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With so much drama in the fitness industry,
it’s kinda hard stayin’ up on everything, you see, but I…
somehow, someway, keep comin’ up with killer programs like every single day…
-Snoop 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:
Carbohydrates get a bad rap.
Back in the 1990’s, we all ‘knew’ it was our dietary fat that was causing our waistlines to expand, and we ate carbs by the boatload.
Sadly, we were misguided – eating all those low-fat carbs didn’t exactly help us get into proper shape, as evidenced by our nation’s obesity statistics.
As the 90’s entered the 00’s and beyond, carbohydrates have been vilified beyond belief.
Everyone and their brother has attempted the Ketogenic diet.
A few crazy souls have even tried the Carnivore diet, which is even more restrictive and allows only meat and animal products.
But the question remains… is it working?
For the last decade, as a collective whole, we’ve been counting every carb we take in and we’ve been disregarding the fat intake in our diets.
And that, my friend, isn’t a good thing.
Many foods we consider “carbs” have over half of their calories coming from dietary fat.
This includes foods like:
- Chips
- Cookies
- Cakes/baked goods
- Pizza
- French fries
- Creamy pastas
- Donuts
- Ice cream
- Muffins
- Etc, etc, etc.
Being mindful of your intake is never a bad thing – it’s always a net positive.
However, I must tell you… the client inquiries I get often sound like this:
“Hey, Coach J, I’ve been eating very low carb for months now and the scale isn’t budging!
What am I doing WRONG?!?”
When I flip that question back on them and ask how many calories they’re eating each day, or how many grams of fat they’re consuming, it’s crickets, usually.
Since fat has a “Health Halo” around it currently, and everyone knows “carbs = bad; fat = good”, fat consumption has skyrocketed everywhere.
It’s not uncommon for a new client to join us and quickly realize they’re eating 100+ grams of fat per day – and in many such cases, the number is over 200 grams (that would equal 1800 calories from your fat intake alone! Yikes!)
If you’ve been diligently counting carbs on a low-carb or Keto set up, consider tracking your fats as well.
Fat has over twice as many calories as carbohydrates do and it doesn’t fill you up nearly as much.
Once upon a time, before I started coaching others, I was in this exact same boat – I was diligently tracking carbs but disregarding my fat intake.
I had plateaued big time with my fat loss and I was frustrated and confused on what to do next.
Once I realized I needed to be more mindful of my fat intake, my results exploded.
There’s a good chance you’ll have a similar experience if you do the same.
***Dietary Fat Consumption is just one topic we will cover in our Healthy Habit Bootcamp next week, a completely [FREE] coaching offer from Anyman Fitness – you can join us here at this link.
We begin on Monday.
N.W.A. Training Tip Of The Week:
“You need 48 hours of rest for a muscle group to fully recover or you will risk overtraining.”
Have you ever heard the above quote? I know I sure have…
I see this old, OLD myth still floating around the internet and some people still spout it off as if it’s gospel.
In reality, it’s an antiquated view of strength training.
The idea that you need 48 hours of rest between training sessions is pure bullshit.
Recovery is certainly important.
The entire idea behind weight training is to momentarily make your body weaker by training it with intensity.
After your workout, you’re significantly weaker than you were before your workout.
Your muscles are tired, you’re sweating, and if the workout was intense enough, you may even be shaking a little bit.
You’ll need to be sure you hydrate, refuel/repair your muscles with healthy chow, and you get a solid night’s sleep that evening.
But you certainly don’t need to take a full rest day in order to avoid overtraining.
Especially if you set your training program up properly.
One big reason our clients’ results often explode from the jump is our philosophy on training.
The more exposures to a muscle group over the course of a week, the better.
Of course that doesn’t mean I tell clients to do max-weight-barbell-back-squats daily or anything.
You’ll need to vary the intensity to ensure you do recover and don’t get hurt.
Here’s an example from our Healthy Habit Bootcamp, which starts on Monday (and is completely free, by the way)…
On Monday in the Healthy Habit Bootcamp, you’ll be performing the barbell bench press for 3 sets.
And then on Tuesday, you’ll be performing sets of push-ups in our popular “Bro Workout”.
Every time I run the HBC, I get a handful of emails on Tuesday morning telling me how dangerous it is to do push-ups the day after bench press…
It always sounds like this: Something, something, 48 hours rest, something something… 😉
But look at those 2 movements – bench press and push-ups.
Both exercises work the chest, sure.
But one requires you to load up the barbell and lift heavy, relatively speaking.
The other exercise, push-ups, is a bodyweight movement you can easily perform every day and recover just fine from.
Same body part, much different intensity level.
Don’t be afraid to train muscle groups in back-to-back days.
Don’t do anything silly like deadlift heavy every day or squat heavy every day.
But at the same time, if you change up your movements, vary your approach, and are sure to recover and hydrate well, you’ll likely see your results take off the more frequently you train each muscle group.
N.W.A. Attitude/Mindset Tip Of The Week:
Change is difficult.
Humans resist change – we like it when life is calm, comfortable, and stable.
Anything to disrupt homeostasis, and our stress level shoots through the roof like a cannon.
On Day 1 of our Healthy Habit Bootcamp, we discuss how to make BIG changes to your lifestyle actually stick.
The #1 ally (or enemy) we have in this battle is our mindset.
How we mentally approach change will make all the difference for you, and will determine whether your results are eye-popping or non-existent.
Often times, when a new client joins AF, they’re faced with a fair amount of changes.
Perhaps they’ve never tracked their macronutrients before, or they’re beginners in the gym.
Maybe they’re used to dining out for lunch daily and all of a sudden, they need to start planning their meals properly.
Occasionally, they’re faced with negative peer pressure from their friends and family.
As I said… change is hard… there’s no way around it!
An excellent mental strategy for you is to “Minimize The Change” when you’re trying to improve your lifestyle.
Here’s how it works…
A client says to me:
“Coach J, I don’t think I can do this!
There’s macros and meal planning and workouts and body measurements and hydration and… it’s too much, I can’t do it!!!”
My response:
“Hey, take a deep breath… there’s only 2 things you need to do in fitness in order to be successful.
No more, no less.
Do you think you can eat healthy today? Can you plan your meals, make ’em, and eat ’em?
(Yes, Coach, I’m pretty sure I can do that…)
Good!
Now that we have your nutrition sorted out, you have your workout – can you get to the gym today and do your workout as prescribed?
(Yeah, Coach, I can do that, too…)
Perfect.
Then you can accomplish your goals.
That’s all there is to fitness – eating right and exercising.
There’s nothing more to it, honestly.
If you can just do those 2, small things: Eat right and train hard – you’re golden.
Making BIG changes seem small and simple is an excellent strategy for you to use in your own life.
If you’d like to learn 4 additional mindset strategies we use with clients, consider joining our Healthy Habit Bootcamp which is [FREE] and begins on Monday.
One Favorite Social Media Post Of The Week:
Something most people don’t talk about:
Most “high carb” foods have just as much, if not more, fat in them than carbs.
Carbs aren’t the enemy.
Processed bullshit is.
Share this on Twitter | Share this 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,
Snoop-A-Loop-Coach-J
Anyman Fitness
Read the N.W.A. Newsletter Archives
The 1991 Geto Boys album We Can’t Be Stopped featured quite an album cover.
Bushwick Bill, the group’s infamous foul-mouthed rapper, had just been shot in the eye by his girlfriend and was in the hospital recovering.
His group mates took him out of his hotel room into the hallway, ripped the IV out of his arm, and snapped the picture that was ultimately used for the album.
Wild stuff…