Dick Talens Fitness Musings and Essays

Note: I originally wrote this guide for my Minimum Viable Fitness program. Here is the section explaining how you can drink while sticking to your diet:

First, let’s establish that you can drink and still make progress

Alcohol gets an undeserved rap when it comes to gaining fat. Drinking is often the first scapegoat for the “Freshman 15,” while the unlimited amounts of cafeteria food are conveniently forgotten about. In theory, alcohol does suppress lipolysis, the process in which your body breaks down its stored body fat and utilizes it as fuel. However in practical terms, this may not always be the case.

Consider this snippet from nutritionist Alan Aragon:

“One study found that men consuming an average of 56 grams of ethanol per day (four beers) took in 16 percent more total calories than a matched group of non-drinkers. The two groups–drinkers and non-drinkers–had identical amounts of physical activity. So, logically, you’d think that the drinkers packed on some pounds.

They didn’t. Both groups had the same body-mass index, despite all those excess calories for the drinkers.”

In fact, moderate alcohol consumption increases insulin sensitivity, which we’ve established is a good thing.

Personally, alcohol by itself has never, ever, prevented me from losing fat in the long run, even when drinking multiple times a week.

Kasra even dropped 60 lbs while drinking every day. (Note: I’m not stating whether or not this has other health implications.) It’s the post-binge drinking munchies that make up 95% of the damage.

Below, I refer to two types of days…training days and rest days. To find out more about these, read my guide to the most effective workout program in the world.

How often can I drink?

There are two types of days: the “social drinking” type and the “I’m going to get shitfaced” type.

These two days require a different mindset.

For social drinking days, your mindset should be moving forward with your progress while incorporating alcohol into your diet.

For “I’m going to get shitfaced” type of days, your mindset should be damage control. Making sure that your drinking does not get in the way of your progress too much.

As long as you stick to the rules below, you can probably get away with one day/week of the latter and a few days of the week of the former, depending on your goals and current status.

When can I drink?

First, let’s establish that you’re probably drinking at night, which means if you’re someone who practices intermittent fasting as per my nutrition guide, you shouldn’t worry about the end of your feeding window–you won’t stick to it.

If you drink more frequently, however, you will need to think about adjusting your feeding window.

How much can I drink?

Social drinking days

If you are using the “track” option, then you’ll need to incorporate drinks into your macros for “social drinking” days. Count each drink as 10g of fat and track any necessary carbohydrates as well. There is a full list of substitutes at the end.

If you are using the “rules” option, then this is open ended. You can certainly drink enough to get buzzed or lightly drunk, as long as you stick to the alcohol choice guidelines below. On rest days, keep fat lower than normal and only stick to foods from the list of lean proteins. That’s because alcohol blunts the process of lipolysis–burning fat for fuel–meaning that dietary fat will have a tendency to be stored.

Shitfaced days

Same rules whether you’re using the “Track” option or the “Rules” option. Don’t try to track. Today is about damage mitigation, remember?

Instead, spend the day hitting your protein requirements from lean protein sources only. Today, eat lean protein, vegetables, and maybe some carbs if it’s a training day… but keep it minimal.

After that, have fun. If you’re the type of person who craves food at the end of the night, have some protein waiting for you when you get home. Cottage cheese or greek yogurt are a good choice.

What can I drink?

Rest Days

You may drink as many hard liquors and zero calorie mixers (e.g. diet coke) as you like. You may also drink a moderate amount of extremely light beers (think Michelob Ultra, or you know, things you wouldn’t normally want to drink because they taste like water) and dry red wines. What am I defining as a “moderate amount”? It’s an amount that will get you slightly buzzed.

Why are we avoiding everything else? This is because the only other macronutrient that alcoholic beverages contain is carbohydrates (with some exceptions like White Russians), which we are avoiding today. Hard liquors are carbohydrate free for the most part, and light beers and red wine tend to be lower in carbohydrates. For this reason, we will stick to these drink choices.

That means if you know you will be heading to a Biergarten to knock sausages with some Germans for Oktoberfest, you will probably want to shift around your workout so that drinking day is a Training Day.

You might also want to skip the sausages. Training Days are low fat, high carb, remember?

Training Days

You may consume all types of alcohol under some guidelines.

First, cut down on your usual amount of carbohydrates. Lowering your carbohydrate totals will create a buffer for the additional carbohydrates that you will be consuming from alcohol.

Secondly, if you plan on drinking more sugary mixed drinks (i.e. cosmos, rum and coke) and dark or “tastier” beers (e.g. Guinness Stout), drink them first. Psychologically, these may fire up cravings for other foods, so you don’t want to drink them towards the end of your night when your willpower is most likely to cave in. Once you’ve gotten your fill of these, round out the rest of your night with hard liquor, wine, or beers that are on the moderate end of the carbohydrate spectrum.

Final note–If you are going to be training the next morning, you should still be training hard. Of course, be smart about it. If you are extremely hung over and dehydrated, then it may be best to postpone your Training Day. If you did not drink too heavily and are capable of training, however, it is entirely possible to still PR after a night of drinking. Many people simply have a poor workout because they’ve already resigned to a poor workout. I’ve had some of my best workouts the day after drinking.

List of Substitutes (If tracking)

If you’re tracking pretty closely, you may substitute one serving (glass, shot, etc.) of the following drinks for the macros listed.

Vodka, Whiskey, Scotch, Rum, Gin, Tequila–

10g fat

White wine, Red wine, Champagne–

10g fat, 5g carbohydrates

Most light beers–

10g fat, 8g carbohydrates

Other beers–Varies

This is a guest post by Maneesh Sethi, Founder of Pavlok and sleep expert…but Dick here with a quick introduction:

Aside from the hundreds of emails I get asking for free fitness coaching, one of the most common questions I get is:

“Dick! You’re so good looking, funny, and full of energy. How do you do it? Do you wake up early? What time do you go to bed?”

The answer: A good night’s sleep. And my ADHD medication…kidding. Mostly.

But in all seriousness, when it comes to sources of energy and productivity, sleep is right up there with diet and strength training. Unfortunately, unlike nutrition and fitness, it’s something that I’m not an expert on–so I invited my friend Maneesh to talk about it.

In today’s post Maneesh shares how sleep and routines can affect your habit change journey.

 

Why Lack of Sleep Is Causing Your Bad Habits by Maneesh Sethi

 

“Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise” – Benjamin Franklin

Imagine:

• Having an extra hour in your day to spend however you wanted.
• Exercising, meditating, and having a healthy breakfast, all before you head to work.
• Instead of waking up feeling stressed and rushed out the door, you woke up excited for the day.

It’s not a pipedream, all of the above is entirely possible.

How?

It starts with mastering your evenings and mornings.

