Scale Weight Vs Visual impact!

This isn't something commonly seen in males, so if your a male. You probably don't need to worry too much about this post. But... this is a common theme i see in ALL of my female clients. Yes, if your being trained by me right now and female then this is pertaining to YOU.

So, most of my clients tell me they want to drop SCALE weight. But I usually defer and comment on mirror aesthetics. I believe scales are misused by the majority of everyone, and this is a major factor because of Weight watchers and Biggest loser. These shows and programs are irrelevant to the majority of society. Why?

Because weight isn't the problem, its the amount of fat. Even women should think about adding lean mass... Why? Because fat is less than muscle.. Substantially less. And the visual impact of fat is mass, lean muscle is smaller and defined.

Think about a rock vs a balloon... I want to keep this post simple and sweet so Ill forget adding scientific reasons for why this is and why fat is stored.. blah blah blah. Ill let you see a secret though.

Here is a client (not mine) that shows her body off and her transformation. Notice the end result and her end weight.

SHE WEIGHED MORE?! and looked impressive. I think she looks extremely in shape, but yet her weight is way higher. This is why you shouldn't confuse yourself for being heavy and fat. If your heavy, it doesn't mean your fat.. it just means you have dense muscle. Society has shown us all that big numbers on the scale = bad. So, next time your bestie asks you about your scale weight, lift your shirt up and show off your six pack and tell her to not worry about it ;)

How to eat with Skyler!

Alright, you are probably reading this because I sent you here (your a client of mine, and your seeing this because your paying for me to train you.)

And your curious, about what you should do with all these calories you have calculated out (hopefully you read my post earlier about calories, if not. Dont read this and GO read it now, so this information doesn't confuse you.)

What I believe in...

I believe in something called "Carb cycling" and this has to do with days you are training and days you aren't training. Training means that you did some EXTREMELY hard work. This doesn't mean when you go for a run for 20 mins, or when you do your "homework" assignments I give you. I'm talking about an hour run, or stair sprints for 45mins, or when you goto the gym for an hour (like the sessions you do with me.) 

So on these training days, you should eat your "maintenance" calories that you figured out (basal metabolism)... and add 10% to that amount, this is no matter if your trying to gain weight or trying to lose weight. Trust me, so take your maintenance (lets say its 2500 calories), so i'll add 10% to that amount.

2500+10%(250)=2750calories, this is only on the days i goto the gym. And since your eating more, and your doing heavy exercise, I want you to eat high carbs, low fat, and high protein. So take your bodyweight and eat that in grams of protein (if I weigh 180lbs, that means 180grams of protein.) 

And then put about 40g of fat in there, then fill the rest of your calories with carbs, it'll probably end up being around 300g of carbs. 

And as for your "off days" or the days your not working your ass off in the gym with me, then eat your maintenance calories but take off bout 20% of calories. So lets assume again my Basal Metabolism is at 2500, so lets take away 20%.

2500 - 20% (500) = 2000 calories on my off days. So, like on your "training days" you had low fat and high carbs. Well on your off days its the opposite. You want low carbs, aim for around 150 MAX on carbs if not less, around 100grams would be probably a good spot to start with.

Aim for your bodyweight in protein (so 180grams for me.) As for fat, it should be the rest of your calories. You'll probably end up with something around 80-100grams of fat. These should be on the days your not doing much.

So there you go. Please get out and go run stairs!!! Stairs are good, increases lean muscle mass and makes your more flexible in your hips. I like to skip stairs on my sprints because it makes your muscles stretch further in order to get up the stairs quicker!

Then go do some push ups and jumping jacks! GO!

See you guys later!

Sitting here sipping on my Chamomile tea, i stumbled upon a wonderful study on insulin and endurance athletes... The study talks a great storm on obese individuals and previously trained. The obese are not only fat but they have diabetes type 2. Both groups performed exercise and they both did reach different levels of exercise performance, but the results were conclusive. And that had said that skeletal muscle became more insulin sensitive and were prone to lipid oxidation.

For those who are completely lost by what i said, its quite simple. This study shows that with exercise, muscles become better at dealing with sugar. The more insulin sensitive, the better your muscles are at transporting important nutrients into them. Therefore, the more insulin sensitive you are, the more muscles you grow.

As for the lipid oxidation, it means that body fat (lipid = stored energy) is released in larger quanities than if your body was less oxidizing. So, this means your body is more efficient at burning those precious fat stores your body has held onto.

So in conclusion, this study is saying... through exercise, your body is more capable of building new lean mass and better at burning the fat mass. Although, the more lean you are, the more these qualities are pronounced. The lean individuals were far more insulin sensitive and more efficient at oxidizing lipid stores.

