Repeated studies have shown that individuals that are regimented with their diet, exercise, and healthy lifestyle have the greatest fitness outcomes. They are leaner, healthier, and have more energy than their less predictable counterparts. They engage in the same habits every day and create rituals around healthy behavior. You don’t have to understand or even believe in these principles. Simply emulate them to be effective. Following small improvements consistently can lead to huge changes in your body and overall health.

  1. Sleep — Everyone sleeps, but not everyone reaches the point of restfulness. During sleep the body restores and rebuilds muscle, burns fat, and resets hormones to prepare the body to be energetic, motivated and ready to make healthy choices the next day. When we get too little sleep, we are more likely to use stimulants and sugar to get us through the day, and may forgo exercise.  Your optimal sleep time begins at 10:30pm. Make sure you are in bed before that time. If you struggle falling asleep or staying asleep try CBD/CBN gummies. Both compounds are derivatives of the hemp plant. The more well-known CBD helps the body and brain to relax while the CBN has a mild sedative effect. The combination of the two helps to provide a deeper, more relaxed state when you’re sleeping.
  1. Intermittent Fasting— Recent research finds fasting may improve insulin sensitivity, reverse diabetes, and supports your weight management efforts when combined with exercise. Fasting can significantly impact how the body makes and uses proteins that are critical to decreasing insulin resistance and maintaining a healthy body weight. Therefore, the timing of and duration between meals could be important factors to consider for people struggling with blood sugar and obesity-related conditions.

How To Start Fasting

    • Gradually increase your fasting times in the morning.

Gradually easing into longer fasts will naturally minimize most side effects associated with fasting, as will transitioning over to a high-fat, low-carb diet, to help your body to adjust to using fat as a primary fuel. Begin with delaying eating to 1-3 hours upon waking. As your body acclimates to this new schedule, increase this interval to 4-8 hours after waking. This will develop a 4-8 hour eating window during the latter part of the daytime hours maximizing the fat burning potential of fasting.

  1. Interval Training-– Traditional slow and steady cardio training alone will not cut it, literally. Cardio alone may help you drop a few pounds, but you will stay the same shape. Interval training is the number one way to “change the shape” of your body. Metabolic Conditioning is a style of interval training that uses short-duration and high-intensity movements to increase hormones that help burn fat. In fact, the effects can last long after your workout is over.

Try 20 minutes of intervals on the recumbent bike, treadmill, or even with a jump rope with moderate to high resistance interval levels. Here is an example:

Perform a 5-min warm-up and then:

20 sec at a high intensity, 40 sec at a low intensity

30 sec at a high intensity, 30 sec at a low intensity 

40 sec at a high intensity, 20 sec at a low intensity

60 sec at a high intensity, 60 sec at a low intensity

Repeat the above intervals 3 more times until you complete 20 minutes of training.

 

  1. Adopt Lean “Dining-Out” Etiquette –- 
    1. When you decide to go out to eat, try a restaurant that has some healthy choices on the menu. This rules out Golden Corral, Bojangles, and any pizzeria. 
    2. Decide what you are having before you get there. If it’s lunch, know that you are having a grilled chicken salad with balsamic vinaigrette dressing on the side. If it is dinner, you are having a lean piece of chicken, steak, or pork with green veggies only. You get the point. It will still feel like a treat because someone else is making it and serving it! 
    3. Before it even comes to the table, ask the server to not bring the breadbasket. Yes, this can be painful! But, it only lasts for a few seconds! Lastly, skip the soda and alcohol and try sparkling water with lime or water with lemon. 
  1. Walk – It sounds like common sense, but walking should be part of any fit lifestyle. It may be tough to take a 60-min walk on a weekday, but every weekend should include at least 1-2 long leisurely walks. You will be amazed at how rejuvenated it makes you feel. Taking a walk after dinner can help you lose weight, and not just because walking burns calories. According to one Mayo Clinic study, light, post-meal exercise, such as walking, can lower your blood sugar and prevent your body from storing fat. Don’t worry even a brisk 10 minute walk can work perfectly. 
  1. Eat An Early Dinner— Experts have gone back and forth on whether eating late leads to weight gain, but a recent study published in the journal Obesity found a solid link. Northwestern University researchers looked at the eating and sleeping patterns of 52 adults and found that those who regularly ate after 8 p.m. ingested the most calories and carried the most body fat. An easy-to-follow rule of thumb: Stop eating four hours before you hit the sack. Then, while you sleep, your body is better primed to burn fat instead of creating more.
  1. Limit prolonged stress in your life — A certain amount of stress is essential for us to live efficiently. However, when the stress levels peak, it can become unhealthy. When you stress, your body releases cortisol, a hormone that promotes abdominal fat storage. If you find yourself overwhelmed in your work or personal life, try incorporating stress-reducing activities into your day. Join a yoga class or go for a jog, and when you start to feel stress coming on, pause and take deep breaths.

My recommendations for helping control stress:

➢ Regular exercise

➢ Laugh often and don’t take yourself too seriously

➢ Learn to relax by using tools such as music, deep breathing, walking, massage,   meditation, etc.

➢ Have a grateful attitude

➢ Focus on positives and not negatives

➢ Disassociate yourself from negativity 

 

  1. Eat To Keep Your Body’s Blood Sugar From Spiking — A great goal of any eating plan is to avoid spiking your blood sugar. Spiking your blood sugar leads to fat gain, insulin resistance, and increased inflammation.

Key Strategy: Eat Protein With Every Meal

A study in Nutrition Metabolism found that dieting participants who increased their protein intake to 30 percent of their overall diet ate roughly 450 fewer calories throughout the day and lost about 11 pounds over the course of 12 weeks. Eating protein increases lean muscle mass, which keeps your metabolism running on high. For maximum health and weight-loss benefits, aim to include protein in all of your meals and snacks. 

 

  1. Be a Beverage Snob – Soda is on the way out! You heard it here first. Regular sodas rot your teeth, spike insulin, and enhance fat storing. Diet sodas containing artificial chemicals, make you hold onto water, displace water consumption and increase sweet cravings. Make yourself some beverage rules:
  • Drink 2-3 liters of water per day.
  • Drink a plain, green tea in the afternoon (to help burn fat)
  • Alcohol on the weekends only and choose red wine if possible.
  • No soda? Remember drinking urine is safer than drinking soda! Just look at the ingredients. I am telling you, stop the soda, increase water intake, and watch yourself shed a ton of weight and get your sugar cravings under control.
  • Avoid the healthy imposters too. Fruit juice, milk, and sports beverages are all laden with copious amounts of sugar. Avoid these at all costs.
  1. Supplement Savvy — Supplements can be very useful once you get the diet and exercise pieces in line. They are not a fix-all, though. You have to have the healthy eating component implemented as well. Supplements like fish oil, Vitamin D3, L-tyrosine, L-glutamine, Whey Protein, multivitamins, and CBD/CBN are all an important part of your overall health plan. Talk to us, to find out what supplements might help you the most and how to take them more effectively. You don’t need fat burner supplements, weight loss pills, or multi-level marketing programs to get results. They don’t work long-term. Spend your hard-earned money to buy whole, natural foods and simple supplements to give you the sustainable path you need.

 

BONUS

  1. Meal Plan

Write a meal plan and comply with it at least 90% of the time. If you are trying to burn fat and lose weight, this meal planning is critical. Take the time and sit down with your family and write down this plan for the week, two weeks, or the whole month. This process can be difficult the first few times but after a few attempts it goes quickly and can be fun conversation.

 


Daryl C. Rich, D.C., C.S.C.S.