Physique, Performance & Lifestyle Coaching. Evidence based nutrition.

Missed my workout this morning and was reminded that when life gets in the way, we must adjust.

I’m not the only one. Holler if you are short on time!

Self Sabotaging and not even realizing it is something many go through.

Many use the weekend to destress and relax, which is not a bad thing at a glance.

It’s when they use A LOT of food and sometimes alcohol to try and forget about the stressful week.

Then Monday morning rolls around and they are left with guilt.

The guilt /self loathing cycle typically looks like this:

More Cardio and Eat Less to try and make up for the weekend. This becomes a losing battle very quickly and adds even more systemic stress.

Then you keep digging yourself into a deeper hole from a recovery standpoint as well as health. Say bye bye to muscle gain and fat loss! Hello high insulin and cortisol trying to battle it out.

I enjoy a good meal out as much as the next person, but the food doesn't control me and I don't attach any emotion to it, besides the thought of how good it tastes.

I know this can be hard when dealing with stress, but don't use food as an outlet, utilize something that is productive, positive, and emotionally healthier.

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Many keep under-eating telling themselves that it's just them “being healthy." But without eating more in a controlled manner, doing really long periods in caloric deficit are detrimental to you.

Numerous negative adaptations occur: hormone imbalance, muscle loss, anxiety/depression, hypothyroidism, and many more.

Don’t chase being thin to the point you ruin your body or make it very challenging to get your body back to a normal working metabolism.

If your body is NOT making progress it’s trying to tell you something and it’s usually not saying “keep eating less and workout more”. It may be saying “feed me more and stop starving me!”

If you or your coach has had you diet for 3-4 months without a refeed or diet break of some kind that's not a coach, that’s someone just wanting a good before and after picture to post and to hell with your health.

Build your ritual! I’m really loving . I’ve cooked three meals a day for YEARS!!!!!!!

It feels really nice to have something super delicious that’s ready when I’m not in the mood to plan.

I know what macros I need to hit for each meal and now I don’t have to plan for it. Air fryer or stove top and I’m done!

Bulk chicken and veggies are super helpful too.

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I love going all out in the gym as much as anyone and it’s definitely needed, but it shouldn’t be done 365 days a year.

If all you do is more, you can end up screwing up your hormonal balance, down regulate thyroid function, not to mention the increase in stress hormones and being stuck in sympathetic dominance.

Your body needs strategic deload periods to improve, recover, and keep your stress threshold higher so you can return to allostasis(balance).

You can’t always be a part of the “go hard, no days off” crowd.

When you actually do less and back off, support your hormones, and feed up the body will adapt in a positive manner and progress will improve!

More is not always the answer.

Remember Something works until it doesn’t.

I used to do GIANT sets of every single exercise. I was wrong and tired.

But how do we get better gains? Train harder? Push each to failure & double up on the number of sets you are doing? NO!

Training smarter, not harder may actually give you better gains in the long run. Although there is a time & place for training to failure, it’s not someone you want to do every single set. In fact, that will probably do more harm than good. Of course, a baseline level of effort is necessary to make progress but training even HARDER is not always the answer.

In this post I wanted to talk about the concept of training stimulus & the resulting fatigue.

The numbers shown in the table on slide 2 are arbitrary, but can be used as reference. For example a lower RPE (reps per exercise) causes less of a stimulus, but also accumulates less overall fatigue. A higher RPE on the other hand will provide a much higher stimulus but the fatigue is also way higher, which could impair your ability to perform future workouts effectively.

So how much should we be doing? Well we need enough intensity to provide an adequate stimulus, but an amount we can recover from. Herd is some research that compares the effects of training to failure vs. not.

A study from Santanielo et al., (2020) asked participants to perform leg extensions to failure on one leg & ~2 reps shy of failure on the other leg at 75% 1RM for 10 weeks. This is a cool study design because individuals serve as their own control!

The results show that both legs experienced similar hypertrophy & strength! In other words, both failure & near failure training result in similar adaptations.

