Tag: Blog – Nerd Fitness

Want to get strong like these LEGOs but don’t how to start?

In this Beginner’s Guide to Strength Training (part of our Strength 101 series), you’ll have both the confidence to start getting strong with resistance training AND a plan to follow.

These are the exact strategies we use with our Online Coaching Clients to help them start strength training, and I’m excited to cover everything you need.

Let us help you start strength training! Learn more:

We’ll be digging into the following:

• How do I start strength training or resistance training?
• Which strength training program is right for me?
• 5 best strength training workouts for beginners.
• How much weight should I lift?
• The 9 best strength training exercises.
• How to know you’re doing an exercise properly (form checks)
• Strength training for weight loss.
• “Just TELL ME what strength program I should do.”

By the way, we’ve combined this article along with the rest of our strength articles into a “Strength Training 101: Everything You Need to Know” guide.

Grab it free when you join the Rebellion by putting your email in the box below.

How Do I Start Strength Training?

Welcome to the first day of the rest of your life.

You’ll look back years from now and thank “Past You” for starting strength training today.

And I promise, you WILL strength train today.

After all, strength training or resistance training doesn’t need to be scary or overcomplicated!

Strength training really comes down to two things:

• “Movement of any weight against “resistance”(including your body weight) – Doing ANY exercise that pushes your muscles outside of their comfort zone, forcing them to rebuild stronger to prepare the next challenge.
• Progressive overload: doing slightly more than last time (lift heavier weight or do 1 more rep) consistently. Your muscles will have constantly have to adapt and rebuild themselves stronger.

That’s it.

This means if you drop down and do ONE knee push-up right now, technically you’ve done a strength training workout.

It also means if you then do TWO knew push-ups tomorrow, then you are officially following a strength training routine.

In other words, YOU CAN DO THIS.

Now, there are many different “strength training” and “resistance training” paths.

Like a “skill tree” in a video game (with branching paths and progressions), you can progress up one path, and mix and match movements from others depending on the situation.

These paths depend on your goals and what equipment you have available to you.

Here are the types of strength training:

BODYWEIGHT TRAINING

Bodyweight training is simply doing an exercise in which your own body is the “weight” you are “lifting.”

Duh.

This is the BEST place for anybody – regardless of weight or age – to start their strength training journey.

Why is this the best place to start? Two big reasons:

#1) You always have your body with you (unless you are a ghost, in which case, this is awkward). This means you can work out ANYWHERE with bodyweight training:

• Our Beginner Bodyweight Workout Routine in your living room.
• Our Hotel Workout in a hotel (obvi).
• Our Park Workout in a…well, you get the point.

#2) Using your body for resistance training is the most “human” thing ever! By learning to push and pull and hang and squat and lunge, you are doing what your body is literally designed to do.

By getting strong with bodyweight movements, you’re making yourself antifragile and less injury-prone.

Bodyweight training isn’t as easy to ‘scale’ the difficulty as some of the other strength training methods (“put more weight on barbell”), but you can get REALLY strong with just bodyweight training.

For example, you can start with knee pushups, then go to regular push-ups, then elevated push-ups, then even up to things like handstands and handstand push-ups.

You just have to know HOW and WHEN to scale up (we can help there too).

Let us create a bodyweight training program for you!

DUMBBELL TRAINING

Dumbbells are a great first step into the world of weight training and strength training:

1. Most gyms will have dumbbells, even if it’s a basic gym in your apartment complex.
2. A set of dumbbells doesn’t take up a lot of room, which means you can have a pair at home without a large footprint.
3. Dumbbells make it easy to add difficulty to a bodyweight movement: holding dumbbells while doing lunges, for example.
4. Dumbbell exercises can be less intimidating than barbell training for some, and are a step towards barbell training.
5. Dumbbells have an added stabilization challenge, and will point out muscle imbalances pretty easily (“oh my right arm is stronger than my left arm.”).
6. You can scale easily. Once the 10-pound weights become too easy, pick up the 15-pound ones!

KETTLEBELL TRAINING

A kettlebell is essentially a cannonball with a handle on it. They come in any weight imaginable, they don’t take up a lot of room, and can be used in dozens of ways for a great compact workout.

Our 20-minute kettlebell workout has 8 simple exercises you can do with just one weight.

Although there are “adjustable kettlebells,” you’ll most likely be working with a single kettlebell, and then adjusting your movements for “progressive overload” (making the workout slightly more difficult each time).

If you are a member at a gym, they’ll probably have multiple kettlebells that you can use to level up.

BARBELL TRAINING

Regardless of sex or gender age, if your goal is to get strong quickly, use 20 seconds of courage and get comfortable training with a barbell (I’ll help you, I promise):

1. “Progressive overload” is easy – you simply add weights to either side of the bar, allowing you to progressively lift more and more weight each week.
2. It’s much easier to go heavy safely – especially for lower body movements like the squat and the deadlift.

The biggest downside to barbell training is that in order to train at home, you need to have purchased a squat rack, a barbell, a bench, and enough weights for your house or garage (which can be an expensive investment, especially when starting out!).

If not, you definitely will need to join a gym.

WHICH RESISTANCE TRAINING PATH IS RIGHT FOR YOU?

Not sure which path to pick? You’re not alone – this stuff can be overwhelming. Check out our 1-on-1 Coaching Program. We get to know you and your goals, will check your form via video, and make adjustments based on your progress!

Let us build a strength training workout for you that fits your busy life! Learn more:

Which Strength Training Program is Right for Me?

So, what’s the best workout program to start as a beginner?

Realistically, it’s the one that you will actually do.

Barbell training might be optimal in terms of building pure strength quickly, but if you don’t see yourself actually getting to the gym regularly – or you’re too self-conscious to enter the free weight section (for now) – no problem!

Start with bodyweight training.

Conversely, bodyweight training might seem convenient and easy to start now, but if you can’t motivate yourself to work out at home, you might be better off joining a gym.

So let’s get you a workout program!

As we cover in our “How to Find the Perfect Workout Plan (for you)”: MOST beginners will be best served by following a “full-body” or “total body” routine, 2 to 3 times per week, with a day of rest in between each workout.

This full-body workout will have 4-5 big compound movements.

A compound movement is an exercise that recruits LOTS of muscles simultaneously and forces your body to work in unison.

An example would be the barbell squat, which recruits every muscle in your core, butt, and legs to work together to lift the weight.

This is WAY more efficient – and effective at building pure strength – than doing 5 different isolated leg exercises.

Why do 5 exercises when 1 exercise will get you better results in 20% of the time?

To answer your next question, let me tell you about how many sets and reps you should do as a beginner! As we explain in our “how many sets and reps” guide:

• Reps in the 1-5 range build super dense muscle and strength.
• Reps in the 6-12 range build equal amounts of muscular power, strength, and size.
• Reps in the 12+ range primarily build muscular endurance and size and also cardiovascular health.

Many beginner strength programs will encourage you to keep things simple and just do 5 sets of 5 reps for each exercise in an effort to optimize progress as a beginner interested in strength gains.

I personally encourage people to aim for a weight that they can lift for 8-10 reps. This gives you a chance to really work on your form and lift safely!

The max lifts will come later, my friend. You gotta learn to walk before you can run!

“Staci, which workout plan is best for me?” 

It depends on your goals!

If your main goal is general fitness and fat loss, doing a circuit training workout will likely help you reach your goals (make sure you see our section below for “strength training for weight loss”).

If your main goal is to get stronger and/or put on muscle, following a more traditional, pure-strength-style gym workout is going to get you there faster.

TRUTH BOMB: ANY strength training workout will help you reach nearly any goal provided you do two things:

1. Eat correctly for your goals too. How you eat will account for 80-90% of your success or failure when it comes to weight loss or bulking up.
2. Increase the difficulty of your workouts. This is that “progressive overload” stuff we were talking about earlier. Doing 1 more bodyweight squat, lifting 5 more pounds, or completing your circuit 10 seconds faster than last workout. By forcing your body to constantly adapt, your muscles will never get complacent and have to keep burning extra calories and rebuilding themselves stronger.

Depending on your current situation, and how quickly you’re looking to cut through the “trial and error” and get expert guidance, I might have an interesting solution for you.

We have a pretty killer 1-on-1 Online Coaching Program here at Nerd Fitness. You’ll work with a coach that will build a workout program for your body type and goals, check your form to make sure you’re doing them safety, and even help plan out your nutrition too.

We help busy people transform from newbies to strong badasses! Learn more:

The 5 Best Beginner Strength Training Programs

“Alright Staci, are there any ‘out of the box’ beginner workout programs I can start following now?”

Yup! Let me share with you some of our suggestions:

Here are 5 resistance training workouts you can follow TODAY. Pick the level that you feel most comfortable with, and then level up when you feel ready:

#1) BEGINNER BODYWEIGHT WORKOUT:

Our Beginner Bodyweight Workout has a variety of rep ranges to promote endurance, strength, and cardiovascular health.

Complete one set of each exercise and then moving directly to the next exercise:

• 20 bodyweight squats
• 10 push-ups
• 20 walking lunges
• 10 dumbbell rows (using a gallon milk jug)
• 15-second plank
• 30 Jumping Jacks
• Repeat for 3 rounds

Want to stick with bodyweight training? When you’re ready to level up, check out our advanced bodyweight training circuit.

Otherwise, you can move onto weight training when you feel comfortable!

#2A) BEGINNER NERD FITNESS DUMBBELL WORKOUT

If you are just getting started with dumbbells and you’re looking for a beginner workout program to follow, this is our Level 3 Gym Workout, “Dumbbell Division”:

• 10 goblet squats
• 10 push-ups
• 10 dumbbell rows per side

I knew you’d ask, so here is Goblet Squat video explanation (from Nerd Fitness Prime):

And here is our video on how to do dumbbell rows:

#2B) BEGINNER NERD FITNESS KETTLEBELL WORKOUT

Our Beginner Kettlebell Routine is a workout you do anywhere you have room to swing a kettlebell.

So, probably not in a phone booth or a closet or a bathroom stall. But other than that, pretty much anywhere else.

Complete 3 Kettlebell Workout Circuits:

• 8 Halos (each side)
• 10 Goblet Squats
• 8 Overhead Presses (each side)
• 15 Kettlebell Swings
• 8 Bent Over Rows (each side)
• 6 Front Rack Reverse Lunge (per side)

#3) BARBELL TRAINING: 2 DAY WORKOUT SPLIT

As we cover in our “how to train in a gym” guide (where we take you from “lost sheep” to “barbell badass”), this routine is a much more focused weight training, strength building workout that gets your feet wet with barbell training. Click on ANY exercise to learn how to do it properly.

NF BEGINNER BARBELL STRENGTH WORKOUT: DAY A

Do 3 rounds of:

• 10 barbell squats
• 10 push-ups
• 10 bodyweight rows

NF BEGINNER BARBELL STRENGTH WORKOUT: DAY B

Do 3 rounds of:

• 5 barbell Romanian deadlifts
• 10 push-ups
• 10 dumbbell rows per arm

WHAT ARE SOME OTHER POPULAR STRENGTH TRAINING PROGRAMS?

#1) “Starting Strength” is considered the gold standard beginner barbell weight training program by many. We highly recommend you pick up the actual book if you are serious about barbell training – it’s one of the most important training books you can ever read.

#2) Strong Lifts 5X5: A solid workout program that starts you out very slow, with just the barbell, and helps you master form before you get too heavy. It also keeps things VERY easy with “do 5×5.” Strong Lifts has been around for a long time and is a solid program.

#3) Jim Wendler’s 5/3/1: This program allows you a little more freedom to do exercises that you enjoy, or work on personal weaknesses, because you choose some of the assistance work.

Note: You can modify any of the barbell training programs to be done with dumbbells, if that’s what you have at home!

Lastly, you can always write your own workout plan! I wrote my own workouts for a decade and it taught me a LOT about training and health.

We do have our own 1-on-1 Online Coaching Program where you’ll work with a coach that will build a strength training workout program for your body type and goals, check your form on each exercise via video, and even help you plan out your nutrition too.

If you want to learn more about our coaching program, you can click in the box below:

Want step-by-step guidance and form checks? Learn more:

How Much Weight Should I lift?

We have a FULL resource on how to determine your starting weight for lifting, but I’ll give you the gist here.

The simple to learn but tough to implement answer: lift enough so that you can get through the set, but not too much that you have NO fuel left in the tank at the end.

And then, try to lift sliiiightly more than last time.

How much weight should I start with?

• If you are using dumbbells or a kettlebell, always err on the side of “too light” versus “too heavy.” You want to learn the movement correctly and build correct form.
• If you are training with a barbell, ALWAYS start with JUST the bar, no matter the exercise (By the way, a standard barbell weighs 45 pounds).

“How fast should I add weight to the bar?”

Here’s what we teach all of our coaching clients: add the minimum amount of weight each week you can, even if you THINK you can lift more. It’s better to finish a workout full of momentum and say “I can do more!” than defeated and saying “that was too much, crapola.”

Think of it this way, even if you are adding just 5 pounds per week to the bar, within a year you would be lifting 300+ pounds!

So go SLOW. Team NF’s Steve even bought little half-pound weights and increases many of his lifts by just 1 pound per week. It’s a big part of how he transformed (jokingly) from Steve Rogers to Captain America.

And if you are looking for this content in easily digestible form, make sure you download our free Strength 101 Guide when you join the rebellion below:

The 9 Best Strength Training Exercises to Learn

If you’re new to all this “strength training” stuff, hopping into a program and going from zero to sixty might be a recipe for failure.

Instead, be patient, and take the time to learn these movements first.

I’m going to share with you the 9 best strength training exercises that every beginner should master (scroll down for full video and explanations!):

• 1. Push-up: uses every push muscle in your body (chest, shoulders, triceps)
• 2. Bodyweight squat: uses every muscle in the lower body (quads, hamstrings, glutes, core)
• 3. Bodyweight row: works every “pull” muscle and helps prepare you for a pull-up!
• 4. Pull-up or chin-up: the best “pull” exercise in history! Everybody should have a goal to get their first pull-up.
• 5. Bodyweight dip: advanced “push” movement that targets your push muscles (chest, shoulders, triceps) in a different way than push-ups.
• 6. Barbell squat: the best bang for your buck on muscle building. recruits nearly every push muscle in your whole body, and great core workout.
• 7. Barbell deadlift: the favorite exercise of every coach at Nerd Fitness. Uses every “pull,” leg, and core muscle in your body.
• 8. Barbell benchpress: as basic and powerful as they come. Uses every “push” movement in your upper body and can get you strong as heck!
• 9. Barbell press: press the bar above your head! Targets shoulders and triceps more than the chest.

Click on any of these exercises to get a FULL explanation of the movement, step-by-step:

1) The Push-Up: The best exercise you could ever do for yourself when it comes to using your bodyweight for push muscles (your chest, shoulders, and triceps):

2) The Bodyweight Squat: This exercise serves a dual purpose: it is the foundation for building strength AND helps build proper mobility. If you are going to ever do barbell squats, you need to work on hitting proper depth with a bodyweight squat first!

3) The Inverted Bodyweight Row: Until you can get your first pull-up or chin-up, these exercises are GREAT to start building your pull-muscle strength: your back, biceps, and forearms.

4) The Pull-Up and Chin-Up: Once you can support your bodyweight above the bar, the world becomes your playground. No strength training routine should be without pull-up or chin-up work! (Click here if you can’t do a pull-up or chin-up yet?)

5) The Bodyweight Dip: As you start to get stronger with push-ups and need to find a way to increase the challenge, consider doing dips – warning: these are very advanced, but incredible strength building exercises.

And now we’re into the best weight training exercises:

6) The Barbell Squat: Probably the best exercise when it comes to building strength and muscle throughout your whole body. It also burns crazy calories and makes life better. This is a MUST:

7) The Barbell Deadlift: Maybe the best exercise of all time. Actually no, it IS the best exercise of all time. It’s certainly the most primal: “pick the weight up off the ground. Done.”

This is a very technical lift, so make sure you read our article on how to do it with proper form:

8) The Barbell Press: Press a barbell above your head. This recruits all of the muscles in your chest, shoulders, and arms in order for you to lift the weight over your head.

As a bonus, you need to really flex and brace your core, which gets those muscles working too.

9) The Barbell Bench Press. Lie on a bench, and lower a barbell until it almost touches your chest. Pause, and press it back up towards the sky. Repeat! And get strong.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it: commit to trying ONE of these movements in the next week. Use 20 seconds of courage, recruit a friend who has lifted or trained before, and try your best.

And if you want somebody to help you put these into a workout program, teach you HOW to do these movements properly, and have the confidence to know you’re training correctly for your goals…

Let us create a workout program that fits your busy life!

How to KNow you’re doing a strength training movement Properly (Form Checks)

Always start out with just your body’s weight and make sure your movement is correct!

If it’s a barbell movement, use a broomstick (or PVC Pipe).

If it’s a dumbbell movement, use two sections of PVC or something else that is light and small to simulate a dumbbell.

When it comes to movements like squats, deadlifts, pull-ups, bench press, your form is crucial. Develop good habits with lightweight and you will save yourself months of frustration later and will protect you from injury.

If you’re struggling with certain elements of a movement, don’t get frustrated! Just understand that you’ll have areas in which you can improve.

How do you know if your movement is correct?

Do regular video form checks! Record yourself and watch the video.

Alternatively, an expert reviewing your specific movement can be invaluable. 

If you’re looking for someone who can do video form checks, provide feedback, and adjust your workouts based on your progress, you can check out our 1-on-1 Online Personal Training!

I’ve had an online coach for 4 years and it’s changed my life.

Never wonder if you’re doing a movement properly! Get form checks from our coaches:

You could also get expert guidance in person: Look around at your local strength and conditioning gyms and see if you could hire a coach (here’s how to find a good personal trainer) for one or two sessions just to go over the basic movements.

If you can’t do either of those two options, no big deal! Videotape yourself and compare it to the videos here in the articles. You can also post your video to the form check section of the Nerd Fitness Forums.

When I started, I really liked practicing all of the movements at home because I could watch a video online at the same time as I was watching myself do it in a mirror.

Strength Training For Weight Loss

So you’re looking to lose weight, and tired of hours of cardio (me too).

And you’re wondering if strength training for weight loss – by following one of the workouts in this guide is a viable solution.

Or, gasp – will strength training make you too bulky? (SPOILER: it won’t)

Yes, Strength training will help you lose weight IF you do two key things for effective weight loss:

• Calorie restriction: eating fewer calories than you burn every day
• Strength training with progressive overload (picking up heavier stuff)

As we point out in our “Cardio vs Intervals vs Weight Training” article, strength training is the MOST efficient method for weight loss.

Not only that, but you can find study after study after study that shows you the benefits of strength training for weight management when combined with “calorie restriction.”^[1]

As we cover in our “Why can’t I lose weight?” article, here’s why eating a caloric deficit and strength training is SO magical when combined:

When you strength train – by picking up something heavy – your muscles are “broken down” during the exercise itself, and then they rebuild themselves stronger over the next 24-48 hours.

Guess what happens during those 24-48 hours?

Your body will divert as many calories consumed as necessary to “Rebuild Muscle!”

It also diverts additional calories to “Burn as Fuel” to handle this increased “muscle rebuilding” activity.

This means two amazing things:

• Your metabolism is revved up for this time period, burning more calories than normal.
• Rebuilding muscle is a calorie taxing activity!

Not only that, but when you eat a caloric deficit, your body doesn’t have enough calories to fuel all the day’s activities. In these instances, your body will pull from your stored fat to make sure all the work still gets done.

This is the trifecta of physical transformation victory:

• You get stronger and keep the muscle you have.
• You burn through the fat you’re trying to get rid of.
• You’re decreasing your body fat percent and keeping your muscle = look good naked.

In other words, strength training + eating right is the BEST path for weight loss out there! And yes, in certain situations, you can actually lose weight AND build muscle at the same time.

So how do you put this into practice? Pick one of the strength workouts in this article. Calculate your daily caloric needs. Learn about healthy eating. And start.

In other words…

Pick up something heavy, and eat a vegetable.

These are the types of things we work on with our 1-on-1 Coaching Clients: helping them lift weights confidently and eat correctly for their goals! Let us help you:

Let our coaches create a custom strength training and weight loss plan for you!

“Just Tell Me What Strength Training Program to Follow!”

Okay! Unless you are collecting underpants, you should now have a workout program you want to try out!

“Staci, this is a lot, can you just TELL me what to do?”

Okay fine.

Here are the steps again for you:

STEP ONE: PICK YOUR WORKOUT PATH:

A) If YOU ARE TRAINING AT HOME. Pick one of these 3 based on what equipment you have:

• Beginner Bodyweight Workout (no equipment)
• Kettlebell Beginner Workout
• Dumbbell Division Workout (Level 3 of Gym Guide)

B) IF YOU ARE TRAINING IN A GYM: Amazing! I love gyms.

Read our “How to train in a gym” guide and go from Level 1 to Level 6 over the next month. Gym closed? Here’s how to build a home gym.

STEP #2: TRY A NEW EXERCISE: In addition to following a workout program, I’m gonna push outside of your comfort zone – that’s where real growth happens.

Learn ONE new movement this week.

Pick one of the exercises below and try it out!

• How to squat
• How to deadlift
• How to bench press
• How to do the overhead press
• How to do a pull-up
• How to do a push-up
• How to do an inverted row

Here are 42 bodyweight exercises you can do too.

STEP #3) HIRE A YODA: If you are somebody that just wants to be told exactly what to, how to train for your goals, and are good at following direction, consider hiring a coach.

I’ve been working with an online coach since 2014 and it has changed my life – and I do this stuff for a living!

• Read our guide on “Is a personal trainer worth it?”
• Consider the NF Online Coaching Program!

Let us help you get strong, every step of the way! Learn more:

STEP #4) JOIN THE REBELLION! If you like how we do things around here at Nerd Fitness, we’d love to have you in our community of misfits, mutants, and rebels!

Sign up in the box below and I’ll send you our free Strength 101 guide:

No matter what you do today:

Don’t be afraid of doing anything wrong – truth be told, the majority of the people in the gym don’t have any idea what they are doing, and are just as nervous as you are!

Muster up your 20 seconds of courage if you need to, and let me know in the comments how it goes!

What questions do you have about getting started?

So, what’s the biggest thing holding you back from starting strength training?

-Staci

PS – Check out the rest of the articles in our Strength Training 101 series:

• Strength Training 101
• Strength Training 101: Finding the Right Gym
• Strength Training 101: How Much Weight Should I Be Lifting?
• Strength Training 101: How to Build Muscle Quickly
• Strength Training 101: How to Squat Properly
• Strength Training 101: How to Deadlift
• Strength Training 101: How to Bench Press
• Strength Training 101: How to Do a Pull-Up
• Strength Training 101: How to Do a Bodyweight Row
• Strength Training 101: How to Do a Dip
• Strength Training 101: How to Overhead Press

photo source: LEGO bench pres, tonobalaguer © 123RF.com,Chris Christian:Strongman, W_Minshull: Stormtroopers in Gym, Lego Lifting, Rainstorm, Kristina Alexanderson: Teddy Love, 

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Want to go from a skinny guy to building muscle quickly? I got you.

I’ve spent my entire adult life trying to pack on muscle, and after years and years of trial and error, I finally cracked the code.

Today, I share that code with you!

This is a topic that is near and dear to me, because I’ve spent my life devoted to this stuff:

These are the exact tactics I’ve used, and the same strategies we use with our Online Coaching Clients.

Our coaching program helps people bulk up quickly. Learn how:

This free guide is gonna get you started off on the right foot!