Hi I’m Maneesh Sethi, the founder of Pavlok. For those of you who didn’t see me getting yelled at by Mark Cuban on Shark Tank, Pavlok is a wearable device that helps you break bad habits. One of the things that running Pavlok for has allowed me to do is see thousands of data points…what works and what doesn’t when it comes to habit change.

Without a doubt, one of the biggest indicators of successful habit change is the ability to both end your day and start your morning on the right foot.

Today I want to share a few of my findings.

Whether you want to start going to bed at a decent hour, or want to start waking up earlier, understanding habit change and the common roadblocks you will face will help you succeed in the long run.

But first, the elephant in the room.

Most people have “tried” being a morning person before:

They set the alarm for 5 AM.

Maybe the first day they get up no problem.

But after a few days they revert quickly back to their old ways.

Contrary to popular belief, the reason most people fail,  isn’t because they lack “willpower” or “motivation.”

The single biggest reason people aren’t able to start their mornings right is due to lack of sleep. The second biggest reason is not having a plan.

The Devastating Costs of Lack of Sleep

It’s no secret that sleep is important, but it’s easy to understate just how important it really is, especially when it comes to affecting your ability to form good habits.

No matter how many “2592 ways to be successful” blog posts you read or courses you buy, if you’re not getting sleep you’ll likely struggle to get results in your life.

According to the CDC “Those experiencing sleep insufficiency are also more likely to suffer from chronic diseases such as hypertension, diabetes, depression, obesity, cancer, increased mortality, and reduced quality of life and productivity.”

If there was a pill that could instantly make your entire life worse, it would be called “No Sleep.”

Lack of sleep makes it harder to build good habits, be productive, and even makes you grumpy.

Ugh.

A recent study in bettersleeop.org shared nearly 8 in 10 Americans admit they would be better prepared for the day if they had an extra hour of sleep.

Okay.

So not getting high quality sleep is a problem. But how do we fix it? Let’s dive in.

Creatures of Habits

Has your friend ever told you he wanted to start waking up early but that he “can’t” because he’s a night owl?

I know I get that all the time.

But in my experience, night owls (as with most things) are made not born.

The truth is, we’re just creatures of habit.

The time you wake up, the time you go to sleep, and what you eat for breakfast are all habits.

And it’s taken thousands of repeated actions to get you are you are today.

Thousands. Of actions.

One of the biggest mistakes people make when trying to change habits, is they set unrealistic expectations.

They expect things to happen over night.

What often happens is they give it a half hearted effort, and then quit when they don’t see results after just a few days.

So when it comes to making changes in your life, play the long game. Overcoming bad habits, and installing new ones in your life take time.

Should You Wake Up Early?

Look. I’m not going to pretend that you have to be  “morning person” to be successful, happy, etc.

Of course you can be crazy successful and sleep in until 1PM in the afternoon.

But if you’re struggling to get where you want to go, becoming a morning person will significantly increase your chances of finding success for most people. Even if you don’t want to wake up at 5 AM, at the very least you can incorporate a powerful 20-30 minute morning ritual which I’ll discuss more later.

One of the best reasons to consider waking up early, is that it gives you the opportunity to work on your habits before all the excuses pile up throughout the day.

Here are just a few things that can have a huge impact on the quality of your life all before most people wake up.

Exercise – I won’t list the hundreds of benefits of exercise here, but making a habit of exercising will help you take care of your body and mind.

Meditation – Waking up early gives you the chance to reflect, meditate, or pray helping you greet the day with a clear head.

Healthy Breakfast – Having the morning to yourself and not being rushed allows you to cook a nice healthy breakfast you might otherwise not get around to. A great meal to start the day will give you a leg up on everyone else.

If you already do all of the above, great! If not, you’re really missing out.

Now that we’ve discussed whether or not you should wake up early, let’s look at how you can go about making that happen.

It Starts With Awareness

If you want to wake up early for example, but haven’t been able to do in the past, chances are, it’s not because you “can’t” but because you’ve been approaching it the wrong way.

Ugh! I slept through my alarm at 5AM!

*Went to bed at 3AM*

When we’re caught up in trying to change our habits, it’s not easy to look at our actions in a deliberate and unbiased manner.

Of course, an outside observer KNOWS going to bed at 3 AM won’t let you get up at 5 AM on a regular basis.

Building awareness of your behavior is key. Which is why when designing Pavlok 2 (and the original Pavlok) we relied heavily on actual peer reviewed studies to ensure Pavlok was actually helping our users through making them aware of their bad habits.

One of the main benefits of our Pavlok wearable, is it helps our users generate awareness around their actions and habits, through a slight shock.

And it’s amazing how many of our users email us back saying something to the effect of “Wow, I had no idea I started smoking the second I left work.”

So if you’re looking to go to bed on time, or wake up early, the first step is to become aware of your current behaviors.

Are you super stressed and unable to go to bed? Do you have a coke later in the evening? Are you drinking too much coffee? Are you glued to your phone until the wee hours of the morning?

Start paying attention to your evening habits. They might unlock the reason why you’re not getting good sleep.

Getting To Bed Earlier

Once you’ve become aware of your bedtime and morning habits, it’s time to start making some changes. Here are a few suggestions to help you get to sleep.

Turn off your electronics an hour before bed.

• Meditate.
• Supplement with some melatonin.
• Listen to some calming music.
• Do some journaling to unwind from the day.
• Use flux or some other coloring software to reduce eye strain.
• Delete your Netflix account. 😉
• Read fiction.
• Go to bed around the same time each night.
• Purchase some light blocking glasses (seriously, they are a game changer.)

Pick one or two from the list and give it a try tonight when you go to bed. Start small and add more as you go along.

While you may not include all over these in your evening ritual, doing just or two will help you build a helpful evening routine.

How To Get Up Earlier

Step 1 – See “Getting To Bed Earlier”

No really. It’s true. If you want to start waking up early, you have to get to bed at a decent hour. There’s no way around it.

You can’t continue your old ways and expect different results.

One of the biggest reasons people fail to get up early, is because they don’t give their body the proper rest it needs. And then they quit before even giving themselves a chance.

Once you start getting to the sleep your body needs, here are a few tips to help you transition into a morning person.

Plan Your Night Before – Planning your night before helps you know exactly what you can accomplish by waking up early. Having a clear picture gives you a reason to get up instead of hitting snooze.

Do Some Exercise As Soon As You Wake Up – One feature of our Pavlok wearable is that is requires you to do some jumping jacks when you wake up — if not you get a nice little zap. One of the best ways to ensure you wake up and stay up, is doing some light exercise the second your alarm goes off.

Track Your Sleep With An App Such As Sleep Cycle or Pavlok:

One of my favorite things about Pavlok, is it tracks your sleep so you know exactly how much you were tossing and turning during the night. Just being aware of how I slept, makes me want to improve my sleep each night, which obviously has some pretty great long term effects.

Build A Morning Routine – Another helpful way to start waking up early is by starting to build a morning routine. Instead of having to think about what you’re going to do, a morning routine allows you to wake up and just do it.