There you have it! Exercise creates a better you, even if you believe its too late!

I like to think, there is no such thing as too late.

Calculating your Calories

Hi there!

You are seeing this page because I have directed you here in order to complete your knowledge of fitness and how you can reach your goals faster.

As you are already aware, nutrition is extremely important if you want to begin altering your body composition. Food is your energy and you need this to participate in activities. The amount of calories you need is based off your activity level, lean body mass (LBM, or BF%), age, and sex.

First off, what you should eat isnt as important as getting your calories in for weight loss. So, yes eating big mac's will still result in a net loss of weight AS LONG as its lower than your Base Metabolic Rate. This will be figured out in a second, but let me say that if you are striving to lose all your body fat rather then losing your muscle AND fat (which i don't want, who wants to look like a skeleton anyways?!) then you need to make sure you are eating plenty of protein, carbohydrates, and fats to make your body have the ability to drop weight.

I personally think your diet should be filled with protein as a priority, then look at carbohydrates (which is the body's first thing to use for energy) and then fill up with fats.

Based off of the general population. Lots of people believe fats will make you fat, and that sugary foods will spike your insulin and make you gain fat.

This is not true and insulin is constantly being raised whenever you eat carbs, so... Dont listen to Jenny Craig. Its full of crap.

Now, i am not telling you to gorge yourself with donuts and wine.. I am telling you that you CAN enjoy some "sinful" foods whenever you want, just make sure to eat healthy 90% of the time. 

So that means, eat oatmeal for breakfast with some coffee and skim milk. Have an egg or two if you are still hungry. Then for lunch, eat something like a subway sandwich, or eat some brown rice and chicken with teriyaki sauce.

Then make yourself something for dinner that is healthy, maybe some baked fish and potatoes and veggies. All of a sudden you realize its your anniversary and you remember what your trainer said...

DONT DO IT! Wait... no thats not what he said. Heaven forbid, EAT a slice of cake, as long as your calories are in check. I usually say its ok to splurge a little bit on your diet, but first before you make that decision  check your daily calories and see how much you got left for sinful sweets, and make sure your protein is hit for the day.

So now we understand what we have to eat right? Well sort of, but thats why you can ask me questions to refine the information to make more special attention to your needs.

Also, i would say that its easier for ME to drink protein shakes, i usually have one a day mixed with 2 cups of milk, a crap load of ice, 2 scoops of protein, a frozen banana or whatever fruit i got in the icebox, and sometimes peanut butter and i blend it all after i workout. I am not endorsed by any company and I am not telling you that you have to buy protein powder. It just makes it easier for me since i am usually too busy to fill all my calories up with all this food. Plus, for example, I eat 4,200 calories a day and if i had to eat food all day then my stomach would explode. Protein shakes are quick easy, and tasty if you find the right one.

Anyways, onto finding out your own calorie needs.

First lets figure out your BASE Metabolic rate... Firstly theres something you need to figure out, if your 14x Sedative (desk job, drive to school, and do school all day, and nothing else excluding the gym)

15x Lightly active (desk job, walk to school, and school all day)

16x Moderately Active (on feet at work, walk to school or other means, and school all day)

17x Very Active (on feet all day, do sports outside of the gym, and always running around, never sitting)

18x+ Extremely Active (i dont think you guys need to worry about this one, only superior professional athletes are here)

Just to give you guys all a clue, i am very active... I workout a lot, on my feet all day, my job is training you guys.. so pretty much training all day and i bike to school.

Anyways, once you chose one, here is when you take your Body weight (your weight in pounds) and multiply it with whatever one you chose.

So say you weigh 180lbs, and you are moderately active... you will do 180x16=2880 calories!

So now that you found your 2880 calories as your Base Metabolic rate... you need to consider if you are trying to lose weight or if your trying to get stronger/bigger.

Or maybe your super complex an you want to stay the same weight but you just want to lose fat and replace it with lean muscle (also called body recomposition, leaning out)

So, this is three categories, goto the one below that you feel is mostly what you want to concentrate on.

Losing Weight:

So you take your base calories (2880 as the example) and since i want to lose about a pound a week or less. (this is because an extreme cut of calories will impact your brain, health, lean muscle, organs, and metabolism... so don't cut your calories too drastic or you will be in health trouble!!)

