Lean30

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Where Do Supplements Fit In My Routine?

For best results, exercise with diet is your best route to a lean body. The problem is this…things don’t always go as planned and life gets busy. There are times when you simply can’t exercise, maybe due to a last minute work shift change, meeting, family get together, many variables could be thrown in here to shift your schedule. The key here is to keep moving forward with your routine and dont shut down. One thing you can always have taken care of is diet. There is no reason for you to break away from your diet if you have a good plan set in place. Simple things like planning a day ahead to have an idea of your meals, so you are never scrambling around last minute and end up in a fast food drive through. Also, for convenience look into a healthy meal replacement that fits in your diet plan well. This is where you first see supplements coming into the picture. Besides having a meal replacement, other supplements to consider will ultimately depend on your diet and personal preference.

Personally, I believe that everyone should consider taking a whole food based multi-vitamin, not a synthetic. A whole food multi will derive their vitamins from whole food or natural sources, not something made in a lab. The other big staple supplement to consider would be a high quality fish oil, something with high levels of EPA and DHA, to help with cholesterol, inflammation, and keeping your blood sugar stable, thus keeping your metabolism steady.

Besides these products, with weight loss being the ultimate goal there are tons of supplements to consider. The more popular choice these days are thermogenics, which are caffeine based supplements typically taken before a workout. With there being merit to taking a caffeinated supplement pre workout this could be a route to consider to help elevate metabolism and increase energy levels to help you push through your tough workouts. Just keep in mind supplements are just that, supplements. They will supplement what you are already doing, so with that in mind, get your diet right along with a solid workout routine before you start spending money on supplements.

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This post discusses how controlling insulin levels will determine how you progress in your weight loss goals. Keeping insulin down will in turn keep your metabolism up, that is the key.

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We discuss the study conducted on green coffee bean extract and if it is actually a legitimate means to losing weight.

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Correlation Between Exercise Motivation And Body Weight

I did some research and discovered this peice of information very interesting. Studies conducted in New Brunswick, Canada have shown that the heavier you are the less motivated you are to exercise. Inversely, the lighter you are bodyweight wise the more likely you are motivated to exercise. I found this interesting because I would think that someone heavier would be more motivated to lose weight, not only to look and feel better, but to get healthier. But hey maybe I am giving people too much credit to the fact that they would want to take control of their health. What do you think of these findings? Do you think it holds any merit? Please feel free to leave comments here.

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ROBOTS OR DINOSAURS?

dinosaurs

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This link takes you to a website talking about how fruit smoothies are not really real fruit smoothies. Mostly they are processed sugar that are not healthy for you.

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When It Comes To Exercise Less Is More

As a trainer by day I constantly run into a recurring problem. I have clients that have the mentality that more is better and want to try to exercise as close to everyday as they can, without realizing they are doing more harm than good. When you exercise excessively and over train you will end up releasing excess cortisol, the stress hormone that causes muscle atrophy, the breakdown of your muscle fibers. Some cortisol release is okay from an intense exercise, as long as you are allowing enough recovery time in between workouts. 

As for workout frequency, personally, I would recommend around 3-4 days per week of actual intense 1 hour sessions. After this on your off days I would recommend stretching and taking a walk for 30 minutes. Walking actually has been proven to reduce inflammation, which will aid in the recovery process. Along with this stretching will keep you limber, and has also been proven to aid in recovery. After this, eating a proper diet is going to get you the best fat loss results, or even lean muscle gains if that's your goal.

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Why Eat Grass Fed Beef?

Have you heard of grass fed beef before? Even though grass fed beef has been around for quite some time I still run into people I train that do not know about grass fed beef, or the benefits of having it in their diet. To keep it simple you have two types of fed cattle. You have a  grain fed type of cattle, and you have a free roaming grass fed cattle. The big difference between these two types is the dietary fat that there meat produces. Grain fed cattle will have an over abundance of omega 6 fatty acids. In fact, grain fed cattle's omega 3 to 6 ratio is around 1 to 25, which currently fits into the average awful diet of the average american. On the other hand, grass fed cattle have an omega 3 to 6 ratio of 1 to 1.5 on average.

