Tag: #metabolism

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What Is The BEST Workout Plan To Build Muscle?

You have this body in your head that you want to achieve.

It may be something along the lines of toned shoulders, lean arms, and definition in your legs.

Do you have to lose fat to get there? Yes, BUT, if you don’t dive into muscle BUILDING to some extent, you will never actually BUILD that body.

Because what most people fail to remember is exercise is meant to BUILD your body up, as opposed to tear your body down. Let your diet take care of the fat loss.

Or maybe you have lost some fat, you look and feel good, but you want to take that next step in your fitness journey to start to carve the body you really want.

Wherever you are at in your journey, I can assure you, muscle building should be apart of it.

THIS DOES NOT MEAN YOU ARE GOING TO GET HUGE IN 3 MONTHS.

Trust me, I WISH that was the case. I would have been there a longggg time ago.

This does mean though you will be set up on the right path to achieve that body you desire.

Through this two part guide you will learn the pyramids of importance when it comes to muscle building, this article will be training in particular.

I must first say, this article is greatly influenced by the incredibly smart Eric Helms. His muscle and strength pyramids created a while ago are the back bone to SO MANY coaches philosophies and recommendations today.

That being said, it has his influence and his studies backing a lot of it, but I put my own spin on it. I used it to come up with this hierarchy system of importance to give you a complete guide when it comes to how to train for muscle growth.

I hope you enjoy. If you have read my previous articles, I will refer to that pen and paper once again.

This one is going to provide you some exact numbers and recommendations you can write down and take with you to implement into your plan today.

By the end, you should feel fully confident to take this information and put it into action.

Let’s build some muscle.

Muscle Building Pyramid

To help categorize this article, I will be using this pyramid above in reference the rest of the time.

This was created to not only help categorize things, but give you a big picture look at what REALLY matters when it comes to muscle building.

This should give you a good direction of what to focus on and how much. For example, if you are struggling on how much rest you should be getting in between sets, but your intensity is not even there.. it won’t matter.

Without further ado, let’s dive into the base of the pyramid, Adherence.

Adherence

This is by far the most important pice of this puzzle, and I would be doing you a disservice if I did not label it so.

The hard truth is, I can give you the PERFECT training program, with the PERFECT amount of reps and sets, the BEST exercises, and the MOST OPTIMAL workout schedule..

But the reality is, if you either A. Can’t stick to it or B. Thoroughly hate doing it, you aren’t going to follow it.

And no matter how “great” the plan is in theory, if you cannot stick to it for a long period of time, you will NOT see results.

Especially talking about muscle building, it takes time to build muscle (unless you are a beginner, which we will cover).

When talking about adherence, there are a few factors to look at. Let’s briefly chat over them now.

Schedule / Time Frame

This is why everyones own individuality is truly paramount.

If you try to create a training program that has you working out at 6 am 5x a week because that is what is going to give you the “best” results, but you have a 7 month old at home… That might not be the “best” program.

Likewise, if you are planning for 2 hour workouts, but on gods green earth if you get an hour to workout you think you hit the lottery, again, it might not be best plan.

This is simply because you will not adhere to it. You won’t be able to consistently train this way. You will not be able to realistically work it into your schedule.

There is one thing to make sacrifices, and cut out excuses when it comes to getting time in to exercise.

Trust me, I believe the #1 worst excuse for not exercising is time. That being said, if you are making unrealistic expectations for yourself and your schedule, none of the rest of this will matter, because you won’t be able to do it.

Enjoyable

I understand some of you reading this may be either new to the muscle building world, or come from a world where cardio is king.

So in that aspect, I will say you have to just give it a try. Go into it with an open mind. Go into it with focusing on building yourself up, getting stronger, building a new body for yourself. Be okay with trying different things.

That being said, even if this is a new world for you, there are a million ways to tailor it towards your enjoyment.

If for example you do like feeling you are “working hard”, maybe you do more reps and sets than another person. This will give you a more metabolic feel to it, while still achieving the muscle building goal at hand.

Another example would be if you really enjoy doing a full body workout instead of one or two muscle groups at a time, then you program your training around that.

There are infinite ways to achieve this enjoyable factor. The point is, try things, find what works for you, try more things (because you never know what you may like), and roll with it.

Flexible

If you are reading this, you probably have 1839393^12 other things to do right now. Like that math there?

That being said, your plan must have flexibility taken into consideration.

If you were meant to workout on Monday, but your kid got sick and now you have to workout on Wednesday, your plan should account for that.

Or if you have a crazy busy day at work and have to go for a 45 minute workout instead of a 90 minute, this should be worked into. it.

This is all because again, at the end of the day, consistency and adherence reign supreme.

I would much rather you follow a B- plan with 80% consistency, than follow an A++ plan with 55% consistency.

Undoubtedly, you will see better results form the B- plan followed with 80% consistency.

Consistency > Everything.

Intensity

Before I continue on with this, I must define with I actually mean by intensity.

I am not defining intensity by how out of breath you are, how much you sweat, or how short your rest periods are.

Head HERE to view my thoughts on that.

What I mean by intensity is, how hard are you pushing yourself. What is your effort you are putting forth during a given set.

If it calls for a set of 10 reps, is that a set of 10 where you were texting during it, talking, thinking about what your girlfriend is doing, and probably could’ve actually done 10 more?

Or is that a set where those reps of 8 9 10 were GRINDERS. They were reps you really had to work for, mentally and physically. You really had to push your body and mind to get those last 2-4 reps.

THAT is what I mean by intensity, and if you want to build muscle, you better believe the ladder of those two scenarios is what is mandatory.

The reason I put this above how many actual set and reps you use is because without this intensity component, the sets and reps you do won’t actually matter.

