By Coach Juan Rojas If you grew up in the 80's or 90's, you may remember the low fat diets recommended by the majority of people. At this point in recent history, obesity and disease were climbing at an alarming rate and we knew that something was to blame for it. So dietary fat instantly got the bad reputation of being guilty of this. Companies began a revolution to create all sorts of food low in fat. But in order to still keep certain consistencies and flavors, it was missing something... So these fats were replaced with other man made ingredients and sugars in order to be able to have a similar resemblance to their regular fat versions. Unfortunately, the obesity and health epidemic continued growing and is now at an all time high.This whole topic can have an article of its own though. What my point from this is, that ever since this era, dietary fats have received a bad reputation and many people around the world think that avoiding them is the best option in order for them to have the best body composition and health. Now, not all fats are created equal. Man made fats like hydrogenated vegetable oils should always be avoided as these have a slew of negative consequences. But healthy fats such as avocadoes, nuts, seeds, olive oil, egg yolks, animal fats (from organic sources), and coconut oil should be staples in your diet. These fats contribute to many processes in the body such as decreasing inflammation, energy, heart health and hormone production. Many do not know that it is possible to survive and be completely healthy by not eating any carbohydrates, but the same cannot be said if you eliminate fat from your diet. Many also think that eating fat makes you fat and that this is a reason dietary fat should be avoided. Calories from fat can be deposited as fat stores, but this can be said for any macronutrient when you ingest a high amount of calories over what your body requires. Now, I am not necessarily saying you should have no carbohydrates. Everyone is different, has different goals and has a different tolerance to carbohydrates. But what I am saying, is that essential fats should be a priority for you to get in just like you worry about brushing your teeth every morning, taking a shower, or even checking your email. So does this mean I have given you the green light to eat all the bacon and cookies you want? NO! Although fats are very important to get in our diet, the amount should be tailored to your specific goals and needs. Too much dietary fat, even if healthy, can definitely put you in an excessive surplus of calories causing you to gain unwanted weight. Since fats are so calories dense (9 calories per gram as opposed to only 4 calories found in every gram of protein and carbohydrate) it is important to measure it out and have them in moderation. It is very easy to fit 4 tbsp. of almond butter in one teaspoon and to have 600 calories worth of cashews in just a handful. As much as fats have been demonized the last 20 years, they are actually very important to keep in our diet. Many people feel and look much better when they experiment with adding fats and lowering carbohydrates in their diet as well. I find with a lot of my clients that they overeat carbohydrates and will under eat healthy fats before they seek help from a coach. Once they are eating the proper ratio of nutrients, many of them report more sustained energy and better focus throughout the day as fat helps control your insulin levels. Carbohydrates often make individuals feel groggy and sleepy as well, which is not optimal if you are looking to maximize your performance and mental acuity. Those who live a sedentary lifestyle, oftentimes end up not using the carbohydrates they eat for energy and end up desensitizing their insulin while storing excess carbohydrates as fat. Make sure to adjust your fats to tailor your specific goals and lifestyle so you can reach the physique you have always dreamed about!
