Tag: Get Stronger

All of us have plenty of stress in our lives.

After the last year we’ve had, your stress level may have quadrupled.

If you find yourself responding by “stress eating,” know that you are not alone.

One of the top issues faced by clients in our 1-on-1 Online Coaching Program is emotional or stress eating. After 2020 being all 2020 like (and 2021 having its own challenges), these episodes have only increased.

You’re not alone in this. Learn how a Nerd Fitness Coach can help.

Today, we’re going to show you exactly how we address emotional eating with our clients, including when it’s – GASP – actually okay to stress eat. 

Here’s what we’ll cover in today’s guide:

• What is stress eating? (a video from NF Kitchen)
• What causes stress eating? (Lesson #1: Playing Detective)
• How do I stop mindless eating? (Lesson #2: The Stress Response Menu)
• How common is stress eating? (Lesson #3: Learning Self-Compassion)
• Is it ever okay to stress eat? (Next steps)

Let’s jump right in.

What Is Stress Eating? (A Video from NF Kitchen)

The above video from Coach Justin comes from the Nerd Fitness Prime “Mindset” video series. 

Justin covers three important lessons I want to highlight, but before we do that, we should ask ourselves a question: 

“What exactly is stress eating?”

Stress eating is consuming food in response to negative emotions like fear, anger, or sadness.

When we stress eat, food is being used to solve a problem. Now, unless we’re actually hungry, it’s likely a problem that food itself isn’t meant to solve.

That’s stress or emotional eating.

Here’s what compounds the whole problem: stress eating itself can make us feel guilty. We often feel terrible once our spoon hits the bottom of the pint of ice cream.

This can drive more negative emotions, which can trigger even more stress eating.

And the pattern continues.

We’ll talk about ways to break this cycle in a moment, but before we do, we need to create some tools to identify it in the first place. 

What Causes Stress Eating? (Lesson #1: Playing Detective)

You may have been surprised in our video above when Coach Justin gives permission to  stress eat.

Counterintuitive and seemingly counterproductive, I know. But this is going to be important for two reasons.

How to Approach Stress Eating Step #1: we need to curb the guilty feelings about stress or emotional eating. 

I started this guide off by highlighting the frequency of stress eating amongst our Online Coaching clients. 

You are not the only one struggling with this.

Most humans do.

And robots with human-like emotions and taste buds

We’ll come back to this idea again, because ending the shame of emotional eating will be critical for moving forward. 

How to Approach Stress Eating Step #1: allowing ourselves to stress eat will help us learn why we do it.

We’re going to be playing detective here, to see if we can piece apart your actions and routines.

At the end of the day, our lives are a cumulation of habits. Stress eating is one such habit.

So let’s learn about it!

To do so, we’re gonna need to record some Emotional Eating Notes. 

During an episode of stress eating, it’s important to ask ourselves:

• What am I doing?
• What am I feeling? (Both physically and emotionally)
• What am I thinking about?
• What time is it?
• Where am I?
• Who am I with?

Ideally, we’ll start to ask yourself these questions:

• An hour or two before the eating episode
• Right before it
• During it
• Right after it

The purpose of these Emotional Eating Notes?

To look for patterns!

Perhaps you’ll notice some of the following:

• “After my recent Tuesday morning conference call, when I got grilled by my company’s leadership, I grabbed some chocolate chip cookies. This happened the week before too.”
• “Around 2pm, when I get the ‘afternoon slumps,’ I normally grab a Coca-Cola. This little boost gets me through the end of the day. This is almost a daily practice.”
• “Last Sunday evening, when thinking about the start of the workweek, I had a couple glasses of wine. When looking back at my notes, this takes place at the end of most weekends.”

We’re looking for patterns to help us understand what drives our stress eating. 

The most important thing about this process: withholding judgment.

We’re looking at our notes for clues into our psyche. Whatever we captured is okay.

If you order pizza every Thursday after talking with your overbearing mom (of course, she means well), step one is to recognize it.

Oftentimes, this awareness step alone can help shift behavior. “Oh, I’m reaching for a beer like I normally do after ending my workday. Typical Me.”

After creating some notes on what spurs our emotional eating, it’s time to think about some alternatives for coping with stress.

How Do I Stop Mindless Eating? (Lesson #2: The Stress Response Menu)

After documenting what sets off our stress eating, we need to formulate a plan on what to do when our anxiety rises.

That means it’s time to build…a Stress Response Menu!

Our Stress Response Menu will be a list of actions or activities you can do to de-stress outside of eating.

Ideally, you’ll do them before an eating episode, but they can be done during or after the fact too.

In other words, if you only realized you were stress eating when your hand reaches the bottom of the Doritos bag, no problem, you can do your stress response activity right then. 

The purpose of the Stress Response Menu is to reward yourself with a small moment of self-love, whenever your anxiety levels are too much.

Here are some ideas for activities to place on your Stress Response Menu:

• Close your eyes and take five deep breaths (Coach Justin’s go-to move)
• Drink a large glass of water
• Take a short walk
• Go listen to one of your favorite songs
• Do a quick stretching routine
• Write in your journal
• Play with your dog
• Shout at the sky

The more the activity from your Stress Response Menu can match your personal goals, the better. 

In other words, if you’re trying to build muscle, some push-ups might be the perfect de-stresser. 

Just make sure it’s something you won’t dread doing. 

A combination of a “de-stressor” and a “reward.”

This is important, as Coach Justin mentions that many of his clients only reward themselves with food. The self-love they practice only takes place in the kitchen. 

Our menu above will help us develop some more options, not solely based on food.

To make the most of your Stress Response Menu:

#1) Make the activities short and easy. 

You should feel confident that you can do every item on your list. So avoid activities that will take longer than 10 minutes to complete. 

Also, set yourself up for success by hacking your Batcave:

• If you’re going to journal when stressed, keep your diary open on your work desk.
• If you’re going to drink water before any emotional eating, keep your full glass  near you. 
• If you’re going to take a short walk, keep your kicks near the door.

Don’t set yourself up for failure by picking overly complicated or burdensome activities.

#2) Place your Stress Response Menu somewhere visible. 

Once you make your list, print it out and place it in your kitchen or pantry (or wherever you typically stress eat). 

You could also write out a couple of your favorite activities and attach them to your refrigerator. 

If it’s right in front of you, it’ll be harder to ignore (however, it’s okay to ignore it from time to time, as we aren’t striving for perfection).

Just please don’t write it and then stick the list in the junk drawer that opens to another dimension.

You never can find anything in that drawer.

#3)Track your usage of the Stress Response Menu. 

This will help us in two ways:

• First, by tracking your usage, you’ll start to feel better about using the SRM. You’ll see an accumulation of all the times you successfully deployed a stress response, helping you visualize the momentum you’re building. 
• Second, the data will help you understand your patterns of emotional eating. Maybe five deep breaths steered you away from ice cream but the large glass of water did not. You can then use this information to update and revise your response plan.

For the first point, Coach Justin has his clients keep a “Jar of Awesome.”

Every time they have a small win in the day, like taking five deep breaths instead of chugging soda, they place a marble or small token in a jar. After a while, the jar will have a decent amount of marbles or “small wins” in it.

This will then stand as a visual reminder of all the progress being made, proof of their ongoing wins.

Want to start a “Jar of Awesome” with a NF Coach? Learn more here!

How Common Is Stress Eating? (Lesson #3: Learning Self-Compassion)

The American Psychological Association has found that about a third of Americans respond to stress with food.^[1] 

This research was done BEFORE our global pandemic.

So if you find yourself binging in response to the stress of our global pandemic, know that you are not alone here.

Our coaching clients, and the NF Coaches themselves, have all found themselves turning to food and alcohol for comfort during quarantine. 

Heck, recently I mindlessly devoured an entire tub of Animal Crackers too. It was only when the bag was gone did I understand what just happened.

Many of us, even fitness “experts,” are prone to stress eating.

Now, don’t take this as a free pass to stress eat. 

If the behavior goes against your goals, it’s something we want to work towards improving.

But there’s a reason they call it “comfort food.” Food can often be used to make us happier, pandemic or no pandemic. 

And we’re all emotional bags of meat of this floating hunk of space rock, and we’re doing the best we can. 

So give yourself a bit of a break, my friend.

You’re here, you’re reading, and you’re trying. That’s great!

This will bring me to my last point with our handy guide:

Is It Okay to Stress Eat? (Next Steps)

There are times when food is the perfect response to stress.

It’s something Coach Justin mentions in his video.

“Stress eating” might be appropriate if: 

• After a long workday, a glass of wine with cheese helps you unwind.
• To celebrate the coming of the weekend, you have an ice cream party on Friday night.
• The week already seems long, and it just started, “Taco Tuesday” might help you survive until Friday.

The important thing here? 

“We are making a choice.” 

We are choosing to deal with stress or anxiety with food. By making it an intentional activity, we can remove the guilt around emotional eating.

Food can be fine as a reward, as long as it’s us controlling the behavior, and not the food itself.

In addition, if we can recognize the action (or plan for it), we can then adjust our calories before and after and not go off the rails. 

(You can calculate your recommended total daily calorie intake here, by the way!)

If it seems like you aren’t quite there yet, start with your Emotional Eating Notes and your Stress Response Menu.

Even just the process of taking notes on specific episodes of stress eating may be enough to slow down the behavior.

Remember, no matter what happens:

• You are not a bad person if you stress eat.
• You are not a bad person if you forget to take notes.
• You are not a bad person if you ignore your Stress Response Menu.

You are not a bad person (unless you’re a Death Eater, but come on, you know what side you’re on). 

If you need any help along the way, we are here for you.

We have three specific paths to continue with Nerd Fitness:

#1) Our Online Coaching program: a coaching program for busy people to help them make better food choices, stay accountable, and get healthier, permanently.

As I said before, “stress eating” is the number one issued faced by our coaching clients, so we know exactly how to help recognize and address the habit.

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:

Our coaching program changes lives. Learn how!

 

#2) If you want an exact blueprint leveling up your nutrition, check out Nerd Fitness Journey! Our fun habit-building app helps you exercise more frequently, eat healthier, and level up your life (literally).

If you follow our Mindset missions, you’ll learn to de-stress while earning XP! Sah-weeeet.

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!

Alright, I want to hear from you:

Have you been stress eating more over the last year?

Do you have any tips or tricks to interrupt the pattern?

What’s your favorite way to de-stress?

Let me know in the comments!

-Steve

P.S. If you’re struggling to keep a normal routine after the pandemic, check out How to Stay in Shape (Without Leaving the House). 

###

Photo Source: Plant LEGO, beer5020 © 123RF.com, Programmer, On the couch, LEGO hot dog stand, 

The post Blog first appeared on Nerd Fitness.

from Nerd Fitness: Helping You Lose Weight, Get Stronger, Live Better. https://ift.tt/3bwaakJ
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It’s time to learn how to portion control!

There are all sorts of “tips” and “tricks” out there, but today we’re going to show you the best method.

What makes me so confident?

For many of our Online Coaching clients, we create portion control strategies for weight loss that don’t suck. Today, we’ll share them with you too!

No shame, no judgement, just results! Learn more about NF Coaching.

Here’s what we’ll cover:

• What are 5 methods for portion control?
• How to learn portion control (the best method)
• What is the Correct Portion Size Part 1: Protein and Vegetables
• What is the Correct Portion Size Part 2: Carbs and Fats
• How to use portion control containers and plates
• How to control portion sizes when eating out
• How to portion control for weight loss (Next steps)

Let’s do this thang!

What Are 5 Methods for Portion Control?

As you might know from our “How to lose weight” guide, the key to sustainable weight loss is getting ourselves to consume fewer calories in a way that doesn’t make us miserable. 

Because our brains and bodies are complicated emotional disasters, there are some tips and tricks we can implement to protect us from…ourselves:

1. Use smaller plates. Folks will often eat what’s placed in front of them, so using smaller dinnerware has been shown to help people eat less.^[1]
2. Drink a glass of water before your meal. If you chug a glass of water 30 minutes before you plan on eating, the H20 will take up some room in your stomach. This might help you eat less.^[2]
3. Take it slow. It can take about 20 minutes for your body to come around to the fact that it’s full, so slowing down your meals can help you eat less.^[3]
4. Use a food journal. Recording everything you eat and drink is a great way to become aware of portions, which can help you control them.^[4] In fact, one of the first missions we have Nerd Fitness Prime members complete is creating a food journal. 

All of these strategies will work to some extent, and they’re good to keep in mind and also practice.

However, nothing will get more consistent results than actually learning the number of calories in the food you eat (Portion Control Tip #5)!

This is our number one recommendation for how to lose weight. 

Study^[4] after study^[5] after study^[6] shows that our bodies obey the laws of thermodynamics and that in order to lose weight, we need to burn more calories than we consume regularly.

• When you consume more calories than you burn, your body tends to store those extra calories as fat (weight gain).
• When you burn more calories than you consume, your body will pull from fat stores for energy (weight loss).

However, as we point out in our Calories In, Calories Out guide, determining your exact “calories in” can be a real pain. Not only that, but many people with certain personality traits can become neurotic about tracking every single calorie. They worry if they go 1 calorie over their daily allotment. 

So, what’s a nerd to do? 

Unless you’re going to weigh out all your food (something I’ve done before) and be militant about tracking, is it possible to “track” your food with a high level of accuracy without having it take over your life?

The answer: yes, by getting darn good at estimating! 

Portion Sizes: How to Portion Control (The Best Method)

You already carry with you the best method for portion control.

Your hands!

Even if you have robot hands.

We’re going to use them to build a healthy plate, as shown above.

The “Nerd Fitness Healthy Plate” was originally published in our Guide to Healthy Eating, which was inspired by our friends over at Precision Nutrition. 

We’re not going to worry about being exact. 

It’s really hard to be precise anyway.^[7]

However, using your hands as a tool for portion control provides a “good enough” strategy that can help your food intake:

As you can see, we’re going to focus our portion control strategy on:

• Protein
• Vegetables (technically carbs, but important enough to deserve their own category)
• Carbohydrates (think starches and fruit)
• Fat

Each macronutrient will correspond to an area of your hand, to give you a sense of what a proper portion size should be. 

We’ve learned that using your hand as a guide is the most helpful strategy for portion control:

• You might not always have access to small plates.
• You might forget to drink water before each meal.
• You might have a short lunch break without the luxury of eating slowly.
• You might grow tired of logging all your food intake.

However, having an intuitive sense of what foods should be eaten in what portions will help you level up your healthy eating.

When in doubt, match the food in front of you to your hand and carry on.

Let’s break this down a little by talking about protein and veggies. 

What is the Correct Portion Size Part 1: Protein and Vegetables

The above video is taken from Nerd Fitness Prime, as part of our NF Kitchen series.

In it, Coach Lauren and Justin discuss the two most important parts of every meal: protein and vegetables.

Here’s something that might seem counterintuitive: our #1 recommendation for portion control isn’t about limiting food. Instead, make sure you get a proper serving of protein and vegetables every time you sit down to eat.

In other words, when you begin your healthy eating journey, don’t even worry about nixing any specific food. Just make sure you are leaving plenty of room for protein and vegetables.

A serving of protein is about the size and thickness of your palm:

Protein can come from any number of sources, including:

• Meat (steak, bison, pork).
• Fowl (chicken, turkey, duck).
• Eggs!^[8]
• Fish and shellfish (salmon, tuna, shrimp).
• Legumes (black beans, chickpeas).

Not a meat-eater? Read our massive plant-based guide!

A serving of veggies is about the size of your fist:

Here’s a quick, non-complete list of veggies that can fill half your plate:

• Broccoli
• Broccolini
• Cauliflower
• Spinach
• Kale
• Spaghetti squash
• Brussels sprouts
• Zucchini
• Cucumber
• Carrots
• Onion
• Asparagus

When it comes to learning portion control, start by making sure you eat enough protein and vegetables.

How much?

As we discuss in our protein guide, when building a plate aim for the following amount of protein:

• Dudes: 1-2 servings (6-8 oz or about 170-228 g): two palms
• Dudettes: 1 serving (3-4 oz or about 85-114 g): 1 palm.

For vegetables, in practice you can probably eat as much as you can stomach (the fiber will likely slow you down), but aim for about 2 fist fulls at most meals, or about half your plate.^[9] 

Don’t like veggies? I was once like you. Check out 10 ways to make vegetables taste good. 

Here’s why you should prioritize protein and vegetables if you’re struggling with portion control:

• Protein. Eating enough protein will assist your health as you age.^[10]Plenty of protein will also help you retain and grow muscle.^[11] Plus, prioritizing protein will help you stay full and satiated between meals.^[12]
• Vegetables. Veggies are both high in nutrients and low in calories, which makes them ideal for a healthy plate. Plus, the fiber will not only help your health, it’ll also keep your indoor plumbing in proper order.^[13]

In the video that kicks off this section, Coach Justin makes a great point: aim for a little better than you are today.

Meaning if you don’t really plan your meals at all, start by having ONE meal include a good protein source and some veggies.

So maybe you make chicken stir-fry this week. 

Once you have that win under your belt, you can aim for doing a little bit more next week (TWO meals that include protein and veggies).

We’ll close out today’s guide with some more ideas on how to get going.

Before we get there, we need to talk about what else can go into your healthy plate. 

What is the Correct Portion Size Part 2: Carbs and Fats

After making room on your plate for protein and vegetables, what’s next?

As Coach Lauren and Justin mention in the Nerd Fitness Prime video above, it’s time to include some healthy carbohydrates and fats!

Depending on what fitness camp you find yourself in and your history of “dieting,” eating carbs and fats might make you nervous. 

But as Coach Lauren points out, they have a purpose on our healthy plate! You just need to portion them out correctly.

