How to Bust Through Training Plateaus

When I was new to strength training, I used to constantly chase one rep maxes. I was enjoying the beginner gains phase of my lifting career by adding weight to the bar almost every single workout. This was one reason I fell in love with powerlifting early on: it was exciting and empowering to see such rapid improvement.

However, as any experienced lifter knows, I wasn’t able to sustain this rate of progress forever. It started to take longer and longer to set new PRs. My workouts became more grueling and I had to work harder to eke out smaller gains. Eventually, my progress seemed to stall altogether. I hit my first training plateau.

It seems many of my friends and readers are experiencing similar frustrations, because I’ve been getting a lot of questions about plateaus. After working with hundreds of clients over the years, I have learned that when progress stalls at the gym, people are usually making at least one of these mistakes:

Chasing too many conflicting goals at once.
Always performing the exact same number of reps.
Never switching exercises.
Only focusing on barbell lifts and neglecting assistance/accessory/supplemental exercises.
Not following a structured training program.

I’m going to share my top strategies and solutions to overcome all five of these roadblocks below. Addressing just one of these in your own training can make a significant difference for your results, making your training much more enjoyable.

Get clear about your goals

When asked about their goals, many people say they want to get stronger on their big lifts, and lose weight and build muscle, all while training for a 10k race. This kind of shotgun approach to training is a recipe for lackluster results and frustration. For best results, pick one goal to focus on at a time.

Although the bulk of my training centers around certain core principles, I always tweak programs depending on individual client goals. I want all my clients to build strength, but the client who is training for a powerlifting meet needs more specificity and intensity than the client who just wants to feel better on a daily basis. I believe everyone should perform some cardio, but clients who want to lose weight may need more than clients whose priority is to build muscle.

It’s important to have a clear focus so we know what’s important right now and what can wait. We can’t do all the things all the time at the gym. Instead, choose one major goal for every 3-4 months of training. In addition, I rarely recommend clients chase the same goals all the time because this also leads to plateaus, frustration, boredom, and burnout. Instead, most people should shift gears at least a few times per year.

If you’re not sure what to focus on, try picking your goals based on the season. Winter and spring are great times to focus on fat loss as you get ready for the summer. When the weather is nice, cut back on gym time so you have more freedom to be active and spend time outdoors. In the last third of the year, prioritize building strength and muscle to capitalize on the extra holiday calories you’ll be consuming. Structuring your training in this way can help you make steadier progress over the long term.

Sometimes it’s your diet, not training, that’s causing the plateau. If your primary goal is to lose fat, your results are heavily affected by long-term diet adherence. You can’t out train your diet if you’re consuming more calories than you need. On the flip side, some people don’t eat enough to support their goals. If you want to get big and strong, you need to eat lots of high quality foods to support intense training. Consuming a high quality protein source and some carbs around your workout time can make a world of difference for your performance at the gym.

Train in different rep ranges

Almost every time I talk to a new client who’s been stuck in a rut, they’ve been doing the same number of reps for a long time. Whether you use 5×5, 3×10, or are constantly trying to hit 1 or 2 rep maxes, you won’t make progress indefinitely. Eventually, you need to make a change to introduce some novel stimulus to your training.

What that change looks like depends on what you’ve been doing. If your training looks like mine once did – lots of heavy, low rep sets – try building strength in higher rep ranges. If you’re doing a lot of higher rep sets, try reducing the reps and moving heavier weights. I like to change reps every 4-6 weeks to avoid excessive fatigue or plateaus. However, some people (mostly newer trainees) can get away with longer periods of time.

When I write programs for my clients, I select reps based on an alternating linear periodization model I learned from the coaches at Strength Faction. Here’s how this works:

Let’s say my client is about to start a four-month block of training. In month one, we start by performing six reps on their big lifts to lay a solid foundation. The next month we drop the reps down to three. My client should be lifting significantly heavier weights on the same exercises. In the third month, the reps jump back up to five. If my client can move the same or heavier weights for the additional reps, we’ll know they’re making progress. Finally, I reduce the reps to two in the final month. This is where all the hard work my client has put in over the last three months really pays off. Performing only two reps gives them the chance to set new PRs and move some serious weight.

I’ve found this to be the best approach to ensure consistent long term progress for the vast majority of my clients. You get stronger, your training stays interesting, and you are less likely to get injured or stuck in plateaus.

Switch exercises

No one can make steady progress on the same exercise forever. If you aren’t seeing strength gains, or if an exercise is leaving you excessively sore or tired, it may be time to cycle it out of your workouts for a while.

Don’t perform every exercise you know each time you go to the gym. I see this most commonly when people are trying to build muscle. For example, their chest day includes flat bench, incline bench, decline bench, flyes, and pushups in a single workout. What happens when their progress at the gym slows or they stop building muscle? They have no fresh exercises left to substitute. It’s better to leave a few exercises out of your regular rotation so you can cycle in new things when you hit a plateau.

What if your goal is to build strength on specific exercises? Won’t taking a break from these exercises hurt your progress?

When I was first getting into powerlifting, I spent over a year following the Westside Barbell method. Most of the Westside training focuses on exercises that are similar to, but not exactly the same as, the big three powerlifts. Building strength with these alternative exercises can help improve technique, improve your weak spots, and make you a more well-rounded lifter who is less prone to injuries.

Instead of just doing the same big lifts all the time, try building strength with these same-but-different options:

Instead of back squatting, try…

Barbell front squat
Barbell zercher squat
Safety bar squat
Box squat (could be back, front, zercher, or safety bar)
Heavy dumbbell or kettlebell squats
Heavy single leg movements like step ups, split squats, and lunges

Instead of bench pressing, try…

2 or 3 board press
Barbell incline bench
Barbell floor press
Close grip barbell bench press
Heavy dumbbell pressing variations

Instead of deadlifting, try…

Switching stance (sumo vs. conventional deadlift)
Rack pulls from different heights
Block pulls from different heights
Trap bar deadlift
Heavy kettlebell deadlifts

Don’t neglect other exercises

Once you’ve been lifting for a while, it’s difficult to get stronger or build muscle using only the big barbell lifts. If you want to avoid injuries and see steadier progress, include plenty of dumbbell, kettlebell, cable, bodyweight, and even machine exercises. I group these other exercises together and call them “assistance training”, because while they aren’t the main focus of your workout, they support you as you work to achieve your goals.

On numerous occasions, I’ve met with new clients who want to build strength but who aren’t doing much in the way of assistance training. They’ve spent a lot of time practicing with the barbell but they can’t perform a quality RDL, lunge, row, or dumbbell press. It’s amazing how much progress they make just by introducing a handful of targeted assistance exercises to their workouts.

Here’s a quick rundown of some of my favorite assistance exercises to help you get stronger on the three powerlifts.

