GrlPwr – Page 2

Lift Like a Girl Dumbell Workout

“What exercises should I do for the Lift Like a Girl programs if all I have access to are dumbbells?” That has been asked so frequently that it’s time to provide the answer.

Or if you have dumbbells at home, your gym has limited equipment, or you simply prefer dumbbell exercises, use this program for great results. There are exercise-demonstration photos, a four-week dumbbell workout program, and printable workout logs.

Before we get to the workout program, it’s important to understand the advantages, and limitations, of dumbbell exercises.

Dumbbell-Exercise Limitations

To build maximum strength, the barbell is the best tool. You can get stronger, build muscle, and build a better-looking body with dumbbells, but if you want to deadlift twice your bodyweight or barbell squat 1.5 times your bodyweight, you must train those lifts frequently with a barbell.

Increasing the weight can be challenging. This is a tremendous perk to barbell training — exercises are infinitely scalable, especially when using fractional plates, and weight increases are more manageable. For example, a five-pound increase on a barbell exercise, say, going from a 100-pound bench press to a 105-pound bench press, is much more manageable than going from a 20-pound dumbbell bench press to a 25-pound dumbbell bench press. The former was a 5% increase distributed over both limbs, the latter a whopping 25% increase for each limb. There are ways to work around this limitation, covered below.

Can’t productively train in a very-low rep range. Once out of the beginner stage of strength training, you can safely perform a challenging 3-rep set for the barbell bench press. You can’t perform a challenging 3-rep set for a dumbbell bench press productively (i.e., performing a 3-rep max, where only 3 reps are possible — you can obviously perform “just” 3 reps, but it would be with a 6-rep max, or greater). Getting very heavy ‘bells into position can be awkward, and the risk:reward ratio for attempting such a heavy load is minimal and therefore not advised.

There exists a superfluous amount of stupid exercises. Due to their versatility, there’s no shortage of made up exercises that claim to be “functional” or “incredible for your core” or some other hyped up description. Kind of like this one I made up:

A super functional lateral raise/biceps curl/balance combo of 2-pound dumbbell fury, complete with the obligatory cheesy smile. (Yes, this is very much a joke. Don’t do this “exercise.”)

With those disadvantages in mind, does that mean dumbbells are useless? Of course not. Some people only have dumbbells to work with. Some people only want to use dumbbells, and they do have advantages.

Dumbbell-Exercise Advantages

Greater confidence with dumbbell exercises. Someone may be more comfortable, and confident, performing a dumbbell goblet squat compared to a squat with a barbell on their back. This individual can use dumbbell exercises to build strength and confidence, then transition to barbell training to build greater strength. In this instance, dumbbell training can be a stepping stone to barbell training.

Then again, some people prefer to use dumbbell exercises exclusively. That’s great too.

No need for a spotter or power rack. You don’t need a training partner or the security of a power rack with dumbbell exercises since there’s no risk of a dumbbell getting pinned to your throat, or stapling you to the ground, as with their barbell equivalents. If, for example, you fail on a dumbbell bench press, you just drop the weights to the side.

Home-gym and travel-friendly workouts. Increasingly more people have a set of adjustable dumbbells and a weight bench at home. They’re economical, take up very little space, and don’t require a lifting platform or concrete floor as needed for barbell deadlifts. Many hotel facilities also have a rack of dumbbells, so that makes dumbbell workouts travel friendly.

Modern-day gym-friendly workouts. There’s an increasing amount of gym chains that only have dumbbells and machines. If dumbbells are all you have available, you can still achieve incredible results with them … if you train correctly. That’s where the Lift Like a Girl Dumbbell Workouts come in.

The Lift Like a Girl Dumbbell Workouts

If you’re going to use dumbbells exclusively, your workouts must use mostly compound exercises, like those used here. There are two workouts. We’ll first introduce the workouts and their demonstration photos, then we’ll go over the workout details.

WORKOUT A

1) Goblet squat

Primarily works the legs and glutes. I’m using a kettlebell here but you can use a dumbbell by putting the heels of your palms under one end of a dumbbell (the handle will be vertical).

2) Dumbbell bench press

Works the chest, front of the shoulders, and triceps.

Don’t have a weight bench? You can do a dumbbell floor press instead.

This alternative uses a shorter range of motion, but it’s a good alternative.

3) Bent-over double-dumbbell row

This exercise works the back and biceps.

WORKOUT B

1) Romanian deadlift

This exercise works the hamstrings, glutes, upper back, and grip.

2) Standing press

This exercise works the shoulders, triceps, and core from having to stabilize your body.

3) One-arm dumbbell row

This exercise works the back and biceps.

The Weekly Training Schedule

Perform three workouts per week, alternating the two workouts. Do this for four weeks, completing both workouts a total of six times each. The following layout assumes a Monday, Wednesday, Friday workout schedule, but do what works best for you. Nonconsecutive days are recommended.

The workouts begin with 2×8-12 (2 sets, 8-12 reps) for all exercises; once both workouts are completed twice it increases to 3×8-12 (3 sets, 8-12 reps each set). Here’s a four-week training schedule that shows how to alternate the two workouts, and when the number of sets increases from two to three.

Week 1:

Mon: Workout A (2×8-12)
Wed: Workout B (2×8-12)
Fri: Workout A (2×8-12)

Week 2:

Mon: Workout B (2×8-12)
Wed: Workout A (3×8-12)
Fri: Workout B (3×8-12)

Week 3:

Mon: Workout A (3×8-12)
Wed: Workout B (3×8-12)
Fri: Workout A (3×8-12)

Week 4:

Mon: Workout B (3×8-12)
Wed: Workout A (3×8-12)
Fri: Workout B (3×8-12)

Do that for four weeks and enjoy your newly-forged strength and awesomeness.

