Lose Weight By Eating More?
Anyone who's followed a diet will notice that consuming less food can often result in lower energy levels throughout the day, negatively affecting our mood and most importantly, our activity levels. The better alternative is to eat a bit more to sustain a more active lifestyle. Learn more in this article!
Before anyone jumps down my throat, yes, I know well that to lose weight you have to be in a calorie deficit - eating less calories than you burn.
However, anyone who's followed a diet will notice that consuming less food can often result in lower energy levels throughout the day, negatively affecting our mood and most importantly, our activity levels.
NEAT (non-exercise activity thermogenesis)
Represents all the physical activity throughout the day that isn't considered exercise - walking, fidgeting around, work, etc. When you restrict calorie intake, it can cause you to move less outside of the gym in your daily life. This decrease in NEAT can ultimately cause your fat loss to plateau. Although this is doesn't happen 100% of the time, it's smart to and monitor your physical activity using a basic activity tracker like the FitBit for example and see if your activity levels drop when dieting. It's also smart to be more aware of your mood from day to day and how it affects your motivation levels and your ability to get up and move.
I've written in detail about NEAT and daily calorie expenditure, what they are, and how to use it to your advantage to help your weight loss and fitness goals. Click here to read.
I am in no way advocating for ridiculously high calorie intakes and trying to catch up on your weight loss by performing hours upon hours of exercise. Most people do not have the time nor energy to do so. What I'm advocating for matching the positive mood and motivation levels that comes with a more moderate calorie intake, with higher NEAT levels throughout the day.
If you feel groggy and unmotivated eating 2000 calories a day, it may be smart to increase it to 2250 or a number you'll feel more comfortable or happier at. From here reach a calorie deficit by an extra 5000 steps a day or by staying more active outside of the gym.
Go for a walk on the beach. Go for a bike ride. Move more around the house. Keep yourself active, but keep it simple. The main goal here to is develop a more active lifestyle and making small tweaks to our diet to better accomodate it. Hope it helps!
Why The Pyramid Works So Well In Fitness
The pyramid works well in the fitness industry because it takes into account priorities, and base building. In an industry where the flashiest and most "advanced" training and dieting programs are being pushed down the throat of the consumers, educating beginner trainees on the importance of simplicity is crucial.
We've all seen training and nutrition principles put into a form of a pyramid before (some examples below), but why a pyramid? Why not a pie chart or a flow chart? Let's discuss.
The pyramid works well in the fitness industry because it takes into account priorities, and base building. In an industry where the flashiest and most "advanced" training and dieting programs are being pushed down the throat of the consumers, educating beginner trainees on the importance of simplicity is crucial.
Priorities
Everything you do in your training and nutrition should be effective and time efficient. Using a pyramid really illustrates what aspects of your training and diet needs the most focus on, and which aspects will give you the most bang for you buck.
Let's take the nutrition & fat loss pyramid for example: 90% of your bodyweight goals will come from just paying attention to calorie intake. Eating less calories than you burn will result in weight loss. However if you're concerned with keeping the most muscle mass as you can for aesthetic, or performance reasons, this is where we move up the pyramid and take into account macro-nutrient distribution (in this case, adequate protein intake), making sure you're hitting your micro-nutrient and fibre needs for good health.
Too many people, too often, major in the minors. Instead of spending the time to count calories, they'll go to the nearest GNC store to find a fat burning supplement that just simply won't work. Again, using pyramids helps you pin point which areas of training or diet to focus on, and which areas are details.
Building a base
The bigger base you build, the higher potential peak you can have. This holds true for performance training and performance nutrition. Athletes and trainees are often impatient and believe they'll progress faster than everyone else. They'll use professional athletes as examples of why to follow the most-intense training program, why they should specialize in their sport early on into their athletic career, and why they should use the most advanced training methods.
They're wrong.
Professionals and high-performers often do NOT specialize early (they play multiple sports growing up and dabble in many different types of training methodologies) and they MASTER THE FUNDAMENTALS!
Using the strength training pyramid for example: trainees make the mistake of spending their energy on intensity, volume and frequency before they develop proper movement quality. Improving technique and movement quality will make everything upstream more effective.
Good movement quality will open you up to a wider array of exercise selections, create consistency and accuracy in your periodized program, as well as set you up for proper strength progressions and ultimately, more advanced training methods.
started from the bottom now we're here
Don't forget about the basics, master the fundamentals and you'll achieve more results than you originally expected, I promise. There's nothing wrong with learning about advanced training or dieting methods, however, if you're a beginner or intermediate trainee, keep things simple and practical.
