Transcript
Speaker: Welcome back to the Fit-ish Project with your host Latham Bass, where we make fitness and health simple for regular people like you and I. It is time for another weekly episode. Before I get into that, just a quick reminder to leave reviews if you can help to get this show out to more people. I greatly appreciate your part in doing that so we can get this information to the people who want to look better, feel better, live better, all those good things that we all want.
Speaker: The topic for this week, five things I wish I did sooner to lose 100 pounds. A big reason that I do this podcast is because I want people to get great results. I want people to look great. I want people to feel great. I want people to have more confidence, better energy, live longer, all that good stuff.
Speaker: A lot of people really struggle to get there. Fitness is something that many people have issues with or have challenges with for many different reasons. And I've had my own share of challenges. And now with working with dozens of people at this point, I recognize that lots of people struggle to get fit, to lose weight, to build muscle, to make this stuff really stick. And so a lot of this podcast is just sharing my own personal experience along with sharing the experiences of other people who I get the opportunity to work with to help you use those experiences and maybe avoid some of those mistakes and get better results and hopefully even get faster results.
Speaker: That's exactly what this podcast is about. Five important habits that I wish I would have started sooner throughout this process of losing 100 pounds. I feel like if I would have done this, started some of these things sooner, it would have not only helped me to make faster progress, which isn't the most important thing, because as you guys know, if you've listened to any of my podcasts, I'm huge on sustainability. So it's not always about getting super fast results.
Speaker: But at the same time, we want to get there in the most efficient manner. And we definitely don't want to make this harder than it needs to be. And oftentimes I see people doing things or trying things that is making this a lot more difficult and a lot more challenging, a lot more confusing than it really needs to be. So that is what this podcast is all about.
Speaker: I have conversations with people about fitness all the time. And some things that I came to learn about this is quite a few people know what to do, but some people just really don't actually know what to do or they are focused on the wrong things. And I think there's a few different reasons for that. Information overload because we have information everywhere on social media, on all your Facebook, your TikTok, your Instagram. All that stuff has so much information about fitness, about weight loss, about building muscle, and everybody has a opinion on these things. So it can make it really hard to know who should I trust, what things should I listen to, what things should i actually put my effort and time into.
Speaker: And I totally get that because when I started this whole process, I didn't have nearly as much information overload as people do now. And on top of that, you throw AI with that and you have chat GPT and these different services that you can ask questions to. And there's just so many things that you have to try to figure out. And so it can be confusing. So that's one of the problems. Another problem that I see with people is they're focused on the wrong thing. So they're focused on a specific diet because they think that is going to get them these crazy results that this person is swearing by or they're
Speaker: focused on avoiding a certain food. Maybe it's something like seed oils, which at the time is a pretty popular topic that you need to be avoiding seed oils. Otherwise, it's going to screw up your health and make fat loss harder and all those different things. They're focused on some certain form of exercise, whatever happens to be the trendy thing at the moment. I know a lot of people right now are focused on Pilates and think that that's a way to help tone and build their body the way that they want to.
Speaker: So a lot of times people just are focused on the wrong things. And When you understand the principles behind these things, such as losing weight or building muscle and getting fit, when you understand the underlying principle, then you can make a much better choice on the method that you use, because a lot of people are focused on the methods.
Speaker: the specific diet, the certain form of exercise, the specific food that they should be eating, the specific dieting strategy that they should be using. And all that stuff is not that important. What's more important is understanding what's the actual thing that I need to do, what's this principle that I need to understand. And then once you understand a few of these basic principles, then you can now choose the method based on your preference or based on something that you think is actually going to be sustainable for you. To give you an example,
Speaker: Once you understand energy balance, you understand that if you eat more than you burn, you are going to gain weight. If you eat less than you burn, you are going to lose weight. It's very, very simple in practice. And once you understand those things, then you know, okay I'm not just choosing my diet based on what people are telling me are going to give me great results. I can actually choose my diet based on something that I know is going to be sustainable for me for the long term.
