by David Minishian | Dec 7, 2022 | Fitness, Nutrition
Whether you want to lose fat, build muscle, or have more energy, there is a fool proof formula that will guide your way to success.
Follow it and you’ll make large strides toward the results you want.
Here it is…
Exercise x Nutrition x Consistency = Results.
You’ll see why consistency is in bold below.
Let’s break it down.
The Fitness Formula
Exercise: Choose the right exercise routine, using the correct form and progressively increase the difficulty over time. That’s step 1. Don’t overcomplicate it.
Nutrition: Determine how many calories and how much protein your goal requires, choose the meals and foods that make up your way of eating, and pick the practical strategies that will help you meet your nutritional needs.
If you’ve planned out the exercise and nutrition but not had success in reaching your fitness goals, it could be that your plan was not right for you. However, for many consistency is the real stumbling block.
The best plan in the world won’t deliver results when you are not consistent.
Since consistency is the most important part, here are a few strategies that will help you crack the fitness formula and accelerate your results:
- Find a committed workout buddy
- Create a self-rule stating your daily or weekly bare minimums
- Schedule times each week dedicated to only your goals
- Join a program that will provide structure and accountability
- Hire a coach that’s committed to your success
These changes are about creating an environment that promotes your success.
Being consistent is a mental game. There will be days when you don’t feel motivated, when your self-discipline is lacking. On those days, you will fall back to the environment you created and if it is strong, you’ll win the mental battle.
So plan for it. Be prepared.
When you implement the exercise and nutrition consistently, amazing results will follow.
by David Minishian | Dec 2, 2022 | Fitness, Nutrition, Weight Loss
Plateauing is inevitable, but there are steps to beat it.
Remember when you started working out and how your body reacted. First, you had muscle soreness and fatigue, but after a couple months you saw your body composition change.
It’s a great feeling seeing the results.
But eventually the results will stop if you continually put the same amount of physical stress on your body.
Why?
Your body “gets used to it.”
When you feel you are not getting the best results from your workout, or you don’t see the numbers change in the direction you want them to — follow the guidelines below.
4 Steps to Overcome A Weight Loss Plateau
These suggestions will help you overcome the plateau and see more results:
- Add more daily physical activity
- Pay attention to your eating habits
- Progress your strength training routine
- Work with a coach to evaluate the next best steps
These are the basics. Let’s consider why.
1. Incorporating more movement will increase your caloric deficit. The bigger the deficit the more weight you’ll lose. Little things like taking walking breaks, parking further away from the entrance while running errands, or taking the stairs adds up. Look for the simple ways to move.
2. Overeating is the most common reason to plateau. As you lose weight, your Basal Metabolic Rate will decrease. This is the number of calories your body requires to live and breathe. This happens because you’re losing weight. This weight required calories. To account for this and stay in a caloric deficit, you need to gradually decrease the number of calories you eat. This may require paying closer attention to what and how much you eat.
3. By progressively increasing the difficulty of your workout routine, you are telling your body to adapt and change to overcome the new challenge. There are a couple ways to do this. You can lift heavier, do more repetitions, add an extra set, increase the exercise range of motion, or even add an extra workout to your week. These progressive changes will help you build more muscle and reduce your body fat percentage. Since these change also take more work and all work uses calories, you’ll increase your caloric deficit and lose more weight.
4. There may be nuanced reasons you aren’t losing weight. Sometimes these are reasons you aren’t seeing and others times you recognize them but are struggling to overcome them. If this is you, working with a professional may prove to be beneficial. Working with a coach will provide the accountability, support and guidance you need to start taking the right actions to reach your goals.
When you plateau, do not get discouraged. It happens to everyone!
Plateauing is your body’s way of saying I’m ready to take on harder challenges. There are many changes you can make to overcome a plateau and surpass the goals you set for yourself.
Make the right changes and results are bound to happen.
by David Minishian | Nov 30, 2022 | Fitness, Legacy, Nutrition
You have probably heard that “You need to be in a calorie deficit to lose weight.”
It’s true.
You can’t lose weight without consuming less calories than you burn.
However, I’m sure you don’t want to “lose weight”…you want to lose fat specifically.
To target fat loss, these are 2 important principles to follow.
- Be in a caloric deficit
- Focus on building muscle
But how do you put these principles into practice to maximize fat loss?
Caloric Deficit
First, reach a caloric deficit by decreasing your caloric intake and increasing your caloric output.
You’ll want to focus on decreasing your caloric intake with these 3 main concepts:
- Portion control
- Practicing nutritional balance
- Implementing meal timing strategies
To increase your caloric output, workout 3-4 days a week for 45 minutes starting out.
You can gradually increase this to 4-5 days a week, but don’t try to increase your exercise routine to outwork poor nutritional decision.
…it never works long term.
By following Principle 1 – Be in a caloric deficit, you will lose weight. However, you don’t want to lose just any weight, you want to lose fat specifically. This is why it is also important to follow Principle 2 – Focus on building muscle.
Building Muscle
To build muscle, eat sufficient protein and consistently follow a strength training routine that is sustainable for you.
