong.

Yes, eating too much fat can cause you to gain fat, but then again, eating too much of anything that adds up to way more calories than you burn can cause you to gain fat. When carbohydrate intake is low, the fat you consume is preferentially used as fuel and not stored as fat. Plus, certain fats in the diet are essential, meaning that your body can’t function properly without them. Namely, I’m talking about the omega-3 fats, such as those found in fish oil (like Omega JYM), flaxseeds and walnuts. Without getting in ample amounts of those, not only does the body not function properly, but you may limit muscle growth, fat loss, joint recovery, brain function and have a higher risk of heart disease, diabetes and certain cancers.

Other healthy fats, such as monounsaturated fats found in nuts, olives and olive oil and avocadoes, are also important. These fats are not readily stored as body fat, are used preferentially for fuel during exercise and promote heart health. Plus, research shows that male athletes consuming higher amounts of monounsaturated fats and saturated fats have higher testosterone levels. Testosterone is

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