Tips for Getting Lean: Part 2

If you missed the first 21 Tips check out the May archives on the right.


22. "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results." I have no idea who first said that but it's very true in the health and fitness industry. This applies to both nutrition and training. If you've been eating the same things and not getting leaner it should give you a pretty good indication you need to do something different.
23. Carb cycling works really well for fat loss. I'll go into this more in the future but carb cycling is very well researched via studies and real world practice. At a basic level you take in different amounts of carbs everyday dependent on your training volume/intensity/rest days etc.
24. The food pyramid sucks. It's really good at making people fatter.
25. Don't sit when you go to the gym. Seriously most of you sit all day, then go into the gym and do seated shoulder presses. seated bicep curls and seated lat pulldowns. Not saying there isn't a place for these movements but you need to move more.
26. Speaking of sitting all day, its terrible for your posture and structural balance. As a trainer I see tons of rounded shoulders, tight hips, lack of mobility in the thoracic spine etc. Fixing posture and muscle imbalance helps everything.
27. Pull more than you push. Everyone loves working the "mirror muscles". Why is Monday national bench press and bicep curl day at every gym in America? Strengthening your back and hamstrings/glutes and the rest of the posterior chain is more important. They are bigger muscles, ie. more calorie expenditure, better posture, increased metabolism etc.
28. All about EPOC. EPOC is Excess Post Exercise Oxygen Consumption. Aka how elevated your metabolism is following a workout. Steady state cardio does not raise EPOC very much, resistance training done properly raises EPOC a lot. Sometimes up to 48+ hours after a workout.
29. Avoid trans fatty acids like the plague.
30. The commercials are lying to you, high fructose corn syrup is complete garbage.
31. Crunches are a waste of your time and potentially dangerous for your lumbar spine. Ab exercises that aren't a waste of time = squats, deadlifts, chinups, any overhead press, plank variations, turkish get ups, medicine ball throws, ab rollouts. Crunches will not spot reduce the fat covering your 6 pack, the only scientifically proven way to spot reduce is through nutrition and manipulation of hormones.
32. Eat more smaller meals(4-8 depending on size) rather than 2-3 bigger meals. This is well researched and it works.
33. Get off the treadmills, ellipticals etc and sprint outside if you have the option. Hill sprints are one of the best fat loss workouts you can do. Not to mention a treadmill essentially "turns off" your hamstrings and glutes because the belt pulls you through. This sets you up for a repetitive quad dominant exercise and a future visit to the knee Dr.
34. Work really hard until it's time to not work hard. This is true for strength athletes, weightlifters, distance athletes etc. You should be working really hard with whatever you do until its time to step back and allow your body some rest. I personally work hard for 3 weeks and then take a week to "deload" or cut back on my training volume or intensity. You can not go balls to the wall all the time without it negatively impacting performance and results. If you workout twice a week it's not a big deal, but if you train 4-5 times a week it's a big deal.
35. Eat breakfast. If you aren't doing this ignore everything else I wrote and start here.
36. Add a tip daily or weekly into your routine, don't overwhelm yourself at the start.