If you want to build a stronger barbell squat, try…

Dumbbell and kettlebell squats
Single leg exercises like step ups, split squats, lunges, single-leg squats
Glute bridges and hip thrusts using a variety of implements
Leg curls
Core exercises like dead bugs, planks, and other anti-core movements

If you want to build a stronger barbell bench, try…

Dumbbell pressing: flat, incline, decline, floor press
Lots of upper body pulling, especially horizontal rows of all kinds
Pushups
Tricep isolation work like cable pushdowns, close grip pushups, and skullcrushers

If you want to build a stronger deadlift, try…

Other hip hinges like Romanian deadlifts, pull throughs, and kettlebell swings
Lots of upper body pulling, especially horizontal rows of all kinds
Grip work, especially loaded carries
Glute bridges and hip thrusts using a variety of implements
Core exercises like dead bugs, planks, and other anti-core movements

Read more: Core Training Beyond Crunches

Follow a structured program

I’ve included a ton of information about goal setting, program design, exercise selection, and training philosophy in this blog. If you feel overwhelmed, or simply want to ensure you’re doing the things you need to do to keep making progress, you are best off following a structured training program. Hiring an in-person coach or an online trainer is the best way to get a program uniquely tailored to your goals, likes and dislikes, and resources. When you work directly with a coach, they can also tweak your program as you go if you aren’t seeing the results you want.

Getting in shape is a long game. Practicing patience, regularly re-assessing, and taking a big-picture approach to your training can keep workouts fun and help you push past the inevitable training plateaus.

Looking for a training program? I created Full45 to help you get strong and see renewed progress even if you have minimal access to equipment and little time to train. Check it out to grab your copy for three months of structured done-for-you-workouts.

February 6, 2019February 6, 2019

How often should I switch exercises?

Lately, I’ve been getting a lot of questions about exercise selection.

How many times should I repeat my workouts before switching exercises?

Do I need to change things frequently to confuse my muscles?

When I do make changes, how do I know what to do?

I have strong thoughts on this topic based on my years of experience training clients and observing my own growth in the weight room. Let me set the record straight for anyone who’s confused.

Why I don’t like to switch exercises all the time

Think about your first experience with a challenging exercise, like a deadlift. Did you walk into the gym and nail it right away? Of course not. It probably took you many weeks just to figure out how to perform the exercise correctly. As you refined your technique, you felt more confident and gradually added weight. Building a truly impressive deadlift takes years to accomplish.

Learning new exercises requires time, energy, and patience. You won’t be able to push yourself very hard when you’re learning. This is why my clients repeat the same workouts many times before I change their exercises. It’s a myth that your muscles need constant variation to “keep them guessing.” If you’re constantly switching things up, you’ll never actually put in the work necessary to improve.

You need to build proficiency in an exercise before you can truly reap its benefits. Most of the initial progress we make when learning something new at the gym comes from nervous system adaptation. First, our brains must figure out what body parts to move in what order. Only then can we start to recruit more of our muscle tissue to move heavier loads with better speed and control. You need to reach this second stage to see noticeable gains in strength, size, and performance.

Another way to think about this comes from the super smart guys at Strength Faction. They believe exercise proficiency helps you effectively express your training intentions. For example, let’s say you want to get stronger using squats. If you can’t squat well, you’ll never be able to handle heavy enough loads to build strength. The same goes for other goals such as increasing power. Jumping for power development does you little good if you don’t know how to land safely.

Repetition leads to mastery. The more we practice an exercise, the better we get. The better we get, the more energy we can devote to pushing our physical and mental limits. This is where the magic of progress happens.

You need lots of practice to get strong and proficient with complex movements, such as barbell deadlifts.

When should I switch exercises?

For best results, you should follow a long-term, structured workout program. I typically write programs lasting three to four months. Each program focuses on a big-picture goal like fat loss, building muscle, returning from an injury, or training for a race.

Within this larger framework, my clients’ workouts change every four to six weeks. This is the sweet spot to get the most out of each exercise. However, some people can repeat the same workouts for eight weeks and still see progress. This is especially common with newer trainees who aren’t as experienced with strength training.

Before switching exercises, ask yourself these questions:

Am I still making progress with this exercise? If so, I recommend leaving the exercise in your program until progress stalls. Remember progress comes in many forms: adding weight, performing more sets or reps, taking less rest, using better form, etc.
How is my recovery? If you’re feeling great during and between workouts, you still have room to push yourself and grow with your current plan. If you’re feeling excessively sore and tired or you start dreading your workouts, it’s probably time to switch gears.
Is my primary goal fat loss? If you want to lose weight, you don’t want to become too efficient in the gym. I still recommend prioritizing strength work, but you can introduce a bit more variety with your assistance and conditioning exercises in the latter parts of your workouts. If your primary goals are building strength or muscle, you’re better off spending more time with the same set of exercises.

Here are few things to keep in mind when selecting exercises or making changes:

Understand why every exercise is included in your workouts. I never change exercises purely for the sake of novelty; every change is intended to to help my clients get another step closer to their goals. This ensures they get the most bang for their buck with limited time in the gym.
Don’t change everything at once. I often keep the main strength exercises consistent throughout a client’s program. Try changing the set and rep schemes instead of the exercise itself. For example, we may do sets of five rep squats one month and sets of three rep squats the next month.
Look for small changes. Often, you only need a small tweak to see renewed progress. Here are some ideas for changing your current exercises:
- Use a different variation of the same exercise. Perform a front squat instead of a back squat or a dumbbell floor press instead of a dumbbell bench press.
- Use a different implement. Use a kettlebell squat instead of a barbell squat or a cable row instead of a dumbbell row.
- Change the tempo. Use slow eccentrics, fast concentrics, and isometric pauses.
- Change the range of motion. This works well for barbell exercises like bench press and deadlifts.
Use conditioning to scratch your itch for variety. Conditioning is a fancy word for high intensity interval training, or getting your heart rate up. Most of my clients do some conditioning at the end of their workouts. This is a perfect time to have some fun with gym toys like medicine balls, sleds, battle ropes, and cardio equipment. For most people it’s less important what tools they use for conditioning than how their heart rate is affected.

two people use battle ropes to get their heart rate up at the end of a workout — Use conditioning finishers to add more variety to your workouts.

Focus on the basics.

I strongly believe you will see better results – no matter what your goal – if you focus on mastering a small handful of compound movements in the gym. All of my clients squat, hinge, press, pull, and carry. Nobody knows how to do these things perfectly right off the bat, so we spend lots of time learning, practicing, and perfecting different variations of these fundamental skills. Over time, my clients build confidence and a strong foundation which allow them to push past their limits and crush their goals.

If you look at the workout programs of the biggest, fastest, strongest, and leanest people, you will see these same basic movements. The biggest difference between them and you is they’ve been training for longer and may have more resources at their disposal.

