How I Get Clients to Eat More and Get Leaner

I get it, the title doesn't make any sense. It seems like a paradox. It seems like the two concepts of eating more, and getting leaner contradict each other.

Why is this the case? It's so simple, I'll answer for you. 

You've been lied to.

For real.

As you've heard before, misery loves company. This plays out in the health and fitness industry all the time. Everyone who is miserable wants you to be miserable with them. Your friend Jane who is on the 500 Calorie Diet (where she idiotically eats 500 calories per day) wants you to eat 500 calories per day, too. And you're just sitting there like.. "You know what? Screw you and your 500 calories, Jane. I'm perfectly happy enjoying Ben n Jerry's, delicious salads, and Pizza Fridays." 

And you should be. Getting lean, burning fat, building muscle, and catching looks on the beach doesn't require you to suffer. It doesn't require you to cut anything out. It doesn't require you to live at the gym.

Heck, that's the case for all of the clients at Poehlmann Fitness. I love seeing the reactions at first. 

"Wait, you want me to add food?"

"Wait, you're going to start taking my cardio down?"

"Wait, I can eat foods that I enjoy?"

The looks on their faces are even better. Especially when Holiday season rolls around and they slowly turn their confused face into a joyous smile, jump, and cheer saying "I CAN ENJOY THE HOLIDAYS!!!"

Once they get over their confusion and shock, most all of them come back to me with the same question:

"Can you explain how that's supposed to work"

So that's what I'm going to do for you today. I'm going to explain to you how I make all of my clients' lives more enjoyable as they get closer and closer to their goals. 

The Foundation

All of the clients that I work with come from a wide range of starting points. Some of them have been working out for years and have a good amount of muscle mass. Some fiddle with different training programs every month and can't figure out what's best for them, and some haven't been active in the last 10 years of their life. Regardless of where the individual is coming from, a foundation needs to be build that is going to enable them to have a sustainably healthy body and lean physique. 

If we're talking in terms of building and maintaining a lean and sexy physique that doesn't require the endless demand of intense activity every day in order to maintain it, weight training and eating to increase lean muscle tissue is going to be the best way to set yourself up for success.

I know that this is going to trigger all of those cardio-heads out there, so I'll say this:

Cardio isn't bad, and I'm not against it. A lot of my clients do cardio on the side because they enjoy it. However, I do not believe that cardio is the best way to build a lean body with a well-working metabolism and I'll explain why. 

Metabolic Rate and Muscle

It is known without a doubt that having more muscle on your body is going to increase resting metabolic rate (the amount of energy required to maintain weight while sedentary). This has been shown in numerous studies (specifically using this one for this article) (1) over a long period of time. It is irrefutable. My body is going to require much more energy to maintain its weight than a 180 lb male with 20% body fat. Therefore, I can get away with eating more calories than the other individual (remember weight gain comes from eating more calories than you burn). Sure, there are most definitely some genetic aspects that play a role in metabolic rate, but there is no doubt that you can increase it by putting more lean mass on your body. So at this moment the questions is now "how can I increase muscle mass on my body?"

Resistance Training

Resistance is the answer to the question above. Before I continue on I want to make sure that you completely understand by the term "resistance". Any type of resistance can help your body adapt in order to build more muscle. Bands, machines, and free weights are all great examples of resistance training. Heck, even bodyweight movements involve resistance because gravity pulls agains you during the movement. Although there are a few different types of resistance training, working with free weights is one of the best ways to increase lean muscle tissue because of the volume, intensity, angles, and other things you can apply to it without being restricted. For example. You can only move so much weight (your bodyweight) during a pushup, but more resistance can be applied in a dumbbell bench press because of the availability of different weights. Anyway, the point of resistance training is to send a signal to our bodies that's going to cause it to adapt to the load by increasing its strength and muscle mass. 

Along with resistance training, eating an adequate amount of protein, carbohydrates, and fats in a caloric surplus is important when it comes to building muscle.

Don't be mistaken. It doesn't require a significant change in muscle mass in order to increase your resting metabolic rate. Even a few pounds of lean muscle can make a big difference. Having said that, ladies, you don't need to worry about looking like a shemale (is that PC?) on gear from lifting weights. In fact, you'll look lean, toned, and sexy instead. I promise. 