Sets, Reps, and How to Progress

The Lift Like a Girl dumbbell workouts begin with two sets for each exercise so you can focus on learning proper technique and you won’t get so sore you struggle to walk up stairs … and get off the toilet. After completing both workouts two times, the number of sets increases to three.

All exercises are to be performed for 8-12 reps. Use a challenging weight for eight reps and stick with that weight until you complete 12 reps for all sets. Once you do that, increase the weight the following workout and start back at eight reps. (This is called the double-progression method.)

If you’re unable to increase the weight because it feels too difficult, stick with the previous weight and try to add more reps when you repeat the workout. Then, after another workout or two, attempt the heavier ‘bells again.

Lift Like a Girl Dumbbell Workout Log

Would you like to easily track your workout performance? Use the provided printable workouts log below.

Click to download the Lift Like a Girl dumbbell workout logs.

What Should You Do After Four Weeks?

You can increase the number of sets from 3×8-12 to 4×8-12, or switch to different variations for each exercise and repeat using the training schedule above. Or perhaps you’ll want to transition to barbell training. Start your journey with Phase 2 in Lift Like a Girl or create your own program using these how-to videos: squat, deadlift, chin-up, row, bench press, press.

Want a Done-For-You Dumbbell Guide?

If you prefer to work out with dumbbells, then check out the Dumbbell Strength Training Guide. It’s complete with done-for-you workouts, exercise-demonstration videos, and workout logs.

You can get all the details and a sneak peek here.

Here’s the Simple Guide That Shows You How to Eat Healthy

By GrlPwr

Does it ever feel like you spend way more time than you should have to thinking about food? What you should eat and shouldn’t eat; how many meals you should eat; are any foods best for fat loss; what’s best for improving overall health; is there such a thing as an all-you-can-eat peanut butter diet; are total calories or food quality more important.

Eating healthy is complicated.

Not really. Eating healthy seems complicated because of the abundance of information on food, weight loss, disease prevention and what you should and shouldn’t eat to look better naked. It’s no wonder people are frustrated and discouraged because they’ve tried popular diets that promised to be the diet for effortless fat loss: low fat, low carb, vegetarian, intermittent fasting, ketogenic, and all the rest.

The Basics are Not Replaceable

It’s not uncommon for someone to read the information below and scoff that it’s “too simple.” They want more than the basics. They think a diet that emulates their favorite Instagram fit-pro’s habits will yield better results. They think they’re above the basics.

The problem, however, is that most people have not even mastered the basics. Complex, restrictive diets that eliminate foods or food groups don’t produce better, lasting results — they just reduce calorie intake. People falsely think they’re more effective because of their complexity. These unnecessarily obsessive, restrictive diets can lead to things you don’t want like binge eating, negative body image, or incessant yo-yo dieting.

Complex or complicated does not mean better. Don’t delude yourself into thinking you need something more advanced if you don’t apply the information shared here for months at a time.

Do You Want a Diet or a Lifestyle?

Most diets have a timeframe. You follow it for 12-16 weeks (or until your willpower bleeds dry) and then you’re done and go back to eating whatever was normal pre-diet, or worse because you can’t stop eating all the stuff that was banned from the diet. Sound familiar?

Someone who will stand on stage in a bikini to be judged will follow a diet that meticulously tracks calories to reach ultra-low levels of body fat that’s meant to be sustained for a short period of time (people often forget this part and think it’s easy, or healthy, to have very low body fat levels long term). Problems arise when the average person who just wants to feel great and look better naked attempts to mimic those diets.

Most people need to create a sustainable lifestyle built upon simple habits that can be maintained long term. Not for 12-16 weeks, but for 12-16 months and beyond. A major distinction between a diet and lifestyle: quick-fix diets instill a perfection mindset (never missing a meal, hitting the exact calorie target every day, never “cheating,” you go all in); a healthy-eating lifestyle is about consistency, not perfection, so there’s no burden or stress of thinking you need to be perfect day in, day out — it is not an “all or nothing” game.

Rigid diets that create a perfection-obsessed mindset around food can drown you in their monstrous wake of negative body image and disordered eating habits.

You Must Find Pleasure in the Process

You can only force yourself to follow a style of eating you hate, or that dominates your life, for so long. Eventually you’ll say Screw it! and throw your hands in the air as a declaration of frustration and signaling the end of the diet’s lifespan.

Many people mistakenly look at eating healthy as being torturous, bland, boring, difficult. Establishing better eating habits may be difficult in the beginning, depending on your current food habits, but you must focus on the pleasure that accompanies the process. The pleasure of nourishing your body; properly fueling and recovering from workouts; forging new habits that serve you; actively investing in your health; proving to yourself you can establish rewarding, positive habits.

If you get frustrated from trying to find vegetables or lean-protein sources you enjoy, or have trouble hitting the 80% whole-food target discussed below, refocus on the pleasures you should be reaping from this lifestyle change.

Does It Have to be about Fat Loss?

Tips for weight loss are laced throughout this article, because many people want to lose fat. If you’re burned out on constantly thinking about fat loss, watching what you eat, or otherwise being on a never-ending journey of trying to whittle down to a smaller size, don’t think about fat loss.

If your brain is begging for a break from basing every food choice on losing body fat, choose other reasons for changing your eating habits. Choose to adjust your eating choices to:

Improve overall health (physical and mental)
Increase energy levels
Improve sleep quality
Fuel and recover from workouts
Slow down the aging process
Contribute to self-care
Increase physical strength and build muscle

There are, as you can see, lots of reasons to eat well that have nothing to do with fat loss. Depending on your history it may behoove you to say Screw fat loss! and focus on other healthy eating benefits.

How to Eat Healthy

Whatever your why may be for wanting to eat healthy, here are the foods that should make up most of your eating choices.

Eat These Foods Most of The Time

The common thread connecting these foods — they’re minimally processed whole foods. Why have these foods been chosen? Because eating mostly nutrient-dense whole foods, including lots of plant-based foods, has been shown to be most important for improving health and warding off disease.