Don’t be fooled by fit people who post flashy training tools and crazy exercises on social media. Most likely they are spending the bulk of their training time away from the camera focusing on the same compound movements you do. The basics may not be sexy or sell supplements and gadgets, but it’s what works.

Looking for a workout program to take the guesswork out of all of this? Check out Full45. It’s a three month, twice-weekly training program you can complete using the equipment at a basic gym like Planet Fitness. Full45 is the perfect program to get you started on your strength training journey or to help you bust through a plateau.

December 27, 2018December 30, 2019

Try This to Set New Year’s Resolutions You’ll Actually Keep

It’s that time again: time to pull out the planners and chart a course for the new year.

For many people, setting New Year’s resolutions is an enjoyable process. It can be exhilarating to think of all the big things you plan to achieve. There is a sense of hope and possibility around this time that can difficult to recreate later in the year.

For others, this time of year is full of anxiety, disappointment, and even shame. Maybe you didn’t accomplish everything you wanted to over the past year. Perhaps you’re reminded of a resolution you’ve repeatedly set and failed to keep. You may feel so overwhelmed by your immediate challenges that it’s difficult to take a step back and think about the bigger picture.

Here’s some good news: failing to achieve goals doesn’t mean you are a failure. Setting goals isn’t necessarily something you’re good at right out of the gate; it is a skill you need to be practice and develop. Regardless of your past results, you can use certain strategies to set more realistic and meaningful New Year’s resolutions this time around.

I’ve previously written about finding goals which actually matter to you and the deeper meaning behind the most common health and fitness goals. Today I want to discuss goal setting from another angle: how the types of goals you set affects whether you make lasting changes.

Outcome Goals vs Habit Goals

We are all familiar with outcome goals:

I want to lose 70lbs.
I want to gain 15lbs of lean muscle.
I want to deadlift twice my bodyweight.
I want to run a sub 4 hour marathon.

All of these are worthy goals. Unfortunately, we ultimately don’t have much control over whether we achieve them because we cannot control exact numbers or outcomes.

What we can control are our actions and behaviors. That’s why I often work with clients to turn their outcome goals into habit goals.

A habit goal focuses on the actions you take to support your desired outcome. Accomplishing a habit goal is totally within your control because you are the one who decides whether you’ll take positive action every day.

Let’s look at the first goal listed above – wanting to lose 70lbs – and break it down into habit goals. What does it take to lose 70lbs? What habits do I need to develop to make this goal a reality?

Consistently eat fewer calories than you consume (ultimately this is most important)
Exercise regularly, preferably mixing strength training and cardio
Averaging at least 7 hours of sleep every night
Managing stress

These are the “big rocks” you need to move to lose a large amount of weight. But these are still too vague to make much of a difference in your daily life. So the next step is to break these down into a handful of smaller practices.

Let’s just look at the first bullet point, consistently eating in a caloric deficit. I’ll list the two nutrition practices which made the biggest impact on my journey to lose 70 lbs years ago:

Logging my food every day to gain an awareness of how much food I was eating and make sure I wasn’t consuming too many calories. (Read more: All About Food Logging Parts 1, 2, and 3)
Cooking my own meals at home most of the time so I could control the quantity and quality of my food. (Read more: How I learned to cook and you can too)

Once you’ve broken down your big rocks, your list should consist of things under your direct control. Cooking and logging my food were behaviors I could do every day to move the needle closer to my ultimate weight loss goal.

Instead of focusing on the number of pounds I wanted to lose, I focused on consistently nailing these new habits. Every day I checked those boxes, I could feel good about my choices. Although I couldn’t know exactly how much weight I would lose, I knew I would progress as long as I kept practicing these habits.

habit checklist todo list new year's resolution — Focusing on daily wins creates more long-term success than focusing on numbers and outcomes.

The Power of Daily Practice

The best habit goals are those you can practice every single day. Bonus points for goals like the two I listed above which you do multiple times per day.

It takes practice and patience to build new habits, especially if you’ve been set in your old ways for a long time. The more exposure you have to new positive changes, the more success you will have.

One of the best parts about setting habit goals is learning to love the process of self-improvement. It’s so easy to get hung up on numbers or fall prey to quick fixes when your only goal is to reach a specific outcome. You do whatever it takes to get where you want to go without considering whether your approach is sustainable. Once you reach your goal, it’s easy to fall back into your old ways and ultimately end up back where you started.

On the flip side, practicing habit goals helps you write a new script and make lasting changes. Even if you never reach the exact number or outcome you were hoping for, you will be better off than where you started. You learn what works for you and what doesn’t. You find ways to enjoy training, cooking, and whatever else you’re doing as opposed to just viewing them as means to an end. This is where the magic of lasting change happens.

One of the most powerful habit goals you can set in the new year is to become a more consistent exerciser. Getting in the gym on a regular basis benefits not just your physical health but also your mental health and sense of identity. Now is the best time to figure out how to make exercise a staple of your routine. If you’re struggling, check out my 4C System Course. I created this free 5-day email course to help busy professionals get more consistent with exercise. Sign up using the box below and you’ll receive the first lesson right away.

Have a happy new year and here’s to your good health!

October 30, 2018January 21, 2020

You Should Care About Getting Strong

I’m on a mission to help everyone I work with get strong.

Getting strong is not the first goal most people mention when they come to see me. Lots of people want to lose weight and get lean. Others want to increase energy, return to training after rehabbing an injury, get through the day with less pain, or simply develop a consistent exercise routine.

Although I always prioritize the individual client’s goal, the vast majority of their plans are centered around building strength. Over the years, I’ve seen that getting strong helps people achieve just about any health and fitness goal.

If you’re weak, it’s tough to handle the intensity or volume of workouts necessary to noticeably change your body. Getting stronger helps you increase your energy levels because you won’t get so exhausted performing daily tasks. Strong bodies recover faster from injuries and are less likely to experience pain in the future. And getting stronger helps with consistency because it’s fun and empowering to see all of the amazing things your body can do when you start regularly lifting heavy stuff.

You don’t need to put multiple plates on the bar – or even lift bars at all – to experience these benefits. Strength is relative to each person. What’s heavy for my clients in their mid twenties looks very different than what’s heavy for my clients in their sixties. But no matter your age or how long you’ve been working out, everyone can get stronger in their own way.

If you’re not convinced that getting strong matters for you, please read on.

Getting stronger improves every other physical quality.

Are you interested becoming more powerful to help you dominate your rec sports or golf game? Getting stronger helps with this.

Are you a runner or triathlete trying to shave minutes off your best race time? Building physical strength is one of the best ways to do it.

Many new clients want to increase their flexibility. In many cases I find they actually lack strength and neuromuscular control, not range of motion. Once I get them on a well-rounded strength training program, their flexibility almost always increases without any extra stretching or foam rolling.

