How to Set Yourself Up for Success Pre-Workout

A lot of attention in the fitness industry is spent on how to optimize your performance during the training session itself.

And this is good considering the implementation of effective training principles is what leads to better muscle growth, better fat loss results, and better overall body compositions.

But little to no attention has been given to what you can do before your workout to make sure your training session is of the highest quality possible.

In some sense, this is kind of like giving people a ton of advice on how to behave during a job interview without giving them any advice on how to prepare for a job interview.

And for that reason, I think a lot of people are shooting themselves in the foot when it comes to a lack of pre-workout preparation.

Why is this happening?

Most times, I think we're just not planning well-enough, so I've done my best to come up with four practical tips for how to set yourself up for success pre-workout.

How to Set Yourself Up for Success Pre-Workout

1. Make sure you know which specific days and times you are working out across any given week.

If you're running a push-pull-legs split, that probably means you're either on a 6-day split or a 3-day split.

Plan accordingly by putting all 3-6 of those workouts in your calendar.

If you’re fortunate enough to have a similar routine on a daily basis, you might be able to workout at 12PM every day.

But if not, you’ll need to set aside time each week to play Tetris with your workout schedule.

If you don't, those workouts simply won’t get done.

So the first step in optimizing your pre-workout gym flow is to schedule your workouts in advance and honor them on your calendar as you would a work meeting, a lunch with a friend, or anything else important to you.

Bonus Tip: To help remind you of the value of exercise in your life, pencil your workouts into your calendar with creative titles like “Prioritize My Health,” “Get Stronger,” or even “Live a Longer Life for My Kids.”

Doing this will help keep your primary motivations top of mind so you don’t lose sight of the bigger picture.

2. Make sure you know and understand the movements you're doing that day before you ever get to the gym.

For those of you who are doing pre-written training programs or working with an online body recomposition coach, there's no greater waste of time than showing up to the gym, pulling up your workout, and realizing you have no idea what a Seal Row is.

Now you're fumbling around on YouTube all frazzled trying to figure out what you're supposed to be doing, and the vibe is all off.

You wind up frustrated and stressed.

Set yourself up for success by peeking at your workout several hours before you need to execute so there are no surprises once you show up.

3. Make sure you are properly fueled.

This may feel like a no-brainer, but it's a very common thing for people to show up to the gym without enough energy in their system.

Don't do that.

Quality training is what ultimately drives the muscle growth you need to change the shape of your body, which means you need an adequate amount of fuel to support that training.

Need an analogy?

It's like setting out on a road trip from New York to Los Angeles without putting enough gas in your tank to get you across the New York border into Pennsylvania.

In this case, finally making it to Los Angeles represents the achievement of your body recomposition goal. It’s the moment when you catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror and say, “I freaking did it. I’m strong, jacked, and lean, and it feels good.”

But here’s the problem.

How are you ever going to make it to Los Angeles someday if you haven’t even put enough fuel in the tank to get out of New York?

As it pertains to this analogy, those smaller traveling stints are the individual workouts you complete that eventually accumulate until you arrive at your destination.

The point?

Every workout needs to be high-quality, and high-quality training is predicated on high-quality fuel.

So be sure to eat a protein-rich meal with an appropriate number of carbohydrates in the hours leading up to your workout for optimal training performance.

Although I don’t think it’s worth overcomplicating the specific numbers of carbohydrates you should consume, I think it’s a good to aim to ingest around 20-30% of your total daily carbohydrates in your pre-workout meal.

For me, this is usually a bowl of oatmeal with berries and a banana.

Need a caffeine buzz? Consider sipping on some black coffee or your favorite pre-workout blend.

4. Make sure you have the gear you need to execute the workout optimally.

This probably isn't going to be super relevant for casual lifters, but if you need to be on the Smith Machine today for deep squats, make sure you have your squatting shoes.

If it's leg day, don't be wearing Crocs.

If it's chest day, definitely be wearing Crocs. It's that simple.

And, of course, this includes bringing a gym bag that contains all of the non-negotiables like a workout outfit, a water bottle, and any towels, shampoo, or body wash you might need if you need to shower post-workout.

Secondly, make sure you are wearing an outfit that makes you feel confident!

As Steve Cook once said, "Look good. Feel good. Play good," and I think there's a lot of truth in that.

Guys, if it’s arm day, wear a shirt or cut-off that makes your arms look big!

Ladies, if it’s leg day, wear bottoms that make you feel strong and fit!

Set yourself up for success by showing up in an outfit that makes you feel confident and ready to perform at your best.

In my opinion, checking these four boxes consistently is going to put you in a state of patterned and predictable success.

To illustrate just how powerfully I think your pre-workout decisions can impact your workout experience, I’ve decided to outline two real-life situations.

Scenario A: You Didn't Check the Pre-Workout Boxes and Got Wrecked By Life

You're packing up for work at 5PM and you suddenly realize you were "supposed to" workout today.

Discouraged at your lack of planning, you decide that you can probably stop by the gym on the way home for a quick workout if traffic is light. Traffic is decent, so you show up the gym at 5:20PM.

You pop open your Google Sheets app because you're my client and start looking over the workout when you realize the first move is a flexion row.

The stress hits you in the chest like Mike Tyson in his prime.

You have no clue what a flexion row is.

So you start flipping through the internet looking for a flexion row, but you find six different varieties and now it's 5:35PM and you were supposed to leave at 5:50PM to be home for dinner by 6PM and everything is falling apart so you say "screw it" and just starting running on the treadmill.

Except two minutes into the run you start feeling awful and it dawns on you. "I didn't have lunch today because I worked through the lunch hour." Woof.

Now you're running on a treadmill with no fuel in your body with a cold sweat. You get off, trudge to your car discouraged, and pick up a pizza on the way home for emotional therapy.

Scenario B: You Checked the Pre-Workout Boxes and Kicked Butt

You're packing up for work at 5PM feeling like a million bucks because about an hour ago you had some dried fruit with a protein shake.

You show up to the gym at 5:20PM ready to be lifting hard from 5:30-6:30PM because you cleared it with your significant other on Sunday that you'd be working out today because you're passionate about achieving your goals and they support you in that.

You complete your warm-up wearing all the right gear that makes you feel confident and then move over to the first movement of the day, which is a heel-elevated Smith Machine squat.

You weren't sure what heel elevation was a few days ago, but this morning while you were looking over the expectations for the day, you took note of that question and sent me (your coach) a question about it.

"Andrew, what's the best way to achieve this heel elevation thing? I looked online and it looks like some people use 2.5 pound plates and some people have wedges."

You decided the 2.5 plates will work great for you, so you set it up no problem and get a great quad workout in the rack.

Each subsequent movement goes just as smoothly and you waltz out of the gym at 6:30PM as planned feeling like a responsible adult for having planned well and executed the plan.

Hopefully this illustrates my point.

Whether you decide to be the person from Scenario A or Scenario B is entirely up to you.

But if you want to experience the highest level of success in the gym, you have to set yourself to succeed before you ever show up.

Summary

• Put your workouts on your calendar just like you would a work meeting or a lunch date. Avoid saying things like, “I’m going to try to workout on Thursday if I have time.” Make time if your goals are important to you.

• Make sure you know which movements you’re doing before you show up the gym. Being unfamiliar with your training for the day can lead to wasted time and frustration.

• Eat a high-carb, high-protein meal within a few hours of your workout to maximize training quality.

• Be sure to pack all of the equipment you need for your training session, and wear an outfit that makes you feel confident and fit.

---

I sincerely hope you found this article helpful or illuminating in some way!

If you feel like it brought you value, consider sending it to a friend or family member - especially someone who might be failing to understand the importance of planning for success before they ever even show up to the gym.

Later, friends.

-Andrew

How to Fix Your Squishiness

Let’s talk about the squishy fix.

As silly as it may sound, nearly everyone I talk to about training or dieting is interested in mitigating their squishiness in favor of a harder-looking physique.

Some people call this the "skinny-fat dilemma," but to me it's more of a squishiness dilemma.

So what do you do if you're squishy and you don't like it?

Firstly, I think it's important to understand how we all get squishy in the first place because not everyone is in the same squishiness boat.

How do we get squishy in the first place?

Scenario 1: you were lean but let go.

Probably the most common route to squishy is what I would call the person who grew up thin or lean by nature and then let go at some point in life.

Some of you are probably nodding your heads and thinking, "Yep. That's me." You never really had to think about food as a young person because "your metabolism was awesome!" And now it's apparently less awesome because you're squishy?

Or maybe your food and exercise habits changed a bit along the way as well.

A lot of these people were athletes in high school or college and then lost their way in their twenties.

scenario 2: the long-time chubster

But there are also people who have never known life without their squishiness. This would be anyone who feels like they grew up as a "fat kid" or thinks of themselves as genetically cursed.

You've never really felt confident at the pool or on the beach. You've never loved your picture being taken and you've probably always been insecure about a t-shirt that's just a little too tight. Maybe you were even made fun of for your weight when you were younger.

For those who know me well, you know that I actually fall into this camp.

Scenario 3: The Freestyle Friday Protein-Deficient Cardio Crowd

This third camp is probably the one that gives me the most grief because it represents a group of people who are trying really hard in all of the wrong ways.

And usually, pervasive ignorance is a common denominator among these people.

I know that sounds terrible, but I plan to defend what I mean by that as gently as possible. I call this group the Freestyle Friday Protein-Deficient Cardio Crowd.

Let me break that one down for you.

• Freestyle Friday is a term my high school basketball coach used to talk about anything that wasn't designed for a specific goal in mind. In short, it's something random and it implies little to no consideration of the future. With these people, I find that there's usually no method to their madness. They just "do" a bunch of stuff, and it's never systematic enough to warrant any meaningful or predictable returns.

• Protein-Deficient is pretty self-explanatory. Even though I've shifted my focus away from ultra-high-protein diets in recent years, you still have to consume an adequate amount of protein for any semi-serious physique endeavor.

  • If you want a deeper dive on calculating your own protein needs, check out this article I personally wrote on the topic.

  • You can also check this article out for practical tips on how to eat more protein if you don't know where to start.

• Cardio Crowd simply refers to the fact that these people generally spend way more time doing cardio than they do getting stronger and lifting weights.

When these three forces combine, you're bound to find some degree of squishiness. You might be fit in the cardio sense! But you might be squishy too.

For a surprising example, check out this photo of David Beckham I found the other day.

I'm not saying the guy looks "bad," but it's definitely a softer look for an elite soccer player in a photoshoot setting.

In my experience, most people want to be both more muscular and leaner than his physique in this particular photo.

Why Most People Don’t Love Their Squishiness

This is simple. Squishiness usually implies the combination of two unappealing factors: little to no muscle mass and unwanted fat.

This is a problem because most people would rather be the opposite of at least one but ideally both of those factors!

In other words, having little no muscle while carrying extra body fat is kind of the worst case scenario for most people.

You'd probably prefer having the combination of muscle and fat or the combination of no muscle and no fat than being all around squishy.

For example, powerlifters can sometimes be a decent example of what it means to have plenty of muscle but also plenty of fat, but, as you can see here, this lifter has a ton of muscle and a very healthy and aesthetic amount of body fat.

On the other hand, long distance runners tend to be a decent example of what it means to have little to no muscle or fat.

It's kind of like preferring to have your favorite team be 1-1 instead of 0-2 going into the third week of the football season.

Why would you want anything other than everything?

So in short, people don't love their squishiness because it's a double-opposite of what most people want.

Although each of those camps would benefit from slightly different strategies, the baseline principles are going to be the same.

5 Steps to Fixing Squishy

Be warned, these fixes are not sexy, and you won’t see any mention of lemon juice solutions.

Step 1: set a specific goal.

Firstly, you need to decide if you're going to lose fat first or build muscle first.

You can always try for a nice, slow, and steady recomp, but I think most people would be smart to pick one road or the other and get going.

This decision is important because it dictates how many calories you will be consuming as you start your new program.

Step 2: REMEMBER THAT calories matter most.

Once you have a clear direction and a specific goal, you've got to take extreme ownership of your caloric intake.

Remember that there are only ever three ways to eat:

• In a caloric deficit for a primary goal of fat loss

• In a caloric surplus for a primary goal of muscle gain

• At maintenance calories for a body recomposition effort

In any of these cases, I personally believe a modest approach will work best for most people.

In other words, I would recommend against any aggressive caloric deficit or caloric surplus, and I will tell you why.

Keep in mind that squishy or “skinny fat” people are typically visually softer and less muscular than they need to be for a hard-body look, which means…

• Eating in an aggressive deficit is going to severely limit the muscle you can gain.

• Eating in an aggressive surplus is going to cause excess weight gain and create an ever softer appearance.

As you can see, those are both unwanted outcomes.

So for some general advice, I think a 0-10% deficit or surplus depending on your goal is a very conservative place to start.

This means if your maintenance calories are 2,000 per day, you’d switch to an 1,800-calorie or 2,200-calorie diet depending on the goal (if you were to use the 10% figure).

STEp 3: make sure your protein intake is adequate.

You've got to get your protein in check.

Since so many people struggle to optimize their protein, I’m willing to throw out a few general recommendations.

I really think most females would benefit from targeting a minimum of 80g of protein per day while most males would benefit from targeting a minimum of 120g per day.

Obviously, you can eat much more than that if you personally feel you need to. That choice is yours. I'm just one guy yelling in a noisy room.

For a much more nuanced discussion on this, click here.

STEP 4: prioritize resistance training and progressive overload.

Train consistently with weights while minimizing unnecessary cardio.

You're just never going to develop succulent, balloon-like muscles that look impressive in your best outfits if you never train with weights.

I also realize it may sound a bit counterintuitive to minimize cardio, but you have to remember that building muscle is much more difficult than losing fat.

For that reason alone, I try to encourage people to commit to longer phases of muscle gain knowing in the back of their mind that cutting the fat later is always an option.

So if you're on the fence about training for muscle gain or dieting for fat loss, I might encourage you to train for muscle gain.

Some might argue it’s the less satisfying short-term move, but I firmly believe it’s the more gratifying long-term move.

You’re also going to want to make sure that your program is designed to allow for progressive overload, which means you’ll gradually be increasing the load, reps, or sets performed over time.

If you’re new to the idea of progressive overload, click here.

Step 5: diet in phases.

Diet phasically. I don't have the space to get into that here, but it's worth saying.

If you're squishy, you're probably not going to be able to do a single dieting phase and wake up lean and muscle-puffy someday.

In other words, you might start with an 6-week body recomposition effort at maintenance calories while optimizing your training quality and then deload for a week before jumping into a small surplus to start burning away some of the unwanted fat that’s preventing you from looking trimmer.

It might even take multiple phases of manipulating your strategy, which is where I personally think having a body recomposition coach can be extremely helpful.

Special Considerations

If you used to be lean but you've let go, there's a good chance you can "get your old self back" simply by getting back to old habits.

It's also most likely that you can go straight to cutting body fat since you might have some lingering muscle from your leaner days as a high school athlete or something similar.

If that’s you, it would certainly be my recommendation to start eating in a small deficit of around 10%.

For anyone who feels like they're bigger by nature, you might have to make a more dramatic shift than our leaner friends. But in my opinion, it's better to face the facts and get to work than it is to mope over the unfairness of genetic predispositions.

And I'm allowed to say that since I grew up "husky."

If your metabolism seems to be in a decent place, you're probably best to start chipping away at body fat and then building muscle once you get to a leaner base. Also, don't expect it to be easy. You might have to be more meticulous with your diet than the naturally thin girl at your office you secretly despise.

For these people, I would also recommend a small deficit of around 10%.

For the FFPDCC, you're in a bit of a pickle but it's not void of all hope. It's a hopeful pickle.

But you probably need to decide if you care more about being a cardio monster or a Greek statue. They just really don't go hand in hand in any optimal sense.

If you're more about cardio, then a lower-protein life makes good sense. You're not actually trying to build muscle and that's fine!

But if you're sick of squishy more than anything, get on a structured weight training program, bump your protein intake, and snooze the cardio for a few months to give yourself a chance to build some lean tissue.

For these people, I would actually recommend maintenance eating or a small surplus of around 10%.

And that's that!

Just some thoughts on being squishy and how to rewrite your story if you're in pursuit of leaner and more muscular body composition.

---

Thanks for reading! I genuinely hope you were able to take something meaningful away from this article.

If you feel like it brought you any value at all, consider sending it to a friend or family member - especially someone who might be tired of having their love handles melt over the sides of their favorite jeans.

Later, guys.

-Andrew

How to Build Muscle Effectively Using the Rule of 7's and 11's

I want to share something with you that I've been meaning to immortalize somewhere on the internet as an extremely simple way of thinking about how to string together a muscle-building workout.

Until I have a better name for it, I'm going to call it The Rule of 7's and 11's.

It’s best-suited for a few specific kinds of people and scenarios:

1. People who are brand new to the gym and feel clueless about how much weight to use, how many reps to perform, and how many sets to complete

2. Seasoned gym-goers who are lifting in a new gym with new machines due to vacation or travel for work

3. Anyone who is looking to incorporate a new piece of equipment into their routine

The common themes here are newness and ambiguity.

The Rule of 7’s and 11’s is most appropriately applied when we are forced to learn something new either as inexperienced lifters or long-time gym-goers being exposed to new equipment or new exercises.