The following images and examples are not exhaustive, and many could fall in other categories. Eggs, for example, could be listed in the fat and protein groups but appear under fats; corn is a grain when eaten as popcorn but considered a starchy vegetable when consumed as corn on the cob. Don’t get obsessed with minor details but use this as a guide for building meals and snacks.

FATS

These whole-food sources are packed with healthy fats. Other examples not shown include fatty fish like salmon and mackerel; plant sources include flax seeds, olives, chia seeds.

PROTEIN

Notice that lean sources of protein are shown. Fattier cuts of meat and dairy are fine but shouldn’t make up the bulk of your protein choices.

STARCHY VEGETABLES

NON-STARCHY VEGETABLES

Why two vegetable categories? Because some people rely too much on the starchy vegetables and eat nothing but potatoes. Potatoes are healthy and satiating, but don’t neglect non-starchy veggies. A good rule of thumb is to “eat the rainbow” as often as possible so you get tons of nutrients in a fiber-packed package. Non-starchy veggies are a great way to increase satiety because they take up a lot of space in the stomach without packing a lot of calories (i.e., they’re high-volume, low-calorie foods).

Bake them, sauté them, grill them, steam them, eat them raw, turn them into noodles and use in place of traditional pasta, blend them in smoothies. Doesn’t matter how you get them in your belly, just eat them.

BEANS AND LEGUMES

Tasty protein and fiber combined in a cheap package, especially if you buy dried beans and prepare them yourself. If you don’t eat meat, or much of it, this will be one of your main sources of protein. Even if you do eat meat, include these tasty foods.

WHOLE GRAINS

This category also includes foods like whole wheat pasta and breads.

Why is white rice shown instead of brown rice — I thought brown rice was “less processed” and therefore healthier, you may be wondering. There’s not much nutritional difference between white and brown rice beyond fiber (which favors brown rice), so let your taste decide. Some people find white rice easier to digest than brown rice. In the end, choosing between them is a minute detail not worth obsessing over.

HERBS AND SPICES

If you don’t use herbs and spices with your cooking, start. I’ve cooked countless meals that were bland and boring, but the right blend of spices made these meals delightfully craveable. Find recipes that use herbs and spices if you’re not a creative cook. They can make the difference between a meal you feel like you have to choke down and one that creates a symphony of flavors on your tastebuds.

FRUITS

Choose from fresh or frozen. Canned fruits are okay if they’re packed in water and don’t have added sugar. Buy what’s in season or on sale to save money. Keep apples and other easy-to-grab fruits nearby if you tend to snack frequently.

CALORIE-FREE BEVERAGES

Sparkling water is another option and the carbonation can help curb appetite. Calorie-free soft drinks are okay in moderation and can help satisfy your sweet tooth. One of the simplest changes worth making is swapping calorie-laden beverages for their calorie-free or low-calorie equivalent.

If you can only drink coffee with cream and sugar, that’s fine. You don’t have to force yourself to drink black coffee. This can only become something that might need to be kept in check if you use a lot of cream and sugar, or drink multiple cups of coffee throughout the day (then those spoonfuls of sugar and cream add up).

Want a low-calorie way to flavor your coffee? Mix a sugar-free hot cocoa packet (they’re only 25 calories) in your coffee. Makes a tasty low-calorie mocha.

What is “Most of The Time”?

The above food categories fall under the umbrella of foods to eat most of the time, meaning they should make up at least 80% of your food choices; this can be a daily or weekly average. The following image shows the percentage of whole and “fun” foods (covered next) consumed each day over the course of a week — the whole-foods average is 81%.

The tremendous benefit of aiming for at least an 80% average of whole foods is the flexibility it provides. Remember, this is a flexible lifestyle, not a perfection-obsessed diet. You can socialize and enjoy your favorite foods without feeling deprived or like you’re “on a diet.”

Eat These Foods Less Often

You know what to eat at least 80% of the time, so let’s go over the foods that can make up the remaining 0-20% depending on your needs and preferences.

But first, notice what is not being said. These foods are not bad, evil, forbidden, dirty, off limits, or guilty pleasures. Eating them does not make you bad, ugly, shameful, disgusting, a failure or anything else someone who wrote a diet book that bans these foods may have said you’d be if you enjoy them. Nor will eating these foods occasionally in reasonable amounts miraculously cause you to gain body fat. Only eating more than your body uses for a prolonged period causes the accumulation of body fat, and this can come from eating an excess of anything.

The eat less of these foods are typically calorie dense, not nutrient dense like the whole foods above. They’re hyperpalatable by design typically using a combination of sugar, fat, and salt. For a fascinating look at how foods are intentionally and painstakingly designed to keep us eating more and wanting to eat more, read The End of Overeating.

The best guideline for the eat less of these foods: be consciously selective of what you will enjoy. Actively choose. Don’t just eat something because it’s there or someone offers it to you.

Recommended Article: Eating in Moderation: How to Do It Right

Are Processed Foods Evil?

Unless you grow it or hunt it yourself, your food is technically processed.

Plain oats are processed, but they’re considered a whole food.

Pop Tarts are processed, and they are not a whole food.

Food-of-the-gods peanut butter is processed; it’s a good source of fat that delivers some protein and is considered a whole food.

Protein powder is processed, yet it’s a staple in many people’s eating choices because it’s a food source packaged in a convenient form, like a stick of string cheese.

Aim to eat mostly minimally processed foods. There’s a difference between oats and peanut butter and Pop Tarts and fried mozzarella sticks. And, remember, if Pop Tarts and mozzarella sticks happen to be two of your favorite foods, you can, and should, eat them in moderation.

Why is it important to eat your favorite foods, even if they’re heavily processed or deep fried and not so healthy?

