Nov. 29, 2022 – Weight loss advice is everywhere you look on social media, but one trend sweeping TikTok has led to shortages of an important diabetes drug.
Ozempic, a weekly injection that helps boost insulin sensitivity in people with type 2 diabetes, also suppresses appetite, which leads to weight loss. Stories of celebrities using the drug off-label to lose a few pounds have led to an explosion of interest. And now people with diabetes – people whose lives could be saved by the drug – are having trouble finding it.
Kim Kardashian and Elon Musk
In the spring, Kim Kardashian pulled off a dramatic weight loss to fit into Marilyn Monroe’s dress for the Met Gala. Soon rumors began to circulate that she’d used Ozempic to do it. Just this week, new Twitter owner Elon Musk tweeted about his own use of Ozempic and its sibling drug, Wegovy.
Variety dubbed Ozempic “the worst kept secret in Hollywood – especially given that its most enthusiastic users are not pre-diabetic and do not require the drug.” The rich and famous are spending $1,200 to $1,500 a month to get access.
As so often happens, high-profile use sparked a trend. Videos on TikTok hashtagged #ozempic have amassed more than 275 million views, and #ozempicweightloss has more than 110 million.
This raises concerns about who, exactly, is watching these videos, and what message they’re receiving.
“Forty-two percent of Americans have obesity, and even more have overweight. That’s affecting our younger people and our adolescents,” says Caroline Apovian, MD, co-director of the Center for Weight Management and Wellness at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. “They’re looking at TikTok and other social media outlets for help.”
A new study shows how damaging this can be: Researchers analyzed 1,000 videos with nutrition, food, and weight-related hashtags, with over 1 billion views combined. They found that nearly all included messages glorifying weight loss and thinness.
At Last, an Effective Weight Loss Drug
Ozempic is Danish drug company Novo Nordisk’s brand name for semaglutide, which works by mimicking a naturally occurring hormone known as GLP-1. It travels to your brain and helps you feel full on less food. That leads to weight loss. In one 68-week study, semaglutide helped people lose an average of 15% of their body weight. But it’s not a miracle drug: You still have to change your eating habits and stay physically active.
The FDA approved Ozempic to treat people with type 2 diabetes in 2017. Four years later, Novo Nordisk received the green light for a higher-dose version meant specifically for people with obesity. Wegovy is approved for use only if you have a BMI of at least 27 with one or more weight-related ailments, or a BMI of 30 or more with none.
“These drugs are dominating my practice, because they’re so effective,” says Amanda Velazquez, MD, director of obesity medicine at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. The drug is considered safe, “so the majority of patients are good candidates.”
More Demand Than Supply
As word spread about how well Ozempic and Wegovy worked, social media posts helped drive even more people to seek out the drugs. Now demand is outpacing the supply – according to the FDA, starter doses of Ozempic will have limited availability through January.
“In Hollywood, people are losing 10 pounds, getting it for $1,500 a month, and depleting stores for people who have such severe obesity that they have congestive heart failure and diabetes,” Apovian says. “These are people who are going to die, and you’re taking it away just for cosmetic weight loss. That is deplorable.”
In addition to huge demand, Wegovy also had a disruption in its supply chain. Right now, it isn’t available at all in lower doses, which is helping to spike off-label demand for Ozempic. Novo Nordisk expects to have these problems sorted out by the end of the year, with distribution following soon after.
The Price of Access
With a list price of $1,350 a month, Wegovy costs as much as many mortgages. And Medicaid, Medicare, and many insurance companies don’t cover it. Although obesity is a disease, the insurance industry treats weight loss as more of a vanity issue – so even if you could find the drug, you might not be able to afford it.
“We’re seeing that roughly half the prescriptions we write aren’t being covered,” Apovian says. “And for the half that are covered, we have to do prior authorization, which takes days, and it’s laborious.” In some instances, she says, insurance companies withdraw authorization after 3 months if they don’t see enough weight coming off.
It’s not like you can take Wegovy for 3 months, lose some weight, and expect it to stay off, either. The medication requires a real commitment, potentially for life. That’s because once the semaglutide leaves your system, your appetite returns. In one study, people regained two-thirds of the weight they’d lost within a year of stopping.
Many see a double standard in the insurance companies’ refusal to cover a drug that could prevent serious illness or death.
“They’re saying it’s not cost-effective to give the 42% of Americans who have a BMI over 30 Wegovy. Did they say this when statins came out?” Apovian says. “Why are they doing this with antiobesity agents? It’s the culture. The culture isn’t ready to adopt obesity as the disease that it is.”
Unpleasant Side Effects
Let’s assume you’re one of the lucky ones – your insurance covers Wegovy, and you can actually find some. You might discover that using it is no walk in the park. Common side effects include gastrointestinal issues like nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea.
“The way we counteract that is to start very slowly at a low dose of these medications,” Apovian says. “We only go up when the patient doesn’t have nausea or it gets better.”
Elise Davenport was excited to try Wegovy. “I did my online research. I’m the type who’s interested in early adoption, tech gadgets and stuff,” says the 40-year-old technical writer. “I wanted to try it because I’d tried so many other things that failed, or hadn’t worked long-term.”
With a BMI over 30, Davenport qualified for the drug. She signed up for an online program that guaranteed insurance coverage and started taking it in October 2021. At first, the side effects were mild, just a touch of nausea and diarrhea. And the results were impressive. She found it easy to feel satisfied with smaller portions and lost her cravings for sugar and highly processed foods. The weight fell off, roughly 5 pounds a week.
It turns out, that’s too much, too fast. Apovian and Velazquez say their patients lose more like 2 pounds each week, with careful monitoring.
By early December, Davenport’s side effects were ramping up. Because of shortages in lower dosages, the online program wasn’t able to adjust hers right away. She felt nauseated all the time, bad enough that brushing her teeth made her vomit and she had to force herself to eat. Some weeks, she managed less than 500 calories a day. Her sleep patterns became erratic. And then her depression, which medication had kept under control for years, spiraled.
“I remember sitting on the floor of my bathroom crying, thinking I’d rather carry the extra weight,” she says. “I used to take a lot of enjoyment from food, and I had none of that anymore. It was such a joyless experience at that point.”
Eventually, her dosage was reduced and the symptoms let up, but her primary care doctor encouraged her to stop. By the time she did, in March, she’d lost 55 pounds. So far, she’s gained back about 10.
More Than Just Weight Loss
Even though Davenport’s experience wasn’t a good one, with better monitoring, she’d be willing to try again. For one thing, seeing how easy it was to eat less with medical help helped to undo years of shame.
“Our culture treats obesity like a moral failing. I realized I’d been made to feel that way by doctors and programs – that I wasn’t doing enough,” she says. “This drug made me realize there are legit physiological things going on in my body, things that are often excluded from the conversation.”
Apovian and Velazquez say their patients regularly discover similar things.
“Obesity is not a disease of willpower. Medications are not the easy way out,” Velazquez says. “This is a chronic, relapsing medical condition, and because of that, we should treat it how we treat diabetes, high blood pressure, all these other conditions. We’d never hold back medication for individuals coming in with high blood pressure, tell them to work on willpower and withhold drugs they’d qualify for.”
TAIPEI, Taiwan, November 17, 2022 (Newswire.com)
– Masterfully blending yoga with fitness, an innovative new yoga studio called Den Yoga opens Nov. 20, in Taipei City, Taiwan. Founded by American Betty Ford, who gained prominence as a top yoga instructor and elite competitive bodybuilder, Den Yoga is designed to help people refresh, rediscover, and re-energize their lives.
“Den Yoga is available to anybody interested in reducing stress, gaining strength and flexibility, experiencing fewer aches and pains, losing weight, and improving their overall fitness,” said Betty, who was raised in Colorado, one of the healthiest states in the U.S. “I created Den Yoga to give people a welcoming, fun respite from their busy lives.”
Inspired by some of the finest American yoga studios, Den Yoga offers five signature classes that Betty describes as “firmly rooted in yoga and inspired by strength.” One of the studio’s most popular classes, named Den Booty, focuses on legs and glutes. “Our students love this lively class because we keep things moving, challenging and fun by incorporating yoga with resistance training,” she said. “For example, we’ve strategically added free weights, steppers, and my own creation, the BETTYBAND, to help people achieve faster results.”
Another core class is called Den Yoga Fit, designed to help students reap the benefits of full-body training. “We’ve made it a point to offer classes appealing to any age,” Betty explained. “Whether you’re just beginning your yoga journey, want to take your skills to the next level, or simply appreciate yoga at a slightly more relaxed pace with static stretches and yoga flow — we offer yoga instruction designed with you in mind.”
With 15 years of yoga experience in America, she patterned Den Yoga after some of her favorite studios in the U.S. “We’ve designed everything with our client’s comfort in mind,” said Betty, who also serves as a Lululemon Legacy Ambassador. “For example, our classrooms set the mood and enhance everybody’s yoga experience with dimly lit, color-enhanced lighting, infrared heated panels, and surround-sound music paired specifically to the movements we’re teaching.”
As one of the first hot power vinyasa studios in Taiwan, she says Den Yoga is a studio where everybody is welcome. “That’s why both English and Chinese are spoken here, so everybody can feel at home whether you are a local, foreigner, vacationing in Taiwan or traveling on business,” said Betty, who gained her business acumen by working for a Fortune 500 Company in America.
A highly successful, women-owned and operated business, Betty says there is nothing she loves more than helping people feel amazing. “I love teaching yoga, because I get to see people arrive often feeling stressed out by their day, and leave feeling fantastic,” she added. “Den Yoga is meant to uplift the spirit and remind people that can reach their goals.”
For more information about Den Yoga, go to https://den.yoga/ or call 886-958-098-587.
Nov. 10, 2022 — The prospect of being involved in a research program that might help her lose weight intrigued Emmalea Zummo. At 15, the self-assured, energetic teenager from Jeanette, PA, weighed 250 pounds – enough to be considered obese. The trial she learned about through her endocrinologist was for a drug called semaglutide.
Before joining the study, Emmalea had exhausted a reservoir of strategies.
