You MUST Do This Before You Go On A “Diet”

Turn on any news station or read any magazine this time of year, and you will hear people sharing their weight loss success stories on this diet or that technique.

First of all, weight loss is not the ONLY goal someone should have. In fact, it should really be a secondary result of living a healthier – longer – life.

Before you jump on the keto or paleo bandwagon, you need to address any deficiencies in your diet. More than 80 percent of the population has at least one nutritional deficiency.

If your body is lacking something it needs, it simply will not function properly — and that makes any health or fitness goal a lot harder.

So, to eliminate deficiencies, the first thing you must do is clean up your diet a bit.

• Get plenty of vitamins and minerals (from natural foods preferably)

• Make sure you are getting enough protein and healthy fats

• Drink more water

Establishing optimal eating habits one step at a time allows you to create a sustainable change – and stop jumping from diet to diet every New Year.

Once nutritional deficiencies are addressed and you feel you are eating a well-balanced diet, then you can start to focus on calories, macro breakdowns, portions, etc.

Exercise to increase metabolism

Well, let’s start by saying the human body is complex!

So, for one, as we age our resting metabolic rate naturally goes down. Is what it is.

Secondly, I know it sounds obvious, but the we do need to keep in mind is that every BODY is different. One size doesn’t fit all and there is always more to the story.

Everybody processes, absorbs, and uses food differently… also known as our metabolism.

And, finally, the human body works very hard to adapt/maintain homeostasis.

So, if you are doing the same workout all the time, you are no longer expending as much energy (calories) as when you started. Because your body adapted and is more efficient.

Also, your muscles repair and grow during rest. So you do need to rest and take a day off sometimes.

If not, your body will not be able to work out as hard and reap the benefits of fitness as much as it potentially could. No rest can also lead to injury, burn out, and plateau.

A certain level of stress must be placed on the body’s muscles and joints in order to create adaptations to allow for lean muscle growth.

Studies have consistently shown that high intensity interval training (HIIT) stimulates the sympathetic nervous system to burn more fat as compared to steady-state exercise.

HIIT is bursts of very high intensity followed by a short rest. The entire workout tends to be about 20-30 minutes.

Not only does HIIT optimize fat burning during a relatively short exercise session, it actually keeps your metabolism elevated long after you’ve stopped.

Strength training is also an important piece to the puzzle

Having more muscle speeds up your metabolism because it burns calories at a faster rate than fat.

So, if you feel like you are not seeing the results you want … consider if you are

1) giving yourself enough rest to recover and repair properly,

2) think about if you have changed your workout lately,

3) consider your balance of strength training and high-intensity cardio, and 4) take a look at your diet… are you eating enough? Enough protein? Too much? Etc…