The statement is so simple and common, and yet merely telling someone to not stuff their face as often is also incredibly wrong.

Sure, if you eat less you’re likely to lose some weight and it’s an important part of the process. But saying “eat less” obviously isn’t that simple, and it’s those instructions alone that do plenty of damage.

With dieting it’s more effective to win at a smaller game than to lose at a bigger game.

The reason is in the process it takes to do so. Eating less usually means changing habits, such as what you eat, when you eat, or how much you stress about each and every meal. So eating less really isn’t just eating less; it’s making more decisions that trigger a series of reactions.

It’s those reactions where fat loss usually fails. It’s the rules, poor decisions, and demonizing of certain foods that make simple concept (eat less) the reason why people generally hate diets.

Tell someone not to eat a burger, and they might believe that removing one food they love will trigger weight loss. The truth: that removal will do more harm than good, especially when you realize that burgers (or really any food) can be a part of an effective diet plan.

Instead, the most effective diet programs don’t settle for cliches (eat less, move more), or even scapegoats (gotta be the carbs, right?), instead it’s about simplifying the lifestyle factors that make it easier to understanding how fat loss works.

That’s a real ingredient that is most often overlooked, and the backbone of Fat Loss Happens on Monday, a new book by Josh Hillis. If you want to take a new and more effective approach to weight loss, here are just a few of the principles that will make the process more doable and less of a headache.

Fat Loss Nutrition: Time to Choose

On of the biggest issues with most plans is the inflexibility. Quite simply, you have too many rules that force you to take a plan that doesn’t really fit how you eat and live.

A smarter approach is to look at your day-to-day habits and the build the plan around you, since making a diet fit your life is a big part of making sure it’s successful. Let’s take on of the most common problems as an example: your most difficult meal

The Problem: Mealtimes and Obstacles

Despite the surge in snacking behavior, most people still base their days around the concept of eating three meals per day.

Let’s say Bill has a hard time figuring out how to “get time for breakfast”, which becomes problematic because he repeatedly blows his lunch because he’s starving by the time he gets there. (Sounds familiar, right?)

Or Amy might feel breakfast and lunch are easy because she has a routine, but the wheels come off the wagon at dinner.

And Suzy might have no problem with breakfast and dinner, but work meetings often run through lunch and that’s where she struggles.

All of these three clients have very different issues hitting their meal plan, and it would be silly for each of them to work on the same thing.

At the same time, they all feel like they are “failing at fat loss” and they go searching for another diet, another superfood, another magic workout. But another diet or workout isn’t going to solve the issues they have with food.

Essentially, all of their issues are strategy issues.  They need to play the game of making the “problem meal” work.

Don’t Make Lists, Simplify The Changes

The first step to making realistic change is narrowing the focus of which mealtime to fix.

The easiest approach is to start with the meal that causes the most trouble, rather than trying to solve every meal. (Hint, you should do that for yourself right now).

And then you choose – how many meals do you want to take on next week?

The mindset is simple: you want to create your own fat loss game each and every week. It’s a s simple challenge.
Which meal time do you want to go to work on?
How many meals do you want to work on?

Maybe Suzy is really confident she can follow the plan.  She chooses: “I’m going to crush five lunches next week.”

And then the process begins. Suzy would take her day planner, look at her meetings, and plan what to do — strategically — to make that happen.

Maybe on meeting days when she can’t take a lunch, she brings two snacks to eat at her desk. Or on days when her lunch just gets pushed back, she brings a substantial mid-morning snack to get her through to the late lunch.

The point is, it’s not about a new diet or workout, and it’s not a willpower thing. It’s a matter of looking ahead to see the roadblocks that always come up, and handling them ahead of time.

Maybe Bill is working on breakfast, but he absolutely can’t see any way to make breakfast work because he never has time. So instead of mastery, the focus just becomes on achieving one good breakfast for the week.

Instead of solving a massive issues that’s always been an issue, now the focus is clear: How do I eat one good breakfast? And what are the barriers?

Usually the problems become clear: no breakfast foods in the house, no time in the morning, no ability to cook.

So you try to make adjustments for the reasons you struggle with food. Instead of planning in lunches in a calendar, Bill would be making time to go to the grocery store, or setting his clock 30 minutes earlier to wake up and have time to eat. These are lifestyle adjustments that help change behavior.

For Bill, because these are big changes he’s only focusing on that one meal.  He’s putting all of his willpower and discipline and energy and planning into winning at that one meal – and he doesn’t have to worry about the rest of the week’s meals or workouts or anything else besides that one meal.

It might not seem like much, but this is where long term fat loss begins.

It’s Not About Perfect, It’s About A Change You Can Make

That’s another reason that you get to choose how big of a change you make — because you want to know you can win at it.

For the one person, changing five meals could feel totally doable, if she had a plan. For the other, changing one meal seemed really big, and would also take a plan.

Is one better than the other?  Not at all.

If they both win at the games they chose for themselves, then they’re moving forward. It doesn’t matter if you win at 1 meal next week or 5. What matters is that you choose a game that is going to forward your goals, and you win at it.

With dieting it’s more effective to win at a smaller game than to lose at a bigger game.

It’s no different than the Tipping Point theory. But the difference here is you make up the game, so it’s your job to create a world where you know you can win.

Then, after you win the game one week you can create a new game for next week. And continue on focusing on winning one game at a time.

The 4-Step Plan to Fat Loss Nutrition

If you’re just getting started or hit a roadblock, here’s a 4-step plan you can follow to help on the path to fat loss success.

1. Choose which meal you are going to work on next week — breakfast, lunch, or dinner .  (Depending on your situation, you might even get more specific — dinners out, lunch when I have to work a double, ect.)
2. Choose how many meals you are going to take on upgrading next week — One? Three? Five?  (Whatever you do, take on a number you are confident you can win.)
3. Do the planning – work backwards from the meal(s), figuring out what you need to do differently this week. Be strategic about the roadblocks that always throw you off for that meal.
4. Avoid distraction. This week, don’t stress about your workouts or the rest of the meals you eat, just nail the meal(s) you are working on this week. You can always expand or change what you are working on next week. But for this week, just focus on the one thing that you choose.

This could be a completely different way of looking at fat loss from anything you’ve seen before. It’s simple, reasonable, and doable.  Hopefully, it almost seems too simple.

If you stack up little wins every week you’re going to be shocked at the impact these “little wins” have on your leanness and scale weight over the next couple months.

READ MORE: 

6 Exercise Upgrades for Better Results

Winning the War on Hunger: Practical Solutions to Overeating

Eating at Night Does Not Make You Fat

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 A New Approach To Fat Loss Nutrition appeared first on Born Fitness.

There’s research, case studies, and even a few stats that look great on paper. There’s only one problem.

The weight loss hypothesis and overstated claims aren’t accurate. Many people want to know how to lose weight. But that’s much different from “how to lose fat.” Or more importantly, how to maintain that fat loss for the long-term.

Any book or program that highlights one food as the root of all problems is oversimplifying how weight gain works.

While there are plenty of reasons to remove grains from your diet (in fact, it’s something I do with coaching clients who need the adjustment), eating grains does not have a direct effect on weight loss and fat gain.

Or maybe more importantly: wheat and grains are not the cause of obesity.

