On paper, fall is just about the worst possible time for someone to start a diet. Seriously. When you think about it, fall is basically designed to get us to overeat.
Gone are the days of lounging by the pool in a swimsuit and fighting off the anxiety of whether or not you can take off your cover-up. All the fall clothes are flattering, warm, and don’t dream of being revealing.
At the very same time, it’s like all of the food that gets popular is about as calorie dense as possible. It’s like all of the sudden everyone agrees that people need to increase the pie baking production per capita by 10-fold. Oh, and while we’re at it, let’s toss cookies and pumpkin-spice-everything into the mix.
Seriously – when it comes to building a season that should wreak havoc on a diet, it’s hard to do much better than fall.
It’s not hard to see that I’ve got a lot of thoughts on fall, which partly for the reasons listed above, is my favorite season.
But here’s the great irony of my thoughts on fall: I actually think right now is the best time of the year that you can start dieting.
Maybe it’s because fall follows summer, a season that we all look forward to from about February on – but once late July hits we’re about done with. Grilling out and having cookouts with friends and family is fun, but it’s hard to eat and drink with reckless abandon for too long without feeling bloated and exhausted.
Or, maybe, it’s that fall coincides with back to school time. Back to school is like this phenomenon that impacts just about all of us, no matter if you’re actually going back to school or not. The signs, the ads, the school-supply aisles popping up. It’s impossible to ignore, and I think that’s a great thing. It’s a chance for all of us to take stock of our year up to this point. A natural moment of reflection plopped about ⅔ of the way through the year. That is my favorite thing about fall.
Fall is the time for children to return to school and use what they learned the previous year and expand their knowledge and experience. I like to think about fall as the same thing for all of us who have weight loss, muscle gain, or performance goals. Especially those of us who are tracking and paying attention to what we eat.
It’s hyperbole to say that for most of us, we tend to slack off a bit in the summer. That’s not a criticism on anyone because I can absolutely say that’s true for me. It is a time to enjoy the progress we made, maintain our weight and live in LIFESTYLE MODE.
How can you not ease off the gas a bit whenever it seems like every weekend has some cookout, some outdoor event built around food and drinks, or some other social plan that seems to always pop up? Those are all just normal things that come along with summer, and for most of us, they’re things that we’re fortunate to be able to take part in – so why wouldn’t we enjoy that?
Fall,on the other hand, is a natural place to go back to the basics, reflect and make a better diet. It is a time of year in which it makes sense for us to take stock of our processes, our daily behaviors, and make sure those are lining up with our goals. It’s that very process of regularly auditing yourself that sets successful dieters apart.
For some of us, taking stock of things might mean renewing your focus on how you’re weighing and measuring your food. For others it might be auditing how you’re going about logging your day to day food intake, to make sure you’re not missing anything. And still, for others, it might be a matter of looking at what your planning looks like and identifying ways in which you can improve your process to make your life easier.
The actual behavior we’re talking about doesn’t really matter. What does matter is the spirit behind it. The knowing that you’re actively working to take control of your health and your behaviors to become a little bit better each and every day.
At Strive Fitness and Performance, this is something that we not only encourage, but want to actively support as much as we possibly can.
Are you ready to make a change this year?
Are you a life long learner?
Do you want to become 1% better?
Committed to your success,
Derek Ledwidge
Meal Planning can be really time consuming and overwhelming at first. Motivation is so strong at first that you want to change literally everything that you view is wrong. Many times, this turns into a quick failure because it is simply too much and it will lead to some failures that you are not ready for. To be honest, failures come regardless and is a part of the journey to becoming better. The less opportunities for failure the better and the bigger chance you have to reach your goals.
Here at Strive Fitness and Performance, we track macros (read more on why). This helps our clients meal planning process go a lot smoother and helps them create their own unique meal plans.
To help our clients meal plan, we preach the 3-3-3 method. This method helps with meal planning, because it takes out the variables. Consistency is key (especially at the beginning). The more variables in your meals the harder it becomes to stay consistent.
Choose 3 protein sources, 3 carbs, 3 fats. Green veggies won’t count as one of your 3 carbs, have a free for all (but still log them)
Example:
Make all of your meals with only those foods. At first, you may say “ah that looks like a boring menu”. But think about how many different combos you can come up with. Different styles of cooking, different spices, interesting pairings etc
Why does this work?