In this day and age, people think more is better. That is not always the case, especially when it comes to muscle building.

You can increase volume, aka sets and reps, but never increase intensity. You can do more “work”, but not get any better results, because your work is not yielding results.

I would much rather you do 2 sets instead of 4 if that means you are going to give those two sets your max mental and physical effort.

It may look like 2 set is “less work”, but I promise, try it one time, and you tell me which requires more effort and “work” from you.

I go in depth about this on my podcast “Muscle building is a poor mans game”, link HERE for that.

Measuring Intensity

Okay so, here is the thing, I am telling you to put forth more effort but, how can you really measure that?

Yes put forth more effort Eric but, that is kind of up for debate, is there something I can use that leads me to keep track of this better?

So glad you asked.

There is something called the RPE scale.

As you can see above, this is called the rate of perceived exertion scale. This can be a great guideline to allow you to rate your level of activity by a tangible measure.

If you can hold a conversation while doing a set.. sorry honey, you are not really working that hard.

To take this a step farther, and talk about actual reps and sets, another added to this is the reps in reserve.

Now, we can start to apply this theory to your sets.

If you really have 4-6 reps left… again, sorry darling, you are not working that hard. Your intensity is not that high, certainly not high enough to build muscle.

Whereas if you are stopping maybe one rep short of true failure, okay, you are getting up there in your scale of intensity.

I love these two things when it comes to gauging how much intensity and effort you are truly using.

The one thing I will say is, if you are a beginner, you should not be taking all sets to max failure.

Your #1 concern is going to be what we talk about here soon, and that is form and technique. Beginners will build muscle just through osmosis.

If you go from lifting no weights, to lifting any sort of weights, that is a new stress your body has to adapt to. From that, you will gain muscle and get stronger.

Once you get past that stage, you will need to really use these tools to help you.

And, it will take time. It is going to take time to know what a TRUE RPE of 9 looks like. Right now you are probably thinking you are at a 9 or 10, but you are at a 6 or 7.

It is going to take you realizing there is more in the tank, you having to push harder, get uncomfortable, and ramping up intensity to see results.

Okay, So Where Should Your RPE Be?

Since we just covered the RPE Scale, we can now talk about where you should be for muscle building purposes.

Truthfully, if the majority of your sets are not in the 8-10 range, you are not going to build much muscle.

This means the majority of your time should be spent in the gym should be time spent pushing yourself to these higher intensity levels.

The more you can figure out how to do this, the more muscle you will be able to build.

Technique

We’ve all seen it. The person in the gym who looks like a humpback whale as they deadlift.

Or the person who looks like they are literally humping the air getting ready for their spouse that night as they do a bicep curl.

I don’t have the time to go over form and technique for every single exercise you are going to do, that is not what this section is for.

This section though is for explaining the importance of technique is for building muscle.

“You Won’t Get Hurt!”.. Yea..

So, YES, the better form you keep, the less likely you are to get hurt.

Yet as a coach, I have seen that sometimes is not enough to get people to realize how important form really is.

So, I will throw this at you for some food for thought.

If you are doing a bicep curl, you are wanting to get better biceps, right?

But, if you are swinging the weight aggressively up and down, using your hips to swing it, your shoulders to finish the movement up top…. Are you actually working your biceps?

No. You are using momentum, and other body parts to assist in the movement.

This then means from that 15 lbs you are doing a “bicep curl” with, maybe 4 lbs gets put to your biceps?

And 4lbs to your hips, 3lbs to your shoulders, and so on.

So, you set out wanting to work your bicep to get it more defined, but ended up using everything but your bicep.

So you won’t actually see any change in your bicep because you aren’t actually using the right form to use the right muscle.

This is what I tell all of my online coaching clients, and I have seen amazing response from it. Think about using the right form and technique to get better results.

Through that, you will not only stay injury free, but actually get better results in the process. Remember what we said earlier, more is always not better.

Walking The Tight Rope

Okay so now, I have to contradict myself.

I just told you that form and technique is paramount, which it is. Though that does not mean you then don’t push intensity and don’t push the weight so you can keep your intensity high.

From what we just learned, intensity is one of the most important part of muscle building.

So it doesn’t mean go get 5 lb dumbbells and do superrrrrr slowww and concentrated bicep curls.

No, that won’t yield results either.

You have to walk that fine line of doing high load (weight) and keeping *damn near* perfect form.

Again, this will only happen through trial and error. Try things, see what works, keep a record of it, and follow your path to results.

Volume / Frequency

Volume and Frequency would be the next tier of the pyramid. Let’s define what these words mean in terms of training.

Volume is the total amount of work done in a set. It can also be quantified as “volume load” (sets x reps x load), total number of reps (sets x reps), or simply just the number of sets.

There is no one “right” way to think about it, they all have their pros and cons.

But, for the reason we are about to dive into below, we will be using (sets x reps x sets).

Why Volume Is Secondary To Intensity?

Intensity is what we touched on earlier, and I spoke about why it is superior to volume.

I want to now give you an actual math example of why this can be the case.

Let’s say you are doing 4 x 10 @ 100lbs for your bench press.

That would be (4 x 10 x 100) = 4,000 lbs total.

Without changing any sets or reps, you can increase the volume AND intensity, by lifting 5 lbs more.

This then would be ( 4 x 10 x 105) = 4200 lbs total.

So, without changing any reps or sets, your volume DID actually increase, but through higher intensity, from a higher load.

No extra sets, or reps, or time in the gym. Just making the time you do have in the gym work better for you through higher intensity.

Ok ok back to volume recommendations.

Volume Recommendations

Truly there could be a different recommendation for every individual.