These food sources do not automatically make you gain weight. And the removal of grains  (or carbs, fat that matter) doesn’t remove the laws of thermodynamics or the role of calories.

You see, if there’s one attribute that I’m universally disliked for it’s my somewhat agnostic approach towards nutrition. I’ve been in too many research labs, read too many studies, and worked with too many clients to ignore an undeniable truth: many diet approaches work for fat loss, muscle gain, and general health. From low carb diets to high carb diets–I’ve seen both more.

Why? Because there isn’t a single “cause” of fat gain.

It’s why the played out “eat less, move more” just doesn’t work as actionable advice that leads to better results.

And it’s not just opinion. Scientists have literally created a battle royale of diets, pitting one against the other, only to find out that…surprise!…there’s more than one way to drop pounds. Many diets work. That’s a scientific fact.

Create a diet that primarily (but not exclusively) consists of real foods (think proteins, fruits, vegetables, nuts, and yes, even grains) and you can lose weight and be healthy.

So after reading Wheat Belly and other similar demonizations of wheat, I was beyond frustrated with the overgeneralized claim that has scared many people into unnecessary wheat-less eating habits with the misguided belief that it offers weight loss magic.

But the recent influx of clients who have reached out about how they removed grains and gained weight has reached critical mass. And while it’s not my preference to undress the work of others, there is a social responsibility to help you make choices that make it easier to lose weight and enjoy eating.

Wheat Doesn’t Make You Fat: The Proof

To make a point about grains and weight loss, I’m going to do something I’ve never done before on this site: share a shirtless picture of myself.

I’m not a fan of playing the body image game, so why share now? To make a point that the over-generalized wheat hypothesis just doesn’t make sense.

If you’re going to make a blanket statement such as, “wheat makes you fat,” then disproving that theory would be pretty easy. If you have examples of people that eat wheat and aren’t fat, then we can’t apply the rule universally.

And that’s the issue with wheat and weight loss: any book or program that highlights one food as the root of all problems is oversimplifying how weight gain works. 

Having abs doesn’t make you healthy. But they are a pretty good indictor that you’re not resistant to fat loss.

This picture shows me on a diet where I ate cheesecake once per week. Yes, I was counting macros. And, sure, about 80 to 90 percent of what I ate was in the form of vegetables, fruits, proteins. Did I mention I also ate grains every day?

By this association, I should conclude that adding cheesecake to your diet once per week results in abs, right?

Obviously that sounds insane and isn’t true. But it’s the same style of reasoning that leads a researcher like Dr. Davis to say, “I have clients who removed wheat and lost weight. Wheat must be the problem.”

The point here is not that removing wheat is ineffective. Instead it’s that we can’t definitively draw a cause-and-effect conclusion that wheat causes weight gain.

Not only because the wheat hypothesis lacks proof to suggest that with certainty, but also because there are far too many case studies of people who do eat wheat and can lose weight.

Take the picture above. During that time of the above picture, this was my diet.

As you can see, wheat and grains were a prominent part of what I consumed every day. Eventually I achieved sub 10-percent body fat following this plan. And it’s not because I did anything special or removed any particular food.

I ate well, I exercised hard, and I was extremely patient with the process.

That’s not to say that people don’t have wheat allergies or sensitivities. Those are real and can be problematic.

Gut health can play a role in weight loss, and we continue to research and learn about the microbiome. And I do believe that many people can benefit from removing or limiting grains. 

But that does not mean grains cause weight gain or prevent you from dropping fat.

Whether it’s wheat, or gluten, or dairy, or carbs, or fat, the finger-pointing at the “cause” of weight gain must end.

I also have many clients who wanted to eat wheat and were terrified about removing some of their favorite foods. We made sure that their diets were not devoid of carb sources. Here are their “wheat bellies.”

The Science of Fat Loss: The Only Undeniable Truth

Selecting a diet based on blind removal of a food group can lead to weight loss. But that should be a choice that matches your lifestyle, not one that is done on undeserving faith that any food possessing a magical “weight gain” gene.

And just because an adjustment in a diet leads to weight loss doesn’t mean that altered variable is the cause of weight gain. 

If you want to remove wheat because it’s not something you enjoy or eat often, then do it.

If you have reason to believe (medically) that wheat is a problem for your digestive system, then make the adjustment.

Or if you feel better not eating grains, then you should alter your diet and do what works best for you.

But don’t believe that any one food–especially one that is “natural” and is has numerous studies suggesting health benefits–is suddenly problematic.

In the end, any diet that suggests absolute certainty on a topic and doesn’t even acknowledge other possibilities is just delivering more hype, which is likely to lead to long- term frustration.

Is Wheat Your Problem?

If you’re interested in why wheat is not the cause of weight gain (as well as other research claims), click here for a full review that analyzes all of the research presented in Wheat Belly. Unraveling the truth about wheat and weight loss.

READ MORE: 

Wheat Belly Deception: Understanding Wheat, Insulin, and Fat Loss

Do Carbs Actually Make You Fat?

Why Weights are Better Than Cardio for Fat Loss

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 Grains and Weight Loss (A Twisted Relationship) appeared first on Born Fitness.

Many of those opinions were sparked by a University of Massachusetts medical school study that found people who routinely skipped breakfast had a significantly higher incidence of obesity than those who ate eggs and an English muffin.

It’s helpful information, but not a black-and-white issue. Just because one meal is good doesn’t mean others are bad. It’s something I’ve discussed many times.

Your body isn’t on a 24-hour clock. Weight loss and fat gain do not occur in a vacuum.

Yet, somehow the importance of breakfast was translated by many as, “Eating at night will make you fat.” That was perpetuated by many celebs claiming that once they dropped late night eating the pounds simply disappeared. [Somehow 6 pm and 7pm became the magic hour to end your late-night eating.]

While a life of early dinners and not late night carbs sounds about as enjoyable as a swift kick to the face, fortunately for you, the fear of late night eating is misguided.

Whether it’s real life examples of people that enjoy massive late meals or research from scientists all over the world, one thing is clear: when you have your meals does not directly influence weight gain.

Don’t misunderstand that message. If skipping breakfast causes you to binge the rest of the day, then breakfast is the right option for you.

Or if more food at night sends you straight to your snack pantry, you want to be mindful of your late night eating.

These are both behavioral triggers and dependent on your reactions to eating patterns. Just as you can be perfectly healthy and skip breakfast every day, you can also be lean, fit, and energized by having your biggest meal at night.

“Don’t Eat After 6 pm:” The Nighttime Fat Loss Myth

If you’re serious about changing your body, a little bit of freedom can go a long way. The one thing almost everyone hates about “dieting” are the rules. Fewer rules mean less restriction, which results in more freedom to eat how you would prefer and a higher likelihood of staying on a plan for a longer period of time.

Why does this matter? Because consistency and patience are probably the two most important aspects of any diet and fitness program that no one ever discusses.

Those 4-week programs? Lots of hype.

The 7-day juice cleanse and weight loss? Smoke and mirrors.

Want to stop the yo-yo cycle? Stop searching for quick fixes and start applying things that you can do for the long term that don’t make you miserable.

And for most people this would include late night eating.

Do you have more breakfast meetings or more dinner parties? Do you prefer drinks at night or in the morning? Eating at night is essential component of the social fabric of our society. And living in a world where you can’t eat at night and can’t enjoy food with your friends and family is too restrictive. It’s a reason why so many people hate dieting.

