“When you walk, you won’t be held back; when you run, you won’t stumble.” – Proverbs 4:12
Here are some of this week’s updates for members of Underground Fitness Revolution. Be sure to sign up for our Weekly Newsletter to get all the updates (fill in your first name and email address in the box at the top right part of the web site).
Fitness Quote of the Week:
“Our health always seems much more valuable after we lose it.” – Author Unknown
Transformation Tip of the Week:
You are where you are right now because of your past choices, and there are only two options: Accept it or change it. Your choice. There are things you can do TODAY that will make you leaner, fitter, happier, sexier, healthier and wealthier. TAKE ACTION and do them.
Nutrition Tips of the Week:
Have you been keeping a food journal? You should be doing this for at least TWO consistent and consecutive months in order to change your eating habits. Anything that touches your lips MUST go in your food journal. Remember, research has shown that those who keep a food journal lose an average of 3.5 pounds more than those that don’t.
Refer to your Underground Nutrition Guide for the 10 rules you should be following for each meal every day.
The common mistakes I see are:
- Not eating protein with EVERY meal and snack
- Not eating a fruit or vegetable with EVERY meal and snack
- Not drinking enough water
- “Drinking” your fruit rather than eating it
You MUST eat protein and a fruit or vegetable with EVERY meal and snack. If you don’t do this, you will need to mark an “X” on your compliance grid as it counts as a “splurge” or incomplete meal. You will quickly see that you are far from 90% compliance – and 90% compliance is required to lose fat and meet your goals.
So use your food journal to write down everything. Then, show it to me once each week before or after your training session. Put your compliance grid worksheets on your refrigerator and go through your meals each day to see how many “X’s” or check marks you have. You want as many check marks as possible to get to 90%. You should only have 3-4 X’s each week.
Ladies: You can get by with THREE meals (breakfast, lunch, dinner) and ONE snack (preferably after lunch and before your workout) each day rather than five or more meals and snacks like the guys. However, on workout days you MUST also drink chocolate milk or a post-workout shake immediately after training. Otherwise, that counts as an “X.”
Be sure to drink half your body weight in ounces of water each day and EAT your fruit rather than drinking fruit juices. They contain too much sugar and calories – even if they appear as a healthy substitute!
I cannot stress how important it is that you follow the 10 Underground Nutrition Rules to lose fat and get in your best shape ever! Nutrition is THE most important factor to your results. You cannot out-train a bad diet. It’s impossible. You can train five or more days each week, but if you’re not following the nutritional guidelines (even on the weekends), it may take you a long time to meet your goals.
Please, let me know if you need help with your meal planning and snacks.
Here are a few quick snack ideas that follow the Underground Nutrition rules:
- 8 oz Cottage cheese with fruit (berries, peaches, pineapple) and nuts (walnuts)
- 8 oz Greek or Plain yogurt (w/ splenda) with fruit and nuts
- Two boiled eggs and fruit or veggies
- Two boiled eggs with hummus (undeviled egg) and fruit or veggie
- Two cheese sticks with fruit and 1oz nuts
- Protein shake with fruit and nuts
- Salad with meat, veggies, avocado (or nuts, or olive oil)
- Apple with all-natural peanut butter
- Celery stick with all-natural peanut butter
- Any combination of a protein source + a fruit or veggie + a healthy fat (raw nuts, avocado, olive oil, Salmon or other fatty fish, raw seeds, all-natural peanut butter, etc.)
- Leftovers from a previous meal that follows these rules
- High-quality deli meat (Boar’s Head turkey or chicken) rolled up with cheese with some fruit or veggie on the side
When making your grocery list for the week, remember these two interesting findings published in the book, “Food Rules:”
- Eating one pound of fruits and vegetables per day reduces your cancer risk by 50%.
- People who eat meat a few times per week are just as healthy and live just as long as vegetarians. So you don’t have to give up meat. And remember – if you eat a lot of meat, insist on top quality (grass-fed, organic, farm-raised).
Also, if you’re following the Underground Nutrition Guidelines 90% of the time and not seeing changes, then you may be eating too much! Be sure to check the portion sizes of the meals you consume.
For men, consume 6-8 ounces of lean protein per meal. For women, consume 3-6 ounces of lean protein per meal. If you’re eating a 8-16oz steak at dinner, you’re definitely eating too much. Fill your plate with plenty of high-fiber, low-calorie veggies like spinach, broccoli, green beans, mushrooms, tomatoes, zucchini, etc.