For example, when I wake up, I take a 30 minute bath and do some pushups, and it’s now much harder for me to not do it then it is to actually do it.

Experiment with several positive habits you know will help improve your quality of life. Start meditating. Writing 1000 words. Drinking more water. Doing 7 minutes of exercise. If you start small, these habits will quickly add up.

Changing your sleep behavior can feel pretty overwhelming and like an impossible task. But if approached correctly, it is possible.

Here’s the TLDR of today’s post.

1. Lack of quality sleep is bad for your health and habits.
2. Change takes time, don’t beat yourself up.
3. There are many benefits of waking up early.
4. Habit change begins with awareness.
5. If you want to get better sleep you should have an evening routine.
6. If you want to change your habits, you should have a morning ritual.

Bam.

Develop awareness around your current habits. Wind down the day properly, and give yourself a reason to wake up excited for the day.

As Henry Ford once said, “Whether you think you can or can’t, you’re right.”

Now go forth and have a productive day.

Thanks a ton to Maneesh for writing this. Make sure to check out Pavlok 2’s Campaign on Indiegogo! – Dick

Sources:

https://www.cdc.gov/features/dssleep/

http://bettersleep.org/research/sleep-surveys/survey-starving-for-sleep/

https://hbr.org/2010/07/defend-your-research-the-early-bird-really-does-get-the-worm

https://pavlok.com/blog/21-scientific-studies-on-aversion-and-bad-habits

http://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/regular-exercise-changes-brain-improve-memory-thinking-skills-201404097110

Women, especially short women, seem to get the short end of the stick when it comes to fat loss. Despite seemingly-endless amounts of cardio and dieting, it is really @%&@!# hard for some women to lose fat, especially once they start to plateau.

You’re probably saying “duh they just need fewer calories,” and you wouldn’t be wrong, it’s just that the problem – and the solution – is a bit more nuanced than that.

A Case Study: Jane

Jane is 5’2 and 180 lbs. She was once 200 lbs or so, and through sheer brute force, lost 20 lbs from diet and exercise. She has unable to lose weight in the past few years; no matter how hard she tries, she just can’t seem to break 180. Due to cycles of dieting and binging, she hovers between 180 and 190 and feels like she’s forever doomed to remain within this weight range.

A look at calories burned and metabolism

Before we talk more about Jane’s particular situation, let’s take a look at how people burn a day’s worth of calories.

Total calories burned in a day = Resting metabolism + Thermic effect of intentional activity + Thermic effect of food + Thermic effect from non-exercise activity

Resting metabolism – The amount of calories that are required in order to maintain normal bodily functions, hormones, etc.

Thermic effect of intentional activity – Activities burned from moving around all day.

Thermic effect of food (TEF) – Calories burned from the process of eating your food and turning it into usable substrates.

Non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT) – Calories burned from spontaneous activity that your body undertakes. Unfortunately, there’s not much you can do to directly impact NEAT, so we’re going to save this for another day.

In your average person, resting metabolism accounts for somewhere in the neighborhood of 70% of total calories burned in the day. Yep, that means most of your calories are spent just “staying alive,” even if you were to stay in bed all day. The thermic effect of activity comes in distant second, making up 15% or so.

Now, there seems to be great variation in one’s resting metabolic rate, some explainable, and some not. The large majority – 85% in fact – of all explainable variation can be explained by fat free mass. Stated another way, people with more fat free mass (or lean mass) have higher resting metabolic rates, and this accounts for most of the explained variation between individuals.

Why women get the short end of the stick

What happens when people over-consume calories with no additional exercise? Obviously, your body will happily store excess calories as fat. What most people don’t realize is that even without exercise, additional increases in fat mass also beget additional increases in lean mass as well.

Yes, this means that some people gain muscle by just stuffing their faces.

Interestingly enough, we can look to sumo wrestlers to see the extremes of how much mass one can accumulate through excess caloric consumption. Traditionally, sumo wrestlers don’t traditionally strength train and instead spend much of the day stuffing their faces. (Sounds like an amazing job, right?) This actually leads to a tremendous amount of lean body mass – more than bodybuilders.

Another study included a portion in which participants were overfed 1000 kcals for 100 days while doing nothing else. Those individuals gained 1 pound of muscle for every 2 pounds of fat. (By the way, do we have any doubt at this point that food is an incredibly anabolic substance? Again, these individuals were sedentary.)

So it looks like in some sedentary individuals, not all excess calories go towards adipose storage. Some goes towards the creation of lean mass.

But who benefits from this gloriously amazing side effect?

Unfortunately, in my experience looking at overweight, untrained clients, it only seems to be men. (In fact, there were no women in the aforementioned studies.) This may be because testosterone is a key player in determining whether excess calories are partitioned towards building muscle or adipose storage. In fact, there’s evidence to suggest that it is heavily dose dependent on testosterone.

And this is the crux of why women get the short end of the stick.

When men begin experience weight gain, some of this is dampened by the fact that additional calories are partitioned towards building muscle. Despite the weight gain, this additional muscle also increases his RMR.

The extent to which women receive this benefit is probably far less, if at all.

Let’s look at this a much more dismal way.

A 5’2 200-pound woman might eat like a 200-pound woman, but she burns calories like a 120-pound woman. Her excess weight could ostensibly add an additional caloric burn through exercise, but it’s likely that our subject is sedentary, as overweight, untrained individuals often are.

Back to Jane…

Let’s look at just how many calories Jane burns per day.

To estimate maintenance calories for my clients, I use the Katch-McArdle formula. Unlike other formulas, it takes lean mass into account when calculating RMR and seems to work pretty well.

One thing that’s not frequently discussed is just how high Jane’s (or someone like Jane) body fat percentage is. Whenever I ask women to estimate their body fat percentage, they will often self-report something around 30% max, perhaps 40%. Underestimating this value often leads to an overestimation in how many calories are required to maintain the same weight.

If we assume that in untrained, overweight women, fat free mass increases relatively little as weight goes up, we can actually back into Jane’s approximate body percentage. Looking at personal client data, untrained women usually start out at 1.3-1.5 lb/in. If Jane is 5’2, then she’d need to be about 50-55% body fat in order for this value to hold true.

People rarely guess that their body fat is this high, but in shorter, overweight women, it’s not particularly difficult to reach this range. Tying everything together, remember how we talked about how, unlike women, men accumulate muscle vis-à-vis a caloric surplus, leading to a dampening effect? If our assumptions hold true, then dampening effect acts as a body fat percentage ceiling.

Anyway, using the Katch-McArdle formula and a reasonable activity multiplier, this puts Jane’s maintenance calories at about 1900-2000 calories a day or so.

(Update: I just re-read Evelyn Kocur’s – who is absolutely brilliant by the way – article on a similar subject matter, and she seems to come to a similar conclusion.)

