healthavenueblog - Tumblr blog

[healthavenueblog]

How to Do a Handstand: Get Your First Handstand in 30 Days

A handstand is one of the coolest exercises ever, but it’s also one of the most advanced moves to learn.

Fortunately, you’ve come to the right place.

Today you start your journey to the Upside-Down!

Ah, not that Upside-Down…we’ll keep you in this dimension.

We’ve helped many of our coaching clients achieve their first handstand and today we’ll share with you how it’s done with this guide!

Have your Nerd Fitness Coach help you get your first handstand, step-by-step! Learn more here.

We’ll treat it like a video game, progressing you from complete noob to Level 6: Handstand Master. 

We’ll go over the following (click to flip to that section):

Are handstands good for you?

Do handstands build muscle?

The secret to performing a handstand.

Handstand Progression Warm-Up Routine (DON’T SKIP)

Level 1 Handstand Progression: Quadruped Rocking

Level 2 Handstand Progression: Hollow Body

Level 3 Handstand Progression: Crow Pose

Level 4 Handstand Progression: Wall Walk

Level 5 Handstand Progression: How to Bail out of a Handstand

Level 6 Handstand Progression: How to Do a Handstand

4 Tips and tricks for doing handstands.

The tutorials ahead are from our premium course Nerd Fitness: Handstands, which I would encourage you to check out if you like what you see. It includes even MORE instruction, a skill-tree leveling system, plus exact directions on what to do, for how long, and when to advance.

Alright, brace yourself to get flipped-turned upside down.

Are Handstands Good for You? (3 Reasons Why Handstands Rule)

At Nerd Fitness we LOVE handstands like Eleven loves waffles.

Here are 3 reasons why handstands rule:

#1) Like other bodyweight training, there’s no excuse. If you have room to stand up, you have room to practice handstands.

#2) It recruits DOZENS of muscles in your body.

From arm strength to wrist mobility to core strength to shoulder mobility and muscular endurance, handstands do it all.

When you are trying to balance, it makes your body work as one complete unit.

#3) It scares you – yes, that’s a positive. We grow outside our comfort zone and for many people, just the thought of a handstand is enough to make their palms sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy, vomi…

…nevermind.

The point is that the handstand is just as much of a mental challenge as it is a physical one.

How scared do you think this guy gets on a regular basis?

That’s Coach Jim!

Master of the NF Fitness Universe, and our lead trainer for our Handstands Course and Nerd Fitness Coaching. You’ll be seeing a lot of him in today’s article because Jim can do handstands in his sleep.[1]

The Secret to Performing a Handstand

Sure, we need to build strength to support ourselves upside-down, but even that hurdle is overblown.

A proper handstand actually starts to feel easy. 

That’s because once you’re balanced and aligned, it becomes uber efficient. Just as you don’t exert yourself much if you stand straight with good posture, a good efficient handstand is the same way… it will soon start to feel effortless.

Actually, the biggest hurdle to overcome – especially at the beginning – is the mental fear.

The voice/feeling in the back of your head that says “you could get hurt doing this!” SCARY!

And I won’t sugar-coat things, you CAN hurt yourself working on these skills… but it’s no different than if you walked into the gym first day, slapped 315 lbs on the bench press and gave it a go.

Or went out and tried to run 13 miles without training.

The exercise itself isn’t dangerous, unless you attempt TOO much, too quickly.

If you wouldn’t load up a bar to deadlift 500 lbs on your first day in the gym, why do so many people just kick and fling themselves up into a handstand, failing repeatedly, hoping one day they’ll “get” it?

There’s a smarter way!

How do we overcome this fear and keep ourselves safe? Just like learning any other fitness skill: slow, easy, successful steps!

These small victories accumulate over time to bring us to our goals safely while having a lot of fun.

Are you ready to learn?

Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. Read on for ways to safely progress to handstand mastery!

Handstand Progression Warm-Up Routine

For any handstand exercise, there is going to be a significant amount of stress on the hands and wrists. So, it’s important you stretch and warm things up.

Here is a video from our NF Handstands course going over some of our favorite wrist stretches to prepare to get upside-down. Go through each stretch about 10 times.

Let’s spotlight a few of these Handstand Warm-Up exercises:

Forward and Back Wrist Stretch:

Lifted Palms Wrist Stretch:

Reverse Palm Stretch:

Backhand Palm Stretch:

Upside Down Wrist Stretch:

The trick with wrist stretches is to move as many different ways as feels comfortable. Feel free to make the warm-up your own!

The shoulders are another stressed area in the handstand. There are several ways we can prepare them for work

A few rounds of jumping jacks:

Or arm circles

That will get the blood moving and the area ready.

From here, we’ll begin our journey leveling up your Handstand Progression.

We’ll start by having you work with some balance drills and some positional drills.

Nothing too crazy, and in fact some of these might seem TOO EASY. That’s fine! That’s what we want, remember?

We’re using small victories to motivate us. Landing on your head is not a great way to motivate anyone.

Want someone to build you a custom made progression plan for doing your handstand? Our 1-on-1 Online Coaching Program will do just that, plus your coach can review your movements through our app so you’ll know your training correctly and safely.

Have your Nerd Fitness Coach create a custom plan for achieving handstands!

Level 1 Handstand Progression: Quadruped Rocking

You may be thinking that feeling the balance of a handstand is going to be brutally difficult.

Not so!

We can start quite easily on our hands and knees in the quadruped position.

From here, we will simply rock forwards and backwards on our hands.

Seem familiar?

If you did the wrist mobility we described above, it’s the same motion!

Isn’t that handy?[2]

As you are rocking back and forth, feel where the weight rests in your hands.

When you rock back, it sits more in the heel of your hands. 

When you rock forward, you’ll feel it in your knuckles and fingertips.

Where do we want it in the handstand?

Right around the knuckles.

This is a balanced spot – similar to the balance you find when standing. You don’t sit all your weight on your heels, and you don’t lean all your weight forward, gripping your toes hard into the ground, do you?

Find and feel that balance when you rock.

When should you move on to Level 2 Handstand Progression? 

Now would work!

Level 2 Handstand Progression: Hollow Body

The hollow body is one of the best ways to engage the midsection and stabilize the body. It will help to give your handstand a good shape.

Do you need to master the hollow body to master the handstand?

Not necessarily, as there are plenty of handstands out there that are a bit banana-shaped.

But the hollow body will help you create a more efficient position.

#1) Start by laying down a yoga or exercise mat on the ground and laying on the ground face up.

#2) Think about pressing your lower back down into the ground and engaging your midsection like you’re coughing. You should still be able to breath!

#3) Once the midsection is set, tuck your knees to your chest and hold your shins like you’re getting ready for a wicked cannonball.

#4) Holding the shins will help you maintain that lower back and midsection position.

Still feeling good? 

Then try rocking!

Rock your body forward and back slightly from the upper back to the lower back, like a rocking chair. 

Head and feet stay off the ground. 

If you are stable then you should move as one unit.

If you need more of a challenge, reach your arms by your ears, keep the knees tucked, and rock some more.

Without the hands holding the shins, the midsection really has to keep engaged in order to give you a smooth rock.

With any of these positions, work to rock for a full 15 seconds under control. 

Once you can do so with arms extended, progress up to Level 3.

Level 3 Handstand Progression: Crow Pose

To enter Crow Pose, move forward from the Quadruped Rock position so that your knees are on the outside of your arms. You can even bend the elbows a little and rest your legs on them.

Rock forward in the same manner as before, putting a little more weight on the hands and a little less weight on the feet.

Important: this isn’t Assassin’s Creed… We are not making a leap of faith here!

Don’t jump!!! 

We are simply looking for less and less weight on the feet.

Take things slow and easy – rising up on the toes when you can. When you are ready to pick the feet up and hold yourself off the ground on just your hands, it should come naturally.

Be sure to grab into the ground hard to hold and control yourself, and feel free to put down a pile of pillows or mats in front of you if you should fall!

Once you’re able to get both feet off the ground comfortably and safely, it’s time for Level 4 Handstand Progression.

If you find yourself stuck at the crow position or any other level, we are here to help! 

Our coaches can review your progression and form to help you advance onto the next level!

Have a Nerd Fitness Coach guide your handstand and fitness journey!

Level 4 Handstand Progression: Wall Walk

In this level, we’ll get started working toward something that actually looks like a handstand!

All we’re trying to do with this exercise is support our bodyweight on our straightened arms (just like the front plank or push-up).

So, the first level of this exercise is to simply get yourself up into the top of a push-up and hold. If that’s too hard, put your hands up on an elevated surface and/or rest on your knees and hands instead.

Once this is mastered, level up by simply lifting your hips in the air into a down dog position!

From here, it’ll be a matter of getting your feet onto a higher and higher surface. Note: putting your feet up something even a few inches off the floor counts – small steps!

You can use something as simple as bumper plates:

As you progress, add more bumper plates (or whatever you’re using) so your feet are higher and higher.

Once you are supporting yourself with your feet on a high box, try walking your feet up the wall. (Think of it like a really tall box!)

Be careful at this step: Be sure you have enough energy to walk back down safely and second, that you don’t walk too close to the wall and risk flipping onto your back!

See the next section on pirouettes to safely exit these wall walks if you happen to “go over!”

With each of these variations, we’re looking to build up to a solid 15 seconds under control before moving forward.

Once you’re at the point of lying vertically against the wall, you’re on your way to leveling up to a full handstand! 

But first, we need to talk about how to bail safely.

Level 5 Handstand Progression: How to Bail out of a Handstand

As you start to get better with Wall Walks, and you practice getting closer and closer to completely vertical while upside down, there’s going to be instances where you start to “tip over.”

In order to safely return your feet to the ground, you’re going to want to do what we call a pirouette:

How to bail out of a handstand:

Get into a wall handstand.

Shift your weight to one arm (the planted arm), allowing the other arm to move.

Drive one leg into the wall (the one that’s on the same side as the planted arm), and lean the opposite leg forward.

Gravity pulls you around, and lets you lower your feet to the floor safely.

This is one of the most important skills you can learn as you develop your handstand practice, as it will allow you to safely exit any handstand without any risk of injury as you develop your balance!

Once you feel comfortable bailing out of a handstand, my dear rebel, it is time for Level 6!

Level 6 Handstand Progression: How to Do a Handstand

We are now ready for you to try a handstand!

It’s going to come down to you slowly but surely leaving the safety of the wall.

First, just try to take one leg off the wall during your wall walk:

When you’re comfortable taking one leg off, trying switching them!

The objective is now is to switch your legs in a slow, smooth manner – one lifts off the wall while the other simultaneously moves back to the wall. 

Once you get comfortable with this, it’s time to take both legs off the wall!

BOOM! Your first handstand!

Are you doing it right?

A good way to tell would be to record your handstand practice and review it against the videos here to check your form.

Want to have an expert review your form? Check out our 1-on-1 Online Coaching Program! Our spiffy mobile app lets you send video of your handstand directly to your coach, who will provide feedback so you can perfect your technique.

They’ll also build a workout program that’s custom to your situation, which will have you doing handstands like Luke Skywalker in no time!

Have your Nerd Fitness Coach build you a handstands workout and check your form! Click here to learn more!

4 Tips and Tricks for Doing Handstands

Nothing beats patience and hard work, but there are a few tips and tricks we can provide that will allow you the best chance for success.

#1) Make sure you go through a proper warm-up: We’ve given you several options for the wrists and shoulders. Not only will a warm-up help prevent injury, but it will get the muscles and joints properly prepared to get the most out of your training.

#2) Prioritize Your Handstand: You can work the skill on its own time, and it won’t interfere or be interfered by anything else, but what if you’re doing other exercises during your workout?

When do you handstand, when you’re training in a swamp?

The best time to work the balancing drills (like your wall walk) is at the beginning of your workout, after you’ve warmed up.

These skills require concentration and a fresh focus to really benefit and progress with them.

Trying to balance after you’ve exhausted yourself with a tough cardio session is an exercise in futility (pun intended).

The best time to work the positional drills (like your quadruped rock) would be sometime during your strength session, and before your cardio.

These drills are not as dependent on completely fresh muscles, but we still don’t want to try and hold ourselves upside-down after a grueling workout.

#3) Don’t do too much, too soon.

We’ve mentioned this a million times because it’s so important. Taking on too much too soon is a way to develop bad habits and possibly injure yourself.

Take your time! Enjoy and really master each step!

#4) Take it Easy: In the same vein, we want to look for success.

What do I usually see when people practice handstands: Someone kicking up 100 times and kinda getting a handstand once or twice. How much sense does that make?

While we might not be batting 1,000 with all our attempts, but we should be looking to successfully complete around 8 out of 10 attempts. If we’re not? Then we might have taken on too much, too soon!

Let’s wrap up this guide and give you some next steps for your handstand practice.

The 5-Minute Rule: Practice Handstands Every Day and Be Amazed at What Happens

Commit to 5 minutes a day. That’s it. But do it every day.

I’ll see a lot of people go all in for a single handstand session, and then not touch the skill for a week or more.

Dan Gable once said, “If it’s important, do it every day.”

Now this is a simplification, but with handstands, this is ESPECIALLY important.

When you first start out, your arms and shoulder may only be able to do 5 minutes before they are DONE.

Doing them for a short time each day is the best strategy to improve strength, endurance, and balance.

Want help progressing with handstands from here? I’ve got 3 great options for you!

#1) Our course NF Handstands includes more instruction, a skill-tree leveling system, and exact directions on what to do, for how long, and when to advance.

Learn more about the NF Rings and Handstands Superpack!

#2) If you want step-by-step guidance on how to complete handstands, get stronger, and even eat better, check out our killer 1-on-1 coaching program:

Our coaching program changes lives. Learn how!

#3) Join The Rebellion! We have a free email newsletter that we send out twice per week, full of tips and tricks to help you get strong, get healthy, and have fun doing so. 

I’ll also send you tons of free guides that you can use to start leveling up your life too:

Get your Nerd Fitness Resource Kit

A printable worksheet to track THIS bodyweight workout!

15 Newbie Mistakes You Need to Avoid.

Comprehensive Beginner’s Guide to the Paleo Diet.

Alright, your turn:

Have you ever tried to kick up into a handstand?

What’s the one thing holding you back?

What questions can I answer?

-Steve

PS: One day I’ll be able to type articles like this while doing a handstand. 

Jim, our lead trainer for Nerd Fitness Coaching, makes it look so easy:

###

Photo sources:[3]

Footnotes    ( returns to text)

Probably.

Zing!

Handstand desert, egg and hammer, handstand sunset

How to Do a Handstand: Get Your First Handstand in 30 Days syndicated from https://healthavenuesite.wordpress.com/

[healthavenueblog]

July #BookChat: Suzi’s Top Books First Half of 2019

Welcome to this month’s #BookChat! This month I’m switching things up a little bit by coming to you solo to tell you about some of my favorite books from the first half of 2019. In case you haven’t heard, I read a lot

so I thought it would be fun to look back over […]

The post July #BookChat: Suzi’s Top Books First Half of 2019 appeared first on Confessions of a Fitness Instructor.

July #BookChat: Suzi’s Top Books First Half of 2019 syndicated from https://healthavenuesite.wordpress.com/

[healthavenueblog]

The Problem With The Law of Attraction

The law of attraction can be wonderful – if you know how to use it. But so many people are missing a key step in the Law of Attraction and that’s what today’s podcast episode is all about! The Problem With The Law of Attraction Like Attracts Like The law of attraction became popular a […]

The post The Problem With The Law of Attraction appeared first on Confessions of a Fitness Instructor.

The Problem With The Law of Attraction syndicated from https://healthavenuesite.wordpress.com/

[healthavenueblog]

6 Beginner Gym Workouts: How to Work Out in a Gym The Right Way!

Welcome to the Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to the Gym! 

As part of our Strength 101 series, this guide will dive deep into everything you need to know about working out properly in a gym.

By the time you finish reading, you’ll never have to wonder “what should I do in the gym?”

I bet I also make you laugh once or twice with bad jokes or perfect gifs.

We’ve helped thousands of Online Coaching Clients build confidence and start strength training in the gym, so I worked with our coaches to create today’s Ultimate Beginner Gym Guide!

Not confident at the gym? Bring a fitness Yoda in your pocket with the Nerd Fitness Coaching app:

Okay, time to start working out. Let’s hit the gym and explore the following:

Scared to work out in a gym? Read this first.

How often should I go to the gym?

Level 1 Gym Workout: Your first day in the gym.

Level 2 Gym Workout: Cardio Cadet.

Level 3 Gym Workout: Bodyweight Brigade.

Level 4 Gym Workout: Dumbbell Division.

Level 5 Gym Workout: Barbell Battalion.

Level 6 Gym Workout: Gym Class Hero.

Gym Etiquette: Tips and Tricks.

How to build the gym habit.

Scared to Work Out in a Gym? Read This First.

Regardless of your physique, if you are 400 pounds or 100 pounds, going to a regular commercial gym for the first time can be intimidating as hell.

And that’s only if you can get yourself to use 20 Seconds of Courage (A Nerd Fitness rallying cry) to walk in the door!

I know many people who say “gyms are not not for me,” or “gyms are dumb” and never even go into one, simply because gyms can be scary/not welcoming/not cool.

By the way, if you don’t have a gym membership, here’s how to find the right gym, and 6 things to know before joining a gym.

Now, if you CAN work up the courage to walk through the door, you’ll be faced with the following:

People with pained looks on their faces dutifully using machines that somewhat resemble medieval torture devices.

Others on cardio machines, treadmills, and ellipticals, and you can already picture yourself wiping out and ending up in a YouTube fail montage.

Really strong jacked people picking up heavy free weights so effortlessly that you can’t help but instantly compare yourself to them…and get intimidated.

If you struggle with self-confidence, or you don’t love how you look, you might assume that everybody around you will be judging you the whole time and don’t want to subject yourself to this torture.

In fact, you might think that somehow you need to get in shape FIRST, and THEN you can go to the gym…

Wrong!

You go to the gym TO get in shape. And I will get you there.

If you are going to start using a gym, here are some truths you need to know:

Everybody around you is just as self-conscious as you are. Yes, that super jacked dude. Or that thin (or jacked) fit woman on the elliptical. They aren’t focused on you, because they’re too busy living inside their own head wondering if everybody is thinking about them.

Everybody starts somewhere. You don’t look good so that you can then go to the gym. You go to the gym to get stronger, more confident, and then look good.

MOST will applaud you for trying. When I see somebody who is severely overweight at the gym, it makes me happy – they’re trying to better themselves! That’s freaking AWESOME. This is the mentality 90%+ of the people will have.

MANY will be too self-focused to even notice you. These are the dudes lifting up their shirt in the mirror to check their abs, doing bicep curls in the squat rack, and/or making sure they take photos to post on Facebook to prove they did in fact go to the gym. #Fitspo #Instagram #OtherNonsensicalHashtags

A RARE few will judge. Though, they’re not just judging you, I promise. They’re judging EVERYBODY around you, because they can’t help but compare themselves to others and they’re terrible people. This is no different than in real life. Screw these people, haters gonna hate, slaters gonna slate.

Sure, you can say “people are mean, the gym is scary, I just won’t show up.” But then, the terrorists win. And so do those people. So f*** that!.

Instead, this is going to be your gym mentality:

Accept that some people suck (like anywhere in life), and most people are indifferent or focused on being self-conscious themselves. Everybody else will applaud you for trying and being there.

Make an epic Spotify playlist that makes you feel heroic.

Wear clothes that you feel comfortable in.

Keep your headphones on, zone out everybody, and go about your business. Imagine you’re the only one there.

Use 20 seconds of courage when necessary to get you to take action.

We work with all of our Online Coaching clients who are worried looking foolish in the gym. We know this is a huge challenge, so we create small levels and missions for our clients to get them comfortable in the gym.

We’ve helped people just like you go from sheepish beginner to barbell-wielding badass. Let us help you!

Let us take you from Newbie to Weight Training Hero with our Coaching Program! Get the details here:

NOTE: if you’re somebody that’s not quite ready to get in the gym yet, or the above gave you anxiety just thinking about it, you can follow along with our Beginner Bodyweight Training program at HOME until you build up enough confidence!

