Every year I set a goal to embrace a “Slow December” and after the events of 2020, I think it’s even more important this year to slow down, reset, and recharge for a new year.
Now that I have a whole team working with me here at The Balanced Life, it would be easy to give this up and continue with business as usual. But, I’ve held on to this concept of “Slow December” and now I encourage my team (and our whole community) to embrace this too!
We are working on some really exciting new things for 2021 and can’t WAIT to share them with you soon.
But for now, we hope you’ll join us in slowing down this season, connecting with those you love, and looking ahead to an exciting new year with The Balanced Life.
In true 2020 fashion, I hope you enjoy our “team photo” – thanks to Zoom.
And I thought it would be fun to round up the best of 2020 at The Balanced Life with your favorite blog posts + podcasts. Check out the top 5 below if you’re looking for a quick workout, a last minute gift idea, or need a podcast to listen to on a morning walk.
Looking for a recipe to keep you warm and cozy this winter?
Full of nourishing ingredients like garlic, bone broth, spinach, and turmeric – this delicious turkey & sweet potato immune-boosting soup is the perfect cozy meal for when you aren’t feeling your best or just want something to warm you up on a chilly day.
INGREDIENTS:
Coconut or avocado oil for cooking
1 lb ground turkey
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 small yellow onion, chopped
7 cups chicken or turkey bone broth
1.5 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed
1 cup canned chickpeas drained and rinsed
1 handful of chopped spinach or kale
1⁄2 tsp ground turmeric
1⁄4 tsp ground ginger
Sea salt and pepper to taste
INSTRUCTIONS:
Start by heating a large skillet over medium heat with coconut or avocado oil. Add the ground turkey and saute until completely cooked through.
While the turkey is cooking, add additional oil to a large stockpot over medium heat and add the garlic and onion. Saute for 3-5 minutes or until translucent.
Add the cooked ground turkey to the pot with the garlic and onion and add the bone broth, cubed sweet potatoes, and chickpeas. Bring to a boil and then reduce to a simmer and cook for about 20-25 minutes or until the sweet potatoes are tender.
Add the chopped spinach or kale, turmeric, ginger, salt, and pepper. Stir well. Cool and pour into a serving bowl. Enjoy!
Hope you have a wonderful winter season!
xo,
PS – Not feeling 100%? Check out my sick day survival guide for my tricks for boosting my immune system this time of year.
This functional resistance band circuits workout is broken up into three sections. There is minimal jumping, and if you want to keep the entire class low-impact, I’ll be showing modifications on the screen in the below video.
I have a few more Functional Circuits classes available for free on the site and channel:
Resistance band loop – I’m using a light band for the first circuit and a medium band for the second and third circuits.
In this class, we start with a guided warm up, focusing on mobility and dynamic movement/light cardio. We then move onto our functional circuit work. In each of the three circuits, you’ll preform four exercises, back to back, for 30 seconds each. You then rest 30 seconds before repeating. So that’s 2 mins of work, 30 sec rest.
In Circuits 1 & 2, we’ll do some unilateral work so we’ll complete 4 sets of the circuits, alternating right and left. In Circuit 3, we’ll complete 3 sets.
Between circuits, you get about a minute to recover, but pause the video and take more time if needed. Always listen to your body, modifying or stopping as needed.
We finish class with a guided cool down and stretch.
There is minimal jumping throughout class and low-impact modifications will be shown on the screen if you want to keep the entire workout low impact.
Workout Breakdown
01:53 Warm Up & Mobility
09:44 Functional Circuits Workout
Circuit 1, band gripped in hands
Back Lunge Torso Twist
Shoulder Press in Split Lunge
Lateral Extension with Pulse
Side Plank Row Rotation + Knee Crunch
Circuit 2, band under one foot
DL Variation
DL Pulse
Curtsy Pulse Knee Drive
Lizard Lunge to Low Squat to Squat Jump
Circuit 3, band around thighs (or shins)
Lateral Step x2 Squat with Calf Raise
Squat Jack with Pulse
Low Squat, Inchworm to Plank, Jump to Squat, 180 Squat Jump
Plank Lateral Steps / Plank Jack
39:19 Cool Down & Stretch
Hope you enjoy this Functional Resistance Band Circuits workout!
I wasn’t kidding earlier when I said meditation is practically a superpower.
Think of this superpower like the power of X-men’s Mystique, but for your mind.
Instead of the ability to alter your appearance to meet the challenges of any given situation, meditation allows you to alter your mind to conquer the day.
Why does this matter?
Because sometimes our minds can seem like they have a mind of their own:
When we are on our commute and someone is a jerk, we get angry. We don’t seem to have a choice in the matter – we just GET ANGRY.
When a friend says something stupid, we roll our eyes.
When they say something witty and intelligent, we laugh.
There is no deliberation, no Council of Elrond to decide how you should feel and respond.
That’s just how our brains work.
Daniel Kahneman, in the famed Thinking Fast and Slow, proposed we think about thinking in two ways.
System 1: Fast Thinking – automatic, frequent, emotional, subconscious.
System 2: Slow thinking – deliberative, effortful, infrequent, logical, conscious.
System 1 is responsible for most of what you do every day. This fast thinking does so much on your behalf, that you may not even realize it.
System 2 doesn’t kick in until you are tasked with something like solving a riddle, filling out a tax form, or walking at a pace that is unnaturally fast.
Another social psychologist, Jonathan Haidt, describes these systems with a different metaphor: a rider on an elephant.
In The Happiness Hypothesis, he explains he selected this metaphor to demonstrate the power of the elephant (fast thinking), and the powerlessness of the rider (slow thinking). While the rider might feel in control, at the top of the elephant with reigns in hand, it is truly the elephant that is running things.
What Exactly Is Meditation?
Meditation is simply the practice of learning how to pay attention.
It’s not something magic.
It’s not a cult or a religion.
Meditation is just a mental exercise to strengthen your mind.
This mental exercise is increasingly necessary in the modern world.
It turns out, at any given time almost half of us are lost in thought unrelated to what’s in front of us. And when we are mentally wandering, we are significantly less happy.[1]
As Matthieu Ricard explains in his TED Talk – when neuroscientists looked at his brain while meditating, he scored “off the scale” in brain activity related to happiness, compassion, and altruism.
At the end of the day, isn’t happiness what we’re all chasing?
That’s why we spend so much time with “mindset” in our 1-on-1 Online Coaching Program. Sure, we help people lose weight and get strong, but we also assign fun “side quests” to help with mindfulness, gratitude, and general well being.
How Do You Meditate? How Long Should Beginners Meditate?
To start, pick a time in your day you can regularly designate as your time to meditate.
It should be a time you can find a quiet place, without distraction or interruption.
As a beginner, you don’t need to meditate for long. Just five minutes a day is a great place to start.
Too much? Try TWO minutes.
The important part is building the daily habit.We can bump up the frequency down the road.
The meditation practice I’m going to describe for you below is a basic mindfulness practice. There are many different styles of meditation, but every type of meditation is about cultivating attention and awareness, or learning to be in the present moment without grasping. [2]
Be sure to set a timer before you begin.Time tends to slow down when in deep meditation, so when you’re just starting it may feel like 10 minutes…but it’s only been 5.
The timer will help here at first.
AS A BEGINNER, HERE’S HOW TO MEDITATE:
Find a place to sit that allows your back to be in an upright position. You don’t need to sit cross-legged, but you can if you wish. A chair or sitting against a wall also works well. Feel free to use a cushion under your bottom to help your posture and make yourself more comfortable. The goal is a posture that helps you stay alert, but is still comfortable. You can meditate with your eyes open or closed.
As you begin, take several deep, slow breaths to gather concentration. Inhale deeply, filling your lungs to the brim. Then slowly exhale. Follow your breath carefully with your attention through this process.
After a few breaths, or when you feel your concentration has settled, begin to breathe naturally. Notice the breath at a specific point, most commonly with the rising and falling of the chest, at your nostrils, or at your abdomen. Don’t force it. Don’t glue your attention there. Simply allow your breath to come and go naturally, following it as it naturally unfolds.
When you get lost in thought, simply return your attention back to the breath. Bringing your attention back to the breath is a central part of the process – think about it like performing an exercise repetition. Each time you do this you are rewiring your brain – no different from doing a repetition in strength training. So, don’t feel guilty or beat yourself up. You can’t control when you get distracted. But then magically, each time you realize you are distracted and you “wake up” – at this point, just return to the breath!
This is where we recommend most beginners start – a broad and basic breath concentration practice. Think about this no differently than starting with just the bar before adding weight, when learning to squat.
Three meditation apps that some at Team Nerd Fitness have had success with:
These programs can help you get going with a simple mindfulness practice.
Here’s something else to consider as you get started:
Beginners often find it difficult to stay aware when thoughts arise, and find themselves noticing they have been thinking only after being lost in thoughts for several minutes.