“She had been doing a variety of exercise programs, was involved in countless sports and activities to stay active, as some of her early doctors said that would work,” Davina Zummo, Emmalea’s mother, says. “She counted calories, did a gluten-free diet, limited what she ate, when she ate, and how much.”
Emmalea cut out all snacks, junk food, and sweets, but nothing made a difference, Zummo says: “She felt defeated.”
The FDA last year approved semaglutide, which was developed initially as a treatment for type 2 diabetes, for weight loss in adults. But researchers wanted to know if the drug, which targets areas of the brain that regulate appetite, also could help adolescents lose weight. Emmalea was curious, too.
Although often teenagers can be judgmental of each other, Emmalea’s friends “were happy for me, constantly motivating and supportive,” she says.
Today, Emmalea, now nearly 18, says the medication helped her lose 75 pounds, giving a boost to the lifestyle and diet coaching she received throughout the 68-week study.
Parents of teens like Emmalea who struggle with obesity hear the same refrain: If their kids slash the sugar, eat healthy snacks instead of junk foods, and exercise regularly, the results will follow.
But for many overweight youths — as with adults — shedding pounds often proves frustrating. Gains come and go, despite good intentions.
Could medication help?
A new study in the New England Journal of Medicine shows that semaglutide can indeed lead to small but meaningful losses of excess bodyweight. Whether that’s enough to tip the scales, as it were, toward overall better health is unclear, but the findings have specialists in child health optimistic.
“There is a real need for safe and effective medications to treat obesity,” says Silva Arslanian, MD, a pediatric endocrinologist at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and a co-author of the new study.
“Typically, we make lifestyle recommendations: Eat more vegetables; don’t eat fried food; don’t drink soda,” Arslanian says. Unfortunately, she says, we live in a world where “it can be very hard to make those changes.”
Many experts agree that medication should be part of the conversation.
“It’s exciting to see this treatment becoming available. And the study results suggest few side effects, so the drug was safe and tolerable,” says Amanda Staiano, PhD, a researcher at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. “Although not approved yet by the FDA, semaglitude and other new medications are transforming obesity treatment for adolescents. It’s going to be an exciting time for treating obesity.”
Staiano stresses, however, that lifestyle and behavioral counseling are key for the success of any obesity treatment, including drugs like semaglutide.
Daniel Weghuber, MD, a pediatrician at Paracelsus Medical University in Salzburg, Austria, says that although obesity is “not an issue of lack of willpower, this drug seems to enable people who are living with obesity to adhere to the recommendations that they have been following for years and years but were not able to achieve the goal. I think that this is important. It enables people to achieve their goals.”
In the new study, 201 obese or overweight boys and girls between the ages of 12 and 18 received either once-weekly injections of semaglutide or sham shots. They also all received lifestyle interventions — counseling on healthy nutrition and physical activity — throughout the nearly 16-month study.
By the end of the study, 75% of the adolescents who received semaglutide had lost and kept off at least 5% of their excess body weight, compared to 17% of those who got the sham injections. On average, those treated with the drug lost 33.7 pounds, compared to an average of just 5.3 pounds in the other group.
Weghuber said the research suggests the combination of lifestyle changes and obesity medications “will open up a new chapter” for treating adolescents with obesity.
More than 340 million children and adolescents worldwideaged 5-19 were overweight or obese in 2016. In the United States, obesity affected 22.2% of 12- to 19-year-olds from 2017 to 2020, according to the CDC.
Obesity is linked with decreased life expectancy and higher risk of developing serious health problems such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, sleep apnea, and certain cancers. Teenagers with obesity are also more likely to have depression, anxiety, poor self-esteem, and other psychological issues.
While obesity in children has long been a public health concern, the problem has worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic, Melissa Ruiz, MD, with the Pediatric Diagnostic Center in Ventura, CA, says. Some of her patients who had been “chubby” pre-pandemic had weight gains of 20-30 pounds at post-pandemic clinic visits, she estimates.
Ruiz and other experts say parents should discard the notion that obesity is something children – or adults — are doing to themselves, or that they are failing their children by not keeping their weight in check.
“There are genetic components that figure into obesity, and we have to acknowledge that,” Ruiz says.
Parents should seek help from their child’s pediatrician. “If the pediatrician cannot help you, ask, ‘Where can I go?’ Say, ‘I understand that you might not be trained in this yet’ and ask for a reference for someone who can help,” Ruiz says.
But medication should not be considered an all-in remedy, according to one expert.
“Medication is a last resort, only after behavioral interventions fail and after exploring the range of behavioral strategies to weight loss, including changing dietary patterns such as timing and meal plan,” says Lydia Bazzano, MD, PhD, a nutrition researcher at the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine in New Orleans.
Medication and even surgery have a place, but only if patients have exhausted all the dietary and lifestyle options, Bazzano says. “You don’t want the adolescent to have a lifetime of medication. Medication should only be used to kickstart the child to the point he should be — and then maintain that weight,” she says.
Adolescent obesity is a very difficult subject to navigate, Bazzano adds. “You have to engage the entire family, and not just the child. It has to be at the level of the whole family, and that can be very challenging. If the entire family engages together, there can be a modest weight loss.”
And Bazzano says she’s not impressed with the weight loss seen in the latest study. A 5% drop in body weight is helpful, she says, but “that’s not enough of a decrease to say the child is out of the risky range.”
Staiano thinks experts need more information about semaglutide before they should start prescribing it to kids.
“We need to see long-term outcomes from chronic medication use and whether weight rebounds when adolescents stop using the medication,” she says.
“How long should the medication be prescribed? For the rest of their lives? How do we support patients who are able to lose such a significant amount of weight? How do we ensure these treatments — behavioral counseling, medications, and weight loss surgery — are accessible and financially within reach of families?”
Emmalea, who stopped taking semaglutide about a year ago, has maintained her weight thanks to concentrating on a well-balanced diet and exercise. While she says she’s pleased with her progress and “feels comfortable in my own skin,” she doesn’t consider her current weight of 171 pounds to be the end zone. “I’d like to be somewhere between 145-150,” says the 5’4” high school senior.
Still, she says, “I don’t strictly monitor myself because thinking of food in a negative way is not healthy and can actually lead to worsening a food disorder.”
When she embarked on the study, she wasn’t sure it would be effective for her. But because of her interest in medicine and research, she says, she wanted to be involved: “I thought that if it didn’t help me, at least it might others.”
As much as we look forward to holiday parties and dinners, many of us suspect we’ll overindulge and gain weight.
Indeed, the average American eats and drinks 4,500 calories and 229 grams fat (as much as in 3 sticks of butter) on a traditional Thanksgiving day? Studies show that the average American gains 1 pound during the winter holiday season. Year after year, they can add up, and contribute to overweight or obesity later in life.
Although we may not all gain weight over the holidays, there is no question we tend to eat and drink more — and exercise less. With the hustle and bustle of holiday shopping, parties and festive traditions, healthy eating and exercise are usually the first things to go.
No one wants to be on a strict diet during the holidays. We want to enjoy the bounty of traditional favorite foods. How can you enjoy the holidays without gaining weight? Dietitians say it’s not so hard, with a little planning.
First, change your mindset. If you’ve been trying to lose weight, when mid-November rolls around, shift your focus from weight loss to weight maintenance. “The holiday season is tough enough to just maintain your weight let alone try to lose weight. So do yourself a favor,” says Joan Salge Blake, MS, RD, Boston University clinical assistant professor. “Allow yourself a few treats and set your goal on weight maintenance so you can enjoy the holiday foods and wait until the New Year to get back on your weight loss plan.”
Second, get strategic with calories. If you are the host of dinners and parties, trim calories wherever you can without compromising tradition or flavor. You’ll help everyone enjoy the bountiful food without unneeded calories. Keep in mind that it is much harder to lose weight than it is not to gain it in the first place.
Here are 10 tips to lighten up your holiday meals.
1. Shop Smart for Healthy Holidays
Plan your menu to include plenty of fruits, vegetables, lean meats, seafood, whole grains, and low-fat dairy.
Consult the nutrition label to choose foods rich in nutrients but lower in fat, calories, and sugar.
To shave calories, go easy when adding nuts, cheese, cream sauces, gravy, butter, and whipped cream.
2. Start the Party Light
Most appetizers tend to be loaded with calories. And it is so easy to overeat them before the meal.
Make it easier on your guests by offering light and satisfying appetizers. For delicious yet healthy appetizers, serve shrimp cocktails, whole-grain crackers with reduced-fat cheese, vegetables with a low-fat yogurt dip, or fresh fruit skewers.
3. Harness the Diet Power of Produce
Add more simple vegetable and fruit dishes to your menu instead of heavy dishes with sauces. Your guests will fill up on healthy fiber without lots of extra calories.
For example, green bean almandine with a squeeze of lemon is healthier than traditional green bean casserole. Simple peas or corn are healthier than creamed peas or corn. But if you must have casserole, use low-fat soup, increase the veggies, and top it with a crunchy whole-grain cereal instead of fried onions.
4. Go Frozen in Winter
Fresh is usually the best when fruits and vegetables are in season. But when prices are higher in winter, head to the frozen food aisle.
“Frozen fruits and vegetables are usually less expensive and can be more nutritious because they are picked at their peak ripeness and frozen immediately” says Sarah Krieger, RD. Buy frozen produce in bags, use only what you need, and save more by not wasting spoiled produce.
Canned foods can also be a healthy option. Read the nutrition labels to find fruits and vegetables with less added sodium and sugar, Krieger says. Reduce the sodium and sugar solutions even more by rinsing the vegetable or fruit under cold water before you cook.
5. Respect Special Requests
As you plan your holiday menu, ask if guests have any food preferences or intolerances. For example, a dear friend may be lactose intolerant. A favorite cousin may have cut red meat from his diet.
You can’t please everyone. But you can include a wide variety of healthy foods. Then, your guests can pick and choose, filling their plate with a satisfying meal no matter their food issue.
6. Shave Calories With Simple Swaps
Create healthier versions of your holiday favorites by shaving calories wherever you can.
“Simple swaps of lower-fat ingredients are easy ways to save calories — and no one will even notice the difference” says Cheryl Forberg, RD.
