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#158 - Fixing The Overeating Problem, Making Progress In Less Time, Balancing Lifting With Running & More
32 Plays1 month ago
Q & A episode where we discuss these topics
- How to balance running (or any cardio) with your strength training
- Tips for getting out of the "perfect diet" leading to the overeating trap
- An effective and efficient workout plan if you have only 3 days to work out per week
- Building back confidence after failing at your fitness goals
- Practical tips for making the most progress in the least amount of time
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Transcript
Introduction to Fit to Dish Project
00:00:02
Speaker
Welcome back to the Fit to Dish Project with your host, Lathan Bass, where we make fitness and health simple for regular people like you and I. We got the weekly episode for you this week. Friendly reminder before we get into this episode, if you can continue to leave reviews and share this with people who you think it gets in value from this show. I greatly appreciate that. Continue to help people change their lives through fitness and health with this information.
00:00:27
Speaker
That is the whole goal of this show. So I appreciate your help in making that happen.
Listener Q&A Introduction
00:00:31
Speaker
The topic for this week, we got a Q&A episode. And so I have five questions that I'm going to get into. The first question I had was about how to balance running and lifting.
00:00:41
Speaker
The second question was what to do if you eat well most of the time. but then find yourself overdoing it a few times a week, which is preventing your progress from happening. The third question was minimum amount of effort needed to still make progress on your fitness goals.
00:00:57
Speaker
Fourth question, how can I get the best results if I have three days to dedicate to my workouts? And then the fifth and final question is how to build back confidence after failing at health goals many of times.
00:01:09
Speaker
Five really good questions. So let's get
Balancing Running and Lifting
00:01:12
Speaker
right into it. Question number one, I've been lifting consistently for a while now, but I want to add running because I know cardio is important for my health. I'm wondering how I can balance these two things.
00:01:22
Speaker
I love this question because I have over the past three years or so added in cardio into my routine and more specifically added in running. And it's something that I really do enjoy now. And I've also just got into just the health benefits around adding cardio in.
00:01:40
Speaker
If you're going to be doing fitness stuff, obviously lifting is super important. I think it's a great place for people to start. And if I had to choose between the two, I would tell people to focus on lifting weights first because there's just so many benefits that you get from building muscle, from strength training, from all that good stuff.
00:01:58
Speaker
But you cannot say that cardio is not important. And ideally, in a perfect world, you would be doing both. You don't have to be doing tons of cardio. You don't have to be doing tons of strength training. But if you can combine those two things, you are going to get the best of both worlds.
00:02:13
Speaker
with that being said when it comes to balancing these two things you don't necessarily have to do running there's lots of ways that you can incorporate cardio and so things like biking things like swimming you could use a rower and elliptical anything that just gets your heart rate up for a extended period of time that is going to give you that aerobic benefit that you get from just training your heart and all the benefits that come with cardio is going to be beneficial so you don't necessarily have to do running I do really enjoy running. And so I encourage a lot of people to try running if that's something that they're interested in.
00:02:46
Speaker
But when it comes to balancing these two things, sometimes using something other than running like biking, swimming, rowing, something like that, that's a little bit easier to learn and a little bit lower impact can be a good place to start. But let's say you do want to add in running.
Does Cardio Affect Muscle Gains?
00:03:01
Speaker
You've been lifting for a while. Now you're really wanting to get into running and you want to balance these two things. Well, the first thing I would tell you is that you don't have to worry about like cardio killing your gains because I know that was something that a lot of people said for a really long time. And I used to believe it too. It was the whole reason that I just shied away from running. is because I didn't want to be losing a bunch of muscle mass. and plus, I just wasn't good at it. I didn't enjoy running. I didn't enjoy cardio. So I kind of stayed away from that stuff. But you can absolutely build muscle and do cardio at the same time, especially for the average person who's not going to be doing hours and hours of cardio. You're only going to get positive health benefits by incorporating these two things. So the first thing I would say is it depends on where you're starting at. So if you have zero experience with running,
00:03:43
Speaker
The first tip that I would give you is that you need to make sure that you do this in a smart way. Running gets a bad rep oftentimes because people get injured or they get hurt or they get burned out. And it's not because running is inherently dangerous. Like humans are made to run. We're really good at endurance. And when you train in a proper way, you can increase your capacity to run for a really long time. But the problem is people just do it in a not very smart way. Like their training is just bad. And so if you hop off the couch and you try to go run 10 miles, you're not going to be feeling very good. And there's a very good chance that you're probably going to be injured and be very sore for multiple weeks.