This is normal!
When you notice this happening, just return to focusing on your breath.
One last thing to consider would be guided meditations, where someone’s voice guides and directs you through a mindfulness practice.
Guided meditation is great to incorporate into anyone’s meditation practice (beginner, intermediate, or advanced), and certainly when the mind is especially restless.
Here are 5 resources that may help with guided meditation:
Doctor Who fans might enjoy Dalek’s Relaxation for Humans, although I can’t comment on its effectiveness:
What Are the Benefits of Meditation?
The superpower meditation builds is the ability to be at the character selection screen, for any given situation, at any given time.
You see, because of how our brains work, it can be hard to exert a level of control in our lives – from our response to a social interaction, to changing fundamental aspects of our life.
When something happens, we just react.
That’s System 1.
There’s no conscious deliberative process when a cute girl/guy walks up to you, or some car cuts you off in traffic. It’s no surprise that we often feel frustrated with our reactions after-the-fact.
Imagine the ability to replay the events, and always act with a calm and collected demeanor, delivering the best response you have to offer. That’s what meditation can help do for you.
I’m not talking managing an emotion, or suppressing a thought.
This is not “serenity now, insanity later.”
This isn’t about dealing with things AFTER you get angry or sad, but the power to actually change both how you feel and how you respond.
That is true power.
Neuroscientist Jill Bolte Taylor uses anger as an example in her wonderful TED Talk:
In her speech, Dr. Taylor explains that the physiological response from anger can only last 90 seconds.
Yet, as humans, we can stay angry seemingly FOREVER.
Why?
We are doing it to ourselves, by rethinking the thought and redoing the physiological response over and over. If you’ve ever gotten angry and let it fester, feeling angrier and angrier after, you know what she’s talking about.
As Dr.Taylor explains, we all have a superpower within us, but most of us surrender it.
Or as she puts us, we surrender our neurocircuitry:
“We are neurocircuitry. Your neurocircuitry is YOUR neurocircuitry, and you do not have the ability to stimulate and trigger my neurocircuitry without my permission. You cannot make me angry, unless I stick my trigger out there for you to pounce on and stimulate my neurocircuitry. If I give you the power to stimulate my neurocircuitry, then I have given you my power. And I give you my power, then I become vulnerable to you…”
Through meditation, you can learn to focus your attention where you choose. As you begin the practice, you will start to notice your thoughts and feelings more consciously, and let go of the ones that aren’t useful to you. You will start to reforge the character of your choosing.
This might have real physiological benefits.
While there is obviously some hype going on with mindfulness (it’s over a billion-dollar industry in the U.S. alone), there does some to be some evidence of meditation providing “modest benefits” for certain conditions.[3]
Dan Harris does a great job summarizing some of the benefits of meditation here:
Meditation may help:
Reduce stress. Studies have shown that a meditation practice can help users lower their stress levels. Although to be fair, it doesn’t seem to impact cortisol levels, our main stress hormone.[4] Still, being able to recenter can help you look at a stressful scenario with fresh eyes.
Alleviate depression.When we’re stressed, we release inflammatory chemicals called cytokines, which can lead to depression. A meditation practice may help limit the release of cytokines, reducing the risk of depression.[5]
Manage pain.Our perceptions of pain are tied to our state of mind.[6] Given this, it makes sense that a meditation practice can help alleviate certain types of pain.[7]
Plus, Wolverine meditates, so mindfulness may help you come to terms with the fact you were designed to be a mindless, soulless killing machine.[8]
Or…help you calm down after your flight is delayed for an hour. Same difference.
How Often Should You Meditate?
Now that you know how to meditate, you need to understand one final thing.
You have to train this power like a muscle.
Even if you have a good day or a good week in the gym, you need to be at it for months and months, and then STAY at it, to live with the benefits for a lifetime.
We’re doing the same thing with our meditation practice.
No different from squatting incrementally more weight, you are training your brain to get stronger.
Just like squatting, you won’t see profound benefits after a single session. Instead, you will level up after weeks and months of consistency.
The same way squatting regularly builds muscle, meditation literally builds gray matter in your brain.[9] Soon enough, that “automatic mode” or elephant we talked about will begin to change too (literally rewiring your brain).[10]
Much like groceries will slowly begin to feel lighter after strength training, so to will you gradually notice the benefits of meditation.
So how often should a beginner meditate?
Daily if possible.
It might feel intimidating now to think about, but just like with diet and exercise, once the habit is established, you won’t even notice:
Once you become someone who meditates for five minutes a day, that’s just what you do.
Getting Started With a Meditation Practice (Next Steps)
We all know the story of Luke Skywalker, not because he had this power within him and chose to walk away from it, but because he seized the opportunity to understand the Force.
Don’t be the Jedi who is walking away from your potential.
As a kid, I always thought that comic books had it backwards – the superpower found the superhero (I’m looking at you Spiderman), rather than the other way around.
What if we all had the potential to develop our power, and only the true superheroes do? Now that would be awesome.
That’s what meditation allows us to do.
Not only does meditation boost your health in a range of tangible ways, but more importantly, it helps us to enjoy the here and now. You might call this loving the game, or enjoying the process.
That’s why today we’re issuing a meditation challenge:
Commit to meditating every day, for two weeks straight (using an app, website, or guided meditation if you wish).
It can just be for five minutes. Or two minutes.
The important part is establishing a new habit.
Then maybe we can all start bending spoons together:
I think that just about does it for this article.
Before I let you go, if you want to continue your journey with Nerd Fitness as you level up your life, I’ve got three great options for you to do so.
HERE ARE NEXT STEPS IF YOU WANT TO GO FARTHER!
#1) Our 1-on-1 Online Coaching Program: a coaching program for busy people to help them lose weight, get strong, and level up their lives!
We believe that mindfulness is so important, we assign fun meditation “side quests” to our clients, to help build the practice.
#2) Exercising at home and need a plan to follow? Check out Nerd Fitness Journey!
Our fun habit-building app helps you exercise more frequently, eat healthier, and level up your life (literally).
Try your free trial right here:
#3) Join our amazing free community, the Nerd Fitness Rebellion! Not only is it free to join, but we’ll provide you with loads of free goodies when you sign-up:
Get your Nerd Fitness Starter Kit
The 15 mistakes you don’t want to make.
Full guide to the most effective diet and why it works.
Complete and track your first workout today, no gym required.
I’m so excited for you all to try this Pilates Slide class!!! It’s a combination of my years of experience teaching group megaformer classes and my Pilates mat training. I’ve wanted to put together classes like this for a while, and have been (im)patiently waiting to complete my Mat course before doing so.
If you enjoyed the Sculpt & Slide class I shared in the spring, you’ll love this. It’s similar but without the light weights, and a little more of a Pilates feel. Also I will have Pilates Slide classes that incorporate light hand weights, resistance bands, and other props in the future. I wanted to start with a towel/slider-only class though so that everyone can try it, regardless of access to equipment.
Pilates Slide Class – Towel/Slider Only
EQUIPMENT NEEDED
Towel/slider – paper plates work on carpet, but I would still have a dish towel on hand for knee padding
Pilates Slide classes mix Mat Pilates work with sliding sequences inspired by the megaformer. Class is a continuous flow, but we’ll generally focus on one muscle group as a time as we move from sequence to sequence.
Roadmap of class:
Warm Up
Core mat work
Sliding plank/upper body work
Standing sliding lunge work
Side body (outer hips/obliques) mat work
Repeat on other side
Prone work
Cool down
If you love class, you can get access to more Pilates Slide workouts by becoming a Patreon member!
I’m so excited for you all to try this Pilates Slide class!!! It’s a combination of my years of experience teaching group megaformer classes and my Pilates mat training. I’ve wanted to put together classes like this for a while, and have been (im)patiently waiting to complete my Mat course before doing so.
If you enjoyed the Sculpt & Slide class I shared in the spring, you’ll love this. It’s similar but without the light weights, and a little more of a Pilates feel. Also I will have Pilates Slide classes that incorporate light hand weights, resistance bands, and other props in the future. I wanted to start with a towel/slider-only class though so that everyone can try it, regardless of access to equipment.
Pilates Slide Class – Towel/Slider Only
EQUIPMENT NEEDED
Towel/slider – paper plates work on carpet, but I would still have a dish towel on hand for knee padding
Pilates Slide classes mix Mat Pilates work with sliding sequences inspired by the megaformer. Class is a continuous flow, but we’ll generally focus on one muscle group as a time as we move from sequence to sequence.
Roadmap of class:
Warm Up
Core mat work
Sliding plank/upper body work
Standing sliding lunge work
Side body (outer hips/obliques) mat work
Repeat on other side
Prone work
Cool down
If you love class, you can get access to more Pilates Slide workouts by becoming a Patreon member!