Here’s what we’ll cover in this ultimate guide (click to jump to that section):

INTRO:

• How I bulked up after years of struggling as a skinny guy.

NUTRITION:

• The most important thing for putting on muscle (your diet).
• What foods should I eat to bulk up?
• What are the best bulk up strategies?
• What supplements should I take to bulk up and build muscle?

STRENGTH TRAINING:

• How to grow bigger muscles (get stronger).
• Skinny Guy Workout Plans for bulking up.
• Can bodyweight training help you bulk up?
• I am skinny fat: should I gain weight or lose weight first?

RECOVERY, TIPS AND TRICKS, NEXT STEP:

• Proper sleep and rest for putting on muscle.
• FAQ for skinny guys trying to bulk up.
• More resources for skinny guys looking to bulk up.

How I Bulked up After Years of Struggling as a Skinny Guy

Growing up, I was always the scrawny, skinny weak kid.

There was a reason I dressed up like superman every other day for the first six years of my life:

Superman was strong, big, and powerful…and I wasn’t.

To this day, it’s still a big challenge for me to gain weight or build muscle.

When people tell me “must be nice to have been skinny growing up,” I explain that a killer flat top, my height (5’2″ until I was 16), four years of braces, and two Acutane treatments made sure I still got the full adolescent experience 🙂

When I was cut from the high school basketball team (which I thought was the end of the world), I signed up for a gym membership to get big and strong.

Within five minutes I had almost killed myself when loading up way too much weight for a set of bench presses.

Fortunately I survived, and thus began my love affair with strength training.

I spent the next six years training in a gym, reading every muscle and fitness magazine I could find, drinking protein shakes religiously…and had about 3 pounds of muscle gain to show for it.

I just assumed “I’m one of those people who can’t gain weight.”

It turns out, I was doing it all wrong.

After graduating college I moved to California, signed up for a gym membership, and received a few free personal trainer sessions. 

Although I thought I had known it all (I had been training for 6 years in a gym! I read the muscle mags! I was in good shape already!), I still took the free sessions for the hell of it.

The trainer drastically simplified my workout and DOUBLED the amount of food I was eating.

I thought he was crazy, but I stuck with it.

In 30 days, I had put on 18 pounds (pictured below), increased the strength in ALL of my lifts, and felt more confident than I ever had before in my life. 

That’s when the lightbulb when off in my head: there’s a better way.

And thus began a radical redefinition of how I thought the human body worked, how muscle was built, and where I needed to put my priorities.

Since then, I’ve spent seven years learning everything I can about how muscle is built.

A few years back, I took an epic 35,000 mile trip around the world, and despite not having access to a gym for 6 months, I managed to once again pack on even more muscle and get myself in great shape without once picking up a weight (pictured below):

Again, my world was turned upside down.

I learned that gyms are not a requirement to build muscle and get stronger, though a great gym workout can certainly speed up the process.

And after a few more years of up and down challenges, I had finally – jokingly – changed from Steve Rogers to Captain America (there’s a story behind this):

I’m still not the biggest guy in the world, nor will I ever be. I’m okay with that!

I’ve learned that anyone can pack on muscle, even skinny nerds like me. 

If you’re skinny and want to get bigger, you’ll be fighting genetics the whole way, but do not let that deter you.

Anything is possible.

Today’s article outlines everything I’ve learned over the past 13 years of mistakes, successes, failures, and adventures.

The Most Important Thing for Putting on Muscle: Eat More Food.

As they say, muscle isn’t made in the gym, but in the kitchen:

If you want to bulk up, you’d be better off working out twice a week for 30 minutes and eating right, than working out 6 days a week and not eating properly.

I learned this the hard way.

I spent four years of college working out five days a week for 90 minutes a day trying to get bigger.

I drank protein shakes like I thought I was supposed to. I got a little stronger, but never bigger.

Why?

BECAUSE I DIDN’T EAT ENOUGH CALORIES.

When I get emails from people who lament the fact that they can’t gain weight, I always first ask about the person’s diet.

More often than not, that person thinks they are eating enough, but are definitely not.

Here’s the truth:

If you are not getting bigger, you are not eating enough.

Your body can burn 2000+ calories every day just existing (and then factor in exercise and, gulp, cardio – I’ll get to that in a minute), and you need to overload your system with calories in order for it to have enough fuel for the muscle building process.

Want to know how many calories you burn every day just existing?

Plug your stats into our TDEE (Total daily energy expenditure) calculator:

Click right here for our Metric calculator.

Note: we have used The Mifflin-St Jeor Equation to create this calculator! ^[1]

For every person, the number of required calories for bulking up daily is different, especially when you factor in how much you move, fidget, and how much weight you need to gain:

• For some people, it might be 2,500 calories a day.
• For others, it might be 3,500 calories a day.
• For others, it might be 5,000 calories a day.

I don’t love calorie counting (I prefer a “healthy plate” approach), but I think for a newbie starting out, tracking calories for a few days is a great place to begin.

So, track your calories using something like MyFitnessPal over a few days and get an average.

I bet you’ll discover you’re eating significantly less than you thought you were.

LEARN HOW MANY CALORIES YOU NEED TO EAT FIRST.

And then eat MORE!

Spend the next two weeks eating an additional 300-500 calories per day above your TDEE (which you calculated above) and see how your weight adjusts (and how you look in progress photos!).

If you are not getting bigger, add an additional 300-500 calories per day and repeat the process.

Depending on your training, genetics, how skinny you are, and how much muscle you need to gain, you can decide how much weight you want to gain each week.

Everybody’s results will vary, and thoughts are mixed on how quickly we can build muscle:

• Under optimal conditions, some say you can expect to gain 1 pound (.5 kg) of muscle per week,
• My results have shown that 2 lbs (1kg) per month is more realistic.
• A 2016 study^[2]revealed that strength training produced a 2.2 lb increase (1kg) increase in lean mass in 8 weeks.

Regardless of how fast you bulk up, it might be helpful for you to gain weight by putting on some fat with your muscle!

Here are things to consider if you overeat WHILE strength training: extra glycogen, some fat, and water stored in your body can be a good thing for your confidence and get you headed down the right path.

So, don’t listen to the sites or programs that say “gain 40 pounds of muscle in two months!”

Unless you’re on the juice (‘roids, not Hawaiian Punch), it’s going to be a slow, long process.

Yes, it is possible to have incredible transformations in a short amount of time, like when I gained 18 pounds (8.1kg) in 30 days

This was due to strength training, overeating, protein, and extra water weight (from supplementing with creatine):

My advice: Rather than massive weight gain over a month, you’d be much better off gaining .5-1.5 lbs. (.25-.75 kg) a week, every week, for six months…and keeping the weight on!

Now, I know this stuff isn’t easy.

There’s nothing worse than spending 6+ months in a gym and doing what you think you SHOULD be doing, only to step on the scale and realize that you haven’t made any progress!

If you’re somebody that’s worried about wasting time, or you want to have an expert guide your nutrition based on your current situation, consider checking out our Online Training Program!

Learn to bulk up correctly with our Coaching Program!

What Food Should I Eat to Bulk Up?

Let’s go through how you should be prioritizing your nutrition, nutrient by nutrient:

• Protein: rebuilds muscle after you break it down.
• Carbohydrates: provides your muscle with fuel and body weight with energy
• Fat: helps your bodily functions and can also be burned as fuel in the absence of carbs.

Let’s look at each of these individually:

PRIORITY #1: PROTEIN

Protein can come from any number of sources, including:

• Meat (steak, bison, pork).
• Fowl (chicken, turkey, duck).
• Eggs!^[3]
• Cheese and dairy.
• Fish and shellfish (salmon, tuna, shrimp).
• Legumes (black beans, chickpeas).
• Other vegetarian protein sources here.

As we cover in our “How much Protein do I need?”, claims for the amount of protein needed vary wildly from source to source (and athlete to athlete).

Here is our recommendation:

If you’re of healthy weight, active, and wish to build muscle, aim for 1 g/lb (2.2 g/kg).

If you’re an experienced lifter on a bulk, intakes up to 1.50 g/lb (3.3 g/kg) may help you minimize fat gain.

Let me simplify it for you: target at least 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight (2.2 grams per kg). 

If you’re curious, from our healthy eating article, this is what a portion of protein looks like:

Also, here’s how much protein is in a serving of food:

• 4 oz (113 g) of chicken has around 30 g of protein.
• 4 oz (113 g) of salmon has 23 g of protein
• 4 oz (113 g) of steak has 28 g of protein.

Want to get more protein? Consider protein shakes.

PRIORITY #2: CARBS

After protein, in order for you to get bigger, you need to eat enough calories, and those calories should come from sources composed of carbs and/or fats.

Here are foods full of carbohydrates you can prioritize for bulking up:

• Rice
• Quinoa
• Oats
• Legumes and lentils
• Sweet potatoes
• Yams
• Regular potatoes
• Whole grain pasta
• Whole grain bread

To help you get better at eyeballing serving sizes:

1 serving of a starchy carbohydrate is 1 cupped hand (uncooked), or your two hands forming a cup (cooked).

Here are some images to help you learn proper portion sizes (thanks to SafeFood):

In addition to consuming carbohydrates from these sources, it’s okay to consume plenty of fruit while trying to bulk up!

You can read our full “Is fruit healthy” guide to learn more.

PRIORITY #3: FAT! 

Fat is a macronutrient that you can eat that can help you reach your goals in the right quantity, as fat can be higher calorie and you can eat lots of it without feeling full.

Healthy fat can be found in foods like:

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

Science has recently come around on saturated fat too ^[4]. Once completely vilified, but now considered okay for moderate consumption.

Saturated fats can come from things like:

• Whole milk
• Full fat dairy
• Coconut oil
• Grass-fed butter
• Fatty cuts of meat
• Lard

To help you gauge: a serving size of fat is roughly the size of your thumb!

For reference, this is a single serving of almonds (162 calories):

THIS is a serving of olive oil (119 calories):

As you can see, you can eat an extra 500 calories of “healthy fats” by eating lots of “heart-healthy” fats like nuts or adding more olive oil to your meals.

PRIORITY #4: VEGETABLES!

Last but not least, you need vegetables in your diet.

If you start to eat a lot more food, your “indoor plumbing” is going to really benefit from eating some high-fiber veggies with each meal:

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

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

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

BRINGING IT ALL TOGETHER:

This plate and serving size stuff above is just to help you get started thinking about healthy food differently and in proper portion sizes.

TO RECAP, HERE’S HOW TO EAT TO BULK UP:

• Calculate your (Total daily energy expenditure) and add +500 cal over your number.
• Consume 1-1.5g per pound (2.2-3.3g per kg) of bodyweight in protein every day.
• Consume the rest of your calories from foods composed of carbs and fats.
• Always eat vegetables so that your body can actually PROCESS all this extra food.
• If you are not gaining weight, add more carbs and/or fats to your meal.

It really does come down to the following:

If you are not gaining weight fast enough, you’re not eating enough. Increase your portions of carbs and fats!

Whenever we work with coaching clients who struggle to bulk up, this is the area we target: adding more carbs and fats to each meal.

Need an expert to help you bulk up quickly and safely? Learn more:

What are the Best Popular Bulk Up Eating Strategies?

If you read the previous section, you know that we have some pretty specific “best practices” on how to bulk up. 

However, there are multiple strategies that can also work, and I’d like to cover each of those here too.

Depending on your budget, your taste in food, and your goals, these strategies will work better for some than others.

#1) The “Healthy” Bulk

I have followed this method to great success multiple times (including right now).

Ultimately, I follow the “real food” principles whenever possible (good sources of quality meat, tons of vegetables, minimal amounts of gluten and processed carbs), but mixing in some specific items that are calorie/carbohydrate dense to reach my calorie goals for the day.

This is the exact strategy we lay out in the previous section of this article.

Speaking of quality calories – how I recommend doing this – receive your Get Bigger Shopping List and Bulk Up Cheat Sheet by putting your email in the box below:

#2) The “See Food” Diet

This is the diet I used to put on 18 pounds in 30 days.

Looking back at how I ate, I’m now grossed out.

But for me at the time, it worked (and got me interested in diet research).

If you are super skinny and on a tight budget, this might be your only option, and that’s okay! Foods that are high in calories include:

Whole milk, cottage cheese, cereal, pasta, rice, potatoes, fast food, ice cream, juice, peanut butter sandwiches, fast food, meatball subs from Subway, pizza, burgers, etc.

Whatever gets you to your caloric intake goal for the day.

When I put on my 18 lbs, I used to drink 3 CytoGainer shakes a day, because it was the easiest way for me to stay on target.

If you are training properly, a majority of these calories will go towards building muscle instead of putting on a lot of fat.

Steve’s thoughts: I’m not a big fan of this method much, as I’ve come to learn the quality of food is as important (if not more so) than quantity when it comes to your overall health, and we’re aiming for bigger AND healthier.

#3) GOMAD 

Drink a gallon of whole milk every day along with your meals.

Sounds crazy, yup, but it works.

A gallon of whole milk is full of enough sugar, carbs, fats, and protein that when all said and done, results in 2400 calories consumed in liquid form.

Mix in vegetables and meat for healthy meals and you got yourself a simple to follow diet.

I’ve attempted this diet back in my younger days, and although my stomach hated me, I certainly had success with it, mostly because it was simple to follow and easy to understand.

#4) Paleo Bulk or Keto Bulk

Bulking up while following the Paleo Diet, or bulking while following a Keto Diet. 

Yes, it’s possible to bulk while following either of these diets:

If you are eating Paleo, you’ll want to eat LOTS of carbs and fats from calorie dense foods like fruit, sweet potatoes, and nuts.

If you are going Keto, you’ll want to eat LOTS of fat from cheeses, nuts, oils, and so on.

If you have the budget and want to try it, go for it. You’ll be eating truckloads of nuts, avocados, and sweet potatoes.

“WHICH STRATEGY IS BEST FOR ME?”

In our opinion, we’ve had the most success with Coaching Clients who adapt a “healthy bulk” strategy, #1 above. 

It’s a focus on real food, sustainable increase in calorie intake, and can be adjusted easily by adding or reducing total portions of carbs and fats.

But hey, you do you, boo.

What Supplements Should I take to Bulk up? How to eat more calories.

If you are struggling to consume enough whole foods every day, then here are some tips to help you reach your caloric goals to bulk up:

“WHAT SUPPLEMENTS SHOULD I TAKE TO BULK UP FAST?”

Most supplements are garbage

Plus, you should ALWAYS prioritize consuming real food over shakes and powders.

HOWEVER, if you are interested in bulking quickly, there are two I would recommend:

1. Protein Powder. A great solution for getting extra protein and calories in your diet and building muscle.^[5] As we point out in our article on protein and protein shakes, mix and match your own ingredients and see how many calories you can get into a smoothie without breaking your blender.
2. Creatine supplement. It helps your muscles retain more water ^[6], and has been shown to increase the hormone IGF-1, which is needed for muscle growth^[7]. It’s one of the only two supplements (along with protein) that I take regularly.

Outside of these two supplements, you really don’t need to prioritize supplementation, despite what the muscle magazines tell you! Hell, many of these muscle mags are OWNED BY SUPPLEMENT COMPANIES.

I’ll leave you with two more big suggestions on how to bulk up in this section: 

#1) Liquid calories are your friend. Liquid calories can give us lots of calories without ‘filling us up,’ which is an easier way to consume enough calories every day without feeling overly full.

I personally get a huge chunk of my calories every day from making my own ‘Powerbomb Shake – from our Protein Guide

1. Water: 16 oz.
2. Quaker Oats: 3 servings (120g)
3. Frozen spinach: 1.5 servings (120g)
4. Frozen mixed berries: 1.5 servings (120g)
5. Protein powder: 2 scoops of Optimum Nutrition Vanilla Whey

And here is the macronutrient breakdown:

• Calories: 815 cal
• Protein: 70g
• Carbs: 107g
• Fats: 12g

I put all of this into a Vitamix Blender – yep, it was expensive, but worth the investment. This blender has been used twice a day for 8 years without a single issue.

If you need even more calories consider adding whole milk, coconut milk, or almond milk instead of water.

You can also add a shot of olive oil to add calories/fats to a shake in the quest for MOAR MUSCLE!

#2) Train your Body to Eat More: If you are cooking rice, each week try adding in an extra quarter cup when you cook it.

And yeah, you have to FORCE your stomach to accept more food, even when you’re not hungry.

This is not enjoyable, as you often feel like you’re going to explode.

However, just like it’s necessary to force your muscles outside of your comfort zone to get bigger, you need to force your stomach outside of its comfort zone until it adapts to accepting more calories.

So, start by adding a little bit more food each day and soon enough your stomach will expand. 

How to Grow Bigger Muscles: Get Stronger

When you strength train, your muscles are broken down and then get rebuilt stronger to adapt to the stress you have applied to it.

So every time you pick up a slightly heavier weight, you are increasing the challenge and forcing your muscles to adapt and get more resilient.

What I’m trying to say:

If you want to get bigger, focus on getting stronger.

As long as you are continually increasing the weights or increase the sets and reps you are lifting, your muscles will continually adapt to get stronger.

This is called “progressive overload” and it. is. everything.

If you are doing this while eating enough calories, you will get bigger.

You have two approaches to consider while bulking up: 

PATH A: BODYBUILDER BULK. Follow a bodybuilder type routine that focuses on isolation exercises that chops your body into different segments and works each of them out once a week.

You may have seen something like this:

• Monday: Chest
• Tuesday: Legs
• Wednesday: Shoulders
• Thursday: Back
• Friday: Arms and Abs

I think these routines are fine, and you might even enjoy them.

However, they do require a fairly large time commitment at the gym, and you’ll be training 5-6 days per week.

PATH B: STRENGTH AND MUSCLE. Focus on full-body routines that contain compound exercises like squats and deadlifts that give us the most bang for our buck.

Every time you train, most of the muscles in your body are getting worked out.

Specifically, this path has you focusing on getting really strong at these movements:

• Squats
• Deadlifts
• Overhead Presses
• Bench presses
• Body rows
• Dips
• Push-ups
• Pull-ups

If you can focus on getting really strong with the above exercises, and eat enough calories, you will also get bigger in all of the right places.

Path B is something we’re bigger fans of compared to Path A, and it’s what we recommend to our Coaching Clients.

Specially, we find it to be safer and also more time-efficient: you’ll be training just 2-3 days per week on this path (instead of 5-6 days per week with Path A).

Mark Rippetoe (author of Starting Strength, a must-read for anybody interested in the above exercises) lives for old school barbell training (path B):

Why?

Because it works.

Just. Keep. Eating. And. Lifting.

Skinny Guy Workout Plans for Bulking Up

As we cover in our “How to build muscle” article, here’s a sample routine you can follow NOW to start bulking up.

After you do your dynamic warm-up, do the following workout:

MONDAY BULK UP WORKOUT:

1. Squats: 4 sets of 5 reps
2. Bench press 4 sets of 5 reps
3. Wide Grip Pull Ups: 3 sets of 10 reps
4. Planks 3 sets of 60 seconds

WEDNESDAY BULK UP WORKOUT:

1. Deadlift: 3 sets of 5 reps
2. Overhead Press: 3 sets of 5 reps
3. Inverted Bodyweight Rows: 3 sets of 10 reps
4. Hanging Knee Raises: 3 sets of 10 reps

FRIDAY BULK UP WORKOUT: 

1. Front Squats: 3 sets of 5 reps
2. Weighted Dips: 3 sets of 10 reps
3. Weighted Chin Ups: 3 sets of 10 reps
4. Reverse Crunches: 3 sets of 15 reps

Get stronger and the rest will take care of itself.

NERD FITNESS RECOMMENDATION: Feel free to pick WHATEVER workout program you want from wherever. If you don’t want to follow the workout above, consider these sources:

• 5 Beginner Strength Training Routines you can follow.
• Follow our 6 level gym workout routine.
• You can build your own workout routine.
• You can follow any workout from any muscle magazine.

If you’re curious, here are some commonly accepted strategies based on your goals for how many sets and reps you should do:

• Strength and power: 1-5 reps
• Strength and some size: 5-8 reps
• Size and some strength: 8-12 reps
• Muscular endurance: 12+ reps

Now, don’t worry too much about which path is best.

Nutrition plays the most important role in bulking up, and any strength training plan will help you get bigger.

There are 3 studies I want to point out:

1. A recent study showed that a higher intensity workout (heavier weight for low reps) created more muscle mass than a higher volume (lower weight for more reps).^[8]
2. Getting more volume (more sets of exercises) per week resulted in more mass compared to less volume (fewer sets of exercises), in this study^[9].
3. Studies show that weight training creates superior “bulk up” results compared to bodyweight training,^[10] but that doesn’t mean bodyweight training isn’t beneficial. Studies show that bodyweight training exercises can build muscle, but require a LARGE number of sets per rep, and pushing oneself to absolute failure.^[11]

What this means: Don’t overthink it. 

1. Pick up heavy stuff for 3-4 sets of 5 reps. Pick up a weight that is heavy enough that you can only complete your specified number of reps.
2. Challenge yourself on bodyweight exercises, either by making them more difficult, adding weight, or doing high reps to failure.
3. And then do more next time.

What’s important is that you pick a plan and follow through with it while focusing on eating enough.

After a few months, you can reevaluate and then adjust based on how your body has changed.

On any of these days, feel free mix in bicep curls or tricep extensions or calf-raises at the END of your workouts.

Focus on the big lifts first and get stronger with them.

How much weight should you lift? For every one of the barbell movements above, I start with just the bar, and then add weight in 5lb increments each week.

It’s important to get form right and get your body used to the movement for when you start to lift heavy weight.

How long should you wait between sets? Again, don’t overthink it. Waiting 2-3 minutes allows you lift heavier weight, and thus makes you stronger.

Waiting 60-90 seconds puts more of an emphasis on muscular size and endurance (as you’re resting for a shorter period)…but don’t overthink it. Do the next set when you’re ready.

A piece of advice from 8-time Mr. Olympia, Lee Haney: “stimulate, don’t annihilate.”

Don’t destroy yourself for the sake of destroying yourself; stopping one or two reps short of maximum effort can save you from overtraining and potential injury – remember that muscles are built in the kitchen!

If you’re already overwhelmed and just want somebody to tell you what to do, you’re not alone.

I’ve had a coach since 2014 and it’s the best investment I make in myself every month.

Our coaching program helps people bulk up quickly and safely. Learn more:

Can Bodyweight Training Help Me Bulk Up?

Yes, you can get bigger and stronger doing exclusively bodyweight exercises.

Take a look at any Olympic gymnast: he is jacked, with giant muscles, all built with bodyweight exercises:

HOWEVER, it requires a very specific type of training regiment to see those results.

Studies show that weight training creates superior “bulk up” results compared to bodyweight training,^[12] but that doesn’t mean bodyweight training isn’t beneficial.

Studies show that bodyweight training exercises can build muscle, but require a LARGE number of sets per rep. In other words, you’ll need to push yourself to absolute failure.^[13]

So, here’s where the challenges arise:

Like with weight training above, you need to increase the difficulty in order for your muscles to adapt.

Because it’s often more challenging to add a few pounds to a bodyweight exercise to make it tougher – compared to putting a weight on a bar, you need to increase the difficulty of the bodyweight movement itself.

If you are trying to build size, you can also do sets where your rep ranges are in the 25-35 reps per set, and you are pushing your muscles to failure (woof):

• If you can do 4 sets of 15 push-ups, consider making them harder to progress. Do 4 sets of 15 push ups with your feet on a bench. 

• Body weight squats too easy? Work your way up to pistol squats (one legged squats).

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Steve Kamb (@stevekamb) on Sep 22, 2014 at 1:01pm PDT

• 4 sets of 12 pull-ups not a challenge anymore? Great. Make them tougher. Go for a wider grip, an uneven grip, or weighted pull-ups.