Speaker: Understanding some of those basics, I think, is very important within this. And then the second thing that I've come to understand is that some people know what to do, but they just aren't doing it. Common knowledge isn't always common practice. When that's the case, it's more of a question of like, what are the things that we can do to help you do this more consistently? Like, what is the psychology behind these things? What's the human behavior behind this? How can we break this down in a more practical way so that you actually do it? Because I think most of us want to be fitter. We want to be more healthy. We want to have a good life, want to be able to live a really long time and be able to do all the things we want to do. And we understand that fitness and health is a big part of that. But we still struggle to break these things down and implement these things into our life in a way that's actually going to be sustainable and something that we can consistently do. So within this podcast, we are going to address both of those things. So you understand what to do and why it's important, but you also understand how can I make this practical and what are the actions that I need to do to build these five habits that we're going to talk about here.
Speaker: it's very likely that you're probably doing at least a couple of these things, if not most of these five things, but there's probably one or two that you're not doing. Or what's even more likely is you're probably not doing these things as consistently as you need to for a long enough period of time to actually see the results that you need to see. Because again, another thing that I've seen time and time again is that people have really skewed expectations around these things. So even if they do happen to know some of the things that they should be doing, they know some of the habits They do them for a short period of time and they don't see the results that they want to see. And then they just give up. Like they write these things off. They think that following a certain diet isn't working. So they try a different diet where they think this form of exercise isn't working. So I try this or instead of focusing on these things that we're going to go over here that I know work and are proven to get you results. They try to find the next new shiny thing. And that doesn't help you get anywhere because you just continue to focus on things that don't really matter all that much. You start focusing on those methods again, rather than the actual principles, rather than the good habits that you need to be focused on to get you results.
Speaker: And so you stay stuck. And I think a lot of people are in that spot where they've tried things in the past and they just don't really see the results that they want to see. So then they don't think that this stuff actually works. But I can promise you with my own experience, with the experience of working with a lot of other people, if you do these things, you can and will get really good results as long as you're doing these things consistently.
Speaker: Number one on this list, look at food labels. One of the very first things that I have people do when I work with them is to have them spend some time tracking food.
Speaker: Just about every single time that I have people do this, I hear some really common things. Three of the most common things that I hear is I didn't realize that there was this many calories in this certain food. So this could be like sauces that you're putting on your foods. This could be your cooking oils. This could be certain processed foods. This could be a certain dessert. This could be something as simple as peanut butter. When you start tracking those things and you realize just how many calories are in some of these foods, you tend to think about these things differently.
Speaker: But so many people go throughout life just eating and never really looking at the things that they're actually putting in their body. And then they don't really understand why they're gaining so much weight or why they can't lose weight. And the fact of the matter is, if you're not losing weight over a long period of time, and you feel like you're dieting, you feel like you're eating healthy, you are eating too many calories.
Speaker: There's some caveats with this, obviously, because if you're building muscle at the same time as you're trying to lose fat and sometimes the scale isn't moving that quickly and it's hard to actually know whether or not you're losing fat. But in general, if you have a good amount of weight to lose and you feel like you've been dieting for a long period of time. The simple fact of the matter is you haven't been in a deep enough calorie deficit consistently enough for a long enough period of time. And there's really no way around it. That is just the simple science behind this. That is how thermodynamics works. And the fact is that you're not this anomaly to where thermodynamics and energy balance and a calorie deficit doesn't work for you. It's just a simple fact of you maybe feel like you're dieting, but when you look at this on a long enough period of time,
Speaker: There's certain days where you're probably eating too much. Maybe it's the weekends, maybe it's the snacking, maybe you're just eating more calories than you realize through these things like sauces and processed foods and desserts and different things like that. And for a lot of people, that's a tough pill to swallow, they would rather blame genetics or just say that these things don't work for them when in reality, that's just not true. That's just not factual.