While the foods you eat are very important, as is the quality, you can’t discount calories. To quote renowned nutritionist Alan Aragon, “Your body does not store more fat more readily at night than at other times during the day.”

Your body’s ability to gain weight is mainly about what you eat and how much, not when you eat.

Your body isn’t on a 24-hour clock. What counts is whether you burn more calories than you ingest over time. Weight loss and fat gain do not occur in a vacuum.

Science Says: Late Night Eating Does Not Make You Fat

Researchers from Israel wanted to test whether eating more at night actually led to more weight gain. What they found wasn’t exactly groundbreaking if it wasn’t for the overplayed idea that eating after 6 or 7 pm will make you fat.

In the 6-month study, the scientists compared people who ate their largest meal at breakfast to those who ate their largest meal at dinner (8 p.m. or later). The participants who satisfied their late-night munchies not only lost more fat, they also experienced more fullness throughout the entire 6 months and saw more favorable changes to their fat loss hormones.

Consider some of the impressive findings. Compared to the morning eaters, those who ate at night:

• Had less hunger cravings and were more satisfied with their meals
• Lost 11 percent more weight
• Had a 10 percent greater change in abdominal circumference
• Lost a whopping 10.5 percent more body fat

Let’s not take this too far. That’s not to say you must eat your biggest meal at night. That’s not what the study showed. But it did offer evidence that late night eating isn’t the weight gain villain.

What’s more, a study conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture also showed some convincing evidence for nighttime feasts. When dieters ate 70 percent of their calories after 7 p.m. compared to earlier in the day, they preserved muscle mass and lost more body fat. 

Is Late Night Eating for You?

My job is to help people discover what works best for their body. That means understanding behavior as well as the science of fat loss and muscle gain.

Many people eat at night out of boredom or other emotions instead of hunger, and they wind up consuming more calories than they need for the day. Again, you can’t forget that calories matter. And so do personality and behavioral triggers.

Nighttime eaters typically bust past their calorie goal, which leads to fat storage. But that doesn’t mean your body processes food differently at different times of day, particularly at night. However, if one meal turns into three, then you have a problem.

What’s more, while eating carbs at night can potentially help you sleep, it could also mean less rest. If you’re up eating…and eating…and eating, then that means you’re not sleeping.

If you’ve ever experienced a stressful week at work or in your home, you know that a lack of sleep appears to instantly add pounds to the scale.

And researchers from Wake Forest University discovered why: Too much or too little shut-eye might lead directly to weight gain. People who slept 5 hours or less each night gained nearly 2.5 times more abdominal fat than those who logged 6 to 7 hours.

People with sleep deficits tend to eat more (and use less energy) because they’re tired, say the researchers. And if you’re sleep deprived and not just groggy, University of Chicago researchers report that lack of sleep can torpedo weight loss by slowing your metabolism, increasing your appetite, and decreasing the number of calories you burn.

Meaning you have two options:

1. If you can control the late night meals and not allow it to keep you up, then feast away, sleep better at night, and watch as you don’t balloon and feel more in control.
2. If you know that one big late night meal will open the flood gates and find you in the fridge still snacking at 2 am, then bigger nighttime meals might not be the best idea.

Whatever you choose, know that the best option for you has much more to do about lifestyle preferences and behavioral triggers than the fear of eating at a particular time or consuming a type of food. Just as eating at night isn’t a problem, making the meal full of carbs–as long as it fits into your daily allotment–also won’t automatically transform into fat.

Like most absolute diet rules, it’s just another myth meant to offer an incredible promise that only promises to drive you crazy.

End Your Health Confusion

Tired of bad and misleading health information? You’re not alone. Learn what workouts and diet will work for your body, and how to have a personalized, risk-free assessment.

READ MORE: 

Breakfast is Not the Most Important Meal of the Day

Big Meals vs. Small Snacks: What’s Best For You?

Healthy Fat: Which Foods Should You Really Be Eating?

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 Eating At Night Does Not Make You Fat appeared first on Born Fitness.

We’ve been here before. That place where you’re told weight loss isn’t your fault. That there’s a new (gluten free, dairy free, carb free, cookie-filled) approach that is the solution to all your problems. And that this time it will be different.

Welcome to dieting déjà vu.

You know it well because you’ve seen script more often than your extended family. You’re unhappy with your body, so you make a change. To your excitement, you see benefits and progress.

But then it all stops.

The fat loss switch is stuck on “off.” So you try to force it back on. You make bigger changes–cut more calories, do more cardio, eat fewer carbs…and then even fewer carbs–and still nothing happens.

You rebel, revolt, and eventually retire assuming nothing will work.

And then you return wanting to make a change and looking for a new solution.

Hello, fat loss. Remember me?

It gets old, tired, and frustrating. So maybe it’s time you try something new.

Hello, fat loss. Screw you.

Let’s make one thing clear: Dieting sucks. I’m not saying dieting doesn’t work (because it does), but the concept is no fun.

Whether we like it or not, we all follow a diet. So let’s stop focusing on the meaningless word and start fixing what really matters.

Seeing awesome results.

I don’t care who you are; this is all that really matters. When you change the way you eat and exercise you’re doing it with the intention of looking better, feeling better, and improving your health.

So what stand between where you are now (desiring change) and where you want to be (seeing progress)?

It’s not popular but part of the problem is a lack of patience; fat loss is not magic. You didn’t put the weight on overnight, and it sure isn’t melting off. But worse: fat loss is a slower process than fat gain.

Instead of adding more and more cardio and eating less and less food, eliminating common mistakes and myths from the equation can lead to more consistent results, instead of teasing promise followed by no progress. When it’s done right, you never find yourself back in that familiar place.

Weight Loss: Without the Hype

The general question isn’t how will I lose weight or what do I need to do. Instead it’s, “How will this time be any different?”

That’s because you’ve become conditioned to expect diets to fail.

Much of the diet and fitness advice you need is overplayed, overhyped, and inaccurate. You are taking pieces of information and trying to create a Frankenstein approach to your body.

That crap doesn’t work.

At some point you start making excuses because of constant roadblocks: Bad genetics, a hectic work schedule, and the typical Sunday football menu of burgers, wings, and beer (the same way the dating excuses line up, Seinfeld-style, like “she eats peas with a fork,” “she’s a low-talker,” etc.). The reality? The excuses are a bunch of bull. The techniques are filled with half-truths.

Here’s something most programs don’t tell you: Your body is designed to incinerate the hard-to-lose fat. You know those areas as man boobs, love handles, and thunder thighs.

But the real problem is that you’ve been fed a steady diet of misinformation about what your body needs in order to look its best. And radical, dramatic steps are the last things your body needs. You need something more stable and sustainable.

Your body is the most sophisticated natural machine. It burns calories to help you perform all of your daily tasks, like standing up, thinking, and sleeping.

This daily maintenance is called your basal metabolic rate (BMR). Everyone has a BMR, but the bigger you are, the faster your metabolism works. Think about that: The more weight you carry, the better your metabolism.

On the surface, that doesn’t make sense. After all, skinny people have better metabolisms, right? Well, not exactly. Think about it another way.

Say you have two cars, an Audi and a Hummer. Which needs more fuel? The Hummer does, because it’s much larger and has more demands.