Like the White Walkers of the old stories our Gran used to tell us, winter is descending upon us mere mortals, and we must prepare! This endless onslaught of vicious attacks on our brains and our bellies will leave us ripe for slaughter if we’re not careful:
Cold weather that encourages us to sleep in, avoid the elements, and say “maybe tomorrow.”
A sun that rises too late and sets too soon means we often go days without seeing the damn thing!
Cookies and candies bombarded us from everywhere we look.
Oh, and a f’ing global pandemic that has left us isolated and alone.
These and more challenges are just begging us to go off the rails. And a built-in excuse called January 1st where we promise to “start over” helps us rationalize us “pausing” until then. Black Friday has come and gone. Cyber Monday is now in the rearview. Thanksgiving is now a distant memory.
And yet…the challenges are still just getting started.
Luckily, we have 7 “hacks” to survive these trying times. If you want, you can try them too!
Here’s what we’ll cover with our guide on surviving winter:
We all see January 1st as the “reset,” and there’s nothing wrong with a reset to start out the year. The problem is when you compound your issues by digging yourself deeper into a hole that you have to eventually climb out of!
Eat very poorly for long enough, and the hole will start to resemble Bruce Wayne’s prison in The Dark Knight Rises:
Think of it like you’re on the starting line of a race for a healthy life that starts Jan 1st. You have two options:
A) Hang around the starting line: Hang out and wait for the gun to fire. Then start running.
B) Run in the opposite direction. Run farther away from the starting line, so when the gun goes off you have even FARTHER to run in the race.
So, Step 1 is not running in the opposite direction. This means you can’t skip all your workouts and eat like crap and give up til January. This is you going the wrong way, and will make the task of “starting over” on January 1st that much more brutal.
Instead, do what you can to “tread water” and hang out around the starting line. If you CAN, stay on target. One bad meal doesn’t ruin things. One missed workout isn’t the end of the world. If you have an awful day, respawn and get back in the fight. Immediately.
A four-week freefall is a hole you’d rather not be in. You also don’t want to be in THIS hole:
But that’s beside the point…
So forget B. Let’s aim for A.
Winter Hack #1: Never Two in a Row
I first talked about “Never Two in a Row” back in like 2012, and it’s a mantra I’ve been living by ever since.
You’re human. And life happens.
What SHOULD NOT HAPPEN is missing two days in a row. Or eating TWO bad meals in a row. Or having TWO bad days in a row.
Why? One bad day can feel like a speed bump if you’re trying to get healthy. Get back on track right away and there’s no problem.
However, missing two days in a row is like turning that tiny speed bump into the Misty Mountains. If you miss one day in a row, no problem! Just act like it didn’t happen and get back on track.
But once you miss two days in a row, you are now 67.42% more likely to fall into a multiple week hole. Okay, I made up that statistic, but two days very easily becomes three, which very easily becomes a week, which easily becomes “I’ll wait til January.”
That’s running in the wrong direction.
So AIM TO NEVER EVER EVER miss two workouts in a row. If you miss a workout on Monday, go on Tuesday and get right back on track. If you eat pie for lunch, because it ain’t gonna eat itself, make your dinner healthy AF. Do that, and you’ll be fine.
So whenever you have a bad day or do something against your plan, I need you to respawn right away (“start over” in video game lingo) and make the next day the best day you possibly can.
Winter Hack #3: Consider Skipping a Meal
Spoiler alert: you’re going to eat lots of decadent food this upcoming month. (Unlike Noel’s delicious Thai Zoodle recipe above)
I know it. You know it. So we can do one of two things.
We can pretend like it’s not going to happen, and then be surprised and beat ourselves up when we put ourselves in a carb coma and go on a calorie-induced bender.
Or we can be smart about it and negate the impact these days have on our waistlines. Better yet, we can make these additional calories work FOR us.
For starters, our metabolisms aren’t that smart. Your weight will fluctuate based on total calories consumed over many many days, not after ONE power-bomb of a meal.
So, if you know you are going to eat a monster lunch and dinner (I see you, Christmas), eat a stupidly light breakfast, and a light breakfast tomorrow – the calories will average out in the long run.
Or, if you’re willing to dig in and do the research, SKIP breakfast (and maybe lunch) before your monster meal. It’s called “intermittent fasting,” and it’s what I do to stay on track during weeks when I know I’m going to eat poorly.
First, I skip breakfast every day (I haven’t eaten breakfast for years now).
Second, I might choose to skip lunch as well the day after a monster meal. Again, dig in and do the research (or just read this), and you’ll find that missing a meal isn’t the end of the world. In fact, it can lead to a healthier lifestyle for the right person.
If you’re interested in skipping a meal here or there, our snazzy new app has an intermittent fasting adventure in it that you can try RIGHT NOW.
Sign-up for a free trial right here:
Winter Hack #4: Strength Train Before Big Meals
Whether or not you take advantage of intermittent fasting, you can time your workouts to coincide with your unhealthy meals.
As I mentioned in our article on The 5 Rules of Weight Loss, think of all the calories you eat as first-year wizards at Hogwarts.
They need to be sorted into one of three houses (“Burn as Energy,” Store as Fat,” or “Rebuild Muscle.”)
The extra calories you eat over the holidays always go towards “store as fat” unless you give them a really good reason to head to the “build muscle” common room. Politely asking them won’t help.
You need to give them a reason. And that wonderful reason is STRENGTH TRAINING.
When you strength train before a big meal, the muscles you trained are broken down and need to be rebuilt. So, over the next 48+ hours many of those extra calories will be diverted to rebuilding (stronger) muscles instead of becoming fat.
Try a heavy strength training workout just a few hours before a holiday mean, then proceed to eat with everybody else. While they all lament “I’m so full, I ate too much, wahhhh,” you’ll know your calories are being used to rebuild muscle. So internally, you can start doing an evil villain laugh… Muahahahah, you know the one.
Work smarter (like a nerd).
Winter Hack #5: Don’t rely on motivation
Here’s another spoiler for you: you are NOT going to want to work out this month. It’s going to be dark and cold, and your nose is going to run (better catch it!), work is going to suck, you’re going to be hungover, and so on.
The amount of motivation you’ll need to get over these obstacles is gargantuan. So don’t force yourself to try and “dig deep” and just “work harder” and feel guilty when you’re “not motivated.”
Instead, do whatever you can to never, ever ever rely on motivation. Your body won’t say, “oh that’s okay, I’ll stay in shape because I feel bad for you.” There are 31 days in December just like there are 31 days in August.
Which means you need to stay on track even though it’s much easier to do in the summer. So instead of motivation, build fail-safes to make sure you are staying healthy. Schedule your workouts in your calendar and set up alerts so you are reminded. Recruit a buddy so you can check-in on each other.
Or go with one of these more diabolical examples:
Take a really really embarrassing photo of yourself, or type up a tweet with an embarrassing secret. Schedule it to post at 6:15 (or whatever time is early for you) every morning before you go to bed. Put your phone in the other room. If you don’t wake up on time, and run in the other room and cancel that tweet, it goes out! Better just get out of bed and train before work.
Give your co-worker $250. Tell him/her that you will work out 3 days per week, and text him a photo of your workout. If he/she does not receive that photo, they’ll donate $50 of your money to a political cause you can’t stand.
Set your credit card alerts to email you and your wife/husband every time it’s used. Agree ahead of time you’ll never use that card to buy fast food or else you’ll have to be on diaper duty for the next 3 months straight (or something that fits your situation).
In each of the instances above, you’re going to do exactly two things:
Get really mad at yourself. Probably curse a lot. Swear vengeance on your past self.
Do the damn thing you know you need to do while also being mad at yourself.
Never ever ever rely on motivation. Now, motivation doesn’t hurt. It’s just not reliable. So if you are in need of some motivation to get started, try this watching this video to remind you that training in the winter makes you a badass:
Just don’t rely on it, or feel guilty when you don’t have it! Whenever you DO feel a burst of motivation, use that extra energy to build systems. Here’s how to use motivation properly.
Winter Hack #6: Have a Plan B
“Too cold today! Can’t go to the gym and do my workout, DAMN! Looks like I’ll just have to sit here and eat ice cream.”
“Ran out of groceries, and it’s snowing. I guess I’ll just have to order pizza.”
The problem with winter is that it makes the unhealthy option always the easiest. We’re lazy, and I have to imagine we’re a bit like bears in that we want to hibernate and store fat when it gets cold out.
We have this tiny voice in our head subtly nudging us to pick the path of least resistance: aka pizza and skipped workouts.
And we can’t let that voice win. Then, the White Walkers win. And we’re all screwed. So, instead, we’re going to MacGuyver the sh** outta our winter by having a Plan B prepared.
