Uncensored

By: Scott Welch

If you could train with anyone in the world, who would it be? Arnold? Jay Cutler? Ronnie Coleman? Dorian Yates? Sylvester Stallone? The Rock? Hulk Hogan? If you could blast chest, crush arms, or undergo a big back attack with anyone you can dream up and do so for three days, who would you train with? Well, my wife decided to fulfill this dream for me for my 40th birthday! As part of a transformation I did this past summer to cut down for our wedding, she booked me three days with fitness and supplement industry icon Bill Phillips!

Who’s Bill Phillips?
If you haven’t heard of Bill Phillips, he’s one of the major pioneers of the bodybuilding and fitness industry and the true godfather of modern sports supplementation as we know it today. Bill Phillips brought science to the forefront of the fitness magazine publishing industry and injected university-funded research into sports supplements such as creatine, HMB, glutamine, CLAs, protein powder—you name it, Bill funded research on it! Before his time, magazines were filled with training and nutrition “bro science” and fairy-tale stories of what worked for this champ or that dude at the gym. Magazines were filled with page after page of bronze-bodied superhumans, but what wasn’t revealed was the massive amount of steroid use by these champions. Bill exposed these lies with his Anabolic Reference Guide and Natural Supplement Review publications and his magazine, Muscle Media. Before Bill got on the bodybuilding scene, dietary supplements were a complete scam. Formulas were slapped together with no research, but snake oil salesmen made off with millions of dollars from naïve consumers who bought their formulas. Magazines sold a ton of ads, supplement stores sold tons of supplements, and top pro athletes got big, fat cheques for pimping out blatantly ineffective supplements. Bill changed this landscape with his first several supplement company launches including EAS, which he later sold with Muscle Media for a reported $340 million. He also produced a movie called Body of Work, which was in mainstream movie theatres, and published Body-for-LIFE, a book that was on the New York Times Best Seller List for 47 months in a row! What inspired me the most is that Bill was a bodybuilder before he started any of this. He turned his passion for bodybuilding into a career on the business side of bodybuilding and built a cultlike following in the process. And at the ripe age of 18, I was one of his disciples.

Journey to Golden, Colorado
My wife and I flew from Toronto to Denver and took a taxi to a hotel near Bill Phillips’ Transformation Centre. Nothing was out of the ordinary on this journey, but I had a massive feeling of excitement flooding through every muscle in my body! We booked ourselves in for a sport massage shortly after we checked in to the hotel just to loosen up our muscles for the brutal physical punishment we were going to experience in about 12 hours with Bill. The hotel staff told us to meet in the lobby early the next day, as a shuttle would take us over to the Transformation Centre. They reminded us not to eat anything as a healthy breakfast would be served at the Transformation camp. “I’m going to be having breakfast with Bill Phillips in the morning, so I better save some room!” I kept joking with my wife. I still couldn’t believe this was all happening. So in the morning, we took the Transformation camp shuttle filled with other hungry people looking to learn fat-loss and muscle-building secrets from the guru himself!

My First Meeting with Bill
When we walked into the Transformation Centre, I peeked up my head and saw Bill Phillips himself, standing at the entrance shaking hands with everyone as they walked in. A big white smile, a dark tan, and a ripped physique were the first things I noticed. Yes, he was indeed a bodybuilder under his training gear, but his handshakes and warm greetings made every single person feel welcomed. Four people ahead of me, three more, two more, now just Janet. Now me!

“Scott has waited for over 20 years to meet you! He’s modeled his entire career after you,” my wife said to Bill.

What an introduction that was. Man, was I embarrassed, but it was indeed true. He reached out, shook my hand, smiled, and said,

“Ahhhh, yeah I know Scott. I’ve read your work before. You used to do that whole SupplementGenius.com website with the cartoon image of yourself. You’re doing some great things. I also saw that YouTube video you posted the other day. Very cool and I’m really glad to finally meet you, Scott.”