00:04:23
Speaker
And so just like with anything else, when it comes to running, you have to progress in a smart way. That progressive overload that we talk about with strength training, it's the same exact thing for running. And so you need to understand when you're getting into this that you have to do this in a more methodical, smarter way unless you do want to get injured or burned out or be that runner who tries to get into it and go crazy every single day and then falls off. Like for every person who jumps into running and is able to sustain that and doesn't get hurt, there's so many people who have tried to do that approach and they just fall off. So you have to take a smarter approach when going into this. Before you ever even go on a run, i would say one thing to do is just to make sure you get some decent shoes. When I first got into running, I just went online and I just grabbed a pair of shoes that I thought look cool. And that's what I went with. And then the second time around, when I actually wanted to get some better running shoes, I went to a running shoe store and they fitted me up and they asked me some questions. They allowed me to. try the shoes on right in the store and run on the treadmill. In my running experience with shoes that were better suited for me and my body style and my foot type and all that was so much better than that first time around. And so having some good shoes can actually make it pretty
00:05:35
Speaker
big difference. So I would say make sure you get yourself some good shoes. The second thing that I would say is just don't feel the need to go out and try to break records for every single run. think that for a lot of people, especially when you're just starting to get into it, that's a quick way to get burned out or to get injured. And then the third thing, as I mentioned, is just to start small and then build on it.
00:05:55
Speaker
If you are just now getting into running, Maybe you only need to go out and get two or three runs a week for 15 minutes, maybe 20 minutes, maybe 30 minutes max. But I would start on that lower end and then just see how your body feels and see how you respond.
00:06:11
Speaker
And then you can focus on progressing that over time. The whole goal here is to stimulate, not annihilate. And the same thing goes for in the gym. Like, yes, you want to focus on progressive overload. You want to lift more weight for more reps with better technique over time. But the very first time that you went in the gym, you probably didn't go over to the dumbbell rack and just grab 100 pound dumbbells and try to throw those around because you know that is a quick way to get injured. where you probably didn't go to the weight machine and put the full stack in the pin. Like you didn't try and go do dumb things like that, but for whatever reason with running, people think that because they've ran before, or maybe they used to run that they can just go out and just try to run every single run at full blast. And that just doesn't end very well. You have to give your body some time to build up, a especially with like your joints, your ligaments, your tendons, which is typically slower to adapt than we realize. When it comes to like training in the gym, you can adapt pretty quickly, your muscles start to get stronger. But when it comes to things like your
Is Your Body Adapting to Running?
00:07:10
Speaker
joints, your ligaments and your tendons, those things take a little bit longer to adapt than your muscles do. And so
00:07:16
Speaker
building into this slower makes a lot more sense. And then once you have a really good foundation, you can start to build on that. So a way that you can start to tell if your body is adapting well to running is just how you feel during your runs. Like, do you feel aches and pains? Is it super uncomfortable? Is your breathing really hard?
00:07:34
Speaker
All these different things that we kind of know what it feels like when running just doesn't feel very pleasant. If those things continue to get a little bit easier or get a little bit better. So maybe your breathing starts to get a little bit better. you're able to handle the miles a little bit more. Your knees aren't as achy when you start to go on these runs and then how you're just recovering in between your runs so when you first start out if you go on let's say a two mile run and you haven't really ran at all you're probably going to be pretty sore that next day and you might be sore for the first couple times you do that maybe even the first couple of weeks that you do that you might be sore for multiple days but then as you start to add more mileage as you start to add more time
00:08:10
Speaker
with just running, your body will start to adapt really well. And then the quicker that you start to adapt and recover in between those runs, that's a very good sign that you are making progress. And you're able to now up the amount of mileage or the amount of time that you're putting into running. So those are two really simple ways to tell if your body is responding well to running.
00:08:29
Speaker
And if it's not, then just take a step back. Like there's no rush here. You don't need to try to break any records. You don't need to try to add a bunch of stuff or push through something that's like super painful because again, that's probably not going to lead you to where you want to get to. You want to really just focus on building that habit and exposing your body to these stimuluses that are actually going to help you and not hurt you. And then once you do start to feel good, once you start to build up some sort of foundation, let's say you're out there for two or three times per week, and now you're running 30 minutes at a time, like now you can start to add some different things in. So there's different ways that you can start to progress.