A serving of carbohydrates is about two hands cupped together:

If it’s uncooked, it’s about half the size, so one cupped hand.

Examples of healthy carbohydrates:

• Brown rice or white rice 
• Legumes, lentils
• Quinoa
• Potatoes
• Sweet potatoes
• Yams
• Pasta
• Whole grain bread

You also want to make sure you’re including healthy fat in your diet too.

Fat is actually the most calorically dense macronutrient, so comparatively it’ll take up less room on your hand.

Here is a serving of fat, roughly the size of your thumb!

Healthy fat can be found in foods like:

• Avocado 
• Almonds 
• Walnuts
• Macadamia nuts
• Olive oil
• Almond butter 
• Peanut butter

The reason people call it “healthy” is because the fat is unsaturated, although science has recently come around on saturated fat too in the correct amounts.^[14]

We cover this in detail in our Guide to the Keto Diet.

Saturated fats can come from things like:

1. Whole milk
2. Full fat dairy
3. Coconut oil
4. Grass-fed butter
5. Lard
6. Fatty cuts of meat

When it comes to portion control, we need to pay close attention to carbohydrates and fats, because this is where people have the tendency to overeat. 

However, that doesn’t mean we want to completely ditch both food groups either. 

Here’s why you need to eat these two macronutrients:

• Carbohydrates. Did you know fiber is a type of carbohydrate? Yep. As we mentioned earlier, you need plenty of fiber for good health.^[15] Carbs are also a great source of quick energy, especially fruit.^[16] 
• Fats. Some nutrients like Vitamin A are fat-soluble, meaning they are best absorbed alongside some fat.^[17]Fat will also help you feel full, which can help with overall portion control for the day.^[18] While a little goes a long way, you wouldn’t want a “zero fat” diet.^[19]

Just be careful here.

When we analyze the diets of our coaching clients who can’t seem to lose weight, it’s almost always because they are overeating carbs or fats.

If you find yourself in this group, take a look at your hand the next time you sit down to eat:

• How much pasta are you serving yourself? It should fit within your cupped hands.
• How much olive oil did you place on your salad? It should be about the size of your thumb or a tablespoon. 
• How big is your serving of peanut butter, REALLY? One serving, a tablespoon, is about the size of a walnut:

Remember: you don’t have to get this perfect. You just need to be pretty good most of the time.

Even just consciously thinking about if your portion sizes are under or over is a great start.

And as long as you are consistent with your measuring techniques, then you can adjust your portions based on your progress!  

You might also find some special plates or containers helpful when serving yourself. 

How to Use Portion Control Containers and Plates

One hack Coach Justin uses is simple Tupperware containers to portion control his meals:

You can also use some glass containers too if you want to get fancy:

Don’t stress about finding the perfect container that exactly holds each macronutrient you need.

The point here is that you have a quick frame of reference for portion sizes:

• The largest portion of the container: vegetables go here.
• The two smaller portions: these are for your protein and carbs.
• The small little holder: your fats go here.

Again, don’t stress if your container doesn’t fit this description exactly. We’re all working off estimates here, so let’s focus on the big picture.

These are some cool glass containers if you’re looking for something to buy.

How to Control Portion Sizes When Eating Out

An area of concern when attempting to portion control is dining out.

It seems like restaurants serve you twice the amount of food that you need.

Here’s what Coach Justin does in the situation: ask for a to-go box as soon as you place your order.

Yeah, it’s a little weird, but as soon as you get your food, place half of it in the container.

Boom! An extra meal for later. 

Another thing to consider: restaurants want you to leave feeling full.

They often do this by piling on the carbs. Think extra bread, lots of rice, plenty of pasta, etc.

So it might make sense to split these portions in two, and you’re set for lunch the next day.

Also, if you get hungry after eating only half your meal, no problem. Just eat the other half. Even if you’re still at the restaurant.

The point is to consciously think about how much you’re eating. A break halfway through can be used as a decision tree: 

Should I keep eating?

This question alone can help with portion control.

One last thing: we know eating out at restaurants is often a family or friend bonding experience, so we’d prefer you ENJOY the night. Food is more than just calories. 

Just plan for it! If you eat a really large dinner for a celebration, eat slightly smaller portions for the next day or so and your body will be right back on track. 

How to Portion Control for Weight Loss (Next Steps)

In the video above, Coach Lauren and Justin walk you through eating a Nerd Fitness Healthy Plate IRL (In Real Life).

It’s all well and good to build a healthy plate at home, but…

• What if you’re at a restaurant? 
• What if you need to order a sandwich?
• How about pizza?

Here are some tips from the Coaches for portion control IRL:

#1) Sandwich

The trick here is to pack in as many vegetables as you can. Yeah, you’re probably not going to get two fist fulls in, but you can squeeze in a lot of spinach, onion, sauerkraut, and tomato (yeah, it’s technically a fruit, whatevs) on your sandwich. 

• Your carbs can be some type of whole grain bread (you can do an open face sandwich if you want to limit this). 
• Your protein can come from some turkey. 
• Your fat can be a little avocado. 

Boom. 

You now have a turkey sandwich that matches our healthy plate strategy.

#2) Chili/Soup

This can be a little tougher when everything is mixed together.

If you’re making it yourself, perhaps you measure out your hand portions as you cook.

• Put a palm-size portion of ground beef in.
• Your vegetables can be onion, garlic, and tomatoes (again a fruit, but who cares).
• Your carbs can be pinto and/or kidney beans.
• Your fat can be a little bit of cheese sprinkled on top.

Sure, maybe you’re doing less than two fistfuls of vegetables, and more than a cupped hand of carbs (beans).

It doesn’t matter. Again, the point is you’re putting a little thought into proper portions.

If you’re eating out and ordering soup or chili, maybe just think of the end product in mind:

“After portioning everything out, it should be about two fistfuls of food. So that’s what I’ll eat. Everything else I’ll take home.”

#3) Pizza

This is a little trickier because pizza is mostly bread (carbs).

But Coach Justin has a solution for this.

First, he eats something he’s proud of, like a salad. 

Then he portions out his pizza, which if he uses his hand strategy, would be about two slices:

Is it perfect?

Nope.

Does it help Coach Justin reach his goals and allow him to still enjoy life?

Yep!

So experiment a little by creating some rough guidelines, see how you feel, and course-correct as you go.

Remember, any step you take on leveling up your nutrition is great.

If you don’t know where to start, I actually recommend you begin by not worrying about what to take OFF your plate, but instead what to add! 

Make sure every meal you eat has a healthy protein source and a vegetable. Once you have that dialed in, THEN you can worry about portion controlling your carbs and fat. 

If you need help along the way, we got you.

Here are three ways to continue your journey with Nerd Fitness. 

#1) Our Online Coaching program: a coaching program for busy people to help them make better food choices, stay accountable, and get healthier, permanently.

As I said before, we teach portion control to our clients who struggle with overeating, so we’ll provide a non-judgmental expert to help you reach your goals.

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:

Our coaching program changes lives. Learn how!

#2) If you want an exact blueprint leveling up your nutrition, check out Nerd Fitness Journey! Our fun habit-building app helps you exercise more frequently, eat healthier, and level up your life (literally).

If you follow our Nutrition missions, you’ll learn to portion control while earning XP! Sah-weeeet.

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!

Alright, I want to hear from you:

Do you have any tips or tricks for portion control?

Do you use the hand strategy that we covered today?

What’s your biggest challenge with portion sizes?

Let us know in the comments!

-Steve

PS: If you’re just starting your weight loss journey, make sure you check out:

• The Ultimate Guide for Healthy Eating
• The 5 Rules of Weight Loss
• How Many Calories Should I Eat?

###

Photo Source: Fresh lobster rolls, bean-there-donut-that-40358-2, Taco trike, Peanut/Walnut

The post Blog first appeared on Nerd Fitness.

from Nerd Fitness: Helping You Lose Weight, Get Stronger, Live Better. https://ift.tt/3hKEGfa
via IFTTT

It’s time to learn how to portion control!

There are all sorts of “tips” and “tricks” out there, but today we’re going to show you the best method.

What makes me so confident?

For many of our Online Coaching clients, we create portion control strategies for weight loss that don’t suck. Today, we’ll share them with you too!

No shame, no judgement, just results! Learn more about NF Coaching.

Here’s what we’ll cover:

• What are 5 methods for portion control?
• How to learn portion control (the best method)
• What is the Correct Portion Size Part 1: Protein and Vegetables
• What is the Correct Portion Size Part 2: Carbs and Fats
• How to use portion control containers and plates
• How to control portion sizes when eating out
• How to portion control for weight loss (Next steps)

Let’s do this thang!

What Are 5 Methods for Portion Control?

As you might know from our “How to lose weight” guide, the key to sustainable weight loss is getting ourselves to consume fewer calories in a way that doesn’t make us miserable. 

Because our brains and bodies are complicated emotional disasters, there are some tips and tricks we can implement to protect us from…ourselves:

1. Use smaller plates. Folks will often eat what’s placed in front of them, so using smaller dinnerware has been shown to help people eat less.^[1]
2. Drink a glass of water before your meal. If you chug a glass of water 30 minutes before you plan on eating, the H20 will take up some room in your stomach. This might help you eat less.^[2]
3. Take it slow. It can take about 20 minutes for your body to come around to the fact that it’s full, so slowing down your meals can help you eat less.^[3]
4. Use a food journal. Recording everything you eat and drink is a great way to become aware of portions, which can help you control them.^[4] In fact, one of the first missions we have Nerd Fitness Prime members complete is creating a food journal. 

All of these strategies will work to some extent, and they’re good to keep in mind and also practice.

However, nothing will get more consistent results than actually learning the number of calories in the food you eat (Portion Control Tip #5)!

This is our number one recommendation for how to lose weight. 

Study^[4] after study^[5] after study^[6] shows that our bodies obey the laws of thermodynamics and that in order to lose weight, we need to burn more calories than we consume regularly.

• When you consume more calories than you burn, your body tends to store those extra calories as fat (weight gain).
• When you burn more calories than you consume, your body will pull from fat stores for energy (weight loss).

However, as we point out in our Calories In, Calories Out guide, determining your exact “calories in” can be a real pain. Not only that, but many people with certain personality traits can become neurotic about tracking every single calorie. They worry if they go 1 calorie over their daily allotment. 

So, what’s a nerd to do? 

Unless you’re going to weigh out all your food (something I’ve done before) and be militant about tracking, is it possible to “track” your food with a high level of accuracy without having it take over your life?

The answer: yes, by getting darn good at estimating! 

Portion Sizes: How to Portion Control (The Best Method)

You already carry with you the best method for portion control.

Your hands!

Even if you have robot hands.

We’re going to use them to build a healthy plate, as shown above.

The “Nerd Fitness Healthy Plate” was originally published in our Guide to Healthy Eating, which was inspired by our friends over at Precision Nutrition. 

We’re not going to worry about being exact. 

It’s really hard to be precise anyway.^[7]

However, using your hands as a tool for portion control provides a “good enough” strategy that can help your food intake:

As you can see, we’re going to focus our portion control strategy on:

• Protein
• Vegetables (technically carbs, but important enough to deserve their own category)
• Carbohydrates (think starches and fruit)
• Fat

Each macronutrient will correspond to an area of your hand, to give you a sense of what a proper portion size should be. 

We’ve learned that using your hand as a guide is the most helpful strategy for portion control:

• You might not always have access to small plates.
• You might forget to drink water before each meal.
• You might have a short lunch break without the luxury of eating slowly.
• You might grow tired of logging all your food intake.

However, having an intuitive sense of what foods should be eaten in what portions will help you level up your healthy eating.

When in doubt, match the food in front of you to your hand and carry on.

Let’s break this down a little by talking about protein and veggies. 

What is the Correct Portion Size Part 1: Protein and Vegetables

The above video is taken from Nerd Fitness Prime, as part of our NF Kitchen series.

In it, Coach Lauren and Justin discuss the two most important parts of every meal: protein and vegetables.

Here’s something that might seem counterintuitive: our #1 recommendation for portion control isn’t about limiting food. Instead, make sure you get a proper serving of protein and vegetables every time you sit down to eat.

In other words, when you begin your healthy eating journey, don’t even worry about nixing any specific food. Just make sure you are leaving plenty of room for protein and vegetables.

A serving of protein is about the size and thickness of your palm:

Protein can come from any number of sources, including:

• Meat (steak, bison, pork).
• Fowl (chicken, turkey, duck).
• Eggs!^[8]
• Fish and shellfish (salmon, tuna, shrimp).
• Legumes (black beans, chickpeas).

Not a meat-eater? Read our massive plant-based guide!

A serving of veggies is about the size of your fist:

Here’s a quick, non-complete list of veggies that can fill half your plate:

• Broccoli
• Broccolini
• Cauliflower
• Spinach
• Kale
• Spaghetti squash
• Brussels sprouts
• Zucchini
• Cucumber
• Carrots
• Onion
• Asparagus

When it comes to learning portion control, start by making sure you eat enough protein and vegetables.

How much?

As we discuss in our protein guide, when building a plate aim for the following amount of protein:

• Dudes: 1-2 servings (6-8 oz or about 170-228 g): two palms
• Dudettes: 1 serving (3-4 oz or about 85-114 g): 1 palm.

For vegetables, in practice you can probably eat as much as you can stomach (the fiber will likely slow you down), but aim for about 2 fist fulls at most meals, or about half your plate.^[9] 

Don’t like veggies? I was once like you. Check out 10 ways to make vegetables taste good. 

Here’s why you should prioritize protein and vegetables if you’re struggling with portion control:

• Protein. Eating enough protein will assist your health as you age.^[10]Plenty of protein will also help you retain and grow muscle.^[11] Plus, prioritizing protein will help you stay full and satiated between meals.^[12]
• Vegetables. Veggies are both high in nutrients and low in calories, which makes them ideal for a healthy plate. Plus, the fiber will not only help your health, it’ll also keep your indoor plumbing in proper order.^[13]

In the video that kicks off this section, Coach Justin makes a great point: aim for a little better than you are today.

Meaning if you don’t really plan your meals at all, start by having ONE meal include a good protein source and some veggies.

So maybe you make chicken stir-fry this week. 

Once you have that win under your belt, you can aim for doing a little bit more next week (TWO meals that include protein and veggies).

We’ll close out today’s guide with some more ideas on how to get going.

Before we get there, we need to talk about what else can go into your healthy plate. 

What is the Correct Portion Size Part 2: Carbs and Fats

After making room on your plate for protein and vegetables, what’s next?

As Coach Lauren and Justin mention in the Nerd Fitness Prime video above, it’s time to include some healthy carbohydrates and fats!

Depending on what fitness camp you find yourself in and your history of “dieting,” eating carbs and fats might make you nervous. 

But as Coach Lauren points out, they have a purpose on our healthy plate! You just need to portion them out correctly.

A serving of carbohydrates is about two hands cupped together:

If it’s uncooked, it’s about half the size, so one cupped hand.

Examples of healthy carbohydrates:

• Brown rice or white rice 
• Legumes, lentils
• Quinoa
• Potatoes
• Sweet potatoes
• Yams
• Pasta
• Whole grain bread

You also want to make sure you’re including healthy fat in your diet too.

Fat is actually the most calorically dense macronutrient, so comparatively it’ll take up less room on your hand.

Here is a serving of fat, roughly the size of your thumb!

Healthy fat can be found in foods like:

• Avocado 
• Almonds 
• Walnuts
• Macadamia nuts
• Olive oil
• Almond butter 
• Peanut butter

The reason people call it “healthy” is because the fat is unsaturated, although science has recently come around on saturated fat too in the correct amounts.^[14]

We cover this in detail in our Guide to the Keto Diet.

Saturated fats can come from things like:

1. Whole milk
2. Full fat dairy
3. Coconut oil
4. Grass-fed butter
5. Lard
6. Fatty cuts of meat

When it comes to portion control, we need to pay close attention to carbohydrates and fats, because this is where people have the tendency to overeat. 

However, that doesn’t mean we want to completely ditch both food groups either. 

Here’s why you need to eat these two macronutrients:

• Carbohydrates. Did you know fiber is a type of carbohydrate? Yep. As we mentioned earlier, you need plenty of fiber for good health.^[15] Carbs are also a great source of quick energy, especially fruit.^[16] 
• Fats. Some nutrients like Vitamin A are fat-soluble, meaning they are best absorbed alongside some fat.^[17]Fat will also help you feel full, which can help with overall portion control for the day.^[18] While a little goes a long way, you wouldn’t want a “zero fat” diet.^[19]

Just be careful here.

When we analyze the diets of our coaching clients who can’t seem to lose weight, it’s almost always because they are overeating carbs or fats.

If you find yourself in this group, take a look at your hand the next time you sit down to eat:

• How much pasta are you serving yourself? It should fit within your cupped hands.
• How much olive oil did you place on your salad? It should be about the size of your thumb or a tablespoon. 
• How big is your serving of peanut butter, REALLY? One serving, a tablespoon, is about the size of a walnut:

Remember: you don’t have to get this perfect. You just need to be pretty good most of the time.

Even just consciously thinking about if your portion sizes are under or over is a great start.

And as long as you are consistent with your measuring techniques, then you can adjust your portions based on your progress!  

You might also find some special plates or containers helpful when serving yourself. 

How to Use Portion Control Containers and Plates

One hack Coach Justin uses is simple Tupperware containers to portion control his meals:

You can also use some glass containers too if you want to get fancy:

Don’t stress about finding the perfect container that exactly holds each macronutrient you need.

The point here is that you have a quick frame of reference for portion sizes:

• The largest portion of the container: vegetables go here.
• The two smaller portions: these are for your protein and carbs.
• The small little holder: your fats go here.

