Here we come again. It’s that time of the year when the weather gets a bit colder, people layer up and cover up areas they aren’t exactly proud of and delicious treats during get togethers are constantly tempting us like sirens to sailors.

After the candy of Halloween comes Thanksgiving, then Christmas and then the debauchery of New Years eve. Come New Years day though they try to quit cold turkey and then “This year will be the year I get in shape” where they have to compete with every other resolutioner who is using the equipment they want to use, and taking their sweet time doing it because they have to post it on social media.

Something I see other fitness professionals preach is get started now and you’ll have a leg up on the New Year. One might think “Why bother? I don’t want to give up hanging out with friends and family and there are just too many temptations. Better to start in the New Year”

I’m not going to gatekeep by preaching to you about how you need to suck it up. That’s actually an exercise in futility since willpower is a finite resource anyway (you can only say no so much before you crack).

Instead I’m saying that with a few strategies, you can actually use this to your advantage. In other words you can have your cake and eat it too…and still lean out.

Years ago, I was training a bride for her upcoming wedding day. One of the days she came in looking upset.

What’s the matter?

“I haven’t lost any weight in the past 3 weeks”

When was the last time you cheated on your diet?

“I NEVER cheat on my diet”. And I knew she was telling me the truth so I said …”Cheat immediately“

That weekend was the Renaissance Fair and she cheated and then some. She comes back in for a weigh in now 3lbs lighter. How?

Our bodies are amazing adaptive mechanisms. It adapts to just about any stimulus you throw at it assuming it has enough frequency and time. In an effort to survive a potential starvation cycle your body can actually down regulate your metabolism to conserve its resources. This is leftover from a time when we had to compete with sabertooth tigers for survival in the ice age. And usually the way the cycle works is people create a calorie deficit, they lose a bit of weight, then when they hit the law of accommodation (when your body stops adapting to a stimulus) the weight loss slows so they cut calories further. It becomes like a dog chasing it’s tail.

Instead by throwing in a “cheat” day or a “cheat” meal every once in a while you can potentially stop it from happening. You’re still technically in a deficit because one unrestricted day isn’t going to upset the caloric balance of an entire week of eating on point. That and throwing all the rules out the window can help you from a psychological standpoint since it’s not 12 weeks without fun, it’s only a couple days till you can have that scrumptious whatever floats your boat.

So how much? When I give my one size fits most nutrition recommendations for my personal training clients who come to me for transforming their bodies, I tell them 3 unrestricted meals or 1 day unrestricted. That will help you to be able to stay on track, while also living life and enjoying the fruits of your labor. You’ll enjoy the season, and if you start now you can enjoy the way you look before new years is even here.

If you need help with this, I offer a free trial at my personal training studio on Main Street in Boonton. Just send me a text at 973 476 5328 and introduce yourself to get started.

Eric Moss is a personal trainer in Boonton and moonlights as a world-record-holding modern-day professional performing strongman, author, and motivational speaker. In the tradition of the strength performers more common during the turn of the century, he performs feats of strength such as bending steel and breaking chains as part of a live show and travels across the country doing presentations on goal achievement for conferences, corporations, associations, nonprofits, and government entities as well as for schools and universities. His personal training studio is located on Main Street in Boonton New Jersey and is close to Mountain Lakes, Denville, Montville, Butler, and Parsippany New Jersey.

Last night at my personal training studio, I was talking with one of my clients. I’m not sure how the discussion came up, we have conversations that fly from one topic to the next to the next and I don’t even know how we got down the rabbit hole, but somehow I was saying something to the effect of performance enhancement drug use was up in youth and I was disappointed by it.

This guy happened to have gained 25lbs of muscle in his first 12 weeks of training with me…drug free btw.

Anyway, I had mentioned that I know a guy that was offering me SARMS (Selective Androgen Receptor Modulators). Basically SARMS are the newest legal version of steroids and they claim its safer as well but that’s not something I’m interested in and try to get all of my people to stay away from as well.

I said to him, even if it is safe which I have significant doubts about, when you take it you won’t know how much of your gains came from you vs. the drugs. Its actually one of the benefits of training drug free is how it affects your confidence. I’ve alluded to this in a previous article about the mental health benefits but nothing proves your self efficacy like watching the numbers improve. Repping out with weights you previously couldn’t move proves to yourself, you are capable of hard things and that there is a direct correlation between hard focused work and improvement. If you were to do it with drugs you wouldn’t know for sure. How much were the drugs doing?