Sign up in the box below and I’ll send you our workout free (along with some other goodies):

Grab Your Beginner Bodyweight Routine Worksheet. No Gym Required!

Complete this workout at home, no equipment required

Avoid the common mistakes everybody makes when doing bodyweight exercises

Learn how to finally get your first pull-up

How Often Should I go to the Gym?

Many people think they need to hit the gym 6 days per week, dutifully alternating weight training with cardio and bootcamps to get that jacked/toned body they’re after. 

That sounds exhausting and miserable to me, and I LOVE the gym!

So here’s what you need to know about gym frequency:

Go as much as you can, or as little as you want. 

All of the workouts in this guide are “full-body workouts” which means they work out all of the muscles in your body. 

And as we lay out in our “Strength 101: Beginner Strength Workouts” article, your muscles get broken down in the gym and then they rebuild themselves stronger over the next 48 hours.

For that reason, we recommend you hit the gym 2-3 times per week, with a day off or more in between each session. 

This advice comes with a few caveats: 

If you’re a single mom or working two jobs or just busy living your life and you can only go to the gym once, great! Once a week is better than zero times a week!

If you have specific athletic or cardiovascular goals you’re training for, then hitting the gym more frequently might get you faster results.

If you are trying to lose weight, going to the gym more frequently probably WON’T get you faster results. It’s all diet.

“Steve, just tell me how often I should go to the gym!”

Fine! Try to work up to going to the gym 3 times per week.

I like Monday-Wednesday-Friday workout plans.

Start and end the week with good wins! 

Oh, what’s that? You want to exercise on your off days too? Cool. Here’s how what you should be doing on your non-training days.

We craft our workout routines for our coaching clients around their schedules – some people hit the gym 5 days per week, while others only go once a week. We’re all unique snowflakes!

Okay! Now that we got THAT out of the way, are we ready!?

Great! Let’s level up in the gym!

Level One Gym Workout: First Day At the Gym

The toughest part about going to a gym for the first time is just walking through the door.

If you do that, you’ve already gone farther than 74% of the population (a totally made up statistic that I’m using to prove my point), so give yourself a pat on the back.*

*Don’t have enough mobility to pat yourself on the back? We’ll help you with that too.

So on your first day in the gym, just GOING to the gym is a big step in the right direction. And I’m proud of you.

Note: You might need to also change into gym clothes if you’re coming from work. I know walking out onto the floor in gym clothes might be intimidating too (another chance to use 20 Seconds of Courage).

But now you’re wondering, “Steve you half-witted, scruffy-looking nerf herder, what do I DO on my first day at the gym?”

If you haven’t already done so, ask somebody at the front desk the following:

“Hey I’m new here, could I get a tour of the gym?”

“Excuse me, today’s my first day, can you point me in the direction of a place I can stretch?”

“Can you help me work the treadmill?”

Go full YOLO and try to figure these things out on your own.

If you’re able to get a personal tour, great! Ask the treadmill question when you get to them. If they can’t walk you through, just do a lap yourself and see where things are and who is doing what.

Pro tip (also works outside of the gym): pretend like you’re confident – even if you’re dying inside – walk with purpose, and nobody will question why you’re doing what you’re doing.

So, when you’re ready, walk over towards the stretching area, and do a few basic mobility/warm-up stretches while continuing to get the lay of the land and see what people are doing (don’t stare excessively, cool? cool).

Not sure what to do for warm-up movements? That’s okay!

Day 1 Beginner Warm-up Routine:

Roll your head in half circles slowly, from shoulder to shoulder. 5 circles in each direction

Slowly roll your shoulders forwards and backwards. 10 each way.

Keep your legs stationary, and twist your torso, left and right. 10 twists each side.

Quad stretch: Hold each stretch for 5 seconds. Do 3 on each side:

Cross one arm in front your chest, then the other, as demonstrated here by lead coach Jim: Hold each stretch for 5 seconds. Do 3 on each side:

These movements have the awesome side-effect of you being able to look around the gym and get the “flow” of things, while still looking busy. Jim STILL uses this “trick” when checking out new gyms.

A dynamic warm-up is the appetizer to ANY main course of strength training.

Really just get your body moving. We don’t have to make you a gym warrior on Day 1. Some stretches and sightseeing will be good enough.

LEVEL 1 MISSION: Take a lap around the gym and do your stretches.

If you walked out right now after doing these things, it’s still a win for Day 1 in a gym. Seriously – I don’t care what you do on Day 1 – as long as it leaves you feeling good enough to come back for a Day 2!

LEVEL 1 RECAP:

Walking through the door makes you a winner.

Ask for a tour if you need to know where things are!

Change into workout clothes.

Stand in one spot, do a few stretches, get the lay of the land.

If you’re up for MORE or ready to level up consider going to the next level, become a cardio cadet!

Tired of not seeing results? Learn how our coaching program is changing lives:

Level 2 Gym Workout: Join the Cardio Cadets

Get on the treadmill and start it up, based on the staff’s instructions.

If you weren’t able to get instructions, many treadmills have a “quick start” button that will start things up.

Why start with just walking?

It gets you moving and out of your head! I know you’re smart – you’re reading NERD Fitness. But you also probably deal with paralysis by analysis a lot by overanalyzing everything, so we need to get OUT of our heads and get moving!!

Not only that, but walking is an AMAZING form of exercise. Walking is how Tim the NF Academy member lost 50 lbs through walking and nutritional changes. Don’t underestimate walking!

So, for your first 10-15 minutes, just walk. Set the treadmill at 3mph or 3.5 or whatever speed is comfortable but not too strenuous.

A speed that gets you moving and gives you a chance to decide what you’ll do next while you look around the gym. (Aka, it gives you a chance to get out of your head and stop thinking everyone is looking at you. They’re not)

LEVEL 2 MISSION: Do your Level 1 stretches, then spend 15 minutes walking, and then you are free to go home.

Repeat this as many days in a row that you need to until this starts to feel comfortable and you stop feeling self-conscious.

Scientists, Benedictine monks, and German scholars refer to such a thing as a “routine.”

As you get more comfortable, you can increase your walking speed or length of walking (20 minutes, 60 minutes, whatever)

If I’m gonna walk, I like to crush podcasts while doing so (My favorites: Watch out for Fireballs, Pardon My Take, and Bill Burr). Maybe you listen to Harry Potter on Audible.

Whatever floats your boat.

LEVEL 2 RECAP:

What you do in the gym doesn’t matter – build the habit of going regularly.

Develop confidence at the treadmill with just walking.

Start to realize you have just as much of a right to be there as anybody else.

Give yourself a high five for being you.

This routine of walking and stretching might only be one day in the gym for you, or it might be two months of this before you finally feel like you don’t want to jump out of your own skin while in the gym.

Going to the gym is the habit I want you to build, so this is a great start. Remember, you should be thinking in terms of “days and years,” not “weeks and months”:

We have many coaching clients who spend MONTHS just walking and working up the courage to move beyond the treadmill. That’s cool. We’re all on our own journey, at our own pace, so go at the pace that fits YOUR schedule.

You’re not alone on this journey. Let our Online Coaches help you get started (and level up) in the gym!

Level 3 Workout: Join the Bodyweight Brigade!

After getting comfortable with the stretching/treadmill routine, you may want to hop on a weight lifting machine at this point like the leg press or chest press machine.

Is this progress? Sure!

Can you do this? Absolutely!

But, but, but… we are going to recommend you try some bodyweight exercises instead as your next step.

Controlling your body through space (not outer space) is going to be more beneficial in the long run than strapping into a machine and moving through a set path.

If you can do bodyweight exercises proficiently, then stepping into a machine is “easy.”

The reverse is not always the case.

So, if we’ve convinced you to try some bodyweight exercises, then next thing is to identify a place in the gym you can do bodyweight exercises where you’re not in the way. This oftentimes might double as the place that some people are doing stretches, where you’ve already been before!

If you don’t know, ask the front desk or find a trainer! That’s what they’re there for!

LEVEL 3 MISSION:

After your 5 minutes of warm-up (Level 1) and 10 minutes on the treadmill (Level 2), your next step is to go to a place you can do the Level 3 Gym Workout:

10 bodyweight squats

10 push-ups

10 bodyweight squats

10 push-ups

10 bodyweight squats

10 push-ups

Can’t get through it all? No worries, do what you can.

This style of alternating one exercise with another is called a circuit workout, by the way!

If you don’t know how to do those movements well, watch coaches Jim, Staci, and myself show you how!

HOW TO DO A PROPER PUSH-UP:

HOW TO DO A SQUAT:

These are two key movements in our Beginner Bodyweight Workout Routine, and the foundation of any strength training routine!

If you just did the above mini-workout for a month, you’d be off to a great start! If you’re feeling frisky and starting to find some confidence in the gym, it’s time to branch out more!

LEVEL 3 RECAP:

Warm up on the treadmill with a 10 minute walk

Find a place where you can do bodyweight movements out of the way

Complete 3 circuits of 10 push-ups and 10 bodyweight squats each at a pace that works for you

Stay at this stage as long as you need, until you can move on!

Note: If you enjoy the bodyweight brigade, or you’re not quite ready to start doing weight training yet, that’s cool too.

We have tons of 1-on-1 coaching clients who have gotten in GREAT shape without ever picking up a weight. It all comes down to constantly increasing the challenge and making progress each week. 

Let us build a bodyweight program that fits your life. Learn more about our Coaching Program!

Level 4 Gym Workout: Join the Dumbbell Division

It’s time to wander into the place that strikes fear in the heart of most gym goers:

The free weight section.

Gulp.

DO NOT FORGET THIS: If you are a 400 pound woman, or 85 years-old, or a 100-pound man, you have just as much of a right to be in the free weight section as anybody else.

It might take yet another 20 Seconds of Courage to wander in there, so I’m challenging you to try it.

LEVEL 4 MISSION:

After you do 10 minutes of walking on the treadmill, go to the dumbbell section, grab a single 10 lb (4.5kg) dumbbell, and find a flat bench like this:

Stand next to that bench, and make sure nobody is using it. If somebody is at a bench nearby, ask them “is anybody using this bench?” If they say no, put your towel on the bench, your 10 lb dumbbell on it, and stand next to it.

We’re going to add a 1-arm dumbbell row to our circuit above:

That’s it! Just one dumbbell exercise! Boom! You are now weight training like a boss.

Here’s your new Level 4 Gym Workout Circuit: Dumbbell Division A

10 bodyweight squats

10 push-ups

10 one arm dumbbell rows (10 per arm)

Do this circuit once, and then repeat two more times if you’re feeling good.

To recap, or if you skipped Steps 1-3 (I’m only slightly offended), here’s how to properly do:

A BODYWEIGHT SQUAT:

A PROPER PUSH-UP:

Congrats! You’ve used dumbbells!

Remember, everybody started somewhere, and we’re just working on getting you comfortable being in the free weight section.

Want to continue adding dumbbells movements into your workout? Let’s add them to the squats.

Use the same dumbbell to do “goblet squats.”

They’re named as such because it looks like you’re holding a goblet that you don’t want to spill.

Here’s a video of Staci and Jim demonstrating the Goblet Squat pulled from our self-paced course, The Nerd Fitness Academy:

  So your Level 4 Gym Workout: Dumbbell Division B is 3 circuits of the following:

10 goblet squats

10 push-ups

10 dumbbell rows/side

If you go to the gym 3x a week, work your way up to the following routine:

Light stretching and walk on the treadmill for 10 minutes

3 complete circuits of this beginner circuit

Go home and eat good food and play video games

This will put you ahead of 95% gym going population. This puts you on a great path to building a healthy, antifragile, resilient body.

Add a little more weight here and there- making the minimal possible jumps each time (going from 10 lb to 12.5 lb dumbbells, for example).

Make your push-up variation a little harder over time.

You can stick with the above for MONTHS.

Ready for another upgrade?

The last dumbbell exercise to learn is the dumbbell Romanian deadlift (RDL). This is like a cousin of the bodyweight squat where we move through the hips more than the knees.

Grab a pair of dumbbells now, push your hips back and bow forward like you’re being polite. Or, you’re like one of those novelty “drinking birds.”

Bring the dumbbells down to about your knees, not to the ground, then stand back up.

You can see the exercise right here:

Every other workout, swap out the goblet squat for the dumbbell Romanian deadlift.

So our circuit is now alternating with each gym workout.

Do 3 circuits of each if you can! If the weight is too light, use heavier dumbbells the next time you train.

Level 4 Gym Workout: Dumbbell Division C:

10 goblet squats OR 10 dumbbell Romanian deadlifts

10 push-ups

10 dumbbell rows per arm.

LEVEL 4 RECAP:

Remember you have just as much a right as everybody else to use the free weights.

Take a deep breath, go into free weights section, and get a 10 lb. dumbbell.

Learn to do a bent over row and goblet squats.

Learn to do dumbbell Romanian deadlifts.

High five yourself for weight training.

Training with dumbbells opens up infinite possibilities.

Okay, probably not INFINITE possibilities, but close enough.

If you are somebody that wants to learn how to train with dumbbells even more seriously, or you’re looking for ways to put that dumbbell set you have in your garage to proper use, let us help!

If you have a great program to follow, you can get in incredible shape with just a set of dumbbells.

Let us create a dumbbell workout for you that’s ACTUALLY fun! I promise. Learn more about our Coaching Program:

Level 5: Enlist in the Barbell Battalion

The two final pieces of the puzzle are things I want for you so badly, I can taste it. These two exercises have changed my life, our lead coach Jim’s life, Staci’s life, and the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in the Nerd Fitness Rebellion:

Picking up a barbell, and learning how to squat and learning how to deadlift.

There’s something powerful about old-school strength training with exercises like the back squat and the deadlift.

Show me somebody that’s strong at both of these movements, and I’ll show you somebody that’s in better shape than most of the human population.

But wait!

Even an empty barbell can be heavy, so before we jump into the deep end, you need to be able to complete our circuit with the following weights:

Level 4 Gym Workout: Dumbbell Division C:

10 goblet squats – 45 lbs (20Kg dumbbell), 10 RDLs with 20 lbs (9-10 Kg dumbbells)

10 push ups (on knees or regular)

10 dumbbell rows with each arm  – at least a 20 lb dumbbell

Can’t do those movements at that weight, or not sure what they are? Go back to the Level 4 Gym Workout.

YOUR LEVEL 5 MISSION:

WHEN YOU ARE READY, please read the following:

Strength Training 101: The Squat

And here is a quick video demonstration of the Squat, but I would REALLY read our full article!

And then I want you to find a squat rack:

THIS IS ONE TYPE OF SQUAT RACK (the barbell is NOT connected to apparatus). USE THESE:

THIS IS A SMITH MACHINE (bar is attached to apparatus). AVOID THESE:

Note: if you are training in a hotel gym, an apartment gym, or at some locations like Planet Fitness, they might NOT have a squat rack!

This is due to them not wanting to be liable for somebody using a barbell incorrectly, so it’s easier for them to just tell you “A Smith Machine is the same thing.” It is not, in fact, the same thing. You need a gym that has an ACTUAL squat rack with a free barbell.

If your gym doesn’t have a squat rack, and you want to start barbell training, I would strongly consider finding a new gym or just hanging out in the Level 4: Dumbbell Division!

If using a squat rack scares the crap out of you: wait to attempt your FIRST trip to the squat rack when the gym is nearly empty, or recruit a buddy who knows what they’re doing. If there’s a special day you can go VERY early to the gym, or VERY late, or during the workday, do it then.

Watch this video from The Nerd Fitness Academy about how to set the ‘pins’ in the squat rack to put the bar at the proper height!

YOUR NEXT LEVEL 5 MISSION:

Attempt 1 set of a 5 barbell squats with JUST the bar (first ask the staff or a trainer how much the bar weighs: most standard barbells weigh 45 lbs (20Kg) but your gym might not have standard barbells).

You can then complete our tried and true circuit – replacing goblet squats with barbell squats.

So our circuit is now 3 circuits.

Level 5 Gym Workout: Barbell Battalion A:

10 barbell squats or 10 dumbbell Romanian deadlifts

10 push-ups

10 dumbbell rows/side

(See Level 4 for explanations on the Dumbbell deadlifts and rows)

Congrats! You’re using barbells! If you haven’t already read Team NF’s lead female trainer Staci’s transformation story of how she went from barely being able to lift a 10 lb dumbbell to now deadlifting 425 lbs, it’s a really inspiring story! 

Speaking of Staci, let’s move on to her favorite exercise (and mine!)…

YOUR NEXT LEVEL 5 MISSION:

Read: Strength Training 101: The Deadlift

And watch the video demonstration here:

The deadlift movements starts with the weight on the ground, and ends with it back on the ground.

If you’ve got regular, large weights (usually 45 lbs/20 kgs) on each side then the bar sits the proper height off the ground.

Some facilities have lighter plates at that same large diameter. Use them.

If you are lifting less weight (or just using the bar to start off) then DON’T do the deadlift from the ground. The bar will be too low to the ground and mess up proper technique.

Instead, do the following to start your deadlifts at proper height:

1) Use blocks to adjust the barbell starting height:

2) Use the safety bars in a squat rack to set the height of the bar correctly!

3) Do the Romanian deadlift instead! (Whew, glad we learned that!). It’s the exact same movement as the dumbbell Romanian deadlifts, you’re just using a barbell instead.

START WITH LIGHT WEIGHT – JUST the bar. As we cover in our “How much weight should I lift?”, you should ALWAYS start with just the bar.

And work on technique.

Only then should you start adding more weight, and add it slowly – you’ll be picking up heavy weight in no time, so don’t rush it.

Here’s Staci demonstrating a proper barbell Romanian deadlift from our Nerd Fitness Academy course:

  Once you’ve started doing these two movements in your routine, your two alternating gym days will look like this. Simply alternate every time you go to the gym (with a day off in between sessions).

Level 5 Gym Workout: Barbell Battalion:

Day A Circuit – 3 rounds of:

10 barbell squats

10 push-ups

10 inverted bodyweight rows

Day B Circuit – 3 rounds of:

5 barbell romanian deadlifts

10 push-ups

10 dumbbell rows per arm

Not sure what a bodyweight row is? It’s an AMAZING exercise that you’ll need to master if you’re going to get your first pull-up or chin-up one day! 

Read our article on bodyweight rows, and also watch our quick video demonstration here of Staci doing them:

LEVEL 5 RECAP:

Barbell training will change your life like it has changed mine.

Learn to squat and learn to deadlift properly.

Focus on proper form, and slowly start to add weight to the bar.

You are now a gym “regular” and I salute you!

Now, I know the barbell squat and barbell deadlift are two complex, potentially scary exercises. It’s important to get your form correctly now when you are just lifting the bar, so that you don’t hurt yourself once you start adding weight!

If you want a professional to check your form, tell you when to add weight to the bar, and teach you other barbell movements, check out our online coaching program!

Make sure you are doing squats and deadlifts correctly with our Coaching Program! We do video form checks and provide ongoing guidance! Learn more:

Level 6 Gym Workout:  Gym Class Hero

Did I tell you that I’m proud of you yet? I really am, I promise. Your mom is proud too. So is your dad, but he just doesn’t know how to express it.

So now you’re thinking: “Steve, I did a barbell squat. It was terrifying but I did it. I tried deadlifts too and those are kind of fun.

What’s next? Give me MOAR!!”

It’s like you’ve finally learned to cook, and now you’re asking for more spices.

So, here in Level 6, we’re going to turn you into a full Gym Class Hero. And it requires you to learn a super standard, incredibly challenging exercise that also happens to be amazing for you…

The pull-up or chin-up!

If you can do a pull-up or chin-up yet, you can read our full guide on how to get your first pull-up or chin-up.

We also have a full article on doing a perfect pull-up or chin-up with proper form, but I would watch this video too for some quick ways to scale the movement to fit your experience level:

YOUR LEVEL 6 GYM WORKOUT MISSION:

Alternate inverted bodyweight rows with pull-ups or an easier pull-up variation every other workout.

So our circuit will be alternating these movements on your A and B Days:

LEVEL 6 DAY A CIRCUIT – 3 rounds of:

10 barbell squats

10 push-ups

10 pull-ups or pull-up alternatives!

