Exercise, Weight Loss Foods, Cheating and Podcasting Q&A

It’s time to head to the mailbag again and dig out some of the most common questions I’ve been receiving lately.

I truly do enjoy receiving and answering your questions, so don’t hesitate to ask or think that I won’t respond.  It might take me a day or two, but I will get back to you.

Anyway, here are some of the more common questions I’ve received in the past couple weeks from online clients and clients in my training studio.

Question:  “I eat well and exercise, but my weight is stuck.  Why?”

Let me start off by asking you a question – What does “I eat well and exercise” mean?

Does it mean you go for a walk or jog everyday or do other low-intensity activities?

If so, do something more intense and vary things up.  Go with resistance training and higher intensity cardio (or no cardio) for smaller periods of time.  Even if you’ve been doing the same workout, or the same type of workout for a while, change things up.  Do different exercises, different routines, different rep ranges, etc.

If you’re used to working out at a health club, do bodyweight workouts from home.

If your workouts are normally long – shorten them up and drastically reduce the amount of rest.

If you don’t rest much between exercises – rest a bit more and increase the resistance used.

When it comes to the “I eat well” statement, what in God’s name does that mean?

If you really do “eat well”, try keeping a food diary for 2 weeks, writing down everything you eat and drink, and then analyze it (or have a professional analyze it for you).  You might be surprised with what hidden gems you find.

You might fail to realize you eat 3 cookies every afternoon and that could be adding hundreds of calories a day to your diet.

You might realize that you eat small meals for breakfast and lunch, then have a huge dinner, which totally ruins the rest of the day.

Or you might find out that you eat well all week, then “live a little” on the weekends, which adds thousands of calories to an otherwise great diet.

Start there and see what you find.

Question:  “What are some of your favorite foods to help me lose weight?”

I try to fit these foods in my diet every day – berries (all kinds), apples, spinach, broccoli, almonds (and other raw nuts), lean meats, beans (not fried or refried…duh).

You can add on from there, but generally speaking ALL fruits and vegetables should be consumed, and you should eat a lot of them every day.  I try to stay away from grains, even whole-wheat, and that’s just a personal preference.  I eat them, but not much.

I also start every day off with a homemade smoothie loaded with berries and then add some ground flax, protein powder and organic skim milk and/or water.  It’s loaded with fiber, tons of antioxidants (and phytonutrients), protein and good-for-you carbohydrates.

Too much cheating on your diet will have you looking like this guy.

Question:  If I’m working out hard and exercising a lot, can I relax my nutrition habits?

Not if you want to lose weight.

Question:  Really, not even a little?

What’s your goal?  Do you want to maintain where you’re at, or actually lose that blubber sitting on your waistline?

This rationalization you use that you can relax your eating habits because you worked hard is one of the biggest reasons you’re failing to achieve your goals.

I’m not saying you can’t have some of your favorite treats.

Quite the opposite.

Enjoy the things you like, but in moderation.  If there’s a desert that looks good, I’m the first one in line…if I haven’t already eaten my quota.

And don’t lose sight of your goals.

If you are consistently exercising and want to have an Oreo cookie, or 4, go ahead, but stop there.  Don’t grab the whole bag and start dunking them in glasses of milk.

And don’t have a couple of cookies, then an hour later go out to dinner and have a cheeseburger and fries.

Always keep your goals at the top of your mind and don’t let people get to you if they start calling you a health nut for eating well.  Wear that as a badge of honor because you’re going to be the one with the fat free body while they’re complaining about their ever-growing gut, butt and thighs.

Have a great day!

Ed

P.S. – Like I said earlier, I truly do enjoy receiving and answering your questions.  Because of that, I’m going to answer them in a different format.  I’m going to start doing a weekly (or bi-weekly) podcast where I can go a little more in depth with the answers.  Sometimes it’s difficult to make the answers short and concise and I thought that by recording a podcast with some of the more common and popular questions I receive would be a great way to go.

I’ll be keeping you up to date on when they’re released and will provide you with the link to listen to it, or download it to your iPod or computer.

Until then, send me all the questions you have.  I’ll keep track of them and start recording!