How I Get Clients to Eat More and Get Leaner

I get it, the title doesn't make any sense. It seems like a paradox. It seems like the two concepts of eating more, and getting leaner contradict each other.

Why is this the case? It's so simple, I'll answer for you. 

You've been lied to.

For real.

As you've heard before, misery loves company. This plays out in the health and fitness industry all the time. Everyone who is miserable wants you to be miserable with them. Your friend Jane who is on the 500 Calorie Diet (where she idiotically eats 500 calories per day) wants you to eat 500 calories per day, too. And you're just sitting there like.. "You know what? Screw you and your 500 calories, Jane. I'm perfectly happy enjoying Ben n Jerry's, delicious salads, and Pizza Fridays." 

And you should be. Getting lean, burning fat, building muscle, and catching looks on the beach doesn't require you to suffer. It doesn't require you to cut anything out. It doesn't require you to live at the gym.

Heck, that's the case for all of the clients at Poehlmann Fitness. I love seeing the reactions at first. 

"Wait, you want me to add food?"

"Wait, you're going to start taking my cardio down?"

"Wait, I can eat foods that I enjoy?"

The looks on their faces are even better. Especially when Holiday season rolls around and they slowly turn their confused face into a joyous smile, jump, and cheer saying "I CAN ENJOY THE HOLIDAYS!!!"

Once they get over their confusion and shock, most all of them come back to me with the same question:

"Can you explain how that's supposed to work"

So that's what I'm going to do for you today. I'm going to explain to you how I make all of my clients' lives more enjoyable as they get closer and closer to their goals. 

The Foundation

All of the clients that I work with come from a wide range of starting points. Some of them have been working out for years and have a good amount of muscle mass. Some fiddle with different training programs every month and can't figure out what's best for them, and some haven't been active in the last 10 years of their life. Regardless of where the individual is coming from, a foundation needs to be build that is going to enable them to have a sustainably healthy body and lean physique. 

If we're talking in terms of building and maintaining a lean and sexy physique that doesn't require the endless demand of intense activity every day in order to maintain it, weight training and eating to increase lean muscle tissue is going to be the best way to set yourself up for success.

I know that this is going to trigger all of those cardio-heads out there, so I'll say this:

Cardio isn't bad, and I'm not against it. A lot of my clients do cardio on the side because they enjoy it. However, I do not believe that cardio is the best way to build a lean body with a well-working metabolism and I'll explain why. 

Metabolic Rate and Muscle

It is known without a doubt that having more muscle on your body is going to increase resting metabolic rate (the amount of energy required to maintain weight while sedentary). This has been shown in numerous studies (specifically using this one for this article) (1) over a long period of time. It is irrefutable. My body is going to require much more energy to maintain its weight than a 180 lb male with 20% body fat. Therefore, I can get away with eating more calories than the other individual (remember weight gain comes from eating more calories than you burn). Sure, there are most definitely some genetic aspects that play a role in metabolic rate, but there is no doubt that you can increase it by putting more lean mass on your body. So at this moment the questions is now "how can I increase muscle mass on my body?"

Resistance Training

Resistance is the answer to the question above. Before I continue on I want to make sure that you completely understand by the term "resistance". Any type of resistance can help your body adapt in order to build more muscle. Bands, machines, and free weights are all great examples of resistance training. Heck, even bodyweight movements involve resistance because gravity pulls agains you during the movement. Although there are a few different types of resistance training, working with free weights is one of the best ways to increase lean muscle tissue because of the volume, intensity, angles, and other things you can apply to it without being restricted. For example. You can only move so much weight (your bodyweight) during a pushup, but more resistance can be applied in a dumbbell bench press because of the availability of different weights. Anyway, the point of resistance training is to send a signal to our bodies that's going to cause it to adapt to the load by increasing its strength and muscle mass. 

Along with resistance training, eating an adequate amount of protein, carbohydrates, and fats in a caloric surplus is important when it comes to building muscle.

Don't be mistaken. It doesn't require a significant change in muscle mass in order to increase your resting metabolic rate. Even a few pounds of lean muscle can make a big difference. Having said that, ladies, you don't need to worry about looking like a shemale (is that PC?) on gear from lifting weights. In fact, you'll look lean, toned, and sexy instead. I promise. 

Cardio and Adaptations

I'm sure at this point you've asked where cardio plays a role in all of this, and I'll explain. But before I do so, I'd like to talk to you about what happens with your body when you are performing cardio so you understand some of the simple science. 

