http://chriskresser.com/
Dr. Mark Pimentel is an expert on conditions related to the microbiome, including small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO). In this edition of Revolution Health Radio, I welcome Dr. Pimentel back to the show to talk about SIBO and its links to IBS, food poisoning, and autoimmunity.
The post RHR: A New Understanding of SIBO and IBS, with Mark Pimentel appeared first on Chris Kresser.
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/
With June here, we’re all about grilling. For some lighter fare, we love these Primal- and keto-friendly kabobs with summer veggies. Primal Kitchen® Lemon Turmeric Dressing and Marinade makes this dish incredibly easy and flavorful—without much time and effort on your part. Just a few minutes at the kitchen, another few at the grill, and this delicious, low-carb dinner is served. It’s great for a quick family meal or an impromptu get-together.
Ingredients:
Instructions:
Let shrimp marinate in Primal Kitchen Lemon Turmeric Dressing and Marinade for 15-30 minutes.
Wash and chop vegetables into bite-sized chunks (about 1 1/2-inch pieces). Alternate vegetable pieces with marinated shrimp on skewers.
Spray grill grate with Primal Kitchen Avocado Spray Oil to prevent sticking (very important when grilling seafood). Heat the grill to medium/medium-low.
Grill kabobs for 1-2 minutes per side.
Serve on top of butter lettuce with lemon wedges. Drizzle with additional Lemon Turmeric Dressing as well as salt, pepper, and parsley.
Nutritional Info (per kabob, without optional lettuce):
The post Grilled Shrimp Kabobs appeared first on Mark’s Daily Apple.
Originally posted at: http://www.nerdfitness.com/
“Steve, what am I supposed to do on days when I’m not training?”
We get this question all the time here at Nerd Fitness. Since we advise most people to train 3 days per week with full body strength training routines, many Rebels have a few off days each week.
When you complete a full body workout routine, or do lots of compound movements like squats, push-ups, overhead presses or deadlifts, our muscles get broken down.
Then, over the next 24-48 hours hours, those muscles get rebuilt a tiny bit stronger.That’s why it doesn’t benefit us to work out every day; we don’t want to destroy our muscles without giving them a chance to grow back stronger.
That then begs the question: What are we supposed to do on those days? How can we keep up the habit of exercise and not let a day of non-training derail our progress?
Are there things we CAN do on our off days?
That’s why I’m here, my dear Rebel friend: you ask the questions, I answer them!
You set em up, I knock ’em down!
Before I quickly jump into this program, I’m gonna make another assumption: this isn’t the only question you have about training!
Not just what to do on your off days, but also what to do on your “on” days too! How many sets, how many reps, how much should you eat, are you doing your push-ups right, and so on.
Questions like this can make you second guess your fitness practice, which can lead to falling off the wagon. We’ve seen it time and time again here at Nerd Fitness. Which is why we created our 1-on-1 Online Coaching Program: so you can take comfort knowing your training precisely matches your experience level and goals.
Here’s how it works: your own Nerd Fitness Coach will get to know you better than you know yourself. Do you go off the rails on your “off days?” They’ll create a plan to keep you on track, by offering custom workouts, form checks, nutritional guidance, and worldwide accountability in your pocket. If you’re interested, click on the image below, and then keep reading about what to do on your “day off.”
The biggest problem most people have with off days is that they become cheat days! Because they’re not training, they’re not thinking about being fit and it’s much easier to slack off and lose momentum.
This is bad news bears.
Remember, exercise is probably 10-20% of the equation: how we eat and rest is the other 80-90%!
So plan your off days deliberately! They’re not off days, they’re rest days, and they serve a vital role in building an antifragile kickass body capable of fighting crime (or roughhousing with your kids in the backyard).
Whether it’s scheduling one of the activities below at the same time you normally train every day, or deliberately adding a morning mobility/stretching routine to your day, doing SOMETHING every day is a great way to remind ourselves “I am changing my life and I exercise daily.”
Personally, I know I am far less likely to eat poorly when I’m doing some active recovery than when I’m not doing anything deliberately. On days when I’m not training, I try to block off a similar amount of time to work on myself in some way to maintain momentum, and I encourage you to do the same if you struggle with losing momentum if even taking one day off.
It could be flexibility training, mobility training, meal prep, and more. I’ll cover these below! Whatever it is, do SOMETHING every day, even if it’s for just five minutes, to remind yourself that you are making progress towards your new life.
Let’s dive in to your off-day options!
We’ve all felt that soreness the day after (or two days after) strength training – our muscles have been broken down and are incredibly tight from all of the heavy lifting.
For that reason, one of the best things you can do on an off day is to work on your flexibility and mobility. After all, what good is strength if we can’t move our body properly to utilize it! Dynamic stretching and mobility work helps prepare our body for the rigors of strength training and keeps us injury free!
Regardless of whether or not you have a training day scheduled, start each morning with a mobility warm-up: a series of dynamic movements that gets your body activated and wakes up your muscles, joints, and tendons. If you live in an apartment or are just getting started, feel free to leave out the jumping jacks:
This gives us a chance every morning to check in with our bodies and reminds us mentally “I am leveling up physically, might as well eat right today too.”
Here’s another favorite mobility routine from my friend (and coach) Anthony Mychal. It says it’s a warm-up for tricking, but it’s quite helpful for those of us mere mortals:
If you spend all day at a desk, doing some basic mobility movements throughout the day can keep your hips loose and keep you thinking positively. Here’s an article on how to dominate posture at your desk job.
We are genetically designed to move, not sit on our asses for 60+ hours a week. Not only that, but we are genetically designed to have fun doing so too!
Which means we can spend time on our off days working on our happiness AND stay active at the same time.