Speaker: The fact of the matter is you're just eating too much. And when you start to do things like track food, like look at food labels, you can start to realize, well, what are these some of these things that are really holding me back? Is it these sauces that I put on every single meal? Is it what I'm cooking my food in? Is it these processed foods that I didn't realize have three times the amount of calories that I have? Is it this dessert that I eat most nights that I didn't realize had 500 calories and 50 grams of sugar? Like when you start to actually track food, you can start to nail down some of these things that have actually been holding you back and you can make better decisions. Another thing that I hear quite often is I didn't realize I was eating way more than I thought. So bigger portions, hidden calories, mindless calories through snacking, through different things like that.
Speaker: We just don't realize just how many calories we're taking in. And this wasn't always an issue for us, for the human race. But since we have processed food, since we have fast food, since we have really convenient ways to eat, and there's just so many excess calories all around us, it's very easy to overeat without ever even realizing it If you're eating strictly whole foods, it's much harder to overeat. But now we're eating more processed things. We have the fast food, we have the takeout, we have all these different foods and all these different ways to get calories. And so it's so much easier to overeat. And I think people really underestimate just how much they're eating, unless they start to track these things and they start to bring more awareness around these things.
Speaker: The studies tell us the exact same thing. In some studies, people underestimate how much they're eating by as much as 40 to 50%. So to give you an example, you could be a person who feels like they're dieting, they think they're eating healthy, you think you're eating 2000 calories, you're But if you're underestimating that by 50%, you could be eating closer to 3000 calories, which again, then people wonder why they can't lose weight. But if you need to be eating 2000 calories to put you in a calorie deficit, but you're actually eating 3000 calories without even realizing it, of course, you're not losing weight because you're not in a calorie deficit. This happens all the time. I see so many people struggle with this because they feel like they're dieting, they feel like they're eating healthy, but they're just simply eating too many calories.
Speaker: Even people whose entire job it is to help people with food, to give recommendations, to really understand food, dieticians, they have been studied and they asked these dieticians to estimate how many calories they were eating. And even them whose sole job it is, who have has tons of experience, they still underestimate how much they're eating by around 10%, which obviously a lot smaller margin and they're a lot better at estimating, at eyeballing, things like that.
Speaker: But even them who have spent tons of time around food and tons of time with helping people solve some of these problems, they still can't even get as accurate as you would like to be.
Speaker: I've had my own personal experience with this too. It's just so easy to eat bigger portions. It's easier to have an extra snack without realizing it. It's easy to cook your food in some extra oil that you didn't really think about. It's easier to add some extra sauce onto your meal that you don't even think twice about.
Speaker: those calories add up over time. If we take a simple example, let's say instead of having three fourths cup of rice with your meal, you have a cup that's 50 extra calories. And let's say on your breakfast, you want to have some peanut butter on your bagel. And instead of having one tablespoon, you have two tablespoons. Well, that's 100 extra calories. And now instead of cooking your food in some oil that is zero calories, you use some high calorie cooking oil. That's 120 calories, 150 calories. Just from that simple example, those three little things could add up to be 250 to 300 calories.
Speaker: And so you think you're in a 500 calorie deficit, but by those three little things that you didn't even realize, you're now only in a 200 calorie deficit. And that's just three small examples. And this is stuff that people don't realize they're doing all throughout the day. And so it's very easy to think. I'm dieting, I'm eating 500 calories less, I'm in my calorie deficit, I should be losing weight.
Speaker: But if you're not actively tracking these things, if you're not bringing more awareness, if you're not looking at food labels, if you're not spending a little bit of time tracking your food, weighing out your food, those sorts of things, and you're not seeing the results you wanna see, that's probably where you want to look. And so to get practical about these things,
Speaker: the most basic thing that you can start to do is just to start to look at food labels, bring more awareness to food, which can help with some of that mindless eating, some of that mindless snacking, some of those hidden calories with understanding portion sizes a little bit better. Because if you don't ever think about those things, those things aren't going change. You have to start to bring some awareness and some intention to those things so that you can actually make some tangible changes.
