One of the most common comments I hear not only as a trainer – but from friends, family and online is: ‘How do you lose fat’ It should be simple, shouldn’t it? Eat less and move around more, right? Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. With so much conflicting advice, I wanted to write this blog today to give you the 3 steps I have personally tested not only myself – but on thousands of others worldwide. I will also wrap up with my personal ‘formula’ for training success when it comes to fat loss. But first, let’s get you started with tip number 1: #1 Carb Cycle If you caught my video the other week when I was dressed up as the Cookie Monster for Halloween (and if haven’t you’ve got to check it out – not only do I look funny but it’s a great overview of carb cycling, you know I am a huge fan of carb cycling for fat loss? Why? Because it works. Period. When you cycle carbs, you give your body one of the most effective ways of burning body fat – but without feeling like a zombie when you go fully low carb. I come from a Paleo/Whole foods background. So it’s not like I don’t have experience with multiple eating lifestyles (as I like to call them). If you look at my early videos and pictures – the difference in my physique from when I used to follow that protocol, to what I look like now from carb cycling is night and day difference. To make it work, you cycle from high carbs to low carbs over the course of a week. The thing about carb cycling is, not only is it super effective when it comes to leaning out – it allows you to have a weekly cheat or ‘free’ meal. This means you can stay committed to your physique goals, but you still get to have a life (and some fun!) with your family, friends or co-workers. By the way, in the next week or so, I will be releasing my definitive book on carb cycling. So if you like the idea of trying this, and want to be told exactly how to make this work for you, and your lifestyle – keep an eye out for that. #2 Protein Protein is the cornerstone to successful fat loss regimen, and there are a few main reasons why you should make sure your protein intake is high enough. Firstly, protein is fantastic for satiety – it’s is one of the most filling macronutrients, and can help keep cravings down. This is because it takes a long time for your stomach to break down the proteins to be digested, hence you feel fuller for longer. This brings me neatly to the next great point when it comes to protein – TEF – also known as the ‘thermic effect of food’. Don’t worry, am not going to take you through a science class! Today, all I want you to understand is that because protein is harder for the body to digest – it actually needs extra energy to break it down. In fact, up to 15% of the calories in a protein meal are burned in digestion alone. Finally, protein is crucial for your health. It allows your body to repair cells, and rebuild them. This is especially important if you are training regularly, as your body needs the building blocks of protein (called amino acids) to build muscle. #3 Training I promised I would share with you my personal training formula for fat loss, but before I do – I just want to break down exactly what I have seen work with myself, and thousands of times before. For fat loss, you HAVE to get some form of weight training in. If you want to really ramp up your results, then you need to follow your weight training with HIIT (high-intensity interval training), such as something like HIIT MAX™, which over 18,000 people have achieved success with to date. Heck, I have even had personal trainers email me to say they use my program in their classes! The above combination of weights and HIIT sounds like a lot, doesn’t it? But I am going to explain to you how everything you need to do can be done in one-hour max. That’s right, in just 60 minutes you can get your weight training, your HIIT training – everything you need for fat loss…nailed. ‘The MoreFIT Formula’ 40 + 20 = Fat Loss What that means is you are going to do 40 minutes of weight training, followed by 20 minutes of HIIT training. I bet you are thinking ‘how can I get my weights done in just 40 minutes’ Well, let me show you: You need 4 pairs of alternate upper body and lower body exercises. So you could have shoulder press & squat, you could have chin up & box jumps, or even press ups & walking lunges. Then, all you have to do is follow up with your HIIT training, and boom – maximum fat loss in just one hour. There you go, my top 3 tips for getting a lean, toned physique. Fat loss in a nutshell!
