There are more, but this is all I can think of off the top of my head:

1) Calories in vs. Calories out for Fat Loss – PERIOD

2) Strength Training is for shaping the muscles, and cardio is for conditioning purposes. Trying to use either for fat loss was not there intended purpose.

3) Leg Press is for calves only!

4) High carb, High fat, high protien diets: whatever you want to use. They all work. My clients use them all at my gym. The only consensus is they all eat less calories than they burn. I’ve lost almost 40lbs in 12 weeks on a mostly Carb/protein diet..

5) Fasting is the easiest way to lose weight and keep weight in check.

6) The three kinds of eating: The kind that gets you fat, the kind that gets you from fat to lean, and THE ART of eating to neither gain nor lose fat.

7) “Training intensely” won’t be as intense sometimes as other times. Always train as hard as you can and don’t kick yourself if you give it your all but it feels like you didn’t do it as intensely as that one time you really did.

8) Consistency is a key between successful transformations and those who never see progress.

9) The more impressive your physique, the easier it is to be seen as a jerk or a bad person. Make an effort to smile and treat others as you would want to be treated if you were in their place. It works well.

10) Old habits may be ingrained into us to the point where we unconsciously do things…but make an effort to act as in #7. You’ll be pleasantly surprised.

11) Fat loss should be a sprint but muscle gaining is a marathon. Skinny-fat people have a combo of these…so training for them is kind of like HIIT.

12) We all have limitations in our lives. Don’t make excuses….make ways around those limitations. This goes for life, family, work and even limitations on training equipment. If you really want to transform your physique, find a way…not excuses.

13) If you don’t feel an exercise, it probably means you don’t have enough muscle there in the first place (assuming you’re doing the exercise correctly). You need some size to feel the work. Just keep going as best as you can and don’t worry about it.

14) We don’t need to know or worry about all that micro-information about training and nutrition. It just confuses people unless they can see the original studies and actually have the time to study them.

15) Find good mentors and learn from them.

16) Be careful of TMI (to much information). Specifically, I’m talking about too many mentors about the same topic/subject. Sometimes putting all your eggs in one basket **IS** a good thing…assuming that basket is knowledgeable and truthful.

17) Become a “whole and complete” person. Don’t get obsessed with just the physical. Develop your brain too…logical, philisophical, artistic.

18) Become more cultured. Don’t neglect Spiritual development. While I do have my thoughts on how you should do this, it is not the topic of this blog, so I’ll leave it as that.

19) Creatine, protein, fish oil, and a multi-vitamin are pretty much the only supplements that are needed. Even then, protein is only needed if you’re not consistently at 490-840g/week.

20)  The only machines in the gym worth using are the cable machines because you can not duplicate those exercises with free-weights.  All other machines keep your body in a fixed axis inevitably sacrificing your joint health long-term.

21) 3DFitness Coaching Studio is always on the cutting edge. You owe it to yourself to check it out – http://3dfitness.net

What does your scale say?

The average person attempting to lose weight tends to get on the scale several times per week and sometimes several times per day.  If you don’t understand the daily fluctuations of your body weight and the errors in food, this is a sure fire way to drive yourself crazy.  While I’m not a fan of this method for most people I figured the least I could do was teach you why you shouldn’t get frustrated if you like to weigh yourself frequently.  So before you toss your scale and run out and buy a new one, a few simple adjustments will get you back on the right track.

The human body is made up of about 60-80% water.  This means that on any given day your body weight can fluctuate depending upon how  much water you are holding on to and how much food you have in your system at that time.  Since the average person eats about 3-5lbs of food a day, I guess it’s safe to say your body weight can fluctuate by at least 3-5lbs a day.  (Personally, I have a much bigger fluctuation.  My weight can fluctuate 3-8lbs in a day.)  Now I’m sure most people would be freaked out by this, but I actually enjoy watching my weight move around on a daily basis.  Maybe I’m just weird like that.

The more carbohydrates you eat, the more water your body holds.  Every gram of carbohydrate you eat your body holds approximately about 2 grams of water.  This is why people get really excited when they first cut carbohydrates out of their diet and the scale goes down.  The only thing that happened was their body began shedding some water.  This loss of water gives people the illusion of actually losing fat when in all actuality you may not have lost any body fat at all.  And let’s face it, no one wants to actually just lose weight – they want to lose fat!