Speaker: This is something that people who have lost a lot of weight and keep it off, they're really good at this. It's called self-monitoring. So it's basically just ways that you can provide some accountability so that you can make better choices. So a simple example would be a food journal. If you're writing down every single thing that you're eating throughout the day, that is going to help you to make better decisions and help to reflect a little bit on the things that you're eating. And if you notice that there's some things that maybe are stopping you from hitting your goals, like you're noticing that you're just having too many hidden calories, or you're mindlessly snacking, or you're having too many things that are just high in calories, you can start to make different decisions in the future. But if you don't reflect on those things, and if you don't have a way to actually bring some awareness around those things, those things aren't just going to change on their own. So Things that you can do, obviously, track food.
Speaker: Looking at food labels is a great place to start. Get curious about looking at the types of things that you're putting in your bodies. When I look at a food label, some of the things that I tend to look at is calories, number one.
Speaker: Portion size would be number two, because if you're eating something, but you're eating multiple portions of it, you need to understand how many calories you're actually getting. That's a mistake that I see a lot of people make because... Lots of things will have some sort of portion size that is a lot less than what we would typically think of as a portion size, especially here in America where our portion sizes are massive. So you could be thinking that you're eating 150, 200 calories of this food because that's what it says on the back of the food label. But if you're having three servings of that, now you're eating 600 calories. That's something that you want to understand. And then the last thing that I'll start to look at on food labels is things like proteins, like fat, like carbs, like fiber, just so that you start to know what are some of the things that you are starting to eat because all those macros, they provide different types of jobs to your body. So if you're eating something high in protein, we know, that that's good for building muscle, for managing hunger. If you're having something that's higher in fat versus higher in carbs, or if you're trying to get a little bit more fiber in your diet, like knowing those things is really helpful. second thing i would say with this if you've never tracked food trying that for like 14 days just a couple of weeks of just tracking things i think you can learn a lot by tracking food for even just a couple of weeks the things that you will learn about portion sizes about your eating habits about mindless calories about hitting calories about all these different things that we don't really ever pay attention to you can learn so much just by tracking even for a couple of weeks
Speaker: The way that I use this, like looking at food labels and tracking calories and different things like that, I almost always look at food labels. Even at this point now, I've been doing this for years. If I'm eating a new food, I will typically look at a food label, or if I'm having something that I kind of forgot, like how many calories are in serving this, i will just quickly glance at that food label just so I have some sort of idea.
Speaker: And if I'm eating something new and it has tons of calories and I don't really want to have that and it doesn't really align with my goals, then I'll just find a different option. But starting to look at food labels and then starting to spend some time actually tracking calories can be really helpful.
Speaker: I don't really track my calories consistently now unless I'm in a certain fat loss phase. So if I'm going into a fat loss phase, I want to lose five to 10 pounds and I'll start to track my calories just to start to rein things in a little bit. Plus, if I'm going to actively be trying to lose fat, I don't just want to feel like I'm dieting and just guess my way to trying to lose fat. I just want to know. So I just want to track those numbers for six weeks, eight weeks, 12 weeks. And then once I lose that five to 10 pounds, or however much I'm trying to lose, then I just go back to making better choices, looking at food labels routinely, but I'm not actively tracking food.
Speaker: Second on this list is building muscle by lifting weights. Muscle is critical for a couple main reasons. Some of the main ones that I think about and that I think are most prevalent to most people and most of you that are listening to this podcast is number one, having muscle is going to dramatically change the way that you look, especially if you're trying to lose weight. It's probably a good chance that you're losing weight because part of the reason is you want to look better.
