My Foray into Kombucha Brewing

One of the Ironworks Gym owners (Dickie) is a big Kombucha drinker, and after a few tastes, I became hooked on it too. I decided one day to start brewing my own and here we are several months later, with another batch on the counter and a bottle ready to drink in the fridge.

And along comes Dickie and asks me to write about my experiences with Kombucha and brewing my own... and that's how this blog post came to be.

I tried making Kombucha for the first time after buying several very overpriced bottles from the store. Wasn’t exactly rocket science from what I could figure. Take some tea, some sugar, a little bit of an old bottle of Kombucha and *poof* some magic happens and you have this wonderful elixir that helps with digestion and tastes good. After a few failed attempts at getting a good batch that tasted like the wonderful concoctions the store sold me instead of straight up vinegar, I decided to ask for a little help.

Enter Dickie with his simple advice:

1. Get a glass jug with a spigot
2. Use more sugar than you think
3. Put it in a warm, dark place to ferment
4. Taste it often

Let me back up. I gave Kombucha a try because, like most people, I wanted to see what the hype was about. I read all the stuff about how it’s good for your gut, but never from a lifter… it was always some skinny guy that looked like he was afraid of the gym. I wanted to see if it actually did anything for me. And then I finally got a few bottles on sale. There were all sorts of flavors, but I found the less exotic sounding bottles tasted better… and made me feel better. By better, I mean the stomach issues most heavy lifters get with a diet heavy in protein. After a few weeks of drinking 4-6 ounces per day, I noticed a lot of foods didn't give me the same problems (Why do you eat food that gives you problems? Because I like it. That's why!) and that there was a difference in what I craved. The downside? It's super expensive (a cheap bottle was $2 for 2 servings) and I was spending a lot of money for something I can make at home. And for $10, I could make enough to last 2-3 weeks.

Since I'm not a doctor or a scientist, I can only give you my experience.

Back to the failed attempts. I did several things wrong, that you can easily avoid. I didn’t use enough sugar. I fermented it in the fridge. I didn’t clean my SCOBY. I used only flavored tea bags.

Since then, I’ve learned to do a few things to make the batch better. 

The vessel and the giant SCOBY with a fresh batch

1. ½ Gallon of filtered water
2. 2 cups of sugar
3. 4 tea bags, no more than 1 flavored (be careful with flavors as they get strong, quickly)
4. Keep ½ cup of the previous batch in the jar
5. Clean your SCOBY with warm water every few batches
6. Create a SCOBY vault to keep in case something goes wrong

I’m no expert, but with a few extra minutes of research and a freshly cleaned starter SCOBY, I started making fresh batches every few weeks and have learned to tweak them to taste just like I like them.

Here’s my process for making my own Kombucha:

• Boil the water, sugar, and tea until the sugar is fully dissolved.
• Allow the tea to cool to room temperature. It takes a few hours.
• Clean your vessel with hot soapy water, being sure to get all soap residue out.
• Every 2-3 batches I will clean the vessel again.
• Add 2-3 tablespoons of white vinegar and swirl around the vessel and then dump out.
• After the tea is cooled, pour it into the vessel and add approximately 4 ounces of unpasteurized kombucha from a bottle or the last batch. The acid in the previous batch will help ward off the bad things we don’t want.
• Add your Scoby if you have one. If you have one, it ferments faster, if not, you can order one or just go get a non-pasteurized bottle of Kombucha from the store.
• Cover the mouth of the vessel with a coffee filter or paper towel.
• Place in a warm, dark area.
• Check it every 2-3 days for taste.

What I use to store my batches for drinking

My personal favorite is made with 3 bags of green tea and 1 bag of lemongrass tea. I’ve also tried using cinnamon tea, orange tea, and mint. Be sure to taste the tea often as it doesn’t take long to go from sweet, digestion helping tea, to vinegar. And no matter what you’ve read, vinegar is not something that tastes good as a drink. If you want to add in some additional flavor after you're finished the brew, you can add some fresh berries, melon, etc.

One of the biggest things I had to get over was the yeast growth. After the first batch and the first cleaning, the yeast growth subsides. It is perfectly natural to have some yeast growth and if you are grossed out by the idea of drinking a strand of yeast, you can always run your Kombucha through a filter before placing it in a bottle for storage. One thing you have to be very careful of: MOLD.  Mold is not ok in any stage. If you see mold (and you know what mold looks like), get rid of the batch and start over.

If you're interested, here are a few good resources to help you get on your way:

The Kitchn

Cultures for Health

Food Renegade - I personally don't do the double fermentation, but if you want fizzy, this is the way you have to go.

The Problem with Nutrition Labels and Macros

Probably once a week I see a post from somebody that’s a rookie to counting calories asking how the calories on the label don’t add up. Well, there are two very simple answers if you are in the US: the product is mislabeled (intentionally or not) or they are following the FDA labeling standards and regulations and making the product more desirable to nutrition conscious people.