Tracking so far?

Good! Let’s get into the details.

The Rule of 7's and 11's

Step 1

For every movement you choose to do in the gym, pick an initial weight that seems very doable for an easy set of 7. When you get to 7 reps, stop - even if you could have done way more (which you certainly could have because that’s exactly the point).

To keep this easily understandable, let’s use an example of a brand new machine bench press in my local gym.

• Remember, the machine is brand new, which means I have no idea how much weight I should be using to elicit an optimal muscle-growth response.

• As a complete shot in the dark, I pin the 120-pound mark and do an easy set of 7. Mission accomplished.

• So my first set was 120x7.

Step 2

The idea from here is to continue doing sets of 7 while adding 10-20 pounds per set until you can no longer do 7 reps (or in some cases 11, which I will explain later).

• In this case I would probably move to 140 and complete another 7 reps.

• So my second set was 140x7.

• My third set might be 160x7. It’s getting more difficult, but I’m still able to get all 7 reps, so I rest and continue on.

• My fourth set might be 180x7, which feels plenty challenging, but I’m still able to get all 7 reps. So what I do? I rest and increase the weight for a fifth set.

• My fifth set might be 200x6.

Great! I found the point at which I could no longer lift a weight for 7 full reps. Now what?

Step 3

Once you've identified that roughly-7-rep weight, hang out there for 2-3 additional sets of roughly 7 reps. These are what we call working sets: the ones that actually “count” toward your total weekly volume. And always count that “failure set” where you were unable to do the full 7 reps.

I also recommend resting around 90-120 seconds in between each of your working sets. I personally do 60-90 seconds on my feeder sets and 120 seconds on my working sets, but I encourage you to experiment with your own recovery ability.

So in this case, I would have done 4 feeder sets before finding my working weight. These may be new terms to you, but simply think of your feeder sets as the sets that lead you to your true working weight.

All in all, my logbook would look like this.

Feeder Sets for Machine Bench

• 120x7 (90 seconds rest)

• 140x7 (90 seconds rest)

• 160x7 (90 seconds rest)

• 180x7 (90 seconds rest)

Working Sets for Machine Bench

1. 200x6 (120 seconds rest)

2. 200x6 (120 seconds rest)

3. 200x5 (120 seconds rest)

Step 4

And then you repeat that for each movement of the entire workout.

Boom. That's it. Seriously.

4 Reasons Why It’s a Very Good Idea

ReaSon 1: IT DEMANDS TRAINING CLOSE TO FAILURE.

Well, firstly and most importantly, it forces you to train within a few reps of a failure in a rep range that most experts in the muscle-building space agree is extremely effective.

I seriously doubt there's a single jacked person on the planet who would tell you that lifting within a few reps of failure between 7 and 11 reps is a bad idea.

So, if it's not a bad idea (and probably a great idea), why not do it?

Reason 2: IT INCLUDES A PROPER WARM-UP BY DEFAULT.

The next most important thing is that it forces you to warm-up for each movement properly. When you start with very doable weights and move up until you can no longer achieve a baseline rep range, you can know for sure that you've prepared your muscles properly to exert maximum force on those sets of 7 that "count."

Reason 3: IT CHALLENGES PEOPLE TO lift heavy.

Thirdly, it doesn't allow you to fall short of your potential because you have to increase the weight if you got your 7 reps the last time.

For example, if we were doing this on the squat, you might have gotten 225 for 7 last time and wanted to just hang out there even though you probably could have gotten 9-10.

The Rule of 7’s and 11’s would have you jump to 230 or 235 and force you to get 6 reps before calling it a day.

In my opinion, that's a great way to chase your true potential in each movement. It's like built-in wimp protection.

I also find that some movements hurt no matter what.

For me, these would be weighted dips and Bulgarian split squats. Bodyweight dips hurt just about as badly as weight dips with a 45 hanging from your belt.

The trap here is that you could easily misinterpret your discomfort for maximal effort. But this rule forces you to continue adding weight.

Reason 4: IT ENCOURAGES DISCOMFORT.

Fourthly, training like this forces you to enter into the suck zone when you don't want to.

Think about it. Squatting for sets of 6-7? Gross.

Deadlifting for 6-7? Gross.

Barbell reverse lunging for 6-7? Gross.

But this is how you grow muscle!

When should you use 11's instead?

If you've been lifting for awhile, you know which moves to use 11's on instead.

These are typically going to be isolation movements like exercises for your biceps or triceps or higher-rep stuff for your legs like leg extensions or hack squats.

Similar, I wouldn’t use 7's on super tiny muscles like your rear delts or calves in most cases. For those muscle groups, you’d probably even be smart to add a third tier rep range of 20-30.

But for the sake of keeping things as simple as possible, I encourage most people to think in terms of 7’s and 11’s.

Remember that training this way is particularly helpful when you're in a new gym or on vacation or on a business trip.

Why? Because you've got brand new machines to work with, so you can't really look to your logbook to help you much.

This allows you to keep adding weight to the random machine bench in your hotel in Dallas until you identify the weight you should be training with rather than "going by feel" and subjecting yourself to a suboptimal workout.

How do you know which sequence of exercises to do?

Unfortunately, the Rule of 7’s and 11’s won't help you figure out which moves to actually do. Fortunately, I've decided to help you out with a few structures below.

There's nothing magical about these sequences other than that they make good sense for achieving a full upper body, lower body, and full body workout.

If you want an upper body workout...

• Some kind of vertical pull like an assisted pull-up or lat pulldown (7's)

• Some kind of horizontal press like a bench press (7's)

• Some kind of row like a seated cable row (11's)

• Some kind of vertical press like a DB shoulder press (7's)

• Some kind of bicep move like a DB curl (11's)

• Some kind of tricep move like a rope extension (11's)

If you want a lower body workout...

• Some kind of squat like a barbell squat (7's)

• Some kind of hinge like a deadlift or a good morning (7's)

• Some kind of lunge like a reverse barbell lunge (7 or 11's)

• Some kind of stabilized squat like a hack squat (11's)

If you want a full body workout...

• Pick a few superstars from each of the above categories and get to work.

For specifics, here's a sick 7-move upper body blast I like to toss in every once in awhile when my training schedule gets a little weird and I need a one-off pump:

Andrew’s Favorite One-Off Pump Session

1. Deficit Bent Over Rows for 7's

2. Incline Machine Bench for 7's

3. Assisted Pull-Ups for 7's

4. Seated DB Overhead Press for 7's

5. Seated Incline DB Curls for 11's

6. Straight-Bar Tricep Cable Pushdowns for 11's

7. Superman Curls for 11's

---

I really hope you found this article instructive.

If you feel like it brought you any value at all, consider sending it to a friend or family member - especially someone who might be using the classic “I travel a lot for work” excuse when it comes to neglecting their muscle gains.

Later, guys.

-Andrew

Why There Is No Hope for Your Body Recomposition Goal (Unless There Is)

Sadly, the title of this article is not clickbait. 

I really am going to tell you why I think there's absolutely no hope for a lot of people out there with a body recomposition goal. 

And here it is:

Your mindset is self-limiting. 

And frankly, it's time everyone got called out a bit (gently, of course). 

Common Examples of a Self-Limiting Mindset

These are examples of things I hear people say and my non-spoken responses:

• "I really want to lose weight, but I'm not giving up my pizza and beer on the weekends!" 

  • My Response: That's fine, but you're probably never going to lose a meaningful amount of body fat doing that. You might have to limit those foods for some time in order to achieve your goal.

• "I really want bigger glutes and strong-looking legs, but I really don't like lifting weights. I especially hate lunges."

  • My Response: That's fine, but you're literally never going to grow your glutes or your legs. 

• "I want to gain more muscle but I just don't really have a big appetite."

  • My Response: That's fine, but you should probably adjust your goal. Muscle is grown best in a caloric surplus (even if it’s modest).

• "My only slot to workout is in the mornings. I could go to the 6AM cardio class, but I just don't want to get out of bed that early."

  • My Response: That's fine. Just don't expect to lose any fat sleeping in. You might have to make a decision about which is more important to you.

• "I know Andrew recommended getting more steps in, but it's kind of chilly outside."

  • My Response: That's fine. You could always wear a jacket, but the choice is yours. 

• "I really want to see my abs again, but there are always so many treats in the workroom! It's impossible for me to say no." 

  • My Response: That's fine. It's definitely not impossible to say no, it's just not a habit you’ve mastered yet.

Why I’m Not Here to Dispute Your Reasons

Now, just to be super clear, it really is totally fine for anyone to say those things. I really mean that! 

• It's not a problem to like pizza and beer more than being jacked and lean.

• It's not a problem to prefer watching Netflix than growing your glutes. 

• It's not a problem to enjoy workroom treats more than getting systematic fat loss results. 

But you have to be honest with yourself about the progress you will be able to make within the limitations of your own mindset.

If you read those examples carefully, you'll notice that every single one of them reflects an order of priorities in which the body recomposition goal always yields to some other element of preference. 

As cliche as it sounds, it's kind of true that most people who never achieve their goals never wanted them badly enough.

Why?

Because it's the desire within us that demands the implementation of new disciplines - even when those new disciplines are challenging and uncomfortable.

But here's where my hot take gets a little hotter. 

Personally, I think you should start disallowing yourself to exude negative emotions regarding the outcomes of choices you have made.

Read that again if you need to. 

What I'm saying is that at some point it becomes a waste of your own mental and emotional energy to dwell on negative things that you could change if you chose to.

That's a terribly negative cycle that never ends! And yet I think it describes the everyday reality of a lot of people. 

MIRROR MIRROR ON THE WALL

Think about it...

• Step 1: You see yourself in the mirror and you hate what you see.

• Step 2: You feel a negative emotion like shame or guilt or frustration or anger. 

• Step 3: But nothing changes because there are other elements of your lifestyle that you enjoy more than what it would take to improve the way you feel about the image in the mirror. 

• Step 4: And then the cycle repeats the next time you see yourself in the mirror. 

It's a very terrible thing.

Own your self-imposed parameters and move forward confidently.

In short, I think it's a good idea to make a decision about your body composition goals and journey, own that decision, and move forward confidently, even if your decision is not to pursue a dramatic change in your body composition. 

For example, if you wish you had a big booty but you're literally never going to squat, hinge, or lunge because you "just don't like it," I highly recommend learning to love your butt the way it is.

Contrary to what you might be tempted to believe while scrolling through Instagram, the plumpness of your peach is not a matter of life or death.

As it turns out, it's more of a fashion piece given the current cultural climate. 

Own your little butt. Love your little butt. 

Why?

Because you made a conscious choice not to grow your butt, and that was a mature decision. 

Seriously, you might wind up living a sad life if you hate your body despite your unwillingness to do anything about it.

Why put yourself through that? 

Similarly, if you're 30 pounds overweight but you're not willing to change your eating habits and exercise more, own that decision. It's a totally fine decision. 

Do I personally think you'd be healthier and flourish more in all areas of life if you were leaner and more fit? Of course! But I'm not you. Only you can make that decision for yourself. 

So what's my point here?

Do this...

Sit down and be real with yourself.

Go have a long think about what you think you want and the effort you're actually willing to put toward that image in your mind.

If there's a major discrepancy there, make an adjustment so that those two concepts line up with one another.

If you realize you've been dreaming and need to bring it back down to earth, adjust your goal.

If you realize your goal is legitimate but you're going to have to put more effort in, adjust your level of willingness to do what needs to be done.

Just make sure you have consistency between the goal at hand and the willingness to achieve it. 

Lastly, I couldn't help myself but leave you with some bit of positivity.

I lied. There really is hope (if you want there to be).

There really is hope for everyone if you choose to confront yourself and make change. 

Also, if this article offended you a little bit, I think that's good. I like to challenge the way people think - especially the ways they think of themselves and how they make decisions.

My honest opinion is that most people are capable of far more than they ever rise to achieve simply because they fall prey to laziness, self-doubt, and an over-obsession with comfort.

You can absolutely be that person if you want to be that person, but you can also make a powerful decision to rewrite your own story.

You don't have to think of yourself as "fat."

You don't have to think of yourself as "weak."

You don't have to hate your body.

The decision is yours, and there's hope if you want hope.

If you need help getting started, be brave and book a call with me.

---

I hope you found this helpful!

If you feel like this blog brought you any value at all, consider sending it to a friend or family member who might need a loving kick in the pants.

Cheers, friends!

-Andrew

How to Lose Weight for Your Wedding: A How-To Guide for the Brides of 2023-24

A lot of brides are gearing up for their special day in 2022 thinking, “It’s time to get into the best shape of my life for my wedding day.”

If that’s you, you’ve come to the right place because I’m here to tell you exactly how you can feel as confident as possible in your own skin as you walk down the aisle this year.

Before we get started though, I have to offer an extremely important disclaimer. 

This article is all about how you could lose weight and look “super hot” for your wedding, but no one here at IVRY is telling you that you should lose weight or need to lose weight - or that you can’t look beautiful on your wedding day just the way you are. 

You absolutely can.

I just know that there are plenty of brides and grooms who do want to shed body fat, build muscle, and “get hot” for their wedding day and honeymoon, which is why I’ve decided to write this article.

So let’s get into it.

You Need to Figure Out What You Mean When You Say “Lose Weight”

A lot of brides will say something like, “I want to lose weight for my wedding.”

And, to be fair, I know what most women mean when they say that, but I do think it can be an unhelpful way of thinking about “looking good” on your wedding day.

What do I mean by that?

Some people literally just want to see the number on the scale go down while other people care more about achieving a certain look.

These are very different things, which means…

You need to decide which person you are.

Do you really just want to lose weight? Or do you want to look a certain way?

The reason it seems like I am always teasing out this point is because it has a significant impact on the way you set up your diet and training.

In fact, it’s the very reason we call ourselves body recomposition coaches instead of weight loss coaches.

“I literally just want to lose weight and feel slimmer overall. If my butt looks like a sad raisin, I’m cool with that.”

If you literally just want to lose scale weight, I would encourage you to prioritize two simple things above all else:

1. Creating a moderate to aggressive caloric deficit through food

2. Burning calories through activity

In terms of practical application, that means you could go on something like a no-carb diet and commit to five classes at OrangeTheory per week. 

The diet is straightforward and simple to understand, and there’s no thought to the workouts, which means you just show up and burn hundreds of calories.

But remember, this isn’t going to make any of your muscles grow in any meaningful capacity because you’re only focused on losing weight - not body fat - just weight, which could be fat, muscle, water, or even just less food in your digestive system at any given moment.

At best, you’d be hoping to maintain any muscle you already had while getting smaller overall.

Nonetheless, you could very easily be “hardcore” for the few months leading up to your wedding, get the weight loss results you apparently want, snap the wedding day photos, feel “hot” on the beach and…

Oh, shoot.

Then what?

BEWARE THE EPIC HONEYMOON REBOUND

Unfortunately, you would probably rebound harder than Tom Hanks once he ditched Wilson and finally made it back to civilization after island life in the movie Castaway. 

Why?

Because crash dieting and reckless amounts of cardio just aren’t sustainably-designed or meant to bring anyone long-lasting results.

Not only that, but a traditional honeymoon experience sometimes involves the overconsumption of both food and alcohol, which results in an extremely high-calorie experience that could lead to anywhere between 3-10 pounds of fat gain.

This is why I warn against it.

But hey, maybe you’re not interested in a more phasic, long-term approach, and that’s totally fine!

You can make that decision for yourself. 

Some people literally just want the shortest route from A to Z and they don’t mind crashing and burning as long as Z is a good time.

Would I recommend it? Not at all. I think it’s shortsighted and destined for long-term failure, but I really don’t say that with judgment. It’s just my honest position.

But let’s address the brides out there who want to channel that shapely, fill-your-dress-out-in-all-the-right-ways type of lean bride vibe on their wedding day. 

We’re talking about strong yet feminine legs and glutes, a lean back peeking out from behind your straps, “toned” arms while you clutch the bouquet, and a flat tummy as a bit of icing on the cake. 

Do I have your attention yet?

“Okay, yeah. I’d rather put in the work to be shapely yet feminine! How do we do that?”

Sweet. That’s what I thought. 

So, if you’re wanting to lose mostly body fat (rather than just weight in general) while maximizing muscle retention or even building lean tissue on the way down, I would encourage you to do four things above all else:

1. Create a modest caloric deficit through food

2. Eat protein in doses of 20-40g per serving 3-4 times per day

3. Train 3-6 times per week with weights in an overloading fashion

4. Become a walking enthusiast

And here are some quick tips on how to achieve each of those numbered points without diving into too much detail.

Create a Modest Caloric Deficit Through Food

This is the most important thing on the list because the old saying that “you can’t out-exercise a bad diet” is absolutely true outside of Olympic athletes, genetic outliers, and those skinny eighth grade boys at the pool with a six-pack for no reason.

This comes down to identifying a caloric target for yourself that will have you losing around 1% of your bodyweight per week at most.

As a 200-pound guy, that means I’d be hoping to lose about 2 pounds per week.

Now obviously you can’t do that forever, but the point is to lock-in on a caloric target that can bring you that general weight of loss for 4-8 weeks. 

So if you’re a 150-pound female looking to get the ball rolling, you would set up a diet that would have you losing around 1.5 pounds (at most) per week for 4-8 weeks before adjusting.