00:09:03
Speaker
You can start to add some intensity to your run. So you're starting to maybe run some faster paces. Maybe you're starting to take on some hills, or maybe you're going out on a trail and running. things that are going to make it a little bit more difficult or you could add distance so you're just adding some extra miles onto your run you were running let's say two miles or three miles and maybe now you're going for four miles you could add time i'm a huge fan of just focusing on time especially when you first get into running because i think a lot of times people focus too much on distances or they focus too much on their pace
00:09:34
Speaker
And that is a really easy way to start to burn yourself out because you're just really grinding through these runs and you're not really just enjoying the process and just getting good at running. I think when you just realize that running is a skill and it's a practice, just like anything else, and you don't have to just crush yourself with every single run, it becomes much more enjoyable. Maybe you're running for 20 minutes at a time and then you boost it up to that 30 minutes and then you boost it up to 40 minutes and you just continue that way. Or you could add a little bit more frequency. So maybe you're getting two runs in per week and now you're gonna add a third day or maybe you're running three times per week and you want to add a fourth day.
00:10:09
Speaker
You can play around with all these different things and they're just really simple ways that you can start to progress. But again, the whole thing is here, you don't need to try to go out the gates too fast and do anything dumb. You want to train smart here. And this is a message that I've had to learn so many different times within my own fitness journey is just to train smarter. It's not always about how much intensity, how much effort, how much can you do? Because that doesn't lead you to where you want to get, especially if you get injured and now you're out for multiple weeks or you hurt yourself and now you can't actually run. like You want to do this in a smart way. And so to give you an example about like myself and kind of how I did this, After I did my marathon training, like I followed a plan and I did that, which was very progressive and I was able to make some progress and complete the marathon. But then after I got done with that, I just scaled it way back. My goal was to simply just get out and run three times per week for 30 minutes at a time.
00:11:00
Speaker
I did that for literally years. Like I just focused on getting some benefits from cardio, the mental benefits, the physical benefits. And I just focused on just getting out there and just getting better at running. I didn't really care too much about my paces. I didn't care too much about distances and times and things like that. And every once in a while I would go on a longer run. Like I would see if I could run 10 miles or do different things like that. Cause I knew I had that ability to do that. But for the most part, I was just getting out there and just trying to get some easy miles in to just really build up my body. You don't have to do that for years at a time. That was just what I did.
00:11:34
Speaker
And then after time, like once I felt really comfortable and once I actually wanted to start to get better at running and start to train for races and different things like that, I started to add in different things like speed work and longer runs and knock on wood, I haven't been injured at all with running, which is pretty rare. And I think a big part of that is just because I progressed really smartly.
00:11:54
Speaker
And the other big part of that too, is just strength training that helps a ton. But since you're already strength training in this example, just progressing in a smart way is what's going to be the most beneficial thing that you can do here. so You don't want to go out too hard because you're just going to fizzle out or get injured or fall off. So the practical takeaway is just to start with something that you can manage. Start with two or three times, shorter sessions. Maybe it's 15 minutes. Maybe it's 20 minutes, 30 minutes if you have
Managing Dietary Excesses
00:12:20
Speaker
some sort of background with running. And then build up from there. After a couple of weeks, if you're feeling good, you can add another session. You can add a little bit of distance to your run. You can add a little bit of intensity to your run.
00:12:31
Speaker
Or another thing that you can always do too, if running isn't your thing, or you're just noticing that your body isn't maybe responding as well as you thought it would to running. throwing some cross training so you can maybe run one or two times a week but then maybe on that third cardio day you're doing some biking or some rowing or using the elliptical like you're still getting all those cardio benefits but you're just not running so that's a really smart thing that you can do as well to just again make sure that you stay injury free and make sure that you can actually give yourself some time to build your body up so that you can make this running a part of your routine and not burn out or get injured
00:13:06
Speaker
Question number two. I do really well with my eating most of the week and then I really overdo it a few times. I know this is a reason I'm not seeing as much weight loss progress as I'd like. Any advice?
