Got this great nutrition tip last week in an e-mail from Mike Geary.
Today's Quick Tip:
A common theme I've noticed lately with people that think they are eating healthy is that they're still eating too much processed foods, but being duped by clever food labels into believing that the processed food they are eating is somehow "healthy".
So let's take a step back and re-visit the MOST important thing you can do to eat truly healthy and lose as much body fat as you want, easily...
And that is...
**Choose only foods at the grocery store that have 1 ingredient!
So this means that eggs, fruits, vegetables, meats (from healthy animals raised correctly), nuts, seeds, and other 1-ingredient foods should comprise almost your entire diet (except for cheat meals if you go that route).
Obviously there are exceptions to this, and there are foods you can buy with more than 1 ingredient that I can still give the thumbs up to (guacamole and hummus being a couple quick examples that come to mind)...
But the point is that if you can revisit this very simple method of choosing healthy foods, it can be a huge shift for most people that have been struggling to choose healthy foods because they are constantly deceived by food labels that claim to be healthy but are really processed junk in disguise.
This may be difficult for many people that are so addicted to processed foods... but give it a try for a week. The next time you do a week's worth of grocery shopping, try to make sure that everything in your cart are only 1-ingredient foods.
I'm willing to bet you'll see a better body after that 1 week!
Feel free to fwd this email on to any friends or family that will enjoy it.
Til next newsletter,
Don't be lazy... be lean.
Mike Geary
Certified Nutrition Specialist
Certified Personal Trainer
Founder - TruthAboutAbs
Showing posts with label Truth About Abs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Truth About Abs. Show all posts
Monday, June 22, 2009
Friday, December 12, 2008
Holiday Fitness Tips from Mike Geary
I recently received the e-mail below containing some good reminders about holidays fitness and nutrition. As always, good advice from Mike Geary.
The time of year for fitness excuses is here... December is probably the worst time of year where most people use excuse after excuse as to why they are letting themselves get fat and out of shape during "the holidays".
So with this newsletter, I just want to give you some tips and motivation to do the opposite of what most people are going to do this December, and get yourself in BETTER shape during this busy season. This doesn't mean that you have to deprive yourself of anything during your parties with friends and family, but it DOES mean that you have to be sensible and stick to your fitness and nutrition plan when you're not in party mode.
First, the biggest excuse I've heard over the many years I've been doing fitness counseling is that they don't "have any time" to keep working out during the holidays.
Ok, I know we all may have a lot of family gatherings and holiday parties to go to during this time, but saying that you don't have time to keep yourself in shape is basically admitting that your health and fitness is not a priority in your life. If it was a priority, you'd make time.
So let's commit to a pact that we will not use the lack of time excuse this holiday season. Instead, if there are days that you don't feel that you have time to go to the gym for a full workout, schedule a 15 minute workout in for yourself at least 4 days/week either before or after work, or at whatever time you can fit in a 15 minute workout at home.
Anybody can fit in 15 minutes... that's all it takes. However, those 15 minutes need to be full of high intensity exercises that work your entire body. Even doing just some bodyweight circuits at home can keep you in great shape.
For example, you can rotate through 5 or 6 exercises such as lunges, bodyweight squats, pushups, mountain climbers, and lying leg thrusts in a circuit fashion, alternating between them for as many sets as you can do in that 15 minute time period.
If you work hard enough, you can get a great full body workout in only 15 minutes and then be ready to go for whatever holiday activities are on your schedule.
The second biggest excuse I've heard over the years from many people during the holidays is that there's no way they can control their eating during this time of year with parties and gatherings with all of the delicious food being offered everywhere. What many people have told me is that the 5 or 6 weeks between Thanksgiving and New Years every year is just one massive free-for-all bingefest for them.
This doesn't make any sense though. For example, even if you were extremely busy with parties and gatherings and let's say you have 8 parties/gatherings to go to during these 5 weeks, that is still only 8 days out of 35 that you're going to be surrounded by party food for only a small time each day.
