Before you make your new year resolution.,..

What happens when you run out of your Thrive patches, discounted gym membership specials, your 10 days juice cleanses, your 28 day plank challenges, or your 1 month supply of AdvoCare meal plans?

Comes Jan, this is what everybody is going to be doing because nobody wants to actually do the logical thing of reading, learning, and executing hard work consistently and intelligently.

Hard work means cooking more, reading food labels, be mindful of indulging your favorite caloric dense foods, make the time to make the gym, and have an actual training and nutrition plan that meets your goals.

The lazy way is to take a pill or wear a stupid patch/wrap in hope to not have to move more to increase calorie expenditure. Get on the treadmill or take a spin class so you don't need to learn how to lift weights to increase your lean mass that offers you higher metabolism PERMANENTLY. Blame your genetics, family, age, job, or self-labeling, self-defeating diseases like obesity, diabetes, or thyroids so you don't have to take personal responsibility to reverse your conditions. Or keep a food dairy and get more educated on nutrition so you know how to moderate your favorite foods instead of following dumb "rules" like a robot that tells you, you can't have this or can't have that, forever.

Whatever you're about to get on this new year, make sure you ask yourself these questions.

1. Will I come out of it with a new perspective on training principles?
2. Will I have a new love for cooking healthy and satiating meals?
3. Will I be driven to be stronger and more confidence with my body and how I move?
4. Will I have a better relationship with food and understand the interaction between nutrients, body composition, and hunger/cravings?
5. And most importantly, will my investment now saves me more time, heartaches, money, and health in the long run. Can this be sustained so I don't have to depend on a trainer, nutritionist, or some silly bootcamps.

May you have the courage today to do what's needed instead of what is simply convenient.

Mary Escalante

"Jem you're the best!!  And I will be your fan and cheerleader forever. You told me everything I wanted to do with my body was obtainable and it would have to be done with diet and strength training.  Let me tell you what you have done for me and my self confidence!! 

Since i started your diet and training program I've gone from 132 lbs to 116lbs  in just 4 weeks and let me add, without any cardio.  I'm  Deadlifting 185lbs when I could only lift 135. Abandoned the smith machine at your recommendation and now squatting 135 lbs.

Stubborn fat that everyone told me would have to be lipo'd, is just melting off.  You have made me one happy soon to be 50 yr old that thought I was stuck with the body that I was just gonna have to settle for because I believed there's no room for improvement.

One thing that sets you apart from other trainers is that you're always available for any question or concerns.   Your confidence and enthusiasm in your program makes it easy to trust you and keep me motivated. Your inspirational words are never far behind.  My family and friends have watched my transformation and are in awed of what I've accomplished. So much so that I tell them my trainer doesn't believe in cardio or clean eating for weight loss.  Which they say is not possible.  I point to myself and say to them  "look at me i am living by his training".

Q&A for looking drop-dead gorgeous for 2015

Q: What is the fastest way to lose fat?

A: Eat less than you burn.

Q: What about exercise for fat loss?

A: It's a tool and can be sustained long term to increase metabolism and human functions but not the fastest.

Q: How do I eat less than I burn?

A: You find out how many calories you burn a day and track how many calories you ingest and make sure you're in a negative energy balance until you reach your ideal body fat percentage.

Q: What if I get hungry?

A: You tolerate it with sheer willpower, drink more coffee or other caffeine containing substance to suppress it, or eat more satiating food to prevent it.

Q: What are satiating food to eat more of?

A: Fiber, water, and meat.

Q: Where do I get willpower?

A: Through accountability, role models, self-reflection, and reducing willpower spending on other aspects of life that requires it (bills, kids, sickness, projects, relationships, stress, etc.). Basically, get rid of fluff spending.

Q: How do I prevent fat regain?A: 1. Go back to eating at maintenance instead of eating at surplus.

2. Learn new recipes containing more satiating items instead of eating out or reaching for processed food all the time.

3. Find a hobby that get you moving but requires minimal willpower to get started and maintain.

4. Lift weights to increase lean mass which increases your metabolic rate at rest and when you move.

Q: Tracking calories is difficult, what is an easier way?