Sample Fat Loss Pace for a 150-Pound Female

• Week 1 - 150 pounds

• Week 2 - 148.5 pounds or so 

• Week 3 - 147 pounds or so 

• Week 4 - 145.5 pounds or so 

• Week 5 - 144 pounds or so 

• Week 6 - 142.5 pounds or so

• Week 7 - 141 pounds or so

• Week 8 - 139.5 pounds or so

That would be a great start. 

But I know what you’re probably thinking.

“Well, are you going to tell me how many calories to eat?”

And the difficult answer to that question is no!

There is no one-size-fits-all caloric script that we can write because everyone is different.

That being said, I have found that starting most women out around 1800 calories is a great place to begin.

If you’re significantly overweight, you’ll probably lose plenty of body fat for quite awhile.

If you’re only slightly overweight, you’ll still probably start trending downwards, which is great.

But, women who are already relatively lean or who might just be very small people could benefit from starting their caloric target lower than 1800.

In some cases, eating 1800 calories per day could even cause you to gain weight slowly, but…

This could even be a good thing since it will give your body an optimal energy for muscle growth, which could even accentuate your muscular yet feminine curves despite a gentle uptick on the scale.

But again, did you just want to “lose weight” or did you want to look a certain way?

Now that’s true body recomposition, and it’s what lights my fire more than anything else as a coach.

The point of starting at 1800 calories per day is to kickstart the process because, well, you have to start somewhere. You can always adjust once you’ve accumulated about 14 days worth of bodyweight data.

If you’re losing weight around 0.5-1% per week, you’ve found the sweet spot! Slower than that? Maybe make a 100-calorie reduction to 1700 and continue to observe.

Others have speculated that you can take your current bodyweight in pounds and multiply that number by 10-12 for good estimation of a caloric target that should get you dropping some body fat.

Eat Protein in Doses of 20-40g per Serving 3-4 Times per Day

This is the second most important thing in my opinion because protein is the macronutrient that preserves and builds muscle. 

So, if you want to look svelte when the DJ cues up Canon in D, you’ll want to make sure you’re giving your body an optimal amount of protein to support your goal.

In short, I like to recommend a maximum of 1g of protein per day per pound of your goal body weight.  

So if you’re 150 pounds and you know you’d be excited to be a lean 140, it’s probably a decent idea to aim to eat between 98-140g of protein per day while you’re shredding for the wedding.

If you want more nuance on that, you can also check out our full article on just about everything you could ever want to know about structuring your protein consumption.

But, to keep with our 140-pound example, you could easily do the following assuming it doesn’t violate any food intolerance you might have:

• 8:00AM - 35g of protein from a plant-based protein shake with soy milk

• 11:30AM - 35g of protein from a tofu salad

• 5:30PM - 35g of protein from a chickpea pasta with salad

• 8:00PM - a piece of fruit for dessert

It really doesn’t have to be too complicated. Just make sure to keep your calories controlled to the goal.

Train 3-6 Times per Week with Weights in an Overloading Fashion

If you’re trying to look “uber hot” according to modern cultural standards, you’re probably going to need to be lifting weights multiple times per week.

In other words, thick bums and strong legs are in.

Can you do group fitness classes or hot yoga or pure barre or something similar? Totally.

But it’s probably not going to build the muscle you might be drawn to when dreaming about your ideal wedding day physique.

Those types of exercise are good for general health, fitness, flexibility, and burning plenty of calories, but they aren’t overloading enough to build an optimal amount of muscle.

Does that make sense?

So back to lifting.

For brides new to lifting, you really can’t go wrong with what we call the “push, pull, legs” split, which means you’d do the following:

• Monday: 4-8 pushing exercises (chest, triceps, shoulders)

• Tuesday: 4-8 pulling exercises (back, biceps)

• Wednesday: 4-5 leg exercises (quads, hamstrings, calves, abs)

And then you could easily repeat that for Thursday, Friday, Saturday while resting on Sunday if you want to make a 6-day split out of it.

You could also do 3 full body days a week or even a 4-day legs, push, pull, legs split if you’re a bride that wants to emphasize the lower half of your body (as most do).

For more information on how to structure a workout for optimal muscle growth, check out my article called How to Build Muscle Effectively Using the Rule of 7’s and 11’s.

Become a Walking Enthusiast

I’d recommend tracking your steps and aiming to hit the same semi-challenging number each day.

There’s nothing magical about 10,000 steps, but it’s a nice, round number that people like to see pop up on their phones or watches after a successful day of walking. 

When I lost around 30 pounds in 2020, I eventually had to push my walking up to 15,000 steps per day in order to see the continued results I wanted.

Whether your number is 10,000 or 7,000 or 15,000, get after it and get consistent. 

Walking burns way more calories than most people give it credit for, so if you’re in an area that allows for outdoor walking, I suggest you maximize it during the months approaching your wedding.

Seriously, if you think walking is silly advice, you’re probably unaware of the fact that most bikini competitors walk for 1-2 hours per day in the weeks leading up to their shows in order to achieve that fit yet feminine look that many brides are after.

So get to walking!

Looking for a more in-depth discussion on how to tailor your walking to your fat loss advantage, I’ve got you covered.

Manage Your Timeline Intelligently

The hard part about writing articles like this is that I can’t nuance every piece of the puzzle for everyone at the same time, but what I can do is remind you to be sensible about your timelines.

If your wedding is in two weeks, you’re probably a little late to the party.

At that point, “losing weight” probably comes down to wearing a trash bag in the sauna and chewing on ice like a high school wrestler. Don’t do that.

If your wedding is in a month, you could do an accelerated mini-cut for 4 weeks and lose a few pounds of body fat with an aggressive protocol.

But you really have a great chance at reshaping your physique if you’ve got 3-12 months until your special day.

The point is to tailor your approach to the time you have to achieve the goal, so if you’ve got plenty of time to make meaningful change, don’t put yourself on an unsustainable starvation diet.

Instead, go back to those four main areas of focus and start figuring out how to implement those strategies into your own life repeatedly for the duration of your engagement.

And, of course, if you need help doing any of this, these are the exact services I personally offer as a body recomposition coach, and I would be happy to walk alongside you for this process.

All you have to do is reach out for help.

Consider the Bigger Picture

As cliche as it may sound, every bride wants to feel like the most beautiful woman on the planet on her wedding day, and the photos you capture with your loved ones will be the moments you hang on the walls of your home for years to come. 

Which version of yourself do you want to be looking at for the next 50 years?

Not only that, but they’ll be the photos you one day share with your children, and I can’t help but think it would be a very proud moment to one day hear your daughter say,

“Dang, Mom! You looked HOT on your wedding day!”

And lastly, launching yourself into your married life with a strong, healthy, and confident body could be an excellent gift to your future spouse. 

Again, not because you should get fit or need to get fit, but more simply because it’s a token of discipline that communicates, “I want to be healthy and fit and present to live a full and thriving life with you.”

I think there’s something selfless and very romantic about that.

In fact, that’s one of my own greatest motivations for staying lean and muscular - to set myself up for a long life of romance within my marriage, adventures in the mountains and along the beaches, and (if I should be be so fortunate) fun spent with my future daughters and sons that will inevitably want to keep dancing or playing soccer with Dad for as long as he can keep up.

Is there any part of you that shares that sentiment?

Thanks for reading, everyone! I sincerely hope you enjoyed the content. 

---

Thanks for reading, everyone! I sincerely hope you enjoyed the content and learned something.

If you feel like this blog brought you any value at all, consider sending it to a friend or family member!

And, if you're interested in working with me one-on-one, visit The Vegan Gym and apply for coaching. I’ve had nothing but success in guiding people toward their fat loss goals.

Cheers, everyone!

-Andrew

How to Look Like Chris Hemsworth from Thor

Just the other morning I met up with a new potential client for coffee at Panera, and I asked him the question I ask nearly everyone when the topic is how to get maximally jacked and lean.

“So, do you have a favorite physique? Maybe a celebrity or something?”

And almost without fail, nearly everyone has that one photo in their phone that they keep coming back to - the one you pull up from time to time and say, “Dang, it would be so sick to look like this dude/gal.”

You’re probably no different.

Over the years, I’ve ebbed and flowed between wanting to look like Brad Pitt from Troy and Zac Efron from Baywatch.

Maybe for you it was Ryan Reynolds from The Amityville Horror (a random genre of movie to be jacked in) or Deadpool.

For this guy, it was Chris Hemsworth from Thor, and who can blame him?

Chris Hemsworth’s physique is absolutely next level - arguably the perfect combination of aesthetics and brute size, which in tandem flawlessly captures not only the heartbeat and admiration of the ladies but the respect and inner applause of the men as well.

In my personal opinion, that unique combination is the epitome of the ultimate physique - the one that captivates all audiences.

My Very Important Disclaimer on Wanting to “Look Like” Other People

Now, as a quick side note, I know a lot of people like to frown upon this idea of “trying to look like someone else,” so I’d like to speak to that briefly.

I try to give people the benefit of the doubt when they tell me they want to “look like” someone they admire in terms of fitness or physique.

If you pull up a picture of Ryan Reynolds and say, “Take me here,” I know what you mean.

You’re not asking me to drive you to the nearest plastic surgery facility to reshape your pecs to look just like his…

You’re saying you want to build a similar amount of muscle and shed a similar amount of body fat to get a similar result.

You’re saying, “Let’s move toward this physique in my own specific context,” and I respect that.

It’s not like when I first saw that scene of Brad Pitt in Troy I was thinking about how to grow long blonde hair at the same time. I wanted to know what I would look like if I were carrying that much muscle at that body fat percentage.

Does that make sense?

I just want to be sure to tread really carefully when I speak about wanting to “look like” other people.

It’s not about “looking like” someone else because you’re insecure. It’s about being inspired by a strong, muscular physique in someone you admire and setting a personal goal to achieve similar outcomes in your own context.

It Might Be Easier For Men Than Women

To be honest, I think men are generally better at keeping these distinctions in mind than women.

That’s not a dig at women, I just think women are perhaps a bit more likely to want “hips like J-Lo” or the “ratios of a Victoria’s Secret Angel” - and that's much different than saying you want to be jacked like Thor.

In fact, I think it’s a very dangerous way of thinking for women who are looking to understand their dignity and self-worth, which is want to make it very clear that I would never want to encourage body negativity of any kind.

As you read this article, please understand that “looking like” someone else in the fitness industry should never (in my opinion) come at the expense of dismissing your own self-worth.

So, ladies, if you think you want to “look like” some other girl who you think is the epitome of beautiful or sexy, my encouragement to you would be always to hold your own beauty, dignity, and self-esteem in a precious place.

If you want to build muscle, lose fat, and feel confident in your own skin, I think it’s best to do so out of self-love - not envy or insecurity.

And although this article will most likely attract men looking to get uber-stacked, I wanted to be sure to include that for my female audience. Consider it your daily dose of advice you didn’t ask for.

Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s talk about what you showed up for - how to get as jacked and lean as Chris Hemsworth was in Thor.

Is It Even Possible to Look Like Thor?

Frankly, it’s probably not possible for most. Ouch!

But I don’t say that to play the “genetics card” (although he certainly seems to have phenomenal genetics for aesthetics).

It’s deeper than that - an impossibility that speaks more to the willingness of the individual.

I say that because most people don’t want his physique badly enough to tailor their entire lifestyle toward that outcome.

Simply put, looking like Chris Hemsworth as he was in Thor just doesn’t happen by accident unless it happens by accident. And if you’re already jacked like Chris Hemsworth by accident, you probably skimmed over this article without a second thought.

But, let’s say you’re crazy enough to attempt it like me.

Here are my top seven tips about how I personally would approach it.

7 Tips for Getting Jacked Like Thor

1. Your Physique Is Now Your Full-Time Job

This first step is more of a mental adjustment than anything. Your food, training, and recovery are now of paramount importance at all times. You have to maximize all of the variables.

Some specific examples of this might be:

• Binging Schitt’s Creek but you know if you watch another episode you’re going to dig into the sleep you need to train properly all week? Turn it off and go to bed. It’s your job.

• Work party tonight but it’s going to be pizza and booze? Eat your own high-protein, macro-tailored meal beforehand and enjoy a sparkling water with your co-workers. It’s your job.

• Long stressful day at work and leg day sounds worse than hell in the moment? Cowboy up, my friend. You’re the one who signed up for this. It’s your job.

This also means no more stupid excuses about “missing breakfast because you overslept” or skipping leg day because you had a “tough day.”

Or only eating 67g of protein on Saturday because you were “traveling.”

Or having a lackluster training session because you “went out for too many drinks” with your friends on Friday night. Stop that.

If you really want to get after a big boy goal like getting jacked like Thor, you have to stop making excuses and starting owning every detail and outcome of your life - both positive and negative.

That’s a mental tweak and nothing more, but in my opinion it is certainly the first step.

2. Figure Out If You Need to Cut First or If You Need to Get Straight Into Bulking

For most people, looking like Thor is going to be a multi-year or even decade-long pursuit depending on how much muscle you want to add to your frame.

That means you need to tap into that idea that your journey is going to have to be phasic for you to see any kind of meaningful long-term success.

The first step is deciding if you need to bulk or cut, and these are my quick tips for making that decision.

People Who Should Cut First

• If you have no semblance of abomination definition, you should probably cut body fat.

  • The only exception I can think of is if you’ve never trained before and you’re not super overweight. But visible abs are probably a good indication that you’re near or below 15% body fat, which is where most people agree you should stop the gain train before your nutrient partitioning becomes more biased to fat gain (and even that’s still highly debated).

  • If you’ve never trained before, there’s a good chance you can build muscle and lose fat at the same time, so you could certainly make that your goal in this unique case.

• This probably goes without saying, but if you’re very overweight or obese, you probably need to cut body fat first before trying to put on muscle size.

  • You can still train for hypertrophy along the way, but you should probably be in a caloric deficit.

People Who Should Get Straight Into Bulking

The hardest part about looking like Thor is going to be putting on the muscle mass.

There’s nothing wildly impressive about his level of leanness, but the size and proportions are what turn heads when mixed with that leanness.

Your best gains are most likely going to come when you’re somewhat lean, which is why I would recommend most people who are any degree of “overfat” cut to a lean place in order to maximize those great gains. If you’re overweight and you go into a further caloric surplus, there’s a good chance that excess energy is going to be stored as more fat rather than more muscle - and we don’t want that.

But there are some people that would benefit from getting straight into bulking.

• If you’re that classic skinny dude who can’t put on weight to save his life, you should absolutely get straight into bulking, which probably means a modest calorie surplus.

• If you identify as skinny fat, I might also recommend getting into a very modest caloric surplus that might be mistaken for maintenance from time to time. You’re qualified to maximize that whole “build muscle and lose fat at the same time” idea, so why not press into it? Plus, cutting when you’re already sort of deflated and squishy can be a big shot to the ego, so why not set yourself up for more positive vibes by putting on some muscle beneath the flubber instead?

3. Get Your Calories Straight and Track Them

Talk to a trusted person in the industry about what your calories should be and get after it.

If you decided you needed to cut, make sure your caloric deficit is appropriate.

If you decided you needed to bulk, make sure your caloric surplus is appropriate and actually working. Wait, what does that mean? Metabolic adaption, folks. Your metabolism is not static.

If your surplus should have you gaining in theory, but it doesn’t have you gaining in practice, guess what? It’s not enough.

Add calories from carbohydrates (if possible) until the scale starts ticking upwards. If it becomes too unbearable to eat more carbohydrates, grab some extra calories from healthy fat sources to help you out.

Beyond that, make sure you are gaining at the proper rate per week, which most experts in the field would agree is around 0.5-1% of body weight gained per week.

Don’t want to track your calories? That’s fine, but that’s like saying you want to brew the best beer of all time but you’re simultaneously not interested in paying attention to the quantities and qualities of the ingredients.

You probably can’t do both if you want to maximize the quality of the outcome. You either get convenience and suboptimal outcomes or you get discipline and optimal outcomes.

If the glory of Thor is your end goal, suboptimal sure isn’t the word I would use to describe it.

4. Get Your Protein Straight and Track It

Within those calories, eat protein at least 3x per day in doses of somewhere between 30-50g each from high-quality sources, and get most of those calories and protein from whole food sources if possible.

In terms of overall daily amounts of protein, that’s going to vary from person to person, but this article I wrote should get you headed in the right direction.

As a general rule of thumb, you’ll want to be consuming about 0.7-1.0g of protein per day pound of lean body mass to optimize your muscle-building efforts from a protein perspective.

Also, supplementing with whey protein or a pea protein blend is probably a good idea for convenience and adherence purposes - especially if you are vegetarian or vegan.

Curious about how to do this on a completely plant-based diet? Click here.

5. Make Sure Your Training Program Is Top Notch and Train Like a Freak for Years

Make sure your training program is hypertrophy-based and well-rooted in proven methods.

This means training with the right amount of volume, a sensible array of movements (meaning the right blend of compound moves to isolation moves), and utilizing intelligent progression and overload schemes from week to week.

I can’t outline what that would look like in a single post, but this probably means hiring a good coach.

Trying to DIY your training to Thor status is probably a fool’s errand.

Also, remember that putting on an impressive amount of muscle mass takes years, so be ready to train relentless for a long time before you take on an endeavor like this in ignorant bliss.