This fun activity can mean something different for everybody:
I honestly don’t care WHAT you do, as long as it’s something you truly enjoy doing – it puts a smile on your face, it gets your heart pumping. Exercise does not need to be exhausting or miserable. If you haven’t found an activity you enjoy yet, you haven’t tried enough new things.
The point is to get outside, remember it’s a damn good day to be alive, and that we are built to move.
“But Steve, I have this big party coming up and I really am trying to lose as much weight as possible.”
Okay okay, I hear you – if that’s the case, then 90% of the battle is going to be with your diet (which you can learn about here), but there are SOME things you can do on your off days that can help you burn more calories:
1) Interval Training – In interval training, you’ll be varying your running pace. This means you may switch between jogging and walking, or walking and sprinting (there are few different methods of interval training). This training style can help speed up your metabolism for the hours after you finish.
2) Sprinting – If you like the idea of burning extra calories and building explosive power and speed, check out our article on becoming the Flash. Find a hill, sprint up it, walk down, and repeat the process for 10-20 minutes. No need to overthink it!
3) Long walks – Walking is a low-impact activity that burns extra calories and doesn’t overly tax your body. What a “long walk” will be is different for everybody based on their level of fitness, but walking is one of the best things you can do for yourself!
If you want to take a more active recovery day, the most important thing is to listen to your body. Destroying ourselves for 6+ days a week can really wear us down, causing long term problems if we’re not careful.
You might not realize it, but yoga is the perfect complement to strength training:
Strength training makes us stronger, but it can tighten up our muscles and make us sore.
Yoga, on the other hand, lengthens our muscles and tendons, aids in their recovery, and helps our body develop better mobility and flexibility.
It’s the perfect way to create a strong AND mobile body, ready for anything and everything we throw at it. It’s kind of like turning your body into a swiss-army knife: prepared to be strong, flexible enough to avoid injury, and truly antifragile.
Now, if you’ve never been to a yoga class before, it can certainly be intimidating, especially if you’re a ones-and-zeros programmer wary of the practice’s more spiritual aspects. That was my concern years ago before I got started with it; I had to muster up 20 seconds of courage to attend my first yoga class, and I’m so glad I did.
Here’s how to get started with Yoga!
If Yoga is something you want to try, but you never see yourself working up the nerve to go to a yoga class, I hear ya. It’s why we created Nerd Fitness Yoga:
We’re super proud of Nerd Fitness Yoga, and I’d love for you to check it out! It comes with a 60-day money back guarantee!
As we know, a healthy body is made in the kitchen, not in the gym. It’s important to stay diligent with healthy nutrition even on days when you’re not hitting the gym.
One of the best ways to do that is to use one of your non-training days to prepare your meals for the week! NF Team Member Staci Ardison does all of her meal prep for the week on Sundays, and looks at it like an activity that is furthering her fitness journey.
I like to use one of my off days to break a mental sweat too! On Tuesdays, I take fiddle lessons, which is a mental workout so taxing that I can’t wait to get back to deadlifts!
Here’s another thing you can do on off days: Have fun.
Whether it’s playing a video game, getting caught up on a movie or TV show, or reading a book, it’s important for us to do the nerdy or fun things that make us who we are. As the Rules of the Rebellion state: fitness can become part of we do, but not at the expense of who we are!
I’m currently playing through Batman Arkham Knight (add me on PS4 and Xbox One: “RebelOneNF”!), and as I collect the Riddler Trophies, I think to myself: “I am rebuilding muscle like Batman.”
If you’re somebody that is too smart for your own good (certain a possibility with you reading “Nerd Fitness”), you might be overwhelming yourself with paralysis: “I want to get in shape but I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing for my goals. Should I train 4 days a week or 3? Lift weights and cardio? What about my macros for food!?”
If this sounds like you, you might want to check out our 1-on-1 Online Coaching Program.
We help busy people like you cut through the clutter and noise, telling you exactly what to do each day to stay on target! Learn more by clicking on the big box below:
Alright, your turn: How do you stay on target even on days when you’re not “training?”
I’d love to hear from you – do you take the day off completely? Do you challenge yourself in a different way? Do you try to do something every day to keep the momentum up, or do you actually take days off?
Leave it in the comments!
-Steve
PS: We have a ton of free resources too that you can grab when you join the Rebellion (free).
Simply sign up in the box below so I know where you to send your bonuses and e-books:
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Originally Posted At: https://breakingmuscle.com/feed/rss
Training is hard. Even for the most dedicated fitness enthusiasts, there are many days where it is a chore to get to the gym. You punch the clock, get in and get on with life, happier because you lived up to your standards. You’ve earned the endorphins, the energy, and the confidence that is only born of strong action. This discipline is required for any fulfilling life endeavor. Plan and act, regardless of how you feel.
https://www.girlsgonestrong.com/
I’ll level with you…
And I don’t mind admitting it.
When I first became interested in exercise, I joined a gym and fell in love with group fitness classes. In fact, I loved them so much I decided to become an instructor. I got certified to teach nearly every group fitness class you can imagine.
Between my own workouts and all the classes I taught, I was doing more than five hours of exercise daily. I really wanted to get leaner, and I figured that doing more was the best and quickest way to accomplish that.
Oddly, despite all that exercise, my body wasn’t changing as I expected it to. As a matter of fact, when I had my body composition tested at one point, my body fat had increased and my muscle mass had decreased!
I was so frustrated. Why wasn’t I getting leaner?
To add insult to injury, I wasn’t getting stronger, either. I wasn’t any closer to being able to do a single unassisted pull-up or standard push-ups.
Turns out I’d been subscribing to some myths that are so pervasive in the fitness world that most of us (no matter how much education we have!) think they’re true — until we learn differently.
In addition to my personal experience, as a former group fitness instructor, personal trainer, and strength coach for over 15 years now, I’ve encountered thousands of women who’ve made these same mistakes.
If you’re working hard and struggling to get the results you want, could one of these myths be derailing your progress?