I highly recommend beginners start to take a serious look at strength training with free weights; it’s much easier to record one’s progress, easy to add more difficulty (just add more weight!), and very structured.

You can ALSO mix in bodyweight training, which is what I prefer to do!

In fact, I personally believe the best routine mixes both weights and bodyweight training. I have been working with my online coach for 4 years, and I’ve packed on size by following a barbell + bodyweight training routine.

Weight training for my lower body, advanced bodyweight movements for my upper body.

Every day starts with either a squat, front squat or deadlift.

Here I am pulling 420 pounds at a bodyweight of 172 pounds:

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Steve Kamb (@stevekamb) on Nov 21, 2018 at 10:43am PST

Each workout also contains a lot of Olympic/gymnastic style movements and holds to build upper body strength.

Handstands too (read our guide on handstands):

And I just try to get stronger.

What it really comes down to is this: no matter what you have access to (a gym, barbell, dumbbells, or just a pull-up bar) you can find a way to build strength and muscle if you follow a plan and eat enough calories.

If you’re trying to bulk with just bodyweight, it might be worth enlisting the help of a coach to help you scale your bodyweight exercises correctly and in the proper sequence!

Learn how to bulk up with bodyweight exercises in our Online Coaching Program!

I am Skinny Fat: Should I gain or lose weight first?

If you are skinny fat (you have skinny arms and legs but have a gut), there are three paths available to you:

1. Bulk up and build muscle, then lean out.
2. Lean out, then build muscle.
3. Build muscle and lean out at the same time.

We all want Door #3, right?

Here how to do accomplish both goals at the same:

• Heavy strength training…
• While following a healthy diet and slight calorie restriction…
• To decrease your body fat fat percentage.

If you follow a program with the right calories and strength training, you can both lose weight AND build muscle at the same time.

It’s how we helped NF Coaching Client Jimmy (these photos are 5 months apart):

Our advice: Get strong and eat a SLIGHT caloric deficit while consuming enough protein every day.

Get yourself down to roughly 12% body fat (~20% for women), and then start to increase the size.

By slimming down first, while building muscle, you don’t have to worry about buying BIGGER clothes first, only to then need smaller clothes once you start cutting the fat.

Then, once you decide to eat more and get bigger, if you notice your body fat percentage start to creep up, you can simply adjust until your body fat gets back in the acceptable range. Then keep building!

To recap, here’s what to do if you are skinny-fat:

1. Eat a caloric deficit while heavy strength training to build muscle while leaning out.
2. Prioritize protein intake: 1.5g per pound (.75g per kg) of bodyweight.
3. Get strong as hell with big lifts and low reps (this will build muscle even in a deficit).
4. Once you reach a certain body fat percentage you’re happy with (probably 10-12%), then you can increase your caloric intake to build more muscle without putting on too much fat.

Our coaching program can help you rebuild your physique. Learn how:

Proper Sleep and Rest for Putting on Muscle

Last but not least, the other important piece to this Triforce of muscle building:

Strength training, eating enough, and RECOVERY.

Your body builds and rebuilds its muscles during RECOVERY.

Our muscles generally need 48 hours or so to recover from its previous workout, so I do not recommend you do any serious strength training of the same muscle group on back to back days.

Feel free to do dynamic warm-ups or fun exercise if you feel like it doing some active recovery on off days, but I tend to take my off days OFF.

I might go for a walk (to Mordor!), but that’s about it.

A word about cardio: if you are serious about getting bigger and stronger, lots of long-distance cardio will work against you.

Your body has to burn so many calories for your runs that it doesn’t get to use any of these calories in the muscle-building process.

If you love to run/bike, that’s cool, as long as you know it’s slowing (or halting) your progress.

So, cut back on the running or cut it out completely.

Try mixing in sprints and interval training if you want to keep the cardio up without having to do all of the crazy distance. You can always add it back in once you accomplish your weight gain goals.

A few words on SLEEP: You need more of it when you are building muscle.

It’s that simple.

Don’t be surprised if after a heavy deadlift day you find yourself wanting to sleep for 10 hours.

It might mean less TV or less video games.

Again, if you are serious about getting bigger and stronger, don’t neglect sleep.

FAQ for Skinny Guys Trying to Bulk Up

QUESTION: “But I just want to get toned, I don’t want to get too bulky.” 

That’s not a question, but I hear it all the time. Do NOT worry about getting too bulky. I’ve been trying to get “too bulky” my entire life – it takes years of concerted effort to pull that off.

I’m gonna guess you have 30+ pounds to gain before you’d ever even be considered “bulky.”

That means that if you struggle with weight gain, getting to the point where you are TOO bulky would actually be a good problem to solve.

As you start to put on weight if you ever find yourself getting a tiny bit too chubby, simply eat less at that point!

So, when in doubt, always err on the side of too many calories than not enough. If you’re not sure if you should eat or not, etc.

QUESTION: “But I don’t want to do that stuff, so I’m gonna do _____ instead.”

Again not a question. But hey, go for it. Give it a month, and see how your body reacts. If you’re getting bigger, stronger, and healthier, keep doing it.

If not, come back to this article and apply the lessons in here!

QUESTION: “I’m a vegetarian/vegan, can I bulk up?”

Absolutely. You just need to make sure you’re getting enough calories and enough protein in your system to promote muscle growth.

Beans and nuts have lots of protein; if you’re vegetarian you can still use dairy to your advantage (whey protein, whole milk, cheese, etc.).

If you’re vegan, then it’s slightly more of a challenge to get enough protein, but it can be done: almond butter is your friend 🙂

Check out our plant based protein suggestions.

QUESTION: “Should I do ___ reps and sets or _____ reps and sets?“

Either plan will get you there. It’s 90% diet anyways.

What’s important is that you pick a plan, you progress, you keep track of your results, and you consistently progressively increase the load that you are moving (be it your body’s weight or an actual weight).

QUESTION: “I want to get bigger and faster and have more endurance and flexibility ALL at the same time, can I do that?” 

I hate to say it, but building endurance and getting bigger simultaneously is brutally difficult.

As I point out in “How to build any physique,” compare a marathon runner’s body with that of a sprinter or gymnast. Put the running on hold for a while, and focus on getting bigger: you’ll get there faster.

When you decide to mix running back in, keep your calorie consumption high and don’t forget to keep strength training!

You can still go for walks, and still get a good cardio workout by lifting quickly with minimal breaks between sets.

QUESTION: “Do I need to eat every three hours?”

Nope, you don’t have to:

• The TOTAL number of calories you consume over the course of a day is more important than the timing of the meals.^[14]
• The same is true with protein intake: studies show it doesn’t matter WHEN you eat your protein. HOW MUCH you consume in a day is more important.^[15]

In fact, there are actually some scientific benefits that can result from not eating all day and instead condensing it into a smaller window.

But eating more frequently might help…

If you struggle to get enough calories in your system, spacing out your meals might help you feel less full, or give you more opportunities to reach your calorie goal for the day.

I eat all of my calories between 12pm and 8pm, and still get bigger despite only eating 2 MASSIVE meals each day.

QUESTION: “But what about this other article? And this other thing I read? Which workout is the best workout?”

Don’t overwhelm yourself. Keep it simple. Get stronger, eat more food, sleep. Break this down into simple steps and goals that aren’t scary, and get started.

The best advice I can give you is to start and make adjustments along the way.

Track your progress, track your calories, and track your workouts.

If you are getting bigger and stronger, keep it up!

I know this stuff can be overwhelming, as I struggled with this stuff for YEARS before getting results.

It why after I started Nerd Fitness, I eventually launched a coaching program: to help people skip the years of mistakes I made!

Learn how our 1-on-1 Coaching Program can help you!

More Resources for Skinny Guys Looking to Bulk Up

This is a monster of an article, and your head probably hurts at this point.

If I can narrow it down to three main points:

1. Get stronger by picking up heavy stuff or doing more challenging bodyweight movements.
2. Get bigger by eating enough.
3. Recover faster by sleeping enough and giving your muscles days off to rebuild.

If you made it this far, and you want more specific instruction and guidance, we have a few options for you:

1) If you are somebody that wants to follow a tailor-made program that’s designed around their life and goals, check out our popular 1-on-1 Online Coaching Program.

You’ll work with our certified NF instructors who will get to know you better than you know yourself, check your form, and program your workouts and nutrition for you.

Get step-by-step instruction, form checks, and worldwide accountability in your pocket! Learn about our Coaching Program

2) If you want a roadmap for home workouts, 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) Download our free Bulk Up Guide, which you can get when you sign up in the box below:

Lastly, I’d love to hear from you!

PLEASE leave your questions, eating or strength or otherwise below so we can answer them and become best friends and practice karate kicks in the garage:

How can I help you get bigger and stronger?

What part of this journey are you still struggling the most with?

What are your favorite bulking up foods!?

Share with your friends in the comments so we can all go buy it in bulk at Costco.

-Steve

PS: Make sure you check out the rest of our Bulk Up guides:

• How to build muscle quickly
• How fast can I build muscle?
• 9 Mistakes People Make Trying to Get Bigger
• 13 Tips for Guaranteed Weight Gain.

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Before you fork out some cash for a personal trainer, read this guide!

It’ll help you spot the difference between a bad personal trainer and an AMAZING trainer. 

And trust us, having the right trainer can make ALL the difference in the world.

There’s nothing worse than spending 6+ months in a gym (and thousands of dollars) with a trainer, only to step on the scale and realize that you haven’t made any progress.

It’s the worst.

I’ve worked with good trainers and bad trainers over the past 16 years, have worked with the same online personal trainer since 2014, and we have a team of 15 personal trainers on Team Nerd Fitness.

Long story short, we know our stuff, and we’ll give it to you straight.

Whether or not you want to check out our 1-on-1 Online Training Program, this guide is going to help you with all the details.

Learn how an online personal trainer can change your life :

In this guide we’ll cover the good, the bad, and the ugly when it comes to personal trainers – both in-person and online:

• #1) What do you need from a personal trainer?
• #2) How to find a good personal trainer.
• #3) What are the signs of a bad personal trainer?
• #4) What certifications should a personal trainer have?
• #5) How much does a personal trainer cost?
• Pros and cons of hiring an online personal trainer.
• How to hire a personal trainer: next steps. 

What do you need from a personal trainer

First and foremost, understand that your diet is 80-90% of the battle.

Even if you worked with a trainer for 60-90 minutes every day, that still leaves you with 22-23 hours per day to screw things up if you don’t eat properly!

Hopefully, your trainer will also help you craft a nutritional strategy in addition to helping you build a workout strategy that aligns with your goals.

Start by picking your goals first and determine if a trainer you’re paired up with is the right fit for you. Like dating, you can meet somebody who’s amazing but not right for you.

If somebody is a competitive marathon runner, they might not be a great powerlifting coach, and vice versa.

So, start with your goals for finding a personal trainer:

1. Are you trying to lose 300 pounds? 20 pounds? Get to 10% body fat?
2. Are you trying to get stronger or hold your first handstand?
3. Do you want to become a competitive powerlifter?
4. Are you looking to run your first 5k?
5. Do you just want to get in shape, feel better, and enjoy exercise?

These goals will largely determine the type of trainer you’re looking for.

MISTAKE #1: Not making sure your trainer has expertise in the area you want to train in.

Expertise in one area does not necessarily make them a good fit in another!

After that, you’ll want to think about what you NEED from your personal trainer:

1. Are you looking for a powerlifting coach to show you the basics (squat, deadlift, bench) so your form is right? Just a few sessions up front and a few later down the line to confirm you’re on the right path might suffice.
2. Are you new to working out or looking to kick start your first 2 months of training with 2 sessions per week to keep you disciplined?
3. What type of person are you? Do you need more hands-on guidance throughout your workouts, or more space to take ownership and thrive on your own? Do you need somebody who will cheer you on or do you need tough love from somebody to call you on your bullshit?

Once you set proper expectations with what you want and how long you need a trainer for, then you can pick out one that hopefully will work for you.

Get matched with a coach that fits your personality!

How to find a good personal trainer

Once you find a trainer you are considering working with, the next step should always be an in-depth conversation.

MISTAKE #2: Blindly accepting what your trainer tells you without making sure you fit together! 

They SHOULD be listening to you completely and hear your full story.

They SHOULD ask about any past issues with injuries or experience with exercise. If you’re injured or have any deficiencies, they should know this so they can create a great program for you.

They SHOULD ask you about your nutrition. If they don’t ask about your nutrition, you’re going to be wasting your time.

They SHOULD practice what they preach. They don’t have to be an Olympian, but should have a healthy lifestyle.

They SHOULD tell you about their expertise and how they can help you. They should be able to share past successes of clients with you or point to their credentials and history of success.

They SHOULD set proper expectations. You won’t get ripped in a month, but they can let you know it could take many months to get in shape or build the right kind of habits.

That’s what to look for. These are the things we specifically focus on with our 1-on-1 online coaching program. We love helping people in a way that fits their lifestyle, at a pace that they feel great about, while actually having fun.

Exercise doesn’t need to suck! Click to learn about our Online Coaching program:

What are the Signs of a bad personal trainer?

Beware the “entertainment exercise” trainers with a routine that isn’t catered to your goals.

MISTAKE #3: Thinking a workout is more effective because it’s confusing.

Many trainers just try to confuse you with needlessly complex movements, and put all their clients through roughly the same cookie-cutter plan.

Why? because they know it makes them look knowledgeable without actually needing to do something effectively:

“Now balance on this bosu ball while doing these dumbbell squat lunge curls and standing on one foot with your tongue out! Muscle confusion!

I hope you saved some energy for the row machine.”

Tough workouts are great, but remember that while it’s easy to get someone tired (“go do 100 burpees!”), it’s harder to help someone slowly improve and build momentum.

Sure, it might elevate your heart rate and tire you out, but if it’s not building towards your goals in a way that you couldn’t do at home, what are you paying for?

They might also have just obtained a basic certification and stopped their education there, relying on ‘conventional wisdom’ rather than doing the research and building the experience.

If your trainer says any of the following phrases, run for the high hills:

• “Yeah you don’t want to squat too low – it’s bad for your knees.”
• “Use this machine; it’s safer for you than free weights” (unless you have an injury)
• “Yes, you should be using mostly your back. That’s why it’s called the back squat”
• “These (ab) exercise will burn fat from your stomach in no time” (You can’t spot reduce fat.)

I have overheard all of these sound bites from real trainers in real gyms, and it made me weep like the Native American in the 1970s pollution ad:

Your trainer should be results-focused, not focused on scheduling you a new session and keeping you around.

I often see clients working with trainers for months and months and that client never looks any different.

The trainer is just interested in cashing another check.

Remember, your personal trainer works for YOU: Don’t let them build a program that doesn’t actually fit your needs!.

Do they adjust your workout to take care of any pre-existing injuries you may have, or do they just give you a cookie cutter workout?

Are they encouraging or helping you succeed in the way you want to be encouraged, or are they scrolling through Instagram models on their phones while you’re doing your sets?

Are they putting in the time so they can see you get results, or are they putting in the time so they can check the box and collect your money?

You’re paying money for this person’s expertise and attention – it’s not too much to ask to find somebody who takes those things seriously.

What certifications should a personal trainer have?

There are a wide variety of personal trainer certifications and other “credibility indicators.”

The more traditional path – a degree in exercise science or kinesiology may mean the trainer in question is knowledgeable about the human body.

However, that doesn’t speak to any experience they may or may not have coaching in real-world circumstances.

6 of the most popular personal trainer certifications are:

1. NSCA: National Strength and Conditioning Association
2. ACSM: American College of Sports Medicine
3. NASM: National Academy of Sports Medicine
4. ACE: American Council on Exercise
5. NPTI: National Personal Training Institute
6. CrossFit

T-Nation provides a rundown of the pros and cons from a trainer’s perspective that we feel is also useful insight from a client’s perspective. Be sure to check them out if you want to learn more about what’s behind your trainer’s certification.

CrossFit certifications are completed in a single weekend. While a CrossFit certification does not make a trainer bad (there are plenty of excellent CrossFit coaches out there!), it does not guarantee excellence either.

Here are our thoughts on CrossFit.

A certification from NPTI – the National Personal Training Institute – is a credential gained from going to a full school on personal training (rather than attending a class or taking a test).

While no certification can fully promise excellence, we believe trainers with NPTI certifications are worth your consideration.

CAVEAT TO ALL OF THIS: Plenty of trainers who have NO certification are incredible, and plenty of other trainers have the most elite certifications and are terrible trainers.

MISTAKE #4: Blindly accepting a trainer’s credentials or discounting a trainer without certain credentials.

Certifications can be a starting point, but it shouldn’t be the determining factor.

One of the most important things to look for in your trainer isn’t a credential or certification at all, but real experience and an enthusiasm for helping you reach your goals.

For example:

Looking to powerlift or get into Olympic lifting? Look for someone who has successfully competed in their fields, or someone who actually coaches athletes who do compete!

Need to lose a lot of weight? Ask a trainer to share with you success stories from people who are like you.

In our view, finding a trainer with proven experience and a track record of performing or coaching (or both) in the area of your goals is the most valuable step you can take to ensure quality.

The credential is only a starting point.

Trainers aren’t cheap, but the benefits can be priceless.

Remember, you aren’t paying simply for their time with you, but for the years and years they’ve spent learning, training, and coaching.

It’s the years behind the certification that makes their time so valuable, so expect the cost of a trainer to be significantly more than the cost of a basic membership at your gym.

Learn more about our Online Coaching program!

How much does a personal trainer cost? Are Personal Trainers Worth it?

The cost of a personal trainer can vary dramatically depending on:

• Where you live (in an expensive city, small town, etc.).
• The quantity and duration of your training sessions.
• What kind of training you are looking for.

But you want specifics.

The average North American trainer charges $55 for an hour session.^[1]

That’s an “average” so let’s break it down a little.

Here are the prices for working with a trainer in various capacities at my generic commercial gym in the NYC area (definitely on the more expensive end):

• 4 sessions per month: $95 per session = $380/month
• 8 sessions per month: $85 per session = $680/month
• 12 sessions per month: $79 per session = $948/month

Is this pricing more or less than you expected?

Here is how much a personal trainer costs at:

1. Global Gyms: Most big box gyms offer personal training:
   1. LA Fitness: you can expect to pay about $60 per session.
   2. 24-Hour Fitness: it’ll be about $80 per session.
   3. Anytime Fitness: as little as $35 a session.
2. Luxury Gyms: If you go to a more upscale gym like Equinox, expect to pay “luxury” prices of $110+ an hour.
3. In-Home Personal Training. If you don’t want to head to the gym, you can actually have a personal trainer come to your home. The cost on this could be all over the place, but a rough average would be about $65 for an hour session.

Different trainers will have different qualifications and expertise, leading to vastly different training experiences.

This can be really important.

MISTAKE #5: Thinking “more expensive” automatically means “better results.” 

Cost is not the right metric. VALUE is the right metric!

Depending on your goals and the results you’re after:

• $30 per session might be overpaying for a crap trainer who gives you a generic workout and doesn’t care about you. 
• $100 per session might be a STEAL if it’s an amazing trainer that gets to know your life and your personality, motivates you in the way you need to be motivated, and helps you get past a plateau when you stall.

That’s why remembering your “get in shape” goals is critical when buying a personal trainer.

If you’re looking to do 5 sessions to improve your powerlifting technique, that’s different than hiring a trainer to be with you in person 3x a week to get you to the gym.

HOW TO THINK ABOUT HIRING A TRAINER: 

You’re not just paying for an hour of somebody’s time.

You’re paying for their years of experience, schooling, training, and expertise.

You’re paying to outsource ALL of your fitness questions to somebody who knows what they’re doing.

Somebody who gives you the confidence you’re training correctly.

So instead of “I am paying this trainer for 1 hour, this is too expensive,” what you’re really paying for is confidence, momentum, and (hopefully) results.

As somebody who has worked with an online trainer since 2014, I would pay any amount of money to my coach (just don’t tell him that) because I love getting results after years of struggle.

How does an in-person trainer compare to our online coaching program?

Our pricing comes in at a less-expensive price than 4 sessions per month with a trainer.

In addition to building you a workout program for the month, we also help you with your nutrition, mindset, and goals, and answer all the questions you have.

There are very real pros and cons to hiring an online personal trainer, so make sure you read that next section.

So a trainer can be AMAZING and worth every penny, IF you have the right one who also takes an active role in your nutrition.

After all, workouts only make up 1-3 hours per week.

What about the other 165? That’s where the progress happens! And your coach should be helping you there too!

Learn more how our Online Coaching Program can help you actually hit your goals!

SHOULD I HIRE AN ONLINE PERSONAL TRAINER? WHAT ARE THE PROS AND CONS OF AN ONLINE PERSONAL TRAINER?

Warning: I’m going to be slightly biased in this area, but I’ll share the honest pros and cons of online training:

As I’ve mentioned, I’ve been working with an online trainer since 2014, and it’s allowed me to prove an internet troll wrong and then lose 22 pounds in 6 months while getting super strong!

Here are the Pros to Online Personal Training:

#1) Freedom to fit your schedule. With an online personal coach, you can train when and where you want to fit your schedule – your coach builds the workout program for you ahead of time, so you can fit it in at your convenience.

Compare this to a traditional coach, and you’re at the mercy of their busy schedule. If they only have time Friday morning at 8am, and you’re not a morning person, conflict ensues.

#2) Persistent worldwide accountability. I’m borrowing this phrase from a NF Coaching Client, Jeff (his success story is great). No matter where in the globe you are, your online trainer comes with you.

Which means the accountability never stops. If you travel for work, your coach can plan for that and build you a special travel routine. Getting relocated for work? No problem – your coach will still be there.

#3) Nutritional guidance. With most traditional personal trainers, you engage with them only during your scheduled visits: they help you work out and that’s about it.

With an online personal trainer, you’re connected whenever you have access to the internet. And I would imagine that MOST online coaching programs, work with you on the most important part of the equation: eating healthier!

AKA everything that happens in the 23 hours outside of the gym.

#4) More cost-effective. Most in-person personal trainers are expensive, especially if you work out with them two or three times a week.

That’s because if your trainer is working with you, they can’t work with anybody else at the same time.

When you work with an online coach, because you aren’t training with them 1-on-1 in the gym, they can provide more cost-effective guidance.

When you factor in their availability via chat and their help on habits and your nutrition, you’re looking at a life-changing experience if you find a coach that fits your personality.

#5) It might be the only option. With so many gyms closing because of the pandemic, you might not even have much of a choice here. Here’s our guide to staying in shape (while staying inside) if you need to train from home. 

When comparing online coaches versus regular coaches, I’m going to share the cons as if you have the option between a GREAT online coach and a GREAT in-person coach.

Neither of those are guaranteed.

Here are the cons of an online coach when compared against a real-life equivalent:

#1) Your coach can’t do the work for you. There’s nothing stopping you from skipping your workout and lying to your online coach that you did it. Nobody wins in this scenario, but I can totally see it happening.

So yeah, an online coach can’t pick up the weight for you, and they can’t yell at you to put down the donut. You have to do the work!

#2) No real-time feedback and instant form check. If you’re learning how to powerlift, or you’re going for a particular heavy lift, having a coach right there is HUGE.

They can tell you to move your squat slightly wider. They can guide you through the movement and consistently remind you – even when tired – to keep great form.

Although we do form check videos, where we have coaches and clients send clips back and forth to each other, it’s not the same as having somebody critique you in real-time.

If you’re looking to nail a particularly challenging lift, or learn a dangerous gymnastics move, working with a trained professional in person is invaluable.

