3 Reasons Girls Aren’t Seeing Results

Yesterday I was at the gym when a girl stopped me and asked me how she can lean up and lose some body fat. Being a fitness professional, I didn’t give her a short answer. After I was done with my long and probably exhausting explanation, I thought to myself, “I’m willing to bet tons of girls are going through the exact same thing she is. It may be beneficial to talk about the things I discussed in that conversation on a blog, podcast, or video of some sort.” So here I am, writing a blog on the 3 reasons girls aren’t seeing results.

As I mentioned, the girl that asked the question wanted to lean up and lose some body fat without losing any muscle. In fact, she thought it would be nice to get a little more muscle while losing that extra body fat. I asked about her training and her nutrition, and as I suspected, she was lacking in all three areas that most girls are. Here they are the reasons she was lacking.

Reason #1: No Strength Training

Unfortunately, it’s been sold (and still is) to girls that in order for them to tone up and lean down, they need to do light weight but lots and lots of repetitions. This advice couldn’t be worse. I’m confident that this advice is actually the demise of the lean body that girls are seeking to achieve.

The reason this advice came about in the first place is because it’s easier to market, and it burns more calories. If the industry told girls they’ll look like guys if they lift any other way, why wouldn’t they do what they’re asking, right? Also, more repetitions means more calories burned during a workout.

Let me tell you a couple of little secrets.

Secret number one is that you won’t look like a guy if you lift heavy weights. Not at all. You simply don’t have enough testosterone flowing through you to see those kinds of significant changes in muscle growth. In fact, after lifting heavy weights, the change you’ll see in muscle is most likely the exact right amount to reach that toned and defined look.

Secret number two is that performing lots of repetitions during your workout in order to burn more calories is an absolute waste of time and energy. The amount of calories that you burn in a day comes from many different places like your BMR (calories burned at rest), NEAT (fidgeting, walking, chores, etc.), exercise, and more. Only 5% of your daily burned calories come from exercise. Only 5%! That’s nothing. On the other hand, 75% of your daily burned calories come from your Basal Metabolic Rate, or calories burned at rest. This is determined largely by the muscle that you have on your body. So, if burning calories is your goal for fat loss, it would be far more wise to spend time focusing on strength when you’re working out in order to increase the amount of calories your body burns at rest.

When we exercise, we send a signal to our body depending on the stimulus we give it. If we perform long distance running, we tell our bodies to be better at long distance running. Our body responds by losing muscle and slowing down the metabolism in order to be more efficient. If we perform moderate lifting with lighter weights, we tell our body to have better muscular endurance. Our bodies respond by slowly improving the amount of times a moderate weight can be lifted before exhaustion. If we perform strength training, we send a signal to our bodies telling them to become better at lifting heavier weights. Our body responds by increasing its lean muscle mass and central nervous system adaptation in order to become more efficient at lifting heavy weights. A direct response of that is a faster metabolism.

So, lift heavy weights. Girls spend most of their time lifting 12 reps or more with a moderate load. Girls, test your strength. Be strong. Spend some time lifting more weight for 4-8 reps. Do some heavy squats, heavy deadlifts, heavy bench presses, heavy overhead presses, and heavy rows. Trust me, you’ll see the change you’ve been looking for.

Reason #2: Too Much Cardio

I alluded to this in the previous reason but it still needs its own section.

Before I move on, let me be clear. I am NOT bashing cardio. As I write I will only be bashing what is called chronic cardio.

Too many people suffer from chronic cardio addiction. They know that cardio burns a lot of calories so they get on the treadmill or stairmaster and they go and go and go. They see results after a short period of time, so they continue to run and climb. More and more and more. After a while, the results start to dwindle. In fact, Hours and hours of cardio are done per week and the results simply don’t come any more. What could be going wrong?

Remember what I said earlier about the signals we sent to our bodies? That’s what’s going on here. The more we do a certain type of training, the better our body gets at that certain type of training. Don’t get me wrong, that’s not a bad thing. We must give our bodies a chance to adapt and become better at that new type of training. But after a while, it’s no longer beneficial to expose our bodies to the same thing over and over and over again. Especially when it comes to long durations of steady-state cardio. When performing these long bouts of cardio on a consistent basis, our body responds by becoming more efficient. It becomes more efficient by getting rid of muscle, and slowing down its metabolism, because those two things aren’t advantageous when it comes to long durations of cardio.

Basically, the body’s metabolism turns into that of a Prius. It goes a long way without burning too much fuel. When it comes to toning, getting leaner, and creating more definition, we want the metabolism of a Ferrari. We want to burn a ton of calories without a lot of effort.

You now know that the Ferrari metabolism comes from strength training.

