You need a Meal Plan for fat loss. You are on a diet. Whether you think so or not, it’s true. Your diet could consist of chicken nuggets, nachos, and diet soda. Or maybe it's a Muscle Milk for breakfast, pad thai for lunch, and frozen pizza for dinner. Whatever goes into your mouth on a regular basis is literally, your diet.
More often than not, people think that a diet is a resolve to all their health issues; that a 30-day challenge Detox or Strict Diet is the thing that is missing. Many people believe that these challenges will finally get them the body they want (Read More HERE On Why This Is Not True). They may survive this Detox or challenge and get the quick results. But what happens when the diet ends? If you are like most people, when the diet ends....The plan ends. You gain the weight back, you feel like shit, and you’re right back to where you started. I hear this same sad story over and over again. Most diets are just quick fixes. Limiting your food intake to grapefruits, high amounts of fat, or portion sizes that couldn’t feed a newborn, are unrealistic expectations and do nothing but set you up for failure.
Reaching your goals requires more than just a diet you practice intermittently when you feel like losing a few pounds. It requires an entire LIFESTYLE change, commitment, and most of all CONSISTENCY.
Watch the video below and read through this post to learn some helpful habits that you can instill easily into your lives and get the results you want without restricting yourself to insane limits.
Over the last thirty years, the average American diet has increased by 500 calories per day, with nearly 80% of those added calories attributed to simple carbohydrates or sugar starches. The simple reason; packaged and processed foods are more easily accessible than ever and it’s cheap. Donuts, fries, pastries, pie, sodas, and chips flood grocery store aisles and provide a quick fix to your hunger.
So what should you do? Eat the right carbs is what.
Carbs can be distinguished into two main categories, simple and complex.
Simple carbohydrates are simply sugar and come in the form of glucose and fructose. Glucose raises blood sugar quickly and foods that are higher on the glycemic index (GI) has a greater impact on blood sugar.
Complex carbohydrates are the type of carbohydrates you should be eating. As opposed to simple carbohydrates, which is simply glucose and fructose, complex carbohydrates are composed of multiple sugar molecules that keep you fuller for longer. Foods like sweet potatoes, brown rice, whole-wheat grains, whole-wheat pasta, and butternut squash provide you with the proper nutrients you need to keep you satiated. When you’re full, you eat less.
Carbs help us have the energy for some awesome workouts and help with recovery after workout. They are great for people looking to get that lean full look for summer.
Protein gets a lot of play in the media, for good reason. Today, you are going to explore how protein is your friend when it comes to weight loss.
Protein helps you lose weight for a few main reasons:
Starch is found in carbohydrates like white rice, white bread, and pasta. Starch is made of long chained sugar molecules, held together by a weak chemical bond. Once digested, they’re absorbed more quickly and will cause your blood sugar to spike, creating a roller coaster like we talked about earlier. The simple solution - replace them and eat more whole grains, complex carbs, vegetables, and fruit. Produce contains a ton of essential vitamins, minerals, and fiber to help your body function at a more optimal level. The average American intake of vegetables consists of just two well-known culprits; potatoes and iceberg lettuce. You need to diversify. Go to a local market that has fresh fruit and vegetables and try new things. You’d be surprised at how many pounds you can drop, by just cutting back on your starch intake and replacing it with quality sources of organic produce and whole grains.
Greens, meaning any kind of “leafy” vegetable like spinach, kale, and lettuces, are awesome but you probably already know this. Its our job to simply remind you 🙂
Greens are well known for being some of the healthiest foods on earth -- and there is good reason for this!
Studies show that eating 7 servings of these veggies a week can decrease your risk for cancer by 50%! While many nutrition experts disagree about which exact foods may be the healthiest, eating a lot of greens is the one thing that nearly all nutritionists agree on.
So with each meal, your focus should be on adding in a variety of vegetables (2 fists worth). You may want to think about throwing extra greens in! Simple, right?
Greens...
Greens are high in VOLUME, but have a very LOW CALORIE DENSITY, so you can eat loads of them. This means you can eat large portions of greens without consuming too many calories or gaining weight (which is ideal for any effective meal plan)
Greens (and all vegetables) help to “crowd out” other foods, especially junk food. For example, picture number of fries you could have for 100 calories versus the amount of kale you could have for the same calories. Now, consider how full you would feel after eating each. This is an example of how your stomach responds to the feeling of “filling up” on high volume, low calorie foods. Your stomach works with your brain to turn off your hunger signals based on volume consumed, allowing you to eat fewer calories overall.
