Adam Poehlmann 12/12/18 Adam Poehlmann 12/12/18

5 Tips for Easier Fat Loss

Do a Google search for "how to lose fat." I dare you. You will find thousands upon thousands of different sources, with tons of different answers. If you took the time to compare and contrast all of those different answers, you'd find tons of similarities, and tons of differences. The problem is...

Do a Google search for "how to lose fat." I dare you.

You will find thousands upon thousands of different sources, with tons of different answers. If you took the time to compare and contrast all of those different answers, you'd find tons of similarities, and tons of differences. The problem is...

Since you have other important things to do, I'd like to make your life a bit easier. Below is a list of 5 things you should be doing to lose fat easier. If you turn these items into habits, the fat will stay off easier, too.

LIFT WEIGHTS

Lifting weights is going to be one of the best things you can do for your health and fitness no matter what your goal is. I don't care if your goal is fat loss, muscle building, or getting out of your car without groaning. You should be lifting weights.

When we introduce something to our body, it sends a signal telling our body to adapt. If you perform endurance running, your body will receive a signal telling it to adapt by improving its energy efficiency (your metabolism will slow down). If you perform mobility and stretching consistently, your body will receive a signal telling it to adapt my improving the muscles' ability to lengthen and create stability in those lengthened positions. The same concept applies for resistance training. When you lift weights, you send a signal to your body telling it to gain strength and build muscle. As a result, you will become stronger, and carry more lean tissue. This is beneficial for fat loss for one major reason. Resistance training promotes a faster metabolism, as well as muscle building. Muscle takes a lot of energy to maintain, so your metabolism will increase as a result of your increased muscle mass as well. In short, you'll build a fast metabolism, and as you know, fat loss is much easier with a faster metabolism.

Before I move on, I want to clarify something. When I say building muscle, I specifically mean adding ANY amount of lean muscle to your body. This applies for women wanting to increase tone and definition, as well as men wanting to get jacked. Any sort of increase in lean tissue (even if it's a small increase) will lead to a faster metabolism. You'll also look great, too. So that's nice.

TRACK YOUR FOOD

Tracking your food intake is something I believe EVERYONE should do. It is the best way you can get an extremely good idea of how food affects your internal health as well as fat loss. Tracking gives you an opportunity to know what and how much you're currently intaking, and also allows you to see what tweaks you need to make in order to lose more fat. We've been trained to mindlessly eat since we were kids. You'll be astonished by what you discover when you finally decide to keep a log of your food.

Here's the thing. Fat loss and finances are similar in many ways. If you want to know how to save money, you're going to want to track your spending and create a budget in order to save more money. Similarly, if you want to lose fat, you're going to want to track your eating and create a "budget" in order to burn more energy than you consume in a day. In both scenarios, playing the guessing game is dangerous and will most likely put you in a bigger hole than you're in now. Take responsibility, get determined, and take note of what you do so you can make accurate and beneficial changes.

BOOST YOUR METABOLISM

I briefly discussed this before, but I'll go over it in more detail.

In the context of modern life, speeding up your metabolism is one of the best things you can do. It will make getting lean and staying lean much easier. Why? For starters, we are more sedentary than ever. In addition, food is more readily available than ever before. Simply put, we are moving less and eating more. So, having a faster metabolism will make it easier for you to burn more calories without sacrificing your lifestyle.

Two things you can do to boost your metabolism include eating more food and performing resistance training. If you do things the right way, you'll see your body's ability to burn through calories increase like crazy. While performing your resistance training program, slowly add volume to your workouts once your body begins to adapt. Increases in volume have been proven to enhance strength and muscle mass, which are going to help your metabolism. You can add volume to your training by adding weight, sets, reps, or a combination of the three. While tracking your nutrition, make sure you're eating enough protein, carbs, and fat for your desired outcome. The goal is to maintain your current weight week after week as you eat more food and add volume to your training.

STAY CONSISTENT

This one is simple. If you're consistent, you'll see positive change. If you're inconsistent, you won't. It is better to be 90% consistent consistently than to be 100% consistent inconsistently. Don't stress too much about the BEST workout ever. Don't stress too much about the BEST nutrition protocol ever. Instead, focus on eating well 80% of the time, and getting all your workouts in. Even if that's too much, find ONE simple change in your training and ONE simple change in your nutrition that you can be consistent with. Once those changes have turned into habits, build from there.