For example:
A Workout PLAN B: Have a place in your house or apartment that you can go to and do the Beginner Bodyweight Workout, a workout from Nerd Fitness Prime, or some yoga. It might not be as great as the gym (which may or may not be open), but it’s still a workout. It might mean investing in a door frame pull-up bar or a yoga mat, but a small investment for maintaining momentum through the winter is worth any amount of money. Here’s How to Build a Home Gym if you’re interested.
A Nutritional PLAN B: Have a healthy meal in your freezer that has already been prepared and ready to be heated up. We make horrible decisions when the fridge is empty and we’re hungry. The Sirens of Dominos and Pizza Hut beckon us to call them for a 30-minute delivery.
So use your own laziness to help!
Here are some things to consider:
Have a meal in your freezer that’s all ready to go.
Store SteamFresh veggies for emergencies.
If you use delivery apps for crap food, delete them from your phone.
Do what you need to do to make it more difficult to make the wrong choice.
Winter Hack #7: It All Counts
So you can only train for 15 minutes today instead of 20.
So you have time to do a few yoga poses instead of working out for an hour.
So your ONLY option at the holiday party (if it’s even going on) is pizza and you didn’t have a great breakfast.
THIS DOES NOT MEAN YOUR WINTER IS RUINED. 80% IS STILL 80% BETTER THAN ZERO PERCENT.
Every little bit counts. It REALLY, REALLY does. Every small change, or even living off pie HALF of the time is FAR better than living off pie all the time. Swap ONE beer for ONE glass of water, and it’s a victory that will translate to your waistline. Do 5 push-ups as soon as you get out of bed, and it’s a victory.
Winter is a problem not because people make one bad mistake, but because one bad mistake quickly sets off a chain reaction of disasters justified by the fact that folks can’t do something 100%. So they opt for 0%.
If you don’t have time for a full workout, do half a workout! If you have to eat from a drive-through, no problem. Drinking water or a Diet Coke and grab some fruit as your side.
Here’s something else to try:
Every morning when you wake up, do 20 bodyweight squats, 10 push-ups, and if you have access to a pull-up bar (or gymnastic rings), hang from them for 30 seconds. No bar? No problem, here are 5 pull-up alternatives.
Make this the FIRST thing you do every day (using systems built back in point #6). That way, at least every day during the winter you’ve done something.
Together we can Brave the Winter
There you have it.
While you don’t have to follow all 7 hacks this winter, even just adopting one or two might help you build some momentum between now and the new year.
And as always, if you need any additional help, we’re here for you.
What kind of help?
Well, you could consider:
#1) Our Online Coaching Program: a coaching program for busy people to help them make better food choices, stay accountable, and get healthier, permanently.
You can schedule a free call with our team so we can get to know you and see if our coaching program is right for you. Just click on the button below for more details:
#2) Exercising at home and need a plan to follow? Check out Nerd Fitness Journey!
Our fun habit-building app helps you exercise more frequently, eat healthier, and level up your life (literally).
Try your free trial right here:
#3) Join the Rebellion! We need good people like you in our community, the Nerd Fitness Rebellion.
Sign up in the box below to enlist and get our Rebel Starter Kit, which includes all of our “work out at home” guides, the Nerd Fitness Diet Cheat Sheet, and much more!
Get your Nerd Fitness Starter Kit
The 15 mistakes you don’t want to make.
Full guide to the most effective diet and why it works.
Complete and track your first workout today, no gym required.
Alright, that about does it.
But real quick, before somebody yells at me in the comments, yes I know a lot of Aussies and Kiwis are NF Rebels, and I know it’s nearly summer down there. You can laugh at us all you want, your winter will come soon enough. Oh, it will.
Now, let’s hear from you:
What do you do when the going gets tough, when the temperature drops, and life gets busy as hell?
How do you fight back?
What are your favorite specific tricks or systems you use to stay on track?
Leave your comment below and share with your fellow Rebels.
Before I make you fall in line, if you’re interested in changing the way you eat to get in shape, you may like our fun new habit-building app!
NF Journey helps you exercise more frequently, eat healthier, and level up your life (literally).
Try your free trial right here:
What is the Military Diet? How does the Military Diet work?
If the Military Diet could be described in two quick words, those words would be “short term calorie restriction.”
Crap, that’s four words.
Ahem.
The diet focuses on ruthlessly cutting out calories in order to spur weight loss.
There are some claims out there that you can lose up to ten pound in one week on the Military Diet. Which would be impressive – and should also be setting off your skeptical spidey-senses.
So I can understand your curiosity, recruit.
Now you’re thinking: “What exactly does ‘extreme calorie restriction’ look like Steve?”
How about one meal consisting of just a single piece of bread, a half cup of tuna, and some black coffee?
That’s it.
If you ask for more food you’ll be forced to climb a rope.
The Military Diet is broken into two stages, one for three days and the other for four.
3-day plan on the Military Diet. For three days, breakfast, lunch, and dinner is picked out for you. You get this meal only soldier, nothing more! Forget about snacking. For three days, every single crumb is accounted for. I’m only slightly exaggerating. And these three meals only add up to 1,000 calories per day. Ouch. That’s not much chow.
Four days of leave. The Military Diet does go easy on you after the three days, with four days of slightly more food. And by that I mean 1,500 daily calories. How generous. You’re on your own on what to eat for these four days, with the only guidance being to “eat healthy” and keep it at “1,500 calories.”
Three days on, four days off. You repeat this three day and four day rotation until you reach your ideal weight.
That’s the Military Diet in a nutshell.
Okay, you probably want to know, to the crumb, what you get to eat on the Military Diet? Sure.
But it ain’t pretty.
What does the Military Diet plan look like?
As I mentioned, the Military Diet provides strict orders on what to eat for three days. Your mission looks like this:
DAY 1
Breakfast:
Half a grapefruit
One slice of toast
Two tablespoons of peanut butter
One cup of coffee or tea
Lunch:
Half a cup of tuna
One slice of toast
One cup of coffee or tea
Dinner
3 ounces of any type of meat
1 cup of green beans
Half a banana
One small apple
One cup of vanilla ice cream
DAY 2
Breakfast
One egg
One slice of toast
Half a banana
Lunch
One cup of cottage cheese
One hard boiled egg
Five saltine crackers
Dinner
Two hot dogs (no bun)
One cup of broccoli
Half a cup of carrots
One banana
Half a cup of vanilla ice cream
DAY 3
Breakfast
Five saltine crackers
One slice of cheddar cheese
One small apple
Lunch
One egg (cooked however)
One slice of toast
Dinner
One cup of tuna
Hald a banana
One cup of vanilla ice cream
If you find yourself thinking, “That’s not much for rations, Steve.” You’d be right.
Not only that, but I bet your normal serving of peanut butter is significantly larger than 2 tablespoons. Yikes.
But I’m getting ahead of myself here.
I’ll keep filling you on the details and then share my real opinion at the end here.
Substitutions?
Some websites will guide you through substitutions to stick with in case you’re vegetarian or lactose intolerant, etc.
Think tofu dogs for hot dogs.
But you are told to match calories exactly for replacement, since the name of the game here is restriction.
For the most part however, substitutions are discouraged on the Military Diet.
What about after these three days?
If you haven’t gone AWOL, you get a pass for four days. Some websites suggest you can enjoy a meal of shrimp fried rice or a black bean burger on your leave.
To stick with the strict Military Diet strategy, you would keep it to 1,500 calories for each 24 hour period.
Eating only 1,000 calories a day is really difficult.
1,500 isn’t exactly easy peezy either.
Is this actually worth it?
Will the three day Military Diet help me lose weight?
In the short term, the Military Diet will most likely cause you to lose weight.
Why, you ask?
Because science.
It’s the reason “all diets work in the short term.”
If you eat more calories than you burn in a day, you will gain weight over time. If you do the reverse, and burn more than you consume, you will lose weight[1].
Granted, there’s some finer details in that equation. Muscle, fat, body fat, etc.
But for simplicity sake, it works.
The Military Diet works by practically guaranteeing you will burn more calories than you consume.
If an overweight person who usually eats 2,500-3,000+ calories in a day, suddenly switches to ONLY eat 1,000 calories for multiple days in a row, their body will operate at a caloric deficit while it seeks the energy required for drills, push-ups, and cleaning the mess hall.
When this is repeated for a few days, the number on the scale will get smaller!
So will YOU (specifically you, in the green hat) lose weight?
Depending on where you are now and your current intake, that deficit (and thus the accompanying weight loss) could be DRAMATIC.
But will you lose 10 pounds in one week like some sites claim? I highly doubt it. Unless you have 100+ pounds to lose and usually eat 5,000+ calories per day, you can only lose so much water weight in a short time period.
Rome wasn’t built in a day. People don’t get overweight in a day. And people won’t lose all the fat they want to lose in a day either.
Here’s another truth bomb that needs to be said: Even if the number on the scale drops significantly in a week, most of it is water weight.
Your body contains a lot of water, especially if you normally eat very salty, carby foods. So when you remove those foods from your system, the amount of water your body holds can decrease significantly too.
