If I had only one single dollar for every gal (and yes, guy) who’s come up to me over the past 17 years of my fitness and nutrition career, I’d be a very, very….VERY rich girl.
Do you think muscle weighs more than fat?
Are you scared to workout “too hard” or “too heavy” because you’ll end up gaining bulk?
Even if you know the “A’s” to the “Q’s” above cognitively, do you still deep inside go about your workout “carefully” so as to “not bulk up”?
In the video below I’m not only going to tell you, but I’m actually going to show you exactly what 5lb of fat looks like vs 5 lb of muscle.
Truth be told, as women, it’s damn near impossible to add muscle to your body, mainly because (unless you’re shooting it up), we just don’t have enough testosterone.
Also, add to that the fact that most of us live daily in a metabolic state of stress. This creates a catabolic chemical environment that makes it next to impossible to gain muscle (or lose weight for that matter).
So what do ya do?
1. Stop creating stress chemistry. How do you do that? Besides the basics of getting enough sleep; Chill the “F” out! Stop beating yourself up for “being overweight, not strong enough, not pretty enough, not successful enough, not having enough willpower, not following the exact perfect diet, missing your workout” etc.
2. Stop waiting to live your life to its fullest until you’ve reached your goals….live your life and all its splendor to its fullest…TODAY!
3. Start to be gentle and kind and LOVING to yourself….TODAY… (not at some random time when you think you deserve to start loving yourself… like once you’ve reached your “goals”.. that’s just freaking lame and it doesn’t work.
By doing all the above, you will immediately take your body out of a stress state (that creates fat storage and muscle loss), in to a relaxed state of being that helps you to easily release unnecessary body fat, AND puts you into an anabolic state of being able to keep the muscle you have and even add some of that precious magical metabolic machinery to your body.
And when you can do that, here’s what happens:
- Your clothes fit better
- You’re stronger
- You’re mentally sharp
- Your metabolism buzzes at a higher rate all day, therefore assisting in the process of decreasing unnecessary body fat
And Oh Yeah… #4: LIFT HEAVY WEIGHTS… MAKE YOUR WORKOUTS COUNT!
You’ll end up creating a ‘total composition change’, which means you may have lost 10lbs of body fat, but then put on 5lbs of muscle. So on the scale, that may only look like a 5 pound change, but in actuality… it’s a 15 POUND body composition change! Now THAT’S a strong metabolism! (and a very good reason why you want to know your body composition… not just your weight.)
Down below in the comments section: share with me:
1. I wanna know your beliefs (and questions?) about “getting bulky”. Does it freak you out to lift heavy weights?
2. I want you to share if you think you are living your day-to-day life in a stress state…and what you can to TODAY to start to change that.
Love your blogs, so motivated to keep going!