There is a rare set of people who are blessed with great genetics. It doesn’t matter what they do, they spend their lives with a thick full head of hair, their skin has minimal wrinkles/great elasticity and no matter what they eat, their blood work is always A1. These people often live well into their 80’s and 90’s.

But that is probably not you. Your bad habits have begun to catch up with you as you approach middle age.  The majority of us view aging as a slow and painful deterioration: weight gain, memory issues, tired all the time, less interest in sex and aches and pains all over. We just accept this as a part of getting older. But this doesn’t have to be the case. Your body is quite capable of staying slim and vigorous into your later years and your brain is more than able to stay clear and focused if you give it what it needs.

As you age, your body undergoes hormonal changes. This is quite normal. If you are eating properly and getting ample sleep and exercise you can ride out these hormonal ebbs and flows. The key is to achieve hormonal balance. All hormones work together in conjunction with one another. Insulin, thyroid, estrogen and progesterone each need to be pulling their weight in order to work efficiently as a unit. Here is how you can accomplish this.

Improve the quality and amount of sleep you are getting. Without it, your hormonal system cannot rest and recover. For your hormones to work efficiently you need a minimum of 7 to 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep every night. Taking a nap in the middle of the day to make up for the 2 hours you missed at night doesn’t cut it.

Improve your gut health. Start eating probiotics and fermented foods. Try kimchi, sauerkraut and healthy bacteria found in yogurt and kefir. This will keep your digestion system running efficiently inside and out and your hormones in check.

Eat more healthy fats. The nationwide fear of fat needs to be eliminated immediately. Our hormones are dependent on fat to reproduce.  Fat also keeps us fuller for longer reducing the likelihood of overeating. Avocados, almonds, walnuts, olive oil are great. Eat them daily.

Lose the sugar. Too much sugar will send your insulin production sky high. If you are finding that you are tired all the time and have minimal energy to get through the day, it could be that you are consuming too much sugar. Cut out the starches and simple sugars for a while and replace them with cruciferous vegetables and thin skin berries and you will notice an improvement in your energy levels.

Stop eating chemical-laden foods. Begin by eliminating aspartame, acesulfame potassium, sucralose and food dyes. A good rule of thumb is that if you can’t pronounce the ingredients listed on the container, don’t eat it. Studies have made claims citing anything from headaches to premature aging to cancer. Whether this is true or not is up for debate. Your best bet is to always read food labels and avoid chemicals as much as possible. By sticking to the perimeter of the grocery store you will avoid highly processed/packaged foods.

There are more rules governing nutrition now than ever before. For people who are desperately trying to lose weight it can be extremely confusing. What should I eat? How much should I eat? And when should I eat it?

For someone with little nutritional knowledge, it is very easy to fall into these traps. You start to read up on some of the latest diet crazes and decide to follow one. It works for a week or two, you drop 3 or 4 pounds and eventually you come to the conclusion that you are miserable. It is way too restrictive. You are hungry all the time and all you are thinking about is food during the waking hours. What that eventually does is foster an unhealthy relationship with food. Sound familiar?

The one fat loss question I get asked more often than not, concerns late night eating. Can I eat after dinner or do I need to cut myself off at 7pm? The answer is, it depends. I have read studies that show late night eating has zero effect on weight gain and I have read other studies that show the exact opposite.

What neither study discussed was what the subjects were actually eating. If you are going into the fridge and grabbing an apple and a small handful of almonds, then have at it.  Late night eating is pretty mindless. In my experience, people are much more likely to reach for chips, cookies and ice cream which are all potentially higher calorie foods. This is where the problem stems from.

I would be much more concerned with the total calories you are consuming over the course of the day. The body isn’t programmed to stockpile calories and turn them into fat after the clock strikes 7pm. Nor is it programmed to know what time it is.