A: Eat more fiber, water, coffee, and meat and less of everything else and "hope" that you'd lose weight or hire a pro to teach you how to make tracking easier and guarantee your fat loss.

Q: What if I want the "tone" look?

A: Eat less while eat enough protein and apply heavy and progressive tension on the muscle.

Q: What about cardio?

A: It is counterproductive to building lean mass. It takes away your time and recoverability to apply heavy and progressive tension needed for muscle building.

Q: What is heavy and progressive tension?

A: Something you can't do for a very long time or too many repetitions in a row (20+). Something that requires sufficient rest between reps, sets, and workouts.

Q: Lifting weights can be intimidating, how do I get started as a beginner?

A: Watch youtube videos and do it yourself or hire a coach to teach you and give you a sound plan.

Q: What is the fastest way to put on lean mass to increase my metabolism?

A: Lift heavy things using compound movements through multiple sets, reps, and frequently throughout the week without getting injured and eat meat.

Q: What if I get too bulky?

A: Put the weights down and stop taking anabolic hormones from your dealer.

Q: What if I fall off my routine?

A: Make lifting fun and rewarding so training no longer feels like a chore but "play".

Q: How do I make it fun and rewarding?

A: 1. Make it competitive.

2. Have a short term performance goal you can reach quickly and continuously having more in mind when you reach it. The load you use or the skill you acquired is faster and more visible in the gym than the number on the scale or in the mirror. If you don't see positive value quickly after you put in the work, you will find excuses to quit. Performance goals give you instant positive feedback unlike the scale or your pants size. This will help you keep doing something miserable without giving up.

3. Mentally assign positive values to the pain you have to endure so it reinforces your fitness behaviors. Basically, tell yourself nice things or pay someone to do it for you.

4. Get into a community of lifters who shares the same goal and passion. Once you're part of the iron culture, lifting would feel like the norm and skipping training would feel taboo.

5. Reduce as much pain and misery involved (time, injuries, and judgments) so training and learning how to train can be flexible and sustained long term.

For this new year, I hope these are the things you are thinking about and not some belly wrap, fat burners, juice cleanses, yoga, or some meaningless cardio regiments when it comes to actualizing your physique goals.

Also, if you are already drop-dead gorgeous like my client Taylor here, now you'd know how to answer your friend's questions 

Best Fat Burner

Trainers, writers, and people with overweight lazy friends.

Next time someone ask you, "what's the best fat burner?".

Respond with.  "Your body"

It's easily accessible, it burns faster than the net (extra) energy expenditure you get from crack, esp if you are moving but being alive is good enough (and we all know nothing out there is superior than crack), you don't need a gym membership, no pills/shakes to buy, it's all natural, and anybody can do it, even those with gluten "allergies", hypothyroid ppl, the old, and the "i had 3 kids" ppl.

Fastest way to burn fat?  Stay alive.  Moving is a bonus.

I just saved your friends and clients so much money.  You're welcome

10 Training and Diet Fluff People Do To Slow Down Fat Loss and Muscle Gain

When you've found the "best approach" or the "perfect plan" to reach your goal, if that exist, anything that takes away your resources to execute your perfect plan like time, money, and mental effort should be considered avoided.  If you really want THE shortcut, you would cease wasteful spending of your resources on fluff behaviors.  

If you're a busy person, a lazy person, or an unmotivated person, the last thing you need to do is fluff training and fluff dieting. You already have so little willpower and time going for you, why spend it on things that don't work?

Let me describe what the ideal approach for is for losing fat and gaining muscle then I'll give you a few  examples of the "fluff" you might be committing now that's holding you back.

If you want to look better than your current physique, you have to gain muscle while lose body fat.  Most people tell trainers they just want to be "healthy." But they really meant they want to lose body fat and look good naked.  Sure, being healthy is nice for a 60-70 year old but improving your physique is what really drives people to attend group classes, eat clean, and hire help 99% of the time.  When they say they want to "feel stronger" or "athletic", they also meant having more muscle on their body to move and look like they play a sports, don't lie, it's true.