Let’s find out. In this article, I’ll go over five common fitness myths and reveal the facts so you can finally get the results you’ve been working so hard for.
“Wait, how can this possibly be over? I didn’t even sweat!”
My client looked at me, bewildered. She’d just finished a strength workout (in a cool studio, during winter) and couldn’t believe she wasn’t dripping in sweat.
Wasn’t that the purpose of working out?
That wasn’t the first time I’d heard that kind of comment.
When I was a group fitness instructor, clients often said things like, “I’m so sore from my workout! But that’s a good thing, right? It means it’s working, isn’t it?”
Well, not exactly (although, I admit that for a while I, too, believed the quality of a workout could be measured in sweat and soreness).
True, chasing sweat and soreness can be tempting because it’s concrete evidence that we did something. And popular “fitspo” memes reinforce the idea that the sweatier and more painful a workout is, the better the results will be (“Sweat is your fat crying” and “No pain, no gain” come to mind).
But that just isn’t the case.
It can feel good to work up a sweat, and a bit of soreness can serve as a nice reminder that we moved our bodies and did something physical. But the truth is, neither sweat nor soreness is necessarily indicative of an effective workout.
Those things may feel nice, emotionally, but they don’t always have a solid physiological carryover.
I can stand in my yard in the blazing sun and wave at the neighbor for three hours straight, work up a monumental sweat, and experience extreme soreness the next day. But it doesn’t mean that I burned fat or got stronger. (It simply means that my arm and shoulder performed the same movement a bazillion times in a row, and it was hot outside. And maybe that my neighbor now thinks I’m a weirdo.)
In healthy people, sweat is a natural response that aids in cooling down the body. When sweat evaporates, it cools the skin’s temperature and helps prevent overheating. During exercise, the heart rate typically goes up, as does body temperature.
That said, just because your body temperature rises doesn’t mean you’re making progress. Your body temperature could increase because of:
Yes, sweat can be an indicator that you’re exercising hard.
It’s not necessary to sweat to make progress. While, in certain cases, we can draw a correlation between the two, there isn’t a direct cause and effect relationship.
When you’re working hard, you may be likely to sweat more. But if you’re exercising in a cool environment and wearing moisture-wicking clothing, even if you’re working hard, you may not sweat all that much.
(Just like you could be sweating up a storm when you’re packed into public transit during rush hour, yet you wouldn’t confuse that with a hard workout, would you?)
When you challenge your muscles in a significant way — for example by lifting weights — the physical stress creates tiny, microscopic tears in your muscle fibers. With proper nutrition and rest, your body repairs those tiny tears and rebuilds your muscles bigger and with the capability to be stronger than they were before.
Your body’s goal is to make everything you do as easy as possible to conserve energy for your survival. This is why your body adapts and becomes bigger and/or stronger so that the tasks you’ve done become easier for you if you have to do them again in the future.
It’s normal to experience something called DOMS (delayed-onset muscle soreness). DOMS usually occurs one or two days after a strength training session, and feeling a little DOMS is normal if you’re challenging yourself. Some people are genetically more predisposed to experience DOMS, while others rarely feel any muscle soreness at all.
That said, it’s possible to make great progress without ever being sore, especially if you recover properly from your workouts — and being sore doesn’t mean you’ve made progress.
Typically, being excessively sore is indicative of one or more of these four things:
If you feel like workouts “don’t count” unless they’re a sweat fest, consider experimenting with different forms of more restorative movement or varying the length of your workouts. Instead of a hard run, why not go for a shorter or lighter one, attend a yoga class, or just spend some time outdoors?
Or course, if you sweat a lot no matter what you’re doing, remember that some people naturally sweat more than others. Experiment with different clothes or try exercising in different temperatures (if this is something within your control) to see if it makes a difference. Sweating a lot isn’t typically an issue, especially if you stay well-hydrated.
If you’re always extremely sore after workouts, consider paying attention to your recovery: Are you eating sufficient protein? Are you sleeping enough? Being very sore after doing new-to-you exercises is normal, but that soreness should taper once your body gets used to your program. If you’re constantly very sore, look at the other aspects in your life that may be affecting your recovery.
There was a time in my life, years ago, when I was an ambassador for the “more is better” approach to exercise.
A typical day would look like this, exercise-wise:
I did this for years. YEARS! I whole-heartedly believed that she who did the most exercise would win the grand prize. Boy, was I wrong!
Yet, many women are taught that more is better. More exercise, more discipline, more calories burned, more results, right?
Actually, no. While this type of exercise may feel good at the time, it isn’t an effective training approach in the long term, and it seldom leads to sustainable results.
In fact, it’s much more likely to result in:
Often, when women first notice the symptoms above, they’re tempted to add even more exercise to their regimen, to counter these effects… except that these were caused by doing too much exercise in the first place!
Often, the solution is to do less exercise, as counterintuitive as that may seem.
At Girls Gone Strong, we believe that the key to getting the most out of your training is to keep your hunger and appetite in balance, train at an intensity that allows you to make progress without running you ragged, and make plenty of time for rest, relaxation, and socializing.
All of these factors are crucial to both your progress and your overall enjoyment of life. Sometimes doing less exercise turns out to be exactly what you need.
To explain the Optimal Effective Dose, let’s first establish what each end of the continuum looks like, starting with the Minimum Effective Dose and ending with the Maximum Tolerable Dose.
In training, the Minimum Effective Dose (MED) is the minimum amount of stimulus required to achieve a desired effect.
MED is appropriate for people who seek to generally improve their health, people who are already struggling with very high levels of chronic stress, or people who have very busy schedules. Think of the MED as doing the bare minimum to move forward (which can be very beneficial and appropriate for some people).
On the other end of the spectrum, the Maximum Tolerable Dose (MTD) is the highest amount of stimulus that a person can handle before experiencing negative consequences.
