How To ACTUALLY Lose Weight This Holiday Season (Eat More, Get Lean) | Mind Pump 2462

it's the holiday season you know what that means everyone gets fat all right we're going to talk about today's episode inevitably how you can actually lose weight this holiday season look we've been training people for a long time and there is a strategy that is specific to the holiday season that is quite effective there's things you can do that not only prevent you from getting fat like everybody else but you actually get leaner and enjoy the holidays it's called shaming your family members that's right we do this big thing where put a pull of money together and then we bet the over under who's going to gain the most weight over the holidays and just a makeup embarrass no you know so I looked this the stats on I remember us learning this the this data and I actually looked it up to confirm it okay so I can't wait to hear this because I I've heard this reminds me of the how many calories is muscle burn like I've heard numbers it's repeated so many times you think yes it's been repeated and I've heard numbers from I think as low as 8 PBS to as high as like 20 something pounds so the average the average American gains between 1 to 8 pounds over the holiday season now here's where they get that number if you're uh somewhat fit then it's probably closer to one if you're not that fit if you're not working out you already have some weight to lose it's probably closer to eight or more so in other words the more un unfit you are the more weight you're going to gain the more fit you are the less weight I'm going to add one more factor to that like regionally where you're located in terms of like the how cold it gets that was a real thing when I was in Chicago was like you put on weight just to like survive yeah and now here's here's this is another interesting statistic this makes up for the weight that Americans gain during the holiday season makes up for roughly 50% of the total weight gain during the year now that's wild so if a person averages you know 10 pounds a year uh which is typically you see five to 10 pounds sometimes more a year 50% of that's the holiday season then the rest is spread out and the holiday season is considered I believe Thanksgiving to New Year's that's right yeah that's right they don't even count Halloween yeah Thanksgiving to New Year's uh uh where people which is really like you're talking about a month and a half yeah it's not a long time no so it's a pretty short period of time where people gain um uh quite a bit of weight and there's a few reasons for this when you look at the data and also just again uh you know we trained people for a long time by the way the the holiday season is why January Rush exists this is why the fitness industry knows us very well and it's not a secret anymore it used to be it used to be kind of this big hustle used to be this Open Secret in the gym industry that um you know come January this is when we're going to make uh all of our sales right um and we would talk about it and you didn't hear it uh spoken about in the mainstream well now it's it's everybody knows this everybody knows January um you know New Year's resolution this is when everybody starts a workout this is when everybody starts a diet but it has less to do with the fact that the year is just getting started and more to do with the fact that it follows this holiday season yeah where people yeah they really go off so they go off and New Year comes up and they're like that's it I'm going to try getting um you know back into shape by the way uh most people don't lose the weight that they gain over the holiday season so if it's a few pounds this keeps compounding yes um and again that that's where this stat I think is like that's the skewed part is like you you gain and then you never lose it and then the next year you gain it again and so that's how it ends up being like way worse after just a few years of of of not diing or and and the heavier you are the more gain the more weight you gain so it gets worse every year theoretically based off of that right um now there's a few different reasons why this happens one reason and you kind of talked about this Justin is that people do move less because of the weather MH because the weather even in in in nice uh places California like we have nice weather for the most part here but it's still colder still rains a little more um and of course the context of living here is for you it's bad weather I know people in the midwest are like shut up but I know but you still see this here even in California people it's enough to people that normally go out for a walk outside it's they're raining so they don't so well and you know human behavior we're always looking for an excuse or a way out of like doing hard things so you know that's just a factor it's like if it's cold if it's darker than normal it's like well that's a deterrent that's actually a good point too it's also darker way earlier too so I mean that's I mean I even noticed my own patterns yesterday right so yesterday we had the we turned back the clocks and uh you know I I didn't realize like how late I actually barbecue during the summer I'll barbecue all the way till like 8:00 p.m. at night like prepping for the week on Sundays and and there's football going all day so it's like a great day I'm barbecuing I'm watching football it's