If you need to get strong and muscular you have to strength train and eat. And I don't mean the pink dumbbells you see Julian Michael holding or the 20lb barbells you use in body pump class.  I meant heavy ass weight you can't do for more than 10-15reps at a time before you reach muscular fatigue.

If you are not eating enough protein and not applying enough tension onto your muscle to elicit adaptation; you will not get stronger or more muscular.

If you need to lose body fat; move more, eat less, and have the patience to do that for a while.  If you somehow  end up eating more (knowingly or mindlessly) because you're not budgeting your calories correctly, you won't lose fat.  If you follow stupid dietary advice like "clean eating" or "just go vegetarian/paleo", taking pills, juicing, or use body wraps thinking you'll burn more, you will never lose the fat.  even if you did, it's because whatever the product or system you're using tricked you into eating less, which you could have done it yourself without paying a shit load of money and believing in pseudoscience. It's not magical, you just ate less.

To help boost your metabolism you HAVE to apply work.   Anything that is not resistance training or helping you eat less will be time, money, and energy wasted on fluff.  

You need to eat and train in ways that's enjoyable, safe, and relevant to your current lifestyle and fitness level so that you have the mental and physical capacity to keep doing it without quitting.

The 21 day plank challenge you do with your coworkers or the 2 weeks sugar detox your girlfriends show you aren't going to last.  If you have to reach a goal or develop a new habit through so much resistance (through willpower), it's not likely that they last.
Education and smart planning on the other hand, will. This means reading and being more open-minded to methods you may not have tried or heard of.   See mistakes as just missteps to doing it better next time.  Build small and productive habits on top of another positive, existing habit so there is not a lot of "willpower" require to eventually reach the end goal. The end goal, being having healthy habits that make eating less and moving more easy.  When you're enjoying the process, you won't even feel all of this fitness business is "work" anymore and that's the magic to "maintenance".

At the end of the day, you will have to lift intelligently with resistance over time and eat just enough food to build lean mass while still be in an overall energy deficit to lose body fat.  This is what helps you get the results you want so you can look good naked.  I know this doesn't sound sexy at all (the math and the planning) but you will FEEL sexy when you actually get results instead of jumping from new fitness fads to newer fitness fads.  If you have trouble with this, seek help from a professional who doesn't sell you stupid shakes,  5min dumb workout routines, meal replacements, but actually produce results reguarlily and have endless testimonials to show it. 

You might be doing a lot of fluff today that you're not aware of.  Here are ways to help you invest your resources better. Unless you actually enjoy the behaviors I’m describing below and willing to justify them for a slower, less efficient way of reaching your goal (or never), then the list should apply to everyone.

Fluff Things People Do For Fat Loss 

1. Eating less sodium or drinking excessive amount of water. This has little do to with energy balance.

2. Not embracing hunger every time you feel hungry.

3. Fear of: cholesterol, saturated fat, gluten, GMO food, sugar, carbs, milk, fat, protein, alcohol, meat, candy, pizza, etc. (Really anything that's not rat poison or that you're medically not supposed to have and totally disregard the fact that quantity of foods matter.)

4. Using cardio or HIIT as the only way to burn more calories.

If you actually try to build more lean mass from heavy lifting, (or avoid cardio/conditioning type workouts that breakdown your muscle when done excessively) you'll burn more calories outside of the gym everyday than your actual cardio workouts.  Lean tissues are more calorically expensive to keep alive which is good for burning more calories and to help offset surplus incoming calories in the future.

5. Not tracking calories - guessing your energy intake and output and lie about it to your trainer.

6. Buying useless products: protein shakes, Thrive and WorkIt patches, and packaged meals that may be more convenient but don't help you truly "eat less" long term.  this is because they don't do the things they promise you, like increase your metabolism, satiate hunger, or fix your cravings etc... More importantly, it doesn't teach you time management and cooking skills. you know, real world, basic human stuff.