#3) The value of sunk cost. If you pay for a month of online coaching, there’s nothing inherently motivating you to go to the gym when it’s cold and you’re tired – your coach can’t yell at you, and you’re not letting anybody down in the moment when you don’t make it.

Compare this to working with a real coach in person.

You paid $100 for a session, and if you don’t show up, that money is *POOF* gone. So you tell yourself, “I already paid for this, and my coach is gonna be mad, I should probably go.”

And then you go. And you’re so glad that you did.

Although your online coach can notice that you haven’t signed in on your app, and they can ask what’s going on, this is after the fact compared to an in-person coach getting stood up.

There’s a lot to consider when debating in-person training vs. an online personal trainer.

I wouldn’t say one format is clearly better than or superior to another. It really depends on what you’re after and the circumstances of your situation.

MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE: I’ve been working with an online trainer since 2014, and it’s truly been life-changing for me.

I had some goals that had evaded me despite a DECADE of effort, and it took a great coach to coax out the right strategy. It’s how I say (jokingly) that I went from Steve Rogers to Captain America.

And it was my coach’s programming that got me a 420-pound deadlift at a bodyweight of 172 pounds:

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Steve Kamb (@stevekamb) on Nov 21, 2018 at 10:43am PST

I’m not gonna set any powerlifting records, but I’m healthier, happier, and stronger each and every month, and I’m damn proud of that.  

For somebody that can’t afford a top-of-the-line professional coach for each session, having an online coach to build your programming and guide your food choices is a verrrrry close second.

Start training and get results today. Learn more about our Coaching Program!

How to hire a personal trainer

HERE’S MY ADVICE: Give your new personal trainer 5 sessions before making a decision that things aren’t working out (sessions are often sold at a discount in a package).

The first session is often exploratory, explanatory, and introductory, and the trainer needs to test your limits and movements to build upon that.

This isn’t a “get fit quick” strategy, but rather one that could take months and months for you to find the right person to aid you on your journey.

Don’t expect miracles in a day!

A few words of wisdom if you do hire a trainer:

DO NOT USE YOUR TRAINER AS AN EXCUSE: Too many people will hire up a trainer and give no effort in the gym or the kitchen.

Then, when they fail to see results they can turn to their friends and say “man, my trainer is terrible, THAT’S why I’m not losing weight/getting stronger/etc.”

This happens so much more often than you’d think. A trainer is a guide, like Morpheus.

You have to take the pill and walk through the door yourself.

MAKE CRITICISM CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM: Often when the trainer asks them to do something (walk every day, throw away junk food, eat a vegetable), the client/trainee comes back with 1,001 reasons why they can’t do that.

No compromise or discussion of possible solutions. This stinks.

Instead of saying “no,” offer an alternative solution and negotiate a plan: “I don’t really like broccoli, do you have a way to make vegetables taste better?”

In other words, don’t look for problems, look for solutions.

IF YOU ENJOY WORKING WITH YOUR TRAINER: Let them know and continue working with them.

The more information you can give them on your progress, the easier it will be for them to alter your program as you go on.

IF YOU DON’T ENJOY WORKING WITH YOUR TRAINER: That’s okay too. Not all relationships end in marriages.

Some first dates suck, and some trainers aren’t what you need.

I think you can be honest with them and let them know that it’s not a good fit and you will not be continuing to work with them.

Good trainers at this point will ask what they could have done better.

Trainers who are simply after your money may guilt trip you or beg you to stick around. Try somebody new and keep the search going.

REMEMBER: this is a lifelong quest, and you’re on the hunt for a great guide to help you on your journey.

They won’t do the work for you, and they can’t work miracles.

Have proper expectations, do what you’re told, and this could be the best investment you’ll make in your entire life!

Trainers in the Rebellion, what did I miss?

Those who have had experience working with Trainers, any wisdom to share from your experience?

One final note: Going to a gym is intimidating, especially if you’re starting out.

If you are in a location where there aren’t any great trainers, you don’t have access to a gym, or you’re just not ready to work with somebody in person, consider checking out our Online Coaching Program!

Schedule a free call to learn more by clicking on the image below:

Start getting results with 1-on-1 Coaching!

If you have questions about what you need to look for when it comes to training with a coach in person, or even questions about working with an online trainer, leave them in the comments below so I can chime in!

-Steve

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photo: Decathlon, wikimedia: high five, Wikimedia: Spot, Bicycle, Wikimedia: stretching, Amazing playground: bicycles and football

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There’s an argument in the fitness world that you can either choose to lose fat OR gain muscle.

They just can’t be done at the same time.

To this, I say, “Hogwash!”

We have tons of success stories from our online coaching clients who have been able to do both simultaneously:

Let us help you build muscle and lose fat at the same time! Learn more:

And that’s what we’ll cover in today’s guide!

• Can you lose fat and gain muscle at the same time? (The Controversy)
• How to lose fat.
• How to gain muscle.
• How to lose fat WHILE gaining muscle (The Science).
• Tips to lose body fat while gaining muscle.
• What should I eat to gain muscle and lose fat? (A Healthy Plate)
• How to tell if it’s all working (Continuing to lose fat while gaining muscle).

Plus, I have tons of sweet LEGO photos and silly gifs on their way, which is always a good time. 

Can You Lose Fat and Gain Muscle at the Same Time? (The Controversy)

Before we get too far ahead, let’s talk about why losing fat while gaining muscle can be problematic.

The conflict comes about over the following:

• To lose fat, your body needs to be in a caloric deficit. This deficit forces your body to use pre-existing fat stores for fuel.
• To gain muscle, your body needs to be in a caloric surplus. This surplus provides the energy your body requires to repair and build bigger muscles.

Given this, losing fat (caloric deficit) at the same time one is gaining muscle (caloric surplus) seems impossible.

However, if we go a few steps deeper into the science, it IS possible!

To appreciate the nuance here, let’s get into some specifics on losing fat and gaining muscle separately, and then we’ll combine them.

HOW DO YOU LOSE FAT?

There is a simple answer and a slightly less simple answer when it comes to losing body fat.

The simple answer: “consume fewer calories than you expend or burn.”

Eight words, and one or two of those could probably be thrown out.

When your body needs more calories than the amount you are eating, you are in a “caloric deficit.” Your body doesn’t have enough calories to go around, so it’ll start breaking down parts of itself for energy requirements.

How many calories do I need and burn every day?

(You can calculate your daily caloric needs here).

The hope is that your body will mostly pull from fat stores, though depending on how you are training it will also break down muscle too.^[1]

Said again: when you are eating a caloric deficit, your body will pull from both its fat stores AND existing muscle for energy.

From a physique and health standpoint, obviously we’d prefer that your body doesn’t break down muscle when in a caloric deficit, and instead really focuses on using fat stores instead.^[2]

I make this point for a reason: your goal in fitness shouldn’t only be “weight loss,” despite the common vernacular used.

Who cares what the scale says, right?

The goal instead is to reduce body fat while also keeping the muscle you have (or even building more muscle).

That leads to a better physique and a healthier body.

This is the reason why there is a large industry around “tracking body fat percentage.”

By reducing your total fat on your body, OR increasing muscle mass, you’ll end up with a lower body fat percentage (it’s just a simple ratio of fat to everything else).

And lower body fat percentages are where “toned arms” and “6-pack abs” hang out.

We’ll talk about tips to keep and grow muscle while in a caloric deficit further down. For now, remember you need fewer calories “in” compared to calories “out” for weight loss to occur, from either fat stores or muscle.

You may be asking, “Steve, what’s easier to do? Burn more calories or consume less?”

Good question.

Numbers will help tell the story: though this is a gross oversimplification – let’s use the ‘widely accepted’ starting point of “3,500 calories equals roughly one pound of fat.”^[3]

If you want to lose one pound – or half a kilogram – of body fat in a week (a worthy, sustainable goal for some), you would need to create a caloric deficit of 500 calories per day: either through

• Consuming 500 fewer calories
• Burning 500 more calories
• A combination of the two

Which half is easier to affect?

Here are both halves of that equation. 500 calories equals:

• The number of calories found in a Big Gulp of Mountain Dew.
• An estimate of the calories required to run five miles.

Yep.

When it comes to maintaining a caloric deficit, it really comes down to diet.

It’s significantly more effective and time-efficient to consume 500 fewer calories than it is to burn 500 additional calories.

As Time magazine controversially pointed out – with tons of cited studies – “exercise alone won’t make you thin.” It’s too easy to add more calories in, and requires too much work to effectively influence “calories out.”

Which brings us to our slightly less simple answer on how to lose body fat:

You need to watch what you eat, and do so in a  sustainable way.

Here at Nerd Fitness, we are firm believers that 80-90% of the fat loss equation comes down to diet (check out Rule # 4).

Here’s another idea we focus on: EAT MOSTLY REAL FOOD.

Meat, fish, eggs, vegetables, fruits, nuts are all great examples of REAL food.

These foods are very nutrient dense and often low in calories compared to their processed counterparts. Which means you get filled up without overeating.

Win-win-win.

Have you ever seen the difference between 200 calories of broccoli and 200 calories of a bagel? WiseGEEK does a great job of displaying this, so we’ll borrow a couple of their photos.

200 calories of broccoli:

200 calories of a bagel:

That’s why REAL food is the answer to creating a sustainable caloric deficit.

Most people can eat an entire bagel no problem. Plates of broccoli, with all of the fiber, are much tougher to overeat.

We lay it all out in our Beginner’s Guide to Healthy Eating. It’ll provide tips on how to gradually create habits that get you to a “REAL food” way of eating, including proper portion sizes, tips on batch cooking, and a cameo from Winnie the Pooh.

With all of this, we advise you to take it slow, so new habits of healthy eating become permanent.

Something you can do for the rest of your life.

It’s a strategy we work closely with our coaching clients on: small nutritional adjustments they feel comfortable making. It’s how some of them have been able to lose 50-100 pounds!

Your own Nerd Fitness Coach will find you a nutritional strategy that works for you. Learn more:

Let me explain again: what you eat will be 80%-90% of the equation to lose body fat.

The other 10-20%? Exercise.

Of course it’s exercise.

Which is a pretty good segue into…

HOW DO YOU GAIN MUSCLE?

If you want to build muscle, you’re gonna have to lift heavy things and eat in a way that your body has enough calories and protein to build that muscle.

This makes logical sense.  

In our Beginner’s Guide to Building Muscle and Strength, I summarize it as follows:

• Lift heavy things
• Eat a diet based on your goals
• Rest so your body can recover

Let’s chat about each one quickly.

1) Lift heavy things. I will always be on Team Strength Training. If you’re looking to build muscle, you’re gonna need to lift heavy things.

When you lift an object (or your own bodyweight) enough times, your muscles reach the point of failure. This causes your muscles to tear and breakdown.

When your muscle rebuilds itself following the workout, it’ll be bigger and stronger than before. Then you do it again.

And again.

And again.

As long as you are eating enough to rebuild your muscle, you’ll get stronger!

Not sure where to start on a Strength Training practice? No problem! You can download our free guide Strength Training 101: Everything You Need to Know when you join the Rebellion (our free community) below:

2) Eat a diet based on your goals. Because your muscle needs to be rebuilt after exercise, the calories are gonna need to come from somewhere. I’ll talk a lot about proper diet in the next section (with a Harry Potter analogy), so I won’t spend too much time on it here.

Just know that eating the right quantity of foods will be a big part of gaining muscle.  

3) Rest. Your body rebuilds itself while you sleep, so make sure you get plenty of rest each night. I’m talking 7-8+ hours. This will help ensure your body has the time it needs to grow stronger.

If you’re strength training and only getting 6 hours of sleep a night or less, you’re really doing yourself a disservice. Go to bed!

That’s the short gist of how to build strength: challenge your muscles, eat well, and get some rest.

Let’s narrow in on our second point, “Eat a diet based on your goals.” It’ll become very important when balancing both losing body fat and gaining muscle.

To do that properly, grab your owl, and let’s chat about Hogwarts.

How to Lose Fat WHILE Gaining Muscle (The Science)

To answer the question of losing body fat and gaining muscle at the same time, I’d like to introduce an analogy from the world of Harry Potter.

Recall the “Sorting Hat:” The Sorting Hat’s job was to determine which of the four houses kids will call their home.

It’s almost like a traffic director: “Harry, you will go to Gryffindor! Draco, you will go to Slytherin!”

Your body operates on a VERY similar operation: every day it receives new calories (when you eat), and it needs to decide what to do with them!

For example:

You eat a chicken parm sub with fries and a 20-ounce soda. Your body then has to know where to route all those calories.

To keep things simple, it has three choices. It’ll sort those calories into one of three houses:

A. Burn for Fuel.

B. Rebuild Muscle.

C. Store as Fat.

Right now, when you eat food, your body sorts most of those calories into “Burn for Fuel.”

There’s a number of calories your body needs each day just existing: to keep your liver functioning, your heart pumping, your brain operating, to regulate your body temperature, and so on – it burns a good chunk of calories just keeping the lights on.

This is your “total daily energy expenditure” which you can calculate for yourself in with our TDEE calculator.

There’s also “B. Rebuild as Muscle” and “C. Store as Fat,” which I devoted entire sections to above.

This is where the problems arise: When you overeat calories and your body doesn’t need anymore to fuel itself, it takes those extra calories and stores them as fat.

However, our goal is the OPPOSITE of this.

We want to keep the muscle we have (or grow it) while getting rid of the fat!

So let’s imagine a scenario where we pull all this together by strength training heavy AND reducing our caloric intake:

1. You strength train regularly, and your muscles break down and need to be rebuilt.
2. You don’t consume enough calories to both rebuild muscle and fuel itself. There’s not enough to go into the “Burn for Fuel” and “Rebuild Muscle” houses.

Does your body just shut down?

NOPE!

Your body has been preparing for this, by storing any excess calories over the years in the “Store as Fat” house.

This means your body can pull from “Store as Fat” to make sure all the work still gets done, including your daily functions as a human and rebuilding the muscle you tore apart.

Said another way: if you have fat stores (and we all do), you do not need to be in a “caloric surplus” to rebuild muscle. The calories stored in your fat cells act as this required energy.

There is also evidence that muscle can even be grown while in a caloric deficit.

Meaning bigger muscles with a lower belt size.^[4]

However, if you want to skip all the experimentation and trial and error, you can have a Nerd Fitness Coach do all the heavy lifting for you (not really, you’ll still need to work out).

Your Nerd Fitness Coach will build you a custom plan to lose fat and gain muscle at the same time. Learn more here!

TIPS TO LOSE BODY FAT WHILE GAINING MUSCLE

Let’s bring this all together and create some actionable steps to losing body fat and building muscle at the same time.

1) Sustain a caloric deficit while eating enough protein. You need your body to burn more calories than you consume, and also provide your body with enough protein to rebuild its muscle.

The only way to shed body fat is during a caloric deficit.

Remember the Sorting Hat analogy: If you’re eating too much, your excess calories are being sent to the “Store as Fat” house. We want to pull from this house instead. So eat less than you burn consistently. 

I have 3 resources for you:

1. Beginner’s Guide to Healthy Eating. If you want tips and tricks to create habits based on REAL food, that guide will help get you there.
2. “Determining the Perfect Diet for You.” I talk about the benefits of creating a Mental Model on nutrition like Intermittent Fasting, Paleo or Keto (or Paleolithic Ketogenic) to help navigate all the food choices you need to make.
3. Count calories: This means learning your total daily energy expenditure, and tracking your other calories through an app (or weighing your food).

You don’t have to follow some predetermined blueprint like “low-carb.” You can create your own diet (which is what I do). Learn all about it right here.

2) Strength train. If you could sell a pill that could be prescribed to every single person on Earth to make them healthier, it would look something like a strength training routine in a bottle.

It is one of the best things you can do for your body.^[5]   

And really, if you’re after building muscle, you’re gonna need to lift something! Either weights or your own bodyweight.

You need to challenge your muscles in order for them to get stronger. Now, as we discuss in our article on the correct number of reps and sets, there are multiple ways to do so.

You can lift lighter weights for lots of reps.

Or lift really heavy with fewer reps.

The important thing: pick a strategy and get started.

Here are 3 paths forward:

1. Start with a beginner bodyweight workout.
2. Follow one of our 5 Beginner Strength Training Routines.
3. Go through our 6 Level Gym Workouts.

To recap: if you train heavy and eat a caloric deficit, your body will pull from its fat stores to both fuel itself and potentially also build muscle. This is a double whammy of AWESOME.

3) Prioritize protein. Outside of being in a caloric deficit and lifting weights (or yourself), eating enough protein is one of the key components of both losing body fat and building muscle.

Protein is the number one nutrient for creating new tissue.^[6]

So when you cut out calories to create a caloric deficit, don’t cut them from protein sources.

Studies have shown that participants can gain muscle, even while in a caloric deficit, as long as they eat enough protein.^[7]

It’s important enough that I’ll say it again:

If you don’t want your body cannibalizing its muscles while you are in a caloric deficit, you need to eat plenty of protein.^[8]

How much protein?

As we point out in our Guide to Protein, roughly 1 gram for every pound of your weight, with an upper limit of 250 grams.^[9] Or two grams for every kilogram if you are on the metric system. This means:

• If you weigh 300 pounds (136 kg), eat 250g of protein.
• If you weigh 250 pounds (113 kg), eat 250g of protein.
• If you weigh 200 pounds (91 kg), eat 200g of protein.
• If you weigh 180 pounds (82 kg), eat 180g of protein.

The gist: don’t skip out on protein. It should be on your plate for every meal (we’ll show you exactly how much in the next section).

If these generalized recommendations stress you out, and you want to know exactly what to do, we can help!

I’ll remind you of Nerd Fitness Coaching, where we help clients lose body fat, gain muscle, and level up their lives. We provide tailored and specific recommendations based on your body and lifestyle, plus accountability and mindset changes to help ensure your new habits stick.

Have a Nerd Fitness Coach design you a plan to build muscle and lose fat!

WHAT SHOULD I EAT TO LOSE FAT AND GAIN MUSCLE?

Remember, your eating strategy needs to include two points to lose fat while gaining muscle:

1. Sustain a caloric deficit.
2. Prioritize protein so you can build muscle even while in a deficit.

You may be thinking, “That’s all well and good Steve, but what’s that actually look like?” 

It looks like this!

Taken from our Guide to Start Eating Healthy, which I really want you to read.

The plate is composed of the following: 

• 1-2 servings of protein (¼ of plate)
• 2 servings of vegetables (½ of plate)
• 1 serving potatoes, rice, or pasta. (1/4th of plate)
• 1 serving of fat (size of your thumb)
• 1 zero calorie or low calorie beverage (water, diet soda, tea)

By sticking to our Healthy Plate strategy above, you’ll focus on “REAL food,” which will help you maintain a caloric deficit over time.

Let’s hone in on protein for a moment, because it’s the critical piece for “building muscle.”

Protein can come from any number of sources, including:

• Meat (steak, bison, pork).
• Fowl (chicken, turkey, duck).
• Eggs!^[10]
• Fish and shellfish (salmon, tuna, shrimp).
• Legumes (black beans, chickpeas).

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

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

*The 4 oz serving is for an uncooked piece of meat. Cooking reduces about 25% of the weight, bringing it down to about 3 oz.

If you’re curious, here’s how much protein is in a serving of food:

• 4 oz (113 g) serving of chicken has around 30 g of protein.
• 4 oz (113 g) serving of salmon has 23 g of protein
• 4 oz (113 g) of steak has 28 g of protein. 

While all of the Healthy Plate above is important, I want you to pay extra attention to your protein intake since we are trying to build muscle. 

If you’re having trouble making your protein intake goals, check out our Guide on Protein Supplements for some tips and tricks to up your intake, including some awesome smoothie recipes.

This is the exact strategy I followed to lose 22 pounds and get to single-digit bodyfat percentage WHILE building muscle:

• Lift super heavy.
• Eat LOTS of protein.
• Reduce carb and fat intake.

If you are NOT losing weight, it means you are still eating too many calories. Keep your protein intake high, and reduce your fat and carbohydrate intake. 

I cover this in greater detail in our “why can’t I lose weight?” guide.

Eventually, you’ll reach a status where there just isn’t enough fat on you to help with “Rebuild Muscle.” At this stage, you can no longer stay with a caloric deficit. You’ll need to flip to a slight “caloric surplus” to build more muscle.

Which means you’ll have to eat more.

It’s debatable when this will actually occur, and we are all different. Reaching 8% body fat for men and 16% body fat for women is a good place to start.

I talk about this extensively in our guide “How to Build Muscle.”

It covers ways to increase your calories for muscle gain, from eating plentiful amounts of Paleo foods to drinking enough milk to make Santa Clause jealous.

I encourage you to read it if you are plateauing in size.

I want to stress that if you are lifting heavy, and not gaining muscle, diet is likely the culprit.

It was my problem for years, and I’ve seen it amongst countless readers of Nerd Fitness who have trouble gaining muscle.

If you want an expert who will tell you exactly when to eat more or less, check out our 1-on-1 Online Coaching Program. 

Let your Nerd Fitness Coach calculate exactly how much to eat to reach your goals. Learn more!

HOW TO TELL IF IT’S ALL WORKING (Continuing to Lose Fat While Gaining Muscle)

If you’re trying to improve something, it’s important to track it. This also holds true of body composition.

Most people do this by jumping on the scale. This can be “Ok,” but it’s only going to tell part of the story.

As I explained muscle weighs more than fat, so if you are losing body fat and gaining muscle at the same time, you might actually weigh the same. Or even more!

Despite weighing more, you could potentially have a better physique.

That’s why in addition to jumping on the scale, I would also encourage you to take progress photos.

Take front and side photos in your mirror, wearing underwear or a bathing suit. Each week, take new photos, and record the number on the scale under the same scenario. Two forms of tracking here allow us to get the full picture.

The scale sometimes lies!

If you eat for a caloric deficit, strength train, and prioritize protein, see what happens.

You may find yourself losing some fat and gaining muscle.

If not, track each category:

• Are you really in a caloric deficit? Track your calories to find out.
• Are you lifting enough? Track your compliance with never missing a workout and whether or not your progressing in increased weight or repetitions.
• Are you prioritizing protein in your meals? Track your macronutrient breakdown each time you eat.

Data can help tell the story.

…I was thinking of detailed notes.

But an android would be helpful too.

Oftentimes if you’re not seeing desired results, notes and record keeping can help point us in the direction to make adjustments.

Test your assumptions if things don’t appear to be on track. Here’s our Guide on Tracking Fitness Progress for you to learn more.

The tips outlined above will get you started losing fat while building muscle, but if you’re looking to go a bit further…

1) If you want step-by-step guidance on how to lose weight, eat better, and get stronger, check out our killer 1-on-1 coaching program:

Our Coaching program changes lives. Learn more here!

#2) If you want an exact blueprint for getting in shape, 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) Enlist in the Rebellion! We have a free email newsletter that we send out twice per week, full of tips and tricks to help you get healthy, get strong, and have fun doing so. 

I’ll also send you tons of free guides that you can use to start leveling up your life too:

Alright, I think that about does it for this guide.

Did I miss anything? Do you have any tips and tricks when it comes to shedding body fat and building muscle?

Share it with us!

-Steve,

PS: Make sure you read the rest of the articles in our “How to Lose Weight 101” Series!

• The Beginner’s Guide to Healthy Eating
• Why Can’t I Lose Weight?
• How Many Calories Should I Eat? (Our TDEE Calorie Calculator)
• What’s the Perfect Diet for Me?

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All photo sources are right here: Venting Off, Ekaterina Minaeva © 123RF.com, czgur © 123RF.com, morethanl8ve © 123RF.com, Константин Колосов © 123RF.com, Maxim Maksutov © 123RF.com, Julianna Funk © 123RF.com, jump

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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
• 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

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.