Talk to any great strength and conditioning coach for young athletes and they’ll tell you they prioritize building strength over just about anything else. This is because getting stronger elevates all other physical qualities including speed, agility, conditioning, power, and mobility and flexibility.

Trying to improve any of these skills with a weak client or athlete is a recipe for lackluster results or potential injury. Strength is the base upon which everything else is built.

strong runner race weight lifting — Getting stronger has helped my marathon runners set big PRs.

Getting stronger can help you feel better and reduce the risk of future pain and injuries.

These days, it’s rare to meet a new client who doesn’t suffer from some kind of joint or muscle pain. Knee pain, shoulder pain, and low back pain are the most common, but I’ve seen just about every imaginable combination of pain and injuries in the hundreds of clients I’ve worked with over the years.

If a client is dealing with persistent or intense pain, I always refer them out to a physical therapist or physician. But many people just need to improve their movement quality, add in more regular exercise, and build some strength.

I can’t tell you how many clients have dramatically decreased their pain levels just by consistently following a safe, smart, strength-focused training program. The quality of life increase you could experience if you start lifting weights cannot be overstated. You’re also much less likely to injure yourself in the future when you learn how to control your body and counteract hours of sitting or repetitive movements.

Getting stronger makes daily life much easier.

A couple years after I started lifting, I began to notice some surprising changes. I was able to move with ease, control, and confidence no matter what I was doing. As someone who used to always feel slow, clumsy, and weak, this was a huge change in the way I carried myself and showed up in the world. This transformation happened because I was getting stronger and building a new and powerful connection with my body.

I notice my quads and glutes engaging as I bike or climb stairs. I feel my arms, back, and core muscles turn on when I’m carrying grocery bags in from the car. I know which muscles to fire when I’m attempting to safely pick up a heavy box from the floor. After years of strength training and building these mind-muscle connections, I now feel strong doing just about everything. I use the movements I practice in the gym to aid the movements I do in my daily life.

There are so many daily tasks that get easier when you’re strong. Here are just a few common examples:

Lifting a heavy suitcase into an overhead bin on a plane.
Carrying all your groceries in one trip. Bonus points if you have to walk up multiple flights of stairs like I do.
Carrying kids or pets. They can both be quite heavy!
Moving heavy boxes or furniture
Climbing flights of stairs

strong strength muscle women lifting training — Being strong feels awesome.

What to do next

You can’t know all of the positive benefits getting strong will have on your life until you try. Here are a few resources I’ve put together to help you get started on your strength training quest:

I’m New to the Weight Room. Where Should I Start?

Just Getting Back in the Gym? Start Here.

Design a More Efficient Workout

5 Ways to Lift More Weight

Strength Training for Special Populations:

Why Musicians Need Strength Training

What Runners Must Know About Strength Training

Squats and deadlifts are two of the best exercises for building strength. If you want to get better at these great lifts, you need to download your free copy of my ebook Squat and Deadlift school.

I share my favorite form tips, troubleshoot common problems, and provide progressions to help you work toward (or supplement) barbell training.

I’m confident both novice and experienced lifters can use the book and accompanying videos to take their training to the next level.

August 7, 2018October 14, 2019

Do Less to Do More

As someone who’s made a living helping people, I’ve spent a lot of time pondering why some people are able to change and others are not. My most successful clients have a few things in common:

They take ownership of their situation and truly believe in their ability to change it.
They work hard and are consistent with their training and healthy eating.
They all make small changes and transform themselves gradually.

I haven’t had a single client who attempted to make multiple major changes at once and was successful long term. Yet much of the general public still assumes this is the best and only way to lose weight, build muscle, get stronger, and improve their health.

If I’ve learned anything about the psychology of change during my five years in the fitness industry, it’s that slow and steady really does win the race. Doing less initially can actually help you do much more overall.

Why We Aren’t Good at Dramatic Changes

Many of us think we can successfully quit something cold turkey or overhaul our entire lifestyle in a matter of weeks. Unfortunately, we are almost always setting ourselves up for failure with this approach.

We can only manage a finite amount of stress at any given time. Stress comes from many different sources including your job, relationships, travel, physical activity, and health issues. Unless your work and personal lives are totally chill (and whose are), you only have a limited amount of brain power left to devote to making lifestyle changes. If you overload yourself with difficult changes, it’s only a matter of time before you burn out and quit. All of the willpower in the world will not help you if you take on more than you can handle.

I’ve also found that every restrictive diet or grueling exercise plan is accompanied by an equal reaction in the opposite direction. A couple years ago, I went on a fairly strict diet for three months. I wanted to see fast, dramatic results, and I got them. However, after I decided to relax a bit, I went through several months of near-uncontrollable binge eating. I couldn’t sustain my strict eating plan and demanding training regimen when the rest of my life became busier, and I rebounded from months of restriction and built-up stress with months of overindulgence. I ended up gaining much of my lost weight back, which was a frustrating and embarrassing experience.

One Thing at a Time

There’s a better way to move forward and improve your life, no matter what goals you’re chasing. Instead of trying to do everything all at once, focus on making just one small change at a time.

If you have a list of many changes you want to make, start by picking the one you know you can manage right now. The best changes require you to take action in some small way every single day.

You’re also better off picking pro-habits instead of anti-habits, at least at first. This means instead of saying “I won’t eat sweets after dinner,” say “I’ll eat a piece of fruit after dinner to quell my sweet tooth.” Pro-habits are more empowering than anti-habits because they give you practical tools to make better decisions.

Before you decide on a change, ask yourself how confident you are you can make this change on a scale of 1-10 (1 = no way I can do this, 10 = I can do this in my sleep). If your answer is 7 or lower, consider breaking the change down into smaller, more manageable pieces. Pick something you can actually do and don’t stretch beyond your current capabilities.

I recommend focusing on just one habit for two weeks. For fourteen days in a row, devote all your focus and energy to making this one change. Only consider adding a new habit after the two weeks are up. If after two weeks you’re still struggling with the initial habit, you have two options: keep working at it until you can nail the habit at least five days per week, or scale back the habit to something you can manage. When done correctly, over the course of many months you will successfully make multiple positive changes to your lifestyle.

1% Better

In the beginning, it may seem like making one small change at a time does very little to get you where you want to go. And it’s true that you probably won’t see tremendous progress over the course of two to four weeks. You may not even see a dramatic transformation after three months. Over the long term, however, you are much more likely to see lasting and profound changes.

If you focus on getting just 1% better every day, by the end of the year you will be 365% ahead of where you’re at right now. Think of how much better your life could be if you followed this approach consistently and trusted the process Instead of riding the neverending roller coaster of crash dieting and re-gaining weight, you’d make changes that stick. Rather than dragging yourself kicking and screaming into a new restrictive routine, you’d find ways to gradually make positive changes work with your existing lifestyle and values.

