I was wrong...

Hey guys, 

This summer has been super busy and it got me thinking about how busy you guys must get. I realize time is at a premium for most of us. If we spend an average of 9 hours a day working, 1 hour a day commuting, 2 hours a day eating, 7 hours a day sleeping that leaves us...5 hours to do our own thing. This doesn't include the morning ritual of waking up and getting ready for work. That could be another hour!

I've spent blog upon blog telling people how important it is to record what they eat. The main idea behind this was for you to see how many calories you're eating. As well as But often this would become overwhelming. In the past our nutrition evaluations would have a printout with what percentage of your meal should be carbohydrates, protein and fat.

But we don't eat protein, carbohydrates and fat. We eat food. So I thought the evaluation needed to be redesigned. 

So here I am saying I was wrong. When I designed our nutrition evaluation, I placed too much emphasis on calories, macronutrient distribution and activity level. 

In reality, nobody needs a program that is exact. Why? Because nobody would follow it. If an eating plan is too strict, most people will be too busy for it.

So what should you look for instead? Look for guidelines. But here's the kicker.

If you're given rules to follow instead of a strict diet and meal plan, then you need to follow the rules!

And there are some pretty simple rules:

1. Eat 4-5 meals per day
2. Eat fruits and vegetables with every meal.
3. Eat a lean protein with every meal
4. Don't drink your calories.
5. Only eat grains (bread, pasta, oats, pancakes) during your first meal

And in reality, you don't even have to start all of those habits at once. Pick one that you can succeed with and then do it. When that becomes a habit, simply choose another habit and add to it.

But whatever you do, do something. Exercise is great for increasing strength, improving cardiovascular fitness, increasing flexibility and other performance measures. But it's not all it's cracked up to be when it comes to fat loss. If you want to lose fat. You MUST follow the 5 rules above.

Does exercise even WORK for fat loss??

If this is your breakfast, exercise will NOT work for fat loss

Being that I am a fitness specialist, this must sound like a ridiculous question. If exercise doesn't work for fat loss, then what the heck am I selling?

I'm selling health: increased strength, flexibility, endurance, heart function, decreased cholesterol, improved movement and overall quality of life

But does exercise work for fat loss?

In previous posts I've said yes. In another I said NO. But here is the final word (until I change my mind again!)

In the presence of a diet that EXCLUDES breakfast, and INCLUDES high refined carb intake, only 1 or 2 meals a day, minimal levels of sleep and no supplementation, EXERCISE SUCKS for fat loss.
"Well dang, Aaron. That's pretty rough." But it's true. If you do all of the above and expect 4 hours a week of exercise to undue the damage, your hoping for rain without a cloud in the sky.

If this is your breakfast, exercise works WONDERS for fat loss!

But if you:

1. Eat a high protein breakfast
2. Eat 4-6 times per day
3. Include protein (dairy, meat, tree nuts)
4. Minimize grains in your diet
5. Drink 1-2 liters of water per day
6. Get 8+ hours of sleep a night

Then exercise will certainly help with fat loss!

But as you can see, nutrition is the key to fat loss. But what should people eat for fat loss? And even now that you've read the rules on fat loss, how does the plan work? What should my day of eating look like? Well, below is a sample!

Wake-up - 1/2 cup oatmeal with protein powder mixed in, +  fruit + 3 fish oil capsules
+3 hours - 1 cup yogurt, palmful of almonds, + 1/2 Liter water
+6 hours - turkey sandwich (open face), salad + vinagraitte dressing with walnuts, + 1/2 liter water
+9 hours - protein powder + spinach + strawberry smoothie
+12 hours - chicken, 2 servings of veggies, 1 cup milk + 3 fish oil capsules
+15 hours - almond milk, peanut butter smoothie, 1/2 scoop protein powder

As you can see it really isn't that difficult. But you have to plan. If you hope to do this by the seat of your pants, your looking for gold in a dry river.

So in summary, does exercise work for fat loss. Absolutely. And absolutely not. It all depends on your eating. Follow the rules above and you'll be on your way.

How URGENT is your health?

As I sit here planning out my day, I have to distinguish between things that are important and things that are urgent. 

This is a great question because many people can't separate the two! Until I thought about it, the only things that were urgent in my day were important. And things only became important when they became urgent. 

I touched on this last week a little bit, but you really have to lay down your values in life. Now most people will include honesty, family, faith, integrity, etc. But often health is left out. And perhaps its because in our country people tend to think that as long as they aren't sitting in an emergency room they are healthy. 

I don't think that's health food!

There was a study out recently that reported 90% of Americans think they are healthy. Now obviously we know this can' t be true because 68% of the country is overweight! So at this point the question becomes how do we define health? What is the criteria?

