Day 11: Mmm... coffee!!!

This is a very popular question we get asked. 

The answer is yes. You may include 1-2 cups of coffee in the morning. Black is ideal but if you must add some flavor to it, try adding canned coconut milk (make sure to use fat-full not reduced-fat) or unsweetened almond milk.

Keep in mind that for some, coffee is an appetite suppressant. If you are one of those who just isn't hungry in the morning, here is your rule: You must eat breakfast before you get to enjoy your coffee.

Breakfast is a meal that you do not want to skip! 

Day 10: Water. Are you drinking enough?

How Much Water Should You Be Drinking?

Make sure your perceived "hunger" isn't thirst - stay hydrated!

We recommend half your body weight in ounces of water daily. For example, 150 lbs. ÷ 2 = 75 oz. During exercise, add 4 oz. every 15 minutes - more if it is hot outside.

Try to always have with you a large water bottle with the ounces marked on it so there is no questioning how much water you are drinking each day.

Below is a link to a great article on the health benefits of drinking water:

http://www.stepintomygreenworld.com/healthyliving/health/health-benefits-of-drinking-water/

Day 9: Stay consistent!

The one main ingredient that keeps people from reaching their goals is consistency!

The 3 Keys to Consistency

There are three main components in any exercise program to build lean muscle and lose unwanted body fat. These components are resistance training, cardiovascular exercise, and proper nutrition. All three are equally important to achieving your goals in fitness and fat loss.

If one is not executed consistently, the other two will suffer and so will your progress. Don't get us wrong; to assume we can be perfect, 100% of the time will just be setting ourselves up for failure.

Our goal should be to follow our programs the best we can day in and day out most of the time. 

1: Resistance Training

The importance of strength resistance training is that it will help increase your lean, tone, body mass, thus giving a better shape to the body and increasing you basal metabolic rate. Muscle is like a 24-hour furnace, so we must be sure we maintain or even increase our lean muscle to keep the metabolism on the rise. All adults should be strength conditioning throughout their lifetime!

2: Cardiovascular Training

Some cardiovascular activity is necessary to keep the metabolism roaring and help you burn some extra calories that will lead to fat loss. Some people who rely on diet alone to lose fat usually find themselves losing weight but also a lot of muscle. Keeping a little bit more food in the diet, but using cardio to burn more calories will end up in retention of lean muscle while losing the fat.

This is why we include Metabolic Concentrated Cardio in our total body workout program at The Exercise Coach. Our High Intensity Interval Cardio is proven to be more effective than an hour of traditional cardio. So, if our clients are looking for an extra metabolic cardio boost in between their two, 20 minute workouts a week, they are welcome to pop-in during business hours and use our Cardio equipment - no appointment required!

3: Nutrition

This is where we find that the biggest inconsistency lies in most people. However, this is where the real magic happens in terms of achieving the greatest health, fitness and fat loss results. Follow our Whole30 food plan and eat healthy, delicious food that positively affects your metabolism, reduces system inflammation, and helps you achieve your health, fitness and fat loss goals!

Remember, Consistency is the KEY ingredient for success!

Keep up the GREAT work!

Day 8: When you feel like bingeing...

Day 7: Rest vs. Recovery. What is the difference!?!?

Are You Recovering or Just Resting?



Rest vs. Recovery
As the first week of our transformation challenge comes to a close, we should take the time to look back and determine if we are allowing ourselves enough time to recover rather than just rest.  These two words, “rest” and “recovery,” have distinctly different meanings when applied to health, fitness or athletic contexts. Recovery can encompass many different behaviors and strategies, but it is fundamentally different than just resting.

Rest is simply the absence of effort or movement—the absence of exertion. Think taking a day off from exercise or sport, napping, chilling on the couch, rotting your brain with Jersey Shore or Lost reruns, and going to bed nice and early so you get adequate sleep. All of that is fine and good, but resting is only one small part of true recovery.

Recovery is the restorative process by which you regain a state of “normalcy”; healthy and in balance. (If your “normal” is not “healthy,” perhaps you should spend some time considering that.) Recovery is far more than just taking a day off from training. Genuine recovery includes adequate rest, but also must include the engaged, deliberate execution of a cogent plan to offset the (physical and psychological) cost of your training.

 Physical Therapist Dallas Hartwig wrote:

“I see more sub-acute and chronic injuries resulting from inadequate recovery from exercise (especially with high-intensity programs), than resulting from an acute or traumatic incident. The primary fault lies with inadequate or improper recovery from exercise, not the type or intensity of exercise.

To put it another way, it’s not that you’re hurting yourself doing pull-ups – more often than not, it’s because you’re not properly recovering from those pull-ups. I believe that a right-intensity exercise program is both effective and sustainable life-long only when combined with good nutrition and recovery practices."

This is why we recommend at least two full days of rest and recovery in between your 20 minute total body right intensity workouts at The Exercise Coach! Your body will thank you!

Recovery 101
So how does all this connect back to actual recovery? In order to progress forward with health, there must be a relative balance between Stress (such as exercise) and Recovery. Otherwise, you’re writing checks your body can’t cash, eventually ending up beat down and “overdrawn.”

In case you’ve not experienced this eye-opening phenomenon firsthand, take our professional word for it: it takes a lot longer to recover from an overdrawn state than it took to get you there in the first place. Like paying off debt, it’s a prolonged and generally miserable process. We’re not trying to scare you – we’re simply sharing what we know in the hopes that it will save you some heartache. Take it or leave it.

You don’t get fitter when you are training… you get fitter when you are recovering from that training.

Being committed to recovery means that sometimes you don’t train hard, even if you really want to, and even if everyone else is doing it.