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!

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:

Our coaching program changes lives. Learn how!

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, Vintage House Bicycle,

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At some point in the past week (or five minutes ago after a Google search), you’ve made a resolution to change your life.

Maybe you decided to exercise every day. Perhaps it’s time to start eating better.

Or maybe you decided to stop wearing jorts.

Well my friend, I’m excited for you, and I want you to know you’ve arrived at the right place!

We help folks build healthy habits as part of our 1-on-1 Online Coaching Program, so you’ve come to the right place to fulfill your resolution.

We can teach you how to build habits the right way! Learn more about our Online Coaching Program:

Here’s what we’ll cover in our Guide to Build Healthy Habits in 2021:

• Why do we suck at building healthy habits?
• The first step of building healthy habits (Know your “Big Why”)
• How to build healthy habits (The three parts)
• The key to sustainable healthy habits (Use systems)
• 5 hacks for effortless healthy habit building
• The secret to fulfilling your resolution (Do less)
• Pick your habit and GO (Next steps)

Let’s get right to it so you can start rocking 2021!

Why do we suck At Building Healthy Habits?

“I know what I’m supposed to do, I just can’t get myself to do it!” Welcome to the club – we all know what we need to do, but we just can’t get ourselves to make the important changes.

We know how to get in shape: move more and eat less!

We know how to exercise: get your heart rate up, do some push-ups, get stronger.

We know how to eat healthy: more vegetables and less sugar.

And yet, we can’t get ourselves to stick with ANY of these things for longer than a few weeks.

Why?

Simple: Building new healthy habits is tough, our lizard brains crave instant gratification, we don’t fully understand how habits are built, life gets busy, and our default behavior is often as unhealthy as it is easy.

As a result, we don’t put the right systems in place in order to make changes stick.

We also rely wayyyyy too much on willpower and motivation.

We tend to bite off more than we can chew, go too fast too soon, and then get overwhelmed too quickly.

Does this sound familiar?

• I’m going to eat 100% Paleo/Keto AND
• I’m going to run 5 miles a day AND
• I’m going to work out in a gym five times a week.

If you’re somebody that eats a typically poor diet, never runs, and hasn’t set foot in a gym since grade-school dodgeball with Mr. Wazowski, changing alllll of these at once is almost a surefire way to succeed at precisely NONE of them.

We’re conditioned these days to expect and receive instant gratification. If we want food we can get it from a drive-through, stick a frozen meal in a microwave, or sit down at a restaurant that’s open 24 hours. If we want a game we can download it to our computers/phones/PS5s within a matter of seconds. If we want to watch a TV show, it’s a few clicks away.

Hell, Netflix even starts the next episode for you without any action required!

We expect getting in shape to go the same way.  

And this is why we suck at building healthy habits that stick.

We tell ourselves “Hey, I’ve been dedicated for a whole two weeks, why don’t I look like Ryan Reynolds yet?”, not remembering that it took us decades of unhealthy living to get where we are, which means it’s going to take more than a few weeks to reverse the trend.

And then we miss a workout because life was busy or our kid got sick. And we get disheartened that exercise or giving up candy is not nearly as fun as Netflix and video games and Peanut M&M’s.

This is where everybody gives up:

• They try to change too many habits too soon
• They get impatient the results don’t come more quickly
• They slip up when life gets busy
• And they go back to square one

It’s why we are doomed to stay overweight and suck at building habits. It’s the videogame equivalent of attacking too many bad guys at once, which always leads to:

We’ll cover the specific healthy habits and resolutions you SHOULD be picking later in this article, but I have a big damn question to ask you first: “But why though?”

The First Step of Building Healthy Habits (Know Your “Big Why”)

Before we do ANYTHING with actually building habits, you need a damn good reason as to why you want to build them in the first place or the changes will never stick.

This whole “change who I am” stuff needs to be at the center of your decision making moving forward.

And if you don’t have a good reason, you’re dead in the water:

If you’re here because you decided you “should” get in shape, you’re going to fail the second life gets busy.

If you are dragging yourself to the gym because you think you “should” run on a treadmill five days a week even though you hate it, you’re screwed!

As you’re determining the habits or resolutions you’re trying to set, make the habit part of a bigger cause that’s worth the struggle.

You’re not just going to the gym, you’re building a new body that you’re not ashamed of so you can start dating again.

You’re not just learning to like vegetables, you’re losing weight so you can fit into your dream wedding dress.

You’re not just dragging yourself out of bed early, you’re getting up earlier so you can work on your side business before your kids get up so you can set money aside for their college education.

In our 1-on-1 Coaching Program and throughout Nerd Fitness Prime, we refer to this as your “Big Why.” Without it, you’re just forcing yourself to do things you don’t like to do – that’ll never last.

Tie it to a greater cause and you’re infinitely more likely to push through the muck and mire to get it done.

So dig 3 levels deep and ask “why” until you get to the root cause of WHY you want to build a new healthy habit or change a bad one. Write it down. And hang it up somewhere you can see it every day.

Got your reason? Great.

Now let’s get into the science of habits.

How to Build Healthy Habits (The Three Parts)

As Charles Duhigg points out in The Power of Habit (a must-read for anybody interested in behavior change), there are three parts to a habit:

#1) Cue (what triggers the action): It can be a feeling: I’m tired, I’m hungry, I’m bored, I’m sad. Or it can be a time of day: it’s Monday at 9am, work is done, etc.

#2) Routine (the action itself): This can either be a negative action you want to cut back: I drink soda, I eat cake, I snack, I drink alcohol, I smoke cigarettes, I watch TV – or a positive one: I go to the gym, I go for a run, I do push-ups, I read a book.

#3) Reward (the positive result because of the action): I’m now awake. I am temporarily happy. My hands/mind are occupied. I can forget the bad day I had. I feel energized. I feel good about myself.

Depending on your routine/action above, habits can either be empowering and amazing, or part of a negative downward spiral. Your body isn’t smart enough to KNOW what it needs to do: it just wants to fix the pain or chase the pleasure of the cue, and whichever way you choose to respond will become the habit when it’s done enough times.

Factor in genius marketing, behavioral psychology, and an environment set up for us to fail – and bad habits rule us.

It’s why we crave certain foods, why we can’t help but check our phone every time it vibrates, and why we can’t keep ourselves from watching one more episode or grinding one more level in World of Warcraft.

Duhigg lays things out very clearly:

“There is nothing programmed into our brains that makes us see a box of doughnuts and automatically want a sugary treat.

But once our brain learns that a doughnut box contains yummy sugar and other carbohydrates, it will start anticipating the sugar high. Our brains will push us toward the box. Then, if we don’t eat the doughnut, we’ll feel disappointed.”

Picture this:

• We have trained your brain to take a cue (you see a doughnut), anticipate a reward (a sugar high), and make the behavior automatic (nom nom that donut).
• Compare that to a cue (you see your running shoes), anticipate a reward (a runner’s high), and make the behavior automatic (go for a run!).

The Dark Knight himself said it best: “It’s not who I am underneath, but what I do that defines me.”

Let’s take a look at each part of the habit-building process and start to hack the sh** out of it!

Learn Your Cues: Recognize the triggers.

Whether you are trying to change an old habit, stop an unhealthy habit, or begin a healthy habit, it starts with the first step in the process:

“The Cue.”

If you want to stop drinking soda, but feel like you need it every afternoon to get through work, your brain has been wired to think SODA after the cue:

• Cue: I’m tired, thirsty, and have no energy.
• Routine: I drink a soda around 3pm.
• Reward: Weeeeee caffeine! Sugar! Happy! My life has meaning!

When identifying bad habits to avoid, it starts by becoming aware of the cue that sets the habit in motion. Simply being aware of the cue is a great start to breaking the cycle:

• When I get bored (cue), I eat snacks (routine), and it fills the void with a happy stomach (reward).
• When I come home from work (cue), I plop down on the couch and play video games (routine), and it helps me forget about work (reward).
• When I get nervous (cue), I start to bite my nails (routine), to take my mind off the awkwardness (reward).

So if you are looking to break a bad habit, it begins by identifying what the cues are that make you take the action that you’re trying to stop.

At the same time, you can mentally train yourself, just like Pavlov’s dog, to build a new healthy habit by identifying the habit you want to build and the cue you want to use to proceed it:

• When I wake up (cue), I will go for a walk (routine), and reward myself with an audiobook on the walk (reward)
• When I get tired (cue), I will drink black coffee instead of soda (routine), and along with the caffeine boost (reward), I’ll get new running shoes after 30 soda-free days (reward), and satisfaction from the weight loss thanks to fewer calories (reward).
• When I come home from work (cue), I will walk straight to my computer to work on my novel for 30 minutes (routine), and reward myself with Netflix after I have written 500 words (reward).

So, whether you’re breaking a bad habit or starting a new one, it begins by recognizing the cue that triggers the habit.

Once you recognize or pick the cue, you can start working on fixing the routine (action).

The Key to Sustainable Healthy Habits: Use Systems

“Steve, I get it, but I still struggle with the ‘building the routine’ part…for some reason I just can’t bring myself to do it.”

Yup – welcome to the toughest part of a habit:

The Routine (the action itself!).

This is where we’re going to start thinking and acting like nerds and scientists.

Whether we’re trying to stop a negative routine (stop drinking soda) or start doing a healthy routine (start running), both need to be addressed with a different plan of attack.

For starters, we’re going to stop relying on two things:

• Willpower: if you have to get yourself to exercise, you’ll give up when you get too busy or it’s too cold.
• Motivation: if you need to be motivated, you’re going to give up and then beat yourself up for not being more motivated!

Both motivation and willpower are finite and fickle resources that will abandon you when you need them most. Suckers and chumps hope and pray that they have enough motivation and willpower to build a habit. That’s clearly a:

Not us though!

We’re going to remove both from the equation and use systems and outside forces to make the routine even easier to build (or tougher to build if it’s a bad habit you’re trying to swap!).

This can be done in a few ways:

• Environmental hacks: making the routine easier by removing steps needed to complete it, or adding steps between you and a bad habit.
• Programming hacks: add your habit to your daily calendar, track your progress daily with a journal, and make it part of your day.

We are products of our environment. We can use this information to our advantage and make the process of building a new habit or changing a bad habit easier by modifying our environment. I dig into this more fully in our article: “Build your Batcave for Habit Change,” but I’ll cover the basics here.

Look at the places you spend your time. Reduce the steps between you and a good habit, and increase the steps between you and a bad habit. You’ll be less reliant on willpower and motivation and more likely to do the healthy habit or skip the bad habit.

Here are five examples of environmental hacks you can use: 

1. RUN EVERY MORNING: Go to sleep with your running shoes at the foot of your bed, with your running uniform laid out already. Hell, you can sleep in your running/workout clothes. Put your alarm clock on the other side of the room so you HAVE to get out of bed to turn it off.
2. GO TO THE GYM AFTER WORK: Pack your gym bag BEFORE going to sleep the night before. That way, every morning you already have a bag to throw in your car or bring with you. As soon as 5pm hits, you are in your car on your way to the gym. (Gym currently closed? Here’s how to build a gym in your home). 
3. EAT HEALTHIER: Don’t give yourself the option of not eating healthy – throw out the junk food in your house and start preparing meals the night before. Put a lock on your web browser from ordering pizza online (yes, you can do that now), and don’t drive down the street full of fast food places.
4. WATCH LESS TV/PLAY FEWER GAMES: Use your laziness in your favor. Unplug the TV/system. Increase the steps between you and watching the TV. Put parental controls on your own system and have your friend set the time limit and the password. I knew somebody who put his TV in his closet and cut his TV viewing by close to 100%. Don’t rely on willpower – make it more difficult!
5. CHECK YOUR PHONE LESS: Turn off your notifications and uninstall the apps that waste your time. Put your phone in Do Not Disturb mode when you are at work, and put it in your desk drawer. Don’t rely on willpower to get yourself to not check your phone when it buzzes – get rid of the buzz.

You can also use programming hacks to help build NEW healthy habits: 

• EXERCISE: If you want to exercise more, set calendar alerts at the beginning of your week so that every day at 8AM you receive a cue (ding! on your phone) and a reminder to do the activity. You’re much more likely to stay on target when the activity has been scheduled ahead of time.
• HEALTHY EATING: Consider batch cooking! If cooking healthy meals every night sounds like way too much work (I hear you on that), consider doing it all on ONE day – it’s a significant time-saver, and it also will reduce the steps between you and healthy eating because the meal is already cooked and in the fridge!
• WRITING: If you want to write a book, tell yourself you have to write 500 crappy words every day. This is how I wrote Level Up Your Life. Buy a calendar, and draw a big red X on every day you complete your task. Make your singular focus every day continuing the streak^[1].

Make the Reward Momentum-Building

And we are finally at the third part of the habit:

“The Reward.”

When looking to replace bad habits, do some reward analysis on your bad habits:

Soda gives you a caffeine kick and a burst of energy in the afternoon when you’re tired.

Can you replicate that energy boost for your body in a healthier way? Perhaps you can switch to black coffee and go for an afternoon walk.

Here’s another example:

You find you spend too much time watching TV because you love escaping into worlds, and it’s affecting your health.

Can you listen to your favorite audiobook only when you walk?

(This is called temptation bundling).

This step will require some analysis, by digging into the reward you’re trying to recreate, without the negative action. This can lead your brain to some tough places, but it’s healthy to dig into it.

For example, if you  want to start drinking less (or give up completely), you might discover that the reward you’re chasing is actually “escape from a job I hate” and “avoiding social anxiety.”

Dig into your reward and what your brain is craving, and then see if you can reverse engineer a healthier routine with the same reward.

And then use outright bribery to get yourself to actually do the new healthier and choose the better action/routine.

What works for science and physics also holds true to building habits: inertia and momentum will work against you when it comes to building habits…until it starts to work for you as the habit becomes automatic.

We can fix the third part of the habit-building loop, the reward, with momentum-building prizes or results to bribe ourselves to continue. With each healthy and positive reward, with each completed routine, we make the habit sliiiiightly more likely to become more automatic the next time.

In other words, create rewards that reward you back!

DON’T reward your routine (running!) with an unhealthy reward (cake!). That’s “one step forward, two steps back.” And nutrition is 90% of the equation when it comes to weight loss anyway!

DO reward your routine (running for 5 minutes every day for 30 days straight) with a reward that makes you want to keep running (a snazzy new pair of running shoes).

Our new app, Nerd Fitness Journey, specifically follows this “cue, routine, and reward” format to help build new habits. In the app, we “reward” you with cool loot and XP, so you can level up (literally) while you getting lean and strong.

If you’re interested, you can try it for free right here:

5 Hacks for Effortless Healthy Habit building

Your life will get busy. 

There will be days when you don’t want to do your new habit. Or you want to backslide and go back to old habits. Actually, that will pretty much be every day, especially early on.

So don’t leave it up to yourself!!!

Stop relying on yourself and start relying on outside forces. Here are the best tips you can use to get yourself to actually follow through with a habit:

1) RECRUIT ALLIES: find a friend or group of friends to build the habits with you. A recent study ^[2] showed that:

Among the weight loss patients recruited alone and given behavioral therapy, 24% maintained their weight loss in full from Months 4 to 10.

Among those recruited with friends and given therapy plus social support, 95% completed treatment and 66% maintained their weight loss in full.

You do not have to go on this habit-building journey alone. Building a guild or recruiting a group of people to support you and help you and make you better could be the difference-maker in building habits!

When your friend is already at the gym waiting for you, you HAVE to go. If it was up to you, skipping out and watching Netflix has no negative consequences. Recruit friends and allies!

Don’t have that support group at home? Consider joining ours 🙂

Remember, those first few weeks are the toughest, which means they’ll require the most effort to get started.

2) CULTIVATE DISCIPLINE WITH ACCOUNTABILITY: When you can’t get yourself to follow through on a new healthy habit you’re desperately trying to build, make the pain of skipping the habit more severe than the satisfaction you get from skipping it.

Allow me to introduce some BRUTAL consequences:

• Every time I skip ______________ this month, I will pay $50 to my wife/husband/friend who will donate my money to a cause I HATE.
• Every time I decide not to _______________ this month, I have to run around my house naked.
• Every time I do ____________ when I shouldn’t, I will let my three-year-old do my makeup before work.

Do any of these results sound like fun? If you can’t afford to pay your friend $50, if running naked around your house might get you arrested, and if you’ll get fired looking like a drunk clown thanks to your kid’s makeup skills…maybe you just do what you know you need to do. The more painful it is to skip something, the more likely you’ll be to actually suck it up and do it.

3) NEVER MISS TWO IN A ROW. What happens if you miss a day? Who cares! One day won’t ruin you – but two days will, because 2 becomes 30 in the blink of an eye.

As pointed out in a research summary: “Missing the occasional opportunity to perform the behavior did not seriously impair the habit formation process: automaticity gains soon resumed after one missed performance.^[3].

4) DON’T PICK HABITS YOU HATE: “Steve I know I should run so I’m trying to build a running habit even though I hate running.” Stop.

Can you get the same results with a different habit, like rock climbing or hiking or swing dancing? Pick a habit that isn’t miserable and you’re more likely to follow through on it.

At the same time, we have tons of success stories of people who went from hating exercise to loving how it feels.

It’s because they made the habit part of a bigger picture: “I am working out because I am building a kickass body so I can start dating again!”

It’s because they had a BIG enough why to overcome their initial dislike of exercise until they learned to love how exercise made them feel.

5) TRY TEMPTATION BUNDLING: Consider combining a habit you dislike with something you LOVE, and you’ll be more likely to build the habit.

If you hate cleaning your apartment, only allow yourself to listen to your favorite podcast when you are cleaning or doing the dishes.

Want to go to the gym more? Allow yourself an hour of watching Netflix, but ONLY while you’re on the elliptical.

This is called temptation bundling, and it can be a powerful change.

The Secret to Fulfilling Your Resolution (Do Less)

Now that you’re educated like a boss on the different parts of a habit, it’s time to build one!

I’ll leave you with a final bit of advice: if you decide that you want to run a marathon or save the world or lose hundreds of pounds, you’re going to screw up unless you internalize the following information:

DO WAY LESS.

Or in the immortal words of Kunu from Forgetting Sarah Marshall: “The less you do, the more you do”:

Pick ONE habit, make it small, and make it binary. Something that at the end of every day you can say “yes I did it” or “no I didn’t.”

Habits that are nebulous like “I am going to exercise more” or “I’m going to start eating better” are more useless than a Soulcycle membership for Jabba the Hutt.

Here are big examples. Be specific. Be small. And track it:

• Want to start exercising more? Awesome. For that first week, ONLY go for a walk for just 5 minutes every morning. Literally 5 minutes.
• Want to start cooking your own healthy meals? Just aim for one meal per day or one meal per week. Whatever works for you and your schedule.
• Want to stop drinking a 2 liter of Mountain Dew every day? Scale it back to 1.9 liters a day for a week. Then 1.8 for a week. Then 1.7…
• Want to get out of debt and build the habit of frugality? Start by saving an extra five bucks a day, or finding a way to earn an extra 5 bucks a day.
• Want to learn a new language? Speak your new language out loud for 10 minutes per day. That’s it!

Keep your goals SMALL and simple. The smaller and simpler they are, the more likely you are to keep them. And the habit itself pales in comparison to the momentum you build from actually creating a new habit.

I don’t care how many calories you burn in a 5-minute walk, just that you can prove to the new YOU that you can build the habit of walking, and only then can you up the difficulty.

We’re thinking in terms of years and decades here! So think small.

My real-life example: I wanted to build the habit of learning the violin at age 31, but couldn’t get myself to do it because I told myself I was too busy, which is a lie (“I only have 25 minutes; I need 30 minutes to practice…might as well not practice at all”), and thus I never played!

Once I lowered the threshold to “I have to only play for 5 minutes per day,” it gave me permission to pick it up here and there – and I ended up practicing WAY more frequently, and got better much faster.

I still suck, mind you, but I’m lightyears ahead of where I was before!

And please: DON’T BUILD ALL THE HABITS AT THE SAME TIME. 

If you’re new to building habits, or you have never stuck with anything long enough to make it automatic, it’s because you did too much. Habits are compound interest.

As you build a new habit, it bleeds over to other parts of your life and makes future habits easier to build too – momentum!

As Mark Manson lays out in his guide on Habits: 

“Willpower is like a muscle. It can be exercised and practiced and built up. It can also be forgotten, weakened and atrophied.

Just like going to the gym and building up strength and endurance, you can build up your discipline and willpower over a long period of time by setting and accomplishing a series of tasks on a consistent basis.”

You’ve probably tried the whole “build all the habits at once” and it doesn’t work. So try building ONE habit for 30 days. And then pick a habit that stacks on top of that one and helps you build more and more progress and more and more momentum.

Start today: Pick Your Habit and Go

I’ll leave you with a final quote from Duhigg’s The Power of Habit:

“If you believe you can change – if you make it a habit – the change becomes real. This is the real power of habit: the insight that your habits are what you chose them to be. Once that choice occurs – and becomes automatic – it’s not only real, it starts to seem inevitable, the thing…that bears us irresistibly toward our destiny, whatever the latter may be.”

You’ll need more brainpower initially, until your default behavior becomes the automatic habit-building you’re chasing.

With each day of you building your new habit, you’re overcoming any self-limiting belief, building momentum, and becoming a habit-building badass! And then those habits become automatic. Then, we rejoice:

So today, I want you to look at just ONE habit you want to change:

• Identify the cue that spurs it on – Is it the time of day? Boredom? Hunger? After work? Stress?
• Identify the potential rewards – Happiness? Energy? Satisfaction?
• Identify a new routine you’d like to establish that results in the same “reward” from the negative behavior…but in a more productive and healthy way.

And I know this journey is tough – it’s the reason I’ve been working with a coach myself for the past 4 years. Having somebody else to help me pick the right habits and focus, somebody to keep me accountable, and somebody to learn from has been HUGE!

If want expert guidance on your healthy habit building in 2021, let’s make it happen! You can sign up for a free call with our coaching team in the box below to learn more about the program and see if it’s the right fit:

Our coaching program changes lives! Learn more here.

I want you to leave a comment below: pick ONE habit that you’re going to build this month and identify the three portions of the habit you’re looking to build.

Good luck – now go build some momentum.

And ONE habit.

-Steve

PS: Our new app, Nerd Fitness Journey, is all about creating new habits! It’s designed so when you wake up in the morning, you have a “cue” on exactly what “routine” to get started with. Plus, we “reward” you with cool loot and XP, so you can literally level up.

You can try it for free right here:

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photo source: Syahrir Maulana © 123RF.com, KHOTCHARAK SIRIWONG © 123RF.com, alphaspirit © 123RF.com, Evolution – Alternative, Nattapol Sritongcom © 123RF.com, obradov © 123RF.com, Chayapon Bootboonneam © 123RF.com, Boris Rabtsevich © 123RF.com, #13/366 Placing the head, Mixed Messages

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It’s time to learn what separates those who successfully lose weight (and keep it off) with those who don’t.

Getting in shape is tough stuff, so how exactly do people achieve sustainable weight loss?

This isn’t a rhetorical question, we actually know the answer!

We help folks lose weight as part of our 1-on-1 Online Coaching Program, and today we’re going to share with you the keys to success.

How do folks lose weight successfully? Let us show you the way!