HAVE YOUR EYES SET ON THE LONG TERM

Can you lose 20 pounds in two weeks? Yup. But you don't want to go down that road. Short-term, get fit quick routes will lead you to hole that will take years and years to dig yourself out of. If you want to build a lean body and be able to easily maintain it down the road, have your eyes set on the long term. If you want that kind of change, you need to accept the fact that you are going to make a lifestyle change. Lifestyle changes are no joke, and they take time. Once you have your long term goal and you've accepted the fact that you're making a lifestyle change, break things down a bit. Make daily, weekly, and monthly goals. Also, it may be a good idea to create behavior-based short-term goals for your outcome-based goals. Let's say your outcome-based goal is losing 50 pounds of body fat in a healthy way over the course of the next 2 years. Your behavior-based goals can be things like getting all your workouts in, meeting your macronutrient goals each day, and getting your body composition tested every month. Whatever you choose to do, create some behavior change. Outcome-based goals are achieved far more often when there are detailed behavior-based goals to go along with them.

THE TAKEAWAY

If you want to lose fat and keep it off, make sure you implement these five things into your life.

Lift weights
Track your food
Boost your metabolism
Stay consistent
Have your eyes set on the long term

If you do these things (even on a small scale) and slowly build, you will see great change in your health and fitness.

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.

Adam Poehlmann 12/12/18 Adam Poehlmann 12/12/18

Self-Belief: How to Build it and Why It Matters

Self-belief is a trust in one's own abilities. It's something that comes from experience and action. Self-belief is more permanent because it comes from the known, rather than the unknown. It comes from the tangible, rather than the abstract.

I've noticed that there are two things that often push people to take action. Those two things are motivation and self-belief.

I find both of them to be fascinating as individual concepts as well as a pair. They are two completely different things, but yet they can work together so well. We'll get into what I mean by that in today's article.

WHAT IS MOTIVATION?

According to some dictionary definitions, motivation comes from some sort of desire.

According to me, motivation is fluff. Motivation is the guy on YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook talking about the low point in his life, and how he started with $15 in his bank account, and is now a self-made millionaire. And because he did all of this, YOU can do it too. Motivation is what we feel after we watch an awesome video on social media. It's what we feel after we listen to an awesome speech. It's what we feel when we're moved in a powerful way. Motivation is a fleeting desire to do something you may not normally do.

WHAT IS SELF-BELIEF?

AND?

I know I know, you want me to get to my point. I am. I just wanted to make sure I went over motivation and self-belief briefly, that way we're all on the same page.

In fitness, we know that there are those that do and those that don't. Those that do, see results. They reach their goals and then some. They achieve great things. Those that don't, see no fruit because there was no labor. They don't reach their goals and they don't achieve anything. We've been led to believe that the doers are the ones that are motivated. They are seemingly in a constant state of motivation, always ready to attack anything in front of them with the most energy and enthusiasm.

In my years of coaching in the fitness industry, I've discovered that not to be the case. The doers aren't in a constant state of motivation and drive. They are everyday people just like you and me that have a bunch of other crap to do too. But that doesn't mean they were never motivated.

You see, motivation is a very useful tool when used properly. As I mentioned before, motivation is fleeting. It is temporary and never constant. However, motivation can be used while its at its peak in order to create action that turns into habit.

DOERS

The doers utilize this tactic all the time, and that's what makes them doers. When doers feel a sense of motivation, they take action over and over and over. Before they know it, that action has turned into a habit, and they no longer need motivation to keep them going. They are now relying on self-belief which is more permanent, because they know that can complete the task, simply because they've done it several times before.

Take working out for example. Training and pushing your body to uncomfortable limits is something that seems like it requires a ton of motivation all the time. But that's not the case. Sure, if you've never worked out before, you may need to motivate yourself with some incentive like a goal or desired result from your work. Once that motivation has set a fire within you, you are far more likely to go to the gym and train. Before you know it, you've trained multiple times per week for the last 3 months. Eventually, that motivation will leave. That's just the way it is. BUT, that doesn't mean that you stop working out. Why? Well, it's simple. You now have 3 months of self-belief in your tool-belt because you've gone to the gym and pushed yourself when you had that motivation. You know you're capable, and you know what's to come. So, you're better prepared, and you can go forth and attack what's in front of you.