Greens of all kinds are definitely your friend. If you miss everything else in these lessons about nutrition, remember this: eat more greens! Add them to omelets and soup, toss them in a stir-fry, make big salads using them as a base, or cook them down and serve your other food right on top of them.
Out of all the macronutrients, (carbohydrates, protein, and fat) fat is the only one that does not cause insulin to release. Despite its villainous name, fat is only guilty by association. Most diet meal plans restrict fats and carbs all together (among other things). Fat does not make you fat, carbohydrates and added sugars do. But with all the different types of fat, it can be confusing which ones you should include in your diet and which ones you should stay away from
One thing you may not know about fats is how they affect our energy, especially if we are training hard.
Omega-3 fatty acids are also considered a good or healthy fat as they help with inflammation, boost brain function, help fight heart disease, and even decrease signs of aging. Fish, walnuts, and avocados are great sources of omega-3 fatty acids. The easiest way to get your essential Omega 3 fatty acids is through supplementation. Opt for Fish Oil Or Krill Oil.
Creating a healthier life to look good and feel great is more than just temporary change. All diets work to a certain degree short term. But the reality is that no diet is sustainable unless you make a complete life change. With so much misinformation on TV, the internet, and from misinformed friends it can be hard to pave a path through what’s good information and what’s just plain disinformation.
Rule Of Thumb:
If you want to know how to create your own EFFECTIVE meal plan that is right for YOU!!! Watch the video below to create your own
When it comes to assessing weight loss, there are two main camps when it comes to how to assess progress. Some people live and die with the number on the scale, and some people say “screw the scale”. Here at Strive Fitness and Performance we are in the middle when it comes to assessments. On one hand, we help the majority of our clients change their mindset away from just using the scale to determine everything. On the other hand, we also use the scale as one of our many assessments.
Over the last couple of months, I realized that people only depend on the scale because that is the easiest to assess and that is what the majority of the media showcase as progress. Some people pair that up with dropping pant sizes which is a better indicator of progress. Most people, however, miss out on a huge way of assessing whether or not they are making progress. Most people don’t take into account how healthy their bodies are….And to be honest, if your body is not in a good place, you will certainly not get the desired results you are looking.
Do any of these sound familiar?
Majority of these people have gotten great results one way or another….Some are even eating clean and can’t seem to understand why their results have stopped.
To be fair, rarely is this the fault of the individual coming to me for help.
Take a moment and open another browser. Google “fat loss diet” and see how many ridiculous $10 eBooks are out there telling you that they can guarantee your results in 8 weeks.
Seriously!?
The madness needs to stop. It is in large part why YOU, the person reading this blog, are stuck.
My goal is to help you understand your body a bit better – and hopefully how to make small adjustments using biofeedback first, and assessing weight loss second.
This approach is counter-culture to what is currently popularized by most articles which will recommend that you only make changes based on the scale.
But screw the scale, that thing will you drive crazy! You can read HERE why the scale fluctuates throughout the week and throughout the day
Let’s get into REAL results, SUSTAINABLE results – RESULTS that you can feel good about!
Biofeedback Marker #1 – Hunger
One of the first questions I ask my clients each week is how they feel….let’s call it the conversation starter
This is quickly followed by questions about hunger.
Let’s be very clear on something – hunger is inevitable in any dietary process. You are eating less calories than before….And hunger is the bodies response.
In fact, losing hunger is one of the SINGLE WORST THINGS you can observe in a dietary process.
You see, hunger is very strongly correlated with a metabolic response. Whether you are looking to lose weight, gain weight, recomp, or simply perform better – you should always be operating with a small degree of hunger.
Please note the use of words there – “small degree of hunger” – this is not an excuse for the BS starvation diets out there that want to rely on the fact that the hunger response is a good thing….that’s just nonsense.
So the question begs – are you HUNGRY? And how has hunger changed since your last assessment?