Some people prefer to eat their calories spread evenly throughout the day, while others like to front or back load them. It really doesn’t matter. It is the quality and quantity of calories you  are ingesting which is the determining factor. So when the clock strikes 9pm and the hunger pangs are starting to kick in, don’t be afraid to eat because of what the clock says. If you are not quite sure how many calories you need in order to reach your goals, try using an app like “My Fitness Pal”.  It takes out all the guesswork. I highly recommend it.

I want you to add more muscle this year. That is why I post exercise videos daily and send out a regular blog post each week. If you decide to use my services, that is great and if you don’t, I hope I’ve made a positive contribution to your journey on the road to a healthier you.

I’ve trained in my fair share of gyms over the years. Regardless of what gym I am in,  I see people sabotaging potential muscle gains. They’re diligent day after day, they work hard, but they are doing it all wrong. I want that to change this year.  Below, I’ve outlined some crucial mistakes I’ve witnessed in the gym first hand in 2017 and provided you with a much more effective alternative.

You need to place a sufficient amount of stress on your joints and soft tissue structures to help them grow. That means training heavy. Relatively speaking of course.  However, when you train too heavy all the time, it places a tremendous impact on your joints, ligaments and tendons. This leads to injury and over-training, which inhibits your body’s ability to build muscle. You need to add some lighter days to your training where you are lifting in the 12 to 20 rep range.  You will target different muscle fibres (slow twitch) that don’t get as much action, build new muscle, and you will give those over-stressed joints and soft tissue structures a much needed rest. Research shows more and more that lighter loads produce similar increases in muscle mass compared to heavier loads. That is how you stay in the game long term.

You are not training hard enough. I am not suggesting that you need to train to the point of physical and mental exhaustion, but if you’re frequently stopping 5 or 6 reps short of failure, then you’re just going through the motions. The reason your muscles grow is because you are giving them a challenge that is beyond their present capacity. If you’re not training hard enough, then you are not challenging your body beyond its present capacity. Hence your muscles have no reason to keep growing and getting stronger.

You perform WAY TOO MUCH cardio.  People who are eager to get lean have a tendency to slave away on the treadmill for several hours a week. Initially, there won’t be much interference combining cardio and strength training sessions when adding muscle. If you are new to strength training, cardio can actually be beneficial for muscle growth, but as you get stronger and are lifting heavier and heavier loads, intense cardio sessions will effect your body’s ability to recover from your lifting sessions. This is a crucial mistake if you’re trying to gain muscle. Start by limiting the frequency, intensity, and duration of your cardio sessions. Limit steady state cardio to no more than three to four weekly bouts lasting 30 to 40 minutes at the absolute most. If you prefer to perform high-intensity interval training, shoot for 2 to 3 sessions a week at 20 minutes per. Any more than this is counterproductive.

You are skipping the basics. Basic compound movements (exercises that require more than one joint) such as bench presses, rows, squats and deadlift variations force several muscle groups to work together. Your body reacts to all this stress by having the anterior pituitary gland issue more growth hormone to compensate for that extra effort these movements require. This added stress leads to greater muscle gains. Isolation exercises (exercises that require only one joint) like chest flyes, biceps curls and leg extensions have their place, but they don’t provide the same growth hormone surge. Compound movements should be the foundation and make up a bare minimum of 60 percent of your exercises in any given session.  Anything less and you are doing too many isolation movements.

Everything in moderation. The only problem with a phrase like this is that the definition of moderation varies from person to person. Moderation for me is a small scoop of ice cream after dinner. Moderation to a buddy of mine is eating half a box of pepperoni pizza and leaving the other half in the fridge for lunch the next day. For the majority of the population, eating is one of the great joys in life. Then there are a small few who see stopping to eat a meal as an annoyance or just a necessary timeout to fuel the engine. If you are reading this, I am going to assume that you don’t fall into the latter category.