Use chicken stock, fat-free yogurt, light cream cheese, and low-fat milk in place of high-fat ingredients. Substitute non-fat yogurt or applesauce for oil in baked goods.
7. Roast or Grill for Rich Flavor With Fewer Calories
Roasting or grilling meat, seafood, vegetables, and potatoes, is a simple, low-calorie cooking style that brings out the natural sweetness and flavor in foods.
Roasted sweet potatoes with a sprinkle of cinnamon sugar and a spritz of butter spray are delicious substitutes for the traditional calorie-laden casserole.
Grilled pork chops served with a mango salsa are great to replace pork chops slathered in mushroom cream.
8. Serve Healthier Desserts
For dessert, try chocolate-dipped strawberries for a colorful and delicious finale.
If you want to offer pie, choose the healthier pumpkin pie. Make it with non-fat evaporated milk. Top it with fat-free whipped topping.
9. Spritz Your Drinks
Eggnog and other holiday beverages can add a huge number of calories. Offer your guests plenty of low-cal beverages such as diet soda, sparkling water, or a low-calorie punch.
Alcohol releases inhibitions and can increase hunger. That’s a combination that can lead to eating more than you planned. So do yourself and guests a favor: Offer simple alcohol choices such as wine and beer without the heavy cocktail mixers. And make sure you have mocktails or other no-alcohol options for those who don’t drink.
10. Plan and Scan to Avoid Holiday Weight Gain
“In anticipation that you will be eating and drinking more than usual, try to trim your calories and make sure you fit in fitness everyday so you can enjoy a ‘controlled’ feast without the guilt” says Joan Salge Blake, MS, RD, clinical assistant professor at Boston University.
“Scan the buffet and fill your plate with foods that are simply prepared, without sauces or fried, sit down and take your time to taste and savor every bite,” she says. Resist the urge to go back for more by waiting at least 20 minutes for your brain to register that you are comfortably full. If you are still hungry, eat more vegetables and drink water.
Remember, the holidays are marked with many traditions, but the real meaning is about spending time with family and friends.
If you keep these tips in mind, you’ll get through the holidays without gaining a pound. And if you do splurge, just get right back to normal eating and exercising, and try to do make better choices at the next party.
I get multiple emails and messages per day asking:
“Steve, what should I do for a workout?”
Well, partner, today is your lucky day.
I’m gonna help build you a custom workout program, step-by-step!
After all, a workout should be developed around a person’s age, goals, nutritional strategy, free time, etc.
Not only that, but it’s easy to overcomplicate this process – there are an infinite number of exercises, sets, reps, and programs to choose from.
Now, if you’re somebody that wants to skip all of that, and JUST want to be told what exactly to do:
We build customized workouts for our Online Coaching Clientsand would love to have you. We get to know your story and struggles, your goals, and your lifestyle, and develop a workout plan that fits your schedule.
Now, if you’re more of a “figure this stuff out on my own” kind of person – we’re going to dig into how to build your own workout plan today!
We’ve also created a free resource for folks who want to build their own workout but would love some more specific direction and instruction.
You can download our free guide, Strength Training 101: Everything You Need to Know, which covers all of this stuff in a single guide:
Download our comprehensive guide
Everything you need to know about getting strong.
Workout routines for bodyweight AND weight training.
How to find the right gym and train properly in one.
OKAY! Are you ready to start building your own routine and want to know how it’s done?
As Coach Staci lays out in the video above, we need to answer a few key questions when designing a workout:
QUESTION 1: What are your goals?
Whatever your goals are, it’s good to write them down and be aware of what you’re trying to accomplish.
These goals will shape HOW you build your workout.
An effective way to create goals is by using the SMART method, which stands for specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely.[1]
Specific – Your goals must specifically state what is to be accomplished. They must be clear and easy to understand.
Measurable – Your goals must be measurable so you can tell if you’re making progress or not. For example, I want to gain 5 pounds of muscle. To track your progress you will need body composition equipment that is designed to assess your fat and muscle mass.
Attainable – Your goals should be realistically attainable. Remember, a realistic amount of muscle mass to gain per week is about 0.5 pounds. For example, gaining 5 pounds of muscle should realistically take about 10 weeks
Relevant – Your goals must be relevant to your particular interests, needs, likes/dislikes, and abilities. Another thing to remember is that your goals need to be generated by you and you alone!
Timely – Your goals must have a timeline for completion. If your goal is to gain 5 pounds of muscle then a reasonable end-point should be at minimum 10 weeks.
A SMART goal is a good goal.
QUESTION 2: How much time can you devote to exercise?
If you can do an hour a day, that’s fantastic.
But maybe you have a wife or husband, three kids, a dog, two jobs, and no robot butler…
…then maybe you only have thirty minutes, twice a week.
That’s fine too!
Also, break up your workout! According to the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), if you accumulate three 10-minute bouts of exercise throughout the day to total 30-minutes of exercise, then that is as effective as someone who does one 30-minute bout of exercise.[2]
Now, no matter how much time you have, developing the most efficient workout is crucial.
Why spend two hours in a gym when you can get just as much accomplished in 30 minutes, right?
So whether you are building muscle or looking to lose weight, a strength training workout will get you the results you’re after (when combined with the right eating strategy!)
While we’re talking about time, let me quickly mention something important:
As we mention in that guide, here are some realistic timeframes for weight loss or muscle gain:[3]
If you are trying to lose weight it is recommended that you seek a calorie deficit by consuming 250-500 fewer calories per day below your typical calorie intake. This will result in a realistic weight loss goal of 1-2 pounds per week
If you’re trying to gain muscle mass, then it is recommended that you seek a calorie surplus by consuming 250-500 additional calories above your typical calorie intake. This will result in a realistic gain in lean muscle mass of about 0.5 pounds per week.
Unless you’ve been strength training for years and know what you’re doing, we recommend that you pick a full-body routine that you can do 2-3 times a week.
You want a workout routine that has at least one exercise for your:
Quads (front of your legs).
Butt and hamstrings (back of your legs).
Chest, shoulders, and triceps: (“push” muscles).
Back, biceps, and grip ( “pull” muscles).
Core (abdominals and lower back).
I have a trick for you: by targeting compound movements that recruit multiple muscles at the same time, you can build a full-body routine that uses only four or five exercises.
How’s THAT for efficiency!?!
A compound exercise would be the yin to the yang of the isolation exercise.
Think of a push-up (compound):
Compared to bicep curls through a machine (isolation):
Compound exercises have been found to result in improvements in aerobic endurance, muscular fitness, and flexibility, since you’re recruiting all sorts of muscle groups at once.[5]
Where an isolation exercise would be a single-joint movement involving only one single muscle group, like the biceps, in our example above.
I will say, there is a time and place for implementing compound and isolation exercises.
You don’t need to make things more complicated than this!
(Not that we humans have a tendency to overcomplicate things to the point of paralysis and inaction…)
Ahem.
If you’re not sure how to do any of the movements above, click on their links for thorough write-ups and video demonstrations.
Pick one exercise from EACH category above, specifically ones that scare you the least, and that will be your workout every other day for the next week.
Get really good at these basic movements and focus on getting stronger each week (I’ll cover how below).
If you get really strong at squats, deadlifts, pull-ups, and push-ups, you will build an incredible physique to be proud of.
Plus, building strength with these exercises will also help in other areas such as improving your performance in sports, decreasing your risk of chronic diseases (e.g., CVD) and premature mortality (an early death).[6]
*mic drop*
**picks up mic**
Then, once you get confident in those movements, feel free to add some variety.
Why?
If you do the same exact routine, three days a week, for months and months, you might get bored, and start slacking…
So if you find yourself getting bored, feel free to stick with the above ‘formula,’ but change the ingredients:
If you hit a plateau or find yourself getting bored, pick a different exercise to improve so you’ll stay challenged, and you’ll actually DO the workout!
I know it’s really easy to overcomplicate this process as there’s an infinite number of exercises, sets, reps, and programs to choose from.
And yes, we have a solution for people that JUST want to be told what exactly to do: our uber-popular 1-on-1 coaching program pairs you with your own Nerd Fitness Coach who will get to know you, your goals, and your lifestyle, and develop a workout plan that’s specific to not only your body, but also to your schedule and life:
If you can do more than 15 reps without much of a challenge, consider increasing the weight or the difficulty of the movement. This is true for things like lunges, bodyweight squats, push-ups, pull-ups, etc.
There are some other generally accepted ‘rules’ – as pointed out in Starting Strength – about how to determine how many reps you should target per set, based on your goals:
Reps in the 1-5 range build super dense muscle and strength (called myofibrillar hypertrophy).
Reps in the 6-12 range build a somewhat equal amount of muscular strength and muscular size (this is called sarcoplasmic hypertrophy).
Reps in the 12+ range build muscular endurance.
A 2015 study [10] called into question the best rep strategy for building muscle or size:
It appears that high-intensity resistance (sets of 3-5 reps) training stimulates greater improvements in some measures of strength and hypertrophy in resistance-trained men during a short-term training period [compared to sets of 8-10 reps].
What this means: Do not freak yourself out by worrying if you should do 4 sets or 5 sets of 8 reps or 10 reps.
Our advice would be to START with lighter weight and more reps as you learn the movement, and then decide if you want to stay at higher reps and lower weight or vice versa.
You do you, because either way will get you results!
The only thing you need to worry about: get stronger the next time you do that movement.
Either pick up a heavier weight, or do 1 more repetition than last time.
“JUST GIVE ME THE ANSWER!”
Keep your TOTAL (all exercises combined) workout number of sets for all exercises in the 15-25 set range, with 8-10 reps per set:
5 exercises total, each with 4 “work sets” is a good start.
Remember, the most important part is to get started – you’ll learn how your body responds and you can adapt as you go.
What you DON’T need to do: multiple exercises for each body part with 10 sets.
This will result in significant fatigue during your workout increasing your risk for sustaining an injury. It can also result in overtraining, in which you will experience a decrease in performance and plateauing (will not see muscular improvements).[11]
So calm down you eager beaver.
