Natural Fat Burning Morning Routine


IMG_6479.jpg

⁣

  1. Coffee: Start by consuming black coffee or tea with no calories. This will help mobilize fatty acids as well as slightly boost your metabolic rate before your light workout. ⁣

  2. Fasted Cardio: Then perform 10-40 minutes of fasted cardio or light movement. This could be going on a morning stroll, swinging a kettlebell around or even doing some yoga poses. I recommend taking the movement outdoors, so that you can soak in some vitamin d and align your circadian rhythm to start the day. Fasted cardio in the morning will allow your body to tap into its own fat for fuel as well as get you charged up for the day. ⁣

  3. Cold Shower: Finish off with a 2-5 minute cold shower. There are numerous benefits to cold water immersion, such as strengthening your immune system and making your body more resilient to extreme temperatures. They also help increase your metabolically active brown adipose tissue, which enhances your body’s ability to burn fat. ⁣

⁣

Try doing these 3 steps every single day before having your first meal. Along with a nutritious whole food diet and a strength training routine 2-3x a week. The fat will fall right off your body just in time for summer. ️⁣


Body part split programs suck

DSC02311.jpg
DSC02316.jpg

Being a personal trainer for the past 5 years, I’ve been able to play around with a variety of different training programs and protocols. I find that most of the clients I get are coming from a body part split training plan that typically looks something like this:

Day 1: Chest/Triceps

Day 2: Legs

Day 3: Back/Biceps

Day 4: Shoulders/Core

I call this “The old bodybuilding style of training” which was made famous back in the 70s by guys like Dorian Yates and Arnold Swharzenagger. Although it may have worked for these guys, we also need to take into account that they were genetically gifted and on a bunch of steroids.

New science and research suggests that in order to train a body part more effectively, you want to hit it more frequently; at least 2-3x a week. Instead of doing 15 sets of chest exercises in one day, It’s probably more effective to hit 5 sets of chest exercises over the course of three different days in a week.

Most people and natural lifters, would benefit from full body splits where your training specific muscle groups more frequently. People who are on anabolics or testosterone have a completely different hormone balance compared to the general population, which makes it easier to recover from intense workouts where your targeting one specific muscle group in a session. In fact, I believe athletes who are on anabolics would benefit more if they programmed full body splits into their routine instead of body part splits. 

Not only is this a lot more sustainable for most people, but it will also allow you to focus more on progressive overload. For example, If your doing 30 sets of chest exercises in one day, by midway through the workout your pecs will be fried and you won’t be able to put up much weight on the rest of the exercises that day. On the other hand, If your hitting your chest 2-3x a week with less volume, You’ll be able to put up a lot more weight in those exercises and you’ll recover a lot more smoothly. With that, going to the gym and hitting a full body workout allows you to burn a lot more calories compared to if you were just going to the gym for an arm and core workout. This will lead to you building more functional strength and boosting your metabolism; allowing you to retain more muscle mass and burn off more body fat.

A full body split program would look something like this:

Day 1: Lower Push / Upper Pull

Day 2: Lower Pull / Upper Push

Day 3: Lower Push / Upper Pull

Day 4: Lower Pull / Upper Push

and more specifically like this:

Monday : 

a. Barbell back squats 3x10

b. Pull ups 3xAMRAP

c. Leg press 3x10

d. Seated cable row 3x10

e. Ab rollout 3x10

Tuesday: 

a. Barbell hip thrust 3x10

b. Barbell bench press 3x10

c. Single leg RDL 3x10 ea.

d. Cable chest fly 3x10

e. RKC Plank 3x20 seconds

Thursday: 

a. BB Front squats 3x10

b. Lat Pull downs 3x10

c. Heels elevated goblet squat 3x10

d. Single arm row 3x10 ea.

e. Cable side chops 3x10

Friday: 

a. Romanian Deadlifts 3x10

b.  BB Shoulder press 3x10

c. 45 degree hyper 3x15

d. Incline chest press 3x10

e. Pall of Press 3x10 ea.

Heres a couple couple of references in regards to the current research on strength training :

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/31188644/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6680702/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30779716/

Why stressed people can't lose body fat

Looking back at my 5 years of experience personal training and working with hundreds of clients from all different walks of life. I’ve noticed a specific trend when it comes to losing body fat and dealing with stress.

Many of the clients I train are high performers at their job. I’m talking about the go getters, A type, successful type of people. These clients are typically balls to the wall when it comes to working out and are cortisol junkies looking to kill every workout. Though this mantra may be excellent for their work life, I find that most of the time they actually struggle a lot when it comes to finding balance in their life. These are the same people who don’t sleep well, constantly get injured, are always sick and find it hard to lose body fat even though they're working out like crazy.

If this is you, then realize there’s nothing wrong with you. In order for you to be more successful in your fitness journey, you need to scale back in the gym and find more balance in your life. When you're constantly stressed, your body’s natural defense mechanism is to retain body fat. For example, if you were stranded on an island with no food, your body would go into a stressed state and try to retain all the fat on your body to preserve fuel and survive.

The best way to counteract this phenomenon is to get rid of that defense mechanism which is stress. If you reduce stress and perform a consistent strength training routine, you will teach your body that it needs to retain muscle rather than body fat. The best type of exercise for this type of person, is a training program focused solely on STRENGTH. Your goal in the gym is to build strength, while NOT taxing and stressing out the body as much as possible. This includes avoiding HIIT exercises, group classes, running, and any form of exercise that puts an excess amount of stress on your CNS (Central Nervous System). Remember the more excess stress you create in the body, the more you're telling it to retain body fat.

A better way to train would be a solid strength training routine of about 2-3 days a week, in which you focus on the big lifts like squats, deadlifts, presses, rows and etc. You should spend your time mastering these movements rather than trying to go hard and push a lot of weight around all the time.

If your use to working out extensively, take a step back and use that extra time you have to practice meditation, mindfulness, or even writing in a gratitude journal. Teaching my clients to be more mindful is one of the most successful tools in my box of fat burning tricks. When you're less stressed, your body will feel very different and you’ll notice that all the little things will start going your way. You’ll crave less bad food, you’ll have more energy for your workouts and you’ll probably build better relationships with the people around you. It takes years of practice and patience to learn how to be more mindful. I promise when you do though, that you’ll be able to shed off that last bit of stubborn fat on your body and be in the best shape of your life physically, emotionally and spiritually.

IMG_0252.JPG