If you’ve been hitting the gym more regularly and starting to think about what goals you hope to achieve with your fitness program, there’s a good chance you’re spending some time reading about nutrition. In doing so, you’ve heard the term ‘macro percentage’ before, referring to how many grams of proteins, carbs, and dietary fats you should consume on a day to day basis. What should your macro percentages look like? You’re likely wondering if you’re doing this right. Before you get yourself all worked up over this and likely toss in the towel feeling confused and overwhelmed, there’s some things you should understand first. Macros Do NOT Matter Until You Can Eat Right Perhaps the biggest mistake you could make at this stage is to get overly concerned with macro ratios before you’ve figured out how to eat well. If you base your macros around foods that do not support proper health and optimal body functioning, guess what? You won’t like the end result anyways. Sure, there is a group of people – the if it fits your macros concept who believe that as long as you eat ‘x’ number of calories per day and ‘y’ grams of proteins, carbs, and fats, that’s all that matters. And it may be true. If you need to consume 1600 calories per day to lose weight and you eat one pizza and a cheeseburger, you may hit that 1600 calorie mark and see some weight loss. But will you be healthy? Clearly not. Will you lose fat? Chances are you won’t. It’ll be muscle that you’re burning up instead. If you desire a lean fit physique –as well as a youthful and healthy and body well into your 70’s and 80’s, you do not want to only focus on calories or macros. Sure, they are important, but only after you have already trained yourself to eat proper foods. My Recommended Starting Point So what route should you go? For 30-60 days, you must focus on building good eating habits. A habit takes some time to become ingrained in your behavior patterns, which is why I recommend 30-60 days. For this time period, 90% of the time, you should be eating whole foods as close to nature as possible. This means lean meats, plenty of fresh vegetables, fruits in moderation, some nuts and seeds along with a few safe starches such as sweet potatoes and white rice. It’s also imperative you eliminate alcohol and sweets entirely. If you want to be healthy, these must go – no exceptions. Do this for 60 days straight and once you’ve done this, now you can start focusing on your macro ratios. At this point, you’ll be building your diet off foods that do your body good and support lean muscle tissue and fat loss. Trust me, your results will be far more in line with what you were hoping for. When you do start counting, realize that protein can fluctuate slightly from individual to individual, but should be set at around 1 gram/lb of body weight. This typically equates out to around 35-40% of your total caloric intake. This now leaves about 60% of your intake to devote to carbs or dietary fats. Remember these are the energy providing nutrients, they offset each other. You can consume more carbs but if you do, your fats should be lower. If you eat more fats, your carbs will go down accordingly. This is the concept I utilize is the carb cycling approach, which I firmly believe is the best way to get leaner, build more muscle mass, and improve your health both in the long and short term. It gives you the best of both worlds and soon, my book will explain exactly how to set up a proper carb cycling diet. When you’re at the point of counting macros, this is the concept you will want to use. We even offer Custom Meal Plans, where we can help you get on track, so you don’t have to worry about what you should and shouldn’t be eating. We design every meal to the individual. So… don’t rush out and start counting macros, fix your eating patterns first. Start there and your results will show immediately, then once you do finally start counting macros MAGIC will happen — my promise!
39 SHARES ShareTweet Confused over protein? You are not alone. The number of people who either don’t understand how much protein to take in each day or don’t know when the most optimal times to eat it is overwhelming. In fact, many people don’t even realize that their diet is so low in protein, it’s the most significant factor preventing their success. Protein is essential for everyone. Man, woman, young, old, training or not, you need protein. Women especially often don’t get enough because they think that eating more protein and particularly taking a protein supplement means they’ll get big and bulky quickly. I want to assure you that’s not the case. Women simply don’t possess the hormones necessary to pack on lots of muscle mass, especially overnight. It would take years and years of hard work to gain appreciable muscle, and often a number of other supplements. Back to the protein issue, you must take in protein with each and every meal during the day. Ideally, you should be at around 1 gram per pound of body weight each day, based on your lean body mass (LBM) to fat ratio. Remember the more lean muscle you have, the higher in proportion to your body weight your protein intake will be. Want to learn more about how much protein you should be consuming? This protein will help with muscle regeneration and synthesis as well as help you put in the maximum performance in each workout you do. All of this said, there are three critical times that you really need to focus on getting more. Let me show you these three times, so you can ensure you aren’t missing out. Keep reading after the video to learn why you should consume protein… During breakfast In your Post-workout snack/meal Before bed Why You Should Consume Protein At Breakfast Take a look at your usual morning meal. Does it go a little something like this? ½ cup oatmeal with some cinnamon on top along with some fresh fruit and a couple slices of toast? If so, this is a huge diet disaster. There’s virtually no protein or healthy fat in this meal, so you’ll be in for a quick energy boost followed by an even quicker and more significant energy crash. If you always feel horrible mid-morning, your breakfast is why. Try changing it up. The oatmeal and fruit are ok at best, but add some protein and healthy fats in there. A few eggs or slices of lean turkey bacon along with some avocado or a small handful of nuts will do the trick. Eat this and watch your energy level soar – all the way until lunch. Aim for 30 grams minimum at breakfast. Post Workout for More Protein You’ve likely heard of the ‘post workout window’ before. This basically means there’s a short time post workout when your body is prepared to take up any nutrients you feed it rapidly. This means faster recovery and faster results – if you feed yourself properly (1, 2). Aim for some protein along with carbohydrates within 30-60 minutes post workout. Keep fat out of the picture during this time as it’ll just slow down digestion, which is opposite of what you want here. ⚠️ Are you ready to enhance your performance, lose more fat, and build more muscle? Eat Protein Before Bed Finally, you need to prepare your body for the overnight fast. This means eating enough quality protein that your body feeds off those amino acids all night long. Plus, consuming protein before bed will help you recover while you are sleeping (3). The easiest and most convenient way to make sure you are consuming enough protein at the right times is through a quality protein powder. Instead, I’d go for a quality whey isolate or even better, just like our Morellifit Nutrition Protein. This way you can feel good about what you’re putting into your body. Mix that protein with some whole fat plain yogurt and a few berries and you’ll have the perfect pre-bed meal on your hands. Remember, these are just the three most important times to eat protein, not the only times. Eat protein with each meal and snack you consume and you’ll be feeling and looking better in no time. Bonus: Pre-Workout Protein Consumption I wanted to make this “The Four Most Critical Times to Consume Protein” but Three sounded a little catchier! So here’s your bonus 4th time – Pre-Workout You simply can’t function and perform at your best in a training session without protein in your system. Consuming protein will help you enhance your peak performance and endurance, recover from your workout faster, and it supports muscle development. It will help you burn calories throughout your workout and get you to your goals faster, whether you are trying to put on lean muscle or lose the extra fat (4, 5, 6, 7). Remember, no protein means no fuel for your muscles. And that means fewer calories burned (8). This is one of my top tips, no matter what time of exercise you are going and my top tip to any of my clients. All you have to do is consume one serving of protein every hour before every workout. Every single client I suggest it to reports back how amazing it makes them feel during and after their workouts are done. They tell me that they found that they had more energy, recovered better and were able to push harder in the session. When searching for a protein, you want to make sure you go after the best. This means a clean, grass-fed whey that contains absolutely no artificial ingredients. The last thing you want to do is to sabotage your results because you are consuming a subpar protein. We want to make sure that we are only putting the very best into our body and so made our own grass-fed whey isolate, a pure protein that is sourced from New Zealand because of their strict
Hands up: Are you stuck at the gym trying to figure what to do? Maybe you’re not even a gym member at the moment – perhaps for the time being, taking that step is a little too intimidating? Let’s face it – getting started with training can be pretty scary. And a lot of that is due to the misconceptions and pre-conceived notions that are out there in the media. So if you’re feeling frustrated, and disheartened before you’ve even started, this video will ease ALL of that, clear up fat loss confusion, and give you a guide on the (surprisingly simple) way you can go about beginning a routine. While so many people are still on the cardio bandwagon, I am here to tell you if this is you, it’s time to jump ship. That’s because cardio is simply NOT the most effective way to train for fat loss or body recomposition. That’s not to say it’s entirely useless, and obviously, getting off your butt and starting to move is far better than sitting on the couch every night. But aside from that, it’s really not the best way to get in great shape. It’s certainly not the quickest way to the body of your dreams. I believe that one type of cardio – metabolic conditioning, as I call it – does have a place in your program. This is the case if you’re training for a cardio-focused event – say a marathon, triathlon, or you’re looking to improve your sport specific conditioning. For example, you won’t to increase aerobic capacity so you can play basketball at a more optimal level. Aside from that … not so much. I currently do some aerobic work every week. I did this leading up to my recent photo shoot, in my journey where I went from 24% body fat down to 8%, and will continue to do a little cardio here and there, but it looks a lot different to the way most people to cardio – just sitting idly on a stationary bike or slogging away on a treadmill for an hour. That kind of steady state cardio, where you simply go through the motions is doing you no good whatsoever. In fact, it’s probably your #1 fat loss killer. If your goal is weight loss and building a more sculpted body, weight training should be the foundation of your routine. I know – people don’t want to suddenly grow huge muscles, but trust me on this one – proper weight training will not make you big and bulky. Why Weight Training? It’s simple: Build more muscle, burn more fat. You see, this is a little nifty trick I’ve learned over the years. The more muscle you have, the harder your body has to work to keep it. That means that every single second, of every single day, you’re burning more calories, and losing fat at a faster rate. How do you do this? Adopt an effective weight training protocol such as the one I present in the video above. There are some basic guidelines you need > Keep your sessions short and sharp! If you can train for longer than an hour, you’re not working hard enough. 30-40 minutes (and in some cases, just 20 minutes) will be ample. Pair exercises back to back. An upper-body move, immediately followed by a lower-body or a core move works just great. Keep your reps in the 10-12 range, for 3 sets per exercise. Time your rest periods. And shoot for 60 seconds. Rest is critical! You don’t have to train every day. And in fact, doing so is a BIG mistake. Try 1 day on, 1 day off. I promise you this … You will be AMAZED at how your results suddenly go to the next level by making weight training the focus of your program. Not only will the results leave you grinning from ear to ear, but try this – With your day on, day off, 40-minute session protocol, you’ll be spending no more than 2 to 3 hours in the gym per week. Compare that to an hour a day of cardio, coupled with the faster fat loss, increased muscle tone and definition, and the fact your fitness levels will go through the roof, and you’ll soon become a lover of the iron. “But Michael – I’m Still Confused!” I hear you. Even with the video and the article, weight training can still be a bit of a minefield if you’ve never tried it before. You’re thinking – “What’s better? Free-weights or machines?” “Do I need to hire a trainer?” “But what about calorie burn? Does 30 minutes of weights burn the same as 30 minutes of cardio?” … And probably a lot more besides, right? Well, I’m here to help. As much as I tried to put as much into this blog and the video as I could, I do realize it’s not quite enough, and if you’re new to the weight training scene, you may need a little extra hand. Heck, even more experienced trainers need something more personalized than a generic, cookie-cutter plan. And that’s why, I’ve put together a world class Custom Training Program Service. A custom training plan, designed for YOU, by ME. It is 100% tailored to your goals, your needs and your current ability and experience level, and will get you your dream physique in record time. It’s quickly becoming my #1 selling coaching service … and for good reason! To learn how you can take part in this incredibly affordable service click here. You couldn’t even get one session in with a world class trainer for this price, and my Custom Training Programs are 12 full weeks!