Again, don’t stress if your container doesn’t fit this description exactly. We’re all working off estimates here, so let’s focus on the big picture.

These are some cool glass containers if you’re looking for something to buy.

How to Control Portion Sizes When Eating Out

An area of concern when attempting to portion control is dining out.

It seems like restaurants serve you twice the amount of food that you need.

Here’s what Coach Justin does in the situation: ask for a to-go box as soon as you place your order.

Yeah, it’s a little weird, but as soon as you get your food, place half of it in the container.

Boom! An extra meal for later. 

Another thing to consider: restaurants want you to leave feeling full.

They often do this by piling on the carbs. Think extra bread, lots of rice, plenty of pasta, etc.

So it might make sense to split these portions in two, and you’re set for lunch the next day.

Also, if you get hungry after eating only half your meal, no problem. Just eat the other half. Even if you’re still at the restaurant.

The point is to consciously think about how much you’re eating. A break halfway through can be used as a decision tree: 

Should I keep eating?

This question alone can help with portion control.

One last thing: we know eating out at restaurants is often a family or friend bonding experience, so we’d prefer you ENJOY the night. Food is more than just calories. 

Just plan for it! If you eat a really large dinner for a celebration, eat slightly smaller portions for the next day or so and your body will be right back on track. 

How to Portion Control for Weight Loss (Next Steps)

In the video above, Coach Lauren and Justin walk you through eating a Nerd Fitness Healthy Plate IRL (In Real Life).

It’s all well and good to build a healthy plate at home, but…

• What if you’re at a restaurant? 
• What if you need to order a sandwich?
• How about pizza?

Here are some tips from the Coaches for portion control IRL:

#1) Sandwich

The trick here is to pack in as many vegetables as you can. Yeah, you’re probably not going to get two fist fulls in, but you can squeeze in a lot of spinach, onion, sauerkraut, and tomato (yeah, it’s technically a fruit, whatevs) on your sandwich. 

• Your carbs can be some type of whole grain bread (you can do an open face sandwich if you want to limit this). 
• Your protein can come from some turkey. 
• Your fat can be a little avocado. 

Boom. 

You now have a turkey sandwich that matches our healthy plate strategy.

#2) Chili/Soup

This can be a little tougher when everything is mixed together.

If you’re making it yourself, perhaps you measure out your hand portions as you cook.

• Put a palm-size portion of ground beef in.
• Your vegetables can be onion, garlic, and tomatoes (again a fruit, but who cares).
• Your carbs can be pinto and/or kidney beans.
• Your fat can be a little bit of cheese sprinkled on top.

Sure, maybe you’re doing less than two fistfuls of vegetables, and more than a cupped hand of carbs (beans).

It doesn’t matter. Again, the point is you’re putting a little thought into proper portions.

If you’re eating out and ordering soup or chili, maybe just think of the end product in mind:

“After portioning everything out, it should be about two fistfuls of food. So that’s what I’ll eat. Everything else I’ll take home.”

#3) Pizza

This is a little trickier because pizza is mostly bread (carbs).

But Coach Justin has a solution for this.

First, he eats something he’s proud of, like a salad. 

Then he portions out his pizza, which if he uses his hand strategy, would be about two slices:

Is it perfect?

Nope.

Does it help Coach Justin reach his goals and allow him to still enjoy life?

Yep!

So experiment a little by creating some rough guidelines, see how you feel, and course-correct as you go.

Remember, any step you take on leveling up your nutrition is great.

If you don’t know where to start, I actually recommend you begin by not worrying about what to take OFF your plate, but instead what to add! 

Make sure every meal you eat has a healthy protein source and a vegetable. Once you have that dialed in, THEN you can worry about portion controlling your carbs and fat. 

If you need help along the way, we got you.

Here are three ways to continue your journey with Nerd Fitness. 

#1) Our Online Coaching program: a coaching program for busy people to help them make better food choices, stay accountable, and get healthier, permanently.

As I said before, we teach portion control to our clients who struggle with overeating, so we’ll provide a non-judgmental expert to help you reach your goals.

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:

Our coaching program changes lives. Learn how!

#2) If you want an exact blueprint leveling up your nutrition, check out Nerd Fitness Journey! Our fun habit-building app helps you exercise more frequently, eat healthier, and level up your life (literally).

If you follow our Nutrition missions, you’ll learn to portion control while earning XP! Sah-weeeet.

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!

Alright, I want to hear from you:

Do you have any tips or tricks for portion control?

Do you use the hand strategy that we covered today?

What’s your biggest challenge with portion sizes?

Let us know in the comments!

-Steve

PS: If you’re just starting your weight loss journey, make sure you check out:

• The Ultimate Guide for Healthy Eating
• The 5 Rules of Weight Loss
• How Many Calories Should I Eat?

###

Photo Source: Fresh lobster rolls, bean-there-donut-that-40358-2, Taco trike, Peanut/Walnut

The post Blog first appeared on Nerd Fitness.

from Nerd Fitness: Helping You Lose Weight, Get Stronger, Live Better. https://ift.tt/3hKEGfa
via IFTTT

It’s time to learn how to portion control!

There are all sorts of “tips” and “tricks” out there, but today we’re going to show you the best method.

What makes me so confident?

For many of our Online Coaching clients, we create portion control strategies for weight loss that don’t suck. Today, we’ll share them with you too!

No shame, no judgement, just results! Learn more about NF Coaching.

Here’s what we’ll cover:

• What are 5 methods for portion control?
• How to learn portion control (the best method)
• What is the Correct Portion Size Part 1: Protein and Vegetables
• What is the Correct Portion Size Part 2: Carbs and Fats
• How to use portion control containers and plates
• How to control portion sizes when eating out
• How to portion control for weight loss (Next steps)

Let’s do this thang!

What Are 5 Methods for Portion Control?

As you might know from our “How to lose weight” guide, the key to sustainable weight loss is getting ourselves to consume fewer calories in a way that doesn’t make us miserable. 

Because our brains and bodies are complicated emotional disasters, there are some tips and tricks we can implement to protect us from…ourselves:

1. Use smaller plates. Folks will often eat what’s placed in front of them, so using smaller dinnerware has been shown to help people eat less.^[1]
2. Drink a glass of water before your meal. If you chug a glass of water 30 minutes before you plan on eating, the H20 will take up some room in your stomach. This might help you eat less.^[2]
3. Take it slow. It can take about 20 minutes for your body to come around to the fact that it’s full, so slowing down your meals can help you eat less.^[3]
4. Use a food journal. Recording everything you eat and drink is a great way to become aware of portions, which can help you control them.^[4] In fact, one of the first missions we have Nerd Fitness Prime members complete is creating a food journal. 

All of these strategies will work to some extent, and they’re good to keep in mind and also practice.

However, nothing will get more consistent results than actually learning the number of calories in the food you eat (Portion Control Tip #5)!

This is our number one recommendation for how to lose weight. 

Study^[4] after study^[5] after study^[6] shows that our bodies obey the laws of thermodynamics and that in order to lose weight, we need to burn more calories than we consume regularly.

• When you consume more calories than you burn, your body tends to store those extra calories as fat (weight gain).
• When you burn more calories than you consume, your body will pull from fat stores for energy (weight loss).

However, as we point out in our Calories In, Calories Out guide, determining your exact “calories in” can be a real pain. Not only that, but many people with certain personality traits can become neurotic about tracking every single calorie. They worry if they go 1 calorie over their daily allotment. 

So, what’s a nerd to do? 

Unless you’re going to weigh out all your food (something I’ve done before) and be militant about tracking, is it possible to “track” your food with a high level of accuracy without having it take over your life?

The answer: yes, by getting darn good at estimating! 

Portion Sizes: How to Portion Control (The Best Method)

You already carry with you the best method for portion control.

Your hands!

Even if you have robot hands.

We’re going to use them to build a healthy plate, as shown above.

The “Nerd Fitness Healthy Plate” was originally published in our Guide to Healthy Eating, which was inspired by our friends over at Precision Nutrition. 

We’re not going to worry about being exact. 

It’s really hard to be precise anyway.^[7]

However, using your hands as a tool for portion control provides a “good enough” strategy that can help your food intake:

As you can see, we’re going to focus our portion control strategy on:

• Protein
• Vegetables (technically carbs, but important enough to deserve their own category)
• Carbohydrates (think starches and fruit)
• Fat

Each macronutrient will correspond to an area of your hand, to give you a sense of what a proper portion size should be. 

We’ve learned that using your hand as a guide is the most helpful strategy for portion control:

• You might not always have access to small plates.
• You might forget to drink water before each meal.
• You might have a short lunch break without the luxury of eating slowly.
• You might grow tired of logging all your food intake.

However, having an intuitive sense of what foods should be eaten in what portions will help you level up your healthy eating.

When in doubt, match the food in front of you to your hand and carry on.

Let’s break this down a little by talking about protein and veggies. 

What is the Correct Portion Size Part 1: Protein and Vegetables

The above video is taken from Nerd Fitness Prime, as part of our NF Kitchen series.

In it, Coach Lauren and Justin discuss the two most important parts of every meal: protein and vegetables.

Here’s something that might seem counterintuitive: our #1 recommendation for portion control isn’t about limiting food. Instead, make sure you get a proper serving of protein and vegetables every time you sit down to eat.

In other words, when you begin your healthy eating journey, don’t even worry about nixing any specific food. Just make sure you are leaving plenty of room for protein and vegetables.

A serving of protein is about the size and thickness of your palm:

Protein can come from any number of sources, including:

• Meat (steak, bison, pork).
• Fowl (chicken, turkey, duck).
• Eggs!^[8]
• Fish and shellfish (salmon, tuna, shrimp).
• Legumes (black beans, chickpeas).

Not a meat-eater? Read our massive plant-based guide!

A serving of veggies is about the size of your fist:

Here’s a quick, non-complete list of veggies that can fill half your plate:

• Broccoli
• Broccolini
• Cauliflower
• Spinach
• Kale
• Spaghetti squash
• Brussels sprouts
• Zucchini
• Cucumber
• Carrots
• Onion
• Asparagus

When it comes to learning portion control, start by making sure you eat enough protein and vegetables.

How much?

As we discuss in our protein guide, when building a plate aim for the following amount of protein:

• Dudes: 1-2 servings (6-8 oz or about 170-228 g): two palms
• Dudettes: 1 serving (3-4 oz or about 85-114 g): 1 palm.

For vegetables, in practice you can probably eat as much as you can stomach (the fiber will likely slow you down), but aim for about 2 fist fulls at most meals, or about half your plate.^[9] 

Don’t like veggies? I was once like you. Check out 10 ways to make vegetables taste good. 

Here’s why you should prioritize protein and vegetables if you’re struggling with portion control:

• Protein. Eating enough protein will assist your health as you age.^[10]Plenty of protein will also help you retain and grow muscle.^[11] Plus, prioritizing protein will help you stay full and satiated between meals.^[12]
• Vegetables. Veggies are both high in nutrients and low in calories, which makes them ideal for a healthy plate. Plus, the fiber will not only help your health, it’ll also keep your indoor plumbing in proper order.^[13]

In the video that kicks off this section, Coach Justin makes a great point: aim for a little better than you are today.

Meaning if you don’t really plan your meals at all, start by having ONE meal include a good protein source and some veggies.

So maybe you make chicken stir-fry this week. 

Once you have that win under your belt, you can aim for doing a little bit more next week (TWO meals that include protein and veggies).

We’ll close out today’s guide with some more ideas on how to get going.

Before we get there, we need to talk about what else can go into your healthy plate. 

What is the Correct Portion Size Part 2: Carbs and Fats

After making room on your plate for protein and vegetables, what’s next?

As Coach Lauren and Justin mention in the Nerd Fitness Prime video above, it’s time to include some healthy carbohydrates and fats!

Depending on what fitness camp you find yourself in and your history of “dieting,” eating carbs and fats might make you nervous. 

But as Coach Lauren points out, they have a purpose on our healthy plate! You just need to portion them out correctly.

A serving of carbohydrates is about two hands cupped together:

If it’s uncooked, it’s about half the size, so one cupped hand.

Examples of healthy carbohydrates:

• Brown rice or white rice 
• Legumes, lentils
• Quinoa
• Potatoes
• Sweet potatoes
• Yams
• Pasta
• Whole grain bread

You also want to make sure you’re including healthy fat in your diet too.

Fat is actually the most calorically dense macronutrient, so comparatively it’ll take up less room on your hand.

Here is a serving of fat, roughly the size of your thumb!

Healthy fat can be found in foods like:

• Avocado 
• Almonds 
• Walnuts
• Macadamia nuts
• Olive oil
• Almond butter 
• Peanut butter

The reason people call it “healthy” is because the fat is unsaturated, although science has recently come around on saturated fat too in the correct amounts.^[14]

We cover this in detail in our Guide to the Keto Diet.

Saturated fats can come from things like:

1. Whole milk
2. Full fat dairy
3. Coconut oil
4. Grass-fed butter
5. Lard
6. Fatty cuts of meat

When it comes to portion control, we need to pay close attention to carbohydrates and fats, because this is where people have the tendency to overeat. 

However, that doesn’t mean we want to completely ditch both food groups either. 

Here’s why you need to eat these two macronutrients:

• Carbohydrates. Did you know fiber is a type of carbohydrate? Yep. As we mentioned earlier, you need plenty of fiber for good health.^[15] Carbs are also a great source of quick energy, especially fruit.^[16] 
• Fats. Some nutrients like Vitamin A are fat-soluble, meaning they are best absorbed alongside some fat.^[17]Fat will also help you feel full, which can help with overall portion control for the day.^[18] While a little goes a long way, you wouldn’t want a “zero fat” diet.^[19]

Just be careful here.

When we analyze the diets of our coaching clients who can’t seem to lose weight, it’s almost always because they are overeating carbs or fats.

If you find yourself in this group, take a look at your hand the next time you sit down to eat:

• How much pasta are you serving yourself? It should fit within your cupped hands.
• How much olive oil did you place on your salad? It should be about the size of your thumb or a tablespoon. 
• How big is your serving of peanut butter, REALLY? One serving, a tablespoon, is about the size of a walnut:

Remember: you don’t have to get this perfect. You just need to be pretty good most of the time.

Even just consciously thinking about if your portion sizes are under or over is a great start.

And as long as you are consistent with your measuring techniques, then you can adjust your portions based on your progress!  

You might also find some special plates or containers helpful when serving yourself. 

How to Use Portion Control Containers and Plates

One hack Coach Justin uses is simple Tupperware containers to portion control his meals:

You can also use some glass containers too if you want to get fancy:

Don’t stress about finding the perfect container that exactly holds each macronutrient you need.

The point here is that you have a quick frame of reference for portion sizes:

• The largest portion of the container: vegetables go here.
• The two smaller portions: these are for your protein and carbs.
• The small little holder: your fats go here.

Again, don’t stress if your container doesn’t fit this description exactly. We’re all working off estimates here, so let’s focus on the big picture.

These are some cool glass containers if you’re looking for something to buy.

How to Control Portion Sizes When Eating Out

An area of concern when attempting to portion control is dining out.

It seems like restaurants serve you twice the amount of food that you need.

Here’s what Coach Justin does in the situation: ask for a to-go box as soon as you place your order.

Yeah, it’s a little weird, but as soon as you get your food, place half of it in the container.

Boom! An extra meal for later. 

Another thing to consider: restaurants want you to leave feeling full.

They often do this by piling on the carbs. Think extra bread, lots of rice, plenty of pasta, etc.

So it might make sense to split these portions in two, and you’re set for lunch the next day.

Also, if you get hungry after eating only half your meal, no problem. Just eat the other half. Even if you’re still at the restaurant.

The point is to consciously think about how much you’re eating. A break halfway through can be used as a decision tree: 

Should I keep eating?

This question alone can help with portion control.

One last thing: we know eating out at restaurants is often a family or friend bonding experience, so we’d prefer you ENJOY the night. Food is more than just calories. 

Just plan for it! If you eat a really large dinner for a celebration, eat slightly smaller portions for the next day or so and your body will be right back on track. 

How to Portion Control for Weight Loss (Next Steps)

In the video above, Coach Lauren and Justin walk you through eating a Nerd Fitness Healthy Plate IRL (In Real Life).

It’s all well and good to build a healthy plate at home, but…

• What if you’re at a restaurant? 
• What if you need to order a sandwich?
• How about pizza?

Here are some tips from the Coaches for portion control IRL:

#1) Sandwich

The trick here is to pack in as many vegetables as you can. Yeah, you’re probably not going to get two fist fulls in, but you can squeeze in a lot of spinach, onion, sauerkraut, and tomato (yeah, it’s technically a fruit, whatevs) on your sandwich. 

• Your carbs can be some type of whole grain bread (you can do an open face sandwich if you want to limit this). 
• Your protein can come from some turkey. 
• Your fat can be a little avocado. 

Boom. 

You now have a turkey sandwich that matches our healthy plate strategy.

#2) Chili/Soup

This can be a little tougher when everything is mixed together.

If you’re making it yourself, perhaps you measure out your hand portions as you cook.

• Put a palm-size portion of ground beef in.
• Your vegetables can be onion, garlic, and tomatoes (again a fruit, but who cares).
• Your carbs can be pinto and/or kidney beans.
• Your fat can be a little bit of cheese sprinkled on top.

Sure, maybe you’re doing less than two fistfuls of vegetables, and more than a cupped hand of carbs (beans).

It doesn’t matter. Again, the point is you’re putting a little thought into proper portions.

If you’re eating out and ordering soup or chili, maybe just think of the end product in mind:

“After portioning everything out, it should be about two fistfuls of food. So that’s what I’ll eat. Everything else I’ll take home.”