6. Sincerely Consider Hiring a Coach If You’re Anything Less Than an Expert or Super-Enthusiast

Funny - I was just talking about hiring a coach!

This truly isn’t even a shameless plug for our own coaching services. Although we would love to have you, this tip makes the list because it’s genuinely probably the quickest road to Rome.

As much as it would be amazing if everyone were as educated in building muscle and losing fat as Dr. Mike Israetel, that’s simply not the case.

Having a coach provides you the peace of mind that your program is incredible and your nutritional strategy is appropriately tailored to the goal.

It also saves you precious time and energy that would be an epic shame to have lost in the stubbornness of your own unwillingness to invest in a coach.

7. Manage Your Recovery Like a Superhero

Although sleep is most likely the most important aspect of recovery on a macro level, there are other ways that recovery can oftentimes be overlooked.

• Minimize high-impact activities that might prevent your muscles from recovering on time.

  • This might be recreational basketball or soccer or even Spike Ball. You can do all of that fun stuff once you already look like Thor, but until then it might be time to lock down your recovery. Or if you must do it, do it sensibly and only on occasion.

• Nap when you can.

• This hopefully goes without saying, but don’t stay up late for no reason like a dumb-dumb. If you can bag an extra hour or two of snooze, do so.

• Drink plenty of water and get as much of your diet from high-quality, whole-food sources as possible.

• As a bit of a bonus consideration, you could consider sipping on a nighttime ashwagandha drink. Personally, I use KOS’ Organic Calming Blue Spirulina Blend once or twice per week to help wind down before what I hope becomes an epic night of sleep. Anecdotally, I have found it does exactly what it claims to do: It calms me down and leaves me crawling into bed with a warm and fuzzy sensation that usually leads to a bit more restorative sleep according to my Whoop.

8. Take Around 5g of Creatine Monohydrate Per Day

Although I don’t take creatine right now for personal reasons, the science on creatine monohydrate is pretty convincing in terms of improving strength output and muscle gains.

It is by far the most researched and well-supported supplement in the fitness space alongside whey protein, so it’s a bit of a no-brainer if you’re serious about rivaling Thor.

Just be sure to stay hydrated as creatine monohydrate does pull water into your muscles to aid in its beneficial effects.

Summary of How to Blow Up Like Thor

And there you have it, friends!

My top seven tips on what it would look like to really dig into the idea of pursuing a Thor-like physique as optimally as possible.

1. Realize that tending to your physique is now essentially a full-time job.

2. Decide whether you need to cut or bulk first.

3. Determine the right number of calories to eat and track them.

4. Identify a daily protein target and hit it consistently.

5. Be certain your training program is hypertrophy-focused.

6. Consider hiring a physique coach.

7. Manage your recovery as optimally as possible

8. Take creatine if desired.

---

Thanks for reading, everyone! I sincerely hope you enjoyed the content and learned something.

If you feel like this blog brought you any value at all, consider sending it to a friend or family member!

And, if you're interested in working with me one-on-one, visit The Vegan Gym and apply for coaching. I’ve had nothing but success in guiding people toward their fat loss goals.

Lastly, I want to disclose that I do earn from qualifying purchases as an Amazon Associate.

Cheers, everyone!

-Andrew

6 Signs You're Ready to Hire an Online Body Recomposition Coach

How do you know if you’re truly ready for an online relationship with a body recomposition coach?

That’s a wonderful question. Let’s talk about it!

Sign #1: You’re finally ready to invest financially. 

Oh, this is awkward. We’re talking about money on point number one? Absolutely, and I’ll tell you why.

It’s one thing to say, “Shoot. I’m just not sure I can responsibly spend that money on a body recomposition coach right now,” because that’s a reality of life.

I used to walk by the freshest cuts of Wild Atlantic Salmon at the grocery store and think, “Man, I’d really like to buy those cuts, but I’m not sure we can responsibly afford that right now,” for that very same reason. I just simply couldn’t justify paying for it at the moment, and that was completely understandable.

So, what’s the difference?

Well, I don’t have a strained relationship with the fact that I’m not eating the best cuts of salmon on a weekly basis. If I were walking around on a daily basis cursing my non-salmon dinners of ramen noodles and peanut butter sandwiches while harboring an excessive amount of negative energy toward the lack of salmon in my life, that might be a different story.

What’s my point? If I had wanted the salmon badly enough, I’d have found a way to afford it even if it meant making sacrifices in other areas of my spending.

In short, your spent dollars tend to reflect the nearest and dearest values of your heart, so if you’re not willing to spend a few hundred dollars a month getting fitter instead of fatter, it’s probably a good indication that you’re not ready for an online coaching relationship yet.

Sign #2: Frankly, you’re a little bit pissed off.

You’ve been overweight for years, and you’ve decided that enough is enough.

You’re tired of being that person and being discouraged by the image you see in the mirror.

I even had a client once tell me that they were going on vacation in six months and they were determined not to be the “fat friend” in photos. I will never forget that conversation because it created a renew sense of empathy in me. I couldn’t imagine the shame this person was feeling toward the shape of their body.

Are you sick and tired of being the “fat friend?”

If so, this might be the perfect time to make a powerful investment in yourself.

Now, I’m not saying you have to be angry in order to commit to a successful body recomposition goal, but I am suggesting that you should be experiencing some degree of motivational and emotional restlessness to help you kickstart your endeavor.

If this is you, there’s a very good chance that you’ll be willing to make the lifestyle adjustments necessary to achieve your goal, and a coach might be the perfect fit for you at this time.

Sign #3: Getting a personal coach has been a long time coming and you know it.

You’re probably ready for an online body recomposition coach if you’ve been spinning your wheels aimlessly for years dabbling in all kinds of diets and “training programs.” 

You lost 10 pounds on keto, but then you gained 15 back over Christmas. You lost 15 pounds as a vegan and then gained 20 back once you ate a pizza. Now you’re doing intermittent fasting in tandem with Whole 30, but you’re starving like Tom Hanks on a life raft in the middle of the South Pacific.

When will it stop?

To be fair, there’s nothing technically wrong with this. No one is saying you can’t continue experimenting with new dietary patterns and training styles.

But it might be worth admitting that at this point you have no idea what you’re doing when it comes to dieting and training for an improved body composition.

So ask yourself this, “Is anything really going to change if I keep leaving myself in charge of this process? Do I really have the knowledge to do this on my own?”

If the answer is no, you’ve been blessed with an exciting moment of honesty and clarity.

When you’re able to face that reality openly, there’s a good chance you're in an appropriately humble position to hire a fitness and nutrition coach for the next six months to a year.

Sign #4: You’ve stopped asking questions like, “Am I going to have to run?”

Why is this important?

Because if you are still asking questions like this, it exposes the reality that you’re still keen on keeping things as cozy and non-invasive as possible. That sort of mentality generally doesn’t inspire optimal results.

The key to being successful in this process is to approach all things with an open mind and a willingness to learn.

No, you don’t have to run, but why are you not willing to run? 

The mindset of someone who is truly ready for an online coaching relationship is one that communicates this: “I am ready to trust my coach to guide me toward my body recomposition goal, and I know for a fact that this will mean remodeling old habits, welcoming new habits, and adapting to any adversity that may present itself along the way.”

You should be asking what you get to do to get the results you’ve always wanted - not immediately hoping to shirk as many unpleasant forms of exercise as possible from day one.

If that’s you, you’re probably ready for an online coaching relationship.

Sign #5: You’re excited about the challenge.

If you’re dreading the idea of becoming the leanest version of yourself you’ve ever been, what are we even doing here?

Save yourself the cash! I mean that sincerely. Life is short and there’s no sense in forcing yourself to be something you don’t want to be.

Your legacy is yours for the forging, and no one is asking you to trade in your muffin top keg for a six-pack if you're happy and healthy just the way you are.

But if you are excited about the idea of seeing your body transform in new and motivating ways, you’re probably in a wonderful position to consider hiring a body recomposition coach.

Sign #6: You want to change your body shape for yourself and no one else.

Yikes, this one cuts to the core! But, how true is it?

If you’re considering hiring a body recomposition coach because you want to look hot for Justin Bobby at the pool this summer, you’re essentially looking to hop in a dune buggy at 100mph headed for the edge of a cliff.

Devastation awaits.

Why?

Because I’ve found that the only meaningful and lasting results in body recomposition are the ones that are pursued and accomplished in a spirit of self-respect and love. 

Cliché? Probably. But I’ve found that some of the most cliché things in life turn out to be true.

So, if you want to get lean or jacked, do it for yourself - not to impress a person or earn a meaningless badge of cultural approval.

If you’re in this for yourself - or even selflessly for others in the sense that you know your current body weight is putting you at risk of early mortality - then hiring a coach might legitimately be one of the best decisions you have ever made. 

---

As always, I really enjoyed writing this article, so if you found it helpful, do me a favor and send it to a friend.

Although I no longer run my own body recomposition business, I have joined forces with The Vegan Gym, where you can apply to work with me directly.

Until next time,

-Andrew

How and Why to Use Deloads for Optimal Recovery

If you’ve been following our content for a while, you’ll know that we have spoken a lot to the fact that both Andrew and I did a ton of things wrong for a long time in our early twenties.

In fact, that’s a huge reason why we both have become so passionate about fitness and doing things the “right” way; so we started a business to try and help others avoid the same wasteful journey that we took.

When we didn’t know any better (i.e. we weren’t tracking our lifts efficiently, tracking calories, practicing effective recovery, etc.) we both encountered the strange phenomenon of what I’ll dub, “a week at home with Mom’s cooking.”

We would travel back home to our parents’ houses over holiday breaks and random weekends here and there, not lift while at home, and eat loads of great food.

When we would return to the bachelor pad, one of the first things we wanted to do was get a solid lift in like a couple of bros.

I kid you not, during every single one of those lifting sessions back from “a week at home with Mom’s cooking,” we felt like superheroes.

We would be putting up bigger numbers than we were hitting previously (albeit for only a few sessions because we were boneheads), and we thought that we were invoking some kind of magic power divined from middle-aged Midwestern women’s cooking.

What we were really experiencing - in some form - were the effects of practicing a great recovery tool called a “deload week.”

Deloading has become a staple in both of our personal programs and has allowed us to continuously push for bigger numbers and greater strength gains.

Let’s define the idea of a deload.

What is Deloading?

Generally, we define our deload phases as a period of decreased training intensity (amount of resistance used) or volume (number of reps/sets performed), while usually eating at maintenance calories (especially during a fat loss phase) usually four around a week but sometimes less.

Sometimes, deloading can mean completely taking the entire week off, but my recommendation would be to still perform the same sessions you were previously doing while lowering the intensity and/or volume.

There are many ways you can go about deciding what the best set of reps and what percentage of the load you should be using when deloading, but here are a few options:

1. Keep the same load on your movements, but cut the volume down.

2. Keep the same volume, but decrease the load you are using.

3. Use 50-70% of the load from the previous week and hit 50-75% of the volume, which is what I do.

So, the whole purpose of a well-timed and intelligent deload phase is to allow your body to have an extended period of recovery.

What happens is that once we successfully deload, we create a desirable launching point for our next training cycle.

Earlier I mentioned that “a week at home with Mom’s cooking” made us feel like superheroes and that we would hit big numbers upon our return to the gym.

Part of the reason for those feelings was the fact that we weren’t practicing strict progressive overload. We would hit more reps or use more weight, but none of those choices were really well thought-out.

You should still probably feel refreshed after a restful deload week, but you may only notice a slight increase in your performance, especially if your are an intermediate/advanced lifter, or you are following a strict training plan implementing progressive overload strategies.

So, what are the actual benefits of a deload phase?

Benefits of Deloading

I think one of the hardest parts about lifting weights, especially as people get more advanced in their training, is managing your body well in a way that avoids injury.

Lifting weights puts a ton of stress on our bodies, especially on our central nervous system (CNS) and connective tissues, and a lot of that stress is hard to manage.

So, instead of taking a few days off to give our bodies a chance to recover, we can end up injuring ourselves, which can put us out for an extended period of time away from the progress we have been working so hard towards.

To help you avoid those kinds of injuries and to practice healthy recovery, here are some of the benefits of implementing a deload week into your programming:

1. Muscle Recovery

   • Lifting with less intensity or less overall volume allows our muscles more time to fully recover.

2. Central Nervous System (CNS) Recovery

   • When you’re training in a light to moderate manner, your CNS may recover just fine by the next day, but some studies show - specifically for high volume training - that it may take multiple days for our CNS to fully recover after a very demanding session. And, since training intensity tends to ramp up at the end of a mesocycle, this makes deloading after your overreaching weeks the most beneficial time to sensibly deload.

3. Psychological Recovery

   • Just like we need to take breaks from our actual jobs and careers for vacations and weekends away to relax and mentally escape, taking a break from your normal gym routine can also promote mental benefits the next time a heavy squat is staring you in the face.

4. Connective Tissue Recovery

   • Muscle tissue generally recovers much faster than our connective tissue (ligaments, tendons, cartilage), and there aren’t any highly reliable ways to track damage done to our connective tissue. Deloading ensures that by decreasing the overall stress on these tissues, we are allowing them to recover and heal for the sake of injury prevention.

     • It’s worth noting that a majority of the injuries that I and a lot of friends experienced from lifting have been connective tissue injuries since they are so hard to manage properly.

5. Social Recovery

   • If you work a normal job and also lift 5-6 days a week, a lot of your precious time is already spent, which leaves less time for friends, family, and other hobbies. One of the best benefits of a deload period has nothing to do with your body, but rather the amount of time that is freed up from shorter or fewer workouts. I love spending this newly available time by hanging out with friends and family.

Now that we know what a deload is and have seen the benefits, how do we know when or how do we plan a deload phase?

How I Personally Know When It’s Time to Deload

There are several different ways to go about adding a deload at the end of your mesocycles, and I will say more about that in the next section, but I wanted to give a quick look into how I personally organize my routine to include deload phases.

But before I do that, I think it’s important to lay out my current approach to training so that I can provide a little bit of context before I talk about my deload.

My Approach to Training

After years of making mistakes, I have finally settled on a sustainable approach to weight lifting, which includes a thoughtful implementation of progressive overloading.

I have spent a lot of time learning about my limits for different exercises in different rep ranges so that I can now intelligently push to increase every week.

The way that I progressively overload is by starting out my mesocycle with 2-3 working sets for each of my exercises for that session, and then each week after I try to add a few total sets for that week along with trying to match or improve upon the number of reps I hit for each set the previous week.

In this way, I can ensure that I am progressing and every week. But, as the demands of progression inevitably increase, the need for a more dedicated recover period become more and more apparent.

At this point in my training journey, I can pretty much predict at about which point I will need to deload (which is usually after four or five weeks of increasingly demanding training), but I only know that because I keep a very organized logbook for each and every one of my sessions.

On occasion, however, I will plan a deload for a specific week, but generally I try to use my logbook to guide my decision making for the appropriate time to deload.

A Look At My Logbook

Here is a look at how I am currently organizing my logbook in Google Sheets.

This has been my Monday AM session for the last several weeks, and I organize everything from rest times to number of reps performed. Each week for this mesocycle is all included in the same Google Sheet so that I can easily check my progress from the previous week and then set a goal for myself for the current week.

So what I like to do is let my body tell me when it’s time to take a break.

Take a look at a few sessions from my previous week of lifting for example:

I’ve included (in parentheses) the decreases from the previous week to this current week for a few of the exercises.

At first glance, only missing a few reps may not be that big of a deal. For example, I may have had a poor night of sleep or felt more stressed that day.

What is important to note is that it’s okay to have one bad day in the gym. Life happens, and sometimes our gym performance struggles. So I will usually chalk up a day like this as a bad day, and I won’t go into a deload because of one day of missing my numbers.

This changes though when I have multiple days of not hitting my numbers in the same week. I interpret this lack of performance as a sign that my body needs a break from the stress I’ve been putting it under.

Here is another session from my logbook in the same week:

I hit this session two days after the pair of sessions in the previous picture.

There was a much greater decrease in performance in a few of the exercises on this day, so I decided I couldn’t really chalk up the lack of performance to tiredness. Instead, I realized I had pushed my body hard for five weeks and that now it was time to deload and recover.

Again, I know that not everyone keeps a detailed logbook for their exercise programs (although we highly recommend it), so you may not be able to use a method like this to help you decide when you should deload.

Here are a few methods for determining the right time to take a deload week.

How You Can Time Your Deload Appriately

Just like most things in life, there isn’t a “one size fits all” approach to deloading. Depending on how you organize your fitness life, there are a few options for you to try:

1. The “Drop in Performance” Approach

In the last section, I spoke a lot about how I personally implement this approach.

Again, the idea is that if you are keeping a good logbook and trying to progressively overload, you will eventually run into a week where you aren’t quite hitting the numbers you want to be hitting - whether that be not performing the same number of reps as the previous week or even not being able to perform an entire set of an exercise.

Again, when you arrive at this situation yourself, make sure that it isn’t just one day of tiredness, but rather multiple days of “missing the mark” in your training before you decide to take a deload week.

What is nice about this method is that it sort of becomes predictable to a point.

Eventually you will start to realize that you have been deloading consistently every four weeks, and you can then start to plan for those deload weeks in future training cycles.

A benefit of knowing how long it takes for your body to reach a point where it’s begging for a deload is that you can begin to plan things around when this week approaches.