LEVEL 6 DAY B CIRCUIT – 3 rounds of:

10 barbell Romanian deadlifts/regular deadlifts

10 push-ups

10 inverted bodyweight rows

Spice it up further! If you’ve read up to this point, and put the work in, we hope you feel like a Gym Class Hero, and you can start to build your own workout!

SO what can you do to add some variety? Throw in or replace another exercise!

Want to do some planks? Put them in the circuit after your other movements!

Lunges to replace the squats or deadlifts one day? Sounds good!

Want to start training with gymnastic rings? Go for it!

Want to learn how to do handstands? Try practicing for 5 minutes at the start of each workout!

There are a ton of different options for what to do and where to go.

If we’ve gotten you more comfortable in the gym, we’ve done our job!

WANT MORE HANDS ON INSTRUCTION? If you’re looking to get out of the generic workout programs and follow along with a routine that fits your goals and lifestyle,consider checking out our 1-on-1 Coaching Program!

Sure, we help beginners get started with strength training. But we also help seasoned gym goers take their training more seriously, and even help some folks start competing in powerlifting competitions. 

I personally hired an online coach in 2014, and I’ve been with him ever since. It’s the best money I spend every month, and the best investment I make in myself.

We’ve worked with men and women like Leslie here, a single mom that lost 100 + pounds thanks to following Coach Jim’s program.

She now works on things like gymnastic training and handstands and deadlifts and squats!

Interested in having expert guidance in your pocket? Click on the image below to a book a free call with our team!

Get strong as hell and level up with our Coaching Program. Get the full details here:   

Gym Etiquette:Tips and Tricks

I asked the entire 15-person staff in our Online Coaching Program – most of whom have trained clients in a gym for 5+ years – what information they would share with new gym goers:

Take your time. The above 6 level workout plan might take you 12+ months to move through, and that’s okay! I would rather you slowly wade into the water instead of terrifying yourself with the thought of cannonballing into the deep end and never even starting a gym routine.

Stick with what you know, and then bit by bit, one movement at a time, branch out and try new things.

Remember: “days and years,” not “weeks and months.”

Do what makes you happy. You might have noticed above I didn’t mention things like bicep curls, bench press, cardio classes, spin class, etc.

If those things make you happy, start adding them to the mix. However, if you are only doing those things because you think you are supposed to, don’t!

The above 6-Stage strategy combined with a healthy nutritional strategy will get you 95% of the way to where you want to go.

I promise. Nerd’s honor.

Write down everything you’re doing and track your progress. Keep a simple note on your phone, write in a notebook, use Evernote, whatever. Write down what you do so that you know what to do next time.

When you get stronger and things feel too easy, you know to move up in weight slowly (and record that too!).

Keeping track of everything is one of the easiest and most important ways to make progress. Staci, Jim, and I ALL still record every workout and never stop trying to get a teeny, tiny bit stronger with each session.

It’s better to lift a TOO LIGHT weight than try one that’s TOO HEAVY. You want to finish the workout saying “hey I could do more, this is encouraging” rather than “that was too much, I hurt myself/failed/and I’m demoralized.”

If you don’t know, ask somebody who works there. If you’re worried that you’re using a machine incorrectly, and you’re sheepish and self-conscious about it, ask somebody who works in the gym.

Usually there will be trainers that work there walking around the floor – ask them! That’s what they’re there for.

They can help you set the safety bars and pins on the squat rack if you’re not sure how. They can tell you how to adjust the seat on a machine, or how the treadmill works. That is what they are there for!

If you want to hire a trainer for a few sessions, it might be a great investment! Good trainers are hard to come by, but if you happen to like our style of doing things here at Nerd Fitness, we have our own 1-on-1 Coaching Program that will program your workouts and help you fix your diet:

If you are a member at a Planet Fitness or similar gym: Your gym might not allow you to do barbell deadlifts, might not have a squat rack, or ONLY have a Smith Machine. If this is true of your gym, this is okay!

Do the best you can with what you have. Like MacGyver.

You can still get quite strong with the dumbbell workouts and bodyweight movements in Stage 4! And you’ll be that much more prepared when you do start working with barbells if you eventually join a different gym.

Don’t let perfect be the enemy of the good. Just going to the gym takes courage.

Trying a machine for the first time takes courage.

Picking up a dumbbell takes courage.

Using the squat rack takes a lot of courage.

Don’t worry about perfect, or having perfect form or the perfect routine after you finish this article, just START! It’s how we all learn: like scientists trying new experiments and subtly tweaking the variables.

These are our favorite tips and tricks with regards to the gym. But I’d be remiss if I didn’t also mention something equally important:

Gym etiquette! 

We’ve created another article in this gym series called “29 Unwritten Rules to the Gym,” to make sure you don’t be an accidental ass in the gym. 

This list includes some obvious things like wiping down the bench after you use it, or not monopolizing a squat rack, but then some other more subtle things that will keep you in everybody’s good graces!

Read 29 Unwritten Gym Rules!

How to Build the Routine of Going to the Gym.

If you read this far, 6000 words later, I have to imagine it means you’re really interested in getting started with strength training! 

The first time going to a gym can be nerve-wracking and exciting, but it’s the 100th, 500th, 1000th trip to the gym where results get made.

And that means you need to BUILD the habit correctly for going to the gym. 

It comes down to a few key things:

1) Accountability! If you’re new to going to the gym, it’s really easy to fall off the wagon once life gets busy. For that reason, I encourage you to be accountable to somebody other than yourself. 

You see, motivation sucks, and will fail you when you need it most. 

So, instead of using motivation, instead cultivate discipline and accountability. 

Make it almost impossible for you to skip the gym:

Recruit a friend to join you at the gym! You don’t want to let them down, right?

Prepay for a bunch of sessions with a good personal trainer.

Hire an online coach who checks in on you regularly!

2) Focus on hacking into the Matrix and setting up your system! Put your workout time and place into your Google Calendar so that you always know when your next workout is. Focus on creating an environment where you are more likely than not gonna DO THE THING you want to do (go to the gym). We call this “Building your Batcave.”

3) Cultivate a love of constant improvement. Imagine this: you’re no longer going to the gym just to lose weight or look good. Those things are a happy consequence of what you’re really there for:

Because you ACTUALLY like to work out! 

I cannot tell you how many NF Coaching Clients I’ve seen message me and say “Holy crap Steve, I don’t know how it happened, but I actually LIKE working out now!”

Every week, you’re excited to hit the gym because: 

You’re adding more weight to your squats.

You are attempting a new personal best for the deadlift.

You’re trying to get your first pull-up. 

You get to see your gym friend and hear how his day went.

You LOVE how you feel after the gym. 

Getting there takes time and energy, but that’s really when life changes and sh** gets magical with regards to your health and fitness.

These are the tools we’ve created to help you turn the gym into something you look forward to:

1) Our popular 1-on-1 coaching program. No more guesswork, no wondering if you’re doing the right program, no shame or guilt. Just results that don’t suck, and a plan that doesn’t make you miserable. 

We keep you accountable to make sure you actually do your workout, we answer any questions you have, and we cheer you on every step of the way:

Expert accountability and support in your pocket. Learn more about our Coaching Program and App

2) 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.

Learn more about our self-paced course and community, The Nerd Fitness Academy

3) Join the Rebellion! Our free community numbers in the hundreds of thousands scattered throughout the globe, and we need good people like you!

You can join by signing up in the awesome yellow box below, and I’ll send you a bunch of free guides and printable workouts, including our Strength 101 guide! 

Download our comprehensive guide STRENGTH TRAINING 101!

Everything you need to know about getting strong.

Workout routines for bodyweight AND weight training.

How to find the right gym and train properly in one.

PHEW!

Okay, by now you should have all of the tools you need to get started in the gym, but maybe you have more questions. If you do, I have answers! 

Simply leave a comment below and I’ll do my best to answer it soon!

I’d love to hear from you too if you found this article helpful. Which gym workout are you following? 

Have you made it all the way to Level 6 yet!?

-Steve

PS: Make sure you read the other 3 articles in our gym series:

Finding the Right Gym

6 Things to Know Before Joining a Gym

Gym Etiquette: Don’t Break these 29 Unwritten Rules!

PPS: Don’t forget to read our awesome Strength 101 Series either!

Strength Training 101: Beginer Strength Training Routines

Strength Training 101: How Much Weight Should I Be lifting?

Strength Training 101: Finding the Right Gym

Strength Training 101: Building Muscle Quickly

Strength Training 101: Inverted Rows

Strength Training 101: How to Squat Properly

Strength Training 101: The Overhead Press

Strength Training 101: The Deadlift

###

Photo Sources:[1]

Footnotes    ( returns to text)

 lego people looking at barbell, lego storm trooper workout, lego master, scared lego with weight, lego tricep on guitar, power rack, stormtrooper out of line, venting off, romanian deadlift,

6 Beginner Gym Workouts: How to Work Out in a Gym The Right Way! syndicated from https://healthavenuesite.wordpress.com/

[healthavenueblog]

My Third Trimester Twin Pregnancy Workout Modifications

At the time of this writing, I am happy to say that I am officially in my third trimester with twins! And, if I thought I was tired or uncomfortable before, well, that ain’t nothing compared to measuring well over full-term with — hopefully — still weeks to go! While some days I’ve had decent energy, other days I’ve been WIPED. And, really, each and every day being on my feet for any extended period of time (say, more than 10 minutes) has been uncomfortable. So, as you’d expect, workouts have continued to ramp way, way down and are highly…

The post My Third Trimester Twin Pregnancy Workout Modifications appeared first on Fit Bottomed Girls.

My Third Trimester Twin Pregnancy Workout Modifications syndicated from https://healthavenuesite.wordpress.com/

[healthavenueblog]

July #BookChat: Suzi’s Top Books First Half of 2019

Welcome to this month’s #BookChat! This month I’m switching things up a little bit by coming to you solo to tell you about some of my favorite books from the first half of 2019. In case you haven’t heard, I read a lot

so I thought it would be fun to look back over […]

The post July #BookChat: Suzi’s Top Books First Half of 2019 appeared first on Confessions of a Fitness Instructor.

July #BookChat: Suzi’s Top Books First Half of 2019 syndicated from https://healthavenuesite.wordpress.com/

[healthavenueblog]

The Problem With The Law of Attraction

The law of attraction can be wonderful – if you know how to use it. But so many people are missing a key step in the Law of Attraction and that’s what today’s podcast episode is all about! The Problem With The Law of Attraction Like Attracts Like The law of attraction became popular a […]

The post The Problem With The Law of Attraction appeared first on Confessions of a Fitness Instructor.

The Problem With The Law of Attraction syndicated from https://healthavenuesite.wordpress.com/

[healthavenueblog]

Suzi’s Sugar Cookies

In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not your average fitness instructor. When it comes to special event classes, I almost always make a treat for my participants. This past Monday I taught a “Summer Beach Party” Yoga Class, and as part of the festivities, I made these cute summer-themed sugar cookies. I hadn’t planned to […]

The post Suzi’s Sugar Cookies appeared first on Confessions of a Fitness Instructor.

Suzi’s Sugar Cookies syndicated from https://healthavenuesite.wordpress.com/

[healthavenueblog]

Everything I DID to PREPARE for my SISTER’S WEDDING! JEWELRY, LIP FILLER, DRESS OPTIONS

Everything I DID to PREPARE for my SISTER’S WEDDING! JEWELRY, LIP FILLER, DRESS OPTIONS syndicated from https://healthavenuesite.wordpress.com/

[healthavenueblog]

The Beginner Bodyweight Workout: Try this 20 Minute Routine At Home or Anywhere!

So you want to lose weight and get in shape, but you don’t want to leave your house.

As your fitness Yoda, I will teach you a great Beginner Bodyweight Workout Routine you can do anywhere: in your living room, at a park, or in a galaxy far, far away….

These are the types of workouts we build for our Online Coaching Clients, and I’m pumped to share it with you today! 

Want a personalized training program to follow at home? Learn more:

Click the sections below to get right into the action:

What are the benefits of bodyweight workouts?

Beginner Bodyweight Workout Video.

12 Best Bodyweight Exercises For Beginners

An Important Note About Nutrition.

What’s next after the Beginner Bodyweight Workout?

This guide will help you get started with bodyweight training at home with no equipment required, but if you need MORE, we got you covered there too.

Make sure you also download this Beginner Bodyweight Workout Worksheet so you can track your progress! You can get it when you join the NF Rebellion by signing up in the box below:

Grab Your Beginner Bodyweight Routine Worksheet. No Gym Required!

Complete this workout at home, no equipment required

Avoid the common mistakes everybody makes when doing bodyweight exercises

Learn how to finally get your first pull-up

The Benefits of BodyWeight Workout Circuits (They Kick ass)

What makes bodyweight circuits work so well?

Every bodyweight exercise involved utilizes multiple muscle groups, gets your heart rate pumping, and burns tons of calories.

Essentially, circuit weight training, or circuit bodyweight training, burns more calories than interval training, and that in turn burns WAY more calories than steady cardio.

When you strength train, you burn calories.

Then, your body needs to spend hours and hours afterward rebuilding your muscles, which in turn burns even more calories (they call this the “afterburn” effect).

As we cover in our Coaching Program and the NF Academy, our nutrition will account for 80-90% of our success or failure when it comes to getting in shape, might as well spend our time exercising being efficient and strong, right?

Want to make better food decisions? Read our Beginner’s Guide to Healthy Eating.

If you’re trying to lose weight, spending hours doing cardio on a treadmill is a really crappy, boring, inefficient use of your time.

If you’re a busy person (and I know you are), why spend hours doing something when you can be MORE efficient and build a better physique with less time?

Enter the beginner bodyweight workout.

I’m going to take you through a basic home workout today that can be completed anywhere – in your house, apartment, out at a park, in your basement, on the moon, wherever.

Beginner Body Weight Workout Video & exercises

This is the Beginner Bodyweight Workout (3 Circuits): 

20 Bodyweight squats.

10 Push-ups.

10 Walking lunges (each leg).

10 Dumbbell rows (use a milk jug or other weight).

15 Second Plank.

30 Jumping jacks.

See our section below on best bodyweight exercises to see how to do each of these exercises!

In a circuit routine, you’ll do each exercise in succession without a break in between (if you’re able).

Once you’ve finished all exercises in the circuit, do it again.

If you’re still able after the 2nd run through, go for a third.

Because all of these exercises come one after another, you’re bound to get tired – and that’s okay!

It’s better to stop and take a break than to do an exercise incorrectly.

Before you start, don’t forget to do a Dynamic warm up – Make sure to get your heart rate pumping and get your muscles warmed or you’re just asking for injury.

You can run in place, jump rope, do a few push-ups, pedal on a stationary bike, do some punches and kicks, jog up and down your stairs, and/or twist and swing your arms and legs to get them moving!

After you’ve completed your workout at home, feel free to cool down and stretch after. 

“HOW OFTEN SHOULD I DO THE BEGINNER BODYWEIGHT WORKOUT?”

Do this routine 2-3 times a week, but never on consecutive days.

You don’t build muscle when you’re exercising, you build muscle when you’re resting, so try not to do a strength training routine (of the same muscle groups) two days in a row.

I like to follow a training pattern of:

Strength training on one day (like this workout).

20 minutes of interval training the next.

Back to strength training.

Back to interval training or rest!

Alternatively, pick one of these fun exercises to do on your off days instead!

In addition to checking out our Online Coaching Program, make sure you download the worksheet for this workout by joining the Rebellion (our free online community)!

I’ll send it to you right away when you sign up in the box below:

Grab Your Beginner Bodyweight Routine Worksheet. No Gym Required!

Complete this workout at home, no equipment required

Avoid the common mistakes everybody makes when doing bodyweight exercises

Learn how to finally get your first pull-up

The 12 Best Bodyweight Exercises For Beginners

As laid out above in our Beginner Bodyweight Workout video, there are some key movements you can work on to help you get started strength training! 

Here’s how to do every movement in the Beginner bodyweight routine:

1) KNEE PUSH-UP

2) ELEVATED PUSH-UP

3) REGULAR PUSH-UP

We have a whole article on how to do a proper push-up, but we also cover it extensively in this 5 minute video:

4) ASSISTED BODYWEIGHT SQUAT (if you can’t do regular bodyweight squats):

  5) PROPER BODYWEIGHT SQUAT:

If you want even more instruction, here’s how to do a proper bodyweight squat:

6) SUPPORTED LUNGES:

7) REGULAR LUNGES:

8) ONE ARM ROW (Use a milk jug, suitcase, or actual dumbbell):

9) PLANK

10) SIDE

11) WALKING JACKS (if you can’t do jumping jacks)

12) JUMPING JACKS

Note: We have helped hundreds of 1-on-1 Coaching clients get started with strength training and other awesomeness – but EVERYBODY starts with bodyweight training like these movements and this workout!

Our coaching program changes lives. Learn more here!

An Important Note About Nutrition!

Along with this bodyweight routine, you need to make sure you’re eating properly!

A good workout and crappy diet won’t get you results.

After all, one of the rules of the Nerd Fitness Rebellion is “you can’t outrun your fork” and you can’t out train a bad diet!

This means if you don’t ALSO fix your relationship with food, then all the exercise you do won’t be helping you lose weight and building muscle.

If you are trying to lose weight, then you need to fix your nutrition first and foremost. Eating healthy is key!

You can either learn to track your food through counting calories (calculate your daily caloric needs here), or you can look into our healthy plate strategy:

We’ve actually developed our own 10-level nutrition system and mindset blueprint in the Nerd Fitness Academy, but let me break this down into some basics:

Eat natural, whole foods whenever possible.

Leave the soda, candy, and junk food out of your system.

Sugar is worse than Jar Jar Binks – cut back on sugar and liquid calories wherever you can. The stuff is in everything!

Swap out the grains on your plate for vegetables when you can.

Make sure you get enough protein each day (meat, chicken, fish) – this helps with rebuilding muscles and things like that.

You can download a Free 10 Level Diet Guide too when you join the Rebellion and sign up in the box below:

Download our free weight loss guide

THE NERD FITNESS DIET: 10 Levels to Change Your Life

Follow our 10-level nutrition system at your own pace

What you need to know about weight loss and healthy eating

3 Simple rules we follow every day to stay on target

The raw honest truth: how you eat will be responsible for at least 80% of your success or failure.

I’m not kidding when I say that. If you don’t develop a healthier relationship with food, no amount of exercise will get you there.

So if you’re doing this workout program because you’re interested in losing weight, know that training is only 10-20% of the puzzle!

The WORST is dutifully doing this workout routine for months or going to the gym for years and not getting results because you didn’t eat the right way!

That was me – I spent 6 years without results because I didn’t know how to eat correctly to go along with my training!

If you don’t have months or years to make mistakes, and just want your own Yoda to tell you what to do, you’re in the right place!

We’ve been helping busy people like you train at home and make better food decisions without hating life! It’s our 1-on-1 Online Coaching Program, and it might be a great fit for you.

Schedule a call with us to learn more by clicking on the image below:

Learn how to lose weight and get strong with our Coaching Program!

After the Beginner Bodyweight Workout: Next Steps!

Do this Beginner Bodyweight Workout for the next 4-6 weeks and focus on getting better.

If doing just one circuit of the workout was really challenging, no big deal!

Write down how you did, and try to do just 1 more rep or exercise next time through.

The whole point is “do a bit more than last time.”

I also have MULTIPLE options for you to take for your next step too. Pick the option below that best aligns with your goals and timeline:

1) If you want step-by-step guidance on how to lose weight, eat better, and get stronger, check out our killer 1-on-1 coaching program:

Our coaching program changes lives. Learn how!

2) Good at following instructions? 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, meal plans, a questing system, and supportive community.

Learn more about The Nerd Fitness Academy!

3) Join the Rebellion! We need good people like you in our community, the Nerd Fitness Rebellion.

Sign up in the box below to enlist and get the Beginner Bodyweight Workout sheet so you can print out the sheet and train at home!

Grab Your Beginner Bodyweight Routine Worksheet. No Gym Required!

Complete this workout at home, no equipment required

Avoid the common mistakes everybody makes when doing bodyweight exercises

Learn how to finally get your first pull-up

4) Level Up Your Workout! If you’re looking for more workout routines to follow, I got you covered:

Beginner Strength Training Workouts: start with bodyweight training and work up to barbell training!