Remember just a minute or two ago when you were reading about the body adapting to resistance training by increasing strength and muscle mass? Good. It's the same concept when you perform cardio for a period of time. When you perform cardio (especially low intensity, steady state cardio) you're sending a signal to your body that's going to cause it to adapt. This time, the adaptation is different. Your body now knows that in order for it to be better at that cardiovascular exercise, it needs to get rid of weight (including muscle) in order for it to be more efficient. It asks your metabolism to be more efficient too. Not only does a decrease in muscle lead to a slower resting metabolic rate, but a more efficient metabolism is going to hold onto calories better. In short, cardio is telling your body to be more efficient, and your body can be more efficient by decreasing it's lean muscle mass and decreasing resting metabolic rate. 

Ever thought about the differences the body of a long distance runner vs. a sprinter?

"So does that mean I shouldn't be doing cardio at all?"

Meh. That's my answer and I'm sticking with it. It just depends. If your goal is to run a marathon and absolutely kick tail, then yes you should be doing cardio. If your goal is to be lean, strong, fit, sexy, and healthy for your entire life, I recommend that resistance training is the staple in your programming, and you sprinkle in cardio if you enjoy it or want to use it to burn some more calories here and there. If your weight training is extremely lackadaisical and your heart rate isn't increasing at all either, cardio would be great just for the health benefits alone. 

Thus far, you've learned this much:

1. Resting metabolic rate increases with more muscle mass.

2. Muscle mass can be increased through resistance training as well as a caloric surplus

3. Cardio shouldn't be the staple when seeking to build a sustainably lean and fit physique, but it should definitely be sprinkled in.

Now that we know these things, we need to put it all together and develop a takeaway that you can use along your fitness journey. 

The Solution: Eat More, Work Less

I know that this sounds crazy and absolutely too good to be true. This is one of those cases where it's real. It's real because in some ways it's a paradox.

The reason my clients love working with Poehlmann Fitness is because one of the first things we do to their nutrition is ADD food. Yes, ADD food.

I do this in order to build a solid foundation. A foundation that has lean muscle tissue and can maintain it's weight at a high amount of calories is going to have the most potential for success when starting the fat loss process. 

I'd like you walk you through one of the cases with a new client I picked up not too long ago. This young lady came to me looking for a solution just like everyone else. She was at a plateau forever and she was absolutely sick of it. She kept working harder, taking more and more intense classes, and eating less in order to try to lose weight. All she was doing was repeatedly running into a brick wall that would never cease to knock her right back down. 

My job as her coach is to fix that and give her the opportunity to enjoy life again. So the first thing I did was evaluated her nutrition and training for a week. I saw that she was eating around 1100-1300 calories (which is really low), while taking high intensity bootcamp classes up to 5 days/week. Why do you think this is? Because she's been doing an hour straight of cardio, while in a caloric deficit for a long period of time.

So the first move here is to start over and build her a solid foundation. As I explain earlier, I do this by slowing down her cardiovascular activity slowly over time and reintroduce her to resistance training in order to increase her resting metabolic rate. I also add calories to her daily intake during this time.

Over time, I continually add volume (weights x sets x reps) to her training regimen and calories to her daily intake as long as she maintains her weight. 

Once she gets to a point where she's eating a lot more and maintaining weight, I'll begin the process of SLOWLY eliminating calories. So with this specific client, we got to a point where she was maintaining her weight at 2300-2400 calories at the same weight she first started at. Keep in mind this is over 1000 calories more than she was eating at the start. Crazy, right? Now she's in a place where we can keep her activity pretty similar and slowly take down those calories. Now that her body is used to maintaining at 2300-2400 calories, a drop to 2000 calories caused her to lose body fat. And it did. So wrap your mind around that. After a while, this client was losing body fat eating 2000 calories as opposed to her 1300 calories before.

Mind.

Blown.

Although this approach is much more enjoyable, much safer, healthier, and more sustainable than most, others, it does take a good amount of time for this to happen. 

But by the time this client was done with this process, her lean muscle mass increased, her body fat decreased, her scale weight increased (another reason to not care about the scale), and her relationship with her weight, appearance, and self-worth improved. And, she had the freedom to eat more food.

War won.

Closing

After reading this, I hope that you can leave with some knowledge on how your body adapts to the different signals you're sending it. I also hope that you understand that getting fit and reaching your goals doesn't require you to suffer. It only requires some dedication and consistency.

Speaking of those two things, the Holidays are approaching and it seems to me that this is the time of the year where people think health and happiness can't live in harmony.

As explained in this article, they can. And if you're interested on making those two things take precedence at the same time in your life, apply for coaching from Poehlmann Fitness to get a head start.

Thanks for reading!

References

1. Zurlo, F, et al. “Skeletal Muscle Metabolism Is a Major Determinant of Resting Energy Expenditure.” Journal of Clinical Investigation, U.S. National Library of Medicine, Nov. 1990, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC296885/.