Do I Eat Less Or Exercise More For Fat Loss?
Do you reach your fat loss goals by eating less or should you stick with your current diet and increase energy expenditure by exercising more? Let's go over each strategy and see what works best.
Picture taken from Huffingtonpost.com
Do you reach your fat loss goals by eating less or should you stick with your current diet and increase energy expenditure by exercising more? Let's go over each strategy and see what works best.
Eating Less While Paying Less Attention to Exercise
Weight loss occurs when you consistently consume less calories than you burn; I'm sure everyone is aware of that by now. By tracking your calories and overhauling your diet with healthy whole foods, plenty of protein, fibre and vitamins, you will definitely lose weight. Some people are under the misconception that decreasing calories means eating less food; these are the same people that have problems managing their hunger levels - possible causing them to overeat or not adhere to their diet properly. The best way to control hunger levels while staying in a calorie deficit is to consume high volume foods, increase their protein intake and increase their meal frequency.
Examples of high volume foods include big salads, or substituting vegetables for your rice or pasta dish. Increasing protein intake can help with satiety and is achieved by consuming lean protein sources like lean beef, some seafoods, and vegetarian sources like tofu. A higher meal frequency, while shown not to have any beneficial effects on weight loss compared to a calorie-equated low meal frequency diet, can help people adhere to their diets more effectively and decrease the likelihood of overeating. Small to moderate size meals throughout the day can be better for diet adherence than eating 2-3 big meals a day.
What's wrong with this approach?
While you are certainly going to experience some weight and fat loss by eating less calories and improving your diet, your fat loss will plateau without paying extra attention to exercise. In order to consistently lose fat, your calories will have to decrease more and more. This is not only difficult in terms of managing hunger levels, but can be out right unhealthy - I've heard stories of females eating 1000 calorie diets attempting to lose weight. This is NOT okay and people will run the risk of nutrient deficiencies and low energy levels.
EXERCISE MORE WITHOUT CHANGING YOUR DIET
Exercise will do wonders for your body. Increased energy/calorie expenditure, improved nutrient partitioning (positively change the way your body deals with the nutrients and calories coming into your body), improved muscular and cardiovascular health, alleviate pain and prevent injuries. I recommend a combination of resistance training and cardio exercises for everyone, the most important thing is to make exercise sustainable and enjoyable.
My general recommendations for resistance exercise (lifting) would be a minimum 2 times a week. Cardio training can be done everyday (low intensity) or 2-3 times a week if performing challenging interval training. Doing that alone will increase your weekly calorie expenditure... as long as you're consistent!
What's wrong with this approach?
If you're a beginner trainee and you currently eat diet high in calories, its unlikely you'll be able to work off a bad diet. A beginner simply doesn't have the work or recovery capacity to exercise enough to out work a bad diet. Increasing muscle mass improves your fat and calorie burning abilities. However, new trainees do not experience significant muscle hypertrophy until 5-8 weeks into a consistent weight training program.
What should you do then? The answer lies in between the 2 strategies.
the perfect fitness and diet lifestyle
The perfect recipe for fat loss utilizes both strategies mentioned above. You should know now that fat loss can be achieved through either #1: increasing calorie expenditure, or #2: decreasing calorie consumption. Trying to take extreme measures on any 1 method will often cause you to fall short of your goals. It's very difficult to adhere to a hard exercise program when you're new to resistance or cardio training, and it's very hard to make your diet sustainable if it includes very low calories or foods you don't like eating.
The solution
Instead of taking extreme measures, take small steps to improve your exercise habits, diet and learn the concept of NEAT (Non-exercise activity thermogenesis).
NEAT is one of the most overlooked aspects of calorie expenditure and fat loss. NEAT represents all the physical activity throughout your day that isn't considered exercise. How much you walk a day, how many chores you do, how active your job is, how long you spend your day sitting and being sedentary, all of these are included in your NEAT.
"I eat pretty well, I exercise 3 times a week, how come I'm still not reaching my fat loss goals?" - Bob
Well I'm sorry to hear that Bob, but it might be because you sit on your ass all day when you're not exercising. Bob is most likely not training hard enough for exercise to have any significant effects on his calorie expenditure. Paired with that fact that he remains sedentary when not at the gym, his metabolism remains relatively slow.
This is an example of a breakdown of the daily calorie expenditure of a person that exercises moderately but stays relatively active in their daily life.