Advanced Bodyweight Workout Circuit: warning – this will kick your ass

6 Levels of Gym Workouts: Never wonder what to do in the gym again! Follow these 6 levels of workouts to go from Newbie to Gym Hero!

You can do this, and we got your back!

-Steve

###

PHOTO SOURCES: fourbrickstall: “Follow or follow not. There is no follow for follow.”, Army Push-ups, Caveman cooking over fire.

The Beginner Bodyweight Workout: Try this 20 Minute Routine At Home or Anywhere! syndicated from https://healthavenuesite.wordpress.com/

[healthavenueblog]

Does the Perfect Workout Exist? 9 Steps to Find the Best Workout Plan (For You).

So you want to get in shape and start getting fit, but you’re not sure what the perfect workout is?

Not only that, but you want a workout program that you’ll ACTUALLY do?

Great. This is what we do, and we’re pretty dang good at it.

We create personalized workout programs for our Online Coaching Clients, and this guide walks you through the exact 9 steps we follow to create each program:

What’s the perfect workout program for your goals? Let us build it for you:  

This may seem like a lot, but ALL of the steps are important!

In our step-by-step guide to picking the best workout plan and getting fit, we’ll cover:

Step #1: What Are Your Workout Goals?

Step #2: What Workout Is Best for Weight Loss?

Step #3: Finding a Workout Routine You Enjoy.

Step #4: What Is the Best Workout Routine? (An Introduction to Strength Training).

Step #5: Creating a Strength Training Workout Plan.

Step #6: Focus Your Workout Plan on Specific Goals.

Step #7: Have Healthy Expectations for Your Workout Plan.

Step #8: How Do I Pick a Sustainable Workout Routine? (Exercise with Others)

Step #9: Tracking the Results of Your Workout Plan.

Step #1: What Are Your Workout Goals?

You’re reading this guide, which means you likely have SOME goals around getting fit.

Those goals will likely fall into one of three categories:

Feel great and look good naked – You want to lose weight (and/or build muscle) and feel comfortable in your own skin.

Get Healthy – Your doctor told you that you need to change your ways or you’ll die an early death. Yikes.

Be Happy – You are on the hunt for an exercise program that you don’t hate.

I like to refer to these three goals as the Triforce of Awesome.

Because I’m a dork, and because you’ll remember it.

Happy, healthy, look good naked.

(There’s nothing wrong with wanting to look good naked, by the way. It’s why I started training all those years ago!)

MY goal for you is to have you satisfy all three conditions to become healthy, happy, and look damn good.

It starts by identifying why you’re here in the first place.

Because let’s be honest:

This journey is gonna be tough.

You don’t just want to “lose weight” and “get fit.”

You want to “lose weight” and “get fit” so that you can “start dating again after a messy breakup.”

Or because “your dad passed away from health issues at a young age and you want to be around for many more decades to raise your children.”

The more specific and DEEP you can get with your reasoning, the more likely you’ll be to push through when you’re struggling to stay consistent!

I also want you to be realistic about how much time you think you can dedicate to this journey:

3 days a week for 30 minutes?

5 days for 15 minutes each day?

Only on weekends?

That’s cool – just be up front with yourself.

Here’s how to put it all together:

PART A – IDENTIFY A GOAL THAT YOU’RE FOCUSED ON:

“I want to lose 50 pounds.”

“I want to build 30 pounds of muscle.”

“I want to fit into my favorite dresses I haven’t been able to wear for years.”

PART B – WRITE DOWN WHAT WILL HAPPEN WHEN YOU ACCOMPLISH THESE GOALS:

What is your “Big Why?” “I’ll lose this weight and I can start dating again!”

What would getting in shape mean to you? “A better life not full of pain.”

Who are you doing this for? Your family? Yourself? Your wife?

PART C – BE REALISTIC WITH HOW OFTEN YOU CAN TRAIN:

“I’m a broke college kid with lots of time. I can train 4 days per week no problem for an hour.” Great!

“I’m a single mom working two jobs, so I can train once per week at a gym and the rest will have to happen at home.” Amazing!

“I’m a Robot with unlimited energy and I have been sent to conquer earth.” Ruh roh. Email me.

Be specific with your answers above.

STEP #1 TAKEAWAY: Pick your goals, pick your “Big Why”

We’re going to pick goals that work for us, and then build on top of that foundation.

Have you written down your goals yet?:

“My goal is to lose/gain X amount of weight by X date.”

“My Big Why is I want to start dating again/my wife to look at me like she used to/be an inspiration to my family.”

“My plan is to train once per week and then find time elsewhere.”

We make EVERY coaching client in our online coaching program pick their Big Why too.

It’s what keeps us on target when life gets too busy and we want to quit!

Now that we have a foundation, we can start to build on top of that. Like Fornite. #UnnecessaryButTopicalNerdReference

Step #2: What Workout Is Best for Weight Loss?

You can lose all the weight you need to lose without doing a single minute of “exercise.”

I shit you not.

(What a funny expression by the way, it makes me happy every time I use it.)

If your ONLY goal is weight loss in any way, then exercise is not necessary.

No treadmills. No gym memberships. No bootcamps.

No feeling bad about yourself training in public.

No hating exercise.

“Steve, you sorcerer, what madness is this?” You exclaim!

When it comes to weight loss, how you eat will be responsible for 90+% of your success or failure.

If you are only trying to lose weight, ALL of your effort can go into fixing your nutrition.

As we say here in the Nerd Fitness Rebellion, “You can’t outrun your fork.”

Yes, this means if you can’t lose weight, you are eating too many calories compared to how many calories you burn every day. I can almost guarantee it’s not your metabolism or genetics.

It’s because you eat too much food.

I’ve covered nutrition and weight loss EXTENSIVELY here on Nerd Fitness, so read these to help determine the best eating strategies for you:

The beginner’s guide to healthy eating

How to determine the perfect diet for you

The beginner’s guide to Intermittent Fasting

As we have laid out in our Start Eating Healthy Guide, if you are trying to lose weight it comes down to making slightly better choices, slightly more frequently:

Story time! Nerd Fitness Rebel Tim was told he couldn’t exercise due to injury before he found Nerd Fitness. He joined our NF Academy, and focused on the 3 things he could control:

He fixed his nutrition.

He adjusted his mindset.

He built the habit of short walks.

6 months and 50+ pounds of weight loss later, Tim is a changed man! You can read his whole story by clicking on the image below:

So yes, exercise burns calories and will help you get fit. 

(If you’re curious: strength training is the calorie-burning victor when it comes to efficient weight loss.) 

Exercise of any kind will also make your heart stronger and you will FEEL better.

But maybe most importantly, exercise reminds us that we’re trying to be healthier.

Which means exercise can also remind us to make better food choices.

Just instead of doing this: “Well I exercised today so I can eat 5000 calories!”

Instead, do this: “Well I exercised today, so I’m going to stick with my eating strategy so I don’t backslide!”

STEP #2 TAKEAWAY: Pick a food strategy you can stick with!

Pick a strategy that speaks your language, and that results in you consuming fewer calories.

Nutrition is the most important thing, so your time is best spent understanding this stuff!

If you are trying to lose more weight or build more muscle FASTER, your nutrition needs to be even MORE dialed in.

Here’s how to start eating healthy:

Learn how many calories you actually need on a daily basis.

Start tracking how many calories you eat, education for the win!

Eat fewer calories than you burn each day.

Cut back on liquid calories, especially sugary beverages.

Eat mostly real food: Meat, veggies, fruit, nuts.

Track your progress and see how your body changes.

If you are a noob on nutrition, check out our free 10-level Nutritional System that simplifies the entire process! It’s free when you sign up in the box below:

Download our free weight loss guide

THE NERD FITNESS DIET: 10 Levels to Change Your Life

Follow our 10-level nutrition system at your own pace

What you need to know about weight loss and healthy eating

3 Simple rules we follow every day to stay on target

Step #3: Finding a Workout Routine You Enjoy

If your goal is to look good enough and feel good about yourself, there’s only ONE solution when it comes to the perfect workout program:

Any exercise you actually enjoy and will do regularly.

Full stop.

Exercise is only a 10% piece of the “how to get in shape” formula, which means if your goal is “look pretty good, feel pretty good,” ANY exercise is a bonus.

And that means might as well ENJOY what you are spending your time on!

Here are some suggestions for fun exercise you can do:

Running, cycling, powerlifting, Yoga, parkour, gymnastics, weight training, running, cycling, LARPing, capoeira, jazzercise, swing dancing, Beat Saber, walking, hiking, geocache, Pokemon Go, hashing, ballet, powerlifting, CrossFit, bootcamps, martial arts, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Ninja Warrior, Dance Dance Revolution, aerial silks, acro yoga, and anything else you can think of.

This is me giving you permission to attend jazzercise classes regularly, if you enjoy them.

Seriously.

This is me also giving you permission to never run on a treadmill ever again, unless you actually enjoy running on a treadmill.

Don’t suffer through a particular type of exercise if you hate it.

There are plenty of ways to get your heart racing and your body moving.

Think of it this way: You’re always a work in progress.

You never get to “be done.”

So suffering unnecessarily to reach a goal just so you can lose some weight, and then stop won’t work.

Here’s another phrase to internalize:

“Temporary changes create temporary results.”

Stop trying to get to the finish line as quickly as possible – that’s why you failed in the past.

Instead…

STEP #3 TAKEAWAY: Do an activity that you enjoy. Do it frequently.

Write down a list of “exercise” activities you love. Write down a list of “exercise” you hate. And then do things on the first list frequently, and don’t ever do things on the second list!

You don’t need to suffer.

Nutrition is 90% of the battle, so if you want to lose weight, get healthier, and be happier, pick a form of exercise that you actually enjoy.

Don’t worry how many calories it burns.

Instead, keep the focus on your nutrition and THEN do fun exercise.

To answer your next questions:

“But Steve I don’t like exercise.” You haven’t tried enough things! I too hate “exercise,” so I ONLY do things I enjoy. Here are 40 fun exercises to try.

“I have always wanted to try (activity) but I’m afraid to try it.” Use 20 Seconds of Courage – it works. I promise

“Steve I have very specific physique goals and I’m willing to suffer a bit to hit those goals.” Sounds good. You’re going to want to focus on calorie restriction, strength training, and moving more. Keep reading.

Step #4: What Is the Best Workout Routine? (An Introduction to Strength Training)

Okay, now we’re getting down to the good stuff: 

Yup, eating better can help you lose weight.

Yup, any exercise is better than no exercise.

HOWEVER, if you want to keep yourself injury free, build a physique you’re proud of (aka that “fit toned” look that everybody is after), AND get better at whatever fun activities you picked in Step #3,…

There’s a component that needs to be incorporated into your life:

Strength training. 

There are so many benefits to strength training, it’s ridiculous.

100% of people, no matter their age, gender, or size should be doing SOME kind of strength training in some capacity.

And please don’t worry – you will NOT get too bulky – unless that’s what you want.

Here are 4 reasons why strength training makes every part of life better and will help you get in shape:

Your body is forced to burn extra calories to rebuild muscle. This ‘afterburner’ effect of increased calorie burning lasts for 24-48 hours, which means 30 minutes of strength training will burn significantly more calories than 30 minutes of steady cardio. Efficiency ftw.

You teach your muscles to become more resilient and “antifragile.” From giving your kids a piggy back ride to playing frisbee to carrying groceries to walking up stairs, strength training makes you safer when doing everything.

Strength training will make you better at any activity you picked in the above section for fun exercise. Yes, even THAT activity. Let’s just say your significant other wants you to strength train.

Strength training builds the physique you want. It’s the best way to lose weight, it’s how to build muscle, and how to keep the muscle you have while burning the fat on top of the muscle.

So hopefully at this point you’re all:

“Steve you sly devil, I am INTRIGUED. But strength training doesn’t seem fun, and gyms intimidate me.”

We cover this extensively in our “Beginner’s guide to strength training,” but I’ll cover it here too:

When I say “strength training,” I simply mean “moving your body in a way that your muscles must respond by getting stronger:”

Your muscles are introduced to outside stimuli (you pick up your kid, you do push-ups, you carry groceries, you do a squat, etc.), and they get “broken down” through use.

Over the next few days, they rebuild themselves stronger to prepare for more stimulus (a greater challenge).

By building up strength over time, it allows you to become more functionally strong and avoid situations like Mr Potato Head here:

“Strength training” can take place in a gym or at your home, with your body weight or with free weights, in a box or with a fox. The ways to strength train are endless.

HATE gyms? You never have to go into one. Ever. Christina lost 50 lbs without a gym.

AFRAID of weight training? You can train with just your body weight!

WANT to learn how to train in a gym? Check out our 6-level gym workout guide.

NOT SURE how to strength train and want guidance? Check out our online coaching program!

This does not need to be overcomplicated!

Start with two basic movements that you can do literally right now, even in your cubicle:

Desk Push-Ups: 3 sets of 8

Bodyweight Squats: 3 sets of 8

Boom, look at that! You just did strength training.

I promise you: get stronger with push-ups, squats, and learn how to do a pull-up, and you will be in better shape, and look better, than ever before.

So how do you get stronger? Simple: “progressive overload.” 

This might sound complicated, but it just means increasing the challenge by a tiny amount with each workout so your body has to work harder and adapt more each time.

And then one day, you’ll look in the mirror and say: “WHOA I HAVE MUSCLES WHEN DID THAT HAPPEN!?”

I have one final person I want to address: “But Steve, you nincompoop, I hate strength training.”

That’s not a nice name to call me, but fair enough!

Consider getting bit by a radioactive spider or finding a super-serum.

Otherwise, these five alternatives might pique your interest:

Aerial silks.

Gymnastics and Parkour.

Handstands.

Acro Yoga.

Hiking with your kids.

Let us build a strength-training program that you’ll ACTUALLY do! Learn more about NF Coaching here:

STEP #4 TAKEAWAY: Start strength training today.

Pick a workout that doesn’t intimidate you and give it a shot! You can start TODAY.

Brand new to strength training? No Gym? Do our Beginner Bodyweight Workout.

Have a gym membership and want to train there? Read our “how to train in a commerical gym!”

Excited to try barbells and dumbbells? Check out our Strength 101 serious.

You don’t HAVE to strength train, you GET to strength train.

Every time you work out, do ONE more repetition, one more push-up, or lift ONE pound heavier than last time.

What’s the best way to do more than last time?

Write down what you do! Keep it simple. Write down your sets, reps, and weights. And then do one better next time.

Step #5: Creating a Strength Training Workout Plan

Alright alright, you read the previous section, and you’re thinking:

“Steve I heard training individual body parts like a bodybuilder is the best for muscle building.”

“What about Stronglifts 5×5 or Starting Strength or CrossFit?”

“I hear I should ONLY do free weights, and machines are the devil!”

My thoughts: I don’t care HOW you strength train when you get started, or which beginning strength training program you pick:

If you want to follow a bodybuilder routine that uses lots of machines and isolation exercises, great!

If you want to train your left bicep and right butt muscle on Tuesdays and right tricep and left shoulder on Wednesdays and so on, go for it!

If you want to follow a workout DVD or follow bootcamp style stuff on YouTube, great.

Whatever gets you manipulating your body and learning the fundamentals of strength training, I’m for it.

As long as you’re enjoying it and getting results, keep doing what you’re doing.

And if you want a Beginner Strength Routine to follow, that’s cool too.

Here are the foundational philosophies we teach our online coaching clients:

#1 You’ll be healthier and see more well-rounded results training with free weights and bodyweight exercises compared to machines.

Machines can be used when you’re rehabbing an injury or there’s no other options (you’re at a hotel gym, for example).

If you only want to train with machines? You do you. Here’s how to switch from machines to weights.

#2 Full compound movements will help you get strong and healthy in the most efficient manner:

Barbell squats

Deadlifts

Push-ups

Pull-ups

Bodyweight dips

Overhead presses

Bodyweight rows

Your body is a complex machine that uses all of your muscles in unison when you do physical activity.

Thus, It’s safer and more efficient to train with compound movements instead of isolated movements.

Here are 15 Circuit Training Routines that use these exercises.

#3 Keep it simple. If you make progress every week by picking up more weight or doing more reps, your body WILL transform like Optimus Prime.

But like, into a better version of you, not a robot:

#4 Barbell squats and deadlifts can change your life, like they changed Coach Staci:

#5 If you have more fun with a bodybuilder style workout, or you like bootcamp classes instead of weight training, that’s great!

If you’re healthy and happy and getting results, stick with it.

#6 Muscle confusion is totally not a thing.

STEP #5 TAKEAWAY: Pick A Strength Training Program! 

Here’s how to level up your strength training:

Read our Strength 101 series, and learn to do squats, deadlifts, and presses.

Afraid to train in a gym? Read this gym guide and follow the beginner gym workouts.

Pick a program: Learn about the best strength training routines and exercises.

Want form checks, guidance, and a custom workout each morning? Get a coach!

What’s that? You want to BUILD your own workout program?

Great! Here’s how to build your own workout routine.

If you want us to do the heavy lifting for you (HEYO), we have a killer online coaching program where we build the exact workout for you, including nutritional guidance, support, and accountability.

Let our online coaches build you the perfect workout program! It’s like having a Jedi Master in your pocket. Learn more:

Step #6: Focus Your Workout Plan on Specific Goals

Okay, now we’re getting down to the secret sauce that has transformed thousands upon thousands of lives at Nerd Fitness.

Don’t worry our secret sauce is low calorie, low carb, and keto-friendly. 

Here’s the scenario: you have a goal of losing 50 pounds, and after eating better and moving more…you actually start to lose some weight!

I’m so proud of you.

In fact, I just called your mom to tell her what a swell person you are. Nice lady.

Anyways, things are going well until you start to approach your goal weight (woo!) and encounter a divergent path:

Path A: “I’m about to reach my goal weight! I can be done soon!”

Path B: “I’m approaching my goal weight. What is my new body capable of?”

People who pick Path A always backslide and usually put the weight back on over the next few months and years. This is why most people are doomed to fail at losing weight permanently:

Temporary action = temporary results.

Now let’s talk about Path B? It’s the reason our coaching clients keep the weight off and continue to transform.

Consistent effort + progressive challenge = permanent improvement.

People on Path B ask themselves, “Now that I’ve lost this weight, what am I capable of? Let’s train for that!”

This is a distinct mental shift.

Exercise is no longer a means to an end.

There is no end.

Just like there is no spoon.

We encourage our Rebels to shift from weight loss goals to physical challenges (Like Double Dare, but with less Gak):

“I’ve always wanted to do a handstand, let’s start training to get better at those.”

“I’ve always want to do train with gymnastic rings! Let’s try that!”

“I’ve always wanted to run a 5k, I will adjust my routine to become a stronger runner.”

“I want to try Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. I will sign up for a class!”

“I’m gonna sign up for Swing Dancing so I can crush the dance floor at the next wedding I attend.”

WHY THIS WORKS: By training to get better at a particular activity, you are triggering the same processes in your brain that makes us hooked on progressing in video games:

It’s why we say, “just one more level!” or “I bet I can do one more rep!” or “I can climb this new path that’s tougher than any path I’ve attempted before!”

STEP #6 TAKEAWAY: Shift from weight loss goals to physical challenges.

As you start to get in shape, updating your mindset can be a HUGE game-changer.

You spent all this work building a new body – take it out for a test drive and find out what you’re capable of!

Counterintuitively, the less you worry about your weight and the more you worry about your performance, the more likely you’ll be to build a body you’re proud of, that’s functional, and that you can keep, permanently.

As they say, “Appearance is a consequence of fitness.” 

If you want to dig more into skills and advanced physique stuff, read our post here: “The ultimate guide to building any physique.”

Pick a skill, pick somebody farther along (more fit) than you to model yourself after, and adjust your training and nutrition to get better at that skill.

When you get better and better at these physical skills, your physique will start to improve as a side effect.

Want a workout program that grows with you and keeps you happy and challenged? Learn more:

Step #7: Have Healthy Expectations for Your Workout Plan

As we’re talking about physique and physical goals, I want to address something that is a major challenge for many people:

“Steve, I want to lose some weight, build some muscle, and also build up more endurance. I want to get strong and run a marathon but also look like a model.