Here are The 10 Key Differences Between Weight Loss Success and Failure:

1. Have a Groot Mindset (Change and Growth)
2. Know Your “Big Why”
3. Don’t Go on a Diet (Adjust Your Nutrition)
4. Know What’s in the Food You Eat
5. Use Blueprints and Blocks to Create Goals
6. You Don’t Have to Exercise (You Get to Exercise)
7. Invest in Your Health like a 401(k)
8. Go All-in on Momentum (“Never Two in a Row”)
9. Know Your Kryptonite
10. Surround Yourself with Supporters, Not Anchors

It’s a lot to cover, so let’s jump right in!

1. Have a Groot Mindset.

Your mom was right: you are a unique snowflake.

That means there are a ton of things that affect why you’ve gained weight over the past decade(s) and why you struggle to lose it:

• Genetics
• Age
• Biological sex
• Stress level
• Home environment
• Mental health
• Activity level
• Nutrition

All of these things play a factor in what you look like and how healthy you are. Despite these various factors, I’ve seen a common thread in people who build healthy habits and stick with them:

A Groot Mindset.

Let’s get nerdy for a second (you’re reading Nerd Fitness after all). I assume you’re familiar with Groot, the tree-like superhero from Guardians of the Galaxy. He can grow and change his shape to suit the situation.

He also only says, “I am Groot,” but that’s less applicable here.

HOW TO BUILD A GROWTH MINDSET LIKE GROOT:

Unhealthy Person: “I have a hectic job. My parents are overweight. There’s a pandemic going on. I have children. I have a slow metabolism. I’m never going to be able to lose weight. This plan won’t work for me because [excuse to let myself off the hook]. I’m the out of shape guy/gal and that’s all there is to it.”

Habit Building Badass: “I have a hectic job. My parents are overweight. There’s a pandemic going on. I have children. Soooo….How can I make this work for me in my situation? I know people like me have lost weight, which is a great sign. I refuse to accept that I am a lost cause. I am Groot.”

Even if it isn’t your fault where you are, if you can accept that it’s your personal responsibility to deal with it then you’re taking a huge first step.

We all have emotional, visceral responses to what we see in the mirror or how we feel when we wake up.

We need to cut through the emotion and get to the truth: we alone are responsible for our fate, and that means we alone can fix it.

Like Groot, you can change and grow.

And dance.

You’ll learn that your excuses are moot – if busier, poorer, older, and more overweight people than you can get in shape, you can too.

And yep, people have even got in shape during our current Apolocalyse Simulator. 

So, decide TODAY that this year you are “a healthy, habit-building badass” and then simply do the things that perpetually healthy nerds do.

With each meal or each decision, ask yourself “what would a healthy person do?” And then do that.

2. Know Your “Big Why”.

The road to perpetual weight loss and healthiness is fraught with peril.

Even the best-laid plans and New Years Resolutions will end up in a ditch on the side of the road unless you have a damn good reason.

After all, life gets busy and it’s Taco Tuesday and a new video game just came out and schools are closed and you just don’t feel like exercising and it’s cold.

There will ALWAYS be something.

You will never NOT be busy.

That perseverance will form from a damn good answer to the question: “Why?”

Not just “Because I need to lose weight,” but 2-3 levels deeper:

• WHY do you want to lose weight?
• What will losing weight mean for your life or happiness?
• What will you be able to do thanks to that weight loss?

That’s the motivation and answer you need to be reminded of to persevere over the next few months.

If your answer is: “I’m here because my doctor/wife/husband thinks I should lose weight. I know I should exercise more and do more,” you are doomed. You will give up at the first sign of adversity.

Compare this to the raw, deep, honest answers we get from NF Coaching Clients when we ask about their “Big WHY”:

• “I’m here because my dad died of a heart attack at age 45, and I don’t want my kids growing up without a father like I did.”
• “I’m here because I want my husband/wife to look at me the way he/she used to, and I want us to grow old together.”
• “I’m here because I just got dumped and I want to get healthy so I can start dating again. I don’t want people swiping left on my photos anymore.”
• “I’m here because I want to look in the mirror and be proud of what I see. I want to stop hiding behind others in photographs.”

Why are you here? Why do you want to build healthy habits?

Write down your Great Big Why – and go deep, my friend. Way down. And ask yourself “Why?” to the answer of each of your questions until you get to the root of your reason for being here.

Once you write that answer down, hang it up somewhere you can see it every day: fridge, home office, bathroom mirror. Accept responsibility for your current situation, be compassionate that you’re in a tough spot, and then ALSO accept that you CAN change, and your identity can change with small wins that prove it.

3. don’t go on a diet. adjust Your nutrition.

Perpetually unhealthy people have a love/hate relationship with diets.

Mostly hate.

They go on diets all the time – especially in early January, and then they go off diets. And then they go on another diet. And then they find another diet that’s supposed to promise even faster, easier weight loss, so they switch to that one.

Unhealthy people get dieting wrong from the start, and this is what dooms them.

Unhealthy people go on a diet for a month or two, and they can’t wait to go back to “eating normally.”

The problem is that their “eating normally” is the reason why they’re overweight in the first place.

They go Keto for a month and have success, then fall off…then go Paleo for 6 weeks and lose 40 pounds, and then fall off…then they do a cleanse for 30 days and drop 2 pant sizes, and then fall off…

Temporary changes to one’s eating results in temporary results to one’s weight and physique.

Like an addict chasing the next high, somebody consistently has to chase the next diet because their normal eating is the problem in the first place!

And yup, dieting sucks.

Starvation, eliminating favorite foods, and trying to use willpower to avoid candy and sweets is a terrible strategy. So stop doing it.

No wonder people abandon diets as soon as they start them; they think, “If this is what it takes to be skinny, I’d rather stay out of shape and happy.”

This year, make a pledge to NOT go on a diet.

Instead, come to terms with this: “My concept of ‘normal eating’ is broken, which means that needs to change permanently in order for me to get healthy permanently.”

Think about that for a second.

If you “never get to be done” with your nutrition, and you can’t go back to how you were eating before, then the ONLY way permanent success happens is if you actually enjoy your new “normal.”

Stop going on diets!

No more diet pills, cleanses, or crazy 30-day strategies.

Nothing you do can be temporary, or the results will be temporary.

Instead, you are going to make deliberate, incremental permanent changes to your daily nutrition, slowly, over a period of many months.

Eat to line up with your goals.

If you are afraid of giving up something, don’t! Make unhealthy foods more of a treat and less of a daily indulgence:

• If giving up soda forever is scary, slowly cut back from 12 a day down to one a day.
• If giving up pasta forever sounds like a life not worth living, learn about portion sizes and make it an experience (only at restaurants, for example).
• The same goes for diet pills and supplements – Supplements cannot replace a good nutrition strategy.

When you think about getting healthy this year, think in terms of days and years, not weeks and months:

Know that it took years for you to get to your current physique, and it’s going to take months if not years to correct it. This means you HAVE to enjoy the journey.

Once you accept that you never get to be “done,” you can start picking small adjustments or changes that won’t scare you away from adhering to your plan.

4.know what’s in the food You eat.

Did you know that when it comes to weight loss, your nutrition choices will account for 90% of your success or failure?

In the Nerd Fitness Rebellion, we refer to this as the “you can’t outrun your fork” rule.

Seriously. 90+ PERCENT of the equation. 

Tattoo this on your forehead. Hire somebody to skywrite it above your home every day. Pay somebody to call you every morning and remind you of this fact.

Whatever it takes to get you to realize that changing your eating habits will be the fastest (and only) path to weight loss in 2021.

And it starts by educating yourself about your food.

Make a habit of knowing what’s in the food you eat! 

Whether it’s portion control, calorie counting, tracking macros, or even keeping a food journal, it’s important to have a rough idea of the total calories and nutritional breakdown of the food you consume regularly.

After all, GI Joe tells us that “Knowing is half the battle!”

The other half is lasers:

With each meal tracked, these habits add up to knowing what needs to happen every day for you to get healthy.

Once you know how many calories you should be eating every day, you can start to make more informed decisions on foods that fill you up but are low in calories:

Spoiler alert: as we point out in our healthy eating guide, it’s healthy protein, fruits, veggies, and correct portions of healthy carbs.

It’ll come together and look sort of like this:

Plus, once you learn to read a nutrition label, you can start to avoid marketing hype and buzzwords and focus on the actual product!

For example, here are two different beverages:

• Coca-Cola (20 oz): 240 calories, 65 g of carbs (65 g of sugar)
• Naked Juice Green Machine (15 oz): 270 calories, 63 g of carbs (55 g of sugar)

Look at those two things above: one is a can of cola that you know is bad for you, the other is marketed as a “healthy beverage.”

Neither one is great for you, and the calories must be accounted for in your daily intake.

Having some fun, we decided to make this:

Don’t fall for the hype: read the label, count your calories, and break free of the Matrix!

Learn about the food you’re eating. You’re an adult, you can take 3 minutes and Google it.

Once you know the composition of your meals, you can start to make subtle adjustments or change quantities over time as you start to approach a healthier weight.

Be okay with “good enough” to start, and get more accurate as time goes on.

What’s that? You don’t know how to eat healthy? I got you, boo: “A Beginner’s Guide to Healthy Eating.”

For each food, learn the following:

• Total calories
• Serving size
• Fat
• Protein
• Carbs

Don’t overthink this: Write down what you eat every day for a week. If your weight isn’t changing, adjust down total calories, and minimize sugar consumption and see how your weight changes.

Make small adjustments over time and see how your body responds.

Speaking of goals…

5. Use Blueprints and Blocks to Create Goals.

Perpetually unhealthy people say things like “I’m going to exercise more this year!”

Goals like this are cloudy with no real markers for success.

With no beacon guiding them, perpetually unhealthy people don’t know if they’re on track, and there’s no accountability if they don’t succeed. These goals get tossed in the abandoned pile next to goals like “I’m gonna start flossing!”

Compare this to what you’re going to do in 2021:

• Pick a reachable blueprint to follow: an outcome-based goal.
• Place the blocks to build that blueprint: a habit-based goal.

Let’s see this in action: “I want to lose X amount of weight by X date.”

With a very specific goal and a specific timeline, we can work backward to calculate how much weight we need to lose each week to build that blueprint: our target weight.

Once you know where you want to be a year from now – you can then just focus on what you need to do TODAY.

EXAMPLE: I want to lose 50 pounds by December 31st, 2021.

Okay, if it’s January 1st, that’s roughly one pound per week. So then, what needs to happen each day to help us reach that goal? Let’s focus there.

Focusing on the habit (“today I’m going to drink only one soda instead of 3, and have one vegetable“) allows you to not get overwhelmed at the big picture.

In Minecraft terms, once you have the blueprints for a replica of Rivendell from Lord of the Rings, all you have to focus on is placing the next block in the right place. And then repeat!

Eventually, you’ll have Rivendell:

Here’s a real-life example of this block-placing mentality:

“My goal is to reach my goal weight of 150 pounds by December 1st, 2021, so I will eat one vegetable every day, and I will strength train for 30 minutes, two days per week. On other days, I’ll go for a 10-minute walk.”

What happens when you do this: you stop worrying about the outcome, and instead JUST focus on the habit you have to do today.

It allows you to very easily answer the question: “Yes, I placed the block” or “no, I did not place the block.”

• You either ate a vegetable today or you didn’t.
• You either exercised for 30 minutes today or you didn’t.

Make sure you are picking a blueprint that you can build (it’s not TOO unrealistic), and keep things simple. A target weight loss goal of 1 pound per week is reasonable and sustainable. Remember that the focus should be on SUSTAINABLE progress – not “progress at any cost.”

Once you start reaching goals, you can create more complex plans.

Or in fantasy terms, after you finally slay the dragon, go find a bigger one!

6. You don’t HAVE to exercise, You GET to exercise.

Unhealthy people treat exercise as a miserable means to an end:

“I’ll exercise until I reach my goal weight and then I can stop this exercise stuff and go back to what I was doing before.”

Temporary changes, miserable strategy, temporary results… sound familiar?

They run on a treadmill because they think they should, but they hate it, and they never want to go back. Or they get dragged to some virtual fitness class and pretend they lost their internet connection to turn it off.

While they do their best to build the habit, they’re so unhappy and unexcited about the exercise that the habit never sticks. They only exercise until they reach a goal and then they stop. Ugh. Temporary changes = temporary results!

Look, here’s the truth: “exercise” sucks.

So you’re going to stop doing “exercise.”

I’ve heard from Nerd Fitness Clients time and time again: “I can’t believe it, but I actually look forward to exercising now. How did THAT happen?”

What’s going on here?

Because nutrition is 90% of the battle, building a habit of exercise and movement is more important than what specific type of exercise you choose.

Here are 40 ways to exercise without realizing it:

• adult gymnastics
• swing dancing
• ultimate frisbee
• martial arts
• hiking (or even just walking!)
• strength training

You don’t have to exercise in a way that you hate.

Pick the kind of exercise that makes you come alive. Don’t have that form of exercise yet? Try new things!

Especially the stuff that doesn’t feel like exercise.

Nutrition is 90% of the battle, so the exercise can be something that you enjoy, that reminds you to make better food choices so your efforts don’t go to waste.

Desperate to lose weight faster? In addition to fixing your nutrition, try temptation bundling to get you to go to the gym (if it’s open).

Have a specific physique in mind (six-pack, toned arms, a better butt, broader chest, etc.)? Build the body you want and get hooked on improvement: “I can’t wait to go work out and find out how much stronger I got today compared to last week.”

You are a video game character increasing your strength attribute with each training session.

7. They invest in their health like a 401(k).

When it comes down to our health, we can invest in three ways:

• Time
• Effort
• Money

Healthy habit-building badasses know this and prioritize accordingly: they know investing in their health is the best decision they can make for the long term. So they decide what’s the correct balance of time, effort, and money to use for that investment.

Your health is an investment, just like your net worth:

• If you want to devote your effort and time to building your own workouts, crafting your own meal plans, and keeping yourself accountable, that’s awesome! I did this for myself for years.
• You might decide to outsource your programming to a coach, recruit an accountability partner, or buy into a program that creates your workouts and nutrition for you.

Either way, this is a months or years-long process that requires discipline! Every day you get a tiny bit better compounds upon the day before and builds you a big nest egg (read: a great physique) that will keep you wealthy (read: healthy) for decades and decades.

We’ve had thousands of people who read all the free content on Nerd Fitness for years with no results, because they never invested in themselves.

However, the second they finally invested in themselves by hiring a 1-on-1 coach, they took action and lost weight within months. The same is true for our self-paced adventure Nerd Fitness Journey (a part of NF Prime).

Why?

Because we VALUE what we pay for and invest in, making us more likely to actually do the damn thing. And we don’t value what we get for free or take for granted.

Unhealthy people don’t look at all of this stuff rationally – they complain about spending 99 cents on an iPhone app that could dramatically improve the quality of their life, and then gladly spend $6 on a sugary Starbucks beverage each morning without a second thought.

People email me all the time asking, “Why should I pay for a course when there is free information online?”

Welp, there has been free information online for decades – has it gotten you in shape yet? Maybe there’s a point to investing in yourself!

Many people – myself included – will gladly pay for somebody to cut through all of the noise and bad information to deliver ONLY the right information that they need to read or hear.

Your money, your time, and your effort are all limited resources: how you choose to spend each of them tells me a lot about your priorities.

Personally, I gladly pay hundreds of dollars every month for my own online fitness coach, and have done so since 2014.

Many probably think I’m crazy and that this is a waste of money (“just do your own workouts!”), but I feel that it’s the best money I spend every month, and it’s why I’ve prioritized it over other expenses.

I’m not just paying for a workout plan in an excel document.

I am paying for accountability from somebody who is checking in on me, expertise from a trained professional who can spot my weaknesses, and the knowledge that I’ll actually do the workout because I’m spending my hard-earned money on it.

And it got me the results that had eluded me for a decade.

It’s not what you say is a priority, it’s what you spend your time or money on that’s a priority.

Prioritize your money and time on the best stuff, even at the expense of other creature comforts, and you’re more likely to get in shape because you’ll actually care about it.

Answer these questions:

How much money do you spend on your health?

How much time and effort do you devote to creating your workouts or fine-tuning your nutrition?

Have you ever hired a coach or paid for an online course?

Do you buy apps or software that makes your life easier, or do you try to get by with free stuff that you know you won’t actually use?

Sometimes spending money is the best investment you can make in yourself – because you KNOW that the free option is something you won’t stick with! 

• Although you have a small room with weights in your apartment complex, pay money to join an outdoor class in a park because you hate working out alone. If you know people are counting on you to show up, you’ll more likley work out.
• Pre-pay for 20 personal trainer sessions (virtual is okay) – if you’ve already paid for it and scheduled the workouts, you’ll actually DO IT.
• Don’t have time to cut up vegetables? Buy them pre-prepared. Expensive? Maybe, but worth the price if it gets you to eat more veggies.
• Decide what to sacrifice. It might mean you have to skip movies out or cancel your cable to prioritize a healthy meal service or buy more cookbooks so you never get bored with cooking new healthy meals.

Start thinking about this from a different perspective:

You’re not buying a fitness course or a trainer or an overpriced salad (that you would never make for yourself anyways).

You’re not just hiring a coach that prescribes you a workout that you could have found for free on the internet.

You’re investing in your future and purchasing accountability and expertise and momentum.

If you are looking for that expert guidance, accountability, and peace of mind that you’re training the right way for your goals, schedule a free consultation with Team NF to learn about our coaching program today!

8. Go All In On Momentum.

Remember that Isaac Newton guy?

“An object at rest tends to stay at rest, and an object in motion tends to stay in motion, unless acted on by another force.”

This is called “inertia,” and nothing could be more applicable when it comes to your health.

Unhealthy people have a LOT of inertia to overcome when they are trying to build healthy habits and get in shape:

Their body is used to sitting on a couch and eating junk food, which means the habit of exercise is agonizing. They have to convince themselves to get off the couch and go out into the wilderness. Eating vegetables and healthy food sucks compared to their normal comfort food.

But they use max effort to do these things a few times, and momentum starts to shift away from unhealthy and towards healthy.

And that’s when things fall apart.

Their kid gets sick or they work late and they miss a workout. Not the end of the world, right? But then it snows the next day, and one missed workout day becomes two, which becomes a month in the blink of an eye.

And they’re back to square one.

We are going to focus instead on cultivating and protecting momentum.

Perpetual health doesn’t happen in days, or with a few decisions. It takes months (or more likely, years) of consistent effort.

And shit happens.

Pandemics. Kids. Work. Life.

It’s more than just “missing a workout.” It’s killing your momentum, and momentum is crucial to long term health.

So focus on doing whatever you can to build momentum quickly and maintain it.

Momentum is crucial to being perpetually healthy. So you need to protect it with your life.

To build momentum until it becomes autopilot, try:

• Exercising 4 days per week without fail. Yes, even on holidays. Yup, even if it’s only push-ups for 5 minutes.
• Going for a morning walk every single day, even when it’s snowing.
• Scheduling workouts for early Saturday morning with a virtual trainer so you won’t drink like a fish Friday night.
• Putting your workouts in your calendar. Have a friend give $50 of your money to a cause you hate every time you miss a workout.

Which means you should be following my favorite rule: never miss two in a row.

Two missed workouts quickly becomes 30 in the blink of an eye. Two bad meals quickly becomes a week of pizza and Chinese food.

So “never two in a row!” – never eat two bad meals in a row, never miss a workout two days in a row.

If you miss a workout, that next day is suddenly the most important workout of your life. Do whatever you need to do to get to the gym!

If you eat a bad meal, that’s fine! Enjoy it. But that next meal is suddenly the most important meal of your life! Do whatever you need to do to eat a dang vegetable!

9. Know Your Kryptonite.

I want to share an important quote from the late, great physicist Richard Feynman:

“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself – and you are the easiest person to fool.”

Unhealthy people might be aware of their Kryptonite, but they just hope and pray they have enough willpower to overcome it every day.

They eat a single Oreo, and then spend an hour thinking about cookies until they go eat a whole sleeve of Oreo cookies and then berate themselves for not having more willpower to avoid the temptation.

The truth is that we are all flawed superheroes.

Unhealthy people try to fix their flaws through sheer willpower and then feel deep shame when they can’t stop their behavior.

Permanently healthy people recognize their Kryptonite, and have a plan to avoid or protect against it:

If they know grains make them unhappy and bloated, they follow a Paleo diet and remove those foods completely so there’s no attempt to only eat half a serving of something.

If they know they struggle with portion control, then maybe they try skipping a meal with Intermittent Fasting.

They also ask the questions that get to the heart of their Kryptonite with regards to weight gain:

• Maybe they eat when they’re bored.
• Maybe they eat when they’re upset.
• Maybe they eat when they’re nervous.
• Maybe they eat when they’re watching TV.

They KNOW these things about themselves, and they know unhealthy food has been designed to be addictive.

So they plan for it!

Know thyself, my dear friend, and know what your triggers are.

We’re all flawed; plan for your flaws instead of trying to fight them. These triggers can be environmental or situational or emotional. Know it will happen, and build a Kryptonite-proof plan so you don’t have to worry about avoiding it.

Stop relying on motivation and willpower to tackle your Kryptonite.

Add accountability, punishments, and rewards into your life to stay on track and avoid your Kryptonite:

• Check-in with someone every day to make sure they ate their vegetables.
• Instruct your friend to donate your $50 to a politician you hate if you miss a workout check-in.
• Reward yourself with new running shoes (a reward that rewards you back with more momentum) if you complete 20 runs in a single month.
• Build your Batcave (your environment) so it’s tougher to make unhealthy decisions and easier to make healthy ones.
• Don’t order out from unhealthy restaurants, and schedule early workouts on Saturdays so you won’t drink yourself silly on Friday.

You don’t need to be flawless. You don’t need a perfect plan. What you do need is to have an honest conversation with yourself about things you need to avoid while you’re trying to make healthier choices.

That might be certain restaurants, certain aisles of the supermarket, or even certain people….

10. Surround Yourself with Supporters, Not Anchors

You are the average of the 5 people you associate most with.

Are they banana peels?

Or are they Lakitus?

Banana peels need no introduction: drive over one in Mario Kart and they’ll ruin a perfectly good race by crushing all of your momentum.

Compare that to Lakitu. If you’re not familiar, he’s the little guy on the cloud in Mario Kart that picks you up when you fall off the track and puts you back on course.

Unhealthy people get spun out all the time by the banana peels in their lives:

• “What do you mean you don’t want to eat my lasagna anymore? You love my cooking.”
• “Everybody is coming over to play D&D and eat pizza, you can’t miss this.”
• “You don’t need to lose weight. You look fine. Live a little. Come on.”

Questions and comments like these subtly influence our behavior every day. Which is how you end up looking like and acting like the 5 people you associate most with. 

Compare this to Lakitus: the people who want you to succeed, who hold you accountable and make you want to be better.

I recently asked our private community from Nerd Fitness Prime what the group meant to them.

This response jumped out at me:

You need to be surrounded by people that pick you up, not slow you down.

Healthy people know this, and they make the hard decisions about who is worthy of their time and attention.

They often fire their unhealthy friends and family – even if only temporarily – because they can’t be around negative influence as they’re trying to build momentum.

I’ve heard of tons of stories where unhealthy relationships have ended because a newly healthy individual was dating an unhealthy person who didn’t want them to be healthy and was actively sabotaging them.

Why does this happen? Because it’s often easier to drag other people down than it is to look honestly in the mirror and address one’s shortcomings or unhealthy. 

If you are trying to get healthy, minimize your time around banana peels and MAXIMIZE your time with Lakitus.

You are influenced dramatically by the people around you whether you realize it or not. How are these people influencing you?

Take exercise:

• Banana Peel: You want to exercise, but your friends are mad at you for skipping Among US or a World of Warcraft raid… you’re going to skip the workout.
• Lakitu: You want to exercise, and your friends are currently doing yoga in the park… you’re gonna find your mat!