So if somebody strictly followed the Military Diet down to the calorie for a week they could lose maybe one to two pounds of actual fat.
They could lose multiple pounds of water weight too, but that won’t continue from week to week.
ATTENTION!
It’s time to hit you with more knowledge: Any weight you lose while on the Military Diet will only remain lost if you stay on the Military Diet.
Temporary changes create temporary results.
This is super important and will be stressed again later.
Are there any benefits to the Military Diet?
Any kind of calorie restricted eating program, if adhered to consistently, will likely result in weight loss.
Remember that guy who lost weight eating Twinkies[2]?
It worked because he made a strict protocol of his calorie requirements. Then, he followed it.
Yeah, he filled a lot of his diet with junk food.
But the point is he managed his food intake according to a plan to lose weight, and then stuck to it.
One of the FEW things I like about the Military Diet is that it provides a strict protocol to follow. You don’t have to worry about what to eat. It’s breakfast time on Day 2.
That means you eat one egg, one slice of toast, and half a banana.
I won’t lie to you and claim that a guide on what to eat has no benefits. Lying will get you court-martialed.
Hell, we even have our own free 10-level diet blueprint that tells you exactly what to eat to help cut out the guesswork (you can get yours when you sign up in the box below):
Download our free weight loss guide
THE NERD FITNESS DIET: 10 Levels to Change Your Life
Follow our 10-level nutrition system at your own pace
What you need to know about weight loss and healthy eating
3 Simple rules we follow every day to stay on target
But as your friend, I can’t give you only one side of the story.
Are There Any Drawbacks to the Military Diet?
DON’T DO THE MILITARY DIET!
Sorry, I’ve been holding that in this whole post. Literally. I typed this whole post up to this point while holding my breath so that I could then blurt this out.
I won’t deny that you could lose weight following the Military Diet. But can any diet telling you to eat bread, crackers, and ice cream actually be good for you?
I know you know better.
You’re an adult with a good head on your shoulders, and you’re probably considering the Military Diet because you want a quick weight loss win without having to make any permanent changes.
Unfortunately, things like “science,” “thermodynamics,” and “reality” will keep getting in the way.
The Military Diet is what we in the fitness world call a “crash diet.” Crash diets are designed for quick weight loss in a short amount of time.
These diets – and I can included “cleanses” here – prey on people’s desperation to “get fit quick.”
They know that if you follow a short term diet, lose a bunch of water weight, and see a lower number on the scale – you’re convinced it worked and then you can go back to how you were eating before.
Then when you quickly put all of that weight back on…you’ll come running back to the diet that got you short term results.
This is how they make their money, get your attention, and ultimately leave you sad and right back where you started.
Other examples of terrible crash diets include the Cabbage Soup Diet, the Baby Food Diet and just about any juice cleanse on the market.
I won’t even link to them, that’s how annoyed I am about their existence.
The reason these diets are short term is because they are not sustainable. Can you eat nothing but cabbage soup for a week? Sure. For an entire year? No way.
Crash diets are temporary diets. Which means their results will be just that, temporary.
The Military Diet is extreme and short term. Why do people in the military do this to themselves?
Spoiler alert: they don’t.
Where did the Military Diet come from?
Here’s another crappy bit of info: The Military Diet has absolutely nothing to do with any branch of the Armed Forces.
As quoted in CNN, Patricia Deuster explained, “In my 30 years working with the military, I’ve never heard of it.”
And she would know, because Deuster helped write the nutritional guide for the U.S. Special Operations Forces[3].
So if it doesn’t come from the actual military, where does the Military Diet come from?
This three days crash diet has gone by different names before, the Cleveland Clinic Diet 3-Day Diet, the Kaiser Diet, the American Heart Association Diet, and the Birmingham Hospital Diet[4].
Despite the different names, the three day meal plan is exactly the same.
And guess what?
None of the organizations claim to have created or support their namesake diet.
So where did it come from? Honestly, I don’t care.
It’s silly and I don’t need to meet the person who created a three day crash diet, that co-opts the military name to make itself sound reputable and legitimate.
Is the Military Diet safe?
There’s nothing inherently dangerous about the Military Diet. It’s just eating moderately healthy/unhealthy food in small quantities.
Which, depending on your current diet – could be a big improvement from eating unhealthy food in large quantities.
I don’t know you or your situation, but if you want to practice Karate kicks in the garage and become best friends, I’m down to clown.
Now, based on my 10 years of running Nerd Fitness, helping hundreds of thousands of people lose weight safely and in a sustainable way, I’m gonna tell you that this is probably not the diet you’re looking for.
Why?
Because this diet will make you miserable, and sticking to the portion sizes will make you unhappy and hangry.
As soon as your 7 days are up, you’re gonna gorge yourself and probably end up even worse off than where you started!
This probably isn’t your first rodeo, nor is it the first quick fix you’ve sought out for weight loss. How have the previous attempts worked out for you in the long run?
I’m not saying this to be a jerk, but rather to make a point:
I like you, your friends like you, and the world needs you to be the healthiest superhero version of yourself you can be.
And that will never happen if you keep chasing extreme short term diets.
I’d rather see you make changes you can stick with. Even if it’s one small change. Gradually reduce the calories you eat, by switching to REAL food.
Things like veggies, fruits, and good quality meat. Build a plate that looks like this:
If you make one change, like eggs and avocados for breakfast, you’ll be making a great step in the right direction.
Small changes are something you can live with.
Studies have shown that decreasing your caloric consumption by 25% can be fine for your mood[5]. Perhaps even beneficial. But dropping down to 1,000 calories? There’s no way that can, or should, be maintained.
I wouldn’t recommend you reduce calories by reducing the quantity of food, like ordering you to eat a meal of five saltine crackers, a slice of cheddar cheese, and one tiny apple.
Instead, I want you to make small changes to REAL food. That’s the ticket to long term weight loss. We’ve seen it over and over again here at Nerd Fitness.
Want help making the switch to REAL food?
Not sure how to make all of that work in your busy lifestyle?
I hear ya. It’s brutally difficult to stick with any diet, and that doesn’t even factor in when your kids get sick or work sucks or there’s two feet of snow on the ground.
It’s why we launched our 1-on-1 Online Coaching Program: to help create specific solutions and accountability for people that want guidance on how to eat, how to train, and the confidence to know they’re doing it correctly!
Frequently asked questionS on the Military Diet
1) Do foods in the Military Diet help boost your metabolism?
There’s some debate on this. For example, can coffee help you lose weight by raising your metabolism?
I’ll go with: HIGHLY unlikely.
Any effect of caffeine to your metabolic rate isn’t enough to make a substantial impact[6]. If anything, it might act as an appetite suppressor[7].
Which isn’t nothing. But don’t count on it to raise your resting caloric expenditure like magic.
However, here are two things outside of diet that will help keep your metabolism high:
Strength training. The more muscle you have on your frame, the more energy you will use at rest[8]. It’s one of the reasons we recommend it so much. I have no problem playing drill instructor and demanding push-ups.
Stand up and move more. Any movement helps and even just standing up, outside of any walking, can help raise your metabolism[9]. A standing desk, for those long hours in the office, might be a good move.
Do either of these strategies, or better yet both. It’s better than relying on grapefruit powers to burn calories.
2) Will I enter starvation mode on the Military Diet?
Most likely not.
Sure, if you go without food for a lonnnng period of time, your metabolism might slow down slightly, though this requires EXTREME nutritional restriction over a long period of time[10].
This makes sense from an evolutionary perspective. If there’s nothing to eat in sight, it might be that way for a while.
Depending on how often you repeat it, the Military Diet might reduce calories to a point where this slow down of metabolism kicks in.
However, it’s more likely that as you lose weight, your body doesn’t need to burn as many calories because there’s less of you to manage every day!
Now, some would say the climb up to 1,500 calories might help prevent this, but each person is different.
My take: The fear of “starvation mode” is overblown, and it should be the least of your concerns while eating bread and ice cream and calling it a “diet”
The MIlitary Diet focuses on restricting calories at a specific meal, by counting the amount of hotdogs you can have, for example.
Intermittent fasting centers on making a strategic decision to skip certain meals on purpose.
With intermittent fasting, you narrow the size of your eating window, or you occasionally do fasts of 24 hours.
For instance, you can start eating at noon and finish up by 8pm, essentially skipping breakfast.
I wrote all about it in our “Beginner’s Guide to Intermittent Fasting,” where I outlined the benefits of teaching your body to consume food more efficiently, and also reduces the total number of calories you are probably eating.
Conversely, the Military Diet teaches your body to run on hot dogs.
I’ve personally been utilizing intermittent fasting for three years. But I have never, nor will I ever, follow the Military Diet.
Shots fired.
If you’re interested, Nerd Fitness Journey has an intermittent fasting adventure that you can start today!
