A new A Mind For Fitness Podcast is now available. This is a good one. I come clean and talk about how I gained weight again but also how I lost it and am now more fit than ever. Enjoy!
Tag Archives: healthy eating
Why Traditional Diets Work For Some People
In this episode, Ean gives the straight scoop on why low calorie, Low fat diets work for some people some of the time. As well as why it does not work for others and why you should never make it your lifestyle.
Overcoming Your Plateau
In the previous two articles, we talked about why we hit plateaus in the first place. In addition we addressed what not to do when your weight loss stalls out. In this article, we will finally turn our attention to what you actually need to do in order to overcome your plateau.
Change Things Up
If you have stopped burning fat because you are simply not following your diet correctly, then needless to say, you need to follow your workout and eating program more faithfully. However, if you have followed your diet faithfully, and you have stopped losing weight, then the answer to your problem is rather simple: change things up!
Your body has adjusted to what you are doing and as a result you have stopped losing weight. In order to fix this problem, you need to stop your old program and try a different program. There are primarily two arias that you need to change. First is diet and the second is exercise.
Diet
The first thing to change is your diet. This is not difficult to do. For example, if you have been intermittent fasting, then stop. Try eating six small meals a day, or at least switch to three meals a day.
The reverse is true also, if you have been on a diet that requires you to eat all day switch to intermittent fasting for a while.
While I do not recommend a low fat diet for the long run, I do recommend trying it for a short time. Try it for about a week and go back to LCHF. See what happens.
I also feel the same way about veganism. There is no problem in giving up meat for a week. It is another way to shock your system and get you to start burning fat again.
Exercise
It is true that 70% of your weight loss comes from diet. But 30% comes from exercise. For many out there, they have stopped losing weight because they do not exercise. If you want to start losing weight again, start exercising and see what happens.
There is also a segment of the population who are always exercising. I know it is difficult to do, but you may need to give your body a rest. In other words, stop working out for a while. This may be just what you need.
Finally, you can change the kind of workouts you are doing. In other words. If you are doing a lot of cardio, start lifting weights. If you are lifting weights, start doing more cardio.
Closing Thoughts
It can be discouraging to hit a plateau. However, the suggestions listed above proven strategies to help you start losing weight again. I know because I have seen these things work in many other people, but also I know because I have seen them work in my own life. I have hit many plateaus on my weight loss journey and have overcome every one of them. You can to. Don’t give up!
Five Factors That Will Either Make or Break Your Weight Loss
Another episode of A Mind For Fitness podcast is now available. In this episode I talk about the difference between those who succeed at weight loss and those who fail. Which camp are you in? Listen and find out.
How Much Do Calories Actually Matter? (audio)
There is a new episode of A Mind For Fitness Podcast. In this episode, Ean Talks about why it is more important to count carbs rather than calories. Also, what is a calorie and how you can avoid overeating. Enjoy!
What Not To Do About Your Weight-Loss Plateau
In the previous blog post I talked about why we hit plateaus in our weight loss. In that blog, I talked about the two main causes. The first was not appropriately sticking to your diet. And the second reason simply has to do with the fact that our body likes to adjust to what we are doing. In this post, I want to address what not to do when you stop losing weight.
Two Big Don’ts
In my experience, I see two major mistakes people make when they hit their plateau. The first is psychological, namely discouragement. The second mistake is attempting is to be supper strict with your diet or workout plan.
Discouragement
It is easy to get discouraged when you hit a plateau. Particularly when you are doing everything right. But the truth is stalling out in your weight-loss is, as far as I can tell, universal. It does not matter how good the diet is, or how strictly you are following it, at some point it will stop working. And by stop working, I mean that your weight-loss will either slow down or stop altogether. I do not mean that your plan will stop being healthy, rather what I mean is that your body will adjust and you will stop losing weight.
In light of this, there is no reason to get discouraged. Like I mentioned above, stalling out is universal. We all go though it.
Also, discouragement does not help. In fact, It leads to self destructive behavior. Those who stay discouraged for too long eventually fall back into old habits and gain back all the weight that they have lost. This is a story I have seen and heard too many times to recount. Don’t get discouraged. There are things you can do to get off of your plateau.
