Time for a "spring cleaning" that includes making positive changes to our bodies - how we feel, how we move and yes, how we look.  Good or bad, to some degree we live in a physical culture which puts a lot emphasis on things like bigger arms and more defined abs. And now that it is officially spring, it's just about time to trade sweaters and coats for tank tops and swimsuits.  What can you be doing to make sure you like the way they look on you?  Well, you are what you eat!  READ ON!

If you read Part 1 of this series and have taken an inventory of the way you are eating now and compared it to the Empower Fitness Supportive Eating Guide for a leaner, more defined body, then you are off to a great start. If not, it’s time to take your inventory: Complete a “food journal”.  For three days, write down everything that you eat and drink and at what time of the day.  Then compare it with the rules on the left-hand side of Page One of my Supportive Eating Guide The Password is: metabolism (no caps).

While what you do in the gym is important, what you put into your body seven days a week is even more imperative, so we will start this week with seven nutrition tips that are essential if your goal is a leaner, more toned body.

1) Eat Breakfast – Eating a balanced breakfast is the best way to kick-start your metabolism for the day. It is best to get a mix of lean proteins and complex carbohydrates within thirty minutes of waking up in the morning. Adding a fruit or vegetable to that mix is ideal. And because our modern food supply is lacking in many of the vitamins and minerals our bodies need to function properly, it is essential to get a good multi-vitamin supplement every day. I take VGF 25+, made from more than 25 organically grown fruits and vegetables. This is better than those that are synthesized in a lab.

2) Your Body Is A Furnace – Think of your body as a furnace that functions best when you throw a log in every three to three-and-a-half hours. If you throw too many logs into the furnace at one time, it smothers the flame. If you wait too long before throwing in a log, the fire dies down. That fire IS your metabolism, your body’s ability to burn calories (instead of storing them as fat), so feed the fire frequently and you will burn up the calories you are taking in much more efficiently.

3) Sugar Is Your Enemy – It is sugars (and white carbohydrates and processed foods that your body treats as sugars) that turn to fat in your body. When you eat these items, your body releases too much insulin which in turn shuts down it’s ability to produce it’s only fat-release hormone, Glucagon, effectively locking in fat storage. Your body is either a fat-storing machine or a fat-burning machine, depending on it’s hormonal balance.  Which would your prefer yours to be? To get this balance right, avoid sugars, white carbohydrates and processed foods, opting instead for lean proteins (egg whites, fish, chicken), complex carbohydrates (oatmeal, brown rice, yams) and fruits and vegetables. If you’re shopping and cooking at home, the “good” foods will be found in the periphery of the supermarket, while the “bad”, processed ones will be found in the aisles in the middle. You can also refer to Page 2 of my Supportive Nutrition Guide which lists the “best” and the “good” foods for each macronutrient type. ; Make a copy to put up on your refrigerator and one to take with you to the supermarket.

4) Protein Is Your Friend – If you want to BE lean, EAT lean. Try to get a source of lean protein into every meal. This has a double effect that can be magical when it comes to building the leaner, more toned body you desire. First, because proteins are complex and require energy to break down, you burn up to 25% of the calories you are taking in just in the process of digesting them. Second, proteins also ameliorate the negative impact of any of the sugars that you ingest with them so that they are more likely to be burned for energy and less likely to be stored as fat. The best sources of lean protein are from egg whites, fish, lean meats and poultry, so be sure to get plenty of these into your diets.  That said, if you have trouble finding the time to eat meals frequently enough, making/buying a shake with Whey Protein can be a decent substitute from time to time.  

5) Good Fat, Bad Fat – Our bodies need some fat in order to survive, but some fats are helpful while others are very harmful. Your body needs and cannot produce “essential fats” – the fats that come from things like fish, nuts and avocados. In addition to be healthy, eating more of these fats   will be helpful to your quest for fat loss by making your body less apt to crave the bad fats.  I also VERY strongly encourage adding a fish oil supplement to your diet. Most of us simply don't get enough Omega-3s which is essential.  These Omega-3s raise good cholesterol, decrease bad cholesterol and have an anti-inflammatory effect.  They also help with fat loss through better regulation of glucose and insulin sensitivity.  Once you're getting the good fats, you want to minimize those that are not as healthy.   The saturated fats in your diet, fats that are solid at room temperature such as butter and the fat in steaks.  These are not terrible, and more and more evidence suggests that they are okay, just don't overdo it.  But, the fats to absolutely avoid like the plague are the hydrogenated fats, also known as trans-fats; these are enemies to every cell in your body and some of the very worst things you can eat. 


6) Calorie Count – I believe that most people do not need to count calories. Rather, if you eat breakfast early, eat until you are satisfied but not “full” and then do it again every three to three-and-a-half hours, you should be getting the correct amount of calories for your body. That said, if you’re a numbers person and want to be very specific, you can calculate how many calories you use in a day. This is known as your Total Daily Energy Expenditure and you can calculate it here. In order to lose weight safely and consistently, eating five hundred fewer calories per day is recommended. To add muscle to your body and gain weight, eat five hundred calories more than you burn each day.

7) Water, Water Everywhere – Maybe you have heard that sixty percent of the body is made of water?  In order to function properly and, yes, that includes the ability to store fuel as muscle and process and burn fat, one must drink enough water every day. While there is some disagreement as to how much is needed, an absolute minimum is one ounce of water for every two pounds of body weight. So drink up!

