Can You Save Calories In Order To Eat More Later In The Day?

Last weekend Andrea and I were out with my sisters and brothers-in-law for dinner and drinks (yes I, the personal trainer, has drinks on the weekend...I'm not a total health nut).

That's when I heard it.

It's something I've heard from clients before, but I thought I had taught my family better.

It's something a lot of people do and think they're helping themselves, when in actuality they're hurting their fat loss goals.

My sister said that she didn't eat very much earlier in the day so she could eat worse later in the day.

She thought she was "saving calories" by not eating them earlier and that would make it OK to eat more with dinner.

In my sister's defense a lot of people think this and put this into practice quite often.

Unfortunately that's not the way your body works.

You can't eat little to nothing early in the day and then eat lots of calories later in the day.

Sure you may think you came in "under" on total calories for the day, but that's not even the case.

Most meals/drinks eaten when this rationale is taken are thousands of calories in total, not hundreds.

Heavy meals like pastas, sandwiches with lots of sauces or melted cheeses, foofy foofy alcoholic drinks and desserts that are loaded with so many calories they'd make the guy who takes 5 trips to the buffet line stop and shake his head.

Plus your body just doesn't understand the thought of "saving calories."

Your body can only process so many calories at once and if you consume more calories than your body can process at one time, the remainder will more than likely get stored as body fat.

Stored in the form of stomach fat, hip and thigh fat, butt fat, man boobs for the fellas or bra fat for the ladies.

Please don't misunderstand.

I'm not saying you can't treat yourself every now and again. You should treat yourself on a regular basis if you're on a fat loss plan. It helps keep you sane and looking forward to something so you don't splurge.

All I'm saying is that you can't skip meals or eat like a rabbit for part of the day in the hopes of "saving calories" for some event or meal later on in the day.

It won't matter and might even make you gain more fat.

So the next time you have that thought, block it out and keep eating normally (healthfully) and allow yourself a couple treats rather than going crazy and feasting like it's your last meal.

If you've working out with consistency and eating healthy fat fighting foods the majority of the time, the occasional treats won't derail you.

Have a good day!

Ed

P.S. - If you need to know what a good, healthy, fat fighting day looks like and all the fat loss nutrition information you need - not some fad diet - check out my Fat Loss To Go program at www.fatlosstogo.com You'll find all the workouts you'll ever need, plus all the healthy fat fighting habits needed to lose fat and keep it off...without turning yourself into the "no fun person" at the party who won't eat cake or have a drink.

What If You Woke Up This Morning With Your Ideal Body?

I want you to do something for me.

I want you to close your eyes...well, on second thought, don't close your eyes because then you won't be able to finish reading this. So, just imagine you wake up in the morning, head to the bathroom to start getting ready for the day and when you look in the mirror you notice that you have suddenly been given your ideal body.

No longer do you have the extra cushion around your midsection that you've been wanting to get rid of. No longer is your posture all slumped over.

You have what, in your eyes, is your ideal body.

Do you have that picture in your head?

Good.

Now, I want you to think about how you would act if you had that ideal body. Not how you would act towards other people. I don't want you to say that you'd go show your new body off to an ex, or go parading around town in your tightie whities. All good thoughts, I assure you, but I want to keep your mind focused on something else.

I want you to think about how you would eat. Would you eat differently because you want to maintain your new physique? Would you eat more fresh fruits and vegetables because you know that would help you maintain your ideal body? Would you eat more protein and fiber and get rid of all the junk?

What about exercise?

Would you workout more often to maintain your fat free body? Would you do more resistance training to keep that newfound muscle?

Do you see where I'm going with this?

I'll put it another way. There's what's known, or thought to be known, as the "Curse of the Lottery". Something about how when people win the lottery, and get all the money, that their lives turn out worse than before they had all the money. Somehow this blessing turns into a curse.

I don't think it's a "curse", rather I think it's just that the people who won that money don't know how to handle it. They do stupid things with the money, and don't save anything, and oftentimes end up with less than they started with. Or their friends and family disown them because they expected so much.

