Balancing Your Fitness and Lifestyle Within Your Goals

If you've done some Google searches on "how to lose weight" or "how to build muscle", there are thousands and thousands of results that pop up. From eating chicken and broccoli five times per day to eating whatever you want and doing a bunch of cardio, there seems to be endless "answers" to your questions. Interestingly enough, it's actually not the "best way to lose weight fast" that we're after.

The real question is this:  What is the most optimal AND practical way to reach our health and fitness goals?

After all, what's optimal can't be the solution unless it's practical too. 

The Dangers of Extreme Sacrifice

When it comes to health and fitness, one of the first things we think about is our physical appearance. When we do this, we tend to associate EVERY SINGLE DECISION along our fitness journey based on how it will affect our bodies. We make extreme sacrifices with other important things in life in order to achieve those goals. Why, though?

Well, extreme sacrifice is sexy and it sells, believe it or not. When people go on diets, they want to be acknowledged for their amazing will power and discipline. It's more "difficult" to go on a restrictive diet and reach their goal and the recognition they receive from their extreme sacrifice is what keeps them going. Although they won't admit it, it makes them feel juuuust a bit above everyone else. But what's so wrong with the extreme sacrifice?

Nothing is "wrong" with the idea of sacrifice whatsoever. If there's anyone that understands living like no one else so that later I can live like no one else, it's me. Trust me. But when it comes to balancing health, fitness, and an enjoyable lifestyle, things can get a bit shady. Using extreme sacrifice to reach a health and fitness goal is unhealthy when the following things happen:

1. It begins to negatively affect your relationships.
2. Husbands and wives begin to neglect quality time with their spouses because they feel like they have to be in the gym for 3 hours each day.
3. People begin to distance themselves from their social groups because their new training plan says they can't go to happy hour on Thursdays anymore. 

These are all extremely similar. When this kind of sacrifice damages the relationships in your life, there needs to be a change. The above examples are a few of many that I have heard of. Some others that really concern me are parents not being completely present at the dinner table because they "need" to have kale salad instead of mac and cheese or else they'll lose everything that they've worked for. Families getting read of weekly ice cream trips in the summer because dad has to eat "clean" is another one I've heard of. Even moms feeling like they have to cook even more because they can't eat anything that their family is eating. It makes me so sad to hear things like this.

It Doesn't Have to Be That Way

People, reaching a fitness goal doesn't require a crazy amount of sacrifice. Although the fitness industry has been lying to you and telling you that you have to live like a competitive bodybuilder in order to look great in your swimsuit, I'm here to tell you otherwise. 

"Adam, are you telling me that reaching my goal is going to be really easy and I'll hardly have to put in any work?" No, that's not what I'm saying at all. But what I am saying is this:

Properly balancing your health, fitness, and lifestyle is going to be the best way to reach your goals. Why? Because getting the best mix of optimal and practical is what delivers results. 

How Do I Find Balance? 

Over the last 5 years or so that I've been in the fitness industry, I've discovered that the ideal balance between optimal and practical has these three components:

1. A complete understanding of where the individual is starting.
2. A complete understanding of where the individual is wanting to be.
3. A very good understanding of where the individual's priorities are. 

So, in order to begin creating a plan that allows you to have a great balance between health, fitness, and lifestyle we need to figure out where you're starting point is.

The Starting Line

Where are you coming from? Have you been sitting on the couch without physical activity for the last five years, or have you been doing hard resistance training for the last five years? Either way, your starting point is going to have a big impact on the training plan that you choose. I can't place a new client of mine on a similar program that I am doing if he/she hasn't exercised in years. Although the chances that their body will adapt are high, their changes of hurting themselves and having a negative experience are even higher. 

The same thing goes for nutrition. I weigh 215 pounds and my body maintains its weight at roughly 2800 calories. Although I'm working to put on a few more pounds of muscle this year, would it be smart for me to follow the same plan that Ronnie Coleman was on? Absolutely not, because he is eating 6,000 calories every day during the offseason, he had wayyyy more muscle mass than I do (which means he burns more calories) and he also was on a healthy dose of anabolic steroids while he was competing. Similarly, putting a 110 pound female client on a similar regimen to mine would be absolutely ridiculous. Pickin' up what I'm puttin' down?

Ronnie gets it.

So many people just go straight to the first few search results when they type in "how to lose weight". I'm not saying that this is a bad thing necessarily. But a result of that is following a plan that isn't made for you. And when you follow a plan that wasn't made for you, you start to live a life that doesn't work for you. Little miss Sally would hate eating as much as I do, and I would be hangry all the time if I tried to eat the amount of food that was right for her. 