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By Coach Juan Rojas In a perfect world, all your meals would be of the highest quality foods and cooked right before you want to eat them by your private chef. In this same universe, you spend all your time thinking about unicorns and rainbows and not about reality. As much as I recommend that all my clients and all of you out there meal prep and always have high quality meals ready to eat, even when on the road; the reality of things is that life does not work that way. Many of us have responsibilities like spouses, kids, a career, family etc. What happens when that project at work needs to be completed and you HAVE to stay there for a few extra hours? What happens when you are caught in traffic for hours and need to get a meal in you? Or even what happens when you drop your food everywhere and have no more meals? (Unfortunately, I have experienced this). Many get stressed at the fact that they cannot have their meal and have a "screw it" moment. They will go for the easiest most convenient thing and since they are hungry, their sense of judgement is a little bit loose and they will opt for something that does not help them reach their goals. Well, even though life can throw curveballs at you, you can still make smart food choices while out on the street that will allow for convenience and for you to reach your goals. Now, I am not recommending you create eating at fast food restaurants a daily habit, or even weekly. Specially if you are a competitor or high level athlete, you need to be very meticulous about having ALL your meals on you in case of emergency. But if you are just looking to get into better overall shape, this can be quite helpful. We all know that the quality of food and how it is processed does affect our health and absorption of nutrients. But if once in a while you go for one of these options, you will still stay on track while being able to eat on the fly. Sticking to these lower calorie options will help you still reach your fat loss goals while keeping a higher protein count to help your muscle growth. These are five food options under 500 calories you can get at popular fast food chains: 1. Pita Pit's Chicken Breast Pita- Many fast food places will have fresh chicken breast and it is quite lean. Whereas if you opt for their beef options, they are very low quality meats and often heavily processed. If you are going for a pita you can go light on the cheese and focus on the unlimited vegetables you have as an option. As for sauce, go for some low calories sauces like hot sauce or vinaigrettes. Something like this is about 500 calories 16-20 grams of fat, 50-60 grams of carbs and 20-25 grams of protein. You can always lower the fat content by taking out the cheese or increase the protein by getting double meat. 2. Tim Horton's Chicken Fajita Grilled Wrap- Same situation as before, chicken is usually a better option to pick at fast food places. Although it does not have as many vegetables as you would want, you can get a whole grain wrap and still get only about 430 calories in this meal. Something like this is about 19 grams of fat, 38 grams of carbs and 28 grams of protein. You can always lower the fat by taking out the cheese or increase the protein by getting double meat. 3.McDonald's Tomato and Mozzarella with Grilled Chicken- This option is great because you can really customize what is on it. If you want less carbs you can have only half the bun. If you want less fat take the cheese off, if you want more protein you can add another piece of chicken etc. Although it is going to be white bread, it is better than not having a meal at all or having a big mac with large fries. Something like this is about 500 calories 22 grams of fat, 40 grams of carbs and 36 grams of protein. Beats having a double big mac which has 700 calories with 40 grams of fat, 40 grams of protein and 46 grams of carbs. Not to mention very low quality beef. 4. Wendy's Berry Burst Chicken Salad- What I love about this option is that you are not getting your carbs from a grain source but instead from some fruit. Fruit will have a good amount of fiber and antioxidants to help you with health and energy. Something like this is about 500 calories 19 grams of fat, 40 grams of carbs and 40 grams of protein. You can always lower the fat by taking out the cheese or pecans, lower the carbs by taking out some of the dressing or increase the protein by getting double meat. 5. Taco Bell's Chicken Quesadilla- This option is probably the only option at taco bell I would ever recommend. Although it can be a little bit higher in fat due to the cheese and sauce, if you are looking for a somewhat okay option at Taco Bell this will be your best bet. A quesadilla has about 28 grams of fat, 38 grams of carbs and 27 grams of protein. If you want to lower the fat content you can always ask for it with no sauce and it will dramatically lower this. Just because you are caught eating out due to life being "life", this does not mean you have to get off your meal plan. There is really no excuse for you to ever be off from making smart food choices with all the choices we have in 2018 as consumers. Although you want to always aim to get the best quality, homemade foods, consistency is the name of the game and eating out once in a while will not affect your long term progress! If you need help with your nutrition or accountability make sure to apply to our coaching program. I would love to help you reach your fitness goals through proper guidance on nutrition and supplementation. This is the best possible investment