Four Ways to Keep Fat Off Forever!

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Weight Training

Weight training is the key to weight loss. Building a foundation of lean muscle will provide you fat burning centers found in the muscle spindle cells that is created and enhanced with load bearing exercises like strength training.

Eat More Protein

Feed your gains with protein. People often skip protein intake immediately after they exercise, thinking that they will save 200 to 300 calories. However, a high-quality shot of protein – specifically amino acids, will accelerate lean muscle growth and muscle repair post exercise. The more lean muscle you build the more efficient you are at burning body fat.

Establish Goals and Work Towards Them

Determine your physical and mental limiters by completing a strength and cardiovascular assessments (sport specific). Establish specific goals and objectives for the next three, six, and 12 months that will help you eliminate your physical limiters. Research indicates that eight workouts per month is the minimum required to stick to a fitness plan. The more frequently you exercise, the better the odds are that you that your initial effort will turn into a habit. Being mentally focused will help you maintain your motivation levels.

Start Exercise Slowly to Give Your Body Time to Adapt

If you have been away from training (i.e. off season, illness or injury), ease back into strength training and cardiovascular fitness slowly. Many people try to resume or pick up where they left off when they exercised in the past. This only results in excessively sore muscles, stressed joints, and a negative mental outlook on working out. When you begin your strength exercises, choose a load level that’s extremely easy to lift for 8 to 10 reps for two sets. Complete that same amount of weight and reps for three weeks to allow your body adequate time to adjust and adapt (I refer to this as the Anatomical Adaptation Stage). For your cardiovascular exercise, keep your duration less than 30 minutes and keep your intensity low – you should be able to pass the talk test, which is where you could talk to someone else or sing to yourself while exercising without becoming winded.

Coach Robb’s Two-Week Food Challenge

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Ready, Set, Go!

Welcome to day one of the 2-Week Food Challenge. Making healthy food choices should be easy, right? But we often don’t recognize all of the things put in our food that negatively affect our health in so many ways. We are surrounded by packaged and processed foods and sometimes we inadvertently get off track. The 2-Week Food Challenge is designed to help you get clean – from the inside out – and get you back on track to leading the healthy lifestyle you deserve. Whether you are looking to shed a few pounds or increase athletic performance, the Challenge is a great way to “tune up” your body. Used once a quarter, the 2-Week Food Challenge will help you look better, sleep better, be more mentally focused, and feel more energized.

The 2-Week Food Challenge was created by Dr. Phil Maffetone, doctor and coach to six-time Ironman Hawaii winner Mark Allen. The Challenge will help stabilize your blood sugar levels and determine if you are carbohydrate intolerant (CI). CI is a common problem in many populations and the diseases associated with this condition are reaching epidemic proportions. Common symptoms of CI include sleepiness after meals, intestinal bloating, increased body fat, fatigue and others.

Early stages of CI include elusive problems associated with blood-sugar handling, such as fatigue, intestinal bloating and loss of concentration. Middle stages include a more serious conditions including hypertension, elevations of LDL, lowering of HDL, elevated triglycerides, excess body fat and often obesity. Long term CI manifests itself as various diseases, including diabetes, cancer and heart disease.

Final stages include a condition referred to as Metabolic Syndrome. This stage is includes disorders such as: hyperinsulinemia, Type 2 Diabetes, Hypertension, Obesity, Polycystic ovary, Stroke, Breast Cancer, Coronary Heart Disease, High Blood Cholesterol and Triglycerides.

Please note, CI is individual to every person meaning it affects different people in different ways. The key to avoiding disease is to be aware of CI in its earliest stage and to make the appropriate diet and lifestyle changes. Common complaints that occur immediately after eating a meal or sometimes remain a constant symptom are evaluated in Step 1 of the 2-Week Food Challenge.
Before you start, follow the six easy steps outlined here.

Step 1: Evaluate

Physical Fatigue – Overall feeling of fatigue; morning through lunch or even all day.

Mental Fatigue – Inability to concentrate; loss of creativity, poor memory, poor grades, various forms of “learning disabilities.” This is more pronounced immediately after a meal or if a meal is delayed or missed.

Blood Sugar Handling Issues -Fluctuations in blood sugar are normal during the day, but are amplified if meals are not eaten on a regular schedule. Feeling jittery, agitated and/or moody (symptoms that immediately subside once food is consumed). Craving for simple sugars, chocolate or caffeine; bouts of dizziness.