For example, if I know I am going to be going on a week long vacation in September, I may try to plan my training so that my deload week lines up perfectly with my vacation.

2. The “Planned” Approach

This approach is exactly what it sounds like: instead of waiting to see your performance drop (especially if you aren’t keeping a logbook), you can just plan a deload week into your training cycle at predetermined time intervals. At IVRY, we personally recommend every 3-6 weeks, but it totally depends on the individual.

Depending on how you look at it, this can be a more carefree approach to deloading because it doesn’t require you to burn any training sessions on subpar performance.

On the same page though, this method can also be less precise.

For example, maybe you have been taking a deload week after four weeks of pushing hard in your training. There is a chance that you could have pushed for a fifth week of hard training, but you would never know it because you chose to deload sooner than you may have needed to.

Again, we are digging into the weeds here a little bit, but I am all about maximizing my output in my performance, and I hate the idea of leaving a good week of hypertrophically stimulating training on the table. Because we are trying to improve, aren’t we?

That being said, this method is probably most conservative way to go about deloading because at least you are giving your body a break over the course of a regular period, and you can know that you are safely recovering. It just might not be quite as precise and appropriately timed as it would be by using an more auto-regulatory method.

---

Hopefully you found all of this information to be helpful, and if you weren’t adding deloads into your workouts before, maybe we have convinced you to give it a try! The last thing you want is to be chronically banged-up when a focused time of rest and recovery is actually exactly what your body needs to continue growing optimally.

Part of what we include with our personal coaching is an intelligent implementation of deload weeks to ensure that there is plenty of recovery and a limited risk of injury.

If you are interested in learning more about our online coaching, or just want to ask a question or say hello, click here to learn more.

And, we are currently accepting new clients, so don’t be shy. Saying hello just might be the best decision you’ve made this year.

Deceptively "Healthy" Choices That May Hinder Your Fat Loss Goals

It’s funny how my concept of “healthy” has evolved and grown over my lifetime. I can remember grouping foods into “healthy” and “not healthy” in my head for a long time. For example, I used to think of the following foods and food groups like this:

• Fast Food = “Unhealthy”

• Salad = “Healthy”

• Pizza = “Unhealthy”

• Fruit = “Healthy”

And, you can probably see where I’m going with my list.

This is how I thought about “healthy” and “unhealthy” for a long time. To be fair, learning to categorize foods to some extent is a great educational place to start, but as I personally learned more about nutrition, my definition of “healthy” evolved into something much more specific (for the better).

The reason that my view of “healthy” vs “unhealthy” foods evolved is because:

1. Whatever I had been practicing for my nutrition for a long time was not working. How did I know that? Because I wasn’t getting the results I wanted.

2. I wanted a more wholistic view of the word “healthy” from an educational perspective.

3. My goals became more specific, and thus my nutrition had to be more specific as well.

What I learned about my assumptions between “healthy” and “unhealthy” was striking - especially regarding some of the apparently “healthy” choices I had been making that actually turned out to be setting me back in a powerful way.

My goal with this write-up is this: I want to present a consideration of a handful of diet choices we commonly make that appear “healthy” on the surface but might actually be a hindrance to our diet goals when misapplied.

#1: Ordering or Buying Products that Contain “Superfoods” or are Ambiguously Thought of as “Nutritious”

This was a big hurdle for me personally.

When I was in high school, I remember starting to care more about my diet choices for the first time. I was an athlete and I wanted to make choices that wouldn’t “slow me down” on the field.

At least that’s how I thought about it.

So, I would put avocado on everything when given the option because the internet said avocados contain healthy fats, which they do, but that was my only thought about avocados at the time. Healthy foods will make me a better athlete, right?

I had also heard that nut butters were a good source of healthy fats, so I gave myself the green light on those as well.

Now, this increase in fat intake was great for me in high school because I looked like a scrawny alien twig, but if I were to implement that same viewpoint now as an adult while making a focused effort to lose body fat, it would most likely be setting me back due to the excessive caloric intake alone.

For that reason, it’s always a good idea to know the macronutrient content of your foods along with the micronutrient breakdown that may qualify a food as nutritious.

Because in my opinion, the last thing you want to be doing when trying to lose body fat is eating foods you think should be helping you when they are actually slowing down your progress or even pushing you in the wrong direction. Unfortunately, plenty of well-intentioned people unknowingly make that mistake all the time.

On a coaching note, part of what Andrew and I do with our clients is educate them on basic nutrition while providing structured macronutrient goals so that we can be as optimal as possible with their body recomposition goal. In other words, we try to guide you through a calorie-controlled approach to your goal without ignoring the overall importance of eating nutrient-dense foods.

#2: Blindly Ordering Salads at a Restaurant as Opposed to Another Entrée

Back when my novice definition of “healthy” sat on the nutrition throne of my brain, I began to order salads out at restaurants.

Because salads are healthy, right?

Actually, yes! Salads can be amazingly healthy for us, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get fat from eating too many nutrient-dense salads.

Think about it. When most of us order salads at restaurants, we cover them in things like:

• Croutons - Mostly carbs and extra fat

• Cheese - Contains protein, but generally an equal amount of fat or more

• Fatty Dressings - Most salad dressings contain a LOT of fat.

• Avocado - High fat content, even though they are nutritious

• Fatty Meats - A lot of salads (especially Italian salads) can pile on heaps of salami, pepperoni, bacon, prosciutto, etc.

• Nuts (especially candied/glazed) - While nutritious, these nuts contain a lot of fat. And, if they are candied or glazed, they will also include a lot of sugar which equals extra carbs.

Realistically, if you have a caloric plan in mind or are keeping a mindful eye on your macronutrient intake, you could add a few of these to your salad and still reach your goal.

But, these toppings become a problem if you decide to add three or four of these to one salad because it dramatically changes the caloric total of the entire meal. It’s the cumulative calorie effect that results in weight gain.

Some things to add to your salad instead of some of the ingredients above to add another element could be:

• Grilled Chicken - high in protein and will help fill you up with a much needed macronutrient, especially if trying to hold onto hard-earned lean muscle tissue

• Vegetables - For me personally, texture is a big deal, so adding veggies with a little crunch to them is great! You could even try chipped cucumbers, celery, broccoli, carrots, and/or peppers next time.

• Egg Whites - Whole eggs can be great as well, but I prefer hard-boiling an egg and then chopping up the whites for some easy extra protein

• Beans - Rinse out a can of your favorite beans and add some extra protein to your diet. This is a great option for those that eat plant-based diets.

• Fresh Herbs and Spices - Talk about taking flavor to another level without adding any unwanted fats! Try using some basil, mint, dill, or cilantro with your salad. Just make sure you know the herb you choose will pair well with your other flavors.

• Lemon Juice - I like using just a little bit of oil and then squeezing fresh lemon juice onto my salad as a dressing. As it turns out, a little bit of citrus can go a long way.

Again, depending on your goal, any of the options above could be a good substitution or mindful addition.

#3: The Misapplication of Intermittent Fasting

I have been effectively using intermittent fasting in my current fat loss phase, so I’m certainly not making intermittent fasting the enemy here.

I still consume three to four large meals during my “eating window” (which is 10 hours for me instead of the commonly recommended eight-hour window), and I also consume several high-protein snacks.

But, where does it go wrong for some people?

In my opinion, here are two common ways intermittent fasting is frequently abused:

1. You’re narrowing your eating window to less than eight hours and only giving yourself time for one or two large meals.

   • When we do this, we can sometimes negotiate with ourselves and eat foods that are less nutritious or have unfavorable macronutrient compositions since we are sacrificing an entire meal. In other words, we lose sight of nutrition in favor of a game of calories and calories alone. Just because you could eat a plate of nachos and cheese for 1500 calories doesn’t mean that is going to lead to the body recomposition outcomes you want.

   • I’ve also found that intermittent fasting can lead to more snacking, and generally the snacks we tend to pick aren’t as nutrient-dense or macro-friendly as something we might cook for a proper meal.

   • Eating one large meal can also make people feel sluggish and lethargic.

2. Your protein consumption might not be as optimal as it could be.

   • If your goal is to lose fat while maintaining lean muscle tissue and you choose to enter the intermittent fasting world, you may not be able to eat all of the protein you could benefit from according to most evidence-based guidelines.

     • And, as I mentioned above, typical snack foods tend to be high in carbohydrates and fats and generally low in protein. So, if you tend to be a snacker while practicing intermittent fasting, your snacks may be a limiting factor in your progress.

     • If you need more clarity about how you could go about calculating your own protein intake, check out this blog.

Again, intermittent fasting doesn’t have to be the enemy, but it is often touted as a very healthy diet strategy even though it can easily be misapplied.

---

Feeling Motivated?

Like I said at the beginning of the article, it’s probably a good idea to be very careful about making sure that the “healthy” choices we are making are actually choices that help us move toward our goals rather than push us further back.

I also mentioned that part of a coaching relationship with an IVRY Fitness coach is a personalized macronutrient goal to help you reach a specific body composition goal. So, if you have always wanted to make a change but have continuously felt stuck because nothing you have ever tried in the past has worked, consider reaching out to us.

We have open coaching slots and are looking for highly motivated clients that want to make a significant change in their body composition.

Click here to learn more, The journey always has to begin somewhere, so why not here and now?

"How Much Protein Should My High School Athlete Be Eating?"

You’ve got a smaller-framed high school athlete that needs to put on muscle, and you’ve finally made the decision to get serious about their weight gain goal.

Congratulations! Now you just have to wade through all the hype surrounding diet.

And, if you are at all like most parents, you probably have a lot of questions about protein in particular.

• “Does my athlete really need to be eating a lot of protein to put on muscle?” 

• ”If so, how much? Is there a magical number?”

• “And does this mean I should have them drinking protein shakes after their workouts?”

We hear you and we’ve got answers for you. Let’s get into it.

How much protein should your athlete be eating per day?

We’ve found that aiming to consume around 1g of protein per pound of lean body mass (LBM) per day seems to be one of the most commonly accepted practices for athletes that want to achieve that lean, athletic physique. And, to be honest with you, most people aren’t really taking that LBM stipulation to account at all.

In other words, in most cases it’s going to be a decent idea to simply use their bodyweight instead of that LBM figure for the sake of keeping things as simple as possible.

It’s also worth nothing that while some experts recommend a bit more protein per day (1.2g or more per pound of LBM) and other researchers and gurus allow for a bit less (as low as 0.7g per pound of LBM), this “1g per Pound Rule” still seems to be the most popular pick. 

But, why?

I think it’s because that 1:1 ratio of grams of protein to bodyweight is just a really easy way to calculate your daily protein intake. And, let’s be honest: “Easy” works really well for most people because “easy” is usually adherence-friendly and sustainable long-term.

Think about it this way. People like basic math, and basic math is easy.

If your athlete weighs 125 pounds, they’d eat around 125g of protein per day.
If your athlete weighs 150 pounds, they’d eat around 150g of protein per day.
If your athlete weighs 175 pounds, they’d eat around 175g of protein per day. Simple, right?

I think you get the point.

What does it look like to eat that much protein?

Depending on the size of your athlete and their protein target, it essentially comes down to eating 20-40g of high-quality protein every 3-5 hours.

Just because I know people like specifics, take a look at how I would personally split up my protein meals throughout the day if I were a 180-pound high school athlete with a traditional high school schedule.

SAMPLE DAILY Protein SCHEDULE as a Student-Athlete

6:30AM - Breakfast: 2 whole eggs and 140g of egg whites with oatmeal and toast for 38g of protein

9:30AM - Morning Snack: 43g of whey isolate and an apple for 35g of protein

12:30PM - Lunch: 6 ounces of lean protein, rice or potatoes, and a vegetable for around 36g of protein

3:30PM - Pre-Practice Meal: 43g of whey isolate and a bagel for 44g of protein

7:00PM - Dinner (Post-Practice Meal): 6 ounces of lean protein, a high-carb source, and a vegetable for around 36g of protein

This entire day of eating would yield about 190g of protein from mostly high-quality sources, which would be an amazing start to most 180-pound high school athletes’ pursuit of optimal muscle gain.

But as a quick note, you and your athlete can’t only think about protein and get the results you want. Protein, after all, is just one piece of the bigger puzzle. For a hearty write-up on all the things you’d need to consider, we’ll have a full description of that coming out soon.

Also, if your athlete is smaller than 180 pounds, be sure to tweak those protein quantities to fit their adjusted goal. On average, female athletes will probably need a bit less protein simply due to the fact that they will likely weight less than their male peers. If you’d like help making those decisions for your athlete, don’t hesitate to email us and ask about coaching.

Lastly, keep in mind that this is just how I would structure my own eating. If your athlete has food allergies or preferences against any of the foods mentioned, know that there are plenty of other meal options we could discuss with you.

Although we are not registered dietitians, we can certainly help provide resources to guide you in the dietary choices you make (including those who are vegetarian or vegan).

Does everybody need to be eating that much protein?

Of course not. I want to be clear that these recommendations aren’t for everyday Joe’s and Jane’s – they’re for high school athletes who really want to start taking their muscle gains seriously.

In other words, I’m not suggesting your sweet Grandpa Bob should be shotgunning 60g of whey protein after his mid-morning gardening session to support optimal hamstring and glute development. That would be, well, quite unnecessary (and also hilarious) because Grandpa isn’t trying to get a scholarship as the future star running back of the Alabama Crimson Tide.

Protein recommendations for people less interested in getting jacked and lean are, of course, much lower because they aren’t loading up their bodies with heavy loads with the focused intent of developing the size and density of their muscles.

Since proteins are widely considered the buildings blocks of muscle repair and growth, it makes sense to be eating more protein if you want to be more muscular.

Simply put, if you have an athlete that wants to get jacked and lean to support their sport performance, they are going to need more protein relative to the person that doesn’t.

So, let’s just make sure we’re clear about that.

What does it mean to be “taking things seriously” as a high school athlete?"

I’ve come up with the following checklist to help you make sense of that question for yourself.

Your son or daughter is probably ready to take their physique development “seriously enough” if they are:

1. Willing to train intelligently with resistance for hypertrophy 3-6 (or even more) times per week as a supplement to their sport specific weightlifting at school.

2. Willing to eat purposefully in a caloric deficit, a caloric surplus, or at maintenance for the desire body recomposition outcome.

3. Willing to prioritize their protein intake across 3-6 meals per day if/when possible.

4. Willing to get the majority of their calories and protein from nutrient-dense foods while saving “junk foods” for treats and special occasions.

5. Willing to optimize their rest and recovery as much as possible.

Is that your son or daughter? If so, you might give hiring a personal coach some serious consideration.

Playing sports in college can be a lot of fun, and - in my opinion - there’s no need to let your athlete’s lack of attention to diet and nutrition in high school be the difference between continuing the love of the game and letting it go forever once they graduate.

If they have a real chance at playing in college, why not optimize the odds?

So, what’s the takeaway here?

1. We think it makes the most sense to keep your young athlete’s calculations of protein intake as simple as eating 1g of protein per pound of bodyweight per day if you’re hoping to look as lean and mean as possible this summer assuming you aren’t considerably overweight or even obese.

2. Remember that there is no “one size fits all” amount of protein your athlete should be consuming, but there are evidence-based ranges that are likely to optimize your progress toward your physique goal. These ranges are calculated on an individual basis based on your current level of leanness. For more detail on that, check out this article of ours.

3. And, just as a bonus takeaway, no, your athlete doesn’t necessarily need to be drinking protein shakes, but it sure does make hitting their protein targets much easier on a consistent basis. I would personally recommend utilizing shakes once or twice a day if you have a serious goal to build muscle - prioritizing them pre-workout and post-workout when possible.

---

If you feel like this blog brought you any value at all, consider sending it to another parent of a promising high school athlete. And, of course, we encourage you to take the time to flip through some of our other recent posts for additional content as well.

You can also find a different set of semi-daily content being posted to our Instagram at @ivry.fitness.

Lastly, we do have coaching spots available if you’re interested in hiring a coach to guide your high school athlete toward their muscle building goal. If that’s you, reach out. We know it’s a lot to wade through as a parent, and we’d be happy to walk you and your entire family through the process.

Until next time,

-Andrew

13 Must-Know Terms and Concepts for Body Recomposition

This is going to be an overview of the terms and concepts you’ll need to be aware of before you commit to a fat loss journey, a muscle building endeavor, or even just a slow but steady pursuit of looking a little bit better naked.

If you’re like me, you like specifics, which means you’ll want to know that all of the following goals would fit into this category of “things you should probably know before getting started on your journey” - just to make sure you’re not wasting your time before you even begin..

Who do these terms and concepts apply to?

• The normal guy who just wants to look a little bit better through hitting the gym sensibly a few times a week and getting more active overall.

• The guy in his mid-twenties or thirties who wants to get super jacked and look like Brad Pitt from Troy (or Brad Pitt from Fight Club)

• The mom who wants to lose 10-20 pounds and build some muscle along the way.

• The college chick who wants to develop her legs and glutes.

• The 30 year-old female who wants to compete in the bikini division someday.

• The skinny 15 year-old kid who wants to put on some muscle - either for sports or just to catch the attention of the cute girl in his class.

• The person who is 100 pounds or more overweight and wants to lose it all for the sake of being a healthier and more active person.