Training using an MTD approach is a full-time commitment. It requires the most time, dedication, and resources and comes with the most risk for overtraining and injury. This approach is for professional or competitive athletes and people who have ample time and resources to optimize every aspect of their nutrition, get plenty of rest, go for massages or other recovery care, and prioritize sleep for the best recovery possible.
Somewhere along the continuum between the two extremes, there is a vast middle ground referred to as the Optimal Effective Dose (OED). The OED provides results in a relatively timely manner when working hard and staying consistent, all while still living your life.
To get the most out of your exercise, it’s important to find your OED, that is, your training sweet spot. Your OED should allow you to do the following:
Finding your OED may require some trial and error. If you start training and your hunger and appetite are suddenly through the roof, you never feel fully recovered from your workouts, and your training is taking you away from the rest of your life, you can always adjust.
If you always train at a high intensity, consider substituting one or two of your weekly sessions with a low-intensity workout that will provide some additional energy expenditure without overly stressing your body or causing a boost in appetite. This could be a leisurely walk or bike ride or a restorative yoga class, for example.
If you’re on the opposite end of the spectrum, and all your strength training tends to be low to moderate intensity, try dialing up the intensity a bit and adding a little variety to your routine a few times a week.
Friday night, at last — time to unwind! Glass of wine? Don’t mind if I do! What about some pizza? Sure! And let’s get some cheesy bread with dipping sauce, too. More wine? Yes, please! Oh, and let’s add some of these double chocolate brownies. And ice cream, of course! I mean, I’ll work it off at the gym tomorrow morning anyway. Another glass of wine?
Have you ever caught yourself thinking along these lines? I know I have.
And you’ve probably heard someone say, “You can’t out-train a bad diet!” Maybe you’ve even said it yourself. What this means is that it’s always going to be more difficult to reach our goals when we don’t align our exercise and nutrition efforts.
(By the way, there’s nothing inherently “bad” about the foods just mentioned. You shouldn’t feel ashamed about enjoying your food. What we’re saying is that beating yourself up in the gym in an attempt to compensate for the food you ate isn’t an effective response to a surplus of calories.)
Exercise should not be penance for the food you’ve eaten.
But what if you’re that hungry?
I hear many women say that they are hungry all of the time, and they can’t seem to control their appetite. Unsurprisingly, these same women exercise for hours at a time, five or more days per week. Could there be some correlation there? You betcha.
I know firsthand how this feels because it happened to me. Years ago, I was teaching tons of group fitness classes (about 13 per week). Some days I taught two or three classes and then did my own workouts on top of that.
I’d often end up eating everything in sight, thinking all that exercise would compensate for it. Yet, I wasn’t getting any closer to my goals.
When you get overly aggressive with exercise, it can crank up your appetite to the point that your food intake overpowers your training. This is exactly what happened to me when I was doing all that exercise.
I’d get home from the gym every night feeling absolutely ravenous, and I’d wind up eating a whole lot of food. I’d start with a meal consisting of a quarter chicken, sweet potato, and some greens. That wouldn’t be enough, so I’d eat Greek yogurt with fruit a little while later. Still hungry, I’d eat a few slices of bread with nut butter and follow that up with a granola bar. Still unsatisfied, I’d wolf down a bunch of cookies.
No matter what I ate, I never felt totally satisfied. I became an exercise-induced bottomless pit. Eating like this didn’t do anything for my physique goals, and it certainly didn’t help cultivate a healthy relationship with food, because the only thing I wanted was more, more, more.
I see a lot of people participating in training modalities that don’t support their nutrition goals. After their workout, they feel famished and end up eating a lot more than they actually need in order to adequately replenish and recover.
When you’re exercising intensely all the time, you may be making yourself so hungry that all your careful nutrition planning will go out the window. Sure, you’re eating your nutritious meals, but what about everything else you end up eating because you’re just never satisfied?
If this is you, take a step back and evaluate how you’re feeling. Are certain training modalities or activities causing intense cravings or an insatiable appetite? If so, consider the following:
Finding the right combination of training modality, frequency, and intensity may require some fine-tuning, but by becoming aware of the relationship between how you exercise and the effect it has on your hunger and cravings, you’ll be able to make more informed choices.
Many women don’t have an accurate picture of what “enough” food really is — especially when trying to lose weight.
We’re often taught that the fewer calories we consume, the better. There’s this persistent myth out there that women should not eat more than 1200 calories a day (which, if you think about it, makes very little sense when you consider the wide variety of body sizes and goals among different women).
Maybe you’ve also heard of the law of thermodynamics or, as it’s often described, “calories in, calories out.” It’s a way of explaining how the body takes in and uses energy. In a nutshell, it obtains energy from food, and expends it through:
The mistake we often make is believing that it’s easy to calculate both the calories we ingest and the calories we expend. We think along the lines of “If I burn all these extra calories working out, and eat much less, I’ll easily burn fat.”
In reality, eating too little can hinder fat loss, strength gain, and muscle gain, and can affect energy levels and overall health. Plus, calculating exactly the amount of energy we take in and expend isn’t as straightforward as it may seem.
The body is a dynamic and adaptable machine — it wants to feel “safe.” With survival as its top priority, it is constantly regulating how it responds to its environment.
In other words, to conserve energy and direct calories to essential functions for survival, your body resorts to burning fewer calories, even as you’re exercising regularly and intensely.
This can mean that your body composition isn’t changing despite being very mindful of your nutrition and training hard, or that you’re experiencing a plateau in your deadlift and you haven’t hit a PR on a lift in months despite consistent training.
When resources (calories) are scarce, the body prioritizes essential functions such as regulating body temperature and blood pressure over other functions such as rebuilding muscle tissue.