Speaker: If you don't have muscle mass or enough muscle mass, you're not really going to look the way that you want to look as you start to drop that fat. And this is something that I've seen with a lot of people, something that I saw with myself. if you don't have a good amount of muscle, you're going to look a little bit different than you think you will. So building muscle becomes important for that reason in the way that you look. Muscle affects your metabolism. So if you have more muscle, especially as you lose that weight, it is going to make maintaining that weight loss easier. The more muscle that you have, the higher your metabolism is. Now, this isn't a ton of extra calories that you're burning through having muscle. It does help a little bit, but even more so having muscle typically means that you're going to be living a more active lifestyle. You're lifting weights, you're doing things that are more active. Maybe you're playing sports, different things like that. And so if you have more muscle, you're typically going to be doing more of those things, which also impacts
Speaker: Being more active helps to keep that metabolism high as well. And the third reason is your quality of life and longevity is going to be better if you have a sufficient amount of muscle mass. To be able to do with all all the activities that you love, you need to have some strength, you need to have some muscle.
Speaker: Those things are important. And then we also know that if you have a good amount of muscle mass, that is also correlated with living a longer life. So Having muscle, building muscle is important. The best way to actually build muscle is strength training. There's not a better way to build muscle efficiently than good traditional strength training.
Speaker: Your practical tips for this, at a minimum, trying to lift at least twice a week. I think that's very doable for a lot of people getting in the gym at least twice a week. I think for a lot of people, even a little bit better goal is going to be trying to get to that gym three to four times per week.
Speaker: That's still doable, but at the very least twice a week, you can maintain and even build some muscle if you're getting in the gym twice a week and you are really like pushing yourself, really training towards failure, really focusing on that progressive overload. Anything on top of that three to four times a week, I personally like to think of as a bonus because a common mistake that I see a lot of people make is they think i need to be in the gym five times a week, six times a week. I need to get in there every single day. And that's just not going to be sustainable for a lot of people. There's times where you may be able to get in the gym five times a week. There's times where you can only get in the gym twice a week. I think it makes a lot more sense to have some sort of baseline and then shoot for that three to four times per week. And then anything on top of that, I personally just like to think of as a bonus. From a psychological perspective, I think that works a lot better than telling yourself, I'm going to get in the gym six to seven days a week. You're only getting in the gym four times a week, which is great. Four times a week is awesome. But because you said i need to be in the gym six or seven days a week, now you feel like a failure and it's harder to stay consistent. You're not enjoying the process as much. You feel like you're not doing what you need to do. And that's just not a really good place to be, especially for trying to do this for a long period of time.
Speaker: couple of tips just with lifting weights, which probably isn't going to be anything new if you've been listening to this, but train close to failure within about one to two reps shy of muscular failure is good. And then occasionally taking your sets all the way to muscular failure, as long as you're doing that in a safe way. if you're doing those things, you're going to build the most muscle. And then second would just be focusing on progressive overload.
Speaker: Are you being able to lift more weight for more reps with better technique over time? If that is the case, you are getting stronger. You are building muscle. That's a good thing. Third thing on this list, walk at least 8,000 steps per day. I've actually shifted my view on this just a little bit. I used to go with the standard 10,000 steps a day, but the reason that I have shifted and said, put that number at a little bit lower at 8,000 is because a lot of the research shows that if you're getting upwards of around 7,500 steps, some studies say 7,000, some say 8,000, some say right in the middle at that 7,500, you're getting a bulk of those benefits from being active.
Speaker: so for that reason that's why use that 8 000 number now i'm still a proponent if you can get 10 000 get 10 000 if you can get 12 000 get 12 000 as long as you're able to get those numbers and hit those numbers consistently and it's not taking away from other things like it's not taking away from your lifting time or from your social life or different things like that i think that's a good thing to shoot for more steps because you do still get more benefits it's just not as much benefit as you get from those first 7 500 so you're still Doing lots of good things. You're still getting benefit. It's not like it's a waste. If you get more than 8000, you're going to burn a few extra calories. You're gonna get some of those extra benefits. But I think a good minimum to shoot for is that 8000. And then again, anything on top of that, I think of as a bonus.