But for the sake of this article, I will give you some general guidelines to follow.

10-20 sets per muscle group / movement per week.

If you don’t know what muscle groups or movements I am referring to, head HERE to read my article on program design.

This means for every muscle group and or movement pattern you should aim to get a total of 10-20 sets per week.

So how can you do this? This is where frequency comes into play as a tool.

Frequency

This refers to how many days a week you are training these muscles / movement patterns.

As far as frequency goes, it really is a tool that is used to get your total volume in for the week.

If you need to get 10 sets of legs in, you can do 4 one day, 2 the next, and 2 the next.

Or you can do 5 sets one day, 5 sets the next day.

It honestly depends on your split and how you choose to design your training program. Again, highly suggest you go read my article on program design if you want extra help with this.

The other cool thing that frequency can be used for as a tool is skill acquisition.

Piggybacking off our previous section, technique, properly learning how to squat or deadlift takes time.

It takes practice over and over and over. An mlb pitcher doesn’t pitch once a week, they pitch multiple times throughout the week to get better at it.

This is no different. If you want to use frequency as an opportunity to learn how to squat, or feel your lats when you do a row, this is where you can program in such a way to do that.

Exercise Selection

In todays day and age where instagram runs the world, and the internet is full of people trying to one up each other with their next coolest exercise, we have gotten lost.

Everyone is doing bosu ball squats, weird mixes of lunges and bicep curl, and thinking they HAVE to do something new every time because “muscle confusion, bro!”.

Just stop. Stop with the madness.

Muscle confusion is not a real thing. You should not be on a bosu ball doing a front raise or a squat. Get your ass off the bosu ball, go grab a barbell or dumbbell, and work on mastering the basic fundamental movement pattern of a regular ol squat.

I can’t tell you how many people significantly hinder their chances of making any real muscle building progress, and significantly raise their chances of injury, with this notion you need to be doing crazy exercises.

It is important to keep consistency throughout your training. If you can keep the same movement for 4, 6, 8 weeks, you can actually track what you are doing on it.

You can track if you are getting stronger, or if you are doing more reps, you can track if your form is getting better.

You can actually have a training program that is leading you to create a stress your body has to adapt to to then see results.

As opposed to just going into the gym and exercising.

I will go over what I believe to be a good time frame to switch exercises up, but after I talk about picking exercises, for YOU.

Selecting Exercises For YOU

This is where individuality becomes SO IMPORTANT.

I am 6’4. I have long legs, and I have previous back and hip issues.

I have trouble loading up a barbell and barbell back squatting. And that is 100000% okay.

No where in this article have I said you need to do only certain exercises to build muscle, rather I talked principles.

Intensity, sets, reps, etc.

SO, I do not spend a lot of time barbell back squatting.

It doesn’t fit my persona. It doesn’t allow me to actually work my legs, or stay healthy.

Instead I opt for a hack squat, or a front squat, or a single leg split squat.

If you consistently get hurt with a movement, or don’t feel it how you should, there is no reason to continue to keep banging your head against a wall.

Switch it out for something that is within the same movement pattern, which allows you to use a higher intensity and better technique.

As we know from the pyramid, THAT matters so much more than the exact exercise you use.

Recommendations For Exercise Variance

For me what I do with my online coaching clients, below has worked incredibly well.

For your main compound movements, I would keep those in for at least 4 weeks, if not 8-12 weeks at a time before you switch them out.

This allows you to progressively get stronger at them, perfect the form, add weight, etc.

This will give you the best return on your time in the gym.

For isolation / accessory exercises, this is where you can play around a bit more.

Things like bicep curls, shoulder raises, hamstring curls, you can change these a bit more often.

Usually anywhere from 3-4 weeks can work, and if you are more towards the advanced side, week to week may be an option as well.

I totally understand changing the exercise can lead to better enjoyment and adherence, BUT, you have to take into consideration the other factors of this pyramid.

If you can’t increase your intensity with an exercise, can’t get stronger, can’t do it long enough to learn it… You won’t build muscle.

There is a lot to be said for consistency, keeping things simple, mastering the basics, and doing that week after week after week.

Rest Periods

Not sure the point of that picture, but it’s awesome.

Okay so we get to the top of the pyramid, rest periods.

I touched on this earlier, I had a link to a YouTube video I did on it, but I will say it again.

You should not be taking 10 or 20 seconds breaks when focusing on muscle building.

If you are pushing your intensity, and hitting a 9 or 10 on your RPE Scale, your muscles need time to recover.

And if you are thinking you are hitting a 9 or 10 on your RPE Scale through 20 seconds rest, you are not.

YOU ARE NOT WORKING HARDER BECAUSE YOU ARE CUTTING YOUR REST PERIODS.

Sorry. Just the truth.

It is actually probably leading you to work LESS hard because you can’t fully mentally and physically recover, leading your intensity to be less, leading to you not being able to build muscle.

So with that being said, I will provide some guidelines for rest periods below.

Rest Period Guidelines

For compound lifts, like your squat, bench, deadlift, overhead press, your rest time should be around 2 minutes.

For your isolation / accessory exercises, like lunges, single leg deadlifts, bicep curls, these can be around the 1 minute mark.

But That’s Tooooo Longgggg

I know, for some of you, that is scary.

Here is my compromise to that, add a superset into your workout.

This can be done by doing two exercises back to back with no rest, and THEN taking a break after the exercises are completed.

These also usually tend to be antagonist muscles, like chest and back.

An example of this is below.

1a. Push Up

1b. Pull Up

Rest : 75 seconds after.

This can allow you to get some higher heart rate work in, push the envelope a bit more, but not compromise your intensity, and still leave you time to recover for the next set.