like I'm outside I'm cleaning the yard playing doing stuff it was dark by five last night I was like oh [ __ ] I there a flashlight wrapping up my last bit of meat and I'm like oh I'm not going to stay out here and keep growing so I'm then I'm now indoors at 6:00 where normally I'd still be outside moving around yeah and and there's probably an evolutionary um explanation for this too you know we're not great in the dark um we're quite vulnerable to Predators so probably some evolutionary thing where it's dark I mean look I don't know about you guys but even I instinctually when it's dark and cold want to come inside and bundle up and want to watch a movie and want to sit around you know with my family even in the days of fires which you don't see people using those anymore it was still like hey let's start a fire and let's just sit around the fire and kind of relax so people just generally uh move less they're just less active um during the winter season except for winter sports but even that doesn't offset what we're talking about um you also have more food-based uh celebrations celebrations in general are food-based right if you look at and this is actually a good conversation people in the the fitness industry often times communicate food in such ridiculous ways that the average person can't connect with like they'll say things like food is fuel right no it's not it is but it's also a lot more than just fuel we connect over food and we celebrate over food and there are if I were to tell youal yeah and if I were to say hey give me top three foods that you eat at a birthday party or foods you eat at Thanksgiving or foods you eat for Christmas like there are foods that are dis Foods at a baseball game Foods yeah Foods when you watch a movie there's Foods we've connected a lot with experiences and experiences and a lot of our celebrations um revolve around food and enjoyment of of food and connecting over food so now you have these big celebrations um and you're going to eat more food or be exposed to more of these different types of foods and for many people a lot of people don't talk about this the holiday season is also a little bit stressful for a couple different reasons one is uh you got to buy gifts for Christmas that stresses a lot of people out with financial issues the other part A lot of people don't talk about is being around a lot of their family and so what they how people tend to eat when they're stressed is they tend to eat more or they tend to to reach out for foods that are more comforting uh which is you know AKA um more palatable right so if you're feeling a little stressed or anxious you more likely to reach out for foods that are hedonistic uh or flavorful so you have that in the mix as well and then finally alcohol um if you look at the average person who doesn't drink they drink on the holidays you know this is another thing like and alcohol is not a calorie-free food no uh alcohol has seven calories per gram if I'm not mistaken so it's pretty calorically dense and alcohol also contributes to more calorie consumption because of its effects on the brain so um alcohol does affect the parts of the brain that um like the executive functioning part of the brain so you're less in you're less inhibited this is why you tend to make stupid decisions when you drink this this is also why you know when you tend to think to yourself like I probably shouldn't eat that that'll hurt my stomach or I probably shouldn't eat that cuz it's not healthy well you get drinks yeah few drinks and you're like let's go this is why those those late night you know drive-throughs are get so popular it's like people coming home from the club or whatever make those bad decisions honest question about uh alcohol Justin this is proposed to you sure um and I say that just because I think that if you were to look I mean uh all of our like extra calories that are wasted that we each have Sal potato chips I'm ice cream you're probably a drink y would would you agree oh yeah that's right okay so when it comes to the holiday season do you do you personally see a tick up in the amount of alcohol you consume or is it consistent throughout the year what you would say um I would say there's it's inner intermittently ramped up so you know you you could literally point to like um Christmas Eve Christmas and then like New Year's Eve those are definitely ramped up like I will admit you know I go a little heavy-handed in those days uh and it's really it's it's a communal kind of like social family event yeah uh so instead but what I try to do with that is like you know lower the amount of treats and and other things that kind of get in that in that way but at the same time there's just so many factors to alcohol too it interrupts your sleep yeah like there's a lot of Downstream effects that are negative to it that I do experience I was just curious because I I wouldn't consider myself like a really consistent Drinker throughout the year it's I'd say it's pretty sparse but in the holiday season you have a few yeah I definitely kick it up I I so I was curious if someone who was more consistent throughout I almost never drank I almost never I drink I drink no alcohol year round I mean you could probably I can count on one hand the amount of times I'll drink alcohol throughout the year and most of those are during the holiday season um that's when I'll tend to