Intestinal Bloating – Suffer from excessive gas; antacids or other remedies are not successful in dealing with the gas levels; gas tends to be worse later in the day and into the night.

Sleepiness – Feel sleepy immediately after meals containing carbohydrates, particularly a pasta meal or meal that contains bread, potatoes or dessert.

Increased Fat Storages & Weight – For more individuals, too much weight is too much fat. In males, abdominal fat is more evident and in females it is more prominent in the upper body, upper thighs and in the face.

Increased Triglycerides – High triglycerides are not only found in overweight individuals. Individuals with high triglycerides are the direct result of carbohydrates from the diet being converted by insulin into fat.

High Blood Pressure – Most individuals dealing with hypertension produce too much insulin and as a result are carbohydrate intolerant. For some, sodium sensitivity is common and eating too much sodium causes water retention along with elevated blood pressure.

Depression – Because carbohydrate adversely affect the levels of neurotransmitters made in the brain, feelings of depression and/or sleepiness can result. Sugar has been promoted as if it is a stimulate, but in actuality, has the opposite effect.

Addiction – Individuals who are addicted to alcohol, caffeine, cigarettes or other drugs often have many of the above mentioned symptoms.

Step 2: Measure

Open the Body Measurements spreadsheet and capture your numbers prior to starting the food challenge. If you do not have a Body Measurements spreadsheet, contact us to request your FREE copy. Click here to watch a video on how to correctly capture your body measurements for accuracy.

Step 3: Purge

Purge your cabinets and refrigerator of the following:

  • Breads, rolls, pasta, pancakes, cereal, muffins, chips, crackers and rice cakes
  • Sweets and products that contain sugar such as ketchup, honey, (read the labels to ensure there is no sugar)
  • Fruit juice
  • Processed meats that contain sugar
  • Fat Free, Skim & 2% Milk, half and half
  • Fat Free or Low Fat Yogurt
  • Energy Bars and Energy Drinks
  • All soda, including diet
  • Alcohol, except dry wines

Step 4: Stock Up

Time to go shopping to stock up with what you will need tobget this challenge under way!

A few considerations:

  1. Note: don’t consume anything on this list without prior approval from your NO EXCEPTIONS!
  2. Plan ahead so that you are never without sufficient food
  3. Avoid becoming hungry – unlimited amounts of food are available to you, eat every two hours
  4. Don’t focus on the volume of food you are consuming – just eat
  5. Take the time to chew your food completely – this will aid in the digestion and absorption of your food
  6. Consume enough vegetables (at least six servings per day) to maintain fiber intake (and avoid constipation)
  7. Drink cold filtered water at a rate of .5 ounces per pound of body weight. Example: 150 pounds x .5 ounces = 75 ounces per day

Food you can eat in unlimited amounts:

  • Steamed or raw vegetables (avoid white potatoes and corn) – organic ideally
  • Fresh fruit – organic ideally
  • Nuts and seeds – organic and free of any oils and salt
  • Almond butter – organic ideally
  • Extra virgin olive oil
  • Balsamic Vinegar
  • Whole fat mayonnaise
  • Whole eggs
  • Non American yellow cheese – look for hard cheeses like Swiss, Provolone, etc.
  • Meats (beef, turkey, chicken, lamb, etc.) – free range and sugar free (read the label here!)
  • Fresh Fish (cold water Atlantic) – salmon, sardines, albacore white tuna (nothing out of a can)
  • Fresh Shellfish
  • Tofu
  • Mustard (as long as there isn’t any sugar added)

Helpful Suggestions:

Eggs: Omelets: any combination of vegetables, meats and cheeses

Scrambled eggs with guacamole, sour cream and salsa Scrambled eggs with a scoop of ricotta or cottage cheese Boiled or poached eggs with spinach or asparagus

Salads:  Chef-leaf lettuce, meats, cheese, eggs Spinach-with bacon & eggs

Caesar-romaine lettuce, eggs & parmesan cheese Any salad with chicken, tuna, shrimp or other meat

Salad Dressings: Extra-virgin olive oil & vinegar with sea salt and spices Creamy-heavy cream, mayonnaise, garlic and spices

Fish and Meats:  Pot roast cooked with onions, carrots and celery

Roasted chicken

Chili made with fresh meat, and a variety of vegetables such as diced onions, celery, peppers, zucchini, tomatoes

Fish (not fried) with any variety of steamed vegetables

Snacks: Celery stuffed with nut butter or cream cheese

Guacamole with vegetable sticks for dipping

Hard boiled eggs

Step 5: Eat & Train

Time to eat and train! As mentioned before, eat every two hours (even if you are not hungry). During the next two weeks, keep the majority of your workouts aerobic, which means eliminating any and all weight lifting (it is anaerobic by nature) and any strenuous workouts (above heart rate zone 2).