Oh and get a six pack. But I don’t want to be too bulky.

Can I do this in 6 weeks please?”

Here’s the truth: your body can only do so many things at once, and the three goals above will pull your body in three completely separate directions. 

If you’re not sure what are realistic goals, I have answers for you on BOTH questions (click each to learn more):

“How fast can I get fit and lose weight?” 1-2 pounds per week of weight loss is a safe pace. Could be more or less depending on your starting weight, how you eat, and how you train.

“How fast can I build muscle naturally?” 1-2 pounds of muscle gain per month is possible under optimal conditions for most. This could be more or less depending on your level of experience, how you eat, and how you train.

“Can I do both at the same time?” As we point out in our article on “gaining muscle and losing weight at same time,” it IS possible – but requires you to be really dialed in with eating enough protein, maintaining a slight calorie deficit, and heavy strength training.

Are those numbers in line with your expectations? Do you wish you could get in shape faster?

Of course you do. So do I!

For example, it took me 7 months of focused effort to lose 22 pounds safely and sustainably.

Surprisingly, by changing our timeline to be more realistic, we can make better progress than at any point in the past:

KEY TAKEAWAY #7: Have realistic expectations!

Have the right expectations, and put your focus on the process.

You’ll get there when you get there – so just focus on what you can do today.

If you’re not sure if you should build muscle first or lose weight first, here’s my humble advice:

Eat a SLIGHT caloric deficit. Strength train and move a lot.

Eat enough protein and train heavy to lose fat and keep your muscle.

Do this until you get down to a low enough body fat percentage (10-11% for men, 17-18% for women).

Now, increase your caloric intake slightly. Build strength and muscle until you’re at your desired size.

Decide now if you want to reintroduce cardio, cut more fat, or keep getting bigger.

Repeat!

Step #8: How Do I Pick a Sustainable Workout Routine? (Exercise with Others)

I love sharing stories on Nerd Fitness of REAL people, with real struggles, that found the perfect program that fit THEIR lifestyle, like Christina above. 

These are not people with superior genetics. They’re not on steroids, nor are they choking down supplements (Most supplements are a waste of money).

The success stories in our community work full-time jobs, have kids, friends, and nerdy hobbies.

Some are single moms.

But they found a workout program that works for their life situation:

Some of them are powerlifters.

Some of them train at home with no equipment.

Some of them run 5ks.

As you are starting to get yourself into better shape, who you associate with is almost as important as how you train.

Sounds ludicrous (did I just make you yell, “Luda!”?), but it can be the difference between long term success and long term floundering. And not the cute kind.

They say you are an average of the 5 people you associate most with.

Think about your roommates, significant other, friends, and coworkers:

Are they people who have succeeded in the way you want to succeed, support you on your journey, can answer questions you might have, and make you want to continue being better?

Or are they people who ask you to skip your workouts, make fun of you for waking up early to train on a Saturday morning, and enable you rather than support you?

The more time you can spend with Group A people, the more likely you’ll be to stay on target and make progress.

As you are getting better at a skill, do whatever you can to hang out with people who are good at that skill!

Like running and want to get better at running? Join or start a running club!

Want to take powerlifting more seriously? Hire a personal trainer or join a powerlifting club.

Want to be better at handstands? Try joining an adult gymnast class!

Want to look like CrossFit athletes? Great! Join the cult! I kid, CFers, you’re good in my book

If you don’t have people in your life that are making you better, consider hiring a coach or instructor or joining a class to help you push yourself even farther and stay accountable!

And I’m not telling you to fire your friends, but you might need to make sacrifices like Katniss until you’re better equipped to stand up for your new healthy lifestyle when they want you to come back to the dark side!

Nerd Fitness helps people with workouts and eating better, sure.

But I believe we get permanent results for people because we do our best to foster the most supportive community on the internet.

Many of our success stories have 1-on-1 instruction from our Online Coaching Program, while some come our self-paced NF Academy.

And others? They read the free articles on Nerd Fitness and helped themselves stay on target!

It comes down to learning from and interacting people who are just like you, or who are people that you want to be like when you “grow up” (get in shape)!

Click on each image to learn their full story:

STACI THE POWERLIFTER:

ANTHONY THE IT PROFESSIONAL:

LESLIE THE SINGLE MOM: JOE THE IT DEVELOPER WHO TRAVELS 2 WEEKS PER MONTH:

SAINT THE APP DEVELOPER WHO LOST 60 POUNDS AND GAINED 6 PACK ABS:

And me? I started with karate as a kid. Then cross country running in high school. Then bodybuilder style training in college. Then it was bodyweight training.

And now? Powerlifting and gymnastics! It’s how I went from Steve Rogers to Captain America, and then leaned out.

STEP #8 TAKEAWAY: Surround yourself with people that push you to be better.

You need people in your life that are pushing you to be better.

If you don’t have those people already, consider joining a club or class in your community. You might just make new lifelong friends!

And if you want to be at the top of your game in a particular skill or activity, you might need to hire a trainer, coach, or an online personal trainer that knows your situation specifically.

In addition to our paid private communities, we ALSO have a free Message Board community that is thriving!

We’d love to have you be part of OUR online community!

Step 9: Tracking the Results of Your Workout Plan

“Thanks Steve, but that was a lot. What do I do now?”

Let me recap Steps #1-#8:

Step #1: What Are Your Workout Goals?

Step #2: What Workout Is Best for Weight Loss?

Step #3: Finding a Workout Routine You Enjoy

Step #4: What Is the Best Workout Routine? (An Introduction to Strength Training)

Step #5: Creating a Strength Training Workout Plan

Step #6: Focus Your Workout Plan on Specific Goals

Step #7: Have Healthy Expectations for Your Workout Plan

Step #8: How Do I Pick a Sustainable Workout Routine? (Exercise with Others)

Depending on where you’re at in life, and how much weight you need to lose, you might be satisfied with just Steps 1, 2, and 3 for the next few years.

That’s awesome!

And if you’re ready to do more than that, we’re here for ya too.

If you’re looking for me to actually tell you what to do, I would suggest the following:

Here’s a strategy optimized for effortless awesomeness, happiness, and look-good nakedness:

Strength train twice per week: squats, pushups, and pull-ups.

Do fun activity 1-2x per week.

Walk when you can.

Focus on your nutrition.

I would start there, and then do two things after 30 days:

#1) Track your compliance to see if you actually did the workouts!

Did you go for walks, strength train twice per week, and do a fun activity? You can track this on your calendar or in a notebook.

Yes? Great! Move on to question 2.

No? Great! You learned you tried to do too much. Do less and repeat for another 30 days.

#2) Measure if you got closer to your goal weight/skills/physique?

Are you healthier, happier, and more confident?

Yes? Great! Keep doing what you’re doing!

No? Great! That strategy didn’t work. Track your food intake, adjust your diet. Repeat.

“Steve that’s still not specific enough. I want you to tell me, for my exact situation, what to do every single day to reach my goals. Oh and hold me accountable. K thanks.”

I’m not clairvoyant or omniscient (…yet), so in the meantime, you can check out our really fun 1-on-1 Online Coaching Program.

Your Coach (a member of Team NF we’ll match you with based on your needs) will get to know you, your goals, and your challenges, and develop a workout plan that’s specific to not only your body type, but also to your schedule and life.

Click the image below to schedule a free call to see if we’re a good fit for each other!

Our coaching program is like having Yoda in your pocket (not literally, of course)! Learn how we can help:

I don’t care whatever path you pick, be it our coaching, our Academy, or if you just read the free stuff on Nerd Fitness and never buy anything!

I just want to help you get results, feel better about yourself, and stop struggling to make exercise a consistent:

So let’s hear it. Where are you on your path to finding your perfect workout program!?

Tell me what your goals are. I’d love to hear about what you’re working on.

Which step are you on? Stuck on Level 3? What are the activities you LOVE/HATE?

What program are you following? Do you have a question on what to pick?

What have you found works for you, and what DIDN’T work for you?

Leave a comment and share your story with your fellow rebels!

-Steve

###

photo sources: Reiterlied Biking on the Lake, Reiterlied To The Lofoten Islands and Back Again 8/16 – Hooray for the blue sea!, clement127 Amazing playground: bicycles and football, clement127 Eurobasket 2015, Legozilla treadmill, themofoit: Stormtrooper Pushups, beach, road split, egg, runner

Does the Perfect Workout Exist? 9 Steps to Find the Best Workout Plan (For You). syndicated from https://healthavenuesite.wordpress.com/

[healthavenueblog]

13 Podcast Eps for Instant Fit Foodie Inspiration

Are your meals and snacks getting a little stale and boring? In need of a little fit foodie inspiration? Hey, we’ve all been there! And these 13 podcast episodes are the remedy. From tasty recipes to meal inspiration to hacks for making cooking easier and more fun (with a totally non-diet and intuitive-eating approach), it’s food for thought … for your earholes! Ep 111: Nealy Fischer, The Flexible Chef A great ep on how to ditch perfection in the kitchen. Ep 102: Nutritionist Ellie Krieger Get inspired by her favorite go-to meals! Ep 87: Siri Daly How to include your kids…

The post 13 Podcast Eps for Instant Fit Foodie Inspiration appeared first on Fit Bottomed Girls.

13 Podcast Eps for Instant Fit Foodie Inspiration syndicated from https://healthavenuesite.wordpress.com/

[healthavenueblog]

July #BookChat: Suzi’s Top Books First Half of 2019

Welcome to this month’s #BookChat! This month I’m switching things up a little bit by coming to you solo to tell you about some of my favorite books from the first half of 2019. In case you haven’t heard, I read a lot

so I thought it would be fun to look back over […]

The post July #BookChat: Suzi’s Top Books First Half of 2019 appeared first on Confessions of a Fitness Instructor.

July #BookChat: Suzi’s Top Books First Half of 2019 syndicated from https://healthavenuesite.wordpress.com/

[healthavenueblog]

Suzi’s Sugar Cookies

In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not your average fitness instructor. When it comes to special event classes, I almost always make a treat for my participants. This past Monday I taught a “Summer Beach Party” Yoga Class, and as part of the festivities, I made these cute summer-themed sugar cookies. I hadn’t planned to […]

The post Suzi’s Sugar Cookies appeared first on Confessions of a Fitness Instructor.

Suzi’s Sugar Cookies syndicated from https://healthavenuesite.wordpress.com/

[healthavenueblog]

The Problem With The Law of Attraction

The law of attraction can be wonderful – if you know how to use it. But so many people are missing a key step in the Law of Attraction and that’s what today’s podcast episode is all about! The Problem With The Law of Attraction Like Attracts Like The law of attraction became popular a […]

The post The Problem With The Law of Attraction appeared first on Confessions of a Fitness Instructor.

The Problem With The Law of Attraction syndicated from https://healthavenuesite.wordpress.com/

[healthavenueblog]

Intermittent Fasting: Beginner’s Guide & Printable Calendar. Should You Skip Breakfast!?

“…Tony the Tiger tells us that breakfast is the most important meal of the day! It’s grrrrrreat!”

This adage about breakfast has become commonplace that it’s readily and unquestionably accepted as fact.

Well then, what’s with the growing popularity of Intermittent Fasting and SKIPPING breakfast?

(Tony just audibly gasped.)

In this Ultimate Guide to Intermitting Fasting, I’ll teach you every single thing we teach our Coaching Clients about the science of fasting and what results you can expect:

What is Intermittent Fasting?

How does Intermittent Fasting work?

Should I eat 6 small meals a day?

Should I try Intermittent Fasting? (6 Things to Consider)

What are the negative effects of Intermittent Fasting?

Can I build muscle and gain weight while Intermittent Fasting?

Should I do Intermittent Fasting and the Keto Diet?

Does Intermittent Fasting have different effects on men and women?

Top 6 questions about Intermittent Fasting.

8 tips and tricks for fasting.

Intermittent Fasting: next steps.

Download our Intermittent Fasting Plan.

I’m typing this from a secure location, just in case Tony the Tiger, The Trix Rabbit, and Toucan Sam come to beat me up.

After all, I’m going to rain on their breakfast parade with science today.

This is the type of stuff we teach our 1-on-1 Online Coaching Client: healthy fasting, exercise, and eating better.

Click here to learn how Nerd Fitness Coaching can help you reach your fitness goals!

We have ALSO have a fun Intermittent Fasting Plan you can use to plan out your next few weeks of eating! Join the Rebellion – our online community – and I’ll send you our fasting guide free:

Download a free intermittent fasting guide and worksheet!

Complete outline of the Intermittent Fasting Protocol

Worksheets for tracking when you eat and how long you fasted

What is Intermittent Fasting?

“Conventional wisdom” isn’t that smart.

We’re going to take two widely accepted healthy eating “rules” and turn them on their head:

RULE #1: You HAVE to eat first thing in the morning: Make sure you start off with a healthy breakfast, so you can get that metabolism firing first thing in the morning!

“Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper.”

There are even studies that show those that eat earlier in the day lose more weight than those who ate later in the day or skipped a meal.[1]

RULE #2: Eat lots of small meals for weight loss. Make sure you eat six small meals throughout the day so your metabolism stays operating at maximum capacity all day long.”

In other words, “eat breakfast and lots of small meals to lose weight and obtain optimal health.”

But what if there’s science and research that shows SKIPPING BREAKFAST (the horror! blasphemy!) can help with optimum human performance, mental and physical health improvement, maximum muscle retention, and body fat loss?

That’s where an Intermittent Fasting Plan comes in.

Intermittent fasting is not a diet, but rather a dieting pattern. 

In simpler terms: it’s making a conscious decision to skip certain meals on purpose.

By fasting and then feasting deliberately, intermittent fasting generally means that you consume your calories during a specific window of the day, and choose not to eat food for a larger window of time.

There are a few different ways to take advantage of intermittent fasting, which I learned about from Martin over at LeanGains, a resource specifically built around fasted strength training:

INTERMITTENT FASTING 16/8 PLAN

What it is: Fasting for 16 hours and then only eating within a specific 8-hour window. For example, only eating from noon-8 PM, essentially skipping breakfast.

Some people only eat in a 6-hour window, or even a 4-hour window. This is “feasting” and “fasting” parts of your days and the most common form of Intermittent Fasting. It’s also my preferred method (4 years running).

Two examples: The top means you are skipping breakfast, the bottom means you are skipping dinner each day:

You can adjust this window to make it work for your life:

If you start eating at: 7AM, stop eating and start fasting at 3pm.

If you start eating at: 11AM, stop eating and start fasting at 7pm.

If you start eating at: 2PM, stop eating and start fasting at 10pm.

If you start eating at: 6PM, stop eating and start fasting at 2AM.

INTERMITTENT FASTING 24 HOUR PLAN

Skip two meals one day, where you take 24 hours off from eating. For example, eat on a normal schedule (finishing dinner at 8PM) and then you don’t eat again until 8PM the following day.

With this plan, you eat your normal 3 meals per day, and then occasionally pick a day to skip breakfast and lunch the next day.

If you can only do an 18 hour fast, or a 20 hour fast, or a 22 hour fast – that’s okay! Adjust with different time frames and see how your body responds.

Two examples: skipping breakfast and lunch one day of the week, and then another where you skip lunch and dinner one day, two days in a week.

Note: You can do this once a week, twice a week, or whatever works best for your life and situation.

By the way, both those weekly charts above come from our free Intermittent Fasting Plan (with printable worksheets).

Most people struggle with knowing exactly when to eat and when to stop eating, and actually sticking with it. We address all of that in the Nerd Fitness Intermittent Fasting Guide you get free when you sign up for our email list in the box below:

Download a free intermittent fasting guide and worksheet!

Complete outline of the Intermittent Fasting Protocol

Worksheets for tracking when you eat and how long you fasted

Those are the two most popular intermittent fasting plans, and the two we’ll be focusing on, though there are many variations of both that you can modify for yourself.

Some people eat in a 4 hour window, others do 6 or 8.

Some people do 20 hour fasts or 24 hour fasts.

You’ll need to experiment, adjust to work for your lifestyle and goals, and see how your body responds.

Let’s first get into the science here behind Intermittent Fasting and why you should consider it!

How Does Intermittent Fasting Work?

Now, you might be thinking: “okay, so by skipping a meal, I will eat less than I normally eat on average (2 meals instead of 3), and thus I will lose weight, right?”

Yes.

By cutting out an entire meal each day, you are consuming fewer calories per week – even if your two meals per day are slightly bigger than before. Overall, you’re still consuming fewer calories per day.

In this example, you’re eating LARGER lunches and dinners than you normally do, but by skipping breakfast you’ll consume 500 less calories per day.

And thus, weight loss! 

This is highlighted in a recent JAMA study[2] in which both calorie restricted dieters and intermittent fasters lost similar amounts of weight over a year period.

That doesn’t tell the FULL story, as the timing of meals can also influence how your body reacts.

Intermittent Fasting can help because your body operates differently when “feasting” compared to when “fasting”:

When you eat a meal, your body spends a few hours processing that food, burning what it can from what you just consumed.

Because it has all of this readily-available, easy to burn energy (thanks to the food you ate), your body will choose to use that as energy rather than the fat you have stored.

During the “fasted state” (the hours in which your body is not consuming or digesting any food) your body doesn’t have a recently consumed meal to use as energy.

Thus, it is more likely to pull from the fat stored in your body as it’s the only energy source readily available.

Burning fat = win.

The same goes for working out in a “fasted” state.

Without a ready supply of glucose and glycogen to pull from (which has been depleted over the course of your fasted state, and hasn’t yet been replenished with a pre-workout meal), your body is forced to adapt and pull from a source of energy that it does have available: the fat stored in your cells.

Why does this work? Our bodies react to energy consumption (eating food) with insulin production.

The more sensitive your body is to insulin, the more likely you’ll be to use the food you consume efficiently, and your body is most sensitive to insulin following a period of fasting [3].

These changes to insulin production and sensitivity can help lead to weight loss [4] and muscle creation [5].

Next: Your glycogen (a starch stored in your muscles and liver that your body can burn as fuel when necessary) is depleted during sleep (aka during fasting), and will be depleted even further during training, which can lead to increased insulin sensitivity.

This means that a meal following your workout will be used more efficiently: converted to glycogen and stored up in your muscles or burned as energy immediately to help with the recovery process, with minimal amounts stored as fat.

Compare this to a regular day (no intermittent fasting): With insulin sensitivity at normal levels, the carbs and foods consumed will see full glycogen stores and enough glucose in the bloodstream, and thus be more likely to get stored as fat.

Back to fasting: growth hormone is increased during fasted states (both during sleep [6]and after a period of fasting). Combine this increased growth hormone secretion:[7], the decrease in insulin production (and thus increase in insulin sensitivity [8]), and you’re essentially priming your body for muscle growth and fat loss with intermittent fasting.

The less science-y version: Intermittent fasting can help teach your body to use the food it consumes more efficiently, and your body can learn to burn fat as fuel when you deprive it of new calories to constantly pull from (if you eat all day long).

TL/DR: For many different physiological reasons, fasting can help promote weight loss and muscle building when done properly.

I know Intermittent Fasting can be overwhelming for many, which is why we work with our 1-on-1 coaching clients to help them understand what’s going on, and how to make it work for THEIR life.

If that sounds like you, click the button below to learn more about how our program works:

Learn how our coaching program can help you lose weight safely through fasting and reach your goals

Should I Eat 6 Small Meals a Day?

There are a few main reasons why diet books recommend six small meals:

1) When you eat a meal, your body does have to burn extra calories [9] just to process that meal. So, the theory is that if you eat all day long with small meals, your body is constantly burning extra calories and your metabolism is firing at optimal capacity, right? Well, that’s not true.

Whether you eat 2000 calories spread out throughout the day, or 2000 calories in a small window, your body will burn the same number of calories processing the food [10].

So, the whole “keep your metabolism firing at optimum capacity by always eating” sounds good in principle, but reality tells a different story.

2) When you eat smaller meals, you might be less likely to overeat during your regular meals. I can definitely see some truth here, especially for people who struggle with portion control or don’t know how much food they should be eating.