Addressing the first scenario, it isn’t a unique or unusual problem to have a product “mislabeled.” As other posts have explained far better than I can, the concept of a calorie is flawed. You can read about it here in Scientific American. The tl;dr version of why a calorie isn’t just a calorie can be summed up to just a few parts:

• Calories are measured in isolation, meaning with just that food. This does not account for what we have eaten previously or at the same time as our meal. By combining foods, like most people do, we change the time needed for digestion and how hard our body works to perform digestion. This changes the Thermic Effect of Food.
• Different people react to different foods differently and take different amounts of calories from them based on their unique body chemistry and gut bacteria. This blog post explains further based on a study done with mice.
• Calorie labels on prepackaged food are “averages” and may be higher or lower than your actual meal. Since many prepackaged foods are mixes of several different foods, the exact amount of each ingredient is rarely precise. When the amount of each food isn't precise combined with an inexact range of calories, chances are, you aren't getting what the label says. 

With the second issue, it’s a matter of the FDA giving more than a loophole, but leaving a canyon of ways to trick the consumer. Here are just a few of the ways labels can be manipulated to read as lower or more desirable.

• According to the FDA, if there are less than 5 calories per serving, the total calories can be declared as 0. That means if I create something like coffee creamer and claim a small serving size, like a tsp. and it has 4 calories, I can promote it as a 0 calorie product.
• If the product has 50 calories or less--Round to nearest 5-calorie increment: Example: Round 47 calories to “45 calories”
• If the product has above 50 calories--Round to nearest 10-calorie increment: Example: Round 94 calories to “90 calories”
• Alcohol brings up another anomaly to the calorie counter.  Carbs are 4 calories per gram, fat is 9, but alcohol falls in the middle at 7 calories per gram.
• Lastly, fat can be labeled as 0 fat when there is less than .5 g per serving. So a product with .4 g of fat per serving is fat free.

As you can see, there are a few ways a manufacturer can make a pre-packaged food into something it really isn’t and throw off your most dedicated efforts to eat on plan.

Let’s take a look at something many people use every day, coffee creamer. If we’re trying to be a macro-magician, we might be super concerned with the exact measures so we pick a “Fat Free International Delights”. On the left side, the Canadian label; on the right, the US label.


Same product, same calories listed… one label tells you their best average per serving and the other hides some information because the FDA allows it through rounding.

Let’s take this further. Since there are no restrictions on what is considered a serving size, one product can list a different serving size to make it seem more appealing. Doesn’t seem like a big deal, but it can add up over all your different meals throughout the week, especially if you don't check the serving sizes.

Italian Dressing	1 tbsp	2 tbsp
Calories	50	80
Fat	6g	7g
Carbs	1g	4g
Protein	0g	0g

If you’re grabbing one of these dressings off the shelf and you’re just looking quickly at the label for the one that reads the “healthiest”, you might overlook the serving size and go right to the nutrition counts. Take into account that very few of us ever use just 1 or 2 tablespoons and the 30 extra calories for 2 tbsp starts to add up. Yes, this is a small example, but it happens on a larger scale, too. Just imagine this with Peanut Butter or some other "treat" that you enjoy.

Moving on.

The calorie counting problem is a complex one complicated by a lack of precise labeling regulations in the US and the rounding of both macros and total calories. Further, the ability to manipulate serving sizes allows manufacturers create certain labels and make a less healthy product more appealing. If you really are going to be precise (which I don’t recommend unless you want to drive yourself crazy or are a top level competitor) you need to really read carefully and do the math instead of just trusting the companies that play within the rules to look better.

And if you want a better solution, give yourself a margin of error, say 4% of your total calories. On a 2,000 calorie diet, that’s 80 calories. At the end of the day, you might slow down your progress just a little bit, but you won’t drive yourself insane along the way.

Lastly, if you’re brand spanking new to healthy eating, take baby steps; start with just making some better food choices and just writing down what you eat. There will be a time to make things more detailed, but in the beginning, just get started!

Why MFP could be holding you back

For years, MyFitnessPal has been the nutrition and fitness tracker used and recommended at brolific rates among new to calorie tracking and fitness people looking to get their diet in order and achieve a weight related goal. As we’ve mentioned and you’ve more than likely read about, weight loss, weight gain, and body transformation is largely a product of our diet, so it only makes sense to know what’s going into our body on a daily basis. While some advocate “extreme” calorie counting and others shun the idea completely, I am somewhere in between. I find it extremely helpful for myself and my clients to see the foods they are consuming and an estimate of how much they are consuming. For many people, this means using some form of tracking app.