So how do you lose fat?  In order to lose 1 pound of fat, you must burn approximately 3500 calories.  Forget all the exercise gadgets and gimmicks you read about claiming to help you tone up your problem areas - this can ONLY be done 1 of 3 ways.

1.  Eat Less than the number of maintenance calories you need per day

2.  Eat up to maintenance and exercise some calories off

3.  A combination of the two

If you take a closer look at the food we eat, you will notice that it is measured in grams.  When we weigh ourselves, the scale measures us in pounds.  There are approxiamtely 453 grams in 1 pound.  I’m sure you may be wondering “what does that have to do with weighing myself?”  Just hang on a second and it will all make sense soon.

There are a ton of errors to take in to account when it comes to losing weight, and the majority of them happen at the gram level.

1.  Exercise - you will never know how many calories your body burns through exercise.  Studies show we can over estimate how much we exercise by 50% or greater.  If the machine says you burned 300 calories, how do you know that number is really accurate?  And even if that number was accurate, you would still need to deduct the number of calories you would have burned anyway through your resting metabolic rate.

2.  RMR - RMR stands for “resting metabolic rate” which is the number of calories you would burn if you didn’t do much all day besides read my blog.  If you think your RMR is 1800 calories day but it’s actually only 1600 calories a day that’s a 200 calorie per day error right there which could account for about 1.5 lbs of fat loss per month.

3.  Food - unless you weigh everything you eat, there is an inherent error between what you ate and what the package says.  For example a Snickers Bar package says 55g and 280 calories, but unless you actually weigh it, how do you know that bar is actually 55g?  You don’t.  You just assume it is which is a very bad assumption.  Food manufacturers are allowed to give you more than the label says, but not less.  The bar you ate could have actually been 65 grams, thus making it about 350 calories instead of 280. If you make a few of these 40-50 calorie errors all day long, that could be the difference between losing a pound of fat or not.

When we add up all these errors you can see they end up compounding on top of each other.  Then when you go and get on the scale and you’re trying to see changes at the pound level but you’ve made errors all week long at the gram level, it’s very easy to see why the average person gets frustrated because they’re not losing weight.  If you have a ton of errors at the gram level, it will be hard to see changes at the pound level.

Marketers know these errors exist and they will continue play on your lack of knowledge if you let them.

At 3DFitness, I teach my clients to over-estimate whatever the label says by 20-30% and under-estimate however many calories they think they burned working out by 20-30%.  These error adjustments are what allow them to continue losing weight without ever getting frustrated about their lack of progress.

In order for this system to work effectively, you must “count calories”.   Other than that, you are at the mercy of the marketers and food manufacturers.

EVERYONE at my gym who follows this system loses weight.

Coach Blair

I better go read that new weight loss best seller...

I was talking to friend recently about weight loss and after listening to her talk, it hit me, people are really confused when it comes to losing weight.  I asked my 6 year old neice how lose weight and she simply said “don’t eat so much”.  If a child who’s never read a book on diet and nutrition instinctively knows this, then why aren’t people losing weight?

People hear me talk a lot about calories in vs calories out and can’t phathon that weight loss can be so simple.  The question I usually get is “what about carbs, protein and fats?”  My answer is generally “don’t worry about them right now until you get leaner.”  Simply meaning that you can’t see any measureable changes in your body in relation to carbs, protein and fat until you get really lean.  Now I know this isn’t the answer most people are use to hearing because it’s not a sexy answer.  So I’m prepared to be met with some resistance.

There is a huge distinction between an “Author” and a “Fitness Coach”.  The easiest people to work with are always the ones with the least fitness knowledge.  I just tell them what to do and they do it.  The hardest people to work with tend to be the ones who’ve read every book ever written on nutrition.  They will fight me tooth and nails about what they read and why they should only eat certain foods at certain times.

Now I know this may sound shocking, but 99% of the books on diet and nutrition are simply just marketing hooks (food cults).