At this point I was in shock. Bill already knew me? How is that possible? I’m all the way up in Toronto! Well, over the last 20-plus years I’ve bought every book he’s ever written, every magazine he’s ever published, every supplement he’s ever launched and now I’d flown all the way to Denver to his Transformation camp. I guess you could say I was an obsessed fan indeed!

Transformation Tip 1: HIIT Cardio Is King
Without a doubt, high-intensity interval training (HIIT) is one of the most important topics our readers ask us about, and with good reason. HIIT is the single most effective method of cardiovascular training when it comes to rapid fat loss. But did you know that Bill and his brother Shawn were the first people in the bodybuilding industry to ever publish an article on HIIT cardio? In the X issue of Muscle Media, Shawn authored a full feature on this revolutionary style of cardio, which was 16 years ahead of the rest of the fat-loss gurus now jumping on the HIIT movement. There are different interpretations of how best to do HIIT cardio for fat loss, but Bill recommends that you do a slow, medium, and fast combination of intensity levels. During the low intensity period (aka your “recovery” period), you want your heart rate and breathing to return to a comfortable level, which is why he calls this your recovery period. After X seconds in this zone, you increase your intensity level to a medium level, which you try to hold for X seconds. Then you enter the all-out-sprint, which is your high intensity interval. 

Transformation Tip 2: Spin for Fat Loss
At the Transformation facility, Bill has a pile of spin bikes that greet you as soon as you walk in the front door. I must admit, I was in complete shock when I saw these bikes at his center as I just couldn’t see Bill Phillips with the full headset on, house music pumping while yelling at his pupils to “rise outta the saddle” and spin their way to a ripped six-pack! I mean, this is my bodybuilding hero we’re talking about! He wouldn’t be caught dead on a spin bike, no way! Bill is the man who brought creatine to the market, the New York Times best-selling author, and the founder of Muscle Media, the number one bodybuilding magazine in history and the mag that inspired me to start MUSCLE INSIDER magazine to begin with. My hero wouldn’t be caught dead on a spin bike—or would he? It turns out that research shows that spin bikes are actually the most effective method of cardio in terms of maximizing fat loss when you’re doing HIIT style cardio, according to MUSCLE INSIDER columnist Mark Gilbert. So Bill is definitely on to this fat-loss research and having his clients spin their way to a more ripped physique.

Transformation Tip 3: Eat for Taste
I’ve done the whole egg whites and oatmeal-style bodybuilding diet in the past, and it definitely does work. With enough willpower, anyone can lose weight eating salad and dried-up chicken breasts. Throw piles of Mrs. Dash seasoning on anything and you can choke it down! But Bill pointed out that this type of diet isn’t sustainable throughout your entire fat-loss journey. Eventually your willpower will run out and you’ll be off that diet and back to the drawing board. The key is to schedule in more time to prepare your food better, to spend time making it taste amazing. Add cinnamon, peanut butter flavouring, or mint to your shakes to make them taste delicious and be something you’ll look forward to instead of something you just drink for the sake of health. Bill gave all of us his Eating for Life book, which includes the best-tasting high protein recipes you’ll ever try. And the best part is, his recipes are also super-easy to make, which is key. I mean if you’re like me, you hate being stuck in the kitchen for too long. But the key to eating right throughout your transformation is to spend some prep time so that your food tastes so good that it’s something you actually look forward to eating.

Bill said, “The new way of eating has to be something you actually look forward to eating more than the old way you were eating.”

This is where making your “diet food” taste great pays big dividends. My favourite recipe was the egg white pancakes, which tasted so good I eat them almost every single morning to this day! I actually never miss breakfast anymore because it means I’m going to miss out on Bill’s healthy pancakes!

