There are seemingly two main camps that disagree about the relationship between muscle and metabolism. On one side, some people believe that build more muscle means your metabolism works at a much higher rate and burns more. On the other side, you have people who suggest muscle does not burn that many calories, so its impact on your daily calorie burn is minimal.

As it turns out, technically, both sides are correct. 

Before you lose your mind, research paints a clear picture of what’s likely best for your body if you want to improve your metabolism and support fat loss or a healthy weight. 

How Many Calories Does Muscle Burn? (Be Prepared to Be Disappointed)

For as long as I can remember, people have stated that for every 1-pound of muscle you gain, your body burns an additional 50 calories. On paper, this sounds awesome. Add 5 pounds of muscle, and you’ll burn an extra 250 calories per day, or about a pound every 2 weeks. 

The philosophy has led to plenty of people rationalizing increasing how much they eat with the belief that their muscle mass will prevent additional weight gain.

Unfortunately, it’s not true.

Research suggests that every pound of muscle is more likely to burn about 6 calories per day. 

You’re probably thinking, “Just 6 calories?”

Comparatively, a pound of fat will burn approximately 2 calories per day. 

This isn’t exactly the best campaign for weight training. But, focusing on how many calories muscle burns is only a small piece of the metabolism picture. 

If you really want to understand the impact on your metabolism, you have to look at what it takes to build muscle. 

Better Question: Does Building Muscle Improve Your Metabolism?

It’s important to differentiate the metabolic benefits of having muscle and building muscle. 

While adding 10 pounds of muscle could take years and only burn about 60 extra calories per day when all is said done, the work you’d need to put in to build (and maintain) that muscle would still positive changes for your body and metabolism.

In fact, research has shown that weight training burns more calories than we originally thought — and the act of resistance training can keep your metabolism elevated for up to 48 hours after you finish your workout. 

Some research suggests that 90% of the total calories you burn from weight training might occur after you finish your workout because of the “afterburn” effect. 

That’s not to say that weight training doesn’t burn a lot of calories while you’re training. Research from Christopher Scott suggests that an 8-minute high-intensity circuit can burn up to 250 calories. And that’s just 8 minutes, which shows you how many calories you might be burning if you can potentially double that amount from the afterburn. 

Research also suggests that building muscle improves your insulin sensitivity, which means you process carbs more efficiently and you lessen the likelihood of diabetes. 

That’s a fancy way of saying more muscle changes the way that your body reacts to food. That’s because your muscles need the energy to repair, maintain, or grow.

So, the more muscle you add, the more your body processes food and calories differently and makes it less likely that what you eat will be stored as fat. 

Is Exercise Necessary for Fat Loss?

There are many ways to burn calories. And, if you’re trying to lose weight, research suggests that you’re going to need to make dietary changes. 

However, just because your earned muscle won’t burn calories all day doesn’t mean that earning that muscle isn’t a key part of your ideal fat-loss plan. 

Research has compared people who exercised 3 times per week doing cardio (aerobic exercise), aerobic exercise and weight training, or no exercise at all.

The exercise groups lost a similar amount of weight, but the people who were lifting weights lost about 40 percent more fat. (The total amount of exercise time was the same between cardio-only and the cardio and weights conditions.)

In general, research examining people who diet compared to those who weight train find that weight training helps you preserve (or gain) muscle and lose more weight from fat. The benefits change how you look and feel after you’ve lost weight, and increase the likelihood that you’ll keep the weight off. 

What’s the Best Metabolism Boost?

Your metabolism is very complex and, oftentimes, misunderstood. The biggest impact on your daily calorie burn has nothing to do with exercise. About 50 to 70 percent of your daily calorie burn (AKA energy expenditure) is used for the basic function of staying alive, such as powering your heart, lungs, and brain. 

The basic functioning of your metabolism is also partially dependent on your body size. The bigger you are and the more you weigh, the more calories you burn. The idea that thin people have faster metabolisms is actually a myth because body weight is directly tied to the most significant impact on your daily calorie burn. 

Another 10 percent of your metabolism is influenced by what you eat. Also known as the “thermic effect of food” (or TEF), it’s the rate at which your body burns proteins, carbs, and fats. And, it’s the reason the number of meals you eat doesn’t matter and why protein is helpful when trying to lose fat. 

The rest of your metabolism — anywhere from 20 to 40 percent — is then influenced by physical activity. This is a combination of walking, daily movements (like fidgeting or standing up and sitting down), and your traditional exercise. 

The more muscle you have, the more likely you are to earn it from workouts. And, the more you work out, the more intensity you can apply to those workouts to improve your metabolism. 

While exercise will never be the primary mover of metabolism, science does suggest that the process of building or maintaining muscle can have a significant impact on your metabolism and help with fat loss. 

Read More:

How Much Fat Should I Eat?

Is Sugar Bad For You? (You’ll Be Surprised)

Understanding Proteins, Carbs and Fats

Adam Bornstein

Adam Bornstein is a New York Times bestselling author and the author of You Can’t Screw This Up. He is the founder of Born Fitness, and the co-founder of Arnold’s Pump Club (with Arnold Schwarzenegger) and Pen Name Consulting. An award-winning writer and editor, Bornstein was previously the Chief Nutrition Officer for Ladder, the Fitness and Nutrition editor for Men’s Health, Editorial Director at LIVESTRONG.com, and a columnist for SHAPE, Men’s Fitness, and Muscle & Fitness. He’s also a nutrition and fitness advisor for LeBron James, Cindy Crawford, Lindsey Vonn, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. According to The Huffington Post, Bornstein is “one of the most inspiring sources in all of health and fitness.” His work has been featured in dozens of publications, including The New York Times, Fast Company, ESPN, and GQ, and he’s appeared on Good Morning America, The Today Show, and E! News.

The post Does Having More Muscle Really Increase Your Metabolism? appeared first on Born Fitness.

Are carbs bad? Are carbs unhealthy? Do carbs make you fat?

If you look back at the history of dieting, this is nothing new. In the 80s and 90s, you could replace “carbs” with “fat” and you’d be having the same conversation.

But, as time goes on and research improves we should have a better sense of what drives weight gain and weight loss. Unfortunately, carbs missed the science train and been stuck on the pseudoscience rollercoaster.

For years, I’ve heard some variation of, “I know that if I eat fewer calories I’ll lose weight. But, if I eat a couple of slices of bread or some rice, I’ll get fat.”

Fortunately, this isn’t true. You can eat carbs. Anyone can. And they are not the cause of weight gain. However, there are a few details that will help you figure out how many carbs you can eat and the types of carbs that are likely to be best for your body.

Why Do People Think Carbs Are Bad?

The easy answer is that most of the delicious foods that we can easily associate with weight gain also happen to be carbohydrates. Think candies, cookies, donuts, and any other deliciousness you can find at a bakery. All sugary sodas (and sugar, for that matter) fall into the carbohydrate category.

There are certain limits on how many (and how much) of those foods you can eat. They are not 100 percent off-limits (here are some guidelines for how much sugar you can have, and it’s not zero), but the more you eat those foods, the more you’re likely to pack on pounds.

But, carbohydrates also include fruits and vegetables, oats and grains, quinoa, and lentils. The Mediterranean Diet, which has a good amount of research supporting its ability to help maintain a healthy weight and reduce the likelihood of heart disease and other cardiovascular diseases, is a high-carb diet that features all of those healthy carb options.

Even rice — yes, white rice too — is a staple of the Japanese diet, which is linked to longer life and lower weight.

Some of the confusion is linked to the carbohydrate-insulin model of obesity. In a nutshell, this theory states that obesity is caused by carbohydrates, not calories. The idea is that carbohydrates increase insulin, which reduces the way our body is typically fueled (by glucose and free fatty acids). Instead, the insulin drives fat into our fat cells, we gain weight, become hungrier for more carbs (and insulin), and this becomes a hamster-wheel of weight gain.

There’s just one problem: whenever the model is tested, the claims don’t hold up and research does not suggest that carbs make us fat.

Just as importantly, if carbs were the driver of weight gain, then other macronutrients (like fat), arguably wouldn’t make us gain weight.

But, that’s also not the case. Two different studies have compared what happens when you eat too many carbs or fat. (You can find the research here and here.) What happened? Overeating fat resulted in the same outcome as overeating carbs, and sometimes overeating fat led to more fat gain than overeating carbs.

Now, this doesn’t prove that eating carbs don’t make you fat. However, it’s evidence that suggests you can gain weight regardless of insulin levels.

In other words, the goal isn’t to avoid carbs completely, but, instead, find the sweet spot for your body so you can enjoy foods, stress less, and be in control of your weight.

Are Higher-Carb Diets Healthy?

A healthy diet can (and arguably should) include carbs. After all, carbs help fuel many important processes in your body. This includes:

1. Powering your heart and brain.
2. Fueling anaerobic activity (think weight lifting) via glycolysis (the breakdown of carbohydrates).
3. Helping with recovery by restocking glycogen (carb stores) that has been depleted through hard training.
4. Supporting an anabolic (muscle-building) environment after training.

Safe to say carbs are not bad, regardless of your activity level. But, eating in a way that supports your activity level is important so that excess carbs don’t become unwanted weight gain.

Some people will thrive on more carbs, while others require less. The easy way to determine how many carbs you need (and how high you can go with your carb intake) is based on your activity levels (more on this soon).

That said, you can be very healthy on a higher-carb diet, and, at the very least, you should feel comfortable having some carbs in your diet without fear that it will lead to weight gain.

Need proof? The best example is a meta-analysis that compared carbohydrate intake ranging anywhere from 4 (super low carbs) to 45 percent (pretty high) of total calories, and fat content at 30 percent or lower in low-fat diets.

Here’s what the researchers found:

1. Low-fat diets were slightly more effective at lowering total cholesterol and LDL.
2. Low-carb diets were more effective at increasing HDL and decreasing triglycerides
3. Neither diet was more effective than the other at reducing body weight, waist girth, blood pressure, glucose, and insulin levels.

This overall lack of differential effects led the authors to conclude that both low-carb and low-fat diets are viable options for reducing weight and improving metabolic risk factors. Read that one again.

And it’s not like this was a small study. It included 23 trials from multiple countries and totaled 2,788 participants.

What’s more, the cuisines of some of the healthiest populations in the world consist of diets that are heavy on carbs. The best examples are “The Blue Zones,” which are known as “longevity hotspots that have the longest life expectancies and the lowest rates of chronic and degenerative diseases.”

The main energy sources for all of these Blue Zones are carbohydrates. Need more evidence? The Top-10 countries in the world with the lowest obesity rates all consume a carb-dominant diet. 

OK, So What Are Healthy Carbs?

The easy answer is fruits and vegetables. The more complicated answer is that any type of carb can fit into your diet if you know how many carbs (and what types) you need, based on your activity levels.

People who exercise regularly have very different dietary needs than sedentary populations.

If you are relatively sedentary or most of your exercise consists of low-intensity activities (such as walking), then you won’t burn through as many carbohydrates. In other words, if you don’t exercise often or at a higher intensity, your carbohydrate needs are much less.

If you’re inactive, you really only need to worry about providing adequate carbohydrates to fuel your brain and central nervous system at rest, which is primarily regulated by your liver glycogen stores.

Could you go the super low carb route? Of course, that’s also an option. But, for most people, it’s unsustainable and it does not offer any type of superior fat burning.

So, if it’s a good system for the way you like to eat, then you can cut carbs very low. If not, you just need to lower how many carbs you eat, not eliminate them completely.

How Many Carbs Should You Eat?

If you’re more inactive, an effective low-carb, non-ketogenic diet can be accomplished with roughly 100 to 125 grams of carbs a day from non-starchy vegetables, legumes (like beans), whole fruit, as well as a little bit of starch (such as oats, rice, or even pasta or bread). Preferably, the starch will only make up about 30 percent of your carb intake.

But, here’s the key point: 100 to 125 grams of carbohydrates is hardly a “no carb” diet, but it’s still low-carb.

High carbohydrate intakes, on the other hand, are more appropriate for gym rats and athletes that engage in intense muscle tearing, glycogen (carbohydrate)-depleting training sessions.

When you exercise, your body undergoes cyclical depletion (through training) and repletion (through carb intake) of muscle glycogen stores. As a point of reference, your muscles can store about 300 to 600 grams of carbohydrates.

The more you weigh (or the more you want to weigh), the higher you can go on the carb scale. And the more you train intensely, the more carbs you can eat and store as part of your recovery and growth.

While it’s true that lower-carb diets provide many health benefits and can help with weight loss, don’t confuse “low carb” with no carbs. Dropping all carbs is unnecessary, and — in many cases — that extra behavior leads to extreme struggles that result in binges and weight gain.

Instead, enjoy your carbs. Eat them based on your activity level and your personal experiences and sensitivities with different types of foods. If you’ve struggled with dieting, accepting that carbs are good and won’t make you fat is one of the most liberating decisions you can make.

Eat The Way You Want (Carbs included)

If you want help building muscle, losing fat, or for me to personally design a customized exercise and diet plan, join me in my coaching program. You can apply here.

READ MORE: 

How Many Eggs are Safe to Eat?

Healthy Fat: Which Foods Should You Really Be Eating?