Let’s start with hunger by itself. If you aren’t hungry then we likely need to fix that. There are a few exceptions (early stages of a keto based diet, early stages of a long term fat loss diet), but for most we would like to create a mild hunger response.
In absence of a hunger response, first look at caloric intake and you will notice one of two things:
1 – calories are too high
2 – calories are dangerously too low
Seems odd that both ends of the spectrum can cause this, huh? I hear ya….
Let’s start with number 1, calories being too high. The fix here is simple, decrease calories (yes, that’s why they pay me the big bucks.) Typically I recommend dropping anywhere from 10-20% of total calorie intake, depending on the current surplus.
Unfortunately, scenario number 1 is rare, and scenario number 2 is all too common – people simply aren’t eating enough. (surprising right)
I’m not sure if this is from fear of food (and potential fat gain), or just simply lack of education – but it is absolutely the current trend.
The fix here is simple, but not easy to implement. First and foremost – more calories are needed – that’s clearly not rocket science, but it needs to be stated.
The real magic is in HOW we increase those calories, which can be done in one of two ways:
1 – increase daily caloric intake by 10-20%. This is the reverse of what we did in scenario number 1, and is very favorable for most people not eating enough. The depth of the current caloric deficit along with a current assessment of other metabolic factors is what will determine the degree of caloric increase.
2 – a strategic, periodic overfeed (refeed). This involves intentionally overfeeding on certain days (at given intervals) to help restore metabolic function while in a caloric deficit. This is usually part of a well controlled plan rather than going nuts one day and calling it a "cheat day".
As with most things diet related – creating a current assessment is key. Take a look at how many calories you’re consuming, and what your TDEE (total daily energy expenditure) is. If the gap seems extreme and you aren’t hungry – it’s probably time to start increasing calories.
Additionally, if you have been hungry in your journey and suddenly lost that hunger response, it is likely time to eat more for a few days (refeed).
Biofeedback Marker #2 – Sleep
Sleep may be the single most important factor to recovery that exists. I don’t care how good your training program is and how detailed you are with your nutrition, if you aren’t sleeping then you aren’t recovering!
But the intent of this is not to tell you to sleep, but rather to look at sleep as a biofeedback indicator.
So the question used in assessment is simple: “How has sleep quality changed?”
Are you someone that normally sleeps well and suddenly can’t?
If so, that is likely a sign of under recovery.
But how do we fix it?
There are 2 ways:
1 – Increase direct recovery protocols (food intake)
2 – decrease direct stressors (training volume/intensity)....Yes, You may have to tone down the amount of workouts (especially cardio)
As is usual, the real solution is usually a combination of both.
Start to pay attention to how your body reacts to what you do to it…It will tell you if it is happy. When you have a poor night’s sleep – note what the workout was that day and what other stressors were present that day. See if similar workouts become problematic moving forward, and if so then it’s clearly time to implement additional nutritional recovery on those days (post workout carbs).
Once again, knowing yourself, your periodization, your goals, and having a consistent assessment of what is going on is ESSENTIAL to making the right adjustments from biofeedback.
Truthfully this article could go on for days in reference to Bio Feed Back Markers but I will conclude with the hope that you understand assessment is far more than the number on the scale.
Real change happens from the inside out, and real coaching is about far more than physical changes.
How are you approaching your nutrition?
Around the New Year, The masses start to make "New Year Resolutions" and begin to think about how they can make the next year better. One of the most common "New Year Resolutions" is to get healthy and this leads to a large surplus of people joining gyms. While these new go-getters are certainly well-intentioned, sadly for the majority, the motivation doesn’t last. Quora.com reports that 80% of resolution gym goers will stop attending by the second week of February.
There are lots of reasons, and many of them are specific to the individual, but one overarching reason is that for most people, a gym is simply a place to work out, and that isn’t enough to entice most to make it a regular part of life. People join gyms and become a number and are not provided with direction or even acceptance in some cases. If you stop showing up, no one else notices or cares; and soon, your yourself stop caring, because the space adds no value to your life. After a few weeks, once the fire of the new years resolution fizzles out and the desired results have yet to show up, it’s difficult to drag your butt out of bed at the crack of dawn (or before) to go to a place where you are alone, physically uncomfortable, and nameless to the other bodies sweating next to you.