Getting back to stating of values, health has to be a value and a PRIORITY. Our families, friendships, jobs, and so much more rely on us being healthy. 

 Concern and protection of our health through proactive measures. Planning your meals and planning your exercise will make them both much easier to accomplish and be consistent with. 


Now I am going to open up to you a little bit. My wife and I had a talk the other night and she really opened my eyes to something. What it boiled down to was that I can plan out my schedule at work, plan workouts, plan my eating habits, plan things to do with my daughter, plan out my schedule for grad school. But when it comes to our relationship, too frequently I just "show up." I fail to plan anything and I put all the emphasis of maintaining our relationship on her.

Is this your threshold for health?

So I started thinking back on what my values are. I can say and write down that I value family, faith, health, honesty, hard work and friends. But where have I put each of those on the priority list? 


For most people, their health and fitness isn't near where it should be. If we neglect our health as a nation we are basically saying that its not important. But it will become important when our health becomes urgent. And this is NOT what you want! Because at this point, the only time you think of your health is when its rapidly deteriorating and we end up running around in "crisis" mode. 


Here's the final point. Don't let your health get to the point that it becomes urgent. Urgent health means that your body is failing you. 

Your health is important. But don't wait until you're in the emergency room to start thinking about changing your life to include health in your list of values.

Fire up the engines!!

People are creatures of habit. We like routine (at least most of us do), we thrive when our daily routine is predictable. Throw that routine off and we can easily turn into a chicken with our head cut off, running around looking for what we were supposed to do.

But when it comes to nutrition, there needs to be a balance between variety and predictability. Most people like variety- when it is planned out. We need lots of different foods for optimal nutrition. Unfortunately many of us get in the same rut of no breakfast, massive "salad" at the local eatery for lunch, and then a dinner consisting of half a cow, a plate of noodles and...oh yeah, some veggies on the side that aren't touched until they are tossed into the garbage.

But there are foods that can help stimulate your metabolism to use more fat at rest. Remember, that every time you eat, your metabolism is elevated for a period of time due to the increased energy required to break down and absorb food. This is called the Thermic Effect of Food (TEF)

Well certain foods take much longer to break down. These foods are often in their natural, unprocessed state. So foods like fruits, vegetables, beans and sprouted grains are examples of foods that take a while to break down. But foods high in protein have the highest TEF.these are the foods that will fire up your fat burning engine. This is why it is so important to eat 4-6 times per day.

So between eating frequently throughout the day and eating protein frequently we keep your energy levels high, we keep your muscles fueled with good, slow digesting carbohydrates. You muscles are able to function because of all the vitamins and minerals in you're getting in your fruits and veggies and your drinking lots of water.

See, great health isn't that tough.

1. 5-8 servings of fruits and veggies per day
2. 4-6 meals per day
3. Protein with every meal (i.e. meat, jerky, beans, nuts, dairy)
4. Sprouted whole grains (Ezekiel 4:9 bread)
5. Exercise at least 3 times per week including weight lifting and cardiovascular exercise for 15-20 min/day

Follow these rules and you'll be set. You just have to plan. And plan for diversity of food!!

Are you eating like a 300-lb lineman?

As I was watching football this past weekend, I noticed how big the offensive lineman were. At some point a reference was made to how much these athletes need to eat to maintain their girth and weight.

And it dawned on me that many times we eat like the person we are, not like the person we want to be. Now I'm not saying we all need to run to our refrigerators and throw everything away except for carrots, lettuce and cabbage to look like a runway model.

But when estimating how many calories we need, do we base it off of our current weight, or the weight we want to be? This goes both ways. If we want to lose weight (fat) or gain weight (muscle), we need to take in the appropriate amount of calories.

For example, if a person currently weighs 160 pounds and has a final goal of weighing 130, then the person needs to tune their diet to that of someone who weighs 130 pounds. According to www.calorie-count.com, a 45-year old woman who is 5'5" needs 1900 calories a day to stay where she is at. A woman of the same age and height but weighs 130 pounds needs only 1700 calories a day.

The next step is figuring out a meal plan for staying within these caloric requirements. That is confusing and can be a headache!!

But wait... there is a solution. Diane Campbell has set-up meal plans based on caloric needs. If you need only 1500 calories a day, she has a meal plan for that. Need 1200? She's got one for that. need 2400? She's got one for that.

So how about getting yourself or someone you care about, a nutritional consultation for Christmas? Start them off this year on the right foot. Let them know you support them and YOU want them to succeed!! Click on Diane's picture to get her contact information. Trust me, this is one of the best things you can do for yours or a loved ones health!!