Fix Your Diet: Understanding Proteins, Carbs and Fats

Adam Bornstein

Adam Bornstein is a New York Times bestselling author and the author of You Can’t Screw This Up. He is the founder of Born Fitness, and the co-founder of Arnold’s Pump Club (with Arnold Schwarzenegger) and Pen Name Consulting. An award-winning writer and editor, Bornstein was previously the Chief Nutrition Officer for Ladder, the Fitness and Nutrition editor for Men’s Health, Editorial Director at LIVESTRONG.com, and a columnist for SHAPE, Men’s Fitness, and Muscle & Fitness. He’s also a nutrition and fitness advisor for LeBron James, Cindy Crawford, Lindsey Vonn, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. According to The Huffington Post, Bornstein is “one of the most inspiring sources in all of health and fitness.” His work has been featured in dozens of publications, including The New York Times, Fast Company, ESPN, and GQ, and he’s appeared on Good Morning America, The Today Show, and E! News.

The post Do Carbs Make You Fat? appeared first on Born Fitness.

But, somewhere between the marketing magic created by The Dairy Farmers of America and the movement towards organic-everything, and the fear of any type of processed food, milk fell out of favor. One of the original super “superfoods” went from a staple of every meal to being replaced by variations derived from almonds, cashews, peas, and oats.

But, the question remains: does milk do a body good, or is it something you should limit or avoid.

In theory, the fear of dairy milk — or any “natural” food — should be limited. “Any kind of natural food is not inherently bad; it’s eating patterns that can contribute to disease,” says Robin Foroutan, RDN, an integrative dietician at the Morrison Center in New York City and a spokesperson for the National Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

In other words, there’s little reason to think that any individual whole food on its own is going to ruin your diet. Milk from dairy isn’t dangerous. In fact, milk is one of the most nutrient-dense foods you can find. But, milk also isn’t for everyone. And that’s where the answer takes shape. 

If you’re trying to determine whether dairy milk can be a part of your healthy nutrition plan, whether it’s in your coffee, cereal, or just a cold glass to enjoy, here’s what you need to know about milk’s benefits, dairy’s risks, and who would be better off cutting back or going dairy-free.  

The Benefits of Dairy Milk

How does a food that used to be universally considered healthy become questioned by so many? After all, milk consumption has decreased about 40 percent since 1975 (even though dairy consumption– thanks to foods like cheese and yogurt — has increased). The biggest factor, as we’ll discuss, is the fear of allergies or lactose sensitivity. And then, there are those that fear the hormones in cows. (More on both of these concerns below.

Back in 2016, research was published that reviewed the majority of research (both observational studies and random controlled trials) on dairy milk. The general scientific takeaways make you wonder why people would avoid milk:

In adults, intake of dairy products was shown to improve body composition and facilitate weight loss during energy restriction. In addition, intake of milk and dairy products was associated with a neutral or reduced risk of type 2 diabetes and a reduced risk of cardiovascular disease, particularly stroke. Furthermore, the evidence suggested a beneficial effect of milk and dairy intake on bone mineral density but no association with risk of bone fracture. Among cancers, milk and dairy intake was inversely associated with colorectal cancer, bladder cancer, gastric cancer, and breast cancer, and not associated with risk of pancreatic cancer, ovarian cancer, or lung cancer, while the evidence for prostate cancer risk was inconsistent. 

Again, that doesn’t mean you need milk, but it does mean there are many benefits if you decide to drink it. Cow’s milk undeniably packed with many vitamins and minerals your body wants.

“Milk is a great source of protein, calcium, vitamin D, which are ‘nutrients of concern’ in the U.S. population,” meaning that many people don’t get enough, says Vasanti Malik, PhD, a research scientist in the department of nutrition at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “It also contains magnesium, along with other minerals and nutrients.”

“If you don’t consume dairy, it’s really hard to get enough calcium,” which is crucial for strong bones, says Ali Webster, PhD, RD, Associate Director of Nutrition Communications for the International Food Information Council Foundation. The vitamin D and potassium in milk are also important for bone health.

Webster acknowledges that you can’t rely solely on milk to fight osteoporosis. You also need magnesium (milk has some but isn’t a great source) and vitamin K (found in leafy greens, fish, meat, and eggs)—but it does help you check off a lot of these boxes at once.

That said, milk isn’t the sole source of bone-supporting nutrients. A cup of spinach, for instance, has 350 mg calcium (slightly more than the 300 mg found in a cup of milk), and also provides fiber and folate. A 6-oz can of salmon with bones provides 380 mg of calcium, plus heart-healthy omega-3 fatty acids.  

The benefits of milk go beyond general health. Milk is one of the best muscle-building foods given its composition of protein. In fact, it’s the basis of both whey protein and casein protein. If you’re drinking either one of those protein shakes, each of those powders started as milk.

How Much Milk Should You Drink?

If you do choose to consume dairy, Malik says that one serving a day is a good baseline amount. Ashley Koff, RDN, CEO of The Better Nutrition Program, agrees. She tells clients who opt to include dairy in their diets to “accessorize” meals with it—say, one slice of cheese on a sandwich or a splash of milk in your coffee.

That might surprise you, considering that the USDA recommends 3 servings daily. But Koff, Malik, and Foroutan say that number isn’t necessary as a goal. Instead, think of milk as a source of vitamins, minerals, or protein that you might not get from other sources. The only people who might need that much dairy are children and the elderly because they tend to be picky eaters who might not otherwise get the nutrients they need.

What Happens if You Overdo It On Dairy

For starters, if you’re allergic, you’re asking for a world of discomfort. If your body can’t handle dairy, or, more specifically, lactose, then you shouldn’t drink it.

Assuming you like milk and aren’t allergic to it, most experts say it’s fine and arguably even healthy to continue drinking it—at least in moderation.

The main concern with eating too much dairy or drinking too much milk is the domino effect it could have on the rest of your diet. Dieticians worry that it could push out other healthy foods (like fruits and vegetables) from your diet, which could have a negative impact. 

Sometimes, replacing milk leads to misleading conclusions about what’s really happening in your body. When people cut milk out of their diet and find they feel better, it’s often not because milk was wreaking havoc on their bodies (of course, assuming no allergy). It’s because their overall diet quality improves when they replace that dairy with more nutrient-dense produce and other whole foods.

Another thing to consider is that, unless you’re going with skim milk, the drink will contain saturated fat. While the effects of saturated fat are hotly debated and can be consumed in some amount, most health experts agree that increasing saturated fat consumption elevates cholesterol, which can in turn increase your risk of cardiovascular disease.

Milk Myths You Don’t Need to Worry About

Not all concerns about milk are created equal, at least from a scientific perspective. For example, rumors that consuming milk will mess with your hormones, or cause heart disease or diabetes are largely unfounded.

Most mainstream experts say that, with the exception of a possible increased risk of prostate cancer (more on that later), the quality of any evidence indicating that milk would be dangerous is pretty weak—think “associations” or “based on animal studies” rather than high-quality controlled trials.

Also, most studies purporting to show milk’s potential harms also need to be considered in the context of other contradictory research. For instance, a study published earlier this year in the British Journal of Nutrition found that eating full-fat dairy products increased the risk of pre-diabetes and type 2 diabetes—yet a 2016 study, published in the journal Circulation, found that eating full-fat dairy was associated with a lower diabetes risk.

Does Milk Make You Fat?

If you’ve heard that milk will make you fat, that’s not proven, either.

“It’s true that milk comes from mammals and has a biological purpose—to feed infants so they can grow up and develop,” says Foroutan.

Milk naturally contains growth hormone as well as IGF-1 (insulin like growth factor-1) — both of which are designed to make animals get bigger. But there’s really no proof that the amount found in milk would contribute to obesity—nor is it enough to make you get jacked. (As we already mentioned, there is some proof that drinking milk after a workout can help you build muscle, mostly thanks to the protein content).  

Of course, if you eat ice cream every day or put cheese on everything, you might very well gain weight. But if you eat dairy—even full-fat dairy—in small amounts, it might actually help you slim down. “Fat sends an important signal to the brain that you’re full, which can help with portion control,” says Foroutan.  

5 Reasons to Ditch Dairy

While research is always evolving, for now, the majority of evidence points to dairy being beneficial (or at least not harmful) for most people, says Webster.

The biggest issue is that each person’s body is unique. While most people seem to be able to tolerate at least some dairy, “if you don’t break it down well or have some sensitivity to it, then consuming dairy products may trigger inflammation,” says Foroutan.

If you’ve been thinking you might be better off going dairy-free, or at least limiting it to an occasional treat, these might be good reasons for you to make a change.

1. You’re lactose intolerant.

A true dairy allergy is relatively rare, but many people are lactose intolerant—meaning that they can’t properly digest the primary sugar (lactose) found in milk. As a result, eating anything with lactose triggers unpleasant GI symptoms like cramps, gas, or diarrhea.

“It’s easy to detect because you’d have a pretty quick response to eating or drinking something with lactose in it,” says Foroutan. If you’d like a more official diagnosis, ask your doctor for a lactose tolerance (blood) test or a hydrogen breath test.

If you are, in fact, lactose intolerant, you may still be able to eat certain types of dairy. While you’ll have to steer clear of milk and ice cream or suffer the consequences, hard cheeses and probiotic-rich yogurt usually don’t contain any lactose.  

2. You’re not lactose intolerant, but dairy still upsets your stomach.

Maybe you’ve been tested for lactose intolerance and the test came back negative, but you swear that eating dairy makes your tummy feel lousy. You’re probably not imagining it.

Dairy contains proteins such as casein and whey, which can cause difficulties for some people, says Foroutan. “Unfortunately, it’s very difficult to test for a sensitivity,” she says.

If your gut is telling you that something is off, feel free to trust it. Or, consider doing an elimination diet: Give up all dairy for a few weeks, then do a “challenge” during which you introduce different types of dairy products one by one to see how you react. (Butter, for instance, doesn’t have much lactose, but it has casein and whey.) You may want to see a nutritionist for guidance during your experiment.

3. Milk makes you feel sluggish.

Digestive issues aren’t the only possible signs of an intolerance. Someone who feels bloated, tired, or sluggish after eating dairy might be sensitive to one or more of the components in it. “Some people don’t even notice until the next day; sometimes we call it a ‘food hangover,'” says Foroutan.

If that sounds like you, it might be worth eliminating dairy for a few weeks and slowly trying to reintroduce it to see if it’s really the culprit. But the bottom line is that if you feel better without dairy, you don’t have to have it.

4. You have a higher-than-average risk of prostate cancer.

The link between dairy consumption and several types of cancer is murky. Some studies, for instance, have said that it might raise the risk of breast cancer, whereas others show that it lowers it. (Most research seems to conclude that it’s associated with a lower risk of breast cancer.)  

Prostate cancer is a little different. The proof that dairy substantially raises prostate cancer risk is hardly iron-clad, but there’s enough reason for experts (including those at the American Cancer Society) to be somewhat concerned.

“It’s not the strongest evidence, but it’s worth mentioning,” says Malik. “If you’re at high risk of prostate cancer—maybe you have a family history or your PSA (prostate specific antigen, which can be measured via a blood test) is elevated—you might consider decreasing dairy.”

5. You just don’t want to eat dairy.

For most healthy adults, the best reason to eat dairy is that you like it. If you’re vegan and don’t wish to consume anything that involves animals, or if you’re concerned about the toll that dairy farming takes on the environment, those are perfectly valid reasons to cut milk from your diet, says Malik.

Yes, you might struggle to get certain nutrients, like calcium, but there are other ways to meet your needs. Tofu, some beans, and certain leafy greens also contain calcium. When in doubt, consult a registered dietician.

Do You Need Milk? (And Key Takeaways)

The best advice you’ll find on milk, based on the current research, comes from Marion Nestle, Ph.D., a retired professor of nutrition, food studies, and public health at New York University. 

• Milk is a good source of calcium, vitamin D, protein, and potassium. These nutrients are crucial for good health (including bone health). But you can also get them from other sources too.
• If you need a baseline and want milk, consider a goal of one serving a day.
• If milk makes you feel sick, even if you’re not lactose intolerant, feel free to scale back or skip it entirely. You can get the nutrients found in dairy from other foods, or talk to your doctor about taking a supplement.
• Some research has linked high dairy consumption with an increased risk of prostate cancer. If your risk for this disease is already elevated, you may want to limit or cut out dairy.

READ MORE: 

What is the Keto Diet? (And Should I Try It?)

Is Sugar Bad for You?

Fix Your Diet: Understanding Proteins, Carbs and Fats

The post Milk Isn’t Bad For You (But 6 Types of People May Want to Avoid It) appeared first on Born Fitness.

From building muscle to surviving your endurance runs, the rules of workout nutrition have completely changed. But, there’s one big problem: few people are aware of what really helps you fuel before a workout and recover afterward.

Which is why this is both your warning and a sigh of relief. The latest breakthroughs have rewritten the script, and that’s good news for anyone who likes to exercise. Gone are the days of carb-loading or rushing to have protein within 30 minutes of finishing your workout.

In fact, both nutrient timing and workout nutrition needs have liberating truth: Neither matters as much as we once believed.

So, while you might look at the past as wasted, it’s best to view these new rules for what they are: a serious fitness upgrade that makes it easier than ever to eat the right way to fuel performance, strip away fat, or even build extra muscle without all the extra, unnecessary eating.

Confusion 101: Are Sports Drinks Better Than Water?

If you really want to know why the advice has been so misguided, you don’t have to look any farther than the sports drink aisle at your grocery store.