#3) Pizza

This is a little trickier because pizza is mostly bread (carbs).

But Coach Justin has a solution for this.

First, he eats something he’s proud of, like a salad. 

Then he portions out his pizza, which if he uses his hand strategy, would be about two slices:

Is it perfect?

Nope.

Does it help Coach Justin reach his goals and allow him to still enjoy life?

Yep!

So experiment a little by creating some rough guidelines, see how you feel, and course-correct as you go.

Remember, any step you take on leveling up your nutrition is great.

If you don’t know where to start, I actually recommend you begin by not worrying about what to take OFF your plate, but instead what to add! 

Make sure every meal you eat has a healthy protein source and a vegetable. Once you have that dialed in, THEN you can worry about portion controlling your carbs and fat. 

If you need help along the way, we got you.

Here are three ways to continue your journey with Nerd Fitness. 

#1) Our Online Coaching program: a coaching program for busy people to help them make better food choices, stay accountable, and get healthier, permanently.

As I said before, we teach portion control to our clients who struggle with overeating, so we’ll provide a non-judgmental expert to help you reach your goals.

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:

Our coaching program changes lives. Learn how!

#2) If you want an exact blueprint leveling up your nutrition, check out Nerd Fitness Journey! Our fun habit-building app helps you exercise more frequently, eat healthier, and level up your life (literally).

If you follow our Nutrition missions, you’ll learn to portion control while earning XP! Sah-weeeet.

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!

Alright, I want to hear from you:

Do you have any tips or tricks for portion control?

Do you use the hand strategy that we covered today?

What’s your biggest challenge with portion sizes?

Let us know in the comments!

-Steve

PS: If you’re just starting your weight loss journey, make sure you check out:

• The Ultimate Guide for Healthy Eating
• The 5 Rules of Weight Loss
• How Many Calories Should I Eat?

###

Photo Source: Fresh lobster rolls, bean-there-donut-that-40358-2, Taco trike, Peanut/Walnut

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So you’re having trouble working out consistently?

I get it. 

Life is busy and hectic. You probably wear multiple hats in your life.

Hopefully, one of them is a pirate hat:

If you are having trouble exercising regularly, know that you aren’t alone. 

Not being able to work out consistently is one of the top issues facing our clients in Nerd Fitness Coaching. Luckily, there are some tips and tricks that help them, which we’ll share with you right now too. 

Want a customized workout plan you’ll ACTUALLY do? Learn more:

Here’s what we’ll cover today:

• Step 1: Why you miss workouts (and why it’s okay).
• Step 2: Building a (specific and realistic) workout plan. 
• Step 3: Why “all of nothing” hurts workout consistency.
• Step 4: The key to getting in regular exercise (make it fun).
• Step 5: How to build workout accountability.
• Step 6: Exercise and workout motivation (and the problems with it).
• Step 7: How to find time to work out.
• How to start working out consistently (next steps).

Let’s jump right in!

Step 1: Why You Miss Workouts

As I mention in the video above, it’s okay to stumble – everyone misses a workout now and again.

Life happens:

• Your job might need you to stay late. 
• Maybe your spouse can’t pick up the kids today.
• Or perhaps you just lost track of time while playing video games.

These things happen, so don’t freak out whenever you miss a workout.

“Wait, wait, wait Jim! I thought this article was about consistency – then you start off saying it’s OK to miss a workout?”

What I’m saying is to not beat yourself up over it. I’ll see people be so tough on themselves for one missed workout, that it spirals downward and then they’re doing NO workouts.

It’s unnecessary, and it’s not sustainable.

Here’s something I remind my clients: If being tough on yourself helped with workout consistency, it would’ve helped by now.

So first of all, forgive yourself.

Then, I share with them a saying we have here at Nerd Fitness:

“Never Two in a Row.”

That means aim to not miss two workouts, back to back.

It’s a mantra you’ll hear throughout the Rebellion (our community!). 

Here’s the justification: as I mentioned, missing one workout is nbd. 

However, two workouts in a row could be the start of a trend. If you’re not careful, after a few missed workouts, you could just stop exercising altogether. 

That’s the real danger.

So we aim to not allow the trend to start in the first place.

Takeaway: If you miss a workout, it’s fine. Just try not to miss the next one.

Step 2: Building a Workout Plan

Here’s a great quote from Benjamin Franklin:

If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.

When it comes to working out consistently, we need to define what “consistently” actually means.

For that, it’s time to build a workout routine.

As Coach Staci mentions in the video above, we want to focus on three key questions when programming our training:

• What type of workout are you doing?
• When do you plan on doing your training?
• Where will this workout take place?

All three questions are important, but we’re going to focus on “when” right now.

Determining “when” you’ll train is easily the most important step for working out consistently.

That’s why I want you to place your workouts in your calendar!

Schedule your workout like it’s the most important meeting of the day!

(A reminder that you ARE important!)

That’s what I have my clients do in our 1-on-1 Coaching Program. It goes a long way to helping them stick to their workout schedule. 

So if you plan on training first thing at 8am, have a calendar reminder go off at 7:50am. 

It’ll make a difference. I promise. 

What days should be workout days?

For that, I have a couple of resources to share with you:

1. How to Build Your Own Workout Routine. Our MASSIVE guide will teach you exactly how to create a training schedule, including what exercises to do and when to take rest days. If you want to get your hands dirty by building your own workout, this is the way to do it.
2. Nerd Fitness Journey. Our fun habit-building app will tell you exactly when to workout, with video tutorials for every exercise covered. No need to create a plan, just open up the app and check your missions for the day. Plus, you’ll build your very own superhero as you go, which is totally sweet. You can try it out for free right below:

Step 3: Why “All of Nothing” Hurts Workout Consistency

Another one of the best things you can do to improve your workout consistency: have a backup plan.

Let’s say a pipe bursts at your gym, and it’s closed for the next few days.

Does that mean you should stop working out until they resolve their plumbing emergency?

It could be a while…

No!

It just means you’ll have to work out at home, in a nearby playground, or maybe you just focus on long walks for the next few days.

That’s why it’s always good to have a backup for any regular emergency, like:

• If I can’t train at my gym, I’ll do bodyweight training at home.
• If it’s raining heavily and I can’t run outside, I’ll jump on the stationary bike in the garage.
• If I’m sore from a hard workout, today I’ll just do some light yoga. 

Remember, just because your initial plan falls through, doesn’t mean you have to completely throw in the towel.

Or as I jokingly tell my clients, just because one tire goes flat, doesn’t mean you should slash the other three.

Just do the best you can to get back on the road.

Step 4: The Key to Getting in Regular Exercise

If I have one single piece of advice on how to get in more daily movement, it would be this: do something you enjoy.

Every workout doesn’t have to be a slog.

You can schedule things you enjoy, like:

• Hiking
• Parkour
• Video games that get you moving.

If you enjoy the activity, you’ll be WAY more likely to exercise consistently.

For more tips here, here are 40 Ways to Exercise (Without Realizing It). 

Here’s another trick to start enjoying your workouts – do them while listening to some of your favorite music, or a podcast you enjoy.

Heck, you can even flip the TV on in the corner and watch your favorite show while you train.

We call this “Temptation Bundling” and I’ve seen it help a lot of my clients:

• If you only listen to your favorite podcast when you run, eventually, you might start looking forward to running.
• The same thing could happen with music. If you start to associate your favorite tunes with building up a sweat, one day you might actually enjoy building up a sweat.
• Let’s say you only watch The Great British Bake Off while on your elliptical. If that’s the case, you’re going to start protecting your time exercising (“Don’t bother me now”).

Don’t overlook the power of coupling activities you enjoy with your workouts. 

Step 5: How to Build Workout Accountability

Another strategy we can deploy when improving workout consistency: accountability and support.

There’s nothing quite like being accountable to another human being when it comes to exercising regularly.

There are a few ways we can create workout accountability:

#1) Tell Friends and Family.

Share your goals with your loved ones, then let them know the times you’ll be working out.

This will help for a couple of reasons:

• We’re more likely to follow through with action if we commit ourselves in front of others.
• If we don’t show up for a workout, they may politely call us out on it.

#2) Join an Online Community.

In the 21st century, it’s very easy to find a group of people who are on a similar mission.

If you want to exercise regularly, I’d wager you aren’t the only person on the internet working towards that goal.

So join a digital community! That way you can get in on some group accountability.

We regularly hold group challenges through our app, Nerd Fitness Journey. I’ve been told by countless Rebels that they’re more likely to get their training in if they know everyone else in the community is doing it too.

Heck, I did burpees in the snow because everyone in the Rebellion was doing a burpee challenge.

If you want to try out some of these experiences, you can sign-up for a free trial to our snazzy new app right here:

If you want some next-level accountability, I have to mention the ultimate power-up: hire a coach.

It could be a personal trainer in a gym, or you can go digital with an online coach.

Either way, having someone you check in with weekly (who will also program your workouts) is one of the best ways to exercise consistently.

If you know a coach will ask you about your workouts, you’re going to be more likely to do them.

If you’re interested in learning if you’d be a good fit for one of our online coaches, you can click on the big yellow button below:

We can be your accountability partner. Lean more here.

Step 6: The Problems With Exercise and Workout Motivation

In the video above, Rebel Leader Steve outlines the problems with motivation. 

I think all of my clients should watch the video. 

That’s because I’ll often hear them say “I need more motivation to workout” or “I’m just not motivated to exercise.”

This is the wrong frame of mind.

Action creates motivation, not the other way around.

For example, let’s imagine a new client. They don’t particularly like working out and they aren’t very motivated to do it.

But they do it anyway.

Then, after a few weeks of successful workouts, they’ll start to recognize the trend they’ve begun.

Our coaching app tracks all the training we assign, so I’ll often see my clients rejoice when they’ve “hit 20 workouts!” 

It feels good to recognize they’re making progress, which often makes them more motivated to exercise.

So they keep working out. 

The problem: getting started in the first place can be tough.

That’s why you should start with ANYTHING that breaks the inertia.

Coach Matt breaks it all down for you right here:

As a beginner, your first step is the most important. And often the hardest.

In our Beginner’s Guide to Starting Your Fitness Journey, we recommend your first workouts be something simple to get started: a walk.

It could be a half-mile around the block. Or it could be to the mailbox and back. 

The exact amount doesn’t matter, but being intentional is. That’s how we work to build consistency.

So do a short walk today. Then another one the day after tomorrow. Then a third two days from then.

Boom, three workouts in one week, all by just walking. 

Step 7: How to Find Time to Workout

I’ll be real with you: no one is sitting around, twiddling their thumbs with time to kill.

If you’re going to make time to work out, you’ll need to figure out what activity in your life you can change or eliminate:

• Maybe your two-hour nightly TV ritual can come down to an hour.
• Maybe you start biking home from work instead of driving.
• Maybe you catch up with your spouse over an evening walk instead of a drink.

This is why scheduling your workouts in your calendar can be so critical – it helps you see what needs to be moved around to get your training done.

Also, it’s okay to experiment here.

If you create a schedule, and you don’t hit it all, it’s okay. 

Perhaps you just created an unrealistic schedule.

If so, then modify the workout:

• Try a 30-minute workout instead of an hour.
• Try two workouts a week instead of three.
• Go around the block once instead of twice.

Again, we’re not worried about the amount of time here. Instead, we’re concerned about you hitting your workout schedule consistently. It’s okay to scale down to do that.

Once you’re rocking and rolling, we can always scale it up if it seems right.

If you want some tips on how to gauge your adherence to sticking with your workout schedule, then check out How to Track Your Fitness Progress.  

Start Working Out Consistently

There you have it, my friend. 

When it comes to working out consistently, remember to:

• Step 1: It’s okay to stumble (Forgive yourself). Everyone I know misses a workout here or there. It’s nothing to feel shame over. 
• Step 2: Have a plan! Without scheduling your week’s workouts, how do you even know if you’re being consistent or not?
• Step 3: Have a backup plan! (Lose the “all or nothing” mindset). If your first plan falls through, nbd. Just move onto the next one. “Some” workout is always better than “no” workout. Do the best you can.
• Step 4: Make it fun. Your workout doesn’t need to be something you dread. If you like hiking, go hiking. If you like swimming, go swimming. Any movement is beneficial and should be encouraged. No one said you have to hate it.
• Step 5: Find an accountability partner. Going alone is almost always harder. If you can find a friend or coach to team with, it will make working out consistently easier.
• Step 6: Embrace “action” not “motivation.” If you have to wait around for motivation to start working out, you might be waiting for quite a while. You’ll become motivated after you act.
• Step 7: Don’t find time, make time. Your schedule won’t magically free itself. Look at your calendar and start prioritizing.

That’s it.

The most important thing you can do now today: START!

Not tomorrow. Not next Monday.

Today!

If you don’t know what to do, look at the next free spot on your calendar. Then schedule a walk.

Then schedule it a couple of days later.

Then the following week.

BOOM! You just started a plan for working out consistently.

As always, if you need any help here, we gotcha. 

Here are three ways that Nerd Fitness can help you exercise regularly. 

#1) Our Online Coaching Program: a coaching program for busy people to help them make better food choices, stay accountable, and get healthier, permanently.

As I said, this is the ultimate way to build workout accountability. Not only will a NF Coach build your workout, but they’ll check in with you too to make sure you’re able to do it.

If you can’t? 

No problem, they’ll work with you to create a new plan.

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 image below for more details:

Our coaching program changes lives. Learn how!

#2) If you want an exact roadmap for working out consistently, check out NF Journey. Our fun habit-building app tells you exactly what days to exercise, what days to rest, and helps you track it all so you know if it’s working for you.

Interested?

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, our Strength Training 101 eBook, and much more!

Alright, I want to hear from you now:

What’s your biggest issue with working out consistently?

What tips helped the most?

Are we missing any helpful suggestions for a beginner?

Let me know in the comments!

-Jim

###

Photo Source: Rugby Player, Bruce Emmerling © 123RF.com, Firefighter, Dog Sitter, Bicycle, Toxic, choneschones © 123RF.com, Morning run with the Fitbit

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So you’ve decided you want to get fit?

Great!

Now what? There is SOOO much out there, it can be overwhelming.

You end up collecting information for weeks…but take zero action.

If this sounds like you, we understand. It’s frustrating! 

No worries though, you’re in the right place to kick it into gear. We’ve helped thousands of beginners get started (and reach their goals!) as part of our online coaching program. 

Today, I’ll share with you 3 different ways to get things going, that have been tested by nerds just like you. 

Not sure how to take your first step? Click here to learn how we can help.

Here’s what we’ll cover:

• How do beginners get fit? (3 ways our clients get started)
• “Get Fit” Strategy #1: Exercise
• “Get Fit” Strategy #2: Nutrition
• “Get Fit” Strategy #3: Mindset
• The key to getting in shape: consistency

Let’s jump right in.

How Do Beginners Get Fit?

As Coach Matt discusses above, there are three areas we want to focus on when trying to level up your fitness:

• Exercise
• Nutrition
• Mindset

When someone joins our coaching program, we often think about developing habits around these three pillars.

As I often share with folks when discussing our coaching program:

It’s not just a matter of handing over a bunch of workouts and shoving them out the door – we want to approach people’s goals and fitness more holistically.

What’s the first move in each category?

Well, there’s no “one-size-fits-all” approach when it comes to fitness. 

However, if you twist my arm about it, I will admit that there are a few key habits that I generally have my clients start on.

These habits can be good for a beginner to experiment with as their “first step” for getting in shape.

Let’s go over a few of them now.

“Get Fit” Strategy #1: Exercise

When people decide they want to get in shape, they often start exercising more.

It’s not a bad strategy.

What exercise should we start with?

Our recommended first step here…is actually a first step.

That’s right, a simple walk can be a great way to start exercising. 

Just put on some shoes and head out the door!

Occasionally, I’ll have some clients bulk at this, claiming “That’s not enough! I need to do more!”

While it’s great they’re looking for a challenge, I encourage them not to dismiss the power of walking.

Here’s why:

When we become people that regularly make time for a walk, then we become people who regularly make time for longer workouts too.

In other words, building the habit is the hardest part. Not the exercise itself.

So we start with a walk. Maybe we aim for two or three times a week.

Don’t overthink this – whatever time you can do right now is good. Whether it’s around the block, or to the mailbox and back – just make sure you set the intention and do something.

Plus, the exercise will be good for you too.^[1] 

Some members of the Rebellion – like Tim here – have gotten in great shape by focusing on regular walks. 

Here’s our Walking for Exercise Guide for more tips to get started. 

If you already practice a regular walk, then you can explore doing a little bit more of a formal workout.

After you start walking consistently, I recommend you try our Beginner Bodyweight Workout:

This workout can be done right in your living room, without any extra gym equipment.

Also, make sure you also download the Beginner Bodyweight Workout PDF, so you can track your progress and consistency.

I’ll send it on over when you join the Nerd Fitness Rebellion in the box below:

“Get Fit” Strategy #2: Nutrition

Ah, nutrition.

Any claims on proper nutrition will almost always lead to another battle in the ongoing diet wars. 

Like the Clone Wars, but with more broccoli and fewer spaceships. 

Folks on the internet can’t stop arguing about “the best” diet. 

For some it’s Keto. Others Paleo. Or Vegan.

Don’t forget about the Mediterranean Diet. 

When you start googling a bit, you’ll find lots of contradicting information on how to level up your diet.

People will claim you should:

• Break up with bread.
• Eat less meat.
• Stop with all the ice cream.

Tragic. 

In our coaching program, we often DON’T start with any “eat and drink less” talk.

We actually do the opposite, with “eat and drink MORE” talk.