Transformation Tip: Three Meals and Three Shakes

I’ve been pushing the benefits of eating six small meals a day versus three large meals since I started MUSCLE INSIDER back in 2010. But if you’ve tried doing this, you’ll know that it’s almost impossible to find time to cook and eat all that throughout the day. With the busy travel schedule I’m on promoting the magazine and working 14-hour days, it’s always been difficult for me to carry all this food around. Bill recommends eating three solid food meals and three shake meals each day. Aim to eat a meal or shake every three hours on the clock, which takes some time management on your part. But if it’s a transformation of your body you want, you have to transform your time management as well. Schedule meals and shakes as you would if you were taking medication prescribed by your doctor. In this case, the fat-loss medication is food and shakes! Bill has his own meal replacement shakes and bars to make it easier for clients to use, and they’re very tasty, which makes them something you look forward to. But if you’re on a budget, you can blend a scoop of protein powder with one cup of fruit for your carb source and you’ll do well. I will explain why Bill recommends that you include carbs in your shakes and meals in the next tip.

Transformation Tip: Eat Carbs Every Meal
You can lose fat eating no carbs, low carbs, moderate carbs, or high carbs—it all works if you’re burning more calories than you’re eating. The debate over which diet is “the best” for fat loss goes back and forth among some of the very brightest minds in the industry. But the question really comes down not to which diet works, but to which diet you can stick with throughout the entire transformation. If you’re going to need 16 weeks to get ripped, that’s four months on this new way of eating! Sticking to your diet until your fat-loss goal is achieved is the real key to success. Most diets fail simply because people cannot sustain eating in the new way the diet calls for. Bill also finds that people have better satiety from eating a diet rich in carbs, which I have to agree with. I also have found that when I go low carb with my diet, I feel sluggish in the gym and my strength and power drop. Of course, you can argue that taking in carbs is going to spike insulin levels and “turn off” fat loss at the cellular level, but many of the top pros I’ve eaten with (which include Jay Cutler, Chris Cormier, Dexter Jackson, and Branch Warren, among others) do consume carbohydrates with each meal. Carbohydrates also contain the vitamins, minerals, electrolytes, fibres, and phytonutrients needed to help fight disease, which we often forget on our quest to get ripped!

Transformation Tip: Blend Shakes in Stages
Avoid throwing everything all at once in your blender and mixing it up. Doing this causes your shake to clump up and stick to the sides and bottom of your blender. First start by adding cold water or juice. Next add your protein powder and then blend till smooth. Then stop blending, add fruit, creatine, glutamine, Bill’s STRONGEVITY Rx powder or even instant coffee for an energy kick! Then re-blend until it’s all mixed in. Stop blending, add in some ice and re-blend for one last time. Extra ice will make it extra thick. Blending in stages makes for a creamy, smooth shake, which makes it something you actually look forward to rather than something you just swallow because it’s good for you.

Transformation Tip: Take These Supplements
What exactly would Bill Philips say when it came to the topic of supplements, I wondered. I mean, this is the man who wrote the original Natural Supplement Review and its successor, the Sports Supplement Review, which was the gold-standard reference manual for sports supplements when I was growing up. This is the founder of supplement giants MET-Rx and EAS! So here’s what supplements he’s a fan of:

Bill’s Top Supplement Picks:
• Essential fatty acids (EFAs)
• Creatine monohydrate
• Alpha lipoic acid
• Whey protein
• Vitamin D3
• Coenzyme Q10
• Glutamine
• Zinc citrate
• Carnosine
• Green tea

Transformation Tip: You Must Make Time for You
There’s a big difference between knowing what to do and actually doing it.

As Bill put it, “We know what to do but need to do what we know.”

After hanging with Bill for two days, I just had to ask the question that everyone in the camp wanted to know. So I turned to Bill and in front of everyone in the camp, I asked,

“Bill, when you were running both EAS and Muscle Media, which were two massive companies at the time, you said you were working 70+ hours a week and had hundreds of employees to manage. How did you have time to eat six meals a day and exercise five or six times a week?”

The answer was something I will never forget. Bill turned to me with a stone-cold face. The room was silenced, and he said,

“Scott, it’s your job!”