However, once you educate yourself and take control of your eating, some might find that eating six times a day is very prohibitive and requires a lot of effort. I know I do.

Also, because you’re eating six small meals, I’d argue that you probably never feel “full,” and you might be MORE likely to eat extra calories during each snack.

Although grounded in seemingly logical principles, the “six meals a day” doesn’t work for the reason you think it would (#1), and generally only works for people who struggle with portion control (#2).

If we think back to caveman days, we’d have been in serious trouble as a species if we had to eat every three hours. Do you think Joe Caveman pulled out his pocket sundial six times a day to consume his equally portioned meals?

Hell no! He ate when he could, endured and dealt with long periods of NOT eating (no refrigeration or food storage) and his body adapted to still function optimally enough to still go out and catch new food.

A recent study (written about in the NYT, highlighted by LeanGains) has done a great job of challenging the “six-meals-a-day” technique for weight loss [11]:

There were [no statistical] differences between the low- and high- [meal frequency] groups for adiposity indices, appetite measurements or gut peptides (peptide YY and ghrelin) either before or after the intervention. We conclude that increasing meal frequency does not promote greater body weight loss under the conditions described in the present study.

Factor in the potential physiological benefits listed in the previous section, and you got yourself some damn good science-backed evidence to consider trying Intermittent Fasting if you want to decrease body fat and build muscle.

Should I Try intermittent fasting? (6 Things to Consider)

Now that we’re through a lot of the science stuff, let’s get into the reality of the situation: why should you consider Intermittent Fasting?

#1) Because it can work for your goals. Although we know that not all calories are created equal, caloric restriction plays a central role in weight loss.

When you fast, you are also making it easier to restrict your total caloric intake over the course of the week, which can lead to consistent weight loss and maintenance.

#2) Because it simplifies your day. Rather than having to prepare, pack, eat, and time your meals every 2-3 hours, you simply skip a meal or two and only worry about eating food in your eating window.

It’s one less decision you have to make every day.

It could allow you to enjoy bigger portioned meals (thus making your tastebuds and stomach satiated) and STILL eat fewer calories on average.

#3) It requires less time (and potentially less money). Rather than having to prepare or purchase three to six meals a day, you only need to prepare two meals.

Instead of stopping what you’re doing six times a day to eat, you simply only have to stop to eat twice. Rather than having to do the dishes six times, you only have to do them twice.

Rather than having to purchase six meals a day, you only need to purchase two.

#4) It promotes stronger insulin sensitivity and increased growth hormone secretion, two keys for weight loss and muscle gain. Intermittent fasting helps you create a double whammy for weight loss and building a solid physique.

#5) It can level up your brain, including positively counteracting conditions like Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and dementia.

As explained here in this TEDx talk by Mark Mattson, Professor at Johns Hopkins University and Chief of the Laboratory of Neurosciences at the National Institute on Aging, fasting is grounded in serious research and more studies are coming out showing the benefits:

#6) Plus, Wolverine does it:

#7) Boy George is a fasting fan (and apparently reads Nerd Fitness!):

Please look into 'Intermittent Fasting'. https://t.co/C2fCylOaWj https://t.co/060k5Ws0bh

— Boy George (@BoyGeorge) May 8, 2017

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

So if both musicians and adamantium-clawed superheroes do Intermittent Fasting, it can probably work for you too, if you can make it work for your particular lifestyle and situation!

If you’ve tried implementing something like this in the past and not had success, or you’re just looking for guidance from a coach to help you implement it into your lifestyle, I hear ya!

That was the specific problem we set out to solve with our 1-on-1 Online Coaching Program: helping busy people make lifestyle changes (like Intermittent Fasting) and also build the habit of exercise. You can schedule a call with our team to learn more by clicking on the image below!

Discover how our Online Coaching Program can help you start fasting and make positive lifestyle changes:

What Are the Negative Effects of intermittent fasting?

In my own experimentation with Intermittent Fasting since 2014, I have found very few negative side effects with Intermittent Fasting. 

The biggest concern most people have is that Intermittent Fasting will lead to lower energy, focus, and the “holy crap I am hungry” feeling during the fasting period and ruin them.

People are concerned that they will spend all morning being miserable because they haven’t consumed any food, and thus will be miserable at work and ineffective at whatever task it is they are working on.

The following are my thoughts and experiences, and your results may vary:

Yes, the initial transition from EATING ALL THE TIME, to intermittent fasting MIGHT be a bit of a jolt to your system; it was for me.

However, once I got through the transition after a few days, my body quickly adapted and learned to function just as well only eating a few times a day.

Although I fast for 16 hours per day with no issues, the following might help assuage your fears that skipping breakfast will cause your body to eat itself and your brain to implode:

After 48-hours of fasting in a recent study [12], “cognitive performance, activity, sleep, and mood are not adversely affected in healthy humans by two days of calorie-deprivation.” You’ll be fasting for far less time than that.

“So why do I feel grouchy and lethargic when I skip breakfast?” 

In this nerd’s humble opinion, a good portion of the grumpiness is a result of past eating habits. If you eat every three hours normally, and normally eat as soon as you wake up, your body will start to get hungry every three hours as it is now used to consuming food every three hours.

If you eat breakfast every morning, your body expects to wake up and eat food.

Once you retrain your body to NOT expect food all day every day (or first thing in the morning), these side-effects become less of an issue. In addition, ghrelin (a hormone that makes you hungry [13]), is actually lowest in the mornings and decreases after a few hours of not eating too. The hunger pains will naturally pass!

Personally, I found this grumpiness subsided after a few days and now my mornings actually energize me.

It’s important to understand that Intermittent Fasting is NOT a cure-all panacea. Don’t delude yourself into thinking that if you skip breakfast and then eat 4,000 calories of candy bars for lunch and dinner that you will lose weight.

If you have an addictive relationship with food and you struggle with portion control, figure out your calorie goals and track your calorie intake in your meals to make sure you’re not overeating.

If you skip breakfast, you might be so hungry from this that you OVEREAT for lunch and this can lead to weight gain. Again, the important thing here is that with an intermittent fasting plan, you’re eating fewer calories than normal because you’re skipping a meal every day.

Think about it in caveman terms again. We certainly found ways to survive during periods of feast and famine, and that remains true today. Imagine if you needed to eat in order to be active and alert: what would hungry cavemen do?

They would go find food, and that probably required a ton of effort. It actually takes our bodies about 84 hours of fasting [14] before our glucose levels are adversely affected. As we’re talking about small fasts (16-24 hour periods), this doesn’t concern us.

AN IMPORTANT CAVEAT: Intermittent Fasting can be more complex for people who have issues with blood sugar regulation, suffer from hypoglycemia, have diabetes, etc. If you fit into this category, check with your doctor or dietitian before adjusting your eating schedule. It also affects women differently (there’s a whole section dedicated to that here).

Can I Build Muscle and Gain Weight While Intermittent Fasting?

You’re damn right you can!

(We have our big “how to build muscle” guide, in addition to a whole “Strength 101” series – and I’d recommend you read those if you’re looking for a place to start strength training.)

In fact, I have been intermittent fasting since 2015 while building muscle and decreasing my body fat percentage:

I still eat roughly the same number of calories I was consuming before, but instead of eating all damn day long, I condense all of my calorie consumption into an eight hour window.

11 AM Work out with heavy strength training in a fasted state.

12 PM Immediately consume 1/2 of my calories for the day (a regular whole-food meal, followed by a calorie-dense homemade protein shake).

7 PM Consume the second portion of my calories for the day in a big dinner.

8 PM – 12 PM the next day: Fast for 16 hours.

In a different method, my friend Nate Green packed on a crazy amount of muscle while fasting for a full 24 hours on Sundays – so it is possible. [15]

I’m not kidding when I say this has revolutionized how I look at muscle building and fat loss.

Ultimately, this method flies in the face of the typical “bulk and cut” techniques of overeating to build muscle (along with adding a lot of fat) before cutting calories to lose fat (along with some muscle) and settling down at a higher weight.

I prefer this method to the bulk-and-cut technique for a few reasons:

There’s far less of a crazy swing to your weight. If you are putting on 30 pounds and then cutting 25 to gain 5 lbs of muscle, your body is going through drastic swings of body mass. Your clothes will fit differently, you’ll have different levels of definition, and your body will wonder what the hell is going on.

You’re consuming less food and thus spending less money. Rather than overeating to put on 1 pound of muscle and 4 pounds of fat in a week or two, you’re aiming to eat exactly enough to put on 1 pound of muscle without adding much fat on top of it. Yeah, it’s a delicate balance, but there’s far less swing involved. You are just slowly, steadily, and consistently building muscle and strength over many months.

There’s never a need to get “vacation-ready”: we all want to look good naked, right? When you are just adding muscle, you don’t need to worry about getting your body ready before by drastically altering your diet (avoiding a miserable crash diet like the Military Diet). [16]

You can make small adjustments and stay on target. Keep your body fat percentage low, build strength and muscle, and if you happen to notice your body fat creeping up, cut back on the carbs. Within two weeks you should be back at your preferred body fat percentage and can continue the muscle building process.

A note on BCAA consumption. Martin from LeanGains [17] recommends consuming Branched Chain Amino Acids (BCAA’s) as a supplement with regards to fasted training to aid your muscles through your workout.

Personally, I used BCAAs for about 6-8 months during my initial start with fasted training (consuming them before training), though haven’t used them in the past 2+ years. I didn’t notice any adverse effects to not taking them with regards to my performance. Your value may vary!

Now, it should go without saying that if you want to build muscle while fasting, you need to work out. Specifically, by lifting heavy.

If you want help building a workout routine designed to create muscle, I have 3 options:

#1) “Build Your Own Workout Routine” and get your hands dirty. Our guide will walk you through building a full body exercise program in 10 simple steps.

#2) Follow our Strength Building Guide and start training today. You’ll want to do lots of heavy compound lifts like the Barbell Squat, Deadlift, Bench-Press, Dip, Bodyweight Row, Pull-ups, and Push-ups. 

Get strong as hell, eat enough protein, and you’ll hit your goals.

#3) Have a Nerd Fitness Coach do all the heavy lifting for you (not really, you still have to lift stuff), by having them build you a tailor-made workout routine:

Click here to have a Nerd Fitness Coach build you a workout plan to match your goals!

Should You Do Intermittent Fasting and the Keto Diet?

We have a crazy extensive guide on the Keto Diet in case you’re not familiar with it, so here it is in a nutshell:

By only eating fat and protein, your body must adapt to run on fat for fuel instead of carbohydrates. In the absence of carbs/glucose, your body converts fats to ketones and uses them for fuel.

This process is called “ketosis,” and there are two ways for a body to enter ketosis:

Eating in a way that induces ketosis (very low carb, high fat).

Fasting…Hey, that’s what you’re reading about right now!

We actually have an amazing success story here on Nerd Fitness, Larry, who followed our strategies, went Keto and start intermittent fasting. He ended up losing weight, getting stronger, AND overcame the challenges of rheumatoid arthritis (click on the image for his story)!

Here’s how the fasting portion of it works:

As your body enters a fast period when there are no sources of glucose energy readily available, the liver begins the process of breaking down fat into ketones.

Fasting itself can trigger ketosis.

Fasting for a period of time before kicking off a Keto-friendly eating plan COULD speed your transition into the metabolic state of ketosis, and fasting intermittently while in ketosis could help you maintain that state.

I personally love fasting for the simplicity: I skip breakfast every day and train in a fasted state. It’s one less decision I have to make, it’s one less opportunity to make a bad food choice, and it helps me reach my goals.

WHY KETO + IF WORKS = eating Keto can be really challenging. And every time you eat, it’s an opportunity to do it wrong and accidentally eat foods that knock you out of ketosis.

You’re also tempted to overeat.

So, by skipping a meal, you’re eliminating one meal, one decision, one chance to screw up.

Note: if you’re thinking “Steve, am I losing weight because I’m skipping 1/3rd of my meals for the day, AND eliminating an entire macronutrient?”, then you’d be right.

Both Keto and IF have secondary effects that could also be factoring in – physiological benefits which I explain in both articles.

Your value may vary!

You need to decide what works for you.

You probably won’t become “keto-adapted” (your body running on ketones) just skipping breakfast every day – your body will still have enough glucose stored from your carb-focused meals for lunch and dinner the day before.

In order to use fasting to enter ketosis, the fast needs to be long enough to deplete your carb/glucose stores, or you need to severely restrict carbohydrates from your meals in addition to IF in order to enter ketosis.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Experiment and try different strategies that will work for you.

By skipping a meal or minimizing carbohydrate intake, you’re more likely than not to lose weight:

You can do intermittent fasting without eating a Keto Diet and lose weight.

You can do a Keto Diet without intermittent Fasting and lose weight.

You can combine them and lose weight.

Sticking with Keto is BRUTALLY difficult, and probably not the right diet for 98% of the planet. Those people would be better off with a

Any of those options could work for you, but you need to make it work for your lifestyle! If you want to more about the Keto Diet, definitely read my big-ass post about Keto.

If you’re in a hurry and want to download it so you can read it at your leisure, you can grab our Quick Start Guide to the Keto Diet for free right here:

Download Our Beginner’s Guide to the Keto Diet

55-page Keto Diet guide: how to start today!

Learn the benefits and pitfalls of going Keto.

Keto recipes, snacks, resources, and more!

Does Intermittent Fasting Have Different Effects on Men and Women?

The quick answer is: “yes, Intermittent Fasting can affect men and women differently.” 

Anecdotally, we have many women in our online coaching program that swear by Intermittent Fasting, while others have had adverse effects.

Let’s dig into the science and studies.

A recent PubMed summary concluded that “fasting can be prescribed as a safe medical intervention as well as a lifestyle regimen which can improve women’s health in many folds [18].

Now, in that extract, many of the studies cited are focused on specifically calorie restriction (and not just fasting), and they also say that “future studies should address this gap by designing medically supervised fasting techniques to extract better evidence.”

Digging into the PubMed Archives brought me to the following conclusions [19]:

One small study (with 8 men and 8 women, all non-obese) resulted in the following: “Glucose response to a meal was slightly impaired in women after 3 weeks of treatment, but insulin response was unchanged. Men had no change in glucose response and a significant reduction in insulin response.”[20]

Another small study (8 women) studied the effects on their menstrual cycles after a 72 hour fast – which is significantly longer than any fast recommended in this article: “in spite of profound metabolic changes, a 72-hour fast during the follicular phase does not affect the menstrual cycle of normal cycling women.” [21].

Yet another study tracked 11 women with 72 hour fasts (again, longer than we’d recommend) and it found that “Fasting in women elicited expected metabolic responses – included increased cortisol (a stress hormone) – and apparently advanced the central circadian clock (which can throw off sleeping patterns). [22]

Those studies above, in working with small sample sizes, and different types of fasting than recommended here, would lead me to believe that fasting affects men and women differently, and that many of the weight loss benefits associated with intermittent fasting (that affect insulin and glucose responses) work positively for men and negatively for women.

There are also a series of articles[23] out there that dig into the potential reproductive health issues, stress challenges, induction of early-menopause [24] associated with fasting (and calorie restriction) for women.

Precision Nutrition – a great resource – recommends not attempting Intermittent Fasting as a woman if:

you’re pregnant

you have a history of disordered eating

you are chronically stressed

you don’t sleep well

you’re new to diet and exercise

The challenge associated with all of this is that there aren’t enough long-term studies, with large enough sample sizes, specifically targeting female humans, with relation to the different types of Intermittent Fasting.

ALL OF THIS TO SAY: It does appear that men and women will have different experiences with intermittent fasting; we’re all unique snowflakes (yep, especially you), and your body will be affected by intermittent fasting differently than the person next to you.

There is enough evidence as cited in the articles and studies above that would give me pause to recommend Intermittent Fasting for women, especially if you are considering getting pregnant in the near term.

If you are looking to attempt fasting for weight loss reasons, my research has shown me that Intermittent Fasting could be less effective for women than men with regards to weight loss, and thus you would be wise to keep your efforts elsewhere:

Focusing on the total calories and quality of your food (here’s how to eat better).

Start exercising regularly!

Make sure you are getting enough sleep.

Now, if you’ve read the above warnings, you are still curious about Intermittent Fasting, and you want to give it a try as a female, that is your choice!

You know your body best.

So, get blood work done, speak with your doctor and get a check-up.

Give intermittent fasting a shot, track your results, and see how your body/blood work changes as a result of Intermittent Fasting and decide if it’s right for you.

Your milage may vary, so speak with a doctor or find a doctor versed in intermittent fasting plans and treat it like an experiment on yourself!

If you’re not sure if an Intermittent Fasting Plan is right for you and you want to work with a coach to help you navigate your first month of fasting, we’re here to help!

Work with a trained coach to get started with Intermittent Fasting today! Learn more:

Top 6 Questions about Intermittent Fasting

1) “Won’t I get really hungry if I start skipping meals?”  

As explained above, this can be a result of the habits you have built for your body. If you are constantly eating or always eat the same time of day, your body can actually learn to prepare itself for food by beginning the process of insulin production and preparation for food.

After a brief adjustment period, your body can adapt to the fact that it’s only eating a few times a day. The more overweight you are, and the more often you eat, the more of an initial struggle this might be.

Remember, your body’s physical and cognitive abilities most likley won’t be diminished as a result of short term fasting.[25]

2) “Where will I get my energy for my workouts? Won’t I be exhausted and not be able to complete my workouts if fasting?” 

This was a major concern of mine as well, but the research says otherwise: “Training with limited carbohydrate availability can stimulate adaptations in muscle cells to facilitate energy production via fat oxidation.”[26]

In other words, when you train in a fasted state, your body can get better at burning fat for energy when there are no carbs to pull from!

I’ll share some of my experiences, now doing heavy strength training for 3 years in a fasted state:

For my first “fasted” workout or two after starting an IF protocol, it was very weird to not eat before training. However, after a few sessions, I learned that my body could certainly function (and even thrive) during my training sessions despite not eating a pre-workout meal.

Here I am pulling 420 lbs. at 172 BW after a 16 hour fast:

  View this post on Instagram

  A post shared by Steve Kamb (@stevekamb) on Nov 21, 2018 at 10:43am PST

//www.instagram.com/embed.js

3) “I like the idea of fasted training, but I work a regular 9-5 or a night shift and can’t train at 11AM like you do. What am I supposed to do?”

Depending on your training schedule, lifestyle, and goals, go back to the portion above where I talk about the 16/8 protocol and simply adjust your hours of fasting and feasting.

LeanGains digs into various options here, but here is really what you need to know:

Don’t overthink this. If you can’t train until 5pm, that’s okay. Consume a small meal for lunch, or shift your Intermittent Fasting window to eat all of your meals in the 8 hours post workout. Better to do that than abandon it as a lost cause and have 0% compliance.

If you are an elite athlete, speak with a coach or nutritionist about your specific concerns and expectations. Otherwise, make intermittent fasting work for you Consider trying the 24-hour protocol below instead of the 16/8 protocol.

If you train later in the day (say, 7pm) but break your fast before training (aka Lunch), make it a smaller meal focused around fats and protein – which should be a solid goal even if you aren’t Intermittent Fasting! Try to time your carb and big meal consumption to happen AFTER your workout.

If you exercise BEFORE work, but then don’t eat until lunchtime: consider a protein supplement immediately after your workout, or simply wait until lunch to start eating. See how your body responds and adjust accordingly.

Do what you can, and don’t psyche yourself out! Get started and adjust along the way.

4) “Won’t fasting cause muscle loss?”  

We’ve been told by the supplement industry that we need to consume 30 g of protein every few hours, as that’s the most amount of protein our body can process at a time.

Along with that, we’ve been told that if we don’t eat protein every few hours, our body’s muscle will start to break down to be burned as energy.

Again, NOT TRUE! Our bodies are quite adept at preserving muscle even when fasting [27], and it turns out that protein absorption by our body can take place over many many many hours.

Not only that, but you can even burn fat AND build muscle at the same time if you have the right system in place!

Protein consumed in a shorter period of time has no difference on the body compared to protein spread throughout the day.    

5) “What about my body going into starvation mode from not eating?” 