I like to say that this is easy, take your calories... 2880 and take away 500 calories a day. This is 2380 for that 180lb man. Now since you got your calories... Take your calories down to the part where it is called "Macronutrients"

Gaining Weight:

So, take your calories, and in this example it was 2880, so take that amount of calories and simply add 500calories day to it, so everyday you should end up with 3380 as your total amount of calories A DAY. So dont go up another 500 the next day, stay at 3380 unless you start seeing fat accumulate, this means drop a couple hundred calories and keep pursuing. Now, that you have your calories... Take it down to the part that says "Macronutrients"

Body Composition:

Based on the majority of the goals you guys have... This one seems like the most popular of the three. This one is actually extremely easy to figure out. Stay at your Base Metabolic Rate (so in the example it would be 2880) The reason why you stay in the middle is because exercise will cause a deficit in your calories for the day (energy is expended when you do a session with me).

It will not be big enough though to drop significant weight on the scale, because a pound of fat = 3500 calories.. so, you get the idea, that you aren't burning 3500 calories, but you are creating muscle and fat is slowly burning off.

With that happening, you slowly become leaner and more muscular while dropping body fat!

So now that you have your calories, take it down to the title "Macronutrients"

Macronutrients!

Finally the thing i keep telling you guys about!! Now we are going to finally figure out what these stupid things are... So calories is the amount of energy your body is using in a day. So what are those calories made up of?

Just like your body is made up of organs, bones, and muscles. Your calories are made up of protein, carbohydrates, and fat. 

So now that you have your calories from the step you just did (determining if you are gaining weight, losing, or recomposition). That amount of calories will be now divided up.

So I will stick with my example. I am going to be the example and I am going to be gaining weight, so my calories are 3380.

So this is what I want you guys to do...

Protein:

First your Body weight x 4... Mine in the example is 180 x 4 = 720 calories. This is the amount of calories from protein. You must consume your body weight in grams of protein. So since i am 180lbs, i need 180grams a day of protein.

Fat:

Now take your body weight and multiply it with 50%, so that looks like this...

180 x .5 = 90grams of fat a day for me. Now take that number and times it by 9...

So i have 90grams x 9 = 810 calories.

So right now i have 810calories from fat, and 720 calories from protein... So add these together and i get 1530 calories.

Remember that i am suppose to be eating 3380 calories a day? Well since i am at 1530 calories with fat and protein, it means that the rest of my calories are coming from carbs!

Carbohydrates:

So take that number that you got from adding your fat calories and protein calories together. I got 1530.

So take your number of calories that you are eating a day and subtract that number from protein and fat from it.

So for me its, 3380 - 1530 = 1850 calories left a day for carbs!! Woohoo...

So take your amount of calories left and divide it by 4... so for me it looks like this 

1850/4= 462.5grams of carbs a day.

So now that I figured it out!

180g of protein a day

90g of fat

462.5g of carbs

3380calories a day and i will be gaining roughly one pound a week!

So now that you know your calories you are probably wondering how the hell do you know how much your eating... right?

Well i use a program called.. caloriecount.about.com and this site does it all for you! You plug in what you ate and bam it tells you how many calories you've eaten!

Thanks for reading, more information to come, as per requests.

Thanks for being my clients and giving me the ability to help you reach your goals!

Stay tuned!

Your Trainer,

Skyler Allanson

FAT? NO... Carbs?! NO! Ill get fat!? Then what do we eat?

So, the question I am always being bombarded with everyday at the gym is, what should i eat? Should i eat carbs? Should I eat fat?

I always tell them that all of the macronutrients are important, and this is simple because protein is essential to repair and grow more muscles. Carbohydrates are used to fill the muscle storage and liver with glycogen. Finally, fat is one of the most important forgotten nutrients on most people's diets. The dogma around the word fat is that itll make you fat if you eat it. This is extremely interesting... I don't know how this has blown up so big.

Every year the health industry targets another source as bad... fat, then it was carbs, then people said protein hurt your liver. And now I run into people who are all over the place with their nutrition. Most diets are just ways to either control hunger, or by making it more simple and less likely to over eat.

In a perfect world, calories are nothing different from each other, but there are variables that change depending on what the person wants. Say, a male wanting to drop fat and keep muscle. This right here is a prime example of 80% of the people in the gym in today's world. The easiest way to eat is to choose high protein, high carbs, and low fat. I generally say keep fat around 50g, so you can still maintain your organs and such, get at least your bodyweight in protein and rest goes to carbs.

Wow, your probably thinking your going to get fat because so much of your calories are coming from carbs. But, this is not the case. The reasoning? Your muscles need to replenish the sugars and energy in your muscles, and this can only be done through carbohydrates. Fat storage isn't your bodies main priority especially if your working out constantly and running around. This is especially true for people in their teens and twenty's. My metabolism for example easily eats up 600g of carbs a day and i result in no fat gain. So, no particular food or nutrient will make you fat. Keep it simple and make sure you dont eat more calories then your body can handle.

Yes, that means you can go out and eat a cheeseburger, especially when its within your calorie budget for the day.