A BIG CAVEAT:How you eat will determine if you get bigger or stronger. Nutrition is 80-90% of the equation. So pick a range that feels good, and then focus on nutrition.
And if you don’t want to figure any of this out and just want to be told exactly how what exercises, sets, and reps to do, our online coaches can take care of that for you.
Adequate rest in-between sets will allow your body to regenerate energy, so you can execute the next set of reps with good form and technique, therefore, decreasing your risk of injury.
I’ll provide some guidelines for how long to rest based on how heavy you’re lifting (not rules set in stone!):
1-3 Reps (lifting heavy for strength/power): Rest for 3 to 5 minutes between sets.
4-7 Reps (lifting for strength): Rest for 2 to 3 minutes between sets.
8-12 Reps (lifting for size/strength): Rest for 1 to 2 minutes between sets.
13 Reps+ (lifting for endurance): Rest long enough to recover to allow you to do the next long-ass set!
If you need more or less rest than the above recommendations, that’s fine.[13]
Do the best you can, record how long it takes you to rest between sets, and try to rest for shorter periods in the future.
Your body will adjust as you get stronger and healthier!
If you want more information on how much you should lift, how many reps, and when to scale certain movements or adjust your workout, check out our Strength 101: Everything You Need to Know.
It’s free when you join the Rebellion with your email in the box below:
Download our comprehensive guide
Everything you need to know about getting strong.
Workout routines for bodyweight AND weight training.
How to find the right gym and train properly in one.
The simple-to-learn but tough-to-implement answer:
Lift enough so that you can get through the set, but not too much that you have NO fuel left in the tank at the end.
How do you determine how much that is?
Trial and error.
ALWAYS err on the side of “too light” versus “too heavy” when starting out.
It’s better to say “I bet I could have done more!” instead of “that was too much, and now I need to go to the hospital!”
Plus, when you start working out, you’re actually programming your neuromuscular systems to do the movement correctly.[14] You can’t rush this, so it’s best not to start off too heavy.[15]
If a person can do two reps (or more) over their set goal, then they should increase the load.
How much should you increase weight by?
For less trained people (i.e., beginners), it is recommended that for upper body exercises you increase the load by 2 – 5 pounds and by 5 – 10 pounds for lower body exercises.
For more trained people (i.e., advanced), it is recommended that for upper body exercises you increase the load by 5 – 10 pounds or more and by 10 – 15 pounds or more for lower body exercises
I will say, if you’re doing exercises with just your body weight, you need to make each exercise more difficult as you get in shape – once you get past 20 reps for a particular exercise and you’re not gassed, it’s time to mix things up.
20 bodyweight squats too easy? Hold some weights high above your head as you do the next set. Eventually, you can scale up to do exercises like the pistol squat:
Longer answer: If you’re doing 15-25 sets of total exercise (3-5 sets for your 5 exercises), you should be able to get everything done within that 45-minute block.[17]
Now, factor in a five or ten-minute warm-up, and then some stretching afterward, and the workout can go a little bit longer.[18]
If you can go for over an hour and you’re not completely worn out, try increasing the intensity.
You’re getting a cardiovascular workout by consistently moving from exercise to exercise.
You’re exercising different muscles back to back, giving each muscle group a chance to recover, but in a condensed amount of time. Efficiency for the win!
If you’re familiar with CrossFit, many of the workouts are built on circuit principles.
This is also the most effective way to make you involuntarily swear at inanimate objects because you’re so tired and beat up.
We get this question quite a bit, usually from overeager beavers who decide they are going to go from “sitting on the couch watching The Office on repeat” to “exercising 7 days per week.”
I would advise something different.
I mean you can still watch The Office…
…but you don’t need to be training 7 days a week!
We don’t want you burning out quickly and falling back to square one, a concern we mention in our guide “How Often Should I Work Out?“
Just pick “exercise” that’s fun for you and that won’t exhaust your muscles.[26][[26]]However, don’t forget that recovery is key to preventing injuries and allowing the body to rebuild itself after the stress of exercise. If you are looking to exercise on your off days we suggest that you cross-train. Cross-training involves engaging in a training routine or exercises that are different from what you normally would do. For example, if you always run for cardio, we would suggest that you change things up and go on the elliptical or bike. This allows you to stay active on your off days while also allowing the muscles that are always stressed from running to rest and recuperate. (Haff G, Triplett NT. (2016). Essentials of strength training and conditioning. Fourth edition. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics).[[25]]
Also, here’s a lifehack: Program your workouts INTO your Google calendar (or Outlook).
You’re much more likely to do a workout that has been planned for in your work week!
Alternatively, you can hire a coach to program your workouts for you, so every day you know exactly what you need to do!
If you want to build from scratch, great! Let’s break it down into easy chunks with this recap:
ALWAYS warm up – 5-10 minutes on a bike, rowing machine, jumping jacks, run up and down your stairs, etc. Get the blood flowing and your muscles warm.[29]
Pick one exercise for each big muscle group – quads, butt and hamstrings, push, pull, and core.[30]
Do 3-5 sets for each exercise.
Do 5-10 reps per set for each exercise.
Determine how many reps and how long you’ll wait between sets for each exercise. Keep it simple. 60 seconds.[31]
Increase your efficiency and work your heart by doing supersets or circuits. This results in a higher EPOC meaning greater caloric expenditure and weight loss!
Give yourself permission to mess up, learn a little, and keep improving as you train more regularly!
More often than not, when I email people back and tell them how to build their own workout, they generally respond with:
“Steve, can’t you just TELL me what to do? I’m afraid of building a crappy workout.”
Why we built THREE options for people like that:
1) If you are somebody that wants to know they are following a program that is tailor-made for their life and situation and goals, check out our Online Coaching Program.
You’ll work with our certified NF instructors who will get to know you better than you know yourself and program your workouts and nutrition for you.
2) Exercising at home and need a plan to follow? Check out Nerd Fitness Journey!
Our fun habit-building app helps you exercise more frequently, eat healthier, and level up your life (literally). Plus, NF Journey will build a workout for you!
Try your free trial right here:
3) Join the Rebellion (our free community) and I’ll send you free guides, workouts, and worksheets that you can read at your leisure.
We need good people like you!
Download our comprehensive guide
Everything you need to know about getting strong.
Workout routines for bodyweight AND weight training.
How to find the right gym and train properly in one.
I certainly encourage you to try and build your own workout routine.
It can really help you develop a sense of excitement and pride when you start to get in shape based on your workout!
If you have more questions, or have a workout program you’re really proud of, share it in the comments below!
-Steve
PS: Check out the rest of our beginner content. I promise, it kicks ass 🙂
Want to get strong like these LEGO lifters but don’t how to start?
In this Beginner’s Guide to Strength Training (part of our Strength 101 series), you’ll have both the confidence to start getting strong with resistance training AND a plan to follow.
These are the exact strategies we use with our Online Coaching Clients to help them start strength training, and I’m excited to cover everything you need.
We’ll be digging into the following:
By the way, we’ve combined this article along with the rest of our strength articles into a “Strength Training 101: Everything You Need to Know” guide.
Grab it free when you join the Rebellion by putting your email in the box below.
Download our comprehensive guide
Everything you need to know about getting strong.
Workout routines for bodyweight AND weight training.
How to find the right gym and train properly in one.
Welcome to the first day of the rest of your life.
You’ll look back years from now and thank “Past You” for starting strength training today.
And I promise, you WILL strength train today.
After all, strength training or resistance training doesn’t need to be scary or overcomplicated!
Strength training really comes down to two things:
#1) Movement of any weight against “resistance”(including your body weight) – Doing ANY exercise that pushes your muscles outside of their comfort zone, forcing them to rebuild stronger to prepare for the next challenge.
#2) Progressive overload: doing slightly more than last time (lift heavier weight or do 1 more rep) consistently. Your muscles will constantly have to adapt and rebuild themselves. These microscopic tears (that don’t hurt) force your muscles to go through hypertrophy, meaning they grow bigger and stronger so they can meet the demands of the exercise.[1]
Coach Jim explains the ins and outs of progressive overload in this video:
That’s all there is to it:do some resistance training and attempt to make it more and more challenging, and you’ll grow stronger.[2]
This means if you drop down and do ONE knee push-up right now, technically you’ve done a strength training workout.
It also means if you then do TWO knee push-ups tomorrow, then you are officially following a strength training routine.
In other words…
Now, there are many different “strength training” and “resistance training” paths.
Like a “skill tree” in a video game (with branching paths and progressions), you can progress up one path, and mix and match movements from others depending on the situation.
These paths depend on your goals and what equipment you have available to you.
Let’s chat about a few different types of strength training.
#1) BODYWEIGHT TRAINING
Bodyweight training is simply doing an exercise in which your own body is the “weight” you are “lifting.”
Duh.
This is the BEST place for anybody – regardless of weight or age – to start their strength training journey.
Why is this the best place to start? Two big reasons:
A) You always have your body with you (unless you are a ghost, in which case, this is awkward). This means you can work out ANYWHERE with bodyweight training:
B) Using your body for resistance training is the most “human” thing ever! By learning to push and pull and hang and squat and lunge, you are doing what your body is literally designed to do.
By getting strong with bodyweight movements, you’re making yourself antifragile and less injury-prone.
Now, it’s SCIENCE TIME!
While learning the movements with bodyweight exercises, you are allowing for proper communication to develop between your neuromuscular systems.
More efficient communication between your neuromuscular systems will result in something known as “proper motor unit recruitment.”
You may be asking yourself: what is a motor unit?
That’s okay because I was asking myself this same question.
A motor unit is a single motor neuron and the muscle fibers it innervates.
You can think of two different types of motor units:[3]
We all have small motor units, meaning that a single motor neuron innervates relatively few muscle fibers, and these smaller motor units are good for precise and detailed movements (e.g., moving your fingers).
We all also have large motor units, meaning that a single motor neuron innervates hundreds of muscle fibers, and these larger motor units are good for generating a lot of force (e.g., getting larger muscle groups like the quads to generate a lot of force to help in sprinting).