7. Becoming a vegetarian.

8. Telling people you became a vegetarian.

9. Only want to be told what to eat and what not to eat instead of learning about nutrition for yourself. So you can make dietary choices and think independently at the restaurant and in the kitchen or even when you're traveling.   Basically, if you ask for meal plans instead of a cookbook from a trainer/nutritionist; you have already failed.  

10. Hash-tagging and Pinterest full of delicious dessert porn you know you shouldn't be looking at.

Fluff Things People Do For Muscle Gain

1. Yoga, Zumba, Barre, BeachBody, LesMill, and getting massages.  Basically anything bodybuilders didn't do 30 years ago. and most commercial gym free/cheap group classes.

2. Running and thinking that's good enough for "leg day".

3. Drinking protein shakes and not lifting.  Drinking any shakes and not lifting.

4. Buying gym memberships and not using it, reading a lot about fitness but never starting anything.

5. Getting injured due to lack of common sense in the gym or doing too much repetitive movements for a long duration of time.

6. Crossfit, HIIT, Insanity, cross training, circuit training, dildo training, as well as most boot camps that worries about how many calories you burn or how much you sweat instead of how much weight you can stack on the bar... or using bosu balls for everything and call it functional training. … and pink dumbbells.

7. Anything that is not progressively overloading your body with more resistance correctly and frequently than what you can handle currently with ease is fluff.

8. Do only what "feels" good instead of doing what's necessary.

everybody is all about their feelings instead of what it actually takes to reach their goal.  It's to hot outside,  i don't have the right music, the gym is too expensive/far, I have kids and school, i rather run than doing push ups, and blah blah blah.  
Learn to love/worship the pump and the soreness that comes after the workout. Even if that means waking up earlier than usual, getting out of bed on a cold day, or train the upper body when your legs are still sore.  Just get to the gym!

9. Playing a sport that doesn't involve lifting more than just body weight and call it resistance training.

10. Jogging

Please invest your resources better or hire a professional that can help you in that department. Esp. if you've tried and tried and are still not getting the results you wanted.  Stop thinking "this time will be different" when your methods are the same.

Stop Fluff Spending.

"Since meeting him, my training is more effective and my results, more amazing.   Jem has graciously contributed to me gaining back power over my body and my future; I am in the best shape of my life NOW, after having a child, and am a much happier, healthier version of me!   I can't wait to compete again in October when I'll be able to apply what I've learned from him.  Thanks jem!"

- Daisy Saenz

8 Lame Ass Excuses for Not Wanting to Eat Less For Weight Loss and Hotness

(these are real excuses I hear from people on a daily basis)

1. "I eat clean but still can't lose weight!"
Clean eating does not equates to health or weight loss. Stop using the word "Clean" to describe your diet. Unless you wash all your foods with Mr. Clean, you're not truly a clean eater. Most people have no idea how both healthy and weight loss nutrition operate anyways and their beliefs on what's clean is completely different from the person they are arguing with.

Stop justifying that you are making a REAL effort to lose weight from eating clean, you're not. Use that same effort and apply to "eating less" and you'll get better results. Eating less is quantifiable where eating clean (or dirty) is subjective. If you believe in real quantifiable, physical things (like the fat that's still on your body), you'd track your calories to lose weight instead of buying overpriced, "clean", "wild", "organic", crap that does nothing differently from the conventional ones for your body composition. There are soooooo many apps out now that make this super simple.

2. "My trainer told me I have to eat more (than maintenance) to lose weight"
That makes absolutely no sense at all. I need to buy more shoes to save more money for a car? Your trainer need to read a book. Go back to 7th grade physics and re-learn the First law of thermodynamics, please. And fire the clown.

3. "What brand of protein shake should I buy?"
If you like to be hungry all the time, any brand works. Shakes are for people trying to gain weight, have deficiencies, and have no time to cook. That's why they give them to nursing home residents and teenage boys having a hard time putting on mass for football. Mass is something you have plenty of.

