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

I Love Taco's

If you read my last post, then you know I banked up a lot of calories going in to the weekend.  I truly felt like I created a large enough caloric deficit where I could just let it all hang out this past weekend.  And then it happened.  On Friday I received a text from Moe’s about all you can eat taco night.  What the?  Needless to say I decided to go

Since Moe’s wasn’t acoounted for in my plans, I knew I was going to have to tap into my eating schedule for the following week.  I made Tuesday a fasting day.  The purpose of the fast was to allow my body to burn off any extra food that was left.  When you’re on a fat loss plan, the last thing you want is some splillage from the prior week.  You must do whatever you need to do to prevent that.  Each week you should see a drop in body-weight and at the worst case scenario, no movement at all.

I have colleagues that don’t agree with my methods, and believe that it’s more than just calories in vs calories out.  And I must admit, I use to believe the same thing.  This way just seems to simple for it to actually be the correct way of doing things.  But it’s tough to argue with results.  I’m down 20lbs in the last month and I’m on pace for the 50lb mark I set for myself.  (Keep your thought to yourself)

Anyone that tells me their goal is to lose some body fat but their not actively tracking calories, weight, and measurement, my only question is why not?  If you don’t know where you are, how do you know which way to go and how will you know when you get there?

The holidays are over and now it’s time for me to get back to business.  I worked out twice on Friday, and once on Saturday, Monday and Tuesday.   After being a total fatty over the weekend, I see how easily people can get caught up with over consuming calories in several short burst throughout the year.  Now don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed every minute of it.  If it weren’t for the social aspects, food wouldn’t be so pleasureable.

Those that know me know that I’m going to keep it real.  I operate strictly on the calories in vs calories out system.  According to typical diet books, I break every possible rule there is.  Do you think I care what people think or what they say?  Absolutely not!  The only thing I care about are results.  The process of losing weight is always healthier than keeping the weight on regardless of the methods being used.

My weigh-in day is on Friday mornings, but as of today I’m back down to where I was before the weekend and now the fat burning begins.  That’s pretty good considering the 6 lb spike I saw when I stepped on the scale on Tuesday morning.

If you want to lose weight and you only follow one rule – calories in vs calories out should be it.

Coach Blair

Over-eating for the holidays seems to be the thing to do.  While outdoor cookouts are a great opportunity to relax and vist with friends and family, did you know the average BBQ meal exceedss 1500 calories?  For most women, that’s almost an entire day’s worth of calories in one meal.

That type of eating will do some serious damage to your waist line if your not careful.  The good news is there are some simple strategies you can implement to continue losing weight and still enjoy the social aspect of the holiday eat-a-thon.

Currently I’m in the middle of a 16 week cut-down.  Right now I weigh 237 and to achieve the look I’m working towards, I’ll probably end up somewhere close to 200lbs or so.  So what do I do to ensure that I’m still able to enjoy the holidays without moving backwards?

The answer is simple, I’ve eaten a little less throughout the week leading up to the event and then I’ll implement a 24 hour fast starting at the conclusion of my last holiday BBQ.  Now I know you’re probably thinking to yourself that can’t be it, but yep that’s it.  My goal this week was to create a big enough caloric deficit throughout the week so I am able to enjoy myself guilt free over the holidays.

The 24 hour fast afterwards is just an insurance policy in case I over do it

With today being Friday, you may not have a lot of time to create much of a deficit, but every little bit counts.  If your event is tomorrow, one simple strategy is to not eat anything from now until the event.  When you go to your event, rather than make everyone else misserable because you’re dieting, give yourself permission to eat guilt free.  Follow that up with a 24 hour fast.  Depending on your size, those 2 strategies alone can give you an extra 2500-4000 calories to enjoy at your BBQ.

To me, the holidays is all about being social and not trying to restrain yourself from eating all the tasty treats.  Anyone that knows me or will be around me this weekend will see that.  I have BBQ’s scheduled for Saturday, Sunday, and Monday and I plan on eating a lot at all of them without setting myself back from reaching my goals.

If you’ve never thought about the strategy of just eating less leading up to the event, try it out before you say it doesn’t work unless the style of eating you’re doing now is already working.

Coach Blair