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“Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiii can’t be faded… I’m a lifter from the deadlift-lovin’ gymmmmmmm!”
– Nate Dogg (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:
One of the biggest mistakes people make with their fitness is staying in “perma-cut”.
“Perma-cut” is a condition where you’re always trying to lose fat, and you can never quite get to your desired level of leanness.
It’s quite common, and many people are constantly trying to get leaner and leaner.
Instead of always trying to burn excess body fat, you would be better served with having periods where you eat at maintenance, and perhaps even periods where you eat in a slight surplus.
Muscle is metabolically advantageous.
Meaning, the more muscle you have, the higher your metabolic rate is.
Granted, it’s not a *huge* difference – the sheer numbers are a bit overblown.
If you gain 10 pounds of muscle (which is an ENORMOUS amount for a natural lifter), you would gain around 60 calories on your metabolic rate.
That’s about the size of a small piece of fruit.
It helps, sure, but that’s not the real reason you want to go through periods of eating more.
We don’t realize we’re doing it, but when we have less food overall, our bodies will naturally stop moving as much.
We get more tired.
Lethargic.
“Lazy”, even.
This is a normal adaptation – your body is trying to conserve its energy since it has less to spare.
When you take periods where you up your intake, you may find yourself more energetic and burning more calories through “NEAT” – non-exercise activity thermogenesis.
This is a fancy way of saying you’ll have more “pep in your step”.
You’ll simply have more energy, which is a very good thing.
Often times, with these energy bursts, you’ll actually find yourself losing weight more effectively, which sounds counterintuitive.
But adding in 300-500 calories can be a very good thing if you’re constantly trying to be in a deficit.
You very well may find yourself burning an additional 600 calories “by accident” as a result. 🙂
That’s a pretty cool accident if you ask me!
(This is also why people say “I’m eating more and I’m losing weight – I was in ‘starvation mode’!”. That’s not true at all – starvation mode is a myth. You were simply undereating, and the increase in calories lead to an even bigger increase in energy, and calorie BURN as a result, causing weight loss.)
I suggest most people use the calendar as a guide – I do this myself.
I eat more in the Fall months – from September to December – every year.
After all, I live in Michigan. I sure ain’t trying to take my shirt off when the weather is getting colder by the day…
Around February or March, I get really focused on dieting down to look great for the summer.
It’s an awesome physical break as well as a psychological break from dieting.
If you’re spending all of your time trying to “diet”, take 6-8 weeks off after the summer is over and eat a bit more.
Don’t spend your whole, adult life in “perma-cut”.
Sometimes, taking a step backwards is exactly what you need to make a giant leap forwards.
N.W.A. Training Tip Of The Week:
Do you have an Instagram account?
I do, but I’ll admit, it’s for business only.
I wouldn’t have one if I didn’t run an online fitness business.
My account is really picking up steam, though – I’ve been doing a lot of “Reels” lately and I love the format.
Short, 1 minute videos on various topics – and my followers have been loving them.
If you’d like to check them out (and follow me), here’s the link to my page.
That’s enough self-promotion, let’s get back to our Training Tip. 🙂
Instagram is an interesting beast.
It’s a bit of a cesspool of show-offs.
Lots of guys with 8 packs doing crazy and wild circus style lifts.
And lots of girls trying to show 200 different ways to put their butts right in the camera for your enjoyment.
At least that’s what they tell me.
I never look, I swear (lol).
But it’s those crazy workouts that just drive me up the wall.
I see guys doing weird things on bosu balls, hanging from the rafters doing ab workouts, and doing all sorts of nonsense and tom-foolery.
(I just used the word ‘tom-foolery’ – awesome!)
I’m here to tell you something those IG circus clowns will never tell you:
Effective workouts aren’t crazy workouts.
In fact, effective workouts are dead simple.
They consist of basic, simple exercises that have stood the test of time.
Effective workouts include pushes like bench presses, incline presses, and shoulder presses using barbells, dumbbells, and perhaps machines.
Effective workouts include pulls like pull ups, pull downs, cable rows, barbell rows, dumbbell rows, and (again) perhaps some machines.
Effective workouts include squats like back squats, front squats, lunges, step ups, leg presses, and perhaps some leg curls and/or extensions.
And lastly, effective workouts include hip hinges like deadlifts, hip thrusts, and variations of those moves.
You know those crazy-ripped IG dudes (and girls) doing the weird circus moves?
Yeah.
They did a regular, boring old workout before they took their Instagram video.
And they made that video for the likes and attention.
They’re nowhere close to effective workouts…
Be sure you stay on the straight and narrow.
You don’t need upside down bosu ball squats using a barbell with chains and bands.
You need some pushes, some pulls, some squats, and some deadlifts.
Mix up the variations to keep your joints happy.
Sprinkle in some machines from time to time.
And most of all – use progressive overload and stay consistent over time.
If you do this, you’ll have amazing results.
No crazy circus moves needed, I swear. 🙂
N.W.A. Attitude/Mindset Tip Of The Week:
Imagine your friend was trying to get into proper shape.
Your friend had a bad day.
He/she didn’t go to the gym, and instead got McDonald’s on the way home and gobbled it all down.
You call your friend in the evening and asked how he/she was doing with their new program.
And your friend said:
“HORRIBLE. I’m lazy. I’m worthless. I skipped the gym and grabbed McDonald’s. I’m a total piece of shit. I have no willpower. I will NEVER get fit, so I’m going to GIVE UP right now!”
How would you respond to your friend?
Would you agree with them?
Would you say:
“You know what? You’re right. You’re going to be fat and lazy forever. May as well give up, you useless cow, you.”
NO! Of course not!
You would NEVER say that to your friend!
What kind of a psycho would do that?!?
Instead, you would say something like:
“Hey, man, don’t worry about it! Relax a bit! It’s one day! You were doing great, and you’ll continue to do great. Just brush it off – tomorrow’s another day! Don’t stress, we all have bad days! You’re good, I promise!”
Right?
We would ALL say that to a friend, every single time.
Then why are we so hard on ourselves?
Have you ever called yourself “lazy”, “worthless”, or a “piece of shit” for missing a workout or eating a bad meal or a treat?
If so, how did that make you feel?
Did you feel better about your situation?
Or worse?
We all tend to be WAY harder on ourselves than we would ever be on a friend.
That’s kind of f*cked up, don’t you think?
Don’t be nicer to your friends than you are to yourself.
Be kind when you talk to yourself.
Whatever you say to yourself, eventually you start to believe it.
If you constantly call yourself a lazy, worthless pig, then guess what?
You’ll start to believe you’re a lazy, worthless pig.
This will make it 100x more difficult to pull yourself back to reality and get back at it after your screw up.
You’re NEVER a lazy, worthless pig.
You’re a human, and you’re imperfect.
We all f*ck up, myself included.
Just brush it off and move right along.
And start thinking of yourself as a fighter and a champion – and eventually you will become one. 🙂
One Favorite Social Media Post Of The Week:
This is my old student, Arwa.
She’s 22 years old and just started “the real world” and got a gig in finance.
9 years ago I was teaching her linear regressions in Algebra class.
Arwa trains HARD.
I found her on a Saturday morning crushing bent over rows with 45 pound weights.
Think she’s “bulky”?
See for yourself…
See the post on Twitter | See the post on Instagram
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
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I just love Kanye. So many of his songs are so infectious and positive. This is one of my favorites. (NSFW – lyrics)