As tracking software goes, the vast majority are the same, especially at the free level. You can set your own goals, track your food, the quantity, add new foods, see the macronutrient and micronutrient breakdown, and add new foods not already listed in the database. MFP is not much better or worse than any other tracker out there as far as the tracking apps go other than some really poor entries of food done by people that either misenter or only enter what they care about. With the big time bankroll of Under Armour, it is pretty to look at and has a large number of features. Where MFP starts to fall apart is their recommendations for how much a person should be eating and their process.

The following picture is taken directly from MFP for me, a 5’11”, 210 lb, approximately 15% bodyfat individual that trains 6 hours per week. This is their recommendation for me to eat to maintain weight.

3,030 seems like a good number to eat in a day, but what is this second number, 2,770 calories per week? That is what MFP determines your fitness goal to be, approximately 692 calories per workout and an additional amount of calories you can eat IF you burn those calories. If you know anything about MFP, this very small line between Nutritional Goals and Fitness Goals is overlooked and misused - “So the more you exercise, the more you can eat!” Essentially a statement that they suggest “eating back” calories that you have burned off in order to reach your goal.

Now, let’s take the calculator on our ZStrength website, which uses five popular estimations, and then takes the average. Using the exact same numbers I entered into MFP, I receive the following result:

Looking at the output, the estimated average intake I need to maintain my weight would be 3,329 calories per day. Like the line below our calculator says, it is an estimate and could be off, resulting in needing some adjustment up or down...just like MFP could (and almost always does) need adjusting.

Now looking at some of the math:

MyFitnessPal	ZStrength Calc
7 days at 3030 = 21,210 calories per week Workout Calories = 2770 Total Calories per Week = 23,980 Average per Day = 3,426	Average per Day = 3,329

That’s right, assuming you actually burn those 2,770 calories per week, you could eat an average 3,426 calories per day and the numbers aren’t that different. But is this clear to the average person just starting? Probably not and that’s what creates the problem.

The problem, and it’s a BIG PROBLEM that has happened time and again with clients when they use MFP, they either don’t know that MFP sets them low and wants them to eat back their calories or they know it and over-eat their exercise calories. The result is chronic over or under-eating because they are following the suggestions of MFP.

Combine the flaws of MFP with even the best non-clinical calorie burn estimators have a margin of error of at least 10%, and you can begin to understand just how bad this could turn out. Assuming one of the closest estimations of 10% and 692 calories burned per day could be 761 or 622. PN did a piece about how bad calorie estimators are: [http://www.precisionnutrition.com/problem-with-calorie-counting-calories-out].

As someone that works with clients to help them build the body they want, I have problems with the lack of clarity and relying on measurements with a known margin of error. MFP is going to take an inexact science (estimating calories in food) combined with another inexact science (how many calories you burn) and add an even less exact science (how many calories you burn in exercise) and convince you to eat that amount. Further, MFP only includes CARDIO calories in what you should eat back, so if you weight train for an hour and “burn 500” calories, you are still to eat 2730 according to them, but if you do an hour of cardio and “burn 300”, you get to eat 3030.

And a simple scenario to hammer home the problem:

You are training to lose weight at a rate of 1 lb / week. MFP gives you a 500 calorie deficit and a count of 2,530 + 1,500 calories of exercise per week. At 5 days per week of exercise, that’s 300 extra calories. Training day total: 2,830.  Off-day total: 2,530.

You train and log your workouts on MFP, which only logs your cardio burn. You train an hour with weights, burning approximately 550 calories + 30 minutes of cardio burning 150 calories.

In addition to being at a 500 calorie deficit to start, you are now an extra 550 calories short because MFP doesn’t know what you burned lifting weight. That’s over a 1,000 calorie deficit and 25% below your maintenance calories. It goes without saying that that large of a deficit isn’t good for you, especially in the long term.

Is MFP really that bad? No. Can this scenario be avoided? Yes, if you are knowledgeable (which most people just starting out aren’t) or if you know how to work MFP like a pro (which most people don’t). And an even easier yes; don’t rely on MFP to determine how many calories you should eat. There are hundreds of calculators and formulas to help you estimate your needs, which can then be plugged in to MFP. As mentioned before, we have one that on our site that uses 5 of the most popular formulas and provides an average. You can find it here at: http://zstrengthfit.com/tools/calculator.html

Truth in Fitness Advertising? What is Real Anyway?

The fitness industry relies on advertising and hyped-up dreams to keep you buying products and spending your money. We all know the BS scams that are out there marketing over-priced and under-performing supplements and quick “fixes”. And now, you too can be a part of our great company and get rewards for everybody you swindle as a Brand Ambassador / Coach / Used Car Salesman. Since virtually anybody can be a “representative”, the way to grow your business and the company giving you kickbacks is through misleading and faked posts which attract customers. Recent events have brought more attention to the increasing deception and false advertising, rekindling the skepticism and distrust I have for the supplement industry. From the FTC, “federal law says that ads must be truthful, not misleading, and, when appropriate, backed by scientific evidence.” By accepting the use of manipulated and photoshopped images to sell product, the fitness industry is accepting false advertising. I have seen the argument that magazines and other entities do similar all the time, however, they are NOT selling a product or deliberately attempting to deceive potential buyers.