The same thing would happen to a lot of people if they woke up one day with their ideal body, rather than working for it. They wouldn't know how to handle that new physique and would go back to eating however they wanted, and pretty soon, that new "ideal physique" would be gone.

If you want to attain that ideal physique, and lose that fat, you must eat to lose fat and exercise to lose fat.

You need to do resistance training, using full body workouts, 3 times per week and you must do cardio, in the form of interval training, 2-3 times per week.

You must also eat lots of fruits and veggies, lean sources of protein, and quality carbohydrates while limiting processed carbohydrates, sodas, coffee drinks, chips, alcohol, white bread, etc.

Only then can you get your ideal physique...and keep it.

Have a good day!

Ed

P.S. - If you need help attaining that ideal physique, check out my Fat Loss To Go program. It's a 16 week fat loss program designed specifically for busy men and women and can be done out of the comfort of your own home. Check it out at www.fatlosstogo.com

Summer Fat Loss Starts Now

I meant to post this last week, but didn't. Oh well, everybody makes mistakes. But it still holds true today, even though many of you in the U.S. don't check email on holidays.

Throughout the winter and early spring I kept reminding you that, in the U.S., Memorial Day was coming up.

I told you how Memorial weekend was the unofficial start to summer and how many people take their first trips to the pool, or beach on the long weekend.

I told you that you should set a goal for yourself and start moving in the right direction to achieving that goal by Memorial weekend.

Well, it's here. Did you achieve your fitness and fat loss goal?

Did you lose the amount of fat you said you would back in January or are you at the same point you were then?

Maybe you set some other fitness goal that didn't have as much to do with losing fat as it did with getting in better shape. Maybe you signed up for a run that was being held this weekend. If so, how'd you do?

If you didn't achieve what you set, don't worry about it. Just move on to the next goal.

The next big summer holiday here in the U.S. is 4th of July. There's barbecues, lots and lots of loud and annoying fireworks and more trips to the pool and/or beach.

Will you be ready for that one? You've got a little over a month, so if you set a good goal and stick to it you can achieve it.

You'd be amazed how much you can achieve in what seems like such a short amount of time.

So what is it? What's your goal?

Think about it.

Write it down.

Put it in places you'll see it routinely throughout the day like your bathroom mirror, refrigerator door, desk, computer monitor, in your car, etc.

Look at it and read it out loud throughout the day and ACT!

To steal a corny, but worthwhile, line from Nike "Just Do It!"

Have a good day!

Ed

P.S. - If you need help getting started on your fat loss goals, check out my Fat Loss To Go program at www.fatlosstogo.com. The main program is a 16 week fat loss program designed to be done in around 15 minutes per day and all from the comfort of your own home. Plus with all the bonuses included, you'll be doing workouts for well over 6 months before you repeat anything. Give it a try. I promise you'll love it.

Why Do You Want To Lose Fat?

I like to talk about my daughter and family life quite a bit in my newsletters.

I don't do it to brag...well maybe I do.

But one of the main reasons I fill you in on my family life is because it is very, very important to me.

It's the reason I work so hard.

It's the reason I put in a lot of 12 hour days.

I want to work very hard now and build something so that sometime soon I won't have to work as hard and can spend more time doing the things I really love like taking my daughter to the pool, zoo or children's museum. Or just get to take her to the park more often when the weather's nice, which is kind of rare here in Nebraska.

It's also a reason I work hard when I do my own workouts.

I want to have as much energy as humanly possible so that I can keep up with her. I couldn't possibly see myself as one of those dads who gets worn out because he's too out of shape to play with his kids.

I also have my vanity reasons for working out so often (who doesn't want to look better?), but a big reason is for health.

What's your reason?

Why do you want to get in better shape and lose fat, or stay at your current fitness level?

Do you have a reason?

If not, you better get one figured out because it's very important.

Your success may hinge on it.

If you don't have a strong reason, a strong "why" for wanting to get lose fat, get healthier, then what's going to stop you from having seconds at the buffet line? What's going to motivate you?

You need a "why". You need a very strong "why".

Is it your kids?