There has been a lot of research done on junk food and how much of it we can safely eat without putting on weight. The evidence suggests that it can be done. For active men, a safe range is 10 to 20% of your total daily intake. That leaves you with somewhere between 280 to 560 calories a day depending on your weight.  For women, you are looking at a bit less. To err on the safe side you should keep it between 150 to 325 calories per day. That could be a can of soda, a couple of handfuls of potato chips or a scoop of ice cream.

If these guidelines are too strict for you, try thinking of foods as “everyday” foods and “occasional” foods. That way, nothing is “bad” or off limits. You don’t want to restrict yourself entirely from any food unless you have a legitimate allergy to that specific food. Research suggests that this mindset may actually cause weight gain. Everyday foods are ones that you want to eat every single day. Vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, whole grains, lean cuts of protein and dairy (if you can tolerate it). These foods need to be the backbone of your diet and then you can fill in your remaining calories with small indulgences.

What about alcohol? One to two drinks can range anywhere between 300 to 600 calories depending on what you are drinking. If you are trying to lose weight, drinking alcohol even in moderation can work against you. Without getting too sciency, the by-product of alcohol metabolism, acetate, is toxic. So when you drink, fat burning stops until you burn those calories off. Drinking can easily push us over our calorie budget for the day. So you will probably want to curb your alcohol indulgences until you have reached your desired weight goal.

Have you ever noticed the tendency to add copious amounts of blubber to your midsection in mere days while on vacation? It’s the kind of girth one would expect to add over weeks of overeating, but certainly not days. I am talking about 5 and even 10 lbs in a week or less. I have done it and I know you have too. Many people take vacation time in the winter months to hot destinations. Now is the time to prepare and plan ahead.

Vacations are supposed to be fun, no restrictions, no limits, just all out debauchery. Unfortunately, as you age, your body no longer has the ability to bounce back from night after night of beer pong, jello shots and triple helpings at the buffet table. You end up feeling like crap and looking even worse on the beach the next morning. That is if you can muster the strength to drag yourself out of bed before noon. These types of vacations are a thing of the past for me and I hope they are for you too. If you are one of those people who still struggles to find the balance between indulging a little bit and having an all out free for all, then these tips are a must read:

1. Don’t drink your calories. Avoid those fruity alcoholic drinks that they serve by the pool or the docks. They are loaded with sugar. Have 3 or 4 of them and you are looking at 2 to 3 meals worth of calories right there. Instead, opt for a vodka on the rocks or some sparkling water with a twist of lemon or lime. Still refreshing and palatable and nowhere near the calorie content.
2. Stay active and busy in between meals. That way you are burning calories and you have much less time to eat and think about eating. I typically lose weight on holiday, because I am always on my feet. Try going for long walks and explore the new place you’re visiting. If it is a beach or pool holiday, get active. Start a game of water polo or chase your kids around in the pool. Avoid laying or sitting for more than 30 minutes at a time. That’s when you get into trouble.
3.  When you sit down to eat at the buffet table, eat your meat and vegetables first before you reach for the starchy carbohydrates. Protein and fibre are satiating, making you less likely to crave starches and sugars. Another trick I learned from a colleague is to drink a tall glass of water before you take a bite of your meal and have another one as soon as you have finished. Chances are you will be full by then. Quite often we confuse thirst with hunger. Don’t make that mistake. If you are still legitimately hungry after your second glass, then go for another helping.
4. Bring snacks in your suitcase. I find having some nuts, a piece of fruit or a high quality protein bar to be life savers for me on any trip. I need to eat something every 2 to 3 hours or else I turn into the devil incarnate. Snacks keep your blood sugar stable and they avoid binges at meal time. If I go 5 or 6 hours without food, you can bet I will be eating enough for a family of five at dinner time. So plan ahead and make sure you have enough snacks to keep you going for each day that you are away.

I know what you are thinking. How on earth could my friends be making me fat? They don’t force me to eat donuts at night. They don’t keep me pinned to the couch all weekend.  They didn’t chase down that pasta dinner with a bottle of red. I did all that. Now if you subscribe to the idea that we all run on our own free will, then it is hard to point the finger at anyone else but yourself. Fair enough.