When someone like Jane comes to me, I always guess the following things to be true, and I’m right with eerily high accuracy.

• She’s a binge eater.
• She does a ton of cardio. This might actually be required to keep the weight off.
• She tries to eat a diet low in carbohydrates.
• Caloric consumption on non-binge days is alarmingly low.

Basically Jane is working with extremely slim margins. That, combined with the fact that it’s incredibly difficult for women to gauge linear, week-to-week weight loss, and you have someone who aggressively cuts carbohydrates, does long bouts of cardio, plummets their caloric output (relatively speaking), craves food insatiably, and inevitably develops a yoyo dieting pattern.

The concept of a weight loss “floor”

When I think about a client’s capacity to lose weight, I think of the concept of a “floor.” A client’s floor is the amount of weight that they can comfortably get down to before they start experiencing a bevy of stalls, hunger, and other batshit craziness.

The problem with Jane is that her floor is quite high compared to where she wants to be. It’s at 180 pounds. She could push further than that, but it would be unsustainable, as it would deplete certain finite resources – willpower, time, resources, etc.

When I see someone like Jane, my top priority is to lower her floor, and there are a few ways to go about this.

The first is that I get rid of the physiological reasons that cause her to binge eat, namely temporarily eliminating all cardio and raising caloric intake. I write more about this here.

The second thing that I do is combine resistance training with the maximum amount of carbohydrates level that will allow her to still continue losing fat, while raising her metabolism and undoing some of the damage caused by long bouts of dieting and cardio. In many cases, weight measurements stay the same or go up while waist measurements go down.

The process of building lean mass alone won’t do the trick to lose weight. As Evelyn also correctly alluded to in her post, the amount of calories burned per pound of additional lean mass is usually exaggerated.

What I have found, however, is that the combination of resistance training and increased carbohydrates tends to lower a client’s floor. This is because this processes increases their capacity to consume additional carbohydrates, and therefore, more calories. (Also, increases in leptin, T3, and all the other fun stuff associated with maintaining a high carbohydrate intake.)

The most important thing to realize is that this process takes a very long time. Remember, Jane is at 55% body fat, and this is not something that will improve over night.

Here is some data from one client of mine who could not lose weight at 137 lbs and stalling out for months at a miserable 1,000 calories/day. (This client is particularly interesting because of the reliability of her data. She’s the type who is OCD about reporting and always hits macros.)

As you can see, in the last 2.5 years, she’s only lost 6 lbs, but that wasn’t the point. The point was to continue to lose fat while lowering her floor. You can see a remarkable reduction is waist measurements, even if her weight has been relatively similar.

The best part? She’s consuming nearly twice as many calories as when she started. You can bet that the next time she decides that she wants to absolutely focus on fat loss, she’ll fly past her previous low weight with ease.

READ THIS NEXT: Weight Loss For Beginners

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I’ve tried hundreds of different types of workout programs–full body, intensity-focused, volume-focused, depletion/super-compensation based and every (combination you can make) for example. I’ve yet to encounter a workout as effective as the one below, a variant on Martin Berkhan’s Reverse Pyramid Training regimen.

Sure, there are workouts that may allow you to build more muscle in fewer weeks, assuming the correct supporting diet. And there are workouts that kick your ass more. But from a pure ROI perspective, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a workout that allows you to progress into such advanced levels of strength with spending merely 30-45 minutes at the gym 3x/week.

As an example, a majority of my chest muscle and accompanying strength was been built on RPT–I started out dumbbell bench pressing 90 lbs and now bench 120 lbs for reps. I’ve hopped around on different programs, but for someone who finds himself working 80-100 hours/week, RPT’s been my mainstay.

Without further ado, I’ll lay out everything you need to know to get started on this program.

Workout Scheduling

Your workouts will be spaced every other day, with at least one day of rest in between. Your full week should look like this:

Monday – Back day

Tuesday – Rest Day

Wednesday – Chest day

Thursday – Rest Day

Friday – Leg day

You can shift exercise days forward and backward, but stick to the scheduling guidelines below the exercise. For example, if you accidentally miss your Wednesday chest day workout, complete it on Thursday.

Exercise Day A – Back Day

There should be at least seven days since the last time you completed your last Exercise Day A and at least three days since you last completed Exercise Day C.

Beginner Mode

Dumbbell Deadlifts –

Set 1: 8-12 reps

Set 2: Lower the weight 10%* from set 1… aim for at least one more rep than previous set

Lat Pulldowns –

Set 1: 8-12 reps

Set 2: Lower the weight 10% from set 1… aim for at least one more rep than previous set

Set 3: Lower the weight 10% from set 2… aim for at least one more rep than previous set

Dumbbell rows –

Set 1: 15-20 reps

Set 2: 15-20 reps (same weight)

Standing Barbell (ez-bar) Curl –

This is one large “rest-pause set.” Do as many reps as you can… count to 20… do as many reps as you can… count to 20… do as many reps as you can until you feel like you cannot finish another full rep. Record the total number of reps. The total number of reps should be in the 15-20 range.

Normal Mode

Barbell Deadlifts –

Set 1: 4-6 reps

Set 2: Lower the weight 10% from set 1… aim for at least one more rep than previous set

Chin Ups (either assisted or weighted, palms facing you, shoulder width apart) –

Note: The “weight” that you record should be the total weight with either assistance or additional weight. If you are 180 lbs and are using 20 lbs on the assistance machine, then the “weight” is 160 lbs. Similarly if you are adding 20 lbs to your body, then the “weight” is 200 lbs.

Set 1: 6-8 reps

Set 2: Lower the weight 10% from set 1… aim for at least one more rep than previous set

Set 2: Lower the weight 10% from set 2… aim for at least one more rep than previous set

Barbell Rows –

Set 1: 8-12 reps

Set 2: Lower the weight 10% from set 1… aim for at least one more rep than previous set

Standing Barbell (ez-bar) Curl –

This is one large “rest-pause set.” Do as many reps as you can… count to 20… do as many reps as you can… count to 20… do as many reps as you can until you feel like you cannot finish another full rep. Record the total number of reps. The total number of reps should be in the 15-20 range.

Exercise Day B – Chest Day

Note 1: There should be at least seven days since the last time you completed your last Exercise Day B.
Note 2: Same exercises for both “Beginner Mode” and “Normal Mode”

Dumbbell Bench Press –

Set 1: 6-10 reps

Set 2: Lower the weight 10% from the total* and get at least 1 more rep above set 1

Set 3: Lower the weight 10% from the total* and get at least 1 more rep above set 2

Incline Dumbbell Bench Press –

Set 1: 8-12 reps (use the weight from your third set of dumbbell bench press)

Set 2: Lower the weight 10% from the total* and get at least 1 more rep above set 1

Overhead Two-hand Triceps Press –

This is one large “rest-pause set” Do as many reps as you can… count to 20… do as many reps as you can… count to 20… do as many reps as you can. Record the total amount of reps. The total amount of reps should be in the 15-20 range.