Remember, overall calories do count even if you follow the rules 90% of the time. If you eat more than your body burns, you won’t be able to lose weight (fat)! So cut back on your portion sizes and you should see the scale begin to move down.
Fitness Tip of the Week:
Did you know that you don’t need to hit abs directly for an effective core workout? Ab exercises like the ones we use at Underground Fitness Revolution are great for strengthening your core and helping to prevent back problems, but lifts like standing overhead shoulder presses, squats, push-ups, chin-ups and deadlifts already work hard to stabilize your body. In fact, these moves train your abs harder than crunches (Men’s Fitness, Dec./Jan. 2010, p22).
Interval Training for Fat Loss:
If you have a limited amount of time to train, and you want to maximize your fat loss, interval training is highly effective.
What is interval training? Interval training is simply alternating periods of work with periods of rest. The most common form of interval training is a short sprint followed by a slow jog or walking for a period of time and then repeated. Interval training is intense and requires pushing yourself hard during the periods of work (maximum effort). However, interval training can be performed by anyone of any fitness level - push yourself as hard as you can and progress over time.
How effective is it? Check out this research study:
Reference: Tremblay A, Simoneau JA, Bouchard C.
Impact of exercise intensity on body fatness and skeletal muscle metabolism.
Metabolism. 1994 Jul; 43(7):814-8.
The premise of the study was to compare twenty (20) weeks of steady-state endurance training and fifteen (15) weeks of interval training.
When comparing total calories burned from exercise, the researchers found the endurance training burned 28,661 calories, while the interval training group burned 13,614 calories.
NOTE: In other words, the interval-training group burned less than half the calories of the endurance-training group.
However, when the researchers adjusted the results to correct for the difference in energy cost (because interval training continues to burn additional calories for many hours after you stop exercising), the interval-training group showed a 900% greater loss in subcutaneous fat than the endurance group.
NOTE: In other words, calorie for calorie, interval training was NINE times more effective than steady-state exercise for fat loss.
Additionally, the researchers noted the metabolic adaptations taking place in the skeletal muscle in response to the interval training program appear to favor the process of fat oxidation.
NOTE: This means interval training burns fat far better than steady-state exercise.
In addition to our metabolic resistance training sessions at Underground Fitness Revolution, performing interval training on your “off” days will greatly increase your fat loss and conditioning results. Combining your Underground Fitness Revolution sessions with 1-3 days of interval training will help you lose fat even faster!
That’s why I have provided a variety of interval training workouts that can be performed on your “off” days. Best of all, the interval-based workouts require no equipment and will only take 4-18 minutes to perform. Try adding in 1-2 days per week of interval training on your “off” days and see how effective it can be. You can even perform the interval workouts with your family, friends and kids!
If you have any questions about the interval workouts, just let me know. I’ll be emailing you the fat loss interval soundtracks to be used with some of these sessions as well.
Latest Research Studies:
Study 1:
This one is about the truth of calorie counting.
Researchers looked at 524 men and women in a two-week study. All they had to do was estimate how many calories they ate each day. This number was compared to their actual calorie intake, as determined by a proven scientific method.
The results were shocking. On average, the subjects underreported calorie intake by 11% each day.
So if you think that you eat 2,000 calories per day, you probably eat 2,200 calories per day. That will slow your weight loss fast.
Reference: American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 88, No. 2, 324-332, August 2008.
The US Department of Agriculture Automated Multiple-Pass Method reduces bias in the collection of energy intakes.
That’s just one reason you need to keep a food journal!
Study 2:
Researchers studied how long people were able to stick to a “complex” diet.
They wanted to know if weight loss diet programs fail because they are too complex and dieters forget the rules.
One of the programs studied was Weight Watchers and the researchers found that “perceived rule complexity” was the strongest factor associated with increased risk of quitting.
Reference: Appetite. Volume 54, Issue 1, February 2010, Pages 37-43.
Bottom line: Weight Watchers doesn’t work because there are too many rules. It needs to be simple! All that “points counting and substitutions” cause people to quit.
Instead, you need a simple diet. The 10 Underground Nutrition Guidelines are easy to follow and based on simple principles to help you reach your goals faster and maintain your results.
I hope you enjoyed this week’s updates. Get ready to hit it hard again this week!
Dedicated to your health and fitness,
Nate
Try this Healthy Chicken Pizza Recipe!