00:13:17
Speaker
The first thing I would say is it's really good that you're aware of this issue. I think a lot of people struggle with this thing. And something that I always say is that you need to be self-aware if you want to make health changes. A lot of people are just kind of oblivious to these things or they don't pay attention to these things or they don't realize where these errors are coming from. Like they might have some sort of an idea, like they know they're maybe eating too much or snacking too much or maybe having too many desserts or going out to eat too much, but like they just don't pay attention to it as much But once you are aware of those things and you know kind of where the problem is coming from, well, now you can start to get a objective about this. So if your goal is fat loss, something that I would tell you to do is just to start actually tracking your calories to see how much you're actually overdoing it. Because are you overdoing it by a couple hundred calories? Are you overdoing it by 2000 calories? There's a big difference in there. But once you know where the issue is and then once you have a little bit of data, now you can use that data to drive your decisions and you can start to create a plan that actually moves you in the right direction. So for example, let's say that maybe you're the person who you do really well during the week and then the weekend rolls around and you just go nuts. Like you have, you go out to eat a couple of times, you have a couple of desserts, you're crushing snacks, all these different things where you're getting a ton of extra calories and then you're not really actually seeing any fat loss progress.
00:14:34
Speaker
So you look at that weekend, you see how many calories you're consuming, you're seeing where the issues are, and then you can start to make a plan around that. So that doesn't necessarily mean that you have to cut all those things out, you just plan better. So if I know that I'm going to go into the weekend, and I'm going to go out to eat, Well, now I can actually plan that into my week. And I know that, okay, I'm going to save 2000 calories extra for that weekend by eating a little bit less on the other days of the week. So then when this Saturday comes around and I want to go out to eat, I want to have a couple of drinks. I want to have a dessert. Well, now I can go out and do those things. But if you don't have any data or you don't have anything to help you make this plan, well, then you're just going to continue to spin your wheels.
00:15:15
Speaker
The other thing that I would say about this is just to try to get out of that all or nothing mindset because a lot of people fall into this trap here because they try to be just so perfect throughout the week where it's like, I'm not going to eat any sweets. I'm not going to have any snacks. I'm not going to go out to eat. I'm not going have alcohol. And then they can do that for a while.
00:15:34
Speaker
But eventually you get to a point where you just can't sustain that for a very long time. And then they go way off the edge. Like they have everything. They eat all the calories, all the desserts, all the things, and now they're just feeling guilty about it. And then they get in this really bad spiral, this really bad loop of like, well, I blew it already. So then I might as well just keep going. And so then this just turns into this, not just one single day, but now it's multiple days. And then again, you're never making any progress. you don't feel good about the decisions that you're making and it just it's a sucky place to be when you can plan a little bit better when you can track a little bit more when you can actually have objective goals to set you up you're going to be in a much better place and i actually just did an entire podcast about like how you can track calories and just set up a style of diet for you to actually enjoy. So you're not feeling like you're limiting yourself or restricting so much. I did that just last week. So if you go back and listen to last week's podcast, if you haven't yet, I talk all about how you can create a diet and get out of this whole issue right here.
00:16:36
Speaker
Question number three, find myself getting into the mindset of if I can't do it well, I
1% Better Mindset
00:16:42
Speaker
won't do it at all. I know you talk about the 1% better mindset. So I'm wondering what is the minimum amount that you need to still make progress?
00:16:50
Speaker
I actually kind of like this question. So i do talk about the 1% mindset quite a bit. I truly believe that something is always going to be better than nothing. Like anything above zero compounds, which is the 1% better mindset. And I think this is so much more sustainable for a lot of people because so many people around fitness, around dieting, around health, they live in that all or nothing space. And that's just not realistic for most people.
00:17:14
Speaker
If you think about these things, a 20 minute walk done every single day for a month is 10 hours of walking. If you stretch just five minutes per day for an entire month, that is an extra two and a half hours of stretching.
00:17:30
Speaker
If you do a 15 minute workout every single day for 30 days, that's an extra seven and a half hours of exercise. In all those examples, Don't you think that your health would improve vastly if you did any of those things? None of those things seem like a big deal in the moment. Like a 20 minute walk during your day doesn't really seem like a big deal. A five minutes of stretching doesn't really seem like a big deal. 15 minute workout doesn't even seem like it's worth it. But when you start to compound those things and then you look back over the course of a week or a month or a year,
00:18:02
Speaker
all those little things start to add up and they make huge amounts of progress. So not overlooking those little pockets of time and those little things that you can be doing is so beneficial. and that's why I talk about the 1% Better Mindset a lot, because you might not be able to go for 90 minute walk or go on a five mile walk or even get your 10,000 steps in per day. But I bet that you can get a 20 minute walk in pretty much every day.