It eliminates variables. One of the tricky things with logging food is a fault in perception and mismanagement of what you think you are consuming. This reduction in variables will allow you/your client to pinpoint exactly what’s going on. Essentially, it’s a way to mess up less, stay satiated, get in all the micronutrients, and get used to eating primarily nutrient dense foods.
Once we become mindful of the quantity and quality of the foods we are eating, we have officially reached and mastered LIFESTYLE MODE and can now start to fit in the good stuff like oreos and cake (sometimes).
This has been a game changer for people who have gotten comfortable on a diet or those just starting a more flexible approach. It’s not as fun as pizza, cheeseburgers, and wine, but neither is working hard for no progress, right?
Why do our Strive Fitness and Performance clients count macronutrients?
Why should you?
With any nutrition or diet goal, calories are king, they are the cornerstone of losing weight and gaining weight. The other measurement to consider is where those calories come from. The quality of food that makes up the calories determines what weight is lost.
Filling your daily calories by eating fast food and ice cream is not equal to filling up on whole, unprocessed foods like grass-fed meats and veggies. If you have performance or body composition goals, you will benefit from breaking your calories into macronutrients (protein, carbohydrates and fats).
We do not expect our clients to always need a food scale or the myfitnesspal app. That is not the point of tracking what you eat. The goal is to put the control of nutrition/dieting back into the hands of our clients.
So many people depend on programs and meal plans that when they move off of them, they are lost and gain the weight they lost back.
Knowing how many calories you are consuming can be valuable info to know for sure if you’re fueling your lifestyle or workouts properly. And taking that a step further, wouldn’t you want to know how lose weight while still fitting in time with friends, family and pizza!!!
Tracking your macros may seem hectic and chaotic at first, but the benefits far exceed the small learning curve.
Here are my favorite benefits of macronutrient counting:
Tracking your macronutrients is the only way to know exactly what’s going into your body and it can be seriously empowering! You will be surprised if you are mindlessly eating your snacks. What foods cause you to feel bloated? What foods give you the most energy for your workout? Tracking macros also educates you on what foods are high in fat and which foods are high in protein only. For example, lean protein sources like chicken breast have just trace amounts of carbs and fats whereas whole eggs contain almost equal amounts of protein and fat. If you see that you’re high in fats for the day, then you would reach for chicken as your next protein source.
Any "clean eaters" out there that have plateaued and can not find out why? Tracking your macronutrients will show that while you’re likely grossly under eating carbohydrates and protein, you’re overeating fats. No matter how healthy the source, fats still pack a punch of 9 calories per gram. Dialing in how many fats, carbs, and protein to eat each day will take out any guesswork and help get to your goals faster.
When you TRACK YOUR MACROS AND FOOD LOG, you will be able to look back at it and see what needs to be adjusted to make the perfect plan. Each week is a learning opportunity, where you look at weeks past to see how you can become better overall. Maybe your breakfast can be better, or maybe you are always eating pizza on Tuesdays and Thursdays because you have no time. By tracking your macronutrients, you will be able to see the holes in your plan and come up with a better plan in the future to achieve your goals.
Overall, hitting your daily macronutrient recommendations will lead you to make more balanced food choices. Keep in mind the big picture of health and wellness and fill up your macros with a variety of whole, unprocessed foods.
This is a biggy!!!
The problem with restrictive meal plans is that they restrict your foods and your food timing. They force you to fit your lifestyle around a certain plan. Instead, by counting macro nutrients and adjusting your plan as you go, you can fit your plan around your lifestyle so it works for you.
Want to watch your waistline while still being able to go to happy hour with friends? Macro counting is sustainable because it can be so flexible. Personally, I couldn’t stick with other diets I tried in the past because there were too many foods I felt like I wasn’t “allowed” to eat. With macros, there is always a way to make tracking work for your lifestyle. Depending on the timeline of your goals, you can track macros and eat any food you want as long as you count it towards your daily totals. So, yes, you can have that scoop of ice cream or slice of pizza, just log whatever you eat and drink and count it towards your daily macro goals. The catch-22 is that you may have to be a little bit more cautious on the other meals during the day.