How (and Why) to Make Room for Foods You Love

Want to throw yourself into a relentless battle with disordered and obsessive eating habits?

Heck no you don’t.

The best way to avoid that miserable struggle (i.e., the ugly side of health and fitness) is to not have “forbidden” or “off limit” foods, or to attempt to abstain from your favorite foods or food groups because you think they’re “bad” or solely responsible for fat gain. Do not fall into the disordered-eating trap of labeling foods “good” and “bad” or becoming obsessively neurotic with what you eat.

Optimizing physical health is important and is achieved by eating mostly whole foods. Mental health is also important yet is often omitted from a diet discussion, and that’s a mistake. A way to help ensure you don’t develop obsessive, unhealthy habits with food is to have flexibility built into your food choices.

Make room for your favorite foods. If a variety of whole foods make up at least 80% of your daily/weekly food choices, you can enjoy other favorite foods in moderate amounts. You don’t need to have an “all or nothing” mentality that rigid diets create. You needn’t “eat perfectly” all the time.

Do the right things most of the time.

It’s time to stop looking at food subjectively. A cupcake is not a “bad” food that will instantly put fat on your body. A spinach salad with low-calorie dressing is not a “good” food that will instantly remove fat from your body.

Analyzing food like that exacerbates, or leads to, disordered eating habits. If you find yourself looking at food through a good/bad lens, make it a priority to catch yourself and start reversing that mindset. If you typically look at a tasty cupcake and think I shouldn’t eat this, it’s bad, and it’ll cause me to gain fat, become aware of that response and change the conversation. Recall that it’s a piece of food; it’s not bad or evil. You can have it, enjoy it, and then move on.

This is a lifestyle, and your favorite foods belong in your lifestyle.

To get stronger and change the shape of your body you must show up to the gym week after week and put in consistent effort. You can’t go sporadically and expect noticeable results. Building a healthier mindset with food requires the same commitment and consistent practice.

Tailor to Your Needs and Preferences

You know which foods should make up the bulk of your eating choices, and how to work in your other favorite foods. Great! Why do you need to “tailor” those guidelines to your needs and preferences?

Because doing something you enjoy and that fits into your life matters. A lot. An eating style is only as effective as your adherence to it. Take the time, if needed, to see how many meals per day you prefer to eat and any other practices you need to adopt (or avoid, more on this below) to reach your goals.

Maybe you prefer to eat two big meals per day because you love feeling full and eating smaller meals causes you to overeat. Maybe you prefer carb-rich foods, so a low-carb diet would be worse than getting a root canal from a drunk dentist with a shaky hand. Maybe you need to measure your protein intake and loosely track calories to reach your goals.

Recommended Article: Why That Diet Didn’t Work for You

Maybe you don’t know what you prefer because you never took the time to ask yourself, so you have to try a few things to see what works best. That’s fine too. Becoming your own guru and approaching your eating preferences like a scientist can be a good thing. Take a pragmatic, objective approach to your eating choices. Keep emotion out of it. Take note of what works and keep doing it; if something doesn’t work or you absolutely hate it, scratch it off the at-least-I-tried list and move on to the next thing.

Does Every Meal Have to Look Like This?

Nope. Mine certainly don’t.

There’s nothing wrong with having a vegetable, protein, and starch on your plate, but it doesn’t mean every meal has to be made of single ingredient foods, each having its designated spot.

Some people love using that template to design their meals because of its simplicity and the ease it provides for prepping lots of meals at once, but not me. Some of my meals look that way, but it’s certainly not mandatory.

I enjoy cooking and trying new recipes so I routinely make stir-frys, casseroles, slow cooker meals, stews, chilis, curries. My criteria for most recipes is that they use mostly whole-food ingredients. (For a few recipes you can check out my Instagram: chicken salad, banana-oat cookies, sweet potato pumpkin curry.)

Let your preferences determine how your meals look. Make what you enjoy eating.

Total Calories and Food Quality

Do Calories Matter?

Yes. Using an extreme example, you can go on a Snickers diet and lose weight if you stayed in a caloric deficit. Sure, you’d get to eat nothing but Snickers every day and lose weight, but you’d likely be ravenous most of the time since an all-Snickers diet isn’t very satiating. And, not to mention, you wouldn’t consume enough fiber, vitamins, and other nutrients to optimize health.

The point here isn’t to eat nothing but junk — it’s to emphasize the point that no single food or food group causes fat gain on its own.

Does That Mean Food Quality is Less Important?

Not at all. Just because you can lose fat eating nothing but Snickers or McDonald’s doesn’t mean food quality is less important. As stated above, maximizing overall health is the primary objective, and eating mostly whole foods does that. Food quality is also important for energy levels and satiety.

Let’s say your body needs 1,900 calories per day to stay the same (i.e., if you burn 1,900 calories and eat 1,900 calories, your body composition won’t change). You could eat 1,600 calories worth of Snickers bars each day for a month and you’d lose weight from being in a caloric deficit, though you probably wouldn’t feel too great and would likely experience ravenous hunger.

Some people claim you’d instantly pack on fat eating nothing but Snickers bars because of the insulin response, but that’s incorrect. An insulin response won’t lead to fat storage in the absence of a caloric surplus.

Contrast this candy-bar diet with eating 1,600 calories of nutritious whole foods from the eat more of these foods discussed above for a month and weight loss would occur, but unlike the all-Snickers diet you’d experience greater satiety from the higher intake of protein and fiber and higher volume whole foods provide.

Whole foods provide greater satiety than heavily processed calorie-dense foods.

And, bonus, as you can see, Snickers can still be a part of a mostly whole-foods lifestyle. Deprivation has no place in eating healthy. Moderation is a habit worth developing.

This isn’t to suggest the results from both diets, if all else was equal, would be identical. If strength training was part of the regimen you may lose more fat and build more muscle with the whole-food diet from consuming more nutrients and protein than the theoretical all-Snickers diet; no doubt your health would benefit from the former.

