Would you believe that 10 people could be on 10 completely different diet protocols and still get to their goals? I get asked regularly to share sample eating programs. I've written my share of articles describing an eating protocol that will fast track you to weight loss. Does the advice work? Absolutely it works. Does it work for everyone? No way!
Would you believe that you can be on the perfect program, count your calories to the T and still not lose weight? You're even working out every single day but not seeing the scale move. I admit, this is frustrating. Most of the people who fall in this category, not all, have something else going on. Usually it's from too much stress, lack of sleep, complete burn out and their central nervous system is fried.
If you fall in this category above, chances are you will do much better figuring out how to lower your stress levels. A few ways to do this.
1. CHOOSE LESS INTENSE WORKOUTS - yeah I know, this sounds counterproductive. Just maybe your body needs some love instead of beating it up all the time. If you find that when you're done with that spin class and you can't stop eating for the next 3 days, reassess the training choices you're making during this time of your life. Or if you feel completely beat up for 2 days after showing up to a local workout, you didn't do yourself any favors. I know it's weird to ask you to do this, try and give it LESS effort. Maybe go lighter. Spare your body some reserves for life.
2. GO TO BED EARLIER - if you're not sleeping enough, you're not healing your body to its full potential. Many new moms and dads suffer greatly from this. New moms start working out really hard when they first have a baby to "shed that baby weight". Then they find theirselves catching every darn virus and bacterial infection around. On top of that putting themselves in to a deeper postpartum depression. The best thing to do when you're not sleeping is to do low stress training as stated above or "short" bouts of training, that doesn't over stress your body more than it already is. Grab extra zzzz's when you can. It's not being lazy, it's doing what's called, SELF CARE!
3. SELF CARE. self care. self care. - I use to think that self care meant destroying my body by getting the hardest deep tissue, painful massage I can handle. It's what I needed. I'm tough, I can handle it. WRONG.... So wrong.... Running after pain with pain only creates more stress and dehyration in the body. I'm not discounting deep tissue massages or rolfing. I'm a huge fan of those self care protocols, when done the right way. In fact they're vital for athletes and people who lift heavy or those who suffer from chronic pain, when your body worker understands your daily routine.
In reality most people can't just get a massage when they want or need. Many of you are lucky to take 15 minutes for yourself. I have students all over the world that have 1 to 11 children! The most inspiring part is, some of these mothers work full time or if they work full time at home, they do it all! It's a miracle how these ladies do it all. Talk about strong!
People often ask me how I do it all. Let me tell you, I try not to do it all. It takes practice. I learn to delegate and have to say no more than I want to. I force myselt to take 3 - 5 minutes to myself to just breathe, to take small mental breaks, unplug. I like to call it a mini vacation. With as many balls in the air flying around, it's imperative for me to choose training protocols that don't excite my nervous system too much. I know living in a flight or fight mode all the time will cause major burn out!
When my plate is full, if I trained half as hard as some of you, I'd be in bed for the rest of the week. I don't look at this as a sign of weakness. I look at this as knowing what I have in the bank. Not overspending the money I have and working from a major debt. When you get yourself in debt, things begin to break and collapse around you. Putting money in the bank and knowing how to use what you have, is the key to finding balance.
4. KNOW WHEN TO PUSH THE ENVELOPE - Challenging yourself or pushing the envelope from time to time is good stress. It makes you feel alive and shows what you can accomplish. For example, if you practice your pull-ups just 5 minutes every day, not pushing it too hard, you may end up achieving 5 pull ups in 6 months. No pain, no stress, just a bit of relaxed practice and bam you got there with ease. Or you can work youself to the ground by practicing pull ups an hour a day. You may get your 5 pull ups sooner, but suddenly your neck hurts, your traps hurt, your elbow is in pain all of the time. Your pull up days are now over for good .This is because you pushed it too hard too soon. Your body wasn't ready for what your mind wanted. Know when to push the envelope.
My point for all of this, is there is no perfect solution for everyone. Even the "PERFECT NUTRITION PROGRAM" may not get you to your goals. Some of you feel best when you follow eating habis such as vegan, vegetarian, paleo, gluten free, peanut free, FODMAPS, Grain free, dairy free, no legumes, raw food, soy free.
Whatever your fancy may be, make sure it's the one that your body needs, just because you read it somewhere and people claim it works for them. Experiment from time to time. You are not them! We are not all made up the exact same. We all carry stress differently.