Your body is no different. Everything you do, from powering your heart to helping you move from point A to point B requires energy.

That’s why the larger you are, the harder your body needs to work and the more calories you burn.

Your body wants to be an Audi; you just have to be willing to trade in for a new model.

So how do you become leaner? Surprisingly, it’s the small things that really make the biggest differences. And over time, those tiny changes add up to a lean, toned body.

Consider this a refreshing outlook on your transformation: Your metabolism isn’t holding you back, and your body isn’t hardwired to look a certain way. You can control your ability to lose weight. Simple, small adjustments to your diet, exercise, and other behaviors will make a surprisingly big difference and transform your body.

If you drop the stubborn act and change your strategy based on a few simple guidelines, you can literally switch your body into a fitter, healthier mode—it will burn more calories, build more muscle, and you’ll look amazing.

Is it Exercise or Diet?

You can’t out-exercise a bad diet. That’s the most important rule of any successful plan.

But a great diet without an exercise plan is incomplete.

Your body needs to be active—both inside and outside the gym. Researchers have found that each 10 percent rise in sedentary time is associated with a 3.1-centimeter increase in the size of your waist.

What’s more, British scientists found that of the subjects they studied, the waist measurements of people who got up most often were more than 2 inches smaller than those of people who got up the least.

Exercise and diet work, so there’s not need to try and create some mathematical formula that determines what percentage of which will determine results. Claims that it’s one or the other is more wishful thinking than reality.

But change starts by realizing extreme behaviors in either are not the solution. After all, that’s where our battle of the bulge went wrong in the first place.

Flash back to 1980s; that’s when dietary fat was identified as the root of all evil and cardio was elevated to the best form of exercise. Next thing you knew, the entire country was gorging on fat-free foods and going on slow jogs.

Fast-forward 30 years and those decades of eating fat-free, sugar-loaded foods have done anything but make us less fat. And all of that long-slow cardio primarily resulted in—you guessed it—long, slow weight loss. That’s not to say cardio is bad. It’s good. But it’s application to weight loss must be smarter.

Louisiana State University researchers found that the average number of calories burned during exercise dropped by 100 calories during the past 20 years, even though people were spending more time in the gym.

So it should come as no surprise that the prevailing “best” approach to fat loss resulted in obesity rates skyrocketing to all-time highs. But more importantly, it left you more frustrated than ever.

You’ve probably heard this speech before. So before you hit the BS-button on your iPad, consider that for once you’re dealing with a more realistic approach to your body.

New Plan, New You

Hard bodies don’t come from your local supplement store. If they did, we’d all look the way we want. Unfortunately, we’ve all tried the do-whatever-it-takes approach to losing weight. Not only does that lead to a shortage of cash, it also bends our will.

In fact, a UCLA study notes that nearly 70 percent of people don’t believe that exercise and diet can help them lose weight. That’s a scary number for a nation that’s already losing the battle against obesity.

So it’s no wonder scientists estimate that the obesity trend won’t slow down until the year 2050. And by that time, it’s estimated that nearly half the country will be overweight. Do you want to be a statistic or the one who reverses the trend?

The Weight Training Advantage

It might sound surprising, but you don’t need to exercise to lose fat. You can shed your unwanted pounds by making sure you eat fewer calories than you burn. (This should show you the importance of a good diet.)

However, if you avoid exercise, you won’t retain as much muscle, which means it’ll be harder for you eliminate your beer gut and have flat, sexy abs. You can lose weight without exercise, but if you don’t retain or build muscle, your metabolism won’t be as efficient, which means you’ll have to eat even less food to see the same results.

You can do better than that: A sensible exercise program will help stoke your metabolism, which will help you burn more fat, which will help reveal your six pack. You’re reconditioning your body as a metabolic engine.

When you add resistance training to your routine, it can speed up the weight loss process by making your muscles more efficient fat-burning furnaces.

What’s more, it’s also good for your bone health and cardiovascular health, as well as optimizing glucose control so your body processes carbohydrates better.

Plus, in addition to sculpting your abs, you’ll build definition in your entire body and be able to eat more food. If you’re just losing pound but look the same, usually this means you’re not weight training or eating enough.

Doing both is the key to eliminating fat and building muscle—as opposed to just losing weight. That’s the real key to looking like you have a new body, rather than just seeing a different number on the scale. Resistance training burns calories during your sessions and stimulates your metabolism afterward.

Weight training is designed to provide faster results with less time in the gym. Not only do you have to work out fewer times per week (you’d be shocked what you can do in just 3-4 workouts per week) you’ll also have shorter sessions.

That’s because intensity is much more important than duration for eliminating fat. So you can spend a fraction of the time in the gym and still kiss your tummy good-bye. In fact, research has shown that 8 to 12 minutes of intense intervals can burn as many calories as 25 to 30 minutes of constant moderate exertion exercise.

Does that mean you only need to exercise for 8 to 12 minutes to see your abs?

Unfortunately, no.

But don’t be surprised when you spend less time on the cardio machines, pick up a few dumbbells, have less time in the gym and suddenly don’t even recognize your own body.

Is it the Carbs?

In a word, no.

Your belly comes from eating too many unused calories. If you overeat, you’ll store fat, regardless of what foods those calories come from.

The leanest and healthiest populations on the planet typically eat more carbs than protein or fat. Controlling weight gain is more about total calorie balance than any particular food.

Now, that said, some people find it easier to control their weight when they reduce or avoid carb-heavy foods that they have a tendency to overindulge in. And some people have sensitivities to processed grains and gluten, which make the fat loss process more difficult. But if you can control your intake and don’t have sensitivities, enjoy the carbs. The best way to prevent overeating is to make sure most of your carbs come from raw fruits and vegetables, while leaving a small portion for desserts.

How Often You Eat Doesn’t Matter (Too Much)

Your meals are like the sports teams you represent: It’s all personal preference and don’t let anyone else dump on your choice. Some people do great with a grazing pattern, while others prefer more substantial meals with less frequency.

But there’s a catch:

When people are eating fewer calories than they’re used to, they tend to prefer eating two to three larger meals rather than four to six small ones throughout the day.

As for more frequent meals being better for your metabolism? That’s just a myth that’s been recently disproved by science.

Canadian researchers proved this in 2010 when they compared folks eating three meals versus six meals and found no difference in participants’ fat loss when the exact same foods were consumed.

Fat Is Part of the Plan

There’s no need to avoid any particular type of fat, except for partially hydrogenated vegetable oils, which contain the harmful type of trans fat. Recent research has shown that saturated fat is actually good for you and isn’t linked to heart failure or cardiovascular disease.

In fact, your diet probably doesn’t include enough fat (marketers have done a very good job brainwashing us about the benefits of “fat free” versions of manufactured foods, which basically means the salt and sugar content has been boosted to make up for flavor loss).

The standard American diet lacks omega-3 fatty acids, which can be found in fish like salmon and sardines. Aside from that, the majority of the fats you eat should come from whole, minimally processed foods like meats, dairy, eggs, vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, avocados, grains, and olive oil.

Exercise at Work (No Joke)

Get up from your desk as often as you can. A minimum of every half hour, try to at least stand up and stretch, then walk around, take a trip to the restroom, or take a lap around the office, says Aragon.