Tracking macronutrients is not only flexible in terms of what you can eat, but also with how strict you want to be. If you don’t think you can handle logging your food every single day, try tracking just Monday through Friday and give yourself a break on the weekends. This is what we call LIFESTYLE MODE and is the overall goal we want our clients to achieve....The opportunity to maintain the goals they achieved by using their knowledge to make good decisions while still living their lives (instead of always restricting their eating)
[To Apply For A Free Strategy Call, To Go Over YOUR Personalized Macro Plan, CLICK HERE NOW]
The above steps should set you up for success as you start your macro counting journey. Macro counting is flexible, empowering, and sustainable and I urge you to try tracking your macronutrients at least once in your life. No matter if your goals are to lose fat, build muscle, or just to learn healthy eating habits, macro counting can be of use to you!
You will learn exactly what you’re putting into your body, how you respond to different foods, and how to best fuel your individual fitness and nutrition goals.
Making an meal plan can be hard. Hell, many people find just thinking about good nutrition as a hard task. This is the main reason why so many people go towards the "next best thing". Products like fat loss pills, fad diets and "lose weight without needing to change" products are everywhere. People know they need to make changes, but they do not know how to focus it around their lives, so they need it done for them and easy.
The problem is, is that these "sexy" meal plans and products that promise to get crazy fast results are not sustainable. Instead, people needing results can make their own meal plans that are focused around their own lifestyle by using Macro nutrients and myfitnesspal (click here to learn how to set up MYFITNESSPAL).
We keep breakfast pretty consistent for our meal plan. You generally always have time for breakfast or you need something super fast and easy. Either case, breakfast can become pretty consistent and it should stay that way as part of your plan.
We will then pick two of each macro nutrient (protein, carb and fat) plus two veggies for lunch and dinner.
For Example:
Lunch Becomes:
Dinner Becomes:
Time to bust out your food tracking app of choice (My fitness pal, Fat Secret, LoseIt!...We prefer MFP). We have got a game plan on WHAT we will be eating....But how much? What about snacks? Post Workout?
Start by logging protein at every meal:
Then Carbs:
Then Fat:
Then Veggies:
You should now have a full day planned in your tracking app of choice...SWEET!!! In MFP, scroll to the bottom of the food diary and click "Nutrition". You should see current macro totals (make sure you select "nutrients" up at the top). Keep adjusting entries until numbers match up with macro goals.
Need More Protein?
Need More Carbs?
Need More Fats?
Just remember, these are just examples. The important thing is to look at your day and adjust your meal plan so that you can live your life while still getting results. The difference between using myfitnesspal and counting macros and strict meal plans is control. Strict meal plans and programs like Weight watchers and Jenny Craig give you something to follow, but they do not give you control. When you are done with those programs, the direction is gone and many people do not know what to do. Following the examples above will give you an idea to get the control that everyone needs to make sustainable nutrition a part of their life.
If you wish for some help to make your own unique nutrition plan. CLICK HERE and we can jump on a phone call to come up with your nutritional blueprint
Committed to your success,
Derek Ledwidge
Here at Strive Fitness and Performance, one of our main goals is to help our clients lose body fat. Most people focus on trying to lose body fat year round or are in DIET MODE. While people are generally good at losing weight, most are terrible at keeping it off. They have no idea what to do when they achieve their goal, go on vacation, or fall off the diet because it is too hard.
We like to call this phase of non-diet, LIFESTYLE MODE (read more about DIET MODE VS. LIFESTYLE MODE). Essentially, lifestyle mode is a time of the year when we made good decisions but losing weight is not the main focus. Lifestyle mode or "Maintenance" is when you do just that, focus on maintaining your weight instead of losing it. This mode is essential to a healthy life because losing weight is stressful and we should be able to live our lives without freaking out when you have a family function to go to. Diet mode is essential to lose weight and change your body composition, but that mode needs to be used sparingly. You should live in lifestyle mode for most of the year and only go into diet mode when your goal is to lose body fat.
There are 10 basic habits that we focus on when we get into lifestyle mode. If you can master these 10 habits, you will be well on your way to the body of your dreams without ever counting calories or weighing food. These habits should guide your eating choices and help you make the right decisions no matter the situation you are in.
You may already be following some of these habits. That is great! If you are, then continue to do so and read on a bit more about each of them.