When you’re under-fueled, it may feel like you’re training intensely, but your power output is actually much lower. If you can’t maximize your power when lifting, you won’t be able to achieve the necessary stimulus to promote muscle growth and rebuilding.
Undereating can also sabotage your recovery, which is just as important as the training itself for improving performance and seeing progress.
When you train, you’re breaking down muscle tissue, and without adequate calories and protein in your diet, your muscles won’t have the materials needed to rebuild. And if you’re under-fueled during your workout, your body may turn to protein from your muscles for the fuel it needs.
Undereating can also lead to disrupted sleep, and evidence shows that high-quality sleep is essential for recovery after a tough workout. Poor sleep can lead to fat retention. So if undereating is causing your sleep to suffer, you might not perform well in the gym or see the body composition changes you’re expecting to see.
The main thing that matters for fat loss is being in a sustainable calorie deficit. This means you eat slightly less than you burn, and your body taps into stored body fat for the extra calories. Keep in mind, there’s a sweet spot for a calorie deficit, and you won’t get better results by going more than a few hundred calories — 300 to 500 max — below your estimated needs.
To stay in a deficit more easily, focus on eating lots of protein sources such as meat, fish, poultry, and eggs. Emphasize plant-based sources of carbohydrates as much as possible, such as sweet potatoes, potatoes, rice, beans, and plantains. And fill your plate with non-starchy veggies and leafy greens to help you feel more full.
If your goal is to build muscle and see more definition, at a minimum you should be eating enough calories to maintain your weight. But to truly gain more size or muscle mass, you’ll likely need to be in a caloric surplus, that is, you’ll need to eat more than you burn.
Just a few hundred calories above your maintenance needs, combined with strength training, can allow your body to put on more muscle mass. This is easier to do when your fat and carbohydrate intake aren’t restricted in any way. Now is not the time to cut any food groups from your diet.
Along with a caloric surplus, getting plenty of protein is also essential for building larger, more defined muscles. When possible, choose whole foods such as meat, fish, poultry, eggs, dairy, and beans or legumes.
Adding in a post-workout protein shake can help you hit your protein goals. Look for a high-quality protein powder such as hydrolyzed beef, grass-fed whey, or organic pea protein.
Just because a trainer can make you tired doesn’t mean they can make you better.
There are trainers who don’t understand how to properly write and execute a training program, so they simply give their clients what they think the clients need — a butt kicking.
Now if your goal (or your client’s goal) is to “get crushed” and feel worn out and sore, maybe that works. But honestly, there’s a better way.
The purpose of strength training is to elicit positive adaptations within your body to help you:
…and much more.
And you want to know a secret?
In fact, I would argue that exhausting yourself too much, too often will hinder your progress toward those adaptations.
You need to challenge your body out of its comfort zone in a way that allows you to come back strong the next time around. That’s how progress happens.
But training is a form of stress, and the body reacts to it the same way that it reacts to anything else that’s stressful — sick kids, a looming work deadline, or being chased by a bear. Training to exhaustion can sometimes feel good emotionally. However, stress is stress is stress, and that constant stress impedes recovery.
If you’re not able to recover adequately from your workouts, your progress is likely to slow down. You may even experience negative consequences from the excess stress such as disrupted sleep, or turn to coping mechanisms such as emotional eating, which may take you even further away from your goals.
While your training program should be challenging, it should also include a sufficient amount of rest.
When you’re not getting enough rest in a workout or in a training phase, your muscles aren’t getting enough time to recover before the next set (or the next workout). This, in turn, can affect your ability to use enough weight or perform enough repetitions to elicit your desired response.
On the other hand, an appropriate amount of rest can actually help you train harder because you’re giving your muscles adequate time to recover between sets and between workouts. Instead of skipping sessions because you just don’t have it in you, you’re able to show up to each session ready to work hard.
You can’t keep doing something forever when you’re running yourself into the ground.
Take some time to evaluate what you want to get out of your workouts. Is being tired your goal? If so, keep doing what you’re doing.
However, if you’re trying to get stronger or to change your body composition (or both), consider adding a little more rest in your workouts so that you’re able to perform every rep of every exercise with good technique and enough energy.
Remember — the keys to progress are consistency and sustainability.
If you’re ready to:
We can help.
That’s why we created GGS Coaching.
Women need coaches who understand their unique needs and challenges, and GGS Coaching is a coaching program designed by women, for women, run by women.
Helping women is what we do here at GGS. Tell us what your goals are, and we’ll help you achieve them in a way that lasts.
GGS Coaching was designed as the antidote to all of the typical obsessive, restrictive, exhausting diet and exercise programs out there, which are too difficult to sustain for any real length of time.
We get it. That’s why we use a sustainable, skill-based approach to help you practice the exact skills you need to get the results you want – without overhauling your life.
GGS Coaching isn’t just about getting the best physical results you’ve ever gotten in your life — it’s about becoming the best version of yourself, one step at a time.
On June 25th, 2019, we’re accepting a small number of new coaching clients.
Once you join the pre-sale list, we’ll send you more info about the program. And when enrollment opens, we’ll give you the chance to register 24-48 hours before everyone else. Plus, you’ll save up to 45% off our general public price.
The post 5 Fitness Myths That Are Ruining Your Results appeared first on Girls Gone Strong.
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If you look around the online keto-sphere, you’ll notice that 20 or 30 grams is often the standard daily limit for carbohydrate intake. Any more than that, they say, and you’ll never get into ketosis, never become fat-adapted, and waste all your efforts at reducing carbohydrate intake. And then you come to Mark’s Daily Apple, sign up for the June Keto Reset, or buy a copy of The Keto Reset book and see that I allow 50 grams of carbs per day and don’t even consider non-starchy vegetables as counting against that total carb count.
What gives?
Why does the Keto Reset allow 50 grams of carbs per day? Why don’t I count non-starchy vegetables?
There are several main reasons.