What do we specifically recommend you eat and drink more of?

• Water
• Vegetables

For our coaching clients trying to get in shape, sometimes we have them start by drinking a glass of water or eating a vegetable at one of their meals. 

When we start with adding – instead of subtracting – we accomplish a few things:

• First, it starts creating a more positive association with nutrition.
• Next (and related), it tends to be a big mental relief from the constant restrictive nutritional talk that we’re used to hearing.
• Lastly, by making a focused effort to add healthy things to our meal, by default, it often replaces other less than healthy things.

This is another step that might seem “too easy” or “not enough” right now, but doing them consistently can still prove challenging.

And doing these things consistently is what’s going to build long-lasting changes.

If you want additional help with these two actions, I have a couple of resources for you:

• Guide to Proper Hydration. Not only will tell you how much water to drink, but we’ll also provide tips for staying hydrated all day.
• How To Make Vegetables Taste Good. Don’t like veggies? No problem. This guide will show you 10 different ways to make your greens something you enjoy eating. 

But if you’re looking for a “Just tell me what to do!” – then have a glass of water or a vegetable at one of your meals. 

If you’re doing that already – add one of them to another meal. Rinse and repeat.

What’s that? You already drink water and have a vegetable with every meal?

Well, you can work on having your meals look a bit like this:

For more here, check out A Nerd’s Guide to Healthy Eating.

“Get Fit” Strategy #3: Mindset

When people discuss getting fit, it almost always revolves around “diet and exercise.”

A big component that’s overlooked is one’s mindset. 

All the workout and nutritional information in the world won’t help if you’re stressed out and not able to focus on creating habits.

That’s why we also work on stress management with our coaching clients. 

We can start leveling up our mindset by taking one of these steps:

#1) Improving Sleep. 

A good night’s sleep can make everything easier. Conversely, poor sleep consistently can make everything harder.

My clients often have success improving their sleep habits by: 

• Avoiding screen time within a half-hour of bed.
• Going to bed and waking up at the same time – even on the weekends.

 

 

#2) Journaling. 

Grab anything you can write with (even your phone or computer), and write down some reflections from the day. 

You can focus your journal on: 

• Any wins you had.
• Things you’re grateful for.
• Things that frustrated you. 

Your journal is a safe spot for you to get things out of your head and process them, which can quickly reduce stress. 

Personally, capturing my thoughts at the end of the night helps me put the day behind me. Our minds are for creating ideas, not storing them (h/t David Allen).

#3) Meditation. 

Simply close your eyes and focus on taking a few slow, deep breaths.

It sounds almost too easy, but even this quick pause will help you relax and refresh.

It’s not about “emptying your mind”, but instead letting any thought that comes into your head leave just as easily. 

I’ve seen even a brief 5-minute session help some of my clients’ destress after a hectic day. 

You can read a bit more in A Nerd’s Guide to Meditation.

Whichever of these three that you decide for stress management, look to do it consistently several times a week. Just only pick ONE right now.

We’ll work on the others down the road. 

The Key to Getting In Shape: Consistency

If you want to take the first step to level up your life, think about habits around the following:

• Exercise – Take a walk a few times a week. Don’t worry about the distance, just worry about the intention and habit.
• Nutrition – Add a glass of water or vegetable to one meal. If that feels good, do it again with another meal. 
• Mindset – Pick ONE stress management habit. This could be some brief meditation, journaling, or improving your sleep habits. 

That’s it. Simple habits to have you move more, get proper nutrients, and destress a bit.

There’s nothing here that’s going to sound revolutionary.

That’s the point.

The action itself isn’t challenging. The challenge is doing the action consistently. 

So yes, the actions we proposed today might appear easy for you to do.

If that’s the case, then do them. Once you have these habits locked in, we can work on leveling them up to more complex tasks.

Start now, then course-correct later. 

If you want a roadmap for building one habit on top of each other, I got a few options for you.

I’ll share them with you now, because I’m nice like that.

Here are three ways to build healthy habits alongside Nerd Fitness. 

#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 image below for more details:

Our coaching program changes lives. Learn how!

#2) If you want an exact roadmap on how to get in shape, check out NF Journey. Our fun habit-building app helps you exercise more frequently, eat healthier, and level up your life (literally).

You never have to question the next step. Your next new habit will always be one adventure away.

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, an explanation on the 15 Mistakes That Newbies Make, and much more!

Alright, I want to hear from you now:

Have you taken your first step to getting fit?

If so, what helped the most?

If not, what feels like it’s holding you back?

Let me know in the comments!

-Jim

###

Photos from Four Bricks Tall: Into the forest; In 2015, the first woman coach was hired by a Major League Baseball team; Fresh lobster rolls; Violinist Boy; A grape hyacinth

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So you’ve hit a workout or weight loss plateau the size of a…well, an actual plateau, eh?

Have no fear, our step-by-step guide will get you back on track! (Plus, the most badass Bruce Lee quote you’ll ever read).

Whether you’ve stalled in your weight loss journey, strength training, or some other fitness benchmark, today we’ll tell you exactly how to keep progressing by sharing with you the exact tools we use with our coaching clients.

A Nerd Fitness Coach can design you a program to keep progressing! Learn more here.

Don’t lose morale. Together we got this!

We’ll cover:

• What is a plateau?
• How do I know If I’ve hit a plateau? 3 ways to tell…
• Why am I plateauing? 4 reasons why…
• Is a plateau normal? (The Dip)
• What should I do when I hit a plateau? (Setting Personal Records)
• 5 tips and tricks for overcoming a plateau

I know how demoralizing plateaus can be, especially when it comes to strength training and weight loss – they can be a total momentum killer!

It’s actually why we built our newest app, Nerd Fitness Journey! It’s designed so when you wake up in the morning, you know the exact next step to help you reach your goals.

You can try it for free right here, so this plateau can be a thing of the past:

What is a Plateau?

A plateau occurs when you stall out on progress despite continuing to do “all of the right things,” usually including:

• Eating right
• Exercising properly
• Getting adequate rest.

And so on.

Our bodies go from losing weight consistently to getting stuck at a certain number. Or we go from building muscle and getting stronger, to having a week or two where we can’t seem to lift anything heavier.

We call this point in our training “The Plateau,” and we don’t like being stuck on them.

As we learned in a previous article on happiness, humans (nerds especially) are happier when we make progress.

When we work hard for something and don’t see progress, we get unhappy.

How Do I Know If I’ve Hit a Plateau?

I get a lot of emails from people who tell me they’re stuck in a plateau.

They talk about how they’ve been eating right, exercising, and getting enough rest and they can’t seem to make progress!

They throw their hands in the air, freak out, get discouraged, and give up or quickly move onto the next plan that they hope will work.

When somebody comes to me saying they’ve plateaued, my first response is always:

“Have you REALLLLLLLLY plateaued? REALLY?”

In a strong majority of the cases, plateaus are really just issues with concentration, tracking, and discipline in disguise. Before you think you have plateaued, consider the following:

1) HOW IS YOUR NUTRITION…REALLY? Oftentimes we think we are being diligent, until we realize that after a few weeks of eating great we’ve started slacking. “Oh I’ve been good, just this one time…” and “Hmmm, sure why not” become more commonplace as we start to fall back into old habits. Track your calories for the next week and check your numbers.

And even if you are eating the right amounts of food, there’s this: as you lose weight, your metabolism slows down. This isn’t sabotaging black magic, it’s science.

There’s simply LESS of you that your body needs to maintain.

Here is the estimated daily resting calorie burn (“sit on your ass all day”) of a 35-year old male nerd at 3 very different weights:

• 300 lbs: 2,600 calories.
• 250 lbs: 2,300 calories.
• 200 lbs: 2,000 calories.

You might have hit a plateau simply because you’ve reached an equilibrium of calories consumed to calories burned! This means you need to adjust your calorie intake to continue losing weight.

If you are trying to bulk up, are you eating ENOUGH calories to promote muscle growth? Rededicate yourself for two weeks, track your meals, and see if progress picks back up!

2) HOW ARE YOUR WORKOUTS…REALLY? If you are weeks or months into a workout plan, I bet the initial luster of “NEW! PROGRESS! WINNING!” has worn off.

Have you been skipping that last rep, cutting out an exercise here or there, or getting bored and wanting to go home?

I know when I hit a plateau at the gym, it’s generally because I haven’t been pushing myself as hard as I had been previously. Track your workouts diligently for two weeks and see if these changes kick you back on track.

3) HOW iS YOUR SLEEP?…REALLY? This is one that most people skip out on. They are exercising, eating right, but for whatever reason they’ve been slacking on their sleep.

It’s might be too much television…

We all know sleep is important – lack of sleep leads to increased levels of stress, less time for our bodies to rebuild muscle, to recover from strenuous activity, and more.

I know that if I didn’t get a good night’s sleep, then my performance in the gym the next day will suffer.

Can you honestly say you’ve spent two weeks with quality sleep, nutrition, and exercise?

In many cases we think we’re stuck, in need of some sort of drastic change or adjustment to kickstart progress again. Now, there are definitely instances where we ARE stuck or stalled, and that’s when things need to change.

However, before we cover the dreaded plateau, let’s get a few things clear.

Why Am I Plateauing?

To start, linear progress cannot continue indefinitely: 

1. If you are learning to squat and you start with just the bar, adding 5 lbs a week (which is how you should learn to squat!), you will eventually reach a point where your body cannot build the strength/muscle fast enough to continually add 5 lbs a week. If it DID work that way, in three years everybody would be squatting 1,000 pounds.
2. You will run into the same issues with weight loss. For example, it’s easier for you to lose 3 pounds a week when you are at 300 lbs than it is to lose 3 pounds a week when you are 150 pounds….there’s more of you to “lose” when you’re bigger and thus progress will be easier. If you could lose 2-3 pounds a week every week forever, at some point you’d disappear, and we don’t want that. Weight loss might slow to 1 pound every other week.
3. Your margin for error gets smaller. When you are at a higher body fat percentage, or just getting starting with training, you can make a lot of progress quickly due to there being MORE of you to lose, or MORE gains to make quickly. As you start to make progress, you can’t keep making big progress without making more and more dedicated effort.
4. Adaptive thermogensis. Our bodies WANT to maintain the extra body fat we have (“I don’t know when I’ll need this, better save”), and are actively working in unison to preserve it – so even after a few pounds, it’s going to be a persistent challenge to keep progressing. It’s a subject a dive in deep in the article “Why can’t I lose weight?” If you’ve stalled on your weight loss journey, this might be the problem, as your body is adapting to the body fat being lost.

Your progress at a consistent pace will definitely slow down, which can FEEL like a plateau. 

If you’ve been training for more than a few months, you might need to slightly adjust your expectations. Maybe this week you can only add 2.5 lbs to the bar. Or 1lb. Maybe your muscle-building will crawl to 1 lb gained a month.

It happens to all of us. Even Batman.

Now, if your progress stalls out COMPLETELY or you actually regress, AND you are doing all of the right things, then congrats!

You MAY have plateaued.

Like in games like World of Warcraft, at some point you will stop gaining experience from killing rats – you could spend all day doing so but because you’ve hit a certain level they no longer provide you with value.

It’s time to move onto attacking spiders, then orcs, then dragons.

It’s something Coach Jim brings up in this video on progressive overload:

When you started out, just doing 5 push-ups might have felt like a full workout. Now you can do 50 push-ups for a warm-up and not break a sweat.

Our bodies are constantly adapting and learning to manage the stresses we put on it, seeking the path of least resistance.

Back to our gaming analogy:

If it’s something worth doing, there will most likely be grinding involved, and that’s why I need to talk to you about The Dip.

No not a strength training type of ‘dip’, though those are good to help bust through a plateau too!

You can learn more about how we help build plateau-less workouts at Nerd Fitness by downloading our free Strength Training 101 eBook when you sign up in the box below:

Is a Plateau Normal? (The Dip)

I want to introduce you to Seth Godin, author of The Dip.

We all hit plateaus in our lives and quests for health and happiness. In order to be successful at the task at hand, we need to grind our way through that low point (or flat point) until we can climb out and continue progress.

Here’s a visualization of the dip:

When you first start something new, you can make quick progress and everything rocks because you see big changes.

However, after a few months, the reward you get from your effort decreases and it seems like you’re rapidly slowing down:

1. In the first few weeks of weight loss, everything is GREAT! The scale is moving, your clothes are getting looser, progress is exciting because it’s coming so quickly. Then, you might have a few weeks where you’re really trying hard and yet…the scale stalls or increases.
2. When building a new running habit, each new run is exhilarating – you rapidly progress from wheezing and coughing after two blocks to now being able to run a whole mile! A few months later, that progress slows, and you find yourself struggling with the same distances and speeds even though you’re doing all of the right things.
3. When lifting weights, the first few months can be life-changing. Squats, deadlifts, pull-ups, push-ups. Every session in the gym is an opportunity to see massive progress compared to the time before, except for that week or two when you walk in and you have to lift less than before! What gives!?

When we hit that dip/plateau where our hard work seems like it goes unrewarded, it’s easy to give up and say, “I’m a failure.”

Not true.

We will all experience a dip when it comes to progress on things that are important to us.

If we want to TRULY be successful, we need to anticipate the dip’s arrival and plan for it so that it doesn’t completely derail us.

Much like grinding out experience points in an RPG, sometimes we need to grind out practice in life, workouts, nutrition, and more…until we can hit that sweet spot for progress again.

So, how do we stay dedicated, focused, and motivated through the dip?

How do we progress during the plateau when we feel like our hard work is a waste of time?

We focus on small wins, and find a way to get a teeny tiny bit better.

What Should I Do When I Hit a Plateau? (Setting Personal Records)

In order for us to crawl out of a dip or off a plateau, we need to find a way to make a small win every day.

Think of these small wins like “a light to you in dark places, when all other lights go out.”

The longer we’ve been training, the older we get, and/or the more advanced we get in our training, the more likely we’ll be to hit plateaus and the more necessary it will be to grind out small victories, prepare for dips, and power through them.

Here’s how you can grind out your own small wins and prove to yourself that you are still progressing when you are in the dip:

1) TRACK EVERY SET, REP, AND WORKOUT. Find a way to be better today in SOME WAY than you were yesterday, and prove to yourself that you are still making progress – even if it’s progress in a different way than you were progressing before.

If you are stuck at 3 sets of 5 reps of 150 pounds on the bench press and haven’t been able to go up to 155 lbs for a few weeks, try 3 sets of 6 reps of 150 pounds.

Or 4 sets of 5 reps of 150 pounds.

Then come back to 3 sets of 5 reps of 155 a few weeks from now, and see if you can do that.

If you wait 60 seconds between sets, try waiting 90 seconds instead and lift a different amount

As long as SOMETHING has progressed in some way – your total amount of weight lifted, decreased time between sets, one extra rep, or one more pound lifted – it proves to yourself that you made progress. Remember, progress makes us happy.

RECORD EVERYTHING.

2) COLLECT TINY WINS. Optimus Prime doesn’t transform with one single movement; it’s a combination of hundreds of thousands of tiny movements that happen rapidly.

We are transformers (Joe especially), and our small changes add up too.

It’s these tiny, small victories that can push us over the edge. Enough small victories and we can reach that tipping point, that end of the dip where progress continues again.

Find a way to set a tiny win in SOME WAY each day that shows you that you are getting better/faster/stronger.

Here’s an example: I have been working on handstand balancing. For the past few months, my progress has stagnated and even gone in reverse on some days (helloooo Dip!).

I continued to work on building the habit of handstands for five minutes a day (Hard Hat challenge for the win!). Progress felt nonexistent, but I knew that my continued dedicated practice was adding up in ways that didn’t make themselves readily apparent.

I had “stalled,” so I focused on getting tiny wins: increasing flexibility in my wrists, staying against the wall as long as I could, practicing my kick-ups, tightening my core, etc.

Despite not being able to balance for longer than 10 seconds at any point in the past, I kicked up into a handstand, without even touching the wall (something else that had never happened before), and I held my handstand for 24 seconds!

I still have a ways to go before I’m holding perfectly vertical handstands for 60+ seconds, but months spent grinding out practice in the dip have paid off.

I made it through the plateau, and my progress has continued rapidly after struggling for months. Those months of struggle were teeny tiny wins in different ways that added up until I hit that tipping point where progress exploded.

3) TRACK OTHER METRICS OTHER THAN THE SCALE. The scale can lie. The scale will DEFINITELY slow down even if you are making progress in healthier ways, simply due to the fact that you have less weight to lose than you did before! You might also be dealing with extra water weight, or bloat, or menstruation, or anything in between.

So, track other things! Here’s what you can track to help keep you motivated while plateauing:

1. Take biweekly photos. Who cares if the scale isn’t moving. Are you looking better? Are you FEELING better? Do your clothes fit better? That is progress.
2. Take measurements. Spend 5 bucks on a cloth tape measure (or one of these), and measure the important parts of your body. Maybe the scale isn’t moving, but you took half an inch off of your waist. Or maybe you added a quarter of an inch to your arms.
3. Track your body fat percentage. A simple caliper is enough to show trends. Remember Saint? His weight went UP but his body fat percentage dropped. Had he only been tracking the scale, he might have panicked during his ‘dip.’ Fortunately, he was tracking more metrics and used that momentum to catapult himself to victory.

The goal is to consistently prove to ourselves that we are moving one step closer towards our goal. 

This is exactly the system we used when we built Nerd Fitness Journey.

When you’re working through the app, not only are you doing fun missions, but you’ll see how tasks build up to your larger goal. There’s no getting stuck or frustrated, just log in and work on the next adventure.