Exercise Day C – Leg Day

Note: This should be at least four  days after Exercise Day A and seven days since you last did Exercise Day C.

Beginner Mode

Machine Leg Press –

Set 1: 8-12 reps

Set 2: Lower the weight 10% from set 1… aim for at least one more rep than previous set

Goblet Squats –

Set 1: 8-12 reps

Set 2: 20 reps (otherwise known as a “widowmaker”). Use a relatively light weight here to start out, about 60% of your set 1’s weight

Dumbbell Stiff-Legged Deadlifts –

Set 1: 12-15 reps

Set 2: 10-15 reps (same weight)

Weighted Crunches

Set 1: Until failure (15+ reps)

Normal Mode

Barbell Squats –

Set 1: 6-8 reps

Set 2: Lower the weight 10% from Set 1… aim for at least one more rep than previous set

Set 3: 20 reps (otherwise known as a “widowmaker”). Use a relatively light weight here to start out, about 60% of your Set 1’s weight.

Barbell Stiff-Legged Deadlifts –

Set 1: 12-15 reps

Set 2: 10-15 reps (same weight)

Weighted Crunches –

Set 1: Until failure (15+ reps)

Training Instructions

Weights and Reps

With each exercise description, I’ve included a range of reps (“repetitions”) that you should aim for. For example, Dumbbell Bench Press prescribes a rep range of 6-10. If you can do more reps than the prescribed rep range (8 in this example) then you need to increase the weight. If you can’t do the minimum with good form, then you need to decrease the weight.

Figuring out your starting weight

Beginners might have no clue what weight to start with at first. If that’s the case, start as light as possible (10-15 lbs for dumbbell exercises, only the bar for barbell exercises) and complete 2-3 reps.

If you felt absolutely no difficulty, increase the weight and try again until it starts to get more difficult. When you feel a bit of difficulty on the third rep, then stop. Increase the weight once more and take a two-minute rest. Now you’re going to start your first “working set.” (The first set that actually counts.)

Complete your set until you cannot do another full rep. You may accidentally overshoot or undershoot your rep range. If that’s the case, just adjust the weight accordingly for next week and keep following the instructions for this week.

It is mandatory that you record your sets.

I’ll repeat this again because it’s that important. Recording your sets is not optional. If you do not record your sets and attempt to improve each time, then you might very well be spinning your wheels.

Rest time in between sets

As a rule of thumb, you should take as much time as you need so that the previous set does not cut into your next set’s performance. For heavy compound exercises (squat, bench, deadlift… usually the first one in your routine), this is four to five minutes. For other exercises, this is three to four minutes. This may seem like a lot if you’re not used to high intensity strength training, but if you are lifting with the correct intensity, then you will need this amount of rest.

How to progress on this program

Every week, you will strive to hit a new personal record (also known as a PR) for each exercise. This means either increasing the number of reps in a set or increasing the weight.

Determining whether to increase weight or reps

If you hit the top of your rep range for a particular exercise, then increase the weight the following week. If you are still well within the rep range, then attempt to hit more reps the following week.

Determining how much to increase the weight

When you hit the top of your rep range, it’s time to move the weight up. A good amount to move up is 5% for barbell exercises or the next heavier dumbbell group for dumbbell exercises. Beginners may find themselves moving up much faster than this, so it may take some feeling around.

Reverse Pyramid Training Progression

We will be doing a Reverse Pyramid Training scheme (RPT), which includes a “top set” (the first set will be the heaviest in that exercise) and “back off sets” (subsequent sets will be lighter in that exercise). For each set, you should stop when you absolutely cannot perform one more full rep.

That means that you should not end on a “partial rep”; doing so means that you went to “absolute failure,” which will tax your nervous system and recovery. It may be difficult for a beginner to gauge when a rep is their “last full rep,” but you’ll get better at figuring this out over time.

You should prioritize set PRs in the order that they appear in your workout. For example, always try to hit a PR on your first set. If you cannot hit a PR on your first set, then try to hit it on your second set. If you cannot hit a PR on your second set, then try to hit it on your third set and so on.

Warmups

Before your very first “working set” (the set in which you aim to increase), you’ll want to warm up. Warming up helps to “prime” your body so that you’re prepared for the heavy weight of your first working set. Let’s say you are attempting to goblet squat at 40 lbs.

The worst thing that you can do is immediately start with that weight, as it will feel relatively heavy. Your first set will feel much easier if you try to goblet squat 25 lbs first… then 30 lbs… followed by your working set of 40 lbs.

I recommend warming up with the following scheme:

Warmup set 1 – 60% of your top working set – 5 reps… 2 mins rest
Warmup set 2 – 75% of your top working set – 3 reps… 2 mins rest
Warmup set 3 – 85% of your top working set – 1-2 reps… 3-4 mins rest

You only need to warm up the first time you are working a body part for the day. After you’re finished warming up for your first set, you don’t need to warm up for any subsequent exercises.

Trainees vary in their need to warm up, so you may need to adjust the scheme above. Just remember the following: the purpose of your warmup sets should be to maximize the output of your first working set. For this reason, your warm ups should not be taxing in the slightest. Warm ups should help you acclimate to the weight of your working sets. If they are not achieving that purpose, then you need to adjust.

[standout-css3-button href=”http://dicktalens.com/private-coaching-with-dick/”]Need help getting on the right path? Train with me[/standout-css3-button]

If you call yourself a growth hacker and can’t perform a cohort analysis on your own, you should find another job. Sorry if that’s harsh, but here’s why it’s imperative that you know how to do them:

• It provides a truly objective health metric for the growth of your app, platform, rat study (or whatever have you).
• It’s something that any potential investor will request if they’re worth their salt. It’s easy for anyone to scour for a vanity metric like “1m widgets looked at!!!!![MORE OBLIGATORY EXCLAMATION MARKS]”–especially if they round up to the nearest 1m. It’s much harder to lie about a solid 30-day retention.

Here, we’ll go over the pros and cons behind different types of analyses, how to create them down to the bare SQL, and how to monitor and analyze them.

WTF Is a Cohort Analysis Tho

Broadly, a cohort analysis is any analysis performed on a group of people that share a similar characteristic. When people talk about them in startups, however, it refers to an analysis of user retention, where users are grouped by a date interval. (Usually monthly) That is, how many of your registered users are still available on Day 0? Day 7? Day 30?

For example, here’s a snippet of a cohort analysis measuring a registered user’s first 7 days on an app:

Don’t Use An Out-Of-The-Box Solution

There are a few out-of-the-box options that you can use, such as RJ Metrics, Mixpanel, and KISSMetrics. From my own experience, these have all sucked for the purposes of cohort analyses.