When you start strength training, you really are helping your muscles communicate bettertogether.[4] This is why we recommend starting with bodyweight exercises, to help start this process.
However, bodyweight training isn’t as easy to ‘scale’ the difficulty as some of the other strength training methods (“put more weight on barbell”), but you can get REALLY strong with just bodyweight training.
For example, you can start with knee push-ups, then go to regular push-ups, then elevated push-ups, then even up to things like handstands and handstand push-ups.
You just have to know HOW and WHEN to scale up (we can help there too).
#2) DUMBBELL TRAINING
Dumbbells are a great first step into the world of weight training and strength training:
Most gyms will have dumbbells, even if it’s a basic gym in your apartment complex.
A set of dumbbells doesn’t take up a lot of room, which means you can have a pair at home without a large footprint.
Dumbbells make it easy to add difficulty to a bodyweight movement: holding dumbbells while doing lunges, for example.
Dumbbell exercises can be less intimidating than barbell training for some, and are a step towards barbell training.
Dumbbells have an added stabilization challenge,[4] and will point out muscle imbalances pretty easily (“oh my right arm is stronger than my left arm.”).
Dumbbells allow for single-arm and single-leg exercises to be performed. This can allow you to strengthen any muscle imbalances and can come in handy especially after an injury.
You can scale easily. Once the 10-pound weights become too easy, pick up the 15-pound ones!
#3) KETTLEBELL TRAINING
A kettlebell is essentially a cannonball with a handle on it. They come in any weight imaginable, don’t take up a lot of room, and can be used in dozens of ways for a great compact workout.
Our 20-minute kettlebell workout has 8 simple exercises you can do with just one weight.
Although there are “adjustable kettlebells,” you’ll most likely be working with a single kettlebell, and then adjusting your movements for “progressive overload” (making the workout slightly more difficult each time).
If you are a member of a gym, they’ll probably have multiple kettlebells that you can use to level up.
#4) BARBELL TRAINING
Regardless of sex or gender age, if your goal is to get strong quickly, use 20 seconds of courage and get comfortable training with a barbell (I’ll help you, I promise):
“Progressive overload” is easy – you simply add weights to either side of the bar, allowing you to progressively lift more and more weight each week.
It’s much easier to go heavy safely – especially for lower body movements like the squat and the deadlift.
The biggest downside to barbell training is that in order to train at home, you need to have purchased a squat rack, a barbell, a bench, and enough weights for your house or garage (which can be an expensive investment, especially when starting out!).
Not sure which path to pick? You’re not alone – this stuff can be overwhelming. Check out our 1-on-1 Coaching Program. We get to know you and your goals, will check your form via video, and make adjustments based on your progress!
So, what’s the best workout program to start as a beginner?
Realistically, it’s the one that you will ACTUALLY do.
Barbell training might be optimal in terms of building pure strength quickly, but if you don’t see yourself getting to the gym regularly – or you’re too self-conscious to enter the free weight section (for now) – no problem!
Conversely, bodyweight training might seem convenient and easy to start now, but if you can’t motivate yourself to work out at home, you might be better off joining a gym.[6]
So let’s get you a workout program!
As we cover in our “How to Find the Perfect Workout Plan (for you)”: MOST beginners will be best served by following a “full-body” or “total body” routine, 2 to 3 times per week, with a day of rest in between each workout.[7]
This full-body workout will have 4-5 big compound movements.
A compound movement is an exercise that recruits LOTS of muscles simultaneously and forces your body to work in unison. These compound exercises are considered multi-joint exercises meaning that they involve more than a single muscle group.[8]
An example would be the barbell squat, which recruits every muscle in your core, butt, and legs to work together to lift the weight.
This is WAY more efficient – and effective at building pure strength – than doing 5 different isolated leg exercises.[9]
Why do 5 exercises when 1 exercise will get you better results in 20% of the time?
To answer your next question, let me tell you about how many sets and reps you should do as a beginner!
Reps in the 1-5 range build super dense muscle and strength.
Reps in the 6-12 range build equal amounts of muscular power, strength, and size.
Reps in the 12+ range primarily build muscular endurance and size and also cardiovascular health.[10]
If you want more, Coach Jim breaks down different set and rep ranges in this video:
Many beginner strength programs will encourage you to keep things simple, doing just 5 sets of 5 reps for each exercise.
Personally, I encourage people to aim for a weight that they can lift for 8-10 reps. This gives you a chance to really work on your form and lift safely!
The max lifts will come later, my friend. You gotta learn to walk before you can run!
If your main goal is to get stronger and/or put on muscle, following a more traditional, pure-strength-style gym workout is going to get you there faster.
TRUTH BOMB: ANY strength training workout will help you reach nearly any goal provided you do two things:
Increase the difficulty of your workouts. This is that “progressive overload” stuff we were talking about earlier. Doing 1 more bodyweight squat, lifting 5 more pounds, or completing your circuit 10 seconds faster than last workout. By forcing your body to constantly adapt, your muscles will never get complacent and have to keep burning extra calories and rebuilding themselves stronger.
Depending on your current situation, and how quickly you’re looking to cut through the “trial and error” and get expert guidance, I might have an interesting solution for you.
We have a pretty killer 1-on-1 Online Coaching Program here at Nerd Fitness. You’ll work with a coach that will build a workout program for your body type and goals, check your form to make sure you’re doing them safety, and even help plan out your nutrition too.
“Alright Staci, are there any ‘out of the box’ beginner workout programs I can start following now?”
Yup! Let me share with you some of our suggestions:
Here are 5 resistance training workouts you can follow TODAY. Pick the level that you feel most comfortable with, and then level up when you feel ready:
#1) BEGINNER BODYWEIGHT WORKOUT:
Our Beginner Bodyweight Workout has a variety of rep ranges to promote endurance, strength, and cardiovascular health.
Complete one set of each exercise and then moving directly to the next exercise:
Otherwise, you can move onto weight training when you feel comfortable!
#2A) BEGINNER NERD FITNESS DUMBBELL WORKOUT
If you are just getting started with dumbbells and you’re looking for a beginner workout program to follow, this is our Level 3 Gym Workout, “Dumbbell Division”:
10 goblet squats
10 push-ups
10 dumbbell rows per side
I knew you’d ask, so here is a Goblet Squat video explanation (from Nerd Fitness Prime):
So, probably not in a phone booth or a closet or a bathroom stall. But other than that, pretty much anywhere else.
Complete 3 Kettlebell Workout Circuits:
8 Halos (each side)
10 Goblet Squats
8 Overhead Presses (each side)
15 Kettlebell Swings
8 Bent Over Rows (each side)
6 Front Rack Reverse Lunge (per side)
#3) BARBELL TRAINING: 2 DAY WORKOUT SPLIT
As we cover in our “How to Train in a Gym” guide (where we take you from “lost sheep” to “barbell badass”), this routine is a much more focused weight training, strength-building workout that gets your feet wet with barbell training. Click on ANY exercise to learn how to do it properly.
NF BEGINNER BARBELL STRENGTH WORKOUT: DAY A
Do 3 rounds of:
NF BEGINNER BARBELL STRENGTH WORKOUT: DAY B
Do 3 rounds of:
WHAT ARE SOME OTHER POPULAR STRENGTH TRAINING PROGRAMS?
#1) “Starting Strength” is considered the gold standard beginner barbell weight training program by many. We highly recommend you pick up the actual book if you are serious about barbell training – it’s one of the most important training books you can ever read.
#2) Strong Lifts 5X5:A solid workout program that starts you out very slow, with just the barbell, and helps you master form before you get too heavy. It also keeps things VERY easy with “do 5×5.” Strong Lifts has been around for a long time and is a solid program.
#3) Jim Wendler’s 5/3/1: This program allows you a little more freedom to do exercises that you enjoy, or work on personal weaknesses, because you choose some of the assistance work.
Note: You can modify any of the barbell training programs to be done with dumbbells, if that’s what you have at home!
Lastly, you can always write your own workout plan! I wrote my own workouts for a decade and it taught me a LOT about training and health.
We do have our own 1-on-1 Online Coaching Program where you’ll work with a coach that will build a strength training workout program for your body type and goals, check your form on each exercise via video, and even help you plan out your nutrition too.
The simple-to-learn but tough-to-implement answer: lift enough so that you can get through the set, but not too much that you have NO fuel left in the tank at the end.
And then, try to lift sliiiightly more than last time.
Here are two common questions on strength training:
#1) How much weight should I start with?
If you are using dumbbells or a kettlebell, always err on the side of “too light” versus “too heavy.” You want to learn the movement correctly and build correct form.
If you are training with a barbell, ALWAYS start with JUST the bar, no matter the exercise (By the way, a standard barbell weighs 45 pounds).
#2) How fast should I add weight to the bar?
Here’s what we teach all of our coaching clients: add the minimum amount of weight each week you can, even if you THINK you can lift more. It’s better to finish a workout full of momentum and say “I can do more!” than defeated and saying “that was too much, crapola.”
Think of it this way, even if you are adding just 5 pounds per week to the bar, within a year you would be lifting 300+ pounds!
The National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA) recommends a similar approach:[14]
For less trained people (i.e., beginners), it is recommended that for upper body exercises you increase the load by 2 – 5 pounds and by 5 – 10 pounds for lower body exercises.
For more trained people (i.e., advanced), it is recommended that for upper body exercises you increase the load by 5 – 10 pounds or more and by 10 – 15 pounds or more for lower body exercises.
So go SLOW. Even slower than the NSCA recommends if needed.
Team NF’s Steve even bought little half-pound weights and increases many of his lifts by just 1 pound per week. It’s a big part of how he transformed (jokingly) from Steve Rogers to Captain America.
And if you are looking for this content in easily digestible form, make sure you download our free Strength 101 Guide when you join the Rebellion below:
Download our comprehensive guide
Everything you need to know about getting strong.
Workout routines for bodyweight AND weight training.
How to find the right gym and train properly in one.
If you’re new to all this “strength training” stuff, hopping into a program and going from zero to sixty might be a recipe for failure.
Instead, be patient, and take the time to learn these movements first.