Marketers understand that one of the needs of the human ego is the “need to belong”.   People want to belong to something so in the diet and fitness industry, they began forming food cults for this purpose.  Just think, you have veagans, vegetarians, no carb, low carb, high protein diets, etc all claiming their way is the best way to eat.

I’m a firm believer that most people spend way to much time worrying about the minutia of weight loss that they usually never end up losing any weight.  Sure we’ve all heard the eat 5-6 small meals a day to keep your metabolism elevated so your body doesn’t go into fat storage mode.  Heck, I even said the same thing to people when I first started training.  The problem with that, is no one really knows where that answer came from but we repeat it like it’s the ‘Gospel.’

I remember hearing a story about a guy who wanted to start running but before he could start he felt he needed to get a few things.  First he went and researched running shoes because he wanted to find the best running shoes available.  I mean there’s no way he could start running without those right?

Next he decided he needed to have the right outfit to run in.  So he went to the sporting goods store and purchased an outfit just for runners.  By this time several weeks had gone by and he still wasn’t exercising.

Then he decided to hire a running coach to teach him how to run because he wanted to make sure he was doing it properly.

This is how most people diet.  They spend all their time reading nutrition books and bogus blogs (except this one in hopes of finding the magical solution they’ve been searching for.  All in all, they’ve never gotten out of the starting blocks like our runner in the previous example.

Fat Loss is the simplest concept, but the most misunderstood.  No worries though because my new book will help you.

Currently I’m working on creating my own nutrition food cult and it’s going to be called “Gun To The Head Nutrition”.  If I put a gun to your head and told you I would kill your entire family if you didn’t lose 10lbs in 2 weeks, what would you do?

Would you?

1) Carefully read through the blood type diet book and find the one for you and ony eat the foods that were outlined for your type?

2) Only eat foods that were low on the glycemic index charts?
3) Try to eat in a specific pattern that’s ‘favorable’ for your fat burning hormones?

4) Eat More meals in an effort to try to actually ‘speed’ your metabolism so you you’re not stuck in the mythical mode of storing fat?

5) Would you just eat as little food as possible and possibly not even eat at all every day until you lost the requisite 10lbs?

If you answered anything besides 5 please leave my page and never return, because it’s clear you’ve lost your mind and long since lost your grip on reality.

I always find it interesting how people will read something on health and fitness and all of sudden they think they’re an expert.  Some will even start questioning some things I do or say.  Really?  The 2-3 books you read have made you an expert?  What’s more interesting, is the books and/or magazines are always based on new research or an old claim that was proven wrong years ago.

Today I received a message from a friend in a group I’m in asking me to lighten up on my delivery some.  So it’s not the information I’m giving, it’s how I’m giving it.  So this got me to thinking about why it’s perfectly acceptable to tell someone who is trying to better themselves that they are getting to skinny, but it’s not politically acceptable to tell someone their getting fat and to stop eating so freaking much.

That line of thinking left me a few options -

1.  Let people keep believing a bunch of lies.

2.  Tell them the truth even if they don’t believe me and possibly alienate myself

3.  Write a fitness rant blog post and have people read it at their own discretion

I choose #3 – so it here it goes

I’ve been hearing more excuses as to why people are not losing fat than I’ve ever heard in my life. I see friends post on Facebook about their “healthy breakfast” - oatmeal with globs of sugar or a low-fat muffin.  Hmmm…not “exactly” what I would call healthy, but ok.

So what better time then now to share some of my expertise with those of you that are still confused on the subject of weight loss.  Having worked with hundreds of individuals just like you, I’m always amazed at how often I am asked, “What do I need to do to get rid of  _________?”

Why it’s perferctly okay for marketers to tell comsumers a bunch of lies, as a fitness professional I always have to be on guard with what I say so I don’t hurt your feelings. As soon as I say something contrary to what you believe to be true, people get very sensitive and think I’m being arrogant.

Let me start off by saying it’s not arrogance, I’m just sick and tired of my friends being lied to.  But when I really think about it, is it even worth it?  Who’s really listening any way?  I mean with all the media and marketing I’m up against, am I being heard by anyone besides my own clients.