have yeah a drink or two yeah so now the average person who does drink will have more um and and it's again it's it's just extra calories and you brought I mean you said it very well the downstream effects of alcohol consumption um also contribute to weight gain because you're less inhibited so you're more likely to eat the foods that you probably wouldn't you're more likely to overeat inflamed inflamed it affects uh hormones negatively it affects your sleep negatively which by the way one of the fastest easiest ways to ramp up cravings for hyperpalatable food is to have a a poor night of sleep y this is just uh what ends up happening there's also something to be said too because what you brought up on to start this with is you know 8 to 12 pounds uh on the scale right but there's also another compounding effect that happens when you drink your calories is you also underc consume your protein intake you disrupt sleep you consume extra calories you don't hit protein intake many times and so not only do you potentially put on some body fat but many times you also lose muscle cuz that's also too A lot of people during holiday season you're probably less consistent with the gym than what you were in the peak of the summer so your your your volume of training is reduced whether it's dramatically reduced or slightly reduced people often times don't work out or not at all right so then you don't you don't exercise you drink more calories than what you would normally normally drink because you're drinking those additional calories they end up replacing calories that would have probably been in protein and so you not only put on pounds on the scale which are probably body fat you also potenti mus lost a little muscle I was just thinking of like some of the actual cuz it's like cocktails you know like it it changes like the way that I drink and it's like if you've ever had like an eggnog cocktail look at the amount of calories you're it's insane oh three of those like 1,000 calories yeah and it's so easy to drink and so to your point of like you know consuming through drinking calories there's egg in there oh my God no gets away from you really Qui the reason why I brought that up cuz again I'm in the stage again of tracking and it's already really hard for me to hit protein if I were to drink 1,000 calories and I love like eggnog alcohol drinks and stuff like that especially around the holidays and that's the type of stuff and if I were to drink at all during the year it would be like a straight whisky bourbon type of deal right it's not I'm not making it like some you know thick eggnog or coffee dessert drink like I would in the holidays so I do think that there there's actually uh there's even worse things going on here that even what you're highlighting is that if you reduce volume of training in conjunction with poor sleep in conjunction with uh you know higher calorie and not hitting your protein ttin that's not only a recipe for putting body fat and weight on the scale it's also a recipe for losing muscle hey this episode is brought to you by intera skincare they make peptide best based skincare products that are extremely effective go check them out click on the link below to get a discount all right back to the show well so again um if if the average person gains let's say six pounds let's just go in the middle here six pounds they're not they're not counting the the one or two pounds of muscle loss right so it's actually more by the way they do work out l i mean look we all we worked in gyms for most of our careers this is already a self- selection bias of people that work out in gyms right let me ask you guys this a GH how much slower it's a is the gym during the holiday season it's uh you're looking at 50% of the normal traffic that comes in not just new people wanting to sign up but just people who have memberships workouts yes in fact for Trainers for trainers and fitness professionals you had to figure out strategies to maintain your sessions because your clients would cancel November and December is yeah rough to to keep them coming in and keep that volume up that's right so the strategies that we all learned as trainers and coaches uh over the years um around this are ones that are tried and true because as trainers we had to figure this out we had to figure this out for our client so you know we trained people for a long time and our passion which still is this way our passion still is helping people through our expertise which is uh Health and Fitness Nutrition and exercise and this was a problem to solve this I I this was distinctly I remember this distinctly being a problem to solve there were a couple problems was how do I get my clients to stay consistent and how do I prevent the inevitable drop off weight gain loss of of of Fitness during the holiday season and then help people so that when they come back in January it doesn't become this kind of rebound thing which then results in people quitting later as well I mean the majority of people that start back up in January quit a couple months later and so the strategies we're going to discuss today are tried and true these are the ones that we found to work very well so we'll start with the first one which is and this I took me a long time to figure out because remember when I trained clients I train clients in a gym or in my studio it wasn't until I figured out how to