Does that mean you have to wipe out all cardio? No, of course not. But you definitely should take it down if you’re doing it chronically. I recommend no more than 2, 12-minute HIIT sessions after a couple of your strength training workouts per week. Let your body prioritize building that faster metabolism through your strength training first, and use the HIIT as a supplemental way to burn a few extra calories in the week.

Reason #3: Not Enough Protein

When it comes to building muscle and keeping it, protein (and getting plenty of it) is extremely important. The girl that was asking for advice in the gym was in a common situation that I find a lot of girls in. She doesn’t track her food intake, and therefore has no idea how much protein she is eating in a day. She said she drinks a protein shake after training, but doesn’t have any idea how much protein she consumes outside of that. Unfortunately, if she’s not eating enough protein as is, that supplement she’s spending money on and making a part of her ritual is a complete waste and isn’t doing jack for her. I know for a fact that this is most people.

They are unwilling to track their food intake but they are taking all the “right” supplements for their goals.

Ugh.

Listen, tracking your food intake is something you MUST do if you want to make sure you’re doing the right things to reach your goals. It lets you know everything that is going on. Even the stuff you can’t see. It says “here you go, this is why you’re not reaching your goals.” It gives you the exact problem in order for your to find the exact solution. The unwillingness to track food intake is like a company saying it wants to lower its expenses but is not willing to look at the books and keep a budget.

Track your food.

Tracking your food intake will allow you to see how much food you’re eating, what you’re getting plenty of, and what you’re defficient in. After coaching people for years, I can tell you with confidence that 90% of people seeking to improve their body composition are not eating enough protein.

So, what’s enough?

Thankfully, enough protein isn’t what supplement companies tell you. No, you do not have to eat 2x your bodyweight in protein. Barf.

A good range to live in when it comes to protein is .6-.8g per pound of body weight. Protein isn’t the only thing that aids in muscle growth, but carbs do as well. So, when you’re in an energy surplus (eating more than you burn in a day), you don’t need to have super high protein intake since carbs are there to help you build. Stay within .6-.8g per pound of body weight when in an energy surplus.

Being in an energy deficit is different, and that’s where you’ll most likely be if you’re wanting to lose fat in order to become leaner and more toned. When you’re eating fewer calories than you burn in a day, you’re at risk for losing the muscle that drives your definition and your metabolism due to the lower carb intake you’re probably consuming. You don’t want that. When in an energy deficit and prioritizing fat loss, it’s recommended that you take your protein up to 1g per pound of body weight.

Note that going higher than 1g per pound of bodyweight has been shown to have no effects of muscle improvement. Your body will just use the rest to convert to energy or store as fat.

The Takeaways

Takeaway #1: Begin strength training at a higher weight load for 4-8 reps. Focus on increasing your strength each week and watch your muscle definition improve.

Takeaway #2: If you’re performing a lot of cardio, take it down to 2, 12-minute HIIT sessions after a couple of your strength training workouts. I advise slowly weaning off all cardio at first but if you must have it, stick to a couple of short HIIT sessions per week.

Takeaway #3: Eat more protein. Eat .6-.8 grams of protein per pound of body weight when increasing calories. When in a deficit, bump it up to 1g per pound of bodyweight to keep that hard-earned muscle.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Adam is a fitness professional, baseball fan, and cookie fanatic based in Fort Collins, Colorado. After hanging up the 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. As an ACE CPT and Fitness Nutrition Specialist, he is constantly moved to help people improve in all walks of life. If you’re interested in hiring Adam as your coach, fill out an application here.

6 Strategies to Help You Eat More Protein

If you've been following me for a while, you know that I am a big proponent of building and maintaining muscle through resistance training and proper nutrition. Whether you're a guy, girl, average joe, or competitive athlete, muscle is important. Here's why: having a good amount of lean muscle tissue is going to help you with your RMR (resting metabolic rate). Individuals who have more muscle tissue can burn more calories at rest throughout the day. More calories burned means more calories allowed in your daily budget. If your daily caloric budget is high (high for your age and body type) it will give you more room to enjoy food and life. More room to eat out and get drinks with friends, and more room to hit Five Guys for a fat, juicy burger. If you have a lower RMR, it's going to be harder for you to lose weight since your body isn't burning a lot of calories at rest, AND you'll have less wiggle room when it comes to your food intake. Both of those things make for an unfortunately disappointing fitness journey. 