Cardio and Adaptations

I'm sure at this point you've asked where cardio plays a role in all of this, and I'll explain. But before I do so, I'd like to talk to you about what happens with your body when you are performing cardio so you understand some of the simple science. 

Remember just a minute or two ago when you were reading about the body adapting to resistance training by increasing strength and muscle mass? Good. It's the same concept when you perform cardio for a period of time. When you perform cardio (especially low intensity, steady state cardio) you're sending a signal to your body that's going to cause it to adapt. This time, the adaptation is different. Your body now knows that in order for it to be better at that cardiovascular exercise, it needs to get rid of weight (including muscle) in order for it to be more efficient. It asks your metabolism to be more efficient too. Not only does a decrease in muscle lead to a slower resting metabolic rate, but a more efficient metabolism is going to hold onto calories better. In short, cardio is telling your body to be more efficient, and your body can be more efficient by decreasing it's lean muscle mass and decreasing resting metabolic rate. 

Ever thought about the differences the body of a long distance runner vs. a sprinter?

"So does that mean I shouldn't be doing cardio at all?"

Meh. That's my answer and I'm sticking with it. It just depends. If your goal is to run a marathon and absolutely kick tail, then yes you should be doing cardio. If your goal is to be lean, strong, fit, sexy, and healthy for your entire life, I recommend that resistance training is the staple in your programming, and you sprinkle in cardio if you enjoy it or want to use it to burn some more calories here and there. If your weight training is extremely lackadaisical and your heart rate isn't increasing at all either, cardio would be great just for the health benefits alone. 

Thus far, you've learned this much:

1. Resting metabolic rate increases with more muscle mass.

2. Muscle mass can be increased through resistance training as well as a caloric surplus

3. Cardio shouldn't be the staple when seeking to build a sustainably lean and fit physique, but it should definitely be sprinkled in.

Now that we know these things, we need to put it all together and develop a takeaway that you can use along your fitness journey. 

The Solution: Eat More, Work Less

I know that this sounds crazy and absolutely too good to be true. This is one of those cases where it's real. It's real because in some ways it's a paradox.

The reason my clients love working with Poehlmann Fitness is because one of the first things we do to their nutrition is ADD food. Yes, ADD food.

I do this in order to build a solid foundation. A foundation that has lean muscle tissue and can maintain it's weight at a high amount of calories is going to have the most potential for success when starting the fat loss process. 

I'd like you walk you through one of the cases with a new client I picked up not too long ago. This young lady came to me looking for a solution just like everyone else. She was at a plateau forever and she was absolutely sick of it. She kept working harder, taking more and more intense classes, and eating less in order to try to lose weight. All she was doing was repeatedly running into a brick wall that would never cease to knock her right back down. 

My job as her coach is to fix that and give her the opportunity to enjoy life again. So the first thing I did was evaluated her nutrition and training for a week. I saw that she was eating around 1100-1300 calories (which is really low), while taking high intensity bootcamp classes up to 5 days/week. Why do you think this is? Because she's been doing an hour straight of cardio, while in a caloric deficit for a long period of time.

So the first move here is to start over and build her a solid foundation. As I explain earlier, I do this by slowing down her cardiovascular activity slowly over time and reintroduce her to resistance training in order to increase her resting metabolic rate. I also add calories to her daily intake during this time.

Over time, I continually add volume (weights x sets x reps) to her training regimen and calories to her daily intake as long as she maintains her weight. 

Once she gets to a point where she's eating a lot more and maintaining weight, I'll begin the process of SLOWLY eliminating calories. So with this specific client, we got to a point where she was maintaining her weight at 2300-2400 calories at the same weight she first started at. Keep in mind this is over 1000 calories more than she was eating at the start. Crazy, right? Now she's in a place where we can keep her activity pretty similar and slowly take down those calories. Now that her body is used to maintaining at 2300-2400 calories, a drop to 2000 calories caused her to lose body fat. And it did. So wrap your mind around that. After a while, this client was losing body fat eating 2000 calories as opposed to her 1300 calories before.

Mind.

Blown.

