What do you do?
Whenever I’m trying to help a client by giving them information regarding working out, nutrition, or just recommending healthier options, invariably the question arises. ”Well what do you do?” . Usually I just reply “it’s not about me, we have different goals” or something like that.
Lately I haven’t been working out as much or as intensely as I used to and I haven’t been eating all that great but I still manage to stay in somewhat reasonable shape. By “reasonable shape” I mean maintain my bodyweight and be able to maintain a certain level of performance. Don’t get me wrong, I can and should be in way better shape than I am but when a 24 year old guy works out with me and he’s about to have a heart attack, I start to think “what is he doing, or not doing vs. what have I been doing?’ He should be kicking my ass with the 16 years he has on me. So what are the other things that I do throughout the day that may be in part responsible for staying in OK shape. After thinking about it, I listed some things I do that other people, who are struggling, may not do. I’ve listed 13, but will probably add more at a later date.
1) I’m consistent with my workouts – I may not put as much time in during the week like I used to, but I always get a few workouts in during the course of the week, at least 2 or 3 regardless of how long they are. Some are 15-20 minutes long, some are 1 hour. I don’t end up taking 3 months off then show up at the gym for a month then take another break, etc. I don’t even know why I bother selling memberships less than 6 months in length. What’s the point?
2) Big exercises – most of my workouts consist of what are called “big moves”. They include squats, deadlift, lunges, pullups, etc. I do not do many machine exercises because I need to get the most amount of work in during my workout, I want my workouts to be dense. Machines make your exercising easier in a way. After all, most require you to sit….duh?, and most try to isolate certain muscles, which means you use less energy to perform the exercise because muscles, like your legs, glutes, and trunk muscles are not needed if you are sitting on your ass. I’m not saying to never use machines because they can be useful in certain situations, just don’t perform a majority of your workout on machines. One advantage of free weight exercises is that you are required to hold the weight you are using in your hands or on your shoulders when performing a big exercise. That may not seem like a big deal but when you have to hold 100lbs of dumbbells in your hands in between reps AND do the squat, that’s a whole different animal. Especially when compared to using the leg press and laying on your back while your trunk, back and arm muscles take a nap. The short of it, less machines, more big free weight exercises = more calories burned now and hours later.
3) Rest periods – like I mentioned in #2, since most people are exercising to lose weight or keep weight off, you have to focus on your workouts being dense. You can do this by limiting your rest, and pairing up exercises. Perform a lower body exercise, rest anywhere from 0-60 sec (depending on how intense the first exercise is) then perform an upper body exercise, rest briefly and repeat. When short on time I will usually eliminate the rest in between exercises. Your muscles being worked in the first exercise will be getting some rest while you perform the second exercise, and vice versa, but your body as a whole is working the whole time. So in essence you are working 2 different moves/muscle groups and getting cardio in all during one set, that is density in your workout. You can also perform opposite muscle groups as well, for example do a set of back rows then a set of chest press. You could also combine 3 exercises in a row if you’re really motivated and short on time. Maybe a leg exercise, back exercise, then a chest or shoulder exercise.
4) Men, workout your LEGS! – I always get at least one leg workout in during the week. I see so many, sooooo many guys totally avoid their legs and work on nothing but upper body. Your leg muscles have an enormous impact on your body, and are such huge muscles that avoiding them is a very big mistake. “Oh, I jog and bike so my legs are pretty strong, so I don’t really need to work on them”, famous last words. It’s usually a pretty rude awakening to the people who say that. They end up having the weakest legs of them all. Endurance work does not make your legs strong! I’m not putting down endurance work, I’m just saying it does not make your legs strong, sorry. Long distance runners have some of the weakest legs of all the people I work with.
5) Long bouts of aerobic work – I don’t do it, I don’t believe in it, I haven’t seen it work for anyone. High volumes of aerobic work can weaken the immune system, increase cortisol levels, and it makes you weaker. With the exception of the beginner or the extremely out of shape person, it’s not a very good choice of exercise. You can increase your aerobic base or capacity just as well, if not better, by doing interval work or performing circuit routines w/resistance exercise. People choose aerobic work because it’s easier. Interval work is harder but also takes 1/3 the time. So unless you are training for a long distance event, bag the long aerobic bouts. And if you are training for a long distance event, include interval training in your program.
