MINI CUTS – The Smartest Way To Lose Fat Quickly

MINI CUTS – The Smartest Way To Lose Fat Quickly

Want to look leaner and always feel fabulous for that big event or vacation?

Well I’m going to share how you can actually accomplish this and stay leaner all year around.

And it’s not a cleanse or detox. It’s not a magic pill…

The secret is MINI CUTS.

In this video I’m going to explain what mini cuts are, why and when to use them and how to design your own.

Because they are the perfect way to kickstart your fat loss progress when you’ve hit a plateau or even when you want your muscle definition extra on point to feel your most fabulous.

Now a word of warning…

Mini cuts are NOT sustainable.

They’re not easy or fun.

They’re not the time you include the foods you love or strike a lifestyle balance.

They’re intensive and restrictive with a purpose.

You’re going to feel hungry. You’re going to feel a bit fatigued.

They aren’t meant to be done long term but as that quick fat loss phase that really pushes you to that next level of body recomp.

And they’re done for 1-2 weeks, 3-4 max.

While they can be amazing for that fast progress, doing them longer than a month will sabotage your success and backfire.

Their magic is in their short duration.

But if you need to see that quick progress on the scale for motivation…

Want to strike a balance around vacation and even to feel extra fabulous in your swim suit…

Or want to lose a bit of fluff you’ve put on after focusing on a muscle building phase for a bit…

Mini cuts are the perfect way to strike a balance.

And before I go into how to do one I want to touch on WHEN to use them.

I do NOT recommend using a mini cut if you’ve already been in a calorie deficit especially for an extended period of time.

Slashing your calories lower when you’ve already been in a deficit can lead to metabolic adaptations.

If you’ve been in a calorie deficit for a few months, consider a diet break BEFORE using a mini cut.

This is also why mini cuts can be great even after a vacation when you may have been eating more at maintenance and with more relaxed macros.

This is also why mini cuts are great during a maintenance or muscle building phase for that little extra shred to stay leaner overall.

But ideally you are using a mini cut after eating at maintenance at least for 1-2 weeks.

And you will even want to build BACK to maintenance after a mini cut for a couple of weeks before returning to your regular calorie deficit.

Now how do you determine what calories and macros to use for a mini cut?

You are going to use an “extreme” deficit and intensive, high protein macro ratios for 7-14 days ideally, but you can use them 21-30 days max. Just note that longer isn’t always better.

For this short timeframe, you want to push your calorie deficit without going past the point of diminishing returns.

That means you want to consider cutting 300-500 off your maintenance calorie level.

If you aren’t fully sure where maintenance is for you and you have more weight to lose, multiply your goal bodyweight by 10.

If you are leaner already and extremely active, this may be more like 11-12 x current bodyweight.

You will then want to cycle macros every week, using 2 ratios over your 2 weeks.

While these ratios may vary slightly based on your activity level and needs, you want to use ratios that are about 45-50% protein.

Two common ones I use are:
45% protein, 25% carbs, 30% fat
50% protein, 30% carbs, 20% fat

This keeps protein extremely high but helps avoid any hormonal issues during this quick sprint by cycling fat and carbs slightly up and down.

These ratios are extreme. It’s part of why you are NOT using this long term.

Carbs and fat are not evil but for fast body recomp, keeping protein this high while pushing the calorie deficit works magic.

Preserve lean muscle as you lose fat.

It’s a huge win but NOT a fun diet to do.

So pick one ratio after setting your calories to start with and use that for 7 days. Then switch to the other for the second week.

You may notice a huge drop not until the end of the mini cut or even once you actually finish it and start bumping calories back up.

To return to higher calories, add 100 calories to your daily total and increase each week as you cycle your protein down to 30-40%.

Now a few more tips to make this work so you go in 100% prepared for the challenges and see the results you want from this quick fat loss protocol…

#1: You have to be precise.

You can’t allow for 1% deviations. You can’t excuse fluctuations day to day.

You want to be within 5 grams of your macro numbers DAILY and no more than 50 calories plus or minus.

This precision is key.

It may be a good time to really meal prep, keep prep simple and NOT plan in meals out.

Precision really is key.

Again, this is NOT a time to focus on sustainability or balance. It is a time to go all in so you can then go back to more of a fat loss lifestyle balance after or even return to maintenance.

#2: Plan ahead.

These ratios aren’t easy. Precision is key. And you’re going to be hungry.

So you need to plan ahead to help yourself navigate the challenges.

Plan more carbs around your workouts and even if you usually train fasted, consider a small snack prior so you aren’t starving after.

This also helps you protect your lean muscle during this quick protocol.

But plan ahead to make sure you’re getting a balance and not getting to the point of being so hungry you cave and overeat.

#3: Be boring and focus on high volume meals.

While you may love diversity in your meals, now is probably not the time to make meal prep more complicated. It only makes things more challenging.

And studies have even shown that reducing food diversity during a fat loss phase can help cut back on cravings.

You don’t necessarily want more of the boring foods you have to eat. While adding in more diversity can make you want more of…well different things.

So consider simplifying meal prep and really focus on those low calorie foods that fill your plate and make you feel fuller.

Lots of veggies, low carb fruits like berries, lean proteins and such are key. The more bites you get, the more you’ll find you stay satisfied while in this intensive deficit!

#4: Don’t do this if you aren’t ready to track macros meticulously.

If you’re not a macros math person already, don’t force yourself to start with one of the hardest macro protocols out there.

This mini cut works best if you are super comfortable adjusting and hitting macros meticulously and not going to be frustrated figuring out what fits.

These ratios are HARD. They don’t allow for a ton of fun foods or flexibility.

And precision is key.

So if you aren’t an advanced macro tracker, this may not be the place you start.

Don’t set yourself up for failure trying to force something not realistic for your lifestyle…yet.

If you’re looking to take your results to that next level, or simply want to feel extra fabulous for a big event, consider implementing this advanced macros technique.

It’s a great way to strike balance over your year especially around times you may be more lax to avoid falling back into the yo-yo dieting cycle!

Not everything we do is meant to be a lifestyle but through adjusting as we go we can overall create an amazing balance!

Want a plan to help you rock a 14-Day Mini Cut? Check out this amazing special on my Mini Cut Challenge!

–> LEARN MORE

Building Inner Strength (5 Tips To Increase Your GRIT)

Building Inner Strength (5 Tips To Increase Your GRIT)

Listen:

Change Requires CHANGE

If you’re feeling stuck and know deep down that you could be doing better, don’t wait any longer. Your life is not going to change until you take action and make a bold move towards your goals. If you’re ready to take control of your life and start moving towards the results you want let us help you achieve your goals. ⬇️

Change Requires CHANGE

If you’re feeling stuck and know deep down that you could be doing better, don’t wait any longer. Your life is not going to change until you take action and make a bold move towards your goals. If you’re ready to take control of your life and start moving towards the results you want let us help you achieve your goals. ⬇️

Transcript:

Open Transcript:

Cori (00:00):
Welcome to the Redefining Strength Podcast. Everything you need to succeed on your health and fitness journey, even the stuff you don’t want to hear. Grit isn’t something you’re born with. It’s built from every setback, from every straight knee, from every struggle that you overcome. Your strength is really revealed through what you prove possible to yourself. And grit is the same way. It isn’t the absence of struggle, it’s struggle plus that comeback. And I want to talk about five steps to really building grit. We’ll call it your grit builder framework even. Because so often we don’t give ourselves credit for all that we have conquered, and we don’t realize in reflecting back on previous wins that there was the struggle involved. We just see the outcome. But if we want to get stronger, if we want to achieve more, we have to have that grit and that ability to come back after that setback, and it’s all built.

