The #1 Workout Mistake for Weight Loss is ... WORKING TOO HARD. It breaks my heart seeing motivated people put SO MUCH ENERGY into their workout routines at the gym every week. The truth is – losing weight does require a lot of energy, but the MAJORITY (60-80%) of that energy should be going into hitting your Calorie and protein targets and being active through your days.  The other part (20-40%) should be going into optimizing your health and metabolism with healthy lifestyle choices and resistance training. Before we get to the details of that, let’s get a deeper understanding of our bodies. Understanding Weight Gain and Weight Loss Weight gain is a protective mechanism. Evolutionarily speaking, our bodies would gain weight when extra Calories were available to be able to survive the famine that would undoubtably come several times per year. Ten thousand years ago when humans hunted and gathered like the rest of the animal world, famine would come ever year in winter and sometim…Read More

So you’ve started making healthy changes to your diet – You’re eating adequate protein at each meal throughout the day You’re adding in 3-5 cups of produce and half your bodyweight in oz of water You’re in a Caloric deficit you know is necessary for weight loss Now what? Week 1 (Days 1-7) – This first week, three things are happening that can make the scale go down.  You can expect to lose 2-3% of your body weight if you do everything right.  You lose water. You’re eating more mindfully and likely have minimized or eliminated foods to cause inflammation – refined sugar, alcohol, plus other foods you might be sensitive to (like dairy or gluten, for example) – so your total inflammation levels will drop. Decreased inflammation = decreased excess water = scale goes down You lose bowel contents. You’re establishing a Calorie deficit, maybe a big one.  Many people start their “diets” with a bit of an unsustainable extreme.  For example, if 1700 Calories is sustai…Read More