This means that if you're still eating super-healthy during the 27 other days and also during the other time available on the party days, you can easily still have at least 90% compliance with your healthy diet. If you can have 90% compliance, it is quite easy to stay lean instead of packing on the lbs during the holidays.
The important thing to keep reminding yourself is that the ONLY time you are going to cheat is during the parties and gatherings and not before, after, or for entire weeks at a time.
One thing I like to do if I know I'll be going to a holiday party or big meal is that I plan to get in a great weight training workout within a few hours (if possible) before going to the party. This way I know that my metabolism is already elevated from the weight training and some of the excess calories that I may consume can help towards muscle repair and glycogen replenishment instead of being deposited as body fat.
So I hope this email has helped to make sure that you stay on track with your fitness during the holidays. There are NO EXCUSES. There's no reason at all to wait until January to start on your fitness program, when it should really be a part of your everyday lifestyle.
Here's to getting in BETTER SHAPE, instead of worse this December!
Mike Geary
Certified Nutrition Specialist
Certified Personal Trainer
Founder - http://TruthAboutAbs.com
PS - if you liked today's article, feel free to fwd this email on to any of your friends, family, or co-workers that would enjoy it.
The time of year for fitness excuses is here... December is probably the worst time of year where most people use excuse after excuse as to why they are letting themselves get fat and out of shape during "the holidays".
So with this newsletter, I just want to give you some tips and motivation to do the opposite of what most people are going to do this December, and get yourself in BETTER shape during this busy season. This doesn't mean that you have to deprive yourself of anything during your parties with friends and family, but it DOES mean that you have to be sensible and stick to your fitness and nutrition plan when you're not in party mode.
First, the biggest excuse I've heard over the many years I've been doing fitness counseling is that they don't "have any time" to keep working out during the holidays.
Ok, I know we all may have a lot of family gatherings and holiday parties to go to during this time, but saying that you don't have time to keep yourself in shape is basically admitting that your health and fitness is not a priority in your life. If it was a priority, you'd make time.
So let's commit to a pact that we will not use the lack of time excuse this holiday season. Instead, if there are days that you don't feel that you have time to go to the gym for a full workout, schedule a 15 minute workout in for yourself at least 4 days/week either before or after work, or at whatever time you can fit in a 15 minute workout at home.
Anybody can fit in 15 minutes... that's all it takes. However, those 15 minutes need to be full of high intensity exercises that work your entire body. Even doing just some bodyweight circuits at home can keep you in great shape.
For example, you can rotate through 5 or 6 exercises such as lunges, bodyweight squats, pushups, mountain climbers, and lying leg thrusts in a circuit fashion, alternating between them for as many sets as you can do in that 15 minute time period.
If you work hard enough, you can get a great full body workout in only 15 minutes and then be ready to go for whatever holiday activities are on your schedule.
The second biggest excuse I've heard over the years from many people during the holidays is that there's no way they can control their eating during this time of year with parties and gatherings with all of the delicious food being offered everywhere. What many people have told me is that the 5 or 6 weeks between Thanksgiving and New Years every year is just one massive free-for-all bingefest for them.
This doesn't make any sense though. For example, even if you were extremely busy with parties and gatherings and let's say you have 8 parties/gatherings to go to during these 5 weeks, that is still only 8 days out of 35 that you're going to be surrounded by party food for only a small time each day.
This means that if you're still eating super-healthy during the 27 other days and also during the other time available on the party days, you can easily still have at least 90% compliance with your healthy diet. If you can have 90% compliance, it is quite easy to stay lean instead of packing on the lbs during the holidays.
The important thing to keep reminding yourself is that the ONLY time you are going to cheat is during the parties and gatherings and not before, after, or for entire weeks at a time.
One thing I like to do if I know I'll be going to a holiday party or big meal is that I plan to get in a great weight training workout within a few hours (if possible) before going to the party. This way I know that my metabolism is already elevated from the weight training and some of the excess calories that I may consume can help towards muscle repair and glycogen replenishment instead of being deposited as body fat.