For most weekend warriors, the need for a sports drink (think Gatorade, Powerade, or any other energetic adjective + “ade”) isn’t as real as the ads make it seem.

Yes, there can be benefits to sports drinks. But, the liquid rejuvenation is limited to a very select group of exercises that deplete their bodies of certain nutrients.

And, for most gym-goers, runners, and weekend warriors, it’s rare that you ever push your body to the point of needing the type of energy locked inside the bottle.

You see, most people’s workouts fall into one of 2 categories:

1. High intensity but shorter duration (think less than 1 hour of gym activity)
2. Lower or moderate intensity for a longer duration (think 1-2 hour runs)

In both of these cases, the only necessary hydration is water. If you want a little boost, then you might want to sip on some electrolytes (think more sodium and potassium than you’ll find in sports drinks, as well as calcium and magnesium), and a few carbs to help with hydration — but not the 30 grams of sugar packed into your favorite sports drink.

When you’re working out at a high intensity and for longer periods of time (think more than 2 to 3 hours), that’s when sports drinks offer the most benefits because they refill what is lost during that type of extreme condition.

If you regularly sweat out 2 to 3 percent of your body’s weight during long duration, intense exercise—3 to 6 pounds, for most of us—you probably need more sodium. That’s what a sports drink provides.

The same goes for the minerals you lose through heavy sweating. For example, most athletes know about electrolytes. In particular—potassium, magnesium, and sodium—are essential (and have the name “electrolyte) because your body needs them to transmit electrical signals from your brain to your muscles. This is what allows your body to function.

But, the same type of research that was used to formulate products like Gatorade was also the basis of your workout strategy. In other words, Gatorade was designed more for high-level athletes than high-level executives, mothers, fathers, and typical gym-goers.

This was the basis of nutrient timing theory: The high carb amounts. The immediate need for protein. The fear of fats slowing down recovery.

The reality? None of it was really designed for your body.

Do You Have To Eat Directly After Your Workout?

Let’s set one thing clear: What food you put into your body is still very important and determines how hard you can exercise and how well you recover.

The bigger issue is exactly what you should be eating, or maybe, more importantly, when you should be eating it.

The idea of the “anabolic window” or that you need to eat as soon as possible after finishing your workouts is one of the most misleading pieces of fitness advice that has persevered for decades.

It’s based on a fear-driven, scientifically-debunked mentality that your muscles live in an hourglass, and with each passing second of eating before or after a workout you were losing out on improvement.

For the past 20 years, the prevailing idea was that you had about 30 to 60 minutes to eat something after your workout. If not, your body would become catabolic (a state of stress) and you would lose muscle, not recover fast enough, and fail to see the benefits from all your hard work and time invested.

When you think about it, the theory seems crazy. How could the human body have such a small window for recovery?

That was the question exercise physiologist Dr. Brad Schoenfeld aimed to solve.

He reviewed a large number of studies that examined nutrient timing and set out to answer a simple question: Is there such thing as the “anabolic window?”

Turns out there is—but it’s much bigger than anyone ever suggested. And the timing of your meals after a workout isn’t even the biggest indicator of your success. (More on that in a moment.)

When Should You Eat After Your Workout?

After you exercise you burn up your main energy store of carbohydrates, also known as glycogen. So, it only makes sense that you need to refuel glycogen by eating lots of carbs to replace what was lost.

But, when food was consumed in a shorter window of time after a workout there was no significant difference than when it was consumed after a long delay.

In fact, the research would go as far as suggesting that your post-workout window is actually the entire 24 hours after you train, with the key time to eat ideally occurring anywhere within 4 hours after you finish your last set, stop your run, or end your athletic event.

Not exactly the same message as slug your protein shake before your muscles shrink.

How did this massive misunderstanding occur?

It goes back to the sports drink phenomenon. The “glycogen emptying” idea wasn’t really applicable to the average person. In reality, it takes a tremendous effort to completely deplete your glycogen stores.

Extreme marathoners can do it. Bodybuilders who train twice per day can do it. NFL athletes who play a 3-hour game can do it.

But you? It’s a different story.

Most people don’t’ go to the gym completely fasted or do workouts that completely tap-out your energy reserves (even if you feel exhausted). And yet, those were the test conditions used to determine what to eat after your workout.

While it might feel like your body needs food immediately, the ROI of rushing to or even forcing food into your system is minimal: you won’t see added strength, additional muscle, faster fat loss, improved endurance, or a boost in recovery.

The new rules of nutrient timing focus on the bigger picture. If you want to perform and look your best, then you need to consider three factors: what you eat before your workout, what you eat after, and what type of activity you perform.

Need help understanding the proper foods to fuel your body? Our coaches can create a plan for you. Find out more here.

How to Fuel Your Workouts The Right Way

Just because the timing of your post-workout meal has been reduced from urgent to “apply on your time,” doesn’t mean the entire concept of nutrient timing is dead.

In fact, it’s just the opposite. There’s never been a clearer idea of exactly what you should be eating to help your body. And the biggest breakthrough is clear. Protein is the new carbs.

It used to be that you needed to fuel up with carbs prior to your workout and then replenish after your workout. This all ties back to glycogen as a primary source of energy and fuel for your body. Most research tested the benefits of using carbohydrates as fuel and then tested different amounts of carbs.

But, even that rationale was a bit flawed. Nutrient timing should focus on three aspects that help improve your performance and appearance.

Glycogen replenishment: Glycogen is your fuel. The more you have the harder you can push your body for longer periods of time.

Protein breakdown: If you want to gain muscle, protein synthesis (anabolism) has to be greater than protein breakdown (catabolism).

Protein Building – Protein Breakdown = Muscle Growth or Loss

So, it only makes sense that you want to slow the breakdown process.

Protein synthesis: Eating protein after a workout is supposed to optimize the other side of the same equation by increasing muscle protein synthesis, the process that helps you repair and rebuild muscle.

Combined, all three of these factors influence how hard you can train (endurance, strength, work capacity), how well you recover, and your ability to build muscle and burn fat. So it only makes sense that what you eat should target any or all of these goals.

Do Carbs Help Your Workouts?

Carbs are a great source of fuel for your body. But, eating more carbs doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll have more energy. And that’s because depleting glycogen is actually very difficult.

For example, let’s say you did a full-body workout of 9 exercises, performed 3 sets of each exercise (so 27 sets total), and pushed at a high intensity of 80 percent of your 1 rep max. That’d be a grueling workout, but when researchers tested this exact protocol, they found that it only depleted about one-third of total glycogen stores.

Even crazier? When a similar workout was tested and followed with no food, about 75 percent of the depleted glycogen was replenished within 6 hours.

So what’s going on? Your body is protective of your energy. The more you deplete your glycogen, the faster resynthesis occurs. The higher your intensity, the quicker you recharge. Even in marathon runners and endurance athletes, complete resynthesis is usually complete within 24 hours.

That’s not a call to avoid carbs. They are important and necessary, and if you’re exercising they need to be a part of your plan.

But, the extreme nature of pre-workout (carb-loading) and post-workout (insulin-spiking) carb needs were overblown. You don’t need to fuel up with hundreds of grams of fuel pre, during, and post-workout because you’re not tapping out your glycogen.

When your tank is empty, you’ll know it without question. So, your ideal carb plan will ultimately depend on the type of activity you perform.

How Much Protein Should You Eat After a Workout?

When eating protein and carbs was compared to carbs alone, it instantly became clear that protein is your body’s best friend. Adding protein improved recovery, muscle protein synthesis, and protein breakdown.

But most interesting? When protein and carbs (25 grams of protein and 50 grams of carbs) was compared to just protein alone (25 grams), there was no additional benefit in terms of muscle protein synthesis or muscle protein breakdown when the carbs were added.

The verdict: Protein is the new king of workout nutrition.

And it doesn’t end there. While we know that protein is important for preventing muscle protein breakdown and fueling muscle protein synthesis, and some carbs (but not too much) are good for glycogen, how much you eat around your workout should not be your primary consideration.

Research shows that the most important dietary factor for performance and appearance was not how much protein or carbs you had before or after your workout, but rather how much you ate in the entire day.

In essence, even if your pre- or post-workout nutrition was less than optimal (say, if you’re in a rush to get to work), as long as you still ate the right amount of nutrients (proteins, carbs, and fats) for the entire day, then you would still see benefits.

The Best Pre- and Post-Workout Nutrition Plan

Timing nutrition around your workout is a good idea for both fueling your performance and helping recovery. But, you don’t need to stress the timing as much as we once thought. Instead, the urgency of nutrition depends more on the activity you perform and whether you eat something before you exercise.

When you enjoy a pre-workout meal, that will determine what you need after a workout. That’s because eating before your workout ensures that your insulin, amino acid, and glucose levels are still going to be high several hours after the workout.

Most mixed meals will keep your insulin levels high enough to stop protein breakdown for 4-6 hours. A 45-gram dose of whey protein will do the same for about two hours. Most studies have shown that if you eat protein before, immediately after, or several hours after your workout, your muscle protein synthesis will be about the same.

Translation: choose a pre- and post-workout nutrition approach that works for you.

If you don’t like to eat before a workout, then don’t. But you’ll want to emphasize that post-workout meal more because you won’t have protein or carbs in your system.

If you do like a meal before exercise, there’s no rush to refuel immediately after. Not to mention, if you load up on carbs (such as with oatmeal or some fruit), depending on your type of activity you might not even need post-workout carbs.

The closer your meal is to the training bout, the longer your window following the session. And both are dependent on your primary training goal. Meaning there isn’t a gold standard for what you should be eating around your workouts. Instead, you should fuel your body based on the type of activity you perform.

And remember, as long as you consume enough protein by the end of the day, your body generally has no trouble growing new muscle tissue, recovering, or having the energy needed to push through and become better.

To help you figure out your needs, use the activity chart below — based on the latest research — to help determine exactly what you need for your body and your goals.

The Ultimate Guide to Workout Nutrition

Your Goal: Endurance Sports

Examples: Long-distance track and cycling events, marathons, basketball, soccer, MMA

What to eat: Carbohydrates for replenishing muscle glycogen, maintaining stamina, and maintaining energy during your event.

What to remember: It’s easy to argue that nutrient timing is most important for endurance athletes because of the duration and demands of the activity. Performance is the main goal, therefore making carbohydrates more important as a fuel source during the activity and after for recovery. Protein, while useful for minimizing protein loss, is not as essential in the moment for these athletes, but is still important for recovery and retention of muscle.

Your Nutrition Plan

• The Focus: carbs and protein
• The dose: 0.2-0.25 g/lb target bodyweight for both protein and carbs

During your workout

• For every hour of endurance activity, consume 8-15 g protein and about 15-30 grams of carbs. Liquids and gels are usually best for this.

Your Goal: Strength/Power Sports

Examples: Olympic weightlifting, football, powerlifting, bodybuilding, high-intensity intervals

What to eat: Protein for optimizing muscle recovery and growth and minimizing muscle damage

What to remember: Based on the length of time and type of activity, muscle glycogen is not depleted to the extent of endurance sports. Protein is important for supporting strength and muscle growth while minimizing muscle damage and loss. Carbohydrates are important, but less so, and are generally taken care of by meeting total daily calorie and macronutrient goals.

Your Nutrition Plan

• A balanced, full meal consisting of carbs and protein, 0.2-0.25 g/lb target bodyweight for both protein and carbs

Your Goal: Weight-Loss

Examples: Any type of activity geared towards losing weight. This is your typical cardiovascular type of activity (walking, treadmill, stairstepper) or weight training. NOTE: This is not high-intensity work or something like CrossFit, which is more likely to fit into the strength or endurance categories.

What to eat: Fewer calories (calorie deficit) and more protein

Want a personalized fat loss plan? Our coaches can create a plan for you. Find out more here.

What to remember: The most important thing to keep in mind is you must burn more calories than you bring into your body. Create a calorie deficit first, and then worry about dialing in your pre- and post-workout nutrition.

Your Nutrition Plan

• Eat a balanced, full meal consisting of carbs and protein, 0.2-0.25 g/lb target bodyweight for both protein and carbs

Your Next Steps

Remember that nutrient timing should focus on three core aspects: glycogen replenishment, protein breakdown, and protein synthesis. And rather than stressing over timing, focus on giving your body the proper nutrition based on what type of activity you perform.

Have questions? Share them in the comments below.

Or if you’re looking for more personalization and hands-on support our online coaching program may be right for you. Every client is assigned two coaches — one for nutrition and one for fitness. Find out more here. 

Adam Bornstein

Adam Bornstein is a New York Times bestselling author and the author of You Can’t Screw This Up. He is the founder of Born Fitness, and the co-founder of Arnold’s Pump Club (with Arnold Schwarzenegger) and Pen Name Consulting. An award-winning writer and editor, Bornstein was previously the Chief Nutrition Officer for Ladder, the Fitness and Nutrition editor for Men’s Health, Editorial Director at LIVESTRONG.com, and a columnist for SHAPE, Men’s Fitness, and Muscle & Fitness. He’s also a nutrition and fitness advisor for LeBron James, Cindy Crawford, Lindsey Vonn, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. According to The Huffington Post, Bornstein is “one of the most inspiring sources in all of health and fitness.” His work has been featured in dozens of publications, including The New York Times, Fast Company, ESPN, and GQ, and he’s appeared on Good Morning America, The Today Show, and E! News.