Now, the thought process here is that when we don’t feed ourselves, our bodies assume calories aren’t available and thus choose to store more calories as opposed to burning them, therefore eliminating the benefits of weight loss with fasting.

Fortunately, this is NOT true.

Starvation mode is significantly overblown and sensationalized these days. It takes a dramatic amount of starvation, for a long, long, long time, before your body kicks into “starvation mode”. We’re talking about 24 hour or 16 hour fasts here, and starvation mode takes significantly longer than that.[28]

In other words: starvation mode should not be factoring into your decision here.

5) How much should I eat while intermittent fasting? 

Simple: Eat for your goals! You do know how many calories you should eat every day, right? 

If your goal is weight loss, you still need to consume fewer calories than you burn every day to lose weight. If your goal is bulking up, you’ll need to consume more calories than you burn every day. Intermittent Fasting isn’t a cure-all, it’s a PART of the puzzle.

To start, begin intermittent fasting and eat your normal sized meals and track your weight and performance. If you are losing weight and happy with the progress, keep doing what you’re doing! If you are NOT losing weight, you could be eating too much. It’s a message I really strike home in our guide “Why Can’t I Weight?”

That’s why you should track your calories for a week, and then target a 10% reduction in calories and continue. Here’s a calculator for you to determine the amount of calories you need daily.

Lastly, if you want help designing a weight loss program custom made for your lifestyle, we can help! Our 1-on-1 Online Coaching Program has helped hundreds of clients get in shape (some of them have lost 50-100 pounds!). 

Achieve sustainable weight loss under the guidance of a Nerd Fitness Coach! Click here to learn more.

8 Tips and Tricks about Fasting 

#1) Don’t freak out! Stop wondering: “can I fast 15 hours instead of 16?” or “what if I eat an apple during my fasted period, will that ruin everything?” Relax. Your body is a complex piece of machinery and learns to adapt. Everything is not as cut and dry as you think.

If you want to eat breakfast one day but not another, that’s okay. If you are going for optimal aesthetic or athletic performance, I can see the need to be more rigid in your discipline, but otherwise…freaking chill out and don’t stress over minutiae!

Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good when it comes to your intermittent fasting plan.

#2) Consider fasted walks in the morning. I found these to be very helpful in reducing body fat, and also gave my day a great start to clear my mind and prepare for the day.

Simply wake up and go for a mile walk. Maybe you could even start walking to Mordor?

#3) Listen to your body during your strength training workouts. If you get light headed, make sure you are consuming enough water.

If you notice a significant drop in performance, make sure you are eating enough calories (especially fats and protein) during your feasting window.

And if you feel severely “off,” pause your workout. Give yourself permission to EASE into intermittent fasting and fasted workouts. This is especially true if you are an endurance athlete.

#4) Expect funny looks if you spend a lot of mornings with breakfast eaters.

A few weeks back I had a number of friends staying with me, and they were all completely dumbfounded when I told them I didn’t eat breakfast anymore.

I tried to explain it to them but received a bunch of blank stares. Breakfast has become so enGRAINed (zing!) in our culture that NOT eating it sounds crazy.

You will get weird looks from those around you…embrace it. I still go to brunch or sit with friends, I just drink black coffee and enjoy a conversation.

#5) Stay busy. If you are just sitting around thinking about how hungry you are, you’ll be more likely to struggle with this. For that reason, I time my fasting periods for maximum efficiency and minimal discomfort:

My first few hours of fasting come after consuming a MONSTER dinner, where the last thing I want to think about is eating.

When I’m sleeping: 8 of my 16 hours are occupied by sleeping. Tough to feel hungry when I’m dreaming about becoming a Jedi.

When I’m busy: After waking up, 12 hours of my fasting is already done. I spend three hours doing my best work (while drinking a cup of black coffee), and then comes my final hour of fasting: training.

#6) Zero-calorie beverages are okay. I drink green tea in the morning for my caffeine kick while writing. If you want to drink water, black coffee, or tea during your fasted period, that’s okay. Remember, don’t overthink it – keep things simple! Dr. Rhonda Patrick over at FoundMyFitness believes that a fast should stop at the first consumption of anything other than water, so experiment yourself and see how your body responds.

If you want to put milk in your coffee, or drink diet soda occasionally while fasting, I’m not going to stop you. Remember, we’re going for consistency and habit-building here – if milk or cream in your coffee makes life worth living, don’t deprive yourself.

There are MUCH bigger fish to fry with regards to getting healthy than a few calories here and there during a fast.

80% adherence that you stick with for a year is better than 100% adherence that you abandon after a month because it was too restrictive.

If you’re trying to get to a minimum bodyfat percentage, you’ll need to be more strict – until then, however, do what allows you to stay compliant!

#7) Track your results, listen to your body:  

Concerned about losing muscle mass? Keep track of your strength training routines and see if you are getting stronger.

Buy a cheap set of body fat calipers and keep track of your body fat composition.

Track your calories, and see how your body changes when eating the same amount of food, but condensed into a certain window.

Sign up for the NF Email list and join the Rebellion and get your free Intermittent Fasting Starter Guide and Worksheets to track your progress.

Download a free intermittent fasting guide and worksheet!

Complete outline of the Intermittent Fasting Protocol

Worksheets for tracking when you eat and how long you fasted

Everybody will react to an Intermittent Fasting Plan differently; I can’t tell you how your body will react. It’s up to you to listen to your body and see how making these adjustments change your body.

#8) Don’t expect miracles. Yes, Intermittent Fasting can potentially help you lose weight, increase insulin sensitivity and growth hormone secretion (all good things), but it is only ONE factor in hundreds that will determine your body composition and overall health. Don’t expect to drop to 8% body fat and get ripped just by skipping breakfast.

We cover all of this in our online self-paced course, the NF Academy, but you need to focus on building healthy habits, eating better foods, and getting stronger.

This is just one tool that can contribute to your success.

Getting Started with Intermittent Fasting: Next Steps

Intermittent fasting can potentially have some very positive benefits for somebody trying to lose weight or gain lean body mass.

Men and women will tend to have different results, just like each individual person will have different results. The ONLY way to find out is through a conversation with your doctor and self-experimentation.

There are multiple ways to “do” an Intermittent Fasting Plan:

Fast and feast regularly: Fast for a certain number of hours, then consume all calories within a certain number of hours.

Eat normally, then fast 1-2x a week: Consume your normal meals every day, then pick one or two days a week where you fast for 24 hours. Eat your last meal Sunday night, and then don’t eat again until dinner the following day.

Fast occasionally: probably the easiest method for the person who wants to do the least amount of work. Simply skip a meal whenever it’s convenient. On the road? Skip breakfast. Busy day at work? Skip lunch. Eat poorly all day Saturday? Make your first meal of the day dinner on Sunday.

After that, get started! Take photos, step on the scale, and track your progress for the next month.

See how your body responds.

See how your physique changes. See how your workouts change.

And then decide if it’s something you want to keep doing!

4 years later, I have no plans on going back to eating breakfast. Sorry General Mills and Dr. Kellogg!

If you’re worried about all of this stuff, or aren’t sure when to eat and stop eating, it might be worth working with a professional that can help you make sense of all of these questions and help you incorporate Intermittent Fasting into your life. 

We have a few options to help people out:

#1) Our 1-on-1 Online Coaching Program. I’ve found a lot of people struggle with knowing exactly when to eat and not eat, keeping track of their fast and feast windows, which is where we can help.

Have your Nerd Fitness Coach design guide you on working out, nutrition, and Intermittent Fasting!

#2) The Nerd Fitness Academy: Fasting is only one piece of the puzzle when it comes to getting healthy.

Join 50,000+ supportive members in this self-paced online course.

In addition to 20+ workouts and a 10-level nutrition system, we help you build habits, fix your environment, and provide you with the support you need.

One payment, lifetime access. Learn about the Nerd Fitness Academy:

#3) Join the Rebellion! Our free bi-weekly newsletter full of tips and tricks to help you lose weight, get stronger, and level up your life.

Join hundreds of thousands of members, and I’ll send you our free Intermittent Fasting guide too:

Download a free intermittent fasting guide and worksheet!

Complete outline of the Intermittent Fasting Protocol

Worksheets for tracking when you eat and how long you fasted

But enough about me, let’s talk about you.

I’d love to hear what questions you have! 

What are your questions with intermittent fasting?  

What are your concerns?

Have you tried intermittent fasting?

Have you had success with it, either with muscle gain or weight loss?

Thanks for leaving your comment, I’m excited to get the conversation started.

-Steve

PS: I made an Intermittent Fasting Plan to help you condense this article into an actionable worksheet you can follow. You can get yours free when you sign up in the box below:

Download a free intermittent fasting guide and worksheet!

Complete outline of the Intermittent Fasting Protocol

Worksheets for tracking when you eat and how long you fasted

###

Photo Source:[29]

Footnotes    ( returns to text)

Timing of food intake predicts weight loss effectiveness: source.

you can read the full study here

Effect of intermittent fasting and refeeding on insulin action in healthy men:Journal of Applied Physiology.

Effects of intermittent fasting on body composition and clinical health markers in humans: PubMed

Regulation of protein synthesis by insulin: PubMed

Growth hormone secretion during sleep: Study

The exercise-induced growth hormone response in athletes: PubMed 

Effect of intermittent fasting and refeeding on insulin action in healthy men: study

This is called the Thermic Effect of Food.

Increased meal frequency does not promote greater weight loss in subjects who were prescribed an 8-week equi-energetic energy-restricted diet: PubMed.

6 Meals vs 3 meals for weight loss: study

Calorie Deprivation Study

Ghrelin – a study, not to be confused with Gremlins

84 Hours of Fasting Study

You can read the really in-depth write-up over on Tim Ferriss’s blog about his transformation

I like my trainer Anthony Mychal’s technique of never being more than two weeks away.

Read more about it here

You can read the full extract here

CAVEAT: I’m a dude and can only speak from anecdotal evidence in speaking with women who have done IF, parsing studies, and trying to draw some conclusions that will help you make a decision

Glucose tolerance when doing alternate day fasting: study

Short-term fasting in normal women: absence of effects on gonadotrophin secretion and the menstrual cycle: PubMed Extract

 Endocrine and chronobiological effects of fasting in women: Abstract 

Like this one on Paleo For Women

as laid out by Precision Nutrition’s article on IF for women

Fasting and cognitive abilities

Metabolic Adaptations due to fasted Training: abstract 

muscle loss and fasting: pubmed extract

Starvation Mode and Metabolism: extract

 seal mouth, tony the tiger, anatomy, cog, breakfast time or the wrong side of the bed, small plates, apples, fridge, ant, boy girl, kiwi 

Intermittent Fasting: Beginner’s Guide & Printable Calendar. Should You Skip Breakfast!? syndicated from https://healthavenuesite.wordpress.com/

[healthavenueblog]

Paleo Diet Beginner Guide: 7 Things To Know Before Eating Like a Caveman!

So you wanna learn about the Paleo Diet, aka “the Caveman Diet,” eh?

Paleo is one of the most popular diets on the planet (up there with the Keto Diet), and I bet you have questions.

Well I got answers, sucka! And lots of LEGO photos.

In addition to helping people go paleo with our Online Coaching Program, we also create epic guides like this one that cover all the basics!

Is Paleo right for you? Maybe! Our coaches can help you decide:

Below in this guide, I’m going to give you the good, the bad, and the ugly when it comes to the Paleolithic Diet (click to go right to that section):

INTRODUCTION TO PALEO:

What is the Paleo Diet and how does it work?

Will I lose weight on the Paleo Diet?

WHAT CAN I EAT ON THE PALEO DIET?

What can I eat on the Paleo Diet? (Paleo Diet Rules)

What CAN’T I eat on the Paleo Diet?

Can I eat grains on the Paleo Diet?

Can I eat dairy on the Paleo Diet?

Can I eat cheese on the Paleo Diet?

SHOPPING LIST AND EATING PLAN

Paleo Diet Shopping Guide: List of foods on the Paleo Diet

What does a typical day look like on the Paleo Diet?

Paleo Recipes & Paleo Resources.

IS PALEO DANGEROUS?

Is the Paleo Diet dangerous?

Who shouldn’t do the Paleo Diet?

How to do the Paleo Diet safely.

Now, this guide is SUPER long, so we took the liberty of converting it into a nicely designed guide for easy consumption (not literal consumption, unless you print it on bacon).

Grab your Beginner’s Guide to the Paleo Diet free when you sign up in the box below:

Get the FREE eBook! The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Paleo!

Discover if Paleo is for you

The one simple trick to know if your food is Paleo-friendly

Easy Paleo recipes for beginners to get you started

If you can actually apply the rules of the Paleo lifestyle, you can get some pretty solid results.

As the great Mr. Flintstone once said, “Yabadabadooooo!”

What is the Paleo Diet and How does it Work?

Oh lord, another “diet.”

I know, it sounds like a fad/marketing ploy, but The Paleo Diet isn’t really a “diet,” and it’s actually quite logical when you think about it.

It’s also the most time-tested diet ever.

Here’s the ENTIRE diet in a nutshell:

“If a cave person didn’t eat it, neither should you.”

As the theory goes, tens of thousands of years ago, before Nike, Cap’n Crunch, and Healthy Choice meals, our ancient ancestors thrived as hunter-gatherers.

Although it’s been a really long time, our genetics haven’t changed that much since then.

And yet…these days we’re overweight, out of shape, stressed out, unhappy, sleep deprived and dying from far too many preventable diseases due to lifestyle choices.

So what the hell happened?

Agriculture!

And then delivery and Netflix.

A few thousand years ago, humans discovered farming, the agricultural revolution took off, and we advanced from hunter-gatherers to farmers.

We settled down, formed societies, and the human race progressed to what we are today. Which is obviously great for a number of reasons:

Not getting eaten by wild animals

Electricity

Automobiles

Nintendo

The problem is that our bodies never adjusted properly to eating all the grains and sugar that we’re now consuming.

As paleo guru Robb Wolf puts it, think of a 100-yard football field:

The first 99.5 yards are how long Homo-Sapiens spent as hunter-gatherers. As they became REALLY good at hunting and gathering our bodies adapted to that lifestyle over thousands of years.

That last half-yard represents our species after the agricultural revolution, where our diet has shifted (but our genetics haven’t).

So, instead of loading up on meat, vegetables and seasonal fruits, we’ve become a species “dependent” upon grains – bread, pasta, rice, corn, and so on.

66% of us are overweight, 33% are considered obese, and those numbers are only getting worse.[1] 

Clearly something’s not right, and we need to fix it.

The Paleo Diet is an effort to go back to our ancestral roots.

To start eating how we’re biologically designed to eat, allowing us to tap into our genetic potential and start living healthier immediately.

To recap the rules of the Paleo Diet:

Only eat foods a caveman would eat

See Rule #1

Note that it doesn’t mention calorie counting or meal timing or macro tracking. That’s part of the popularity of this diet: eat paleo approved foods when you’re hungry, and that’s it.

Will I Lose Weight on the Paleo Diet?

This is the question we get above all else:

“Will the Paleo Diet help me lose weight?”

Probably. If you can actually apply the rules of the Paleo lifestyle, you can get some pretty solid results.

It’s helped many people achieve jaw-dropping transformations, including my friend Saint, (whose story you can read here):

Or Staci from Team NF, our lead female trainer in our 1-on-1 Coaching Program):

The Paleo Diet will work for you, if you do it right.

You need to have the right mindset, you need to focus on the right foods, and you need to structure your environment so that you’re not tempted to backslide and abandon the Paleo Diet after a few days.

However, it has nothing to do with what Fred Flintstone ate or didn’t eat.

It comes down to science and thermodynamics.

As I point out in our article on How to Lose Weight: What’s the Perfect Diet (For me?), if you want to lose weight:

Eat fewer calories than you burn every day.

Want to also be healthy? Eat mostly real food.

Want to KEEP the weight off?

Add #3: Do those two things consistently for a decade.

Here’s WHY you’ll lose weight on the Paleo Diet: 

You’re only eating meat, fish, veggies, fruits, and nuts. These are foods that are full of nutrients, will make you feel full, but don’t have nearly as many calories as junk food.

You are completely eliminating calorie-dense, often nutritionally deficient, unhealthy foods. This means no grains (pasta, bread, rice), no dairy, no beans. It also means no soda, no candy, no sugar.

And yup. When you only eat real food and avoid all unhealthy food, you’re more likely than not going to run a caloric deficit – and thus lose weight.

Let me share a really obvious example.

200 calories of broccoli gets you enough to fill up an entire plate:

Or… 200 calories will get you exactly 1/2 a Snickers bar:

Look at that: nobody can eat that much broccoli, and nobody only eats half a candy bar!

My point is this: by eating Paleo-approved foods, you’re more likely than not to eat fewer calories than you did in the past automatically, which can lead to weight loss.

I dig into this in even greater detail in “Why can’t I lose weight?” but it all comes down to “calories in, calories out.”

So YES, the Paleo Diet MIGHT help you lose weight.

You just need to eat fewer calories than you burn every day (Here’s how to calculate your Total Daily Energy Expenditure). And that is easier when you are eliminating foods that people tend to overeat:

Candy

Soda

Pasta

Bread

Dairy

But that’s all about what we’re eliminating. What are we keeping!?

what Can I eat on The Paleo diet?

In order to follow the Paleo Diet Lifestyle, here are the foods that are Paleo approved:

Meat* – steak, ham, pork, bison, boar.

Organs – liver, kidneys, heart.

Marrows – seeing a theme here? Eat ALL parts of the animal!

Fowl – chicken, duck, hen, turkey…things with wings that (try to) fly.

Fish – cod, tuna, salmon, and so on.

Eggs – Look for omega-3 enriched cage-free eggs.

Vegetables – spinach, broccoli, kale, carrots, peppers, zucchini, onions, etc.

Oils – minimally processed, derived from plants: olive oil, coconut oil, avocado oil.

Fats: ghee, lard, or other animal fats.

Fruits – apples, pears, bananas, grapes, strawberries.

Nuts – almonds, walnuts, cashews, and their respective butters (almond butter is so good!)

Tubers – Sweet potatoes and yams.

*If you can, aim for grass-fed beef and organic fruits and vegetables. But don’t go break the bank with your food purchases. Just do the best you can. 

As the Paleo Diet explains: Pick any of the foods from that list and eat as much as you want of them.

You might have noticed that a lot of the foods above are loaded with fat. And depending on what your mom told you growing up, you might think fat is the devil.

So let me address that right away…

Does Eating Fat Make You Fat?

If you’re cutting back on carbs, that means you’ll need to fill the void in your diet with the most controversial macronutrient:

Fat!

It’s gotten a bad rap over the past number of decades, so companies have been doing everything possible to make everything low fat and “healthy!” (while adding all sorts of preservatives, chemicals, and sugar).

Yup…cut out the fat, increase the carbs….and look where THAT has gotten us.

Why has fat been vilified? Rather than get into the politics of it myself, I’ll let Gary Taubes, author of the incredibly thorough and well-researched Good Calories, Bad Calories take over.

As he discusses in an article he wrote for the New York Times a decade ago:[2]

These researchers point out that there are plenty of reasons to suggest that the low-fat-is-good-health hypothesis has now effectively failed the test of time.

In particular, that we are in the midst of an obesity epidemic that started around the early 1980’s, and that this was coincident with the rise of the low-fat dogma. (Type 2 diabetes, the most common form of the disease, also rose significantly through this period.)

They say that low-fat weight-loss diets have proved in clinical trials and real life to be dismal failures, and that on top of it all, the percentage of fat in the American diet has been decreasing for two decades.

Our cholesterol levels have been declining, and we have been smoking less, and yet the incidence of heart disease has not declined as would be expected. ”That is very disconcerting,” Willett says. ”It suggests that something else bad is happening.”

“Low fat” foods were created to follow conventional wisdom that fat made you fat (which as stated in the above article doesn’t stand up to scrutiny).

When a company makes a low fat food, they remove the fat and have to replace the flavor with something.

That “something” is usually sugar (and often more calories).

Crap.

So, according to Taubes and Paleo folks, fat has been vilified and the real focus should have been on sugar and carbs all along.

Because healthy fats are valuable additions to our diet. 

