Nutrition can be a confusing world to navigate.

While the principles of nutrition are fairly simple, it seems like gurus everywhere have found the “secret” to shortcut results. In nearly every case of “fringe” nutrition advice, the guru has some product or supplement to sell. To help make sense of nutrition, here are 8 mistakes I see well-meaning gym goers make on a regular basis.

1. You’re asking exercise to do what nutrition is supposed to do.

Working out has a whole host of benefits for your cardiovascular system, longevity, sleep quality, and productivity but it will not give you the physique. Body composition is 80% nutrition and 20% exercise. Don’t ask exercise to do what nutrition does.

2. You’re eating bars, shakes, and juices.

I get it. We’re all busy. The convenience of a bar or shake is tempting and the marketing sure makes it seem healthy. Unfortunately, grabbing convenience items generally leads to a calorie surplus. Instead of drinking a smoothie, try chewing its individual ingredients. You’ll consume less calories. Which brings me to…

3. Calories matter.

This is where the bro science intersects with actual science. The first law of Thermodynamics states that, in a closed system, energy cannot be created or destroyed – only transferred or transformed. In the case of the calories you consume, they are transformed into fuel and transferred into your toilet. Of course you will feel better and have better micro nutritional intake if you opt for broccoli over candy bars. But, you’ll still gain weight if you eat 5,000 calories of broccoli a day.

4. Your diet has a name.

Humans have this innate need to label things. Paleo, keto, plant-based, counting macros, Atkins, and South Beach. I think it helps us make sense of and identify our place in the world. As a general rule, named diets are inherently unsustainable. Eating plenty of vegetables, lean protein, healthy fats, good carbs, and minimal sugar isn’t nearly as sexy as proclaiming “I’M PALEO” but it is certainly more sustainable. Inevitably, there will be treats in the office, holiday parties, and going out with friends. In each of these scenarios, you’ll “fail” your named diet. But if you eat reasonably and sustainably the majority of the time, there will be no failure when life happens.

5. You’ve done more than one “challenge”.

Related to #4 is the diet “challenge.” I’m not completely anti-challenge by any means. A good challenge, like a good approach to nutrition change, needs to involve habit. Want to do a 30-day “nutrition” challenge? Wake up 30 minutes early, go for a walk, and make your bed. This has nothing to do with nutrition per se but you’ll finish with better tools for sustained nutrition after a month of making your bed than you will living by a list of “good” and “bad” foods.

6. You eat Health Foods instead of healthy foods.

Ever hear someone say that eating healthy is expensive? Head to Aldi to buy some chicken breasts, broccoli, a bag of rice, and a bag of beans. How much did you spend? Around $20 for 8 meals is my guess. Healthy food is not expensive. Health Food is. Anything that needs a marketing department to proclaim a product’s healthy qualities is a gimmick to extract money from you. Steer clear.

7. Alcohol

I hate to be the bearer of bad news here. If you’re eating healthy, working out, but still not seeing desirable results you may need to look at your alcohol intake. Because alcohol is a toxin, your body will prioritize its metabolism over the burrito bowl you just ate. Translation: your food will turn to fat. The calories in the drink itself matter, but not as much as the metabolic interruption it causes. So drink what you like but keep it to 2 or 3 drinks a week.

8. Fruits are not vegetables.

We tend to talk about fruits AND vegetables as if they’re the same thing. From a nutritional standpoint, they absolutely are not. Well meaning people will gobble up tons of fruit thinking they’re doing good with nutrition, but end up in a caloric surplus (weight gain). Shoot to eat 4 cups of veggies to every 1 cup of fruit. Save your fruit for dessert and be sure to chew, not drink it (see #2).

Are you making any of these common mistakes? Fear not, you’re in good company. Armed with good information, you’ll be able to see past the bro-science, “health” foods, and gurus to make some long-lasting change.

 

Over the last five years years we’ve had the pleasure of introducing hundreds of people to working out, nutrition, and overall health for the first time. Of all the accolades we’ve received, I think the award for Kansas City’s “Best Workout for Anyone Who Hasn’t Worked Out in, Like, a While” is my favorite. Our goal has always been to bring outsiders into fitness. Fitness is confusing to navigate. Between the “gurus”, weird products, and bro-science most people remain on the fray. But, if you’re gung-ho on kicking off a workout routine, here are 5 mistakes nearly every beginner will make.