6) I workout after a snack but always before a meal. You have about an hour window after a resistance workout where the food you eat will be more readily assimilated and put to good use instead of being stored away. If gaining muscle is your main goal, you will want a combination of carbs and protein following a workout, usually in 3:1 ratio. This can be easily taken care of by drinking a post workout shake that contains carbs. If fat loss is your main goal, go for the protein, reduce or eliminate the carbs, and be cautious of your fat intake during this window, it will only slow protein absorption down.
7) Eat breakfast, a real breakfast – I was having a discussion with a couple high school teachers a while back about food. I asked what they had for breakfast….”I don’t have time to make breakfast”. Now, first of all they said that to the wrong person. I, like many others, was getting my 2 kids out of bed, fighting with them about what clothes to wear, making their breakfast, making their lunch, making them brush their teeth, getting their shoes and coats on, taking a shower myself and cooking myself a full breakfast all within one hour. Now these were 2 women without children. They had their entire morning to themselves. One of them also asked “Do cookies count as breakfast?” Are you serious? “Well, what should I eat for breakfast” Really? “These are seriously your questions?” I asked them. You are two intelligent adults who happen to be teachers and you can’t figure out a way to eat breakfast or what to eat for breakfast. Stop making lame excuses and just eat breakfast. It’s funny people can spend hours online looking up the most ridiculous information but yet most people can’t figure out what breakfast food is. I’ll give you a clue…it’s anything that’s good for you.
Eat protein at every meal – everytime I eat I make sure I have some source of protein on my plate. I also try to make sure their is something green, it doesn’t always happen, but it should. Protein requires more calories to digest (thermic effect), and it will help keep the muscle on, and after all, what burns calories? More muscle, more calories burned. With that being said, don’t think that just by eating more protein you will magically become thin. Your body will always end up storing what it doesn’t use as fat. Your body needs a certain amount, most of us don’t eat enough of it…just don’t pile it all into one meal. If you are doing high intensity workouts you may need a little more each meal over the course of the day. If you can just replace some of those unhealthy carbs with healthy protein you would probably notice a difference even without dropping your total daily calories.
9) No High Fructose Corn Syrup, Partially Hydrogenated Fats or Bleached anything - these are simple, and the first thing I suggest people get rid of in their diet, before anything else. Check the labels on everything you eat, crackers, condiments, sauces, cereals, breads, candy, everything! If it’s in there, don’t eat it. Find an alternative product that doesn’t have any of them (then work on not eating the breads, cereals and candy). They are all horrible for you. I think I read somewhere that partially hydrogenated oils resmble plastic more than they resemble food when you look at their molecular makeup. Mmmmmmm, sounds delicious. My wife and I have effectively eliminated them from 95% of the foods we eat, especially the foods we give our children.
10) Limit certain carbs – I have to be honest, this is my weakness. I can polish off a bag of corn chips in no time, and if there is a cookie in the house, I will find it and eat it. I’m still working on it. Knowing this, I have drastically reduced my pasta, rice, and bread intake over the years, especially at dinner. I think people tend to eat the wrong stuff at the wrong time in the wrong quantities. There’s a saying “Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a peasant.” You get the idea. Eating carbs in the morning is a better strategy than eating them at night. Trust me, I get my fill of beer and pizza, I’m still trying to figure out how to conquer that beast.
11) Desserts -We generally do not make them or eat them. Believe it or not, dessert at our house for the kids is usually something like frozen grapes follwed by a couple teaspoons of lemon flavored fish oil and a tasty probiotic kids vitamin. I know, sounds absolutely crazy but my kids love flavored fish oil. Kids need DHA, it will make them smarter. Go read up on it. Sure they have a brownie or ice cream once in a while but generally it’s some kind of fruit. I do not eat ice cream, my dessert of choice is some plain lowfat greek yogurt (real yogurt) with red grapes or blueberries and almonds. Even eating that you have to be careful with sugar intake that late at night.
12) Sleep – try and get to sleep by 10 and shoot for 7-8 hours if possible. If you don’t sleep, you don’t recover. If you don’t recover, you can not get stronger or healthier. It’s very simple. Lack of sleep is a major problem that isn’t given enough attention.
13) Alcohol – here’s the 800 lb gorilla! I love beer! But….try to limit yourself. Alcohol is poison as far as your body is concerned, plus if it’s not distilled (beer, wine, & some liquors) it will mess with your blood sugar (I just learned that) which will lead to more cravings and bad food choices. I’ve also read (don’t know how true but..) when alcohol enters your system your body will make eliminating the alcohol its main priority. This means all that great food you ate last nite was most likely not burned up at all, and stored you know where, as you know what, so the alcohol could be taken care of first.