More than just dieting...

Wondering why you can’t nick those habits around poor eating? In my experience as a nutrition coach, you can’t change your diet without changing who you are first. Behavioral changes that impact your identity must be practiced. In a recent study in the European Society of Cardiology, '“People living with obesity who attended a non-judgmental and personalized lifestyle modification program improved their cardiovascular and mental health during just 10 weeks… Participants lost weight and achieved benefits in anxiety and depression and physical measurements including blood pressure.”

The study goes on to say, “We focus on changing behaviors and improving people's relationship with food…Many participants have tried diets with strict rules and have fears about foods they can't eat. Our program has no diet or meal plan, and no foods are excluded. Each person sets their own goals, which are reviewed weekly, and our approach is non-judgmental, which builds rapport and gains trust."

It’s great to see science validating approaches that Floch Fitness have been working with for years!

If you are ready to take a habit based approach toward body composition changes, I’m here to help! Click the link below to get started today!

He lost how much weight?!?!

“I just can’t eat right, I always mess things up!” This is the most common misbelief I see as a nutrition coach. 99% of clients I see can sit down and write out a perfect day of nutrition. And I am not joking about that. However, most of them get bogged down in the miniscule: macros, gluten, dairy etc.. But they are completely unable to stick to a plan for more than two weeks without self sabotaging or giving up. If you are in tune with the way your body feels and have a basic knowledge of nutrition you can get to at least 90% of what you want your body to feel and perform like with the right mindset and time.

Below is a couple of clips from a recent Joe Rogan Experience podcast featuring actor Ethan Suplee (Remember the Titans, My Name is Earl, American History X). Ethan is a shining example of what transformation truly looks like. He didn’t “lose weight,” he became a new person. He admits that he is still a work in progress but there is so much in this little snip-it that you can take from when it comes to your own health and nutrition.

If you are ready to change who you are, and as a byproduct lose weight and feel better, I’m here to help. Click the link to book a free assessment and let’s start moving toward the life of you dreams.

Does Fat Make You Fat?

“But shouldn’t I not be eating any fat?” I was asked at a recent nutrition consultation.  “It’s not that simple,” I replied.  

You see, fat is fairly benign when it comes to affecting blood sugar and insulin, so fat can be a helpful macronutrient when it comes to adding in calories to your diet without having it affect energy levels and food cravings.  And since fat is calorically dense, it can help under-eaters or those who are looking to put on some lean body mass consume more calories.  On the other hand, fat is also the macronutrient I will adjust during a weight loss phase of dieting in order to regulate the number of calories the client is consuming.  However, I make sure clients are getting enough fat (though minimums can be pretty low) in order to maintain healthy hormones, regulate inflammation, and aid in vitamin absorption.

So where does this idea that fat makes you fat come from?  From best selling author Gary Taubes, “Starting in 1977, the government started telling all Americans to eat less fat, and starting in the mid-'80s, we started producing these low-fat products that in effect replaced the fat in the yogurt or the cookies or the whatever with carbohydrates. We went from being a country that ate about 40 percent of their calories in fat and 45 percent carbohydrates, to 34 percent fat and that much more carbohydrates. Conceivably, this belief that set in, that carbohydrates could be eaten to excess and wouldn't cause weight gain, that they were both heart healthy and the ideal diet, might have had some effect on weight.”

But it turns out, eating fat won't make you fat. In fact, research shows that low-fat diets don't seem to aid in weight loss or in reducing risk of disease compared to higher fat diets. And all those refined carbs you've been eating to replace that fat might be the real issue.

At the end of the day it’s about finding the right balance of calories and macronutrients in order to feel good, and accomplish your individual goals.  That’s where I come in.  I work with clients to break down exactly what their goals are and how we can use healthy eating practices to achieve those goals.  If you are ready to get started, click the link below to book a free assessment today!

Build Muscle...NOW

A majority of clients that I work with are looking to lean out and tone up (terms that drive me up the wall, but I will leave it alone for now).  However, I do have clients who’d like to put on weight by increasing their lean muscle mass.  This scenario requires different training, nutrition and lifestyle changes.  Let’s break down a few considerations:

1. Increasing Calories-To increase lean body mass, the body needs a caloric surplus.  I usually shoot for a 300-500 calorie per day surplus over a client’s baseline with a focus on protein and carbohydrates.  

2. Increase training intensity by building load, volume, or both-If you want to out on muscle, you have to train hard.  That doesn’t mean maximum intensity every day, but it does mean that training should be uncomfortable most of the time.  Increasing the load, adding more sets, or going for more reps are a few simple ways to increase the difficulty of your workouts.  As a bonus, I wouldn’t vary the exercise selection too much as it takes time for the body to adapt to any exercise.  Choose 10 exercises total, and work through those on any given day.

3. SLEEP-I can’t emphasize this one enough.  Sleep is integral to putting on lean body mass as sleep is where recovery takes place and growth hormone is released (growth hormone aids in muscle synthesis). 