If you want, you can sign-up for a free trial right here:

5 Tips and Tricks for Overcoming a Plateau

The above is just the beginning. This will also help you make progress and get out of that dip:

1) Shock your workout. Our bodies crave efficiency, and love to be as lazy as possible, but we truly thrive on chaos. So introduce some chaos into your system!

Note: This is NOT the same as “muscle confusion” (which is a made-up marketing term to sell DVDs). We’re still progressing, lifting more, and doing the same exercises – we’re just throwing in some variation occasionally to help stimulate progress. 

If you do the exact same thing over and over and over, your body becomes more efficient at that activity.

In fact, your body can learn and adapt after doing the same thing enough times so that it burns fewer calories to carry out the process. So mix it up!

• If you are trying to run a faster 5K? Mix in a day of sprints rather than just basic runs.
• Trying to increase your deadlift? Rather than just doing a 1-rep max, do a day of higher volume, or train the deadlift twice a week.
• Want to squat better? Squat with higher frequency. NF Senior Coach Staci followed an advanced Smolov Squat program for 13 weeks (Warning: not for beginners). Your body can adapt and overcompensate by getting stronger.
• Want to improve your upper body strength/size? Try doing a PLP program along with your regular workouts. Starting with 10 total reps of Pull-ups, Lunges, and Push-ups, and every day add a rep, for 50 days.

2) Adjust your diet. Your body can also become quite efficient with calories (not to mention the oft-mentioned but controversial “starvation mode” theory), and can sometimes struggle to progress.

As we lay out in “Why can’t I lose weight?,” if you’ve lost a decent amount of weight, your body now burns significantly fewer calories each day (there’s less of you to manage!) This means you need to adjust your calorie intake!

So, I would start by tracking your intake and determine how many calories you should be eating.

ONLY after that doesn’t work would I recommend the following:

Consider throwing in one day a week of OVER eating, along with days where you are intermittent fasting. Keep your body guessing and see if that shocks your system back into weight loss mode.

Consider adjusting your macronutrient breakdown. Keep your protein intake high, and adjust your carbs and fats. Some people feel better or worse with high fat or low fat, high carb or low carb.

And remember, thermodynamics still rule all: weight loss requires caloric deficits.

3) REST! I’ve heard it said “there’s no such thing as “overtraining, just under-recovering.” Are you getting enough sleep?

Maybe you’re a new parent and trying to maintain your old workout routine on 2 hours of sleep a night.

Or work has you stressed like crazy and it’s causing you to eat like crap.

Rest is such an important part of a healthy lifestyle that it needs to be prioritized too. In the book Essentialism, this is referred to as “Protecting the Asset.”

You are the asset.

If you are trying to do too much, or you’re caught in a plateau, consider a week off, refocusing on sleep and recovery, and come back refreshed.

4) Adjust your goals. Maybe your body needs a new dragon to slay.

Again, nature loves chaos. If you are focused solely on weight loss, you might feel like you have stalled out. So shift your focus. Work on handstands. Or running faster.

Or doing your first pull-up.

Pick a new skill!

Try something different. Give your body a chance to recover and then come back to it.

If you’re solely focused on the scale and it stalls out, it can be depressing. So put the scale away for a month, and instead focus on the process of getting stronger and eating better. Stop stressing and remember to enjoy the game you’re playing.

5) Accept that we have bad weeks. We are complex pieces of machinery.

Sometimes shit happens.

We just have bad weeks and can’t lift enough or we GAIN weight when we expected to lose weight. It doesn’t make you a bad person, it doesn’t make you a failure, it makes you human.

So on days when you feel great, PUSH yourself harder. On days when you feel like crap, scale back the heavy lifting and focus on more reps or better technique.

The greatest predictor of success in our lives is grit (which can be developed). Grit is what you need to slog through these slow weeks. These dips are where we find out who’s truly dedicated. I know you are, and you know you are.

Remember, look for any sign of progress in any way to reveal that “light” at the end of the tunnel.

If you are stuck on a plateau when it comes to strength training, consider working with one of our Yodas in the 1-on-1 Online Training Program at Nerd Fitness! No guilt, no shame. Just somebody to keep you accountable, expert guidance from somebody that knows you, and peace of mind knowing you’re doing the right thing!

How did you break through your plateau?

“If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there. You must go beyond them.” -Bruce Lee 

Hopefully, I’ve covered everything you need to know about plateaus. What’s that? You were expecting some lame joke about plateaus somewhere?

You know me too well. Okay, how bout this one:

Did you know that a plateau is the highest form of flattery?

Get it?

Thank you, I’ll be here all week.

I want to hear your story:

• Have you successfully busted through a plateau? Leave a comment with how you got out of it.
• Are you currently stuck? If so, what’s ONE SPECIFIC piece of advice you’re taking from today’s article to apply to what you’re going to do this afternoon?

Let’s hear it! I’m excited to hear how I can help.

-Steve

PS: We know starting with this stuff can be intimidating. If you’re looking  to take it to the next level:

• 1-on-1 Online Coaching: A coach from Team NF gets to know you better than you know yourself and builds a workout program and nutritional strategy that fits your busy life, your body type, and your goals.
• Nerd Fitness Journey: a fun app that will show you the path for overcoming any plateau. Sign up for a free trial below:

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Photo Sources: olegmit1 © 123RF.com, Nattapol Sritongcom © 123RF.com, seeveeaar: success, Stefan Baudy: question, clement127: Eurobasket 2015, Four Bricks Tall: Mountain Biker, JD Hancock: Heroes, Anton Ivanov © 123RF.com

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So you’ve hit a workout or weight loss plateau the size of a…well, an actual plateau, eh?

Have no fear, our step-by-step guide will get you back on track! (Plus, the most badass Bruce Lee quote you’ll ever read).

Whether you’ve stalled in your weight loss journey, strength training, or some other fitness benchmark, today we’ll tell you exactly how to keep progressing by sharing with you the exact tools we use with our coaching clients.

A Nerd Fitness Coach can design you a program to keep progressing! Learn more here.

Don’t lose morale. Together we got this!

We’ll cover:

• What is a plateau?
• How do I know If I’ve hit a plateau? 3 ways to tell…
• Why am I plateauing? 4 reasons why…
• Is a plateau normal? (The Dip)
• What should I do when I hit a plateau? (Setting Personal Records)
• 5 tips and tricks for overcoming a plateau

I know how demoralizing plateaus can be, especially when it comes to strength training and weight loss – they can be a total momentum killer!

It’s actually why we built our newest app, Nerd Fitness Journey! It’s designed so when you wake up in the morning, you know the exact next step to help you reach your goals.

You can try it for free right here, so this plateau can be a thing of the past:

What is a Plateau?

A plateau occurs when you stall out on progress despite continuing to do “all of the right things,” usually including:

• Eating right
• Exercising properly
• Getting adequate rest.

And so on.

Our bodies go from losing weight consistently to getting stuck at a certain number. Or we go from building muscle and getting stronger, to having a week or two where we can’t seem to lift anything heavier.

We call this point in our training “The Plateau,” and we don’t like being stuck on them.

As we learned in a previous article on happiness, humans (nerds especially) are happier when we make progress.

When we work hard for something and don’t see progress, we get unhappy.

How Do I Know If I’ve Hit a Plateau?

I get a lot of emails from people who tell me they’re stuck in a plateau.

They talk about how they’ve been eating right, exercising, and getting enough rest and they can’t seem to make progress!

They throw their hands in the air, freak out, get discouraged, and give up or quickly move onto the next plan that they hope will work.

When somebody comes to me saying they’ve plateaued, my first response is always:

“Have you REALLLLLLLLY plateaued? REALLY?”

In a strong majority of the cases, plateaus are really just issues with concentration, tracking, and discipline in disguise. Before you think you have plateaued, consider the following:

1) HOW IS YOUR NUTRITION…REALLY? Oftentimes we think we are being diligent, until we realize that after a few weeks of eating great we’ve started slacking. “Oh I’ve been good, just this one time…” and “Hmmm, sure why not” become more commonplace as we start to fall back into old habits. Track your calories for the next week and check your numbers.

And even if you are eating the right amounts of food, there’s this: as you lose weight, your metabolism slows down. This isn’t sabotaging black magic, it’s science.

There’s simply LESS of you that your body needs to maintain.

Here is the estimated daily resting calorie burn (“sit on your ass all day”) of a 35-year old male nerd at 3 very different weights:

• 300 lbs: 2,600 calories.
• 250 lbs: 2,300 calories.
• 200 lbs: 2,000 calories.

You might have hit a plateau simply because you’ve reached an equilibrium of calories consumed to calories burned! This means you need to adjust your calorie intake to continue losing weight.

If you are trying to bulk up, are you eating ENOUGH calories to promote muscle growth? Rededicate yourself for two weeks, track your meals, and see if progress picks back up!

2) HOW ARE YOUR WORKOUTS…REALLY? If you are weeks or months into a workout plan, I bet the initial luster of “NEW! PROGRESS! WINNING!” has worn off.

Have you been skipping that last rep, cutting out an exercise here or there, or getting bored and wanting to go home?

I know when I hit a plateau at the gym, it’s generally because I haven’t been pushing myself as hard as I had been previously. Track your workouts diligently for two weeks and see if these changes kick you back on track.

3) HOW iS YOUR SLEEP?…REALLY? This is one that most people skip out on. They are exercising, eating right, but for whatever reason they’ve been slacking on their sleep.

It’s might be too much television…

We all know sleep is important – lack of sleep leads to increased levels of stress, less time for our bodies to rebuild muscle, to recover from strenuous activity, and more.

I know that if I didn’t get a good night’s sleep, then my performance in the gym the next day will suffer.

Can you honestly say you’ve spent two weeks with quality sleep, nutrition, and exercise?

In many cases we think we’re stuck, in need of some sort of drastic change or adjustment to kickstart progress again. Now, there are definitely instances where we ARE stuck or stalled, and that’s when things need to change.

However, before we cover the dreaded plateau, let’s get a few things clear.

Why Am I Plateauing?

To start, linear progress cannot continue indefinitely: 

1. If you are learning to squat and you start with just the bar, adding 5 lbs a week (which is how you should learn to squat!), you will eventually reach a point where your body cannot build the strength/muscle fast enough to continually add 5 lbs a week. If it DID work that way, in three years everybody would be squatting 1,000 pounds.
2. You will run into the same issues with weight loss. For example, it’s easier for you to lose 3 pounds a week when you are at 300 lbs than it is to lose 3 pounds a week when you are 150 pounds….there’s more of you to “lose” when you’re bigger and thus progress will be easier. If you could lose 2-3 pounds a week every week forever, at some point you’d disappear, and we don’t want that. Weight loss might slow to 1 pound every other week.
3. Your margin for error gets smaller. When you are at a higher body fat percentage, or just getting starting with training, you can make a lot of progress quickly due to there being MORE of you to lose, or MORE gains to make quickly. As you start to make progress, you can’t keep making big progress without making more and more dedicated effort.
4. Adaptive thermogensis. Our bodies WANT to maintain the extra body fat we have (“I don’t know when I’ll need this, better save”), and are actively working in unison to preserve it – so even after a few pounds, it’s going to be a persistent challenge to keep progressing. It’s a subject a dive in deep in the article “Why can’t I lose weight?” If you’ve stalled on your weight loss journey, this might be the problem, as your body is adapting to the body fat being lost.

Your progress at a consistent pace will definitely slow down, which can FEEL like a plateau. 

If you’ve been training for more than a few months, you might need to slightly adjust your expectations. Maybe this week you can only add 2.5 lbs to the bar. Or 1lb. Maybe your muscle-building will crawl to 1 lb gained a month.

It happens to all of us. Even Batman.

Now, if your progress stalls out COMPLETELY or you actually regress, AND you are doing all of the right things, then congrats!

You MAY have plateaued.

Like in games like World of Warcraft, at some point you will stop gaining experience from killing rats – you could spend all day doing so but because you’ve hit a certain level they no longer provide you with value.

It’s time to move onto attacking spiders, then orcs, then dragons.

It’s something Coach Jim brings up in this video on progressive overload:

When you started out, just doing 5 push-ups might have felt like a full workout. Now you can do 50 push-ups for a warm-up and not break a sweat.

Our bodies are constantly adapting and learning to manage the stresses we put on it, seeking the path of least resistance.

Back to our gaming analogy:

If it’s something worth doing, there will most likely be grinding involved, and that’s why I need to talk to you about The Dip.

No not a strength training type of ‘dip’, though those are good to help bust through a plateau too!

You can learn more about how we help build plateau-less workouts at Nerd Fitness by downloading our free Strength Training 101 eBook when you sign up in the box below:

Is a Plateau Normal? (The Dip)

I want to introduce you to Seth Godin, author of The Dip.

We all hit plateaus in our lives and quests for health and happiness. In order to be successful at the task at hand, we need to grind our way through that low point (or flat point) until we can climb out and continue progress.

Here’s a visualization of the dip:

When you first start something new, you can make quick progress and everything rocks because you see big changes.

However, after a few months, the reward you get from your effort decreases and it seems like you’re rapidly slowing down:

1. In the first few weeks of weight loss, everything is GREAT! The scale is moving, your clothes are getting looser, progress is exciting because it’s coming so quickly. Then, you might have a few weeks where you’re really trying hard and yet…the scale stalls or increases.
2. When building a new running habit, each new run is exhilarating – you rapidly progress from wheezing and coughing after two blocks to now being able to run a whole mile! A few months later, that progress slows, and you find yourself struggling with the same distances and speeds even though you’re doing all of the right things.
3. When lifting weights, the first few months can be life-changing. Squats, deadlifts, pull-ups, push-ups. Every session in the gym is an opportunity to see massive progress compared to the time before, except for that week or two when you walk in and you have to lift less than before! What gives!?

When we hit that dip/plateau where our hard work seems like it goes unrewarded, it’s easy to give up and say, “I’m a failure.”

Not true.

We will all experience a dip when it comes to progress on things that are important to us.

If we want to TRULY be successful, we need to anticipate the dip’s arrival and plan for it so that it doesn’t completely derail us.

Much like grinding out experience points in an RPG, sometimes we need to grind out practice in life, workouts, nutrition, and more…until we can hit that sweet spot for progress again.

So, how do we stay dedicated, focused, and motivated through the dip?

How do we progress during the plateau when we feel like our hard work is a waste of time?

We focus on small wins, and find a way to get a teeny tiny bit better.

What Should I Do When I Hit a Plateau? (Setting Personal Records)

In order for us to crawl out of a dip or off a plateau, we need to find a way to make a small win every day.

Think of these small wins like “a light to you in dark places, when all other lights go out.”

The longer we’ve been training, the older we get, and/or the more advanced we get in our training, the more likely we’ll be to hit plateaus and the more necessary it will be to grind out small victories, prepare for dips, and power through them.

Here’s how you can grind out your own small wins and prove to yourself that you are still progressing when you are in the dip:

1) TRACK EVERY SET, REP, AND WORKOUT. Find a way to be better today in SOME WAY than you were yesterday, and prove to yourself that you are still making progress – even if it’s progress in a different way than you were progressing before.

If you are stuck at 3 sets of 5 reps of 150 pounds on the bench press and haven’t been able to go up to 155 lbs for a few weeks, try 3 sets of 6 reps of 150 pounds.

Or 4 sets of 5 reps of 150 pounds.

Then come back to 3 sets of 5 reps of 155 a few weeks from now, and see if you can do that.

If you wait 60 seconds between sets, try waiting 90 seconds instead and lift a different amount

As long as SOMETHING has progressed in some way – your total amount of weight lifted, decreased time between sets, one extra rep, or one more pound lifted – it proves to yourself that you made progress. Remember, progress makes us happy.

RECORD EVERYTHING.

2) COLLECT TINY WINS. Optimus Prime doesn’t transform with one single movement; it’s a combination of hundreds of thousands of tiny movements that happen rapidly.

We are transformers (Joe especially), and our small changes add up too.

It’s these tiny, small victories that can push us over the edge. Enough small victories and we can reach that tipping point, that end of the dip where progress continues again.

Find a way to set a tiny win in SOME WAY each day that shows you that you are getting better/faster/stronger.

Here’s an example: I have been working on handstand balancing. For the past few months, my progress has stagnated and even gone in reverse on some days (helloooo Dip!).

I continued to work on building the habit of handstands for five minutes a day (Hard Hat challenge for the win!). Progress felt nonexistent, but I knew that my continued dedicated practice was adding up in ways that didn’t make themselves readily apparent.

I had “stalled,” so I focused on getting tiny wins: increasing flexibility in my wrists, staying against the wall as long as I could, practicing my kick-ups, tightening my core, etc.

Despite not being able to balance for longer than 10 seconds at any point in the past, I kicked up into a handstand, without even touching the wall (something else that had never happened before), and I held my handstand for 24 seconds!

I still have a ways to go before I’m holding perfectly vertical handstands for 60+ seconds, but months spent grinding out practice in the dip have paid off.

I made it through the plateau, and my progress has continued rapidly after struggling for months. Those months of struggle were teeny tiny wins in different ways that added up until I hit that tipping point where progress exploded.

3) TRACK OTHER METRICS OTHER THAN THE SCALE. The scale can lie. The scale will DEFINITELY slow down even if you are making progress in healthier ways, simply due to the fact that you have less weight to lose than you did before! You might also be dealing with extra water weight, or bloat, or menstruation, or anything in between.

So, track other things! Here’s what you can track to help keep you motivated while plateauing:

1. Take biweekly photos. Who cares if the scale isn’t moving. Are you looking better? Are you FEELING better? Do your clothes fit better? That is progress.
2. Take measurements. Spend 5 bucks on a cloth tape measure (or one of these), and measure the important parts of your body. Maybe the scale isn’t moving, but you took half an inch off of your waist. Or maybe you added a quarter of an inch to your arms.
3. Track your body fat percentage. A simple caliper is enough to show trends. Remember Saint? His weight went UP but his body fat percentage dropped. Had he only been tracking the scale, he might have panicked during his ‘dip.’ Fortunately, he was tracking more metrics and used that momentum to catapult himself to victory.