To understand the huge impact of eating grass fed beef you really need to have an understanding of the importance of balancing the omega 3 to 6 ratio. Getting more omega 3in your diet can help with a riddle of things, none more important than reducing inflammation. Not just inflammation in your joints that cause pain, but internal inflammation that is caused by a bad diet, alcohol, tobacco, foreign chemicals, drugs,processed foods, just to name a few. This type of inflammation can build up until it leads to much bigger problems down the line. In fact, inflammation can be traced back to heart disease and even cancer. So the next time you are in the grocery store give the grass fed meats a second look, because they are worth it.

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Break Through Lifting Plateaus With Drop Sets

Whats a drop set? I must hear this at least a hand full of times at the gym when someone asks me for advice, so for anyone wondering what a drop set is and how it can be beneficial in your workout here’s the skinny. A drop set is performed at the end of a certain workout…Lets take the bench press for example. Lets say you do 3 sets on a bench press for 5 reps with 225lbs. A drop set is an additional set performed immediately after finishing your last set on the bench. So as soon as you finished your third set drop the weight you were using (225), down to say 135 and do a max effort set with this weight. Sometimes people will perform more than 1 drop set after their final working set, but initially attempting a drop set you will be better off starting with one drop set, and maybe increasing later on. Performing this even once a week can help you get through sticking points on certain lifts. Personally, I would recommend doing drop sets on compound lifts, or lifts that involve more than one joint to be performed such as the bench press, squat, deadlift, overhead press ect. For a good demonstartion of a drop set check out the video posted to get a visual. Hope this helps out.

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Sugar And The Staggering Numbers

I did some reading the other day and could not believe what I saw. Since the year 1822 our sugar intake as a society has increased dramatically. In 1822, the average american was using an additional 6 pounds of sugar in their diet per year. As of 2004, that number is up over 100 pounds! Kind of makes sense why obesity and type 2 diabetes are at an all time high. The sad thing is many products labeled fat free are riddled with extra sugar and salt to make up for loss of flavor. Seems that fat is not the enemy we thought after all, especially if you are trying to lose body fat. 

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How To Get Ripped Abs Without Doing Sit-Ups

Get ripped abs without one sit-up! Blasphelmy!!! Or is it. Well the bottom line is its true. How you wonder, well it all comes down to bodyfat. Depending on how low or high your bodyfat is will determine how that midsection is looking. Everyone must remember that just about every exercise known to man requires your abdominals to work for stability. Plus, just an fyi sit-ups cause you to round your back, which long term may be doing more harm than good anyway. Now that you understand how it is done, what can you do to accomplish this?

Getting lean is not easy, but to accomplish this it will take a lifestyle change in general, mainly from a diet standpoint. Start focusing more on getting in lean sources of protein daily and plenty of healthy fats. Carbohydrates are ok, but definately in moderation. As humans we already hold plenty of glycogen (carbs) in our muscle, and have back-up stores in the liver, so dont worry about running out. Along with this the only liquid you should consume besides maybe a protein powder to help meet your daily requirements is water. Cut out all wasted calories such as sodas and sugary deserts. They literally serve no purpose except spike your insulin, which will slow your metabolism and cause your body to store sugars as fat.

As far as the numbers go try to keep your total carbs per day to around 100 grams or less. Also, try your best to get these sources mainly from vegetables and the rest from grains. For protein somewhere between 80-100% of your bodyweight in grams per day will suffice. Personally, I get 1 gram per pound daily, but do the best you can here. Now for fats dont get too caught up in counting here. Focus more on what sources your getting your fats from. Focus on omega 3 sources such as salmon, which also serves as a protein, avocados, almonds, olive oil (use in a salad dressing), which I will show you a nice olive oil salad dressing I use, walnuts and coconut oil to name a few. Importantly use the coconut oil as your cooking oil because it will hold up in the high heat. This is why you want to use olive oil in a dressing, not as a cooking oil due to its inability to hold up in high heat.

Here is a start for you. In future posts I will continue to dive deeper into this subject for you guys. Lastly, here is the dressing recipe.

A few cloves of garlic (around 4)

1/2 tsp black pepper

2 tsp salt

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

1 cup freshly squeezed lemon

splash of squeezed orande(optional)

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Why Eat Cage Free Eggs?