This is only a small chunk of the many considerations I make when working with a client who wants to add muscle to their body.  For a more in depth look, you’ll want to listen to my most recent podcast with Scott Hagnas (link in my bio).

If you like the podcast please subscribe, rate, review, and share it with a friend!

If you have any questions you'd like Scott and I to answer, write an email to sean@flochfitness.com. 

Are All Sweeteners The Same?

I commonly receive the question, “(insert sweetener) bad for me?”  My response, “It depends.”

First off, why are you using the sweetener, and how much are you using?  Secondly, what are your fitness and health goals?  After answering these questions (honestly), I can give recommendations on what an individual should do about adding sweeteners to their diet.

Let’s take a dive into some common sweeteners before I give my commendations:

1. Sucrose-Table sugar, honey, white sugar, confectioners sugar, sugar in the raw, are all made up molecularly of a glucose and fructose molecule (equally). 

2. Fructose-These include agave, maple syrup.  Though fructose has a lower glycemic index than table sugar or glucose, the gut cannot absorb fructose.  Fructose must be processed by the liver into glucose so it can be used by the body.  This reaction is called fructolysis.  If 30g or more of fructose are ingested, the excess sugar conversion causes an increase in triglycerides, a precursor for cardiovascular disease.  Moreover, fructose is also the sweetest tasting sweetener, we’ll learn why this is important later on.

3. Dextrose- Corn Syrup/Cassava Syrup-Though this is a high glycemic sugar that will affect blood sugar, it bypasses the liver. 

4. High Fructose Corn Syrup-Found in sports drinks and soft drinks.  Think of HFCS as sucrose on overdrive.  Up until the 1970s, soft drinks used cheap sugar: corn syrup.  Corn syrup is made up of glucose, which doesn’t taste as sweet as fructose on the pallet.  Rather than using sugar, Scientists combined the sweetness of fructose with the cheap cost of corn syrup to produce a super cheap and addictive substance that runs havoc on your liver and blood sugar.  HFCS-55 contains 55% fructose and 45% glucose.

If your goal is improving body composition and long term health, then you should RARELY be consuming sweeteners. RARELY.  Notice I did not say sugar.  Sugar occurs naturally in fruits and vegetables, however it is VERY hard to over consume sugar when you eat whole foods, but EASY to over consume sugar when you are drinking juices or eating dried fruit.  For instance, to get the sugar in one 8 ounce glass of orange juice, you would have to eat 3 oranges.  Add in the fact that you are consuming a lot of fiber which slows down digestion and negates the spike in blood sugar, and you are working with two completely different scenarios.  My recommendation is to keep sugar consumption below 30g each day and consume your sugar as fibrous foods.

There is so much more to unpack about sugar, but hopefully you can look behind the BS when the next sugar company says, “Sugar is sugar,” or your buddy tries to feed you muffins and says they are healthy because she used, “Agave Syrup.”

Looking for more advice with your diet?  I’m here to help.  Click the link in my bio to set up a free assessment today!

Is Salt Bad For You?

Countries have fought for hundreds of years for access to salt, and for good reason.  Table salt, made up of NaCl (sodium chloride), is essential for our survival.  Sodium drives basic cellular processes of the body including nerve and muscle function and is involved in the regulation of fluids in the body. Sodium also plays a role in the body's control of blood pressure and volume.  In recent years however, it has been in vogue to avoid salt like the plague.  Where does salt=bad come from?  There are two likely sources. 

First, heart and vascular doctors see increased sodium levels in patients with cardiovascular disease.  The correlation between sodium and high blood pressure isn’t so cut and dry however.   From nutrition and performance specialist and best-selling author Robb Wolf, “We know mechanistically, that sodium is important in blood pressure, we know that blood pressure is important for cardiovascular disease. But what got missed in that story is that the reason why the body hangs on to this sodium in the first place is we're just generally over-eating and maybe over-eating too many carbs. And when our insulin levels elevate, we become insulin resistant, then we tend to retain sodium. Insulin causes an upregulation in the production of a hormone called aldosterone. Aldosterone causes the kidneys to retain sodium. And so it's interesting because there is a reason to be concerned about sodium and blood pressure, but it's not really the way that we've been looking at things.”  What Robb is saying is that high blood pressure, in most individuals, is due to overconsumption of food and increased insulin levels rather than elevated levels of sodium.  

Second, anecdotally, people feel bloated and heavier after heavy doses of sodium.  The thinking goes, if I feel bloated after meals rich in sodium, I should avoid salt all together.  This idea doesn’t pan out though.  The issue is that most people who over consume salt also, in  most cases, are eating a lot of processed foods to get that salt in their body (ie. fried foods).  If you were to salt let say, a baked potato, the body wouldn’t respond in the same way as eating deep fried chicken tenders (excess fat and refined carbohydrates).  Moreover, once you have stabilized your salt intake, after a few days the body’s osmolarity will equalize, and the excess water retention will diminish.