Some companies pull out the empty study with the non-representative population under not-so-strict conditions and determine that the slightest glimmer of hope is a positive result of their over-priced product. Do all companies do it? No, but the ones that do tend to be the loudest advertisers in all the magazines and websites. Think about all the supplements that really work. Do you find out about them on the twitstagrambook? No, your friend or somebody at the gym tells you, not somebody getting a “kick-back” for convincing you to buy the product with their “Special Code”.

In “Fitness Industry Deception” I talked about using best case scenarios and images for advertising. The first time I remember this happening, a brand rep that was truly jacked was asked if the supplement he was repping made him that way. He responded with “You’d have to be an idiot to believe I got here just by taking this.” He was terminated shortly thereafter for telling the truth. Shredz rep Devin Zimmerman aka Devin Physique brought all of these techniques back. Not only did Devin “touch-up” his photos to create a better look, Shredz solicited and used before and after photos of amazing transformations claiming credit for the transformations despite those people never using Shredz. The reaction: an “apology” and claiming others do it as well. This isn’t totally new, but with social media explosion, this is happening more often with more companies.

Think back to the days when there were paid endorsements on TV for all sorts of things...same thing here, just without the pay until you punch it that special little code or buy the totally not-custom meal plan and $100 workout plan they copied from the July ‘87 Fit Muscle Rag. It’s moved from buying the magazine with “Arnold’s Latest Workout” to searching social media for a hot or jacked person selling a plan. *Side not, most of Arnold’s workouts were fabricated so they would look new, despite him doing the same routine for years.*

Don’t think this is just targeting men. With the surge in physique “competitors”, women are getting sucked into the same supplement / shortcut / bullshit as the men. Paige Hathaway has also been accused of manipulation and deception for her part in the Shredz scam. Women are particularly susceptible to this kind of advertising because of the push for the perfect bikini body and the rise in physique competitions. Just a quick trip through instagram and a few directed searches and you can find over 50 posts per week that are aimed at women.

In my piece last week, Progress Picture or Exotic Dancer Audition?, I began going after the over-sexualized outfits and posing that mimics an exotic dancer or film star more than a fitness professional. The industry advertising has led us to believe that photoshopped images aka “Adobe Gains” are real and possible using their products. We’ve gone down the rabbit hole so far that brand ambassadors with no real experience or qualifications beyond a “sale code” have joined in on the photo manipulation. I pointed out Shredz and their reps, but they aren’t the only ones relying on naivete and deception. It seems like every time I flip into Insta-famous, I see another coach posting their fantastic transformations and trying to get me to use their product sale code or join their team. (I’ll explain how these things work in a moment for those that don’t know.) And when I look at the photos, I can see signs of tampering, things like doorframes bending, televisions twisting, hard edges on muscles, etc. Some are really obvious, others, not so much. Some of the hardest ones are taken on plain color backgrounds. Even something as simple as applying a filter can change the whole physique of a person.

I’m not bitching about the Average Joe or Jane using filters or touching up their photos. Hell, we all dream of obtaining the perfect body and showing off our hard work. My complaint is with all the people that manipulate their images to generate sales of their scam product. If the product was that good, they wouldn’t need to manipulate images or sell you on it. When your product / MLM scheme can’t produce the results you advertise and you have to solicit images from others you’re falsely advertising. When you have to create bullshit contests where the “winner” didn’t even know they were part of the contest, you’re a fraud. And just because you created a program using a “stock photo” doesn’t excuse you because you know damn well that photo was probably touched up prior to you getting it.

So here’s how the “Brand Ambassador” thing works with sale codes:
-Buy product from said company and possibly pay for a “package”

-Receive code to distribute to your friends and followers

-Have a minimal internet presence to distribute code and post obnoxiously about it

-Possibly create your own “page” or tell friends / clients to check it out

-Stage some photos with the product

-Have people use your “discount code” when checking out to receive a percentage off

-The code registers back to you and you receive a certain percentage of their total purchase, like a sales commission

Seems just like standard sales, except more than a few of these ambassadors have no qualifications and no knowledge. It’s like asking a cashier at Wal-Mart about the best tires for your car; they may know something, but chances are it’s only what the company tells them to know. So before you run off and spend your hard earned cash, take a look at who represents them and consider their trustworthiness, as a company and as a representative. Look at their advertising pictures and mumbo jumbo. Do they use filters? Are they using perspective tricks to look better? Are they quoting “studies” as proof? If they are, they’re trying to trick you for a reason and they’re one of the bad parts of the industry.

I think this is a great post on youtube by Jason Blaha about the industry and how the sensationalized, misrepresentations are hurting everybody in the community - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACMHaUcwY-o.