This process is important because it increases your non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT). Your NEAT plays a big role in the number of calories you burn, so even small movements like fidgeting or tapping your heels can contribute to your overall transformation.

This will also help prevent your desk job from altering your posture, which can play a role in your slowed metabolism (not to mention an aching back!).

Eating is a Key Ingredient of Weight Loss

Here’s something easy to digest: You need to eat to lose. In particular, eat protein in every meal and snack. Focusing on protein fights off hunger and makes your stomach unlikely to bulge since protein is less likely to be stored as fat.

That’s because protein is harder to digest, so you burn more calories just eating the food. This process also helps ensure you eat less. Men who made sure their diet was at least 30 percent protein ate almost 450 calories less per day and lost 11 pounds more than those who ate less protein, according to a study published in Nutrition & Metabolism.

What’s more, British researchers found that emphasizing protein in each meal leaves you feeling fuller, accelerates fat loss, and maintains your muscle mass, which is key to shedding pounds and revealing your most chiseled body ever.

A Little Freedom Goes a Long Way

This doesn’t mean that you have to completely trash all your favorite indulgences, though.

Like anything in life, moderation is the key to finding balance. And lucky for you, it’s very simple to sort out your body’s confusion.

To put your mind and your gullet on the same page, adjust how you eat.

“You don’t need to completely remove processed foods from your diet, but keep them to a maximum of 10 to 15 percent of your daily calories,” says nutritionist Alan Aragon, MS. When you eat more than that, you risk creating a diet that doesn’t provide you with the vitamins, minerals, and nutrients your body needs.

Bottom line: Starving yourself on 1,000 calories or being a slave to diet and exercise isn’t the difference maker. In fact, it’s that obsessiveness that leads you down that vicious cycle instead of closer to the body you want.

Lose Fat…The Realistic Way

A weight loss plan doesn’t have to be a world of false promises and hype. Plenty of people have success, but the difference is that it’s personalized.

Now you can join a proven weight loss program with a personalized component. Sign up for your free consultation call and see how Born Fitness coaching is a personalized approach to all of your diet and fitness needs.

Here you’ll learn how to eat, the type of exercise needed, and the actual plans to point you in the right direction. But unlike a book, it provides real-time support and coaching to answer your questions and guide you to the body you want.

Best of all? The first month is risk free. So if you decide coaching isn’t for you, then you’ll receive your money back.

Click here to learn more about this unique fat loss experience.

READ MORE: 

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

Winning the War on Hunger: Practical Solutions to Overeating

Eating at Night Does Not Make You Fat

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 Fat Loss Mistakes (and How to Lose Weight For Good) appeared first on Born Fitness.

After nearly 15 years of being asked this question, I guess it’s time to provide an answer. But I’ll be honest, I dread when people make this specific request and odds are you won’t like what I have to say.

Most nutrition secrets and the “best diets” are drenched in fear tactics and instant gratification promises that stretch reality. Don’t believe me? Keep reading and you’ll learn how almost every popular diet in the last 20 years is spiked with more than just a little deception.

We need to stop trying to bury individual foods. They are not the problem.

You can build muscle. You can burn fat. And heck, you can do both at the same time while eating wheat… although some might make you believe it’ll automatically blow up your gut no matter who you are.

An easier question is identifying what you shouldn’t do, like making up a “miracle diet” that demonizes foods and claims all that stands between you and the body you desire is dropping that glass of milk from breakfast.

The line between what works and what doesn’t has been erased, and now it’s nearly impossible to see what is real, what is anecdotal, and what has no place in the fitness industry whatsoever.

What’s Real?

Want great results? Eat real food and work hard.

This should go without saying, but these are rarely the answers that anyone wants but they are the only solutions that have survived the test of time.

Want to build muscle fast? Change your expectations of “fast.” Work hard. Eat more. Train consistently. And stay healthy.

Want to know how to lose weight? Eat a majority of your foods from proteins, vegetables, fruits, and healthy fat sources. And yes, I said majority because there is always room for dessert.

I’ve had the honor of interviewing many of the fittest people in the world, and you know what? Most of them eat dessert, and not just on “cheat days.”

You can have your cake and see your abs too — as long as the cake isn’t a daily indulgence.

What’s Anecdotal?

You’re told that carbs will make you fat by skyrocketing insulin. That bread and milk can’t be handled by your body. Gluten was created by Satan. Soy protein will give men boobs. All late-night calories are stored as fat. And eating too much protein will give you kidney problems.

The list goes on and on and on. Are there instances where someone might eat soy and end up with higher estrogen levels? Sure. Does that mean soy causes your testosterone levels to drop? Not if you read the research that shows it’s clearly not the case.

The same can be said about dairy (which is shown to help weight loss, especially in people that need to drop pounds the most), carbs at night (which has research alluding to how they might reduce body fat), and higher protein diets (which don’t harm healthy kidneys).

Most of what makes nutrition and fitness feel like a burden is more hype than help.

Don’t misunderstand the message: Food allergies are real — but only on an individual level. If you’re allergic to lactose, drinking milk is going to be a bad idea. And your stomach will remind you of this over and over again.

Same goes for gluten, eggs, soy, and a variety of other foods trigger reactions in your body in the same way that pollen crushes my sinuses each summer.

But this is where reality ends. We are not suffering a global epidemic of gluten-sensitive, lactose-fearing, kidney-damaged people.

Less than 2 percent of the population has gluten issues. Dairy and milk have been shown — multiple times — to build muscle and help with fat loss. Research at Stanford even suggests that not all organic foods are necessarily more nutritious than non-organic.

We walk a fine line between what we see works in the gym and in the kitchen and what we can prove is actually the truth.

Draw The Line and Enjoy Food

Remember the 1980s when we said “fat” was making people fat? Guess what? We started eating less dietary fat — significantly less, in fact — and the obesity rates skyrocketed. Research even went as far as showing that eating fat wasn’t making us fat , and yet the fear still remains today.

It happened again when we “identified” high fructose corn syrup as the root of all evil. Only HFCS intake didn’t end up being linked to eating more foods or greater weight gain, and we all became fatter. Again. Notice a disturbing trend? We don’t need more diets that claim to be the ultimate solution.

We need to stop trying to bury individual foods. They are not the problem.

Restrictive diets that follow dogmatic approaches and make your life miserable are the enemy.

There’s something special to “do what works for your body.” Just make sure you’re reasoning starts and ends with, “It works for me.”

There’s something dangerous to making over-generalized claims that cause a domino effect of eating behaviors of which we’ll only see the potential dangers down the line. Or even worse — the fear of food and restrictive nature will make people feel like good nutrition is limited, and that living a healthier life is impossible. After all, this is the real reason why so many people are always on and off of diets in a vicious cycle that teaches learned helplessness.

Use new research to question your approach, not define it. And let the basics lead the way.

Most diets share about 90 percent of ideas in common. The other 10 percent cause unnecessary battles.

Instead of fighting about what is “best,” don’t buy into the hype and instead give the diet that sounds good a try.

There are many ways to eat your way to the body you want. The best one for you might not be the ideal fit for your best friend who does something completely different. And guess what? Both approaches might be right. Because in the end, finding what works for you is really all that matters.

Maybe that’s the only “new” message that really needs to spread.

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 Diet or Deception: The Problem With Nutrition Secrets appeared first on Born Fitness.