- Basal Metabolic Rate represents the calories burned just by staying alive (based on bodyweight, height, muscle mass, anthropometric features)
- NEAT represents the amount of activity level in a day not related to dedicated exercise
- Exercise represents a dedicated time to which you hit the gym/go for a run/follow your training program
- TE of Food represents the thermic effect of food - the amount of energy spent digesting the food you consume
As a beginner, there is only so much exercise you can do before it becomes unsustainable or you can recover from without being injured or burnt out. Seeing how the thermic effect of food plays a very small part in your metabolism and basal metabolic rate is dependent on genetic and body measurement factors, increasing NEAT would be the next best option.
As an intermediate/advanced trainee, your work capacity develops and the calories that can be burned through exercise increases. NEAT eventually turns into moderate-high intensity exercise. Many of these trainees can "outwork a bad diet", however, it still takes discipline and proper training/dieting strategies to become the leanest, strongest and fittest version of yourself.
There are plenty of ways to increase your NEAT, and consequently, energy expenditure throughout the day. Here are a few:
- Every hour or so of sitting, balance that out with 5-10 minutes of stretching and moving around
- Create a daily step count goal and hit it every day
- Walk to the grocery store instead of driving there
- Go on the stationary bike or treadmill while watching Netflix or studying for your upcoming exam
- Go for walk when listening to music or audiobooks
- Dance in the shower (careful there)
Achieving your fat loss goals and improving your fitness lifestyle does not occur while taking extreme measures, rather, working on all parts of the equation - diet, exercise, NEAT and building sustainable habits.
Exercise more, improve your diet, move more.
Thanks for reading! Here a few articles to get you started with your fitness and diet goals:
What Type Of Dieter Are You?
Surprising Reasons You're Not Reaching Your Fitness Goals (Habit Building Article)
How Much Protein Do You Really Need?
How To Pack On Muscle - Diet Tips For The Hardgainer
Need extra help? Want to jump start your training or diet? Feel free to contact me for a free consultation!
Medicine Ball Throws For Fitness and Power
Challenge your core strength and sculpt your oblique abs with these medicine ball throw variations!
There are few sounds as satisfying as a medicine ball slamming into a concrete wall. Whether your goals are to burn fat, increase your fitness or improve your sport performance, the use of medicine balls is a fun way to get you there.
I created this video showing you how many variations you can use. The non-rotational exercises will challenge your core strength while the rotational throws will blast and sculpt your oblique abs.
Add these to your circuit training or strength & conditioning routine and try them out! Enjoy!
How Functional Is Movement Training For Fitness & Performance?
With the rising emergence of “movement training” in both the fitness industry and high-performance athletics, it begs the question… Does movement training actually produce results?
With the rising emergence of “movement training” in both the fitness industry and high performance athletics, it begs the question… Does movement training actually produce results?
Here’s why you should probably take the hyped up movement training trend with a grain of salt, especially if you are focused on improving fitness and function. There are better ways to get fit, fast, strong and powerful, and they don’t involve becoming a functional training guru.
Defining The Un-Definable “Movement Training”
In order to clearly evaluate the benefits and pitfalls of movement training, we must first define the term. Unfortunately, there is no conclusive answer. The definition of movement training will differ from coach to coach, trainer to trainer, and athlete to athlete. Some may consider movement training the motor patterns and exercises specific to their respective sport, while others consider it the ability to express your body freely by adopting a multitude of complex movement patterns.
One of the most polarizing movement training specialists is of course Ido Portal, coach of UFC superstar Connor McGregor. So, what does he have to say about movement training? Ido describes movement culture as a “contemporary paradigm shift in physicality, moving us away from main culprits in movement and fitness as well as the separation between health, aesthetics, performance and art”.
Athlete and former UFC Interim Champion Carlos Condit has also been working with MovNat post-ACL injury. MovNat, much like the Ido Portal Method, believes in a “mindful approach to the full range of natural human movement abilities”.
Lastly, Naudi Aguilar from Functional Patterns is another name I can think of that falls under this category of “movement training”. I think we all know Naudi’s name by now after his explosion onto the scene after a rather fire filled exchange with the glute guy Dr. Bret Contreras a few short years ago.
Why’s Movement Training So Damn Popular In The First Place?
Movement training is becoming more and more popular in athletic performance and fitness mainly because:
Trainees are getting bored with traditional weightlifting exercises such as the squat, bench press and deadlift and seek more variation in their training
Trainees and the general population are buying into the touted benefits of movement training
Trainees have been convinced that traditional resistance training and rehabilitation exercises are “nonfunctional”
Let’s admit it. It looks pretty cool. People are drawn to ideas that are polarizing, different, flashy.