When I started working out, I hated it. I didn't like the burn I felt while lifting weights. I didn't like breathing so heavily I thought I'd never catch my breath again. I couldn't stand it. But I had a goal that was motivating me. Years later, I go to the gym and push myself even when I don't have a goal. Why? I enjoy it. I enjoy pushing myself and seeing what my body is capable of doing. I enjoy that burn and that fatigue that I get. I also know that I'm fully capable of pushing myself hard knowing I'll end up on top. I believe in myself. I created a habit that needs no motivation for execution.

THE TAKEAWAY

Sometimes you need motivation. But if you rely on motivation to get you to do everything, you'll end up doing nothing. Find motivation, create a habit in action in order to build self-belief, and use that self-belief to continue moving forward.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Adam Poehlmann 12/12/18 Adam Poehlmann 12/12/18

Why Some Succeed and Others Don't

If fitness, you'll fail sometimes. But, you need to make sure you breed success from your failures. And it's a lot easier to believe you can succeed when you know that the other busy people in the world are crushing their goals, rather than idolizing and reaching for the results of some fitness model on instagram that lives a completely different life.

I remember when I first got into fitness and nutrition. I read articles out the wazoo and watched videos on YouTube like there was no tomorrow. Over time, I gained a lot of inspiration and I was ready to begin my fitness journey.

But there was one problem.

All of these videos I was watching were created by guys on drugs (nothing against steroids) who were jacked bodybuilders and nothing more.

Hear me out.

I don't mean to say that they are stupid, but they know their body, their biology, and what works from them. It would be difficult for them to relate to a 175-pound male who was just looking to improve his health and physique on a natural level. Not to mention the differences in lifestyle. I didn't want to each chicken and broccoli 7x/day nor did I want to spend three hours in the gym every day and completely cut out my social life.

My guess is you don't either. Don't you like pizza? Don't you like the occasional bowl of ice cream?

Duh. Of course you do. You're not weird. Don't you enjoy the ability to go out with friends and not feel like you have to be the odd ball out because you "can't" have a beer? What the heck is that? If you're not competing or reaching for an extremely challenging goal, there's no sense in taking it to the extreme and making your life miserable, am I right?

"Yes, you are right, Adam! But what are you getting at here?"

Well thank you for asking. Here's what I'm saying:

So, what I've decided to do is compile a list of items that successful clients of mine (and others) share in common. All these people do extremely well, and it's because they put in the work. But don't jump to conclusions here and assume they have all the time in the world. These people are mothers, fathers, business owners, employees with multiple jobs, volunteers, etc.

In fact, most of my clients that have a ton of success are all of those things (except being a mother and father, of course).

So the question is, how the heck do they do it?

I'm going to share the top FIVE things that have enabled my clients and other successful people to do well with an extremely busy and demanding life. These are not MY five reasons they're successful. These are the exact reason why THEY believe they do so well. These keys come straight from the sources.

A DRIVE TO IMPROVE THEMSELVES

Here's the thing. We get sick and tired of things. I know I do. I get sick and tired of commercials, and get sick and tired of "we" couples. I get sick and tired of my seemingly weak will power when it comes to binge-watching "The Office" on Netflix.

Well, not so much the last one.

What's interesting is that at some point, they got sick and tired of being sick and tired! They were sick and tired of countless hours on the treadmill, elliptical, spin bike, and stairmaster. They were sick and tired of turning cardio into some sort of mathematical equation in order to optimize fat loss.

Being truly sick and tired is one thing. We're all sick and tired of something on some level. It's finding the spark to make change that really matters. I have some good news and bad news for y'all on this one. The bad news: the spark that ignites the fire of intrinsic motivation can't be easily found. It's something that is different for all of us. We all think differently, and we're all moved on an emotional level in different ways. For some, it's knowing they'll be around to spoil their grandkids. For others, it's being able to spend hours tracking an animal in the middle of the woods. The good news: once you find that spark and the fire is lit, oh my gosh... the world better get the heck out of your way.

Once you reach a point of seriously being sick and tired of being sick and tired, find your spark and ignite a fire.

A PLAN TO FOLLOW

Shooting in the dark is dangerous, stupid, and pointless. Unless you're in a horror/thriller movie and it's your only option for survival. That's a bit different. Thankfully, you're in a real life scenario and shooting in the dark isn't your only option. You have the ability to look almost anywhere for a plan. And when I say anywhere, I mean the internet. Have you met the internet? It's nuts.

