Category Archives: Resources

Albert Einstein defined insanity as “doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results”

A lot of people seem to dabble in “insane” decision-making on a regular basis, especially when it comes to weight loss & fitness...

They’ll follow the same unsustainable crash diet for the 27th time and expect different results.

They’ll eliminate foods they love short-term without thinking about the long-term consequences.

They’ll continuously rely on the scale to analyze their progress when they know damn well there are other progress markers — like measurements, progress pics, and clothes-fit — that matter more.

Does any of that sound like you?

If so, I’ve got a challenge for you.

Try these 5 Anti-Stressed-Diet Hacks:

  1. Stop restricting yourself from foods you love. Start adding foods that improve your health.

  2. Stop tracking because you’ve been bad. Start tracking because you care.

  3. Stop working out as a form of punishment. Start working out because you love your body.

  4. Stop focusing on how quickly things are changing. Start focusing on your daily habits that’ll lead to change.

  5. Stop dieting. Stop punishing yourself.


There’s a wise saying. Exercise is not a punishment of what you eat but a celebration of you’re your body can do.

Start living a healthier life b/c you love the way it makes you look & feel, and let weight loss be the after-effect of all the awesome changes you’re making.

You’ll still have to plan your meals and workouts each week. You’ll still be watching what you eat.

But your mindset will be totally different, and when it comes to making fitness a lifestyle, mindset is all that matters.


Fun fact: The problem for most struggling dieters isn’t WHAT they eat, but


HOW MUCH?


Let’s break this down.

The two most important pieces of any successful nutrition plan are:

  1. Food Quality  2. Food Quantity


The food quality aspect of weight loss is straightforward... Whether your goal is to lose fat, build muscle, or maintain a healthy body, the bulk of your diet should come from micronutrient-dense whole foods.

But the food quantity aspect is a whole other story.

Studies show time and time again that people grossly underestimate their caloric intake and portion sizes.

If you’ve been struggling to lose weight despite exercising hard & eating healthy, here’s what I’d recommend doing:

First, start tracking your food. Use an app like MyFitnessPal OR anything to log what you’re taking in regularly!

Second, start measuring your food. Ideally with a food scale ⚖

I recommend doing this especially if you're new to calorie counting since it’s the best way to ensure what you’re tracking is actually what you’re eating!

And before you ask, no – you don’t have to track calories forever.

But when you’re just starting out, or you just wanna cut some fat, a food scale is a fantabulous tool to have at your disposal!

There will inevitably be situations — restaurants, parties, etc. — where you don’t have a scale, though.

That’s where this comes in:

Hand Portion Guide

This easy portion control guide is to help you stay mindful & better estimate your portion sizes.

This guide is especially useful for estimating portions for higher-calorie foods like nuts, dressings, oils, cheeses, Nutella, peanut butter, marshmallow fluff, cake icing and anything.

What I meant to say was:

The palm of your hand is good for estimating a serving 3-4oz of protein, such as chicken or steak.

Your fist is about the equivalent of 1 cup, think veggies, cooked grains/carbs and fruit.

Your thumb is a good rule for 1 thumb of nuts, dressings, nut butter and oils.

Point is, tracking is super helpful! And while it’s best to use a scale to measure your food, this easy portion guide can help too.

Is it perfect? Nope.

But it's better than saying, now, instead of saying: "I had chicken, mixed veggies, and rice."

You can say: "I had roughly a palm of chicken, 2 palm of mixed veggies, and a fist of rice"

Better than nothing, am I right?
MCO
I have a message for y'all. During this period of MCO, I can see morale breaking down among some of you out there.

Don't let yourselves fall into depressive binge eating. Right now YOU need to take care of yourselves.

Think about this, even if you're not a fitness enthusiast and you don't care about your appearance, letting yourself get overweight will lead to health complications in a matter of time. You will spend precious resources on health care.

When MCO is over, you will also spend precious cash on new clothes, especially pants, to accommodate your increased weight circumference due to increased weight gain.

It is about CICO during this period. Calories in vs calories out. Eat less than is needed compared to what you normally consume. Find a way to increase your activity levels. Be creative. But most of all, eat less because you cannot out-train a bad diet.

Taking care of YOURSELF means being able to live longer to take care of others who depend on you. This is more critical during this juncture. You must remain healthy for others.

Again I say, fall back on the very basic routines which you have always practiced. Fall back on routine borne of discipline, which created consistency and repetition. There is power in this.

It is something you still can CONTROL despite the feelings of helplessness that threaten to overwhelm you.