I don't expect you to know everything about your nutrition, macronutrient intake, and creating a training plan that is custom-tailored for your goals. That's why I do what I do. Just ask and I'll help you out. My point is this, though. Knowing and acknowledging where you're coming from is EXTREMELY important. And so is seeing your finish line.

The "Finish Line" 

By the way, I've placed quotations around this one because ideally, we don't ever want to finish the race. A fitness journey should be life long. Goals change, but we all should be setting new goals again and again. 

Understanding where you want to finish is soooo important. And there is a difference between having an idea of what you'd like to look like, and real numbers that you can measure. I can't tell you how many time I get coaching applications where the individual's goal is to "build more muscle", "tone up", or "lose fat." I'm not minimizing these goals whatsoever. They're very real goals and they certainly matter to my clients for many different reasons. But before we can move on to implementing a training and nutrition, I always encourage people to make things very specific and measurable. When your goal is specific and measurable, it becomes easier to understand what the process is going to look like from start to finish. Let's make a couple of examples.

Most females want to "tone up" or "slim down". When goals are this broad, it is extremely easy to become lost in the middle of your fitness journey. You'll have a tendency to change habits fast, set your training and nutrition protocols to match women who are at different starting points, etc. But if you make your goals specific and measurable, you'll know that it takes X grams of carbs, fats, and protein to lose X pounds. Make sense? Simply put. Not knowing EXACTLY where you want to be in X weeks will make it easier for you to follow some figure competitor's nutrition guidelines just because she's "toned" like you want to be. 

Priorities

One of my biggest pet peeves is when people say "I don't have time." Please, you have time. It's ok that you didn't get something done. It's ok that you fail sometimes. But only if you're willing to admit that whatever it was, it was not a priority. If it's not a priority, you're not going to get it done. Accepting your priorities are vital for a healthy balance of health and fitness in your life. 

It's not appropriate to make fitness your number one priority if that causes you to live an unhealthy live in other ways. Relationships, hobbies, and quality time are all examples of what I'm talking about. Admitting that it's not your number one priority is 100% OK! This is why I touched on the starting line and finish line before I got to priorities. One of my goals this year is to read 20 books. I've only read four so far. Why? Because I haven't treated it as a priority, and I admit that. You're not going to hear me say "I didn't have time." But I will say "it hasn't been a priority."

 If your goal is to lose 10 pounds of body fat in 16 weeks, putting fitness on the back-burner to spend time with your family and create awesome memories is acceptable. If your goal is to compete in a show and you need to drop to 5% body fat leading up to it, there are going to be many moments where you'll have to say "no" to some fun. Will that have an effect on your relationships? Yeah, probably. But only temporarily. You'll have to be a bit more selfish with your time for a few more months and once that show is over you can return to happy hour with your friends and staying up late. You just have to understand that and fasten your seatbelt. 

The most important thing here is coming to terms with how bad you want something, what it's going to take in order to get there, as well as what amount of work you are willing to put in. Certain goals require a certain amount of sacrifice. Am I saying that it's going to be extremely difficult for a mother of three to lose body fat and put on some lean muscle tissue over time? Of course not. But if her goal was to compete in a show 16 weeks away, it would certainly make being a mother a little more difficult because of the sacrifice that is required to do something like that. Figure out what your biggest priorities are. If training and proper nutrition aren't a couple of them, don't be surprised when your lofty goal isn't accomplished. 

The Takeaway

Lately I've enjoyed providing takeaways in my articles. Whenever I read something I like to find a takeaway to apply to my life. So here are yours:

1. Be realistic with what you want, and what you're willing to put in.
2. Don't make some goal and get upset or discouraged when you knew you weren't going to put the necessary work in anyway. It's much better to make tiny goals that you can surely accomplish and let them build on each other.
3. For goodness' sake, enjoy life. It is way too dang short to put memories on the back-burner. Count your macros, train hard, and enjoy this beautiful thing called life. 

Thanks for reading. I really do appreciate it.

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Alcohol and Macros

You and some friends decide to go out to a local brewery and enjoy the summer weather with a nice cold beer. While driving to the brewery, you are thinking about all the hard work you put into training and your "diet" and wondering how you're going to get away with avoiding beer at a brewery. Upon arriving at the brewery, your friends get in line and you turn to them and say "You all go ahead and get your beers, I'm not having anything today but I'll just go ahead and grab us a table." After you say that, all of your friends give you this look:

Judgement.