Each email included my mom’s one-of-a-kind sentiment, and then linked to some study about how a lack of sleep will kill you. Despite my frustration, it’s easy to look back and see why my mom was so concerned. Back then, my typical day looked as follows:

• 5 a.m.: wake up
• 5-6 a.m.: breakfast and homework
• 6-7 a.m.: gym
• 8 a.m. – 4 p.m.: on campus taking classes, teaching classes, holding office hours, doing homework
• 4-6 p.m.: dinner and grading
• 7-11 p.m.: working the sports desk at a newspaper
• 11 p.m. – 1a.m.: homework and sleep

It was a breakneck pace and one that didn’t leave much time for anything, let alone sleep.

And yet, I found a way to function and perform—at least mentally—on a high level. Don’t ask me how; I chalk it up to the fact that the human body has a tremendous ability to adjust and knows when to rise to the occasion.

Only the joke was on me. Surviving on little sleep is not a badge of honor.

All that lost sleep was crushing my body in more ways than I thought. And while I found a way to stay fit while in grad school, it was an exception to the rule.

As I transitioned into my job at Men’s Health I maintained my 3 t0 4 hour sleep cycle and started waking up at 4:30 am to eat a huge breakfast (yes, back then I was a big breakfast eater), and then start my day.

Only a funny thing happened: I started gaining weight (not in a good way). My strength in the gym decreased. And, in general, I started feeling hungry all the time and craving more food.

While I still wake up between 4:30 and 5 am every day, I now prioritize sleep. It’s a topic that has fascinated me for the past 3 to 4 years, and that interest only intensified as I dug deep into the research for Engineering the Alpha.

The importance of sleep is so significant that you could easily argue it’s the most important factor in achieving the body you want. Before you snicker, you might want to take a closer look.

Sleep Controls Your Diet

The debate about the best way to achieve a healthy weight always revolves around eating and movement. If you want to look better, the most common suggestion is “eat less and move more.”

But it’s not that simple, or even accurate.

Sometimes you want to eat less and move more, but it seems impossible to do so. And there might be a good reason: Between living your life, working, and exercising, you’re forgetting to sleep enough. Or maybe, more importantly, you don’t realize that sleep is the key to being rewarded for your diet and fitness efforts.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 35 percent of people are sleep deprived. And when you consider that the statistic for obesity is nearly identical, it’s easy to connect the dots and discover that the connection is not a coincidence.

Not sleeping enough—less than seven hours of sleep per night—can reduce and undo the benefits of dieting, according to research published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

In the study, dieters were put on different sleep schedules. When their bodies received adequate rest, half of the weight they lost was from fat.

However when they cut back on sleep, the amount of fat lost was cut in half—even though they were on the same diet. What’s more, they felt significantly hungrier, were less satisfied after meals, and lacked energy to exercise. Overall, those on a sleep-deprived diet experienced a 55 percent reduction in fat loss compared to their well-rested counterparts.

Poor Sleep Changes Your Fat Cells

Think about the last time you had a bad night of sleep. How did you feel when you woke up? Exhausted. Dazed. Confused. Maybe even a little grumpy?

It’s not just your brain and body that feel that way—your fat cells do too. When your body is sleep deprived, it suffers from “metabolic grogginess.”

The term was coined by University of Chicago researchers who analyzed what happened after just four days of poor sleep—something that commonly happens during a busy week. One late night at work leads to two late nights at home, and next thing you know, you’re in sleep debt.

But it’s just four nights, so how bad could it be? You might be able to cope just fine. After all, coffee does wonders. But the hormones that control your fat cells don’t feel the same way.

Within just four days of sleep deprivation, your body’s ability to properly use insulin (the master storage hormone) becomes completely disrupted. In fact, the University of Chicago researchers found that insulin sensitivity dropped by more than 30 percent.

Here’s why that’s bad: When your insulin is functioning well, fat cells remove fatty acids and lipids from your blood stream and prevent storage.

When you become more insulin resistant, fats (lipids) circulate in your blood and pump out more insulin. Eventually this excess insulin ends up storing fat in all the wrong places, such as tissues like your liver. And this is exactly how you become fat and suffer from diseases like diabetes.

Lack of Rest Makes You Crave Food

Many people believe that hunger is related to willpower and learning to control the call of your stomach, but that’s incorrect. Hunger is controlled by two hormones: leptin and ghrelin.

Leptin is a hormone that is produced in your fat cells. The less leptin you produce, the more your stomach feels empty.

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

Research published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinoloy 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.

If that’s not enough, the scientists discovered exactly how sleep loss creates an internal battle that makes it nearly impossible to lose weight.

When you don’t sleep enough, your cortisol levels rise. This is the stress hormone that is frequently associated with fat gain. Cortisol also activates reward centers in your brain that make you want food.

At the same time, the loss of sleep causes your body to produce more ghrelin. A combination of high ghrelin and cortisol shut down the areas of your brain that leave you feeling satisfied after a meal, meaning you feel hungry all the time—even if you just ate a big meal.

And it gets worse.

Lack of sleep also pushes you in the direction of the foods you know you shouldn’t eat. A study published in Nature Communications found that just one night of sleep deprivation was enough to impair activity in your frontal lobe, which controls complex decision-making.

Ever had a conversation like this?

“I really shouldn’t have that extra piece of cake… then again, one slice won’t really hurt, right?”

Turns out, sleep deprivation is a little like being drunk. You just don’t have the mental clarity to make good complex decisions, specifically with regards to the foods you eat—or foods you want to avoid.

This isn’t helped by the fact that when you’re overtired, you also have increased activity in the amygdala, the reward region of your brain.

This is why sleep deprivation destroys all diets; think of the amygdala as mind control—it makes you crave high-calorie foods.

Normally you might be able to fight off this desire, but because your insular cortex (another portion of your brain) is weakened due to sleep deprivation, you have trouble fighting the urge and are more likely to indulge in all the wrong foods.

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.

The bottom line: Not enough sleep means you’re always hungry, reaching for bigger portions, and desiring every type of food that is bad for you—and you don’t have the proper brain functioning to tell yourself, “No!”

Poor Sleep Weakens Your Workouts

Unfortunately the disastrous impact spreads beyond diet and into your workouts. No matter what your fitness goals are, having some muscle on your body is important.

Muscle is the enemy of fat—it helps you burn fat and stay young. But sleep (or lack thereof) is the enemy of muscle.

Scientists from Brazil found that sleep debt decreases protein synthesis (your body’s ability to make muscle), causes muscle loss, and can lead to a higher incidence of injuries.

Just as important, lack of sleep makes it harder for your body to recover from exercise by slowing down the production of growth hormone—your natural source of anti-aging and fat burning that also facilitates recovery. This happens in two different ways:

1. Poor sleep means less slow wave sleep, which is when the most growth hormone is released.
2. As previously mentioned, a poor night of rest increases the stress hormone cortisol, which slows down the production of growth hormone. That means that the already reduced production of growth hormone due to lack of slow wave sleep is further reduced by more cortisol in your system. It’s a vicious cycle.

If you’re someone who doesn’t particularly enjoy exercise, not prioritizing sleep is like getting a physical examine with your father-in-law as the investigating physician: It will make something you don’t particularly enjoy almost unbearable.

When you’re suffering from slept debt, everything you do feels more challenging, specifically your workouts.