Other than mixing up your training, lifting weights, and tracking your food intake, prioritizing protein and getting enough each day is extremely important. Just in my first four years of coaching alone, I would say that 90% of the individuals that come to me are missing out on a lot of protein. The RDA says you should eat 50g of protein each day, but this is only for sedentary individuals. Protein intake is much different for those of us who need to nutritionally support an exercise regimen. I always recommend aiming for at least 1g of protein per pound of lean body mass for those of you that are working hard in the gym each day. 

Protein is a macronutrient just like carbohydrates and fats. Unfortunately, they don't show up in seemingly every single food we eat like carbs and fats do. So, getting all those grams of protein can seem impossible at times. Thankfully, I've put together a list of six strategies to help you eat more protein. These are strategies I use each and every day, too. Believe it or not, protein just doesn't conveniently show up each day for me either. 

1. Prioritize Protein

This strategy is in my opinion, the most important one you'll hear about today. And quite frankly, it's no more of a strategy than it is the truth. There's no magic trick here. There's no magic food here either. This is just the cold hard truth. You absolutely have to prioritize your protein. If you're not thinking about how much protein you need in the meal, how much protein you need in the day, and how much protein is in the food you're about to eat, You'll never hit your goal. Carbs and fats are easily accessible and convenient. They'll come. Don't stress out about those. Think about protein first, and then add your carbs and fats to your meal. Sure, constantly thinking about protein each meal will be an extra hassle for the first week or so, but isn't it worth being a protein pro down the road? Plus, what's a few extra moments of thinking going to hurt?

2. 30 in 30

I'm not talking about a 30 for 30 on ESPN. This is a very simple reminder to help you get a kick-start on your protein intake for the day. Beware: this is extremely simple and easy to follow. Within 30 minutes of waking up, eat 30 grams of protein. Whatever form of protein you'd like. Breakfast shake, eggs and egg whites, greek yogurt, and FairLife milk are options that I like to put to use in the AM. Trust me, getting ahead early in the morning will make the rest of your day easier, especially if you're on the go.

3. Utilize but Don't Abuse Protein Powder

Whey powder is an extremely useful source of protein. Great for feeding your muscles after a vigorous workout in the gym, whey is a quick absorbing protein that is great for your post-workout recovery. Not only is it great for recovery, but its convenience is an added bonus. With whatever liquid you'd like, protein shakes take seconds to make and you can bring them with you wherever you are. Although it would be extremely easy to get your daily protein goal from only whey shakes, I advise against it for a couple of reasons: 
1. Although protein's satiety is great, the fact that the shakes are in liquid form won't help you feel full.
2. Protein shakes are often consumed by themselves which makes it easy to neglect great vitamins and minerals from other food sources. 

Take a serving after your workout, and perhaps another if you need some help hitting your protein for the day. But don't abuse it!

4. Take it Slow

For the most part, clients who come to me for coaching aren't trying to hit a protein goal each day. They just happen to eat 30-60 grams of protein each day. Depending on their lean mass, I'd like them to start eating a lot more protein right away, but that can be extremely difficult. So once you've figured out where your protein currently is and where it needs to be, slowly build it up every week or so. For example, I had a client start with me last week and they were at about 45 grams of protein each day when they needed to be around 150. That's a big jump. So what we're doing right now is slowly taking them up until 150 seems like no problem at all. It's all about fitting practicality into what's optimal.

5. Focus on What's Practical

In fitness, there is all of this b.s. being thrown around about how we all have to live the life of a competitive bodybuilder in order to be lean, healthy, and achieve our goals. We need to "eat chicken and broccoli eight times per day" in order to get fit. Are you kidding me? Get real. The name of the game with your success in fitness is making what's optimal, the most practical for your life. If you work from home and you'd rather spread your protein intake out through five meals, go for it. If you're crazy busy and you'd rather do it in two with a protein shake in the middle, go for it. The plan that is the most important is the one that will allow you to be the most consistent. 

A sneak peek at all of the scam artists in the fitness industry throwing crap at you. 

6. Break it Down

This last strategy ties into numbers four and five, but I still wanted to bring it up.

When we see a big number that is associated with a "big" change, we tend to freak out. Let's pretend that your protein goal is a debt you have. If you have $100,000 dollars in debt, of course you're going to freak out about how you're going to pay that off. But if you break it up into smaller chunks and create a budget that you can stick to, it won't seem too difficult, and it'll become easier to reach over time. The same goes with your protein. If you like to eat three meals in a day, figure out how you can divide your goal between those meals and whatever snacks you have. Break it down and simplify it.

Takeaway

Whether you're competing for a show or just trying to lose some weight, protein is so important. If you're under-eating it, you have to find a way to make that change. Apply whatever is most practical for you. The above strategies help me and my clients hit our daily protein goals, and may they do the same for you.

Find out more on protein by following me on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and more!

Thanks for reading!

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.