Do You Need to Count Calories?

I would rather saw off the little toe on my right foot with a rusty pocket knife than count calories. That exercise would send me plunging headfirst back into obsessive, disordered eating habits. That is why I don’t count calories, and why many of my clients with a similar history don’t either. It creates more problems than it solves.

There are plenty of people who like tracking calories. It’s a lifestyle practice they enjoy, or one they find necessary to achieve and maintain their goals, otherwise they get off track quickly.

The option of tracking calories varies from person to person and depends on their goals and needs. Do what works best for you and avoid anything that exacerbates issues with food.

If you’re not sure what you need to do, start by applying the above information for at least six weeks and see what happens. You very well may not need to do anything else. Why make things more complicated than necessary? Try the simplest things first, and tweak only if necessary.

Some people don’t need to count calories (or disdain the mere thought of doing so) yet could benefit from tracking certain foods or macronutrients.

What Should be Tracked?

Maybe something. Maybe nothing.

Let’s say you want to lose weight. You aptly apply the above information for six weeks but don’t feel like you’ve made progress, and you don’t want to resort to counting calories. In other words, what should you do if you’re eating healthy but still can’t lose weight?

Most people don’t overeat lean protein, non-starchy vegetables, or fruits. You can track the two most likely culprits preventing fat loss: fat sources and “fun” foods.

Fat sources are calorically dense, and the calories can add up quickly. For example, one-quarter cup of mixed nuts contains 160 calories. If you eat out of the container instead of putting one serving into a bowl, you may end up eating one cup (I’ve been there and done that). Instead of eating 160 calories, it was 640. If you frequently eat high-fat foods like nuts and nut butters, avocados, cheese, olive oil drizzled on salads, track or measure those fat sources for a week. It may be helpful to measure a serving size of those foods to become aware of what a serving size truly is.

I love carbs. If I had my way a bucket of mashed potatoes would be considered one serving. If you eat more carb sources than fat, track your starchy-vegetable and grain intake. You could try replacing some of the starchy vegetables with non-starchy vegetables (since they’re lower in calories for an equal volume) or simply decrease the serving portions a bit: instead of eating two heaping serving spoons of mashed potatoes, eat one.

“Fun” foods can also be easy to overeat. It’s not hard to eat a few too many tasty cookies or French fries or doughnuts. You may be eating more of those than you realize. Track everything you eat and drink for a week to see what’s going on. You may discover you snacked on a doughnut a few times throughout the week and drank a few sugar-loaded lattes you weren’t accounting for previously. Choose which “fun” foods to enjoy more diligently. Either eat a smaller amount and/or swap them out for lower-calorie whole foods.

If fat loss is the goal and you’re not losing weight, this means, very simply, that you’re consuming too many calories. Find simple ways to consume fewer calories: eat more veggies instead of whole grains, swap out sugar-laden beverages for calorie-free drinks, eat a good source of lean protein with all meals, track fat sources, eat more high-volume, low-calorie foods like non-starchy vegetables and fruits. It really can be that simple.

The How to Eat Healthy Cheat Sheet

The above information could be distilled into this cheat sheet:

Eat whole foods at least 80% of the time
Make room for your favorite foods
Think flexible, sustainable lifestyle — not a soul-sucking diet
Consistency matters most — forget about perfection; this is not an “all or nothing” game
Master the basics — no seriously, do them for months and years

Want to Really Change How Your Body Looks?

Healthy eating and strength training go together like peanut butter and jelly. While proper nutrition can improve your health and is instrumental in losing body fat, an intelligent progressive strength training program is the tool that changes the shape of your body. Eating well can help you lose body fat, but only strength training can help you maintain, and build, muscle.

For maximum results, combine the nutrition guidelines here with a progressive strength training program. Check out the women’s beginner strength training guide or Lift Like a Girl workout template to get started.

Remarkable “Before & Afters” That Have Nothing to do With Fat Loss

By GrlPwr

What do the majority of women’s fitness before and after photos have in common?

They’re all about weight loss—someone was “bigger” in the before photo, and they’re smaller (or at least leaner) in the after.

Not that there’s anything wrong with people wanting to lose weight to improve their health, feel more confident, or to look a certain way. As I always say, it’s your body, so do what you want with it.

Women, however, are led to believe that fat loss is the only goal they can have. The only reason to eat healthy is to lose weight; the only reason to work out is to burn fat. Their sole purpose for doing these things is to chase a smaller number on the bathroom scale.

Problems arise when women obsess over fat loss year after year, after year. Scrutinizing every food choice based on its ability to help them lose fat becomes exhausting. Making every workout a punishment for eating something “bad” or an attempt to whittle away parts of their body they dislike doesn’t provide lasting motivation.

Fat loss is a fine goal short-term, but if you know what it’s like to revolve every action in the gym and kitchen around losing fat for long stretches of time, you know how mentally exhausting, and defeating, it can be.

Or perhaps you just want to reap benefits from your workout and eating efforts that deliver something more meaningful than a smaller number on the scale–to make fat loss a byproduct of a more enjoyable focus.

This is why I’m not a fan of traditional “before and after” photos. Yes, it’s absolutely wonderful when people drop excess weight and keep it off long term, but there are additional benefits to be gained from changing your eating and workout habits for the better.

Health and fitness shouldn’t just about how you look in your “after”; it should be about how you feel and the lifestyle you’ve created to ensure you maintain the “after” well into the future.

Remarkable Before & Afters

I asked some of my coaching members and other women to share what fitness was to them before they approached training and nutrition the Lift Like a Girl way, and after they did so. What did they discover that was more valuable than losing weight or shrinking down?

Here’s what they had to say, and their experiences reveal incredible results you’d never see in a photo:

My before: Deafening self-doubt, chronic depression, and the never-ending cycle of binge eating and over exercising.