Although this approach is much more enjoyable, much safer, healthier, and more sustainable than most, others, it does take a good amount of time for this to happen. 

But by the time this client was done with this process, her lean muscle mass increased, her body fat decreased, her scale weight increased (another reason to not care about the scale), and her relationship with her weight, appearance, and self-worth improved. And, she had the freedom to eat more food.

War won.

Closing

After reading this, I hope that you can leave with some knowledge on how your body adapts to the different signals you're sending it. I also hope that you understand that getting fit and reaching your goals doesn't require you to suffer. It only requires some dedication and consistency.

Speaking of those two things, the Holidays are approaching and it seems to me that this is the time of the year where people think health and happiness can't live in harmony.

As explained in this article, they can. And if you're interested on making those two things take precedence at the same time in your life, apply for coaching from Poehlmann Fitness to get a head start.

Thanks for reading!

References

1. Zurlo, F, et al. “Skeletal Muscle Metabolism Is a Major Determinant of Resting Energy Expenditure.” Journal of Clinical Investigation, U.S. National Library of Medicine, Nov. 1990, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC296885/.

Adam is a fitness professional, Chipotle fanatic, and cookie enthusiast based in Fort Collins, CO. After hanging up the baseball cleats, he found a strong interest in the human body and how it performs. Since then, Adam has been transforming lives through fitness in a fun and encouraging atmosphere. 

Adam is an ACE CPT and Fitness Nutrition Specialist. His years of experience in fat loss, muscle hypertrophy, and sports performance training have helped people improve in all walks of life. If you're interested in hiring Adam as your coach, fill out an application here.

How to Boost Your Metabolism

How to Boost Your Metabolism

We've all asked Google this question before: "How do I boost my metabolism?"

Unfortunately, Google has most likely given you tons and tons of different sources for answers. Some may have been similar, some may have differed. Point is, you're sick and tired of feeling unsure. 

Don't worry, we'll answer your question without hesitation or doubt in this article. But before we begin to answer the question of "can or how do I boost my metabolism?", we must first go over what the metabolism actually is. 

Metabolism

The Merriam-Webster definition of metabolism is: 

- The sum of the processes in the buildup and destruction of protoplasm; specifically the chemical changes in living cells by which energy is provided for vital processes and activities and new material is assimilated. 

If you're like me, you read that over five different times, took a break from the computer, did some errands, came back to the computer, read it five more times, still thought you were reading Chinese, and proceeded to follow up with this statement:

So let's simplify things. When we're talking about metabolism in health, fitness, and nutrition, we're referring to the amount of calories our body burns in a day without activity. If your metabolism is slow, it means that your body is burning minimal amounts of calories in a day. If your metabolism if fast, it means that your body is burning tons and tons of calories in a day. 

So if we want to know how to "boost our metabolism", we need to know a couple of things:

1. What determines current metabolic rate
2. How to improve the determinant of metabolic rate

What Determines Metabolic Rate?

When determining how many calories you're burning in a day, it's likely that you'll want to figure out your Basal Metabolic Rate. Your BMR will tell you how many calories you burn in a day while at rest. Essentially, BMR will tell you how many calories your body will burn while you Netflix and chill all day long. 

So how do you figure out your basal metabolic rate? Well, there are a lot of factors that play into your BMR like sex, age, weight, and height. As you can see, all of these factors change over time and there's not much we can do about it. We age, and as we age our bodies change. Unfortunately a lot of those changes are out of our control.

Although some of those changes are inevitable, there is one big factor that we can control well with physical activity. It's our lean muscle mass. 

Lean muscle mass has been shown to be one of the greatest determinants of metabolic rate (1). Someone with the same age, weight, height, but lower lean mass will have a lower Basal Metabolic Rate than someone else with the same age, weight, and height, but higher lean mass. 

Simply put, the more lean muscle tissue that your body carries, the more calories your body will burn at rest. 

But what does this mean for you along your fitness journey? How can you apply this knowledge to your life and use it to benefit your health and physique?