Just last week, I got an email from an old client saying that she had been keeping up with the exercise programs I had given her and was training intensely 3 to 4 days a week, but her weight had started going up again. The first thing I asked was if there was anything she was doing differently in the past 2 months since we had last gotten together. She told me that she had a new job and had made a lot of new friends there. There was a rather large social aspect to this job which meant a number of late night dinners and cocktails.

You can see where this going. Nobody trains intensely 3 to 4 times a week and puts weight on. It had to be her diet. It came out that she was eating super rich foods and drinking expensive wine with her co-workers most nights after work. Her colleagues had remarked on her workout regimen. One in particular noted that he used to lift weights after work a few times a week, but that work had just become too hectic. So he had given up on getting back into shape. Exercise was way down on the “priority list”.

That can be hard to hear for someone who is trying to get into shape. When you are subjected to that type of rhetoric day in and day out,  it can’t help but get into your psyche. You start to believe that that type of thinking is acceptable.  There is an old expression that says, “You are the average of the 5 people you hang around with the most.” That goes right across the board; not just for exercise. If you are hanging around with people who are generally overweight, your chances of gaining weight increases. The same goes with smoking and drinking. On the other hand, if you spend time with people who exercise and eat healthy, the chances are quite good that you will end up doing the same.

If you have negative people in your life who put the kibosh on your goals and aspirations, get rid of them. Replace them with positive people who have the same goals as you do. They are out there and they are easy to find. Reach out to people. Find a mentor—someone who has done it before you. You will be amazed to find out just how many people there are who would be more than willing to guide you in the right direction.

I spend a lot of my free time reviewing research articles about fat loss on the Internet. I always make a point of jotting down the key notes/takeaways from each one. If they are exceptional, I share them with my social network.

Of the many questions that I am asked, the majority concern fat loss. Many of us are obsessed with being lean. We have been programmed to believe that having excess adipose tissue on our bodies is detrimental to our health and well being. And with good reason.

Being obese or even marginally overweight, dramatically increases your chances of developing just about every common cause of early mortality that exists, such as heart disease, cancer, stroke and diabetes. If you have aspirations of inhabiting this planet for an extended period of time, it’s in your best interest to start getting lean. Some of us have an easier time staying lean, while others must be more diligent with their diet and exercise to stay in the healthy range. That is a given, but it is not an excuse. With the right behaviours, there is no reason we can’t all get leaner.

People run for a number of reasons. They love to challenge themselves and compete with others. Running is great for anxiety and stress relief, but if your sole purpose for running is to achieve fat loss and improve body composition, the research suggests otherwise.

The majority of your training should be anaerobic (strength training/interval training), as opposed to aerobic (traditional lengthy and low-level) in nature. Attempting to alter your physique goes beyond simple calories in versus calories out. The key is to elevate your resting metabolic rate (via anaerobic work) to promote better post-workout fat burning and muscle building. Strength training, high-intensity interval training (HIIT), and anaerobic-based circuit training are much better options than long-distance running or plodding away on a treadmill for an hour. After 40 minutes of long steady-state aerobic training, your body will start to use a greater percentage of protein stores (your muscle) to fuel your activity which is counter to what you are trying to accomplish.

A more controversial issue is fat consumption: How much fat should you be eating and where should it come from? The following is the latest thinking.

Since we began reducing our intake of animal fat and cholesterol, numerous diseases have increased dramatically: metabolic syndrome (heart attack, stroke and high blood pressure), type 2 diabetes, obesity. Study after study has conclusively shown that the culprit of heart disease is neither saturated fat nor dietary cholesterol. Low-fat recommendations were based on a small group of studies that have been proven wrong over and over again. More recent studies¹ have found there is no significant evidence for concluding that dietary saturated fat is associated with an increased risk. If we look to our friends across the pond, Europeans who are consuming the most saturated fats have the lowest risk of heart disease.