The Truth About “Functional” Training
Although it’s unfair to group the Ido Portal Method, MovNat and Functional Patterns together, they do have one thing in common. They do not believe that the current paradigm and landscape of movement is sufficient for sport performance and health.
The principle of specificity always plays a role when discussing anything performance or health related. Gurus who preach that movement training is all you need and anything in the sagittal plane sucks, is most likely trying to sell you a product by downplaying their competitors.
Many traditional weightlifting and bodyweight exercises (squat, presses, deadlift, cleans, snatches, pushups) all occur in the sagittal plane, but have been shown to be very effective for muscular growth and strength. In addition, these gurus often claim that these exercises are not “functional”.
This naturally leads us into the discussion of functionality, and the question…
What is functional? Do we really need to be rolling around on the ground or balancing on a wobble board?
Too many times have people defined functional training as exercises on a Bosu ball or on a balance beam. While these exercises may serve a function, functional training should be defined as exercises that meet the demands of a specific goal.
Balancing on a bosu ball may be functional to one population, while completely useless to another. For example, balancing exercises on unstable surfaces have shown to be effective for developing stabilizer muscles in injured populations or post-stroke patients. However, may be completely useless to a power athlete looking to improve strength and power as exercises done on unstable surfaces actually reduces force output and does not carry over to the field, court, or platform.
As Mel Siff once said “There is no such entity as a truly functional exercise, except for the actual sporting or daily movement that we are trying to enhance by training”.
So why train at all? The answer is improving skill transfer.
The point is to perform exercises that have a high amount of transfer to the movement or quality we are looking to improve, whether it be biomechanical, neuromuscular or metabolic. With that said, let’s evaluate how well movement training transfers to different populations, which populations can actually benefit from movement training and which populations should stay away from movement training.
Movement Training In Sports Performance
Athletes must practice and be able to perform a variation of movement patterns in order to prevent over-use injuries, and to develop weaknesses to improve sport performance. While I’m a believer that athletes should aim to progress beyond the traditional lifts (squat, bench press, deadlift, power cleans, power snatches), I’m not convinced exclusively performing movement training is the perfect solution.
The amount of movement variation that is required by an athlete depends on factors such as previous and existing movement base, type of athlete and type of sport. As an athlete, how much time should be allotted to movement training (if any at all…) and how much time should be allotted to sport-specific training and traditional strength & conditioning.
Optimizing sport performance is about pushing the human body and mind to the upper limits, as well as experimenting with different training methods. It would be foolish to state that movement training is completely useless or has no place being performed alongside a smart strength & conditioning protocol.
Contact Sport & Mixed Martial Arts Athletes
Running as a form of recovery or long slow distance (LSD) training is often utilized in various sport performance programs. However, the large eccentric component of running unnecessarily stresses the lower body joints and can hinder recovery. This is especially true for athletes in contact sports like MMA and rugby, or in sports that already have a large running component to them, such as soccer.
For this reason, water-jogging/running, swimming, cycling and other activities with concentric-dominant muscle actions are preferred over running. In this case, I propose that: movement training can replace road-work (running) as a form of integrated aerobic and mobility training.
Here’s How To Implement It With This Population:
Use a heart rate monitor (chest-strap preferred). Find or develop your own bodyweight movement routine that focuses on low-impact, and mobility-focused exercises (deep lunges with a chest-stretch/opener, Spiderman/alligator crawls, shoulder rolls, transverse plane rotation drills, etc)
Keep heart rate at 50-70% of your Max Heart Rate, for most people this is a heart rate of 100-135BPM (lower end for recovery, higher end for aerobic adaptations).The key is to keep heart rate under lactate/anaerobic threshold.
Perform this for 30-60 minutes, 1-2x a week. After training sessions and/or on rest days.
In this application of movement training, heart rate and work output is low enough not to interfere with recovery, all while challenging proprioception and putting muscles through a full range of motion. Movements utilized do not have to be specific to the sport, as we are only aiming to improve general aerobic adaptations and promote recovery.
Strength Athletes: Powerlifting, Olympic Weightlifting, Strongman
Powerlifters need enough mobility to hit depth on their squats, be able to bench press and deadlift safely. Olympic weightlifters need a good amount of mobility and flexibility to be able to catch barbell snatchs and clean & jerks in a deep squat position. Strongman competitors need enough hip mobility to pick up heavy stones as well as possess decent shoulder mobility to overhead press safely and effectively. Outside these exercises, strength athletes are not required to practice a plethora of movement patterns. Because of this, movement training can come in the form of maintaining joint and muscular health.
