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What I do INSTEAD of Meal Plans
I recently posted an article detailing why I don't give meal plans to clients (read it here if you haven't already) Briefly I want to expand on that just for a second using a quick analogy: If you were trying to teach a kid how to do basic math (or math’s if you’re reading this in the UK) would you:
The calculator is great! It's simple, easy, and much less time consuming. But unfortunately, that kid still doesn't understand math and they didn't develop any skills. And when they don't have a calculator they're screwed. They are 100% reliant on it. That's why I don't provide a meal plan in my coaching program. But here is what do I do instead:
At the end of the process they understand what to do, how to do it, AND how to make their diet to their lifestyle (not the other way around). Is this easy? No. Is this simple? Yes, but it does require effort, conscious thought, and the desire to get better. Is it worth it? You can bet your ass it is. When executed correctly this approach provides exactly the same results as following a meal plan constantly fighting the rigidity that comes with a meal plan. What's even better is that this approach leads to a lifetime of results and no yoyo-ing of your bodyweight. Very quickly, let's go back to our math example: You need more time, energy, and effort to learn how to do math than it takes to use a calculator but that skill set will stay with that kid forever. They won't have to rely on that calculator anymore. For some people this approach sounds like too much effort. No one likes learning math just like no one enjoys taking a hard look in the mirror and examining which decisions are getting them closer to their goal and which decisions are taking them further away from it. But for the people willing to put the effort in, execute consistently, and take a hard look at themselves it is the single best thing you can do for your health. You will lose weight, lose inches from your waist, and gain a sense of control and freedom that you will never have had before. If you want to learn more on how to develop this skillset then check-out the Look and Feel Lean Program
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I don’t provide meal plans. I was having a conversation with one of my clients the other day about meals plans and it got me thinking. (that client is killing it in my online weight-loss program by the way). It's normal to think that an online fitness program will have some kind of meal plan in it. Eat this for breakfast, this for lunch, only eat these snacks. Truthfully, I think we've been conditioned to think that way after years of infomercials telling us to do a 21-days cleanses or some other BS. But it makes sense, I get it. We want something that is easy, simple to follow, and just done for us. We don’t want to think about it. And sometimes that works. I know lots of people who have followed a rigid meal plan with prescribed breakfast/lunch/dinner/snacks and come out the other end of that meal plan 10 lbs lighter - they were thrilled! There's a problem with that though. At the end of that meal plan they have nothing to fall back on, no new knowledge or experiences, and they hadn’t developed any new skills. Once that meal plan is over, they slip back to what's comfortable. It may take 3, 6 or 12 months for the motivation to "stick with it" to fizzle out but they eventually go back to their old habits and that annoying 10lbs is back like a high-school friend trying to sell you into a pyramid-scheme.  The reaction is to go on an even more rigid diet plan to lose the original 10lbs and lose ANOTHER 10lbs.
“This time it's going to stick because it has to”. “I just have to stick with the plan…I just have to stick with the plan”. Meals plans create dependency, not autonomy. I was having a conversation with a client recently and we were talking about tracking and how he found it really useful to see the data that was produced by recording his sets and reps during his workouts.
After we concluded our conversation it struck me how that's not the only value that tracking provides. There is massive inherent value in the act of tracking itself. What do I mean by that? He told me how, when choosing his weights, he was much more likely to go up a weight or attempt more reps at the same weight when he was able to see what he did in his last workout. He was much less likely to do the same weight for the same number of reps. Doing the same thing over and over again is a recipe for stagnation and lack of progress. I reflected on this with my own health too. If you weren’t aware, it recently snowed around 5 inches in Texas and it shut the state down completely. During that week I didn’t exactly do a whole lot since nothing was open and it got down to Sub-Zero temperatures. It's fair to say I gained a couple pounds. This happens from time to time and I don't get mad about it. I just know that I have to do a couple weeks of tracking my calories, being very consistent with my workouts, and avoid the late night snacking. Something really interesting happens to your eating habits when you start tracking your calories. When you go to the pantry and you’re standing at the open door, ready to grab something, thoughts like these pop into your head:
Tracking your Calories, even for a few days or a couple weeks re-wires your brain and how you think about what you eat. It provides a whole new perspective on how and what we eat. When I track Calories (even for a couple weeks) I end up doing the following:
This is all stuff I know I should do all the time but most people don’t change their eating habits based on what they should or shouldn’t do. They change because they have a goal in mind and the discipline to do what it takes to get there. What questions do you have about tracking and/or Calorie counting? How does drinking affect weight loss?