Have you ever heard of free range eggs? If not let me give you some quick insight into this excellent protein and fat source. I would even go further and call free range eggs a super food. Here’s why…

Free range eggs are derived from chickens that are able to freely roam farmland versus being a caged domestic animal, giving them more natural diet and food sources. What this does is it creates a completely different profile of fatty acids that are produced in cage free chicken’s eggs. The average domestic caged chicken will produce eggs that have an omega 3 to omega 6 ratio of 1:20! These fit right in to the typical terrible american diet. On the contrary, cage free chicken’s produce eggs on average with a ratio of 1:1.50! This is a huge difference in omega 3 to 6 ratios. Remember part of the key to promoting maximum health and fat loss is to correct your omega 3 to 6 ratio. Getting as much omega 3 as you can will help with metabolism, and reduce inflammation, which is key to helping prevent high bad cholesterol, chronic pain, obesity, and much more

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One of my favorite motivational videos to keep me heading toward my fat loss goals.

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Why Interval Training Is The Best Choice For Cutting Bodyfat

Do you regularly include interval training in your workout routine? Actually most people have taken part in this type of cardiovascular activity without even realizing it. If you happened to play sports in high school, whether that was basketball, football, volleyball, baseball, ect at some point in time you did interval training. A simple way to define interval training would be say performing a sprint at your maximum speed for a given time or distance, followed by a longer rest period of say 2-3 times the distance or duration you just completed, which will allow your body to recover and prepare for your next sprint. Now that everyone is up to speed on the what, lets dig into why interval training is superior for fat loss.

When you do a sprint or an intense session, your body can not supply oxygen at a fast enough rate to fuel your muscles, causing your body to rely on other sources for energy. Once you finish your interval your body will have to basically repay the energy it borrowed to perform the tasks you just completed. So basically your body will owe oxygen back to the muscles. The more energy your body borrowed during the intense effort the more oxygen it owes back.

So basically in a nut shell, the more intense your interval is, the more energy(calories) your body will have to borrow to compensate for the lack of oxygen in your muscles. And the more oxygen that needs to be borrowed will take a more significant amount of time to get back in the muscles, which is how you keep your metabolism spiked for a longer period....The key to cutting bodyfat! Just make sure your rest periods between sets are just right. By that I mean dont spend 4-5 minutes standing around if you only sprinted 50 yards, which would take someone around 6-7seconds. Take just enough time to really get your breathing well controlled and move on to your next set. 15 minutes of this type of training can go a long way. Give it a shot sometime and you will notice a difference.

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3 Easy Ways To Tell If You Are Over training

So many times I run into people at the gym and I hear them complain about being so tired and sore all the time. When I hear this I want to jump in and help but I feel its not my place, and it is also most likely why I am here now discussing it with all of you fine folks. So lets discuss some easy signs of overtraining and how we may be able to combat this to get you the fat loss results you want.

1. Loss of Muscle Tone- This can happen over a period of time over training your body. What happens is when you consistently over train your body, you will start releasing excess amounts of cortisol, the stress hormone. Over time, releasing excess amounts of this will start to feed on your lean muscle tissue causing you to lose muscle tone.

2. Lack of Energy- This one is easy to detect compared to the silent, methodical killer cortisol can be. When you start feeling sluggish the next day, especially if it follows after every workout day, then you are most likely over training. That or you are not getting enough sleep to recover your body properly.

3. Intense Muscle Soreness- This is a "no brainer" sign you are over training. When I say muscle soreness, I am not referring to the slight soreness you may get from exercising intensely. I am referring to soreness that causes more pain and a considerable lack of mobility. When you start noticing these characteristics you really need to pull back on your training volume before it is too late. Generally when muscle soreness gets this bad you are close to having a potential injury.

Now that we discussed what signs you may be having, lets discuss what you can do to maximize your recovery time to keep you from having any issues. For starters, getting a minimum of 7-8 hours of sleep every night is key if you want to recover your muscles faster. In fact, most of your repair is done during sleep. Also, get your nutrition right as well. Make sure you are getting in enough protein to support your body's lean muscle tissue. If not this alone can cause excess release of cortisol. Lastly, one important factor to remember is to stretch daily for at least 15 minutes. No matter if you worked out that day or not, stretching daily will pull blood into the muscles, aiding in the recovery process. 

Hope this helps and if you have any comments please feel free to leave some for me.