There are no pills for quick success. If you want instant results, you have to do some research to find the smartest and most cost-effective programs base on results you actually witnessed around you. Like the diet/gym your friends and family did to achieve their transformations. Something that's similar and applicable to your goal. Something REAL with a little common sense behind it.

If you just want to buy a drink (or wrap, or pills, or a shot) in hopes to make your problems go away, listen to Dr. Oz or your yoga instructor for what shakes they're selling that month so you don't have to lift weights and eat less. You will also stay fat, dumb, and have less money to spend on nicer things, though.

4. "I need to eat more for energy"
Again, go back to the thermodynamic principle. Unless you're under 15% body fat for a girl or 10% for a guy, you don't need to eat for anything for a while. What you need is learn how to mobilize the excess fat that's still on your butt to give you energy. Have you tried fasting? Work on projects to keep you busy? Drink coffee? Move more? Or embrace hunger? Gasp!

5. "I can't lose weight because of my thyroid"
You can't lose weight because you don't want it bad enough and you find excuses to make your problem something you can't change through "work". Same for people who claim they have a sugar or soda addiction as if it's a medical issue that warrant medical treatments and it's not in their power to change it. Or that it's genetic. Or they're big bone. Or have slow metabolism due to their age.

'Whether you think you can, or you think you can't--you're right.' - Henry Ford

Your metabolic rate is mainly determined by how much lean mass you have on your body and how much you move. If you strength train, you'd accomplished both. You can be 50 and have higher metabolism than 20 yearolds if you're training and they're not.

6. "I try eating less sodium, drinking more water, and buy everything organic and gluten free"
... For what? All that mental and physical resources you could have used it on counting calories and cooking better but you won't, cuz you're lazy.

Find out how many calories you burn a day, eat less than what you burn depending on the rate of fat loss you prefer, and do it long enough and you'll lose weight! That's the secret!

7. "I keep falling off the wagon"
Then stop getting back on! if you don't get back on, you'll never fall! Especially for type A personalities. Diet and exercise is not an on and off thing. You do know that this is something you have to do for the rest of your life right? You can't go to war with your body fat all the time, it's exhausting! Make small and useful changes slowly so it becomes habits and be patient with your progress. Doesn't sound very sexy/sensational i know but it works all the time, seriously.

Stop the mentality that you have to go hardcore when it's "ON" or that you have to restrict blah blah blah to find the perfect diet or training protocol to blast your fat away. Use some common sense when people feed you garbage information that doesn't help with your weight loss effort. Aim to gain more education instead of more restrictions from the food you eat in.

Instead of completely swear off carbs/sugar or go gun-ho on vegan diets, try smaller, less restricting lifestyle changes like adding more lean meat in your diet to keep you satiated longer, eat out less like 2x/week instead of 5x/week, read more books on nutrition that aren't recommended by Oprah, or pre-cut and wash your veggies right after grocery shopping to make cooking dinner more likely to occur to prevent you from eating easy-to-reach, caloric dense foods. These are all great way to make small, meaningful changes to your journey without inflicting too much guilt when you do fall off.

8. "I'm too poor to change my diet and workout"
Have you forgot how to walk and do push ups? You don't have a pan to stir fry meat and veggies? The fat on your chin is worth $50 of food you don't need to buy for the next few days. You should be saving money.

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8 Lame Excuses for Not Lifting Heavy Things to Get Strong and Look Sexy

1. "I don't want to get too big"... 

As if you accidentally picked up something heavy, you'd wake up jacked tomorrow. You know you can always put down your pink dumbbell when you feel "bulked" right? Do you even know how much volume and intensity real lifters have to lift to get to the physique you see in magazines?

All those teenager with 10x the testosterone production to yours should all turn into bodybuilders when they accidentally helped you with your grocery bags right? When you hear trainers/writers use words like "tone" and train for "long lean muscle", they're really just trying to sell you more yoga/pilate sessions and flashy light weight equipment that weighs less than your baby or a backpack filled with books.

