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What is Metabolism?

fat loss food health lifestyle metabolism nutrition Oct 22, 2019

The term metabolism gets thrown around a lot. But, what exactly is it? Rather than you spending hours trying to figure it out on your own, I'm going to make it simple here. Our metabolisms are very complex, but there are a few main ways to break it down to better understand what the term really means.

Metabolism is simply a sum of all the chemical processes that go on inside of us to sustain life.

We can look at our metabolism (very simply) as our TDEE, or our total daily energy expenditure. When you hear the term "fast" and "slow" metabolism, that is really just a low or high TDEE. Our metabolisms are not static. They change and adapt based on current energy balance (calories in vs out), hormones, micronutrient availability, and more. Let's go over the 4 components of our TDEE (what makes up how many calories we burn in a day).

BMR: This stands for basal metabolic rate and accounts for the calories burned just to keep you alive (heart pumping, breathing, etc). This...

Is Cortisol Really the Enemy?

fat loss health lifestyle muscle building Sep 24, 2019

Let's talk about cortisol! I'm sure you have heard the term thrown around everywhere. But, do you really know what it is or what it does? Is it actually as bad as people say it is? Let's take a closer look.

What is it?

Cortisol is a hormone released by the adrenal glands that is best known for being one of the body's main stress (or fight-or-flight) hormones. It also has many other functions in the body though such as controlling our sleep/wake cycles, regulating blood sugar, and more. Cortisol receptors throughout the body will utilize cortisol in different ways. So, yes..cortisol is necessary and actually a GOOD thing for multiple reasons. I'll get into why it turns "bad" later in this article.

We can think of cortisol and insulin as counterparts. Insulin tells our body that we have excess fuel available and that it needs to burn & store it. Cortisol on the other hand tells our body that we need more fuel and that 'things might be about to go bad'.

How does it...

10 Muscle Building Mistakes

fitness health Sep 17, 2019

When it comes to building muscle, many people are going about it the wrong way. You may feel like you have been lifting forever, but you don't have much progress to show. Muscle building is a science. We have to treat it as that. If you are doing one of these 10 things, you may be slowing or even halting your progress:

You always train in the same rep range.
- When it comes to training, different rep ranges provide a different stimulus to our body. Some rely more on nervous system adaptation, some on hypertrophy adaptation, and some more on metabolic adaptations. If you are always training in the same rep ranges, you will hit a plateau once your body has made those adaptations. Rather than sticking only to the "8-12 magic range", be sure you are mixing in some high intensity (low rep, high weight) training as well as some endurance training (15+ reps).
You switch up your exercises too often.
- A good program takes a bit of time to work. A lot of the initial...

Should You Skip Breakfast?

food health lifestyle Aug 22, 2019

I'm sure you've heard the saying "skipping breakfast is bad for you" or "skipping breakfast can slow down your metabolism". Listen here sis, I'm here to clear this up for you. Because it is all about context. Most fitness/health claims you hear are CONTEXT DEPENDENT. Meaning, depending on the situation, it could be true and vice versa. So, what about breakfast?

Here is the truth. It DOES NOT matter if you skip breakfast WHEN calories are equated. For example: if I was eating 1,800 calories a day to try and lose some body fat, whether or not I got those calories in through 3 meals beginning around 1pm or through 5 meals beginning around 9am, will not matter. So, what does that mean for you? Well, it's up to what works best for you and your lifestyle. The best diet for you IS ONE YOU WILL STICK TO. Say that 10 more times to yourself. Here are some example scenarios:

If you LOVE eating breakfast, there is no reason to skip it! Breakfast is probably one of my favorite times...

Why I Think Keto is BS.

food health Aug 09, 2019

Bold statement? I realize that. But hear me out. I'm talking about Keto in the sense of being a trendy thing. Not in the sense of its power for certain medical conditions like epilepsy or its use for certain endurance sports. Because there, I could argue for it!

Now that you are no longer offended, let me tell you why YOU (probably) shouldn't try keto.

Chances are, if you are looking to try keto...you are looking to lose weight. But let me ask you this. If you can't follow a simple diet plan, what makes you think a more restrictive diet plan is going to have a higher success rate for you?

"The best diet for YOU is one you can stick to."

Keto promotes weight loss for the same reason that ANY other diet out there does. Yep...weight watchers, Atkins, macro tracking, etc. ALL rely on the science of a caloric deficit to initiate weight loss. None of them are magic. So first let's realize that there is nothing inherently special here in terms...

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