The obesity epidemic started in the mid 1970’s and it was followed by the diabetes epidemic in the early 1990’s. These diseases have increased even more as animal fats have been replaced with vegetable oils and trans fats. When saturated fat began getting a bad rap in relation to heart disease, high-fat dairy products such as butter were considered evil. It turns out that saturated fat is not damaging and trans fat is more dangerous. These diseases have increased even more as animal fats have been replaced with vegetable oils and trans fats. In a large study² that was conducted with women who ate a high-fat and low-carbohydrate diet, the subjects actually lost twice as much weight as compared to those who ate a restricted low-fat diet. Additionally, all major risk factors for heart disease and diabetes declined exponentially.

While I realize that these recommendations are counterintuitive to everything we have been raised to believe, they are legit. The studies that I have referenced have been replicated over and over again and the people who follow these recommendations see dramatic changes for the better in both their internal markers and their outward appearances. The two generally go hand in hand.

1 – Siri-Tarino, PW. et al., “Meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies evaluating the association of saturated fat with cardiovascular disease.” American Society for Nutrition

2 – Brehm BJ. et al., “A Randomized Trial Comparing a Very Low Carbohydrate Diet and a Calorie-Restricted Low Fat Diet on Body Weight and Cardiovascular Risk Factors in Women

“I am going on a diet”. I couldn’t begin to count how many times I have heard these exact words uttered over and over again. And quite often from the same people.

So what happens next?  The calorie counting starts. The daily morning weigh in. Salad for breakfast, lunch and dinner. You lose a bit of weight the first week or two, then it stops. Frustration sets in. You have deprived yourself of all the foods you love and eventually you crack. Pizza, burgers, cake, cookies. An all-out binge. The worst part of it is that you end up weighing more than you did when you started. Sound familiar?

Going cold turkey from eating the foods you love is a recipe for disaster. After a few days or a week, the boredom and monotony of eating these same tasteless foods over and over again starts to set in. It is inevitable. Before you know it, you are back to the usually low energy levels and excess bloating, and then the feelings of low esteem that accompany failure set in. None of this is necessary.

Too many of us focus on eliminating foods. We have been told that eliminating dairy, meat or grains is the ticket to getting lean. Unless you are highly intolerant or have a legitimate allergy that you have been tested for, I don’t recommend cutting these foods out. All it does is give you a smaller pool of foods to choose from. If you want to lose weight, you need a balanced diet full of nutrients to prevent disease and to ensure optimal energy and psychological well-being. Restricting ourselves makes it that much harder to comply. If there are certain foods that trigger a binge, such as those that are overly sweet or salty, you might want to avoid them. They are probably not going to help you accomplish your goals anyways.

Balance is the key. Get as many different food groups into your body as you can. When it comes to fruits and vegetables, try to get as many different colours into your shopping cart as possible. Especially dark greens and oranges. Go to the meat/fish counter and tell the clerk you want to try some different cuts of meat and find out what types of fresh “wild caught” fish they currently have in. Make a concerted effort to get out of your comfort zone.

You need to enjoy what you eat. I certainly do. If I don’t like something, I don’t eat it. There are some foods such as broccoli and cauliflower that I am not over the moon for, but I know how good they are for me, so they tend to be a lot more palatable when combined with a piece of fresh caught wild salmon and some summer squash. If there is any advice I can give to people with a sincere desire to lose weight, it is to focus on the quality of the food that you are eating first. I would sooner see a client eat a 600 calorie meal for dinner composed of nutrient dense meat and vegetables, as opposed to a 300 calorie slice of pepperoni pizza and a diet coke.  Once you’ve figured that out, then you can start to place more of an emphasis on the amount of calories you are taking in. To this day, I have yet to see anyone get fat eating meat, eggs, fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, minimally-processed dairy and whole grains.