While it’s easy to insert a snippet of code and generate a cohort analysis from them, here’s why you should perform a cohort analysis without them:

• It’s easy enough if you know SQL. If you don’t, learn it. No growth hacker is worth their salt without it. With knowledge of SQL, you can easily create visuals using Excel or Periscope. In fact, if you want to reach any sort of intermediate GH level, I highly recommend that everyone get Periscope. No, I’m not a paid advertiser (although like any good marketer, I will be flirting shamelessly with them on Twitter to get this shared), but Periscope is the most powerful platform for any GH.

(^ Periscope allows you to turn SQL immediately into charts. Pretty rad imo.)

• You never know what ad hoc cohort analyses you’ll need to run. When I led growth at Fling, we learned that users who followed more than 10 people in the first 24 hours were more sticky than your average Snapchat user. It would take ages to do this with out-of-the-box solutions.
• An active and retained user is one that does some meaningful activity. I’ve found that the definition of meaningful activity can be very different from app to app. You may not even know what that activity is just yet. You’ll have a lot more flexibility and accuracy if you can identify this activity at the database or native level, rather than through events on something like Mixpanel or KISSMetrics. Anyone who’s tried to run a cohort analysis on one of these platforms and rejigger the data into different segments and filters knows this pain.

Your First Cohort Analysis: A User’s First Week Experience

All righty, let’s create our first cohort analysis using SQL and Periscope. Microsoft Excel works also. I’m not a fan of most Microsoft products, but unfortunately their PivotTable is one of the most powerful tools for analysis.

For any cohort analysis, you’ll need to create a table or view of users and their activity times. The simplest thing to do is create a distinct queryset of user id and the date which they were active. Let’s pretend you have a messaging platform. For simplicity’s sake, let’s pretend that users can only send, receive, and view messages.

Here’s the schema:

MessageHistory Table

There is also a table which records user signup information. Let’s keep it simple and say that the columns are simply: a distinct ID, a username, the date in which the user was created, and an optional column in case the user is deleted.

Users Table

In the example above, users are active on a given day if they send or view a message. In all likelihood, you’ll have multiple tables that you’ll need to combine in order to describe a user’s activity, and you should give the definition of “active” some thought. For example, it’s worth pointing out that simply receiving a message doesn’t make a user active.

Now, we’ll want to create a resultant table that describes a list of users on days that they are active. In the example above, here is the code we would use:

SELECT DISTINCT
  user_id, active_date
FROM
(
    SELECT
      user_id, date(created_at) active_date
    FROM
      MessageHistory
      UNION
    SELECT
      receiver_id, date(viewed_at) active_date
    FROM
      MessageHistory
    WHERE
      not viewed_at is null
) a

The resultant table is a list of active users on certain days, and it’s super duper important because it’s the basis of your cohort analysis.

Now, we have everything that we need, let’s create a cohort analysis for the user’s first week.

This is an extremely important analysis, because the experience of a user’s first week dictates whether they become a loyal user that frequently returns to your app or simply toss your app to the side. I’ll talk a bit more about this later, but Andrew Chen has a really good writeup on user churn over here. For now, I’ll show you how to create this analysis without Periscope, but future examples will all rely on Periscope for brevity’s sake.

WITH activeusers as
(
    SELECT DISTINCT
      user_id, active_date
    FROM
    (
        SELECT
          user_id, date(created_at) active_date
        FROM
          MessageHistory
          UNION
        SELECT
          receiver_id, date(viewed_at) active_date
        FROM
          MessageHistory
        WHERE
          not viewed_at is null
    ) a
)
SELECT
  signup_date,
  days_after_signup,
  total_signups_on_date,
  count(*) total_remaining,
  count(*) * 1.0 / total_signups_on_date as pct_retained
FROM
(
    SELECT
      a.id user_id,
      date(a.created_at) signup_date,
      count(*) OVER (PARTITION by date(a.created_at)) total_signups_on_date,
      b.active_date - date(a.created_at) days_after_signup
    FROM
      users a
    LEFT JOIN
      activeusers b
    ON
      a.id = b.user_id
    where
      a.created_at>='2016-1-1' and a.created_at<='2016-2-1' and b.active_date - date(a.created_at)<=7
) a  
group by 1,2,3
order by 1,2

Notice that the first snippet of code is being described as a temporary table called “activeusers.” After describing your own activeusers table, you can pretty much copypasta the rest of the code above and create your own first week cohort analysis.

(Note: The data below is completely made up using the trusty ol’ random() function and combining a few sources, so no real user data was used here)

The resultant table should look like this:

Not very easy to read, right? At this point, you’ll want to go into trusty old Excel and use the only function worth its salt–the PivotTable.

Create a PivotTable with the selected data, using signup_dates as the rows, days_after_signup as the columns, and pct_retained as the value.

Suddenly, it becomes much more readable:

What Does The Data Say Tho

The first thing to note is that by day 7, retention is a mere 3-4%. Now, that’s not necessarily a bad thing depending on your app; perhaps users only come back 2-3 times per week and it would be better to capture retention in intervals (e.g. Week 1, Week 2, Week 3). One of the weaknesses of this type of analysis is that it’s not very accurate when answering the question of “how many users are left?”

This analysis does tell us a very important thing, however. Notice how Day 0 is consistently around 50%. That means half of your users aren’t taking any action when it comes to messaging–in other words they are not activating. The first order of business should be to prioritize activation.

Now, let’s look at this data a different way by changing absolute retention to day-over-day retention. In other words, only about 3% of all users are active on Day 7, but that number is 70% of the Day 6’s value. A look at day-over-day retention reveals the following data set:

It looks like retention stops dropping precipitously towards the end of a user’s first week. In fact, there are some days where more users return than they did on the previous day. Let’s take the averages across all values and graph them.

Notice that there’s a bit of an inflection point on the Day 4 mark? This means that if you focus on activating a user on day 0, and then retaining a user on days 1 to 3, there’s a high likelihood that you’ll reduce the leakiness in your first week’s retention bucket.

Part 2 will cover other types of cohort analyses, but in my experience, the first week analysis is the most important and most actionable. When I increased retention at both Fling and Fitocracy, we were able to see great gains in week 1 and month 1 retention by simply focusing on the first few days on the platform. It all comes down to a user’s first experience. You might have the best restaurant in the world, but if you accidentally serve someone a shit meal on their first visit, they’re unlikely to return.

Many commercials and products make weight loss out to be extremely difficult. However, with the right knowledge, weight loss can be relatively simple and easy. Here, we’ll discuss the basics of nutrition and get you started on your weight loss journey.

Introduction

What is a calorie?

Before talking about weight loss, it’s important to know the basics of calories. Simply put, a calorie is a unit of energy. All foods contain calories and all of our daily activities – exercising, walking to work, breathing – burn calories. In fact, unless you’re a laborer or professional athlete, most of your daily calories will be used by the bodily processes just required to stay alive.