Getting the right nutrition is the foundation for starting the process of getting lean and toned, for developing that “swimmer’s build” or “gymnast’s body”. There is a maxim in fitness which says that you cannot out-train a bad diet. And it’s absolutely true. Every small change that you make will have a huge impact on how your body looks and feels. So start now.

Next week, I will give you some tips to make your visits to the gym much more efficient and productive. In it, you will learn how to maximize your strength and add muscle (lean tissue) to your body. Then, in Part 4, you will learn how to use the synergy we’ve created between better nutrition and the metabolism-boosting effect of added muscle, to burn off stored body fat at a dramatic rate. Keep moving forward and find your balance. I look forward to hearing about your success in transforming your body.

Time for a "spring cleaning" that includes making positive changes to our bodies - how we feel, how we move and yes, how we look.  Good or bad, to some degree we live in a physical culture which puts a lot emphasis on things like bigger arms and more defined abs. And now that it is officially spring, summer (and wearing less) cannot be far behind. 

Unfortunately, for so many of us, the desire for change too quickly becomes frustration as we put in the time at the gym and don’t see the results for which we were hoping. And then comes the self-recrimination. Why can’t I get the body I want? If only I had a faster metabolism. Or pushed myself harder at the gym. Maybe I should go on a starvation diet. What if I tried steroids?

The good news is that absolutely anyone can find dramatic physical change without going to extremes with their diets, their exercise regimes or trying dangerous supplements or steroids. The solution is actually a very simple one, which is not to say easy. If it were easy, everyone would be flaunting their six-pack abs. But it is simple to start living in the body that you imagine for yourself.

In this week's article and the three that follow, I will teach you the secret to healthy, dramatic physical improvement.

Here is the secret: Balance. A balance created by eating in a way that supports your goals, building metabolism-boosting muscle tissue and doing the right kind of cardio for burning off unwanted fat. While that may sound obvious, it is not. Doing any one or two of the above will not give us the result we are seeking. It is in the correct combination of those three pieces of the puzzle that we will find success in creating the bodies we imagine for ourselves.

So, if we are going to succeed, we need to understand why we’ve failed in the past. Almost every single person who walks into my gym wants something very similar. No matter how they say it - “I want to lose weight”, “I want to be stronger and more muscular” - what they mean ninety-five percent of the time, is that they want to have a better balance between lean tissue (muscle) and fat. Muscle, in the absence of fat in and around it, gives our bodies the lean, cut look that most people want, whether they call it a swimmer’s build or a gymnast’s body, two iconic types toward which many people strive.

Many people attempt this through diets that deprive the body of the calories that it needs to function and thrive. The truth about diets is that they do not and, in fact, cannot work. When the body gets fewer calories than it needs, two things happen. The brain resets the body’s internal calorie thermostat so that it can survive on fewer calories, slowing the metabolism. At the same time,  the body god into "survival mode", essentially storing as many calories as possible by turning them into fat and depositing them into the fat cells.

Other people try an approach to weight loss that is equally sure to fail. Instead of trying to starve off the fat, they try to burn it off. I frequently meet people who spend an hour every day jogging on a treadmill or using an elliptical machine. Unfortunately, long, steady-state cardio tends to burn more muscle than it does fat, resulting in a body with a very unfavorable ratio of fat-to-muscle. The word I often use to describe this body type is “skinny fat”.

Still others try to build muscle to reverse the soft, flabby body type that is created by dieting and doing the wrong kind of cardio exercise. Unfortunately, most are either not getting enough calories to build muscle or are burning too much of it with the excess of cardio. Even those who are eating in a way where adding muscle might be possible typically are not doing their strength training in a way that gives them results.

If any of the above sounds familiar, it’s time to re-think your fitness program and start moving toward your goals. Again, the answer lies in the balance that comes in eating in a way that supports your goals, exercising in a way that adds muscle to the body and doing your cardio in a way that burns off excess fat. The good news is that it is actually very simple to start seeing physical improvement almost immediately and for the most part it can be accomplished very efficiently in just a few hours each week.

For many, the most difficult piece of the puzzle is the nutrition, so we’ll address that first in next week's newsletter. The first step toward eating in a way that supports your goals is to take an honest look at what you are eating now and start to make small changes. I recommend taking at least three days in which you do a food journal and write down everything that you eat and drink and at what time of the day. After you do that, download the Empower Fitness Guide To Supportive Nutrition. The Password is: metabolism. Read each nutrition “rule” on the left side of page one and compare it to your food journal. Make a small change or two that reflects a more supportive way of eating. The first thing that you will notice, within a week, is that you will have more energy and be less susceptible to those mid-afternoon energy crashes.

Once we have addressed nutrition and you understand how to eat more supportively, we will take a look at the most efficient ways to build muscle and burn body fat, respectively, in the weeks that follow. You can expect to learn the most efficient ways to dramatically add muscle and burn fat from your body. 

If you've found this information helpful, keep reading.  I will provide you with solid, scientific advice that works, advice that has allowed me to help hundreds of people overcome their obstacles and move toward their ideal bodies.  I have a few spots left in my 10-Week, Total Body Transformation Program (This is not a boot camp - it is personal training for small groups of 3 or 4 people).  Classes start next week and are just $65/week.  Please get in touch if you are interested or have questions.  You can find information about the program here.

As we look toward to spring and as the weather gets better, remember to be thankful for what you have in your life and make a real and conscious effort to make improvements in those areas in which you feel you need it. So many things in life are about finding the right balance and I’m looking forward to helping you learn how to do that with your fitness goals this year.



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