The post What to Eat Before and After a Workout appeared first on Born Fitness.

Even though breakfast is not the most important meal of the day (science suggests that no one meal is more valuable than another), breakfast eaters tend to experience the best benefits by selecting a filling breakfast that leaves you wanting less for lunch, curbs snacking, and gives you fuel for hours.

While eggs are a popular staple (and for good reason, they are loaded with protein and fat) and the foundation of a fulfilling breakfast, you can upgrade any egg-based meal to help keep you fuller for longer — like our hearty egg skillet.

If you want to upgrade your breakfast — or any meal — into a combination of foods that makes it easier to stay on track with your diet, we’ve provided a simple outline that will increase the fullness, satisfaction, and flavor so you have an easier time achieving your goals.

How to Kill Your Appetite

There are many factors that can make you feel hungry that have nothing to do with the foods you eat. For example, sleep deprivation is one of the biggest causes of hunger.

Research published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism found that sleeping less than six hours triggers the area of your brain that increases your need for food while also depressing leptin and stimulating ghrelin.

The more ghrelin you produce, the more you stimulate hunger while also reducing the number of calories you burn (your metabolism) and increasing the amount of fat you store. In other words, you need to control leptin and ghrelin to successfully lose weight, but sleep deprivation makes that nearly impossible.

And if all that wasn’t enough, research published in Psychoneuroendocrinology found that sleep deprivation makes you select greater portion sizes of all foods, further increasing the likelihood of weight gain.

Translation: if you want to kill your hunger, start by getting a minimum of 6 hours of sleep per night, but (ideally), you’ll rest at least 7.5 hours per night.

When it comes to specific foods and feeling full, all calories are not equal. Some foods increase satiety or the feeling of fullness. In particular, if you want to feel fuller for longer (or, in this case, a breakfast that keeps you full for hours) and keep it simple, build a meal focused around 3 elements:

• Protein
• Fiber
• Foods that retain water

Protein is the most-filling macronutrient, compared to carbs or fats.

Fiber helps control hunger by slowing down the process by which foods empty in your stomach and speeds up digestion, and that combo helps you stay satisfied for longer.

Drinking water helps with appetite and enjoying foods that retain water has been shown to help decrease how much food you consume.

What Foods Are Best At Controlling Hunger?

Because satiety determines your hunger and feelings of fullness, the satiety index was created to help you measure how well a meal keeps you satisfied.

It’s a simple way to know if the foods you eat are doing the job you want, which is mainly to keep you away from the snack drawer at work.

Foods that have a score of more than 100 are considered more filling, and those with less than 100 might leave you going for seconds or thirds on your meal.

The foods that are best at keeping you full include:

• Potatoes
• Meat
• Eggs
• Fish
• Vegetables
• Cheese
• Nuts
• Legumes/beans

As an added benefit, research shows that spicy foods can also help suppress hunger.

Use any of those foods and you’re more likely to be fuller for longer. Combine several of those foods and you have the perfect recipe for energy, satisfaction, and the elimination of hunger.

The Best Egg Breakfast to Keep You Fuller (For Longer)

We couldn’t squeeze in every ingredient, but this breakfast has been approved by hundreds of online coaching clients, and it’s exactly what you can eat to fill you up and power you through any day.

This healthy egg breakfast recipe contains 6 of the foods that are highest on the satiety index, and it adds a touch of spice (if you like it) to help keep your hunger at bay.

If you try this recipe, be sure to leave your thoughts in the comments below!

Egg Skillet Recipe

Ingredients

• 3 slices bacon, uncured & nitrate-free
• 6 eggs, pastured
• ¾ cup egg whites
• 1 large sweet potato, cubed
• ½ cup onion, diced
• 20 Brussels sprouts, quarters
• ¼ cup shredded Parmigiano-Reggiano
• 1/4 cup lentils
• Hot sauce (optional)

Directions

1. Slice the bacon into ½” thick mini slices. Add those to a large saute pan or cast-iron skillet on medium heat. Cook for 5-7 minutes, the bacon should be about halfway cooked. Drain ½ of the grease from the pan.
2. Add the chopped onion and lentils. Cook for about 2-3 minutes until they’ve softened, then add the sweet potato and Brussels sprouts. Keep the skin on the potato; that’s where a lot of the nutrients are. No need to de-stem the Brussels sprouts, just quarter. Try to make sure everything is about the same size so they cook evenly.
3. Increase temperature to medium-high heat, and cook for 15 minutes, stirring every 2 to 3 minutes. You want the edges to brown so don’t stir constantly. After 15 minutes, cover and cook for an additional 2 to 3 minutes. This essentially steams the veggies for the last few minutes.
4. Bro-hack tip: add the eggs, egg whites, and Parmigiano-Reggiano to a blender bottle. Yes, that protein shaker cup with the whisk ball in it. Shake it like a shake weight (the new Polaroid picture), and pour over the veggies.
5. Season with salt and pepper, and scramble the eggs. Serve with hot sauce for an extra kick! Makes 2 large servings.

Nutritional Information & Macros

Dietary Information: Paleo, Gluten-Free, Nut-Free  

Macros per serving

• 424 calories
• 21g fat
• 31g carbs
• 36g protein

READ MORE: 

How Many Eggs are Safe to Eat? 

Reinventing Healthy Breakfast: Eggs on the Go

Upgrade Your Meal Prep and Eat Healthier in Less Time

Adam Bornstein

Adam Bornstein is a New York Times bestselling author and the author of You Can’t Screw This Up. He is the founder of Born Fitness, and the co-founder of Arnold’s Pump Club (with Arnold Schwarzenegger) and Pen Name Consulting. An award-winning writer and editor, Bornstein was previously the Chief Nutrition Officer for Ladder, the Fitness and Nutrition editor for Men’s Health, Editorial Director at LIVESTRONG.com, and a columnist for SHAPE, Men’s Fitness, and Muscle & Fitness. He’s also a nutrition and fitness advisor for LeBron James, Cindy Crawford, Lindsey Vonn, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. According to The Huffington Post, Bornstein is “one of the most inspiring sources in all of health and fitness.” His work has been featured in dozens of publications, including The New York Times, Fast Company, ESPN, and GQ, and he’s appeared on Good Morning America, The Today Show, and E! News.

The post What To Eat For Breakfast To Fill You Up appeared first on Born Fitness.

Just because the high intensity is good, doesn’t mean adding more and more work is better. 

The biggest problem with HIIT workouts is that people took a great concept (higher intensity, less rest) and destroyed the execution.

The mindset looks something like this:

“If four minutes is great, then eight minutes must be incredible. And if eight minutes is incredible, then 16 minutes must be mind-blowing.”

This is the opposite of what you want to do. Adding more time does not make all workouts more effective. And, with HIIT, you could easily argue it could reduce the effectiveness of the training.

Why HIIT Workouts Are So Effective

The name of the game is efficiency. There are many ways to train, but scientists are fascinated by high-intensity interval workouts because, when done correctly, you can see great benefits in less time.

The key with good HIIT programming is doing everything you can to maximize intensity. It’s that intensity that enables you to keep the workouts shorter and experience benefits like muscle building, fat loss, and cardiovascular improvements that you typically see in longer workouts.

But, if you don’t set up your workouts in a way that keeps intensity high, then you start to take away from the power of HIIT.

In general, HIIT workouts are characterized by the following: 

• Go hard (work at a high intensity, either heavy weights or lots of reps).
• Rest.
• Repeat.

What makes HIIT so effective is the exercise-to-rest ratio. As decorated strength coach Robert Dos Remedios explains in this blog post, a lot of the most popular training protocols are totally backward when it comes to their work-rest ratio. 

Translation: People train for way too long of a period, followed by far too little rest.

Coach Dos explains that for a truly all-out effort, you should rest for as much as 5-6 times the time you spent working. When you train for longer periods while resting for shorter ones, the training winds up being more of a cardio/aerobic challenge — which is okay if that’s your goal. 

When you go for too long with too short of rest, you’re likely to decrease the intensity of your work, which is the whole point of high-intensity training.  

What is the Best HIIT Workout?

If you want HIIT to work for your body (and schedule) and lead to body transformation and health benefits (HIIT workouts are also shown to improve cognition), then shorter rest periods will necessitate shorter workouts. This is all done to maximize intensity and results. Long HIIT workouts with short rest periods are more likely to lead to burnout and not get the desired effects.

In other words, your “work” periods will influence your rest periods. Keep the work short per Dos Remedios’s recommendations, and as the interval work time increases, make sure your rest increases as well.

An ideal work-to-rest ratio for all-out high-intensity intervals could be:

• 10 seconds of work, followed by 50 seconds of rest
• 20 seconds of work, followed by 100 seconds of rest
• 30 seconds of work, followed by 150 seconds of rest

Now, that’s not to say you can’t do more common intervals like 20 seconds of work followed by 40 seconds of rest.

If you do that, either realize that later sets will be lower intensity, or make sure you do fewer total sets in order to maintain your intensity.

After all (and we can’t stress this enough), the key to HIIT is the intensity. Push your body to maximum output, rest for just enough time to keep that intensity at its highest, and then get back to work.

How Long Should a HIIT Workout Be?

So, what’s the sweet spot? Everyone is going to be a little different based on body type, training experience, and goals. And there are really two important aspects: how many days per week you should do high-intensity training and how many sets you should perform per session.

Craig Marker, Ph.D., an associate professor at Mercer University, explains that you should stop if you are noticing a drop off in your performance from set to set.

“I stop most of my athletes at seven sets as it is difficult to maintain that pace for the full eight. Tabata’s team was working with elite athletes. For the everyday athlete, I might even suggest fewer sets, like three to five.” (You can read more about his approach here).

How Often Should You Do HIIT Workouts?

Because these workouts take more time to recover, it’s recommended that you do a HIIT workout anywhere from 1-3 times per week, depending on the overall volume of your training.

For example, if you’re weight training 4-5 times per week, you’ll respond better if you only do an additional 1-2 HIIT sessions per week. Otherwise, you’ll never recover properly and week-over-week you won’t see as much progress with your training or changes to your body.

If you only train with weights 2-3 times per week, then it’s possible for you to add 2-3 sessions of HIIT per week.

How To Do A HIIT Workout

Using the guidelines above for frequency, here’s how you can build your own HIIT workout using the exercises of your choice. Follow this 2-step process, and then limit your work sets to 4 to 8 rounds, based on your level of fitness.

Step 1: Select The Best HIIT Exercises

As the name would suggest, HIIT workouts should be something that allows you to push at a very high intensity.

If you choose to walk, then you must be able to sprint. If you want to bike, then pedal harder (if you can increase the resistance) or faster. If you’re swimming, swim faster. And, if you’re lifting weights, you’re picking a weight that you can lift for about six reps or where you can move quickly and explosively (think medicine ball slams).

Here are exercises you can pick from (many more exist) to create your HIIT workout:

• Sprint
• Bike
• Rower
• Kettlebell swings
• Versaclimber or stair-stepper
• Jump rope
• Tire flips
• Jump lunges
• Cleans
• Thrusters
• Med ball slams
• Deadlifts or squats

Step 2: Select How Long to Make Your HIIT Workout Last

• 10 seconds of high-intensity work.
• 50 seconds of rest or low-intensity work.
• Repeat for 4-8 rounds.

OR

• 20 seconds of high-intensity work.
• 100 seconds of rest or low-intensity work.
• Repeat for 4-8 rounds.

Step 3: Recover

Remember, intensity isn’t just about how much time you have to recover during a workout, it’s also what you do between workouts. To maintain intensity during your workout, remember to focus on resting 5-6 times as long as your work sets. And, don’t perform HIIT workouts every day because, at some point, your overall intensity will decrease, you won’t make progress from one training session to the next, and that will limit your results.

Now Go Get Your Sweat On

We’ve laid out why high-intensity interval training is effective, what the best HIIT workout practices are, and provided examples of some of our favorite exercises. Remember, the key to proper HIIT training is maintaining a high level of intensity for the entire workout.

Have questions? Share them in the comments below.

Or if you’re looking for more personalization and hands-on support our online coaching program may be right for you. Every client is assigned two coaches — one for nutrition and one for fitness. Find out more here. 

Adam Bornstein

Adam Bornstein is a New York Times bestselling author and the author of You Can’t Screw This Up. He is the founder of Born Fitness, and the co-founder of Arnold’s Pump Club (with Arnold Schwarzenegger) and Pen Name Consulting. An award-winning writer and editor, Bornstein was previously the Chief Nutrition Officer for Ladder, the Fitness and Nutrition editor for Men’s Health, Editorial Director at LIVESTRONG.com, and a columnist for SHAPE, Men’s Fitness, and Muscle & Fitness. He’s also a nutrition and fitness advisor for LeBron James, Cindy Crawford, Lindsey Vonn, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. According to The Huffington Post, Bornstein is “one of the most inspiring sources in all of health and fitness.” His work has been featured in dozens of publications, including The New York Times, Fast Company, ESPN, and GQ, and he’s appeared on Good Morning America, The Today Show, and E! News.

The post High-Intensity Training: The Most Common HIIT Workout Mistake appeared first on Born Fitness.

If you’ve ever thought about adding resistance band exercises to your routine — or are limited to working out at home and don’t have much equipment — you might be surprised by how much you can accomplish without any iron.