Most keto plans subtract fiber from total carbs to arrive at “net carbs.” They do this for a very good reason: Fiber is not digested, does not count as glucose, and does not impact ketosis. I get it. I’m not denying the fact that the body treats indigestible fiber differently than digestible glucose and fructose. The fiber you eat does not affect your ability to generate ketones. Sure, the body doesn’t treat indigestible fiber the same way as digestible glucose.
But I find it’s just way simpler to count total carbs rather than ask people to pore over the labels and do a bunch of subtraction. This has the effect of giving a “higher total” carb allowance, but the actual number of digestible carbs remains about on par with other keto plans.
For all intents and purposes, foods like spinach, chard, broccoli, and others do not impact ketosis one way or the other. The vast majority of them are so low in carbs that you burn more glucose digesting them than you’re able to extract from them. I’d rather your average 62-year-old retiree who’s trying to get healthier and lose the extra 30 pounds so he can take retirement by the horns not have to weigh and measure his romaine lettuce and spinach. I don’t even want him to have to think about his romaine lettuce. Just eat the stuff!
I’m sure there are extra-sensitive people out there for whom a spinach salad does impair ketosis, but I’m creating general guidelines that work for the largest number of people. Most people can eat one and remain ketotic. And the limit is an upper limit; it’s not a requirement that everyone has to reach.
Many of them, like spinach, have satiety-inducing effects that reduce cravings for high-carb junk food and make dietary adherence even easier. And they’re often the best sources of micronutrients that keto dieters otherwise have trouble obtaining, like potassium and magnesium.
One of the potential downsides to conventional keto diets is the disruption of the microbiome. Several years ago, a study came out claiming to show that “chowing down” on meat and dairy had horrible impacts on the gut biome. Looking more closely, the “meat and dairy” diet was actually a processed meat diet completely bereft of non-starchy plant matter. It didn’t say anything about the type of diet that Primal eaters eat, but it did represent a strike against the conventional caricature of the “salami and cream cheese keto diet.” That’s the “salami and cream cheese” keto diet, the one I cannot support and definitely do not recommend. Having 50 grams of carbs available and not counting non-starchy vegetables makes it easier to eat the plants that contain the prebiotic fiber that nourishes and supports your gut bacteria.
Ultimately, the 50 grams limit with unlimited non-starchy vegetables gives you plenty of wiggle room.
I’ll admit that this has been confusing for some folks. There have been questions about “50 grams” and “not counting non-starchy vegetables.” But it also means that I’m not getting a deluge of questions about whether you should count the carbs in avocados and Brussels sprouts (no and no), whether the asparagus you had last night is going to send you back to square one (it won’t, unless it was breaded and fried and you ate a pound), whether you committed a grave sin by having three bites of roasted potatoes (you only committed a small transgression), and all the other minutiae that bog people down. To me, on net, that balances out in the Keto Reset’s favor. It shows me that people by and large aren’t overthinking the errata (worrying about their broccoli intake). They’re focusing on the big picture (getting fat-adapted while eating a nutrient-dense diet).
How do you folks approach carb counting on your diet? Do you worry about the spinach and broccoli? Do you use net carbs?
Thanks for reading, everyone!
References:
Stenblom EL, Egecioglu E, Landin-olsson M, Erlanson-albertsson C. Consumption of thylakoid-rich spinach extract reduces hunger, increases satiety and reduces cravings for palatable food in overweight women. Appetite. 2015;91:209-19.
The post Why Does the Keto Reset Allow 50 Grams of Carbs? appeared first on Mark’s Daily Apple.
Originally posted at: http://www.nerdfitness.com/
There’s a lot of false information out there on “building muscle fast.”
There’s also A LOT of companies making money selling useless supplements, many of them promising “toned” muscle within weeks.
These two things are not a coincidence.
Today, we’ll provide the truth you so rightly deserve:
This will help you separate fact from fiction on building muscle when training naturally.
Make no mistake about it, this stuff isn’t easy.
Otherwise you wouldn’t be reading about it on the internet!
If you’re somebody that’s worried about wasting time, or you want to have an expert hand craft a workout and nutrition program that’s based on your current situation, consider checking out our really popular 1-on-1 Online Training Program! I’ve been training with an online coach since 2015 and it has been the biggest boost for me in the world.
Click on the image below if you want to learn more about our coaching program, and then scroll down to learn all about how long it will take to build muscle naturally.
Alright, onto “how much muscle can I build naturally?”
You’re here for an answer, so I’m going to get the ugly truth (that will probably make you sad) out of the way:
Under OPTIMAL conditions, you can expect to gain around 1-2 pounds of muscle per month.
We’ve found that for most Rebels here in the Nerd Fitness Rebellion (our community), closer to one pound per month is the reality.
“Optimal conditions” mean that you are eating the right amount and the right kinds of food, potentially using 1-2 supplements (protein and creatine), AND you are training perfectly for muscle growth (which we explain in this section here).
Proper sleep is also absolutely necessary.
This also means you are trying to thread the needle of eating JUST enough to build muscle, but not too much that you put on a lot of fat, too.
Yeah, you could go full hulk mode (“dirty bulk”) and just eat anything and everything, maxing out your muscle building… but it’ll be buried under fat, which you’ll have to trim again and restart the cycle.
While it is certainly one effective way to gain muscle and strength, we more often recommend fiddling with your diet and training so you can find that sweet spot where you’re building muscle and not gaining too much fat.
All of this to say: Yes, can build muscle quickly, but it will NOT be the crazy amount you read about in the magazines, unless you’re taking Dr. Stark’s super serum (ROIDS!).
If you had grand visions of looking like the dudes in the ads you see in muscle and fitness, don’t expect to do so in 90 days with a few days of training and protein shakes.
Remember: Expect 1-2 pounds of month of muscle gain…under optimal conditions.