get my clients to be consistent with their workouts at home that I really figured out getting them consistent overall because I was always trying to get them to come see me see me at my studio see me at the gym and I realized as a trainer if I could just get them to stay consistent period end of story with their workouts everybody's going to win and so I started to incorporate at home more convenient workouts they were less likely to leave their home they maybe traveled more maybe they had people visiting so they don't want to go to the gym because someone's visiting but they had 30 minutes in the morning to work out or whatever so I figured out workouts at home and now all these workouts all these workouts were geared towards building muscle why because I knew the additional muscle and strength with offset the additional calories that they were going to inevitably consume in the holiday season so it was really effective strength training workouts that were convenient at home that is the key here I like this one because I was late to the party um it wasn't until and people that have been listening to the podcast and from the early days I was the the huge gym Advocate and was like oh yeah I'm not big yet working out at home it wasn't until I think our partnership with PRX did I ever invest that was the first home gym that I ever invested in up into that point I was always somebody who was training uh at the gym and preached the same thing for the same reason you said I want my clients to come in and see me it was it it was good for my business to have them show up and and train the hours um later on uh was when I got a gym in my own home and realized like oh you know what like the power of and not only like training to build muscle like you said but even giving yourself the permission to just go out in the garage and do a set of squats totally like that was a that was a GameChanger for me was you know what maybe my workout training isn't as intense and focused and consistent as it is in the summer uh during this holiday season because I'm busy with family and doing other things and it's cold but hey you know what like because I've got this home gym I can go in there and go do two sets of lunges I can go do some pull-ups throughout the day like boy that made a huge difference in mitigating the damage that normally I would put on in the holiday this is this is when I got really good with teaching my clients how to utilize really convenient equipment like suspension trainers and bands m M this is when I made suspension trainers and bands a part of my repertoire for my clients because now you have a garage gym Adam so do I right and I love them I think that's the best thing if you could if you could do anything put a a a a rack in your garage barbell dumbbells like adjustable bench like you're set you can do everything in that however most people don't have that most people don't care to do that they don't have the space to do it whatever so get a suspension trainer which you you can hang it in any doorway yeah and you can do you know what of the beauties of a suspension trainer are it's appropriate for beginners and it's also appropriate for super Advanced just by the angles like I could change the angle and the tension uh positioning of a suspension trainer to where I could challenge the strongest person that I know but I could also adjust the Angles and and have you know my my my grandmother's sister do a couple exercises and get uh you know and get a appropriate workout so it's super adjustable super convenient and then bands bands are also convenient I can utilize different angles I could train and with those two things I was able to put together frequent short workouts for my clients yeah that they and it it kept them so consistent actually kept them consistent seeing me too because you guys know this if they're consistent they're consistent across the board and so the at home and and it was always strength training it was not now we did incorporate we'll talk about this later calor burning workouts which we'll talk about ones where we're trying to burn more calories but the main workouts were strength training because if they had muscle than if they had the occasional big meal they could burn it through their faster it's Game Changer having that accessibility at your house and really it's like relieving yourself of the idea that just doing one exercise is not as valuable as like a full workout what it does is it just keeps that stimulus alive it keeps your momentum somewhat sparked that spark is still there for you then to build off that even the next day you'll get this energy and you're like wow I can do more um and it it's sort of like just knowing that I can do that one thing uh my body is a lot more likely to want to keep moving and keep lifting things going forward versus me just like uh dismissing it I'll get to it tomorrow you know it starts getting colder and colder in terms of the amount of spark I have left I I want to go a little bit deeper on the point that you were making Sal because I was just communicating this to my family and it was like this aha moment for them that I guess I was like well maybe I can be better about how I at that or maybe I don't say that enough because it was such a surprise to them to to grasp how this works because their their idea or their attitude was like oh well we're effing it up drinking