To most, the word diet means deprivation for prolonged periods of time until you reach a weight loss goal. Low fat, low carbs, fewer calories, raw foods, excessive amounts of water, weight loss supplements, writing down everything you eat all day long and eating the same foods all day. These scenarios are enough to give you a full blown eating disorder in a matter of days. It isn’t possible to live a happy and productive life with this on your mind every minute of the day. We need a simpler approach.

Here is a simple but unusual suggestion that works. Are you ready? Stick to the perimeter of the grocery store. For those who dropped mathematics at an early age or just weren’t paying attention, that means only purchase foods on the outside of the grocery store. Stay out of the aisles. This may seem overly simplistic, but it really isn’t. Picture your neighbourhood grocery store for a moment. Chances are the fresh produce section (fruits and vegetables), the meat and seafood departments, eggs and the dairy case are all located around the perimeter of the store. This is where you need to concentrate all of your shopping time. Why? Fresh foods are healthier than their ready-to-eat food counterparts that you find in the aisles. They are loaded with the protein, fibre and healthy fats that your body needs to run at a high level and they will keep you fuller for longer making it less likely you will overeat them.

Have you ever wondered why all of those boxed foods that you see in the aisles are so much cheaper than the foods on the perimeter? It’s because they are so easy to produce and they last forever. Next time you see a box of Special K, pick it up and read the ingredients. Chances are there are at least half a dozen words you can’t pronounce. These unpronounceable words are the sole reason these foods can “keep” on the shelves for months on end. If the truth were known, they don’t really keep because they are already dead. They are edible, but the life force, all the vitamins and nutrients they contain that promotes the regeneration of new cells and organelles, are non-existent. You are eating empty calories. Protein, fibre and fat keep your insulin levels balanced and your body satiated. Processed foods contain negligible amounts of all three leaving you in a constant state of hunger.

By sticking to the perimeter only, you will help avoid the temptation of processed foods that are high in sugar, fat and salt. A good thing to remind yourself is, “if you can’t see it, you can’t buy it”. Try this for a month and I promise you that you will have more energy, think clearer and lose that unwanted fat you gained over the summer.

There are more rules governing nutrition now than ever before. For people who are desperately trying to lose weight it can be extremely confusing. What should I eat? How much should I eat? When should I eat it?

For someone with little nutritional knowledge, it is very easy to fall into these traps. You start to read up on some of the latest diet crazes and decide to follow one. It works for a week or two, you drop 3 or 4 pounds and eventually you come to the conclusion that you are miserable. It is way too restrictive. You are hungry all the time and all you are thinking about is food during the waking hours. What that eventually does is foster an unhealthy relationship with food. Sound familiar?

The one fat loss question I get asked more often than not, concerns late night eating. Can I eat after dinner or do I need to cut myself off at 7pm? The answer is, it depends. I have read studies that show late night eating has zero effect on weight gain and I have read other studies that show the exact opposite.

What neither study discussed was what the subjects were actually eating. If you are going into the fridge and grabbing an apple and a small handful of almonds, then have at it.  Late night eating is pretty mindless. In my experience, people are much more likely to reach for chips, cookies and ice cream which are all potentially higher calorie foods. This is where the problem stems from.

I would be much more concerned with the total calories you are consuming over the course of the day. The body isn’t programmed to stockpile calories and turn them into fat after the clock strikes 7pm. Nor is it programmed to know what time it is.

Some people prefer to eat their calories spread evenly throughout the day, while others like to front or back load them. It really doesn’t matter. It is the quality and quantity of calories you  are ingesting which is the determining factor. So when the clock strikes 9pm and the hunger pangs are starting to kick in, don’t be afraid to eat because of what the clock says. If you are not quite sure how many calories you need in order to reach your goals, try using an app like ‘My Fitness Pal’.  It takes out all the guesswork. I highly recommend it.