You like big meals, sure, why not practice intermittent fasting now? Or OMAD? 2 big meals a day WITHIN your caloric requirement. Please note.

COVID is the enemy without. Do not create an enemy within you. This is the last thing you need when you are already fighting a battle.

This is a storm with zero visibility created by yourself doubt and despair. You have a compass. Keep moving in that direction and trust your faith in yourself to see it through.
Muscle Training
The term of it is just progressive overloading in training a particular muscle to grow in strength and size it. Each muscle in a human body has its own particular sets of movements to have its own activation, to either concentric, eccentric, or isometric movements. Those are the fundamental basics of having hypertrophy training.

The common misunderstanding is that strength training should be the one having muscle gain however, a new area of research shows that the most optimal muscle growth is to put an immense amount of intensity towards a small set of particular muscles that is been targeted. In other words, hypertrophy training is much better at optimizing muscle growth than strength training.

To train with hypertrophy, one must select a set of muscle groups to train to have the full optimizing effect of the training session. For instance, a push day commonly knows to be either chest and shoulders or chest and triceps as their particular daily session. So one must train with 3 of any kind of chest exercise Example (Upper, Lower, and Fly) is more than enough to help with muscle activation, going with 3 - 5 sets for 10 - 15 reps is the basic level for most beginners. In addition, the tempo of the reps also matters during the sets as recommended to have 35 - 40 seconds between reps to have optimized muscle tension. By doing so will sufficient amount of tissue damage to the muscle, allowing protein components to recover the damaged tissue with stronger tissue and growth.

To simplify the term hypertrophy training, training session as suggested 1 -2 times a week is more than enough for most people who are looking for mainly muscle growth itself without the risk of having bone or joint injury. It's much safer for those who are looking to stay active with healthy muscle growth at the same time.
Goal
Firstly, one must identify what goal are looking for? Body Building, Fitness Model, Strong Man. Powerlifter, Calisthenics, Cross Fit, or just General Health improvement? The most important step is to identify what you actually want to achieve. The high percentage of Malaysians has small or no goal in mind on what they wanted to accomplish, resulting in not being able to follow up with the journey. And that leads to people who fail to fulfil what they have started, which also leads to disappointments or anger. Putting hate and disbelieve on a goal that they didn’t have a clear thought about.

So to achieve identification of your goal is to try any of those fitness fields, try out any of those fields that are most suitable for you. The quicker you identify it the easier your journey will be, for instance, you will search everything about that respected field, on how to gain benefit from it physically, mentally, or even financially. Positively the person who out what their fitness goals are psychologically set in mind that they will do whatever it takes to reach that particular goal. And seeing future improvement needed for either self-development or knowledge for the future generations.

 
Body Building Posing
In the general public eye is more like a vanity gesture, however, it brings more benefit to understand the muscle functionality and large improvements. For instance, a common term use in the fitness industry is the mind-muscle connection, as one person training using the mental mindset to focus on the activation of the muscle to feel the pump satiation during the workout. Posing on another hand is flexing with a proper visual aid to view the muscle the overall balance and symmetrical muscle growth. With consistent posing, an athlete and their coach are able to identify the muscle imbalances, weak points, and strong points. In addition, the benefit of posing is that the athlete is able to keep the focus on the engagement of the muscle to have a full contraction on the pump satiation.
Mindset
One of my most significant experiences as a coach and why mindset is more important than motivation.

Let me tell you a story. A story of a young man who approached me some time ago for online coaching.

Where when I was halfway interviewing him to see if he was eligible for coaching, he had tears in his eyes, and I asked him what was wrong and he said he felt useless, worthless. Helpless with his current weight issues. My coaching slots were full. But it was there and then I saw the desperation in his eyes and a glimpse of the inner strength he had to change. That the fact he teared up in front of a stranger and poured his heart out, I knew I had to accept him.

It was no easy task. You cannot undo decades of bad habits with just a few weeks or months. His mind had to be conditioned and strengthened against temptation lest he falls back into his old habits. And he did fall off the bandwagon. But only once. And he continued the journey. I taught him flexibility, forgiving himself if he encountered setbacks. And most of all believing in himself. He has a full-time job, works shifts at night. Close to exhaustion by the time it was due for the gym. He still hustled. As an online client we rarely meet up as he stayed in another state, but when he visited, even I was impressed by his progress in the flesh. My current clients asked what was his secret.

What was the greatest lesson your coach imparted to you?