Fitness plans, coaches, trainers, nutritionists, workout videos, e-books, and more are available with one single internet search. If you're willing to find a plan to stick to, it's too easy to find any plan out of hundreds of thousands. Clients that opt for coaching realize that finding a custom-tailored plan with accountability was something that would get them to their goal and off their plateau.

I know what you're thinking. This is NOT a shameless plug for my coaching services. Their desire to seek a coach was theirs in the first place. I have never persuaded someone to work with me. That's a big no-no in my book. If I had to do that, it would be a pretty big red flag telling me that they might not do so well. All of the successful people I've worked with are people that understood they needed help and accountability, and they went out of their way to find it.

My most successful clients realized this, and sought out help. I've found that the most successful individuals are those that understand they can learn from anyone and everyone. They believe in themselves to do the work and understand that guidance and accountability will get them to a level they may not have been able to do on their own.

CLARITY

My only job is to impact people's lives through fitness. Because of this, it is an absolute necessity that I'm great at what I do. This means that I will always be looking, always seeking clarity. There are aspects of fitness and nutrition that I don't know about yet, and it will always be that way. Because of that, I'm constantly taking in information and constantly asking questions. For those who succeed in their fitness, it's the exact same.

Although my coaching is custom-tailored, there are still obstacles that come up for my clients.

Why?

Well, that's life. Sh*t happens.

My clients know that a lot of their success comes from the ability to reach out to me for clarity when needed. Not only do they understand that, but they utilize it tirelessly. The individuals that do well are the ones that reach out and say:

"____ happened, what do I do?"

"You said we're doing ____ this week. Why?".

It's simple. Those who do best are those who are most open to learn.

ABILITY TO MAKE ADJUSTMENTS (AND SACRIFICES)

This ties in with the previous statement, but we need to shine some more light on it. Ladies and gents, we all need flexibility. Whether it comes to fitness, or finding a daycare for your kids that works with your schedule, your mental, physical, and emotional health are at their best when flexibility is an option.

Here's why:

It's pretty simple, really. Life doesn't give a crap about your schedule or whatever it is you want to do in the day. Things can change at the snap of a finger. Traffic can jam up in an instant. Your family member could run out of gas on the side of the road. Crap will ALWAYS be thrown at you. One of the games of life is not controlling everything in order to have less crap thrown at you, it's how well you manage the crap that is thrown at you.

Thankfully, the plans that I give my clients allow them to assign their own workout days. If their schedule only allows training on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, then they move their workouts to those days on their profile. I also adjust their food intake accordingly. They have freedom to eat with flexibility which makes adherence easier.

They also make adjustments in different ways, too. You know, I shouldn't really use the word "adjustments" for this scenario. "Sacrifices" is a more appropriate word.

Sure, having the ability to reach goals with flexibility is a huge help. But what I've noticed is that when push comes to shove, those that succeed and achieve their goals are the ones that are willing to make sacrifices (adjustments) to get there.

If life throws them a busy week, they prep meals the Sunday before in order to combat it. If their kid runs into an emergency in the morning, they cut time out of their afternoon to get their workout it. If they feel coaching is a little out of their budget, they cut other areas of their spending down because they understand their health is most important.

It's simple. They make sacrifices.

Be willing to make sacrifices, or be prepared for life to run you over.

CELEBRATING VICTORIES

Along with K.I.S.S., we're all about celebrating victories at Poehlmann Fitness. It's not just me, though. My clients are all about celebrating victories, too.

It is far too easy to let the negatives of life weigh you down. This is one big differentiator between those that reach their goals and those that don't.

Those that reach their goals are those that solely focus on wins. Whether they're massive wins like setting a new squat record, or small wins like eating a serving of greens, successful individuals focus on wins.

Those that don't do well are the those that dwell on the negatives over and over, eventually convincing themselves that they're just not cut out to do well.

Focus on your wins, and build off them. Dwelling on failure is a waste of your time. Do yourself a favor and focus on your wins.

THE TAKEAWAY

The successes that we've discussed may not look the exact same for every individual, but the truth is that we can all benefit from the topics discussed in today's article. Great health and an amazing body is waiting for you, right in front of your face. All you need to do is be willing to reach out and grab it. The reach may not be easy, but it's always worth it.