How to Increase Lean Muscle Mass

There are plenty of things we can do to in order to burn more calories throughout the day like walk more, do a killer circuit workout, or add 30 minutes of cardio to the end of every single weight lifting session. When it comes to thinking about burning calories, have you noticed that we almost always think of what kind of additional activity we can do to burn more calories? The last time you ate more food than you were supposed to I can almost guarantee you told yourself you'd work twice as hard in the gym to make up for it. Why do we do that? Why don't we think more about what we can do to make sure our body is burning more calories while we do nothing? After all, if we're trying to ensure that our approach to fitness is optimal, practical, and sustainable, wouldn't it be best to be burning more calories at rest, rather than working more and more and more?

So what's the solution? What can we do to make sure our body is a calorie furnace 24/7? The answer is:

Increasing lean muscle mass through resistance training.

Resistance training should be the staple of every workout program whether you're trying to build muscle, burn fat, or do both. It sends a signal to your body that it needs to be stronger, leaner, and build more mass in order to adapt to the load that's being placed upon it. Cardio however, sends a signal to your body telling it to be more efficient with the energy that it has. Therefore the more frequently you do cardio, the better your body will be at using less calories in order to fuel the activity.

Am I saying that you have to or should cut out cardio completely? Of course not. But I do believe that if you're trying to lose fat, avoid a plateau, and avoid getting burnt out, cardio should be a supplement to your resistance training.

If you're at a plateau and you're doing more and more cardio, stop. Lift weights. Apply the same intensity in your cardio sessions to your weight lifting sessions and I'm willing to bet that your body will begin to build a faster metabolism. 

So how do you boost your metabolism? 

Increase your lean muscle mass by lifting weights! 

Short, sweet, and to the point. 

References

(1) Speakman, J R, and C Selman. “Physical Activity and Resting Metabolic Rate.” The Proceedings of the Nutrition Society., U.S. National Library of Medicine, Aug. 2003
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14692598.

Thanks for reading!

Be sure to follow Poehlmann Fitness and Subscribe to the YouTube channel! Why? Because you'll get notified when awesome videos get uploaded for you to watch. And that's never been a bad thing. 

Adam is a fitness professional, Chipotle fanatic, and cookie enthusiast based in Fort Collins, CO. After hanging up the baseball cleats, he found a strong interest in the human body and how it performs. Since then, Adam has been transforming lives through fitness in a fun and encouraging atmosphere. 

Adam is an ACE CPT and Fitness Nutrition Specialist. His years of experience in fat loss, muscle hypertrophy, and sports performance training have helped people improve in all walks of life. If you're interested in hiring Adam as your coach, fill out an application here.

How Not to Get Fat in College

For most, college is the first time that you're out of the house and completely on your own. You're in charge of everything. New schedules, new responsibilities, new choices, and plenty of crossroads. Your fate is in your hands. This means that you are in an extremely important stage of your life. Good or bad, the habits that you create now, on your own, will influence your decisions for years and years to come.

Due to these new opportunities and experiences, I've seen a lot of damage done. I've seen too many of you completely throw away your health due to "the college experience". Not only have a lot of you decided to throw away your health, but you've also just put on a bit of fat and quite frankly it's not a good thing. I know you probably haven't heard the word "fat" on your campuses, since your schools feel like they have to be extra sensitive to your feelings or whatever. But I'm not your safe space. I'm here to give you a light slap on the face with a side of advice and encouragement. By they way, that was the slap in the face, the rest is nothing but advice and encouragement :)

Let's not get off on the wrong foot. I don't want you to be under the impression that I believe weight gain in general is this horrible thing that should always be avoided. We all gain weight. Sometimes it's healthy, and sometimes it's not. In this situation, it's almost always the latter and that's why this article was written.

Habits

Remember how I was talking about decisions and habits at the beginning? Well, that's where it all starts. As you know, this is the first time (whether you're a freshman or not, it's still new) that you're out of the house making nearly every decision for yourself. It's so liberating. You can do whatever the heck you want, with seemingly no consequences. Due to the nature of this stage in your life, you're like this piece of clay, just waiting to be molded all over again. Parents can brag about how well they raised their kids all they want, but no matter how they raised you, you'll make decisions however you want. You have an opportunity to completely rebrand yourself and start over. Having said that, the things that mold you into the young adult you'll be after school are the friends you hang out with, and the habits you create in college. 