Final Word

So, there you have it.

Whew, that was a ton.

I hope that pen and paper was rolling section by section.

Muscle building is NOT about one specific thing. It is not attributed to one source of results.

Rather it is comprised from multiple different variables and guidelines to operate by.

Adherence is the most important. That is individual to you.

Intensity is what drives muscle growth. Learning how to truly achieve this is a skill which takes time and effort.

Form / Technique is a principle that is based around actually making your time in the gym effective.

Volume can be used as a general guideline to follow and make your own individual preferences off of. Frequency is used for a tool to compliment volume, intensity, and basically this whole chart.

Exercise selection is less about picking ONE certain exercise to do, or the contrary doing every exercise known to man. Pick ones that work, stick with them, change when need be, and see great results.

Rest periods are used to complement the pyramid as well. Use the rest to mentally and physically recover to keep all of the other things in mind.

I truly hope you got some value from this article. I know it was a bit long, so if you read this whole way, thank you.

I promise you if you read all this, and implement it, you will see amazing results.

If this is all a bit much for you, and you have questions, please feel free to leave them below or email me at coacheric@ericrobertsfitness.com .

Or, if you would like to apply for coaching with me instead so I can help you every step of the way, head HERE to fill the form out to see if we would be a good fit.

Thank you so much for your time, and Happy Muscle Building.

-E.

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ERF Q&A 030: Sweat Belts, Fat Burners, Detox Cleanses

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Have you ever tried wrapping some belt as tight as you can around your waist to lose belly fat?

Or maybe done some detox cleanse that was meant to get help kick start your fat loss!

Or better yet, spend 100$+ on fat burners from GNC every single month, while still eating pizza and drinking wine.

This podcast goes over

  1. Can you actually lose fat from any of these things?
  2. Why do they exist?
  3. Who pushes them?
  4. What other options are available instead of them.

Give it a listen, I think a few minutes in you may know how I feel about them all…. 

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The BEST Diet Plan For Fat Loss, For YOU!

Have you been through different diet plans that cut out carbs, make you go through times of not eating, or make you howl at the moon? (Yea.. look it up, it’s real).

How about you’ve been scrolling the internet now for the past 15 minutes looking for the perfect diet plan for you to follow.

Maybe you WANT to eat carbs, or you WANT to eat breakfast, but all these plans say you can’t if you want to lose fat.

Maybe you are a shift worker or a busy parent, but you still want to find a way to find some sort of “routine” to follow.

First things first, without a plan, you aren’t going to have anything.

This whole fly by the seat of your pants probably has not worked thus far for you.. So you must come to terms with you having a plan.

BUT, the beauty is, it is YOUR plan.

There is no ONE meal plan I am going to give you through this article.

There is no ONE diet I am going to tell you to follow. Rather, I am going to give you the tools to come up your own plan.

A plan that takes into consideration YOUR life, and YOUR goals, and YOUR time responsibilities, etc.

To my knowledge, there is not a resource like this on the internet.

I hope it brings you value, I hope it gets you thinking, and I hope by the end you will have YOUR own plan you can take with you and put into action.

Because remember, failing to plan is just planning to fail (I SO hate using phrases like that.. but damn is it true).

Let’s jump in.

What Every Diet Plan MUST Have

So before we get into actual components of making the plan, we must understand the goal behind the plan.

What is the plan going to accomplish? Fat loss with YOU and YOUR schedule / preferences in mind yes..

But, HOW do we do that? How does ANY diet plan do that? No matter if it’s keto, fasting, plant based, carnivore, you name it.

They all MUST have one thing in common.. Because without this foundational piece, everything else won’t matter in the slightest.

THE ONE THING THAT YOUR PLAN MUST HAVE IS BEING IN A CALORIE DEFICIT.

This is something that is non negotiable. You can’t argue this. You can’t exercise enough to make this not true.

Your diet plan MUST have this. Without it, you will NOT lose any fat.

Now, HOW you do that, is a totally individualized story. Truthfully, that is the beautiful part about nutrition coaching to me, is finding that piece of the puzzle for every individual.

This is where we get into the actual components of making the diet plan.

So like the article on how to program design for strength training I wrote , get out that piece of paper and pen, and be ready to take notes.

No seriously, I would do that, because as you go through this article, section by section you will be coming up with a part of your plan.

By the end, you should have written down all components to then piece together to make a plan.

So happy note taking, let’s continue.

Calorie Amount

So, piggy backing off the last section, it is only right we start this section off by talking about calories.

Now that we know you HAVE to be in a calorie deficit to lose fat no matter what else your plan entails, this then brings the question, well how many calories should you eat?

This also entails it probably would be a good idea to start counting calories to find out how many calories you are eating, to ensure you are in a calorie deficit.

If you want a full guide on how to lose fat through calorie counting, click HERE for a full free guide on that.

In the short term, I will answer this question of how many calories you should be eating to lose fat.

This is truly dependent on the individual. Your diet history, your current weight, your lifestyle, are all things that can come into play when deciding this.

That being said, below is a GREAT place to start when it comes to how many calories to eat.

Goal Bodyweight x 12 = Daily Calorie Amount For Fat Loss

I have an entire video covering exactly how many calories you should eat on my YouTube channel, you can watch that HERE.

One thing I will say is, it is much less about getting the EXACT number.

You may find that you need 1400 to lose fat, or you can do 2000 and still lose fat.

Either way, the whole point here is, get a number, and just get started.

The more you look for the “perfect” plan, the more you will procrastinate, the more you won’t do anything at all, and the more you stay right where you are at.

Go read the guide on how to lose fat through calorie counting, get your calorie amount, start tracking, and start seeing results.

Also, one last thing, I promise.