How Can You Use Resistance Bands in Your Workout?

Resistance bands can be used for at least four different types of exercises:

• Stretching and mobility
• Warm ups and muscle activation
• Resistance training and “getting a pump”
• Developing the “mind-muscle” connection (learning to better “feel” your muscles working)

Each of these goals require you to use the bands slightly differently, but with each example, you can accomplish quite a bit with just a few bands.

Resistance Band Stretches and Mobility Work

Resistance band stretches can help you overcome the hardest part of stretching — feeling like you are limited by the range of motion in your muscles. You know this as “feeling tight.” (A.K.A. “I’m not flexible!”). Funny as it might sound, the limitation might really be in your head, or in another part of your body.

Think about a simple hamstring stretch, where you lie on your back with one leg on the floor and raise the other leg to the sky. Most of the time you use your hands to provide resistance. Simply looping a resistance band around your ankle can create a different movement pattern (because the pressure of pulling comes at a different angle — from your ankle instead of behind your knee), which might allow you to generate more range of motion.

It’s not magic, but most people will find they can get a better stretch with the resistance band variation. That’s because a resistance band can help you go deeper into a stretch, provide support, or help reduce the load of your bodyweight when you perform a move. That’s why many trainers consider bands to be a “must” for maximizing your mobility.

There are limitless ways you can use resistance bands to assist you when you stretch. Here are two examples—one for your upper body, one for your lower body.

Banded Lat Stretch

https://youtu.be/gjRMe2Bcbu4

Loop a band around something at least 6 inches over your head, such as a pull up bar. Grab the band with one arm and step back, so that you band forms a 45- to -60 degree angle to the floor. Get into a staggered stance and put one knee on the floor. Your arm should be in a straight line and aligned with the band.

Lean forward slightly so that your torso is perfectly aligned with your arm. (It will look like the band is an extension of your arm. You could draw a straight line from your hips all the way up to the top of the band where it’s attached to the pull up bar). Hold this position so you feel a stretch in your back.

Do 5 deep breaths, inhaling through the nose and exhaling through the mouth, and then switch sides.

Band Supported Leg Lowering 

https://youtu.be/TY6RmPbKqe0

Lie flat on your back and then bring both of your legs up towards the ceiling. Your legs and body should form the shape of a “L.”

Wrap a band around the arch of one of your feet and hold it stable. Keep both of your knees locked out by squeezing your quadriceps muscles and pointing your toes towards your shins.

Lower your leg that does not have the band around it until either A) you feel tightness in your hamstring, or B) you feel pain in your back (this is bad) or don’t feel stable in your core. When either of those things happen, stop, then reverse the movement and lift the leg back up.

Ideally, you’ll take 2 seconds to lower your leg, then take 2 seconds to lift your leg back up using your core muscles. Perform 1-2 sets of 5 repetitions per leg as a part of your warmup, or pair with a lower body movement such as stiff-legged deadlifts.

Resistance Band Exercises for Muscle Activation

Resistance band exercises can be used to strengthen or activate hard-to-hit muscles. For example, your shoulders are two areas that most people have troubling “feeling.” Because of continuous tension, bands are an effective way to help activation and work those muscles without supporting muscles taking over.

Band pull-aparts are a fantastic way to warm up your shoulders. Remember how bands help create more tension throughout the movement? Tension means more blood flow. More blood flow means you’re muscles will feel warm. It’s like adding oil to a squeaky break.

When performing the movement, make sure you don’t have too much slack in the band, because if you do that takes the tension off of your shoulders. The band pull-apart is also effective because it works your shoulders in a pattern that is often overlooked.

Think about how much time you spend at your desk with your shoulders slouched. The band pull-apart works the opposite range of motion, meaning it helps pull your shoulders back into their correct alignment, improving your posture.

Better posture means less pain. And because you’re pulling the band apart, that means you have maximum tension with minimum weight. This is something that isn’t always easy with weights like dumbbells.

Band Pull-aparts 

https://youtu.be/vBhetF3Cyew

Here’s how to do it: Grip the opposite ends of a long (about 40 inches is typical) resistance band. You can mix up your hand position, from prone (thumbs facing one another) to neutral (thumbs facing the ceiling) to supinated (thumbs pointed away from one another).

Position your hands about shoulder width apart, or at a distance where you feel a little tension in the band. From there, pull your hands outward as wide as you can.

Pause and squeeze the muscles in your upper back and shoulders, then reverse directions and bring your hands back toward one another (back to the starting position), and repeat. Focus on keeping your shoulders down and back throughout the entire movement.

Perform 3 sets of 15-30 repetitions.

Mini-Band Lateral Walks

Remember how pull aparts were great for your shoulders? These lateral band walks can do the same for your glutes and help them wake up.

Place the band above your knees. Spread your legs wide enough that you feel tension across the band. (Consider this an athletic position, like a baseball player about to field a ground ball.) Take one leg and step out to the side. Then, follow with your other leg, making sure you maintain tension on the band throughout the movement.

Walk for 10-15 steps in one direction (i.e. from left to right) then switch and go for the same distance in the opposite direction (from right to left).

Goblet Squats

Place the mini-band around your legs just above the knees. Hold a dumbbell vertically against your chest with both of your hands supporting the weight underneath. Press your elbows inward against your rib cage, which activates the muscles in your upper back.

Squat down by pushing your hips back and pressing your knees outward against the mini-band. Doing so activates your glutes and helps you steer clear of knee pain. Lower yourself down until your elbows touch the insides of your knees, then press through your feet to stand back up.

Resistance Band Exercises for Building Muscle

No matter what some people might insist, weights are not the only way to build muscle. Weights are effective because they add resistance. Bands also provide resistance, meaning they also can help you build muscle.

In particular, bands might be most effective when doing higher rep training, such as performing 20 to 30 reps (or more) per set (this is known as “metabolite training”).

Research has repeatedly shown that building muscle is somewhat dependent on volume — or the number of reps x sets x weight. Because you have 3 variables you can manipulate, bands provide a way to increase volume (through more reps) without needing more weight.

This approach works for any muscle in your body — from arms and shoulders, to your chest, back and even your butt. Just ask anyone who’s ever tried Bret Contreras’s glute burnout. Here is another example of how you can use bands to achieve some metabolic glute work:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BYPHRU-B8w3/?taken-by=l2fitnessyeg

Resistance Band Exercises and the Mind-Muscle Connection

The mind-muscle connection is something that not everyone is familiar with but it can make a huge difference in your training. Basically, it’s about using your brain to drive more effort from your muscles. If that sounds a little crazy, rest assured it’s a real thing. (Here’s proof.) And with the help of resistance bands, you can develop it.

Resistance bands are useful way to build that connection because the farther you pull the band and the more it lengthens, the harder your muscles have to work.

The increased tension provides a strong peak contraction at the top of every rep. You’ll really feel those muscles working. Want to take it up another notch? Add in a pause at the top. (Ooh, it burns!)

What are the Limits of Resistance Bands?

Like anything, there are always some limitations. For instance, resistance bands don’t necessarily challenge your muscles through a full range of motion.

Lifting weights consists of a raising portion (the concentric) and a lowering portion (the eccentric). The eccentric phase of a lift is the part where you are lowering the weight back down, and it’s beneficial for both muscle growth and improving muscle control.

They feel lighter on your muscles as the bands themselves get shorter. As we discussed above, that may be great from an injury prevention standpoint. But since eccentric muscle actions are where we elicit the most muscle damage in training, using bands alone might limit the amount muscle you can build.

Bands can also make measuring your resistance a little tricky. Part of adding muscle is creating a challenge for your muscles. That’s why bands work — they add resistance. At some point, however, your body will adapt to resistance. This is why you might stop seeing results. Your body adapts, and you need to keep creating a new challenge in order to fight off plateau.

There are many ways to do steer clear of plateaus, however. You can make an exercise more challenging (if you are doing band rows with both arms, you can switch to a 1-arm version with the same band, which will make it more difficult), or you can add weight. This is where dumbbells and barbells have an obvious advantage, as you can just use bigger weights.

But don’t stress too much. Your hand placement, the distance between you and where the band is anchored, and how far the band is stretched can all be used to increase or decrease the resistance. You can also user thicker bands (which has more resistance) or even add multiple bands.

At some point — yes — you might need to add more weight to create a bigger challenge. But as long as you continue to find ways to challenge your muscles (which can also occur by doing more reps and/or sets of an exercise), your resistance band workout will keep delivering results.

The Resistance Band Workout for Building Muscle

Want to give resistance band exercises a try? Here’s a sample upper and lower body workout designed for building muscle.

Upper Body Resistance Band Workout
1) Band pull-aparts: 4 x 15-20 reps x 60s rest
2A) Band pushups: 3 x 10-20 x 45s
2B) Band 2-arm rows: 3 x 15-20 x 45s
3A) 1-arm band row: 3 x 8-15/arm x 45s
3B) 1-arm band chest press: 3 x 8-12/arm x 45s
4A) Band overhead triceps extension – 3 x 12-20 x 45s
4B) Band biceps curls – 3 x 12-15 x 45s

Lower body Resistance Band Workout
1) Mini-band lateral walks: 4 x 15-20/side x 60 seconds
2) Band leg curl: 3 x 15-20 x 60s
3) Rear foot elevated split squat (can add band for resistance): 4 x 12-15 x 60s
4A) Band good morning: 3 x 20-25 x 60s
4B) Walking lunges: 3 x 10-15/leg x 60s
5) Band iso hold Pallof press: 4 x 30s/side x 60s

READ MORE: 

How to Build the Perfect Bodyweight Workout

How to Master the Art of Old School Muscle Building

The Tension Weightlifting Technique: How to Make Every Exercise More Effective

References

1. Pull, Ranson (2007) Eccentric muscle actions: Implications for injury prevention and rehabilitation.


2. Schoenfeld BJ (2010) The mechanisms of muscle hypertrophy and their application to resistance training.


3. Schoenfeld BJ, Grgic J, Ogborn D, Krieger JW (2017) Strength and Hypertrophy Adaptations Between Low- vs. High-Load Resistance Training: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.


Landon Poburan is the owner of L2 Fitness in Edmonton, Canada. The L2 Fitness Summit is a video series that includes 11+ hours of muscle building ideas from our friends Dr. Mike Israetel and Dean Somerset. If you’re a coach, or just super into getting swole (Israetel) while staying awesomely mobile and balanced (Somerset), then you may seriously enjoy this product, which is on sale for $50 off through December 10th at midnight. And coaches: You get CEUs! Full disclosure: We here at Born Fitness get absolutely nothing for telling you about this product — we are not affiliates and have no financial stake involved. 

Landon Poburan

Personal trainer, nutrition coach and owner of L2 Fitness located in Edmonton, AB Canada.

l2fitness.com/

The post How to Use Resistance Band Exercises in Your Workouts appeared first on Born Fitness.

And if you already perform and love the deadlift, you can spend the same 3 minutes reading and learning why the exercise is even better than you thought. Or you can skip on ahead to the deadlift form guide. Your call.

Ready? Let’s set a timer for 3 minutes…

Reason to Deadlift #1: You’re going to get way stronger—and therefore live longer.

The deadlift is a true total body exercise that builds full body strength (both your lower and upper body will benefit). And getting stronger is NEVER a bad thing.

In fact, getting stronger is far better for you than you may think. Researchers have found a correlation between grip strength and mortality, as in those with stronger grips tend to live longer. And one thing you will definitely get from deadlifting is a strong grip.

(Not to mention stronger quadriceps, hamstrings, forearms, traps, and glutes, just to name a few.)

Reason to Deadlift  #2: That strength will come in handy throughout your (now longer) life.

There are two types of people in the world: Those who struggle to move a couch, and those who deadlift.

But let’s say you never move couches. At some point or another, you’re going to need to pick something up off of the ground. When you do, you’ll be far better suited to do so because you deadlift.

The deadlift takes a basic human movement (picking something up) and makes you far more capable at it. That means you’ll be far less likely to get hurt.

In fact….

Reason to Deadlift #3: Deadlifts actually protect you from lower back pain.

How many people do you know who complain about back pain?

That’s right, seemingly everybody.

A review of 28 studies found that, from age 30 onward, the percentage of people within an age group who are dealing with chronic low back pain increases with each passing year.

So here you are, avoiding deadlifts to save your back, but yet you still have lower back pain.

Why? Probably because you’ve been avoiding deadlifts in the first place.

Don’t believe us? Consider that studies indicate that properly training the deadlift can outright fix low back pain.

How? By strengthening the spinal erectors, or the muscles that maintain the integrity of the spine. They travel the entire length of your spine, tucking under the lats and traps, and running all the way down to your lower back.

According to research, the deadlift trains this musculature better than anything. Two studies looked at spinal erector activation during the deadlift, and found that the exercise induced high amounts of upper spinal erector activity in a way not seen with other exercises.

The studies also showed strengthening in the lower back.

“But wait,” you say. “I’m not really ‘into’ weight training.”

That’s cool. And completely understandable. But before you say that weights aren’t for you, let’s just make sure you understand a few other things here…

Reason to Deadlift #4: Weight training helps you lose—and keep off—fat.

The stronger you are, the more lean body mass you carry.

The more lean body mass you carry, the higher your basal metabolic rate. That’s the number of calories your body burns on it’s own just to keep you alive—before factoring in things exercise and NEAT.