I’m going to share with you the 9 best strength training exercises that every beginner should master (scroll down for full video and explanations!):
1. Push-up: uses every push muscle in your body (chest, shoulders, triceps)
2. Bodyweight squat: uses every muscle in the lower body (quads, hamstrings, glutes, core)
3. Bodyweight row: works every “pull” muscle and helps prepare you for a pull-up!
4. Pull-up or chin-up: the best “pull” exercise in history! Everybody should have a goal to get their first pull-up.
5. Bodyweight dip: advanced “push” movement that targets your push muscles (chest, shoulders, triceps) in a different way than push-ups.
6. Barbell squat: the best bang for your buck on muscle building. recruits nearly every push muscle in your whole body, and great core workout.
7. Barbell deadlift: the favorite exercise of every coach at Nerd Fitness. Uses every “pull,” leg, and core muscle in your body.
8. Barbell benchpress: as basic and powerful as they come. Uses every “push” movement in your upper body and can get you strong as heck!
9. Barbell press: press the bar above your head! Targets shoulders and triceps more than the chest.
All of the exercises listed above are considered functional (closed-chain) exercises. That means they relate to our everyday movements and can be used to predict our success in sports, recreational and occupational activities, and activities of daily living.[15]
When attempting all of these above-listed exercises, aim to master the movement and perform the exercise through its entire range of motion (ROM).
Why?
Because it will decrease your risk for injury, activate all of the appropriate muscle groups, and result in greater muscle hypertrophy.[16]
Let’s go over these now.
Click on any of these exercises to get a FULL explanation of the movement, step-by-step:
1) The Push-Up: The best exercise you could ever do for yourself when it comes to using your bodyweight for push muscles (your chest, shoulders, and triceps):
2) The Bodyweight Squat: This exercise serves a dual purpose: it is the foundation for building strength AND helps build proper mobility. If you are going to ever do barbell squats, you need to work on hitting proper depth with a bodyweight squat first!
3) The Inverted Bodyweight Row: Until you can get your first pull-up or chin-up, these exercises are GREAT to start building your pull-muscle strength: your back, biceps, and forearms.
4) The Pull-Up and Chin-Up: Once you can support your bodyweight above the bar, the world becomes your playground. No strength training routine should be without pull-up or chin-up work! (Click here if you can’t do a pull-up or chin-up yet?)
5) The Bodyweight Dip: As you start to get stronger with push-ups and need to find a way to increase the challenge, consider doing dips – warning: these are very advanced, but incredible strength building exercises.
And now we’re into the best weight training exercises:
6) The Barbell Squat: Probably the best exercise when it comes to building strength and muscle throughout your whole body. It also burns crazy calories and makes life better. This is a MUST:
7) The Barbell Deadlift: Maybe the best exercise of all time. Actually no, it IS the best exercise of all time. It’s certainly the most primal: “pick the weight up off the ground. Done.”
This is a very technical lift, so make sure you read our article on how to do it with proper form:
8) The Barbell Press: Press a barbell above your head. This recruits all of the muscles in your chest, shoulders, and arms in order for you to lift the weight over your head.
As a bonus, you need to really flex and brace your core, which gets those muscles working too.
9) The Barbell Bench Press. Lie on a bench, and lower a barbell until it almost touches your chest. Pause, and press it back up towards the sky. Repeat! And get strong.
NOTE: All exercises were explained according to the guidelines that have been established by the NSCA.[17]
Your mission, should you choose to accept it: commit to trying ONE of these movements in the next week. Use 20 seconds of courage, recruit a friend who has lifted or trained before, and try your best.
And if you want somebody to help you put these into a workout program, teach you HOW to do these movements properly, and have the confidence to know you’re training correctly for your goals…
Always start out with just your body’s weight and make sure your movement is correct!
If it’s a barbell movement, use a broomstick (or PVC Pipe).
If it’s a dumbbell movement, use two sections of PVC or something else that is light and small to simulate a dumbbell.
When it comes to movements like squats, deadlifts, pull-ups, bench press, your form is crucial. Develop good habits with lightweight and you will save yourself months of frustration later and will protect you from injury.[18]
If you’re struggling with certain elements of a movement, don’t get frustrated! Remember, proper communication between your neuromuscular systems needs to develop.
Do regular video form checks! Record yourself and watch the video.
Alternatively, an expert reviewing your specific movement can be invaluable.
If you’re looking for someone who can do video form checks, provide feedback, and adjust your workouts based on your progress, you can check out our 1-on-1 Online Personal Training!
I’ve had an online coach for 4 years and it’s changed my life.
You could also get expert guidance in person: Look around at your local strength and conditioning gyms and see if you could hire a coach (here’s how to find a good personal trainer) for one or two sessions just to go over the basic movements.
If you can’t do either of those two options, no big deal! Videotape yourself and compare it to the videos here in the articles. You can also post your video to the form check section of the Nerd Fitness Forums.
When I started, I really liked practicing all of the movements at home because I could watch a video online at the same time as I was watching myself do it in a mirror. Studies have found this can actually help![20]
Not only that, but you can find study after study after study that shows you the benefits of strength training for weight management when combined with “calorie restriction.”[22]
As we cover in our “Why Can’t I Lose Weight?” article, here’s why eating a caloric deficit and strength training is SO magical when combined:
When you strength train – by picking up something heavy – your muscles are “broken down” during the exercise itself, and then they rebuild themselves stronger over the next 24-48 hours.
Guess what happens during those 24-48 hours?
Your body will divert as many calories consumed as necessary to “Rebuild Muscle!”[23]
It also diverts additional calories to “Burn as Fuel” to handle this increased “muscle rebuilding” activity.
This means two amazing things:
Your metabolism is revved up for this time period, burning more calories than normal.
Rebuilding muscle is a calorie-taxing activity!
Not only that, but when you eat a caloric deficit, your body doesn’t have enough calories to fuel all the day’s activities. In these instances, your body will pull from your stored fat to make sure all the work still gets done.
This is the trifecta of physical transformation victory:
You get stronger and keep the muscle you have.
You burn through the fat you’re trying to get rid of.
You’re decreasing your body fat percent and keeping your muscle = look good naked.
In other words, strength training + eating right is the BEST path for weight loss out there! And yes, in certain situations, you can actually lose weight AND build muscle at the same time.
Coach Matt explains how to gain muscle WHILE losing fat in this video:
So how do you put this into practice? Pick one of the strength workouts in this article. Calculate your daily caloric needs. Learn about healthy eating. And start.
These are the types of things we work on with our 1-on-1 Coaching Clients: helping them lift weights confidently and eat correctly for their goals! Let us help you:
STEP #2: TRY A NEW EXERCISE: In addition to following a workout program, I’m gonna push outside of your comfort zone – that’s where real growth happens.
STEP #3) HIRE A YODA: If you are somebody that just wants to be told exactly what to, how to train for your goals, and are good at following directions, consider hiring a coach.
I’ve been working with an online coach since 2014 and it has changed my life – and I do this stuff for a living!
STEP #4) JOIN THE REBELLION! If you like how we do things around here at Nerd Fitness, we’d love to have you in our community of misfits, mutants, and rebels!
Sign up in the box below and I’ll send you our free Strength 101 guide:
Download our comprehensive guide
Everything you need to know about getting strong.
Workout routines for bodyweight AND weight training.
How to find the right gym and train properly in one.
No matter what you do today:
Don’t be afraid of doing anything wrong – truth be told, the majority of the people in the gym don’t have any idea what they are doing, and are just as nervous as you are!
Muster up your 20 seconds of courage if you need to, and let me know in the comments how it goes!
What questions do you have about getting started?
So, what’s the biggest thing holding you back from starting strength training?
-Staci
PS – Check out the rest of the articles in our Strength Training 101 series:
As a single mom, I did a lot of juggling. I had an active son and a job at a health and sports facility. I was busy. Making time for doctor appointments and taking care of myself weren’t high on my list. I learned the hard way how important it is to be proactive about my own health.
Just over 20 years ago, when I was 32, I got a cough that wouldn’t go away. I was having so much trouble breathing that I had to sleep upright in a recliner to get enough air into my lungs.
I kept going back to my doctor and telling him the cough wasn’t improving and I couldn’t breathe. He diagnosed me with all kinds of things — pneumonia, walking pneumonia, bronchitis. Finally, after the third or fourth visit, I told my doctor, “I think I need to see a lung specialist.”
The lung specialist immediately sent me to a hospital, where I fell into a coma. When I came out of it 3 days later, my doctors told me that I had inflammation of my heart muscle called myocarditis, which was caused by a virus. I was in heart failure.
A Scary Prognosis
The doctors told me I had 5 years to live. My son was 12 years old at the time. That meant I wouldn’t get to see him graduate from high school. It was horrifying to think about. He’s my whole world.
My son was my baby boy, but he had to grow up quickly. I was so sick that I needed him to take care of me. By the time he was 15, he had to drive me to the hospital if I got sick in the middle of the night. If my port came out, he would call the doctor and say, “Tell me what to do.” My heart failure put a lot of pressure on him.
Turning My Health Around
I knew I had to make drastic changes if I was going to get more time with my son. I started eating healthy. There was no more going to fast food windows for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. I was sitting down to heart-healthy meals. Instead of keeping snack cakes and candy bars on my countertop, I have bananas, apples, and oranges. I stock my fridge with bottles of water, not soda.
Exercise also became a priority. Rather than watching TV in the evening, I go for a walk. I teach a water fitness class 3 days a week and I play with my grandchildren to stay active. I make sure that I exercise and see my doctors. And I take a guideline-recommended heart failure treatment to help my heart pump blood more effectively.
I have these really amazing doctors who monitor me closely and take good care of me. They say I’m nothing short of a miracle. They don’t have an explanation for how much I’m able to do, but they think it’s a combination of healthy living, good medication, and weight loss.
What I Would Have Done Differently
If I could talk to my former self, I would tell her that she needs to take better care of her body. I can look back now and say I probably should have gone to the doctor more often. I should have been more physically active. And I should have had a salad with my slice of pizza instead of eating three slices of pizza.