Everyone says that you can’t drink alcohol while you’re trying to lose weight. But they say that because they don’t know the science of how alcohol affects your body when it comes to weight loss. As soon as you know the physiology of how alcohol affects the body then you are equipped and informed to make good decisions so that you can enjoy sipping whiskey without it screwing up your weight loss. Remember, it is possible to lose weight and still drink alcohol but there are some guidelines and considerations we must think about for this to be success. Unfortunately, you can’t throw back 5 drinks a night and expect consistent weight loss, but wouldn’t it be nice to be able to pour a bourbon or scotch and not feel like you are self-sabotaging? What you drink and how it affects it One thing that you should know is that Calories are the main driver of whether you lose weight or not. So, let’s talk about how what you’re drinking can affect your Calorie intake and your subsequent weight loss (or lack of it). For example, did you know that proof can affect calories?
Why does 50 Calories matter? If you have one drink in one evening, it probably doesn’t. 50 Calories is unlikely to make or break your day. However, over the course of a week or weekend it can add up (and get all sneaky on you). Let’s paint a picture. It’s the weekend and you’re watching a lot of football. You’re not going crazy with the adult beverages, but you have a couple beers watching College football and then you have a couple 1.5oz pours over dinner. On Sunday you do something similar: a couple beers during the afternoon and a couple pours of whiskey for SNF. If you’re drinking light beer/lower proof your total is going to be around 800 Calories. If you’re drinking regular beer/high proof your total is going to be around 1200 Calories. That 400 Calorie difference is about the equivalent of going for a 60-minute walk or a 30-minute job. The way I see it you have two options: Option 1: Drink lower proof alcohol Option 2: Drink higher proof beverages but go for a 60-minute walk. (Option 3): Drink higher proof, don’t do anything else…and get fat. As a successful businessman you have to make the executive decision: Is it worth it? Note: If you want to keep your higher proof whiskey then something has to give and that something is volume. Maybe you have 1oz pours instead of 1.5oz (it really does add up overtime) or you have a single pour instead of multiple in a single evening. It’s not just Calories We can talk numbers all day, but you can always cancel out the Calories you drink by eating less or exercising. What about the other things that come with drinking? Drinking and sleep How many times have you heard “I can drink a bunch and it doesn’t affect my sleep”. Personally, I normally hear it from people who are newer to drinking or they have been doing it for such a long time that they don’t feel it anymore. A nightcap may even make it easier to fall asleep. What gives? Well, a drink may make it easier to fall asleep, but it messes with the deep sleep that allows us to wake up feeling rested. Alcohol typically takes hold in the second half of the night, that’s why you might wake up at 2am/3am. Why is this important? Reduced sleep actually makes you eat more the next day and makes you feel less full when you do eat. That means you overeat and then you get fat. Bummer. What’s the fix? The earlier your stop drinking the better. Drinking and hydration Everyone knows that alcohol makes you dehydrated. It makes you pee more even though your body doesn’t have much water in it to begin with. What makes it worse is that as we start drinking alcohol, we typically stop drinking water. Talk about a double whammy. Working out when you’re dehydrated…SUCKS! Not only are you less likely to go workout (because you feel bad…because you’re dehydrated) but the workout is going to feel a lot harder. What’s the fix? Alternating between whiskey and water or just keeping a bottle of water close by while you’re drinking. Finishing up Now you’re fully in-the-know when it comes to drinking and weight loss. It may seem like there is a lot of negatives to drinking while trying to lose weight and unfortunately that kind of true. However, all of them can be buffered or adjusted-for so that you can have a drink guilt-free. Cheers! How should you structure your workout for best muscle gains?