00:18:26
Speaker
maybe you feel super achy and stiff and you're wanting to stretch more because you know as you get older it's starting to affect your mobility and the things you can do and you don't want to wake up and feel like you got hit by a truck every day so stretching for five minutes makes sense maybe you don't have time to go to yoga for an hour three times a week but i bet that you have five minutes that you can contribute to your stretching and if you do that for two and a half hours throughout the month Do you think you're going to be in a better position than if you didn't do that at all?
00:18:54
Speaker
Absolutely, you would. Or maybe you don't always have time to get into the gym for 60 minutes at a time, but I bet that you have 15 minutes in your day where you could go and go on a run or you could go work out or you could do some homework out or you could do something that's going to help you with your fitness.
00:19:09
Speaker
And if you had to choose between no workout or working out for 15 minutes and then getting that seven and a half hours of extra exercise throughout the month, which one do you think is going to leave you in a better spot?
00:19:21
Speaker
Obviously, we know it's getting the exercise or doing the thing. And so there's 1% better mindset is so helpful from that aspect. But I also think that from a deeper aspect or more of a mental aspect, this plays just as big of a role. And what I mean by that is that by focusing on these little things, it allows you to build momentum and it allows you to actually build the habit of showing up and just to increase your consistency. And then once you have that consistency, what you have these habits in place, well, then it's so much easier to build on these things. But if you try to do everything all at once, like if you try to go from not working out at all to getting in four or five workouts per week for an hour at a time.
00:20:03
Speaker
it's not very likely that that's going to stick. To give you a personal example here, I've been trying to get into stretching for a really long time, for literally years, and I've gotten better at it over the years. I've made it more of a priority, but I've never really been able to like nail down a good habit of stretching a good amount of time. Every single day, which has been my goal for a really long time. Like I do a lot of running. I do a lot of lifting. I do a lot of things. I played sports. So I have like aches and pains. And I just know that if I don't work on my mobility and stretching now, it's only going to get worse as I get older. So I just have to make this a priority. But I've always struggled to just get on a good routine and find something that I could do daily where I actually stick with it. So what I did at the beginning of the year is I told myself, all right, I'm just going to do two minutes every single day. That is my goal to get at least two minutes every single day of stretching or mobility. That is going to be my goal.
00:20:53
Speaker
month one, like at the beginning of the year in January, that's all I did. I would do two minutes and that was it. Like that was all I focused on was two minutes. And again, it doesn't sound like a lot over the course of 30 days. That's an extra hour of stretching. So it's definitely not nothing. And it was helping for sure. But I knew that eventually I would need to build that up just a little bit more. But if I had told myself I need to do 15 minutes a day, I just know that I wasn't going to do that.
00:21:18
Speaker
Now, fast forward to where I'm at right now, it's the middle of April, so it's been four and a half months. I asked my WHOOP recently, which is my fitness tracker. There's an AI function on there and you can ask a different question. So I asked my WHOOP, within the last 30 days, how much time have I spent on stretching, mobility, or yoga? And it told me that over the last 30 days, I've spent 330 minutes stretching.
00:21:43
Speaker
or doing yoga or mobility or something of that sort, which is five and a half hours of stretching. So compare that to month one, one hour versus now five and a half hours of stretching. It's a very big difference. And then when you break that down, five and a half hours of stretching over the course of 30 days, it's only 11 minutes per day, which again, isn't a ton of time. Like we can all find 10 minutes in our day if we really want to. And I could definitely find 10 minutes a day to stretch at the beginning of the year if I wanted to.
00:22:10
Speaker
but i know that if i would have made it the goal to stretch 10 minutes a day just the likelihood of me sticking with it there would have been so many days where like i'm stressed or i'm busy or i just don't want to do it not motivated to do it or whatever the case may be that i just wouldn't have been as consistent as i would have been with just that two minutes per day so by starting small by just focusing on that one percent better you allow yourself to actually build up that habit and to build that momentum and you start to cultivate that mindset of I'm the person who shows up, I'm the person who starts to stretch and that stuff matters a lot.
00:22:42
Speaker
Focusing on that 1% better for the physical benefits is awesome, but just as much for the mental benefits. And now the second part of
Minimal Effort for Fitness Progress
00:22:48
Speaker
this question. So what are like some tangible numbers about like the little that you can actually do to continue to see progress on your fitness goals? This is a message that I wish more people understood.
00:22:59
Speaker
Again, I think that so many people think that you need to be in the gym for hours every single day or you need to be running a ton or doing all the things to get the benefit out of fitness. But you really do not. Like I'm a person who loves this kind of stuff. So I spend a lot of my day doing just working out, running and doing that kind of stuff. And I look forward to it most of the time. But I just I understand that that's not everybody. And especially people who have kids and people who are busy and people who don't love fitness like.