(00:56):
And I want to go over a framework to help you do that. There’s also a great PDF so that you can really go through all these different questions and write down your thoughts about everything in the show notes. So check that out as well. But step number one, it’s proof of power. So I just said that grit is built, but the crazy thing is, as much as it’s built, it’s already there, all the foundation, all the building blocks, you already have them. You have the ability to overcome anything you choose to overcome, and a lot of this is tied to our perspective, opportunity, or obstacle. How are we seeing the thing when something happens? Is it happening to us or for us? Is it a lesson or are we simply letting ourself become the victim? Grit, yes, is built through us showing ourselves the grit we already have inside of us.

(01:50):
So the more we can recognize our own, show ourselves, proof of our own power, the better off we’re going to be. But it’s recognizing that we have the ability to reframe any situation and overcome it if we choose to. But this requires us to step back. It’s not easy by any means, but anytime you’ve hit that hard, recognize it, own it. Say, yes, this is a struggle, but how can I move past it? How can I break down habits that might seem too hard right now? How can I find a way around, how can I avoid this even in the future? Use that reflection so that you can move forward and you can show yourself the grit that’s already there for you. And I mean, even think about it before I move on to step number two, think about all the hard things you’ve actually already overcome, all the wins you’ve already had, there were struggles in those things.

(02:39):
You just managed to grit your way through them. So go back to all those things. How did you show yourself your grade, even reflect on ’em. But you can do hard things and you’ve proven that in all that you succeeded in so far. Now, step number two, the turnback point, and I mentioned reflection already because it’s really key that we reflect on all the struggles we have, even the wins we’ve had, the hard things that we have accomplished, the comebacks we have had, because in all those times that we’ve succeeded, we’ve pushed through that turnback point, but in all the times we haven’t succeeded, we’ve turned back and it’s probably at a similar heart. So what I mean by that is not that. It’s like, oh, I cut out carbs this time and this time I cut out fat. And those are different things, right?

(03:22):
It’s this fact that it’s the same heart and that it’s restriction. I have restricted to this point where I’m no longer comfortable with this restriction or it no longer fits my lifestyle balance, and so I turn back. So recognizing the commonality between those different things can help us realize that we always hit the same type of hard and turn back to allow us to push through. Because so often our struggles where we fall down and we can’t seem to pick ourselves up to conquer is really the same thing just disguised in different ways. It’s the same mindset repeating. It’s the same pattern repeating. You might even notice it’s the same timeframe repeating. You always get to those six weeks and at the end of the six weeks, you just can’t seem to keep going. Whether it’s self-sabotage with having succeeded enough and being like, oh, I can let this one thing go, or it’s not having seen results fast enough.

(04:07):
At that point, it might even be a timeframe that we just don’t seem comfortable pushing through with habits that we get bored with them. We feel the monotony, but recognize that pattern and that turnback point because the more you can and the more you say, Hey, I’ve been here before at the heart, you can then make that choice to push through this time. And that’s where that struggle really becomes something that you can overcome. You see the opportunity in keeping going where you would normally give up, but it’s recognizing that it isn’t a wall. It’s a door that’s maybe even a little stuck, that if you just push a little bit harder, you can make your way through. Then step number three is reframe the failure. Having grit again, isn’t the lack of struggle. It’s having struggles and overcoming them, but sometimes it takes multiple takes, multiple tries to overcome that struggle.

(05:01):
But that’s where we really need to reframe the failure and realize that we’re only failing if we’re not picking ourselves up. Success is struggle. So every time you hit that hard, every time you fall down, instead of seeing this as the end, this as that wall, see it as that sticky door. How can you push harder? How can you learn from it? How can you shift that perspective from obstacle to opportunity? Again, are things happening to us or for us? And the more we see any failure as a learning experience and the best learning experience possible, the more we’re going to move forward because it really is. Failure is really learning with frustration. It’s stinky, but it’s truly the case. So the more we can really reframe it, the better off we’ll be. It’s like when you get a flat tire. I use this analogy a lot when we talk about mistakes we’ve made with our diet.

(05:55):
We have something off plan. We get a flat tire, but instead of pulling over to the side of the road and fixing it or calling a tow truck or aaa, we go slash the other three. We go eat everything in sight because we already ruined the day. But when we have a failure, the more we just pull over to the side, we get that flat tire, we assess why did this thing initially happen. The more we can learn from it without causing other issues and setting ourselves back. We don’t want to just light the car on fire. There’s no way we’re going to move forward then, and we’re going to end up holding ourselves back, even be more frustrated. We’re potentially not going to want to implement some of the habits that we really need because now they’re associated with such a negative thing of being so miserable of failure.

(06:33):
So we want to reframe it as, I just got a flat. What can I do to move forward as fast as possible? Call aaa, fix it, replace it, put on the spare, right? Don’t go slash the other three tires or light the car on fire then, and this is one of the most interesting, I think, steps in it is really step number four is creating that B at origin story. So I call it the beast at origin story, but it’s really an assessment of where you are currently. It’s understanding your current pain, your current desire to change, but your current lifestyle as well. Because when we think about building grit and we think about overcoming things, there is only a certain amount of grit we have, right? A certain amount of desire to push through a certain amount of discomfort we are willing to embrace.

(07:16):
And the more we understand where we are truly starting from and the pain of staying stuck, the more we will embrace the pain of change, but we can also adjust the pain of change to really fit what we need to make it easier to gr our away through. Because there is only so much we can push ourselves into the hard before we do turn back that pushback against us becomes too much. So I want you to really outline where am I at currently, right? You’ve thought about proving the grit that you already have inside you by looking at hard things that you’ve already overcome, potentially you’ve looked at the cycle that you repeat and where you usually turn back. You’ve started to think about how you can reframe failures. Now think about where you’re at. What is that first step into the hard that you can grit your way through that you have that ability to push into the hard.

(08:05):
It’s sort of that grit is fit. You have to have enough grit and it has to fit the situation and pushback that you’re dealing with because no matter how much you really want something, if that hard is just too much, you’re potentially not going to have the grit yet or have proven that you have that grit yet to yourself to push through. So the more you own where you are, the struggles you have, the pain of staying stuck, the more you’re willing to embrace the pain of change and the more grit you’ll find that you really do have to push in the hard, but the more you can adjust that pain of change so that it really meets you where you’re at. I think about this in terms of some of the hard habit changes we make. Tracking, tracking itself might be hard without you even changing what you’re currently eating.

(08:45):
And so that’s where we can get the effort doesn’t equal outcome thing where we’re giving a lot of effort to just track, but we’re not actually making any changes yet to our diet. And so then we can feel like we’re not getting the result we want while we’re trying really hard. But trying hard doesn’t mean we’re actually making changes. So that’s where we have to assess, okay, I’m grading my way through just tracking and I’m not seeing results snowball. Well, how can I make tracking a little bit less challenging so that I can make a few more changes to actually see that momentum build? Am I applying grit in the right way? But that really comes back to understanding where you’re starting from. So outline that B at origin story. And the fifth and final step is really grit in action. What is one small action you can take today to overcome a hard to overcome a struggle?