1. Too Much of a Workout Too Soon

I get it. You’re fired up to go out there and get after it. Maybe you’ve eaten your last full bag of peanut butter M&Ms and you feel some shame. Maybe you have a wedding coming up. Maybe you just got over a terrible break-up. Whatever the case, your feelings of motivation will inhibit your ability to take a sustainable approach. You’ll try to change too much and will lose those bubbly motivation feelings after about six weeks. My advice: Don’t even join a gym when you feel ready to start something. Just wake up 30 minutes earlier than you typically do, make your bed, and go for a walk. Gyms prey on these early stages of motivation and will lure you in with low monthly fees (plus a long contract and a “facility fee”… what the hell is a facility fee?) knowing full well you won’t be around in a few weeks.

2. Your goals are… well… bad.

• I want to get in shape
• I want to lose some weight
• I want to lose belly fat

I hear these all. the. time. What does that even mean? Most people tend to recite the goals they’ve heard from their friends or on magazine covers without pausing to understand what commitment is actually involved. Let’s take “lose some weight” as an example. Lose what? Water? Muscle? Fat? A limb? All of those things will result in lost weight. Only one of them (fat) is the type of weight you want to lose. So how are you going to measure that? Furthermore, do you know how much will be required of you from a nutritional standpoint? Are you willing to give up alcohol throughout the week? My point is that flippantly saying “I’d like to lose 20 pounds.” without having a conversation with an honest professional (if they can’t accurately measure body fat… RUN) about what losing 20 pounds of fat looks like is a guaranteed failure. My advice: Choose mini goals along the way; something that can be completed in less than 12 weeks. Things like: “get my first push-up” or “eat vegetables everyday” tend to be more attainable and allow you to feel victorious before your BIG goal is reached.

3. Too Much Cardio

Cardio is great. Cardio is important. But, if your workout plan hinges on long, slow distance training (25 minutes+ at a moderate pace) your fitness improves will stall at 12 weeks. Magically, this is where most people fall off the workout wagon. So, why is cardio so popular for beginners? First of all, it isn’t intimidating. Running is basically sped-up walking, right? The elliptical looks safe. I don’t want to head to the douche-zone with all the bro lifters. Secondly, cardio provides early feedback. When you first start jogging, biking, or hitting the elliptical you’ll probably see the scale shift a little. Yay! You lost some weight! But what did you lose? If it’s within a few weeks starting, you probably just lost some bloat; water. Next, you may waste some lean tissue (muscle), BUT THE SCALE IS GOING DOWN! After about 12 weeks, the scale stops moving as much so you lose motivation. Your attendance becomes spotty and you fall of the workout wagon. Now, you gain back all the weight you lost PLUS some. If your workout is over-leveraged in the cardio department, your metabolism will inevitably slow down. Not only do you need to burn calories during your workout, but you’ll need to do things that increase your metabolism throughout the day (this is when you burn the vast majority of your calories). My advice: Find a good coach or trainer to put together a program for you. The program should include a couple cardio sessions per week, a couple heavy lifting sessions per week, and a couple High Intensity Interval Training sessions per week. If you’re not hitting each of these, you’re missing out.

4. Not Enough When You’re Ready

The opposite of #1 is the “you’re doing great, but it’s time to step it up” principle. If you’ve made it to the 6-12 month mark of consistent workouts, you’re shifting from beginner to novice in the workout department. You no longer need motivation to hit a workout, because you’ve developed a habit. Don’t confuse habit with routine. Habits are great, routine is the enemy. In exercise science, we call this the SAID Principle, or Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demands. In layman’s terms – you can’t keep doing the same things at the same intensity, weight, and duration to continually see results from the workout. What’s the definition of insanity? Repeatedly doing the same things and expecting the different results. You must mix it up; progress to heavier weights, faster runs, and more intense intervals. Or another way of saying this: You GET to mix it up. Keep it interesting; “gamify” exercise. This will keep you coming back for the long haul. My advice: If you find yourself at that 6 month mark and your workout routines look pretty much the same each day, it’s time for a change. It’s important to recognize the difference between day-to-day variance and intra-workout variance. If every day, you’re doing intervals for 30 minutes from bike to rower to dumbbells to crunches that’s not varied. Yeah, you’re doing different things within that training session, but you’ll adapt to that stimulus pretty quickly. Now, if you do that interval one day and the next day you do a heavy set of 5 front squats – that’s variance.

5. You’re an Island

Here’s one thing I can say with absolutely certainty: No one ever starts a workout routine on their own and sticks with it for 10 years. No one. There’s one caveat: People that experience a traumatic event or health scare are able to do this. I hope this won’t be the case for you. You absolutely need a training partner, a coach, or a trainer. Change does not happen independent of outside influence. Every psychological behavior model of change has some type of interpersonal context around which participants have outside support. If you’re starting a workout routine, elicit some help. My advice: Don’t fool yourself – if you start hitting the gym solo, you won’t be at it in a year. If you are, you certainly won’t be abiding by the SAID Principle. Find a training partner and hire a coach together – you’ll typically receive a break off personal training rates. Keep each other accountable; start a text thread with some friends. Do it together.

