Metabolism = Campfire

The most commonly asked question I get is "..but coach I want to lose weight, why are you encouraging me to eat more..."

I want to you look at your metabolism like a campfire that is always burning a little bit. This small flame is called your "basal" or resting metabolism.

The goal is to take this small flame that is always burning calories and make it bigger, make it burn longer, and make it burn more overall calories.

Think of your metabolism as if it were the flame of a campfire.

Now I want you to think of wet logs and dry logs. Wet logs being your processed foods and dry logs as your whole, natural, high quality foods.

Imagine what would happen if you tossed a bunch of wet logs inside the campfire. What would happen? Eventually you would have a giant pile of wet logs that lack proper fuel doing nothing and our bodies would store this as body fat.

Imagine tossing a bunch of dry logs every 3-4 hours. The flame would get larger because the dry logs (whole foods) are burning effectively and would not pile up.

Now I want you to pour some lighter fluid; this being your exercise component. Now we are really igniting your metabolism.

Think of your high intensity interval training coupled with strength training being your bucket of lighter fluid. We are officially igniting your metabolism and making it burn hotter, longer, and more intense.

SO….

The morale of the story is to stop dieting and exercise and start "eating dry logs" and using "lighters fluid" to burn body fat.

The hotter the metabolic flame burns = the hotter you become!

And unless we are tracking we have no idea what to manipulate or what we are actually consuming for us to make adequate adjustments.

Biggest Diet Mistakes:

-Slashing calories too aggressively (this hinders your metabolism in the long run, you end up irritable, hungry, and discouraged)

-Lack of Planning: You have to plan as a staple to success

-Changing Exercise Programming or Overtraining: Stay the damn course. Program adherence is just as critical.

By starting off with too much exercise, you basically handicap yourself. When weight loss stalls, you usually have two choices: drop calories, or increase activity. However, when exercise is already high, you’re only left with dropping calories. Eventually, you run out of real estate in terms of calorie intake and you find yourself stuck.

BUT by strategizing your nutrition, you can make your life much easier and enjoy the fruits of your labor.