Progress Photo or Exotic Dancer Audition?

I know it has been talked about many times, but there is a resurgence of Insta-famous “fitness models” flooding social media with over-sexualized pictures. Pictures of breasts, super-low bikini bottoms, packages, and bare ass are popping up everywhere under the guise of #hardwork, #sweat, #inspiration, #fitness, and other trendy tags. They’re dressed and posed in a way that you don’t need an imagination, all for “likes.” It’s a teenage dream. They’re shaping how advertising is done in the fitness industry with the “sex sells” mantra leaving out the parts about actual fitness. Contrary to popular belief, if you do the hard work, you don’t have to show it all to get recognized. To quote an instagram post by our friend, @rachreid21 “build a booty you can see without having to show IG your uterus.”

The outfits and staged photos are brainwashing some into thinking this is how they’re supposed to be. Women are supposed to walk around with chest out, hips turned down to make the lack of ass appear bigger, and showing as much skin as possible to generate attention. And if things aren’t perfect, let’s pull the ab skin up tight, pushing our breasts up even more. Men are always supposed to be huge with a ripped eight pack, flared lats, and skin tight pants. Let’s not forget the ones that post amazingly lean pictures every week as if they are always perfect. Apparently these folks maintain their competition level body all year all without drugs because companies don’t want models that admit to things like SERM’s, SARM’s, AI’s, Clen, T3, Peptides, etc. And of course, what model wants their hordes of followers to see they cycle up and down like the rest of us? Can’t sell that overpriced, overhyped plan if you can’t lure people in year round. It’s no wonder there are photoshop gains, disordered eating, and the search for the perfect pill dominating the industry.  Everywhere you turn, there’s a picture of another “perfect” body.

It’s seems like a small thing because I can just scroll on by… to the next one and the next one, through the never ending stream of them, but it is a direct reflection of how fitness is changing. Fitness is becoming less about actual fitness and more about who can be the better exhibitionist, poser, and manipulator. It has moved from classy pictures of muscle and footage of actual training to contortionist posing, tough-ups, and bad acting with ultra-light weights. We’ve accepted the porn star O-face for every picture and grown to expect sweeping curves and ripped abs all year long. Hell, we can’t even challenge somebody’s imagination anymore by taking pictures in shorts and tanks.

Some may read this as a piece against the competitors, but it isn’t against the competitors on either side, it’s about the whole industry and their re-defining of how men and women should look, pose, walk, etc.

The women have their own special battles. The figure and bikini poses are all about displaying assets and creating a sexual atmosphere. And it carries over to all the women that see pictures plastered everywhere. You never see men in the hip tilt position do you? Twisted ass pose? Is there an ab pose holding his package? It’s warping reality and the fact that it is now the norm can discourage some and push others to do things they wouldn’t normally do.

And the men aren’t much better in all of this. Lately, I’ve seen a lot of pictures where the photoshopping is blatantly obvious. The extra filtering, the perfect oil and sweat, and the photoshop gains that go all the way from just a little trim to inches on all the right muscles are all creating a similar reaction. Guys are looking at these photos and instantly jumping from eating healthy and busting their ass to buying fake ‘roids and all kinds of chemical compounds that nobody really knows if they work. The “fake natty” has warped reality.

How about some truth?  How about posting a picture of your current condition, head to toe, every day, no filters, no perfect lighting? Hell, post a second picture of what you look like at every training session, not just the staged ones. How about we bring a little bit of taste and class back to the industry? And before you jump out and say “where's your post?” I'm not claiming to be stage or photoshoot ready year round...and I’m definitely not posting my ass all over the internet because likes = $$.

It is completely possible to take an ab shot without making your ass, chest, or groin a focus. It’s possible to take a leg and butt picture without showing the camera everything. And it’s possible to #dowork and be #sweaty without taking just another gratuitous shot. I know it’s a novel concept, but taking a picture that shows your hard work without drawing attention purely for the sexual content is possible and maybe it’s time we learned how to do it again.

Weight Loss - The Internet is Filled with Stupid Ideas

As most of you know, I spend a lot of hours reading articles and blogs posted by other fitness minded individuals looking for “new” information or research, something I can use to improve my skills and understanding. Most of my time is spent on the weekends going through blog after blog and article after article looking for something unique. Instead of finding unique articles, I have been finding unique viewpoints on old material. There is value in having a disagreeing viewpoint when it comes to creating traffic, but sometimes, the foundation of disagreement is so stupid it can’t be ignored. Two posts I have seen lately are how a lady “stopped exercising and lost weight” and how “simply cutting carbs results in fat loss”. Total click-bait, but I fell for it and got sucked into the posts and scared for the thousands of people that would read and believe these posts.