At a high level, the basics of weight loss and weight gain are straightforward. When you eat more calories than you use (in which case you’re in what’s known as a “caloric surplus”) you gain weight. Conversely, when you use more calories than you eat (in which case you’re in a “caloric deficit”) you lose weight.

(Note: some will argue that weight loss is not just a matter of calories, and to an extent they are correct. After all, if it were that simple, we wouldn’t have an obesity epidemic. That being said, this does not change the physics of calories and weight loss. You can read more about that here.)

How many calories do I burn every day?

You’re probably wondering how many calories you burn every day. This number – called your “maintenance” calories – is important to know. If you eat this amount of calories every day, you will maintain your current weight.

Your maintenance calories depend on many factors, such as your gender, age and activity level. There are some good calculators and formulas, such as this one, that will tell you your caloric expenditure.

Interestingly enough, a remarkably good rule of thumb is that males burn about 15x their bodyweight (bodyweight, as measured in lbs) in calories every day and females burn about 14x their bodyweight every day. These are rough estimates, of course, but they are often very close.

The most accurate way to find your maintenance calories is to actually measure your caloric intake. If your weight has been constant for the last few weeks, the best way to measure your maintenance calories is to keep a food diary (there are many sites for this purpose, such as FitDay or MyFitnessPal) and record what you eat every single day. After you’ve been doing this for about a week, calculate your average daily calories. The result will be your maintenance calories.

Be warned that this might not be completely accurate; the mere act of logging your food might cause you to change your eating habits.

The basics of weight loss

When you use more calories than you consume, you’ll lose weight. More specifically, you’ll lose a pound of fat when you create a caloric deficit – either by exercise or by restricting your calories – of 3,500 calories.

Let’s look at an example:

Fred is 200 lbs and wants to lose weight. At 200 lbs, we can calculate that he uses 3,000 calories every day (15 x 200). In order to lose one pound of fat in a week, Fred will have to create a weekly deficit of 3,500 calories, or 500 calories per day (3,500 / 7). He can either do this through diet or exercise.

So, if Fred wants to lose one lb, Fred can eat roughly 7 less oreos per day for a week or Fred can run about 3 miles per day for a week. Performing either of those actions will create a daily deficit of 500 calories.

Why is weight loss so hard?

If the information above is so straightforward, why then, do so many people have trouble losing weight? Why is obesity such a huge epidemic?

Well, while the mechanics behind weight loss might be straightforward at a high level, the combination of psychology, physiology and environment, make the actual execution challenging. Luckily, from what we’ve seen, education and hard work is enough for anyone to achieve their weight loss goals.

If you’re reading this then there’s a good chance that you’ve failed on a weight loss plan before. We’ll go through all of the most common reasons that people fail and tell you what has worked for so many of the transformations that we’ve been fortunate enough to follow.

We’re going to tackle each step of dieting by breaking it down into different levels, progressing from easiest to hardest.

Levels will be ranked by priority, and you should tackle them in numerical order. Long term success, however, will require that you hit them all.

Starting Guide to Weight Loss

Level 1: Track your caloric consumption

The first reason that people fail is that they do not measure their caloric intake and expenditure.

Can you imagine trying to save money if you don’t know how much is being spent or where it’s going?

You cannot manage what you don’t measure and weight loss is no different.

Let’s look at the the commonly-heard strategy of “I’m going to run every morning before work.” This is a recipe for failure if a dieter is not tracking his or her caloric intake.

Exercise will increase the amount of hunger in many, and it’s possible that the amount of calories burned are simply overcompensated by “eating more.” In fact, a dieter can actually gain weight if he or she overcompensates too much.

Moderate exercise burns a surprisingly low amount of calories: Consider that a a 220 lb man walking up 27 flights of stairs burns the caloric equivalent of half an Oreo. Yet exercisers will often overcompensate by consuming more calories. Chances are, you know at least one person who regularly grabs a Frappuccino after a tiring cardio session.

Find your favorite calorie logger and start tracking your food intake. Most people will be surprised with just how many calories they’re consuming.

(Note: Some people do better with alternative methods to calorie tracking such as using a set of “rules.” That’s why these people do very well on rules-centric programs such as Primal Eating. Calorie counting will work for everyone who sticks to it, but if you find that it’s not a good fit for you, look at some alternative methods to calorie counting.)

Congratulations on leveling up!

Level 2 – Make dieting relatively painless

We can do this by:

2a. Creating a smart caloric deficit.
2b. Eating 1g of protein per lb of target body weight.
2c. Eat mainly unprocessed foods with a fibrous vegetable at every meal.

Now let’s assume that someone religiously logs their caloric intake and exercise. That doesn’t mean that they’re automatically on the path to success. If you’ve ever dieted before, then the following situation will be familiar: you might have seen initial success after using sheer willpower to stick to salads and grapefruit for the first week, or maybe even the first 5 lbs. At some point, however, your willpower cracks.

One slip up leads to another. Eventually, you’re back to where you started.

As it turns out, our bodies are ridiculously good at fighting weight loss. As we diet and lose more and more weight, our bodies “fight back” by increasing hunger and often increasing lethargy. This means success inevitably breeds additional hunger, at least with the way that most people diet. (If you’re interested in geeking out about this stuff, you may want to check out “Set Point Theory”)

Additional hunger begets the need for more willpower to say no to eating. And, as it turns out, willpower is a finite resource. That’s why – if you’re hungry enough and are offered enough times – you’ll eventually say yes to that cookie or slice of pizza.

If this seems like a dismal fate, thankfully it’s not. We’ll let you in on something that many successful dieters have learned: if you do things correctly, it takes a lot less willpower to fight hunger and lethargy than you might think.

In fact, following the dietary guidelines below might leave you feeling fuller while you’re losing weight.

2a. Create a smart caloric deficit

The most obvious reason that people fall victim to diet adherence is that they “crash diet.” Simply put, they create a caloric deficit so large that the constant fight against hunger is unsustainable.

The first thing that you should do is pick a reasonable caloric deficit. Most people should aim to create a 3,500 calorie deficit (remember, that’s 1 lb of fat) per week and no more than 7,000 (2 lbs of fat) per week. A good rule of thumb is that you should aim to lose 0.5%, but no more than 1%, of your body weight per week.

The heavier you are, the easier it is to create a large deficit. In fact a 400 lb man can create a 2,000 calorie/day deficit by eating 4,000 calories/day. (And he did!)

Most people should aim for one pound of weight loss per week, which is actually quite a lot of fat. Unfortunately, many who are constantly exposed to the false advertising of “lose 5 lbs in 5 days!” that you’ll hear in commercials and products – they never work, by the way – may think otherwise.