And, if you’re wondering how these terms and concepts could possibly apply to all of these goals at the same time, it’s simply because the fundamentals of body recomposition from an evidence-based perspective are the fundamentals for a reason.

Any deviation from the basics is just a more specific application and manipulation of those fundamentals in order to achieve your desired goal.

So, let’s get into it. What do you need to know before you get started?

Must-Know Terms and Concepts for Body Recomposition

1: You Need to Define Your Goal.

I’ve already written in-depth about this, so if you need a detailed outline of my preferred way of setting a proper goal, I encourage you to check out this blog I wrote entitled Five Really Important Questions to Ask Yourself Before Embarking on a “Fitness Journey.”

In short, just pick a specific yet realistic goal and write it down on a napkin.

Why a napkin? Because that’s what J.K Rowling did when she started writing the Harry Potter series, and it turned out well for her.

As an example, you could say something like, “My goal is to lose 10 pounds while maximizing muscle retention by September 1.”

It’s specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and totally awesome. 

Plus, there’s just something gritty about a napkin.

2: Calories

Thois may seem overly elementary, but there are actually plenty of people out there who don’t realize that calories are what dictate the majority of your “overweight-ness” or your “underweight-ness.” 

That means if you’re overweight, it’s primarily because you’ve eaten too many calories for too long. If you’re thinner than you’d like to be, it’s primarily because you’re not eating enough calories to gain the weight that would make you look “less thin.”

Calories are simply the unit we use to measure the energy that foods hold, so why all the fuss and confusion?

The nuance tends to present itself in which foods you get those calories from.

Can you really eat Pixy Sticks and protein shakes all day or is it “better” to get your calories from brown rice, mung beans, and tofu?

Is a calorie just a calorie? Well, it’s tricky.

For now, just make sure you’re fully on team “Calories Matter Most” before you get started, and you’ll be fine.

Otherwise you’ll be back to ripping Dr. Oz magazines off the tabloid shelves in desperation before you know it.

Sorry, Doc. But that headline about dropping 16 pounds every week is silliness unless we’re talking about 16-pound dumbbells.

3: Energy Balance

Literally every goal I mentioned in that list at the top of this write-up is going to require you to manipulate your energy balance in favor of your long-term goal in a periodized fashion.

When people say energy balance in the body recomposition space, they’re talking about the idea of calories in versus calories out, which is often abbreviated CICO.

In other words, we’re talking about how many calories you consume from food (calories in) and how many calories you expend through exercise (calories out).

What this means for you is that there are going to be times when you need to be eating fewer calories than your body needs (if your goal is to lose overall body fat), and there are going to be times when you need to be eating more calories than your body needs, which would be the case if your primary goal is to build muscle as an already-lean individual.

If you’re still confused about why we call it energy balance, remember that calories are a measured unit of energy. 

As Andy Dwyer once said on the television series Parks and Recreation, pizza and nachos - in some sense - are full of energy. And it’s true! But too much energy (calorically-speaking) leads to unwanted fat gain.

Negative and Positive Energy Balance

If someone is in a negative energy balance, it means they are eating fewer calories than they need, which leads to fat loss.

If someone is in a positive energy balance, they are eating more calories than they need, which can lead to muscle gain and fat gain depending on this person’s training habits..

One final thing to remember here is that everyone’s caloric needs are different depending on genetics, muscle mass, fat mass, training style, and overall activity level.

They can even change within the same person depending on your current dieting phase.

For example, 2,700 calories might be a deficit for me when 190 pounds but a slight surplus when 175 pounds.

4: Protein

Getting that lean, hard look might require you to eat a bit more protein than you are used to unless you are a naturally lean and muscular person.

For details on that, I’ve written extensively about how you can calculate your own protein needs here.

But, in broad strokes, know that an extremely easy way of making sure you’re getting enough protein to support your body recomposition goal is to simply take your goal weight in pounds and multiply that by 0.7-1 to find your daily protein intake in grams.

So, if you’re 150 pounds and you know you’d be a lean version of yourself at 120 pounds, it might be a good idea to start eating between 84-120g of protein per day.

You can see the math here:

• 120 pounds x 0.7 = 84g of protein per day

• 120 pounds x 1.0 = 120g of protein per day

5: Muscle Protein Synthesis (MPS)

Muscle protein synthesis in easy-to-understand terms is the body’s process of building new muscle tissue.

In my opinion, all you need to know is that most researchers agree that MPS can be stimulated every 3-5 hours with a dose of 20-40g of protein at a time.

So, if you have a goal to get optimally jacked, the current science would suggest you’re probably best to eat 20-40g of protein 3-5 times per day every 3-5 hours within your overall daily protein target.

Practically speaking, that means if your protein target for the day is 120g, you could eat the following amounts of protein per meal in order to optimize the muscle protein synthetic response (as the experts I respect currently understand it):

• 25g of protein for breakfast at 7 a.m.

• 25g of protein for lunch around 11 a.m.

• 20g of protein as a mid-afternoon snack at 3 p.m.

• 30g of protein for dinner and after your workout at 6:30 p.m.

• 20g of protein as a bedtime snack at 10 p.m. 

If you’re curious about what I do personally, most days look like this when I’m eating 140-150g of protein per day:

• 50g of protein for breakfast around 8 a.m. (my pre-workout meal)

• 30g of protein for my second meal around 1:30 p.m. (my post-workout meal)

• 30g of protein for my third meal around 4:30 p.m.

• 30g of protein for my fourth meal around 7:30 p.m.

For more examples, Josh posted on this very topic as well in more detail. 

6: Carbohydrates and Fats

The war between carbs and fats is real, folks. 

But, I’m here to simplify it as much as possible so you can walk away feeling confident about your diet choices.

All you really need to know is that your overall calorie intake and your daily protein intake matter much more than how you consume the rest of your calories from carbs and fats.

Seriously, there is absolutely nothing to be gained from overcomplicating this unless you're a highly competitive bodybuilder.

The only caveat here is to make sure your fat consumption never represents much less than 15-20% of your total calories since having some healthy fat in your diet is essential for proper hormone function.

Practically speaking, I can fully admit that I’m biased toward higher-carb, lower-fat diets simply because they’ve proven to work extremely well for me personally over the years - especially when dieting for fat loss. Preferentially, I also love carbohydrates, which makes diet adherence much easier when I allow for a higher-carb bias.

On the other hand, I am very aware of the fact that there are plenty of people who prefer higher-fat or even ketogenic diets. In my eyes, there isn’t a “right way” and a “wrong way” insofar as the diet quality is supporting your individual health.

My advice is to find what works best for your health, preference, long-term adherence, and perception of desired outcomes. If you like a certain way of eating, you can adhere to it sustainably, and you’re getting the results you want, you’re probably setting yourself up for success.  

7: Macronutrients or “Macros”

Macronutrients are simply the three categories of proteins, carbohydrates, and fats. And, some people call alcohol the “fourth macro.”

Proteins and carbohydrates each have 4 calories per gram while fats have 9 calories per gram. Alcohol has 7 calories per gram, and the sum of all of your macronutrients results in your total caloric intake.

If you hear someone say they “track their macros,” that just means they structure their diet in a way that allows them to eat a specific number (or range) of each macronutrient.

For example, my macros at the moment are roughly 150g of protein, 430g of carbohydrates, and 55g of fat per day. That would be 600 calories from protein, 1,720 calories from carbs, and 495 calories from fats for a total of 2,815 calories per day.

It’s also important to remember that your macros will change depending on which phase of dieting you are in.

If you are eating to lose weight, your macros will be lower. If you are in a phase designed to add body weight on purpose, your macros will be higher. 

For a deeper look into macronutrients and our experience tracking them, check out this post we made on Instagram. 

8: Flexible Dieting (IIFYM)

Speaking of counting your macros, what’s up with flexible dieting?

Basically, flexible dieting is a dieting strategy that allows you to eat pretty much whatever you want as long as it fits within your given macronutrient allotment.

That means if you have 150g of protein to eat in a day, it doesn’t matter if you get it from 5 servings of high-protein soy milk, a diverse mix of 5 different protein sources, or 5 plant-based protein shakes with PB2. Just “hit your macros,” and you’re “good to go” when it comes to body recomposition.

The prized perk of the IIFYM movement (which stands for “if it fits your macros”) is that you can technically eat ice cream and pizza in moderation while losing body fat if you want to.

And you really can! If this is breaking news to you, remember that calories really do matter most for fat loss.

Although I will say that most responsible advocates of flexible dieting still recommend you eat about 80-90% of your calories from whole food sources while enjoying that remaining 10-20% of calories from “unhealthy” foods you enjoy.

My biggest warning against flexible dieting is that it doesn’t account for your health. It only considers your immediate fat loss outcomes, which can lead to unhealthy, longer-term dietary habits that may prove difficult to break if dieting for health and longevity should ever become the primary focus.

9: “Clean” Eating

“Clean” eating could be considered the opposite of flexible dieting, which means you eat all of your calories from “clean” sources.

Now, the term “clean” is certainly up for debate, but what people are saying is that you should stick to the foods your mother told you were healthy and resist the temptation to have a KitKat before bed each night - even if it fits your macros.

A sample day of “clean” eating could look like this:

• Breakfast: sprouted whole-grain toast, avocado, and a plant-based protein shake  

• Lunch: leafy green salad with crispy tofu and a drizzle of tahini

• Snack: an apple

• Dinner: chickpea pasta with steamed broccoli

• Dessert: berry-based protein smoothie with soy milk and powdered peanut butter powder

You get the point.

For thoughts on a few potential risks of “clean” eating, give this Instagram post a look. 

10: Periodization

Periodization simply means that you don’t do the exact same style of training or dieting at all times during your journey.

If you’re looking to lose a considerable amount of body fat, you’ll probably need to eat below your needs for a while and then transition into a period of eating slightly more to give your body a break from the energy deficit.

It’s generally not thought of as a good idea to just lose 100 pounds in one go - especially if you’re interested in keeping the weight off once you get there.

Building muscle is the same way. Although a majority of your time should be spent in a caloric surplus, there will be times when you need to eat at maintenance or even in a deficit in order to support the bigger picture goal of putting on as much muscle as possible.

Think of periodization as the phases of your body recomposition approach.

As a side note, I think this is probably the most under-considered concept on the list, which is why most people go on their starvation diets, lose 50 pounds, and then gain back 60 once they realize that their starvation diet of chicken, broccoli, and lemon water wasn’t super sustainable after all. 

11: Hypertrophy vs. Strength

Hypertrophy is the style of training that is pretty much exclusively targeted at getting you “more jacked.” So, if you’re just out here trying to be the biggest dude at the nightclub, you want to be training for hypertrophy. That’s a good term to know.

On the other hand, some people will want to train for strength. 

Here’s the thing though: Training for strength and training for size are not the exact same thing.

This isn’t the place to discuss the nuances of those differences, but I highly recommend this video featuring Dr. Mike Israetel, Chief Sport Scientist at Renaissance Periodization, if you are looking for further explanation.

12: Supplements

Supplement conversations can get hairy, but most evidence-based folks in the industry agree that the only ones worth your time and money are the following:

Protein POWDERS or a Protein BARS

Hitting your daily protein needs is important for optimizing your body recomposition results, so if utilizing shakes and bars is a way to make your journey more sustainable, it’s probably a good idea.

I personally utilize both protein shakes and protein bars (plant-based) on a daily basis as a part of my diet, and you can read more about that here.

If you plan on opting for a plant-based blend, soy and pea/rice blends have been shown to offer the most competitive amino acid profile to its whey protein frontrunner.

If you’re looking for a specific brand, I’ve had great success with MyProtein’s Vegan Blend in the past.

Creatine Monohydrate

Creatine exists naturally in the body, but adding a dose of 3-5g each day is a common practice for people who really want to increase their performance capacity - specifically in terms of weight training. A lot of people even consider creatine monohydrate a “no-brainer” in terms of its effectiveness and cost availability - and it probably is. 

Even though I do not personally take creatine, I certainly used it in my early twenties and - for those who are wondering - I would personally buy this particular kind if I were to hop back on the train in the future.

Caffeine

Although caffeine isn’t going to make you any more lean or jacked all by itself, plenty of people enjoy its stimulative benefits before a hard workout. I only use caffeine occasionally, but not as a boost for my workouts. Frankly, I just enjoy a cup of coffee a few times per week because I like the taste.

If you’re curious about pre-workout products for their caffeine benefits, I personally think they’re mostly a waste of money.

And, if you’re not careful with your servings sizes and the rest of the caffeine you consume throughout the day, you risk flirting with unhealthy doses. Make your own choices, but that’s not something I’m interested in toying around with.

That being said, I do enjoy pump products from time to time when training purely for hypertrophy.

Multivitamins and Omega-3 Fish/ALGAE Oils 

If you’re not sure you’re getting all your vitamins from your diet, a multivitamin can be a good idea for some people. The same can be said of fish oils or algae oils if you’re unable to incorporate fatty fish into your diet or choose not to for personal reasons.

That being said, I am not a registered dietician, and I highly encourage you to do your own research on the matter before making an educated decision about what is appropriate for you.

13: Cardio

Cardio just refers to cardiovascular training, which normally means walking on a treadmill or using some other kind of walking or cycling device to elevate your heart rate.

In practice though, cardio simply becomes one of the two modalities we tweak to ignite further fat loss.

So, if someone tells you, “Ugh. I have to go do my 60 minutes of cardio,” they’re saying their coach has identified that doing an hour of treadmill walking is what is necessary for this person to continue to drop body fat at the appropriate rate to achieve the goal.

Or, maybe they’re coaching themselves and think that cardio is a good way for them to achieve their goal. They may or may not be right (given that cardio seems to be one of the most misapplied tools in the body recomposition toolbox), but at least you’ll know what they mean now.

Conversely, if your goal is purely to gain muscle, doing cardio probably isn’t necessary for the goal at hand, although plenty of people choose to implement a small amount of cardio for health reasons as a trade-off for more food in their diet. 

---

Thanks for reading, everyone! I sincerely hope you enjoyed the content and learned something.

If you feel like this blog brought you any value at all, consider sending it to a friend or family member!

And, if you're interested in working with me one-on-one, visit The Vegan Gym and apply for coaching. I’ve had nothing but success in guiding people toward their fat loss goals.

Cheers, everyone!

-Andrew

Keys to a Successful Fat Loss Diet

I thought it might be time that we put some big ideas that we really believe in writing just so we had a list in one place for us and for you all. 

The internet is saturated with posts like these, and often a lot of them miss really big ideas that are crucial for a successful diet. 

So, we decided to set the record straight with what our keys to a successful diet are.

THE ESSENTIALS

The following three points are what we are going to call “essential.” These are three big points we really believe almost everyone should be taking part in while dieting.

Key #1: Be at an Energy Deficit

If you want to lose weight, the golden rule of fat loss is to be at an energy deficit, which means you need to be burning more calories than you consume.

This first point isn’t really a debatable topic as it is, well, true. 

Most people will have to exercise in some fashion along with trying to hit a specific calorie goal in order to achieve this while others will be able to feel it out naturally.

Key #2: Eat Enough Protein

This one tends to be fairly neglected among people who haven’t been floating around the fitness space for very long (including me as little as two years ago).

Thankfully, Andrew has already written a fantastic blog about how much protein you should consume, so check that out here if you want a deeper look into how you could go about calculating your own protein needs.

The reason you might need to consume more protein than you have been is because protein is the macronutrient that aids in muscle recovery. If we want to keep working out and allow our muscles to mend and grow, we need to give them the resources they need to do so.

For those that are trained, eating enough protein can also allow you retain as much muscle as possible as you begin to cut body fat.

Also, for those who have been untrained for a while, the right amount of protein could aid in overall body recomposition as you build a little bit of muscle and lose fat at the same time.

Key #3: Have a Workout and Nutrition Plan That You Can Stick To

Adherence is arguably the most important part of your diet because, if it’s something you don’t want to do or aren’t motivated/disciplined enough to follow through with, then you won’t.

So, the solution to any potential fallout of adherence is to have a workout and diet plan that you know you will be able to continue on with for a long period of time.

This may need to happen in phases in that you may have to slowly adjust your calories along the way as you lose more weight, so it is important to create a reasonable and reachable goal from the onset. 

If you are completely clueless about how to do this, you can check out some of our content on Instagram and learn a ton from that. 

And that’s one great thing about having a coach. We help you create those things if you still feel overwhelmed and confused by the misleading info on the internet.

If you think that would be helpful, give us a shout here!

SECONDARY KEYS

We think that the following points are also important for a successful diet, but they didn’t quite crack the top three. Andrew and I both apply these “secondary” keys as much as the “essentials,” but the previous points probably carry a little more weight.

Key #4: Prioritize Recovery

If you are at an energy deficit and also working out pretty hard, you can potentially put yourself at risk of injury if you are not recovering well enough.

A big piece of recovery is eating enough protein for muscle recovery, which I talked about in point two. 

Another important piece is sleep. I am all too hypocritical in talking about this and I struggle to get enough sleep myself, but I have found that getting 7-9 hours of sleep is so beneficial for recovery.

At risk of trying to talk as a scientist who studies the subject, your non-REM sleep or “deep sleep” is apparently the key. From what I understand, your brain slows down so much during this state that extra blood carrying oxygen and nutrients goes to other parts of your body to aid in recovery.

