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Man, I promise,
I was so self conscious,
When I first started lifting, if you want me to be honest,
Deadlifts and squats made me anxious and crazy,
But I still kept doin’ em – don’t wanna be lazy!
– Kanye (probably)
Happy Friday, Coach J here from Anyman Fitness – and welcome to the latest edition of The N.W.A. Newsletter.
Each Friday’s N.W.A. Newsletter will have 3 parts:
- A Nutritional Tip to help make your diet healthier and easier to stick to.
- A Workout Tip to help make your training sessions more effective and fun.
- An Attitude/Mindset tip to help you strengthen your greatest asset – your mental toughness.
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I will also give you my single favorite piece of social media content from AF over the past week and link to it on either Instagram or Twitter.
Without any further ado… let’s get started, shall we?
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N.W.A. Nutrition Tip Of The Week:
Somewhere along the lines, nuts earned the coveted “Health Halo” and everyone started spouting them as a “health food”.
I’m not exactly sure where this began, but I can assure you, if losing weight is a goal of yours, and you’re eating nuts thinking you’re eating “good fats”, you’re going to have a tough time.
From a sheer calorie perspective, nuts are one of the most calorie dense foods there are.
Couple that with the abysmally small portion sizes of a serving of nuts, and you’re nearly guaranteed to eat too many calories if nuts are a staple in your diet.
First things first – let’s break down the nutrition profile of a peanut as an example.
One serving of peanuts contains 161 calories.
Of those 161 calories:
- 30 come from protein (18%)
- 5 come from carbs (3%
- 126 come from fat (78%)
This is important to note – look at the breakdown by macronutrient of peanuts.
I have no idea how peanuts (and all nuts) were ever considered a good source of protein.
Nearly 80% of the calories from peanuts come from fat.
If you’re getting a good amount of protein from your nut consumption, you’re guaranteed to be eating a TON of calories.
Nuts do have a fair amount of mono-saturated fatty acids, which have been shown to help reduce your overall cholesterol levels and are considered a “heart healthy” fat.
But please understand this: Eating too many calories is *never* good for your health.
Ever.
Olive oil is a much better option for mono-saturated fatty acids, and you can control the amount you use pretty easily to be sure it aligns with your daily calorie goals.
There’s nothing I like better than nuts and nut butters – they’re absolutely delicious.
But be sure to see them for what they are – a fat source (not a protein source), and a treat above all else.
When I’m on a fat loss diet, nuts are often the first thing to eliminate in my diet in order to be sure I’m losing fat properly.
While they may be a great treat, be careful with them if staying trim is an important goal of yours.
N.W.A. Training Tip Of The Week:
Since we covered the myth of “peanuts = protein/health food”, let’s tackle another prevalent myth when it comes to working out.
The myth that “weights will make you bulky”.
It’s a bit crazy this myth is still spouted as gospel, but I see it everywhere.
It tends to come from women, but honestly, lots of men say the same thing.
Let me be direct – weights will only make you “bulky” if you:
1. Have incredible natural genetics for gaining muscle
2. Lift weights with the specific purpose of gaining muscle (more on that in a bit)
3. Eat in a calorie surplus to create the muscle
If one or more of those 3 items is missing, you are not going to be building muscle.
Hell, even if you nailed all 3 of those items, it’s not “easy” to build muscle – at all!
It takes a lot of time, energy, patience, and a dedicated plan.
I’ve never heard of someone who started lifting and a few months later said, “Oh shit, dammit, I have huge muscles now, WHAT HAVE I DONE?!” (hahaha)
For a natural lifter, over the course of a training career, an excellent result would be 30-40 pounds of muscle.
But that’s over 30+ YEARS of lifting weights consistently.
That’s with regular bulking and cutting cycles to gain weight/muscle and then strip away the fat afterwards.
Take me for example – I’ve gained about 25-30 or so pounds of muscle in 10 years of consistent and dedicated training with the purpose of trying to gain muscle.
I haven’t had a serious injury (knock on wood) or any substantial time off lifting.