I also should have asked for a second opinion when my doctor wrote off my symptoms. Had the doctors caught my heart failure sooner, I might not have had permanent damage. There’s a fine line between trusting your doctor and trusting your gut. If you’re not comfortable with what your doctor tells you, it’s OK to get a second opinion.
If I had it do over again, I definitely would have prioritized my health. I’ve met a lot of other heart failure survivors who also put their health on the back burner while they took care of everything else. I should have put my health on the front burner and taken care of me.
A New Outlook on Life
Coming so close to death made me appreciate life more. I appreciate the holidays, dinner with friends, sunrises and sunsets, and the sound of rain. I appreciate family gatherings. I have a very large family here in Tennessee. We get together about four times a year. I’m tickled every time I get to see them.
I feel like life is more precious now. I know that I was given a second chance. After being told that I had 5 years to live, I’ve made it more than 20 years. Every day is a gift.
However, as I mentioned in the intro, you’ll often hear that losing fat while gaining muscle is impossible. The argument goes that you should just focus on one or the other, because doing both at once is destined to fail.
There is a simple answer and a slightly less simple answer when it comes to losing body fat.
The simple answer: “consume fewer calories than you expend or burn.”[1]
Eight words, and one or two of those could probably be thrown out.
When your body needs more calories than the amount you are eating, you are in a “caloric deficit.” Your body doesn’t have the calories it needs as fuel, so it’ll start breaking down parts of itself for its energy requirements.
The hope is that your body will mostly pull from fat stores, though depending on how you are training it will also break down muscle too.[2]
Said again: when you are eating a caloric deficit, your body will pull from both its fat stores AND existing muscle for energy.
Troubling indeed.
From a physique and health standpoint, obviously we’d prefer that your body doesn’t break down muscle when in a caloric deficit, and instead really focuses on using fat stores instead.[3]
I make this point for a reason: your goal in fitness shouldn’t only be “weight loss,” despite the common vernacular used.
Who cares what the scale says, right?
The goal instead is to reduce body fat while also keeping the muscle you have (or even building more muscle).
That leads to a better physique and a healthier body.
This is why there is a big market for devices that supposedly assess your body fat percentage.
By reducing the total fat on your body, OR increasing muscle mass, you’ll end up with a lower body fat percentage (it’s just a simple ratio of fat to everything else).
And lower body fat percentages are where “toned arms” and “6-pack abs” hang out.
We’ll discuss tips on keeping and growing your muscle while in a calorie deficit later in this guide. For now, remember you need fewer calories “in” compared to calories “out” for weight loss to occur, from either fat stores or muscle.
You may be asking, “Steve, what’s easier to do? Burn more calories or consume less?”
Good question.
Numbers will help tell the story: though this is a gross oversimplification – let’s use the ‘widely accepted’ starting point of “3,500 calories equals roughly one pound of fat.”[4]
If you want to lose one pound – or half a kilogram – of body fat in a week (a worthy, sustainable goal for some), you need to create a caloric deficit of 500 calories per day.
Your options to create this caloric deficit include:
Consuming 500 fewer calories
Burning 500 more calories
A combination of the two
Which is easier?
Here are both halves of that equation. 500 calories equals:
The number of calories found in a Big Gulp of Mountain Dew.
When it comes to maintaining a caloric deficit, it really comes down to diet.
It’s significantly more effective and time-efficient to consume 500 fewer calories than it is to burn 500 additional calories.
As Time magazine controversially pointed out – with tons of cited studies – “exercise alone won’t make you thin.” It’s too easy to add more calories in, and requires too much work to effectively influence “calories out.”
This brings us to our slightly less simple answer on getting in shape:
To lose body fat, you need to watch what you eat, and do so in a sustainable way.
Here at Nerd Fitness, we are firm believers that 80-90% of the fat-loss equation comes down to diet (check out Rule # 4).
Here’s another idea we focus on: EAT MOSTLY UNPROCESSED FOOD.[5]
Meat, fish, eggs, vegetables, fruits, nuts are all great examples.
These foods are very nutrient-dense and often low in calories compared to their processed counterparts. Which means you get filled up without overeating.
Win-win-win.
Have you ever seen the difference between 200 calories of broccoli and 200 calories of a bagel? WiseGEEK does a great job of displaying this, so we’ll borrow a couple of their photos.
200 calories of broccoli:
200 calories of a bagel:
That’s why REAL food is the answer to creating a sustainable caloric deficit.
Most people can eat an entire bagel, no problem. Plates of broccoli, with all of the fiber, are much tougher to overeat.
We lay it all out in our Beginner’s Guide to Healthy Eating. It’ll provide tips on how to gradually create habits that get you to a “REAL food” way of eating, including proper portion sizes, tips on batch cooking, and a cameo from Winnie the Pooh.
With all of this, we advise you to take it slow, so new habits of healthy eating become permanent.
Something you can do for the rest of your life.
It’s a strategy we work closely with our coaching clients on: small nutritional adjustments they feel comfortable making. It’s how some of them have been able to lose 50-100 pounds!
Let me explain again: what you eat will be 80%-90% of the equation for losing body fat.
If you want to build muscle, you’ll have to lift heavy things and ensure that your body has enough calories and protein to adapt by building more muscle.
I will always be on Team Strength Training. If you’re looking to build muscle, you’re gonna need to lift heavy things.
When you lift an object (or your own bodyweight) enough times, your muscles reach the point of failure. This causes your muscles to tear and breakdown.
When your muscle rebuilds itself following the workout, it’ll be bigger and stronger than before. Then you do it again.
And again.
And again.
As long as you are eating enough to rebuild your muscle, you’ll get stronger!
Not sure where to start on a Strength Training practice? No problem! You can download our free guide Strength Training 101: Everything You Need to Know when you join the Rebellion (our free community) below:
Download our comprehensive guide
Everything you need to know about getting strong.
Workout routines for bodyweight AND weight training.
How to find the right gym and train properly in one.
Because your muscle needs to be rebuilt after exercise, the calories are gonna need to come from somewhere. I’ll talk a lot about proper diet in the next section (with a Harry Potter analogy), so I won’t spend too much time on it here.
Just know that eating the right quantity of foods will be a big part of gaining muscle.
#3) Rest
Your body rebuilds itself while you sleep, so make sure you get plenty of rest each night. I’m talking 7-8+ hours. This will help ensure your body has the time it needs to grow stronger.
If you’re strength training and only getting 6 hours of sleep a night or less, you’re really doing yourself a disservice. Go to bed!
That’s the short gist of how to build strength: challenge your muscles, eat well, and get some rest.
Let’s narrow in on our second point, “Eat a diet based on your goals.” It’ll become very important when balancing both losing body fat and gaining muscle.
To do that properly, grab your owl, and let’s chat about Hogwarts.
To answer the question of losing body fat and gaining muscle at the same time, I’d like to introduce an analogy from the world of Harry Potter.
Recall the “Sorting Hat:” The Sorting Hat’s job was to determine which of the four houses kids will call their home.
It’s almost like a traffic director: “Harry, you will go to Gryffindor! Draco, you will go to Slytherin!”
Your body operates on a VERY similar operation: every day it receives new calories (when you eat), and it needs to decide what to do with them!
For example:
You eat a chicken parm sub with fries and a 20-ounce soda. Your body then has to know where to route all those calories.
To keep things simple, it has three choices. It’ll sort those calories into one of three houses:[6]
A. Burn for Fuel
B. Rebuild Muscle
C. Store as Fat
Right now, when you eat food, your body sorts most of those calories into “Burn for Fuel.”
There’s a number of calories your body needs each day just existing: to keep your liver functioning, your heart pumping, your brain operating, to regulate your body temperature, and so on – it burns a good chunk of calories just keeping the lights on.
This is your “Basal Metabolic Rate” which you can calculate for yourself in our TDEE calculator.
There’s also “B. Rebuild as Muscle” and “C. Store as Fat,” which I devoted entire sections to above.
This is where the problems arise: When you overeat calories and your body doesn’t need anymore to fuel itself, it takes those extra calories and stores them as fat.
However, our goal is the OPPOSITE of this.
We want to keep the muscle we have (or grow it) while getting rid of the fat!
So let’s imagine a scenario where we pull all this together by strength training heavy AND reducing our caloric intake:
You strength train regularly, and your muscles break down and need to be rebuilt.
You don’t consume enough calories to both rebuild muscle and fuel itself. There’s not enough to go into the “Burn for Fuel” and “Rebuild Muscle” houses.
Does your body just shut down?
NOPE!
Your body has been preparing for this, by storing any excess calories over the years in the “Store as Fat” house.
This means your body can pull from “Store as Fat” to make sure all the work still gets done, including your daily functions as a human and rebuilding the muscle you tore apart.
Said another way:
If you have fat stores (and we all do), you do not need to be in a “caloric surplus” to rebuild muscle. The calories stored in your fat cells act as this required energy.
There is also evidence that muscle can even be grown while in a caloric deficit.[7]
However, if you want to skip all the experimentation and trial and error, you can have a Nerd Fitness Coach do all the heavy lifting for you (not really, you’ll still need to work out).
You don’t have to follow some predetermined blueprint like “low-carb.” You can create your own diet (which is what I do). Learn all about it right here.
#2) Strength train
If you could sell a pill that could be prescribed to every single person on Earth to make them healthier, it would look something like a strength training routine in a bottle.
It is one of the best things you can do for your body.[9]
And really, if you want to build muscle, you’re gonna need to lift something! Either weights or your own bodyweight.
You need to challenge your muscles in order for them to get stronger. Now, as we discuss in our article on the correct number of reps and sets, there are multiple ways to do so.
To build muscle:
Lift lighter weights for lots of reps.
Lift really heavy with fewer reps.
The important thing: pick a strategy and get started.
To recap: if you train heavy and eat a caloric deficit, your body will pull from its fat stores to both fuel itself and potentially also build muscle. This is a double whammy of AWESOME.
#3) Prioritize protein
Outside of being in a caloric deficit and lifting weights (or yourself), eating enough protein is one of the key components of both losing body fat and building muscle.
Protein is the number one nutrient for creating new tissue.[10]
So when you cut out calories to create a caloric deficit, don’t cut them from protein sources.