What to expect during the first week:

  • If you have been eating lots of sweets or other carbohydrates, you may experience cravings for sugar for the first few
  • You may experience a headache associated with withdraws – strive to use manual massage to relax the muscles in the neck and upper
  • You may find yourself falling off of the program, not because you intend to, but rather due to the realization that processed foods are everywhere. If you eat something that is not “approved” you need to start over and this is ok!

Step 6: Stay Consistent

Stay consistent with both your food and aerobic training. Maintain a food intake log along with a detailed training log – specifically energy levels, average and max heart rate with each workout.

Now, let’s begin the challenge!

The 2-Week Food Challenge

If Diets Worked – Everyone Would Be Thin!

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This is a favorite saying of mine that a dear friend and longtime training buddy Dr. Robert Weatherwax has been saying for decades. Think about this statistic, in 2010 there were an estimated 75 million American individuals on some form of a diet and the total expenditure for these diets was $60.9 billion (with a B!). By 2014, the weight loss market grew to an estimated $586.3 billion dollars globally.

Now think about this, how can an industry continue to grow each year, when the industry itself is about losing weight – this number should be decreasing each year, just like the individuals are on these popular diets and medical systems? Here is the truth of the matter – the way to lose weight long term is so simple, the diet companies and medical system centers don’t want you to “learn” how to keep weight off long term because then you will not fail and keep coming back.

Tell me if this doesn’t sound familiar: You get to a point that you don’t like your weight, size and low energy levels. For the sake of this example, let’s say that your weight is 200 pounds. You tell yourself (or you have been convinced by extensive marketing/advertising) that you cannot accomplish your desired weight, size and energy levels without their special diet or medical system, so you join the “X” Company program/system and you are on your way to long term weight loss.

You follow the program religiously and over the next four to six weeks, you lose the “weight” (usually between 8 and 15 pounds); however, you are constantly hungry (because you must follow strict food consumption), you have headaches and you are not sleeping too well. Your pre-diet conditions (night sweats, interrupted sleep, loss of libido, and craving of simple sugars) continue to persist, but you are content that the scale is telling you that you are losing weight. By the eighth to tenth week, you are finished eating like a bird, feeling lethargic and work up the courage to leave your safety net of your diet or medical system to solider this alone. Note: you have reduced your “weight” from 200 pounds to 185 pounds; you are proud of the weight loss and tell yourself that you are determined to get back to your high school weight of 170 pounds.

So you transition from the diet makers boxed food items, canned drinks, bars and appetite suppressing shots to the real world’s meal and snack items. And sure enough within two weeks, you have put back on five to ten pounds of the weight that you lost. The first thing that comes to your mind is, “I can’t lose and keep the weight off without my special diet or medical system”. The diet company and/or medical systems have you in what is called the Endless Loop of Despair: they have you convinced that you are not capable of losing the weight and keeping it off unless you are under the instruction of their products. THIS IS NONSENSE, YOU ARE CAPABLE OF LOSING WEIGHT AND KEEPING IT OFF, YOU JUST NEED TO BE TAUGHT THE TRUTH ABOUT WEIGHT LOSS.

SIX TRUTHS ABOUT WEIGHT LOSS

  1. Dehydrating the body is NOT weight loss
  2. Eating up your muscles is NOT weight loss
  3. Eating very little will cause you to GAIN weight
  4. Exercising too hard, too long, too often will CAUSE you to GAIN weight
  5. You should NEVER be hungry
  6. You should NEVER be tired

SIMPLE FACTS BEHIND EACH TRUTH ABOUT WEIGHT LOSS (THAT THE WEIGHT LOSS INDUSTRY DOES NOT WANT YOU TO KNOW!)

Simple Fact #1-Dehydrating the body is NOT weight loss

Here is THE simple “trick” to the high protein, low carbohydrate diet: when you eat carbohydrates (breads, pasta, fruits, vegetables, essentially anything that is not protein) your body converts the carbohydrates into glycogen and stores this sugar in your muscles and liver for energy. In order for your body to store one gram of glycogen (stored sugar), your body stores 2.5 grams of water. Think about this strategy: no carbohydrates, no retained water – you lose 10 pounds in a week! There it is short and sweet – no carbohydrates, not water retention you are lighter. The problem: you have not lost any body fat, just water weight!