Sleep: The Instant Health Boost

The connection between sleep and weight gain is hard to ignore. Research published in theAmerican Journal of Epidemiology found that people who are sleep deprived are a third more likely to gain 33 pounds over the next 16 years than those who receive just seven hours of sleep per night.

And with all of the connections to obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart failure, and cognitive failure, the need to sleep goes far beyond just looking better and seeing results from your diet and exercise efforts.

While there’s no hard number that applies to all people, a good rule of thumb is to receive between seven and nine hours of sleep per night, and to make sure that one poor night of sleep isn’t followed up with a few more.

It might not seem like much, but it could make all the difference and mean more than any other health decision you make.

READ MORE: 

Solving Sleep Problems: Non-Obvious Solutions to Rest and Recovery

Eating at Night Does Not Make You Fat

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

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 How to Lose Weight: Why Sleep Can Make You Fat appeared first on Born Fitness.

But I understand that when people think about diets they imagine restrictions, hunger, and lack of results. In that scenario the word diet sucks, just as much as reading 800 articles on “weight loss tips,” “how to lose weight,” or “the best way to lose weight.”

And yet, you still need to eat and find a way that leaves you feeling good, satisfied, energized, and healthy. Instead of suggesting another fad diet, I asked Sohee Lee, author of Reverse Dieting, to tackle the dieting mistakes that give nutrition plans a bad rep in the first place. Avoid these common errors, and odds are you won’t have any more issues with the D-word or your fat loss progress. -AB

The goal is to continue to lose fat while making this journey as easy as possible

Why You Can’t Lose Weight: Where It All Begins

The truth is, dieting is easy – relatively speaking, anyway. At some point, if you starve yourself enough and exercise yourself into the ground, you will lose weight. That much is obvious. The problem is keeping that weight off. And not hating the process. And doing so in a healthy way.

Because if you didn’t notice, the suggestion of starvation and brutal exercise is about as pleasurable as it sounds. Which is why this stat should not surprise you at all: when it comes to quick fix body transformations, up to two-thirds of the weight lost is regained within the first year, and essentially all the weight regained within five.

The typical dieting approach is all wrong. It’s not diets, per se, but how they are followed. And what’s currently believed. Not only do we misunderstand healthy weight (look no farther than the BMI to understand a metric that is wrong as often as it’s right with active people), we don’t understand the healthy process of weight loss.

In your “get into beach season shape now” mentality you completely overlook the fact that drastic measures typically don’t yield sustainable results. Yet you’ll oftentimes reason that you’ll simply “deal with it later” or better yet, convince yourself that you are the sole exception to this trend.

It’s time to face reality. Because it simply doesn’t work that way. Below are the most common dieting myths that may help you drop a few pounds, but ultimately be the reason why you gain them all back.

Diet Mistake #1: The harder it feels, the better it’s working

If you woke up one day and decided you wanted to lose your gut, what would do you do? You might start by throwing out every single remotely delicious food that you have in your kitchen. Your grocery cart all of a sudden transforms from frozen lunches, chips, and candy to chicken, egg whites, and asparagus – never mind the fact that you despise asparagus, but clearly you’re on a mission here.

You feel strong for the first few days as you ride on the wave of your surge of motivation. You’re invincible, you tell yourself. But then the hunger. And then the cravings. They hit you like a ten-ton truck.

And you sit there and you smile to yourself because you think that the struggle must mean that your fat is melting away as you writhe in pain. After all, this is what it takes to be lean, right? Isn’t this what it means to be hardcore?

The truth: Many people assume that diets must necessarily feel hard in order to be successful, but that’s not the case at all. The goal is to continue to lose fat while making this journey as easy as possible. This means eating as much food as you can (both calorically and variety-wise) and doing as little exercise in the gym as you can get away with while still seeing progress.

Don’t swear off your favorite treats for the rest of your life because I can guarantee you that it’ll come back later to bite you. And it’s not going to feel good.

Don’t slash your calories in half because there’s going to come a point when your progress is going to stall. You’ll then be forced to drop your calories further, and you’re really not going to have much wiggle room.

I understand this sounds backwards. This probably goes against everything you’ve been told. We exist in an incredibly black-and-white society in which we either go balls to the wall or we do absolutely nothing at all. We live sedentary lives for many years while not giving a second thought to the food we eat, and then we abruptly try to go from zero to sixty overnight – and we are somehow surprised when we eventually crash and burn.

This approach obviously hasn’t been working for us – just take a look at the nation’s obesity rate. You have to wonder: if the all-or-nothing mindset really were so successful, then we wouldn’t be struggling so much in our fat loss efforts, would we?

Diet Mistake #2: The faster, the better

Along the same lines, we seem to expect quick, immediate results. I guess in a way, we can’t really help it; this is the world that we live in today. Everything is fast – with some even balking that fast food is no longer speedy enough – and overnight delivery has now become the norm (hello, Amazon Prime!).

If we want something, it’s just a click away and it’s all yours. So of course it would make sense, then, that we have the same expectations when it comes to fat loss. For many of you, no amount of progress will probably feel fast enough.

Down two pounds in a week? Bah, obviously something isn’t working.

Five pounds? That’s more like it – but still, you should have dropped more by now.

Eight? Not bad, but again, why not ten?

The truth: I’m really sorry that mainstream media has completely skewed your expectations of fat loss. I promise you that the methods individuals on weight loss shows utilize to achieve those rapid results are nothing short of harrowing.

Barring any health complications, most individuals can expect to drop at a clip of 1 to 2 pounds per week. Leaner folks should expect a slower rate of 0.5 to 1 pound per week since they have less fat to lose, while clinically obese individuals may be okay dropping weight at a slightly faster rate. This is pretty much the norm. Anything faster than that typically is indicative of a loss of muscle mass as well, which is not what we want.

Not only that, but rapid weight loss is typically indicative of extreme measures. And the more extreme the methods employed, the higher the chances of piling the weight back on.

Diet Mistake #3: Placing your faith in diet super foods

I hear there’s a new super food out on the market and it’s flying off the shelves. This is supposed to be the next big thing – the miracle that can burn your fat effortlessly, negate all the calories you’ve consumed, and deliver you results without an ounce of effort on your part. All you have to do is fork over your money and you’ll achieve the body of your dreams.

According to the product, you don’t have to change a thing about your current lifestyle. All you do is sprinkle this powder in your morning coffee and you’ll be good to go. No fuss, no mess. Too easy.

The truth: There is. no. super food.

There is. no. magical potion.

If that really were the case, we’d all be walking around ripped to shreds by now, don’t you think? I hate to break it to you, but you’re going to have to commit to changing your eating and exercise behaviors if you want to see the results that you’re after. No amount of wishing and hoping is going to work for you unless you get off the couch and take action.

That steady diet of junk food you’ve been subsisting on for the past few years? That needs to be replaced. And no, the 20-yard walk from the parking lot to your office building doesn’t count as your workout for the day. You want to drop some fat? Eat more protein and especially more minimally processed foods. Get in your daily veggies. Maybe stop drinking all that soda. You want to step it up a notch? Start hitting the gym for weight training sessions. Learn the heavy compound movements and hit ‘em hard. Strive to get progressively stronger and treat your workouts like a true commitment.