My after: Confident in my body and my choices regarding fitness and nutrition. Seeing exercise as an extra bonus in treating my depression. Now I don’t see “good food” or “bad food”—it’s just food and I can enjoy it!

–Amanda

Before: Convinced I would always be the chubby girl never below 200 pounds.

After: Convinced I will always be the badass, strong girl never above 200.

–Amber

My personal “before” was being too afraid, self-conscious to go exercise in a gym. The mere though brought on anxiety.

My personal “after” is walking into that same gym like I own it…badass style.

–Andriana

Before: Too many different exercises and too many reps. Now: Mostly old school barbell training, fewer reps, focus on strength! Several years ago, at age 48, I could not even hold onto the bar; now at 54 I can do 5-6 dead hang pull-ups, no kipping.

–Helen

Before, I was your typical unsporty kid. I hated most movement, felt it wasn’t for me.

After starting lifting, I’m constantly curious about what my body can accomplish. I genuinely love my body for what it can do, and I’m excited about what I’ll manage in the future. I feel more united with my body than I have just about ever. I feel like this is for me.

–Juliet

Before: I regularly confused quantity with quality. I set my goals vis-à-vis an arbitrary number (the number on the scale). I despaired of ever being truly and properly strong because “I didn’t have that kind of time.”

After: I focus on quality, as measured by the exactitude of my form and the slow progression of my sets. I set my goals based on a concept (strength) and a physical challenge (deadlift 1.5x my weight). I no longer despair of being strong. I am strong.

–Mary

Before: Look at model in fitness magazine, set goal to look just like her, work out two hours a day. I actually felt happy when things were going my way, but the emotional swing when the scale didn’t go the way I needed it to, was unbearable. I felt like if I didn’t look a certain way as a trainer, no one would trust me, and my business would suffer. I felt like I didn’t have value if I didn’t have abs.

After: IDGAF. And I feel strong enough that I don’t have to. I have freedom from the bondage of trying to “live up” to others’ unreasonable, unrealistic, and unnecessary expectations. I have peace and joy even while eating a cooking or pumpkin-flavored treats this time of year. I no longer feel the need to apologize.

–Megan

My personal before was thinking I had to be completely exhausted, lying on the floor, in a puddle of sweat after exercising, to have a good workout. I’m much kinder to myself now, with better results!

–Debby

Before:

Weighed and measured all my food to the gram
Weighed myself daily, on two scales
Watched my family eat while I abstained so that I could eat my food at home
Compulsive exercise and undervalued recovery

After:

Food no longer controls me
I have so much more time to enjoy life away from obsessive weighing and measuring
I exercise to feel well and respect my limitations
I work with my body, instead of against it
I eat with my family
Overall, I am so much more relaxed!
I take many more rest days
I sleep better

–Rachel

Before: Got winded walking up the hill to my home, struggled to get up off the floor, and high cholesterol.

After: More energy, confidence, and a much higher sense of self!

–Mona

As I dove deeper into my own health, I found a woman I was really freaking proud to be. I learned how to communicate with, rather than dictate to, my body and started treating my health as an expansion rather than a never-ending (maddening) exercise in shrinking.

–Courtney

I guess I’m an inbetweener.

Before: Compulsive eating, no exercise, morbidly obese and unhappy.

Later: Compulsive dieting, excessive exercise, significant weight loss and unhappy.

Now: Balancing the art of eating and exercising for enjoyment without it tripping over into compulsion. Learning to look at my body for the amazing things it can do while living in a world where we are judged on the external.

I can’t say I’m “after” yet. After years I’m still battling to get relaxed around food, exercise and my body, but at least I now know what “healthy” actually looks like in terms of physical and mental goals.

–Claire

My before is yo-yo dieting and struggling with boring exercises not sure if they did any good, and eventually gave up. My after is FINALLY finding something I LOVE doing (weight lifting/cycling) and counting calories only as a guide. Not a “good girl/bad girl” mind trap for me.

–Julie

I dropped in to comment after re-reading the intro to the Beautiful Badass Mini Course, “the journey is the destination.” It hit me like a ton of bricks in reference to my other-than-health-fitness life. This isn’t something to get over, or finish, or wait out. No “after” for me. THIS IS IT! I embrace it NOW! I’m learning and growing and becoming. I’m not going to short change today rushing past it toward tomorrow. Thank you, Nia, every day, for perspective.

–Mary

If you’re tired of always focusing on fat loss, then demand more. Choose other goals to focus on, and other great reasons for eating well and moving your body. See for yourself what can happen to your body, and mind, when you make getting strong a priority. Make health and fitness a process that enhances and fits into your life, not something that dominates it.

Want guidance creating your own remarkable before and after? Grab the new book Lift Like a Girl on Amazon.

Click here for the Kindle version.

Click here for the paperback.

Squats Don’t Work Your Glutes (Because You’re Squatting Wrong)

By GrlPwr

“I like getting stronger with squats, but they don’t work my glutes,” she said.

She went on to perform a set of barbell squats and my initial assumption was correct: she wasn’t squatting correctly. That is why she thinks “squats don’t build glutes.” It wasn’t the exercise that was the problem; it was her execution of the movement that was at fault.

Saying squats performed correctly don’t work the glutes is like saying chin-ups performed correctly don’t work the biceps. If an exercise is performed properly through an appropriate range of motion, the muscle groups that perform the movement will “work.” And if performance is improved (e.g., perform more reps, add weight) consistently for weeks and months, muscle will be built.

How do you know if you’re performing squats correctly so they work your glutes? You need to (a) have a proper stance and (b) perform the exercise through a sufficient range of motion. Individuals who think squats don’t work the glutes typically fail to meet these criteria and have too narrow of a stance and don’t squat low enough.