Give it time. Please.

Don’t do it for 6 hours and say “Wow I haven’t lost 20 lbs yet this is stupid I’m doing keto”.

Give yourself 21, 30, 60 days. Be consistent over that time period.

I promise you it will work. Promise. I am putting all this information out here for free, I have no reason to lie to you.

Protein Amount

So now we Segway into our next section, protein.

By now you should have your calorie amount down, and if you read the calorie counting guide to fat loss, feel confident in counting calories.

The next most important factor in this equation is going to be protein.

Protein is SO huge for SO many different reasons.

One being that it is the most satiating macro nutrient, which just means it will fill you up the most.

Most people’s diet plans fail because they get hungry enough to eat for a small village. You can combat this, by keeping your protein intake high throughout the day.

Another reason is because protein has a high thermic effect of food. Again, that just means it can basically boost your metabolism by eating protein.

If you don’t believe me, or want to check out more on how to boost your metabolism, check out my guide on how to increase your metabolism HERE.

And no, there will be no fat burners or discount codes to buy something in there.

Lastly, it is the only macro nutrient that can build and preserve lean muscle mass.

This too can help your metabolism, but also help shape the way you look. That lean aesthetic physique you are searching for can be accomplished through being in a calorie deficit, and keeping protein intake high.

Okay so, we know protein is important now, but, again, how much do you want to have daily?

Glad you asked.

Protein Goal For The Day = .8-1.2g protein Per lb of bodyweight, or 35-45% of your total calories.

So, let’s use the example of the 150 lb individual again.

.8-1.2g of protein for a 150lb individual would be 120g-180g of protein daily.

Personally, I would just have yourself fall right in the middle. For every lb you weigh, have 1g of protein.

150lbs=150g of protein.

This is also what 40% of your total calories for the day would be, 150g.

And if you want to know how I got that, I just did .4×1500=600. There are 4 calories in every gram of protein, so I then did 600/4, which brought me to 150.

If you want the whole scoop on protein, I did a quick 12 minute podcast on it via my podcast, you can click HERE for the audio to that.

Carb & Fat Amount

Alright, to recap quickly, we so far have calories, and protein covered in your plan.

Those two things will be the most important.

If you have those two things in check, you will be golden.

To start, no carbs do not make you fat. Eating carbs after 6pm does not make you fat. Eating carbs when you wake up does not make you fat.

The only way you will gain body fat is if you are in a calorie surplus consistently over a long period of time. Notice the “consistently” and “long period of time”.

You don’t have to do a low carb diet to lose fat. If that is what you prefer, cool, go for it.

If you don’t, and you are like the guy in the picture above, as long as your calories are in check, you will be just fine eating carbs.

Though I have heard people will tell you eating fat makes you fat too.

Hell if you look far enough on the internet, people will say carbs make you fat, fat makes you fat, protein makes you fat, so just don’t eat at all.

But, then, starvation mode makes you fat, so, you’re f’ed.

It is actually funny and sad to see at the same time that people get so confused, which is one of the main reasons I am writing this article.

Moving along, fat is great for you and absolutely should be eaten.

It helps a ton with the process of your hormones, and keeping them at a healthy level.

It is also a very filling macro nutrient that keeps you full for a longer period of time than carbs will.

The truth is, these two macro nutrients, don’t spend a ton of time on them.

If you prefer a high fat, low carb diet, go for it. If you prefer a higher carb, lower fat diet, go for it.

Don’t major in the minor, if you would LIKE to know what exact numbers of what your carbs and fats should be, head HERE* to watch my YouTube video where I cover that.

If you have read this far, this is where I said you will take each section and create your own plan come into play. You should be able to create your own numbers from your own body weight from this.

BUT WAIT…. Numbers are cool and awesome, now how do you apply these numbers to your actual life?

With your schedule, your work, your kids, etc.

Don’t worry, that is what the next few sections will cover. Keep reading, and keep that pen and paper close.

Meal Timing / Meal Frequency

So, this is where it starts to get good. This is where you start to put your own twist on things.

The information and numbers above is cool, but these sections are where you put things together, and actually apply those numbers to real life.

I will give you things to think about as far as making your own diet plan, and examples of things you could do with yours.

Meal timing and meal frequency can help play a role in keeping you in a calorie deficit.

They are similar, and can play a role with each other, but are not quite one in the same.

Meal timing refers to WHEN you eat, like breakfast, lunch, snacks, dinner.

Meal frequency refers to how many meals or snacks a day you eat. So 2, 3, 4, 5.

Keeping things very honest, it does not matter if you have 2 meals a day, or 6 meals a day.

It doesn’t matter if you eat breakfast or skip breakfast.

If you are total calories are in check and you are in a calorie deficit, this has been proved over and over in research, you will lose fat.

Anyone else telling you otherwise is just trying to sell you something to get your money. That is the bottom line.

BUT, both of these things can play a HUGE role in keeping you full, fighting off hunger, keeping energy levels high, amongst other things.

If you are not hungry, if you have good energy, if you feel good, chances are you are going to stick to your plan.

If you stick to your plan, you will see results. So using these 2 things to your advantage can make a huge difference.

Let’s stick with the 150 lb person trying to lose fat, with their calories and protein goals.

Now I will also make up a scenario in which say this person works full time, has kids events at night, and also makes it to the gym 3-4x a week.

This make believe person, and you, are busy! You have a job, responsibilities, an incredibly busy life.

That can make it difficult to get a plan for you to follow.. This is why we are here.

Meal timing / meal frequency can help play a role in keeping you in a calorie deficit.

Say you wake up at 6am to get ready for work. You get to work by 8am, you work all day until 4 pm, maybe go straight to the gym from there. You workout from 5-6 pm. After that, you have to go home cook dinner and get to your kids soccer practice from 7-8pm.