Second, when you gain muscle natural, it can be a slower process (but not as slow as people think) but it also sticks around longer. Some of my clients leave for the summer, or are snowbirds during the winter or are touring musicians, they train with me for a while and then they leave for significant periods of time. I can’t go with them to train and often they don’t even have time to train. But when they come back, I test where they are compared to their last session and none of the gains were lost.

Now that guy that was offering SARMS to me, back in Feb I saw him and he had told me that he had a bit of a health scare which I won’t go into here, but he said I have to quit it. When I saw him again back in September he had lost significant amounts of muscle. He hadn’t built it the holistic way. I on the other hand, maintain my level of muscle year after year.

If you are interested in getting stronger in a way you can maintain but need help, I offer a free trial at my personal training studio on Main Street in Boonton. Just text me at 973 476 5328 to get started.

Eric Moss is a personal trainer in Boonton and moonlights as a world-record-holding modern-day professional performing strongman, author, and motivational speaker. In the tradition of the strength performers more common during the turn of the century, he performs feats of strength such as bending steel and breaking chains as part of a live show and travels across the country doing presentations on goal achievement for conferences, corporations, associations, nonprofits, and government entities as well as for schools and universities. His personal training studio is located on Main Street in Boonton New Jersey and is close to Mountain Lakes, Denville, Montville, Butler, and Parsippany New Jersey.

About a week ago at my personal training studio, two of my clients were chatting it up. One is in her 50’s and the other is in her 60’s and both are in phenomenal shape (only partially my doing, it’s my guidance yes, but at the end of the day it’s them doing the reps). One was telling the other she was in a beauty salon and overheard one of the beauticians telling the other she was doing pull ups with a band at whatever gym she happens to train at and she had decided not to chime in. They both chuckled.

Band assisted pull ups is one way, but not the best way if you ask me.

Anyway both of those women got their first chin up training with me. In fact they’ve both done amazing things in my gym repping out with starting maxes across several different exercises and both are past double bodyweight on the hip thrust (probably the best exercise for the glutes) for sub maximal reps (one even was able to do 450lbs for 10) and both put on a healthy amount of muscle.

To have a good ass, train like a badass.

They both had sought me out because they knew getting stronger would improve multiple things in their lives. You see when you are stronger, you have a different outlook on life. You have confidence that gets strengthened in the gym, but goes beyond and affects every part of your life. And it’s not just the physique that improves but the entire structure and ability to keep living an active lifestyle.

The more life experienced of the two had stark improvements in the measurements of her bone density and when she told me about the numeric improvements I said to her “Yeah but don’t forget you also go on runs, biking, hiking etc. It’s not just the weight training”

“Yeah but I was doing all that before, the only thing that was different was training here”

“Well thank you for choosing Eric Moss Fitness for all your health and fitness needs”

Its been shown that weight training helps with bone density, that’s a well known correlation. But beyond that, empirical evidence in gymnasts shows stronger bone density in gymnasts, at the point of contact where they fling themselves up to the bar. I believe that heavy hip thrusts with how it sits on your femur can have a similar effect (and it seems the bone density tests back me up). It’s not just about the booty (although glutes are more important muscle for over all health and longevity), it’s also about not breaking a hip.

Now back to that beautician, truth be told even though she doesn’t train with me I’m glad she’s doing something because just about anything is better than nothing and for too long women have shied away from the weight room. Women are the most over marketed to, yet underserved demographic in fitness (rubber coated pastel colored light dumbells can only take you so far).

I don’t know why but for some reason it’s been drilled into a lot of women’s heads that they need to do something else or workouts specifically for women. The reality is just about everyone can benefit from getting stronger and the principals of strength training still remain regardless of age or gender.

Though the math behind effective programming can get complex, the principle remains the same. Start with weights within your capabilities, progress them until your previous limits are well within your capabilities as they grow. Yes you have to lift heavy but earn the right first by getting the reps.

Start with what you can do and apply progressive overload in a way that doesn’t set off those threat mechanisms that shut down progress, review progress and adjust accordingly.

If you need help with this, I offer a free trial at my personal training studio on Main Street in Boonton. Just text me at 973 476 5328 to get started.

Eric Moss is a personal trainer in Boonton and moonlights as a world-record-holding modern-day professional performing strongman, author, and motivational speaker. In the tradition of the strength performers more common during the turn of the century, he performs feats of strength such as bending steel and breaking chains as part of a live show and travels across the country doing presentations on goal achievement for conferences, corporations, associations, nonprofits, and government entities as well as for schools and universities. His personal training studio is located on Main Street in Boonton New Jersey and is close to Mountain Lakes, Denville, Montville, Butler, and Parsippany New Jersey.