We all know what friends are, and we all know what habits are, but just to make sure I'll give you a refresher on habits. 

According to Brilliant Living HQ, "a habit is the repeated thinking and behaviors that become automatic..."

These habits are created by behaviors, which are initiated by cues. Following the behavior or action there is a reward. Cue, behavior/action, reward. 

So how does this play into your stage of life (college), your health, and the rest of your life? 

Habits and Health

As mentioned earlier, college is place where students gain a lot of body fat, and seem to take poor care of their health. This is bad for two reasons:

1. You're getting fatter and it's most likely not looking good, and it's hurting your self-esteem. 

2. This weight gain is a result of poor habits that are developed in college. These poor habits leak into life after school. Next thing you know, you're 50 pounds overweight and you have several health issues in your 30s. 

Sure, I may have titled this article "How Not to Get Fat In College" and I'll teach you how not to get fat in college, but throughout that process I'm going to stress the importance of habits, too.

So here's how I'm going to do this. I'll keep it simple. We'll identify the problem, what's causing the problem, what the solution is, and how you can change your habits for the better through that solution. 

Since we've already identified the problems (weight gain and poor habits), we'll address why this is happening.

What's Causing the Problem?

You're smart, right? You're in college and you know exactly what the problem is. An overconsumption of alcohol, and and overconsumption of food. Ultimately, the problem is overconsumption of calories from those two sources.

If I could summarize this issue into two gifs...

I'm not going to sit here and say that the solution is to stop doing both of these things for the rest of your life. I'm not your mother. 

But what I am going to do is teach you how to make sure you DON'T put on excess body fat, create bad habits, and damage your long-term health.

Two Different Approaches

We know that the problem is an overconsumption of calories through food and alcohol, and we know that the solution is properly managing calorie intake. The question now is: how do we do that? 

I want to break this section of the article into two different sections, one for each approach. 

There are two different ways you can manage your caloric intake. Both will keep you enjoying college, but you'll be doing it in a safe way that will enable you to create good habits in your life. 

Approach Number One: The Tracker

If you've been following me and reading my articles for a while, you know how much of a fan I am of macronutrient tracking. If you haven't been following me and you didn't know that, well shame on you. And now you know. 

Tracking food intake does one major thing for us all. It completely opens our eyes to what we're putting into our bodies. Beyond that, it allows us to think of food as nutrients and fuel, rather than just palatable items that only serve our taste buds. Through tracking, you're able to learn how much food you need to maintain your weight, and how much you should be eating based on your goal. It's an accurate measurement to make sure you're not doing anything to damage your body composition and health. It's like a budget for your food. If you go over your budget in real life over and over again, you'll be broke. If you go over food budget over and over again, you'll be fat.

Bada bing, bada boom.

So if you enjoy numbers, you have experience with tracking, or you don't mind taking a few extra minutes each day and you'd like to learn, I'd suggest going this route and keeping track of what you eat and drink each day. And yes, this includes the moments where you drink too much and you eat three burritos rather than one. 

Beyond learning about what's in food, what quantities and serving size actually look like, and realizing how much or how little you really eat/drink in a day, tracking macronutrients can help create some great habits. 

One of these habits is thought. Think about the budget analogy again. When you have a budget, you're forced to think more about what you're purchasing, why you're purchasing it, how much you're spending on it, and whether or not you should actually be purchasing it. Same thing goes with tracking. Tracking makes you think these things to yourself:

"What are the macros in this meal?"
"Do I have room for these macros in my day?"
"Should I use all of my carbs on these pop tarts?", etc. 

Before you know it, you'll have a different relationship with the food and drinks you're consuming. You'll really think about what's best for you and your health before you dive into chugging or stuffing your face. It'll be a habit before you know it. 

If you need a place to go to find a good starting point for what you should be eating, check out iifym.com to get your numbers. 

Alcohol is a lot more tricky to track and takes a bit more practice. But that's ok, I wrote an article on this just for you :)

Approach Number Two: Being Intuitive

This approach is a bit more advanced and I recommend it to those who have experience with tracking food and want a bit more freedom in their life. This can be done by a beginner, but it's a lot harder to implement this if you don't have a good idea of what's actually in the food/drinks you're eating/drinking. 