Here’s How To Implement It With This Population:
Movement specialists Max Shank and Hunter Cook have great routines for post-lifting or on off-days, which is comprised of taking all your body’s joints through its full range of motion.
Since the goals of strength athletes are so specialized – pack on muscle, improve strength and power on the main lifts, performing movement training may be a waste of time.
When it comes to cardiovascular conditioning for strength athletes, low intensity cyclical aerobic training like cycling or the elliptical machine may be the better option. MetCons can also be utilized for Olympic weightlifters and Strongman competitors.
Endurance Athletes: Triathletes, Runners, Swimmers, Cyclists
Many endurance sports are cyclical in nature, therefore implying low movement variation in competition and in training. Rather than utilizing movement training, endurance athletes should perform resistance training in conjunction with their endurance training program.
It is a common misconception that resistance training is detrimental for endurance performance or it somehow adds unneeded muscle mass to endurance athletes. However, it has been shown that resistance training can improve peak power output for short-event, anaerobic-endurance athletes as well as improve average power output and movement economy in longer-event, aerobic-endurance athletes.
General Health and Fitness Population
On the other hand, improving physical health and fitness is about reaching or maintaining a healthy lifestyle in a safe and efficient manner. I stress the term efficient because people who fall under this category most likely are not professional athletes, therefore training needs time-efficient. Can movement training improve bone density, blood lipid profile or other health markers? Yes. Can movement training improve these measures as effectively as traditional resistance and cardiovascular training? I’m not sure it can.
For populations looking to improve overall fitness, lose fat mass and put on muscle mass; movement training exclusively, will likely not yield the same results as performing a combination of resistance training and cardiovascular exercise. Stick to multi-joint, compound exercises, while carefully selecting isolation exercises to improve your weaknesses or fix muscular imbalances.
Here’s How To Implement It With This Population:
The following movement patterns should make up the bulk of a well-designed resistance training program:
Hip Hinge Pattern (Deadlift, Kettlebell Swings)
Squat Pattern (Back Squat, Split Squat)
Lunge Pattern (Forward lunge, Lateral Lunge)
Horizontal Push (Bench Press, Push Ups)
Vertical Push (Overhead Press, Landmine Shoulder Presss)
Horizontal Pull (1 Arm Dumbbell Row, Bent Over Barbell Row)
Vertical Pull (Pull Up, Chin Up)
Loaded Carries (Farmers Walk, Sled Pull/Bear Crawls)
Isometric Core Exercises (Forearm Plank, Side Plank)
Anti-Rotation Core Exercises (Pallof Press, Bird Dog Variations)
Performing variations of these exercises will help you develop stability, muscle mass, strength as well as build a well-rounded physique. Familiarize yourself with these movement patterns, progressively overload them, and form a solid base before dabbling in more complex movements like muscle-ups or dragon pistol squats.
When it comes to cardiovascular conditioning, 30-90 minutes of steady state aerobic training at 50-70% of your Max Heart Rate (100-135BPM for most individuals) as well as 10-20 minutes of moderate to high-intensity intervals can greatly improve cardiovascular health and aid in fat loss while performed in conjunction with a resistance training routine.
I say in conjunction because I believe everyone should strength train. Strength training puts on muscle mass. Muscle mass plays a role in whole-body protein metabolism, preventing pathologic conditions and chronic diseases such as sarcopenia, and is associated with longevity and lower mortality rates.
The Bottom Line About Movement Training
In terms of building muscle and strength, and improving overall fitness: progressive overload is king. The lack of clear cut progressions in movement training, the inability to load certain movements safely, and the inconclusive definition of the term itself makes it hard to implement effectively in populations seeking to improve general health and fitness.
Should we as humans aim to improve our flexibility, mobility and movement? Yes of course.
Should we spend time touching butts at the park (movement training reference) at the expense of exercises like squats, presses and deadlifts that have already proven to be effective for fat loss, muscle gain and strength? Probably not.
Movement training should be reserved for populations that already have an athletic base, whom are looking to promote recovery, improve mobility, balance and overall movement variation whether it be out of personal interest, or part of a strategically designed strength & conditioning program. For trainees looking for a safe and effective method of increasing their fitness and improving their health, stick to the basics.