Here are four reasons why it’s important and in your best interest to join a gym – or enroll your kids in a gym – that is more than just a gym.
1. A gym that is more than a gym helps you train to become better, not just workout…
…and yes, there is a difference, both between working out and training, and a gym and a training center. Any local gym will be a decent fit if you are the type of person that enjoys exercise in itself – the discomfort and the exertion wrapped up into one 60-minute sweat fest. Some people think exercise is fun, and this direct pay-off is sufficient to propel them to create their own discipline and accountability. But for most of us mere mortals, the individual sweat sessions are just not enticing enough. And if you are just hitting the gym with no direction or the latest Pinterest workout in hand, the sessions start to seem disconnected and purposeless, making you question if the discomfort is really worth your time.
That’s why it’s important to join a gym that is, specifically, a training center. Meaning that the institution has a mission statement that hinges on coaches who come alongside you to help you focus and adapt your sessions toward a clearly defined goal.
is the key idea here. We would all laugh if, while we were driving, we saw a man in a field throwing darts in different directions, aiming at nothing. Throwing darts only becomes meaningful and recognizable as a sane activity when there’s a target involved. This illustrates the distinction between working out and training. It’s easy to quit showing up if you’re not sure where you’re aiming. Working out is simply a task; training is a goal-oriented process, spilling over and reaping its benefits into other areas of life.
A great coach helps you identify and define that target, articulate WHY it’s important in your life, and then works with you to create a path for your journey and helps you form tactics to adjust when hardships come about. A training center operates daily with the purpose of helping its clients embrace an improved quality of life, whereas a gym simply exists to make money. In short, a training center cares about YOU, while a gym may not.
2. Such a gym can become a second home
A gym that is a second home is composed of staff and members who create community by fostering and maintaining meaningful relationships. If you join any local gym, chances are, you’ll see the same people a few days per week...You may say hi or introduce yourself....but you’ll never actually get to know them and connect. It is no more to you than space with weights and faces that have no significance.
As a coach on the floor at 5:30 every morning, I relish the opportunity to be the first positive interaction in a client’s day. As Strive coaches, we focus our efforts on staying in tune with every important aspect of our clients’ lives – family events, work changes, surgeries, and victories both inside and outside of the gym.
At most gyms, you’ll walk in and out of the door without anyone acknowledging your presence. Make sure you find a gym that can also be a second home.
3. Community creates accountability
Belonging to a gym that feels like home entices you to make training a habit. Community fosters accountability. Period. When you know you will be missed, you are more likely to go. You are far less likely to skip when you know a coach will be calling or emailing you, checking up to make sure everything is okay if you don’t show up.
Here at Strive Fitness and Performance, your coaches are just as serious about your goals and training as you are. They are consistently positive and relentlessly demanding, and they, along with the clients who have become your friends, will remind you of what you really want even when you don’t feel it. They’ll help you maintain focus when your own vision of your target gets blurred by other life stresses or periods of low motivation.
The truth is, we aren’t wired to be our best on our own. We need accountability where discipline wanes. Join a gym that fills that need.
4. Enrolling your children in such a training center provides them with positive role models
If you want your child to become a more well-rounded athlete, seek out a training center with coaches who are positive role models. Sending your kid to the gym might make them stronger and better at their sport, but being regularly under the guidance of coaches who are relentlessly positive, demanding, as well as caring, will reap a much vaster benefit. Kids adopt the habits and mannerisms of people they look up to, so placing them under the guidance of coaches who are excellent role models is a move that has the power to transform the way they think, see, and conduct themselves on and off the field.
For parents with young girls especially, it’s a great moment when your fourteen year-old daughter comes home from her training session and says, “Mom, I want to be STRONG,” instead of “Mom, how can I look like a Victoria’s Secret model?” Entrusting your female athlete to the care of coaches who emphasize the importance of feeling strong instead of being skinny – both through their coaching and their own habits – has the power to reverse the damaging societal norms associated with female body image.
If you want your child to get stronger, buy them a gym membership. If you want your athlete to become stronger, more inspired, increasingly confident, and a better teammate, entrust them to a training center with coaches who are positive role models.
Contact us Today and set up your FREE Success Session
Committed to your success,
Derek Ledwidge
Weight loss is hard!! Not only are you trying to accomplish something that is not your normal...Often times life gets in the way.