(09:31):
And it might be something small. It might be that you’ve really just struggled recently to drink more water. So you just put that water out first thing in the morning and you drink it. And that is you’re griding your way through a harder change for you. And sometimes hard changes aren’t really hard changes. They’re just something mentally we can’t get ourselves to do. They’re just something we can never seem to prioritize. So finding that way to prioritize it, but you need to prove to yourself that you have that grit, right? It goes back to step number one in order to want to build that momentum because success breeds more success when we get that momentum going. The more you do, the more you do, right? If you’ve been skipping your workouts, it’s a lot easier to skip your workouts when you’re in the consistent routine of doing your workouts.

(10:08):
Not only do you keep doing your workouts, but you tend to want to do a lot of other things. So if you’ve struggled to prove to yourself that you have this, that you can overcome these things, really go back to the foundation of the habits that you have. What are habits that you’ve built in the past? And this is again, drawing from those steps. But what is the hard that you’ve already overcome? What’s a habit that you’ve implemented? How did you implement it? How did you shape your environment? How can you now put that into action to help show yourself your grit to keep moving forward? And I think it’s really key. We pause and reflect on all these different things and write down some of our ideas, but even go back to times we’ve succeeded and times we failed in the past because we can learn so many lessons from them.

(10:48):
And again, it’s not thinking, oh, well, I failed with dieting because I had to cut out carbs, and this time I’m cutting out fat so I get all my carbs. That’ll be better. No, no, no, no. Really assess what’s underneath that. Don’t just go surface level. When you’re reflecting on these different things, dive deep and I mean uncomfortably deep, even in your B at origin story of really understanding the cost of staying where you are right now. And you might think, well, it’s only five vanity pounds. Does it really matter? Okay, well, have you not been taking pictures? Have you not felt good in your clothes? Have you not proven to yourself that you deserve to care about those five pounds? Right? There’s so many other whys often attached to things, even just us saying, Hey, this is something I’ve wanted and I’m going to prioritize doing it for myself.

(11:29):
Because that prioritization of self, that feeling that we deserve more, even if it is something that, hey, it’s not life or death, that allows us a lot of times to build confidence and strength and that grit to even overcome other hards in other areas of our life. But I want you to take some time to really reflect on all of these different things. And I think in doing that, you’ll realize not only some underlying mindsets that are holding you back, but the habit and environment that you’re creating that’s holding you to this old identity. And then this even comes back to, you have to act as if you have that grit. You can’t just fake that you have the grit. You can’t just say, I have grit. You’ve got to prove it to yourself through your actions. And a lot of times, smaller actions than you think really pay off. But just recognize that struggles aren’t bad. They give you that chance to prove to yourself that grit through how you can come back from them. But you got to picture yourself back up, and you got to realize that you can see opportunity and obstacle. It’s all in your perspective. And whether you choose to learn lessons from those failures or succumb to them.

 

*Note: This transcript is autogenerated there may be some unintended errors.

Lose Fat + Keep Muscle (5 Training Tips That WORK)

Lose Fat + Keep Muscle (5 Training Tips That WORK)

To look your leanest, you want to lose fat while not losing muscle.

Heck if you can even gain a bit of muscle in the fat loss process, even better.

And while this is hard to do, and diet is 100% key, too often the way we design our workouts actually sabotages our fat loss results.

We turn to cardio over strength, favoring the calorie burn.

And that deficit we create from doing more cardio while eating less can yield some fast immediate scale changes.

It is also what leads to us ultimately hitting a plateau, even feeling like we look softer and deciding all the hard work isn’t worth it as we become burned out and restricted and hungry.

Then the scale rebounds and we gain even more fat as the habits we were trying to implement just weren’t sustainable and our body adapts to the amount of cardio we were doing because we couldn’t keep trying to add on more to progress it.

That’s why I wanted to share 5 tips to help you accelerate your fat loss results while preserving your lean muscle mass to help yourself avoid metabolic adaptations and see lasting recomp.

And that starts with prioritizing strength work over cardio.

But then it isn’t enough to just focus on strength work, you want to be strategic and intentional which is why these 5 tips can help.

Because how you design your strength workouts when in a fat loss phase is different than during a muscle building phase.

While at both times you want your workouts focused on maintaining and building muscle, your fueling and therefore energy levels may be different making different training techniques even more beneficial.

It’s why my first tip is especially key to help you push that progression while in a calorie deficit…

#1: Use Rest-Pause Training Technique

To build muscle, you need to challenge yourself to progress and push in each workout. But sometimes we can’t just do a harder variation or more reps or more weight of an exercise.

Especially when we are in a calorie deficit, we can feel a bit depleted and like we aren’t as strong.

That’s where this rest-pause technique can help. It can help us use heavier weights or do a few more reps by implementing a short rest period or PAUSE in a single set.

Basically, where you feel like you’d have to stop, pause for 15-30 seconds and then complete more reps with the same weight and move.

You can then end up moving more weight in your workout while maintaining heavier loads and more advanced exercise variations for more volume.

An example of this could be a lunge. If you can only do 8 reps with the weights you’re using, and you’ve even been stuck at this amount for a bit, you may do your 8 reps. Pause for the 15-30 seconds.

Then do 2-4 more based on what you can do before fully resting.

This way you get out 12 reps with a weight and lunge variation you could only really do 8 reps with.

It helps you push that progression when stuck and even focus on maintaining quality reps instead of getting sloppy just to try to do more.

Then next don’t only focus on progressing moves through adding weight or reps. But also Vary Your Exercise Range Of Motion.

Increasing the range of motion you’re working through can help you improve your mobility and strength.

It can help you even load a muscle under more stretch to see better muscle gains faster.

But you don’t have to just increase the range of motion to load a muscle under stretch or drive growth.

Sometimes you also want to shrink the range of motion and do partial reps or pulses.

This can keep the muscle under tension for longer and even keep you just working the muscle while under stretch.

An example of this may be something like pulse RDLS.

With this move you’re keeping the hamstrings stretched and working in a smaller range of motion.

Combining this even later in a workout after a full range of motion RDL may be just what you need to really work your hamstrings to fatigue.

On the flip side of this, you may do a full range of motion or even extended range of motion abduction exercise to then include pulses at the end range of motion after.

Combining different ranges of motion can help you really fully work muscles while creating progression without just adding loads.

So don’t fear increasing the range of motion but also including partial reps at times strategically to isolate muscles further!

And not only do you want to play around with exercise range of motion, but you may want to adjust exercise order.

Often we think just compound moves to more isolated moves over the course of our workouts.

But sometimes by putting those isolation moves first, we can pre-fatigue an area to actually max out with lighter loads on those compound moves.

This can be key during a fat loss phase when we are a bit more energy depleted.

It’s why tip #3 is to include Pre-Fatigue Moves.

Try putting that leg extension exercise BEFORE your front lunges or squats.

You may be surprised by how much more you feel those quads working then in the compound move and by how heavy a lighter weight than usual feels.

This can really help you especially if you feel slightly stuck at a weight where you can’t do more BUT the weight isn’t fully maxing you out unless you keep adding more reps.

It can be key if you don’t feel those stubborn areas fully getting worked the way you need.

That little bit of fatigue helps you work a muscle closer to failure with the compound lift.