00:23:23
Speaker
You don't need to be in the gym for hours every single day to get the benefit. I think that everybody should prioritize their fitness if they really want to just feel good and look good and have all those benefits from health.
00:23:34
Speaker
And understanding that it really doesn't take that much. is I think a big part of that and that just makes it more manageable and just helps people to embrace it a little bit more. So when we think about three of these things, like three, these are three of the most important things you can do when it comes to your fitness. So strength training is obviously very important.
00:23:50
Speaker
If you get just two 20 minute strength workouts, that is enough to give you a bulk of the benefits that you get from strength training. Now, obviously, you're not going to be like a bodybuilder or shatter any records around fitness if you're getting two 20-minute strength workouts in per week. But as far as just the average person, like being able to build a little bit of muscle, build some strength, keep their mobility up, get all those benefits that we want from strength training and building muscle, you can do that in two 20-minute workouts per week. Like you're going to see benefit from that. That's not a lot of time. Like most of us can find 40 minutes in a single week, if we're being honest about being able to get these things done. And anytime people say they don't have 40 minutes in a week or they don't have enough time to work out or they don't have enough time to prioritize their meals or something like that, I just tell them, look at your screen time, go on your phone and look at your screen time. And if you have three hours, four hours, five hours, six hours, seven hours, a ton of time on your screen,
00:24:48
Speaker
Don't ever say that you don't have time because we have the time. It's just a matter that we need to make it a priority. And again, you don't need a ton of time. Two 20-minute strength workouts is enough to give you a huge bulk of the benefits that you see from strength training.
00:25:01
Speaker
The second thing I would tell you is walking. So I talk about walking a lot. We know that walking is super important. and You hear the 10,000 steps thrown around a lot, but that's not necessarily what you have to get. If you can get 10,000 steps a day, awesome.
00:25:13
Speaker
But a lot of the research has showed that if you get up to around that 7,500 steps per day, that's kind of where you're going to get a majority of the benefit. Anything above that, you're still getting some benefit, but you get the most benefit from getting that 7,500 steps from being sedentary to hitting that 7,500 steps. And if we look at the average person, even if you're sedentary, you're probably getting at least two, three, 4,000 steps somewhere in that range. And so you're not super far off of that. Like you're probably three, 4,000 steps off of that.
00:25:44
Speaker
And so just by doing something like taking a 10 minute walk after each meal and getting in an extra 30 minutes of walking, you would likely be right around that 7,500 steps per day And by doing that, by hitting that, you decrease your all cause mortality, which is just a fancy way of saying you decrease your chance of dying for any reason by up to 50 to 70 percent by getting 7500 steps in your day.
00:26:09
Speaker
30 minutes extra of walking gets you all those benefits. So again, it doesn't take a whole lot to get a ton of benefit out of some of these very simple things. And the third one that I would list is just around eating. So around our nutrition habits. We know the importance of protein. We know the importance of fiber. So doing something like getting some protein and fiber at most of your meals can have a huge benefit. So adding in some fruits, adding in some lean proteins to your meals is not only going to help you with building muscle, reducing hunger, improving your overall health, all those things that we get from protein and fiber. It's just going to make you feel better and just going to help you with all those fitness goals that we have. So these simple things, like there's nothing that I just listed there that takes a ton of time. Two 20-minute workouts per week, 7,500 steps in a day, and then getting in some extra protein and veggies or fruits at your meals. Like that's doable for literally every person. So it really doesn't take a whole lot. You just have to be a little bit more aware. And it's got to be something that you actually want to do. But that 1% better mindset can help you get to that point.
00:27:12
Speaker
Question number four, I think this is, I have 45 minutes to an hour three times per week to dedicate to the gym and I want to maximize my
Time-Efficient Gym Routine
00:27:20
Speaker
benefits. What style of program would you recommend?
00:27:23
Speaker
So for three days per week, there's a couple different ways that you could split this up. You could do a full body. You could do something like a push-pull leg split. You could do an upper-lower full-body split. I would typically recommend full-body just for the simple fact. By doing full-body, now you're going to be able to hit most of your muscle groups at least a couple times per week, which is going to be beneficial for a lot of people. But if you really wanted to, you could split it up with a push-pull legs. You could an upper-lower full- But again, i would go with that full body. What I would recommend is starting each workout with one to two bigger compound movements. So things like a bench press, an overhead press, a squat, some sort of heavy lunge, a hinge, like an RDL or a deadlift, something where you're using a lot of different muscles. So you're getting a lot of bang for your buck. Doing yeah three sets, maybe four sets and keeping it in that little bit lower rep range is what I would do to start the workout. So one to two exercise like that.