Compound, multi-joint exercises like squats & deadlifts cause higher fatigue. Therefore, going to failure on these types of exercises should be less frequent. On the other hand, single-joint exercises like a bicep curl or leg extension really don’t cause that much fatigue, therefore they can be taken closer to failure much more frequently than compound exercises!

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Everyone should track macros at least once in their life, AND whenever they want to "take their body somewhere," such as lose fat at a favorable rate.

For one, tracking macros teaches you to connect the dots between the food you eat and its composition (calories, protein, etc.)

This is must-know info for anyone who cares about their health.

The inevitable WTF moments (including the size of a legit serving of peanut butter) make it well worth doing.

Tracking also forces you to be engaged in the everyday mundane process of feeding your body, giving you the space to pump the breaks before "subliminal snacking," grazing, or finishing your kids plate. These little extras can easily add up to 500 calories a day. 

But another less talked about benefit of meal tracking is that it's much more FORGIVING than mere memory.

Folks will vividly remember the times they blew their diet, especially the epic cheat meals or the scary slides into stress binging.

What they usually DON'T remember, for whatever reason, are all the times they did pretty darn good sticking to their plan.

All the boring but repeatable breakfasts. The daily chicken salad snooze fest. The two or three dinner options repeated seemingly ad nauseum.

However, that one rough day when they broke down and had 8 slices of pizza?

Those run forever in the back of the mind like corrupt software, lowering overall opinion of their efforts and self esteem.

And as bad as ignoring snacks and poor food choices is for the physique, obsessing over occasional mistakes can be very harmful psychologically.

So keep a log. Somehow. An online meal tracker, Notes on your phone, or even a spiral notebook.

It's far from perfect but its still far better than relying on the computer between your ears.

Because the faintest ink is more powerful than the strongest memory.

You have every right to record yourself training in the gym, and you don't need to pre-qualify or justify your rationale to anyone!
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I wish I felt more confident to do so in the past. ⠀ ⠀
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Whether it's a professional camera on a tripod🎥 or your iPhone resting against your drink bottle📲 , it doesn't matter... ⠀
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What matters is that you feel safe and confident documenting your progress, sharing it with your coach, posting it on your story, or keeping it private if you choose.
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I encourage all of my clients to film their lifts. It's incredible to see their weekly progression.

Most of the time, I don't even have to tell them what needs correcting because they can see it themselves.
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Every now and then, when I pull out my camera or iPhone to record, I’m met with a funny look from across the gym floor or even get the odd comment "must be for the gram". Get outta here!! So what if it is?!
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I also can't believe that some gyms don't allow you to record in this day and age! I mean, it's 2022. You're not harming anyone by recording your training, and you don't need to be an athlete to do so. ⠀ ⠀
If you want to improve in the gym, you qualify! Do you record? Would you like to? Are you allowed? Whats your opinion? I'm curious👇🏽

I have to thank for this. I heard him speak to about how he coaches people to shift into a powerful mindset.

I’ll link the YouTube in my stories. ABSOLUTELY worth a listen.

I love to cook but when I’m short on time or just want to hit my macros without having to plan, it’s Trifecta for the WIN!

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I got you!!!!

I didn’t eat hamburger buns for like 13+ years! How crazy is that?!

Carbs (glucose) are going to be the primary fuel source your body uses when doing the style of training that is required to stimulate muscle building.

🧢No carbs = NO / Very little fuel = s**t performance = s**t stimulus

🧢Can you build muscle on no / limited carbs? Yes. You can. You can also ride a unicycle across the country instead of taking a plane. I’ll let you decide which you prefer.

🧢However, implementing more carbs with my clients resulted in more energy, better sleep, better training sessions, and more muscle.

🍚 They eat foods with more fibre, antioxidants, and vitamins - like fruit and grains.

🧢You might prefer low carb. Maybe you feel it's easier to stick to, or that you perform just fine, or that you feel less hungry. Maybe you need to eliminate some carby foods for health reasons.

That's ok too! Not bashing low carb; I still use it sometimes.

But there's no reason to be scared of carbs. We don't need to feel guilty about eating them.

Enjoy your food. Eat carbs. Get strong AND lean.