Between the magic bullet articles that promote eliminating entire food groups, “detoxing” with lemon vinegar tea coffee bean extract, or “15 fast fat burning foods”, common sense about sustainable weight loss takes the backseat because it isn’t what people want to hear. People don’t want to hear that it isn’t quick or easy. They don’t want to hear that it takes time, effort, and a little bit of common sense. They don’t want to hear that sometimes you can do everything the way your favorite fitness icon does it and fail. Sometimes their lives are so hectic they just need the Disney ending to their struggle with eating, body-image, and fitness. Sadly, Walt didn’t figure out how to make fairy-tale magic happen for us.

This would have been a short post had it not been for the number of posts and messages we receive from similar cases. The lady that stopped exercising and lost weight was like so many people first starting out. She was doing everything right, or so she thought; five hour-long sessions per week, tracking her calories in, and tracking her calories out. Where she went wrong was instead of having weight training and cardio, she was only doing cardio like rowing, walking, etc. She also made the huge mistake of estimating her caloric burn and then eating back those calories. After some time of trying to lose weight this way, she was injured by her dog and unable to be active. Because there was no exercise, there were no calories to eat back and amazingly, she lost weight! This led her to the conclusion that not exercising and eating normally is the way to go instead of performing exercise, building muscle, and still eating in a deficit by not eating back your calories.

Many people forget that building muscle is healthy for our metabolism and believe that a low scale weight is all they need. When we move from active to couch potato, our body will waste muscle, especially when faced with a caloric deficit. Remember, a pound of muscle takes up less space in the body than a pound of fat, so while the scale drops, the tape measure may increase as the body loses muscle but builds up fat. In the evil scenario, we lose precious muscle and reduce our intake, slowing our metabolism. Similar to the “The Biggest Loser Scenario” where contestants lose weight only to regain it years later, losing weight only through reduced intake is likely to result in the regain of fat. When discussing TBL and the downfalls, I’ve had more than a few people misinterpret my objection to mean not eating at a deficit. That is not what I am suggesting at all. I am suggesting having a set number of calories regardless of whether you train or not. I am suggesting a small to moderate deficit caused primarily by activities, specifically resistance exercise. No matter how you cut it, weight loss requires some form of deficit.

Another factor the post brought to light is the concept of “eating back” exercise calories. One popular food / activity tracker in particular encourages you to eat back your exercise calories by giving you a low target and increasing your target intake as you exercise. I find this to be a poorly thought out recommendation for several reasons. Calorie labels / trackers rely on averages. As PN points out in “The Surprising Problem with Calorie Counting - Calories In” it is very hard to reliably say how many calories we are actually consuming. Further, calorie expenditure, even when monitored with a good heart rate monitor has a minimum 10% error. The second part of “The Surprising Problem with Calorie Counting - Calories Out” breaks down just how bad estimates are for predicting how many calories we burn through exercise. Combine the inaccuracy of calories listed on a label with the variance of calories burned and you have the beginning of a recipe for disaster when you attempt to eat back your calories.

Some believe that adjusted macros will create fat loss. Simply adjusting macro intake won’t translate to fat loss or weight loss with few exceptions. Yes, I acknowledge the concept of a recomposition, which is the process of building muscle and losing fat at the same time. No, your body doesn’t turn fat into muscle and no, it isn’t easy. The post proclaiming all that is needed to lose fat is reducing carbohydrate intake is a sad oversimplification. Regardless of how low you get your carbohydrate intake there are other factors:

Total caloric intake and deficit - if there’s no deficit, the body has no need to burn fat stores.

Stress - causes Cortisol release. Cortisol is a factor in the accumulation of visceral fat and sugar cravings.

Sleep - it’s our body’s chance to repair and recover. If you’re not getting enough sleep, you don’t recover, have a tendency to eat more, have impaired glucose control, and are likely to have higher Cortisol levels.

The solution:

Avoid the scale -

Like many others, I recommend limited use of the scale only to track patterns in weight gain or loss. Scales can be highly inaccurate measures and vary up to 10 lbs per day depending on our size. Unless you are severely overweight, there are better measures. If we only watch the scale, we risk losing the right kind of weight for the wrong kind.

Body Composition -

We know it’s possible to be at a “healthy weight” and have a high bodyfat percentage and that it’s possible to be “overweight” and have a low bodyfat percentage. There are hundreds of pictures of people that have gained weight yet become slimmer by building muscle. Even if the goal is to lower your weight, there needs to be a focus on building and maintaining muscle to keep burning calories. The result of losing muscle is a soft physique with less than ideal metabolism.

Hip & Waist Measures -

While body composition is one of the best, tracking changes in hip and waist circumference (two places we all tend to store fat) is a good indicator of our training and diet progress. There is also a high correlation of disease associated with people that have a high waist to hip ratio.