I’ve trained 3-5 days per week, consistently, other than a few weeks off per year to recover, for a decade.
And I have 30 pounds of extra muscle mass to show for it.
Women have roughly 1/2 the muscle building potential as men.
This is due to having 1/10 the testosterone production, less muscle mass, and less strength potential as their male counterparts.
In a lifting career, women might be able to add 15-20 pounds of muscle to their frames.
But again, that’s an entire fitness career (30+ years) while purposefully training to build muscle and eating with the intention of gaining weight.
The odds of that happening to you “by accident” are slim to none.
If you’d like to see exactly what lifting heavy weights can do to your results, feel free to check out our transformation wall.
If you can find me one, single instance of someone getting “too bulky”, let me know!
Lifting weights is one of the best things you can do for your health, bar none.
Don’t be afraid of building a modest amount of muscle; as long as you’re not intentionally trying to gain weight week after week, gaining a load of muscle won’t be something that “sneaks up on you”, so to speak.
N.W.A. Attitude/Mindset Tip Of The Week:
Your health is (nearly) 100% in your control.
Please read that again and be sure you understand it.
I heard a short story last week that really got under my skin and I’d like to tell you about it…
A client of mine confided in me he had recently been to the doctor.
He’s an older client – 61 years old – and he recently joined us to lose weight and get healthy.
At his doctor’s appointment, they were discussing his glucose numbers, which were pre-diabetic.
He informed the doctor he was going to be dieting and exercising on a new fitness program and he was going to take care of business and get his numbers into the proper range.
The doctor should have been pleased, right?
Instead of praising him, the Doctor responded with:
“Well, you’ll probably need to go on Metformin soon anyways.
That’s just how our society is these days.
Once you are in your 60’s, your health will catch up to you and there’s not much you can do about it.”
I was floored when I heard this.
Maybe “shocked” is the right word.
Or “appalled”.
How on earth can someone consider themselves a “medical professional” and spout such nonsense?
The doctor basically told my client he was going to fail, and there was nothing he could do about it.
Hogwash.
Complete malarkey.
Granted, it’s not exactly easy to get to a healthy bodyweight.
But our society has become so conditioned to think people who are 30%+ bodyfat are “healthy” that our perception of healthy is greatly skewed.
The BMI is a useful metric to determine your overall, general health.
Many people hate on the BMI since it doesn’t account for muscle mass.
Before I got serious about lifting weights, I would regularly call the BMI bullshit because “I have a lot of muscle mass”.
In reality, that was just a cope.
I hadn’t yet developed the proper muscle to be able to make those claims; I was just looking for an excuse as to why I was so unhealthy.
The only way the BMI isn’t a useful metric is if you’ve gained 20+ pounds of muscle mass through strength training.
If that’s not you, it’s entirely accurate and a solid gauge to measure your overall well being.
If you want to get lean, and stay lean, you will be labeled “weird”.
Not many people get lean and stay lean for life.
But I urge you to be “different”.
Use your lifestyle to improve your health, and stay as far away from chronic medications as you can.
And don’t ever let a Doctor steal your shine.
They don’t even lift… (lol)
You can do it.
Even if it’s rare, it’s entirely possible if you put forth the effort.
One Favorite Social Media Post Of The Week:
Useless:
– Fat Loss Supplements
– Skinny Teas
Overrated:
– Intermittent Fasting
– High Intensity Interval Training
Underrated:
– Daily Walks
– Progressive Overload
– Compound Movements
– Protein Intake
I hope you enjoyed this edition of the Anyman Fitness N.W.A. Newsletter.
I’ll be back next week.
Hope you have a wonderful weekend.
Best,
Coach J
Anyman Fitness
Read the N.W.A. Newsletter Archives
One of my favorite things to see in rap music is when an artist tries to give real, valuable advice on wealth building. Too often, we see rappers flaunting excessive spending without much thought to the future.
Jay-Z’s “The Story Of O.J.” is all about this topic. The song is controversial, as is the imagery in the video, but it’s certainly worth a listen/watch to hear its message. (NSFW – language)