Month: February 2020
Having trouble with your nutrition? Try this…
When I sit prospective personal training clients down for a goal assessment interview I’ll ask them in-depth about their goals. This helps me determine what steps are going to be needed in order to get from where they are to where they would like to be. Then I also determine whether or not they are committed enough to their own goals.
If they aren’t committed, I turn them away. Why? Because I can teach the top strategies for losing weight, getting strong and looking great. But strategies only work if the person works. If they aren’t committed, it’s like they are telling me “I’m not going to do what I need to do.”
Maybe the timing just isn’t right. That’s ok. Come back when you really are ready to make the changes necessary.
Even when a person is committed, change presents challenges that may be unforeseen. But for every problem, there is a solution and having been a personal trainer for over 15 years I’ve got a couple worth sharing.
One of them is quite simply preparing your food in advance.
One of my newer personal training clients posted this picture on his Facebook page.
I can already tell he’s going to be very successful 🙂
You see when it comes to transforming your body, though I think building strength is more important to the total transformation (I’m talking about gaining muscle, strength and getting “I got this!” levels of confidence) but when it comes to burning fat, your diet is going to be a bigger factor.
And when it comes to dieting, often what fails is your ability to apply whatever your diet may be to whatever your situation is. With something as major as the food in our lives (much of our day revolves around food), there are all sorts of obstacles that get in the way.
You’re running late and/or are incredibly busy with personal or professional obligations so no time to make the healthy choices. Sound kind of familiar?
So we cave to convenience by going to a drive-through or getting some other kind of fast food, and in doing so we sacrifice a bit of our health with it each time.
But a way to combat this is to simply be proactive about it. When it comes to nutrition, simply prepare meals that abide by the rules of your nutrition program for the week in advance. It helps to dedicate Sundays and Wednesdays to this.
A trait common amongst successful dieters is that they eat the same healthy meals on repeat. So you don’t have to make 10,000 different kinds of food on Sunday. Just make one or two things in bulk and pack it into individual Tupperware containers. Then you simply pack what you need with you for the day. You can freeze them and save them for a later day too.
Believe me, you’ll be a lot less likely to cave to convenience if you have your Plan A is already conveniently with you.
Eric Moss is a world-record-holding modern-day professional performing strongman, author, motivational speaker, and personal trainer. In the tradition of the strongmen more common during the turn of the century, he performs feats of strength such as bending steel and breaking chains as part of a show and speaks on goal achievement for corporations, nonprofits, government as well as for schools and universities. His exclusive personal training studio is located on Main Street in Boonton New Jersey, is close to Mountain Lakes, Denville, Montville and Parsippany New Jersey.
re: How much exercise is enough?
This past week, I gave a presentation on how to include fitness and nutrition strategies into an already busy schedule. In it, I provided examples and case studies from the personal training clients I’ve worked with over the years.
One thing common amongst my personal training clients is that they are all professionals, mostly between the ages of 40 and 60. Many of them either have kids, hold down more than one job or are business owners like myself.
For me personally, I have 2 businesses (my personal training business, and a business as a professional entertainer for corporate, associations and education)
2 businesses and I have 2 young children. My youngest turned 6 months old the other day.
And technically, because I’m a professional athlete my training has to matter. I don’t really have time to waste on unproductive training methods.
So as I was perusing the interwebs looking for ideas about what to write about, I came upon an article called “how much exercise is enough?”
It’s kind of a loaded question really. The answer, like most things health and fitness related, is “It depends.”
I’ll give an example. A couple years back I had someone tell me “I train 6 days a week, 3 hours each time. I workout 10 times as hard as everyone else and I feel like I have nothing to show for it.”
I told him “I have some theories. But you probably aren’t going to like them.”
“Well what is it?”
“I think you’re overdoing it. You’re not giving your body a chance to catch up so it’s holding onto your body fat. With me, you’ll be training 30 minutes 3 times a week and nothing else except some easy walking to help with recovery”
He lost 18lbs in a month. But that was a bit of a unique situation because his body was so used to going hard all the time, that it had developed the ability to have a speedy recovery from training. Not all situations are like that.
However, you can still get great results on short programs. I have a guy training right now about 25 minutes twice a week. Is he going to get results like the Amazing 12? Not likely, but he’ll still get great results.
The Amazing 12 is a program that’s about optimizing everything involved in a body transformation. It’s about optimal technique, optimal nutrition and optimal progression of the loads. With all those things in place it creates such amazing results in a shockingly short amount of time.
But it also requires the optimal situation. It’s approximately 5 days a week in my personal training studio, plus cardio homework. Not everyone has a schedule that will allow it.
I have a personal training client right now who would have loved to do Amazing 12. He works full time, has a part-time job and is trying to build a business. Right now, Amazing 12 isn’t right for him.