Speaker: The obvious with this, like I just mentioned, is you're going burn a few extra calories to a moving a little bit more. But I think more important than that is this just brings more awareness to your general activity levels. We've all heard the phrase you need to move more, eat less. Walking is the simplest way to move more. It's something that you can fit. throughout your day. You can add in little five, 10 minute walk breaks here, there. You can take the stairs, you can get a few extra steps here, there.
Speaker: It's just one of those things that's very easy to start to implement and focus on to get a little bit more activity. Along with that, one of the most important things that this starts to do is it starts to shift your identity to somebody who actually prioritizes and thinks about their health each and every day. every single time that you make an effort to walk a few more steps to take the stairs to park a little bit further away to go for that 10 minute walk on your lunch break rather than scrolling on your phone you are app proving to yourself that you're the type of person who actually values your health and fitness over time that becomes a stronger part of your identity and just becomes more of who you are when fitness becomes a part of your identity it's much easier to be consistent And it's much easier to stick to those right habits because you're not trying to willpower your way or rely on motivation. if you think about it like this, an example would be good athletes.
Speaker: They do what is required because they have such a strong identity within their athletics and just seeing themselves as an athlete. So a good athlete is going to practice really hard. They're going to train consistently. They're going to lift weights. They're going to make sure they're in good shape. They're going condition. They're going watch film. They're to try to eat right.
Speaker: It's not always what they want to do. Most of the times it is what they want to do, but not always because it's such a strong identity. It's such a strong part of who they are. It's just what they do. If you think about, let's say, like a good parent, they're going to do what's required to be a good parent to their children. They're going to listen well.
Speaker: They're spend time with their kids. They're going to care for them. They're going to work hard so they can provide for their kids. They're going to show up when their kids and need them. Again, it's not always what they want to do. It's not always easy to be a good athlete or to be a good parent, but it's such a strong part of how they see themselves and who they want to be. So they do it regardless of whether or not they feel like it I have noticed that with clients who I've worked with, especially around weight loss, when they start to get to this point where fitness and health is a big part of their identity and how they see themselves, that's when I know that they're going to be successful for a long time and they're not going to need me to hold them accountable and to help them with all these things or to have the perfect conditions because the conditions are really going to be perfect throughout life. Life is dynamic. Things are always changing. There's always going to be challenges. There's always going to be reasons why you shouldn't work out or why it's much easier to just skip your workout or just eat crappy or get the convenient thing. But when this becomes a stronger part of your identity, you don't give into those things as easily because it feels a certain way when you give in into those things and you know you don't want to. Like if you know that you should be working out, but you're not doing it, it hurts a little bit. Or you know that you want to be taking care of your body, but you're not staying in alignment with those things that you really feel like you should be doing.
Speaker: It feels like like you're doing something wrong. And that's because it's become such a strong part of your identity. And so when you can get to that point, you're going to be in a much better place. And you're gonna be able to not only just get results and be able to do these habits, but you're going to be able to do those for a long time because it doesn't feel so difficult all the time. And so Again, back to the main point of this, walking is one of those simple little things that you can start to do day in and day out that starts to reinforce that identity. There's dozens of little choices that you can make throughout the day with choosing healthier choices, with working out, with walking, with different things like that. And the more that you can have those little choices each and every day, the stronger identity that you build and the easier this becomes to have better results today, but also for the long term.