Hear me out. I'm not saying that you have to have a drink when you go out with your friends. That's ridiculous. If you ever get a drink knowing you don't want to, but you feel you're going to be judged if you don't so you order one anyway, there are some other issues that need to be addressed. This article isn't for those of you having trouble sticking your ground. This is for the individuals who enjoy the social drink with friends and just need to know how to make that fit within their macros. 

Understanding Alcohol

Before we go into the details of plugging your alcoholic beverages into you macronutrient budget, we need to quickly discuss how alcohol is processed by the body. 

When consumed, alcohol is going to be the first thing your body uses before fat and other forms of stored energy. Our bodies also recognize alcohol as a toxin, so it will work hard to eliminate it as quickly as possible through metabolism, breath, sweat, and urine. Since our bodies use alcohol as a short-term use for energy, it is fair to say that we can substitute the calories in our beverage for some carbohydrates in our macros. But how?

Believe it or not, although the calories in alcohol are "empty", they do count. They can easily cause you to go over your daily calorie goal in no time. This is not a good thing especially if you're aiming to be in a caloric deficit for fat loss. Similar to fats (9), carbohydrates (4) and protein (4), alcohol carries 7 calories per gram and it must be accounted for whenever you are drinking it. 

Since alcohol contains calories just like carbohydrates do, we can treat this like an exchange with some simple math. Let's say you have a light beer that has 100 calories. If you want to exchange your alcoholic beverage for carbohydrates in your macronutrient budget, all you have to do is divide your total calories by 4 (because carbs have four cals/gram) and enter that final number as grams of carbs into your budget. In this case, that light beer would equal 25 grams of carbohydrates. Easy. Now your calories are accounted for in your macronutrients and you don't have to go over on your budget. 

"What if I Don't Have Carbs Left?"

If you don't have any carbohydrates left in your budget, that's ok. Check your fat intake and see if there is any room there. That light beer could be exchanged for fats too. The math would just be a little different. This time, you'd need to divide 100 (total cals in the beer) by 9, since fats have 9 calories per gram. This would be roughly 11 grams of fat for the light beer. Boom shaka laka. But what if you want both? 

I'll take both.

I don't drink much, but when I do I like to exchange carbs and fats. I should've used the Dos Equis guy for that one. Oh well.

Anyway, food is much more important to me and I am a fat kid on the inside, so I'd rather give up a little bit of carbs and fats and have some room for food rather than using all of the alcohol on carbs and regretting it when I want to have some zebra cakes later that night. Ya feel me? 

Let's do the math. Ultimately what it comes down to is deciding which you want more of in your macro budget. For me, I like to have more carbs available because carbs are basically in everything (especially the good things). So what I would do in this situation is give myself 8 grams of fat, and the remaining in carbs. 8 grams of fat would be 72 calories (8x9=72), which tells me I have 28 calories left for carbs. 28 calories would translate to 7 grams of carbs (28/7=4). 

And there you have it. Now you have plenty more room in both calories and fat. So go ahead, order a burger with that beer of yours. 

Takeaway

Whether you drink or not, you HAVE to be tracking your macronutrient intake. Macronutrients are just like dollars. If you want to become wealthy and have your money work for you, it's essential that you have a budget in place. John Maxwell said "A budget is telling your money where to go instead of wondering where it went." The exact same concept applies for macronutrients and calories in your food. Allow your calories and macros to work for you with your goals. Don't just eat with no direction and expect to wake up at the finish line of your goal. That's extremely stupid. 

As always, thank you for reading. Feel free to follow Poehlmann Fitness below for awesome content and giveaways with prizes like apparel, gift cards, and more!

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6 Strategies to Help You Eat More Protein

If you've been following me for a while, you know that I am a big proponent of building and maintaining muscle through resistance training and proper nutrition. Whether you're a guy, girl, average joe, or competitive athlete, muscle is important. Here's why: having a good amount of lean muscle tissue is going to help you with your RMR (resting metabolic rate). Individuals who have more muscle tissue can burn more calories at rest throughout the day. More calories burned means more calories allowed in your daily budget. If your daily caloric budget is high (high for your age and body type) it will give you more room to enjoy food and life. More room to eat out and get drinks with friends, and more room to hit Five Guys for a fat, juicy burger. If you have a lower RMR, it's going to be harder for you to lose weight since your body isn't burning a lot of calories at rest, AND you'll have less wiggle room when it comes to your food intake. Both of those things make for an unfortunately disappointing fitness journey. 

Other than mixing up your training, lifting weights, and tracking your food intake, prioritizing protein and getting enough each day is extremely important. Just in my first four years of coaching alone, I would say that 90% of the individuals that come to me are missing out on a lot of protein. The RDA says you should eat 50g of protein each day, but this is only for sedentary individuals. Protein intake is much different for those of us who need to nutritionally support an exercise regimen. I always recommend aiming for at least 1g of protein per pound of lean body mass for those of you that are working hard in the gym each day. 