2. "I don't have time"
All i hear is, 'it's not a priority'.

3. "I don't have the discipline to be strict with a routine"
More restrictions will only means more chances of failing. Which means more chances of never showing up for workouts again because you feel so dis-empowered.

Learn flexible training by taking a minimalist approach (the opposite of 'no pain, no gain'). Have a back up plan when logistics don't go your way. For that to happen, you have to read a lot to have a smart program that actually yield results. You also have to plan ahead so there are minimal chances of falling off your routine with lame excuses like, "it's too cold", "I travel a lot", "I don't have the right songs for leg day", or "the cheapest gym is too far from me." If you make workouts easier to execute, then it wouldn't require so much discipline to have it done.

4. "Weight training interfere with my cardio"
You will have accomplished both strength development and heart health when you strength train, dummy. Just lift more weights and your cardiovascular capacity will improve. Not vice versa, though.

Unless sports performance is important to you, just lift weights. If it is, then lift weights faster with less rest between sets. Your sports specific drills and games is enough "conditioning" for you. Conditioning is kind of like maintaining. As in, not really changing much. The goal is to change though... fast. which makes cardio/conditioning secondary to strength training. For sports AND for bodybuilding. And please, don't call endurance events like jogging, hiking, and biking a sport. Ain't nobody got time for that.

5. "I need to switch things up a bit so my body doesn't plateau, what do you recommend I do beside strength training?"
Put more plates on the bar, that's all the confusion your body needs. If you think programs like "P90X/Insanity" is the fastest way to get strong and build "long lean muscle", you're dumb for being so gullible for late night infomercials. As human beings, we're designed to push and pull heavy things (among other primal movements like crawl, climb, carries, skip, and sprint), so in training, you should push and pull heavy things and let "playing a sport" or "going camping" take care of all the other aspects of natural movements we're suppose to do. When the weight starts to feel easy, put more load on it and your body will be force to adapt, again. It's that simple and you'll never have to plateau. Plates are cheap on craiglist.

6. "I don't want to hurt my back doing squats or deadlift. I rather do yoga because it strengthens my core or do bodyweight stuff."
If you don't lift weights, how would you ever develop the skills to lift a heavy box when helping your kids move from dorm to dorm? change your own tires? or save someone's life in a crisis? If you think doing calisthenics, holding weird poses, or moving while laying on the floor is all you need, then you'll never fully express your genetic potential to be as strong as possible. Useful strong. and because you're not useful strong, you die quicker (deterioration of your musculoskeletal system -> immobility -> suppress immune system -> disease and infections -> hospice) compare to someone else who strength train. Lifting heavy things is not dangerous. Being weak is.

7. "I don't have enough motivation"
You need to find the mental SKILLS to not have to depend on motivation. Making a bet with someone or throwing money at a trainer will only give you temporary motivation. It'll get you going but it won't help you be persistence with doing miserable things like " move more" long term. Motivation is a finite resource we all don't have enough of.

Shoot for performance goals that you'd actually enjoy doing and yield small but quick results that'll make your effort instantly rewarded. This way you'll actually see meaning in the work you put in and won't feel like working out is a chore. You have to be patient with your progress, have humility with your actions/mistakes, and be smart with the way you set up your goals and expectations.

8. "What do you think of Crossfit? HIIT? Cross Training? Weighted vibrators?"
I think I prefer Zumba. It's less dumb and safer. What is your goal, again? Just lift heavy things already! We've lifted heavy things for thousands of years to enable ourselves to move usefully for survival and look muscular. Why do you keep spending your time/energy shopping for fluff programs and looking at fitness fads? Are we all OCD or something? the PERFECT program doesn't exist and there are no "secrets". However, we CAN look at what current experimental research tells us so we can do the best of what we know. What we know so far is that when you lift heavy things like lifting something from the ground, carrying something on your back, in your hands, or above your head, pressing, or pulling yourself up to something, regularly and safely, you'll get to see and do more things like playing a sport longer, having more sex, eat more, and live longer with less pain.

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