One study found that men who weight trained burned 350 more calories on average while just sitting around and watching television.

Some claim that it takes years of lifting weights to achieve this effect, but research shows otherwise. One study found that just 16 weeks of strength training produced a noticeable lift in the resting metabolic rate of a group of men aged 50-65.

And while people often think that cardio is king for keeping fat off (total myth, BTW), researchers who ran a cohort that encompassed more than 10,500 men across 12 years found that those who lifted weight gained less fat over the long haul.

Reason to Deadlift #5: Weight training improves other aspects of your health, too.

For example, one study found that muscle mass was inherently protective against diabetes.

Muscle also plays a crucial role if you ever have to recover from surgery or serious illness.

We could go on, but you get the point: Being strong is good. Having muscle is good. And deadlifts will help you build plenty of it.

That was a fun 3 minutes, right? We thought so too. Well, now that you know the value of deadlifts, let’s show you how to do them properly so you never fear them again…

Proper Deadlift Form: How to Fit the Move to Your Body Type

Maybe you’ve tried deadlifting in the past and thought the exercise just didn’t feel right. If so, you’re not alone.

The deadlift involves many muscles, all of your limbs, and every load-bearing joint (ankles, knees, hips and shoulders) in your body. There are a lot of variables at play. So having hard-and-fast rules about deadlift form is nearly impossible.

Your body is your body. That seems like an obvious fact, yet it’s one that’s often overlooked when it comes to form.

For example, two people who are the same height may have totally different torso and femur lengths.

Strength coach Bret Contreras does an excellent job of explaining that these different bone structures will result in totally different squat forms. The same is true for the deadlift.

A person who has a short torso and long femurs will have a more hip-dominant pull, meaning that their butt will be higher in the air and most of the force will come from their glutes and hamstrings.

Meanwhile, a person who has a long torso and short femurs would be able to get lower and involve their quads a bit more.

Reading this right now, you’re probably thinking, “How do I know whether I have a short or long torso?”

Glad you asked. There’s actually a relatively simple way to tell.

The technique can also tell you whether you’re better off using a sumo deadlift (very wide stance) rather than a traditional deadlift (where your feet are roughly hip-width apart) stance. (For more discussion about the pros and cons of each, see the section on “Stance” below.)

You’re going to need a measuring tape. Any standard one will do.

Measure the distance from the bony part of your hip to the floor. That’s your leg length.

Then measure from the same point on your hip to the top of your head. That’s your torso length.

Lastly, measure from the top of your shoulder to the tip of your middle finger. That’s your arm length.

Divide each of those numbers by your total height in inches. Then check the numbers against this table:

Your percentages will tell you whether you have a short, long or average-length torso. Same for your arms. (We can disregard your legs, since they are essentially the opposite of your torso — i.e. if the torso is long, your legs will be short.).

Those two pieces of information can tell you whether a conventional deadlift or sumo deadlift will likely feel better for you (note: no matter what the chart says, you can always go by “feel”):

Both of those tables are from Professor Michael Hales’ excellent paper “Improving The Deadlift: Understanding Constraints and Physiological Adaptations to Resistance Exercise.” And he’s the first to state that they are not the be-all, end-all. They are merely lifting recommendations based on your body’s structure.

Other factors like strength and flexibility will also come into play. But this should help you see which approach should feel better based on what your momma gave you.

Keep in mind, this does not mean you have to “only” do conventional-style or sumo-style deadlifts forever. In fact, Hales and nearly everyone else worth their salt will recommend that you switch between the two styles occasionally.

Conventional and sumo work your muscles slightly differently (conventional requires more hip drive, while sumo involves the upper legs a little more), so using both can develop a more well-rounded base of strength.

Deadlift Form: Follow these guidelines before you pull

#1. Your stance

Conventional Deadlift Foot Placement: You can start with your feet shoulder-width apart. If you’re not sure where this is, try this: Jump in the air 2-3 times. Where your feet land naturally is the proper stance for the conventional deadlift. Your toes should point forward or outward slightly.

Sumo Deadlift Foot Placement: You can try out two different starting positions.

• Option #1: Place your feet as wide as possible, meaning your toes are nearly flush against the weight plates. Many successful sumo deadlifters pull from this position. But one obvious drawback here is the risk of dropping the weight onto your toes. So be careful.
• Option #2: Widen your feet as far as you can while still being able to keep your shins vertical when you lower yourself to grip the bar. The wider your stance is, the more your feet should point outward

One last note about where to stand. Set up so that the bar is about an inch to an inch-and-a-half from your shins. When you look down at the bar, it should be positioned right about the middle of your foot, blocking the laces of your shoes from view.

#2. Your grip

Figuring out where to place your hands is quite simple. Just take a shoulder-width grip.

Choosing how to grip the bar is a little more complicated, and may change throughout your workout. There are three main options:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BWeS2EhF-_y/?taken-by=wilfredofitness

• Option #1: The double-overhand grip. This is the “best” grip most of the time. As you increase the amount of weight you can deadlift, you’ll eventually reach a weight where your grip strength becomes an issue. That’s when mixed grip comes in…
• Option #2: The mixed grip. Also known as “one overhand, one underhand” grip, this style allows you to pull heavier weights more easily. “Anybody who has trained the deadlift for a few months has had the experience of pulling on a weight that seemed too heavy even to break off the ground when tried with a double-overhand grip, only to find that it goes up surprisingly easy when the grip is alternated,” writes Mark Rippetoe in Starting Strength: Basic Barbell Training.There are some drawbacks to the mixed grip, however. Research shows that the bicep activity in the supinated (underhand grip) arm is much higher during this lift. Over time, that could create muscle imbalances, so it’s a good idea to switch which arm is overhand from set-to-set or workout-to-workout.
• Option #3: The hook grip. This grip is not very popular and for good reason—it hurts, but it’s not without benefits. The idea behind the hook grip is that you can use more weight than a double-overhand grip, since your thumbs act as hooks for the bar. But here’s the thing: Much of the weight ends up pulling on your thumbs. The stress this places on the tissue, bones, and joints of your thumbs does not feel good. One way people attempt to eliminate the grip problem altogether is to use straps.

Our suggestion would be to train without straps, with a double-overhand grip, for as many sets as possible. When you get heavy, use a mixed grip and vary which hand is over. If, after switching to a mixed grip, you still can’t hold the weight, then use straps to continue deadlifting heavy and train your grip with other exercises (farmer’s carries and suitcase deadlifts are two good options).

What to Do When You’re Ready to Lift the Weight

Ok, you’ve placed your feet and gripped the bar. It’s almost go time. Here are five things to check before you rip that sucker off the floor.

#1: Your Head

Where it goes wrong: You know that whole “look to the sky” cue? Don’t do that. Looking upward extends your neck, which is a great way to give yourself a neck strain.

How to get it right: Keep a level head position and a neutral gaze. Your chin should stay tucked. Think “tall through the back of your head.” Or, just think about creating a “double chin.” Maintain that position by looking straight ahead, rather than up, through the entire lift.

#2: Your Shoulders

Where it goes wrong: There are two potential problems here. First is the “Whoops, I rolled my shoulders forward in order to grab the bar” issue. This sets you up to pull like Quasimodo—and you don’t want to do anything in the gym looking like a hunchback. The other is the “I just wasn’t paying attention to my shoulders at all” issue. This one often winds up going Quasimodo-like as well, especially if you’re using heavy weight.

How to get it right: Pull your shoulders in and hold them tight to your sides. “Squeeze your armpits as if you had oranges in them and were trying to make juice,” is a cue we love from the always-clever Tony Gentilcore that achieves this. By pulling your shoulder blades down and in (think squeezing a pencil between your shoulder blades), you decrease the distance between your shoulders and hips, which will help you move more weight more efficiently. Plus, you’re getting your lats more involved, which will help prevent rounding.

#3: Your Legs

Where it goes wrong: Some people just bend over and grab the bar without putting any tension on the muscles they’re trying to work. While you can get away with this, it won’t put you in a position to pull the most weight, or pull it effectively. There is a better way.

How to get it right: Standing at the bar, hinge at the hips by pushing them backwards (imagine you have to open a door with your butt and you can’t use your hands). You should quickly feel tension running up the back of your legs and into your glutes. That’s a good thing. Once you feel that tension, maintain it while bending the knees just enough so that your hands can reach the bar.

#4: Your Core

Where it goes wrong: Pulling without breathing in first. What’s wrong with that?

Think of a soda can. When it’s full and sealed, it can support a ton of weight no problem. But once it’s opened and all of that pressure is released, the same weight will crumple it with ease.

A big breath in creates intra-abdominal pressure. That pressure will make you more stable, protect your spine, and help you lift far more weight.

How to get it right: Step up to the bar and get into position. Take a big breath in. As you inhale, push the air down and out to fill your abdomen. This is important: you’re not filling your chest with air (think about how you react when you’re out of breath); instead, you want to fill your belly.

Engage your core to hold your breath in that position, then lift. Keep that breath held throughout the rep, from the floor, up to lockout, and back down to the floor. Take a new breath in before every rep.

#5: Your Hands and Arms

Where it goes wrong: Gripping the bar loosely, or just pulling the bar without taking the slack out first.

How to get it right: First, when it comes to grip, grab ahold of that bar like you mean it. Regardless of which type of grip you chose, you should be gripping the bar as hard as you can.

Next, pull the slack out of the bar. What does that mean? When you grip, don’t just try to crush the bar into dust, also pull it apart.

Now, it’s go time.

Executing the Deadlift

You really only need to think about two things when you pull the bar:

1. Push off the floor
2. Keep everything tight (especially your core and lats)

During a conventional deadlift, if you are thinking about “pushing the floor away,” it will help you generate tension throughout your hips and knees.

If you’re doing a sumo deadlift, it may be helpful to think of this as “spreading the floor,” since that means pushing outwards on the sides of your feet.

In either case, the goal is the same: to generate tension through your knees and hips.

Keeping your core, arms, and lats engaged will help you avoid what you might call the Angry Cat Deadlift.

In an Angry Cat Deadlift, the lats aren’t activated enough, or the person’s core isn’t sufficiently braced, and the first thing that comes up is their lumbar spine.

If your lats are engaged and your core is firmly braced, then you probably won’t run into this problem. However, if you do feel your lower back rounding, it’s a sign that you’re using too much weight. Lower the load, work at a resistance that doesn’t cause you to go cat-like, and build up over time.

When you reach the top of the rep, known as lockout, pay attention.

Some people seem to think that “locking out” means “leaning back,” but nothing could be further from the truth. Doing that hyperextends your knees and spine, which can compress those all-important spinal discs between your vertebrae.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BWeXIFLF_oJ/?taken-by=wilfredofitness

The goal, really, is to just stand up. When you’re standing tall while holding the weight, you’ve completed the rep. You do not need to try and shrug with your traps. Simply stand up straight, thrust your hips, and focus on squeezing your glutes at the end of the lift.

Lastly, when you reach the top of the rep, you have two options:

1. Dropping the weight
2. Lowering the weight back to the floor

Option #1 is generally considered bad form for most fitness trainees (and definitely will get you some angry glances from your gym’s owner, especially if you aren’t using bounce plates), but there are some times when you may consider it.

Certain training modalities use this pull-and-drop technique—Pavel Tsatsouline employed it with Olympic sprinter Allyson Felix to famous results.

But even if you’re not training for a gold medal, removing the eccentric (lowering) phase may decrease the likelihood of hamstring or lower back injuries. So if those are concerns of yours, you may want to consider using the drop. (And if you do, definitely look for bounce plates.)

But if you’re just looking to build full-body strength, you’re better off lifting and lowering the weight.

That brings us to Option #2. Remember all of that tightness you generated in order to hoist the weight? Don’t let go of it once you reach the top.

Having several hundreds pounds of weight in your hands is typically a bad time to lose rigidity.

Instead, keep all of that tension in your arms, lats, core and legs, and lower the weight to the floor. Continue to keep your feet pressed firmly into the ground. Maintain that tight grip on the barbell as you set the weight back back where it started.

READ MORE: 

How Low Should You Squat, Really?

3 Rules for Building Bigger Arms

The Tension Weightlifting Technique: How to Make Every Exercise More Effective

The post The Complete Deadlift Guide: Master The Full Body Exercise appeared first on Born Fitness.

The idea seems like something you’d see on TV at 3 am, with some cheesy, fit pitchman making too-good-to-be-true claims. As you process the reported benefits—more muscle, less fat—everything in your body screams “scam,” but the source isn’t QVC—it is The New York Times and the rage that is the 7-minute workout.

We’re not talking about a piece of equipment that looks like it was dreamt up by 13-year-old boys, it’s research published in the American College of Sports Medicine Health and Fitness Journal.

Next thing you know, Forbes is writing about the workout and the buzz has spread to Good Morning America. The 7-minute workout is real and it works…at least, that’s what the mainstream media would have you believe. And yet, doesn’t this feel a little played out? I mean, have we already forgotten about “8-Minute Abs?” It’s been nearly 20 years since it was released, and during that time obesity rates have nearly doubled.

Here’s a disclaimer: I don’t have a problem with the 7-minute workout. I take issue with setting unrealistic expectations that trick people into believing a “minimum effective dose” can lead to maximum results. This is the foundation of frustration.