His response. "Coach said to get rid of your motivation. You hit the weights whether you feel like it or not because you just have to do. Not wait for motivation to come to you". I don't believe in rapid transformations. The risk of rebound is too great. We have seen it time and time again. I wanted the fat off, and I wanted it to STAY OFF. The mind is your greatest weapon. Faith in your own capabilities is your shield and armor. Strengthen your mind, and it will impart the same strength to your body.

Today Amin eats almost what he wants within reasonable limits. And still is losing weight. Why? He doesn't overeat. He still counts calories or at least guesstimates. It doesn't matter if people call you a killjoy. They don't know your past, your history of eating disorders, and the temptation you face every waking moment.

Well. I'm satisfied. For the moment. He still has work to do.
Dumbbell
Deloads. How do you know you need one? I covered this in a post quite long ago but it's fine to recap.

Physical: Decrease in performance, eg. Grip strength, explosive power, eg. Vertical jump

Decreased rate of force production, decreased endurance.

The recovery rate gets more and more compromised between workouts.

Niggling joint pains become more severe and aggravating in most cases.

Mental: Feels like you're dragging your ass to the gym even though you've slept sufficiently and optimized your nutrition.

Since I was bitching in my stories about overreaching, a follower asked if there was a difference between overreaching and overtraining.

Overreaching is a temporary state.

Overtraining is a chronic state.

Overreaching: A state which occurs in response to heavy or intense loads. Keyword, TEMPORARY.

Overtraining: Extreme fatigue state. Caused by repeated prolonged high intensity, high volume training sessions. Keyword, CHRONIC.

That being said, TOO MANY of you like to use the word overtraining too much. You're most likely UNDER RECOVERING because you're probably eating way too little because you want to get/stay shredded or not getting sufficient rest/sleep.
Cardio Smart Watch
Short answer, the body fat of the person will be the main determinant of whether fasted cardio is important or not.

There are 3 primary steps in fat loss.

Mobilization, transport, oxidation.

Mobilization refers to actually getting stored fat (specifically fatty acids) out of the fat cell.

Transport refers to the actual transport of fatty acids (bound to albumin) within the bloodstream; this step can be an issue when folks are dealing with stubborn body fat (such as lower ab/low back fat in men and hip/thigh fat in women); blood flow is impaired in those areas.

Finally is oxidation which is the actual burning of fatty acids within tissues such as skeletal muscle, liver, and heart.

Individuals at the very end So, short answer, no it doesn't matter if you do it fasted or not because the majority of the population is between very lean and obese, from about 15-35% body fat in men and 20-40% body fat in women there are really no issues. Mobilization is usually not a problem since the body hasn’t started to fight back, transport isn’t an issue since stubborn fat isn’t being targeted, and oxidation is rarely a problem since the defects show up at the extremes of obesity generally aren’t present of both spectrums will have their own set of issues with each of these steps but that is a topic for another time.

Calories in versus out matters more in this case.
Protein
A protein is a naturally occurring, extremely complex substance that consists of amino acid residues joined by peptide bonds. Proteins are present in all living organisms and include many essential biological compounds such as enzymes, hormones, and antibodies.

Now that the science part is out and done with, why is it important?

Because without protein, you'll die. There is no such thing as essential carbs, but protein and fats are essential to the living cell.

There is an area of your brain called the hypothalamus which regulates your weight.

A higher protein intake actually increases levels of the satiety (appetite-reducing) hormones GLP-1, peptide YY, and cholecystokinin, while reducing your levels of the hunger hormone ghrelin.

By replacing carbs and fat with protein, you reduce the hunger hormone and boost several satiety hormones.

This leads to a major reduction in hunger and is the main reason protein helps you lose weight. It can make you eat fewer calories automatically.

In a nutshell, protein is more satiating than carbs or fat.

How? Why? I need to explain something called the THERMIC EFFECT of food.

To put it in layman's terms, the thermic effect is the process where energy is needed to digest and metabolize food.

Although not all sources agree on the exact figures, it is clear that protein has a much higher thermic effect (20-30%) compared to carbs (5-10%) and fat (0-3%)

If we go with a thermic effect of 30% for protein, this means that 100 calories of protein only end up as 70 usable calories.

Which means... It plays a very important role if you're DIETING for fat loss.

What kills progress is hunger. This brings me back to the original point. Remember where I said protein is more satiating?

There we go. Also, do remember that there is a difference between FAT loss and WEIGHT loss. You want the majority of your bodyweight loss to be fat, not precious lean muscle tissue. Protein has a sparing effect.

Calories go down, protein should be considered a macronutrient priority to bump up.

So next time you're considering a snack to satisfy your hunger cravings, consider something with a higher protein ratio vs something sugary which does nothing much for appetite suppression.
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