that you can make in your health, happiness and success! BY COACH JUAN ROJAS Is your goal to lower your body fat and gain muscle mass? Who doesn't want this ideal scenario!? You might be one of those people who work extremely hard in the gym and make sure to get your nutritious meals in. You might even take it as far as knowing your macronutrients and ensuring that you are getting the adequate amounts of them necessary to create this fat burning/muscle gaining environment. You might be taking expensive supplements that can improve your health and performance. But, you might also be disappointed with your results and cannot pinpoint it as to why you are not progressing as well as you should. It seems like you are doing everything correctly right?! One of the biggest underrated factors that I see many clients overlook is recovery; specifically sleep. When we sleep is when our body releases a cascade of hormones that will not only help us burn more fat but also build more muscle. It is when the body repairs tissue and ensures that our central nervous system has time to recover from our daily stress. If your central nervous system is overloaded, your progress in the gym will not go anywhere. You will feel tired, groggy, may experience discrepancies with sex hormones and perhaps even deal with signs of depression. You might even lose strength and the desire to train hard. Now, let’s say you were getting 4-6 hours of sleep a night before reading this article and now you increased it to 6-8 hours of sleep. Does this automatically mean that you are going to be getting better results, feel more alert and be healthier? Not necessarily. Just being in bed or even having restless sleep, even if it’s more than 8 hours, will not be sufficient enough to improve your quality of life. There are different stages of sleep, and the most important one for recovery is the stage of REM. For anybody with average healthy sleep, REM sleep accounts for about 20-25% of your nightly sleep. If we are restless sleepers or are constantly waking up, we are not be maximizing our REM sleep. 6 hours of deep uninterrupted sleep a night would be much more productive than 8 hours of sleep where you are constantly tossing and turning. Now that we know that deep sleep is key to maximizing our recovery and results in the gym, you may ask yourself, how can I maximize this state of recovery? It is crucial to have certain rituals in your day and pre-bed to maximize the quality of your sleep! Here are 8 tips that will help you get better sleep, thus greatly accelerating your fitness goals!
Our body was naturally made to effectively get restful sleep. Unfortunately, the pace of life in modern society along with many other factors has greatly impacted our ability to sleep as efficiently as possible. This is why it is crucial to follow these 8 tips and try to maximize your time in bed. Remember, rest is as equally important for results as training and nutrition are! By Juan Rojas I go much more in depth on this topic in the book I have written about Jon Andersen's life. It can be found at: https://www.jonandersen.com/fuelthecycleofgreatness Think about a dream destination that you would like to travel to but have never visited before. You embark on the next plane, boat, car, spaceship, zeppelin, submarine etc. of your choice and go out to this land that you have always dreamed of being in. Once you get to the closest airport or wherever else your mode of transportation is set to arrive, you are dropped off and left on your own. You do not know the language, you do not have access to a map or a GPS, and you do not even have a compass on you! You know that your desired final destination is only a few hours away, but you have no idea how to get there and didn’t plan properly prior to your trip. You might be able to get a few locals to understand you through hand gestures, drawings and playing charades. At this point you might feel like you are making progress! Only problem is, there was a misunderstanding between you and the locals and now you are in a place even further away from your destination. After many hours of walking in circles, you finally are able to reach your destination because you stumbled upon an internet café. Here, you were able to sit down and properly put in the research of how to exactly get to your destination. The important part is that you arrived, although, how much better would things have been if you could have saved yourself the hassle and stress of being lost for hours on end in an unknown potentially dangerous place? This is similar to what happens with people and their dreams. They have a certain dream they want to achieve but never really take it further than the thought of: “It would be really nice to be there.” From time to time they will work slightly towards reaching this dream but they have no direction and are completely lost. The individual gets discouraged and ends up going back to their mediocre life where they live comfortably. A select few might one day reach it, but it may them a lot longer than needed if they did not maximize their resources. We want to turn our dream into a goal and that is done by setting a timeline for it! The first step towards achieving a goal, will be to research how long it realistically takes to get there. Once you do this, you must evaluate your personal life and commitment towards your goals in order to set a date of when exactly you want to achieve this goal by and what specifically you can measure your ability to reach this goal with. If your goal is simply “I want to be successful and rich”, it will be much