It can be that little gasoline on the fire to accelerate those muscle gains!

So for especially stubborn muscle groups you really want to target and grow, consider at times a little isolation work first in your workout to really feel those areas already working before you go into those compound lifts.

Just be conscious when you do the pre-fatigue work you don’t then compensate in the lift.

This may mean starting a bit lighter than you think with the compound exercise because the areas are already tired going in!

With all of these techniques, it is about maxing what you’re doing. We don’t just want to keep adding more.

While volume is key, too often we just add more to our training, which becomes slightly wasted work as we are too tired by the end of the session to be as intentional and maximize every rep.

So instead of just trying to add in more moves for an area to a single session or do more rounds, consider less work per session but more training frequency for especially stubborn muscle groups over the week.

This is why tip #4 is to Favor Weekly Frequency.

If you have a stubborn area you want to build muscle in, train it 2-3 times a week.

Don’t do 8 moves on one day, spread out your volume over the week.

This can be key during a fat loss phase as we are in an energy deficit so tend to fatigue more quickly.

That move you’re doing right now at the end of a long upper body day for your shoulders may FEEL like it is getting 100% effort, but your 100% at that time is far less than it would be if you did that move second on another day.

This volume spread out means we can do less on a day so we aren’t just going through the motions on the final rounds to get in more work on a single day.

Think about that 4th exercise you’re doing…you’re way more tired for it than the first exercise.

So instead of doing more on a single day, spread that work out.

Give yourself still days to recover between, but allow yourself to be fresher for those moves by not just stacking more into a single session.

If your shoulders are a stubborn muscle group, include 2-3 shoulder days a week.

Make one the more intensive one, with maybe two other days you even include just a single move for your shoulders over adding those two extra moves onto one day.

It will surprise you by how much more you are actually able to do with certain exercises when you aren’t tired trying to cram them in at the end of a session!

This will also allow you to include more diversity of movement for muscle groups over the week to really hit every aspect and see better muscle gains!

And by increasing training frequency over just doing more for a muscle group in a single session, you can often also be more strategic with tip #5…

Stop Skipping Rest.

Our body only rebuilds when it has time to repair and the fuel to do it.

When in a fat loss phase, your gas tank is already low. You need to allow for proper recovery to optimize how you do use the fuel coming in.

So do not skip days off.

But also don’t skip rest during your workouts.

The rest allows you to optimize each set and really maximize your output on reps.

Because the more fatigued you get over your workout, the more you feel like you’re working hard but not able to push progression in the same way.

And cutting out all rest, while it can make you feel like you worked harder in a session because your heart rate gets up, can also turn your strength workouts into more cardio sessions.

While this may feel good, it can also backfire and hinder the muscle gains you’re working hard for.

It can put you into that viscous cardio weight loss cycle.

So include rest and allow yourself to recover to lift heavier. Even just 1-2 minutes between moves or rounds depending on the workout design can be key.

And don’t forget about even the short rest of rest-pause technique to really push yourself.

But this is also why favoring weekly training frequency can be key.

Doing less for one area on a day and even hitting a few large muscle groups in a session can allow you to get in more rest while continuing to work and be efficient with your time. By cycling what is working, another muscle group can rest as you continue to use your gym time efficiently.

Rest doesn’t have to mean just scrolling on your phone. Heck, even get in some extra steps moving around the gym instead.

But don’t demonize rest if you want to push to build muscle.

Remember, muscle is key to metabolic health and ultimately looking leaner as we lose fat.

For amazing workouts you can do anywhere to build strength, muscle and improve your metabolic health to see fabulous recomp, check out Dynamic Strength!

–> LEARN MORE

Why Weight Training Is Important For Results

Why Weight Training Is Important For Results

Listen:

Change Requires CHANGE

If you’re feeling stuck and know deep down that you could be doing better, don’t wait any longer. Your life is not going to change until you take action and make a bold move towards your goals. If you’re ready to take control of your life and start moving towards the results you want let us help you achieve your goals. ⬇️

Change Requires CHANGE

If you’re feeling stuck and know deep down that you could be doing better, don’t wait any longer. Your life is not going to change until you take action and make a bold move towards your goals. If you’re ready to take control of your life and start moving towards the results you want let us help you achieve your goals. ⬇️

Transcript:

Open Transcript:

Cori (00:00):
Welcome to the Redefining Strength Podcast. Everything you need to succeed on your health and fitness journey, even the stuff you don’t want to hear. You are strong. Now, act like it. Lee asked about doing this title for our talk today, and I’m super excited to be joined by her, but she asked about doing this title and I’m like, heck yes. Let’s talk about muscle strength training, all those different things because we are so much stronger often than we give ourselves credit for, and I want to talk about with her all the things that go into that. So Leigh, thank you so much for joining me. Joining me today, let’s dive into why it can be so hard as women sometimes to own our own strength and all the different things that being strong really entails.

Leigh (00:47):
So I’m super excited to do this topic with you. It’s something I’m super passionate about. So yeah, so it can be a real challenge for women to kind of jump into strength training. It’s just a little bit of changing norms around how society views a woman who lifts weight. For example, I am a product of the early two thousands, so that was when I was in high school, which is low rise jeans. Everybody was doing cardio. And I feel like my generation and older, it’s almost like that cardio culture has been sort of imposed on us as women. So it’s this idea that a woman should be eating the least amount of calories doing cardio bootcamp classes, anything possible to just decrease the amount of space that she takes up because the goal is to be as small and petite as possible. And so really recognizing why it is so difficult to maybe step off the treadmill and go into that male dominated gym, gym where it’s mostly guys there.

(01:57):
It can be really hard. The treadmill may be all we’ve ever really known, the treadmill’s safe, but honestly, weightlifting has really recently become a really widely socially acceptable thing for women to do. And so there’s a lot of popularity in social media, lots of popular sports. Women are becoming more active in sports, and there’s also a lot of traction in the research area around women and women’s health. So I think that that’s a big driver. So women are starting to really understand the importance of strength training and why they need to do it. And so when you know better, you do better. So yeah, it’s a big thing around getting away from cardio and the treadmill, but when we understand the importance of it, I think that’s why we’re starting to see that shift.

Cori (02:49):
And the more we start to value it, we start to push into this uncomfortable territory, the more we’re inspiring other generations to do it as well. I know for me, a big part of what really brought me into weights was I saw my mom growing up lifting weights at a time that wasn’t popular to do so. My mom played tennis, she was very active. She actually went to college and played field hockey. She played these sports at a time where it wasn’t really the popular thing to do, so there weren’t even fully sometimes full female teams for them. And so for me, really exploring this avenue and all that it means to be strong for us, there isn’t one definition of strength, but that empowerment that we can even feel from lifting heavy proving what our body can accomplish, it’s honestly why I called the company redefining strength because for me, I found so much empowerment through the gym, through lifting through feeling stronger because it is conquering something you couldn’t overcome before or thought you might not be able to overcome, even if it’s the discomfort of stepping into that weight room. I think you touch on something super key. We stay in our comfort zone, which is partly that the treadmill might make us feel like we won’t look silly doing those things. We feel comfortable with the form, right? There’s risk involved in lifting weights, but also we fear that judgment or we fear letting go of something we’ve done in the past to reach an aesthetic goal, not realizing that there might be something better. Can we talk a little bit about maybe how to embrace the discomfort of stepping into that weight room?