You can give it a whirl for free right here:
Why you should not do the Military Diet, and What to do Instead.
We all want instant gratification. Unfortunately when it comes to fitness and diet, instant gratification will always fail you.
Short term changes only lead to short term results and heartbreak.
IF YOU ARE GOING TO DO THE MILITARY DIET: Godspeed, soldier.
Good luck with your 7 days, and let me know how it goes in the comments below.
My only request: use those 7 days to learn about yourself and nutrition (maybe by reading this post?), and do what you can implement permanent adjustments to how you choose to eat after.
I’d imagine most people who do this diet are hoping for a permanent fix with minimal work in just a few days time, and I’m here to caution you against that line of thinking.
Cut out liquid calories like soda and juice (essentially sugar water). Drink water, black coffee, tea, or diet soda.
If you can eat real food, minimize liquid calories, and eat veggies, and do so consistently for months and months – you’re going to have permanent success.
Making these changes too tough to do permanently? Change fewer things!
Start thinking in terms of “days and years,” not “weeks and months:”
Try one meal, based on REAL food. Forget the crackers and ice cream.
If you want a strict diet to follow with rules, create your own.
But don’t waste your time with the Military Diet or any other crash diet. Instead make lasting changes like I lay out in that video above.
If you read all of this and you’re overwhelmed, and you’re just looking for guidance on how to eat for your situation, you’re not alone!
We had so many people ask us for specific advice that we built anOnline Coaching Programto help them get results.
Our professional coaches are regular people like you, with families, hobbies, and struggles – but they spend all day helping busy people like you live better, lose weight, and feel better about themselves.
If you’re like “hey I want somebody to tell me what to do,” schedule a free call with our team to learn more by clicking in the big box below:
Back to the post: You don’t need to do the Military Diet.
The people in the military certainly don’t.
INSTEAD, YOUR MISSION, SHOULD YOU CHOOSE TO ACCEPT IT:
Cut back on your liquid calories. If it’s not water, tea, or coffee (black), try cutting back in a deliberate fashion. Switch to diet sodas. Switch to coffee instead of lattes. Realize that juice is just sugar water.
Prepare one healthy meal. Consider my healthy go-to option. Just make sure it has a vegetable, okay? Don’t overthink this.
If you can do those two things this week, and then repeat that week after week, you’ll be 10X better off a year from now than if you had followed the Military Diet for 7 days.
And lastly, remember, THE MILITARY DIET HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE MILITARY!!!
Ahem.
Any questions?
-Steve
PS: Check out the actual guide for Special Operations Forces – Special Ops Forces Nutrition Guide. But those folks work out A LOT. Adjust your caloric intake accordingly.
PPS: And if you already did the Military Diet, please drop and give me 20 push-ups 🙂
Not sure how to do them correctly?
Our new app will teach them to you!
ALL Photos Sources can be found in this footnote here[11].
Footnotes ( returns to text)
Check out the study on a caloric deficit leading to body fat loss here
Before I make you fall in line, if you’re interested in changing the way you eat to get in shape, you may like our fun new habit-building app!
NF Journey helps you exercise more frequently, eat healthier, and level up your life (literally).
Try your free trial right here:
What is the Military Diet? How does the Military Diet work?
If the Military Diet could be described in two quick words, those words would be “short term calorie restriction.”
Crap, that’s four words.
Ahem.
The diet focuses on ruthlessly cutting out calories in order to spur weight loss.
There are some claims out there that you can lose up to ten pound in one week on the Military Diet. Which would be impressive – and should also be setting off your skeptical spidey-senses.
So I can understand your curiosity, recruit.
Now you’re thinking: “What exactly does ‘extreme calorie restriction’ look like Steve?”
How about one meal consisting of just a single piece of bread, a half cup of tuna, and some black coffee?
That’s it.
If you ask for more food you’ll be forced to climb a rope.
The Military Diet is broken into two stages, one for three days and the other for four.
3-day plan on the Military Diet. For three days, breakfast, lunch, and dinner is picked out for you. You get this meal only soldier, nothing more! Forget about snacking. For three days, every single crumb is accounted for. I’m only slightly exaggerating. And these three meals only add up to 1,000 calories per day. Ouch. That’s not much chow.
Four days of leave. The Military Diet does go easy on you after the three days, with four days of slightly more food. And by that I mean 1,500 daily calories. How generous. You’re on your own on what to eat for these four days, with the only guidance being to “eat healthy” and keep it at “1,500 calories.”
Three days on, four days off. You repeat this three day and four day rotation until you reach your ideal weight.
That’s the Military Diet in a nutshell.
Okay, you probably want to know, to the crumb, what you get to eat on the Military Diet? Sure.
But it ain’t pretty.
What does the Military Diet plan look like?
As I mentioned, the Military Diet provides strict orders on what to eat for three days. Your mission looks like this:
DAY 1
Breakfast:
Half a grapefruit
One slice of toast
Two tablespoons of peanut butter
One cup of coffee or tea
Lunch:
Half a cup of tuna
One slice of toast
One cup of coffee or tea
Dinner
3 ounces of any type of meat
1 cup of green beans
Half a banana
One small apple
One cup of vanilla ice cream
DAY 2
Breakfast
One egg
One slice of toast
Half a banana
Lunch
One cup of cottage cheese
One hard boiled egg
Five saltine crackers
Dinner
Two hot dogs (no bun)
One cup of broccoli
Half a cup of carrots
One banana
Half a cup of vanilla ice cream
DAY 3
Breakfast
Five saltine crackers
One slice of cheddar cheese
One small apple
Lunch
One egg (cooked however)
One slice of toast
Dinner
One cup of tuna
Hald a banana
One cup of vanilla ice cream
If you find yourself thinking, “That’s not much for rations, Steve.” You’d be right.
Not only that, but I bet your normal serving of peanut butter is significantly larger than 2 tablespoons. Yikes.
But I’m getting ahead of myself here.
I’ll keep filling you on the details and then share my real opinion at the end here.
Substitutions?
Some websites will guide you through substitutions to stick with in case you’re vegetarian or lactose intolerant, etc.
Think tofu dogs for hot dogs.
But you are told to match calories exactly for replacement, since the name of the game here is restriction.
For the most part however, substitutions are discouraged on the Military Diet.
What about after these three days?
If you haven’t gone AWOL, you get a pass for four days. Some websites suggest you can enjoy a meal of shrimp fried rice or a black bean burger on your leave.
To stick with the strict Military Diet strategy, you would keep it to 1,500 calories for each 24 hour period.
Eating only 1,000 calories a day is really difficult.
1,500 isn’t exactly easy peezy either.
Is this actually worth it?
Will the three day Military Diet help me lose weight?
In the short term, the Military Diet will most likely cause you to lose weight.
Why, you ask?
Because science.
It’s the reason “all diets work in the short term.”
If you eat more calories than you burn in a day, you will gain weight over time. If you do the reverse, and burn more than you consume, you will lose weight[1].
Granted, there’s some finer details in that equation. Muscle, fat, body fat, etc.
But for simplicity sake, it works.
The Military Diet works by practically guaranteeing you will burn more calories than you consume.
If an overweight person who usually eats 2,500-3,000+ calories in a day, suddenly switches to ONLY eat 1,000 calories for multiple days in a row, their body will operate at a caloric deficit while it seeks the energy required for drills, push-ups, and cleaning the mess hall.
When this is repeated for a few days, the number on the scale will get smaller!
So will YOU (specifically you, in the green hat) lose weight?
Depending on where you are now and your current intake, that deficit (and thus the accompanying weight loss) could be DRAMATIC.
But will you lose 10 pounds in one week like some sites claim? I highly doubt it. Unless you have 100+ pounds to lose and usually eat 5,000+ calories per day, you can only lose so much water weight in a short time period.
Rome wasn’t built in a day. People don’t get overweight in a day. And people won’t lose all the fat they want to lose in a day either.
Here’s another truth bomb that needs to be said: Even if the number on the scale drops significantly in a week, most of it is water weight.
Your body contains a lot of water, especially if you normally eat very salty, carby foods. So when you remove those foods from your system, the amount of water your body holds can decrease significantly too.
So if somebody strictly followed the Military Diet down to the calorie for a week they could lose maybe one to two pounds of actual fat.
They could lose multiple pounds of water weight too, but that won’t continue from week to week.
ATTENTION!
It’s time to hit you with more knowledge: Any weight you lose while on the Military Diet will only remain lost if you stay on the Military Diet.
Temporary changes create temporary results.
This is super important and will be stressed again later.
Are there any benefits to the Military Diet?
Any kind of calorie restricted eating program, if adhered to consistently, will likely result in weight loss.
Remember that guy who lost weight eating Twinkies[2]?
It worked because he made a strict protocol of his calorie requirements. Then, he followed it.
Yeah, he filled a lot of his diet with junk food.