Tracking -

Track what you are eating, not necessarily taking calorie count as being exact, but understanding it is a range. When you find how much you can eat and maintain your weight for a week, decrease your calories by a minimal amount, say 10%. If you aren’t active, add some activity. No fancy gym necessary, but some basic bodyweight work to start.

Use the scale to track for weight changes, knowing that your weight can fluctuate +/- 10 pounds every day depending on your size. I like to keep a running five-day average, which will allow for those daily fluctuations.

Track progress using a variety of tools:  clothing fit, tape measure, progress photos, general feelings throughout the day. If two or more measures are moving in the right direction, you’re making progress, even if the scale isn’t moving.

Patience -

Be patient. Understand that most changes takes several weeks to show up and that good, lasting progress will take time, so if your goal is to be “bikini body” ready in 6 weeks, it may be time to re-think and re-plan.

Be patient through the failures, the slip-ups, and the lack of progress. Each time we don’t move forward is an opportunity to learn and make progress. Each opportunity allows us the chance to figure out to do it better and how to forgive ourselves when we make mistakes.

How Bad Is Your Goal?

A Quick Problem with the New Year's Resolution and Goal Setting

So here we are, about to enter the New Year, where you decide this is your year and you delude yourself into believing you're really going to pull it off; you're going to reach your goal this year because this is your year. If your resolution resembles the failed goals of years gone by, NEWSFLASH, this one will fail too. And the worst part will be all the anger and frustration you have because chances are, your goals are results driven.

If what you want to accomplish is actually important to you, you're not going to delay until some special day where miraculously, everything you set out to accomplish will come true. What makes you think that waiting for January 1st will instantly make something you couldn't accomplish the other 364 days of the year doable? Whether you set out to do it on January 1st or on July 17th, the day you start is DAY 1. You have to, in the words of Clint Darden, "go all in or quit." Make no mistake, I want you to succeed. I want you to achieve your goals and I want you to be healthy.

But it won't be easy. It won't be fast. You're going to have days where you want to quit. You're going to have days where "it's just a donut." crosses your mind. I could tell you it's all about goal setting, stick-to-it-iveness, and the power of unicorn farts. I've written about why we fail to achieve goals (Find Your Why) and spoiler alert; it isn't because it's a bad goal or a bad plan. Instead of just regurgitating the same old speech about goals, motivation, dedication (because we've heard it all before, right?), I'm going to break down goal setting my way and then tell you how to make it work. Hope isn't the answer.

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When I was writing the December Newsletter (If you haven't subscribed, please do. It takes a second and we will never spam you.) I came across a quote that inspired a whole new thought process about goal setting. Sure, you've heard about SMART goals and tried your hand at goal setting to have failed. You're not alone. We all set goals that we don't achieve. It isn't unique to fail. It's not unique to move beyond some goals. It's a fact of life; you're going to choose a goal you really want at the time, you're going to bust your ass trying to achieve said goal, and you're going to fail, sometimes through no fault of your own. What happens when we fail to meet our goal, that is up to us. We can get upset, create an excuse or belittle ourselves, and we can give up in frustration, unhappy. And then I read the quote:

"Happy people plan actions, they don't plan results."

- Denis Waitley

Go ahead, read it again, maybe even a third time. Let it sink in. We plan goals and for the most part, we plan results, results that we have damn near no control over. And when we don't meet the result, we are unhappy.

While Waitley doesn't directly mention goal setting, I believe he is referring to how we choose goals and how we go about achieving them. Since 1981, SMART goals have been the way to go. We spent time studying and writing SMART goals in my Sports Counseling classes. The more we worked with them, the less adequate they became. Here’s why: take 30 seconds and reflect on a goal you had this year. Was it a good goal by the framework? Now, was the goal a process or a result? Did you have control over all the aspects of your goal or just a few pieces?

I had a goal to finish the home renovation by September; here it is, almost Christmas, and it isn't done.

By the SMART framework, I chose a good goal.

Specific - Finish Renovating three rooms

Measurable - Completed the walls, flooring, and carpets

Attainable - There were a full 8 weeks, so there's definitely enough time

Realistic - Again, it's been done before, so it's possible

Time - 8 weeks, done by September

It had all the planning, the intentions, and a specific time-frame, but that doesn't make it a good goal on more than paper.  There were some glaring flaws in this goal:

1. It's an old house, nothing is going to be square, level, or easy to modify
2. I am not an army of construction workers
3. I am not a contractor and my contractor is volunteering his expertise when he has time
4. Weather

Right there, I have four reasons my goal was poorly chosen. I was frustrated and unhappy because my goal was a result that I had 20% control over instead of a plan to accomplish what I did have control of. Had I chosen a goal that passed the PACE test I'd have been better off.

Back to you.  How often have you picked a goal that you can't 100% control, 100% define, 100% act upon, and could change as life dictates?  How often do you allow it to stress you out, to discourage you, ruin your positive energy, and make you unhappy?  Are you about to do it again? Maybe it's time to forgo the standard goal setting, move beyond SMART goals and give PACE goals a try.