Maybe your doctor told you that you're pre-diabetic and that you need to get your weight under control before it becomes full blown diabetes.

Maybe you someone in your family died of a heart attack and you don't want to succumb to the same fate.

Or maybe you just want to look as good as possible with or without your clothes on.

That's fine. That's one of my reasons. I think that's probably one of yours too, if you were totally honest.

That's your assignment for today.

Figure out your "why". I'd actually like you to tell me what your "why" is. I want to know.

Plus it helps to tell someone you can trust to help hold you accountable. I may not be able to stop you from eating the french fries or drinking your third (or sixth) beer, but I can check in on you from time to time and make sure you're on track.

Have a good day!

Ed

Want To Know How I Fit 7 Servings of Fruit In Before Lunch?

Yesterday I told you about the importance of “baby steps” when it comes to anything having to do with nutrition or exercise.

My point was that you shouldn’t have the idea in your head that you can go from 0 to 100 just by flipping a switch. You need to take small steps over and over again in order to make big changes.

Today I’m going to give you a few more pointers dealing with the idea of baby steps.

Let’s say that your goal for the next couple weeks is to add more fruits and vegetables to your daily diet.

Here’s what I do that gets me 7 servings of fruit in before lunch.

Everyday for breakfast I have a smoothie. It’s part of my routine. I have a glass of green tea, then make my smoothie and head out the door. The smoothie contains blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, pomegranate juice, ground flax seeds, wheat germ, protein powder and a little skim milk.

When you have a breakfast like that, calorie counting isn’t really even a concern. I’ve heard trainers and other fitness/nutrition people tell their clients or readers not to eat bananas or other fruits because they’re too high in carbohydrates. That’s a bunch of bull. I’ve never known anyone to get fat because they eat too much fruit. Not only that, but most bananas are only around 100 calories.

Anyway, back to my 7 servings of fruit before lunch.

That breakfast nets me 4 servings of fruit right off the bat. A serving berries is ½ cup and I have ½ cup of each of those berries, plus the pomegranate juice adds another serving.

Then mid-morning I’ll have an apple and a banana. Most bananas actually count as 2 servings, an a medium sized apple counts as 1. So there’s my 7 servings all before lunch.

My energy levels are through the roof in the morning and it’s all because I get all that fruit with the vitamins, minerals, carbohydrates, fiber and protein.

So if a healthy breakfast is your first “baby step”, follow my lead and have a healthy, fat fighting, immune system boosting smoothie everyday.

What if your “baby step” is that you want to start doing fat loss workouts 5 or 6 days per week, but you only regularly exercise 2 or 3 times? Then what?

Make an appointment with yourself. That’s the easiest way to ensure that you’ll find the time and stick to it.

You might have to get up 30 minutes earlier or miss your daily lunch with friends or co-workers, but so be it.

By setting a fat loss workout appointment with yourself, and sticking to it, you’ll be that much closer to setting that new habit in stone.

And healthy habits are no different than bad habits in one respect. They are hard to break.

Once you’ve changed a couple things for the better and you see and feel the results, you will actually feel guilty if you begin to break that habit for a couple days.

If you get used to exercising 4-6 days per week and have to miss a couple for whatever reason, it will eat at you because you know how much better you feel for it.

Or, if you begin to have a healthy smoothie every morning for breakfast and you forget one morning, or decide to do breakfast out with some friends and eat something unhealthy, you will feel guilty and might even get a stomach ache because you’re not used to the unhealthy meal.

Your body yearns to run at its peak. It wants to be healthy and fit, you just have to give it the means.

So, what are your baby steps? Figure them out and start today!

Have a good day!

Ed Scow

P.S. – If you want to try having a smoothie every morning for breakfast, one of the bonuses that comes with my Fat Loss To Go program includes over 100 different smoothie recipes. With that eBook, you really have no excuse on what to have for breakfast. Plus, smoothies make a great post-workout meal. Check it out at www.fatlosstogo.com

Baby Steps And Fat Loss?

Last Fall my daughter took her first steps. It was October to be exact.

We were playing outside and I set her down in front of me and she took a few steps. I followed her very closely to keep her confidence up, and she took a few more steps.