New scientific discoveries are capable of uncovering new information that alters what we believe and thought was true; in fact, it happens all the time. The problem is we oftentimes trust what we want to believe rather than seek to prove if it’s true. That’s the issue with the recent release of the 7-minute workout. We’ve been misled by a catchy title that has some benefits but falls short on long-term promises.

There’s no denying that exercise—in any dose—is good for your body. In fact, when I travel, I’m constantly settling for 10-15 minute workouts instead of my normal 30- to 60-minute session. And you can have a great workout in less than 10 minutes.

But don’t confuse the part from the whole: it is very difficult (and unlikely) to build a healthy body by working out 7 minutes per day and only performing bodyweight exercises, which is the foundation of the 7-minute workout. And I’ll go on record that you’d be hard pressed to find anyone that has. After all, if it only took 7 minutes to get into great shape, the struggle to lose fat would be less of an issue.

Before you start cranking out the “perfect workout” at home and expecting dramatic results or buy into the inevitable 7-minute session coming soon to a gym near you, here’s what you can really take away from the research, and what you can realistically expect to achieve if you follow this routine.

Where the 7-Minute Workout Study Failed

Understand that research in the exercise field oftentimes falls within two categories: Studies that use prior research to validate prior concepts or designs that test something new while building on previous research. The 7-minute workout is more of the former; it looked at the perceived benefits of a 7-minute workout and deduced many benefits based on research that was already completed.

That doesn’t make the research bad or inaccurate, if not for one small problem: The studies used to “prove” the concepts don’t mirror the workout that is being lauded as the 7-minute fix for your body. That’s like saying that because there’s research showing low carb diets help with weight loss that a diet with no carbs will guarantee that you will drop fat. It doesn’t work like that. As always, the devil is in the details.

In the case of this circuit-training program, the claims outpace reality. That’s why I reached out to Brad Schoenfeld, author of The Max Muscle Plan. Schoenfeld is one of the leaders in muscle-building research, and a guy who literally wrote the book on packing on muscle. Here are some of his takeaways:

Not All Circuit Training is Equal

The general idea of the 7-minute workout is that you perform 12 bodyweight exercises as a circuit. This type of exercise is categorized as “high intensity circuit training.” No problem there, but once we moved beyond how to label the type of exercise that’s where the problems begin. “The authors make big leaps that are not substantiated,” says Schoenfeld.

Remember, the justification of this program is validated by prior research explaining why this type of workout will build muscle and burn fat. And yet, three of the four references cited are based on types of high intensity training—not interval training. “And the one circuit training study they do cite by Murphy et al. 1992 used a protocol that was nearly 3 times as long as the one proposed by the authors,” says Schoenfeld.

Even then, that study found a boost in EPOC (consider this your metabolism) that resulted in a whopping 25 additional calories burned. I don’t know about you, but I don’t consider 25 extra calories a fat-shredding workout.

Mistake #1: The type of training in the 7-minute workout is not as good for fat loss as claimed.

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Not All Exercises Are Equal

The other big flaw of this workout—besides the fact that the benefits are based on dissimilar types of training—is that the design of the program doesn’t lend itself to some of the big claims being made. No matter what anyone tells you, not all exercises are created equal. Some require more effort, activate more muscle fibers, and will generate more results. Does anyone really think that bodyweight squats are as hard as heavy barbell squats?

The authors correctly state, “When resistance training exercises using multiple large muscles are used with very little rest between sets, they can elicit aerobic and metabolic benefits.” That’s true. But if you look at the 7-minute solution, many of the exercises—crunch, plank, side plank—are not large muscle exercises, says Schoenfeld.

Another issue is that these exercises are all bodyweight moves. That’s not to say bodyweight exercise can’t be effective. I’ve seen enough crazy YouTube videos to know that bodyweight moves does a body good. And they are also extremely convenient for anyone without access to a gym. But the greatest benefit of high intensity training—not to mention the circuit training study mentioned–wasn’t performed with bodyweight exercises; they were done with added resistance, says Schoenfeld, where the weight could be manipulated to correspond to a given rep-max. (In other words, a percentage of your max strength.) The use of bodyweight does not afford this benefit, and for those who are fairly fit it would be difficult to achieve a consistent maximum level of intensity for 30 seconds that would compare to doing a similar length of time with added resistance. To use the squat example: Doing 80% of your 1-rep max on squats for a similar period of time would be much more difficult than doing 7-minutes of bodyweight squats.

The use of bodyweight does not afford this benefit, and for those who are fairly fit, it would be difficult to achieve a consistent maximum level of intensity for 30 seconds that would compare to doing a similar length of time with added resistance. To use the squat example: Doing 80% of your 1-rep max on squats for a similar period of time would be much more difficult than doing 7-minutes of bodyweight squats.

What’s more, from an aerobic endurance standpoint, it has been shown that high-intensity interval training (HIIT) can be an excellent alternative to traditional steady-state exercise. “However, the types of exercise performed here are not ideal for accomplishing the task,” says Schoenfeld. Exercises such as the crunch, plank and side plank will have minimal effects on energy expenditure and the amount of calories you can burn.

To further weaken their claims, the 30-second duration is not ideal for building muscular endurance. Generally, you’d want it to be about twice as long to really focus on local muscular endurance, adds Schoenfeld. Even in terms of muscle building, the research is being stretched to muscle-defying limits

Mistake #2: The exercises in the 7-minute workout as not as effective at achieving the reported benefits.

Strength (and Muscle Building) Requires Added Resistance

Just in case you were wondering, it’s also very unlikely that this routine would optimize strength. The low-intensity studies (bodyweight is low intensity) have consistently showed suboptimal strength gains when compared to heavy weight training, says Schoenfeld. “That’s because the big problem with bodyweight exercise is that you are limited to what you weigh—there is no means to overload the muscles within a given repetition range. Thus, this routine would be a poor choice for anyone looking to maximize their strength.”

Mistake #3: Based on the research quoted, in order to receive the optimal benefits suggested by the 7-minute workout you need to add resistance.

What Does The 7-Minute Workout Really Accomplish?

The 7-minute workout undeniably has some benefits. In fact, I gave it a test drive and it was difficult, raised my heart rate, and I’ve been training consistently for more than 15 years. To that end, there is nothing wrong with the workout, and it can be a great solution for anyone looking for a quick workout.

The problem is with the claims being made. The suggested benefits are very overstated for anyone who possesses even modest muscular fitness, says Schoenfeld. More importantly, it is not a well-designed routine for anyone who wants to maximize specific fitness goals such as burning fat, building muscle, or increasing strength. The funny part? The science used to “support” the claims is the same science that proves the claims are inaccurate.

While I wish the promises were true, changing your body will still require more than 7 minutes per day.

READ MORE:

How to Build the Perfect Bodyweight Workout

The Tension Weightlifting Technique: How to Make Every Exercise More Effective

Are Planks Overrated?

Adam Bornstein

Adam Bornstein is a New York Times bestselling author and the author of You Can’t Screw This Up. He is the founder of Born Fitness, and the co-founder of Arnold’s Pump Club (with Arnold Schwarzenegger) and Pen Name Consulting. An award-winning writer and editor, Bornstein was previously the Chief Nutrition Officer for Ladder, the Fitness and Nutrition editor for Men’s Health, Editorial Director at LIVESTRONG.com, and a columnist for SHAPE, Men’s Fitness, and Muscle & Fitness. He’s also a nutrition and fitness advisor for LeBron James, Cindy Crawford, Lindsey Vonn, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. According to The Huffington Post, Bornstein is “one of the most inspiring sources in all of health and fitness.” His work has been featured in dozens of publications, including The New York Times, Fast Company, ESPN, and GQ, and he’s appeared on Good Morning America, The Today Show, and E! News.

The post The Truth About the 7-Minute Workout appeared first on Born Fitness.

Or maybe better yet: why do 8,745 new diet books seem to be published each year?

Both questions have the same answer.  You’ve heard the old analogy about a square peg in a round hole: You can try to wedge them together, but it’s just not going to work out.

You are not alone. At some point, everyone has “failed” on a diet. Success is about adjustments.

The same is true of most diets and your life. Your living situation, job, day-to-day schedule, and your taste preferences create a specific set of needs. Your diet has to conform to them—not the other way around.

Yet so many popular nutrition approaches seem to want the opposite. They want you to follow their plan. Do what we say and you’ll look like you’re from South Beach, they tell you. So you eat their foods, make their recipes, and do it all according to the schedule that their book (or website, or whatever) instructs you to follow.

At least, that’s the idea. Slowly but surely, reality creeps in. The foods you’ve been making — sometimes by choice and others by force — start tasting worse. Meanwhile, the foods you gave up seem even more alluring—and you still see them every time you walk through a grocery store or drive past a restaurant.

You might cave slowly, going back to your old ways one small habit at a time. Or you might give it all up in a single moment of “to hell with this!” frustration. Either way, you wind up back where you started, doing the things that you used to do.

The best diet plan needs to start with you. Because a diet is more about changing your habits than it is eating some superfood or removing something you might enjoy. So to succeed, you need to make sure that the habit you’re trying to change isn’t so rigid and ingrained that it causes you to break.

We identified some of the most common “personality types” we see with our clients, and create solutions to help you find the best diet plan that fits. Whether you are a carb-lover, nighttime eater, snacker, sugar-lover, or just plain crazy busy, there is a way to build out a plan so that your diet feels less rigid and more like eating.

Getting started with building your own plan is simpler than you think. In fact, you can kick off the process today by asking yourself four questions.

Start here: What went wrong in the past?

Everyone always wants to jump to the plan, but that approach is inherently flawed. In order to know what will work for your body, you need to honestly assess what has not worked in the past. And then figure about why.

It’s also important that you don’t feel bad about past failures. You are not alone. At some point, everyone has “failed” on a diet. Success is about adjustments. Those diet misfires make great teaching tools that will inevitably help you discover your best diet plan — if you let them. Your mistakes of the past will make the solutions of the future more clear.

For example, a big reason why so many diets fail is that people tend to chase extremes in order to reap immediate results. “People will combine a strict low-carb diet with aggressive workouts and drop weight dramatically, which is reaffirming,” says Leigh Peele, trainer and author of The Fat Loss Troubleshoot. ”But what usually happens after a few weeks or months is that they binge and gain back even more weight.”

There are some people who will thrive on highly restrictive diets like keto or Paleo or veganism. But studies show that the average person spends about 6 weeks following one of those protocols—followed by 14 weeks off of the plan. This is why so many people wind up gaining weight when they diet.

What happens after you go all-out for a big diet change and fall off the wagon is a two-pronged blow to the ego. One makes you feel frustrated about the past; the other totally demotivated for changing in the future. Peele explains it like this: “You wind up feeling even more discouraged, and thinking, ‘I’ve done everything, but I can’t lose weight.”

Odds are that the better answer is a less-flashy one. “Not everyone is so quick to take a moderate approach,” says Peele. “All the research shows that extreme restriction doesn’t work [over the long term] and that the best eating plans are moderate diets that are easy to fit into your social life and everyday routine.”

Instead of setting out to overhaul your lifestyle, first, take an honest look at it.

Does a desk job keep you keep you sedentary for most of the day? Do you eat most of your meals at restaurants?

For better or worse, these habits are a part of your daily schedule—which means that they aren’t going to be easy to change right away.

“It’s hard for people to do something that’s not part of their daily norm,” says Peele. “You have to train yourself to go out of your comfort zone.”

Notice, however, that we didn’t say ‘impossible.’ You can change your behaviors—but it will take some time.

Translation: If you’re not super active, don’t sign up for hour-long workouts every day of the week. If you eat out a lot, don’t expect to turn into Gordon Ramsay overnight. Learning some simple meal prep tips instead may help you a lot.

If you’re a desk-jockey who wants to be more active, start with a goal of consistently hitting some realistically achievable number of workouts per week. Two or three is great, but even one is an improvement. And try to get more steps throughout the day. The number of calories you can burn through non-exercise activities like walking is substantial.

“Start somewhere,” Peele says. “And to me, the best place to start is by learning what your daily normal life is, and not pretending you’re somebody you’re not.”

Question 1:  This is your best diet plan — what do you love?

One thing people often have a hard time believing is that you can make almost any diet requirement work. We’re not talking about health requirements like avoiding gluten if you have celiac or peanuts if you have an allergy.

What we mean are those non-medical needs that you have in order to keep your sanity, like “I have to have pasta with my family sometimes” or “I have to eat dessert.”

Look. Can you love carbs and still lose fat? Yes. Can you eat dessert and still lose fat? Yes. In fact, when I reached the leanest point I ever achieved in my life—we’re talking single-digit body fat percentage territory—I was eating cheesecake once per week. How? By making adjustments elsewhere in the plan.

Whether you’re a carb lover or chocoholic, you can make just about anything work (you’ll see several examples of other situations later under question #3). It is possible to build a diet plan that meets your needs, prevents weight gain, and helps you lose fat and gain muscle. But there is some work involved.

The best diet plan is a byproduct of a little “give and take.” You figure out what you must take, and then balance that out by giving in other ways. After all, if it was a simple as eating whatever you want, no one would be frustrated by dieting.

Diets work on a continuum. For the most part, protein stays consistent. The exact amount will different for each person, but there is a mountain of research that shows the importance of protein in both fat loss and muscle gain.

The magic oftentimes occurs with carbohydrates and fat loss. We know that both high-fat and high-carb diets can work for any goal. But they can’t necessarily work for any person. As we’ve discussed before, some people respond well to carbs and others don’t. Or some people exercise in a way that makes it easier to eat certain foods.