Here are some examples of Paleo-Approved Healthy Fats:

Avocados

Almond (and almond butter)

Fatty cuts of meat

Walnuts

Coconut oil

Olive oil

In the Paleo Diet, fat makes up a large portion of one’s diet.

If you’re worried about consuming fat and how it will affect your cholesterol, read our Full Guide to Cholesterol

WhAT Foods Can’t I eat On the Paleo Diet?

If you are looking to strictly follow the Paleo Diet, then you can’t eat foods that did not exist back in “Caveman times.”

Why?

Because – as advocates of the diet point out – cavemen couldn’t eat those foods because they didn’t exist. There was no way to create cereal and candy – you could only eat what you found or hunted.

So, that’s what the Paleo Diet advocates as the reason for avoiding these foods. And it serves as a good mental model to check with yourself: “Could a caveman have eaten this meal?”

And when you start to answer this question, you identify the foods that you’re not allowed to eat on the Paleo Diet:

Grains like pasta, cereal bread, and rice

Dairy like milk and cheese

Candy, cookies, ice cream, and other processed foods

The Paleo Diet also almost completely eliminates sugar outside of fruit. No candy. No soda. No powdered donuts. Yup, even the mini white ones from the grocery store where you can eat like 100 of them (accidentally, of course).

Many studies have shown that an incredible number of diseases and lifestyle issues can be reversed by cutting out sugar and processed foods.[3]

But I understand grains and dairy are a bit more complex.

Let me explain:

Can I Eat Grains on the Paleo Diet?

Unfortunately, nope.

The Caveman reason why: Grains require some amount of processing, and thus Cavemen would not have eaten them.

The science and psychological reason why: we have a tendency to overeat grains and the other “no no” foods on the Paleo Diet. They are calorically dense, nutrient deficient, and they can wreak havoc on some people’s blood sugar levels.

This leads to a sugar rush followed by a crash, which can lead to more emotional or hungry overeating…and the process starts again.

Rather than me explain that part with thousands of words, just watch this three-minute video – “Why You Got Fat:”

Let’s get into some more reasons Paleo advocates suggest avoiding grains: most contain gluten and lectins.

What are they and what’s wrong with them? I’m so glad you asked:

Gluten is a protein found in things like rye, wheat, and barley. It’s now being said that much of our population may be gluten-intolerant (hence all the new “gluten-free!” items popping up everywhere). Over time, those who are gluten intolerant can develop a dismal array of medical conditions from consuming gluten: dermatitis, joint pain, reproductive problems, acid reflux, and more.[4]

Lectins are natural toxins that exist in grains to defend against consumption! Yup. Grains have evolved to keep themselves from being eaten by us. These lectins are not a fan of our gastrointestinal tract, and they prevent the tract from repairing itself from normal wear and tear. This can cause all kinds of damage.

Long story short: many people cannot process grains properly, and they are usually the food that causes people to eat too many calories. So by eliminating grains from your diet, you’re more likely than not going to eat fewer calories without counting calories.

That’s a Paleo win!

Do I Need to Avoid Carbs on the Paleo Diet?

Not necessarily.

That depends on your goals and your body – you are a special snowflake!

Some people function well on a high fat, low carb diet.

Others function better on a high carb, low fat diet.

Personally, I function better on a higher carb, lower fat diet (which is how I lost 22 pounds in 6 months).

I will say the Paleo Diet is USUALLY a Low Carb diet, and large quantities of carbs are not required for somebody to be healthy regular diet.[5].

After all, carbs aren’t evil – they’re just…carbs.

Here is the logic and psychology behind why the Paleo Diet is low carb:

On a typical Western diet, we consume plenty o’ carbs, and our bodies convert those carbs to a sugar called “glucose.” This is our body’s preferred method of fueling itself.

In the absence of carbs to create glucose to fuel our bodies, we have to do a few other things instead:

Transform stored fat into glycerol and fatty acids (this process is called lipolysis).

Burn fatty acids for energy or transform the fatty acids into glucose for energy (this is called gluconeogenesis)

In the absence of glucose (through fasting or following a Keto Diet), your body can create ketones for fuel (called “ketogenesis”).

We’re going to focus on the forms of weight loss NOT related to “ketogenesis.” Unless you are avoiding all carbohydrates while going Paleo, or you are doing long fasts, you most likely won’t be in ketosis while going Paleo.

We do cover Paleo vs Keto: Which is Better if you’re deciding between the two.

Back to weight loss and Paleo: when you cut back on carbs, and thus most likely ALSO cut back on total calories consumed, you are creating a caloric deficit in your body.

And eat a consistent deficit over a long enough time period, BOOM caveman weight loss.

So, fewer carbs = less glucose in your system, less sugar crashes, less “hangry” moments and smaller chance of overeating = fewer calories consumed on average.

If you’re worried about adherence to the diet, I understand – it’s the toughest part of Paleo – sticking with it!

Knowing what to eat is part of it, but following this fairly restrictive lifestyle in a modern environment surrounded by cookies and candy and bagels and pasta is really difficult!

If this whole “Paleo, Carbs, and Weight Loss” thing is stressing you out, you’re not alone!

In fact, people like you are the reason we created our 1-on-1 Online Coaching Program!

We work with busy people like you to structure a complete life overhaul: handcrafted workout routines, accountability, mindset changes, and nutritional strategies.

  Can I eat Dairy on the Paleo Diet? Can I eat Cheese On the Paleo Diet?

This also depends. Strict Paleo folks tend to stay away from it – a portion of the world is lactose intolerant, and those that aren’t usually have at least some type of an aversion to it.

Why? Because hunter-gatherers didn’t lug cows around with them while traveling – milk was consumed as a baby through breast milk from their mother, and that was it.

So as Paleo-stans will tell ya, our bodies weren’t designed for massive dairy consumption.

There is evidence that some adaptation to dairy has taken place throughout the years, specifically with people with ancestry in herding cultures, but this is not the majority of the population.[6]

Paleo purists will avoid dairy like the plague, while other paleo-ish people have found that consuming dairy in its various forms work for their genetics, goals, and lifestyle.

“What about Cheese? Can I eat cheese on the Paleo Diet?”

You do you, boo. But if you’re going Strict Paleo, then unfortunately cheese is OUT too.

If you’re just looking to lose some weight while following a “mostly Paleo” lifestyle, then adding some high quality cheese into some of your meals can be okay.

Some cheeses will tend to have lower amounts of lactose or casein – the parts of dairy that can cause digestion challenges.

So, if you’re not sure your body is processing dairy properly, remove dairy from your diet and only introduce it back in when you’re ready to see how your body responds.

If you’re not losing weight while eating a “Paleo + Dairy” Diet, you’re still eating too many calories.

Consider cutting out dairy and see how your body responds.

Paleo Diet Shopping Guide: List of Foods on the Paleo Diet

Because I like you as a person, I’ve created a printable Paleo Diet Shopping List PDF you can bring with you to the grocery store to help you decide what to buy and what to avoid.

Simply right click on the image below and save as:

Feel free to print this out and bring it with you to the grocery store. If you happen to run into somebody else who has ALSO printed out this sheet, feel free to high five each other while singing Baltimora!

What is a Typical Day Like on the Paleo Diet?

Here is an example of a typical day on “The Paleo Diet”:

Breakfast: Omelet with spinach with fresh fruit.

Lunch: Grilled chicken, kale, and avocado salad with vinegar and olive oil.

Snack: Apple slices and almond butter.

Dinner: Steak with asparagus and sweet potato fries.

Dessert: Strawberries and a piece of 85% dark chocolate.

That doesn’t sound so bad, right?

Make sure you check out our Paleo Diet Recipes and Resources section too for more options.

Start with a good protein source with each meal (eggs, steak, chicken, fish, pork) and then add a vegetable or fruit.

That’s it.

If you feel hungry constantly, understand that changing up a diet can cause a body a few weeks of adjustment.

Remember, your body is learning to operate on both fewer calories AND fewer carbs – depending on how low carb you go this could be a DRAMATIC change.

And this is often referred to as “carb flu,” and it can be miserable! Your body might take multiple weeks to adjust to these new habits.

Going from a processed, high sodium diet to a paleo diet you will very often end up eating too little sodium, which is an essential nutrient.

So if you’re feeling tired all the time, try adding some salt to your food or consider an electrolyte supplement – this is what we recommend with our Keto readers too.

Is the Paleo Diet Dangerous?

The dismissive criticisms of the Paleo Diet generally fall into one of three categories:

Cavemen had short lifespans. So there.

A recent article said that cavemen ate grains. So there.

Eating that much meat is unhealthy. So there.

As I said at the beginning of this article, it doesn’t matter what cavemen or cavewomen ACTUALLY ate.

The reason this diet works has nothing to do with what our bodies are designed to eat or what cavemen ate 1,000s of years ago.

The Paleo Diet CAN help you lose weight because it gets you to cut out junk food, focus on eating real food, and gives you a framework to evaluate quickly every food choice:

“Did a caveman eat this? Yes or no.”

That’s it!

By following this ONE rules, you’re likely to eat fewer calories than you used to, and thus you’re likely to end up healthier than before.

I personally don’t follow a Paleo Diet, but I do appreciate the fact that it’s easy to comprehend and gets people to take a more active approach in their food!

So, disregarding the fear mongering, dogma, and anthropological criticisms of what cavemen actually ate, what are the ACTUAL critiques of the Paleo Diet?

#1) “Why is the Paleo Diet expensive?”

Admittedly, while I recommend eating organic fruits and veggies, free-range chicken, and grass-fed beef whenever possible, these products can be more expensive in conventional stores due to the processes needed to get them there.

However, farmers’ markets often have well-priced meats, eggs, fruits, and vegetables that are locally grown and incredibly healthy.

Even if you’re spending a little more money than before, when you factor in your overall health, spending a few extra bucks on healthier food now is a wiser investment than thousands later on costly medical expenses.

Also, if you’re really short on cash, eating the non-organic or grain-fed version of a meat, vegetable, or eggs is still better than eating breads, pasta, fast food, and the like.

Most people simply compare the cost of a paleo meal with ramen noodles or pasta and bread and determine Paleo is prohibitively expensive.

Sure, it’s more expensive than those foods, but if you are smart with your money you can eat a much healthier meal and do so pretty inexpensively. Check out this guide on “How to Eat Healthy Without Breaking the Bank” for some tips and tricks.

(This doesn’t even factor in the whole “if you eat cheap unhealthy food now, you’ll pay thousands in medical bills and hospital visits and medications later” argument which is valid too).

#2) “But cavemen had short lifespans! Of course they don’t have the diseases we do. We live way longer now.”

I agree with you here, but only because you don’t have to deal with the dangers of living back then. Again we don’t really care to live like cave people!

This is SIMPLY a construct that can help many make more informed food choices.

#3) “Plenty of societies around the world consume grains and aren’t fat and unhealthy like us.”

Awesome – it seems like those people have found a solution that works for them. Have you read our big ass guide to eating a Plant-Based Diet?

The China Study is frequently cited when criticizing the Paleo Diet – focusing on a vegetarian diet and consuming rice is healthier than the Paleo Diet. I respectfully disagree with the conclusions drawn from that book but that’s awesome if you want to go plant-based! [7] I’ll leave you to make your own conclusions based on your own self-experimentation.

You’re here to learn about the Paleo Diet though, so let’s keep the focus there.

#4) “But this is just a meat diet, and eating all meat is bad!” 

First of all, consider your sources and do your research before jumping to the conclusions.

Next, this is not an all meat diet like the Carnivore Diet or uber-low carb diets like Keto or Atkins. The biggest component of the Paleo Diet?

Vegetables!

Every meal in a true Paleo diet has a moderate amount of healthy (properly raised chicken, grass-fed beef, hormone free, etc.) meat combined with nutritious veggies or a moderate amount of fruit.

#5) “The Paleo Diet is too restrictive and I can’t live like this.”

This is the most valid criticism I personally have of the diet, as the best diet plan is the one you actually stick with and follow through on! The goal shouldn’t be to go “full paleo” for a few weeks only to go back to how you were eating before.

Instead, the goal here should be to rethink your relationship with food and develop a strategy that you can live with permanently.

There’s nothing worse than going on diets and gaining and losing the same 20 pounds over and over. The Paleo Diet, like other diets, WORKS ONLY IF YOU STICK WITH IT PERMANENTLY!

This makes sense after all: make temporary changes, get temporary results, right?

#6) “Steve, I hate vegetables. How do you make vegetables taste better? HALP.”

I got you. Heres how to start liking vegetables and how to make vegetables taste better.

We know this all too well, and we have helped thousands of people slowwwwly transition their diet over a long period of time to make change less scary, more permanent, and thus make the weight loss permanent too!

If you’re overwhelmed or scared of changing too much, or maybe you’re just sick of dieting and want to find a solution that works for your busy lifestyle and situation, schedule a call with us to learn more about our 1-on-1 coaching program:

Paleo Recipes and Paleo Resources

Here’s our full list of Nerd Fitness Paleo/Healthy recipes, and here are my three favorites:

10 Minutes of Prep, 10 Easy Meals

Paleo spaghetti: freaking delicious, I promise

How to Make Mini Paleo Pizzas.

I’ve also compiled a list of my favorite sites and recipe books around the internet that can help you get started:

#1) Nom Nom Paleo – Michelle Tam and her husband Henry are amazing people, and their Paleo Blog is absolutely phenomenal. Great photos. Well written. Organized intelligently.

Their “Nom Nom Paleo” cookbook is a fun resource too, and a great place to get started with cooking for your Paleo lifestyle. Oh, what’s that? You have kids and a spouse and you’re all trying to eat healthier too? This book is perfect for that as well!

#2) Mark’s Daily Apple – Easily the most comprehensive resource on the internet for the Paleo Diet – Mark writes an article every weekday about everything Paleo, and it usually blows me away. Some of the posts can get overwhelming, so I suggest starting with his Primal Blueprint 101.

The Primal Blueprint – If you want to read about this stuff in a book rather than on a computer screen, Mark’s book The Primal Blueprint is a great place to get started on not only what to eat, but why you should be eating it.

It’s educational, funny, real-world applicable, and teaches you how to primalize (just made that up) the rest of your life too.

#3) Robb Wolf – Another great resource, and a guy I’ve already referenced in this article multiple times. Check out his site for a comprehensive FAQ on all things Paleo, a shopping list pdf (right-click and save), and plenty of humor.

The Paleo Solution – This article would have been finished 3 hours earlier, but before I wrote it, I read ALL of Robb’s new book. It seriously had me laughing out loud at certain points – not bad for a book on diet!

This book is a little less forgiving than Mark’s book above, but it’s still a great read.

#4) Loren Cordain – Loren is considered the leading expert on the Paleo Diet – Robb is actually one of his students/disciples/Padawans.

Dr. Cordain is probably the foremost authority on this type of eating, which is why I really enjoyed reading both of his books.

MORE RECIPE RESOURCES:

Ready or Not! 150 Make Now Recipes – The newer book from Michelle Tam of Nom Nom Paleo. It’s super fun. Plus she’s wearing a Nerd FItness t-shirt in some of her photos in the book, so I might be sliiiightly biased

Mark’s Daily Apple – Although he sells the cookbook on Amazon, Mark also lists over 100 free primal recipes on his site. Pick something on the list, go buy the ingredients, and follow the instructions! So easy even a caveman can do it.

Everyday Paleo – Great pictures, easy to follow recipes, and pretty interesting combinations. Click on FOOD in the Nav bar, and the meals are broken down into breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

If you’re curious about The Paleo Diet’s recent popularity and thus it’s criticisms, we’ve written two other pieces on Nerd Fitness that might be of interest:

“The Paleo Diet Debunked??” where I address a few of the more recent criticisms that have popped up.

“In Defense of a Paleo-Ish Diet” where I cover how to live a mostly Paleo lifestyle but still enjoy the modern benefits of society.

Who Should and Who Shouldn’t Do the Paleo Diet?

I’m a fan of the Paleo Diet for the RIGHT person:

I love mental models that help us make sense of the world, and I think for SOME people, the Paleo Diet will really help them cut down on overeating.

I personally do NOT follow a Paleo Diet, but I do have rules that I follow.

Do whatever makes you happy and fits in your schedule. I like this kind of stress-free eating.

Regardless of whether or not grains should be vilified, I love this diet because I know it WORKS. I know people that have lost incredible amounts of weight and changed their lives within a matter of months.

People like Staci:

Regardless of how you feel about grains, we can all agree that eating more natural foods and less processed foods is better for you.

YOU SHOULD DO THE PALEO DIET IF:

You struggle with portion control (meaning you can’t eat just one cookie, or you tend to keep eating even when you’re full).

You can stick with the changes you’re making permanently! Remember, temporary changes create temporary results.

You don’t mind eliminating some of your favorite foods completely.

YOU SHOULD NOT DO THE PALEO DIET IF:

The idea of giving up non-paleo foods makes you want to cry.

You don’t mind learning about calories and want to track your food.

Another diet sounds like a better fit for you!

Consider some of these other options instead: 

The Mediterranean Diet which still includes portions of things like pasta or bread (note: I said PORTIONS, not platefuls)!

Our guide on healthy eating and slowly adjust your nutrition – which would be my recommendation.

My paleo-ish dietary philosophy that keeps me healthy and happy.

If you want to lose weight and keep it off, you need to make permanent adjustments to your nutrition.

If you don’t see yourself being able to permanently follow a Paleo Diet, I would advise a more ‘wade in from the shallow end‘ approach to dietary change!

How to Do the Paleo Diet Safely

Maybe you’re ready to try out this Paleo lifestyle, but you can’t commit fully. There are certain foods you refuse to give up, or you can’t afford to buy grass-fed beef at the moment.

That’s okay!

If you can even make a few small changes here and there (cut out liquid calories, switch out your rice for steamed vegetables, cut back on bread, etc.) you’ll start to see some changes.

Remember, 20% healthier is better than 0% healthier – as you get more comfortable with the changes you can increase that percentage.

After all, I know how tough it is to stay loyal to a strict diet, especially without a plan to follow. It’s why we created free resources that can help you reach your goals faster without you also going crazy.

Get rid of the temptation: if you’re gonna go at this thing with a full head of steam, remove all the junk food from your house.

It’s going to take a few weeks for your body to adjust to burning fat instead of glucose, and you might want to eat poorly here and there. If there’s no food in your house to tempt you, it will be much easier to stay on target.

Now, it’s your turn.

Have you tried the Paleo Diet yet?

What was your experience like?

Have a criticism of the diet that I didn’t cover before?

Do you have a favorite paleo resource?

Remember, one of the major Rules of the Rebellion is to question everything!

I hope this article gives you some food for thought (terrible pun, I know), and gives you permission to question conventional wisdom and start addressing the issues in your diet!

In addition to this Beginner Paleo Guide, I hope you consider checking our 1-on-1 Coaching Program as well.

We have designed this program from the ground up to help people like you change their lives and fix their nutrition in a way that doesn’t suck.

Now, go forth. And eat like a caveman.

-Steve

PS: I’ll leave you with a mention of the Nerd Fitness Academy – it essentially gamifies your experience in transitioning into a Paleo lifestyle and diet, and provides you with specific instruction, meal plans, workouts, and a supportive community.

###

photo sources: cavemen elephant hunt, caveman cooking over fire, cavemen hunt paleo bear, milk truck logo, darth vader vendor, storm trooper tomato, lego cook, chef and lego pig, lego explorer, lego muffin, lego bread and carbs, frozen caveman grok lego, lego clock, lego caveman forging for food, caveman with wheel, darth vader and ostrich lego, easing into water lego, lego man with pasta

Footnotes    ( returns to text)

Adult Obesity Prevalence Map CDC.gov

 What if its all Been a Big Fat Lie?

Take a look at this time magazine article on cancer patients who switched to a zero-sugar diet and saw positive results.

You can read our full guide on Gluten

check out the Inuit Paradox for a great read on societies that exist without almost any carbohydrates

If you want to nerd out about this stuff, go wild with this study

This is the most well-researched critique I’ve found of the China Study: Denise Menger – China Study – Fact or Fallacy

Paleo Diet Beginner Guide: 7 Things To Know Before Eating Like a Caveman! syndicated from https://healthavenuesite.wordpress.com/