If one pound per week seems like too little to you, then consider two things:

1. In your first week, you will likely drop a lot of “water weight” due to some of the physiological aspects of dieting. A 3,500 calorie deficit may cause additional weight loss beyond what you expect, sometimes as much as 5 lbs. Consider this a nice potential bonus of sticking to a very sensible diet plan!
2. If you “only” lost 1-2 lbs per week, keeping this up for a year would cause you to lose 50-100 lbs. Of course, there may be pitfalls along the way, but you will still be a new person after a year. Don’t forget that following these rules will make dieting relatively painless compared to other plans that you’ve tried.

As a refresher, here’s how to hit your weekly caloric deficit:

1. First, find your maintenance weight through one of the methods above – let’s say it’s 2,500 calories.
2. If you want a caloric deficit of 3,500 calories within a week, then you will need an average daily deficit of 500 calories (3,500 / 7)
3. This means that you will need to aim for 2,000 calories per day (2,500 – 500).

2b. Find your target body weight in pounds, then eat that number in grams of protein.

Now that you have a reasonable caloric target in mind, we can start utilizing strategies to keep you constantly full throughout your diet. The first, and most powerful strategy, is greatly increasing your protein intake.

Protein is the most “satiating” (i.e. filling) macronutrient and many who are constantly hungry on a diet find that increasing their protein intake greatly reduces their hunger. For many dieters, this has been the key difference in diet success.

Out of all the macronutrients (protein, fats, carbohydrates), protein also has the highest “thermic effect.” This means that your body burns more calories from processing protein than processing fat or carbohydrates.

Lastly, if you start strength training (as you’ll see below in Level 3) then this amount will also allow you to build muscle. More muscle increases the amount of calories you burn throughout the day. Oh, it also makes you sexier.

How much protein should you consume?

Nutritionist Alan Aragon recommends finding your goal body weight in pounds and eating that number in grams of protein are a bare minimum. Therefore, if you are a 140 lb woman looking to get down to 120 lbs, you’ll need to consume a minimum of 120g of protein.

For many people, this target will seem difficult to hit at first and eating will seem like a chore. That’s a good thing; you’ll remain full while working towards your protein goal.

(Protip: If you find yourself in a situation where you can’t “count” protein, eyeballing always works. A cooked amount of meat that’s the size of a deck of cards is equivalent to about 25g.)

(Note to vegans/vegetarians: Keeping your protein intake high might be a bit more challenging, but there are certainly ways to increase your protein intake and still adhere to your dietary restrictions.

If you are vegetarian, eggs, milk, and supplementing with whey or casein protein are great ways to increase your protein intake. For vegans, beans and lentils will help.

It may be more difficult to hit our recommended number, just by the nature of restricting a lot of protein-rich foods.In this case, try to stick to everything else while still keeping protein as high as you can with your restrictions. There are lost of folks that have successfully lost weight on a vegetarian or vegan diet.)

2c. The rest of your calories – eat unprocessed foods with a fibrous vegetable at every meal.

After you’re done getting your required amount of protein, a majority of your calories should come from natural, unprocessed foods. That is, if the food item didn’t “grow” at any point, then it shouldn’t make up a large portion of your calories.

Why is this important?

When many people attempt to reduce their calories, they either stick to the same foods and eat less – or worse – they turn to processed “diet” foods. These are often labeled “low fat” but actually higher in sugar and worse for you.

Using either of these methods will leave you hungry and unsatisfied. If you’re used to eating four slices of pizza, it’s hard not to think about that fourth slice if you stop at three this time. You may even feel hungrier after a meal than before you started dieting.

Instead, make up the majority of your non-protein calories in unprocessed foods like fibrous vegetables, brown rice, oats, kale or olive oil. Foods like broccoli and cauliflower are so filling and low in calories that you can usually eat as much of them as you want without having to count their calories. (Their calories still count but most people can’t eat enough of them to really matter.)

Of course, that doesn’t mean that “junk” foods or foods that you were used to are completely off limits – a calorie is still a calorie after all and labeling foods as “good” or “bad” can in fact be harmful – but try to keep these foods to a small portion of your calories. Less than 30% of your weekly calories is a good starting number.

When you go from four slices of pizza for dinner to 10 ounces of top round steak, a cup of brown rice and as much broccoli as you want, you’ll be so full that you won’t realize you ate 300 calories less.

Quick recap:
2a. Find your goal body weight and eat that number in grams of protein every day.
2b. Eat the amount of calories every day that will allow you to create a weekly deficit of 3,500 calories (more if you have more weight to lose).
2c. Eat a majority of the rest of your calories in unprocessed foods.

Level 3 – Incorporate exercise (especially around strength training) to create long term success

A warning about focusing on exercise for weight loss without a good diet in place

You’ll notice that exercise is the last thing to be mentioned when it comes to weight loss. For many people this might come as a surprise.

As it turns out, exercise alone is quite ineffective at helping people lose weight and many people fail for this very reason. It’s not that they were physically lazy – they just didn’t properly educate themselves to succeed.

In fact, there are studies showing the inefficacy of cardio when it comes to reducing weight in overweight or obese populations. Now, this doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t exercise or that cardio is bad.

This simply means that without a good diet, exercise will fail in more cases than not. This specific type of failure is especially harmful; failing to lose weight despite weeks of engaging in painful, unenjoyable exercise may leave a person with ill feelings towards fitness.

Luckily, there is a correct way to incorporate exercise into a weight loss regimen. One trend that you’ll see in a lot of success stories in which folks have lost weight and kept it off is that they focused on strength training. More specifically, they got better at lifting relatively heavy weights through compound lifts.

Why strength training in particular?

As mentioned earlier, strength training allows you to put on lean mass (i.e. muscle) which in turn increases your metabolism and keeps you burning additional calories all day.

Think of the difference between strength training and cardio as buying vs. renting a house. The time you spend building muscle not only burns calories, it goes towards accumulating long term rewards, namely an increase in caloric expenditure.

Lastly, many who are extremely overweight will just find strength training more pleasurable than running or other forms of cardio. Cardio can be extremely difficult or painful if you have a lot of weight to lose.

Again, this doesn’t mean that cardio is bad; it’s great for health and you should do it if you find it fun. In fact, many have lost weight through cardio as the primary form of exercise. If this is you, consider it a testament to your grit and fortitude.

Wrapping Up

If you follow all of the rules above, you should see success in your weight loss journey without many of the pitfalls that have plagued others, and you, in the past. Dieting is very different than the media, supplement companies or infomercials will portray.

Unlike what shows like The Biggest Loser might have you think, you don’t have to live in constant pain, hunger and misery. Those methods do not work in the long run. Unfortunately, the simplicity and ease of losing weight the correct way would probably not make for a good TV show.

If you should fail, don’t give up hope. Get back up and try again. Many successful weight loss transformations took several “revs of the engine” until they were successful. We’ve seen enough amazing transformation stories to firmly believe that with enough determination, there is a way for everyone to reach the next level of fitness.

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