If you’re just starting off in your workout routine, it’s important to go into it excited but aware that you’ll lose motivation quickly. Recognize which of these 5 mistakes you’re committing and make a quick course correction.

I was recently walking around downtown Philadelphia and saw advertisements for a “Toned and Shredded Yoga Class”.

Huh? Toned?

I couldn’t help but picture a group of super-yoked Brahmans flexing their obliques in their crude mirrors. I thought yoga was all about inner peace, meditation, mindfulness, and stretching. How could one get shredded doing yoga?

Then, I remembered my 15-year-old self hitting the gym with my first training partner. Every month we’d have a routine where we’d go to a nearby convenience store, flip through the Men’s Health magazines, and choose the routine that we’d do for the following month. I was always drawn in by two words: Toned and Shredded.

What was it about “toned” and “shredded”?

Some linguists may say that these words are onomatopoeic – they sound like what they describe. When said aloud, they can have very powerful emotional reactions. I want to be SHREDDED. Ladies, I’m sure you’ve said at one point or another that you’d like to tone up.

It’s time for a little transparency: I despise – with every fiber of my being – naming our specialty classes. I try so hard to be true to who we are; to educate the general populace about how their bodies work, how they build muscle, and how to lose body fat. But, the truth is, the science behind it all isn’t terribly sexy.

Case in point – our most recent Specialty Course was titled “Functional Bodybuilding and Hypertrophy.” Guess how many sign-ups we had? Two. After seeing the dismal results, we spruced up the branding with an Apple-inspired cool factor of “reps+sets” – all lower case because, well, 2017. The course completely filled up in a couple days. Was the programming or structure any different? Nope.

Am I a Hypocrite?

Maybe. But, I’ll always try to follow up the sexy “toned” and “shredded” branding with some education. Our hope has always been that, when someone comes through our doors, they’ll be armed against fads, gimmicks, and trends. In a recent episode of Tonos Radio, Sabrena and I explored sensational headlines and branding. We ask the question: “What factors contribute most to a toned and shredded physique?” We use a value system of 10 to determine the importance of various factors contributing to they way you lose fat and add muscle. Three factors all add up to 10 to create your pre-disposition to shreddedness or tone.

Genetics – Value: 6

Like it or not, your genetics play the greatest role in how you add muscle, where you lose fat, and how “toned” you ultimately end up. Your body doesn’t know that you’re participating in “Shredded Yoga” or regular yoga. Your muscle fibers don’t know that you’re doing a workout that promotes “long, lean muscles” instead of “short, bulky muscles.” Can you have a high bodyfat percentage and a 6-pack? Absolutely. Is the inverse true? You got it. This is not a free pass to throw in the towel. There are not many athletes I’ve met – even the highest caliber of professional athletes – who have bumped up against their genetic limitations. Chances are, you still have many facets of your life to optimize before you run into your genetics.

Diet, Stress, and Sleep – Value: 3.5

Second to your genetics, the way you eat, the way you manage stress, and the quality of your sleep will have a much greater bearing on how “toned” or “shredded” you become with a given workout routine. You could do a full year of Toning, Lean, Shredding, Lengthening classes but if you eat and drink like garbage, your body composition will never follow suit. If you have significant body fat to lose, you could do 20 cartwheels a day for your workout and improve your diet, stress, and sleep and see incredible “toning” results. Conversely, you could do 20 hours of Shredded Yoga everyday without changing the way you eat, stress, and sleep and see very minimal – if any – results.

Your Workout – Value: 0.5

Your workout is incredibly important for things like bone density, cardiovascular health, longevity, respiratory function, increased metabolism, managing stress, increasing productivity, and a whole host of other benefits. Your workout is NOT, however, terribly effective at drastically changing your body composition. Absent diet, stress, and sleep, your workout has almost no bearing on how “shredded” or “toned” you become. There are 4 things you MUST do in your workouts: 1. Aerobic training (20+ minutes of breathing hard), 2. Resistance training (moving heaving things), 3. Mobility & Recovery, and 4. High Intensity Interval Training. If you can check each of these four boxes a couple times a week, your workout routine is just fine. If you can’t check each of those 4, you’re likely missing out on results.

The Takeaway

Don’t be fooled by cool names. At the end of the day, your genetics play a much larger role in your “toned” factor than anything else. Your diet, stress, and sleep will get you “shredded” quicker than any dumbbell routine you cook up. So, where does this leave you with choosing a workout? Find something that has all four necessary components, is coached by an expert, has you constantly pursuing new skills and goals, and something that you’ll be doing for the next 30 years. In the meantime, I’ll keep trying my hardest to come up with sexy names for our classes.