The one possible exception to gaining strength and muscle fast? Noob gains.
Yes, we’ve all heard the stories of guys that have gained 40 pounds of muscle in two months.
We’ve also seen all the ridiculous ads about “the workout supplement doctors don’t want you to see” with a guy that looks like Bane.
99% of that stuff is absolute bullshit, so let’s just get that out in the open!
HOWEVER, If you’re really skinny, young, training hard, and eating all day every day, as a newbie you can produce results very quickly.
It is possible, in the first year of true strength training with intense focus and dedication, to gain 15-20 pounds of muscle. Combine that with 15-20 pounds of fat gain and you can drastically change your appearance if you started out very skinny.
When I started to take strength training serioulsy, I felt like I was invincible. I even gained 18 pounds in a month, and I foolishly assumed most of it was muscle.
But due to taking the supplement creatine (which allows your muscles to hold more water weight), almost all of it was water weight, along with some fat… and then probably 2 pounds of muscle!
I’ve since come to learn “TEH MUSCLE GAINZ” aren’t that easy. Fortunately, that’s only part of what I learned in that month.
If you are new to strength training and you are eating right, you’ll not only pack on muscle, but you’ll see some incredibly impressive gains in your strength training:
I can’t predict what sort of results you’ll see in that first year, but it can be pretty epic if you attack it right!
Muscle growth might happen slower than you want, but I expect something different will happen along the way – you’ll fall in love with this idea of building STRENGTH! In fact, getting hooked on progress, and strength training is one of the best things you can do for yourself.
So, if you are young, growing, and brand spankin’ new to strength training, you’ll be able to pack on muscle at a decent clip. Our goal will be for you to do it in a way that’s sustainable!
Hopefully I didn’t put a big damper on your Captain-America fueled dreams! I just want to set proper expectations so you don’t get discouraged with slow progress, and instead get SUPER encouraged with any progress. Getting strong should be freakin’ fun!
Weirdly enough, once I stopped trying to get there quickly is when I started to actually make permanent progress.
Good? Good! Now let’s build you some muscle!
We’ve covered this at length in the “How to Bulk Up Fast” Guide but I’ll give you the abridged version:
How to build muscle quickly and bulk up:
The goal here is to thread the needle where we pack on size and muscle but not fat. If we don’t eat enough (generally a problem for us skinny people), we will struggle to put on either.
However, if we overeat we’ll build muscle and add some fat. We can then trim the fat, if after a few weeks we notice our body fat percentage creeping up.
“But Steve, I don’t have access to a gym – can I pack on muscle with just bodyweight exercises?”
Yes, you can pack on size while only doing bodyweight exercises. Look at any olympic gymnast!
I personally managed to pack on some weight while traveling the world.
However, this can feel like playing Halo on Legendary difficulty. It can be done, but damn it can be challenging – especially for lower body movements.
If your sole goal is to get bigger as fast as possible, access to a barbell for squats and deadlift is almost a requirement.
Note about all of the above:
If you’re confused about how to start with strength training, or you want to start with bodyweight training before trying a gym, or you just want to make sure you’re squatting and doing pull-ups right, we cover ALL of that in our free downloadable guide, Strength Training 101: Everything You Need to Know.
Get your free guide when you sign up in the box below, and we’ll show you exactly what to do:
“I want to put on muscle, but not too much I don’t want to get too bulky, Steve!”
We get this comment via email a LOT, from both guys and gals.
In fact, I heard this fear so frequently that I included it in our top 7 myths of strength training for women. Mostly, this comment comes from folks who are new to strength training and fitness, which makes sense.
The unknown is scary, and we’re scared to start something if we’re not quite sure how our bodies are going to adapt.
Combine this with mainstream magazines saying things like “lift light weights to tone arms!” and we conjure up visions of lifting heavy weights producing a Hulk-like response.
Here’s a before and after from Staci, our Lead Female trainer in our 1-on-1 Online Coaching Program, who picked up VERY heavy weights and actively tried to get bulky.
Let’s see the results:
Here’s the truth: YOU DO NOT GET BULKY WITHOUT DEVOTING YOUR LIFE TO IT! Unless you are training with hypertrophy (increased muscle size) as a focus, have superior genetics, take steroids, eat like a horse, and focus on nothing but muscle size for months/years, you are NOT going to get too bulky.
I run a fitness site. I have dedicated my life to health and fitness for the past twelve years, and I have actively been trying to put on weight and muscle throughout that entire time.
I am nowhere close to looking bulky, despite all of my efforts to do so, and dedicating my last 13 months to building muscle and size.
Yes, genetically some people MIGHT put on muscle more easily than others, but even then it’s fractions of a degree, not DRASTIC sweeping differences. We tend to get this question from men or women who are so thin and have such fast metabolisms, they probably need to put on 40-50+ pounds of both fat and muscle, before they would ever even think to use the word “too bulky.”
So, remove this from your vocabulary!
I want to talk about one final thing: all of the above info about muscle building is true, if you are 100% focused on muscle building.
Your results will vary if you are trying to build muscle while also:
Why? Well, because instead of using the calories from your food to grow big and strong, the calories are going to fuel an extra long run.
We dive deep into the subject here in “The Ultimate Guide to Building Any Physique.”
Now, all of this information comes with a caveat: do what makes you happy! If you love to run, or play ultimate frisbee 4 days a week, go for it. Just be sure to temper your goals if you’re ALSO trying to accomplish a billion other things too. Just temper your expectations as to what will be possible.
If you are looking for more specific guidance on how to build muscle naturally, or you’ve been at it for months/years without getting results and think you’re a lost cause, you’re not alone!
I honestly thought I was a lost cause because I spent 6 years training to bulk up and saw no results. Despite the story I told myself, it wasn’t because of my genetics. It was because I was following bad advice, had a bad training program, and didn’t have the right nutritional strategy!