Simple Fact #2-Eating up your muscles is NOT weight loss

After you begin to cut calories, your body will go through a process of sourcing energy: stored sugar from the liver and muscles, then protein from muscles and then body fat. On a low calorie diet, protein intake is normally limited –when your body doesn’t receive adequate amounts (or quality) of protein, it will begin to cannibalize (or “eat”) your muscles for energy. It is easy to tell when this is happening, your urine is dark yellow and you can smell the uric acid & ammonia which is a by-product of breaking down the muscle for energy. The problem: you have not lost any body fat, just lost muscle mass!

Simple Fact #3-Eating very little will cause you to GAIN weight 

If your body is not consuming enough calories, the body will switch into the “preservation or survival mode”. The body sends messages (headache, belly grumbling, moody, etc.) to your brain that it needs more calories than it is receiving and when you ignore these messages, your metabolism slows down (usually within 1 to 2 weeks) to match your caloric intake. After you have slowed your metabolism down, anything that you consume over and above your “low calorie” intake is converted to fat -here is the reason why. A calorie from fat yields 9 calories of energy (carbohydrates and protein yield 4 calories of energy); when your body is in preservation mode it is looking for the greatest amount of energy from your body – this comes from either fat (9 calories) or stored sugar or protein (4 calories). When you decide that you are tired of constantly being hungry, experiencing low energy and having chronic headaches, you leave your low calorie diet or medical system and you go back to eating real world food and snacks. The problem is you go from (as an example) consuming 750 calories to 1500 calories and these “extra” 750 calories are immediately converted to fat because your body is stuck in preservation mode. This is why you jump from your end of diet/medical system weight of 185 to 205 pounds – now you are heavier than you were before you started your diet/medical system program! Welcome to the trials and tribulations of the yo-you diet and you begin to believe that you can’t “maintain” your desired weight without a diet program or medical system. The problem: you have not lost any body fat; you have actually triggered your body to convert everything you consumed to stored fat (because it thinks you are starving it)!

Simple Fact #4-Exercising too hard, too long, too often will CAUSE you to GAIN weight

Exercise can serve your body in two ways: as a stress reliever or as a creator of stress; the only element that creates the distinction is the level of stress that the exercise has on your body. When you exercise too hard (relevant to your personal max heart rate number) and/or for too long in duration, your body perceives this as stress and adapts to this exercise as it does any other stress – it dumps a hormone known as cortisol into your blood stream to handle the stress. Unfortunately, cortisol acts as a fat magnet in your body causing you to gain weight even when you are exercising consistently. What compounds the stress of exercise is when the body is lacking adequate quality and quantity of sleep & calories, lacking adequate stored sugar levels and is dehydrated (are you beginning to see a trend here?). The problem: you have not lost any body fat, instead you have exercised yourself into gaining more weight!

Simple Fact #5-You should NEVER be hungry

When you exercise, you should be finishing each session feeling strong and full of energy – actually more than when you started. If you are struggling to finish a workout, you are not taking in enough calories and/or enough carbohydrates (dense breads, fruits and vegetables). Ironically, you burn fat more efficiently when your blood sugars are stable during exercise. If you feel sleepy or sluggish within 20-30 minutes of eating, you may have sensitivity to certain foods types or ingredients. The problem: not consuming enough calories negatively effects the quality of your exercise efforts and limits your ability to burn fat.

Bonus Fact-You should NEVER crave simple sugars

One of the big four indicators of adrenal fatigue are the craving of simple sugars (Note: the other three indicators are night sweats, interrupted sleep and loss of libido all of which will be addressed in another report). This behavior (yes it is a behavior), occurs as a result of low essential fatty acids being consumed in your daily eating. Essential fatty acids (EFA) are sourced from cold water fish, avocadoes and extra virgin olive oil – when your body is low on EFA’s, a negative by-product is the overwhelming cravings for simple sugars. The beauty to consuming cold water fish, avocadoes and extra virgin olive oil is that your body will either use the calories as fuel or pass it as waste – not depositing of body fat! The problem: experiencing adrenal fatigue will cause you to crave simple sugars to the point that it will feel like an addiction.

