December-30-2022

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I can swallow a,

Bottle of,

Protein shake it up,

I feel like Godzilla,

Better hit the gym and mix it up.

– Eminem (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.

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?

N.W.A. Nutrition Tip Of The Week

One of the biggest myths in nutrition is that your body can only absorb a certain amount of protein per sitting.

I see this myth parroted by the uninformed across social media channels all the time.

It usually happens after I post a picture of one of my meals with 100+ grams of protein in it.

Someone always comments, “What a waste – you’re only absorbing 40 of those grams at the most!”

This is misguided, and incorrect.

Think about this from an evolutionary standpoint.

Back when homo sapiens were cavemen, we were ‘feast or famine’ creatures.

We weren’t able to eat “3 square meals per day”.

We were hunting for our food – sometimes we succeeded, other times we didn’t.

On the days we succeeded, we feasted on whatever we were able to kill that day.

If we were only able to use a small amount of the protein we consumed in these situations, over time our bodies would have withered away to nothing.

Protein absorption has been studied many times in scientific scenarios.

As long as you’re getting the right amount of protein into your body, you will preserve muscle when dieting, and all of the protein you eat will be used properly.

You can even eat one meal per day and get all of your protein requirements in in one sitting.

Granted, that would be a LOT of protein for anyone – and it’s not recommended.

But it’s possible, and I’ve seen people use templates like this with some success.

The only thing to consider is your overarching goals.

If your main goal is to *lose fat*, you don’t need to worry about spreading out your protein – you simply need to aim for your daily goal.

But if your main goal is to *build muscle*, eating protein 3-4 times per day, evenly spaced, is a better idea.

This is because we want “MPS” – muscle protein synthesis – to be elevated throughout the day.

Muscle protein synthesis means your body is breaking down the protein you’ve eaten and using it to repair muscle tissue, and build new tissue.

The body is in a constant state of catabolism (muscle loss) or anabolism (muscle gain).

At all times, the body is in one of these 2 states.

If you want to gain muscle over time, you need to be sure you’re anabolic more than you’re catabolic.

And giving your body a regular and steady stream of protein is one of the best ways you can do that.

But that *still* doesn’t mean your body will “waste” the protein you eat past a certain point.

If eating big, filling meals makes your diet more enjoyable, and reduces hunger, go for it.

Every bit of protein you consume will be used properly.

N.W.A. Fitness Tip Of The Week

One of the biggest psy-ops in fitness history is the idea of “muscle confusion”.

Tony Horton really messed with a lot of people on this one…

One of the biggest mistakes people make with their fitness is to constantly be changing their workouts based on how they feel that day.

Going into the gym and “winging it” is an awful idea.

You want to be making steady performance improvements – and the only way to ensure you’re making proper performance improvements is to repeat exercises, and repeat workouts in general.

You want to keep a log book, or use an app (we have a pretty darn amazing one in group coaching) to track every set, rep, and weight used.

And the next time you do that workout, you try to use more weight, or get a few more reps if the weight was challenging and you didn’t get the proper number of reps required.

I train at Lifetime Fitness, it’s a big commercial gym.

I love it – it has tons of toys and all the bells and whistles (pool, sauna, steam room, tons of equipment, etc).

But I can’t help but cringe when I see so many people doing ‘boot camp’ or ‘Crossfit-style’ workouts.

These sort of “make you tired” workouts are the very definition of “winging it”.

Each workout is different and varied.

While on the surface that sounds “fun”, you’re hampering your progress by working out like this.

Take one of our clients for example.

Her name is Sandy, and she’s been in our community for about a year now.

Sandy was guilty of “winging it” before she joined our crew.

Granted, she was in good shape for sure, I can’t take that away from her.

But she was still leaving real progress on the table by not tracking her workouts diligently, and striving to be better at every session.

After spending a few months with our “Wonder Woman” program in group coaching, Sandy posted this on Facebook:

Sandy confided in me that she’s been working out forever, and she’s never seen results like these.

Her delts and biceps are POPPIN’ like never before.

She now skips her HIIT workouts.

She strength trains 4-5 times per week and she walks for her cardio, nothing more.

It’s incredible what a proper training program and repeated workouts can do for you.

If you’re one of those “wing it” folks, make 2023 the year you get serious.

And it starts with getting on a REAL strength training program and diligently working on improving your form and your strength over time.

N.W.A. Mindset Tip Of The Week

I’ve always hated the phrase “fake it ’til you make it”.

It conjured up thoughts of some sleazy internet scamming dude pretending like he’s rich to make sales.

That being said, faking it ’til you make it is a GREAT idea if you’re trying to become a healthier person.

Here’s what I mean…

If you’re trying to get healthier, a great question to ask yourself is, “If I was a fit, healthy person, what would my actions look like?”

The answer should be pretty simple.

If you were a fit, healthy person, you would likely:

Strength train 3-4 times per week
Strive to get 10k steps in per day
Eat protein at every meal
Eat predominantly whole foods and avoid ultra-processed foods
Eliminate liquid calories and/or alcohol
Hydrate properly with plenty of water
Aim to get 7-8 hours of interrupted sleep per night

When you’re starting out building these habits, you’re not yet a “fit, healthy person”.

In that sense, you’re “faking it”.

But that’s how it has to work – you need to BEHAVE like the fit, healthy person for a long time before you actually BECOME the fit, healthy person.

Changing your identity is difficult, but it can be done.

Once upon a time, I was the big, lovable teddy bear… who weighed 300 pounds and was headed quickly towards Type 2 diabetes.

I know exactly how difficult it is to change your identity and how you’re percevied.

The good news is once those around you see you’re serious and you’re not stopping, you’re likely to look in the mirror and not even recognize the person you used to be.