Listen, losing fat is a pretty simple process when you get down to it. But you have to be willing to put in the work. Don’t complain about the results you didn’t get with the work you didn’t do. And don’t expect all of the super foods in the world to be all you need to change how you look.

Remember, eating healthy is not the same as eating for fat loss. You can overdo anything, especially foods that are loaded with calories. (Even if they are “nutritious” calories.)

Diet Mistake #4: Everything you’re doing  is only temporary

Okay, so you’ve been on this dieting thing for a good three months now and you’ve dropped inches all over. You have a whole new wardrobe to accommodate your newer, leaner self and you’re feeling on top of the world.

You’ve made some pretty drastic changes to your lifestyle within that timeframe. You stopped eating out every day of the week, and you now cook most of your meals. You no longer drown everything in butter, and you’ve doubled your protein intake.

In the gym, you’re now a regular. What first started out as two full-body strength training sessions has evolved into a six day body part split, plus six days of steady-state cardio. Frappuccino? No thanks. You’ve got your protein shake handy.

You finally hit your goal – you’re pleased with what you see in the mirror and you’re holding steady at the lowest body fat percentage you can recall – so now it’s time to really relax. You kick your feet up and toss your tub of whey in the trash. You cancel your gym membership and then make a beeline for Panda Express because you totally deserve it. Now that you’re lean, you can finally go back to the way you lived before.

The truth: If you want to maintain the results you’ve worked so hard for, you absolutely cannot go regress to your former lifestyle.

This is the reality that may be difficult to accept: the lifestyle changes you make have to be permanent. But permanent doesn’t mean brutal, awful, and unbearable.

It’s why the steps you take to get to the body you want should be steps you can follow to keep the body you want.

This is why it’s important to commit to just a small, bite-size behavior changes at a time. You want to be able to maintain that new habit over the long-term, and to that end, it should feel doable. Killing yourself in the gym three hours a day? That’s not doable, and it’ll lead to burnout pretty quick. Cutting out your favorite foods for good? Also not sustainable.

Every step of the way, you should be asking yourself: Can I see myself keeping this up a year from now? If the answer is yes, then you’re on the right track. If not, perhaps you should re-assess what you’re doing.

Maybe you’re feeling a lost, however, because you’re happy with the way that you look, but you’re rather fatigued from being in a caloric deficit for so long.

Maybe you’re considering taking a break from the diet so you can focus on building some muscle and eat more food. Maybe you’re tired of working so hard to drop that spare tire, only to have the scale skyrocket over and over again as soon as your diet is over.

If this is the case, then I invite you to consider switching gears to reverse dieting for the time being. By slowly increasing your food intake in controlled quantities, you’ll not only minimize fat gain with the caloric surplus, but you’ll build some muscle and bring your metabolism back up to speed.

You’ll replace your dieting fatigue with high energy. Your smaller portions will be swapped for generous serving sizes. You’ll trade your ho-hum gym sessions for PR after PR.

Your weight doesn’t have to fluctuate from one extreme to the other anymore. That’s a thing of the past – because now you the mistakes and have the ultimate solution to fix your yo-yoing ways.

Struggling with Your Diet?

Don’t guess what’s best for your body. Have a plan created that’s catered to your life and schedule. To learn more and have your personalized program created risk-free, click 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 Dieting Mistakes appeared first on Born Fitness.

I admittedly have become tired of reading blog posts that debate all of the problems.. It doesn’t matter if you’re trying to figure out how to lose weight, gain muscle, or just find a diet plan that actually works.

Bring up any topic, and you hear complaints on how to improve the fitness industry, ranging from:

• Bad trainers
• Bad gyms
• Bad diets
• Bad studies
• Lack of studies
• Lack of information
• Too much information
• No discipline
• CrossFit

Calm down, the last one is a joke. (Really, it is.)

I could go on and on, and no matter how many “flaws” mentioned, addressing any one of these issues would still leave a hundred others. This is why some people view improving health, fitness, and nutrition a lost cause. If the system is beyond repair, what’s the use in spending time trying to find a solution?

The obvious answer is that we have no other choice. That’s because there’s nothing more valuable than your health.

There’s a legitimate reason why so many people are willing to spend so much money trying to look and feel better. Your health is important. Your appearance means something to you. And building a body that can withstand the innumerable stressors of life if one of your biggest priorities. This is the modern day equivalent of, “survival of the fittest.”

If you ignore that responsibility, then it doesn’t matter who you are or how much money you have–life will find a way to crush you.

So it makes sense that we keep trying to fix the system. But at this point it’s worth taking a step back and admitting what should be obvious: what if we’re trying to fix the wrong problem?

What if you shifted the focus from external factors you can’t control?

There’s a very simple philosophy that helps reduce stress: spend the majority of my energy focusing on aspects of my health that you can directly control.

I don’t stress about outcomes that are beyond my influence. And while I play a role in the fitness world, I’m not egotistical enough to believe that I can control the outcomes.

If it were up to me, we’d all spend less time trying to fix the fitness industry, and more time trying to fix ourselves as individuals.

The real issue starts with self-perception.

If I could change one thing in the fitness industry, it would be that everyone would be more comfortable in their own skin.

It might sound ridiculous when you consider the image-based reality of fitness, but changing this mindset is the foundation of less stress and anxiety, and more success and results.

Fat people shouldn’t hate themselves for carrying extra weight. Thin people aren’t meant to suffer every time they look in the mirror. And muscular people could remove the feeling of failure every time they saw someone bigger or stronger.

You see, regardless of your physical state, everyone lives with inadequacies that make living healthier a more complicated process.

It’s our own self-perceptions that oftentimes are more crippling than the bad trainer, diet plans, or gym chains.

At the end of the day, loving who you are is what will motivate you to do what’s necessary; believing that you can become something better than what you are will help you overcome whatever bullshit exists in the industry.

If you’re willing to fight for you, your body, and your life, then everything takes on secondary importance.

The flaws in the industry are just fuel to the flames. That’s why I try to spend my efforts on spreading the truth about popular topics.

But the fire starter is your poor perception that erodes the value of your efforts. And that oftentimes places hurdles that can stop progress before you begin.

Your own personal struggles cat be motivating. I was once a former fat kid and someone that suffered many injuries. Those personal struggles motivated me to learn more about the human body, and ultimately drove me to a career where I could help people overcome the same obstacles. Pushing harder and fighting forward when your back is against the wall is something we should all strive for.

But you don’t need frustration or failure to succeed. You just have to understand that it’s oftentimes part of the process.

Learning to love who you are regardless of what you look like or how far you are from your goal is the first step towards creating a plan for long-term success.

By doing so, you’ll know and understand that you’re worth more than the image you see in the mirror. That your success can be defined in many ways, and your appearance is not the only measurement of health.

This is one of my primary goals with the clients I work with. Part of the object is to help you reach your goals. The other aspect is psychological, motivational, and behavioral. It’s teaching people that their insecurities and flaws are normal. That building confidence is a process. And that within everyone lives someone that is awesome.

Sure, you’ll still run into frustration, and failed diets and exercise plans. But you’ll like who you are and believe in what you can become.

And once that happens, it’s not a matter of if, but when when everyone will be able to take charge of their health and establish their own rules of body transformation.

When that happens, the complaints will stop and a new health economy will rise.

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 Improving The Fitness Industry appeared first on Born Fitness.