Being intuitive includes many practices that can help you stay lean in college while creating great habits for the rest of your life. Some of these practices are:

Completely rejecting a diet mentality
Listening to your body
Recognizing real hunger

These basically can be packed into one, and that one thing would be respecting your body. But, since intuitive eating can actually be a bit more complex than it sounds, I'll touch on each one a little bit. 

Completely rejecting a diet mentality can be dangerous which is why I only recommend this intuitive eating thing to those who have experience in tracking food and thinking deeply before they make decisions. Note: this is not to say that diets aren't dangerous either. They definitely can be and that's why I've never put a client on one. But as you know, complete freedom can offer some enticing but dangerous opportunities whether it's about food or whatever it is y'all college students do nowadays.

But you know that. You're in college. If someone is to completely reject a diet mentality, it opens a world where possibilities are endless. There are no rules and regulations to keep the individual within healthy boundaries for the food and drink intake. So the only way to make this really work is by listening to your body.

Listening to the body is something that is completely forgotten about by most of us. We don't understand what being full is. We understand what being stuffed is, but not full. Heck, we don't even chew our food enough. Listening to your body includes many things like understanding hunger and fullness. Are you actually hungry, or do you just feel like you need to eat? Are you actually full? Or are you physically stuffed to the point where the thought of more food makes you gag? 

Here's my advice when it comes to college and intuitive eating. SLOW THE EFF DOWN. I know you have so much to do and there are a lot of things happening. When you eat, don't be on your phone, don't watch TV. Think about what you're eating. Think about each bite. Chew your food. Chew your food A LOT. Did you know the purpose of chewing is not just to get it down, but to actually help liquify the food? So yeah, chew.

When you're drinking, SLOW THE EFF DOWN. If someone is encouraging you to chug, or you feel like you want to chug, stop and realize that you're doing it for a false sense of approval that you ultimately don't give a crap about. I'll try not to get too into the moral dilemmas behind binge drinking, so here's this piece of advice:

Try not drinking on a full stomach, but rather an emptier one.

"SAY WHAT?!"

I know it sounds crazy, but if we're trying to avoid overconsumption of calories, we're also trying to avoid overconsumption of alcohol. And if you're out trying to feel the effects of alcohol - don't think I'm an idiot. I know exactly what you're doing. Because if you're going to tell me that you enjoy the taste of an IPA more than a Coke, I won't believe you. - you'll feel it quicker than you would if you had 2 pounds of pasta and bread in you. Also, take more time in between drinks. Especially if your stomach is on the empty side. Don't go into the bar expecting to slam 3 beers and 2 shots because that will be a freaking disaster and it won't be a good night for you.

Just like tracking food, being more intuitive and listening to your body will help you slow down and think. Beyond that though, it will help you understand what real feelings are, what real hunger and fullness really is. It'll help you understand what your body is telling you. You'll know when your body has had enough, and you'll know when you're being lied to because your mind is telling you it hasn't had enough. 

Catch my drift? 

Bottom line. Stop, think, act. Slow down, and then slow down some more.

Anticipate your environment before you get into it, and have your actions ready. 

Takeaway

College is an opportunity to make or break your present and future self. Don't only make the right decisions, but be prepared to make the right decisions. 

Take care of your health by either tracking your macronutrients or eating intuitively. Heck, practice both at the same time. Implement either or both of those into your health journey and I'm willing to bet that your body composition, physical health, and mental health will change for the better.

As always, thank you for reading. If you have question feel free to leave a comment or shoot me an email. For those that are interested, coaching spots are open, and I have also made myself available for consultation. They're a great way to sit down with a professional and figure out a plan that works well for you as an individual without breaking the bank. 

Adam is a fitness professional, Chipotle fanatic, and cookie enthusiast based in Fort Collins, CO. After hanging up the baseball cleats, he found a strong interest in the human body and how it performs. Since then, Adam has been transforming lives through fitness in a fun and encouraging atmosphere. 

Adam is an ACE CPT and Fitness Nutrition Specialist and has years of experience in fat loss, muscle hypertrophy, and sports performance training.