3 steps to lose more fat!

1) Do total body workouts 3x a week

Total body workouts simply burn more calories than doing body part splits. You burn more calories since you are working more muscle mass in each session that just doing say upper body in one workout. A total body workout should include upper body, lower body, knee dominant ( squats ) and hip dominant ( deadlift ) exercises. You get plenty of core work from these compound movements so you don't have to do too much extra core work. Some sample groupings to organize your workouts are below.

example 1-

A1) Row ( pull )
A2) Pushup ( push )
A3) Squat ( knee dominant )

B1) Pullup ( pull )
B2) Shoulder press ( press )
B3) Deadlift ( hip dominant )

or example 2

A1) Row ( pull )
A2) Lunge ( knee dominant )

B1) Pushup ( press )
B2) Glute bridge ( hip dominant )


2) Focus on veggies, protein and water

Make it simple by eating 5-6 times a day and consume veggies and protein at each meal. In terms of protein eat a portion about the size of a deck of cards. Veggies aim for the green variety since they are low in carbs and full of nutrients. Protein snack ideas are below.

Jerky-buffalo or turkey best
Cheese sticks
Cottage cheese
Protein shake
Hard boiled eggs


3) Get your workout going ASAP

Need a lift to your current workout? Maybe you start off on a slow foot? A simple answer to these issues is to start your workout with 5 minutes of jump rope. Not only will you get a great quick warmup but you will burn some extra calories before you even get going. Add 30 seconds or so to each workout. As you get better build up the time until you could do 10 minutes continuous before your workout. If you don't like jumping rope then do burpees ( hate that name ) and do as many as you can for 2 minutes.

Why weekends are killing your fat loss

Friday through Sunday seems to always create such havoc to ones personal fat loss goals. You work so hard during the week not only in the gym but in the kitchen and you seem to have the train running, but then comes the weekend. What happens, major derailment, and you let yourself fall off the cliff.

It is common for me to hear all the time from my clients: "I was doing so well during the week and then the weekend came and its like everything went down hill." Lets face it most peoples weekends are filled with social gatherings, sports games, nights out at restaurants, late night eating and drinking and anything else that you can imagine. All of these things are not in the best interest in helping you eat healthy and maintain your fat loss goals.

WHAT IS GOING ON?

Lets say that during the week your totally dominating the workouts and your eating and you have put yourself in a 3,500 calorie deficit. This equates to about a 700 calorie deficit a day and will turn into one pound of fat loss a week. Now the weekend comes around. You tell yourself you are going to stay on track but you don't and you end up eating like garbage and drinking too much. So now you end up eating 500 extra calories than you should on both Saturday and Sunday which leaves your calorie deficit to only 2500 which equals not even a full pound of fat loss for the week.

STRATEGIES TO COMBAT THIS

1) Damage control- If you know the weekend will be rough than avoid complete destruction. You can do this by eating 1 slice of pizza with a salad as the filler, instead of 4-5 slices. This can keep a really bad situation from becoming really really bad.

2) Plan ahead-If you know that Saturday night you are going out for a friends birthday dinner and drinks think about what you can do before this takes place. You can eat a good amount of veggies and lean protein before heading to the dinner which will cause you to eat a smaller portion at the restaurant. If Sunday is a morning out for brunch then limit your Saturday calories so that Sunday doesn't put you to far behind.

3) Own the weekdays! Make sure you are on your game 100% during this part of the week. Having a so so week plus a bad weekend is a recipe for disaster.

4) Weekend workouts-If you can add some exercise into your weekend the more success you will have. This doesn't just have to be an actual workout but just adding more physical activity period in any way is better than nothing. Walk the stairs at the mall when shopping instead of the elevator or escalator. Walk your dogs, take a bike ride, walk or run to the store etc.

In the end remember that YOU AND ONLY YOU HAS CONTROL ON THE RESULTS YOU GET so don't complain just make it happen!