Food:

• Banana Peel: Your family orders take out and everyone wants pizza. You’ll likely order junk food to fit in, rather than order a salad and endure the scorn.
• Lakitu: You decide on delivery and the 4 people in your house want salads – I’d bet $1000 you’re going to order something healthy too.

Mental health:

• Banana Peel: You have 5 friends who never talk about anything serious: how are you supposed to tell them about your depression medication or that you’re thinking about going to see a therapist?
• Lakitu: You have 5 friends who are not only accepting of your flaws, but share theirs too and have advice for you.

Decide who is worthy of your attention, and work on putting yourself in situations with people who make you want to be better.

This might mean a serious conversation with your significant other that “likes you more full-figured” if your goal is to be healthier and happier.

Or diving deep into deflection strategies if you have to constantly deal with unhealthy family members you can’t fire.

If they are worth your time, they will change their tune to be more supportive and helpful and less of an anchor.

And then start spending time around people who are stronger, healthier, happier, and more successful than you. And do what they do.

• Use 20 seconds of courage to strike up a conversation with someone at the bicycle shop and make plans to go bike ride together.
• Join a running club at work, or start a running club if one doesn’t exist yet (when it’s safe to do so).
• If you don’t have people in real life cheering you on, find an online group that pushes you to be better.

How is NEXT YEAR Going to Be Different?

Phew! Okay, let’s see how many of these you can actually check off:

1. I have a Groot Mindset
2. I know my Big Why
3. I don’t go on diets. I adjust my nutrition.
4. I know what my food is made of.
5. I have blueprints and blocks.
6. I don’t have to exercise; I GET to.
7. I invest in my health like a 401(k).
8. I go all-in on momentum.
9. I know my Kryptonite.
10. I seek out Lakitus, not banana peels.

Give yourself a score, and let me know which ones are the toughest for you to follow through on.

If you checked 6 or fewer boxes, pick ONE of the habits and work on it for the next month. Internalize it. Make it part of your new identity. And then move onto the next one.

You’re overcoming inertia and building momentum!

And NEVER underestimate momentum. Once you build it, it can be hard to stop!

We have three great ways to start the ball rolling, right here in our own community. Pick the path that best aligns with your goals:

#1) Our 1-on-1 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. 

Our coaching program changes lives. Learn more here!

#2) Exercising at home and need a plan to follow? Check out Nerd Fitness Journey!

Our fun habit-building app helps you exercise more frequently, eat healthier, and level up your life (literally).

Try your free trial right here:

#3) Join The Rebellion! We have a free email newsletter that we send out twice per week, full of tips and tricks to help you get healthy, get strong, and have fun doing so. 

I’ll also send you tons of free guides that you can use to start leveling up your life too:

Alright, now it’s your turn:

Agree with my 10 traits? Disagree?

Anything missing?

Leave that in the comments too!

-Steve

PS: Make sure you check out the rest of our Sustainable Weight Loss Content:

• The 5 Rules of Weight Loss
• Why Can’t I Lose Weight?
• How to Lose Weight and Build Muscle at the Same Time
• How to Start Eating Healthy (Without Giving up the Food You Love)
• Which Diet is Right for Me?

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photo credit: Rattana Rueangha © 123RF.com, Dmitriy Shpilko © 123RF.com, Mark Bonica Paleo Diet – Day 14, post-apocalyptic research institute 3mm model, Petro Perutskyi © 123RF.com, evoo73 balance, Ruslan Gilmanshin © 123RF.com, Liubomir Paut-Fluerasu © 123RF.com.

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This article is from NF Team Member Taylor

It’s time to learn how to meditate!

Being mindful is practically a superpower, which is why we assign fun meditation assignments to our 1-on-1 Online Coaching Clients. 

The Nerd Fitness Coaching program is changing lives. Learn more here.

Here’s what we’ll cover in our Beginner’s Guide to Meditation:

• Why is meditation important? (The Rider and the Elephant)
• What exactly is meditation? (The perils of being lost in thought)
• How do you meditate? How long should beginners meditate?
• What are the benefits of meditation? 
• How often should you meditate?
• Getting started with a meditation practice (Next steps)

Go find a quiet place. Then let’s get started.

Why Is Meditation Important?

I wasn’t kidding earlier when I said meditation is practically a superpower.

Think of this superpower like the power of X-men’s Mystique, but for your mind. 

Instead of the ability to alter your appearance to meet the challenges of any given situation, meditation allows you to alter your mind to conquer the day.

Why does this matter?

Because sometimes our minds can seem like they have a mind of their own:

• When we are on our commute and someone is a jerk, we get angry. We don’t seem to have a choice in the matter – we just GET ANGRY.
• When a friend says something stupid, we roll our eyes.
• When they say something witty and intelligent, we laugh.

There is no deliberation, no Council of Elrond to decide how you should feel and respond.

That’s just how our brains work.

Daniel Kahneman, in the famed Thinking Fast and Slow, proposed we think about thinking in two ways.

1. System 1: Fast Thinking – automatic, frequent, emotional, subconscious.
2. System 2: Slow thinking – deliberative, effortful, infrequent, logical, conscious.

System 1 is responsible for most of what you do every day. This fast thinking does so much on your behalf, that you may not even realize it.

System 2 doesn’t kick in until you are tasked with something like solving a riddle, filling out a tax form, or walking at a pace that is unnaturally fast.

Another social psychologist, Jonathan Haidt, describes these systems with a different metaphor: a rider on an elephant.

In The Happiness Hypothesis, he explains he selected this metaphor to demonstrate the power of the elephant (fast thinking), and the powerlessness of the rider (slow thinking). While the rider might feel in control, at the top of the elephant with reigns in hand, it is truly the elephant that is running things.

What Exactly Is Meditation?

Meditation is simply the practice of learning how to pay attention.

It’s not something magic.

It’s not a cult or a religion.

Meditation is just a mental exercise to strengthen your mind.  

This mental exercise is increasingly necessary in the modern world.

It turns out, at any given time almost half of us are lost in thought unrelated to what’s in front of us. And when we are mentally wandering, we are significantly less happy.^[1]

As Matthieu Ricard explains in his TED Talk – when neuroscientists looked at his brain while meditating, he scored “off the scale” in brain activity related to happiness, compassion, and altruism.

At the end of the day, isn’t happiness what we’re all chasing?

That’s why we spend so much time with “mindset” in our 1-on-1 Online Coaching Program. Sure, we help people lose weight and get strong, but we also assign fun “side quests” to help with mindfulness, gratitude, and general well being.

A Nerd Fitness Coach can help you get in shape, while also leveling up your mental well being. Learn more here!

How Do You Meditate? How Long Should Beginners Meditate?

To start, pick a time in your day you can regularly designate as your time to meditate.

It should be a time you can find a quiet place, without distraction or interruption.

As a beginner, you don’t need to meditate for long. Just five minutes a day is a great place to start.

Too much? Try TWO minutes.

The important part is building the daily habit. We can bump up the frequency down the road.

The meditation practice I’m going to describe for you below is a basic mindfulness practice. There are many different styles of meditation, but every type of meditation is about cultivating attention and awareness, or learning to be in the present moment without grasping. ^[2]

Be sure to set a timer before you begin. Time tends to slow down when in deep meditation, so when you’re just starting it may feel like 10 minutes…but it’s only been 5.

The timer will help here at first. 

AS A BEGINNER, HERE’S HOW TO MEDITATE:

1. Find a place to sit that allows your back to be in an upright position. You don’t need to sit cross-legged, but you can if you wish. A chair or sitting against a wall also works well. Feel free to use a cushion under your bottom to help your posture and make yourself more comfortable. The goal is a posture that helps you stay alert, but is still comfortable. You can meditate with your eyes open or closed.
2. As you begin, take several deep, slow breaths to gather concentration. Inhale deeply, filling your lungs to the brim. Then slowly exhale. Follow your breath carefully with your attention through this process.
3. After a few breaths, or when you feel your concentration has settled, begin to breathe naturally. Notice the breath at a specific point, most commonly with the rising and falling of the chest, at your nostrils, or at your abdomen. Don’t force it. Don’t glue your attention there. Simply allow your breath to come and go naturally, following it as it naturally unfolds.
4. When you get lost in thought, simply return your attention back to the breath. Bringing your attention back to the breath is a central part of the process –  think about it like performing an exercise repetition. Each time you do this you are rewiring your brain – no different from doing a repetition in strength training. So, don’t feel guilty or beat yourself up. You can’t control when you get distracted. But then magically, each time you realize you are distracted and you “wake up” – at this point, just return to the breath!

This is where we recommend most beginners start – a broad and basic breath concentration practice. Think about this no differently than starting with just the bar before adding weight, when learning to squat.

Three meditation apps that some at Team Nerd Fitness have had success with:

1. Headspace
2. Calm
3. Waking Up

These programs can help you get going with a simple mindfulness practice. 

Here’s something else to consider as you get started:

Beginners often find it difficult to stay aware when thoughts arise, and find themselves noticing they have been thinking only after being lost in thoughts for several minutes.

This is normal! 

When you notice this happening, just return to focusing on your breath.

One last thing to consider would be guided meditations, where someone’s voice guides and directs you through a mindfulness practice.

Guided meditation is great to incorporate into anyone’s meditation practice (beginner, intermediate, or advanced), and certainly when the mind is especially restless.

Here are 5 resources that may help with guided meditation:

1. UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center – Simple and effective mindfulness guided practice.
2. Ohio University guided meditations – a variety of styles to try.
3. UC San Diego’s Center for Mindfulness – a list of long and short guided meditations.
4. A compilation mostly mindfulness audio and guided meditations.
5. Doctor Who fans might enjoy Dalek’s Relaxation for Humans, although I can’t comment on its effectiveness:

What Are the Benefits of Meditation?

The superpower meditation builds is the ability to be at the character selection screen, for any given situation, at any given time.

You see, because of how our brains work, it can be hard to exert a level of control in our lives – from our response to a social interaction, to changing fundamental aspects of our life. 

When something happens, we just react.

That’s System 1.

There’s no conscious deliberative process when a cute girl/guy walks up to you, or some car cuts you off in traffic. It’s no surprise that we often feel frustrated with our reactions after-the-fact.

Imagine the ability to replay the events, and always act with a calm and collected demeanor, delivering the best response you have to offer. That’s what meditation can help do for you.

I’m not talking managing an emotion, or suppressing a thought.

This is not “serenity now, insanity later.”

This isn’t about dealing with things AFTER you get angry or sad, but the power to actually change both how you feel and how you respond.

That is true power.

Neuroscientist Jill Bolte Taylor uses anger as an example in her wonderful TED Talk:

In her speech, Dr. Taylor explains that the physiological response from anger can only last 90 seconds.

Yet, as humans, we can stay angry seemingly FOREVER.

Why?

We are doing it to ourselves, by rethinking the thought and redoing the physiological response over and over. If you’ve ever gotten angry and let it fester, feeling angrier and angrier after, you know what she’s talking about.

As Dr.Taylor explains, we all have a superpower within us, but most of us surrender it.

Or as she puts us, we surrender our neurocircuitry:

“We are neurocircuitry. Your neurocircuitry is YOUR neurocircuitry, and you do not have the ability to stimulate and trigger my neurocircuitry without my permission. You cannot make me angry, unless I stick my trigger out there for you to pounce on and stimulate my neurocircuitry. If I give you the power to stimulate my neurocircuitry, then I have given you my power. And I give you my power, then I become vulnerable to you…”

This isn’t just helpful for our daily interactions, but for big life changes too – like cleaning up your diet or finally building that habit of exercise.

Through meditation, you can learn to focus your attention where you choose. As you begin the practice, you will start to notice your thoughts and feelings more consciously, and let go of the ones that aren’t useful to you. You will start to reforge the character of your choosing.

This might have real physiological benefits. 

While there is obviously some hype going on with mindfulness (it’s over a billion-dollar industry in the U.S. alone), there does some to be some evidence of meditation providing “modest benefits” for certain conditions.^[3]

Dan Harris does a great job summarizing some of the benefits of meditation here:

Meditation may help:

• Reduce stress. Studies have shown that a meditation practice can help users lower their stress levels. Although to be fair, it doesn’t seem to impact cortisol levels, our main stress hormone.^[4] Still, being able to recenter can help you look at a stressful scenario with fresh eyes.
• Alleviate depression. When we’re stressed, we release inflammatory chemicals called cytokines, which can lead to depression. A meditation practice may help limit the release of cytokines, reducing the risk of depression.^[5]
• Manage pain. Our perceptions of pain are tied to our state of mind.^[6] Given this, it makes sense that a meditation practice can help alleviate certain types of pain.^[7]

Plus, Wolverine meditates, so mindfulness may help you come to terms with the fact you were designed to be a mindless, soulless killing machine.^[8]

Or…help you calm down after your flight is delayed for an hour. Same difference. 

How Often Should You Meditate?

Now that you know how to meditate, you need to understand one final thing.

You have to train this power like a muscle.

Even if you have a good day or a good week in the gym, you need to be at it for months and months, and then STAY at it, to live with the benefits for a lifetime.

We’re doing the same thing with our meditation practice.

No different from squatting incrementally more weight, you are training your brain to get stronger.

Just like squatting, you won’t see profound benefits after a single session. Instead, you will level up after weeks and months of consistency.

The same way squatting regularly builds muscle, meditation literally builds gray matter in your brain.^[9] Soon enough, that “automatic mode” or elephant we talked about will begin to change too (literally rewiring your brain).^[10]

Much like groceries will slowly begin to feel lighter after strength training, so to will you gradually notice the benefits of meditation.

So how often should a beginner meditate? 

Daily if possible.

It might feel intimidating now to think about, but just like with diet and exercise, once the habit is established, you won’t even notice:

• Once you become someone who goes to the gym regularly, that’s just who you are now.
• Once you become someone who meditates for five minutes a day, that’s just what you do.

Getting Started With a Meditation Practice (Next Steps)

We all know the story of Luke Skywalker, not because he had this power within him and chose to walk away from it, but because he seized the opportunity to understand the Force.

Don’t be the Jedi who is walking away from your potential.

As a kid, I always thought that comic books had it backwards – the superpower found the superhero (I’m looking at you Spiderman), rather than the other way around.

What if we all had the potential to develop our power, and only the true superheroes do? Now that would be awesome.

That’s what meditation allows us to do.

Not only does meditation boost your health in a range of tangible ways, but more importantly, it helps us to enjoy the here and now. You might call this loving the game, or enjoying the process.

That’s why today we’re issuing a meditation challenge:

• Commit to meditating every day, for two weeks straight (using an app, website, or guided meditation if you wish).
• It can just be for five minutes. Or two minutes.

The important part is establishing a new habit.

Then maybe we can all start bending spoons together:

I think that just about does it for this article.

Before I let you go, if you want to continue your journey with Nerd Fitness as you level up your life, I’ve got three great options for you to do so.

HERE ARE NEXT STEPS IF YOU WANT TO GO FARTHER! 

#1) Our 1-on-1 Online Coaching Program: a coaching program for busy people to help them lose weight, get strong, and level up their lives!

We believe that mindfulness is so important, we assign fun meditation “side quests” to our clients, to help build the practice. 

Our coaching program changes lives. Learn more here!

#2) Exercising at home and need a plan to follow? Check out Nerd Fitness Journey!

Our fun habit-building app helps you exercise more frequently, eat healthier, and level up your life (literally).

Try your free trial right here:

#3) Join our amazing free community, the Nerd Fitness Rebellion! Not only is it free to join, but we’ll provide you with loads of free goodies when you sign-up:

Now, your turn:

What questions do you have about meditation?

What are your experiences?

Struggles?

Victory?

-Taylor

PS: Make sure you check out A Nerd’s Guide to Mindfulness for more tips and tricks on living in the here and now.

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Gif source: Mystique, Smiling Brain, Mortal Kombat, Anakin Skywalker, Wolverine in rain, Spider-Man, Homer,  Spoon

photo source: Rob Young:Lego X-Men – Professor X, Alexey Kuzin © 123RF.com, Yevgeniya Borodinova © 123RF.com

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“Winter is coming”

– House Stark.

Like the White Walkers of the old stories our Gran used to tell us, winter is descending upon us mere mortals, and we must prepare! This endless onslaught of vicious attacks on our brains and our bellies will leave us ripe for slaughter if we’re not careful:

Cold weather that encourages us to sleep in, avoid the elements, and say “maybe tomorrow.”

A sun that rises too late and sets too soon means we often go days without seeing the damn thing!

Cookies and candies bombarded us from everywhere we look.

Oh, and a f’ing global pandemic that has left us isolated and alone. 

These and more challenges are just begging us to go off the rails. And a built-in excuse called January 1st where we promise to “start over” helps us rationalize us “pausing” until then. Black Friday has come and gone. Cyber Monday is now in the rearview. Thanksgiving is now a distant memory.

And yet…the challenges are still just getting started.

Luckily, we have 7 “hacks”  to survive these trying times. If you want, you can try them too!

Here’s what we’ll cover with our guide on surviving winter:

• Winter Hack #1: Don’t Run in the Wrong Direction
• Winter Hack #2: Never Two in a Row
• Winter Hack #3: Consider Skipping a Meal
• Winter Hack #4: Strength Train Before Big Meals
• Winter Hack #5: Don’t Rely on Motivation
• Winter Hack #6: Have a Plan B
• Winter Hack #7: It All Counts

Alright, let’s do this thang.

Winter Hack #1: Don’t run in the wrong direction

We need you back in the fight, right now.

We all see January 1st as the “reset,” and there’s nothing wrong with a reset to start out the year. The problem is when you compound your issues by digging yourself deeper into a hole that you have to eventually climb out of!

Eat very poorly for long enough, and the hole will start to resemble Bruce Wayne’s prison in The Dark Knight Rises:

Think of it like you’re on the starting line of a race for a healthy life that starts Jan 1st. You have two options:

• A) Hang around the starting line: Hang out and wait for the gun to fire. Then start running.
• B) Run in the opposite direction. Run farther away from the starting line, so when the gun goes off you have even FARTHER to run in the race.

So, Step 1 is not running in the opposite direction. This means you can’t skip all your workouts and eat like crap and give up til January. This is you going the wrong way, and will make the task of “starting over” on January 1st that much more brutal.

Instead, do what you can to “tread water” and hang out around the starting line. If you CAN, stay on target. One bad meal doesn’t ruin things. One missed workout isn’t the end of the world. If you have an awful day, respawn and get back in the fight. Immediately.

A four-week freefall is a hole you’d rather not be in. You also don’t want to be in THIS hole:

But that’s beside the point…

So forget B. Let’s aim for A.

Winter Hack #1: Never Two in a Row

I first talked about “Never Two in a Row” back in like 2012, and it’s a mantra I’ve been living by ever since.

You’re human. And life happens.

What SHOULD NOT HAPPEN is missing two days in a row. Or eating TWO bad meals in a row. Or having TWO bad days in a row.

Why? One bad day can feel like a speed bump if you’re trying to get healthy. Get back on track right away and there’s no problem.

However, missing two days in a row is like turning that tiny speed bump into the Misty Mountains. If you miss one day in a row, no problem! Just act like it didn’t happen and get back on track.

But once you miss two days in a row, you are now 67.42% more likely to fall into a multiple week hole. Okay, I made up that statistic, but two days very easily becomes three, which very easily becomes a week, which easily becomes “I’ll wait til January.”

That’s running in the wrong direction. 

So AIM TO NEVER EVER EVER miss two workouts in a row. If you miss a workout on Monday, go on Tuesday and get right back on track. If you eat pie for lunch, because it ain’t gonna eat itself, make your dinner healthy AF. Do that, and you’ll be fine.

So whenever you have a bad day or do something against your plan, I need you to respawn right away (“start over” in video game lingo) and make the next day the best day you possibly can.

Winter Hack #3: Consider Skipping a Meal

Spoiler alert: you’re going to eat lots of decadent food this upcoming month. (Unlike Noel’s delicious Thai Zoodle recipe above)

I know it. You know it. So we can do one of two things.

• We can pretend like it’s not going to happen, and then be surprised and beat ourselves up when we put ourselves in a carb coma and go on a calorie-induced bender.
• Or we can be smart about it and negate the impact these days have on our waistlines. Better yet, we can make these additional calories work FOR us.

For starters, our metabolisms aren’t that smart. Your weight will fluctuate based on total calories consumed over many many days, not after ONE power-bomb of a meal.

So, if you know you are going to eat a monster lunch and dinner (I see you, Christmas), eat a stupidly light breakfast, and a light breakfast tomorrow – the calories will average out in the long run.

Or, if you’re willing to dig in and do the research, SKIP breakfast (and maybe lunch) before your monster meal. It’s called “intermittent fasting,” and it’s what I do to stay on track during weeks when I know I’m going to eat poorly.

First, I skip breakfast every day (I haven’t eaten breakfast for years now).

Second, I might choose to skip lunch as well the day after a monster meal. Again, dig in and do the research (or just read this), and you’ll find that missing a meal isn’t the end of the world. In fact, it can lead to a healthier lifestyle for the right person.

If you’re interested in skipping a meal here or there, our snazzy new app has an intermittent fasting adventure in it that you can try RIGHT NOW.

Sign-up for a free trial right here:

Winter Hack #4: Strength Train Before Big Meals

Whether or not you take advantage of intermittent fasting, you can time your workouts to coincide with your unhealthy meals.

As I mentioned in our article on The 5 Rules of Weight Loss, think of all the calories you eat as first-year wizards at Hogwarts.

They need to be sorted into one of three houses (“Burn as Energy,” Store as Fat,” or “Rebuild Muscle.”)

The extra calories you eat over the holidays always go towards “store as fat” unless you give them a really good reason to head to the “build muscle” common room. Politely asking them won’t help.

You need to give them a reason. And that wonderful reason is STRENGTH TRAINING.

When you strength train before a big meal, the muscles you trained are broken down and need to be rebuilt. So, over the next 48+ hours many of those extra calories will be diverted to rebuilding (stronger) muscles instead of becoming fat.

Yeah, our gyms are probably closed because of the pandemic. But that doesn’t mean we can’t do bodyweight training from our living room.

Try a heavy strength training workout just a few hours before a holiday mean, then proceed to eat with everybody else. While they all lament “I’m so full, I ate too much, wahhhh,” you’ll know your calories are being used to rebuild muscle. So internally, you can start doing an evil villain laugh… Muahahahah, you know the one.

Work smarter (like a nerd).

Winter Hack #5: Don’t rely on motivation

Here’s another spoiler for you: you are NOT going to want to work out this month. It’s going to be dark and cold, and your nose is going to run (better catch it!), work is going to suck, you’re going to be hungover, and so on.

The amount of motivation you’ll need to get over these obstacles is gargantuan. So don’t force yourself to try and “dig deep” and just “work harder” and feel guilty when you’re “not motivated.”

Instead, do whatever you can to never, ever ever rely on motivation. Your body won’t say, “oh that’s okay, I’ll stay in shape because I feel bad for you.” There are 31 days in December just like there are 31 days in August.

Which means you need to stay on track even though it’s much easier to do in the summer. So instead of motivation, build fail-safes to make sure you are staying healthy. Schedule your workouts in your calendar and set up alerts so you are reminded. Recruit a buddy so you can check-in on each other.

Or go with one of these more diabolical examples:

Take a really really embarrassing photo of yourself, or type up a tweet with an embarrassing secret. Schedule it to post at 6:15 (or whatever time is early for you) every morning before you go to bed. Put your phone in the other room. If you don’t wake up on time, and run in the other room and cancel that tweet, it goes out! Better just get out of bed and train before work.