So, if you find yourself constantly waking up thinking about work or just unable to sleep, you may be hindering your body’s recovery process. 

In addition to that, stress often can keep us from sleeping too, so another thing to try to help your recovery is to do your best to limit stress throughout the day or find a way to de-stress before bed.

Key #5: Meal Timing Becomes Important

If we decide we are going to eat less and continue to workout, we are still expending the same amount of energy as before, but we are consuming less. 

So, one way to try and keep the intensity of our workouts high is to eat appropriate meals around the workout. 

Something I will do is eat a high protein and high-carb meal about two hours before working out. This gives my body time to digest the food before I begin my workout while also providing plenty of energy to get me through it.

Post-workout, I will try and eat another high-protein and high-carb meal within an hour of my workout, or I will consume some kind of protein within 30 minutes (maybe a protein shake) if I know I will not get a meal within the hour.

This means that a lot of my daily calorie intake is consumed right before and after my workout. So, if I’m planning my diet well, my other meals/snacks will generally have to be lower in calories.

Key #6: Listen to Your Body to Avoid Injury

This one is more geared towards injury prevention, but it’s definitely an important key for everyone. 

If you have been lifting a while, you know what it’s like to be sore in a good way. The feeling that your muscle has used all of its energy and it aches to be fully recovered. 

If you’re new to lifting, you learn relatively quickly (arguably after your first day in the gym) how muscle soreness feels. 

Now, say you are completing a lift or walking on the treadmill and you begin to feel a sharp pain that you feel like causes discomfort and not just muscle soreness. In that case, stop immediately to prevent further injury.

As I said previously, your body is more susceptible to injury while in an energy deficit, and even something like sleeping on your neck wrong can lead to an injury if you try to work through the pain. 

Lastly, it’s almost always a good and safe idea to take a day or two off to let small muscle and joint pains like that heal before you injure yourself and end up out weeks instead of days.

In Summary

If you are just beginning your fat loss journey, trying to follow and remember all of these keys may be hard, but try sticking to the essential keys first:

1. Be at an energy deficit.

2. Eat enough protein.

3. Find a diet and workout program you can adhere to.

The latter three keys can also be very important to help maintain a longer diet and will allow your body to be more efficient throughout the process.

So meal timing, prioritizing recovery, and listening to your body to avoid injury also become an important part of a prolonged fat loss phase.

---

If you found this article helpful but feel that you would love the support of an exercise program and nutrition suggestions, we are looking to add clients to our roster! Click here to learn more.

Cheers,

Josh

Why "Doing Fitness" Is Easier When You're Rich (and How I Would Personally Go About It)

Over the last few months I’ve come to a semi-unfortunate realization.

Getting into incredible shape really is much easier if you’ve got a lot of money to throw at the cause.

But, before all of our non-millionaire Joes and Janes throw in their physique towels due to their “average” bank accounts, I want to be clear that you can, of course, get into phenomenal shape at pretty much any level of socioeconomic status - it just might take more planning, strategy, and effort if your finances are tight at the moment.

Why though?

Why is it easier to get lean if you’re rich and willing to spend your money on your goal?

I’m glad you asked.

Reason 1: You can buy the most convenient, high-quality, and macronutrient appropriate foods available without stress.

As someone who specializes in fat loss, believe me when I tell you that your overall caloric intake is the number one thing you should be prioritizing when it comes to losing body fat.

It’s the biggest thing people fail to understand when it comes to a successful body recomposition effort.

Because of that, one huge obstacle for a lot people is simply being able to purchase, prepare, and consume nutrient-dense, high-protein meals multiple times per day that fit into their prescribed caloric targets on a sustainable basis.

And, guess what?

I totally get it. It can be a bit of a chore to execute a grocery haul each Sunday with enough foresight to ensure you’re going to be able to hit your protein and caloric targets everyday for the coming week.

On top of that, it’s no secret that eating higher-quality, healthier foods can be more expensive than eating their ultra-processed or fast food equivalents, which creates a troublesome combination of inconvenience and financial stress.

Well, “being rich” eliminates the inconvenience and stress of eating the right foods for three reasons:

1. You either have more money in the food budget in the month to buy and prepare high-quality foods yourself (if you’re a good cook and enjoy making your own food), or…

2. You use a high-quality, physique friendly meal delivery service like Trifecta, or…

3. You hire your own personal chef that prepares meals tailored specifically to your goals and you never have to think about it.

So, if you’re wondering how I personally would do the food portion of my physique pursuits if I had a money tree in my backyard, this is exactly what it would look like:

I would have a plant-based meal service on speed dial.

Seriously, if I were rich, I’d be eating a minimum of 21 pre-packaged meals per week centered around lean proteins, nutrient-dense carbohydrates, healthy fats, and plenty of well-seasoned vegetables.

If you’re serious about your body recomposition goals and you have the money in the bank to support it, using a macro-friendly meal delivery service is an absolute no-brainer in my opinion.

My quick note to rich folks who are unhappy in their own skin?

Open up your refrigerator, throw out the junk foods, and restock it with your first round of delivered meals to kickstart the fat loss process.

Reason 2: You could literally hire your own highly-personalized physique coach to be your best friend 24/7.

If you’re rolling in the dough, it’s no problem at all if you have no idea where to start when it comes to getting jacked and lean because you can pay for someone to show you the way.

But, if you’re not able to afford a coach, you’re left to figure it out for yourself, Sherlock.

I say this because one of the reasons I personally spun my wheels for years when it came to my physique was due to the fact that I just couldn’t afford to put any money toward a coach.

As a result, I was left to the internet - a place mostly known for its fitness mythology and hyper-scammy marketing deception - and the tabloid-esque claims got the best of me for the majority of my twenties.

You don’t have to be that person when you’re loaded.

As I like to say, the ambiguity of exactly what you should be doing is offloaded completely when you have a personal coach.

And, you have the freedom to execute your diet and training plan without thought-fatigue, which is monumentally important when it comes to long-term adherence.

The reality is that we all only have so much energy to give, which means the task of researching how to create an intelligent diet and training program, then actually creating an evidence-based diet and training program, and then executing that diet and training program sustainably while making the appropriate adjustments along the way due to your body’s response can become overwhelming in approximately five nanoseconds.

With a coach, you just do what you’re told and learn along the way.

Could it be any easier?

If that sounds appealing, apply for coaching with us.

Reason 3: You can afford the best gyms (and maybe even your own home gym).

For some people, the cost of membership to a well-equipped gym can be a financial obstacle (or even out of the question completely).

Fortunately, you can still get a great workout at-home even if you’re limited to your own bodyweight and a few creative objects around the house, so there’s no real excuse per se.

But, having access to the best gym in town does give you the ability to overload your muscles through all planes of motion via traditional and newer-age machine movements.

There’s no question about that.

And, since quality training is the catalyst for muscle growth, that makes having access to great equipment a pretty big deal when it comes to pursuing a goal of getting leaner and more muscular.

Some people might even be able to afford their own home gym set-up, which adds another level of convenience to the mix.

When you think about it, going to the gym presents its own unique set of friction points that could potentially pose as a detriment to your physique goal.

The Downsides of Not Having Your Own Home Gym

• Firstly, you have to drive to the gym.

  • Obviously, that’s not a huge deal, but it does take time, effort, and planning that could be spent in other valuable ways if you’re a driven and successful person.

• You have to share the equipment with other gym goers.

  • If you’re forced to go to the gym at peak hours, this really can be a detriment to your workout both physically and mentally.

    • If you’ve been progressing week to week on the hack squat, but you walk in and see two or three people waiting to use the hack squat machine, that’s a problem. If you really care about overload, you’d be best to wait for the machine, but what if you only have 45 minutes to workout? In this case, you’d be better to substitute another exercise for the sake of maximizing your work output. In other words, it just wouldn’t make sense to waste 20 precious minutes of your time slot being legalistic about your workout. But, it’s still a bummer and certainly not ideal.

    • And, what about the mental aspect? Fighting for equipment is stressful and discouraging, which can absolutely ruin the vibe of a workout you were looking forward to all day.

As you can imagine, having a home gym eliminates all of these issues because your equipment is onsite and exclusive to your private use and pace.

As a bonus, you can even customize the littler things like which genre of music is playing in the background and the temperature in your lifting space.

All in all, having plenty of money in the bank allows you to optimize your exercise experience in ways other people can’t enjoy.

Reason 4: You can afford regular physical luxuries like deep tissue massage therapy.

I know for a fact that if I had the money, I would probably get 2-4 deep tissue massages per month.

The fact of the matter is this…

When you’re training toward a body recomposition goal, you’re going to develop some muscle tightness, aches, and pains along the way if you’re training as intensely as you should be.

And, if you can afford to have someone release the tension a few times a month (maybe even in the luxury of your own home), you’re going to have a slight edge over any regular Joe that has to “play through the pain” and be a bit more disciplined with his own stretching and foam rolling routine.

“Healing up” through massage from time to time is probably going to keep your body performing at its best while preventing acute and chronic injury - another luxury not everyone is blessed enough to enjoy.

As a side note, if you live in Columbia, Missouri and are looking for a top notch deep tissue massage experience, I highly recommend visiting Liz at Iron Muscle Massage. The woman has hands of fire and brimstone and I promise you will not be disappointed.

And, no, she is not paying us to say that, she is just that good.

A Quick Recap

1. Being wealthy allows you to buy the foods you need to support your goal without inconvenience or unnecessary stress.

2. Being wealthy allows you to hire your own fitness and physique coach.

3. Being wealthy allows you to workout in the best gyms with the best equipment - some of which may even be a part of your private at-home gym set-up.

4. Being wealthy allows you to take care of your body long-term through massage and other therapeutic services.

How Exactly I Would Do Fitness If I Were Wealthy

Nothing would make me happier than for someone to read this final piece of the blog and awkwardly whisper to themselves, “I could actually do exactly what he’s saying. What have I been waiting for? I literally have no excuse.”

And, that’s kind of the point I’m trying to make here.

The more disposable income you have, the fewer excuses you have when it comes to your body recomposition goals - it’s just that simple.

But anyway, this is how I would do it personally:

1. I’d hop on a plant-based meal delivery service and buy my first week of meals and make it a regular habit.

2. I wouldn’t hire a coach right now because I’m really enjoying the experimental freedom I have with both my nutrition and my training, but at some point I would hire someone just to learn from their years of experience and success.

   • But, if I were loaded and needed quick help getting lean and jacked, I’d hire a full-time trainer to support me in my goals 24/7. This could be anywhere from $200-1,000 per month or more depending on your needs and preference of online versus in-person.

3. I’d make sure I have access to my favorite gym in town.

4. I’d buy a few sweet pieces of equipment for my home set-up immediately: a treadmill, leg press, hack squat, Pit Shark, machine bench press, assisted pull-up machine, and a rack of dumbbells up to 100 just to start. Don’t get me wrong though, that would be a pretty penny.

5. I’d get a 90-minute deep tissue massage once a week from Liz.

---

Thanks for reading, everyone! I sincerely hope you enjoyed the content and learned something.

If you feel like this blog brought you any value at all, consider sending it to a friend or family member!

And, if you're interested in working with me one-on-one, visit The Vegan Gym and apply for coaching. I’ve had nothing but success in guiding people toward their fat loss goals.

Cheers, everyone!

-Andrew

Creating Healthier Eating Habits When Dieting

If you have ever struggled to diet consistently well or to have a healthy mindset while trying to lose weight, this article is for you. I’m going to provide some insight into how I approach the shift from a bulk to a cut, then provide some tangible practices that may help your relationship with food become healthier when dieting.

Struggling to Find a Healthy Relationship With Food

I felt inspired to write this article because it is really hard for me to transition from bulking to cutting, mainly from the mindset of my relationship with food. The same principles apply if you are coming from poor diet habits to beginning a fat loss diet.

When I am bulking, there are so many calories and foods to be consumed throughout the day that it sometimes feels like a chore to eat. 

Anyone who has tried to bulk can probably relate.

Eating a ton of food always sounds awesome at first, but it gets tiring quite rapidly. I might take some flak from bro culture for saying that, but it is truly quite a challenge for me. 

So when I initially shifted to my current fat loss diet, I carried over some bad habits from bulking that were really impeding my progress:

• My meals were way too big.

• I did a lot of late night binging (habit from bulking to try and get my calories!)

• I ate a lot of fast food for quick and easy calories.

I needed to change these habits if I wanted to lose weight and live healthier.

Creating a Healthy Mindset

So now enter the fat loss diet. This is where it is important to really set the correct mindset for dieting and how you treat food. 

During my bulk, when calories were in excess, my mindset for food was more like a chore. It was something that needed to get done to reach my goals, and so unfortunately my outlook on food sort of became soured. 

So the first couple of days when I cut calories (arguably the harder days), I kept some of those bad habits. I tried to fast until a certain time of day, or drink lots of coffee to try and fill myself up just so I could save my calories for a couple of large meals later in the evening. 

It was seriously almost like I was torturing myself to make it to a point of the day where I could torture my stomach with way more food than it could handle. 

It is honestly a little bit hard to admit that, but it’s true. 

So it finally hit me that what I was doing was not only unhealthy, but not working very well as far as the scale was concerned either. So I really sat down and examined how I was treating food and my diet and tried to be mindful about ways to combat a negative mindset. 

Here are some things that helped me have a more positive mindset when it comes to dieting.

Ways to Build Healthy Eating Habits When Dieting

1. Put Your Fork Down Between Bites

If you really spent some time watching people eat, you might be a little grossed out. I can only imagine what my mom thought of me when I was in high school; I probably looked like Joey Chestnut at a hot dog eating contest.

So something I have been doing to try and monitor fullness and satisfaction is just to set my fork down between bites. If you aren’t using a fork, same idea! Set the slice of pizza down between bites, I promise it won’t sprout legs and run away.

If you really want to take this practice to the next level, just be thankful for every bite. 

You don’t have to verbally acknowledge it, just in your head think about how you are thankful that you get to eat in a way that can help meet your goals and realize how blessed you are.

2. Don’t Stuff Yourself Full Every Meal

This one is hard because I don’t know how everyone really approaches food and their meals. 

I think psychologically, somewhere in our brains, there is that primitive voice saying “eat until you are full because you don’t know when you will eat again.”

Well, guess what? You aren’t a primitive nomad, and you more than likely know when your next meal is and probably even have options for what to eat.

So since we know we have another meal coming, try to eat in such a way where you don’t stuff your belly until you can’t fit anything else. 

Arguments can be made that you may be forced to do that when bulking, but when we are cutting, we don’t need to stuff ourselves. 

Outliers exist, such as doing some crazy intermittent fasting diet where you have to eat all of your calories in 4 hours, but for the most part, this is a safe and helpful practice.

A tangible way to try and think about this is to eat until you feel satisfied, not painfully full. If we want to put a number to it, eat until your stomach is at about 80% capacity. 

Eventually you start to figure out the amount of food it takes to get you to that ~80% level and then you can be more efficient with your cooking and preparation. 

3. Drink a LOT of water

I need to listen to myself with this one, but I cannot stress how important water is for the health of our bodies. 

I am no scientist, but there are way too many pieces of evidence out there pointing to why we should all be drinking more water. 

Now how you do this is totally personal, and how much you drink depends on many factors.

You could be the gallon jug person.

You could be the one who slams two full glasses upon waking up in the morning. 

It really doesn’t matter to me, but drinking more water will not only benefit your body, but also how you feel in general and how full you feel.

4. Find the Balance Between Food as Enjoyment and Fuel

After growing up in a house with a lot of diversity in the foods we would cook and eat, I have a great appreciation for the different flavors, combinations, and creations that people share.

I don’t know how that experience differs from others, but what I learned from my experience is that I may have learned to enjoy the food a little too much.

I rarely thought about how food was fueling my body and giving me the energy I needed for all of my sports, lifts, etc…

I mean we all know that food is fuel, but do we all actively think about that?

A simple way to rationalize your thoughts before you think about your next meal might be: “Will my body appreciate what I am about to give it, and will this help me reach my goals?”

Now don’t go all food nazi on me here. If you need to grab a McDouble on a road trip or settle for some Kraft Mac in a bind, it’s okay! 

I think it’s just important to be aware that healthier and more nutritious foods are probably going to fuel your body more efficiently than highly processed and fast foods. This is mainly due to the usually lacking nutrient profile in fast and processed foods.

Finding fun and tasty recipes that are full of healthy and satisfying ingredients that can both fill you up and make you feel well may take a little work, but is totally worth it.

Takeaways

It can be hard to set the correct mindset when trying to begin a diet, especially if there are pre-existing bad habits.

Try these to practice healthy eating habits: 

1. Put your fork down between bites

2. Don’t stuff yourself full every meal

3. Drink lots of water

4. Find the balance between food as enjoyment and fuel

These may not be anything groundbreaking, but practicing these habits personally has helped me on my current fat loss journey. 

---

If you found this article helpful it would be amazing if you shared it with friends and family! Andrew and I both love creating content and helping others, and we have been really putting in the time recently to pump out quality content.

We post a lot of quick hitters and thoughts that require less explanation than a blog might on our Instagram page @ivry.fitness. Give us a follow if you like what you see because there will always be more to come!

Finally, we have coaching spots available for this summer if you are still thinking about taking your goals seriously and want a coach to help get you there! We are very confident in our past successes and can’t wait to work with you in the future.