Without enough protein, you won’t optimize fat loss and instead lose more lean muscle mass in a caloric deficit.
With enough protein and a regular strength training routine, you will build or maintain muscle mass so the weight lost in a caloric deficit is fat, not muscle.
When you follow both principles together, you optimize fat loss.
Here is what one of our Small Group Members accomplished in 3 months following this advice:
- -7.3% in Body Fat
- -11.7lbs of Fat
- +5.6lbs of Lean Body Mass
- +3.7lbs of Muscle Mass
Calculators
The BMR Calculator will tell you how many calories you need to eat to maintain, lose or gain weight.
The Protein Calculator will tell you how grams of protein you need to preserve your muscle and lean body mass while in a caloric deficit. Start with the lower number and gradually increase it if desired results are not achieved.
Ready to build the body you want with a sustainable lifestyle?
Fitness and Nutrition Coach
David is the owner and head coach at Sculpt Fitness in Long Beach, CA. He leads the mission at Sculpt to educate, equip, and empower the local community to make the best decisions for their health. For over 10 years he has coached exercise and nutrition, helping clients create sustainable lifestyle to build the body they want. When he's not training, coaching or cooking, David is on an adventure with his wife and kids or teeing up his next shot on a golf course.
by David Minishian | Nov 16, 2021 | Fitness, Nutrition, Podcasts
To burn more calories, do the things that would change your body composition.
The Most Effective Ways To Burn More Calories
The most effective ways to burn more calories are going to come from the activities that cause your body composition to change. That does not mean an endless amount of cardio! That can, and most often does, get in the way of building muscle and losing weight in a sustainable manner anyways.
In This Episode
- [00:26] – Strength Training
- [01:14] – Staggering Workouts
- [02:20] – Moving More
- [03:02] – Increase Intensity
- [03:46] – High Protein Diet
When you start Strength Training, you tell your body you want a composition change. Your body begins to burn fat and put on lean muscle mass, which causes you to burn more calories through the day, further helping your body composition change. — David Minishian
Resistance Based Strength Training
When you are strength training you are changing your body composition. You increase the amount of lean muscle mass on your body and that naturally causes you to burn more calories throughout the day on top of the calories you burn actually exercising. An important thing to note: after a while of doing the same or similar workouts your body adapts and it becomes easier, meaning that you won’t be getting the same benefits you once were. You begin to burn less calories and gain strength slower, that means it’s time to up the intensity.
Stagger Your Workouts
Staggering your workouts help you get all the benefits of your workouts and recovery periods. It is better to spread your workouts evenly through out the week so you can take advantage of the effects of consistency. Your body burns more calories than normal up to 72 hours after a workout, so you want don’t want to go long periods of time not working out and going stagnant. If you are working out 3 times a week, you would gain more from your efforts if you have them spaced out, something like Monday, Wednesday, Friday instead of clumping them together like Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. This also applies to your activity outside of the workouts, moving more in general will promote more calorie burn through physically moving more and staying busy so that there is less “accidental” eating.
High Protein Diet
Those who focus on a high protein diet actullay burn more of the calories they consume then someone who doesnt consume as much protein. Out of the 3 Macro Nutrients, protein actually requires the most energy, the most calories, to break down and digest. So outside of protein rebuilding the damage to your muscles to get stronger and burn more calories in a day anyways, it also helps you burn even more calories through digestion.
Ready to build the body you want with a sustainable lifestyle?
Fitness and Nutrition Coach
David is the owner and head coach at Sculpt Fitness in Long Beach, CA. He leads the mission at Sculpt to educate, equip, and empower the local community to make the best decisions for their health. For over 10 years he has coached exercise and nutrition, helping clients create sustainable lifestyle to build the body they want. When he's not training, coaching or cooking, David is on an adventure with his wife and kids or teeing up his next shot on a golf course.
by David Minishian | Oct 13, 2021 | Fitness, Nutrition, Podcasts
Weight loss is possible. Your hormones don’t have the final say.
The Episode: Why Your Hormones May Prevent Weight Loss…and What You Can Do About It
Your hormones won’t stop you from losing weight, but they may be a barrier you need to learn how to overcome. Whether you’ve been diagnosed with a medical condition or not, your hormones don’t have the final say…YOU DO! Here is a brief summary of how hormones function in regards to weight loss and what steps you can take to make your hormones work in your favor.
In This Episode
- [03:10] – The Role of Hormones
- [05:49] – Promoting Balanced Hormones
- [08:52] – Productive vs. Nonproductive Exercise
“For the majority of people, their lifestyle is promoting hormonal imbalances which impacts their ability to lose weight.” — David Minishian
The Role of Hormones
Hormones play two main roles in weight loss.
1) Hormones promote action or inaction. Do you feel hungry? Your hormones are saying you need to seek out food and eat. Do you feel lethargic? Your hormones are suggest you need to stop and rest. Our hormones are powerful drivers that impact our decisions. When hormones are properly functioning, they make the right suggestions to cue us on what the body needs. But when there are hormone imbalances, the body may make incorrect suggestions which lead to the wrong action.