For my nutrition clients, I don’t spend too much time obsessing about salt, but when they ask, I recommend lightly salting their food at meals (unless they have found to be hypersensitive to sodium. Which is ~1% of the population).   I don’t spend as much time focusing on salt with clients as they usually have much bigger issues like food quality, portions, and variety to worry about.

Need help with your diet? I’m here to help! Click the link below to set up a free assessment today!

How to Calculate Your Macros For Weightloss

When I work with clients on nutrition, I not only like to give them a clear idea of the number of calories they should be taken in based upon their body composition goals (fat loss or muscle gain) but also the macro nutrient content as well. Controlling your macro nutrients are important for a number of reasons including:

1. Lean Muscle Preservation

2. Stabilizing Blood Sugar

3. Increasing Energy

4. Decreasing Stress Hormones like Coritsol

5. Control Appetite

I think we can all agree that eating 1,000 of candy is substantially different than eating 1,000 calories of lean meats, complex carbs, and vegetables.

Here is the breakdown of how I calculate the macro nutrients for a 150lb. female client who is active (training 4-5x per week Crossfit) and looking to lose bodyfat.

Step 1-Calculate the number maintenance calories this athlete needs to maintain the same body weight with the given activity level. I like to use https://www.calculator.net/calorie-calculator.html There are a bunch of different formulas available online, and they are all pretty similar. For this individual, maintenance is 2,200 cals per day.

Step 2-Determine the grams of protein necessary to support lean muscle mass by multiplying the athletes weight in pounds by 0.8-1.2. For this individual, the range would be 120g-180g of protein a day. As a general rule, the higher the activity level the lower on the range we would keep protein so it doesn't overtake carbs in importance. For this athlete, we go with 120g/day.

Step 3-Determine the grams of carbs necessary to support training, daily activities, and mental cognition multiplying the body weight in pounds by 0.5-2.0. Since the activity level is moderate, we'll go with 1.5x multiple giving the carbs/day at 225g/day.

Step 4-Determine fat consumption by subtracting the protein and carb calories from the total cal per day.

120g Pro x 4cals/g=480cals

225g Carb x 4cals/g=900cals

900cals+480cals=1,380cals

2,200cals-1,380cals=820cals

820cals/9cals/g=91g Fat

This is the maintenance calories and macros for this individual.

Step 5-Adjust grams of fat to create caloric deficit. We shoot for 300-500cals/day of a caloric deficit as this would lead to a 0.5-1lb loss in bodyfat each week (3,500cals=1lb.). 2,200cals goes to 1700cals/day.

Step 6-Calculate decrease in grams of fat

500cals / 9cals/g=55g

91g-55g=36g fat/day

Final Macros for Weight Loss:

1,700cals/day

120g Protein

225g Carbs

36g Fat

This is a general look at the macro nutrient breakdown for a client. I will dive deeper into specific variables that have to be addressed in other posts. The next step here would be implementing this plan for the client, which in my opinion is the most important and challenging aspect and where having a coach is critical.

In showing you the macro breakdown, I hope you learned a little more about what you are putting in your body and how to adjust your food intake to decrease body fat. If you would like help in creating a nutrition plan that works for you, I'm here to help! Click the link below to book an assessment today!

Are You Eating Enough???

If you don’t eat enough, you could be hindering weight loss…

Your Weight Isn’t Budging- This is one of the most paradoxical symptoms of someone who is undereating and it often goes hand in hand with overtraining. Most clients that I work with are active (workout 4-5 days per week at least 1 hour per training session). These individuals are also active in their daily lives, and tend to eat pretty clean. It’s not until we take a 5 day food log they we determine they are on an extremely low-calorie diets (around 1,000 to 1,200 calories per day). The combination of high intensity exercise and extremely low calories leaves clients perplexed.

For good reason, they are extremely frustrated that their weight isn’t changing; for some of these clients, their weight has actually been increasing since they dropped their food intake and started working out more. Many of these clients are also eating a very low carb diet with the goal of losing weight quicklys (we’ll talk carbs later this week).

We’ve been trained to believe that the body is a machine, and we can input and output our calories in a way that will cause weight loss. So it’s understandable why these clients would expect to see weight loss from a significant caloric deficit like that. But the fact is, they simply can’t lose the last 15 to 30 pounds no matter how little they eat. Why is this?

While a short-term, moderate caloric deficit can lead to sustainable weight loss (think 300 to 500 calories per day), much larger deficits induce changes in your body’s metabolism in order to keep your body in a homeostatic balance. Your body does not like major, drastic changes, and it will make modifications to your thyroid, adrenal, and sex hormones in order to reduce your overall caloric output.

This leads to a whole host of other problems including sleeplessness, lack of sex drive, injury, and so much more.

If your weight loss plan just isn’t working, you are chronically fatigued, always injured, or need to take a serious look at your diet, I am here to help. Click the link below to schedule a free assessment today and let’s work together to bring out the best version of you!