But the point is he managed his food intake according to a plan to lose weight, and then stuck to it.
One of the FEW things I like about the Military Diet is that it provides a strict protocol to follow. You don’t have to worry about what to eat. It’s breakfast time on Day 2.
That means you eat one egg, one slice of toast, and half a banana.
I won’t lie to you and claim that a guide on what to eat has no benefits. Lying will get you court-martialed.
Hell, we even have our own free 10-level diet blueprint that tells you exactly what to eat to help cut out the guesswork (you can get yours when you sign up in the box below):
Download our free weight loss guide
THE NERD FITNESS DIET: 10 Levels to Change Your Life
Follow our 10-level nutrition system at your own pace
What you need to know about weight loss and healthy eating
3 Simple rules we follow every day to stay on target
But as your friend, I can’t give you only one side of the story.
Are There Any Drawbacks to the Military Diet?
DON’T DO THE MILITARY DIET!
Sorry, I’ve been holding that in this whole post. Literally. I typed this whole post up to this point while holding my breath so that I could then blurt this out.
I won’t deny that you could lose weight following the Military Diet. But can any diet telling you to eat bread, crackers, and ice cream actually be good for you?
I know you know better.
You’re an adult with a good head on your shoulders, and you’re probably considering the Military Diet because you want a quick weight loss win without having to make any permanent changes.
Unfortunately, things like “science,” “thermodynamics,” and “reality” will keep getting in the way.
The Military Diet is what we in the fitness world call a “crash diet.” Crash diets are designed for quick weight loss in a short amount of time.
These diets – and I can included “cleanses” here – prey on people’s desperation to “get fit quick.”
They know that if you follow a short term diet, lose a bunch of water weight, and see a lower number on the scale – you’re convinced it worked and then you can go back to how you were eating before.
Then when you quickly put all of that weight back on…you’ll come running back to the diet that got you short term results.
This is how they make their money, get your attention, and ultimately leave you sad and right back where you started.
Other examples of terrible crash diets include the Cabbage Soup Diet, the Baby Food Diet and just about any juice cleanse on the market.
I won’t even link to them, that’s how annoyed I am about their existence.
The reason these diets are short term is because they are not sustainable. Can you eat nothing but cabbage soup for a week? Sure. For an entire year? No way.
Crash diets are temporary diets. Which means their results will be just that, temporary.
The Military Diet is extreme and short term. Why do people in the military do this to themselves?
Spoiler alert: they don’t.
Where did the Military Diet come from?
Here’s another crappy bit of info: The Military Diet has absolutely nothing to do with any branch of the Armed Forces.
As quoted in CNN, Patricia Deuster explained, “In my 30 years working with the military, I’ve never heard of it.”
And she would know, because Deuster helped write the nutritional guide for the U.S. Special Operations Forces[3].
So if it doesn’t come from the actual military, where does the Military Diet come from?
This three days crash diet has gone by different names before, the Cleveland Clinic Diet 3-Day Diet, the Kaiser Diet, the American Heart Association Diet, and the Birmingham Hospital Diet[4].
Despite the different names, the three day meal plan is exactly the same.
And guess what?
None of the organizations claim to have created or support their namesake diet.
So where did it come from? Honestly, I don’t care.
It’s silly and I don’t need to meet the person who created a three day crash diet, that co-opts the military name to make itself sound reputable and legitimate.
Is the Military Diet safe?
There’s nothing inherently dangerous about the Military Diet. It’s just eating moderately healthy/unhealthy food in small quantities.
Which, depending on your current diet – could be a big improvement from eating unhealthy food in large quantities.
I don’t know you or your situation, but if you want to practice Karate kicks in the garage and become best friends, I’m down to clown.
Now, based on my 10 years of running Nerd Fitness, helping hundreds of thousands of people lose weight safely and in a sustainable way, I’m gonna tell you that this is probably not the diet you’re looking for.
Why?
Because this diet will make you miserable, and sticking to the portion sizes will make you unhappy and hangry.
As soon as your 7 days are up, you’re gonna gorge yourself and probably end up even worse off than where you started!
This probably isn’t your first rodeo, nor is it the first quick fix you’ve sought out for weight loss. How have the previous attempts worked out for you in the long run?
I’m not saying this to be a jerk, but rather to make a point:
I like you, your friends like you, and the world needs you to be the healthiest superhero version of yourself you can be.
And that will never happen if you keep chasing extreme short term diets.
I’d rather see you make changes you can stick with. Even if it’s one small change. Gradually reduce the calories you eat, by switching to REAL food.
Things like veggies, fruits, and good quality meat. Build a plate that looks like this:
If you make one change, like eggs and avocados for breakfast, you’ll be making a great step in the right direction.
Small changes are something you can live with.
Studies have shown that decreasing your caloric consumption by 25% can be fine for your mood[5]. Perhaps even beneficial. But dropping down to 1,000 calories? There’s no way that can, or should, be maintained.
I wouldn’t recommend you reduce calories by reducing the quantity of food, like ordering you to eat a meal of five saltine crackers, a slice of cheddar cheese, and one tiny apple.
Instead, I want you to make small changes to REAL food. That’s the ticket to long term weight loss. We’ve seen it over and over again here at Nerd Fitness.
Want help making the switch to REAL food?
Not sure how to make all of that work in your busy lifestyle?
I hear ya. It’s brutally difficult to stick with any diet, and that doesn’t even factor in when your kids get sick or work sucks or there’s two feet of snow on the ground.
It’s why we launched our 1-on-1 Online Coaching Program: to help create specific solutions and accountability for people that want guidance on how to eat, how to train, and the confidence to know they’re doing it correctly!
Frequently asked questionS on the Military Diet
1) Do foods in the Military Diet help boost your metabolism?
There’s some debate on this. For example, can coffee help you lose weight by raising your metabolism?
I’ll go with: HIGHLY unlikely.
Any effect of caffeine to your metabolic rate isn’t enough to make a substantial impact[6]. If anything, it might act as an appetite suppressor[7].
Which isn’t nothing. But don’t count on it to raise your resting caloric expenditure like magic.
However, here are two things outside of diet that will help keep your metabolism high:
Strength training. The more muscle you have on your frame, the more energy you will use at rest[8]. It’s one of the reasons we recommend it so much. I have no problem playing drill instructor and demanding push-ups.
Stand up and move more. Any movement helps and even just standing up, outside of any walking, can help raise your metabolism[9]. A standing desk, for those long hours in the office, might be a good move.
Do either of these strategies, or better yet both. It’s better than relying on grapefruit powers to burn calories.
2) Will I enter starvation mode on the Military Diet?
Most likely not.
Sure, if you go without food for a lonnnng period of time, your metabolism might slow down slightly, though this requires EXTREME nutritional restriction over a long period of time[10].
This makes sense from an evolutionary perspective. If there’s nothing to eat in sight, it might be that way for a while.
Depending on how often you repeat it, the Military Diet might reduce calories to a point where this slow down of metabolism kicks in.
However, it’s more likely that as you lose weight, your body doesn’t need to burn as many calories because there’s less of you to manage every day!
Now, some would say the climb up to 1,500 calories might help prevent this, but each person is different.
My take: The fear of “starvation mode” is overblown, and it should be the least of your concerns while eating bread and ice cream and calling it a “diet”
The MIlitary Diet focuses on restricting calories at a specific meal, by counting the amount of hotdogs you can have, for example.
Intermittent fasting centers on making a strategic decision to skip certain meals on purpose.
With intermittent fasting, you narrow the size of your eating window, or you occasionally do fasts of 24 hours.
For instance, you can start eating at noon and finish up by 8pm, essentially skipping breakfast.
I wrote all about it in our “Beginner’s Guide to Intermittent Fasting,” where I outlined the benefits of teaching your body to consume food more efficiently, and also reduces the total number of calories you are probably eating.
Conversely, the Military Diet teaches your body to run on hot dogs.
I’ve personally been utilizing intermittent fasting for three years. But I have never, nor will I ever, follow the Military Diet.
Shots fired.
If you’re interested, Nerd Fitness Journey has an intermittent fasting adventure that you can start today!
You can give it a whirl for free right here:
Why you should not do the Military Diet, and What to do Instead.
We all want instant gratification. Unfortunately when it comes to fitness and diet, instant gratification will always fail you.
Short term changes only lead to short term results and heartbreak.
IF YOU ARE GOING TO DO THE MILITARY DIET: Godspeed, soldier.
Good luck with your 7 days, and let me know how it goes in the comments below.
My only request: use those 7 days to learn about yourself and nutrition (maybe by reading this post?), and do what you can implement permanent adjustments to how you choose to eat after.
I’d imagine most people who do this diet are hoping for a permanent fix with minimal work in just a few days time, and I’m here to caution you against that line of thinking.
Cut out liquid calories like soda and juice (essentially sugar water). Drink water, black coffee, tea, or diet soda.
