Drink 1/2 your body weight in water daily

Drinking the right amount of water each day is one of the most important habits that you can do for your overall health. Drinking half of your body weight in ounces of water daily might sound easy to do, but I know that it is a challenge for most people. When I am coaching nutrition with individuals or a large group, the first habit that I need to be adhered to is water.

Reason 1 : It will boost your metabolism. Studies have shown that people who are fully hydrated have a metabolism that is 30 percent higher than if they were dehydrated. This means that you will burn more calories at rest and during exercise. Your metabolism is responsible for how your body processes food and waste. You need your metabolism needs water every day to keep it efficient. 

Reason 2 : It will cut down on your sugar and salt cravings. When you do not drink enough water, your brain starts to shoot out signals to your body that you need sugar or salty treats. Your body uses water to shuttle energy to your cells. When water is lacking, the brain thinks that it needs more energy foods. This is why you might crave chips around 3:00 p.m. even though you had a great lunch. People often crave sweets after a good dinner because they are not hydrated enough. This is where the bowl of cereal or worse, ice cream comes in at 9:00 p.m.  Overtime, cutting out late-night snacks will lead to you losing bodyfat. Discipline does not always work. Being hydrated makes saying no a lot easier. 

Reason 3 : You can work out harder and longer. When you are fully hydrated your joints are lubricated and your ability to work through challenging exercises improves. You might have noticed this before. One day you can feel great running for a certain amount of time and on another day you did the same amount of time and it felt twice as hard. 

 Reason 4: It will flush toxins out of your body on a regular basis. We all take in toxins every day: pesticides, certain foods, the air, etc.

Reason 5 : You will have a bowel movement on a regular basis. A lot of people suffer from constipation. Getting a good amount of fiber is very important, but if you are not hydrated your bowels will not move properly. This is why some people lose 5 even 10 pounds in one week after finally getting hydrated. Being "regular." is very important. If you drink the right amount of water one day and the next you do not, your bowel movement is likely to change to a different time in the day. 

Do your best to get in half of your body weight in ounces of water, every day. Plan for it as you would with food or other important habits. If you weigh 180lbs, you need about 90 ounces of water daily. Set out 5, 20-ounce bottles of water and make it a point to finish them by the end of the day. Eventually, this will habit will come naturally to you because of the way you feel. You will feel great and have a much easier time with all of your health goals.

 

 

Sleep 7 to 8 hours

Sleep and water are the 2 habits that play the largest role in your energy. I am sure that you have had those days where you felt like you were in a fog. Low energy. No motivation to workout. Or maybe you do a workout, but you end up feeling like you were half your normal speed. 99 percent of the time, you can blame the lack of water and sleep. These 2 habits are closely tied. If you go to bed dehydrated, you will have a tough time getting 7 to 8 hours. Our bodies need water to help with the repair process that occurs when we are sleeping. Going to bed dehydrated usually results in a long restless night. Upon waking from poor sleep, the feelings I described above are almost guaranteed. This is usually why people form a caffeine habit. Trust me, I have been there. Most of us have. Do your best to drink your water, and get your exercise in so that your body gets exhausted to the point where you feel tired at a decent hour. These habits are closely tied together. I could go on forever about all of the reasons sleep is important to your health. I will just ask that you watch this video below instead. This guy is one of if not the best sleep expert we have right now. Take a little time to watch it. 

Eat Protein 

Protein. The building block of life. It is vital to our lives. You can do o.k without carbohydrates. You can cut fats to just the fat found in your protein source and be alright. You can't cut protein out and expect to do well in any aspect of your health. Without protein, you are simply going without the body's resource responsible for building muscles, skin, brain cells, bone, etc.  If weight loss is your goal, you should make high-quality protein your first priority every time you eat.

Protein For Weight Loss

Adequate protein intake at each meal will raise metabolism. Countless studies have proven this. The average raise in metabolism seems to be around 80 to 100 calories per day. That might not sound like a lot. But consider this. You are burning 100 calories per day just by eating this macronutrient. This does not happen from eating carbohydrates or fats. When you eat protein, you become more thermogenic. Your body temperature actually raises. The study that shows this. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11838888

To lose body fat, you need to eat less. This is common knowledge. The big question for millions of people is how? A lot of people struggle to cut back on foods that they know they should not eat. One of the biggest reasons for this is not eating foods that actually satisfy. Think of the last time you ate fast food. Have you ever noticed being hungry right after eating fast food? You are not alone. This is what occurs when that meal is high in saturated fat, sugar, and low in high-quality protein. If you made your own homemade burger with good ground beef (high-quality protein) and baked fries that you prepared from potatoes, you would end up eating fewer calories. This meal compared to the fast-food version could be the difference in 300 to 500 calories less. You would simply stay full until the next meal is supposed to be eaten. If it was dinner, you would be less likely to go looking for sweets right before bed. Low protein dinners especially from fast food are usually the cause for late-night munchies.  