He then stared right through me and explained that as a fitness magazine publisher, it’s my job to educate and motivate people on how to build muscle and lose fat. And if I wasn’t willing to do it myself, then how could I expect readers and my staff to do it? Of course, this made so much sense to me and it was something that I had always committing myself to doing, but there was room for improvement, of course. Bill explained that when he ran EAS and Muscle Media, he absolutely had to eat perfectly and never miss a workout because he needed his body and mind to be ultra-healthy to be able to tolerate the type of demands his job required.

He said, “I could never have worked as many hours as I did building EAS if my diet, training, and supplementation wasn’t perfect.”

In the end, Bill explained that you can push your body to the max by working endless hours, but once your health goes, everything at work falls apart. You need your health to be maximized as that’s the foundation upon which everything else is built. Take-home message: Ya gotta practice what ya preach, Scott!

You Must Do This
I’ve learned so much from Bill Phillips over the 20 years I’ve studied his career that I could fill every page of this website with the info. What I’ve written here is just a small sample of what hit home with me personally. But the greatest teaching I could share with you is that you must help yourself get in shape before you can help anyone else get in shape. It sounds selfish and counterintuitive, but it’s not. Here’s why: If you’re reading MUSCLE INSIDER magazine, chances are you already live and breathe the fitness lifestyle. Believe it or not, but your family, friends, and work or school colleagues already look up to you as a source of wisdom in the area of fitness and health. That’s because you’re always trying to get them to eat right, work out regularly, take their supplements each day, and live a healthier lifestyle than they do. All of these people already know what they should eat, but they just choose to not eat it. They know they should go to the gym, but they simply choose instead to skip it or put it off until Monday. Over time, these unhealthy lifestyle choices lead to living in unhealthy bodies. How do you help them get in shape?

How Do You Motivate the Unmotivated?
I asked Bill Phillips this exact question because I wanted to friends and family in my life. Bill explained that the best way to motivate others to do anything is by doing exactly what you’re asking them to do. You must lead by example. Apply what you know about exercise and proper nutrition instead of just telling them why they should do it. Eat the way you should eat, instead of just talking about it. Schedule time to cook your meals for the week instead of talking about it. Eat a healthy breakfast every morning instead of skipping it because you couldn’t wake up that early! Stop skipping cardio; you know you should do it, so do it. It’s time to make time to eat nutritious, home-cooked meals instead of relying on fast food and pretending it’s healthy! It’s time to live the MUSCLE INSIDER lifestyle, not just preach to everyone about it. In no time, you’ll build a strong muscular body that’ll inspire everyone you know to get in shape. Show everyone what happens to your body when you make the changes you want them to make. You’re the walking advertisement for your diet, training, and supplement advice. I’ve applied this to myself and have lost over 30 pounds this past summer! What’s more is that during my own transformation, my mom’s gone from being inactive to now doing cardio and weights three times a week! She’s lost over 10 pounds of fat and gained six pounds of lean muscle. And her improvements have motivated my dad to start doing cardio too! Now my dad is the last guy who I thought would start exercising as I’ve tried to get him to do so for years now. He’s now on the treadmill twice a day, and I’ve just introduced him to HIIT cardio and weights! And if you read our past issues or followed me on twitter or facebook, you’ll know my dad was diagnosed with lung cancer in January on 2013 and had half his lung removed in surgery! By applying what you already know, you’re going to get in the best shape of your life. The compliments you’ll get with your new body will be worth every bit of effort, but the bigger payoff will come when everyone around you starts living a healthier life because of you. You’re actually saving their lives by getting yourself in shape, and that’s the most selfless act you could ever do for someone.

Follow Me On Twitter If You’re Serious!
I need you to send me a tweet right now at https://twitter.com/ScottWelchLive and tell me you will stop talking about getting in shape and start doing it. If you’re serious about making a change, you’ll do this right now before you leave this page!