I can tell you one thing for sure about nutrition, people do better off eating whole natural foods. If it comes in a box and you don't understand the ingredients or you see a list of chemicals across the board, chances are it's not good for human beings. If you're drinking soda, even natural soda, chances are it's not really quenching your thirst. When you're thirsty water is the best. Add lemon, ginger, cayenne, probiotics, apple cyder vinegar. Those are all great too. Drink water! If you don't want to feel like sh#t, eat less sh#t. PERIOD!
On another note, many members in the Playground are finishing up with the Rock Solid Kettlebell program. People have emailed sharing with me that they're stronger than they've ever been, they can actually see their muscles and they FEEL so good. This program was specifically designed for people who have stress in their lives! It's chill but effective! Now that our students in the playground are finishing up with Rock Solid we will be adding some new workouts in to the playground over the next few weeks.
If you haven't tried the Low Volume program, I would highly recommend you check it out, if you're wondering what to do next. In the mean time try the new workout in our new section "Todd's Workouts" designed by Coach Graham. It's a 15 minute simple, yet challenging workout, where you only need one kettlebell. Go light and pace yourself! Members can sign in here to hit up these programs.
xoxo,
p.s. A few Announcements
1. If you're not a member in the playground yet, what are you waiting for? Get access to every workout for every goal. Strength, conditioning, fat loss, muscle gain, mobility, balance. You name it! Now that we've added so much content, our price will be going up soon. Get in before the price goes up so you can be grandfathered at your special rate! Learn more here
2. Todd is forming a Winner Circle for men. He will be taking a very small group of people for this first group. If you're interested please email sales@ontheedgefitness.com. This group will be dedicated to helping even the busiest most unmotivated, especially those in the corporate world, to incorporate health and fitness in a realistic way, with personalized programs, nutrition and accountability phone calls.
3. Upcoming Kettlebell Fitness Coaching Workshop (San Diego) - This will be a one day workshop focusing on the depth of proper movement patterns and protocols of training for all fitness levels. This will focus on making kettlebell fitness accessible for almost everyone. More info to follow and date will be announced soon. If you're interested in this unique one day course, please contact us at sales@ontheedgefitness.com
4. LOCAL San Diego (Southern California) Only - If you're looking for local private instruction or group training we are taking on more students. If you're visiting town we love when you book a session with us. Nothing cooler than meeting you in person! We've had lots of vacationers come in this month! We love it!
Would you believe that you can be on the perfect program, count your calories to the T and still not lose weight? You're even working out every single day but not seeing the scale move. I admit, this is frustrating. Most of the people who fall in this category, not all, have something else going on. Usually it's from too much stress, lack of sleep, complete burn out and their central nervous system is fried.
If you fall in this category above, chances are you will do much better figuring out how to lower your stress levels. A few ways to do this.
1. CHOOSE LESS INTENSE WORKOUTS - yeah I know, this sounds counterproductive. Just maybe your body needs some love instead of beating it up all the time. If you find that when you're done with that spin class and you can't stop eating for the next 3 days, reassess the training choices you're making during this time of your life. Or if you feel completely beat up for 2 days after showing up to a local workout, you didn't do yourself any favors. I know it's weird to ask you to do this, try and give it LESS effort. Maybe go lighter. Spare your body some reserves for life.
2. GO TO BED EARLIER - if you're not sleeping enough, you're not healing your body to its full potential. Many new moms and dads suffer greatly from this. New moms start working out really hard when they first have a baby to "shed that baby weight". Then they find theirselves catching every darn virus and bacterial infection around. On top of that putting themselves in to a deeper postpartum depression. The best thing to do when you're not sleeping is to do low stress training as stated above or "short" bouts of training, that doesn't over stress your body more than it already is. Grab extra zzzz's when you can. It's not being lazy, it's doing what's called, SELF CARE!
3. SELF CARE. self care. self care. - I use to think that self care meant destroying my body by getting the hardest deep tissue, painful massage I can handle. It's what I needed. I'm tough, I can handle it. WRONG.... So wrong.... Running after pain with pain only creates more stress and dehyration in the body. I'm not discounting deep tissue massages or rolfing. I'm a huge fan of those self care protocols, when done the right way. In fact they're vital for athletes and people who lift heavy or those who suffer from chronic pain, when your body worker understands your daily routine.
In reality most people can't just get a massage when they want or need. Many of you are lucky to take 15 minutes for yourself. I have students all over the world that have 1 to 11 children! The most inspiring part is, some of these mothers work full time or if they work full time at home, they do it all! It's a miracle how these ladies do it all. Talk about strong!