00:28:18
Speaker
Then I would get into the second part of the workout, which I would use supersets. So this is just using two different exercises where you're using opposing muscle groups. So this could be like an upper body movement with a lower body movement, or it could be like a chest movement with a back movement, something where you're hitting a muscle group, but then you're allowing that muscle group to rest while you go and hit another exercise. And this is just going to maximize your time spent in the gym. So you're not spending as much time resting and you're getting in a little bit of work while also still being able to feel fresh and move a lot of good weight so you can see the best progress. And then lastly, what I would do after that, i would hit my big compound movements, I would get into a couple of supersets. And then typically, i would finish off a workout with either like a finisher or a circuit or some sort of like density block. And all this means is that you're picking like two, three, maybe even four exercises, where you can do a lot of reps and get a lot of work done in a small amount of time. So You're going through these exercises without much rest.
00:29:18
Speaker
And then that way you're able to get a little bit more volume and you're able to really push it and just get that good pump and get that good burn that we all like to feel. So that's kind of how I would set that up. And then just a couple of tips. If you're really trying to maximize your time in the gym, always go in with a plan. If you go in without a plan, like you don't have a plan written down.
00:29:36
Speaker
and you don't know what you're doing when you're going in the gym, you're just not going to have as good of a workout as if you had a plan. I hear it all the time. If you don't have a plan, go into the gym and you just try to wing it, your workout is not going to be as good.
00:29:48
Speaker
I've been doing this stuff. I've been lifting for over 17 years and I know my way around a weight room pretty well. And I write programs all the time. I've written hundreds of programs. But if I go into the gym and I don't necessarily have a plan, my workout is typically not going to be as good as if I do have a plan and I'm following my app or I'm following a workout that I made.
00:30:06
Speaker
it's just, you just have a plan. Like it's going to save you time. You're going to get better results. And so have some sort of plan going in. The second thing i would say is just pay attention to your rest time. I know a lot of people get on their phones in between rest times and it's easy to get out of focus and you just start wasting a lot of time. So pay attention to your rest times and try to just stay focused when you're in there. And then making sure too, that if you really do want to maximize your results, take most of your sets close to muscular failure. And I know I've mentioned that on Multiple podcasts is something that I always say, but you really have to push the intensity if you want to see progress.
00:30:38
Speaker
Again, focusing on that progressive overload. So make sure you're not just going in there and going through the motions. That way you can get the best results possible. Last question of the day. I've failed so many times at fitness and health stuff that I have such low confidence in this area of
Rebuilding Fitness Confidence
00:30:54
Speaker
my life. Any advice for someone like me? This really good question because I think this is something that a lot of people do struggle with. And especially if you don't come from like a fitness background or an athletic background or anything like that. This can be hard to get into fitness and health and just learning all this stuff. Like it's a bunch of skills that a lot of people don't necessarily have as adults, which seems kind of weird. Like we all feel like we should know how to eat and exercise and do those things. And like, it seems like a simple thing. but When you break it down, like a lot of these things just comes down to smaller skills that a lot of us just never really learned or never really were aware of or never really practiced. And we have a lot of old bad habits that we got growing up or that we found somewhere along the way that aren't really helping us out. And so you have to start to change those things. And that can be hard when you're not confident in this area. And it feels like something that you're not good at. And so understanding that you can absolutely change that. That's what the whole growth mindset thing is about. Like, just because you're not good at these things now, it doesn't mean that you're not going be good at those things forever.
00:31:55
Speaker
But I know a lot of people have tried things by themselves and failed a lot. And I think a lot of that is because the approach that people take with this is just not very good. But some actual tangible advice that I would say about this is just when you think about building trust within yourself and think about building like confidence within just fitness and just in general,
00:32:13
Speaker
If you think about a person that you know who says they're going to do things like you, you might have like a friend or a family member or, you know, someone or maybe a coworker something like who is just always talking about all these things that they're going to do, these big goals that they have, how they're going to do this, they're going to do that, but then they never actually do it.