Leave out the snacks

Snacking is not ideal if you are trying to lose body fat. It can result in 500 low-quality calories getting in the way of weight loss. The old bodybuilding method of eating 5 to 6 times a day is a really bad plan for the average person. Bodybuilders are from another planet made of Tupperware and chicken breast. Normal people really need to put their focus on life, family, friends, work, etc. Eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner that includes a good amount of high-quality protein is all that is needed.

Snack foods in general tend to be processed and or low in real protein. This includes a lot of nutrition bars.  When I coach clients that say that they felt hungry an hour or two after eating a meal, I look into what that meal was. Did it have 4 to 6 ounces of good protein? Did it have good fats? Was it too high in carbohydrates? There are always clues left by your last feeding. Often, it is that the protein was simply low. If it was a chicken salad with 1 to 2 ounces of protein. There it is! Simply bump the protein to 4 to 6 ounces next time and notice that you were not hungry until the next real meal.  Study. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8862477

 A Good Day Of Eating Protein

Breakfast

3 eggs with 1 to 2 pieces of Ezekiel toast with a little butter. Unsweetened beverage, coffee, tea, etc.

Lunch

Homemade salad with *4 to 6 ounces of chicken, white and dark meat is fine if it is free-range or organic. A huge amount of spinach, kale, and all the raw veggies you like. Add a little feta cheese, a few sliced strawberries, drizzled with olive oil and apple cider vinegar. 

Dinner

*4 to 6 ounces of flank steak. A fist-sized serving of wild or jasmine rice. Grilled or steamed veggies.

Desert (optional)

1/2 to 3/4 cup of plain greek yogurt and a hand full of berries

*Indicates the size of your open palm

 Cut down your added sugar 

Today, the average American consumes almost 152 pounds of sugar in one year. This is equal to 3 pounds (or 6 cups) of sugar consumed in one week! That is a strong visual. We all have one cup measuring tools at home. Fill up 6 cups of sugar and pour it into a bowl and try to imagine eating that in one week. Try and visualize 152, one-pound bags of sugar sitting on your counter. It would look like a wall. 

Added Sugar is the problem

It is hard to take accountability for this massive amount of sugar consumption because you are not seeing it. Most Americans are eating processed and fast food over whole foods. Just about every processed food item contains added sugar for taste. The food companies and fast-food chains prioritize taste over nutrition. The better it tastes, the more you buy. It is that simple. Worse, processed foods do not satisfy you as whole foods do. This leads to snacking in between meals. 99% of snack foods are processed with sugar. When sugar snacks are eaten, blood sugar goes up. These spikes your insulin.  When insulin spikes and drops quickly, you typically overeat your next meal. You see a pattern. This is exactly how obesity, type 2 diabetes, and even cancer happens over time due to your diet.

Eating your meals from fast-food chains and restaurants will prove to be hard in controlling sugar. We usually look over the menu and maybe decide what is ordered based on calories. Sometimes you may choose something low in fat and calories not realizing that it is loaded with sugar. Keep this in mind. If fat is low, added sugar and salt are put in to give it flavor. There is always a trade-off. I am not saying that you can not eat out. I would just highly recommend doing a little research into what is in the foods that you like to eat.

I can go on about sugar forever. I do not want to make this blog post long. I simply want you to start becoming aware of added sugar. This week, check labels on foods that you like to eat. If you eat out often, check the website of your favorites and see what the added sugar is on the foods you normally eat. The recommended added sugar allowance is 30 grams per day. One can of Pepsi is 50 grams of added sugar. Drinks tend to be the biggest culprit of our overall problem with sugar in America. A great first step to cutting your sugar would be to stop all sugar drinks. Instead of those drinks, try drinking half your body weight in ounces of water throughout the day. This really cuts down the cravings for sugar. If you like sparkling water, add lemon, limes, berries, etc. I personally love the sparkling mineral water from Trader Joe's. Drink green tea, black and herbal teas. Coffee is good. Just hold the sugar. 

There you have it. 4 habits to go along with being consistent at Boot Camp with us. If you are signed for our boot camp, please do your best to make all 3 days, every week. You will get stronger, leaner, and overall healthier each and every week. Do your best to work on the 4 things mentioned above while you are committed to boot camp. Keep in mind, these habits will need your attention for the rest of your life so you will not master them in one month. Just try and be a little better at each of these things every day. It will add up!