and eating all these all this extra calories anyways like why waste my time working out and I explained to them like there's there's let's let's take two scenarios um and you eat exactly and drink exactly the same right so you let's just say you will overeat by 500 calories okay whether that's through alcohol same right the exact same thing but in one scenario the day before you got the great workout in and in another cereal you didn't do any workout whatsoever those additional 500 calories some of those calories are going to get partitioned over to building muscle that we going to go to a positive thing for your body which then is only going to build more muscle speed up your metabolism and then your body can have even more calories in the future versus the other version of you that didn't work out those 500 calories all get stored as body fat and they're all like Blown Away by that that understanding and then the additional muscle speeds zipping metabolism which then makes it so that you can eat even more next time and not gain the body fat it's just it's a winning strategy but the key with this the key with this we're at home workouts because uh getting them to come to the gym is so much more challenging to the holiday season for a million different reasons do and doing it at home you could do it very effectively uh like I said now next is to walk after your meals especially after big meals now this is not because you're burning a lot of calories I want to be very clear it's not cuz a 10-minute walk after your meals is going to substantially burn a sign offset it or something yeah like oh I you know I just ate 1,200 calories I'm gon to go walk for 10 minutes cool you burn 50 calories that's not why you do the walk post post post pranal it's called postprandial walking after you after you eat or or flexing and relaxing your muscles after you eat to put it more more specifically reduces the blood sugar effect it actually makes the hor hormonal effect or the potential hormonal damage from eating far less in fact I'll give you two scenarios if somebody did a 1 hour walk every single day versus somebody who just walked for 10 minutes after breakfast lunch and dinner in other words they walked half as much but the difference was they did it post breakfast lunch and dinner the blood sugar effects from the second scenario the 10-minute post prandial walk are significantly better now why is that well when you eat food you you you you get this the sugar in your blood and it has to go somewhere well when you're flexing and relaxing your muscle think of it this way this is the analogy I like to use imagine a sponge getting squeezed and opened it's sucking up all that sugar as glycogen it it's literally getting shuttled into your muscle it's making your body more insulin sensitive in fact when you talk to uh longevity experts they say aside from strength training this is one of the best things you could possibly do for your insulin sensitivity is to Simply move in fact there was a study recently relatively over the last few years where they had people post pral so after they ate they didn't even get up and walk you know what they did they did heel raises while seated they didn't even they weren't even doing standing C they just did this where they just lift their heels and I think they did it for I don't remember how many reps they did it wasn't that much and you saw a significant difference in blood sugar now why is that important well if you stay insulin sensitive you're less likely to store body fat you're more likely to build muscle and you're healthier you are generally healthier this is called this is what will promote metabolic health or on the opposite side if you don't do this this is where metabolic dysfunction starts to recur hey sorry to interrupt look I have a free guide that teaches you how to lose fat in three steps just three steps that will burn the most amount of body fat help keep it off this guide is totally free we're giving it to everybody right now if you want it click on the link at the top of the description below all right back to the show this also by the way blood sugar spikes and drops also ffect your behaviors so when you get these ups and downs and blood sugar you're more likely to have cravings you're more likely to have energy crashes you're more likely to have anxiety you're more likely to have sleep disturbances that come from the food that you eat this is especially important for big meals you have that big Christmas dinner go for a 10-minute walk now here's the the the additional plus side of this I love this part right here I'm about to say I love because I'm a big family person I have a big family I love family I think there's so much value to the holidays for connecting with people I invite people with me on a walk after meals and everybody likes to join for some reason and it's not like a let's go run it's like hey everybody want to go on a walk and I have like 40 people will join me and we go on this nice and it's a 10-minute walk after eating and everybody's getting this healthy effect but I also get the simultaneous benefit of connecting with my family so this was actually something that I had for our notes and our our qua and I didn't bring it up but it it's uh relates to this this point and I'm I'm kind of excited to go through this holiday season while in the middle of this tracking everything