Some people don't believe me because I was the only one there at the time and my wife was kind of disappointed because she missed Maren's first steps.

It didn't help my case that she didn't take another step on her own for about a month and a half. Then she started to wobble a little bit more on her own and now, 7 months later, she is running everywhere. She loves to run around out side. She loves to carry things around. She loves to hold a phone up to her ear and walk around and "talk". It's the cutest thing you've ever seen.

But she didn't get to this point easily. She fell...a lot. She still falls...a lot. But she's gotten much better at walking/running, but it wasn't the easiest thing in the world for her.

The same can be said when it comes to changing your eating or exercise habits. You know what you want to do and you have a goal you want to reach, but you've got to take "baby steps" in order to achieve that goal.

No one should even let it cross their minds that they're going to eat perfectly and exercise everyday of the week when they don't exercise at all now and have horrible eating habits.

That's just plain dumb. Not only that, but it sets you up for failure and a quick failure at that.

You have to take things one step at a time and build on each little success until you find yourself running rather than wobbling around barely able to walk.

Let's say that you have a soda drinking problem, in addition to a lot of other poor eating habits. You should first conquer the soda drinking and totally cut that out or relegate it to a "reward meal". Once you have that habit down, THEN you can start on another habit. But don't move on until you have successfully kicked the soda drinking habit.

Or, let's say that you like to eat a lot of junk food between supper and bedtime. You should get that under control before you even worry about the snacks available in the breakroom.

The same correlation can be made with exercise. If you are totally new to exercise, you should start small. Start by setting an appointment with yourself when you're going to workout. Once you get that going, then progress from there.

Taking these "baby steps" when it comes to fat loss will greatly increase your chances of success. It does because if you only focus on 1 or 2 things rather than your entire lifestyle, it makes it much easier to conquer each poor habit and replace it with a good habit. You just keep putting one foot in front of the other and pretty soon you'll notice that your clothes are fitting better, people are taking notice of how much different you look and you'll find yourself with more energy than you thought possible.

So what are your baby steps? What can you work on RIGHT NOW to help you lose fat? Do you need to cut out drinking soda or coffee drinks? Do you need to cut out the nightly glasses of wine or beer? Do you need to make appointments with yourself or a personal trainer to make yourself workout? Do you need to get a hold of a good fat loss program to get you started?

What is it? Figure it out and do it. Then after a few weeks when you've got that one habit down, pick the next one and just keep building.

Have a good day!

Ed Scow

P.S. - If you do need a good fat loss program, check out my Fat Loss To Go program at www.fatlosstogo.com It comes with over 29 weeks of fat loss workouts, 10 minute workouts, workouts that can be done while traveling, plus tons of nutrition information.

Are You Sabotaging Your Fat Loss Goals?

I’ve been told by some of my friends and clients that they just can’t lose fat.

They try and try, but nothing happens.

They exercise. They eat “right”. They do all the right things.

Does that sound familiar?

However, when I dig down deeper and ask some questions I find out that they’re all doing one thing wrong. It comes in different forms, but it’s all the same mistake.

They think that if they have a really good workout, they can “reward” themselves with an unhealthy snack.

Or, if they have had a really hard day/week, they give in to some temptation or comfort food.

It’s just this one time, right?

Many people think that just because they exercise that they can eat more unhealthy foods and not have any consequences. After all, exercise burns calories and so if you eat extra calories they won’t matter in the grand scheme of things, right?

Have you ever had that thought?

Or have you told yourself that if you stay diligent and focused all week that you can let it all hang out on the weekends, because you deserve it after all your hard work?

Or maybe you’re the emotional eater who stays disciplined 80% of the time, but there are those days that make you want to pull your hair out (or someone else’s) and you cope by drinking alcohol or eating ice cream or cheeseburgers.

Those are all hidden mistakes that will wreak havoc on your fat loss goals.

Never lose sight of the fact that you’re trying to LOSE FAT and, if that’s what you’re after, you have to keep an eye on everything that goes in your mouth (or doesn’t go in your mouth).