harder to achieve as this is not clearly defined and has no timeline. Something like “I want to feel happy and spend more time with my kids, drop 20 lbs. of fat and make an extra 25% on my income by this time next year” is a much more clearly defined goal with measures and a timeline. Picking an attainable clearly defined goal will be a key factor in your success. Clearly define your goal and write it down somewhere where you can see it daily. Doing this to even the minutest details will allow you to see it as a reality. Meditation can be a great tool as well in order to enhance this as it will show you clarity as success is approached. Visualize yourself in the place where you want to be, as this will help you get a preview of the positive feelings you will encounter when you get there; this can be a very powerful motivator. Clearly defining your goal will also be the first step in reverse engineering. Once you have defined your ultimate goal, I want you to write it down at the bottom of a sheet of paper. Now, write down at the top of the sheet at what point you are currently in this journey. Begin from the bottom of the sheet and work your way up on the necessary steps you must take in order to get from where you want to be, to where you are at now. If you are unsure of the steps, researching the internet, reading books, and seeking out individuals who have done something similar to what you want to do will be of great value to your success. For example, if there is an individual wanting to become a commercial airline pilot, the steps might look something like this: Obtain a bachelor’s degree--> Train and obtain private pilot’s license-->Log 250 flight hours under different weather conditions--> Pass Federal Aviation Administration tests-->Become a co-pilot for a well-respected company--> Obtain career as commercial airline pilot Once you have reverse engineered your journey to success, make sure to constantly reevaluate where you are standing in your journey. Once you have all these steps written down, your goal turns even more realistic by becoming a plan. Now that you have steps that will show you exactly how to reach the end result, it makes it much more real. This plan can constantly be changing, but ultimately will lead you to the success you seek. Begin by setting a time frame that you will give yourself to get to each step in your journey and devise a plan on how you will get there! Here is a step by step guide on how to turn a dream into a plan: Step 1 Find an appropriate gauge to measure your progress towards your goals. In this situation perhaps make it a routine to spend a minimum of 15 minutes every day without electronics or distractions and do some sort of activity that is getting you closer to your goals. Jot down on a calendar every day that you are successful with this new daily task. Step 2 After some time has passed, gauge what your progress has been in the last one, three, six and twelve months as you strive towards your goal. Check for trends on where your progress was accelerated and determine what caused it. Perhaps the first 3 months you were able to do this specific action every day, but after this, it started becoming every other day and your quality time kept diminishing over time. Step 3 Be honest and ask yourself, are you happy with the amount of progress you made? Could you be spending more time dedicated towards achieving or accelerating this plan? Maybe all the activities you have going on in your life can be cut down and a few extra hours a week can be dedicated to invest more time into your plan. Step 4 If the answer to being able to progress at a faster rate is yes, then you must research and pinpoint what is holding you back. Determine what you must do in order to keep an accelerated rate of progress. Step 5 Once you have compared the research, look for trends in your results about what makes sense to you most. Here you can determine how variable factors will affect your progress. If you can find what has worked for you best under certain circumstances, stick with it. Write down what seems to be the best scenarios in order for you to progress. For example, you find that when you go to the gym at night you tend to socialize more and feel tired. This means that you must make an effort to go to the gym early in the morning before work. From this you can gather what methods in your lifestyle are crucial for you to maximize your results. Step 6 Execute the plan and periodically check your progress to ensure you are getting closer to the end result. Having a dream can easily be turned into a goal by setting an end date. Having a goal can easily be turned into a plan by having appropriate steps to getting to the end result. There is no reason why you cannot live out your dreams with the proper research, resources, effort and work ethic. Make sure that you are giving 100% effort daily in everything you do in order to live a happy life full of rewards! Tags: nutrition, fat loss, motivation, goal setting, fitness, success, bodybuilding, powerlifting, macros, goals, weightlifting, personal trainer. |
Juan RojasWith the pursuit of achieving the best possible physique and helping hundreds of clients do the same, Juan Rojas has dedicated his life to finding the best strategies for transforming human bodies. Constant research, trial and error and continous education in the exercise physiology and nutrition field, Juan Rojas thrives off finding the most efficient ways to transform your body and live a happier and healthier lifestyle. Archives
January 2021
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