Speaker: Number four on this list is eat protein at every meal. This is a something that you've been told for a really long time. I think we all kind of know we should be eating more protein. It helps with a lot of different things. Three main reasons that I focus on, especially around like weight loss, protein helps with managing your hunger. So you stay more full and satiated for longer, which is a big important thing that you need to realize if you are trying to lose weight, because if you're always hungry, it's going to be really hard to lose weight. And it's especially going be hard to keep that weight off. If you eat more protein, it's much easier to manage hunger. Eating more protein helps you to eat less. So you'll start to notice that when you start to prioritize protein, it's really hard to overeat protein. It's very easy to overeat processed foods or desserts or liquid calories or different things like that. But if you're eating
Speaker: a couple of chicken breasts, you're going be pretty full and satiated after having that. If you're eating a big old steak, you're going to be pretty full and satiated after eating that. So it's much harder to overeat when you start to prioritize more protein in your diet. And you'll also start to notice when you start to eat protein at every meal, when you start to have more protein snacks,
Speaker: higher protein diet, you'll notice that some of the things that you used to eat just naturally start to get crowded out. So if you're having protein at every single meal, if you're having more protein snacks, you're not eating those things that you used to eat, like those snacks that were super easy to eat, the chips, the crackers, the all that different stuff, that's really easy to overeat.
Speaker: When you're not eating that stuff as much, you just notice that it helps to eat less overall, which again, is very, very important if you're trying to lose weight and especially keep it off. And then the last thing, the third thing about just eating protein, which we all know is it helps to build muscle.
Speaker: Since you're going to be lifting weights to build muscle, you also want to help yourself out by eating plenty of protein. That's gonna help to keep that muscle protein synthesis signal super high, which when you combine that with good strength training, that just tells your body to keep building muscle. and That's also gonna help from that metabolism standpoint and also going to help with you looking way that you want. So eating plenty of protein,
Speaker: lifting weights, those two things are going to be important with helping you to build muscle and get all those benefits that we want to get. The practical thing with this is you want to get at least 0.7 grams to about one gram per pound of body weight for your protein goals. So a 200 pound person, 0.7 grams would be 140 grams at a minimum.
Speaker: And then you could get up to that 200 grams if you wanted to. For protein, a lot of the studies that I have read and looked at, if you're getting around that 0.7, 0.8 grams per pound of body weight, you're going to be getting a huge bulk of the benefits from eating a high protein diet. but some people like to shoot for a little bit more. There's some studies that show you're getting a little bit more, there may be slightly bigger benefits to that, but I don't think for the average person, it's something that you need to stress over too much. If you're getting 0.7 grams consistently, I think you're going to be in pretty good shape. But if you notice that having a little bit more protein, maybe that one gram per pound of body the weight helps you a little bit more with hunger and not overeating and things like that, then I think that's a really strong case. to eat a little bit higher in protein diet. So shoot for at least that 0.7 grams. And then if you feel like you want to try a little bit more and see how you do on that, absolutely nothing wrong with that.
Speaker: Two other practical tips for this batch cook your protein every single week can make getting an enough protein much simpler. And what I mean by that is like at the beginning of the week, or maybe one to two times throughout the week, just cook a crap load of protein. So like what I'll do is I'll buy an entire package of chicken breasts. It's like three to four pounds of chicken and I'll put that in the air fryer or I'll put it all in the crock pot. I'll just cook it up at one time and then I'll use that throughout the week for different meals. So maybe i have like a chicken salad. Maybe I have like some chicken with some potatoes or I'll have some pasta with some chicken in it or
Speaker: chicken and vegetables like there's just different ways that you can mix and match those things or maybe like ground beef I'm having like ground beef with rice or I'm having like a taco bowl or I'm having a burger bowl or something like that you just make a bunch of protein at one time and then you can easily reheat that and then mix and match that with different vegetables and different carb sources and make different meals but it just cuts down on the cook time and since it's already made you don't have to worry about cooking every single meal because it's just a little bit less friction and we know that when we can reduce some of that friction it just makes it much easier to stay consistent
Speaker: So just a couple of simple tips with protein there. I've done tons of episodes on protein. I've done a whole episode on how you can never struggle to get your protein again that you can check out as well. And so if you have any more questions about that, or if you just struggle to get extra protein, then just make sure you look back at some of those previous episodes I've done on protein.