Body-part Split or full-body Workout? When I first got into lifting weights everything was all about the body-part split. What do I mean by that? Each body part got it’s own workout. There was Chest day, Back day and Leg day etc. Then, when I got into the Strength and Conditioning world, everything was about whole body workouts. So which is the best? There is a boring answer and a more interesting one. We’ll start with the boring answer: it depends on your goal. If your goal is to throw faster, jump higher or swing harder then you are definitely better off using a whole body workout routine featuring primarily compound movements (that’s movements that use more than one joint). Bonus points if you use compound exercises that mimic movements in your chosen sport. For football that would be stuff like squats and presses. For jumpers athletes that would be a lot of squats, step-ups, and lunges. But what about building lean muscle? In other words, what's the best type of routine to look better naked? It all comes down to stimulating your muscles. You see, when you do a set of bicep curls you create tension in your biceps muscle. This is a stimulus for the muscle to grow. If you do 2 sets of bicep curls instead of 1 then they are stimulated a little more but eventually you reach the point of diminishing returns. Doing 12 sets of bicep curls in a workout isn’t any better than doing 3 or 4. You see a muscle reaches a point of being maximally stimulated to grow after 3-4 sets of an exercise. That signal or stimulus to grow lasts about 24-48 hours. Then, the muscle stops growing. It stops responding to that workout. Why is all this important? It’s important because it provides the key to answering our question: which is better? body-part splits or full-body workouts? Just for reference, a typical body-part split workout may look something like this: Monday: Chest Tuesday: Back Wednesday: Arms Thursday: Shoulders Friday: Legs Saturday: Abs Sunday Off On each day you might do 4-6 exercises for 3-4 sets, each targeting that one muscle group. My opinion...that’s overkill! Remember, your chest isn’t going to be anymore stimulated to grow by doing 6 exercises than it will from doing 2 exercises for 3 sets. It’s already maxed out. Your chest will grow for 2 days and then nothing...no more gains until next week when it’s chest day again. That’s 5 days of nothing! Now what about a whole body workout? What if you did 4 workouts per week. With 1, maybe 2, exercises each for your chest, back, shoulders, legs, arms, and abs. You could do each exercise for 2-3 sets. It may look something like this: Monday: Chest, Back, Shoulders, Legs, Arms, and Abs Tuesday: OFF Wednesday: Chest, Back, Shoulders, Legs, Arms, and Abs Thursday: OFF Friday: Chest, Back, Shoulders, Legs, Arms, and Abs Saturday: OFF Sunday Chest, Back, Shoulders, Legs, Arms, and Abs Remember, your muscles only grow in response to your workout for 24-48 hours afterwards. Using this approach, there would never be a day where your muscles were not growing. SIDE NOTES: This isn’t my main point but did you see how we went from 6 workouts a week to 4 a week? I know what you might be thinking Alex, this sounds awesome and makes complete sense...but what about the big guy at the gym (could also be a friend or neighbor) that says to build muscle you should do Chest day on Mondays and Back on Tuesdays etc... Well, he’s not wrong. You can definitely build muscle on body part-splits but it’s just not optimal. Body-part splits have been used by old school gym-rats forever and old school gym-rats tend to be big because they’ve been doing it forever. Just because someone has achieved something doesn’t mean that their methods are optimal for you. It’s not true in business and it’s not true in fitness. Doing cold calling works amazingly well for some businesses but it’s completely sub-optimal for other businesses. Body-part splits CAN work (especially if you’re using anabolic help) but more than likely, they’re not the best option for you. HEADLINES
INTRO There are many people who are successful in business that are not successful in weight loss, and that's surprising to me as there are many similarities between them. In business: - You must have a plan for what you want to achieve - A strategy for how to implement that plan - And the execution and consistency to follow-through on that plan In weight-loss, it's really not much different: - You must have a plan for what you want to achieve - A strategy for how to implement that plan - And the execution and consistency to follow-through on that plan DEEP DIVE At the base level in business you have stuff coming in (revenue/sales etc.) and you have stuff going out (costs). The difference between them is either profit or loss. In fitness, we have energy coming (from food/drinks) and we have energy going out (metabolism/exercise/activity). The difference between them dictates whether we gain weight (if energy in > energy out) or lose weight (if energy in < energy out). In business, we have KPI's (key-performance-indicators) that allow us to see how our business is performing by looking at key metrics other than profit/loss. As an example, common KPI's in my business would be leads, conversion %, and length of client relationship. If a business is only turning a small profit but you can look at your KPI's and see that the reason for the small profits is that there are very few leads coming in...then it allows you to identify the problem and fix it. This probably isn't anything new to you but what may be new to you is the idea of applying this concept to your fitness. By having Fitness KPI's it allows you to see areas you may need to tweak or overhaul to start losing weight or accelerate your weight loss. By adding fitness KPI's you can see exactly which parts of weight loss strategy is working and which parts need fixing (or outsourcing). FINISHING UP Knowing what to track can be a little tricky. Common examples include: number of workouts per week completed, Calories eaten, Calories burned, the weight, reps, and sets of every single exercise you do, the amount of the exercise volume you're doing over the course of a workout, number of steps in a day, weight, waist circumference etc. You don't want to track too many things since you are one person and too much manual tracking is often a barrier to action and execution. But if you don't track enough then you're not getting the insights into your fitness that you need. So what's the answer? option #1: You can do trial and error (I did this for years) and eventually you will figure out what works for you...or you may give up trying. Option #2: You can outsource all the tracking so that you get the reports without having to enter the data. It's just like having a business analyst on staff for you. If option number 2 sounds like something that may be of benefit to you then shoot me an email at alex@bodytransformationsolutions.com ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ If you're ready right now to outsource your weight loss plan to an expert and lose 10-20lbs in 12 weeks and gain lean muscle (all with a money-back guarantee) then check out the 'Look and Feel Lean' 12 week program: https://www.bodytransformationsolutions.com/services.html If you're a successful businessmen that likes whiskey and wants to lose 10-20lbs of fat and gain lean muscle then join my free Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/DrinkWhiskeyLoseWeight |
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April 2021
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