Hi guys, Kris from Custom Fitness here, your personal trainer in Amarillo, Texas. Custom Fitness is a boutique style personal training studio providing customized exercise, nutrition, and lifestyle modifications to meet your needs. Today we are talking to you about looking beyond the scale and into the kitchen for your best body. SO many of Americans get caught up in obsessing over the numbers we see on a scale. Trying everything we can think of to make it read a specific number. Sound familiar? If you’re interested in some other options you might not have tried or just have questions about today’s post, give us a call: 806-322-3188.
The problem with fixating on the scale’s number primarily is because it causes you to have a really bad day. Our weight fluctuates. We are humans. Women tend to fluctuate anywhere from 5 to 10 pounds throughout a given day whereas men typically fluctuate between 5 to 8 pounds within a given day. We want to make sure that we’re not focusing on the wrong things as we’re trying to achieve the results we want.
The results we chase, often, are not wanting to weigh a certain amount. “I NEED TO BE BE 130 POUNDS!”, said no client ever in my experience as a personal trainer in Amarillo. Most of the time people want to lose weight, but if I prod them more, I learn they want to look better, they want to fit in their clothes better, or they want people to perceive them differently. Those goals have very different results than a mere number on a scale.
If I laid out three different scales all from the same manufacturer, same model, same purchase date, etc. Then I calibrated those three scales to the same amount and had them prepared the same way, it is very likely that you would get at least two, if not three, different weights from them. Each scale has some minor variation to it causing a variance in the read. Similarly, how dumbbells in the gym are not always the exact same weight. For example, if you had two Life Fitness cable cross machines one was a single stack of weights the other had a double stack of weights. If you set the single stack to 15 pounds and the double stack to 7.5 on both sides, you may notice something funny. If you lifted the 15 pounds, then tried the 7.5 pounds….you would think they weren’t the same weight, when the stickers say they are. This is because manufacturers are not rigorous in being exact across all of their products.
It is helpful to keep in mind that there are variances within machines (even if they are made by the same manufacturer; even if it has 5 star reviews from Amazon). A scale is merely a machine and with it comes its own deviations.
When you’re looking for your best body, you want to think about what it is that you want to change about your body exactly? Is it the muscle tone? Is it the extra wiggle and jiggle that we have? Is it the extra muscle that we want to build up? Is it just that you want to feel good in your clothes then look in the mirror and think “WOW! I look awesome!”? This is really the ultimate result. if you can look in your bathroom mirror and think, “this is what I’ve wanted to look like.”
How do we accomplish something like that? Exercise plays a big part of it, but a lot of people don’t want to listen to the professionals who constantly say that nutrition is 70-80% of the battle. I don’t want to jump on the bandwagon, but that’s honestly what it is. Nutrition is 70-80% of the battle.
If you are looking to transform, you have to step away from the scale and focus your efforts in the kitchen. The kitchen has to be a big part of it. I’ll give you a couple examples of this: recently, Custom Fitness hosted a 21 day detox program that is finishing up this week. We have had some great success with our participants. We had clients admit that they had been exercising their tails off up until starting a detox, but really never got into the nutrition part of it. They were eating healthy, sure, but they weren’t making it a priority. Once they were enrolled in the detox, they learned what to eat for their specific body and why. Here we are at 21 days later, and we have two people who have lost over 17 pounds each! That’s awesome! We just started measuring the participants today, so we don’t have more stats for you yet, but that’s 2 cases right there of people with loss all thanks to nutrition. We had other enrollees who didn’t lose as much weight, but shed between 10 to 12 inches. Think back to that bathroom mirror. The difference between the weight or inches melted off of you will be staggering in the mirror. You will see a huge difference when you employ nutrition as a tool over your scale.
The kitchen makes a big difference, so what is it about the foods that you’re eating when you’re focusing on nutrition that’s going to make the best body changes? You have to have the right balance of foods. We have to make sure we are getting all of our macronutrients. We are consuming them at the right times. We aren’t necessarily doing carb cycling nor the strict paleo diet, we aren’t even doing intermittent fasting. We are eating food when our body needs to have it. This way our blood sugar and energy levels remain stable and will increase your efforts that you are exerting. When you are at the gym working out or you are taking that weekend off or whatever that your your body still functioning at a very high level. Right balance of food at the right time is crucial.
Now, I will tell you another key part that people don’t want to hear. When people hear “eat more protein to build muscle” they think that’s great, they love protein. “Cut out carbs”, sure thing! Who wanted that extra slice of bread anyway? But when I say, “Eat more vegetables”, the room goes silent. The government when creating the Food Pyramid didn’t recommend enough vegetables. In order to see body changes you want to eat beyond the food pyramid. You want to eat (yes, I know this sounds crazy) between 5 – 15 servings of vegetables in a day. That is basically ½ to ¾ of your plate at every meal.
It sounds weird to American’s to eat vegetables at breakfast, but if you’re serious about your body changes it is one of the number one things that you got to change. It is easy enough to integrate into your diet, though it may take your palate sometime to catch up. You need to have about half of three quarters or plate being straight vegetables and then add the other portions in. Just eating salads all day isn’t going to cut it. We need variety, we need color differences, we need different foods nutrient wise, we need different serving sizes. We need to add a variety of everything to our plate in whatever form we can to get the most impact. The more colorful your plate, the more nutrition you’re going to get out of it. I have a nutritionist friend who uses the catchphrase “Eat the rainbow” to remind her clients to consume nutrient dense meals.
That is my big tip today. If you are determined to have a lifelong body transformation, you want to change your body into the body that you’ve always dreamed of, you got to start in the kitchen. Take your focus from the scale and into the kitchen where it belongs. Remember, the scale is just going to drag you down. If you need to get it rid of it because you weigh yourself every morning and your self worth stays there? Throw the scale away.
Want more tips of nutrition or not sure where to go with exercise? Take the first step and talk to one of our trainers about our many programs: nutrition, personal training, group fitness and more. We are ready to get you on your way to your goals. You can contact us at 806-322-3188 or info@customfitness.biz. At Custom Fitness, we are YOUR personal trainers in Amarillo, Texas. Happy cooking!