Studies have shown that participants can gain muscle, even while in a caloric deficit, as long as they eat enough protein.[11]
It’s important enough that I’ll say it again:
If you don’t want your body cannibalizing its muscles while you are in a caloric deficit, you need to eat plenty of protein.[12]
How much protein?
As we point out in our Guide to Protein, roughly 1 gram for every pound of your weight, with an upper limit of 250 grams.[13] Or two grams for every kilogram if you are on the metric system. This means:
If you weigh 300 pounds (136 kg), eat 250g of protein.
If you weigh 250 pounds (113 kg), eat 250g of protein.
If you weigh 200 pounds (91 kg), eat 200g of protein.
If you weigh 180 pounds (82 kg), eat 180g of protein.
The gist: don’t skip out on protein. It should be on your plate for every meal (we’ll show you exactly how much in the next section).
If these generalized recommendations stress you out, and you want to know exactly what to do, we can help!
I’ll remind you of Nerd Fitness Coaching, where we help clients lose body fat, gain muscle, and level up their lives. We provide tailored and specific recommendations based on your body and lifestyle, plus accountability and mindset changes to help ensure your new habits stick.
A serving of protein is about the size and thickness of your palm.
*The 4 oz serving is for an uncooked piece of meat. Cooking reduces about 25% of the weight, bringing it down to about 3 oz.
If you’re curious, here’s how much protein is in a serving of food:
4 oz (113 g) serving of chicken has around 30 g of protein.
4 oz (113 g) serving of salmon has 23 g of protein
4 oz (113 g) of steak has 28 g of protein.
While all of the Healthy Plate above is important, I want you to pay extra attention to your protein intake since we are trying to build muscle.
If you’re having trouble making your protein intake goals, check out our Guide on Protein Supplements for some tips and tricks to up your intake, including some awesome smoothie recipes.
If you are NOT losing weight, it means you are still eating too many calories. Keep your protein intake high, and reduce your fat and carbohydrate intake.
Eventually, you’ll reach a status where there just isn’t enough fat on you to help with “Rebuild Muscle.” At this stage, you can no longer stay with a caloric deficit. You’ll need to flip to a slight “caloric surplus” to build more muscle.
Which means you’ll have to eat more.
It’s debatable when this will actually occur, and we are all different. Reaching 8% body fat for men and 16% body fat for women is a good place to start.
It covers ways to increase your calories for muscle gain, from eating plentiful amounts of Paleo foods to drinking enough milk to make Santa Claus jealous.
Go check it out if you’ve been having trouble putting on muscle.
I want to stress that if you are lifting heavy, and not gaining muscle, diet is likely the culprit.
It was my problem for years, and I’ve seen it amongst countless readers of Nerd Fitness who have trouble gaining muscle.
If you’re trying to improve something, it’s important to track it. This also holds true of body composition.
Most people do this by jumping on the scale. This can be “okay,” but it’s only going to tell part of the story.
If you’re building muscle while losing fat, the scale might not go down. [15]
Despite weighing the same, you could potentially have an improved physique.
That’s why in addition to jumping on the scale, I would also encourage you to take progress photos.
Take front and side photos in your mirror, wearing underwear or a bathing suit. Each week, take new photos, and record the number on the scale under the same scenario. Two forms of tracking here allow us to get the full picture.
The scale sometimes lies!
If you eat for a caloric deficit, strength train, and prioritize protein, see what happens.
You may find yourself losing some fat and gaining muscle.
If not, track each category:
Data can help tell the story.
…I was thinking of detailed notes.
But an android would be helpful too.
Oftentimes if you’re not seeing desired results, notes and record-keeping can help point us in the direction to make adjustments.
The tips outlined above will get you started losing fat while building muscle, but if you’re looking to go a bit further…
#1) If you want step-by-step guidance on how to lose weight, eat better, and get stronger, check out our killer 1-on-1 coaching program:
#2) If you want an exact blueprint for getting in shape, check out NF Journey. Our fun habit-building app helps you exercise more frequently, eat healthier, and level up your life (literally).
Try your free trial right here:
#3) Enlist in the Rebellion! We have a free email newsletter that we send out twice per week, full of tips and tricks to help you get healthy, get strong, and have fun doing so.
I’ll also send you tons of free guides that you can use to start leveling up your life too:
Download our free weight loss guide
THE NERD FITNESS DIET: 10 Levels to Change Your Life
Follow our 10-level nutrition system at your own pace
What you need to know about weight loss and healthy eating
3 Simple rules we follow every day to stay on target
Alright, I think that about does it for this guide.
Did I miss anything? Do you have any tips and tricks when it comes to shedding body fat and building muscle?
Share it with us!
-Steve,
PS: Make sure you read the rest of the articles in our “How to Lose Weight 101” Series!
Does that mean it’s the best course of action for everyone?
Not necessarily!
For some, they enjoy the relative simplicity of body recomposition tactics and it’s less to mentally think about. They still feel great, look much different than when they started, and are completely content with how everything is going.
For others, switching from weight gain/weight loss phases might be stressful and triggering, especially if they have a checkered history with their nutrition. So while distinct phases of gains and losses may work best in theory, they might not be ideal for everyone.
Choose what’s best for you!
And if you’re looking for a pro to help you navigate through all these questions and situations, check out Nerd Fitness Online Coaching! The team spends all day talking about these sorts of things. That and Super Smash Bros.
Sugar-free soft drinks, which have been around in various forms for almost 40 years, still have their problems. Remember Tab? Remember Coke Zero? Yes, they tasted sweet and saved you drinking some 40 teaspoons of sugar from each 375 ml can, but are they really healthier than regular soft drinks?
Brownie points
When you choose a diet drink, you may end up indulging in other sweet, kilojoule-dense options because you’ve been ‘good’. So, you’ll often see someone sipping a sugar-free drink while eating a chocolate bar, croissant or brownie. It confuses our brains.
Weight loss … or weight gain?
Sugar substitutes do little in the way of weight loss. In fact, the opposite may be true: some diet-beverage drinkers gain weight and have an increased risk of chronic diseases.
A 2010 study published in Physiology & Behavior concluded that regularly consuming sugar-sweetened drinks could lead to weight gain and an increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes.
In 2013, however, researchers had 200 people replace their sugary drinks with diet varieties or water for 6 months. Their conclusion? The sugar-free-beverage drinkers actually ate fewer desserts than the water drinkers. So there’s that.
A too-sweet taste?
When you drink them regularly, no-sugar soft drinks get you used to a sweet taste. This is a long-term problem for weight loss, as well as for people with type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome and cardiovascular disease. If your body is used to getting a super-sweet hit from diet soft drinks, it makes managing appetite much more difficult.
The sweetness signal tells our bodies to prepare for kilojoules (or calories) and our appetite is generated in readiness, but no kilojoules arrive. So we’re likely go out and consume other foods. In other words, sweeteners prep our bodies for a sugar fix but then don’t deliver. So sweeteners interfere with the learned responses that normally contribute to glucose and energy homeostasis.
How safe are they?
We know these sweeteners are safe, but what we don’t know are their long-term effects on appetite. So let’s just say, the scientific jury is still out on their long-term effects.
The bottom line
The key is only having sugar-free soft drinks as an occasional treat, not every day or when you feel thirsty. Long term, we don’t really know what these sweeteners are doing to our bodies. One or two is fine (say, if you’re going out to a club), but regularly consuming these zero-sugar drinks may lead to long-term overconsumption of other foods.
NEW YORK, November 10, 2017 (Newswire.com)
– SANESolution is revolutionizing the way people approach weight loss. Their scientifically backed, doctor supported system, known as Setpoint WeightTM, reframes the common understanding of metabolism and weight loss into a methodology that achieves sustainable weight loss.
For decades people have struggled to lose excess weight, hoping to return their bodies to their youthful state prior to the tolls of work, children, medications, menopause, and life in general. This meant fad exercises and yo-yo dieting with little to no success. With all these efforts, why does the body seem incapable of lasting change? How do people overcome this “invisible force” fighting them?
For decades people have struggled to lose excess weight, hoping to return to their bodies to their youthful state prior to the tolls of work, children, medications, menopause, and life in general! This meant fad exercises and yo-yo dieting with little to no success. With all these efforts, why does the body seem incapable of lasting change? How do people overcome this ‘invisible force’ fighting them?
Jonathan Bailor
That’s where SANESolution and Jonathan Bailor come in. Their work establishing the science of Setpoint WeightTM has provided clear answers for individuals seeking to achieve sustainable weight loss.
An individual’s Setpoint WeightTM is a range of approximately 20 pounds in which the body is trained to believe is its ‘natural weight’. The body attempts to maintain what it thinks is a balanced state of calories in, calories out, and body fat stored, regardless of whether it is idea for health.
Due to a number of factors, as people age, the body becomes “clogged.” This causes the digestive, neurological, and hormonal systems to all function sub-optimally, but the body adapts and begins to think these are the new normal. The body establishes a new higher Setpoint WeightTM. If that Setpoint weight is elevated and an individual wants to lose weight, it is first necessary to ‘unclog’ the systems and lower the Setpoint Weight. Once an individual’s Setpoint Weight has been lowered, sustainable weight loss becomes achievable.
Jonathan Bailor and SANESolution state that after identifying one’s Setpoint WeightTM, SANESolution then lowers it – making the body function more like the body of a young and naturally thin person – resulting in sustainable weight loss. Everything can be boiled down to one choice: ‘Does this increase, or decrease my Setpoint?’
According to SANESolution, diet and nutrition are not the only factors which can influence an individual’s Setpoint Weight. Almost everything has a Setpoint value, from sleep, exercise, and sex, to stress and medication. Knowing their influence and choosing accordingly turns people into their naturally thin, healthy selves. SANESolution makes it simple.
Diets and exercise all fight against the Setpoint WeightTM. In the long run, the body always wins, and yo-yo dieting is the result. Instead of fighting an uphill battle it is possible to flatten the hill. By utilizing SANESolution and understanding Setpoint WeightTM, individuals are learning to lower their Setpoint and change their bodies to have a chance at experiencing sustainable weight loss.