• A commitment to recovery may mean that you take ice baths sometimes.
• It means that when all you want is pizza and a beer, you choose a nutritious meal instead.
• It means that you put away the computer/TV/smartphone/video game and go the heck to sleep.
• It means that you spend some intimate time with your foam roller, lacrosse ball, stick, ice pack, or other self-care tool/torture device.
• It may mean that you seek out a reputable practitioner of your preferred therapeutic approach: massage, Rolfing, acupuncture, chiropractic care, naturopathic or functional medicine.
• It might mean that you use your noggin’ and take a pass on a race or competition that really doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of Your Life and Health.

This is real recovery, and this is where this is where you reap the benefits of your hard (training) work.

Day 6: Eating for optimal performance and progress!

Pre Workout

  Your Pre-Workout "meal" is more of a mini-meal. Eat 15-75 minutes pre-workout, as a signal preparing your body for activity.  Choose foods that are easily digestible and palatable. What works best is individually variable, so experiment with different foods, quantities and timing.

-Small amount of protein (1/2 a meal size or smaller)
-Small amount of fat (1/2 a meal size or smaller)
-Limit your amount of carb-dense vegetables or fruit in your pre-workout meal

(Example: 1/2 serving of protein powder with unsweetened almond milk or coconut milk and half a banana or half serving of berries)

 Post Workout

Eat immediately following moderate or greater exercise (within 15-30 minutes). 

-1 serving of protein powder (mix with water, almond milk, or coconut milk) 

OR

- Easily digestible protein (like egg-white, chicken or salmon) with up to a fist-sized portion of a carb-dense vegetable (i.e. sweet potato, butternut squash or acorn squash)
 
-Fruit should not be your primary carb source for a Post Workout meal.

- Add minimal to no fat to your Post Workout meal.

Your Post Workout meal is a "special bonus meal" - not meant to replace breakfast, lunch or dinner. Think of it as a necessary source of additional calories and nutrients, designed to help you recover from exercise faster and more efficiently.

Day 5: It isn't all about nutrition! Why strength training should be important to you.

Strength training is just what your body needs to fight the loss of muscle, bone mass and strength that comes with age.

MUSCLE QUALITY also drives fat loss! To learn more read the following article on our website: http://blog.exercisecoach.com/muscle-quality-and-fat-loss/

Everyone, no matter how young or old, should be doing some kind of regular strength training.

Here are some of the very important reasons strength training makes a difference in your quality of life:

• Improves your ability to do everyday activities
• Improves your balance and stability
• Builds muscle strength
• Decreases your risk of osteoporosis
• Reduces blood pressure
• Increases calorie burn by increasing metabolic rate
• Improves insulin sensitivity
• Reduces low back pain
• Drives fat loss!

Spread the word!

Day 4: Fat. It is not the enemy you think it is...

Cleaning up your diet by using the right fats and oils is essential to improving your health from the inside out.

When it comes to cooking with fats, we recommend clarified butter (also known as Ghee) or unrefined coconut oil. We know many folks are used to cooking with olive oil. While olive oil is a good, healthy fat, it is best for cold uses like as a salad dressing or drizzling over already cooked food. Olive Oil oxidizes at high heat. When it oxidizes it loses both flavor and nutrients.

As always, we have for you a handy reference guide about which fats to eat and which fats to ditch.

One last note, is that you should be including fats in all of your meals. Don't count your cooking fat as your fat for the meal. Most of it will likely be left in the pan. Make sure you add a fat to your meal once it has been cooked (i.e. drizzle of olive oil, side of avocado, olives, coconut).

Refer back to the Portion Guide to determine how much you fat you should be eating per meal.

Day 3: Portion Size is key

As we enter into day 3, it is important to keep in mind portion sizes. Portion size is key to meeting your weight-loss goals. While you don't want to overeat you absolutely don't want to starve yourself either.

Pages 13-14 in your Nutrition Playbook are a great resource to determine portion size for meals. 

Click here for the link to the portion cheat sheet in case you need to refer to it while you are out to eat or at the grocery store.

Day 2: Protein! How much should I be consuming?

How Much Protein Per Day To Build Muscle, Lose Fat & Be Healthy?

Day 1: And so it begins...

Today is Day 1 of eating clean whole foods! It's crucial to have food readily available, to have a food plan and to be prepared. 

Below are many good options. Also refer to pages 9-12 or 56 for shopping guides in the Nutrition Playbook.

What to Expect on this Journey...

The first week or two may be tough, as your body heals and adjusts to this new way of eating and your brain wraps itself around going without all those sweet tastes and sugar-driven energy spikes. While you may start to feel better after a week or two... the healing process takes significantly longer. In addition, the mental addiction and emotional connections to sugary foods, large amounts of carbohydrates and over-the-top, chemically-altered flavors is going to take a lot longer to overcome.

Stick with it, and be patient with yourself!!!

The good news, however, is that improvements are front-loaded, and you will start to see significant benefits within a month or so. At some point, the magic will happen. You'll go to sleep easier, and sleep more soundly through the night.

Your energy levels will increase and stabilize, and you'll feel just as good first thing in the morning as you do at the peak of your day. Your body composition will start to change - your clothes will fit differently, and you'll feel less bloated at the end of your day.

Your performance, whether it be in the gym, while playing sports or during a hike, will improve. Your recovery after exercise, a game or a hard day's work will feel easier and more complete. Conditions, ailments, aches and pains will miraculously start to improve.

And through all of it, you'll be eating delicious, fresh, natural, real food...food that tastes good, and is physically satiating and mentally satisfying.