Weight Loss, Peer Pressure and Holiday Pitfalls

With Memorial Day come to a close and the BBQ’s and long weekend celebrations coming to an end how did you do? Did you stick to your goals? Did you get your exercise in? Did you keep track of how you ate?

Holidays and parties are some of the hardest times to keep on track with your weight loss goals. Here’s a few reasons why:

1)  Unhealthy Food in large supply

2) Unhealthy Portion Size

3) Alcohol in large supply.

4) Social Pressure to be part of the party

5) People who don’t understand what you’re trying to do.

The first thing we need to address is if you fell off the wagon this weekend, get back on. You have not failed, it’s not all lost, and you haven’t destroyed everything you’ve worked for these past few weeks. A single weekend of bad choices won’t kill you. A lifetime of them will.

Second, how do we deal with these pressures and temptations? This past memorial day weekend Sarah and I visited the in-laws while participating in a 30 day Primal/Alcohol free challenge. It was tough at times to keep on track but we succeeded. Lets go through the above list and see how we can overcome some obstacles.

1) Unhealthy Food: Pack healthy food for yourself. For our challenge we had limitations on what we could eat so we packed up what we needed and brought it with us! Feel uncomfortable bringing your own thing? Bring enough to share and make it part of the weekends eats! You just might help someone else choose healthy too!

2) Unhealthy Portion Size: All those bowls of potato salad and other tempting dishes spread out before you! How to survive? Grab the smallest plate you can and stick with it. Being forced to go back to the table to get another serving will help you think twice. (Only have big paper plates? Rip it in half!)

3) Alcohol…..ooooh! A tough one. The majority of calories consumed on long weekends come from what’s in your glass. If you really feel uncomfortable when everyone around you has a beverage, substitute! Get a bottle of club soda and fill your glass with ice and some lime. The bubbles and taste will give you enough kick to keep you sated and keep your thirst in check and the act of having a drink in your hand will keep people from badgering you to have another.

4&5) Social Pressure: When people question why you’re not having a drink, helping yourself to the buffet, taking part in Dad’s famous bacon wrapped burger, or make remarks about the choices you’re making remember:

You are on a journey to improve yourself and your life. It is your journey and no one else’s. You make the rules and you pay the consequence when you break them.

If someone puts down your choices it is only because you are holding a mirror to their own shortcomings and bad decisions. When someone feels bad their natural reaction is to try and make you feel bad so they feel better.

We have to live like no one else now so We can live like no one else later.

What is realistic for me to expect for weight loss?

SGO Fitness

What is realistic for me to expect for weight loss?

This is the best question you can ask your trainer! There are too many quick fix unreliable weight loss fads out there for you to fall victim to!  Today’s post is part of one of my responses to a recent client request. Here are some simple tips to get you moving in the right direction.

 The simplest answer is: If you focus on healthy eating, increasing your daily activity and rock your workouts and cardio, a loss of 1-2 lbs a week is realistic and healthy to strive for. For almost everyone who has weight loss goals this should be your first step.

 After taking some time off from his weight loss journey one of our bootcampers returned with a new fire in his belly and a need to achieve. While away he’d lost 3 pounds which was good! But he’d increased his fat % by 1.5%. That meant he’d gained fat even though he’d lost weight. Not a healthy thing to see. At 235 lbs and 28.7% body fat he wanted to do better.

How can we achieve results?

As you can see by the calculations below our first goal should be to get you into acceptable fat% levels (18-25%). As you lose fat and increase muscle you’ll see these numbers change and our goal weight change as well. But 11lbs for now is an achievable goal for a month of solid work. 

 Weight 235 lbs / Fat% 28.7% / Total Fat 67.5 lbs / Lean Weight 167.5 lbs /

Activity Factor 1.2 / RMR 2015 Calories / TDEE 2418 Calories

Desired:  Fat% 25% /  Body Weight 223.4 lbs

Weight Loss needed: 11.5 lbs

What do these numbers mean?

Activity Factor is a point system based on how active you are in daily life. A sedentary lifestyle (little to no exercise) puts you at a 1.2 activity factor.

RMR (Resting Metabolic Rate) is the amount of calories you burn just being you (Lie in your bed all day and do nothing and you will burn this)

TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure) is the amount of calories you’ll burn on an average day.

What do we do to succeed?