Leigh (04:21):
Yeah, definitely. And I love that you had such an amazing example from your mom, and I think that’s really important too, thinking what sort of example are we setting for the younger generation? There’s always going to be that next generation coming up, but yeah, so kind of just recognizing that inner strength that we already have. So again, when I first came up with this title for the discussion that we’re having, I was like, this might be a little bit harsh, but I don’t think so. I think it’s something that we really need to recognize that we are already strong, we just have to act like it. So as a female, I completely understand that it is a challenge and it is hard to break that routine, like you were saying, it’s something that we’ve always done. It’s hard to step away from something that maybe worked for us in the past when we were younger, but it’s that imposter syndrome or that feeling that we don’t actually be long and it’s just a matter of time before somebody is like they find us out.

(05:23):
And so really through my own personal and professional experience, I’ve been really fortunate to work with a lot of women. So as a physical therapist, I’ve gotten to work with a lot of strong females in a variety of just awful situations. I always say you’re probably not meeting your physical therapist on your best day, not always, but you’re usually not going to PT for the fun of it. And here at Redefining Strength, getting to work with women through so many of life’s challenges, big and small, and oftentimes here working with women as a personal trainer, I actually get to work with women for much longer. And really what that does is it kind of shines a light on all that women that we overcome day to day life is really hard and it can have some really, really hard moments, but I’ve seen time and time again that women are so resilient and so strong. There’s a lot that’s expected of us as a woman in society, physically and mentally. And I think sometimes we just don’t recognize how strong we are. We balance careers. We have kids, we’re caregivers, we go to school, we have relationships, we take care of a household, and we do the physically demanding jobs that our male counterparts also do.

(06:45):
If we’re a nurse, we’re lifting patients up, or if we have older parents, we’re taking care of this. So the list is literally endless. I could go on and on and on about all the hard things we do, but we’re also expected to do these things and we never expected to skip a beat, even though we may be on our periods where we’re literally growing a human in our bodies, we’re pregnant or our hormones are shifting and we’re still expected to just show up the same way time and time again. And we do that and that is incredibly strong of us, and we’re very critical too. We just don’t recognize our strength. So something that we can do is kind of just reflect on that and realize when we have that self-doubt or when we’re afraid to go and try a new workout plan or something, kind of recognize that you felt that way in the past.

(07:39):
You felt that self-doubt before, and then you did the hard thing, so you felt the feeling and the fear and you did it anyway. So recognizing that you’re entirely capable is very helpful and can be very empowering and just recognizing how strong you are, even physically and mentally, physically, you’re entirely capable because you’ve probably already done 16 hard things that day before you went to go do your workout, or you’ve probably picked up something that was way heavier than the dumbbells sitting there. So yeah, I think it’s a little bit of recognizing our own inner strength, like taking a look at taking a stock of our life and all the hard things we accomplish and how we felt fear, but we still did it. So it’s

Cori (08:32):
Truly that ownership, ownership of all that we are flaws, good parts, everything. And recognizing how we overcame the hard in the past because so often we don’t see that hard is hard. And yes, how you handle the heart of some other area of your life might be different than how you embrace the heart of going in and working out and lifting heavy. But that ability to overcome that ability to push yourself into this discomfort is something you’ve learned. And the more you reflect on those other hard situations, the more you can see the mindsets that went into it, how you shaped the environment, how you got yourself to embrace those things. So it is using that reflection on all the other hard things you’ve done to build the confidence, get in the mindset, and then go conquer. As you know, I love the phrase act as if. How does that really play a part in embracing who we are, taking ownership, stepping into that weight room and then making changes there?

Leigh (09:28):
So just acting as if just by gaining that reflection and that understanding of like, oh, okay, I’ve done this hard thing before. It can really translate to taking up space in the gym. You do belong there. You can lift weights. You’ve done many, many hard things before in the past, mentally and physically. And so it’s a direct translation because how you carry yourself and how you approach the gym is the same thing as approaching a difficult situation with your family or your friends or with your job. So even though it is a workout and exercise, it really can translate very easily from just your day-to-day strength and just how you’ve recognized that

Cori (10:21):
With all this. Someone might be like, okay, I think I’m strong enough. I could step into the weight room, but I’m not sure I want to. I love my runs. Cardio’s always worked for me to maintain my weight, even though maybe now with menopause or different hormonal shifts, I’m seeing some weight gain around my middle. Why should I care about stepping into the weight room building muscle building strength? I don’t want to get bulky. We have these discussions often. So I’d love to really touch on how you answer those questions and address the importance of lifting weights or strength training in general, which sometimes means using different equipment or even progressing body weight.

Leigh (11:00):
Yeah, so the fear of getting bulky is a huge thing for women, but it’s definitely not the norm to get that bulky. And I think starting to really pay attention to the benefits that go beyond the aesthetics with weightlifting and with building muscle, especially as we shift into perimenopause and menopause, it becomes super important. So when we start thinking about what happens to our bodies as we age, it just really shines a light on the importance of building muscle. So starting in our thirties, we begin to lose lean body mass at a rate of about 1% a year. So that’s just normal aging. We just start to lose some muscle mass. So as that muscle mass decreases strength and power, so you suddenly realize like, oh man, I can’t jump up onto that curve like I did. I might’ve done in the past. Your balance decreases, so you’re not quite as confident in doing single leg stance, standing on one leg, putting on your pants.

(12:09):
You’re like, oh man, my balance isn’t great. So less muscle mass also means you’re going to expend less energy. So the body requires just less calories to function. And as we all know, life changes across our lifespan. So in our thirties, forties and fifties, life does not look the same as when it did when we were in our teens and twenties, when we were in our twenties. We could work all the time because we didn’t have jobs and we didn’t have families. So that takes away time from our ability to go and exercise. And so all of this kind of compounds and we also have some pretty significant metabolic changes, especially in women that occur in midlife, and that’s intensified by our hormone decline. And that really leads to that unfavorable body composition where you have less muscle mass and you have excessive visceral fat.

(13:02):
So that leads to a myriad of health problems. So you have increased inflammation, which is going to increase your cardiometabolic disease. So things like stroke, heart disease, diabetes, all that risk increases. And even if you step on the scale and you don’t see the scale weight changing, there are still body composition changes happening. So you’re losing muscle and you’re gaining more fat. So these are just those normal things that happen as we age. And if we start to think about the importance of strength training and how can we counteract that, I think it’s actually very encouraging to think of the power that just strength training and building muscle can have on our entire wellbeing. So if we want to get into it, I can kind of break down a little bit of just sort of the basics of the physiology behind lifting weights. I think having that knowledge is very helpful.

(14:07):
So the key with weightlifting is really selecting a weight that is going to be challenging enough to your muscles. So that’s key. And so when you lift heavy weights, this action is going to put microscopic tears in your muscle fibers. And these micro injuries trigger a biological process that initiates repair of those micro tears. And so this creates newer, stronger muscle fibers that replace those damaged ones, and that results in muscle growth over time. So that’s muscle hypertrophy. You’re getting bigger fibers. And so the backbone of strength training is this principle called stress and adaptation. So really what that means is when you lift weights, you’re subjecting your muscles to a form of stress and your body naturally will react to that stress and heal the damage. So that’s going to fortify your muscles, make them stronger and more resistant to the same level of stress.