Racking up small wins is a powerful motivator for continued progress. Nailing your one habit day after day builds confidence in your ability to change. Trying to change everything about your life all at once has the opposite effect; when you inevitably get overwhelmed and have to stop your mad dash for results, you feel discouraged and start to mistakenly believe nothing you do will ever work. In reality, you need to do less in order to do more. Making fewer changes at once ultimately lets you experience more success.

If you want additional help tackling your goals, sign up for my email list using the box below. When you sign up I’ll send you my 4C System, a free 5-day email course teaching you to become a more consistent exerciser. I also send out regular tools, tips, articles, and recipes to my email list that I don’t share anywhere else.

July 31, 2018October 14, 2019

My Thoughts on Keto and Intermittent Fasting

During my early health-conscious years, I tried many different diets. Keto, intermittent fasting, carb backloading, paleo… you name it, chances are good I spent at least a little while trying to follow it. Although I lost weight on some of these diets, I also experienced dramatic and disruptive swings. I believe my problems with binge eating were exacerbated by following overly restrictive diets I could not maintain long-term. After one particularly rigorous diet, I also experienced adverse health effects that took me several months to truly recover from.

Lately, I’ve been getting a lot of questions about two popular diets, keto and intermittent fasting. With so many flashy messages and big promises, it’s easy to believe following one of these diets is the answer to your problems. But as with most things in health and fitness, the reality is a bit more complicated.

This week, I provide a brief overview of the keto diet and intermittent fasting. I explain how they work, why some people love them, and why they may not be a great fit for most people. Keep reading and keep an open mind below.

Keto

Although the idea of ketosis has been around for a long time, it has only recently gained popularity as a mainstream diet option. The keto diet goes a step further than other low carb diets such as the Atkins Diet or Paleo. The premise of this diet is that when we consume very low levels of carbohydrates, our body eventually runs of out of stored glucose (which our brains and bodies need for energy). It then converts stored body fat or dietary fat into glucose using a process called ketosis. According to proponents of the diet, once you enter ketosis you will burn stored body fat at a more rapid rate than before.

In order to get into ketosis, carbs need to be dramatically restricted for an extended period of time. This means removing foods like rice, oats, potatoes, and fruit and limiting vegetable consumption to small amounts of green, fibrous veggies. Protein consumption must also be reduced, because consuming too much protein can take you out of ketosis. The vast majority of your calories come from fat, which if done correctly, becomes the body’s primary source of fuel.

Some people do well on ketosis. These tend to be people who naturally feel best eating a higher fat, lower carb diet. These people report feeling more energized and focused when they’re in ketosis. They may also experience fewer cravings and more regulated hunger throughout the day. If you feel and perform your best with more carbs, however, you will likely feel like garbage following the keto diet.

Although keto is sometimes billed in the mainstream fitness media as a miracle cure, it has several notable downsides. It’s much trickier to get into ketosis and stay there than you may think; I’d be willing to bet many people who think they are following the keto diet are not truly in ketosis and are simply following a low carb diet. A single meal with too many carbs or too much protein can throw you out of ketosis. For example, I recently saw one of my Facebook friends sharing a photo of their “keto” meal which included a big fatty steak, broccoli, and a glass of wine. Between the protein in the steak and the carbs in the wine, this person was almost certainly not going to be in ketosis after their meal.

Additionally, keto is extremely difficult and impractical to maintain long-term. It’s tough to eat out at restaurants or attend social functions when you’re following such a restrictive plan. This is true even if you do feel good and see results following the diet. After a while, many people also find eating such a high quantity of fat becomes extremely unappetizing. So although keto may be working for you now, I definitely encourage you to find an exit strategy to transition back to a more realistic eating plan once you reach your goal.

Intermittent Fasting

Intermittent fasting (IF) is less of a diet than a meal timing strategy. For most of the day (including when you’re asleep), you fast and don’t consume any food or caloric beverages. The rest of the day, typically 8-10 hours, is designated as your feeding window. You consume however many meals and snacks you need for the day only during this window.

IF is a great option for people who naturally feel less hungry when they wake up. Instead of forcing themselves to eat breakfast when they aren’t hungry, these people can push back their first meal of the day to lunch time. As with keto, many people report feeling increased focus and mental clarity during their fasts.

However, IF is not a good option for everyone. If you have a history of disordered eating habits, IF can exacerbate your problems. For example, if you struggle with binge eating like I did, you may find yourself repeatedly eating way more food than you need during your eating window. Even if you have a good relationship with food, you may struggle doing IF if you have low energy without frequent meals earlier in the day. Additionally, men will typically have an easier time with IF than women due to hormonal differences.

One myth I hear all the time is if you fast most of the day, you can eat whatever you want and still lose weight. While this may be true for that rare person who is naturally able to regulate their portions, it is certainly not true for most people. I know from personal experience how easy it is to consume an entire day’s worth of calories at a single cheat meal when I’m hungry. Fasting doesn’t remove the need to monitor calories if your goal is to lose weight.

No Magic Pill

If you’ve followed my work for a while, you know I don’t believe in shortcuts. Attempting to circumvent the necessary time and hard work required to reach a worthwhile goal will only backfire and ultimately make it more challenging for you to get where you want to go.

Latching on to a fad diet because you think it will make it easier to get in shape is no different. Losing weight requires you to maintain a caloric deficit for an extended period of time. The keto diet works for people because they dramatically reduce the number of foods they can eat, which slashes calories. IF works for some people because they simply aren’t able to consume as many calories during their shortened feeding window.

Both diets can also fail to work if you still eat too many calories. Fat contains more than twice the calories per gram than carbs or protein, making it very easy to overeat. If you follow IF thinking it’s a way for you to eat whatever you want, you are sorely mistaken. It’s all too easy to blow your daily deficit by eating excessively large portions or tons of calorically dense junk food.

Ultimately, long-term success requires you to find an eating strategy that works well with your lifestyle. Your schedule, food preferences, and numerous other factors will all play a role. If you want to try a popular diet, go ahead! Understand that your success ultimately boils down to restricting calories in a sustainable, healthy way long enough to see results. This means navigating social situations, vacations, unexpected obligations, and stressful times at work. I believe seeking a middle ground will help you handle these situations with more grace and flexibility than a rigid, restrictive diet.

If you want more information like this, sign up for my email list here. I send out tools, tips, and strategies to help busy professionals eat healthy, get strong, and feel great despite busy lives. When you sign up, I’ll send you my 4C System, a free five-day email course teaching you to become a more consistent exerciser.

June 19, 2018

4 Ways You’re Sabotaging Your Progress

“I feel like I’m working hard and not seeing any results. What am I doing wrong?”

I’m asked some version of this question on a regular basis. It’s heartbreaking to hear stories of people who’ve been riding a never ending roller coaster of progress without getting much farther along than where they started.