If you can eat real food, minimize liquid calories, and eat veggies, and do so consistently for months and months – you’re going to have permanent success.
Making these changes too tough to do permanently? Change fewer things!
Start thinking in terms of “days and years,” not “weeks and months:”
Try one meal, based on REAL food. Forget the crackers and ice cream.
If you want a strict diet to follow with rules, create your own.
But don’t waste your time with the Military Diet or any other crash diet. Instead make lasting changes like I lay out in that video above.
If you read all of this and you’re overwhelmed, and you’re just looking for guidance on how to eat for your situation, you’re not alone!
We had so many people ask us for specific advice that we built anOnline Coaching Programto help them get results.
Our professional coaches are regular people like you, with families, hobbies, and struggles – but they spend all day helping busy people like you live better, lose weight, and feel better about themselves.
If you’re like “hey I want somebody to tell me what to do,” schedule a free call with our team to learn more by clicking in the big box below:
Back to the post: You don’t need to do the Military Diet.
The people in the military certainly don’t.
INSTEAD, YOUR MISSION, SHOULD YOU CHOOSE TO ACCEPT IT:
Cut back on your liquid calories. If it’s not water, tea, or coffee (black), try cutting back in a deliberate fashion. Switch to diet sodas. Switch to coffee instead of lattes. Realize that juice is just sugar water.
Prepare one healthy meal. Consider my healthy go-to option. Just make sure it has a vegetable, okay? Don’t overthink this.
If you can do those two things this week, and then repeat that week after week, you’ll be 10X better off a year from now than if you had followed the Military Diet for 7 days.
And lastly, remember, THE MILITARY DIET HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE MILITARY!!!
Ahem.
Any questions?
-Steve
PS: Check out the actual guide for Special Operations Forces – Special Ops Forces Nutrition Guide. But those folks work out A LOT. Adjust your caloric intake accordingly.
PPS: And if you already did the Military Diet, please drop and give me 20 push-ups 🙂
Not sure how to do them correctly?
Our new app will teach them to you!
ALL Photos Sources can be found in this footnote here[11].
Footnotes ( returns to text)
Check out the study on a caloric deficit leading to body fat loss here
The Inverted Bodyweight Row is one of the BEST, simple, most effective exercises you can do for your “pull” muscles.
If you’re trying to get to your first pull-up, or even if you are already doing pull-ups, adding bodyweight rows to your workout routine is a great idea!
Before we jump in, if you’re looking for ways to do inverted rows in your very own home, we have an adventure in Nerd Fitness Journey that will help you do just that!
Our fun habit-building app helps you exercise more frequently, eat healthier, and level up your life (literally). You can test-drive it for free right here:
What is an Inverted Bodyweight Row?
You’ve probably heard of the regular barbell row. You pick up a barbell, bend over at the waist (keeping your back straight), and pull the weight up towards your chest.
It looks something like this:
This can be a great exercise, but improper form could cause complications or you might not have access to a barbell and plates.
Luckily, the bodyweight row (or inverted row) takes care of all of that.
By the way, I’ll be using “bodyweight row” and “inverted row” interchangeably in this article.[1]
When doing this movement, you only need a bar to lean back from and your body weight. There’s also no extra stress on your back, like with a traditional barbell row.
As an added bonus, you get a decent core workout too.
And there was much rejoicing.
Think of it like this: “bench press” is to “pushing” as “inverted row” is to “pulling.”
Balance FTW!
Why the inverted bodyweight row is so great:
I’m a huge fan of compound exercises (like the squat and deadlift, pull-ups and push-ups), and I’m also a huge fan of exercises that don’t require expensive machines or lots of extra bells and whistles.
Set the bar (or your rings) around waist height. The lower the bar, the more difficult the movement becomes.
Position yourself under the bar lying face up. Lie on the floor underneath the bar (which should be set just above where you can reach from the ground).
Grab the bar with an overhand grip, slightly wider than shoulder-width (palms facing AWAY from you).
Contract your abs and butt, and keep your body a completely straight line. Your ears, shoulders, hips legs, and feet should all be in a straight line (like you’re doing a plank).
Pull yourself up to the bar until your chest touches the bar.
Lower yourself back down with proper form.
If this movement is TOO difficult, no big deal, we just need to back up a few steps.
Set the bar higher so that when you lean back, your body isn’t down on the ground; maybe it’s only at a 45-degree angle.
We’ll walk you through a row progression right here.
Here’s Staci again demonstrating it at a higher angle:
By setting the bar higher, it takes more of your body’s weight out of the equation.
As you get stronger (and/or lose weight), you’ll be able to drop the bar until you’re parallel when pulling yourself up.
I grabbed a video of Senior Coach Staci from Team NF demonstrating a bodyweight row with gymnastic rings, but the instruction you’ll get in the video will really be helpful too.
How to do a bodyweight row with explanation:
Here are some tips and tricks for doing a proper inverted bodyweight row:
Don’t let your butt sag (squeeze your buttcheeks, flex your stomach, and keep your body rigid from head to toe).
Don’t flail your elbows. Grab the bar with your hands a little closer than you would if you were doing a bench press, and keep your elbows at that angle from your body.
Pull the bar towards the middle of your chest. Don’t pull the bar up towards your throat, or down towards your belly button. Right in the middle!
Keep your abs tight. Keep your abs tight throughout the whole routine. Your body should be a straight line the whole time, and the only thing moving is your arms.
Pull your shoulder blades down and back towards each other through the movement. Don’t shrug your shoulders. Imagine you’re trying to pinch a pencil between your shoulder blades to keep it from falling!
GO all the way. Don’t half-ass it. Lower yourself until your arms are completely extended, and raise yourself until your chest touches the bar.
How to Progress with Inverted Bodyweight Rows
Let’s provide a blueprint on how you can level up your inverted bodyweight rows.
#1) Doorway Rows
At first, just start doing some rows in your doorway:
This will help you start training your “pull” muscles.
#2) Towel Rows
Still utilizing your doorway, you can use a towel to lean back even further to increase the challenge here:
Coach Jim walks you through setting up your towel row in this video, “No chin-up bar?? No problem! Five alternatives!!”
#3) Inverted Row (High)
Next, try doing an inverted row, but set the bar high so it’s easier to perform:
#4) Inverted Row (Low)
Once your inverted rows become easy, lower the bar to increase the challenge:
#5) Elevated Inverted Row
If you place your feet in the air, you’ll make this exercise even tougher:
#6) Inverted Row (Weighted)
If you really want to up the difficulty of your inverted rows, try doing it with a little bit of weight attached to you:
When Should I Do Inverted Bodyweight Rows?
If you are building your own workout plan, you can mix Inverted Bodyweight Rows in wherever you normally do your pull exercises (pull-ups, pull-downs, rows, etc.).
Both days work my full body, I can do a full routine in less than 40 minutes, and I’m building strength.
If you can’t do dips on Day 1, you can do push-ups.
If you can’t do pull-ups on day 2, you can substitute assisted pull-ups.
On the rows, aim for 3 sets of 10. We cover this in our “sets and reps” article, but you can never go wrong with 3 sets of 10!
If you can’t do that, do 3 sets to however many reps you can do, and build your way up to 3 sets of 10.
Once you can do that, put your feet up on a chair, throw some weights in a backpack, put it on reverse (so the bag is hanging in front of you), and then do the rows.
Are you doing your moves correctly? Should you be lifting more weight or less? What do you eat to reach your goals?
We created the Nerd Fitness Coaching program to tackle these questions directly. Your own coach will get to know you, build a program based on your experience and goals, and check your form on each movement (via video):
HOw to Do Inverted Bodyweight Rows at Home
Just because you don’t have access to a gym doesn’t mean you can’t work out your back, you just need to get VERY creative.
Here’s how you can do Inverted Bodyweight Rows at Home:
PATH ONE: Use your kitchen table. Or your desk. Be very careful with this one.
Lie underneath your table so your head and shoulder are sticking out above it.
Grab the table edge with an overhand grip, and pull yourself up (just like it’s explained above).
Warning, don’t pull the table over with you, and make sure you don’t break the thing!
PATH TWO: Get a really thick wooden dowel or pipe, something strong enough to support your weight. Lie it across two of your kitchen chairs, and then lie down underneath it.
Make sure it’s sturdy, and the bar isn’t going to break/move on ya, and pull yourself up.
Don’t forget, you want to stay in balance.
If you don’t have a pull-up bar and gymnastic rings, find a way to do some bodyweight rows whether it’s between two chairs or under a table.
Any more questions about the inverted bodyweight row?
Leave em below!
-Steve
PS: Our new app Nerd Fitness Journey will walk you through doing simple rows, all the way up to a full pull-up! Instead of worrying about what to do next, simply follow the workouts built into the app!
PPS: Be sure to check out the rest of the Strength Training 101 series:
