Reaching Small Goals Collectively Becomes Big Ones, EFFORTLESSLY

This is going to be a very short post with some spanking new motivational articles to read.

I wrote this email to a friend who's feeling unmotivated about with their diet/training and swore she will "work" harder next week.

"stop thinking somehow next week you're just going to turn the "hardworking" switch on. if it hasn't happen right now, it's not going to happen anytime soon. 

start today, small, whatever it is, plan ahead on the grocery or meal prep instead of trying to clean out the whole kitchen cabinet and stock it up with diet food you'd never eat. start with just bodyweight pushup at home instead of thinking you'll hit the gym hard for 2 hours, write down what you eat and look up how many calories is in them instead of completely swear off to all sugar and starch, read a couple more of my articles each day instead of thinking somehow next week your motivation is going to kick in and everything is going to come together. I guess what i'm trying to say is set smaller goals so that you can get instant feedback that will keep you going and slowly you'll reach your bigger goal without having to say to yourself that you must have "will power" or "commitment". make fat loss an almost effortless goal. this mean don't weigh yourself everyday because seeing a couple lb lost is a huge (7000kcal deficit) goal, instead, feel good that you only have 2soda today or hasn't eaten any chips. be proud of not watching as much TV and actually went to bed early and got 8 hours of sleep. or instead of driving through a fast food place just because it's lunch time even though you're not hungry, feel good that you skipped lunch and fasted til dinner time to eat. once these small changes becomes habits, fat loss becomes soooooo easy."

Here's how to do it: 5 Simple Fat Loss Strategies
http://www.jyfitness.blogspot.com/2012/09/6-simple-fat-loss-strategies.html

The Art of Flipping the Switch
http://www.schwarzenegger.com/fitness/post/the-art-of-flipping-the-switch 

How to Enter the Flow with Immediate Feedback, Achieve Short Term Goal, and be Internally Motivated
http://www.spring.org.uk/2012/06/the-psychology-of-flow-in-under-300-words.php 

How to Manipulate your Brain to Work Toward Your Goal
http://addicted2success.com/success-advice/6-ways-your-brain-attempts-to-sabotage-your-goals-for-success/ 

Don't Just Try, DO!
http://www.girlsgonestrong.com/no-try-not-do-or-do-not-there-is-no-try/ 

5 Simple Fat Loss Strategies!

I’m taking a lot of context out of these tips and it’s supposed to work for most overweight dieters.

If you actually do the things below consistently (at least 2 weeks) and don’t see the results you’re expecting, you might be doing them wrong or they are not personalized and structured enough.


1. Increase Protein Intake and lower carbs and fat (and alcohol if you’re a big drinker)

If you simply eat more protein, you will AUTOMATICALLY eat less carbs and less calories overall spontaneously.

Reduce intake of sugar and grain base food like rice, pasta, wheat, and starchy veggies like bean, corn, carrots, and potatoes (allow the starchy stuff post workout). Obviously their derivatives are not ideal; cupcakes, cookies, noodles, bread, and oatmeal, cereal, soda, ice cream.

When and if you do train, have your carbs after your workout and later in the day. Make 2-3 meals out of the week your “cheat meals” and feel free to indulge your carbs and junk food, just don’t go crazy on them. Having 200-300kcal worth of junk food won’t make much of a difference if you’re pretty active and has consistently sticking to your diet.

Keep dietary fat low on those 2-3 cheat days since the minimum for survival for most overweight people is low (20g) and is easy to meet. On all other days including low volume strength training sessions (under 15 total work sets) and light cardio days, drop carbs as much as you can.

To know more about carbs and it’s role in metabolism and fat loss, read this.
http://www.examiner.com/article/low-carbing-austin

Low carb diets isn’t magic but will help most overweight and especially sedentary dieters lose weight.
http://www.examiner.com/article/top-6-low-carb-diet-myths-debunked


2. Reduce Meal Frequency and feeding window and skip meals spontaneously when you’re not hungry.

Best to start with breakfast. Allot most of your caloric intake toward the end of the day. I know this is against conventional wisdom but then again, there is no solid evidence that eating frequently or eating breakfast is supposed to help increase metabolism.

The Science Behind I.F.
www.leangains.com/2010/10/top-ten-fasting-myths-debunked.htm

Nutritional myths are easily spread in the food and supplement industry as long as it boosts sales.

You’ll find that there is little science to back up the myth that eating 5x a day boosts your metabolism or prevent you from losing muscle mass. On the other hand, it makes more logical sense to eat less often (or keeping feeding window shorter) because it give you less chances of taking in more calories than your body needs.

Breakfast: Worst Meal Of The Day
http://www.jyfitness.blogspot.com/2011/02/breakfast-worst-meal-of-day.html

At the end of the day, calorie matters no matter how many/few meals you end up taking in. Your total calories over the entire day will dictate your mass gain or lost. Most of my clients use this approach alone to drop body fat and rarely complain about hunger issues.

You are welcome to give it a try. Here are other real world transformations from using this method 1, 2, 3.

If you get hungry first thing in the morning, drink coffee. if you’re not a coffee fan, drink tea or water or take a caffeine pill (200mg).

A little creamer won’t break your fast, half n half is fine. Caffeine suppresses hunger & upregulate fat metabolism.

Sugar/carb (can) elicit hunger for those who are more insulin resistance to them, so it’s a good idea to just avoid sugary/starchy food on most non-training days.

Due to body-fat burning being unregulated upon waking in the A.M., your blood sugar level will be stable throughout the day if you stay in the fasted state. Don’t make it a habit to snack all the time, let your insulin level stabilize so you can actually allow your fat cells to mobilize the fat contents within to be burned as fuel.

For this reason, I promote eating big meals 1-2x a day or keeping your feeding window under 8hours/day. The anticipation to eat after fasting, like drug/sex/gambling, will give you a bigger reward (dophamine release). The longer you wait for it, your meals will be more psychologically satisfying and you won't need to snack constantly throughout the day.

Again, meal frequency should be a personal preference but in my experience, reducing meal frequency while increasing meal size (w/ overall calories controlled in the deficit) fare better for body re-composition and appetite control for those dieting.


3. Drink water. 
Rule of thumb. for starters, try achieving 3 clear urination a day. get at least half GL of water in a day, that's aside from other liquidy food you take in. work up to 5 clear piss (esp. if you’re athletic). water can alievate the stress of low cal dieting and improve almost all hormonal functions. have 1GL water bottles laying around the house can help give your the visual cues you need to drink more naturally. and eat spicy food.


4. Tracking your food intake if your fat loss starts to stall.
I don't like counting calories personally, especially for longer than a month but for someone who's goal is to lose fat while have no idea how many calories you take in on a daily basis, you should familiarize yourself with the content of the food/energy you eat.

You can get started here if the above advice didn’t work for you.

Logging in or keep a food log is a great way to hold yourself accountable. This allow you to reflect against your dietary habit and calorics needs for your goal. if you don't consistently lose weight, this means you're still eating too many calories. So track your calories for at least 3 days to understand how your body feels when you're eating under or over your maintenance. Then you can move onto eating intuitively.

This post shows you how to estimate your daily energy expenditure, how to set your deficit target, and how to set up the macro nutrients.

If you still think this is too complicated, try this
http://www.examiner.com/article/are-you-beach-body-ready-for-zilker-park

5. Flexbility of dieting.
if you're doing good most of the time on my diet, (500-100kcal/day of a deficit) having a piece of cookie is not going to ruin it. Dieters get on a strict diet would completely swear off soda, ice cream, or pizza, and then when they have one piece, they feel super guilty and simply give up because they think they don't have any will power.

If you think about it, a couple pieces of cookie might only be 200kcal. If a person can achieve a 3000kcal energy deficit in one week, the 200kcal cookie is not that big of a deal. just fix your craving, relax, enjoy the cookie, then get back on the diet tomorrow.

Don't let occasional indulgence ruin your attitude. How you eat most of the time dictate how you will look, not the occasional slip-ups. Dieters ruin their good routine not because the diet failed them but because they fail themselves mentally by being too hard on all the rules.

Give yourself a break from time to time will go a long way.

Motivation and Accountabilityhttp://www.jyfitness.blogspot.com/2011/03/motivation-and-accountability.html

Bonus: Set goals and Train!

Stop doing what's not working. adapt and move forward
http://www.roglawfitness.com/on-challenges-uncertainty-and-becoming-a-supreme-badass/

What I Learned About Health And Fitness
http://www.theiflife.com/trainer-tells-all-health-fitness/

Sample Goals to Shoot For
http://jyfitness.blogspot.com/2011/12/sample-goals-for-strength-and.html

If they can do it, you can do it
http://jyfitness.blogspot.com/p/2012-transformations.html

Lose 2lb a week with Cheesecake Factory, La Madeline, and Carl's Jr

One of my clients came to me with a very unique issue.

He needs to lose body fat, keep the muscle, and cannot cook at home.

We are shooting for 2lb of fat loss a week = 7,000kcal worth of deficit.

He is 6'3", 53years old, active, train 4x/week, currently weighs at 215lb, only eat once on sundays, and is I.F. friendly.

His top 3 favorite and most visited restaurants are Carls Jr, La Madeleine, and Cheese Cake Factory.

He needs to get down to around 200lb to see visible abs and like to get there in 3 months.

After consulting with him, this is one of many menus I gave him and I'm only posting this on my blog to illustrate how a dieter can eat out (or not eat clean) while still meet his/her target calorie intake and minimum protein intake to lose fat and build the muscle.

We are shoot for 1700kcal a day with around 160g of protein. His maintenance is around 2,600kcal.  This is the menu I gave him with a short description on how to go upon doing the diet.


1. La Madeleine Spinach Salad W/ Chicken- Regular
Calories: 390, Protein: 28g

2. La Madeleine Smart Choice Omelet W/ Spinach, Mushroom & Tomato - No Bread
Calories 228, Protein 19g

3. Cheese cake factory Bar-B-Que Salmon
calories  521 protein 74g

4. Carl's Jr: Hand-Breaded Chicken Tenders™ (5 pieces)
calories 440 protein 41g

This add up to 1574kcal and 162g of protein so far.

The rest of 126kcal can from a couple condiment packets to make food more tasty.

You can eat these four items 1x/day in whatever order you like.

you can eat them within 8hrs window but shorter is better.

If you miss out on an item, that's fine as long as you're not hungry.  It's better to eat under than over since your goal is fat loss and we're shooting for 2lb a week.

Remember, your most minimal need for calories to sustain life (short term semi starvation) is around 600kcal/day at the extreme without suffering major health issues until you are very lean (less than 9% bodyfat).

You should drink so much water your urine is cystal clear at least 3x a day.

If you are chronically eating out, you should definitely take your multi-vitamins and fish oils.

yup, it's that easy and now we wait and see. I will update this post in a few weeks with his result and possibly before/after photos.