The Omega Body Blueprint is a complete fitness program designed to shed those last few stubborn pounds of fat and build extra lean muscle for those with a training history and a good physique but who are still not happy and want to achieve a great, sculpted, model-like body.
While flexible enough to accommodate everyone, it is more suitable for those already conditioned enough to take their personal goals to the ultimate level. In this review of John Romaniello’s program, you will find out how this program may work for you and whether it is worth a shot.
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Who Is It For?
This program is suitable for men and women, young and senior. However, given that some workouts are demanding, check with your doctor first that you are in working order.
Omega Body Blueprint is NOT an absolute beginner plan and implies a certain familiarity with training because its main purpose is to increase your fitness level from good to outstanding, with very low body fat and lean muscle.
It gives you accurate workout and nutritional guidelines to do just that but the workout schedule may be a bit too much for a beginner.
It also requires gym equipment for the best results, even though it can be done at home with a basic adjustable bench and dumbbells.
While it is geared to shed the last, most difficult pounds of fat, it also works well if you have 20lb fat or more to lose and to break through plateaus in general, providing that you have some training history.
That’s a first you may have come across. When you look for fitness, bodybuilding, or fat loss articles you may encounter the term “alpha“, as in alpha-male, to indicate a prime status and or ideal state of fitness you may want to aspire to.
In John Romaniello’s case, he preferred to choose the last word of the Greek alphabet, “omega“, to indicate the last and ultimate level you can aspire to for your body, as opposed to the initial alpha letter, the staring point.
Whatever your preferences on the Greek alphabet, there is no point fussing over it, as the Omega Body Blueprint wants to be a nod to the ultimate level of achievable fitness it was designed for.
How Does It Work?
The program consists of a complete set of workout and nutritional guidelines to help your body break through the last, seemingly impossible plateau that holds you back in normal, good shape level and prevents you from shooting up to the top level, helping you lose those super-difficult 5 or 10 pounds that prevent you from getting that ripped and jacked model-like look.
Rather than working harder, the program is geared towards a smarter use of your workouts and nutrients so as to address hormonal issues in a natural way.
The point of this plan is that if you have already achieved good results before with training and exercise, there is no point beating on the same route if you want to achieve even greater results.
Instead, the Omega Body Blueprint is designed to harness the power of your hormones by tackling 3 main problems.
John Romaniello claims that regular split routines and long, slow cardio sessions do not help you burn fat, especially the last few pounds.
The reason being that excessively fractioned split routine work for the same muscle group just once a week, which is simply not frequent and not high volume enough to kick off your metabolism into high speed.
A first step to get leaner would be increasing the volume and frequency of your workouts in order to break through stagnation.
As for the slow cardio, he questions the wisdom of plodding along for 1 hour or more at a slow pace, when short, high-intensity bursts have proven way more effective to increase metabolic rate and fat loss.
Metabolic Resistance Training Strategy
The solution to these problems would be a kind of modified Metabolic Resistance Training, those weight resistance workouts are done without resting between sets, jumping from one exercise to the next using lighter weights than usual.
This is no novelty and has been proven many times before as an effective way to get really fit and lose fat, however, his version of MRT is one that includes 4 different types of workouts precisely to avoid the use of lighter weights, hence to keep strong.
This may be well so, but the main point is that these workouts are designed allegedly in order to optimize your hormones, the key factor to get an Omega body.
However, it is not clear how this kind of workout would have such an effect on your hormones, other than hard workouts combined with proper nutrition would help you keep your insulin levels low down and energy levels steady.
The Omega Body Blueprint Nutrition
According to the author, there are few misconceptions floating around the fat loss arena, like having to eat small but frequent meals, not eating carbs before bedtime, or having to eat only organic foods.
He dismisses the need to break your daily calorie intake into small meals to speed up your metabolism as he reckons that what is important at the end of the day is just that, the total calories.
This also makes sense from a practical standpoint, as nobody wants to waste their time with tons of Tupperware-ready micro meals. So thumbs up for telling it like it is.
John also points out the futility of not eating carbs in the evening, pointing out an authoritative case study that shows otherwise [check it out here]. Again, at the end of the day, it is the total combination of your macro-nutrients that counts, not when you eat them.