Give your co-worker $250. Tell him/her that you will work out 3 days per week, and text him a photo of your workout. If he/she does not receive that photo, they’ll donate $50 of your money to a political cause you can’t stand.

Set your credit card alerts to email you and your wife/husband every time it’s used. Agree ahead of time you’ll never use that card to buy fast food or else you’ll have to be on diaper duty for the next 3 months straight (or something that fits your situation).  

In each of the instances above, you’re going to do exactly two things:

1. Get really mad at yourself. Probably curse a lot. Swear vengeance on your past self.
2. Do the damn thing you know you need to do while also being mad at yourself.

Never ever ever rely on motivation. Now, motivation doesn’t hurt. It’s just not reliable. So if you are in need of some motivation to get started, try this watching this video to remind you that training in the winter makes you a badass:

Just don’t rely on it, or feel guilty when you don’t have it! Whenever you DO feel a burst of motivation, use that extra energy to build systems. Here’s how to use motivation properly.

Winter Hack #6: Have a Plan B

“Too cold today! Can’t go to the gym and do my workout, DAMN! Looks like I’ll just have to sit here and eat ice cream.”

“Ran out of groceries, and it’s snowing. I guess I’ll just have to order pizza.”

The problem with winter is that it makes the unhealthy option always the easiest. We’re lazy, and I have to imagine we’re a bit like bears in that we want to hibernate and store fat when it gets cold out.

We have this tiny voice in our head subtly nudging us to pick the path of least resistance: aka pizza and skipped workouts.

And we can’t let that voice win. Then, the White Walkers win. And we’re all screwed. So, instead, we’re going to MacGuyver the sh** outta our winter by having a Plan B prepared.

For example:

A Workout PLAN B: Have a place in your house or apartment that you can go to and do the Beginner Bodyweight Workout, a workout from Nerd Fitness Prime, or some yoga.  It might not be as great as the gym (which may or may not be open), but it’s still a workout. It might mean investing in a door frame pull-up bar or a yoga mat, but a small investment for maintaining momentum through the winter is worth any amount of money. Here’s How to Build a Home Gym if you’re interested. 

A Nutritional PLAN B: Have a healthy meal in your freezer that has already been prepared and ready to be heated up. We make horrible decisions when the fridge is empty and we’re hungry. The Sirens of Dominos and Pizza Hut beckon us to call them for a 30-minute delivery.

So use your own laziness to help!

Here are some things to consider:

• Have a meal in your freezer that’s all ready to go.
• Store SteamFresh veggies for emergencies.
• If you use delivery apps for crap food, delete them from your phone.

Do what you need to do to make it more difficult to make the wrong choice.  

Winter Hack #7: It All Counts

So you can only train for 15 minutes today instead of 20.

So you have time to do a few yoga poses instead of working out for an hour.

So your ONLY option at the holiday party (if it’s even going on) is pizza and you didn’t have a great breakfast.

THIS DOES NOT MEAN YOUR WINTER IS RUINED.  80% IS STILL 80% BETTER THAN ZERO PERCENT.

Every little bit counts. It REALLY, REALLY does. Every small change, or even living off pie HALF of the time is FAR better than living off pie all the time. Swap ONE beer for ONE glass of water, and it’s a victory that will translate to your waistline. Do 5 push-ups as soon as you get out of bed, and it’s a victory.

Winter is a problem not because people make one bad mistake, but because one bad mistake quickly sets off a chain reaction of disasters justified by the fact that folks can’t do something 100%. So they opt for 0%.

If you don’t have time for a full workout, do half a workout! If you have to eat from a drive-through, no problem. Drinking water or a Diet Coke and grab some fruit as your side. 

Here’s something else to try:

Every morning when you wake up, do 20 bodyweight squats, 10 push-ups, and if you have access to a pull-up bar (or gymnastic rings), hang from them for 30 seconds. No bar? No problem, here are 5 pull-up alternatives.

Make this the FIRST thing you do every day (using systems built back in point #6). That way, at least every day during the winter you’ve done something.

Together we can Brave the Winter

There you have it. 

While you don’t have to follow all 7 hacks this winter, even just adopting one or two might help you build some momentum between now and the new year.

And as always, if you need any additional help, we’re here for you.

What kind of help?

Well, you could consider:

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

You can schedule a free call with our team so we can get to know you and see if our coaching program is right for you. Just click on the button below for more details:

Our coaching program changes lives. Learn how!

#2) Exercising at home and need a plan to follow? Check out Nerd Fitness Journey!

Our fun habit-building app helps you exercise more frequently, eat healthier, and level up your life (literally).

Try your free trial right here:

#3) Join the Rebellion! We need good people like you in our community, the Nerd Fitness Rebellion.

Sign up in the box below to enlist and get our Rebel Starter Kit, which includes all of our “work out at home” guides, the Nerd Fitness Diet Cheat Sheet, and much more!

Alright, that about does it.

But real quick, before somebody yells at me in the comments, yes I know a lot of Aussies and Kiwis are NF Rebels, and I know it’s nearly summer down there. You can laugh at us all you want, your winter will come soon enough. Oh, it will.  

Now, let’s hear from you:

What do you do when the going gets tough, when the temperature drops, and life gets busy as hell?

How do you fight back?

What are your favorite specific tricks or systems you use to stay on track?

Leave your comment below and share with your fellow Rebels.

-Steve

P.S. If the cold weather is bringing you down, this guide on overcoming the winter blues may help.

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Photo source: Joerg Huettenhoelscher © 123RF.com, Михаил Ð?ханов © 123RF.com, Ivanko Brnjakovic © 123RF.com

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So you’re interested in enlisting in the Military Diet, eh cadet?

Not so fast there.

This is a seriously controversial diet – and that’s not including the fact it has NOTHING to do with the military.

What’s even worse? It works (temporarily).

Though you’ll hate yourself, I promise.

We advise all our Online Coaching Clients to avoid this like the plague.

We also advise them to avoid the plague, but that’s less relevant here.

What diet should you try to lose weight quickly? Let our coaches help you decide!

So let’s discuss the Military Diet (click to go to that answer):

• What is the Military Diet?
• What does the Military Diet plan look like?
• Will the three-day Military Diet help you lose weight?
• Are there any benefits to the Military Diet?
• Are there any drawbacks to the Military Diet?
• Where did the Military Diet come from?
• Is the Military Diet safe?
• FAQ on the Military Diet.
• Alternatives to the Military Diet.

Before I make you fall in line, if you’re interested in changing the way you eat to get in shape, you may like our fun new habit-building app!

NF Journey helps you exercise more frequently, eat healthier, and level up your life (literally).

Try your free trial right here:

What is the Military Diet? How does the Military Diet work?

If the Military Diet could be described in two quick words, those words would be “short term calorie restriction.”

Crap, that’s four words.

Ahem.

The diet focuses on ruthlessly cutting out calories in order to spur weight loss.

There are some claims out there that you can lose up to ten pound in one week on the Military Diet. Which would be impressive – and should also be setting off your skeptical spidey-senses.

So I can understand your curiosity, recruit.

Now you’re thinking: “What exactly does ‘extreme calorie restriction’ look like Steve?”

How about one meal consisting of just a single piece of bread, a half cup of tuna, and some black coffee?

That’s it.

If you ask for more food you’ll be forced to climb a rope.

The Military Diet is broken into two stages, one for three days and the other for four.

• 3-day plan on the Military Diet. For three days, breakfast, lunch, and dinner is picked out for you. You get this meal only soldier, nothing more! Forget about snacking. For three days, every single crumb is accounted for. I’m only slightly exaggerating. And these three meals only add up to 1,000 calories per day. Ouch. That’s not much chow.
• Four days of leave. The Military Diet does go easy on you after the three days, with four days of slightly more food. And by that I mean 1,500 daily calories. How generous. You’re on your own on what to eat for these four days, with the only guidance being to “eat healthy” and keep it at “1,500 calories.”

Three days on, four days off. You repeat this three day and four day rotation until you reach your ideal weight.

That’s the Military Diet in a nutshell.

Okay, you probably want to know, to the crumb, what you get to eat on the Military Diet? Sure.

But it ain’t pretty.

What does the Military Diet plan look like?

As I mentioned, the Military Diet provides strict orders on what to eat for three days. Your mission looks like this:

DAY 1

Breakfast:

1. Half a grapefruit
2. One slice of toast
3. Two tablespoons of peanut butter
4. One cup of coffee or tea

Lunch:

1. Half a cup of tuna
2. One slice of toast
3. One cup of coffee or tea

Dinner

1. 3 ounces of any type of meat
2. 1 cup of green beans
3. Half a banana
4. One small apple
5. One cup of vanilla ice cream

DAY 2

Breakfast

1. One egg
2. One slice of toast
3. Half a banana

Lunch

1. One cup of cottage cheese
2. One hard boiled egg
3. Five saltine crackers

Dinner

1. Two hot dogs (no bun)
2. One cup of broccoli
3. Half a cup of carrots
4. One banana
5. Half a cup of vanilla ice cream

DAY 3

Breakfast

1. Five saltine crackers
2. One slice of cheddar cheese
3. One small apple

Lunch

1. One egg (cooked however)
2. One slice of toast

Dinner

1. One cup of tuna
2. Hald a banana
3. One cup of vanilla ice cream

If you find yourself thinking, “That’s not much for rations, Steve.” You’d be right.

Not only that, but I bet your normal serving of peanut butter is significantly larger than 2 tablespoons. Yikes.

But I’m getting ahead of myself here.

I’ll keep filling you on the details and then share my real opinion at the end here.

Substitutions?

Some websites will guide you through substitutions to stick with in case you’re vegetarian or lactose intolerant, etc.

Think tofu dogs for hot dogs.

But you are told to match calories exactly for replacement, since the name of the game here is restriction.

For the most part however, substitutions are discouraged on the Military Diet.

What about after these three days? 

If you haven’t gone AWOL, you get a pass for four days. Some websites suggest you can enjoy a meal of shrimp fried rice or a black bean burger on your leave.

To stick with the strict Military Diet strategy, you would keep it to 1,500 calories for each 24 hour period.

Eating only 1,000 calories a day is really difficult.

1,500 isn’t exactly easy peezy either.

Is this actually worth it?

Will the three day Military Diet help me lose weight?

In the short term, the Military Diet will most likely cause you to lose weight.

Why, you ask?

Because science.

It’s the reason “all diets work in the short term.”

If you eat more calories than you burn in a day, you will gain weight over time. If you do the reverse, and burn more than you consume, you will lose weight^[1].

Granted, there’s some finer details in that equation. Muscle, fat, body fat, etc.

But for simplicity sake, it works.

The Military Diet works by practically guaranteeing you will burn more calories than you consume.

If an overweight person who usually eats 2,500-3,000+ calories in a day, suddenly switches to ONLY eat 1,000 calories for multiple days in a row, their body will operate at a caloric deficit while it seeks the energy required for drills, push-ups, and cleaning the mess hall.

When this is repeated for a few days, the number on the scale will get smaller!

So will YOU (specifically you, in the green hat) lose weight?

Depending on where you are now and your current intake, that deficit (and thus the accompanying weight loss) could be DRAMATIC.

But will you lose 10 pounds in one week like some sites claim? I highly doubt it. Unless you have 100+ pounds to lose and usually eat 5,000+ calories per day, you can only lose so much water weight in a short time period.

Rome wasn’t built in a day. People don’t get overweight in a day. And people won’t lose all the fat they want to lose in a day either.

Here’s another truth bomb that needs to be said: Even if the number on the scale drops significantly in a week, most of it is water weight.

Your body contains a lot of water, especially if you normally eat very salty, carby foods. So when you remove those foods from your system, the amount of water your body holds can decrease significantly too.

So if somebody strictly followed the Military Diet down to the calorie for a week they could lose maybe one to two pounds of actual fat.

They could lose multiple pounds of water weight too, but that won’t continue from week to week.

ATTENTION!

It’s time to hit you with more knowledge: Any weight you lose while on the Military Diet will only remain lost if you stay on the Military Diet.

Temporary changes create temporary results.

This is super important and will be stressed again later.

Are there any benefits to the Military Diet?

Any kind of calorie restricted eating program, if adhered to consistently, will likely result in weight loss.

Remember that guy who lost weight eating Twinkies^[2]?

It worked because he made a strict protocol of his calorie requirements. Then, he followed it.

Yeah, he filled a lot of his diet with junk food.

But the point is he managed his food intake according to a plan to lose weight, and then stuck to it.

And it worked!

Before you get all mad at me, I too believe that the quality of calories is as important as the quantity.

One of the FEW things I like about the Military Diet is that it provides a strict protocol to follow. You don’t have to worry about what to eat. It’s breakfast time on Day 2.

That means you eat one egg, one slice of toast, and half a banana.

It’s the same reason why many people love the Paleo Diet or Intermittent Fasting or Keto Diet or the Mediterranean Diet: there are specific rules to follow that removes all guesswork from “what should I eat, and how much?”

I won’t lie to you and claim that a guide on what to eat has no benefits. Lying will get you court-martialed.

Hell, we even have our own free 10-level diet blueprint that tells you exactly what to eat to help cut out the guesswork (you can get yours when you sign up in the box below):

But as your friend, I can’t give you only one side of the story.

Are There Any Drawbacks to the Military Diet?

DON’T DO THE MILITARY DIET!

Sorry, I’ve been holding that in this whole post. Literally. I typed this whole post up to this point while holding my breath so that I could then blurt this out.

I won’t deny that you could lose weight following the Military Diet. But can any diet telling you to eat bread, crackers, and ice cream actually be good for you?

I know you know better.

You’re an adult with a good head on your shoulders, and you’re probably considering the Military Diet because you want a quick weight loss win without having to make any permanent changes.

Unfortunately, things like “science,” “thermodynamics,” and “reality” will keep getting in the way.

The Military Diet is what we in the fitness world call a “crash diet.” Crash diets are designed for quick weight loss in a short amount of time.

These diets – and I can included “cleanses” here – prey on people’s desperation to “get fit quick.”

They know that if you follow a short term diet, lose a bunch of water weight, and see a lower number on the scale – you’re convinced it worked and then you can go back to how you were eating before.

Then when you quickly put all of that weight back on…you’ll come running back to the diet that got you short term results.

This is how they make their money, get your attention, and ultimately leave you sad and right back where you started.

Other examples of terrible crash diets include the Cabbage Soup Diet, the Baby Food Diet and just about any juice cleanse on the market.

I won’t even link to them, that’s how annoyed I am about their existence.

The reason these diets are short term is because they are not sustainable. Can you eat nothing but cabbage soup for a week? Sure. For an entire year? No way.

Crash diets are temporary diets. Which means their results will be just that, temporary.

The Military Diet is extreme and short term. Why do people in the military do this to themselves?

Spoiler alert: they don’t.

Where did the Military Diet come from?

Here’s another crappy bit of info: The Military Diet has absolutely nothing to do with any branch of the Armed Forces.

As quoted in CNN, Patricia Deuster explained, “In my 30 years working with the military, I’ve never heard of it.”

And she would know, because Deuster helped write the nutritional guide for the U.S. Special Operations Forces^[3].

So if it doesn’t come from the actual military, where does the Military Diet come from?

This three days crash diet has gone by different names before, the Cleveland Clinic Diet 3-Day Diet, the Kaiser Diet, the American Heart Association Diet, and the Birmingham Hospital Diet^[4].

Despite the different names, the three day meal plan is exactly the same.

And guess what?

None of the organizations claim to have created or support their namesake diet.

So where did it come from? Honestly, I don’t care.

It’s silly and I don’t need to meet the person who created a three day crash diet, that co-opts the military name to make itself sound reputable and legitimate.

Is the Military Diet safe?

There’s nothing inherently dangerous about the Military Diet. It’s just eating moderately healthy/unhealthy food in small quantities.

Which, depending on your current diet – could be a big improvement from eating unhealthy food in large quantities.

I don’t know you or your situation, but if you want to practice Karate kicks in the garage and become best friends, I’m down to clown.

Now, based on my 10 years of running Nerd Fitness, helping hundreds of thousands of people lose weight safely and in a sustainable way, I’m gonna tell you that this is probably not the diet you’re looking for.

Why?

Because this diet will make you miserable, and sticking to the portion sizes will make you unhappy and hangry.

As soon as your 7 days are up, you’re gonna gorge yourself and probably end up even worse off than where you started!

This probably isn’t your first rodeo, nor is it the first quick fix you’ve sought out for weight loss. How have the previous attempts worked out for you in the long run?

I’m not saying this to be a jerk, but rather to make a point:

I like you, your friends like you, and the world needs you to be the healthiest superhero version of yourself you can be.

And that will never happen if you keep chasing extreme short term diets.

I’d rather see you make changes you can stick with. Even if it’s one small change. Gradually reduce the calories you eat, by switching to REAL food.

Things like veggies, fruits, and good quality meat. Build a plate that looks like this:

If you make one change, like eggs and avocados for breakfast, you’ll be making a great step in the right direction.

Small changes are something you can live with.

Studies have shown that decreasing your caloric consumption by 25% can be fine for your mood^[5]. Perhaps even beneficial. But dropping down to 1,000 calories? There’s no way that can, or should, be maintained.

I wouldn’t recommend you reduce calories by reducing the quantity of food, like ordering you to eat a meal of five saltine crackers, a slice of cheddar cheese, and one tiny apple.

Instead, I want you to make small changes to REAL food. That’s the ticket to long term weight loss. We’ve seen it over and over again here at Nerd Fitness.

Want help making the switch to REAL food?

Not sure how to make all of that work in your busy lifestyle?

I hear ya. It’s brutally difficult to stick with any diet, and that doesn’t even factor in when your kids get sick or work sucks or there’s two feet of snow on the ground.

It’s why we launched our 1-on-1 Online Coaching Program: to help create specific solutions and accountability for people that want guidance on how to eat, how to train, and the confidence to know they’re doing it correctly!

Learn more how our coaching program can help you fix your nutrition:

Frequently asked questionS on the Military Diet

1) Do foods in the Military Diet help boost your metabolism?

There’s some debate on this. For example, can coffee help you lose weight by raising your metabolism?

I’ll go with: HIGHLY unlikely.

Any effect of caffeine to your metabolic rate isn’t enough to make a substantial impact^[6]. If anything, it might act as an appetite suppressor^[7].

Which isn’t nothing. But don’t count on it to raise your resting caloric expenditure like magic.

However, here are two things outside of diet that will help keep your metabolism high:

• Strength training. The more muscle you have on your frame, the more energy you will use at rest^[8]. It’s one of the reasons we recommend it so much. I have no problem playing drill instructor and demanding push-ups.
• Stand up and move more. Any movement helps and even just standing up, outside of any walking, can help raise your metabolism^[9]. A standing desk, for those long hours in the office, might be a good move.

Do either of these strategies, or better yet both. It’s better than relying on grapefruit powers to burn calories.

2) Will I enter starvation mode on the Military Diet?

Most likely not.

Sure, if you go without food for a lonnnng period of time, your metabolism might slow down slightly, though this requires EXTREME nutritional restriction over a long period of time^[10].

This makes sense from an evolutionary perspective. If there’s nothing to eat in sight, it might be that way for a while.

Depending on how often you repeat it, the Military Diet might reduce calories to a point where this slow down of metabolism kicks in.

However, it’s more likely that as you lose weight, your body doesn’t need to burn as many calories because there’s less of you to manage every day!

So your metabolism WILL slow down as you lose weight, but it’s not due to you eating fewer calories in a day.

Now, some would say the climb up to 1,500 calories might help prevent this, but each person is different.

My take: The fear of “starvation mode” is overblown, and it should be the least of your concerns while eating bread and ice cream and calling it a “diet”

3) Is the Military Diet a form of intermittent fasting?

Not really:

• The MIlitary Diet focuses on restricting calories at a specific meal, by counting the amount of hotdogs you can have, for example.
• Intermittent fasting centers on making a strategic decision to skip certain meals on purpose.

With intermittent fasting, you narrow the size of your eating window, or you occasionally do fasts of 24 hours.

For instance, you can start eating at noon and finish up by 8pm, essentially skipping breakfast.

I wrote all about it in our “Beginner’s Guide to Intermittent Fasting,” where I outlined the benefits of teaching your body to consume food more efficiently, and also reduces the total number of calories you are probably eating.

Conversely, the Military Diet teaches your body to run on hot dogs.

I’ve personally been utilizing intermittent fasting for three years. But I have never, nor will I ever, follow the Military Diet.

Shots fired.

If you’re interested, Nerd Fitness Journey has an intermittent fasting adventure that you can start today!

You can give it a whirl for free right here:

Why you should not do the Military Diet, and What to do Instead.

We all want instant gratification. Unfortunately when it comes to fitness and diet, instant gratification will always fail you.

Short term changes only lead to short term results and heartbreak.

IF YOU ARE GOING TO DO THE MILITARY DIET: Godspeed, soldier.

Good luck with your 7 days, and let me know how it goes in the comments below.

My only request: use those 7 days to learn about yourself and nutrition (maybe by reading this post?), and do what you can implement permanent adjustments to how you choose to eat after.

I’d imagine most people who do this diet are hoping for a permanent fix with minimal work in just a few days time, and I’m here to caution you against that line of thinking.

LIFE DON’T WORK THAT WAY.

DON’T DO THE MILITARY DIET. DO THIS INSTEAD:

• Eat real food when possible.
• Eat a damn vegetable every once and awhile. Yes, even if you hate them.
• Cut out liquid calories like soda and juice (essentially sugar water). Drink water, black coffee, tea, or diet soda.

If you can eat real food, minimize liquid calories, and eat veggies, and do so consistently for months and months – you’re going to have permanent success.

Making these changes too tough to do permanently? Change fewer things!  

Start thinking in terms of “days and years,” not “weeks and months:”

Try one meal, based on REAL food. Forget the crackers and ice cream.

If you want a strict diet to follow with rules, create your own.

Or find one that already exists.

Try Keto. Or intermittent fasting.

Maybe Paleo. Or Mediterranean.

But don’t waste your time with the Military Diet or any other crash diet. Instead make lasting changes like I lay out in that video above.

If you read all of this and you’re overwhelmed, and you’re just looking for guidance on how to eat for your situation, you’re not alone!

We had so many people ask us for specific advice that we built an Online Coaching Program to help them get results.

Our professional coaches are regular people like you, with families, hobbies, and struggles – but they spend all day helping busy people like you live better, lose weight, and feel better about themselves.

If you’re like “hey I want somebody to tell me what to do,” schedule a free call with our team to learn more by clicking in the big box below:

Back to the post: You don’t need to do the Military Diet.

The people in the military certainly don’t.

INSTEAD, YOUR MISSION, SHOULD YOU CHOOSE TO ACCEPT IT:

• Cut back on your liquid calories. If it’s not water, tea, or coffee (black), try cutting back in a deliberate fashion. Switch to diet sodas. Switch to coffee instead of lattes. Realize that juice is just sugar water.
• Prepare one healthy meal. Consider my healthy go-to option. Just make sure it has a vegetable, okay? Don’t overthink this.

If you can do those two things this week, and then repeat that week after week, you’ll be 10X better off a year from now than if you had followed the Military Diet for 7 days.

And lastly, remember, THE MILITARY DIET HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE MILITARY!!!

Ahem.

Any questions?

-Steve

PS: Check out the actual guide for Special Operations Forces – Special Ops Forces Nutrition Guide. But those folks work out A LOT. Adjust your caloric intake accordingly.

PPS: And if you already did the Military Diet, please drop and give me 20 push-ups 🙂

Not sure how to do them correctly?

Our new app will teach them to you!

ALL Photos Sources can be found in this footnote here^[11].

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