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3 Simple Steps For More Weight Loss & Better Health

Several weeks ago I wrote about having a ‘Nutrition Belief System.’ The idea behind this is that you were to come up with a simple set of beliefs regarding your diet that you could follow. I wanted to continue on this theme today with some more very simple strategies that if you implement you will lose more weight and improve your health.

1. Weigh Yourself Everyday – This is such an easy habit to get into. Wake up, go to the bathroom, step on the scale, and record your weight. I recently read a review of 11 studies that showed this simple action can give you up to a 6 pound weight loss advantage over people who do not regularly weigh themselves. (For more on Self-Weighing see the Key Concepts section in this month’s issue of Strong, Fit, & Healthy).

2. Stop eating after 7pm – This is a classic weight loss tip that is often overlooked. There is nothing magical about not eating after 7pm (some people eat dinner late due to their schedule so the 7pm cut point might not work) but if you are prone to snacking (see 3 Ways to Sabotage Your Weight Loss for more on this) then this is a easy way to stop it all together – just don’t let yourself start.

3. Drink 2 Cups of Water Before Your Morning Coffee – As I’ve mentioned before, there is nothing wrong with coffee. The problems arise when drinking coffee prevents you from drinking other things; this is also known as dietary displacement. You don’t want your coffee habit to prevent you from drinking water; this is an all too common occurrence. To avoid this just make sure that you drink 2 cups of water each morning before you cup of joe.

Do you have any simple tips/rules that help you stay lean and healthy?

Female Fat Loss Tips

I was recently re-reading a couple sections of Rachel Cosgrove’s book – The Female Body Breakthrough (which I recommend you pick up if you haven’t already) and wanted to highlight some great tips/take home points for you that Rachel makes in the book.

*Eliminate Black and White Thinking – If you binge and overeat just get over it. Stressing out over overeating will just make you feel terrible and probably cause you to overeat again. You would need to eat ALOT of calories to actually gain a pound of fat from a binge. Move on and vow to do better.

* Bone loss is a huge problem for women as they age. Weight training helps stop and even reverse bone loss. Jogging on a treadmill doesn’t do anything to stop this problem.

*Keep a journal/blog so that you have a record of your habits, moods, feelings, victories, and struggles (not just regarding weight loss). A journal an incredibly valuable took to have at your disposal so that you can look back and objectively figure out what is working and what isn’t.

* Listen to your body. Rest and Recovery are very important. Don’t ignore nagging muscle pains and soreness. Take measures everyday to boost your recovery through proper nutrition, foam rolling, naps, and stretching.

*It is okay to be a BITCH. Be Inspiring Totally Confident, and Hot.

*Using bodyfat calipers, a mirror, pictures, and measurements are all very important ways to track your progress. Don’t rely just on the scale weight.

*Don’t cheat, Splurge. Cheat meals just sound like you should feel guilty about them. Splurges are a different story. In regards to money, everyone splurges – buys a new pair of jean, gadget, or whatever every so often. You just get back on your budget and move on. The same goes with your diet. Plan to splurge on your diet at least 10% of the time and don’t feel guilty about it.

Click here to learn more about Rachel’s book and her free video coaching.

3 Ways You Sabotage Your Weight Loss Diet

There is nothing more frustrating than sticking to your diet and exercise plan but not losing weight. You think you are doing everything you are supposed to do but the weight just isn’t coming off like it should. You ask yourself ‘What is Going On?!” I might have the answer for you. Today I want to share with you three under the radar ways that you could currently be sabotaging your weight loss efforts without evening knowing it.

Nibbling while Cooking
This is my personal demon. I’m a nibbler. Snacking and nibbling on the foods that you are cooking while preparing your meals can be a significant source of unaccounted for calories. Let’s say you are making a chicken, vegetable, and cashew stir-fry. You have a couple cashews while getting the ingredients out, a small handful while adding them to the dish, next thing you know you’ve had 200-300 unaccounted calories.

One of the great benefits of ‘meal preparation chunking’, a technique that I teach which involves getting most if not all of your food prep done at one time at the beginning of the week. This cuts down on the temptation of nibbling by just removing it from the equation, except for one time during the week.

Generous Portions
Over measuring is another huge mistake that is commonly made and overlooked. If you are having trouble losing weight then you need to be honest with yourself about measuring your food. Is the tablespoon of peanut butter that you add to your shake truly a tablespoon or is it more like a 1/4 cup? Did you just pour approximately 1 TBSP of olive oil into the non stick pan or was it more like 3 TBSP? These small mismeasures can add up and may be the thing holding you back from losing the weight that you should.

While recently several scientific studies have concluded that exercise is not as an important part of weight loss as many people think; I still believe that exercise is of the utmost importance. While you may already be training with weights at least 3 days a week and on top of that you are completing 3 more metabolic/interval type sessions it is key that every couple weeks you take the time to audit your exercise intensity. How hard you are training is more important than how often you are training. Increased intensity is easily the difference between 5 pounds of weight loss and 10 pounds of weight loss.

To wrap things up for this article, if you feeling like you are doing everything that you should be doing but you still aren’t losing weight, run a quick audit on your life and see if you are adding unaccounted for calories via nibbling, mismeasuring, and/or do you need to step up the intensity during your training sessions. Make one or all three of these adjustments in your life and the weight will start coming off again.

The REAL Reasons Why You Can’t Lose Weight

Today I wanted to share with you a very insightful story that a friend of mine who runs a gym shared with me.

A woman came into his gym and said that she really wanted to join as she needed to lose weight for health reasons but she could not afford the monthly membership fee. My friend told the woman that he wanted to help her so he’d make her a deal…

He would give her a free 30 day membership. During those first 30 days, if she came in and exercised 15 times then he would give her the next 30 days for free, the same for the next month, and the next month. So in essence this woman could have a lifetime free membership IF she used it. The woman was so happy and very grateful to my friend for making such a generous deal with her. Do you know what happened in the following 30 days?

She showed up 6 times and never came back.

You can probably see what I’m getting at here….money wasn’t the issue. The cost of the gym membership wasn’t the ‘thing’ that was holding this woman back from losing weight. It was a convient scapegoat.

What are you convenient scape goats?

What are the reasons you give for not losing weight and reaching your goals?

Write them down, crumble up the paper, and throw it in the recycle bin never to mention them again.

Then get down to work and lose the weight.

4 Ways to Easily Reduce Stress

Back in December I had an article published that shared 4 simple ways that you can reduce stress in your life. One of the reasons that you should focus on stress reduction is because of the effect that stress has on your hormones such as thyroid and leptin to name a few. While I don’t have randomized clinical trials to support the assertion that stress also negatively impacts digestion and your digestive system; I have been around enough people in my life that ‘carry their stress in their stomach’ to know that it has a profound impact on this area of your body as well.

What are the 4 things?

1. Drink 5 Cups of Green Tea Each Day – This level of green tea consumption has been associated with reduced signs and symptoms of psychological distress and depression.

2. Use Kava Kava – Kava Kava is an herb that has been used in scientific studies to successfully to treat  mild and infrequent anxiety.

3. Get Better Sleep – The quality (more so than quantity) of sleep that you get greatly impacts your stress hormones.

4. Supplement with Rhodiola Rosea – Classified and studied by Russia during the mid 20th century. This herb was (and still is in may circles) used for the treatment of fatigue.

For more a more indepth look at these four tips check out the full article at T-Muscle.com.

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