2) Hormones impact body composition. Hormone levels regulate the amount of lean body mass and fat mass each person has. They tell our body where to store energy and how much muscle tissue to build. Our daily activity, exercise routine, nutritional intake, and mindset can all impact our hormone levels. In fact, professional athletes, body builders and others seeking greater physical progress use hormones, whether legally or illegally, to gain a competitive advantage even at the expensive of their overall health.
Promoting Balanced Hormones
To promote a hormonal balance that supports your ability to lose weight, there are a few key actions you can take:
1) Sleep 8-9 hours each night. When you don’t sleep enough, your body promotes more fat storage.
2) Eat 25-40 grams of fiber a day. If you’re not eating whole foods like fruits and vegetables, your body won’t send the signal to your brain saying, “Hey I’m full! Stop eating!” Making it more likely that you’ll overeat.
3) Eat more smaller meals or eat fewer larger meals. You may find that one strategy works better to help you regulate your food intake without feeling hungry.
4) Drink 8 cups of water a day. When you aren’t hydrated, your body does not function optimally and the thirst you are feeling may seem like hunger, prompting you to eat even when you don’t need to eat.
5) Reduce processed food consumption. Specifically, limiting processed carbohydrates will keep your blood sugar and insulin levels in check. Chronically elevated blood glucose level cause excessive inflammation, which damages your body’s tissues and organs, and promotes greater fat storage.
The Right Exercise
All exercise is good exercise. However, not all exercise is the best at accomplishing weight loss (or fat loss). Resistance Based Training does a better job at promoting growth hormone production to increase lean muscle mass and reduce fat storage. In addition to the increase in lean muscle mass, resistance based training also better regulates insulin levels and reduces insulin resistance which improves blood sugar levels. Cardio or flexibility based exercises are important too, but for weight loss they are of secondary importance. In fact, too much cardio may promote excessive cortisol in some individuals which may promote weight gain. Too much flexibility training decreases overall muscle strength and doesn’t promote weight loss specifically.
Ready to build the body you want with a sustainable lifestyle?
Fitness and Nutrition Coach
David is the owner and head coach at Sculpt Fitness in Long Beach, CA. He leads the mission at Sculpt to educate, equip, and empower the local community to make the best decisions for their health. For over 10 years he has coached exercise and nutrition, helping clients create sustainable lifestyle to build the body they want. When he's not training, coaching or cooking, David is on an adventure with his wife and kids or teeing up his next shot on a golf course.
by David Minishian | Sep 28, 2021 | Fitness, Nutrition, Podcasts
A sustainable weight loss journey is possible, and it can include foods you love.
Episode 12: Why Others Are Losing Weight When It Seems You Can’t
A successful weight loss journey is not focused on torturing yourself with a restrictive diet that starves you. Food is not the enemy. Although there are no secrets to losing and keeping weight off, you can build a lifestyle that supports your weight loss goals and without cutting out all your favorite foods.
In This Episode
- [00:55] Long Term Calorie Deficit
- [02:53] Fixed Mindset
- [03:50] Growth Mindset
“When you learn to be in a caloric deficit long term, you will be able to lose weight consistently and keep it off.” — David Minishian
Long Term Calorie Deficit
People that maintain a consistent weekly calorie deficit do not focus on exercising 5+ hours a week, practicing fad diets that throw their hormones out of balance, or cutting out foods from their diet. The ONE thing they all do is practice a caloric deficit. However, there are two common mistakes people make trying to reach a deficit: 1) They eat more nutritious higher quality foods, but they still consume too many calories. 2) They yo-yo diet by severely limiting the number of calories during the week which leads to a drastic overconsumption on the weekends. To succeed at staying in a calorie deficit long term, you should focus on the quantity of food first, not cutting foods out, and maintain roughly the same caloric intake daily.
Fixed Mindset
Having a fixed mindset creates barriers that make losing weight more difficult, for example viewing foods as either good or bad. If you have this view on food, you may find yourself struggling to “stay on your diet,” falling off track and getting back on track. This all or nothing mentality prevents any real progress, because in the long term you will always fall off track. You may get temporary results on a rigid diet, but old habits will eventually take over leaving you where you started, suffering from a bad relationship with food.
Growth Mindset
A growth mindset will support the long-term journey of learning to incorporate the foods you love while reaching your goals. Foods are neither good or bad, they just effect your body in different ways. As you learn what keeps you on track, you’ll be able to create balance in your food intake and in your life. Knowing how to create balance leads to a sustainable lifestyle and avoids the cycle of starting and failing restrictive diets.
Ready to build the body you want with a sustainable lifestyle?
Fitness and Nutrition Coach
David is the owner and head coach at Sculpt Fitness in Long Beach, CA. He leads the mission at Sculpt to educate, equip, and empower the local community to make the best decisions for their health. For over 10 years he has coached exercise and nutrition, helping clients create sustainable lifestyle to build the body they want. When he's not training, coaching or cooking, David is on an adventure with his wife and kids or teeing up his next shot on a golf course.