This is a jam packed day, and being a coach, I have seen this and MUCH more from my online coaching clients .

BUT, that doesn’t mean you just say “Well I am going to be super busy, it is going to be too hard, I might as well not even try”.

Like we said earlier, failing to plan is planning to fail.

This is where you put your calorie number and protein number to work for you, and actually start to make a plan for YOU so you can stick to it.

This is where if you know you get hungry before you leave work in the afternoon, you can plan a snack.

If you know your morning is SUPER busy, and you have no time to cook, you can have a protein shake.

This section is all about using your own life, to plan things out, in a way that is going to suite YOU best.

Sample Diet Plan

I want to create a sample day plan for this made up person above, to get you thinking about your own plan.

Just through coaching hundreds of people by now, I have seen 3 meals and 2 snacks works GREAT for a lot of people in terms of their hunger, energy, keeping a deficit, etc.

I will use that concept for this plan below.

Again, THIS MAY NOT WORK FOR YOU, YOU MAY WANT TO DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT, AND THAT IS 100% FINE.

You may not like this food or eating at this time, and that is okay. That is not the point of this example plan below. It is again, simply just getting your brain thinking about how you can structure your plan for your day.

The plan below is keeping two things in mind for that 150lb person, 1500 calories, and 150g of protein.

DIET PLAN FOR FAT LOSS

Meal 1 6am: 40g protein shake, 1cup unsweet vanilla almond milk, 1/2 tbsp olive oil dressing

Snack 9am: Greek yogurt, 1tbsp peanut butter, 1 apple

Meal 2 Noon: BAS (Big Ass Salad): 2 cups of salad (spinach, peppers, tomatoes, errythang), 1/2 tbsp of olive oil dressing, 5 oz chicken

Snack 3:30pm: 2 cheese sticks, rx bar

Meal 3 6:30pm: 5 oz turkey, 1 cup of rice, grilled veggies

So above, you are using meal timing / frequency to help shape your own plan.

You are using your calorie limit to guide food choices.

You are also using the protein goal to guide food choices.

It is much less about eating these exact foods at these exact times, but making a plan around your schedule, rather than your schedule around a plan.

Because at the end of the day, that is not sustainable, and just not going to work.

Let’s dissect the plan above so you can see my thought process a bit more for WHY I made these recommendations.

Again, I am here to educate you as much as I can, and hopefully get your brain thinking. If you can think through your own plan like this… You will be in a GREAT spot.

If your brain hurts already, and you might want me to help you with your plan, click HERE to fill out the form to see if me and you may be a good fit for coaching together.

Okay so meal 1, protein shake. I LOVE this for so many of clients, especially if they have a busy morning.

If you can’t cook food for time reasons, it takes about 47 seconds to make a protein shake. Take some unsweet vanilla almond milk (because it is bomb), take some protein, 1/2 tbsp of flax seed oil, and chug it on down.

It will give you protein and healthy fats to keep you full. This will make you not want to donuts or muffins or foods that tend to be higher in calories.

The snack is usually a bit later when you aren’t STARVING, but you could be a bit hungry. This can save you from getting starving, and over eating. Usually people are busy, so may not be able to eat a 3 course meal.

Perfect, greek yogurt and a piece of fruit. Both easy to travel with, high protein, and can hold you over.

Lunch, having one big ass salad a day, you saw it in the plan above, helps SO MUCH with fat loss.

It gives you a lot of food volume to fill your stomach up, with not a lot calories, to keep you in a calorie deficit. Throw some chicken on it to get your protein, and you are good to go.

It doesn’t have to be a boring lettuce and chicken salad either. Spice it up, put what you want in it… As long as it will fit your calories ;).

Second snack, same thing, easy, quick, and simple. Also provides you some carbs to fuel before your workout.

Lastly dinner, this can be prepped in advance, or made at the time, whatever your day depicts. But again, just some sort of protein, some veggies, throw some carbs in, and call it a day.

This is a GREAT thought out plan to keep you full so you don’t over eat. A great plan to ensure you are keeping your energy levels high. A great plan to work diet around your life, not the other way around.

You probably don’t have a chef or chauffeur doing things for you (If you do, you should definitely sign up for coaching with me), so things aren’t going to be “perfect”.

If you can some way find a way to be consistent, and make it work, I promise you, you will be in a great spot.

Final Thoughts

Alright so this meme is great, I laughed out loud reading it. Can you tell I like to mix actually having fun in life with dieting?

In all seriousness, I truly hoped this article helped you.

It was not a “oh, eat only this food to lose weight!”. Or “only eat at this time to see amazing results!”.

No, that is not what a “diet plan” is about.

A diet plan is about coming up with just that, a plan. A plan for YOU, and YOUR life.

Every person is an individual. With different responsibilities, different preferences, different lives for lack of a better term.

It is also about working to create a plan that works around your life, not working your life around a plan.

I referred to this a few times above, but this may be the most important concept from this article.

You trying to work your life around a plan, is not going to work long term, ever.

If you LOVE carbs, you doing keto is never going to work long term.

If you LOVE eating breakfast, intermittent fasting is never going to work long term.

Rather than trying to change your entire life to fit a diet plan, why not make the diet plan fit your life?

Because then you aren’t “dieting” anyway, you are just learning how to eat for your life.

I don’t think there is ONE plan out there you need to follow. That being said, there can be some guidelines if you will, mixed with some critical thinking on your own part, that can lead down a very good path.

It doesn’t have to be perfect. You may deviate here and there, or have something different than what was originally thought out.

