First, you need to know that nutrition is always going to “trump” your workout program. You can’t work your way out of a poor diet. That said, “abs are made in the kitchen” is all true.

Here’s what I think (feel free to disagree)… optimize weights and do as little cardio as you can get away with. Unless you truly LOVE cardio for mental reasons, in which case, do what floats your boat because it’s giving you benefits beyond weight loss. If you’re doing it JUST for weight loss, it’s a futile effort, so stop the madness. Do as little as you need to do to reach your goals and not a minute or mile more. Because here’s the thing, cardio breaks you down - weight lifting builds you up. This is the critical difference between these two work out modalities.

The biggest issue is with cardio is that the body adapts very easily to what you’re doing and then you have to do more, to get the same level of results. That blows. It also elevates hunger levels which means, you’re eating more, and therefore you’d need to do MORE cardio to negate the extra calories (and the math never works out). Cardio is not a tool or punishment for erasing bad food choices.

When it comes to weight-bearing exercise, you can lift weights or just focus on bodyweight exercises. The choice between those two options is largely dependent on your goals and your body type - ectomorphs should lift heavy weights, mesomorphs could get away with just bodyweight workouts.

Body weight workouts I recommend

Core de Force

P90X3 - does require some weights.

Piyo

Pure Barre

Physique 57

Weight workouts I love

21 Day Fix

21 Day Fix Extreme

Body Beast

A Few Nutrition Notes

Be smart with your carbs - if you’re going to eat starchy carbs, eat them around the time of your workout.

Have protein and fats in the AM. Leave your carbs for your workout period.

Don’t have 5 to 6 small meals a day unless you like doing that. Otherwise, do 3 square meals a day like your grandparents did, and limit snacking as much as possible.

Focus on veggies, proteins and healthy fats. After a workout, eat a carb and a protein (or Shakeology is perfect for a post workout meal) to get glucose into your muscle as soon as possible.

Aim to eat 30 grams of protein per meal.

You need healthy fats for muscle repair, healthy hair and nails.

Sleep is critical to muscle repair! Get at least 7 to 8 hours a night.

Got questions? Feel free to leave them below. I’ll do my best to answer them and as always, thanks for listening to the podcast!! 

Xo

---

Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/caren-magill/message

Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/caren-magill/support