(15:13):
And this is going to lead to muscle growth and increased strength. So same thing is when you just do mentally hard things, you become more resilient. When you put your muscles and you make them do really hard things, they get stronger and more resilient. So it’s a direct correlation there. And so I don’t know if you can think back to when you first started lifting weights very early on, you get a significant gain in your strength when you just first start lifting weights, and that’s something called neuromuscular adaptation. So really what that is is your nervous system becomes more efficient. It activates motor units. A motor unit is a muscle fiber, and the motor unit just controls all the muscle fiber. So your nervous system gets more efficient at activating motor units. So you kind of notice, oh, I can lift heavier, I can lift more weights pretty early on. And that’s important because that helps you build the strength as you go along. So lifting heavy, it does all that physiological stuff. It also triggers a hormone response where your body releases testosterone and hormone growth, human growth hormone, and that is a key for muscle repair.

(16:30):
So that’s kind of like the science behind building muscle. And so you can kind of see if I put my body under the appropriate stress or I challenge my muscles, I’m challenging myself too by going into the bro gym, I become more resilient and I become stronger over time.

Cori (16:50):
And off of that really hitting on how to build muscles, circling even back to getting bulky. A lot of this is about fueling as well, because if we’re not giving our body adequate fuel to repair and rebuild, we’re not going to build back muscles. So unless you’re giving yourself a ton of extra fuel, it’s very hard as a female to get bulky. It’s not that we can’t, but you have to be very strategic in how you build. And you also have to have specific builds and then work muscles to specific extent. So there’s a lot of strategy that goes into building muscle. And the longer you’ve be training, the harder it actually gets. So if you’re like, gosh, I’ve been training for a really long time and I’m struggling to build muscle, yes, it gets harder. You’ve adapted to more, but you have to focus on that fueling.

(17:28):
And I bring this up too because a lot of times due to the way we’ve dieted in the past, our cardio trends and cardio reliance, I’ll say we’ve created metabolic adaptations, which when we then start to fuel properly dialing in our macros, even though we might have weight we want to lose, we can often see ourselves gaining muscle first because we’re finally fueling to create that progression and allow our muscles to build back. So you can see the scale increase even when you want to lose weight before it then goes down because you’re building that lean muscle because your body is finally able to, which will ultimately help your metabolism. But if you’ve wondered like, Hey, I’m going for weight loss and I’m eating more and I’m trying to trust the process and I feel like I’m building muscle, but I haven’t lost the fat yet, so now I feel like I have a little fluff over my muscle.

(18:11):
That’s partly why. But then recognizing too, when we’re talking about creating that progression in the gym, that means repeating things. And I bring this up because I think I’ve seen, and I want to get your take on this too, Lee, but I’ve seen a big trend in the industry to completely no progression. So I’m not the strict, you have to do something for 12 weeks. I think that there could be a lot of ways to create progression, but if we don’t ever repeat the same workout, if we’re constantly randomly stringing things together, we can never really drive muscle growth because we never have that clear progression of did I do a harder variation? Did I add one more rep? Did I progress the movement by becoming more efficient at doing it with a better mind body connection? So can you talk a little bit about how you design your workouts, both picking weights, but also in terms of progression and repeating workouts and your take on that?

Leigh (18:59):
Yeah, so I mean it does take time and doing the same thing. I mean, if we think about how our body moves, we do kind of like we can squat, we can hinge, we can push, we can press, and that’s just like our muscles moving our bones and we’re putting weight and we’re stressing our muscles. And so having that repeatability and that progression, because we just talked about neuromuscular adaptation in the beginning, you’re actually not building a ton of strength and muscle. You’re just training your nervous system. So you have to train your nervous system, you have to get used to those movements, and then you can progressively add weight. So it is important to train muscle fibers in a similar way for a period of time so that you can slowly add that weight so that you do more micro tears, more repair, and then you can change your workouts a little bit where you’re doing a press in a slightly different variation to hit slightly different muscle fibers, but then you stay there for a little bit of time and you progress the weights because really, I mean there’s no way around it.

(20:10):
The physiology of how to build muscles is these micro tears and repair over time, progressively getting stronger, getting more resilient. It’s not doing chaotic workouts all the time, but it can be boring in the beginning and it can feel repetitive. And I think once you start to see the results and you start to see, oh, putting on I’m adding more weights, you have all these little micro goals that happen in your workouts of like, oh, well my back squat, I did this. Let see if I can do that. So starts to become fun in itself, but really what I like to do for programming workouts is get those main important lifts, those compound movements, the back squat, the deadlift, things like that. And then you can change up the accessory movements so that you start to hit those muscle fibers in different ways, but you’re still doing that. Let’s stay here for a little while. Let’s push the weights over time. Let’s learn the movement and get better over time. So it’s really that adaptation, stress and adaptation is the key for building muscle.

Cori (21:25):
And let’s talk about light versus heavy weights too, because pushing that progression means going heavier, so to speak. And I sort of use the air quotes around that because there’s always the question, do I do higher reps, lighter weights or lower reps, heavier weights? And I never like to think of the higher reps as lighter weights because if it challenges you, it changes you. But why is it so important that we go heavier? And I know you really touched on this, but I just want to highlight it again because it’s not that the weight won’t match the rep range and it will by nature be lighter if you’re doing more reps. And that can be good still in pushing progression. But it’s key that you have that challenge for specific reasons, right? Just going light won’t do anything if you’re really comfortable with it.

Leigh (22:08):
Yes. So this is a question I get asked a lot and I feel like it’s a reasonable question to ask, especially when you’re new to working out is you just don’t know what weights to pick up. And so to dress like the lightweight high rep, so there is a time and a place for doing high repetition lighter weights, but it’s not necessarily going to get you stronger, bigger muscles. It’s not necessarily going to be the only thing that works. And so the lightweight high rep has essentially been debunked by current research as how to do a lot of strength building and muscle hypertrophy because choosing very lightweights something that’s not challenging to your muscles, it fails to create the metabolic and hormonal environment that’s needed to build muscle. So if you pick up super lightweights, you are just simply not putting enough mechanical tension for bone density.

(23:07):
So when you lift weights, you put stress on your muscles, but you inadvertently also strengthen your bones, which is super important, especially for females as we age to reduce our risk of getting osteopenia, osteoporosis, and fractures. So if you pick up lightweights, you’re really not driving that pathway. And then you also minimally will recruit type two muscle fibers, and that is really important for strength maintenance. You also don’t stimulate that release of testosterone or growth hormone. So those hormones are really essential for repair. You just are not creating that environment and then by picking up lightweights, you really have a significantly less impact on your insulin sensitivity. So just touching back on all the benefits of muscle, the more muscle mass you have, the more insulin sensitive you are. So basically your muscle mass becomes like a metabolic buffer, so to speak. So your muscle is much better at taking up blood glucose, which stabilizes blood sugar levels, reduces your risk of type two diabetes.

(24:18):
So if you’re not lifting heavy, you’re not reaping that benefit and you just really don’t never really build the muscle. So you never really see that shift in that metabolic rate improvement. So the more muscle mass you have, the more calories your body needs. So that’s why you start to see like, oh my gosh, I’m eating so much more food than I ever ate before, but my body’s changing. How is that possible? Well, you’re building muscle, you’re fueling that muscle. Your body doesn’t really create muscle from recycling other things in your body just doesn’t work the way you have to eat the food to make the muscle happen. So yeah, that’s just kind of shines a light on why picking up that two pound dumbbell again and again and again, you’re not getting those results well because of all those things. It’s just not happening.