So what’s the secret to losing fat you ask?  “Table Pushaways” – Eat Less.  Fat loss isn’t magic.  It’s based on simple changes in behavior.  Don’t believe me, ask any child over the age of 6 how to lose weight and see if they don’t tell you to eat less.

Now it’s time to jump into the Blair Baxter rant.  My disclaimer.  For those that are politically correct and easily offended, stop reading now. And if the rest of you are offended, I’m sure the new diet book you are reading now will tell you exactly what to do to achieve fat loss…(like all the other books did)  So put down your new copy of “Eat Right for Your IQ” and listen up.

To lose fat, you must eat less calories than you burn.  Sure there are a few other hormonal factors that contribute, but they are the minutiae—the small details.  Most people never get to a level of leanness where those things ever come into play.  With that said, if you somehow managed to control every variable but you still ate more than you burned, you would still get fat.

I know you don’t want to hear this, but it still needs to be said:

Every time you eat, you have a chance to do something good for your body, and you have a chance to do something not so good for your body.  Having clearly defined goals will help make every decision much easier.

Statistics show having clearly defined goals is one of the biggest factors in a persons success.  Urban Myers the former head coach of the Florida Gators interviewed Bill Belichick a while back.  He asked him what his secret to winning was?  Belichick told him that when he took the job with the Patriots, he clearly defined the goals to the team - win a championship.  Every decision each player made after that needed to have that in mind.  That behavior was displayed on the field, but especially off the field when the coach wasn’t around.

Think about the foods that you are about to consume. Are they going to bring you closer to your goal? Or will they make you feel like crap and take you farther away.  Sure there was probably a time when you were younger when you could eat whatever you wanted and didn’t have to worry about weight.  Oh well, times have changed.  Too bad.
What about you friend?  She can eat whatever she wants and still look good.  Tough cookies.  She can and you can’t.  Next time pick her parents instead of yours.

Stop rushing your meals. Eat slowly. This will give your body a chance to actually realize that you’ve eaten and register that you’re full. It takes about 20 minutes for the satiety mechanisms to kick in.  Eating slower can save you a few calories not to mention a few stomach aches as well.
Eat smaller portions of whatever you are currently eating. Unfortunately there aren’t any magical foods that can make you lose weight.  Let me repeat that – YOU CAN NOT EAT YOUR WAY TO WEIGHT LOSS.  You can’t eat unlimited amounts of the food, even healthy foods, and still get lean.  This goes against the basic law of fat loss – create a caloric deficit.
“You are what you eat” isn’t a true statement.  The correct statement is “you are what you ate”.  Once you eat it, it’s too late.  It’s never about the food you didn’t eat, but rather the food you ate.  People think weight loss is more complicated than it really is.

If certain foods are a “hot button” food and you can’t eat them sensibly, then you have to give them up.  Very few people have the will power to stop when their “hot button” foods are around.  Usually they justify things in their mind, and then completely blow their diet.  There’s no badge of honor for having your ”hot button” foods in the house and then posting on Facebook about how you were able to restrain from eating them.  Like how many days is that supposed to last?  Your will power isn’t that great.  If it was, you wouldn’t be over weight to begin with.
Do not bring any food in your house unless you plan on eating it. If it is there, you will eat it. If you have a craving for something and it’s in the house, you will eat it.  But if it’s not, you’ll just sit your tale back down and finish watching Basketball Wives.

Using your kids as an excuse is a terrible reason to justify having junk in your house.  Home is the one place that should be safe from the outside enviroment.  In my opinion, the childhood obesity epidemic has been caused by parents buying all this crap for their kids.  What’s the difference between that and child abuse?  Nothing if you ask me.  Remember healthy kids make healthy adults.

Yes I know dieting is hard.  They have books out telling people you can’t lose weight so why try…lol.  That’s why most people never lose any weight and those that do, just end up gaining it back plus interest.  Life is too short to spend it in a body you are not totally happy with.

We’re in the midst of an 8 week transformation contest at my gym.  I’ve heard, “It’s too hard.”  “I need more food than that.”  “Can’t I just eat what I want if I workout?”   What that means is, you’d rather continue eating a crap load of calories than cut back so you can look and feel  better.  Repeat after me –  I have made a conscious decision to get fatter because my love for food is a more powerful love than my desire to look better naked.