Another nail in the coffin for overcomplicated or restrictive food management. You can lose fat even as you eat carbs at dinner time, as long as your total calories and macros balance is in check. So far so good.
As for the organic foods, his stance is that while there is absolutely nothing wrong with those, you should not be obsessed either, but include also treats and regular foods and not become too narrow-minded.
The Omega Nutrition Principles
Now, the solution to all these misdeeds would be a so-called “Omega Nutrition” based on cycling and intermittent fasting. There is nothing wrong with cycling, basically eating more in your workout days or when your lifestyle needs it, and less in the rest or low activity days.
There is also nothing wrong with intermittent fasting, it does work as it helps you to keep your total calorie intake under control in the long run, providing that you eat normally in your eating days and do not over-compensate by eating your refrigerator. But so does work a regular daily calorie diet based on a daily, controlled deficit, the choice is yours.
The advantage of intermittent fasting is that it spares you a good deal of boring calorie counting and it is a good way to keep you on track. It does work in the same way that 2 meals per day work just as well as 6 meals per day, as long as the total calories remain the same. The advantage is in practicality.
The Hormonal Theory
According to Roman, there are 4 main hormones responsible for the outcome of your fitness efforts, testosterone, growth hormone, leptin, and cortisol.
Without going into details on these hormones which is beside the scope of this review, John Romaniello claims that low levels of the first three and high cortisol levels must be addressed for optimal fat loss and lean muscle results.
He claims to be able to do so with a hormone optimization protocol that strategically pairing specific training methods with correct nutritional guidelines will yield you an optimized endocrine system, resulting in a more effective fat loss and lean muscle gains.
In fact, this is allegedly the main point of the program, the hormonal optimization for fat loss. However, how this actually happens is not clear, as no references are provided to back up these claims, unlike for the meal frequency and the carbs at dinner.
Author John Romaniello
John Romaniello is a New York Times bestselling author and a well-known fitness expert and coach, currently based in Los Angeles.
He runs his own website and a youtube channel. He is the author of a dozen fitness programs and regularly writes for top publishers like Men’s Health and Fast Company, among many.
He also is an advisor to nearly a dozen fitness and tech companies, including Head of the Fitness Advisory Board for Arnold Schwarzenegger.
He’s always been into fitness and regularly displayed results to show for. However, not happy with his results, he developed a workout and nutritional system that helped him get chiseled and ripped and gained him contracts with big designer brands as a fitness model. This is the same system that he now calls “Omega Body Blueprint” being reviewed here.
Omega Body Blueprint PDF And Components
This plan is structured into 6 weeks and comes with all the components usually found in this kind of program. It is a download, digital program with no home deliveries, so you can access it immediately.
The program comes with 6 components, all PDF manuals, and charts that you can reference from your PC or smartphone. These are:
The Omega Body Blueprint Training Manual – The foundation of the program with all the theories, including the 24 Hormonal Response Training workouts.
The Omega Body Blueprint Workout Charts – complementary charts to the training manual to keep track of your progress. The charts are very handy as they contain all the exercises, sets, and reps. You can also print them out for the gym.
The Omega Body Blueprint Nutrition Calculator – a software to work out exactly your daily requirements, what to eat, and when.
The Omega Body Blueprint Nutrition Manual – the nutritional part of the program, equally important to, if not more than, the workouts. This is where theory and practice come hand in hand.
The Omega Body Blueprint Supplement Guide – the choice of using supplements is entirely optional. However, the author provides an insightful report on which ones are useful and which ones are a waste of your money.
The Omega Body Blueprint Quick Start Check List – a quick reference list before you start. You can go back to the main program for additional information later.
The Omega Body Blueprint is a fully comprehensive plan designed to take you to the ultimate level of fitness, with low body fat and lean muscle.
It is particularly useful for those with a training history who hit a plateau and cannot shed the few last, stubborn pounds of fat or even larger amounts of fat.
It works for both men and women, younger and over 50, providing that you are in good health and with a training history, but it may be not the best choice for beginners as the workout methods are quite challenging. If older, check with your doctor first.
My name is Jay Fielding. I gained an interest in fitness since I was a child, and eventually developed my passion into a career path. I am now a Certified Personal Trainer with a natural ability to program customized body recomposition and motivate people in achieving their goals, be it gaining muscle or losing fat.