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What are PACE Goals?

Looking back at Denis Waitley's quote we can make two observations which we'll use in defining PACE:

1. Planning your action steps will lead to happiness
2. Planning results will not

First and foremost, set a REAL goal, not a bullshit, lip-service goal that's so vague even you don't know what it really means. This goal should be about Actions, not results. Further, choose a goal around something that you can actually control. Finally, make the goal one that can evolve with you. If you're going to take the time to make a goal, make sure it passes the PACE test.

A goal that passes the PACE test is clearly defined and places all the success or failure clearly on your shoulders.

PACE stands for:

Process

Action

Controllable

Evolving

We begin with Process. If we listen to Waitley, we are happier when we plan actions, not results. Is your goal a process or a result? We all have ideal results, but a results goal without a process is worthless. In a similar manner, you could do everything right with a results goal and not achieve the desired result. This is the primary reason I believe goals should focus be based on completing a PROCESS. When you choose a process goal, the goal will pass the "what does that mean?" and "what do I have to do?" tests.

--We'll start with a standard goal, "I'm going to lose 20 lbs." This is a result, so we need to answer "what do I have to do?". The process could be "I'm going to eat better and be more active." (what does that mean and what do I have to do?) We redefine the process as "participate in activities that will help me lose weight." Again, what does that mean and what do I have to do? "I have to be intentionally active more than 4 hours per week and reduce my intake of sweets to only 1 serving per week." Aha! A clear process!

Next comes Action. Your goal must require conscious action on your part. This is where we should spend the most time evaluating if our goal is good. Plan the steps to accomplish the result you want and know the action steps you need to take. If our goal does not require conscious action on our part, it will most likely fail the next qualifier in PACE. 

--Action goals for our example are something like "I will train after work on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday" and "I will eat my sweets only on Saturday night."

Controllable is as obvious as it sounds. Do I have control of the process and actions? Again, it's about actions, not results. You can't control results like winning a contest, losing weight, or being healthier any more than you can control which way the wind blows. You can, however, plan and control the actions you take, which if done to the best of your ability, hopefully produce the desired result. Again, it is your goal and you are responsible, therefore it needs to be something you can control.

--"I will train with weights for 45 minutes on M, T, Th, Fr and I will not keep tempting food in my house so I will have to go out to get it on Saturday."

Lastly, any good goal should be Evolving. We need to be willing to re-evaluate and change our goal. Sometimes life cooperates and allows us to complete our action goals. Other times, life dictates a change. Either way, we need to be flexible with our goal. As we achieve, our goal should grow; as we realize certain aspects are unachievable in our time frame, we should modify. Notice I'm not saying give up. Forgoing a goal is a last resort and something only you will know when it is time to call in.  Some times this means allowing more or reducing the number of servings of sweets.

--"I have not been able to train as much as I like. I will train as much as I can and allow myself a serving of sweets only after I have trained 4 days for 45 minutes."

While I moved away from losing 20 lbs as the focus of the goal, the likely result of completing my PACE goals will be better health and weight loss. By creating an action goal that I can control and will evolve as needed, I have a better chance at success and a happy journey.

As we embark on our new journey, consider Waitley's advice with a little bit of hard earned wisdom.  Set your sights high and challenge yourself. Test your goal against the PACE framework. Ask yourself if you are in control of all the pieces that lead to your goal.  If you don't have 100% control, you can still have that goal, but be aware and accepting that you can give your 100% and still not receive the result you are looking for.  Most importantly, execute the planned action and be proud of the accomplishments along the way. 

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The quick list for goal setting:

-What does your goal really mean? Why do you want to do it?  You have to keep asking why until you have a single, solitary reason that can't be defined as anything other than your "purpose."

-Where does your goal rank in your life?  Is it essential or non-essential?  If you aren't willing to give up something you love, you'll be willing to give up on your goal unless you can give it enough weight.  Finding the right reason is paramount.  It needs to be a deep seated reason too, not something like "just because."  If your goal isn't in your top 5, you'll probably say fuck it at some point when it gets tough or it drags on.  Just an observation. Sometimes this means only having 1 or 2 goals at a time.

-Stop telling EVERYBODY.  Tell a few people that matter, the people that give your goal weight, the ones that can check you back on track.

Think of your goals like a car

The car is the complete package

The engine is the motivation, the reason you want to accomplish the goal.   Big engine, higher motivation.  Little engine and your car doesn't mow the grass.

The wheels are the things that keep you grounded when you get carried away.  Cheap tires you slide off the road, you blowout at trouble.

The gas is the effort you put into accomplishing the goal.  Shit in, shit out, etc.

The brakes are there to stop you from going out of control

The steering is to keep you on target

Now PACE.

Process

Actionable

Controllable

Evolving