Little changes can add up. Instead of trying to figure out how much you can eat, you need to figure out what else can you cut from your diet.  Every pound of fat your currently sporting is going to cost you 3500 calories to get rid of and you can’t file for fat bankruptcy.  You must pay every pound of it back.  Try fasting every now and then.  Not only will it help you lose weight, but it will also give your digestive system a break.

What was that?  You mean your new weight loss book never mentioned your digestive system needs a break?  I better leave that one alone.  I think I touched a nerve.
If you aren’t a fat loss expert, hire one. Or follow a plan written by one. . Using this approach means you can’t fail. You just need to follow the program. I’m amazed at how many people STILL ask me how they can lose weight as if the information is hidden – Eat Less

If you choose not to diet, you have two choices.

1) Move  a lot. I MEAN A WHOLE LOT.

2) Gain weight, get fat, accept it, and stop complaining.

And if you want to look better naked, you must:

Eat less than you burn off
Move more
Wash, rinse and repeat the above FOREVER.
Fat Loss really is as simple as expending more calories than you take in.  If you are not losing fat, it’s YOUR fault.   Just think, there are 168 hours in each week no matter who you are. Most people barely train for 3 of them.  That leaves 165 for you to completely blow it with your diet.

If you are not good at self discipline, hire someone who will make you accountable. Until then, realize that the choices are yours. Getting really lean is not difficult in terms of knowing what to do. It’s doing it that makes the difference.

If only it were this easy...

Most people who aren’t happy with the look and shape of their body is simply because of the way they treated their bodies in the past.  If you ran a business like you run your body, you would be in debt, owe the creditors & have all of your assets taken and sold off.  I’m sure you wish you could just hang up a sign and start over, but when it comes to body fat debt you must pay every single bit of it back by eating less, working out more, or a combination of the two.

Before you panick, there is something very simple you can begin doing today!

At my gym, we are in the midst of an 8 week transformation contest.  I recently started a fitness community for my clients and in the community we have a section for blogging.  I’ve really enjoyed reading the blog posts and giving feedback.  I feel like it gives me a chance to get to know them on a personal level.  Not to mention, if I notice a trend of negative behaviors, I’m able to intervene.

Why am I telling you this?

My advice to you is the same advice I give to them – anyone who is embarking on a fat loss journey should start blogging about their progress.  Even if no one reads it, I would still do so.  I’m sure you’re perfectly capable of holding yourself accountable for your actions, I mean look at where it has you up until this point…hmmmm.

So immediately we can see you’re not responsible enough to go at it alone.  Having a blog is a way you can become accountable to yourself as well as others.  I equate it to reporting in to the boss about what you do when you work from home.  Knowing you have to report in each day even though you’re not in the office tends to keep you from goofing off to much because you know you’ll get written up or fired.

Sure you’re going to have some days where you’re not as productive as others.  Just like you’ll have some days where you don’t make the best choices.  To me, none of that matters as much if you’re consciously aware of your actions on a day by day basis.  Think back, did you ever gain a lot of weight while weighing in on a daily basis?

Of course not.  The reason is because you were holding yourself accountable on a daily basis.  When you started making the wrong choices, you stopped holding yourself accountable and you no longer got on the scale.  You knew you were gaining and you felt as long as you didn’t look, you didn’t have to face the fact you were gaining weight.

This is the reason people who have trainers/coaches, excel to a much greater level than someone trying to do it alone – Accountability = Better Results.

When it comes to working on weight loss, or what I like to call fat debt, no one is going to fire you from that job for not being accountable and you can’t file for fat bankruptcy.  You have to pay back every single pound you borrowed. - the only way to get out of debt is to lose the weight or  DIE!

Before you can do anything, you need to really want to make a change in the way you look and feel.  When the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain to change is the only time people will change.  You need to decide if the pain of staying exactly where you are is great enough to get you to take action.

And once you’ve made that decision and you start, you must be like the farmer and see the seasons through.

Coach Blair