Fitness Routine

QUESTION : My goal is to lose weight. I understand all of the diet stuff and I figured out how many calories I need to eat per day to make fat loss happen. However, I’m also going to be doing some form of exercise 4-5 times per week. Some days will be weight training, other days will be cardio. Some days I’ll do both. My question is, am I supposed to eat back the calories burned from working out? For example, if my goal calorie intake is 2000 calories and I eat that amount today BUT also burn an extra 500 calories from weights or cardio, should I be eating back those 500 calories? ANSWER : I get a lot of questions about exercise in relation to fat loss. Tons of them. And if I had to guess, I’d say the 3 most common are: How much cardio should I do to lose weight? What type of weight training workout is best for burning fat? This strange “should I eat back the calories I burned during exercise?” question. I’ll admit that those first 2 questions make a...

QUESTION : I’m currently looking to lose about 30-40lbs of fat and I’ve already calculated my calorie, protein, fat and carb intake based on your recommendations. However, I understand that as I gradually lose weight, those initial numbers that I’ve calculated will no longer be right for me. So I was wondering, how often should I recalculate my calorie intake and adjust my diet to prevent plateaus and make sure I keep losing without having any stalls or setbacks? Every 1-2 weeks? Every month? After every 5-10 pounds lost ? I’ll do it after every pound if you think it will help. ANSWER : This is a good question. It’s also one that I get asked from the opposite point of view as well… meaning people who are focusing on building muscle (and are therefore very slowly gaining weight) and want to know how often they need to adjust their calorie and macronutrient intake upwards to keep things moving in the right direction at the ideal rate it should be. So,...

Okay, let’s get something important out of the way up front. If you came here thinking that the best foods to eat for weight loss are foods that will, in some way, burn fat and actually cause you to lose weight , then there’s something you need to know. That. does not. Exist. There is no such thing as a food that makes you lose weight, a food that burns fat, or a food that will help with weight loss in any way even remotely resembling this . That silly myth is something I cover in detail in my article about Superfoods  and in my list of the 10 best fat burning foods . In reality, the one and only thing capable of actually making weight loss occur is a caloric deficit , which is the state a person is in when they are eating less calories than they burn (or burning more calories than they’re eating… just different ways of saying the same thing). When this happens, your body will seek out an alternative fuel source to burn instead. That fuel source? Your store...

And now for the most neglected aspect of weight training… NOT training . It’s a simple concept very few people seem to grasp or actually give a damn about to any degree. Yet, it’s a concept that will ensure you actually reach your goals, progress consistently, and prevent injuries. When I say it like that, you’d think this would be something at the top of everyone’s list of training components… but it never is. In many cases, it’s not even on that list at all. You see, I don’t care who you are, how genetically gifted you think you are, how “hardcore” you are trying to be, or how you just don’t feel any of this stuff applies to you. The honest truth is that it always does… probably more so than you’ll ever realize. In fact, I’d even go as far as to say that the aspects of NOT training ( rest/recovery , scheduled breaks, deloading, taking time off, etc.) are JUST as important as all of the aspects...

Do you want to know what the best weight loss diet plan is? I do not blame you. After all, if you do the “best” thing, you’ll get the “best” results. And when it comes to a goal like losing weight… everyone wants the best results . So, it makes perfect sense that you’d want to know which weight loss diet is the best one of them all. As it turns out, there are actually two accurate answers to this question, and I’m going to give you both of them right here in this very article. I do have one warning, though. This first answer will probably annoy the crap out of you… There Is No “Best” Diet Plan There it is. My annoying, frustrating, last-thing-you-wanted-to-hear  answer. It’s the kind of answer that makes people think “ugh, screw this guy… I’m going back to Google to find the answer I need.” that is unfortunate, because  this is the answer you truly need. Like it or not, there is not a...

The holiday season is upon us once again, and that can only mean one thing… Time spent with loved ones. Awesome presents. Weight gain. Between Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Festivus, New Year’s Eve/Day, and whatever other holidays you might take part in, this is the time of year when we are around tons of yummy food and we are all virtually guaranteed to eat it. And with that eating, comes overeating . And with that overeating, comes weight gain . The question is, how do we avoid this inevitable outcome? Better yet, how do we stick to our ideal diet during these types of situations so we not only avoid gaining any weight, but maybe even somehow manage to successfully lose weight? Well, in order to answer this question, there’s an important fact you need to understand first… The Myth Of Holiday Weight Gain There are approximately 3500 calories in one pound of body fat . That means, in order to gain a single pound of fat, you’...

If you haven’t noticed, it’s the last week of the year, and that means every diet/fitness guru on the planet is in full “rah-rah” you-can-do-it mode writing about New Year’s resolutions and repeating the same annoying crap you hear every year at this time (“do not wait until January 1st… start today!”). And while that stuff is all cute and fun (and if you find it helpful, then by all means use it accordingly)… I’m not going to be participating in it at all . Why? Because this week also marks the end of the first full year that this website has existed, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned over the last 12 months, it’s that the regular readers of AWorkoutRoutine.com are better than that . You’re smarter, more dedicated, more motivated, more interested, more focused, more prepared, more helpful, more constructive and just all around better than what’s “typical” in the diet and fitness...