Adam is a fitness professional, Chipotle fanatic, and cookie enthusiast based in Fort Collins, CO. After hanging up the baseball cleats, he found a strong interest in the human body and how it performs. Since then, Adam has been transforming lives through fitness in a fun and encouraging atmosphere. 

Adam is an ACE CPT and Fitness Nutrition Specialist. His years of experience in fat loss, muscle hypertrophy, and sports performance training have helped people improve in all walks of life. If you're interested in hiring Adam as your coach, fill out an application here.

5 Fitness Myths

Aside from time (which is a b.s. excuse), not knowing what to do is one of the biggest reasons people avoid making the decision to improve their health. Even if they think they know something, odds are that it's turning them even further away from fitness, because the information that was delivered to them was either misrepresented or just plain false. Similar to those nutty Christians on the street corner. It's like "bro, no wonder Christians get a bad rap when you're screaming at people telling them their souls are doomed." Know what I mean? It just drives me crazy. Anyway, I'm here to set the record straight on some of the biggest myths in fitness. Once you've read through this article, you'll have a better idea of how your body operates, and you'll save yourself months (maybe even years) of wandering aimlessly in the gym and in the kitchen. 

1. IF I WANT TO LOSE FAT, I JUST NEED TO DO CARDIO AND HIGH REPS, RIGHT?

I put this one first on the list because I hear it most often. "Adam, If I'm trying to lose weight I should just do a bunch of cardio and 15-20 repetitions when I'm lifting, right?" Nope. Not at all. 

Don't misunderstand me. Cardio burns fat, and weightlifting burns fat. But you need to understand how both work with the goal of fat loss before you implement them into your program. Let's talk about cardio. 

Cardio is very interesting to me because it has a lot of beneficial versatility. While performing cardiovascular exercise over time, your body's ability to use oxygen improves and your body uses different sources of energy to burn calories. Did you pay attention to that? Your body uses different sources of energy to burn calories. Depending on the state of your body, it chooses to use digested energy sources, fat stores, or even muscle tissue as energy. So if our ultimate goal is fat loss, we need to preserve as much muscle as possible and set our bodies up to use stored fat as energy. How do we do this? 

Proper nutrition is the answer. When your body is properly fueled with quality sources of carbohydrates before a workout, your body will choose to burn fat stores during and after your workout. If you are depleted of those carbohydrates and glycogen, your body may choose to use muscle tissue as fuel, which isn't good because we want to maintain as much muscle as possible while cutting fat.

In order to properly hold on to that muscle tissue, we must keep them in as much of a growth state as we can for as long as possible. That means low reps for strength, high reps for endurance, and mid-level reps for hypertrophy. Although we are in a "cut" we must treat our resistance training the same by shocking our muscles, tearing them down, and fueling them to properly recover. 

2. I can spot-reduce my body fat

There isn't much to explain here. The only way to spot-reduce your fat cells is through liposuction. Depending on you body and it's genetic make-up, it will reduce fat cells from wherever it wants to. 

3. cardio before weights burns more fat

Muscle burns fat. Not hours on the treadmill. It is easier for your body to perform intense cardio after weight training than it is for your body to perform intense weight training after cardio. Cardio should always come second to weight lifting. Remember, we want to hold on (maintain) or increase lean muscle tissue because it it helps boost our resting metabolic rate. And, lean muscle looks freaking good, too. I always recommend HIIT (high intensity interval training) with some form of cardio after a resistance training session. 

4. All protein powders are the same

Before I go on, let me say this: it is important for women to be taking some sort of post-workout supplement to re-feed muscles. Don't worry, protein powder doesn't make you look like a guy, testosterone does. And you don't have enough flowing through you to look like a guy anyway. So no more fuss. 

There are all types of protein powders like soy, egg, casein, bean, whey, and more. I believe that some of the best powders for post-workout nutrition are whey, soy, and egg. They all have great Protein Digestibility Corrected Amino Scores. I personally take whey protein as it is absorbed by the muscles at a very fast rate. Other forms of protein (let's say casein for example) are digested much slower and therefore are perfect for a late night treat to feed your muscles overnight. 

5. Completely cut out carbs to lose weight

The myth that carbs is the only thing that makes you gain weight has been disproven for such a long time. Anything can make you gain weight. If you eat too much fruit, you'll gain weight. Too much meat, you'll gain weight. It doesn't matter what it is. The truth is that in order to lose weight and cut body fat, you must make conscious, balanced, goal-oriented choices that meet you where you're at. Losing body fat involves a good balance of weight training, cardio, hydration, and good nutrition. It's a very simple process that we often overestimate. This is why all of my clients have custom nutrition guidelines (notice how I said guidelines, not diets or plans). They all come from different walks of life, have different beginnings, as well as different end goals. Are there certain nutritional guidelines that need to be applied to lose weight? Yes, but completely cutting out carbohydrates should never be a part of the question. 