The glutes are directly involved in the squatting movement, be it barbell squats or goblet squats; the main functions of the gluteus maximus (the largest part of the buttock) are hip extension and external rotation.

It stands to reason if we want to maximize the involvement of the glutes in an exercise we need to use them for their designed purposes. That means the stance and squat depth must be appropriate.

Squat Stance

Some people squat with their feet close together and toes pointed straight ahead. This doesn’t mean the glutes won’t be involved in the movement, but it’s not putting them in an ideal position for maximum involvement since the glutes are responsible for hip external rotation.

This would be a great stance for a deadlift or Romanian deadlift, but it’s not ideal for squatting. The feet should be wider, about shoulder width apart, and toes pointed out to the sides, anywhere from 5-30 degrees. Everyone is different; play around with the stance and foot position to find what’s most comfortable for your knees, hips, and back.

What is the purpose of the wider stance and pointing the toes out? To make the glutes perform one of their main functions: to externally rotate the hip. This will be accomplished by keeping the knees out when squatting and making sure they track in-line with the feet at all times (i.e., don’t let them “cave in,” which is a common squat mistake).

The wider toes-out stance also engages the adductors (i.e., inner thighs) to a greater extent too, compared to the narrow stance with feet pointed straight ahead. When you use a shoulder-width stance and point your toes out a bit, don’t be surprised when your glutes and adductors are sore the next day.

Squat Depth

The proper depth for a squat is lowering down to the point where the crease in the hips is a bit lower than the tops of the knees. Put another way, the tops of the thighs should be parallel to the ground, or a little lower.

Stopping short of this depth as many commonly and mistakenly do on every rep or as a set progresses and fatigue accumulates and each rep is increasingly shallow, means most of the work is being done with the quadriceps, since the glutes aren’t moving through an appropriate range of motion.

To use your glutes effectively when squatting, they need to be worked through an appropriate range of motion, which is achieved when reaching the depth mentioned above (this way the glutes do one of their main jobs — extending the hips).

If you want to work your glutes, you need to attain the proper range of motion. Aim for the point where the crease in the hips is a bit lower than the tops of the knees. (You can squat lower as long as you can maintain a neutral, rigid spine, but it isn’t necessary.)

Notice the squat depth — the crease in the hips is a bit lower than the tops of the knees in both the goblet squat (left) and back squat (right).

Are Squats All You Need for Maximum Glute-Building Results?

If squats are the main lower-body exercise in your training program — and you perform them properly and consistently improve your performance — they will build muscle on your glutes. If you’re a beginner strength trainee, a squat variation should be the main lower-body exercise in your program so you can (a) learn how to correctly perform this basic movement pattern, (b) build a solid foundation of strength, and (c) practice it frequently thus reinforcing the correct movement pattern and building strength and muscle quickly. This is why the goblet squat is the main lower-body exercise in Phase 1 of Lift Like a Girl and back squats in Phase 2; both are performed with a high frequency of two to three times per week.

This isn’t to say other exercises don’t work the glutes just as well or more directly, or other exercises can’t be used to maximize hypertrophy of the glutes. Using the chin-up example again: you can build a great pair of biceps if bodyweight and weighted chin-ups are the main upper-body pulling movement. But other exercises — palms-up grip rows, dumbbell curls, barbell curls — can be useful for maximizing hypertrophy.

The answer to the Are squats all you need? question is: it depends on your goals and training experience. Let’s look at two trainees.

Trainee A: She’s been squatting correctly and progressively (steadily adding more weight to the bar or performing more reps with the same weight) for over a year. She’s built her glutes using squats as the primary lower-body exercise, but she wants to make them grow more. She can achieve this goal by (a) squatting more frequently, (b) adding additional exercises like reverse lunges from a deficit, single-leg hip thrusts, and single-leg Romanian deadlifts to her training, or (c) modifying her training program and increasing training volume or changing the set and rep schemes (more on this one in a moment).

Trainee B: She’s been squatting correctly and progressively for over a year. She’s built her glutes using squats as the primary lower-body exercise (starting first with goblet squats to learn the movement and then progressing to barbell squats), and she has no desire to increase their size and shape further.

We’re in the midst of the build-a-bigger-butt era and tons of women want maximum glute hypertrophy. If that’s your goal too, that’s awesome. If you don’t care about attaining maximum glute size and shape, that’s awesome too. It’s your body and you should do whatever the heck you want to do with it.

Guidelines for Glute Building

What is your strength training experience? is the first question and What is your main goal? is the second, briefly address above, that need to be answered.

Strength training beginners, trainees more concerned with building strength and training efficiency (they don’t want to spend more time in the gym than necessary to achieve most of the results they’re after, or they’re very busy), and trainees not interested in maximum glute hypertrophy can focus mostly on squats, deadlifts, and Romanian deadlifts for most of their lower-body work. Tons of women have built strong, amazing bodies on a steady diet of squats, deadlifts, rows and chin-ups, bench presses and standing presses.

Intermediate strength trainees or those interested in maximizing their glute-building potential can focus mostly on squats, deadlifts, Romanian deadlifts and include exercises like rear foot elevated split squats, reverse lunges, single-leg hip thrusts, and additional glute-specific exercises.

And let’s not forget that every body is different. Some people may reach maximum glute hypertrophy with just squats and deadlifts. Some people may need a hefty volume of squats, lunges, and hip-thrust variations to maximize theirs.

Different Rep Ranges for Best Glute-Building Results

The benefit to using a wide range of reps? It allows you to work the fast-twitch muscle fibers with the heavy, low-rep sets and the slow-twitch fibers with the somewhat lighter, higher-rep sets.

If squats are your primary lower-body exercise, use a wide rep range for best glute- and leg-building results. First, get strong in a 5-8 rep range. Once you’d built a solid strength foundation (when you have trouble adding more weight in the 5-8 rep range) you can start including sets of 10-15 reps. There’s muscle-building value in 20-rep sets too, but don’t venture into that range until you’ve been strength training for many months. Twenty-rep squats aren’t as beneficial if the heaviest weight you can use is an empty 45-pound barbell. Get strong first and then include higher-rep sets when you can use a more challenging weight.