Protein is a macronutrient just like carbohydrates and fats. Unfortunately, they don't show up in seemingly every single food we eat like carbs and fats do. So, getting all those grams of protein can seem impossible at times. Thankfully, I've put together a list of six strategies to help you eat more protein. These are strategies I use each and every day, too. Believe it or not, protein just doesn't conveniently show up each day for me either. 

1. Prioritize Protein

This strategy is in my opinion, the most important one you'll hear about today. And quite frankly, it's no more of a strategy than it is the truth. There's no magic trick here. There's no magic food here either. This is just the cold hard truth. You absolutely have to prioritize your protein. If you're not thinking about how much protein you need in the meal, how much protein you need in the day, and how much protein is in the food you're about to eat, You'll never hit your goal. Carbs and fats are easily accessible and convenient. They'll come. Don't stress out about those. Think about protein first, and then add your carbs and fats to your meal. Sure, constantly thinking about protein each meal will be an extra hassle for the first week or so, but isn't it worth being a protein pro down the road? Plus, what's a few extra moments of thinking going to hurt?

2. 30 in 30

I'm not talking about a 30 for 30 on ESPN. This is a very simple reminder to help you get a kick-start on your protein intake for the day. Beware: this is extremely simple and easy to follow. Within 30 minutes of waking up, eat 30 grams of protein. Whatever form of protein you'd like. Breakfast shake, eggs and egg whites, greek yogurt, and FairLife milk are options that I like to put to use in the AM. Trust me, getting ahead early in the morning will make the rest of your day easier, especially if you're on the go.

3. Utilize but Don't Abuse Protein Powder

Whey powder is an extremely useful source of protein. Great for feeding your muscles after a vigorous workout in the gym, whey is a quick absorbing protein that is great for your post-workout recovery. Not only is it great for recovery, but its convenience is an added bonus. With whatever liquid you'd like, protein shakes take seconds to make and you can bring them with you wherever you are. Although it would be extremely easy to get your daily protein goal from only whey shakes, I advise against it for a couple of reasons: 
1. Although protein's satiety is great, the fact that the shakes are in liquid form won't help you feel full.
2. Protein shakes are often consumed by themselves which makes it easy to neglect great vitamins and minerals from other food sources. 

Take a serving after your workout, and perhaps another if you need some help hitting your protein for the day. But don't abuse it!

4. Take it Slow

For the most part, clients who come to me for coaching aren't trying to hit a protein goal each day. They just happen to eat 30-60 grams of protein each day. Depending on their lean mass, I'd like them to start eating a lot more protein right away, but that can be extremely difficult. So once you've figured out where your protein currently is and where it needs to be, slowly build it up every week or so. For example, I had a client start with me last week and they were at about 45 grams of protein each day when they needed to be around 150. That's a big jump. So what we're doing right now is slowly taking them up until 150 seems like no problem at all. It's all about fitting practicality into what's optimal.

5. Focus on What's Practical

In fitness, there is all of this b.s. being thrown around about how we all have to live the life of a competitive bodybuilder in order to be lean, healthy, and achieve our goals. We need to "eat chicken and broccoli eight times per day" in order to get fit. Are you kidding me? Get real. The name of the game with your success in fitness is making what's optimal, the most practical for your life. If you work from home and you'd rather spread your protein intake out through five meals, go for it. If you're crazy busy and you'd rather do it in two with a protein shake in the middle, go for it. The plan that is the most important is the one that will allow you to be the most consistent. 

A sneak peek at all of the scam artists in the fitness industry throwing crap at you. 

6. Break it Down

This last strategy ties into numbers four and five, but I still wanted to bring it up.

When we see a big number that is associated with a "big" change, we tend to freak out. Let's pretend that your protein goal is a debt you have. If you have $100,000 dollars in debt, of course you're going to freak out about how you're going to pay that off. But if you break it up into smaller chunks and create a budget that you can stick to, it won't seem too difficult, and it'll become easier to reach over time. The same goes with your protein. If you like to eat three meals in a day, figure out how you can divide your goal between those meals and whatever snacks you have. Break it down and simplify it.

Takeaway

Whether you're competing for a show or just trying to lose some weight, protein is so important. If you're under-eating it, you have to find a way to make that change. Apply whatever is most practical for you. The above strategies help me and my clients hit our daily protein goals, and may they do the same for you.

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Thanks for reading!