When our clients here at Strive Fitness and Performance become insanely busy, it can be tough to focus on your goals in a healthy, sustainable way, let alone work towards them at all. It’s easy to fall into pitfalls. Here are some helpful tips that you can avoid as you start your weight loss journey.
1. FOCUSING ON WHAT YOU CAN’T EAT
So many people embarking on a weight loss journey focus on what they can’t have. Examples are things like no sugar, no alcohol, no dessert, no bread, no cheese. They restrict everything that they usually have...This often causes the relapse after a couple of days or weeks as they start to crave those foods.
Instead, people should not necessarily worry about eliminating the bad foods, but adding some healthy foods. As you add healthy foods, you will start to eat less of the bad foods.
2. ADOPTING AN ALL-OR-NOTHING ATTITUDE
The all-or-nothing attitude is very similar to the above tip. Too many people who are trying to lose weight develop the all-or-nothing attitude. This way of thinking can be detrimental in the long run. Instead of depriving oneself of foods they love, they should learn how to incorporate them into their diet in a healthier way. For example, love pasta? Instead of adding a creamy high fat sauce, add lots of veggies, grilled shrimp, and toss in olive oil and garlic. Can’t live without bread? Well, you shouldn’t have to. Make a healthy sandwich for lunch on 100 percent whole grain bread with grilled chicken, avocado, lettuce, and tomato.
3. EATING TOO FEW CALORIES
The biggest pitfall I constantly see my clients falling into is the calorie counting trap. Many women come to me struggling to follow a 1,200 calorie per day diet and ask me what would help them to feel more full during the day. My answer is always to eat more! We live in a culture that is so obsessed with calorie counting that oftentimes we are depriving our body of the very nutrients that will actually help us not only to live healthier, but lose more weight.
4. TAKING THE WEEKENDS OFF FROM HEALTHY EATING
You should take the weekends off from your job, not your diet. Sure, you can still have fun and go out to eat on the weekends, but make an effort not to stuff yourself to the brim with food or drink. Getting away from the healthy habits of the week and going the exact opposite way can be very disastrous. A simple weekend day can easily amount to 5,000 calories (beer, pizza, wings etc.).
Simply eating mindfully when you are enjoying good food can be enough to not wreck your hard work during the week. If the weekends are a problem for you, consider eliminating one of the party days
5. Not Having A Plan
Not having a solid, realistic plan is a huge mistake. People should set themselves up for failure by going all in and not having a set plan of action....They just know that they want change. Start off with a few actionable and specific goals for the first week. Once you master those, keep adding on. Before you know it, those action steps will become lifelong healthy habits.
If you need help with organizing your plan feel free to contact us here at Strive Fitness and Performance and we can go over your nutritional breakdown
Isn't it interesting how obsessed we get with losing weight?
Seriously, a LOT of people will start their day happy or sad based entirely on the 3-digit number they see flashing back at them each morning.
But what's even more interesting than our obsession with losing weight is the fact that "weight loss" isn't always the most useful marker of progress. You see, there are a buttload of things that influence your daily & weekly body weight....
🍕 A higher/lower salt intake than normal
😷 Food intolerance's
🙋 Where you are at on your cycle
💦 Hydration levels
💩 You need to good to the bathroom
🍔 Food still in your body
💉 Hormones
💊 Supplements
💪 DOMS from your heavy workout
You know what you don't see on that list? FAT LOSS
Reason being, fat loss doesn't happen over the course of a day or even a week (well, it does "technically", but not in a very noticeable or meaningful way.) Instead, fat loss happens over the course of multiple weeks and months.
So really, it is just a matter of understanding that weight loss and fat loss are not synonymous. Once you realize that, you can start taking steps that will put the power of the scale back in YOUR hands.
✅One way is by taking measurements:
Soooo many things influence your scale weight, which makes it difficult to know if you are making progress. But if you are losing inches, even at the same weight, it is a good sign you are losing fat!
✅ Another tip is to start analyzing your AVERAGE weight over the course of weeks and months.
The bottom line: Don't let your daily and weekly fluctuations in body weight discourage you. Instead focus on fat loss by tracking your measurements, weight averages and progress pictures