THAT IS OK. The fact is that if you are taking the time to plan ahead, and put thought behind your decisions… I can almost guarantee that is a lot more that what you are currently doing, right?

To get a different result, you have to do something different. Make this article the place you start doing that, so you can stop wasting more time, and start seeing more results.

If you have a question about your plan that I may be able to help with, PLEASE feel free to drop a comment below, or email me at coacheric@ericrobertsfitness.com .

If you are like yeaaaahh maybe I better have a professional handle this for me, head HERE to fill out the form to see if we might be a good fit for coaching together.

In the meantime, thank you for reading, I hope this at least sparked a thought in your head, and I look forward to hearing from you.

Talk soon. -E.

Posted on

How To *ACTUALLY* Boost Your Metabolism

 

Do you have a slow metabolism?

Better yet, do you LOOK at a cookie, and gain 27lbs?

What about just struggling to LOSE weight, but have no problem GAINING it?

If your answer was yes to any of those questions, especially the cookie one, this article will be for you.

Whether through age, through previous diet history, through lifestyle change, your metabolism has gone down hill.

You don’t burn as many calories, you really don’t eat that much food yet still gain weight.

No need to fear, Eric is here.

I am going to teach you how to increase your metabolism the RIGHT way to see results.

And no, this will not be an ad for some fat burning pill with a promo code at the end.

Just real science that you can take and implement today to help start seeing results.

What Actually Is Your Metabolism?

It is funny, people will be quick to blame their metabolism for their lack of fat loss..

But when I ask them to explain to me what metabolism actually is, they cannot quite speak with the same conviction.

I cannot teach you how to increase something without actually knowing what it is first.

In the simplest of words, your metabolism is simply the sum of all chemical processes going on in your body at any one time.

At any one point in time there are millions of processes going on inside your body. Your heart beating involves your metabolism, your eye movement reading this, digestion of the food you eat.

Anything that is allowing you to live and breath right now, is apart of your metabolism.

Now that you have a basic understanding of what metabolism ACTUALLY is, you can have more context when Sally from the gym complains how hers is just SO SLOW.

Now let’s look into what components play a role, and how we can use them to your advantage to speed up your metabolism.

RMR, Resting Metabolic Rate

Your RMR, or resting metabolic rate, is the most practical component of your metabolism.

Some people use BMR, basal metabolic rate, but that is literally when your body does NOTHING but lay in bed and not even more..

I mean, you at least gotta blink or something right?

So your RMR is what we can use to begin to talk about how your metabolism works.

These are the calories you burn when you stand up and get out of bed. Your brain processing and thinking as you read this. Everyday life things.

What can go into your RMR? Super glad you asked.

Lean Body Mass

Your lean body mass plays a roll into what your RMR is.

This is can be how much muscle you have. Also, Your muscle to fat ratio.

This can also be how tall or short you are.

Taller people, like myself, burn more calories than those who are shorter. We will talk more on this when we get into gender as well.

Depending how tall or short you are, you can have differences in bone mass, and in overall total body expenditure. 

This can lead to a difference in how hard your body has to work to maintain itself.

Muscle Burns More Calories.. Kind of.

One BIG thing I do want to briefly touch on is the fact that more muscle can lead to an increased metabolism.

Now, this is 110% true.

The more muscle you have, the more calories you will burn. Absolutely.

BUT, the amount it does is minimal.

For every 1lb of muscle you add, you burn an extra 6-10 calories a day, at most.

So if you added 10 lbs of muscle, you would potentially only burn possibly 60 more calories a day.

Is it more? Yes. Is it so significant you should listen to someone selling you something crazy about building tons of muscle to boost your metabolism?

Nope.

Now you should clearly be building muscle, but it isn’t a justice to you go to go and eat pizza and ice cream.

Do it for health reasons, for strength reasons, increased bone density, all things that build you up.

Rather than worrying about it tearing your fat down. That will be done mainly through diet anyway.

Click HERE to find out how many calories you should be eating to lose fat.

Gender

Here we are, the forever war between girls and boys.

Who truly started cooties? One will never know.

Anywho, yes, men normally burn a bit more calories than women.

But that is not some magical fat loss potion.

It is just science.

Like we said earlier, taller people have more energy that their bodies have to use.

There is more blood to be circulated, takes more energy to go up and down steps, more bone mass to them, etc.

Men are typically taller, so they typically burn more calories.

We also just said the more lean body mass / muscle mass you have, you burn more calories.

Again, men typically have more muscle mass / lean body mass to them.

Both of these things lead to a higher metabolism, because again it is just more work their body has to do.

I coach mostly women, and trust me when I say, you all are much more bad ass than us men could ever be.

So you win.

AGE

Oh boy, Age.

This one is the crutch of many individuals wanting to lose weight.

They claim they are not 18 anymore, so their metabolism doesn’t work like it used to!

I am here to tell you to STOP using this excuse as to why you cannot lose fat.

Does your metabolism slow as you age?

Yep. Sure does.

BUT, first and foremost it is usually lifestyle based, not solely because you got older.

You eat less overall, eat less protein, your lean body mass decreases, your activity level goes down.

If you have been following thus far, those things are key factors when it comes to how your metabolism works.

Second, the amount it decreases is almost next to none per year.

Good thing for you is, however much is does slow down, this can pretty much be reversed.

Through proper strength training, well thought out nutrition, and losing body fat, you can pretty much reverse that aging process.

Click HERE if you want to contact me about possibly coming up with a plan for you to do just that.

Genetics

Yet again, another thing people look towards to pin the tail on their fat loss scapegoat.

I debated whether I wanted to go into this or not, because if I give you a reason to quit, most of you will.

The truth is, genetics plays a HUGE role in your metabolism.