Building the Perfect Soup

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When made with the optimum ingredients, soup can provide carbohydrates, protein, fat, vitamins, minerals and powerful antioxidants to improve your health, wellness and ultimately your performance. The good news is you can make nutritionally dense soup with whatever is in your kitchen and have it ready to consume within 30 minutes. Create your own power soup by following these five steps, choosing among the fresh, frozen, and leftover ingredients you have on hand from the list below:

Step 1: Aromatics

Optimum Choices: onion, garlic, celery, carrots, dried sage, thyme, oregano, bay leaves, rosemary, cumin, cinnamon, chili powder

Health Benefits: they add anti-inflammatory compounds that fight soreness.

Step 2: Liquids

Optimum Choices: vegetables, chicken, beef and fish stock; tomato puree and juice

Health Benefits: liquids keep you hydrated in the winter and relieve congestion

Step 3: Vegetables 

Optimum Choices: kale, carrots, peppers, bok choy, cabbage, tomatoes, mushrooms, squash, broccoli, sweet potatoes

Health Benefits: vegetables are loaded in antioxidant vitamins and minerals

Step 4: Proteins

Optimum Choices: beans (any kind), chicken, beef, fish, shrimp, tofu, edamame, lentils

Health Benefits: lean protein repairs muscles and provides iron – an imperative mineral needed to carry hemoglobin (a carrier for oxygen in the blood)

Step 5: Carbohydrates

Optimum Choices: cooked whole grains (brown, black or wild rice, faro, quinoa and barley; whole-wheat pasta; potatoes

Health Benefits: carbohydrates replenish depleted stored sugar levels within your liver (to feed the brain) and the muscles (fuel movement), provide B vitamins which are imperative for the production of energy

Top 5 Tips for Eating Healthy on a Budget

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Although you know good nutrition is like quality fuel for your car, spending a few extra dollars for high quality fruits and vegetables can be a difficult habit to adopt.  These 5 tips can help meet the needs of both your body and your budget.

  1. Understand & Prioritize Nutrition

How important is good nutrition to your health ? Answering these questions will help you determine how much money you are willing to invest in your food on a weekly basis.  Once you decide that your health is worth investing in, you’re buying and eating habits will change accordingly.

  1. Purchase, Prep & Store Your Food

Set your weekly schedule so that you visit the grocery store on specific days: ideally Tuesday and Friday.  Block out time in your personal schedule to wash, dice and package your food into tupperware or baggies. Write the specific day and whether it is breakfast, lunch or dinner on each package and store in your freezer or refrigerator.  The convenience of grab and go packages will increase your intake of high quality fruits and vegetables by 100%.  It is rarely the lack of desire to eat healthy, but rather convenience that drives you to fast food.

  1. Eat your Food

You have taken the time to purchase & prep your food, now you have to sit down and eat the food!  Just like the time that you carved out of your schedule to purchase and prepare your food, you now need to block out time to sit down and consume your food.  Digestion begins inside your mouth.  By sitting down and avoiding any distractions (TV, iPhone, computer, etc.) you will chew your food more completely making digestion easier inside your stomach which results in higher absorption of nutrients and water in a shorter period of time (because the food pieces are smaller and easier to break down).

  1. Avoid Fast Food

You have been lead to believe that the dollar menu at a fast food chain is “cheap” eating.  Well the marketing is both right and wrong.  The food is cheap when you look at the quality – some fast food restaurants use meat quality that is so low, it literally says “Safe for human consumption on the boxes”.  However, it is NOT cheap when you add up all  the add on features to a combo meal, on average you spend nearly five ($5.00) dollars per person every time you run through the fast through line and what you purchased is gone in ten minutes or less.  If you headed to your grocery store and purchased $5.00 worth of fruits and/or vegetables, you will be consuming both a high quality food item along with purchasing a lot more food.  Now when you spend $5.00, you are getting both “good food” and “good quality” for the same $5.00 that can last you through two or more meals.

  1. Learn to Read Labels

There’s nothing frustrating than finding out that you’ve been spending your money on high quality fruits and vegetables that you thought were healthy, only to find out that they are not. Many labels use terms like natural, raw, and whole wheat; however, they are not regulated and can be used to sell products at a higher price. By reading labels you can determine which foods live up to their labels and which are just clever marketing.

  1. Don’t Shop Hungry & Without a List

When your blood sugar is low (i.e. hungry), your ability to make rational decisions is gone.  When you shop in this mental state, you are more likely to purchase items you normally wouldn’t (or shouldn’t) resulting in a higher food bill with lower quality.  While shopping with a full stomach of high quality fruits, vegetables and low fat protein while purchasing ONLY the items on your shopping list will result in a lower food bill at the checkout register.  When you get home, your refrigerator is stocked with exactly what you need to prepare your high quality meals and snacks.