If you are tired of not getting results, want to avoid trial-and-error, or you just want to be told exactly what to do to reach your goals, check out our popular 1-on-1 Coaching Program. You’ll work with our certified NF instructors who will get to know you better than you know yourself and program your workouts and nutrition strategy for you.
Now, if you are somebody that is more of the “do-it-yourself” type, check out our self-paced online course, the Nerd Fitness Academy. The Academy has 20+ workouts for both bodyweight or weight training, a benchmark test to determine your starting workout, HD demonstrations of every movement, boss battles so you know when you to level up your routine, meal plans, a questing system, and supportive community.
What else can I answer for you about healthy strength and muscle building?
We can become superheroes, and we have dozens of stories to prove it 🙂 – just remember it’s going to take time. Attack the problem with the right game plan, and your ascension to superhero status can come a bit quicker.
What do you want to know about building muscle and strength? Leave questions in the comments!
-Steve
PS: Not ready to commit to one of our programs? That’s cool too! Make sure you sign up for our email list so we can send you BOTH the “Skinny nerd’s guide to bulking up” and also our entire “Strength Training 101: What you need to know” ebook! You can get both free when you sign up in the box below:
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photo source:[1]
http://www.thealternativedaily.com/
Though testosterone is primarily a “male hormone” that conjures up images of exaggerated muscles and full, thick beards, it is actually an essential component of the female reproductive system as well. However, just like other hormones, it can quickly become out of wack and imbalanced, leading to several frustrating and potentially embarrassing symptoms. Ladies, here […]
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The one piece of advice all newcomers to the ketogenic diet receive is to “get enough electrolytes.” It doesn’t matter what flavor of keto diet you’re talking about—paleo, carnivore, Primal, standard, clinical, mainstream, salami-and-cream-cheese. They all mention the importance of getting your electrolytes, particularly during the transition from a higher-carb diet.
I’ve said it. I say it. It really is important. Heck, a major part of the much-maligned “keto flu” can be directly attributed to inadequate intake of sodium, potassium, and magnesium. Oftentimes, increasing your electrolytes stops the flu from happening in the first place.
Why, though?
One of the first things that happens when you go keto is you lose a bunch of glycogen from almost everywhere. For one, depletion of liver glycogen—the storage form of carbohydrates in the body—is the trigger for the liver to begin producing ketone bodies. It can’t make ketones if it’s full of glycogen. And, two, since you’ve just removed virtually all the digestible carbohydrates from your diet and your body hasn’t adapted to burning fats directly, it’s going to burn through the stored muscle glycogen and ramp up ketone production to make up for the rest of your energy requirements.
If you’re going keto (and doing it right), you’ll be depleting your glycogen stores. It’s totally normal, but there’s a side effect: water loss.
Each gram of glycogen in the body is stored with four grams of water. Every time you lose a gram of glycogen, you lose four grams of water and a bunch of sodium, magnesium, and potassium. When sodium drops, your kidneys start shedding potassium to maintain the right sodium:potassium ratio. But even though the ratio might be “right,” the absolute amounts of sodium and potassium are inadequate for optimal function.
As you get better at burning fats directly and your body gets acclimated to utilizing them for energy, you won’t have to maintain empty liver glycogen to stimulate massive ketone production. You can use fats for the majority of your energy requirements and can begin storing more glycogen rather than shedding it instantly. As a result, you won’t shed as much water or lose as many electrolytes.
Another factor is that going keto lowers insulin, and low insulin levels reduce sodium retention. This is one reason why low-carb diets are so good for people with salt-sensitive high blood pressure—they help you get rid of excess sodium.
When sodium gets too low, your body will reduce water stores to maintain proper sodium ratios. This creates a vicious cycle of dehydration that can trigger headaches. Luckily, salt repletion will fix most keto headaches.
If you’ve ever felt dizzy and unsteady upon standing up from a seated position, you’ve experienced postural hypotension. Blood pools in the lower half of your body while sitting and the blood pressure is inadequate to adjust in time. Without enough blood in your brain, things don’t work so well. It only lasts for a second or two, but it’s no fun.
Sodium depletion—as occurs in the early stages of keto—is a major risk factor for postural hypotension. Eating more salt is a quick fix. This isn’t keto broscience, either. Standard medical treatment of postural hypotension is to have the patient consume up to a tablespoon and a half of extra salt per day.
When you go keto, you might notice a drop-off in your physical performance in the gym or on the field. Part of this is a transitory effect of your tissues adapting to a new energy source. But another explanation is that you have low potassium levels.
In the muscle tissue itself, potassium acts as an electrical conduit during muscle contractions—and muscle contractions are what make a muscle “go.”
To some extent, low energy is part and parcel of the keto transition. You’re not great at burning fat and ketones yet. You’re still missing carbs. That’s okay, that’s normal. It’s a necessary evil, and it will pass.
But low energy can also be a symptom of low electrolyte status, as potassium and magnesium are all important co-factors in the production of ATP, the body’s energy currency.
The fix is simple. Eat more sodium, potassium, and magnesium.
For sodium:
For potassium:
For magnesium:
My favorite way to get a big dose of these electrolytes in one fell swoop is to pour a big glass of sparkling mineral water (I like Gerolsteiner) and add juice from 2 limes or lemons, a teaspoon of salt, and a scoop of magnesium powder. Great and incredibly refreshing. Sip on that twice a day, and you’ll be fine.
In my experience, electrolyte loss is the biggest stumbling block for people new to keto. It’s also one of the easiest to avoid. So get after it!
What’s your favorite way to get enough sodium, potassium, and magnesium? Got any great no-sugar electrolyte drink recipes you’d care to share?
Thanks for reading, everyone.
The post Electrolytes and Keto: Why They Matter for the Transition appeared first on Mark’s Daily Apple.
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