Super Strict
If the cause of your plateau is that you have not been following the diet correctly, then being more strict is the answer. However, like I wrote in the last post, even those who do a low-carb, paleo, ketogenic diet correctly, will still stall out. It’s easy to think that you just have not done the diet correctly enough. It’s easy to think that all you need to do is dial it down more on how many carbs you eat. As a result of this kind of thinking I see many people eating nearly no carbs at all. This is a big mistake.
Going supper strict is not the answer to your problems. In fact, you are just setting yourself up to prolong your plateau and more discouragement.
So now we know what not to do. This leads us then to ask: What can I do to re-start my fat-burning hormones? This will be the subject of our next blog.
Getting Past Your Plateau (Podcast)
A new episode of A Mind For Fitness Podcast is now available. In this episode, Ean talks about why we hit plateaus. And what we should and should not do about it. Enjoy!
Dealing With Resoltioners (Audio)
In this episode of A Mind For Fitness Podcast, Ean Carlin talks about how to deal with those new years resolutioners who are at your gym.
5 Easy Ways to Lose Weight For the New Year
Did you resolve to lose weight for the new year? Great! Here are five easy ways to lose weight for the new year and the new you!
Eat Clean
One of the reason people are overweight has to do with how much toxins are in our food. Part of the body’s natural protection is to store those unwanted toxins in our fat cells, particularly in our belly fat. Switching to organic food (and any food without toxins) will shut down the need for the body to hold onto extra fat. As a result, excess weight will come off.
Save Your Carbs For Dinner
Your body is naturally more insulin sensitive in the evening. This means that it takes less of the hormone insulin to get the excess sugar out of your blood. Less insulin means less fat storage.
Now this is not an excuse to eat all the carbs you want as long as it is night. Ideally it is best to keep your carb count to 25 grams at the low end and 50 at the high end. And it is best to spread them out over two meals. However, the majority of those carbs should come at night. Controlling how much carbs you eat is a great way to lose weight. But controlling when you eat those carbs also matters a great deal!
Skip Breakfast
I know that we have all heard that breakfast is the most important meal of the day; however, this is simply not true. While I do not have the time here to go into all the benefits of intermittent fasting, let me say that it has done wonders for weight loss. In short, your body has gone through all its blood sugar while you sleep and you start burning fat for fuel the first half of the day.
All you have to do to make this work is finish eating dinner by seven or eight the night before. Then skip breakfast. After that, eat lunch around 12:30 or 1:00. It’s really that easy!
Walk After Meals
Now you may not be able to walk after lunch because, lets face it, most of us have to get back to work. However, walking after dinner should not be a problem for most. Walking after meals lowers your blood sugar without a large amount of unnecessary insulin. In other words, it is a natural way to help you become more insulin sensitive.
Eat Slowly
Weight management is not simply a matter of calories in and calories out. In fact, it is more important to track your carb intake and your chemical intake than it is to track your overall calorie intake.
That said, it is still not good to overeat. It’s not good hormonally and it is not good for digestion–two key factors in weight management. In addition, if you eat less and you are eating the right types of food you will see weight loss.
So how do you eat less food without feeling like you are hungry? The answer is to eat slowly. This is a technique that I have used often and it works great.
Often we overeat because we eat too fast. The food is already in our stomach and we are back for seconds before the brain can tell us that we have had enough. By the time the satiety signal hits us, we have overeaten.
By eating slowly you allow your brain to tell your body that you are full before you overeat. You can still eat until you are full. You do not have to be hungry. It is just that you feel full on much less.
Closing Thoughts
Any one of the above suggestions will most likely help in losing weight. However, if you are serious about dropping those unwanted pounds, then do all of these together and you will get the best results. Best wishes for you in this new year!
And please don’t forget to like, comment, and share.
Everything You Need To Know About Fat-Shaming (audio)
This is a new episode of A Mind For Fitness Podcast. Today, we are talking about fat-shaming–what it is and what it is not. Enjoy!
Advanced Weight Loss Resources 