Speaker: The last one on this list, number five, move your body most days. Super simple, but it's something that not all of us do. And this doesn't necessarily mean that you need to work out super hard every single day, because as I mentioned earlier, that is not the goal. That's not going to be sustainable for most people. Most people don't want to work out super hard every day. And most people are just not going to do that. But you can still move your body.
Speaker: You can lift, you can walk, you can run, you can do yoga, you can play sports, you can get outside, you could, there's just so many different ways to do this. And so when we think about lifting weights, we know that's important. If we're lifting weights, let's say three times week for an hour at a time, that's three hours of movement. That's awesome. But You can't forget there's 168 hours in a week. So we're moving three of those 168 hours. We're lifting weights. Great. That's awesome benefits. But how else can we get active outside of that? Well, there's lots of things that you can do. You can join a sports league. You can. join a basketball league, a volleyball league, you can join a bowling league, a pickleball league. There's so many different things that you can do that way. You can hike, you can garden, you can do yard work, you can join a run club, you can do some group classes outside of your lifting weights, you can do some activities with kids, you can bike, you can do so many different things. But I think the main thing is just that you need to find ways to be active outside of lifting weights.
Speaker: When you look at people who have lost a lot of weight, one of the things that they all have in common is they live active lifestyles. That's because you burn more calories when you're living that active lifestyle. Plus there's some research around just being active and exercising, helping with our appetite management and our hunger management, which again, helpful if you want to keep this weight off for a long time. And I think this also plays into that identity piece too, right? Because if you were moving in some sort of way every single day. Again, you're showing yourself that this is a priority. And if I'm moving and I'm working out and I'm training and I'm just staying active each day, i don't want to be eating a bunch of crap and feeling like crap because that doesn't really align with my goals. So this is just another way to help yourself out. think just the practical tip is get some sort of movement in daily. It doesn't have to be a workout. doesn't have to be super strenuous all the time. But I found it's just so much easier to keep that momentum rolling. So whether that's a 20 minute walk, whether that's ah doing something with your kids, it doesn't really matter. Just find some sort of way to get active most days.
Speaker: Obviously, you're going to have your days where maybe you don't do anything at all. I think we all have those. But i think a good rule of thumb is if you can get some sort of good activity in six out of the seven days a week, I think that's that's a pretty good place to be for most people. And again, that doesn't mean work out six to seven days a week. That means get some sort of solid movement in six days out of the week. You're going to be in pretty good shape that way. So to bring this all together, five things. Look at food labels slash track food. Lift weights three to four times a week. Eat protein at every meal. Walk at least 8,000 steps a day and move most days. Ask yourself.
Speaker: Am I doing all five of these things? I'm a big believer that success leaves clues. So if you're trying to do certain things and people have done the things that you want to do, or if you're just seeing a common trend among people who have done the things that you want to do, whether that's like lose weight or build muscle or get fit, what are the things that they're actively doing? And then look and see, are you doing those things? So when you run through this list, ask yourself, am I doing all five of these things? If not, where's one place that I can start to put my focus to start to build this habit up? And then secondly, how consistently am I doing each one of these things? Because again, as I mentioned, if you want to get the best results, you need to do these things consistently for a long period of time.
Speaker: None of these things are groundbreaking. None of these things are super sexy or anything like that, but these things work. If you do these things consistently for a long period of time, you're going to feel better. You're going look better. You're going able to lose weight and keep that weight off. So I hope this was helpful. As always, if this was helpful, you can help me out by leaving reviews, sharing this with other people. And then for the people who want some help with their fitness goals, especially if you have weight loss goals, I do have seven days of free fitness coaching that I'm giving away. So if that is you and you're wanting to see what the online fitness coaching is all about, see if we're a good match, see if I can help you with the things that you're trying to do, you can always click the link in the show notes of this, fill that form out, and then I will be in touch with you about getting a free week of coaching. So with that being said, as always, I appreciate you listening and we will see you next