I can also relate because for a long time, this was me. Before I got really serious about losing weight, I made a lot of half-hearted attempts to change my eating and start exercising. None of these attempts were ever successful. I either tried to do way too much at once and burnt myself out or I didn’t work very hard and ultimately gave up because I was impatient and expected more dramatic results. It took a serious health scare for me to take an honest look at what I was doing and make the necessary changes to actually move forward.

If you’ve been working hard for a long time with little to show for it, you may be sabotaging your progress like I was. Keep reading to learn the top four mistakes I see people make that interfere with achieving positive results.

Lack of Consistency

I put together an entire email course on consistency because it’s one of the biggest mistakes I see people making in and out of the gym. Losing weight, building muscle, getting stronger, or performing better don’t happen on accident. It takes months and years of repeated efforts to take you from point A to points B, C, D, and beyond. You don’t have to be perfect, but if you aren’t consistently exercising, eating well, and managing sleep and stress, you will have a very hard time achieving any health or fitness goal.

How consistent do you have to be to see results? This depends on your goals and experience. As a general rule of thumb, I recommend everyone do some type of exercise at least 2 to 3 days per week. Certain goals, like building muscle and strength or training for an event, may require more frequent training. If you’re trying to lose weight, you likely need to watch what you’re eating beyond just Monday through Friday. It’s depressingly easy to wipe out a hard-earned caloric deficit with just a few cheat meals on the weekend. In my experience, if you can consistently eat well 6 or 7 days per week, you’ll start to see much faster progress.

In order to become more consistent, it helps to have some semblance of routine. You don’t need to map out every hour of every day; if you’re like me, this level of planning is suffocating. However, you should have some idea of how you’re going to spend your time and energy. Schedule in the most important obligations including your training sessions. Decide when you’re going to go to the grocery store or place your online grocery delivery order. Make sure you get enough sleep, preferably getting up and going to bed at the same time every day. When you have daily routines, it’s much easier to build in time for exercise, cooking, and stress management.

Lack of Patience

Another big mistake people frequently make is giving up too soon because they aren’t seeing results as fast as they’d like. Everyone wants immediate, dramatic results. I know I’ve been guilty of this myself on numerous occasions. Unfortunately, most fitness goals take a loooooong time to achieve. The sooner you accept that you’re in it for the long haul and learn to embrace the process of change, the more likely you are to see real results.

One thing I’ve learned in my own fitness journey is the power of riding out plateaus. It can be super frustrating to step on the scale day after day and see little to no progress, especially when you think you’re doing everything right. This is when we are most vulnerable to quitting because it seems like our hard work isn’t paying off. However, if you are patient and ride out the plateau, you often make dramatic progress very quickly. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve held the same weight for 5 to 7 days and then dropped 3 or 4 lbs seemingly all of a sudden. If your progress seems to have stalled, wait it out and keep doing what you’re doing. You will often see a similar leap forward. If you go a few weeks and still haven’t made any progress, then you should consider changing some part of your approach.

Constantly stopping and restarting leads to slow progress at best. As mentioned in the previous point, if you can try to keep exercising and eating well on the weekends, you’ll be less prone to weekend binges and the accompanying setbacks, guilt, and frustration. Do your best to keep moving forward in some small way. If you’re working with a coach or following a program (which you should be), be patient and work through your entire program before looking for something else to do. Jumping from program to program is a surefire way to waste time in the gym.

Exercising too much

This seems counterintuitive, but hear me out. Some people are simply doing way too much work in and out of the gym. Our bodies need time to recover and adapt to the stresses placed on them during exercise. If you’re constantly training, you can run yourself into the ground and actually end up worse off than when you started. More is not always better; sometimes more is just more.

To avoid reaching a point of diminishing returns with your training, make sure everything you’re doing has a purpose. This is especially true of taxing activities like heavy strength training, high intensity interval training, and long cardio sessions. You don’t need to do these activities every single day to see results. If you’re feeling burnt out, beat up, overwhelmed by how much exercise you think you need to do each week, or frustrated by your lack of progress despite tons of effort, scale back your training. Do the most important things, take some days off of training, and cut everything else out for a while. Give your body time to rest and recover.

As a member of Strength Faction, I’ve seen the value of organizing my training week along the neurometabolic continuum. This is a fancy term that basically means you perform your most neurologically taxing activities at the start of the week and your most metabolically taxing activities at the end of the week. The first half of the week is a great time to lift really heavy weights, perform sprints, and do high intensity interval training. During the latter half of the week, get your pump on, perform higher rep sets, and do some low intensity recovery cardio. Since I started organizing my weeks like this, I’ve felt less burnt out and more capable of really pushing myself at appropriate times. Try this out to help you recover better and get more out of your training.

Not working hard enough

On the flip side of the previous point, many people aren’t seeing results because they aren’t working very hard. I’m not big on “tough love,” but I do think some people could benefit from taking an honest look at how much they’re truly pushing themselves. If you want to disrupt your current equilibrium and achieve a health and fitness goal, you need to test your limits and get out of your comfort zone.

There are many types of discomfort you can expect as you chase different goals. Building muscle requires enduring burning pain to eek out a few more good reps beyond what you thought you could do. Getting strong requires a similar kind of discomfort and focus to crush a new PR with great form. If you want to lose weight, you will certainly have to get comfortable with being a little bit hungry much of the time. The opposite is true if you want to gain weight; you’ll need to eat past the point of fullness to give your body the fuel it needs to build new tissue.

Few people want to experience these feelings for their own sake. But if you’re serious about your goals, you have to learn to embrace them. If you never feel uncomfortable, you likely need to kick your efforts up a notch. An absence of any of these feelings is a clue that you’re probably not doing the things you need to do to make progress.

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May 15, 2018October 14, 2019

Chasing Perfection? Do This Instead.

My name is Caroline, and I am a recovering perfectionist.

Growing up, I always felt pressure to excel at everything I did. I was the kid who always needed to set the curve on exams, win first chair in every audition, and get all A+’s in every class. If I couldn’t be the best at something, I usually gave up and quit.

Sports were a perfect example. Although I was a swimmer for most of my life, I was never the fastest. I grew to hate practice and resented the faster swimmers. Eventually I quit swim team and exercise altogether, which contributed in no small part to me gaining weight through the end of high school and my freshman year of college.

My perfectionist tendencies became even more problematic in my early twenties. When I started losing weight my sophomore year of college, I subscribed to several problematic nutritional dogmas. These diet plans restricted entire food groups and forbade me from eating outside narrow windows.

I was never able to stick with these plans for long. Each time I broke a rule, even if my infraction was small, I decided I might as well eat whatever I wanted the rest of the day. After a while, these binges started getting more and more destructive. Something had to change for the sake of my physical and mental health.