-Josh

Collecting Data to Improve Body Composition

A Wrong First Impression

I can remember being in college with little tent-pole legs sticking out of my shorts absolutely despising that guy at the gym who jotted things down into his little miniature notebook.

In fact, I can still almost picture one particular jacked guy with great posture walking around like whatever was written on that tiny notepad held the key to eternal life (or gains) while I was over in my own corner just thinking about what I was going to eat on my Chipotle burrito later that day.

Naturally, I didn't have a great initial experience with all of those guys that would fill out their workouts on little notepads. It all seemed like something professional athletes were supposed to do, and I was pretty sure none of these guys were professional athletes.

I remember thinking “it wasn’t for me” or that I wasn’t knowledgeable or capable enough to create a workout program.

But now that I think back, I was at the gym just for the sake of being at the gym.

I thought, “Well, as long as I'm here, something has to happen, right? If I go push a couple of heavy-ish things around and get a nice sweat in, surely I'll be looking like Arnold in no time.”

As it turns out, I couldn’t have been more wrong, and that guy I had originally judged for being a “meathead with a logbook” was years ahead of me in terms of utilizing the benefits of data collection for the sake of achieving a physique goal.

The Case for Data Collection

The best businesses in the world that seek to grow and surpass any of their wildest dreams all rely heavily on data to influence their decisions. Since I also currently teach math, I was recently reading a few articles on data collection and this quote from Carly Fiorina (former Hewlett-Packard CEO and a 2016 Republican presidential nomination) came up that I thought was relevant not only for business, but for our purposes also:

"The goal is to turn data into information and information into insight."

- Carly Fiorina

Hyper-successful people like Carly clearly use information and data to drive nearly all of their decisions. Now collecting data and information is not a direct indicator of success, but more successful people than not use data-driven ideas to drive their work.

What if we applied these ideas to our body composition goals as well?

Why Should I Collect Data to Improve Body Composition?

We use data and information to drive our decisions all of the time - even in ways we usually don't think about - because our brains do it almost automatically.

For example, say you tell a joke to a couple of friends and they find it extremely funny. We note their responses as important information such as, “my joke is funny, I should tell that again.”

Then we later tell that joke to some other friends and they also laugh. One of the best ways to see if we have a funny joke is to tell people and measure their responses, but we never really think about the process of telling a joke as a data driven solution - in some aspect, it just is!

Why then, do so many people refuse to let data drive their goals of body composition? It just doesn't make sense to me.

Can you still reach your goals without taking down any hard data or tracking anything? Sure. But, that's also like trying to walk from Columbia, Missouri to Mesa, Arizona without using the hundreds of map apps you could easily be accessing on your phone, which begs the question: If you could avoid all the wrong turns and setbacks, wouldn’t you prefer that? If I told you, “You can get to Arizona one of two ways. You either start walking with no resources or you start walking with a handful of helpful resources,” which would you pick?

What Do I Track?

As you may have noticed if you follow us on Instagram, Andrew and I are always posting little tidbits surrounding our habits of tracking calories, macros, workouts, steps, sleep quality and a host of other things, and this is why: Data is a friend of anyone pursuing a physique-related goal.

From here on, I’m going to talk mainly about my own process and things I'm personally doing.

I was very slow to join the tracking movement as you could tell by my initial response to people tracking in the gym, but clearly I was missing something. So I began to learn and practice all of these ideas about how to eat healthier, make better gains, and optimize rest and performance. My thought was: If I have all of these tools, why not try to use them to my advantage? Especially if the work to track some data points seems to be minimal.

Here are some of the (nearly) daily things I track:

• Steps

• Total Calories

• Macros

• Sleep Quality

• Sodium Intake

• Scale Weight

• My Workouts

Some of these things are easier than others to track, like entering my scale weight into a spreadsheet versus guessing my sleep quality based on how I feel when I wake up. One is straight forward, and the other is pretty subjective since I can’t measure the quality directly.

Here is what it looks like for me on my spreadsheet:

Examples of Why Tracking Has Been Useful for My Personal Fat Loss Goals

Weight Spikes

Occasionally my weight will spike up randomly, and you can even see that happen a few times on my sheet. Specifically near the end of the first week in the image, we can see a fluctuation of bodyweight. Without tracking anything, I probably have no idea what happened, or I could maybe at least incorrectly blame something.

With tracking however, I knew that I had eaten deep dish pizza for a special occasion on April 23 and a couple of other food items high in sodium. That was the only large meal I had eaten that day aside from a couple of other small snacks, so I know I kept my calories low (just didn’t report them for some reason). So why the weight gain? Sodium levels. Any time you eat out or make a dish that is high in sodium, even if you keep a lock on calories and macro numbers, you still might end up with a higher number on the scale the next morning because sodium causes us to hold a little bit of water, skewing your numbers a little bit.

Tracking As a Road Map for When You Get Lost

At some point in the cutting or gaining process, what you were doing before stops working. This is completely reasonable and logical because a lot of things about your body are changing as you gain and lose weight, so naturally it makes sense that the things that we need to do will slightly change.

This year it happened way earlier in the cutting process, and I have written a lot about it in several past social media posts, but essentially what happened was that I was struggling to lose weight early based on what worked for me last year and how I was implementing the diet this year. If I am a type of person that doesn’t track any of the categories listed above, I would probably be clueless about how to progress

However, with this data, I was able to manipulate a few things very easily and started to see results. I personally decided to increase my step count while also trying to better limit the fat consumption in my diet, and it worked!

Trying to Diagnose the Reason for a Poor Workout

This example has a little more nuance than the others, but it is something that has still been helpful for me when tracking. Several weeks ago I went to the [garage] gym and had a memorably horrible day; I felt sluggish, and asleep at the wheel with no motivation or strength to get anything done. I got in a few movements to justify being there and then left, albeit a bit puzzled.

The date I referenced was April 21, and if you peep the logbook picture above, you will see that my sleep quality from the previous night was listed as bad. I remember that night. I got maybe 3 hours of sleep? Again, this may make sense to most people… obviously my workouts suffered because my sleep was poor. Sometimes I have horrible sleep and then go into the best workouts of my life, so sleep may not always tell the entire story.

Another factor could’ve been that I had around 2,300 calories the day before as well (this was at a time when I was eating close to 2,700 cals), so the two could have compounded to provide the perfect storm for a poor workout.

How Much Work Does Tracking Data Take?

Tracking is one of the easiest and potentially most life changing investments you can make on your fitness journey.

I do almost all of my tracking (outside of entering my food into MyFitnessPal) in the mornings. My morning routine is almost always this:

• Wake up

• Use the restroom

• Weigh myself

• Enter bodyweight for that day, then sleep quality, total steps, sodium intake, calories, and macros from the day before into my spreadsheet.

Entering these things takes me maybe a maximum of five minutes if you move slow in the mornings like me, but realistically it only takes a couple minutes of transferring some numbers over into a spreadsheet and you’re done!

What you will probably find when you start is that it isn’t necessarily hard to input the data, but it can be hard to be consistent about tracking if you don’t have a routine for doing so. I mentioned my routine above, but that doesn’t have to be yours. I’d suggest to find a time to update your spreadsheet as often as possible (ideally daily), and start making that a habit!

Conclusion

Hopefully from the information laid out here, you can see why we value tracking data with our own programs, but also why we generally ask clients to track these sorts of things.

The more information we have at our disposal, the more informed decisions we can make. If building a healthy lifestyle and a better body composition is something that you are wanting to work hard for, or you are already working hard for it, then consider tracking some of the things listed in the article to give you a better chance at achieving the composition that you want.

To clarify, data isn’t the only tool we use at IVRY to help our clients, and like I’ve said already: if it’s easy to track this data and it’s easily accessible, it would be silly not to let those numbers help inform decisions along with other important factors.

I encourage you as you continue on with your body composition journey to start using data as a friend and a guide, and to let us know how it goes!

If you found this post helpful or are interested in learning more or having some personal coaching, we are currently adding new clients to our roster! Just click here to learn more!

5 Really Important Questions to Ask Yourself Before Embarking on a "Fitness Journey"

Question 1: Have you clearly identified your goal to the point that you could write it down on a napkin?

First of all, is your goal a performance-based goal or a body recomposition goal?

Obviously, I coach people toward body recomposition goals, but there is, of course, an enormous population of people that care much more about accomplishing something performance-based rather than just building aesthetic confidence. .

A performance goal would be something like, “I want to run a marathon,” or, “I want to start doing CrossFit because it looks fun and I really want to learn to move better and develop a greater sense of functional strength.”

Physique or body recomposition goals, on the other hand, are pursuits that are centered around appearance – around looking differently – and they usually involve some combination of building muscle and losing body fat.

For these goals, let’s call it what it is: You want to look better naked.

The problem, however, is that too many people are afraid to identify their goal for what it really is.

For example, I get really skeptical when I hear people say something like, “I just want to get back to a healthy bodyweight.” 

Maybe you do!

Those people are certainly out there, but is that really what you want? Because to be fair, you could be considered a “healthy bodyweight” without a trace of abdominal definition or any evidence you’ve ever lifted a dumbbell in your life.

I could be wrong, but my guess is that most of us aren’t quite so noble. Given the choice, most people would prefer to be healthy and look incredible all in the same endeavor, right?

So, at the risk of making your grandmother blush, is your goal about “getting healthy” or “getting hotter?”

There’s no right or wrong answer here, but I do think it’s important to be honest with yourself. Once you’ve landed on a genuine, well thought-out pursuit, write it down.

If I were doing this for myself at the moment, my napkin would look like this:

“My goal is to get below 175 pounds while maintaining as much muscle mass as possible. And yeah, I want to look pretty diced by the time it’s all over.”

What would yours say?

I sincerely challenge you to get a napkin, write down your goal, snap a picture of it, and save it to your phone for future nostalgia.

Question 2: Have you done the research to know exactly what it’s going to take to achieve your goal?

Now, at the expense of my own dignity, I’m going to use an example from my past to illustrate this next point.

Are you ready for it?

For a long time, my goal was to look like Brad Pitt from Troy.

To me, he was the perfection combination of size, aesthetics, and swagger.

Laugh all you want, but at least I had nailed down the goal part of things (or at least I thought I had). The problem is that I neglected to take the next most obvious step.

As ridiculous as it may sound, I never even googled “brad pitt training program troy” or “brad pitt troy diet.” How silly is that?

What’s even funnier about this particular example is that googling “how to look like brad pitt from troy” probably would have been a terrible way to go about “doing research” given the over-saturation of scammy clickbait articles in the fitness industry.

I can see the article now: How Brad REALLY Got Into Shape for His Role as Achilles in Troy (NOT WHAT YOU THINK), but at least it would have been an attempt - a step in the right direction - an evidence of real intent.

And yet I never did it.

Do you see the problem with that?

How did I ever think that I could achieve a goal without looking into what it would require to actually achieve it?

Well, when I think about it now, the answer is quite obvious. The fact of the matter is, my obvious lack of research and planning was proof that my “goal” to look like Brad Pitt was never really a goal at all. It was nothing more than a momentary fascination.

Unfortunately, however, I don’t think I’m alone in this sort of nonsensical mentality.

A lot of us ebb and flow between different “fitness goals,” but really we’re just daydreaming. And, to be fair, this sort of thinking is certainly not confined to goals within the fitness realm. It’s no different than driving by a beautiful home and saying, “I’d love to live in a house like that someday.” I’m sure you would, but that’s not a very helpful thing to say if you’re merely hoping aimlessly in the breeze, is it?

Now, if you’ve got a plan to launch a financially lucrative entrepreneurial endeavor you’ve been working on for months, that’s a completely different story.

It’s also a different story if you’re really just trying to say that you like that particular house but have no intentions of pursuing what it might take to live in. Again, that’s fine!

What I’m more trying to say here is that it’s important to test the realness of your goal by educating yourself on the process.

Another way I like to think of this sort of thing is to consider it in context of a travel analogy. Wanting to look like Brad Pitt without doing the research surrounding an appropriate training and nutrition regimen is like “planning” a trip to New York without ever getting online to peruse the available flights - much less book one. 

Frankly, it makes no sense, and it’s why most people never wind up achieving a lean and muscular physique.

Question 3: What’s your motivation?

I’ll keep this one short and sweet, but it’s obviously very important to consider.

To expose my own motives a bit, I can fully admit that my primary motivation for getting very lean in 2020 was to further motivate both current and future clients of the IVRY brand.

I wanted to thoroughly document the process for those who are curious about "how I did it” despite the unforeseen limitations of life as we now know it in quarantine - to share that information openly with people who want the same results for themselves.

And, of course, I want the transformation photos as further confirmation that as a coach, I can lead you confidently and intelligently toward the greatest physique you’ve ever had.

For me, that was a very powerful motivation.

So, what’s your motivation? And is it deep enough to withstand all the adversity you might experience along the way?

• Do you need to lose weight so you can be more active with your kids?

• Do you want to prove it to yourself that you can become a CrossFitter?

• Or maybe you’re just excited about the idea of looking jacked and lean on the beach this summer because you’re sick of being the “fat friend?”

The list of motivations is endless.

I challenge you to search yourself deeply and meaningfully for something strong enough to carry you across the finish line.

Question 4: What’s the first step you need to take?

What is the very first thing you need to do to start making this happen right now?

If your goal is to lose 30 and you know for a fact you have absolutely no idea how to do that, hire a coach.

Stop making bologna sandwich excuses and invest in yourself.

If you don’t trust us enough yet with that endeavor, that is totally fine! Your trust should be earned and handled with care. We’re not the only coaches in the business doing quality work.

Maybe you’ve been following some other fitness personality on social media that you secretly idolize for their impressive physique.

You might be thinking, “Yeah, there is this one guy/gal I’ve always wanted to work with.”

Go to their site and apply for coaching. Believe it or not, we actually care more about you doing what’s best for you than you being an IVRY client.

“But I just don’t have the money to do that right now.”

Then let’s redefine the first step.

Start saving. How much is coaching? Start saving.

Maybe you’re spending more than you think on some little vice in your life. Coffees at Starbucks? A few too many drinks at the bar on the weekends? Buying new clothes you don’t really need? Slash the purchases that are getting in the way of your fitness goal, and put that saved money toward what you know you need to make it happen.

What I’ve found is that if you really want something in life, you’ll figure out a way to make it happen. Similarly, if you’re more interested in finding excuses that reasons to “get it done,” you’ll find those too. Which kind of person are you going to be? Only you can decide.

If your goal is to start CrossFit, start a new tab in your web browser right now and look up all the CrossFit gyms in your area.

Peruse their websites. Read the reviews. Figure out which one is the best. Do you know any friends who do CrossFit? Text them right now. Where do they go? Do you need to buy some equipment to get started? Get on Amazon and bag the gear. Once you’ve done that, walk into that gym literally tomorrow and get started. I don’t care if your shoes haven’t arrived yet. Go to the gym.

Otherwise you won’t do it - I promise.

You absolutely will not do it. The reason I know that is because you’re still reading this article right now and you have yet to act on that one little thing in the back of your mind that you’d love to accomplish - you just haven’t taken the first step.

Take the first step.  

Q5: Are you prepared to “do the thing” every single day until the goal is accomplished?

Achieving any meaningful goal doesn’t happen overnight, so the bigger question here is: Are you going to be able to keep your foot on the pedal for the duration of the ride?

You’re sitting their holding your napkin in your hand - the napkin with your goal scribbled on it in Sharpie.

You’ve done the research about what it’s going to take.

You’ve identified your motivation.

You know what your first step needs to be and you’re prepared to take it.

Now you just have to stay committed until the deed has been done.

An extremely powerful way to hold yourself accountable to this is to set a deadline for your goal.

For some goals, this comes inherently. If you’re going to run a marathon, chances are you’ve already signed up for the race. The date is on the calendar. There are going to be people running a marathon on that day whether you’re there or not. The show goes on with or without you. If you’re like me, you love that sort of thing because it’s a reminder that there’s a bigger story beyond your personal goal.

If your goal is to look like shredded wheat for your wedding, that wedding date is on the calendar and you’re going to be taking tanned selfies in Cabo whether or not the ab squad is out to play.

If the nature of your goal doesn’t impose an automatic deadline (like wanting to lose 15 pounds in a healthy and sustainable way), talk to someone who can create a realistic timeline for you and then do the same: set a deadline.

Once the deadline is set, work backwards from the deadline and plan as much as you can. Just don’t let the main push of inspiration live and die in a matter of a week or less. Launch your effort and maintain the effort until the effort accomplishes the goal.

And there you have it, my friends. Those are the five most important questions I believe anyone could ask themselves before starting their own fitness or body recomposition-related journey!

---

If you’ve enjoyed this blog, consider sharing it with another fitness-minded friend or maybe someone who has been dragging their feet for a bit too long.

You know that one gal who’s always complaining about her weight at work? Give her a kick in the pants and shoot her a text.

And, of course, take the time to flip through some of our other recent posts for additional content! I often recommend this article as your next read if you found this one thought-inducing.

Lastly, we do have coaching slots available for people looking to transform their bodies.

It is not too late, but someday it will be too late, so don’t sleep on an incredible opportunity to be the most confident version of yourself you’ve been in a long time.

Oh, and we might even let you eat pizza a few times while shedding body fat. Are you in yet?

Learn more by clicking here!

-Andrew