00:32:30
Speaker
How much confidence or how much trust do you have in that person? Probably not a whole lot because they never have anything to show for all these things that they're saying. Like they never follow through. They never take action. That same exact thing goes for the relationship with yourself. So if you're always saying that I'm going to lose this weight or I'm going to start this diet or I'm going to do this six day a week workout program and then you don't do those things and you fail on those things. Well, of course, you're not going to have any confidence within yourself because you never follow through on those things.
00:33:00
Speaker
But the thing is, you don't need to try to take on these huge, big, daunting things right away. I think it makes much more sense to break things down into smaller pieces that you can actually do. And so when it comes down to this, like figuring out some small daily targets that you can do and then actually do those things, like keep small daily promises to yourself.
00:33:20
Speaker
Don't make the big mistake of trying to do too much too soon or trying to do everything all at once or trying to change everything overnight. Because for 99% of people, that just doesn't work. And then every time that you fail, you just think that I can't do this health stuff. Like this stuff isn't for me. I can't do this. but Pick out a couple of small things every day that you can do.
00:33:40
Speaker
Now you can start to build that confidence up. There's this quote from James Clear, the author who wrote Atomic Habits, which is one of my favorite books of all time. He says, every choice that you make is a vote for the type of person that you want to be.
00:33:54
Speaker
So every little decision that you're making throughout the day, and there's hundreds of them that you can make towards your health and fitness that are going to put you in a better spot, the more times you can make the positive choice, the better off you're going to be. So there's so many little instances like that throughout the day that you can make to start to see yourself as that fit person, see yourself as that healthy person and start to reinforce that identity, but also just start to back it up with evidence. Because as you start to do those things, you're going to start to see progress, you're going to start to think about being more healthy. And then once you get to that point of like,
00:34:26
Speaker
It doesn't feel so weird to like do healthy things or to think about healthy things or to work out or to focus on hitting your steps or to eat in a certain way, because all those things are going to seem a little bit foreign at first and they're going seem difficult and they're going to seem weird. But the more that you can do those little things, the more that you start to build that competence, the more that you start to build that confidence within yourself.
00:34:47
Speaker
And then it starts to not feel so hard. The second thing that I would say about this is that the language that you use matters. So the things that you say matter. If you're not going to do something, then don't say you're gonna do it. For example, if you say that I'm going to go to bed at a certain time, then do it, follow through. if you say that I'm gonna run today, even if it's only for five minutes, then go on that run. If you say you're gonna work out three times this week, then work out three times. If you don't plan on doing those things,
00:35:12
Speaker
then don't say those things. Because every time you're saying those things, you're just losing trust with yourself. And that's, again, why I'm such a proponent of small changes. Like, if you tell yourself, I'm never going to eat processed food ever again, that's not realistic, you're probably not going to do that.
00:35:29
Speaker
But if you say I'm going to start eating more fruits and veggies with my meals, well, That's very doable. And that's something that you can follow through on. And that's something that you can build on. So don't say these things or don't take on these huge goals right away or don't say these just phrases that you're just not going to do. Like, just don't do that. Just be more aware and just be more conscious about the things that you're saying. And then when you're saying those things, just follow through on those things.
00:35:52
Speaker
There's a quote that I don't remember exactly who said it, but it was something along the lines of like, you don't build confidence through shouting affirmations in the mirror. You build it by building evidence that you are the person that you say you are. I think it might have been Alex Hormo.
00:36:06
Speaker
It's something along those lines of like, you don't just wake up one day and say, I'm a confident person or I have all this confidence in fitness and health. You do it by doing the small things and proving to yourself that you are that person. And then once you do that, the confidence part takes care of itself. And so it doesn't need to be this like crazy thing. And you don't need to try to take on too many things at once. It's just small little things done day after day. And when you do that, everything else starts to take care of itself. And you start to build that confidence. You start to see the changes. You start to see the progress. And then this doesn't feel so challenging. You don't feel like this health and fitness stuff is so difficult all the time.
00:36:43
Speaker
And with that being said, that is the five questions for this week, the Q&A episode. I appreciate those questions. Those
Closing Remarks and Listener Engagement
00:36:50
Speaker
were some good questions. If you have questions in the future, you can always shoot me a message on any of my socials. It's probably the best way to get hold of me.
00:36:57
Speaker
The one-on-one coaching link is in the show notes. If you want some help with losing fat, building muscle, doing some of this stuff, I'm always here to help with that. Lastly, if you can continue to share this, leave reviews, all that good stuff. I appreciate you listening and we will see you next week