People often ask me how I do it all. Let me tell you, I try not to do it all. It takes practice. I learn to delegate and have to say no more than I want to. I force myselt to take 3 - 5 minutes to myself to just breathe, to take small mental breaks, unplug. I like to call it a mini vacation. With as many balls in the air flying around, it's imperative for me to choose training protocols that don't excite my nervous system too much. I know living in a flight or fight mode all the time will cause major burn out!
When my plate is full, if I trained half as hard as some of you, I'd be in bed for the rest of the week. I don't look at this as a sign of weakness. I look at this as knowing what I have in the bank. Not overspending the money I have and working from a major debt. When you get yourself in debt, things begin to break and collapse around you. Putting money in the bank and knowing how to use what you have, is the key to finding balance.
4. KNOW WHEN TO PUSH THE ENVELOPE - Challenging yourself or pushing the envelope from time to time is good stress. It makes you feel alive and shows what you can accomplish. For example, if you practice your pull-ups just 5 minutes every day, not pushing it too hard, you may end up achieving 5 pull ups in 6 months. No pain, no stress, just a bit of relaxed practice and bam you got there with ease. Or you can work youself to the ground by practicing pull ups an hour a day. You may get your 5 pull ups sooner, but suddenly your neck hurts, your traps hurt, your elbow is in pain all of the time. Your pull up days are now over for good .This is because you pushed it too hard too soon. Your body wasn't ready for what your mind wanted. Know when to push the envelope.
My point for all of this, is there is no perfect solution for everyone. Even the "PERFECT NUTRITION PROGRAM" may not get you to your goals. Some of you feel best when you follow eating habis such as vegan, vegetarian, paleo, gluten free, peanut free, FODMAPS, Grain free, dairy free, no legumes, raw food, soy free.
Whatever your fancy may be, make sure it's the one that your body needs, just because you read it somewhere and people claim it works for them. Experiment from time to time. You are not them! We are not all made up the exact same. We all carry stress differently.
I can tell you one thing for sure about nutrition, people do better off eating whole natural foods. If it comes in a box and you don't understand the ingredients or you see a list of chemicals across the board, chances are it's not good for human beings. If you're drinking soda, even natural soda, chances are it's not really quenching your thirst. When you're thirsty water is the best. Add lemon, ginger, cayenne, probiotics, apple cyder vinegar. Those are all great too. Drink water! If you don't want to feel like sh#t, eat less sh#t. PERIOD!
On another note, many members in the Playground are finishing up with the Rock Solid Kettlebell program. People have emailed sharing with me that they're stronger than they've ever been, they can actually see their muscles and they FEEL so good. This program was specifically designed for people who have stress in their lives! It's chill but effective! Now that our students in the playground are finishing up with Rock Solid we will be adding some new workouts in to the playground over the next few weeks.
If you haven't tried the Low Volume program, I would highly recommend you check it out, if you're wondering what to do next. In the mean time try the new workout in our new section "Todd's Workouts" designed by Coach Graham. It's a 15 minute simple, yet challenging workout, where you only need one kettlebell. Go light and pace yourself! Members can sign in here to hit up these programs.
xoxo,
p.s. A few Announcements
1. If you're not a member in the playground yet, what are you waiting for? Get access to every workout for every goal. Strength, conditioning, fat loss, muscle gain, mobility, balance. You name it! Now that we've added so much content, our price will be going up soon. Get in before the price goes up so you can be grandfathered at your special rate! Learn more here
2. Todd is forming a Winner Circle for men. He will be taking a very small group of people for this first group. If you're interested please email sales@ontheedgefitness.com. This group will be dedicated to helping even the busiest most unmotivated, especially those in the corporate world, to incorporate health and fitness in a realistic way, with personalized programs, nutrition and accountability phone calls.
3. Upcoming Kettlebell Fitness Coaching Workshop (San Diego) - This will be a one day workshop focusing on the depth of proper movement patterns and protocols of training for all fitness levels. This will focus on making kettlebell fitness accessible for almost everyone. More info to follow and date will be announced soon. If you're interested in this unique one day course, please contact us at sales@ontheedgefitness.com
4. LOCAL San Diego (Southern California) Only - If you're looking for local private instruction or group training we are taking on more students. If you're visiting town we love when you book a session with us. Nothing cooler than meeting you in person! We've had lots of vacationers come in this month! We love it!