The goal is to consistently prove to ourselves that we are moving one step closer towards our goal. 

This is exactly the system we used when we built Nerd Fitness Journey.

When you’re working through the app, not only are you doing fun missions, but you’ll see how tasks build up to your larger goal. There’s no getting stuck or frustrated, just log in and work on the next adventure.

If you want, you can sign-up for a free trial right here:

5 Tips and Tricks for Overcoming a Plateau

The above is just the beginning. This will also help you make progress and get out of that dip:

1) Shock your workout. Our bodies crave efficiency, and love to be as lazy as possible, but we truly thrive on chaos. So introduce some chaos into your system!

Note: This is NOT the same as “muscle confusion” (which is a made-up marketing term to sell DVDs). We’re still progressing, lifting more, and doing the same exercises – we’re just throwing in some variation occasionally to help stimulate progress. 

If you do the exact same thing over and over and over, your body becomes more efficient at that activity.

In fact, your body can learn and adapt after doing the same thing enough times so that it burns fewer calories to carry out the process. So mix it up!

• If you are trying to run a faster 5K? Mix in a day of sprints rather than just basic runs.
• Trying to increase your deadlift? Rather than just doing a 1-rep max, do a day of higher volume, or train the deadlift twice a week.
• Want to squat better? Squat with higher frequency. NF Senior Coach Staci followed an advanced Smolov Squat program for 13 weeks (Warning: not for beginners). Your body can adapt and overcompensate by getting stronger.
• Want to improve your upper body strength/size? Try doing a PLP program along with your regular workouts. Starting with 10 total reps of Pull-ups, Lunges, and Push-ups, and every day add a rep, for 50 days.

2) Adjust your diet. Your body can also become quite efficient with calories (not to mention the oft-mentioned but controversial “starvation mode” theory), and can sometimes struggle to progress.

As we lay out in “Why can’t I lose weight?,” if you’ve lost a decent amount of weight, your body now burns significantly fewer calories each day (there’s less of you to manage!) This means you need to adjust your calorie intake!

So, I would start by tracking your intake and determine how many calories you should be eating.

ONLY after that doesn’t work would I recommend the following:

Consider throwing in one day a week of OVER eating, along with days where you are intermittent fasting. Keep your body guessing and see if that shocks your system back into weight loss mode.

Consider adjusting your macronutrient breakdown. Keep your protein intake high, and adjust your carbs and fats. Some people feel better or worse with high fat or low fat, high carb or low carb.

And remember, thermodynamics still rule all: weight loss requires caloric deficits.

3) REST! I’ve heard it said “there’s no such thing as “overtraining, just under-recovering.” Are you getting enough sleep?

Maybe you’re a new parent and trying to maintain your old workout routine on 2 hours of sleep a night.

Or work has you stressed like crazy and it’s causing you to eat like crap.

Rest is such an important part of a healthy lifestyle that it needs to be prioritized too. In the book Essentialism, this is referred to as “Protecting the Asset.”

You are the asset.

If you are trying to do too much, or you’re caught in a plateau, consider a week off, refocusing on sleep and recovery, and come back refreshed.

4) Adjust your goals. Maybe your body needs a new dragon to slay.

Again, nature loves chaos. If you are focused solely on weight loss, you might feel like you have stalled out. So shift your focus. Work on handstands. Or running faster.

Or doing your first pull-up.

Pick a new skill!

Try something different. Give your body a chance to recover and then come back to it.

If you’re solely focused on the scale and it stalls out, it can be depressing. So put the scale away for a month, and instead focus on the process of getting stronger and eating better. Stop stressing and remember to enjoy the game you’re playing.

5) Accept that we have bad weeks. We are complex pieces of machinery.

Sometimes shit happens.

We just have bad weeks and can’t lift enough or we GAIN weight when we expected to lose weight. It doesn’t make you a bad person, it doesn’t make you a failure, it makes you human.

So on days when you feel great, PUSH yourself harder. On days when you feel like crap, scale back the heavy lifting and focus on more reps or better technique.

The greatest predictor of success in our lives is grit (which can be developed). Grit is what you need to slog through these slow weeks. These dips are where we find out who’s truly dedicated. I know you are, and you know you are.

Remember, look for any sign of progress in any way to reveal that “light” at the end of the tunnel.

If you are stuck on a plateau when it comes to strength training, consider working with one of our Yodas in the 1-on-1 Online Training Program at Nerd Fitness! No guilt, no shame. Just somebody to keep you accountable, expert guidance from somebody that knows you, and peace of mind knowing you’re doing the right thing!

How did you break through your plateau?

“If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there. You must go beyond them.” -Bruce Lee 

Hopefully, I’ve covered everything you need to know about plateaus. What’s that? You were expecting some lame joke about plateaus somewhere?

You know me too well. Okay, how bout this one:

Did you know that a plateau is the highest form of flattery?

Get it?

Thank you, I’ll be here all week.

I want to hear your story:

• Have you successfully busted through a plateau? Leave a comment with how you got out of it.
• Are you currently stuck? If so, what’s ONE SPECIFIC piece of advice you’re taking from today’s article to apply to what you’re going to do this afternoon?

Let’s hear it! I’m excited to hear how I can help.

-Steve

PS: We know starting with this stuff can be intimidating. If you’re looking  to take it to the next level:

• 1-on-1 Online Coaching: A coach from Team NF gets to know you better than you know yourself and builds a workout program and nutritional strategy that fits your busy life, your body type, and your goals.
• Nerd Fitness Journey: a fun app that will show you the path for overcoming any plateau. Sign up for a free trial below:

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Photo Sources: olegmit1 © 123RF.com, Nattapol Sritongcom © 123RF.com, seeveeaar: success, Stefan Baudy: question, clement127: Eurobasket 2015, Four Bricks Tall: Mountain Biker, JD Hancock: Heroes, Anton Ivanov © 123RF.com

The post Blog first appeared on Nerd Fitness.

from Nerd Fitness: Helping You Lose Weight, Get Stronger, Live Better. https://ift.tt/2oHnPki
via IFTTT

So you want to start working out, but you don’t want to leave the house?

No problem! 

Our online coaches specialize in helping people get fit from home.

If you’re in a hurry, sign-up for our free weekly newsletter and we’ll send you PDFs of our “Work Out at Home” guides!

Download our Free Home Workout Guides!

Let’s go over the 8 Best At-Home Workouts so you can start training today: no gym or equipment required!

• A note on warming up and cooling down
• Home Workout #1: Beginner Bodyweight (Start Here)
• Home Workout #2: Advanced Bodyweight 
• Home Workout #3: The 20-Min Hotel Routine
• Home Workout #4: High-Intensity Interval Training 
• Home Workout #5: Attack of the Angry Birds
• Home Workout #6: Train like Batman
• Home Workout #7: The PLP Progression
• Home Workout #8: The Star Wars Workout!
• Bonus No-Equipment Workout: The Playground Circuit
• Can home workouts build muscle or help with weight loss?
• How to build your own at-home workout

Note: If you’re here because your gym is shut down due to the outbreak of Covid-19, check out our guide “How to Stay In Shape (While Staying Inside).”

At Home Warm-ups and stretching routines

No matter which at-home workout you pick, I want you to start with one important thing:

Warm-up!

I cover why you should always warm up in an article found right here. It doesn’t have to be much though, give it about five minutes to get your muscles active and your heart rate up.

This will help you do exercises properly and help prevent injury. You can run in place, do air punches and kicks, or some jumping jacks.

Here is NF Senior Coach Staci (you might know her incredible story) showing you many beginner options you can use to warm up as well:

If you’re curious, here’s my personal (advanced) warm-up:

• Jump rope: 2-3 minutes 
• Jumping jacks: 25 reps
• Bodyweight squats: 20 reps
• Lunges: 5 reps each leg.
• Hip extensions: 10 reps each side
• Hip rotations: 5 each leg
• Forward leg swings: 10 each leg
• Side leg swings: 10 each leg
• Push-ups: 10-20 reps
• Spider-man steps: 10 reps

Our goal isn’t to tire you out, instead we want to warm you up.

That’s step one.

Completing your chosen at-home workout would be step two.

Below, you’ll find 8 sequences you can follow along with!

Home Workout #1: Beginner Bodyweight

This at-home routine, as we lay out in our Beginner Bodyweight Workout article, is as follows:

• Bodyweight squats: 20 reps
• Push-ups: 10 reps
• Walking lunges: 10 each leg
• Dumbbell rows (using a gallon milk jug or another weight): 10 each arm.
• Plank: 15 seconds
• Jumping Jacks: 30 reps

We also turned it into a fun infographic with superheroes, because that’s how we roll:

 

The above is what we call “circuit training,” with the objective being to run through the workout sequence once, then again, then again.

Note: Not a milk drinker?

If you don’t have milk in the house for the rows, find something of roughly the same weight with a good handle.

Also, if you want to download this Beginner Bodyweight Workout as a worksheet, you can do so when you sign up in the box below:

It’ll help you track your progress as you begin your training.

Home Workout #2: Advanced Bodyweight 

If the beginner at-home workout above is too easy for you, move on to our Advanced Bodyweight Workout. The workout looks like this:

• One-legged squats – 10 each side [warning: super-difficult, only attempt if you’re in good enough shape]
• Bodyweight squats: 20 reps
• Walking lunges: 20 reps (10 each leg)
• Jump step-ups: 20 reps (10 each leg)
• Pull-ups: 10 reps [or inverted bodyweight rows]
• Dips (between bar stools): 10 reps
• Chin-ups: 10 reps [or inverted bodyweight rows with underhand grip]
• Push-ups: 10 reps
• Plank: 30 seconds

Not familiar with these moves? Check out the 21 Best Advanced Bodyweight Exercises for a full breakdown.

I warn you, the above sequence will hurt… in a good way. You should be proud if you can get through this three times.

Do you want to get as strong as possible so this workout ain’t no thang? 

Sign up in the box below to grab our guide, Strength Training 101: Everything You Need to Know. It’ll teach you all of these advanced bodyweight exercises!

Home Workout #3: The 20-Min Hotel Routine

Sometimes, you just plain find yourself stuck in a hotel room. Maybe you can find the hotel gym, but I bet it’s terrible! It probably has 2 machines, a broken treadmill, and no free weights. 

Ugh.

Instead, how about a 20-min workout you can do in the room itself! Utilize the furniture to its full potential.

Level 1

• Bodyweight squats: 20 reps
• Incline push-ups: 15 reps (feet on floor, hands on edge of bed or desk)
• One-arm luggage rows: 10 reps (each arm, use your suitcase as your weight)
• Reverse crunches: 10 reps

Level 2

• Overhead Squats: 25 reps
• Push-Ups: 20 reps
• Inverted Rows using the desk in your hotel room: 10 reps
• Reverse Crunches: 15 reps

Set the alarm clock to 15 minutes from now and see how many circuits you can do!

Check out our full post on hotel circuits if you want Level 3!

We have a LOT of business travelers throughout the Rebellion! Learn how they stay fit on the road with the Nerd Fitness Starter Kit!

Home Workout #4: High-Intensity Interval Training 

You don’t have to head to the gym to do High-Intensity Interval Training. You can do a complete routine right in your own home!

HIIT is just following a specific regimen where you vary your speeds and intensity throughout a shorter run, swim, bike, or row.

Unless you have a giant backyard, running at home might be tough.

But you know what doesn’t require a lot of room?

Burpees!

To complete a burpee:

• Start standing up, then squat down and kick your legs out.
• Do a push-up, bring your legs back in, and explode up into a jump.
• For a HIIT workout, try to do 20 repetitions, then rest for two minutes.
• Repeat until you hate yourself.

Check out our full guide on How to Start Interval Training for some more ideas on HIIT workouts.

You can also check out our post “The 20-Min HIIT Workout for Home” for another living-room-friendly interval routine!

Home Workout #5: Attack of the Angry Birds

The Angry Birds Workout is designed to be done when you have 5 or 10 minutes to kill.

Sort of like playing Angry Birds…

Here’s how The Angry Birds Workout Plan works: it’s deceptively simple – only four major movements.

• Bodyweight squats
• Push-ups
• Pull-ups (or inverted rows)
• Planks

If you don’t have time to run through the whole sequence, no problem!

Depending on how much time you have during the day, you can do your whole workout at once, or break up your training into four different sessions throughout the day (with each session being ONE of the exercises).

Here’s a sample day for your No-Equipment Workout:

• Wake up, do 40 jumping jacks to warm up, and then do bodyweight squats.
• At lunch, you grab your suitcase (if you’re at work, milk jug if you’re at home) and do inverted rows.
• After work, you do another 50 jumping jacks and then do your push-ups.
• After dinner, you do your planks while watching TV.

You could even split it up over two days if needed, but the goal would be to do it the whole sequence at once.

The main Angry Birds Workout article describes in detail Levels 1-6, but here’s Level 3 for you:

• Bodyweight squats: 50 reps
• Push-ups: 50 reps
• Pull-ups: 10 reps
• Planks: 3-minute hold

Once you’ve done the complete routine, you have my permission to whip out your phone and play the actual game!

Home Workout #6: Train like Batman

We love the Caped Crusader here at Nerd Fitness, so naturally we have The Batman Bodyweight Workout for you to try!

Bonus points if you somehow do this no-equipment workout in a cave, as that’s how Bruce Wayne would roll.^[1]

This workout is separated into two days for you:

Batman No-Equipment Workout Day 1:

• Rolling squat tuck-up jumps: 5 reps
• Side to side push-ups: 5 reps
• Modified headstand push-ups: 5 reps
• Jump pull-up with tuck / Pull-up with Tuck-up: 5 reps
• Handstands against wall: 8 seconds

Batman No-Equipment Workout Day 2:

• ‘180 Degree’ jump turns: 5 reps
• Tuck front lever hold: 8 seconds
• Tuck back lever hold: 8 seconds
• Low frog hold: 8 seconds

This is a relatively advanced workout already, but if you want to progress to the next level, check out the main Batman Bodyweight Workout for tips on how to do just that.

Join our free weekly newsletter! It would make Alfred Pennyworth proud.

Home Workout #7: The PLP Progression

The PLP is a progressive program in which you complete one additional rep of three exercises – Pull-Ups, Lunges, and Push-Ups – every day, for two months.

NOTE: This is NOT a beginner program, and should not be attempted unless you have been training consistently and can do multiple repetitions of pull-ups and push-ups with great form.

Like this perfect push-up:

And this perfect pull-up:

Here’s how the PLP Progression works:

Day 1:

• Pull-ups: 10 reps
• Push-ups: 10 reps
• Lunges: 10 reps (each leg)

Day 2:

• Pull-ups: 11 reps
• Push-ups: 11 reps
• Lunges: 11 reps (each leg)

Day 3:

• Pull-ups: 12 reps
• Push-ups: 12 reps
• Lunges: 12 reps (each leg)

How long do you keep doing this?

As originally envisioned by Chad Waterbury, the PLP Workout lasts 60 days.^[3]

Yeah…by the end of it you’ll be doing more than 50 pull-ups.

There are two versions:

• If you can do 10 straight pull-ups: Start day 1 with 10 reps of each.
• If you cannot do 10 straight pull-ups: Start day 1 with 1 rep of each.

Complete your required reps each day in as many sets as you need, whenever you need to. The goal is to do it in as few sets as possible, but enough so that you can complete each rep with proper form.

Want to learn more? Check out my results on the PLP Workout.

Home Workout #8: The Star Wars Workout!

Do you have access to a hallway that you can commandeer for a bit?

Then you can do our Star Wars Workout!

It’s designed to be done in a very small space, like your home’s hallway…or an escape pod.

The “Padawan” Level of this workout is:

• 30-second knee or feet front plank (3 Sets)
• 10 assisted squats or squats (3 Sets)
• 10 doorway rows (3 Sets)
• A 60-second Farmer-carry (Farmer’s Walk) dumbbells (or milk jugs) (2 sets)
• March in place for 3 minutes of intervals (6 sets of 20 seconds on, 10 seconds off)
• 8 elevated or knee push-ups (4 sets)
• 60-second Doorway Leans (2 sets)

If you want to advance to the Jedi Knight or Master Levels, check out The Star Wars Workout, which will also offer you a full description of each move.

Bonus No-Equipment Workout: The Playground Circuit

Do you have a nearby playground? Why not work out there! If you have kids, you can do it together. Or let them ignore you.

I’ll give you a Level One workout, and a Level Two. Check out The 20-Minute Playground Workout for some Level Three exercises.

Level One

• Alternating step-ups: 20 reps (10 each leg)
• Elevated push-ups: 10 reps
• Swing rows: 10 reps
• Assisted lunges: 8 reps each leg
• Bent leg reverse crunches: 10 reps

Level Two

• Bench jumps: 10 reps
• Lower incline push-ups: 10 reps
• Body rows: 10 reps
• Lunges: 8 reps each leg
• Straight leg reverse crunches: 10 reps

After you’ve gone through a complete set three times, go down the slide!

Working out doesn’t have to suck…we know how to make it fun! Join the Rebellion to become part of our community!

Can Home Workouts Build Muscle or Help With Weight Loss?

Throughout our Online Coaching Program, we get two common questions for those wanting to train at home:

1. Can working out at home help me build muscle?
2. Can working out at home help me lose weight?

The answer to both of these: yep!

Let’s tackle them one by one.