So I hope this email has helped to make sure that you stay on track with your fitness during the holidays. There are NO EXCUSES. There's no reason at all to wait until January to start on your fitness program, when it should really be a part of your everyday lifestyle.
Here's to getting in BETTER SHAPE, instead of worse this December!
Mike Geary
Certified Nutrition Specialist
Certified Personal Trainer
Founder - http://TruthAboutAbs.com
PS - if you liked today's article, feel free to fwd this email on to any of your friends, family, or co-workers that would enjoy it.
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Should Men & Women Train Differently? by Mike Geary
I received this e-mail a few days ago and wanted to pass it on. It's a must read for women who are afraid of "bulking up" and for guys who think that 1-rep maxes are the way to build muscle.
Should Men & Women Train Differently?
by Mike Geary
This is one of my biggest pet peeves in the fitness industry... So many men and women "think" they need to workout drastically different from one another.
For example, many women think they need to do 20 or 30 reps per set of every exercise with little pink 3 or 5 lb barbie weights, because if they actually lift heavier weights, they falsely believe they will "bulk up".
Also, many men think they need to do 1-rep maxes to build muscle... this is simply not true... overall training volume and a caloric surplus builds more muscle than does 1-rep maxes... although I'm not saying there isn't a time and place for 1-rep maxes.
One of my biggest frustrations over the years when I was training lots of females and I would show them the workout I wanted to take them through... they would say something like... "I don't want to do those exercises. That looks like a man's workout!"
And they would go back to their little pink 5 lb dumbbells and endless cardio routines and keep getting NO RESULTS at all for months or years.
However, the females I trained that were open-minded enough to trust me that if they used heavier weights they would not "bulk up" (as long as their caloric intake was in the correct range), always got tremendous results.
As a matter of fact, some of the leanest females I've trained over the years were the ones that actually trained with the heaviest weights. I had a few female athletes that could deadlift 175 lbs and they were VERY lean, and NOT overly-muscular. In fact, they had very feminine, but lean bodies.
They lifted HEAVY weights in relation to their size and they NEVER bulked up.
Another example is that the majority of females that I trained thought they couldn't use more than 5 or 8 lb dumbbells for an overhead dumbbell press or a dumbbell chest press. However, when they were open-minded enough to actually try to train their body under more resistance (and thereby create a REAL stimulis for change), most women were almost always able to press 20 or 30 lb dumbbells instead of the 5's or 8's they were used to using.
So my rant in this email is for us all to please stop with the insanity of thinking that we all need to train so radically different whether we're a man or a woman, but rather realize that we are all HUMAN BEINGS.
I don't care if you're a man or a woman... the laws of exercise physiology will always show that variations of squats, lunges, deadlifts, presses, and rows are some of the best exercises for humans, regardless of gender.
And this applies whether your goal is fat loss or muscle building!
Yes, even if your goal is just fat loss and not muscle building, you still need to train your body under progressively heavier resistance (relative to your current strength) to stimulate your body to actually want to change over time.
*Note - when I say "heavy training", I mean heavy resistance in relation to your individual strength level. For example, a heavy resistance in a particular exercise such as a deadlift or squat may be 300 lbs for one person, and only 60 or 70 lbs for another person. All that matters is if the weight that you use is challenging for you.
Now I will concede that I use slightly different styles of training whether the goal is fat loss or muscle building (notice I said different styles, not different exercises per se), but the bigger factor is actually your caloric balance...
Creating a caloric deficit for fat loss or creating a caloric surplus for muscle gain, while still training intensely for either goal.
So I say let's all stop training like men or training like women, and let's all start training like human beings in order to get RESULTS!
If you haven't already done so, you can gain access to my extremely effective training program for HUMANS for a special $4.95 trial offer at this page: http://truthaboutabs.com/trial-offer.html
And you will see why over 100,000 humans, both men and women, have gotten tremendous results by following this program.
Til next newsletter,
Don't be lazy... be lean.