You also may not be following any of the habits, and that is OK as well. We all have a starting point, and knowing that point is crucial to our success. If you are not following any of the habits, start with the first one and master it for the first week. Each week, continue to add in one habit until you have mastered all of them! If it takes longer than one week to consistently apply a habit to your life, no worries! Simply try again next week.
Don’t worry about your mistakes; instead, focus on what you did well each week, and build on those successes so that you can continue to grow and learn about your nutrition.
This does not necessarily mean tracking your calories, but journaling the process and actions you are taking in your training and nutrition plan can be a huge step in seeing results. This not only allows us to see what you are doing and adjust things when needed….It is also the best way to yourself accountable. Most of us can know exactly what to do, but if we have no accountability to stick to it….We won’t. So start to journal your daily diet and training, then let your coach know so they can help you with the accountability and give you steps to improve.
Fail to prepare, prepare to fail….This is HUGE. Planning and preparing your meals for the week is on of the biggest steps to reaching your fat loss goals. This does not mean every meal needs to be in a plastic container, but it does mean that you have to have a plan and know what your nutrition will look like for the week.
HUGE TIP: To have the best results you will always use food journaling and your plan to hold yourself accountable and make adjustments to get the best results. Over eating....Your food journal will be proof of that. You will need to make adjustments to next week's plan and prep. Not getting enough protein...Your food journal will be proof of that. You will need to make adjustments to next week's plan and prep. GET THE HINT 🙂
A good amount to shoot for, no matter your body type or goal is one gallon. It will keep you on the safe side and allows you to be sure that you are getting enough. Studies have proven, time after time, that drinking more water throughout the day leads to more fat loss, better performance, increased muscle and strength gains, and better health. Try drinking 12-16oz before each meal, this has been proven to increase metabolism and enhance fat loss!
To lose body fat and to build lean muscle, it is important to get a good amount of protein in your diet. This allows you to increase metabolism, burn more calories simply through digestion, and most importantly, improve muscle recover for better performance. Aim to eat 1-2 handfuls of protein with each meal.
I don’t think I need to explain why you need to eat more veggies, because you grandma probably did all of your life.
But just in case, we need the nutrients, minerals, vitamins and fiber from vegetables, and eating veggies is also a great way to fill yourself up and stay satisfied throughout your day. It is a proven fact that lean individuals eat veggies on a daily basis. Try eating them at each meal….If not, 4-5 cups per day
On any given day 50% of Americans consume sugary beverages. 1 in 4 get at least 200 calories from just a single drink….Now we can assume most don’t stop at one drink per day and even if they do, by the end of the week it can add up to a full day’s worth of calories in just drinks. So the goal in this principle is simple, stick to zero calorie beverages as much as possible. Think water, teas, black coffee and sugar-free drinks on occasion. This alone can dramatically increase weight loss.
Carbs are not the devil. No matter what your friends say, you should never demonize a food group. Carbs help with performance in the gym and recovery from great workouts. For enhanced your progress and lose body fat for effectively, time your carb consumption around your workouts. Doing so will lead to: Proper recovery, more fat loss, increased lean muscle, better carb consumption. Try focusing the healthy carbs within a 4-6 hour time span. Workout in the morning; have your carbs in the morning and none during the night.
Eating quality, earth grown, fats is an essential dietary principle when it comes to great health and massive fat loss. Most people forget about this or leave it out because fat can be calorically dense, but that is not a bad thing. Aim to eat healthy fats daily, more specifically 1-2 thumb size portions per meal.
This may seem simple, but it can be much more difficult then you would believe. This is huge because many of us simply over eat during a meal, whether it is a healthy meal or not…Over consuming calories will still lead to weight gain. Because it takes the brain around 20 minutes to realize that the body is full, it is very important to stop at 80% fullness. This will lead to less over eating and a natural caloric deficit, without tracking your calories at all.
We all have a life…And like to enjoy that life. Within our Nutrition Coaching Programs, we want the best results…But we also realize that following these exact habits 24/7 is unrealistic and does not allow us to truly enjoy our life as much as we would like. 90% of your days and week should be compliant with these 10 principles, and on track with your fitness goals. The other 10% should be enjoyed. Allow yourself to have a rewarding treat, wine with your sweetie ore a beer with a great friend.