Eating:

1. Eat every meal. No skipping breakfast, lunch or dinner! And small healthy snacks in between.  (sounds funny but eat more to lose more!)
2. Pay attention to Calories. At your current weight you’re burning 2015 calories a day just being you. If you can keep your calories at 2000 calories you’ll be building a deficit of aprox. 500 a day. (3500 calories equals a pound of fat. that’s a pound lost over a week just on diet alone)
3. Skip the white stuff. (Sugar, bread, pasta, grains & Dairy) This will be the hardest part of your nutrition journey. Sarah and I both focused on a diet low in processed carbs and dairy and saw significant results. If you’d like some coaching on what you’ll need to do to accomplish this let me know. The Paleo Solution and Primal Blueprint are great resources to give you some alternatives.
4. Water. Drink it rather than anything else. You’ll save on calories and keep your body primed for exercise.
5. 3 Day Food Journal: Be as honest with yourself as possible and write down everything you eat for 3 days. It’s an eye opener to where you’re calories are going and where you can improve. I’ve added a link for an example of a basic day diary for you: Food Diary Link

 Exercise:

1. SGO Fitness Bootcamp: Rock it twice a week and give me all you’ve got. We’ll take care of the program. You take care of the sweat.
2. Cardio: Get moving. I know you’ve already got some other classes going. But, make a goal of accomplishing at least 10 minutes of cardio for every meal of the day. (10 minute fast pace walk will get you nearly 100 calories no problem. That’s 300 calories a day!!)
3. Activity: Always ask, will this make me better? Every chance you get choose the better  path. Park further from work and walk. Take the stairs always. Stand at your desk every ½ hour for 10 minutes. Wash the dishes rather than use the dishwasher. Play music and dance rather than sit and watch TV. Everything you do that makes you move will get you to your goal.

Recovery:

1. SLEEP!!  8 hours. No arguments. Be Better.
2. Stretch: You’ll be sore after bootcamps. Get stretching. Do the stretches we do after class every day. If you’re feeling like you need extra work done call me and we can set you up with a foam roller and rolling program.
3. Professional Help: As a SGO Fitness client you get 50% off your first visit with our support team for Chiro & Rehab, Massage,  and Acupuncture . Take advantage of their services and expertise. I do.

 Goal Setting:

                This is most important of all. We have a weight and fat % goal set. But this isn’t going to do us any good if you don’t have an action oriented goal set to help you achieve it. So here is what I want you to do. Find something you want to accomplish in a month’s time. Something physical and measurable. (An easy one would be complete a 5k in you r best ever time but you choose) Once you have that goal, fill me in and we’ll build you a program to achieve it. By training your body to succeed at a physical challenge you’ll attack your weight loss goal as a byproduct. You win both ways!!

 

Choose a goal that is Specific, Measureable, Action Oriented, Realistic, Time Sensitive.

 

See it: Know what you need to do to be better.

Grab it: Take steps to plan your success.

Own it!: Tell people about it and make yourself accountable for your actions and success.

Dedicated to your success,

Sean Gogarty,  ACE-CPT 

Founder

SGO Fitness

Paleo Diet

SGO Fitness

The basic theory behind the Paleo diet is simple. For millions of years our ancestors survived on diet provided by a hunter-gatherer lifestyle which consisted mainly of meat, fish & foul, vegetables & fruits and nuts & seeds. With the introduction of the agriculture approx 12000 years ago that diet changed to include grains and dairy, which are believed to cause several autoimmune diseases and digestive distresses. By avoiding these and a few other foods you can expect to see a dramatic change in your health, performance and physique. For an in-depth explanation read The Paleo Solution.

What drew me to this diet, other than the amazing personal endorsement from my friend Kevin Dusi which you can read below, is that its all natural. There is nothing in this diet that you would not be recommended to eat by your own doctor or nutritionist. There’s no miracle potion you need to take, no supplement with additives you really have no knowledge of. Just wholesome great tasting food that you cook for yourself. I’ve always said for most food “If it comes in a box or a carton, its probable not that good for you.”

Before I began this 30 day Paleo Challenge experiment I’d been getting a lot of questions and also having a lot of conversations with people about the diet and their opinion of what it was all about. In order to get a personal take I decided to call my good friend Kevin Dusi, and avid Triathlete and soccer player. Kevin had been eating paleo for several months as a means to help with his training and I wanted to get his take on things. His answers were so informative and helpful I thought I’d post our conversation here:

 Hey Kevin, 

Minds answering a few questions? Not at all. 

Why did you decide to go paleo in the first place? I had hit a plateau. I was training 5-6 days a week, often twice a day, for my events. However, I was stuck at 210 pounds and still had a decent amount of ‘squish’ to my frame. My friend had the physique I was looking for and sent me some reading materials when I asked. 

How long have you been eating paleo? Starting Jan 1, 2011, essentially.

What physical changes have you experienced since you’ve been eating this way? Weight loss, illness, how you feel daily? In two months I went from 210 to 190 with no effort. On a general day, I have a lot more energy. I haven’t gotten anything worse than a headache in 2011 (knock on wood) and that is generally more of a result of eating something I know I shouldn’t. I suppose a great overall comment for ‘physical changes’ would be that you get to be much more in-tune with how your body reacts to what you put in it. Eat a carne asada burrito? Tasty as hell, but expect a headache and a “food coma” after. Eat right? Expect what I refer to as a “food high”. You seriously will get a rush of energy. It’s weird. 

What were the biggest hurdles you had to overcome to stick to it? At first: wheat headache. It sounds odd, but when people first kick gluten they will get to look forward to something similar to a caffeine headache. Your body is addicted, in a way. Now the hardest issue is travelling for work, as I prefer to prep my own food. On a normal week, I’d say prep time for what I want to eat is probably the biggest thing, but you get into a routine with that… and you really do start to look forward to feeling great and dreading how you feel if eat wrong. 