There ya go. 5 myths and their truths. My wish is that you take this with you and apply it to your life. If you have any questions regarding fitness, nutrition, great cheat meals, or anything else in life, reach out to me on these platforms or send me an email! Thanks for reading!

Email: adam@poehlmannfitness.com

Real Talk on the Fasted Cardio Topic

If you've ever wanted to lose body fat but didn't quite understand how to approach it, I'm sure at one point or another you've gone straight to Google to figure out how to get the job done. Upon searching time and time again, you may have learned about certain forms of cardio such as steady-state cardio, high intensity interval training, as well as fasted cardio. 

Many humans have a tendency to take the short and easy route a lot of the time. It's relatively painless, and requires very little effort, comparatively. In this article, I want to discuss the potential (keyword: potential) benefits of fasted cardio, as well as the consequences if not executed correctly.

SO YOU WANT TO LOSE FAT FAST

Don't we all? Hitting any sort of goal in an extremely short amount of time would be great, but that's just not how the world works, nor do our bodies. Losing fat is a slow process that needs to be done with consistent macronutrient tracking, clean eating, and patience. But, there HAS to be a way to speed it up, right? Well, yes and no. There are a lot of factors that go into fat loss during cardio sessions such as prior food intake, current well-being, genetics, etc. 

There are rumors out there that fasted cardio can actually help you target fat loss quicker because the body is in a fasted state after you've slept, thus it has no choice but to use stored fat. This is true, BUT only under certain circumstances as well as precautionary measures that must be taken in order to avoid the one thing we don't want: using muscle tissue as fuel. 

FIRST, SOME SIMPLE SCIENCE (kind of)

In order to transition into the necessary steps to almost guarantee fat loss, allow me to quickly discuss how our bodies operate under these conditions. Believe it or not, our bodies are much smarter than we think they are. They can adjust to certain environmental and behavioral situations without us even realizing it. It's quite fascinating. So what does that mean for fitness? Well, it means that our bodies are quick to enter survival mode (where it wants to hold on to a certain amount of fat), so at a certain point it will hold on to body fat and start using muscle tissue as fuel. When performing fasted cardio, our goal is to trick the body into thinking that it's not in survival mode, and it's free to use whatever fat stores it has for fuel. 

SO HOW DO WE TRICK THE BODY? 

When you wake, your body has nothing to work with. It's been feeding off of practically nothing for the past 6-8 hours. So, we must give our body something in order for it to feel like it's not in survival mode so it will utilize fat stores. Did you catch that? "Fasted" cardio that works isn't actually fasted cardio. Sure, your body has less to work with because you haven't eaten as many calories, but it must have some sort of carbohydrate to work with. This is because the intensity of the training can outweigh the body's ability to utilize fat stores as fuel. So at some point during the fasted cardio session, your body says away with the fat and on to the muscle.

There are studies performed that say those who perform cardio on an empty stomach are more prone to loss of muscle tissue over time compared to those who consume carbohydrates before their training sessions. Not good, because we want to conserve as much muscle tissue as possible. Anyway, we must fuel the body before cardio. Some good examples are carbohydrate protein shakes, fruits, and at the very least, branch chain amino acids. 

THE TAKEAWAY

If you want to maximize fat loss over a period of time, stick to fed, high intensity interval cardio sessions. If cardio fits into your schedule best in the morning, then do it. Just make sure you fuel up with a fast digesting carbohydrate beforehand. If cardio works better for your schedule in the afternoon, great. You will burn fat either way. There are no significant studies that say fasted cardio can significantly increase body fat loss. All we do know is that there is a chance that our bodies can use muscle tissue as fuel after a certain amount of time. So what's the tangible takeaway? Do what works for you. Track your body fat and your lean body mass over time and see where your plan takes you. If you do choose to do cardio immediately after waking, I do suggest getting some fast fuel in your system such as a fruit, carbohydrate protein shake, or branch chain amino acids.

To learn more about my opinions on ridiculous fitness fads, tune in to any one of the following social platforms!

Thanks for reading!

References

Blomstrand, Eva, and Bengt Saltin. “Effect of Muscle Glycogen on Glucose, Lactate and Amino Acid Metabolism During Exercise and Recovery in Human Subjects.” The Journal of Physiology 514.1 (1999): 293–302. Web.