You can’t justify eating whatever you want just because you’re active. That may be fine for the 20 year old collegiate athlete, but not the 40 year old, mostly sedentary, except for the 30-45 minutes of exercise 3-4 days per week man or woman.

Nor can you give in whenever your kids, husband, wife, job, neighbors, or whatever the trigger is, drives you a little crazy.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for rewarding yourself once and a while. I adhere to the 90/10 rule, where I stay disciplined 90% of the time and 10% I can “loosen the tie” so to speak and have unhealthy foods or a little alcohol. That’s what I preach in my Fat Loss To Go program and what I preach to my clients.

Sometimes this mistake is known and sometimes it’s “hidden”, but I want you to really look at your eating habits and ask yourself if this mistake fits you.

Do you justify eating those junky treats because you deserve it after that fat loss workout?

Do you reach for the “Chunky Monkey” ice cream after a hard day’s work?

Do you justify eating and drinking whatever you want on the weekend because you stayed disciplined all week?

If you answered yes to any of those, or if you thought of your own, change those habits and you WILL lose fat. That I can promise.

Have a great day!

Ed Scow

If You Want To Lose Fat, You Must Watch This

This is the time of year where your mentality towards working out and eating right go one of two ways.

You either:

1. Kick it in gear because you know that summer is coming and you don't want to be that person at the pool or lake who doesn't take their shirt off.

Or,

2. As the weather gets nicer you begin to tell yourself that you've got too many things "going on". You don't have time. The kids are out of school and you want to be around them. You golf and do yard work and that's enough. You go for walks around the neighborhood when the weather's nice and that's enough.

Don't fall into category 2. You must workout and stick to your healthy eating habits. Or if you haven't started yet, DO IT RIGHT NOW!

Watch this video if you need a swift kick in the pants. It's an awesome video and makes you think.



So? Are you going to start now? Or do you still think you don't have the time.

The Key To The Show "The Biggest Loser"

Have you ever seen the show "The Biggest Loser"?

I don't think I've ever watched an entire episode, but I'll tune in for a few minutes every now and again.

It's kind of intriguing. These severely overweight individuals putting themselves through hell to lose weight. I think it's awesome that they put themselves out there like that, in front of millions of people, and get healthy.

But do you know the real reason they lose a ton of weight on that show?

Yes they spend a lot of time working out (hours upon hours per day) and, yes, they have the food spoon fed to them which makes it kind of tough to fail, but there's something else that really makes them succeed.

Something else that many people are missing in their own health and fitness goals, no matter what they may be.

That something else is social support.

The people on "The Biggest Loser" don't just rely on themselves in this fat loss adventure, they have the other people on the show who are in the same boat. Plus they've got personal trainers there walking them through every step of the way.

If they are having trouble with something, they have someone to talk to.

If they don't know how to do an exercise or are using horrible form, their trainer is there to correct and motivate them.

When they're doing really hard workouts, they motivate one another.

Social support is the REAL reason the people on that show succeed.

I'm not saying that you need a big cheerleading section behind you, patting you on the back and telling you "You can do it!", but you need someone.

You need someone to tell you "no" when you want to eat that piece of cheesecake.

Someone to tell you to get your butt out of bed to do your workout when you don't really feel like getting up.

You need someone to remind you why you decided to do what you're doing.

What you don't need is someone telling you that your butt is too big, that you have developed a nice "muffin top", or that your belly has started oozing over your pants. That's not helpful. If you have someone telling you that, you have my permission to smack them upside the head...hard.

The best thing to do is to find someone (friend, spouse, family member, or co-worker), who wants to fulfill the same goal you are looking to accomplish. So, if you want to lose 20 pounds of belly fat, find someone else that you can rely on throughout the journey.

Like I said, it doesn't have to be a cheerleading section, because nobody wants to be a cheerleader and you can't rely on someone to constantly cheer you on, it just has to be someone that you can trust and who is honest and won't back down when you glare at them with those evil eyes when they tell you that you should put down that box of girl scout cookies because you already filled your quota of cheat meals for the week.

So who's going to fill that role with you? Think about it and ask them.

Ed