Have you “fallen off the wagon” on anything? What did you do about it? I fall off the wagon all the time. But each time you do, your body reacts and it’s enough of a lesson to get back into eating right. The beauty is that it is really easy to re-set. I’ll bounce from 190 to 193 any given week based on how “well” I’m doing. 

Now that you’ve been eating this way for a while are there any variations to the diet you’ve added or recommend? I’d say I eat more “primal” than “paleo”, but even that isn’t a very big distinction. http://www.marksdailyapple.com/whats-the-difference-between-primal-and-paleo/a paleo “purist” would shun dairy (I love me some cheese and butter), alcohol, etc. Primal allows for a little more flexibility. I think the main thing I’d recommend is to go at least a month completely committed to the paleo way of eating. No booze, no dairy, no gluten, etc. and see how you feel. If you go into it feet first, it will be night and day. After 3 or 4 days when I started I was sold, but went the full 30. After that, tinker around and reintroduce some stuff. Like dairy? Add it in. Note how your body reacts and use that as a guide.

Where do you shop for most of your meals? Any great places to go? I love farmers markets. Poway has a good one on Saturdays, Hillcrest has an amazing one on Sundays, and if you have clients on the coast I’ve been to the one in Solana Beach on Sunday afternoons and it’s decent. Fresh vegetables are amazing. For stores, I live right next to a Henry’s and that’s typically where I’ll go. For eating out, places like JSix downtown (pricey but worth it), Urbane Solace, and The Linkery are my three favorites, and they generally have stuff that’s Kevin-approved.  

What would be your recommendation for someone who’s thinking of trying to eat this way? What would you suggest to someone who’s never worked out, watched what they ate, or even heard of this type of diet until now? Do the homework and commit to 30 days.  By homework I mean either read everything you can online or get a book. I went the book route. Either Robb Wolf’s or Mark Sisson’s is a great place to start. Also, keep in mind that it’s NOT just a gluten-free diet. A lot of things are hitting the shelves at supermarkets with “gluten free” stamped all over them. That’s great, but there’s other stuff besides gluten that you want to avoid. It’s just the big one. That’s why reading up on it first is what I’d recommend, so you don’t shoot yourself in the foot over it. I’d hate to see someone do what they *think* is paleo only to fail because they didn’t know the full story. Also, it’s easier in groups. As far as someone that’s never worked out… I’d say diet is 80%, sleep is 10%, and working out is 10%. They can see a ton of improvement by doing nothing more than walking and getting some sun. Mark’s Primal Blueprint goes into a lot of detail on that. Robb’s book does to a lesser extent. FYI, when I lost my 20 pounds, I cut my working out to maybe 1/10 of what I had been doing. Now I work out when I want to, which is maybe twice a week for 30-40 minutes, similar I’d imagine to your boot-camp.

Thanks Kevin! That was awesome! I think you just wrote my blog post!

 I’ll be posting how we’ve been doing shortly. All I can say is that we’re feeling great, cooking more than every and loving learning new recipes we’ll share in a bit. Thanks for reading!

dedicated to your success,

Sean Gogarty

SGO Fitness

Reasons for Sean & Sarah’s 30 Day Diet Challenge

SGO FITNESS

Hello Everyone,

It feels like forever since we last posted for SGO fitness and there have been tons of subjects we’ve been wanting to cover!

So here’s the scoop, over the next several posts we’ll be covering a bunch of topics that have spurred Sarah and I to undertake a diet challenge of our own.

Over the past several months we’ve been working with a program called The Losers Club. This is a 12 week weight loss challenge where contestants have the opportunity to win a cash prize for the most weight lost. As the exclusive trainers for the group we’ve run into many questions and diets brought to our attention by contestants as they’ve explored their weight loss journey.

Sarah and I decided, after weeks of exploring some of their questions, to focus on two diet programs for ourselves. Sarah focused on a whole food diet avoiding meat and dairy protein. (see Forks over Knives for a quick summary) and I have focused my eating habits on the Paleo Solution, a diet eliminating dairy and grains otherwise known as “The Caveman Diet.”

We’ve been following these programs for 17 days now and we’ll post shortly about our findings and personal opinions. But I wanted to list a number of topics we’re going to cover over the next few days in addition to these two subjects. (Honestly, it’s an attempt to have you hold us accountable and not let work and bootcamps get in the way of us posting regularly)

Subjects on the block:

1         Paleo and everyday eating

2         Whole Food

3         Grocery Store Survival

4         Juice Fasts

5         Eating in the AM.

6         Pre and post workout meals! What do I eat?

7         Why did the scale go up after a good week?

8         Sarah and her Soy Protein Journey

9         Where we’re at after 14 days

So Keep you’re eyes open and your questions ready!

Dedicated to your success,

Sean Gogarty

SGO Fitness