What You Should Do Next

Analyze your current squat stance and depth. How does it compare to the information above? You can test the new stance and depth, right now, with bodyweight squats: perform a set of 20 reps and you should immediately feel the difference. Or next time you’re at the gym, perform squats or goblet squats with the stance and depth guidelines above and experience the difference for yourself.

When you have your new stance identified (you may want to play around a bit with stance width and the angle you point your toes to find what feels best), get stronger in the 5-8 rep range. After several weeks of progressive training, you can then include sets of 10-15 reps. You’ll no doubt be stronger and have more muscle within a few months of consistent training.

Squats work your glutes. Squats will build your glutes. You just have to squat correctly.

The Nocebo Effect: Are You (Unknowingly) Thinking Your Way to Failure?

By GrlPwr

A patient taking part in an experiment is told her new medication may have symptoms such as nausea, stomach pains, and loss of appetite. Four weeks later when she revisits her doctor for a checkup she complains of nausea, stomach pains, and loss of appetite. “The side effects from this medication are terrible,” she groaned.

When the doctor reports that the “medication” she’s been taking are just sugar pills, she’s silent in disbelief.

How can someone experience side effects from a medication when they weren’t actually taking a medication?

This is the nocebo effect. It’s what occurs when negative expectations of a medication lead to a more negative effect than it would have otherwise. As you’ll see, the nocebo effect is not limited to medical treatments and drugs. Most of us, at one time or another, have likely had our own nocebo experiences with health and fitness. I know I have.

3 Common Ways People Nocebo Their Way to Failure

I’ll bet you can recognize yourself in at least one of these examples.

Lack of Sleep

Did you know getting at least seven hours of sleep every night has been demonstrated to boost fat loss, build muscle, and provide a host of other health benefits? Of course you do. Coaches and health professionals love touting the benefits of sufficient sleep, and I’m no exception. Sleep should be a priority. (And you better have a great mattress.)

It’s one element of your health and fitness regimen that requires you to literally do nothingbut can positively affect the results from your nutrition and workout efforts.

What does your day look like that was preceded by five hours of sleep or less? There’s no way I’m going to have a good workout today, you may have thought. And, chances are, you probably did have a terrible workout.

It may not have been due to lack of sufficient sleep, however. Your negative expectations of having a bad workout because of getting less-than-ideal sleep could be responsible for the bad workout. You noceboed your way straight to a crappy workout because of the negative expectations going into it.

What would happen if you just shrugged off the situation and didn’t give any merit to the night of less than ideal sleep? What if you approached your workout the same way you would have if you’d gotten a solid eight hours of sleep?

Circumstances can affect us (and in this example, our workout performance), but oftentimes it’s our perception of those circumstances, and the attitude we choose to embrace in response, that’s even more powerful.

Pre-Workout Supplements

I quite like the placebo effect. It occurs when someone experiences an improvement or beneficial outcome due to their positive expectations, despite receiving an inactive substance or no actual treatment.

Using the example from earlier, a patient taking part in an experiment is told the medication may give her greater energy and lead to deeper, more restful sleep. Four weeks later when she gets a checkup she reports having higher energy levels and getting more quality sleep. “It’s working!” she boasts. When told she’s been taking sugar pills, she’s perplexed as to how she’s been experiencing those positive side effects.

If your belief in something makes it have a positive effect (or even greater effect), what’s not to love? The power of placebo has been demonstrated repeatedly in research. One such study showed trained individuals increased their strength by over 300% simply because they thought they were taking steroids.

When it comes to pre-workout supplements, many include ingredients proven to boost performance (e.g., caffeine), but no doubt someone’s expectations of its affects make it more effective. The ensuing holy-crap-I-could-flip-a-tractor feeling they get after ingesting the caffeine-fueled mixture boosts their positive expectations of the product, so they may be more likely to have a great workout.

On the flip-side is the nocebo effect that can happen when someone can’t have their usual pre-workout supplement or caffeinated beverage of choice. “This workout isn’t going to be great — I ran out of my pre-workout mix,” I’ve heard people say. And when they have a lackluster training session, their previous belief about not being able to have a good workout without their pre-workout aid is solidified by the experience.

If you like to drink a cup of coffee or take a pre-workout supplement before your training sessions (especially one including squats and deadlifts), that’s great. I’m not saying not to use those things; nor am I saying they’re not effective apart from a placebo effect. But don’t be so reliant on them that if you run out or can’t have your usual pre-workout beverage/supplement that you allow negative expectations of a less-than-stellar workout cause you to actually have one.

Schedule Conflicts

If you’re the type of person who enjoys her routine, this one no doubt has affected you. Let’s say your routine got interrupted and you had to work out much earlier, or later, in the day than usual, or you had to work out on a different day of the week. Did you go into that workout thinking This is gonna be terrible because you weren’t able to work out at your preferred day or time?

Hopefully you’re starting to see how your mindset can greatly affect your performance, and results. This isn’t to suggest you can simply positively think your way out of extreme exhaustion or circumstances. If you’ve been operating on very little sleep for an extended period, for instance, it will eventually affect you. Or if you just got over the flu you can’t have an I’m-going-to-set-a-personal-record! expectation the first time you get back in the gym and simply will it to happen. But hopefully you see the importance of mindset when facing common, every-day situations.

There are countless other scenarios when you could be succumbing to the power of the nocebo effect. Regardless of the situation or circumstances, the takeaway is the same: Don’t make situations worse than they really are by piling negative expectations on top of them.

What you think has a powerful effect on your actions and outcomes. Your mindset can be a potent force of construction, or destruction. It’s your choice how it will be used.

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