Cori (25:11):
I love that you hit on again and again and again because a weight might be light compared to the rest of the Dumbo rack, but challenge us for the reps, the move, the whatever, and we have to meet ourselves where we’re at. But if you can do that weight and you have your rep range of eight to 12 reps, if you can do that weight for 12 reps, one, two or all four sets, let’s just say that you have that next week, you got to go up. I even like to have clients if they’re experienced with lifts, if they’ve done it for the first set and the rep range is eight to 12, hey, go up for the next one, go up until you hit eight or even air the more advanced you are on hitting six reps having to pause for a second to complete the eight, then stay there.

(25:52):
That’s called double progression where we’re increasing the reps we’re doing with weights and also increasing the weight with reps. So you want to think that you have those two things to play with. If you can do the top end of the rep range, you don’t want to just stay there because it feels kind of hard. You want to be like, okay, how can I work down to the bottom of that rep range and then earn more reps with that weight before I then progress again? Because if we’re not pushing ourselves something, feeling hard doesn’t mean it actually is driving us forward. And I can tell you the more I focus on a muscle building phase, the more uncomfortable sometimes I am and the more I’m like, I got to do this today. I don’t know if you’ve ever felt that, but that’s definitely my response because it has to challenge you to create that change. And I think that’s the key thing we don’t often hit on and using that diversity of rep range even to our advantage. Correct?

Leigh (26:43):
Yeah. So it is hard. It should feel hard if it’s always feeling easy, it’s not creating that stimulus. And so yeah, the rep ranges and the prescribed reps are there for a reason. One thing that I do really like to implement and talk about is the use of the rate of perceived exertion or reps in reserve. I find that that really helps, especially people who are just sort of starting out and really questioning what’s hard, what do you meet? What’s hard? Finding that use of RPE rate of perceived exertion helps you be more subjective and take some ownership over your weight selection. So subjective, meaning it’s arising from oneself. And so thinking about using RPE as a subjective scale to measure intensity of exercise or effort, so you can really gauge how you feel during a lift or a workout by using RPE, it takes into account factors like breathing, heart rate, muscle fatigue, RPE.

(27:57):
So it typically ranges from zero to 10. So zero is rest and 10 is your max effort. I like to use RPE too with individuals because they can understand their intensity of their workouts and they can also adapt their training intensity based on how the individual is feeling that day. So it takes into account like recovery or stress, things like that. So it helps with autoregulation so that you’re able to be adaptable, reduces risk of injury too, so you’re not just pushing to failure all the time. And so then think about RPE and then you also layer in that reps in reserve. So that is a method used in strength training to kind of gauge intensity based off of how many reps you could leave. So thinking that reps in how many reps left in the tank before your form breaks down. So always key is good form with a lift.

(28:58):
And so if you think about that zero to 10 scale, if something were written like 10 reps at RPE of eight, you would think, okay, well I am going to give pretty heavy effort when I get to that 10 reps, I have two reps left in the tank. That’s a pretty heavy effort. That should feel pretty hard when you get to that eight rep, but you could still do two more repetitions. So you’re formed didn’t quite break down. Then once you start training a little bit more down, you’re talking about further down in that rep range to the six, it starts to get pretty spicy doing six reps at rp, that’s hard effort, but changes based off that rep range. So you would pick lighter weights for 10 repetitions at RPE eight as opposed to six repetitions at RPE eight because you obviously are doing less reps, so you can do heavier weights and have it meet that RPE. So I really like RPE reps and reserve to help people figure out what’s hard, what’s challenging, and that changes over time too. So the longer you train that RPE eight, RPE becomes a different weight for you as you get stronger.

Cori (30:18):
And as you even mentioned, it can be different things on different days. And I want to highlight that because we don’t often give ourselves credit that not every workout is going to be pushing progression by adding weight, going and doing another rep because we might not have slept well. There might be other hormonal factors like if you are in a little bit of a calorie deficit, your expectations have to potentially shift or if you’ve even changed progression and changed the order of moves, which I do want to touch on. And then I have one other final question for you too, but if you change the order, and this is why having that weekly schedule you repeat for a while is so key, especially if you are working to track those numbers. But if you do your back squat on Monday and all of a sudden in the next workout progression it’s on Thursday, you might find you aren’t able to keep the same numbers whether you’ve changed rep ranges or just because of the other moves before it.

(31:05):
And that’s not a bad thing. It’s just always remembering too that what is Max’s effort, what is really pushing that movement can depend too on all the other things around it. Now, off of this one final question for you, Lee, and I have to bring this up because I know it’s a topic that comes up often and I have my opinions on it and I want to hear yours, but soreness. So anytime we’re talking about building muscle, people expect to feel sore. If they don’t feel sore, I didn’t work hard enough. Can you talk about soreness in your opinion and what it really means and all that jazz?

Leigh (31:39):
Yeah, so soreness. So delayed onset muscle soreness, DOMS oftentimes will happen when you do something for the first time. When you’re very early on with working out and you are doing all kinds of new movements, new lifts, you’re probably going to be pretty sore When you change your workouts up and you just do a movement that you haven’t done, you’ll also feel sore. It’ll probably be to a less degree than when you first started working out. However, you do not have to be sore in order to know you had a good workout. In fact, the longer you train and the more muscle you have, the less often you’re going to feel that soreness. So you shouldn’t always be chasing soreness. That’s not the goal of a workout. It’s not always the goal to just beat yourself down with a workout and get the most sort the next day.

(32:37):
It’s inevitable to happen every now and then. It happens less frequently the more trained you are, but anytime you change something, you change the order, you change the rep ranges, especially working at a lot of higher rep ranges. If fueling is off, if you are not properly fueling or if you’re in a cut, something like that, you’ll have more muscle soreness. However, I am a big proponent of we’re not chasing soreness the next day. That’s not always the goal. And so oftentimes people feel like, well, I’m not sore at all. I didn’t get a good workout in. That’s not true. You have to kind of consider all the other factors around the workout to qualify that as a good training session.

Cori (33:20):
Couldn’t agree more. And I come from the no pain, no gain background attitude, and I like being sore as much as the next person. There’s something oddly satisfying at times about it, but if you’re constantly getting sore, it means you’re probably mixing things up too much. It means you’re probably jumping potentially weights or reps too quickly. It means you’re not fueling correctly, recovering correctly. If you’re doing that prehab process that should help with that. So soreness is often actually an indicator that something else is off. It can also be an indicator that we’re potentially doing too much volume or frequency for a muscle loading it really a ton under stretch, which can then lead to more muscle tissue damage and potentially some of that muscle soreness as well. So it’s really assessing is the soreness just, Hey, I switched things up and I pushed really hard this one time and then I’m adapting to it, or is something else off? Now off of that, any closing thoughts for someone being like, okay, I’m sold. I’m going to go build muscle, I’m going to embrace strength training. I’m going to act as if any thoughts for them, Lee?