#1) Can working out at home help me build muscle?

You can 100% build muscle mass at home.

Just ask out friend Jimmy here:

Read more on how Jimmy turned into Spider-Man from home!

The trick is to follow a progressive overload strategy, as Coach Jim outlines in this video:

With progressive overload, we want to make our workouts more and more challenging, thus putting additional strain on our muscles.

So to build muscle with home workouts, focus on:

• Increasing your repetitions.
• Decreasing your rest periods between exercises.
• Performing more difficult variations (knee push-ups to push-ups).
• Increasing your time under tension (by going slower).

That will help you build strength and muscle from your casa.

Next up:

#2) Can working out at home help me lose weight?

You can totally train at home for a successful weight loss strategy.

Again, we have a great example with one of our Online Coaching Clients, Sarah the Supermom:

The trick here is to couple your home workouts with adjustments to your nutrition.

We’re big believers that you can’t outrun your fork, so any successful weight loss plan will include a focus on building a healthy plate.

That will look something like this:

If you want some help on adjusting your nutrition, I’ve got two great resources for you:

• The Nerd Fitness Guide to Healthy Eating. This massive resource will help you slowly adjust your nutrition, without forcing you to give up the food you love (yes, you can still eat pizza here and there). No more diets, instead we’ll work on building habits together.
• Nerd Fitness Coaching. If you want to take it to the next level, one of our trained professionals can help you adjust your way of eating to help you reach your goals. No shame. No judgment. Just a like-minded nerd who will show you the way.

You don’t need to do this alone. Learn how we can help.

How to Build Your Own At-Home Workout

We just went over 8 workouts you can do at home (plus a workout you can do in a park).

You don’t have to stick to these though! I have two resources to help you design your own no-equipment workout:

1. The 42 Best Bodyweight Exercises: This guide will teach you how to perform the best bodyweight exercises – no equipment required! Check it out if you are unfamiliar with any of the movements referenced in today’s guide.
2. How To Build Your Own Workout Routine: Once you’re comfortable with a handful of bodyweight exercises, use this guide to pull them all together into a full-body workout!

That should get you going on building a workout you can do in the comfort of your own home.

Want more? Alright, eager beaver, I got you.

We built THREE options for people just like you:

1) If you want step-by-step guidance, a custom workout program that levels up as you get stronger, and a coach to keep you accountable, check out our killer 1-on-1 coaching program:

2) If you want a daily prompt for doing workouts at home, check out NF 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 guide, Strength Training 101: Everything You Need to Know. It’ll help you start incorporating these bodyweight moves into your training.

Alright, your turn: I’d love to hear how your home training is going!

Which workout above did you try? Did you make one of your own?

Leave a comment below with your results or any questions you have on working out at home.

For the Rebellion!

-Steve

PS: If you were going to buy one piece of equipment to utilize in your home, a kettlebell would offer you a lot of versatility:

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Photo Sources: Tithi Luadthong © 123RF.com, Evgenii Naumov © 123RF.com; Ekaterina Minaeva © 123RF.com; Hotel Room, af8images © 123RF.com, Tithi Luadthong © 123RF.com, Vintage House Bicycle,

The post Blog first appeared on Nerd Fitness.

from Nerd Fitness: Helping You Lose Weight, Get Stronger, Live Better. https://ift.tt/2MsZ73V
via IFTTT

So you want to start working out, but you don’t want to leave the house?

No problem! 

Our online coaches specialize in helping people get fit from home.

If you’re in a hurry, sign-up for our free weekly newsletter and we’ll send you PDFs of our “Work Out at Home” guides!

Download our Free Home Workout Guides!

Let’s go over the 8 Best At-Home Workouts so you can start training today: no gym or equipment required!

• A note on warming up and cooling down
• Home Workout #1: Beginner Bodyweight (Start Here)
• Home Workout #2: Advanced Bodyweight 
• Home Workout #3: The 20-Min Hotel Routine
• Home Workout #4: High-Intensity Interval Training 
• Home Workout #5: Attack of the Angry Birds
• Home Workout #6: Train like Batman
• Home Workout #7: The PLP Progression
• Home Workout #8: The Star Wars Workout!
• Bonus No-Equipment Workout: The Playground Circuit
• Can home workouts build muscle or help with weight loss?
• How to build your own at-home workout

Note: If you’re here because your gym is shut down due to the outbreak of Covid-19, check out our guide “How to Stay In Shape (While Staying Inside).”

At Home Warm-ups and stretching routines

No matter which at-home workout you pick, I want you to start with one important thing:

Warm-up!

I cover why you should always warm up in an article found right here. It doesn’t have to be much though, give it about five minutes to get your muscles active and your heart rate up.

This will help you do exercises properly and help prevent injury. You can run in place, do air punches and kicks, or some jumping jacks.

Here is NF Senior Coach Staci (you might know her incredible story) showing you many beginner options you can use to warm up as well:

If you’re curious, here’s my personal (advanced) warm-up:

• Jump rope: 2-3 minutes 
• Jumping jacks: 25 reps
• Bodyweight squats: 20 reps
• Lunges: 5 reps each leg.
• Hip extensions: 10 reps each side
• Hip rotations: 5 each leg
• Forward leg swings: 10 each leg
• Side leg swings: 10 each leg
• Push-ups: 10-20 reps
• Spider-man steps: 10 reps

Our goal isn’t to tire you out, instead we want to warm you up.

That’s step one.

Completing your chosen at-home workout would be step two.

Below, you’ll find 8 sequences you can follow along with!

Home Workout #1: Beginner Bodyweight

This at-home routine, as we lay out in our Beginner Bodyweight Workout article, is as follows:

• Bodyweight squats: 20 reps
• Push-ups: 10 reps
• Walking lunges: 10 each leg
• Dumbbell rows (using a gallon milk jug or another weight): 10 each arm.
• Plank: 15 seconds
• Jumping Jacks: 30 reps

We also turned it into a fun infographic with superheroes, because that’s how we roll:

 

The above is what we call “circuit training,” with the objective being to run through the workout sequence once, then again, then again.

Note: Not a milk drinker?

If you don’t have milk in the house for the rows, find something of roughly the same weight with a good handle.

Also, if you want to download this Beginner Bodyweight Workout as a worksheet, you can do so when you sign up in the box below:

It’ll help you track your progress as you begin your training.

Home Workout #2: Advanced Bodyweight 

If the beginner at-home workout above is too easy for you, move on to our Advanced Bodyweight Workout. The workout looks like this:

• One-legged squats – 10 each side [warning: super-difficult, only attempt if you’re in good enough shape]
• Bodyweight squats: 20 reps
• Walking lunges: 20 reps (10 each leg)
• Jump step-ups: 20 reps (10 each leg)
• Pull-ups: 10 reps [or inverted bodyweight rows]
• Dips (between bar stools): 10 reps
• Chin-ups: 10 reps [or inverted bodyweight rows with underhand grip]
• Push-ups: 10 reps
• Plank: 30 seconds

Not familiar with these moves? Check out the 21 Best Advanced Bodyweight Exercises for a full breakdown.

I warn you, the above sequence will hurt… in a good way. You should be proud if you can get through this three times.

Do you want to get as strong as possible so this workout ain’t no thang? 

Sign up in the box below to grab our guide, Strength Training 101: Everything You Need to Know. It’ll teach you all of these advanced bodyweight exercises!

Home Workout #3: The 20-Min Hotel Routine

Sometimes, you just plain find yourself stuck in a hotel room. Maybe you can find the hotel gym, but I bet it’s terrible! It probably has 2 machines, a broken treadmill, and no free weights. 

Ugh.

Instead, how about a 20-min workout you can do in the room itself! Utilize the furniture to its full potential.

Level 1

• Bodyweight squats: 20 reps
• Incline push-ups: 15 reps (feet on floor, hands on edge of bed or desk)
• One-arm luggage rows: 10 reps (each arm, use your suitcase as your weight)
• Reverse crunches: 10 reps

Level 2

• Overhead Squats: 25 reps
• Push-Ups: 20 reps
• Inverted Rows using the desk in your hotel room: 10 reps
• Reverse Crunches: 15 reps

Set the alarm clock to 15 minutes from now and see how many circuits you can do!

Check out our full post on hotel circuits if you want Level 3!

We have a LOT of business travelers throughout the Rebellion! Learn how they stay fit on the road with the Nerd Fitness Starter Kit!

Home Workout #4: High-Intensity Interval Training 

You don’t have to head to the gym to do High-Intensity Interval Training. You can do a complete routine right in your own home!

HIIT is just following a specific regimen where you vary your speeds and intensity throughout a shorter run, swim, bike, or row.

Unless you have a giant backyard, running at home might be tough.

But you know what doesn’t require a lot of room?

Burpees!

To complete a burpee:

• Start standing up, then squat down and kick your legs out.
• Do a push-up, bring your legs back in, and explode up into a jump.
• For a HIIT workout, try to do 20 repetitions, then rest for two minutes.
• Repeat until you hate yourself.

Check out our full guide on How to Start Interval Training for some more ideas on HIIT workouts.

You can also check out our post “The 20-Min HIIT Workout for Home” for another living-room-friendly interval routine!

Home Workout #5: Attack of the Angry Birds

The Angry Birds Workout is designed to be done when you have 5 or 10 minutes to kill.

Sort of like playing Angry Birds…

Here’s how The Angry Birds Workout Plan works: it’s deceptively simple – only four major movements.

• Bodyweight squats
• Push-ups
• Pull-ups (or inverted rows)
• Planks

If you don’t have time to run through the whole sequence, no problem!

Depending on how much time you have during the day, you can do your whole workout at once, or break up your training into four different sessions throughout the day (with each session being ONE of the exercises).

Here’s a sample day for your No-Equipment Workout:

• Wake up, do 40 jumping jacks to warm up, and then do bodyweight squats.
• At lunch, you grab your suitcase (if you’re at work, milk jug if you’re at home) and do inverted rows.
• After work, you do another 50 jumping jacks and then do your push-ups.
• After dinner, you do your planks while watching TV.

You could even split it up over two days if needed, but the goal would be to do it the whole sequence at once.

The main Angry Birds Workout article describes in detail Levels 1-6, but here’s Level 3 for you:

• Bodyweight squats: 50 reps
• Push-ups: 50 reps
• Pull-ups: 10 reps
• Planks: 3-minute hold

Once you’ve done the complete routine, you have my permission to whip out your phone and play the actual game!

Home Workout #6: Train like Batman

We love the Caped Crusader here at Nerd Fitness, so naturally we have The Batman Bodyweight Workout for you to try!

Bonus points if you somehow do this no-equipment workout in a cave, as that’s how Bruce Wayne would roll.^[1]

This workout is separated into two days for you:

Batman No-Equipment Workout Day 1:

• Rolling squat tuck-up jumps: 5 reps
• Side to side push-ups: 5 reps
• Modified headstand push-ups: 5 reps
• Jump pull-up with tuck / Pull-up with Tuck-up: 5 reps
• Handstands against wall: 8 seconds

Batman No-Equipment Workout Day 2:

• ‘180 Degree’ jump turns: 5 reps
• Tuck front lever hold: 8 seconds
• Tuck back lever hold: 8 seconds
• Low frog hold: 8 seconds

This is a relatively advanced workout already, but if you want to progress to the next level, check out the main Batman Bodyweight Workout for tips on how to do just that.

Join our free weekly newsletter! It would make Alfred Pennyworth proud.

Home Workout #7: The PLP Progression

The PLP is a progressive program in which you complete one additional rep of three exercises – Pull-Ups, Lunges, and Push-Ups – every day, for two months.

NOTE: This is NOT a beginner program, and should not be attempted unless you have been training consistently and can do multiple repetitions of pull-ups and push-ups with great form.

Like this perfect push-up:

And this perfect pull-up:

Here’s how the PLP Progression works:

Day 1:

• Pull-ups: 10 reps
• Push-ups: 10 reps
• Lunges: 10 reps (each leg)

Day 2:

• Pull-ups: 11 reps
• Push-ups: 11 reps
• Lunges: 11 reps (each leg)

Day 3:

• Pull-ups: 12 reps
• Push-ups: 12 reps
• Lunges: 12 reps (each leg)

How long do you keep doing this?

As originally envisioned by Chad Waterbury, the PLP Workout lasts 60 days.^[3]

Yeah…by the end of it you’ll be doing more than 50 pull-ups.

There are two versions:

• If you can do 10 straight pull-ups: Start day 1 with 10 reps of each.
• If you cannot do 10 straight pull-ups: Start day 1 with 1 rep of each.

Complete your required reps each day in as many sets as you need, whenever you need to. The goal is to do it in as few sets as possible, but enough so that you can complete each rep with proper form.

Want to learn more? Check out my results on the PLP Workout.

Home Workout #8: The Star Wars Workout!

Do you have access to a hallway that you can commandeer for a bit?

Then you can do our Star Wars Workout!

It’s designed to be done in a very small space, like your home’s hallway…or an escape pod.

The “Padawan” Level of this workout is:

• 30-second knee or feet front plank (3 Sets)
• 10 assisted squats or squats (3 Sets)
• 10 doorway rows (3 Sets)
• A 60-second Farmer-carry (Farmer’s Walk) dumbbells (or milk jugs) (2 sets)
• March in place for 3 minutes of intervals (6 sets of 20 seconds on, 10 seconds off)
• 8 elevated or knee push-ups (4 sets)
• 60-second Doorway Leans (2 sets)

If you want to advance to the Jedi Knight or Master Levels, check out The Star Wars Workout, which will also offer you a full description of each move.

Bonus No-Equipment Workout: The Playground Circuit

Do you have a nearby playground? Why not work out there! If you have kids, you can do it together. Or let them ignore you.

I’ll give you a Level One workout, and a Level Two. Check out The 20-Minute Playground Workout for some Level Three exercises.

Level One

• Alternating step-ups: 20 reps (10 each leg)
• Elevated push-ups: 10 reps
• Swing rows: 10 reps
• Assisted lunges: 8 reps each leg
• Bent leg reverse crunches: 10 reps

Level Two

• Bench jumps: 10 reps
• Lower incline push-ups: 10 reps
• Body rows: 10 reps
• Lunges: 8 reps each leg
• Straight leg reverse crunches: 10 reps

After you’ve gone through a complete set three times, go down the slide!

Working out doesn’t have to suck…we know how to make it fun! Join the Rebellion to become part of our community!

Can Home Workouts Build Muscle or Help With Weight Loss?

Throughout our Online Coaching Program, we get two common questions for those wanting to train at home:

1. Can working out at home help me build muscle?
2. Can working out at home help me lose weight?

The answer to both of these: yep!

Let’s tackle them one by one.

#1) Can working out at home help me build muscle?

You can 100% build muscle mass at home.

Just ask out friend Jimmy here:

Read more on how Jimmy turned into Spider-Man from home!

The trick is to follow a progressive overload strategy, as Coach Jim outlines in this video:

With progressive overload, we want to make our workouts more and more challenging, thus putting additional strain on our muscles.

So to build muscle with home workouts, focus on:

• Increasing your repetitions.
• Decreasing your rest periods between exercises.
• Performing more difficult variations (knee push-ups to push-ups).
• Increasing your time under tension (by going slower).

That will help you build strength and muscle from your casa.

Next up:

#2) Can working out at home help me lose weight?

You can totally train at home for a successful weight loss strategy.

Again, we have a great example with one of our Online Coaching Clients, Sarah the Supermom:

The trick here is to couple your home workouts with adjustments to your nutrition.

We’re big believers that you can’t outrun your fork, so any successful weight loss plan will include a focus on building a healthy plate.

That will look something like this:

If you want some help on adjusting your nutrition, I’ve got two great resources for you:

• The Nerd Fitness Guide to Healthy Eating. This massive resource will help you slowly adjust your nutrition, without forcing you to give up the food you love (yes, you can still eat pizza here and there). No more diets, instead we’ll work on building habits together.
• Nerd Fitness Coaching. If you want to take it to the next level, one of our trained professionals can help you adjust your way of eating to help you reach your goals. No shame. No judgment. Just a like-minded nerd who will show you the way.

You don’t need to do this alone. Learn how we can help.

How to Build Your Own At-Home Workout

We just went over 8 workouts you can do at home (plus a workout you can do in a park).

You don’t have to stick to these though! I have two resources to help you design your own no-equipment workout:

1. The 42 Best Bodyweight Exercises: This guide will teach you how to perform the best bodyweight exercises – no equipment required! Check it out if you are unfamiliar with any of the movements referenced in today’s guide.
2. How To Build Your Own Workout Routine: Once you’re comfortable with a handful of bodyweight exercises, use this guide to pull them all together into a full-body workout!

That should get you going on building a workout you can do in the comfort of your own home.

Want more? Alright, eager beaver, I got you.

We built THREE options for people just like you:

1) If you want step-by-step guidance, a custom workout program that levels up as you get stronger, and a coach to keep you accountable, check out our killer 1-on-1 coaching program:

2) If you want a daily prompt for doing workouts at home, check out NF 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 guide, Strength Training 101: Everything You Need to Know. It’ll help you start incorporating these bodyweight moves into your training.

Alright, your turn: I’d love to hear how your home training is going!

Which workout above did you try? Did you make one of your own?

Leave a comment below with your results or any questions you have on working out at home.

For the Rebellion!

-Steve

PS: If you were going to buy one piece of equipment to utilize in your home, a kettlebell would offer you a lot of versatility:

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Photo Sources: Tithi Luadthong © 123RF.com, Evgenii Naumov © 123RF.com; Ekaterina Minaeva © 123RF.com; Hotel Room, af8images © 123RF.com, Tithi Luadthong © 123RF.com, Vintage House Bicycle,

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