Mike Geary
Certified Nutrition Specialist
Certified Personal Trainer
Founder - http://TruthAboutAbs.com
PS - if you liked todays article, feel free to fwd this email on to any of your friends, family, or co-workers that would enjoy it.
If you're looking for gimmicks or a bunch of traditional ab exercises, skip Mike's program. If you're serious about getting 6-pack abs through good nutrition and challenging exercises, check it out.
.
Should Men & Women Train Differently?
by Mike Geary
This is one of my biggest pet peeves in the fitness industry... So many men and women "think" they need to workout drastically different from one another.
For example, many women think they need to do 20 or 30 reps per set of every exercise with little pink 3 or 5 lb barbie weights, because if they actually lift heavier weights, they falsely believe they will "bulk up".
Also, many men think they need to do 1-rep maxes to build muscle... this is simply not true... overall training volume and a caloric surplus builds more muscle than does 1-rep maxes... although I'm not saying there isn't a time and place for 1-rep maxes.
One of my biggest frustrations over the years when I was training lots of females and I would show them the workout I wanted to take them through... they would say something like... "I don't want to do those exercises. That looks like a man's workout!"
And they would go back to their little pink 5 lb dumbbells and endless cardio routines and keep getting NO RESULTS at all for months or years.
However, the females I trained that were open-minded enough to trust me that if they used heavier weights they would not "bulk up" (as long as their caloric intake was in the correct range), always got tremendous results.
As a matter of fact, some of the leanest females I've trained over the years were the ones that actually trained with the heaviest weights. I had a few female athletes that could deadlift 175 lbs and they were VERY lean, and NOT overly-muscular. In fact, they had very feminine, but lean bodies.
They lifted HEAVY weights in relation to their size and they NEVER bulked up.
Another example is that the majority of females that I trained thought they couldn't use more than 5 or 8 lb dumbbells for an overhead dumbbell press or a dumbbell chest press. However, when they were open-minded enough to actually try to train their body under more resistance (and thereby create a REAL stimulis for change), most women were almost always able to press 20 or 30 lb dumbbells instead of the 5's or 8's they were used to using.
So my rant in this email is for us all to please stop with the insanity of thinking that we all need to train so radically different whether we're a man or a woman, but rather realize that we are all HUMAN BEINGS.
I don't care if you're a man or a woman... the laws of exercise physiology will always show that variations of squats, lunges, deadlifts, presses, and rows are some of the best exercises for humans, regardless of gender.
And this applies whether your goal is fat loss or muscle building!
Yes, even if your goal is just fat loss and not muscle building, you still need to train your body under progressively heavier resistance (relative to your current strength) to stimulate your body to actually want to change over time.
*Note - when I say "heavy training", I mean heavy resistance in relation to your individual strength level. For example, a heavy resistance in a particular exercise such as a deadlift or squat may be 300 lbs for one person, and only 60 or 70 lbs for another person. All that matters is if the weight that you use is challenging for you.
Now I will concede that I use slightly different styles of training whether the goal is fat loss or muscle building (notice I said different styles, not different exercises per se), but the bigger factor is actually your caloric balance...
Creating a caloric deficit for fat loss or creating a caloric surplus for muscle gain, while still training intensely for either goal.
So I say let's all stop training like men or training like women, and let's all start training like human beings in order to get RESULTS!
If you haven't already done so, you can gain access to my extremely effective training program for HUMANS for a special $4.95 trial offer at this page: http://truthaboutabs.com/trial-offer.html
Til next newsletter,
Don't be lazy... be lean.
Mike Geary
Certified Nutrition Specialist
Certified Personal Trainer
Founder - http://TruthAboutAbs.com
PS - if you liked todays article, feel free to fwd this email on to any of your friends, family, or co-workers that would enjoy it.
If you're looking for gimmicks or a bunch of traditional ab exercises, skip Mike's program. If you're serious about getting 6-pack abs through good nutrition and challenging exercises, check it out.
.
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