I get a lot of questions every week from clients, friends and family members and I thought I’d share some of the more common ones and my answers. Be prepared because I might be blunt, but often times that’s what’s needed.
Question #1: I have trouble finding ways to fit fruits and vegetables into my day. I know they’re important, but it’s tough to fit them in.
Answer: No, it’s not tough to add fruits and vegetables to your daily diet. They are actually the easiest things to add.
Think about it. Most fruits and vegetables are already prepared for you. All you have to do is grab them, wash them, and go. There’s no prep time, no boxes or bags to open, no crumbs. They’re easy.
I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t get the recommended 9 servings of fruits and vegetables in my daily diet, but I do get a lot. It’s all about habits. Before you walk out the door in the morning grab an apple, banana or small bag of baby carrots (or better yet, all of them) to eat throughout your day. How tough is that?
For lunch have a lettuce salad (with limited dressing) and put some carrots, broccoli, cucumber, etc. on it and you’ve just added a ton of vitamins, fiber and phytonutrients to your day. How tough is that?
Anybody that says they can’t fit fruits and vegetables into their daily diet is just making an excuse, and a bad excuse at that.
The easiest route to take is to get yourself into the habit of adding 1 fruit and/or vegetable to your daily routine every week. If you forget one day, don’t worry about it. Just remember to do it the next day. Start right now by eating an apple. A medium sized apple has about 4 grams of fiber and is loaded with vitamins and phytonutrients…just don’t peel the skin off.
Question #2: I looked over the workouts you told me to do (or from my Fat Loss To Go eBook) and they aren’t that tough. Can you make it more difficult?
Answer: You followed the workout and it wasn’t that tough? Really? I do those workouts regularly and they kick my butt.
I think it’s more of a case of you not making the workout hard enough. Before I really offend you, let me explain.
If the workout calls for 8 repetitions, they should be 8 hard repetitions. You should not feel like you can do 30 repetitions with the weight used when the workout calls for 8. So increase the resistance until those repetitions are difficult to perform. And no, you won’t get huge, hulking muscles just by using heavier weights. It takes a lot more than that to get big muscles.
Also make sure you aren’t going too fast. You must go slow (not too slow) and be under control when doing strength training. Each repetition should take around 3 seconds to perform…not be done so fast you’re done with the entire set in a couple seconds.
Question #3: I always do so well with my eating habits through the week, then on the weekends I go crazy. I swear I gain 5 pounds over the weekend and lose it all during the week. How can I change this?
Answer: I think this is more common than I previously thought because I get this question a lot.
Many people get into a routine during the work week, only to see it all fall apart on the weekend because they go out to dinner at night with their spouse or friends, eat lunch in a fast food place if they’re out running errands and eat donuts on Sunday morning. Not to mention the alcohol intake which adds hundreds and maybe even thousands of calories that go straight to your gut, butt or thighs in just a couple of days.
The easiest way to combat this is to keep your same routine on the weekend that you do during the week. Eat the same breakfast, same snacks, lunch, etc.
You can relax a little and have your “cheat” meals during the weekend. Just make sure that this is only 1 or 2 meals and not the entire weekend.
And watch out for alcohol. Alcohol can wreak havoc on your fat loss goals because it’s just empty calories…and a lot of them. Your average beer contains anywhere from 90-150 calories. The same goes for wine. Hard liquor can have more, and that number can skyrocket if you have mixed drinks. Especially if they contain lots of sugar-packed juices or creams.
So steer clear of alcohol if you want to lose fat and keep it to a minimum if you want to maintain your current weight or just stay healthy.
Just because it’s the weekend doesn’t mean you can go crazy and throw all your healthy, fat fighting eating habits out the window. As many of you know, you can do a lot of damage in a 2 day period.
I could do this all day, but you probably don’t have all day to read. So I’ll save more questions/answers for later.
Have a good week!