It affects obviously your gender, your height, your lean body mass, all of these things.

A lot of it again is lifestyle based, but there are just cases of genetics winning no matter what.

If you are a 5’5 male out there reading this.. You aren’t making it to the NBA.

Just not gonna happen.

Some people have the perfect genetics for bodybuilding. 

Here’s the thing, we are talking about fat loss here, not professional basketball or professional bodybuilding.

So, even if we say your genetics are the worst ever.

Why would you not still do EVERYTHING you can to make the best of them.

To increase your lean body mass. To do proper strength training. To eat healthy.

Regardless, that is a great idea.

So, don’t use genetics as a crutch either. This is fat loss here we are talking about, not stepping onto the court or a body building stage.

TEF, Thermic Effect of Food

Protein protein protein.

Protein is the #1 macronutrient I see missing in the average individuals diets when I go through my initial nutrition coaching evaluation.

Protein should be a staple in ANY fat loss diet. Let’s talk about why and how it helps boost your metabolism though.

Let’s talk practical application first.

Protein is the most satiating macronutrient, meaning it will fill you up and keep you full the longest.

This then means if you are not hungry, and stay full, you tend to not eat at much.

Then leading to eating less calories aka being in a calorie deficit.

Which is the only way to lose fat.

It also is the only macro nutrient that can help build and maintain muscle / lean body mass. Which as we know from above, helps with boosting your metabolism.

There is also something called the thermic effect of food.

This basically just means how many calories your body has to burn digesting food.

Protein has the highest thermic effect of food. Meaning when you eat protein, your body has to burn more calories to digest it. Just because you ate a chicken breast.

Obviously you can see how, if you make your diet high in protein, all day your body is burning more calories digesting it, as opposed to if you were eating carbs or fats all day.

TEA, Thermic Effect of Activity

This picture was just absolutely hilarious, so I had to use it.

Okay so thermic effect of activity.

This is basically just the calories you burn through exercise and or movement through the day.

And before we get any farther, NO your fit bit or apple watch tracking your calories is not accurate.

It actually over estimates by 50%. Click HERE to find out why.

Okay, moving on.

Strength training I believe is the most important for long term fat loss.

This will increase your lean muscle mass, increase your lean body mass, and with the right diet decrease your body fat.

This will have the biggest impact on boosting your metabolism long term.

It will burn less calories than cardio in the short term, but long term will allow you to burn more.

More importantly, will KEEP the fat off, without having to do hours and hours of cardio.

Because I’d rather watch grass grow than do hours of cardio.

Next up would be said spoken cardio.

Whether LISS or HIT, low intensity steady state or High intensity training.

Both can be beneficial and both can have their benefits.

Not only physical, but mental and emotional as well. Which I would argue is maybe a bit more important for most people.

It is not very high up on my list as far as importance of boosting metabolism, but it certainly plays a role.

The last would be NEAT, and that is the Non Exercise Activity Thermogenesis.

Now don’t worry, big word, but it just means all of the stuff you do throughout the day that is not dedicated exercise.

Walking into the grocery store. Brushing your teeth. Scratching your head.

People VASTLY underestimate NEAT when it comes to fat loss.

This is why counting steps became so huge. Shooting for 8-10k steps a day is an amazing way to increase NEAT.

Eventually leading you to move more, and increase your metabolism.

Park farther away at the store, walk around the perimeter of your house 5x, take the stairs no matter what.

I strongly urge you to not be one of those who underestimate how much getting 10k steps can help your fat loss journey.

Supplements / Metabolism Boosting Foods

So, I HAVE to go into this, but keeping it very brief.

Anyone who tells you you can take a pill to burn fat, run.

Run far, far away. After you laugh at them.

Also anyone who tells you to eat a certain food because it can boost your metabolism ( besides protein we learned because science not because some marketing ad ), run even farther.

Seriously, anyone who tries to sell you on a fat burning pill or metabolism boosting food, they are doing just that.

Trying to get your money and sell you something.

No other way around it.

Let’s put an end to it one person at a time.

Final Thoughts

So, as you see, nothing here is sexy.

I can’t go sell you something some product from any of this.

Nothing is about doing this ONE trick to start boosting your metabolism!

Or eat this food or do that workout to boost your metabolism!

Because in 100% honesty, it is quite simple.

Move more, optimize your lean body mass, keep protein high, and you will increase your metabolism.

It would be just down to science at that point, your metabolism would HAVE to increase to keep up with the work you are putting on it.

Focus on things you can control, things that will give you the biggest return on the change you put in, and I promise you will see change.

Though I would love to hear, what is the craziest thing you ever heard or read to increase your metabolism?

It is always great to hear what fitness marketers can come up with these days.

I hope you enjoyed the article, learned something, and can take it with you to start using your metabolism to your advantage.

If you have any further questions leave them below, or feel free to reach out to me at coacheric@ericrobertsfitness.com.

If you are interested in seeing if we are possibly a good fit for coaching together, head to the link HERE!

Talk soon.

-E.

Posted on

ERF 021: Why You Should Be Lifting Weights *For Fat Loss*

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Run Forest, Run!

No, just no. Running is NOT the only way to lose fat. Doing hours and hours of cardio is very outdated in the sense of trying to lose fat.

Lifting weights is considered paramount in ones plan of action for losing fat. 

NO, it will not immediately make you big and bulky. Trust me, I wish it did, or I wouldn’t still be here trying 8 years into my own journey.

It is great for changing your body. Changing your muscle : fat ratio. For burning more calories at rest, BY DOING NOTHING, might I add.

For changing not only your physical strength, but your mental and emotional strength as well. 

It should be a staple in your routine.

Listen here to find out the benefits. 

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