So then optimal changes because it’s context-dependent. Optimal is the best answer for whatever the situation allows. For my guy, he trains approximately 25 minutes twice a week. It may not be the optimal situation but pretty good is still pretty good. He just told me he feels good and accomplished. Like I said, pretty good is still pretty good.
As far as how much is enough? Well, training is about coaxing adaptation from your body. Your body adapts by getting stronger, leaner, fitter etc.
And in order to get an adaptive response, you need to give it a stimulus to adapt to. You might be surprised how little you actually need.
People new to training can make especially fast gains. It isn’t uncommon for some of them to actually double their strength (based on how hard they perceive something to be) within the first month. And that is done with a low volume and generous rest periods.
So how much is actually enough? Whatever it is you can safely do that challenges you. Little hinges swing big doors over time.
Eric Moss is a world-record-holding professional performing strongman, author, motivational speaker, and personal trainer. In the tradition of the strongmen during the turn of the century, he performs feats of strength such as bending steel and breaking chains as part of a show and speaks on goal achievement for corporations, nonprofits, government as well as for schools and universities. His exclusive personal training studio is located on Main Street in Boonton New Jersey, is close to Mountain Lakes, Denville, Montville and Parsippany New Jersey.
Biggest Loser 2020 – Fat Shaming and Dangerous
Truth be told, I haven’t even watched the full episode. I could barely get through the highlight reel during the show’s introduction before rolling my eyes.
Why?
Because I work as a personal trainer and helping people to lose weight, get fit and transform their bodies and therefore their lives is what I do. I wouldn’t simply be a viewer sitting at home watching tv. I see the way they train these people and I am absolutely appalled at their approach.
So a couple of things. The main argument for the benefit of this show is it inspires people to get in shape.
I really question that. For one thing, a lot of times when people are overweight, they know it, they don’t like it, they want to do something about it but they are either confused about what to do or completely overwhelmed by the perceived amount of work it would take to get healthy.
I think that for every person it inspires, it probably scares off a whole lot more. In the opening sequence, I saw a woman throwing up into a bucket and I know from previous seasons there is a high injury rate. Not to mention that previous contestants have been unable to maintain their weight.
Yeah, totally inspiring.
Second, for every person that actually makes a decision to get up and take back their health, that person is likely looking for ideas about how to train and eat. They see a severely overweight person do box jumps and think “Hey, that’s probably what I should do!”
Box jumps, in particular, are an exercise with a high risk to reward ratio. Even for a coordinated lean and athletic person, they don’t land quite right and they can gouge their shin, injure their knee, fall backward and hit their head, etc.
There is plenty that can go wrong with that.
Now you have someone who is likely uncoordinated, unsure of themselves and have extra weight and it’s not a matter of if they get injured, it’s when.
In Russia where plyometrics (box jumps are a form of plyometrics) was pioneered and studied they determined that a person wasn’t really ready for plyometrics unless they had a double bodyweight squat. The reason being their tendons hadn’t thickened enough yet.
Should a person that is just starting their fitness journey be doing this?
As with anything, start with where you are. Stay within your current capabilities and expand them. I’m not saying plyometrics are completely off the table…I’m just saying not right now.
I think a properly performed kettlebell swing can accomplish most of what box jumps can and more…and do it safely but that’s another article for another day.
Another thing is it sets up unrealistic expectations. For one thing everybody lives in a bubble set up for weight loss to occur, training 4 hours a day and taking drugs. This quite simply doesn’t fit with the lifestyle requirements of most people (having a job, a family etc.).
Here’s another article about it https://nypost.com/2015/01/18/contestant-reveals-the-brutal-secrets-of-the-biggest-loser/
Second thing is that it will show things like them losing 10lbs per week. The truth is the weekly weigh-ins are actually closer to monthly weigh-ins. Why? I don’t know, filming schedules? That’s Hollywood for ya.
And one last thing. The supposedly world-class trainers. Fat-shaming banshees with either questionable knowledge or questionable ethics, possibly both.
For a person that is looking to start their fitness journey, they might admit to themselves that they need help (a monumental step). They might even push through their apprehension of picking up the phone to reach out to a personal trainer to help them.
But then again, that apprehension may cause them to second guess whether or not they are willing to put up with being yelled at and shamed, and they put the phone back down reverting back to their old ways. That’s a person that could have benefitted from my approach, a bit more conservative but consistent and more positive.
If that person is you, you can do it. Take it step by step, build upon your current capabilities, hang in there and one day you’ll wake up look in the mirror and say “Damn! You got it going on!!!”
If you need my help, send me a text at 973 476 5328.
Eric Moss is a world-record-holding professional performing strongman, author, motivational speaker, and personal trainer. In the tradition of the strongmen during the turn of the century, he performs feats of strength such as bending steel and breaking chains as part of a show and speaks on goal achievement for corporations, nonprofits, government as well as for schools and universities. His exclusive personal training studio is located on Main Street in Boonton New Jersey, is close to Mountain Lakes, Denville, Montville and Parsippany New Jersey.