Leigh (34:17):
Yeah. Yeah. So this is something I get super hyped about is helping a woman understand the importance of strength training and why you can’t just do cardio forever. It’s also really exciting because I kind of can see the future and I’m like, okay, I know you’re going to make some really awesome gains here soon. But honestly, just to kind of wrap things up, I think it’s just taking that moment to reflect on your life as a woman and just thinking about all of the incredibly hard things that you do mentally, physically, how you felt afraid. Probably during those times you felt the fear, but you did it anyway. That’s the same thing, this shrink training, it is not beyond your capabilities, it’s just something new and you just haven’t jumped in and done it. So realizing all the health benefits, health, realizing how this can improve your life, make things easier for you in terms of eating food and fueling and having these body changes, sleeping better, having perimenopause and menopause symptoms reduce. There’s so many benefits. So yeah, it’s my favorite thing to help women realize like, wait a minute, I’m strong. I can go pick up a really heavy weight and I can lift it.

Cori (35:33):
Health benefits, aesthetic benefits, mental benefits. I mean, I don’t know about you, but I’ve seen so much confidence built through what I’ve been able to overcome in the gym and picking up that heavier weight. So can’t say enough about it. Couldn’t agree more. Leigh, thank you so much for joining me today. Guys, have a great rest of your week.

 

*Note: This transcript is autogenerated there may be some unintended errors.

7 Things I Wish I Knew About Eating More Protein

7 Things I Wish I Knew About Eating More Protein

Changing your portions is hard. You can’t just eat meals the way you’ve always eaten. That does require some planning ahead to start.

And protein isn’t often the thing we just have lying around or want to snack on.

That’s why these 7 tips can help you start to adjust your macros, increase your protein and all while meeting yourself where you are at to still include meals and foods you enjoy!

Because the more foreign a change feels to start, the more resistant to repeating it we’ll be.

That’s why tip number 1 and where I like to start with increasing protein is simply to add an ounce of the current protein I’m eating.

If I want BBQ chicken and fries for dinner? Instead of feeling like I can’t have a meal I love, I add an extra ounce of chicken.

Small changes made this way lower our resistance to the change in general. And they add up.

Too often we do these massive overhauls over seeing the tweaks we can make.

So at your next meal, take your current protein and add an ounce.

Doing this to multiple meals in a day may surprise you by how much it adds up.

From there, you may find it easier to make bigger changes and even find new recipes that increase your protein intake!

But increasing protein doesn’t mean having to cut out dishes you enjoy!

Small changes to other ingredients in your meals can also help you boost protein.

That’s why tip #2 is to Protein-ify those carbs!

Swap your normal pasta for edamame or lentil pasta. Swap quinoa for rice. Try even buckwheat noodles.

You’ll be amazed by how many options there are to sneak in protein to other components of your dish to boost your amino acid intake, while even getting in other micronutrients.

And you can find swaps that allow you to still enjoy recipes you love, and that your family won’t mind even, while hitting your macros.

Even swapping your normal bread for something like an Ezekiel Bread made from sprouted whole grains and legumes can boost your protein as well as your fiber (win win in my opinion).

And again, you can still enjoy the meal you love to create lasting changes.

You can also sneak in those extra grams while boosting your micros and the flavor of your meals with tip #3…

Use protein sprinkles and seasonings.

No I’m not talking about some fake processed protein powder seasoning…I’m talking about things like nutritional yeast, parmesan cheese and even hemp, flax and chia seeds.

These things are easy to throw in so many dishes and use in different ways. And while small protein increases, they add up.

And they often pack in more micronutrients while adding flavor and diversity to our diet. All of which only help us create lasting changes while improving our health and results.

Nutritional yeast can be great to season your main protein source and add a cheesy flavor while being plant-based.

Parmesan cheese adds that cheesy flavor while adding that bit of salt as well.

And chia, flax and hemp seeds are great to add to smoothies or even salads for a nutty flavor and amazing fiber and healthy fat boost too.

Don’t ignore the value that those grams can have.

And then don’t write off dairy either.

If you’re lactose intolerant, this tip may not be your go-to, but you may also be surprised by how many lactose-free options there now are for you too!

So yes, tip #4 is to boost your protein by using dairy!

Things like too good cottage cheese not only come in lactose-free options, but they pack a protein punch while also helping us keep our gut healthy with probiotics.

Cottage cheese and even things like greek yogurt can be used in both savor dips or dishes but also sweet treats.
The options to use these dairy products, and even have individual serving packs to grab and go, make them a great way to easily bump your protein, especially for snacks.

I know personally I love making dips with them for veggies to snack on or even a sweet cheesecake type dip for fruit.

But use dairy to your advantage as it can often be easily combined with other protein sources as well to increase your intake without boredom!

Which brings me to tip #5: Double up that protein at meals.

By doubling up, I’m not saying to double your current source of protein at a meal and eat 8 ounces instead of 4.

That’s what creates protein fatigue and us hating having to increase our protein.

What I mean by doubling up is focusing on two different protein sources at a meal.

Like take adding in dairy to a dish. Combine that cottage cheese with hardboiled eggs and mustard for a high protein egg salad you can eat with pita chips or as a sandwich.

Or if you’re making an omelet? Add shrimp AND steak.

That even helps you get more protein with 3 different types so you don’t feel like you’re just chowing down on the same boring thing!

Think about ways you can split the amount you need between multiple protein sources to avoid that protein fatigue and allow you to add ounces more easily.

You may be surprised by how hard it felt to eat 4 ounces of the same protein but how easy it is to get 6 ounces at a time when you only have to eat 3 of each!

And then embrace the different forms of protein and cuts of meat you have available to you. 

Have you ever felt like every time you try to increase your protein your fat goes up to?

This is where looking at the opportunity in different cuts of meat can help!

Chicken breast vs chicken thigh has very different macros. Even the type of ground chicken you can get can vary.

Ground beef can be everything from 80% lean to 96% lean.

This is opportunity! You can still include proteins you like whether you vary the cut fully or even combine two different options.

Knowing that different proteins have different ratios of fat to protein, you could combine a fattier cut of steak or chicken with shrimp to overall balance out fat.

Or you may swap your usual ground beef for a lower fat option at times.

The key is you can find different cuts that work for you. Even with seafood.

Want more fat and love fish? Try salmon. But want to lower your fat? Try cod.

See the options in different types of similar proteins by learning more about the different cuts to use that to your advantage.

And that last but not least, tip #7: Eat it early!

I don’t know about you, but I love my dessert. And I’m sorry, ounces of chicken doesn’t count.

I make sure I’ve planned in my favorite carb and fat heavy treat to the end of my day and gotten my protein in early.

What really helps with this too is getting a bigger portion at breakfast or lunch.

Whether it’s starting my day with a greek yogurt parfait and even a coffee protein shake or omelet, I’m getting 30-40 grams in that first meal.

The more you plan to get in more protein earlier, the less behind you feel and the more flexibility you give yourself later.

This allows you to easily include meals you truly want and enjoy, especially if they’re meals with the family that may be out at restaurants or more carb and fat heavy.

This allows you more wiggle room and less stress when you aren’t fully in control of what you’re eating later in the day!

Planning ahead gives us the power to create that lifestyle balance while also reaching our goals.

So don’t leave yourself a chunk of plain protein to have to eat at the end of the day.

Plan it in first!

And use all 7 of these tips to meet yourself where you are at and make sustainable changes that allow you to increase your protein, adjust your portions and reach your goals!

Dial in your diet to match your workouts and build your leanest, strongest body ever with my Metabolic Shred…

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