What’s important is that you understand that the more carbs you eat, the less fat you will eat. Or the more fat you eat, the fewer carbs you will consume. This is the concept of “dietary balance.”

Here’s how it works:

Let’s say you’re someone who loves to eat pasta with your family at night. Ok, no problem. Because pasta is a carb-heavy meal, you’d then adjust the other meals during the day to be high in protein and non-starchy veggies.

That way you have ample room for the extra carbs come evening, and you haven’t overloaded with fats (because you know you have a carb-bomb coming at night).

If done right, the total number of calories you consume will be on point without restricting a food you love. We have plenty of clients that can eat pasta every week, even when trying to lose a lot of weight. Our job isn’t to restrict the foods they love; it’s to adjust everything else.

When it comes to exercise, doing what you love—rather than what you think you have to do—can help you be much more consistent. You don’t need to start doing Instagram-worthy crazy intense workouts. Just try to do more of the activities that you enjoy. Peele asks her clients to think about what they liked doing in as a kid. Did you like riding your bike to school? Playing varsity tennis? Swimming at the YMCA? Whatever it is, start there.

“I’ll even ask if people like Wii or standing video games,” she says. “Whatever it is, I’ll try to help them work that into their daily norm, and then make it a habit.”

Question 2: What do you want to achieve?

Are you trying to lose weight or gain it? Build muscle or maintain the body you have? Knowing what you want to achieve is an important part of picking a diet.

The first step: use the SMART technique to simplify the process. Different industries have different interpretations, but here’s what you need to know:

1. Specify your goal: What is it that you’re trying to do? Weight loss is not specific enough. It might be that you’re trying to lose 15 pounds in 6 months.
2. How are you going to measure your goal? This could be: I will weight myself every 2 weeks. You need to be able to measure progress, but don’t do it in a way that will drive you crazy or cause you to jump off the plan. Just remember, weight can be deceiving, so it’s good to have a few different ways to measure. For instance, if you weight stayed the same but you lost inches and your body fat decreased, that means you lost fat (and probably a lot of it). Make sure you know what success looks like (and it might be different than what you expect).
3. Make it actionable. In other words, don’t make the barrier to achievement too high. This means that your actions could change over the term of the goal. The action might start with weekly check-ins with a coach, or use an app to help you succeed, or just making sure you eat protein each and every day. The action does matter. What does, is that you do it, repeatedly, and it feels easy.
4. Who will keep you responsible? Accountability is a big part of dietary success because change is hard. It’s OK to admit that because it’s hard for everyone. Don’t leave it up to you alone to have success. Whether you follow a plan with a friend (even if you are both doing something different) or set reminders in your phone (something I do for all new habits), build a system that has a safety net.
5. Time: Set realistic goals so that you don’t get easily discouraged. Healthy weight loss oftentimes means just 1-2 pounds per week. This doesn’t seem like much, but if you applied it to your goal of 15 pounds in 6 months, you would end up being successful far in advance. This is important because most goals aren’t unrealistic, they just follow broken timelines. Weight loss will always have built in plateaus. So it’s important to play the law of averages. Some weeks you might lose 5 pounds, and other weeks you might stand still. So if you apply the law of averages, you can know that you’re staying on track in the big picture. It’s why we don’t freak out when we have a week where the scale doesn’t change. If we have a month where it doesn’t change (or body fat doesn’t change or measurements), then we have to make adjustments.

Beyond the strategy, a good place to start is calculating how many calories you burn every day. (Using a fitness tracker or app like MyFitnessPal can help. And don’t worry: this isn’t something you have to do long term. All of our clients have a choice if they want to track or not, but this can help set you on the right path) Next, think about whether you’re currently losing, gaining, or maintaining weight. From there, you can start making adjustments to your diet.  

For example, if you burn 1,800 calories a day without working out, try cutting out an extra 200 calories—say, a serving of rice—from your dinner. That might not sound like much, but Peele says that it’s a mistake to do something drastic—like cutting your calories down to 1,500 while starting a new workout that will net you a 2,300-calorie burn.

“You can keep your calories about the same or deduct just a little,” says Peele. “This way, you aren’t making very aggressive changes that you can’t stick to. You’re just making a logical shift. It may not be sexy, but it really works.”

Question 3: What are your lifestyle preferences?

Now that you know your goal, have anticipated some of the challenges you’re going to face in achieving it, and what you have to have occasionally along the way, it’s time to get started. Here is how you can find the best diet plan for your lifestyle…and make it stick.

Forget superfoods or so-called diet secrets. Focus on sustainability and consistency.

Violate either and success drops significantly.

The Best Diet Plan for…Carb-Lovers

First, remember that there’s nothing wrong with eating bread or pasta. It’s just about how much you’re eating relative to everything else. We’ve talked about how adjusting your carbs (and the amount of fat you eat) throughout the rest of the day can create leeway to enjoy more carb-heavy meals like pasta.

Another helpful tool is what we call the “Good/Better/Best” continuum. It’s a hierarchy you can use to make upgrades with just about any type of food.

For example, if you’re someone who loves eating bread, you could think of white bread as level 1 (“good”). Trade up to 100% whole wheat bread and you’re at level 2 (“better”). Trade again up to a sprouted whole grain bread like Ezekiel, and you’re at level 3 (“best”).

These sort of switches won’t reduce your calorie intake. But they are a pathway into eating more nutrient-dense foods. Those additional nutrients might provide additional satiety (the feeling of fullness), which may ultimately help you eat a little less.

Notice the terminology, though. White bread is not bad. That’s not a typo. It’s not nutrient dense, so it doesn’t carry many health benefits and won’t fill you up like the other variations that are loaded with things like fiber. But it also won’t instantly pack on pounds. This is an important distinction and something that is overlooked too often.

Making more substitutions for the “best” version doesn’t mean you have to completely go without the “good” versions.

If you’re a carb-lover, find one meal per day that you’re likely to indulge in more of the “good” carb options. This might be pancakes at lunch, a sandwich at lunch, or pasta at dinner. And you can change the meal you emphasize each day. Then, the rest of your meals should consist of lean proteins (whether fish, meat, chicken, plant-based sources, or other), vegetables, fruit, and some fats like nuts, seeds, or olive oil.

This will provide daily flexibility so that you’re never too far on the restriction side but still build the good habits (more protein and vegetables, for example) that are the foundation of any successful diet plan.

The Best Diet Plan for…Nighttime Eaters

Yes, it’s true. Eating at night does not mean you will pack on pounds. And for some, it’s actually ideal.

Your job isn’t to eat on someone else’s schedule, it’s to eat by when you’re hungry. It’s something that all of our coaches preach to their clients. After all, many people wake up in the morning and say that they never feel hungry, but are craving food at night. And many others get up and feel famished, but don’t desire as much in the evening. Both “craving” cycles can be satisfied with completely different approaches.

If you’re a night time eater, here’s what you can do:

1) Don’t stress over breakfast. You don’t have to eat if you’re not hungry. Eating breakfast has no direct effect on weight loss, and a recent study showed that when a group of women who weren’t eating breakfast took up the morning meal, they simply gained weight (from the higher caloric intake). And you don’t have to worry about whether that’s somehow going to adversely affect your metabolism for the rest of the day. It doesn’t. Breakfast is a preference. It works for some but doesn’t work for others. 

2) Work on shifting your calories toward the nighttime. If do you wake up and want breakfast, you can still enjoy the meal, but cut the portion in half and leave the rest of those calories for your evening meal. You can do the same thing with lunch. Less in the middle of the day leaves you more room to dig in at night.

The bottom line? Don’t be afraid to eat at night. The timing of your eating matters less than the total amount you eat. If you’re eating a lot of food toward the end of the day, but not exceeding your targeted total for the day, then you’re doing fine.

The Best Diet Plan for…The Snacker

For years, the grazing method (eating 5-6 smaller meals or snacks) was all the rage because of theories about how it would boost your metabolism. Those theories turned out to be misleading but snacking and smaller meals still work. The key to effective snacking is making sure that you are in control of how much you eat (the size of “snacks” has nearly tripled in size in the last 20 years) and making sure that you are eating when you’re hungry, and not just because you feel like you need to sneak in another meal.

Some people snack because they are legitimately hungry and prefer to eat smaller portions spaced throughout the day. But other people fall victim to snacking triggers like frustration or boredom. So your first step is to examine what’s setting off your snack attacks.

If you’re a compulsive eater who’s more likely to chow down simply when you’re bored, one approach could be to steer clear of having a lot of pre-packed foods on hand. Peele recommends buying raw foods. This way, you’ll have to go out of your way to cook them if you want to indulge.

Meanwhile, if you’re someone who gets hungry often and does well with having several smaller meals throughout the day, then protein may be your friend. Research shows that snackers who switched to high-protein foods lost more body fat. Brian Murray — a head coach at Born Fitness — chalks it up to satiety.

“If you give someone a snack that’s more protein-dense then let them sit there for a little while, they’ll generally be fine with a smaller portion,” Murray says. “If you give someone a bag of chips, which can total in at 1,000 calories, it’s possible that they’re going to make their way through the whole thing.” You can make some high-protein snacks like PB&J Protein Snack Balls and have them ready when you need them.

The Best Diet Plan for…The Sugar-Lover

If you have a sweet tooth, you have several ways to help satisfy your needs (or break the habit, if you so choose). As you’ll see, they aren’t all mutually exclusive, so you could use elements of each.

Option #1: “Eliminate.” Peele gives her clients this rule—you can only eat sweets outside of the house. This means you can enjoy that slice of key lime pie with your friend, but you can’t buy a carton of ice cream and stash it in the fridge. Out-of-sight, out-of-mind—or at least, out of easy access.

But what if you’re not able to eliminate all of the sugars and sweets from your house? Perhaps you share your living environment, or you entertain a lot and have sweet snacks on hand as a result. If that’s you, consider…

Option #2: Reduce. Buy smaller-size portions of the packaged sweets you have on hand. The smaller size helps enforce portion control. “Think about a gallon of ice cream,” Murray says. “If you wanted to, you could get pretty far through it. But if you eat one 200-calorie chocolate bar, in the grand scheme of things that’s not really a big deal.”

Murray says this approach can also be helpful for people who get chocolate cravings, which can take on an almost addictive-like quality.

Option #3: is Replace. Can you swap your favorite guilty pleasure with something that hits on the same nodes in terms of flavor and texture? “This is why I love shakes and smoothies,” says Murray, a self-confessed former ice cream craver. But instead of turning to Ben & Jerry when a craving strikes, he whips up a protein shake with lots of ice. It feels ice-cream-esque, but with way fewer calories and more satiating protein. Or you can go with a long-time Born Fitness favorite: protein ice cream.

The Best Diet Plan for…The Busy Lifestyle

Let’s say you’re working two jobs, or you’re a mom who’s on the go from dawn to dusk. You don’t have time to cook once Monday morning rolls around. What you need is something healthy, that you can make relatively quickly, and then turn to over and over again throughout the week.

In this case, spending just a little bit of your weekend on meal prep can help set you up for success throughout the week. Pick one or two recipes that you cook once but can enjoy several times. “Eggs on-the-go,” which is basically a souffle of eggs and veggies, are an option you may like. And making them is easy. You simply chop up the ingredients, bake them in the oven, then store them in the fridge. Now you have a high-protein meal ready whenever you need it. We created a guide for simple meal prep, which you can follow here.

If meal prep isn’t your thing, you can strategically make bigger portions and turn every meal into 2 meals. When you make dinner at night, double down on the portion size. Before you even serve the food, take half, and then store it in your fridge. This becomes your lunch for the next day. And these meals don’t have to be complex. Think simple meals — like fajitas — where you grill or sauté some vegetables, add a source of protein, and you’re good to go.

You may also find food delivery services helpful, but they can be expensive.  

Whatever your struggle, when you build a diet to fit your life (rather than trying it the other way around), you’re in the driver’s seat on the road to positive change. That alone can make a huge difference. “Once you feel like you have control over the outcome—that it’s not just up to the whims of the diet gods—that’s when you’ll stop feeling stuck,” says Peele.

READ MORE: 

Want to Burn More Calories? Add This to Your Fat Loss Plan

Winning the War on Hunger: Practical Solutions to Overeating

Breakfast is Not the Most Important Meal of the Day

Adam Bornstein

Adam Bornstein is a New York Times bestselling author and the author of You Can’t Screw This Up. He is the founder of Born Fitness, and the co-founder of Arnold’s Pump Club (with Arnold Schwarzenegger) and Pen Name Consulting. An award-winning writer and editor, Bornstein was previously the Chief Nutrition Officer for Ladder, the Fitness and Nutrition editor for Men’s Health, Editorial Director at LIVESTRONG.com, and a columnist for SHAPE, Men’s Fitness, and Muscle & Fitness. He’s also a nutrition and fitness advisor for LeBron James, Cindy Crawford, Lindsey Vonn, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. According to The Huffington Post, Bornstein is “one of the most inspiring sources in all of health and fitness.” His work has been featured in dozens of publications, including The New York Times, Fast Company, ESPN, and GQ, and he’s appeared on Good Morning America, The Today Show, and E! News.

The post The Best Diet Plan Myth (And How to Find What Works For You) appeared first on Born Fitness.