If you’re struggling with your weight, your eating or training, or your sense of self-worth, there’s a good chance you’re holding yourself up to the same impossibly high standards I once was. I encourage you to stop chasing perfection. Only by relinquishing some control and accepting that there’s no perfect plan can you finally make real progress toward your health and fitness goals.

Perfection is unattainable.

The first step to moving forward is to realize nobody’s perfect. We all know this on some level, but to truly accept and embrace it is extremely powerful.

There are many ways we chase perfection with our health and fitness goals, such as:

Attempting to follow a hardcore, 5-7 day per week training program that doesn’t work with your busy schedule.
Forcing yourself to perform the same heavy barbell lifts with the same loads you used to do as a teenager, but which leave you feeling beat up and exhausted now.
Following an ultra-strict diet with no wiggle room to navigate social situations or other contingencies.
Believing there is one best diet or training program and every other plan will give you such lackluster results they aren’t worth considering.

I hope you can see how all these approaches are problematic. It’s easy for elite athletes to build their lives around the most scientifically-optimized plan. For the rest of us, plans that demand perfection don’t work. We have unusually busy days at work, family emergencies, unexpected obligations, and active social lives. We need plans which give us space to navigate these situations and still be successful.

The most optimal diet or training plan for you is the one you can follow consistently while maintaining your energy, performance, and sanity. This means the way you eat and train has to be flexible and not overly restrictive. It’s better to do less but stick with it than to try and do too much and burn out.

your eating and exercise plans should be realistic

Chasing perfection leads to all-or-nothing behavior.

When you’re chasing perfection, it’s easy to use “screw ups” as an excuse to go off the rails. Perfectionists get triggered by failure and overreact with harmful behaviors.

My struggles with binging and restricting are a great example. I ate a bit of forbidden food and then said “screw it” and jumped face-first into a pile of junk food I often didn’t even want. These binges did way more harm than the initial mistake ever did.

Instead of living and dying by a long list of strict rules, reduce your focus to just one or two behaviors at a time. I recommend picking things you’re confident you can manage. Once you’ve identified your current focus, let everything else go. You can always tackle more things once you’ve nailed your initial commitment.

If this freaks you out, take a deep breath and realize you have plenty of time to get to where you want to go. Breaking your goals into smaller pieces and getting rid of strict rules keeps you moving forward and prevents overwhelm and all-or-nothing behaviors.

Read more: Do Less to Do More

Active acceptance and self-compassion

If you’re anything like me, you may have a tendency to be overly hard on yourself. This is a hallmark of being a perfectionist – you beat yourself up when you don’t live up to your impossibly high standards. You may feel bad about yourself all the time, wondering why you’re unable to stick with your strict diet and workout routine. You think something is wrong with you, when the real problem is your perception and expectations.

A crucial part of moving away from perfectionism is to practice self-compassion. Just as you accepted that nobody’s perfect, accept that you can’t get everything right all the time. You’re going to screw up. The important thing is to learn from your struggles and keep taking positive action. Don’t use your slip-ups as an excuse to binge or skip the gym for weeks at a time.

Just because you’re practicing self-compassion doesn’t mean you have to love everything about your life just the way it is. My mentor Jill Coleman talks about “active acceptance.” This means you accept where you’re at right now – flaws and all – without judgement, but you’re still trying to move forward and improve. This is a great place to be if you’re trying to change your body or improve your health.

when we aim for perfect, like a bullseye, we set ourselves up for dissapointment — You don’t need to hit a bullseye to see progress.

If you’ve been chasing perfection in the gym and kitchen with little to show for it, consider another way. Chasing perfection sets you up for failure and keeps you from achieving your goals. Instead, choose a few manageable changes to tackle right now. Accept that everything else will stay the way it is for now, and that’s ok. You’ll experience much more long term success making small changes that stick rather than aiming to be perfect and always falling short.

Looking for a way to become a more consistent exerciser? Sign up for my 4C System course below. Once you sign up, you’ll receive five days of free lessons sharing the strategies I’ve used to help hundreds of clients exercise more without losing their sanity.

March 20, 2018October 14, 2019

3 Strategies to Combat All-or-Nothing Eating

Let’s say you’ve been following your strict diet perfectly all week when your friends invite you to Sunday brunch. Although you’re nervous about finding menu items that fit your plan, you accept the invitation anyway.

When you get to brunch, you cave to peer pressure and order a bloody mary. Then you have a few bites of a shared fried appetizer. Your defenses are down and you’re mentally exhausted from a week of white-knuckling your eating.

After indulging in the drink and appetizer, you feel a wave of guilt. Since you’ve already “blown” today, you go all in on your favorite cheat foods. You order a heaping plate of pancakes and two more drinks. On the way home, you stop and pick up a pint of ice cream, which you eat mid-afternoon. When it’s time for dinner, you order Chinese take out and eat way past the point of fullness.

At the end of the day, you feel bloated, overstuffed, and riddled with guilt and disgust. You vow to resume your restrictive diet the next morning.

couple eating out at a restaurant

It’s easy to get caught up in this vicious cycle of restricting and binging. This rarely leads to success with your fitness goals; instead it almost always leads to decreased self-confidence, guilt, frustration, and an unhealthy relationship with food. If this story sounds anything like you, it’s time to try a different approach. Keep reading to learn my top three strategies to combat all-or-nothing eating.

Get rid of rigid rules.

One of the best ways to set yourself up for all-or-nothing eating is to set strict rules about what you can and cannot eat. If you struggle with this problem, don’t make any foods completely off limits (the exception here would be if you have a serious food intolerance or allergy).

As soon as something is forbidden, it becomes much more appealing. Indulging in just one of your forbidden foods can create a chain reaction leading to an all-out binge. These binges do way more damage than simply eating enough to satisfy your craving.

Instead of setting rigid rules, allow yourself to eat whatever you want, whenever you want. This can be scary at first, especially if you are someone who is constantly dieting. However, giving yourself the freedom to eat anything makes you reconsider your choices. Combined with mindfulness practices (more on this below), you will be more likely to eat only foods you truly want and stop when you’re satisfied.

Another strategy is to have small amounts of “cheat” foods throughout the week. Jill Coleman calls this “preemptive cheating” and believes it can help moderate weekend eating. A preemptive cheat would be any less-than healthy food you enjoy such as chocolate, alcohol, fatty foods like cheese or butter, and carbs. Rather than telling yourself you’ll never eat your favorite foods again, allow yourself to eat just enough to make your meals taste good and to satisfy any cravings.

Don’t take on too much at once.

Psychological wins are very important when building new habits. It’s crucially important to set yourself up for success early on in the process.

One of the surest ways to fail is to try to change everything at once. For example, if you are currently eating McDonalds for breakfast, skipping lunch, eating 2 heaping plates of food at dinner, and snacking on chips and ice cream before bed, attempting to overhaul your entire diet is likely to completely overwhelm you. After a week of trying to manage 20 new habits, the smallest slip-up may trigger a binge. This only fuels the vicious all-or-nothing diet cycle.

If you have a long list things you want to change, start with the one thing you are most confident you can manage right away. Slow, small improvements are easier to sustain and will build confidence in your ability to change. Accept that you’re not going to be perfect right away and acknowledge that you will surely slip up along the way. Give yourself permission to start small and grow to relieve some of the pressure that can cause all-or-nothing eating.

Slow down and sit.

My final strategy to combat all-or-nothing eating is to practice mindfulness. It’s easy to get swept away by uncomfortable emotions or to lose touch with what our body is actually trying to communicate. The best ways to get back in touch with these signals are to slow down and take some space every day to sit quietly with your thoughts.

Practice eating slowly and without distractions. Focus on the taste and texture of each bite of food and chew fully before swallowing. Put down your utensil between bites to breathe or take a sip of water. Stop eating when you are satisfied or when the food no longer tastes as good as the first few bites. Slowing down can help you take back control of your decisions around food and potentially interrupt the whirlwind of emotions that can fuel a binge.

If you do notice the self-talk or thoughts that precipitate a binge, do something to halt the process. Set a timer, find something engaging to occupy your mind, or call a friend or family member. Whenever possible, remove yourself from the situation tempting you to binge.

Finally, establish some daily practices to connect you with your values and long-term goals. Keep a journal or spend time reflecting on how you’re feeling. When uncomfortable emotions come up, allow yourself to sit with them until they pass. This sounds cheesy but it actually works. When we learn to manage our emotions appropriately, we no longer need to use food as a coping mechanism.

mindfulness practices can help you lose weight and improve your health

If you struggle with all-or-nothing eating, you’re not alone. Many people are silently caught in this vicious cycle. The good news is there is always hope to move forward. Start by accepting you don’t need to be perfect to see results. Get rid of rigid food rules that set you up for failure. Focus on making sane and sustainable changes and give yourself room to make mistakes. Slow down when eating, identify and interrupt binge triggers, and spend time exploring yourself and your emotions. And always practice compassion toward yourself; building healthy habits is hard, but you have what it takes to see it through.

If you want exclusive access to tips, tools, and strategies to take charge of your health and fitness, despite a crazy schedule, please sign up for my email list here.

February 6, 2018July 29, 2021

The Only 3 Things You Need to Lose Fat

I used to think getting in shape was complicated.

After my initial success losing weight, I got swept up in several fitness fads. I believed that unless I fasted for exactly 8 hours per day and removed certain foods from my diet, I would never reach my ultimate fat loss goal. As you might expect, this created unnecessary stress and didn’t get me much closer to where I wanted to be.

My perspective on this issue has changed tremendously over the last 7 years. Whereas I once believed there were “secrets” to losing weight and keeping it off, I now believe in the power of mastering the fundamentals.

The old me chased quick-fixes, present me is working to build sane and sustainable habits that truly matter for myself and my clients.

The fitness industry wants you to think fat loss is complicated. But in reality, you only need to do a few things to lose fat. My old coach Bryan Krahn calls these factors “big rocks.” If you want to experience success, focus on moving all the big rocks before getting caught up in the noise and unimportant details.

Sustained caloric deficit

We need to consume fewer calories than we burn over the course of many weeks and months to lose fat. This is the most important factor in successful fat loss.

No special diet or meal plan (keto, intermittent fasting, paleo, vegan, etc.) can counteract the ultimate importance of caloric balance. These diets work because they help us cut back on calories, not because they provoke any magical changes in the body. The sooner we accept we will have to eat less to lose fat, the faster we steer ourselves onto the right path.

Many of us are clueless about the caloric content of our favorite foods or underestimate the total amount we are consuming. If you feel you are eating “healthy” but aren’t losing weight, try logging your food honestly. I have had many clients return to me shocked at all the sneaky ways they were actually eating more than they thought. Even if you only track your food for a few days, you may gain some useful insights on ways to cut back on calories.

If you’ve honestly tracked your food and you still aren’t satisfied with what you’ve found, you might want to talk with a doctor. Certain medical conditions can interfere with fat loss even in the presence of a caloric deficit. However, in my experience this only affects a small percentage of people struggling to lose weight.

Regular exercise

Exercise is often the first place people start when trying to lose weight. And although it’s not truly essential for fat loss, exercise has innumerable benefits and can make the process of changing your body much more rewarding.

Exercise is also a keystone health habit. This means if you start exercising regularly, you may also be inspired to clean up your eating and address other unhealthy habits. This cumulative effect of these changes makes it much more likely you will reach our fat loss goals.

A blend of cardio and strength training is most effective. Cardio promotes recovery and can help burn a few extra calories in the later stages of a diet. Strength training ensures you hold on to as much muscle as possible which keeps your metabolism revving. Muscle also helps create the toned, lean look most people want after shedding body fat. Prioritize strength training first and be careful not to overly rely on cardio.

Be as active as you possibly can be outside the gym. The extra calories you burn walking instead of driving, taking the stairs, getting a standing desk at work, and participating in physical hobbies really add up. This is one of the easiest ways to influence the caloric balance equation without adding much extra time to your already busy schedule.

233-gym-cardio-workout

Sleep and Stress Reduction

Dieting is stressful on the body. Your body can’t tell the difference between diet stress, work stress, home stress, or actual life-threatening stress like being chased by a lion.

For best results, reduce other stresses in your life. If you try to diet during your busiest time at work or when you have lots of travel planned, you are setting yourself up for failure. Too much stress can lead to a host of health problems in addition to making it nearly impossible to stick with your diet and training plan.

Getting enough sleep makes everything else easier as you diet. Sleep is essential to help your body recover from training. It also helps reduce food cravings and provides energy for your workouts. If you can’t get uninterrupted sleep at night, try adding in a 20-minute power nap during the day.

Bonus: Patience, Consistency, and Time

Even if you do everything discussed above, you won’t make any progress unless you stick with it for many weeks and months. Those dramatic, rapid transformations you see online are the exception, not the rule. Unfortunately, it often takes much longer than anticipated to see the changes you want and many people simply give up when things get hard.

I encourage you to make a mindset shift regarding fat loss. Instead of viewing your goal weight as a destination you will arrive at, view fat loss as part of an ongoing process to transform your life in a healthy way. If you can learn to enjoy the day-to-day process (training, cooking, shopping, stress-reduction, etc.), you will enjoy much more long-term success.

Aiming for perfection sets you up to fail. Instead, pick one or two big issues to tackle right away and execute them with ruthless consistency for 2 to 4 weeks before adding more to your plate.

These steps are simple, but not easy. Practice patience, embrace the process, and understand that changing your body often takes much longer than anticipated.

Are you struggling to lose weight and keep it off despite your best efforts? Join me in a free webinar to learn how to avoid the common dieting mistakes that are standing in your way.