I'm doing one of the things I'm tracking now is I'm tracking my steps and I just recently moved to giving myself some sort of goal and it's nothing crazy I was averaging 8,000 or so steps a day so I'm the target is to hit 10,000 now right just a slightly up ticket and one of the things that I was just making notes uh as I'm going through this whole process of like man it's really wild uh when I when I have a simple goal like that it's not crazy uh I'm just being aware of it for makes me get up and do things that I probably wouldn't do had I not had that goal and so I love to give a client who's heading into the holidays we would figure out before they go in there about where they average in steps right and then I go you know what we're just going to try and do nothing crazy you know you average 6,000 we're going to go for 8,000 we're going to increase the steps just a tiny bit and you find throughout the day place is to insert those steps whether it be right after the meals because that's an ideal place to get it or first thing in the morning or right before you go to bed or these little or what I found myself doing is I make excuses to go clean the house or help my wife and and it's like it's stuff that's supporting us and supporting the family and also keeping our house clean and it's something like for example I did the car the other day I would nor pay someone to do the car instead now I wash the car because I needed more steps so why not go do something that I don't mind doing anyways and so you know I'm noting this down I'm going like man it's I'm such a better husband I'm a better partner I'm a lot of Downstream effects yes a lot of Downstream effects aside from that I'm trying to be healthier and fit and so I love adding that to this idea of walking after meals is hey why not even head in the holidays figuring out kind of what your average steps are and then just set a goal to hey I'm going to just uptick it a tiny bit you know yep but again I'm going to hammer this home if you do this after meals versus at other times even if the other times is more walking you're going to get more health benefits from the postmeal walk and it doesn't again it doesn't have to be much it's literally like an 8 to 10 minute walk this is a wonderful holiday hack especially because you could bring along family members with you all right next up this is my favorite what I'm about to say is my absolute favorite holiday diet hack hands down when you walk into the holiday celebration and you're looking at the food there are going to be meals that are high protein and there are going to be other meals here's what you do go for the high protein meals and eat those first that's it eat those first eat them until you're satisfied and you will generally eat less calories overall because you simply did that and you'll also simultaneously hit your protein targets which contribute to muscle and contribute to Fat Loss so you you hit like three birds with one stone I know Peta doesn't like that that's but you you you feed three bone uh Birds one SC that's right so literally you walk in the room this what I do I look at the meals and I go okay we got this dish that here's the protein meal I'm going to go get my plate and fill it up with that and maybe some vegetables first I'm going to eat all that first once I feel kind of like satisfied then if I have room I'll enjoy some of the other stuff and again that the when they do studies on this and you track people and I used to have clients track this I'd have them do this and track it but like you ate 300 less calories you ate 400 less calories and you had higher protein simply because you change the order of your meal you didn't even say to yourself you're going to eat less you just changed the order that's all you did you my my family gets mad at me for this one cuz I eat all the turkey and I eat it first but it's like it is it's always been that sort of a hack for me cuz load up you know get to the point where you're satisfied and then you know I'll get the cruciferous vegetables next and then I'll go for you know the jello that somebody made or the Danish or whatever the you know but you're just at that point you're just satisfied and I know that at least I have like the the building blocks the materials for me uh in terms of like you know the the actual nutrients get the nutrients first and then we can kind of play around it actually just naturally reduces the amount of stuff you're interested in th this is the most powerful tip by far and one that if you've never done not only do I urge you to uh practice this right now or implement this into the holiday season but try and keep this practice throughout the year I mean to me always I I think that if I had to put a number to how ful this has been for myself personally this probably keeps me a solid 4% maybe 5% leaner year round by just just practicing this rule I I would agree no other rules just simply yeah if you flip this and ate the protein last for sure 5% gain it is a it is a a game Cher on keeping you healthy and fit and there's something to be said too about the psychological effect that Justin was kind of alluding to is that I'm not going to tell myself I can't have the Danish I can't have the Jello-O I can't have the sweet potato yam I can't I can I'm going to say I can have it the apple pie I'm going to enjoy that but all I'm going to do is say I'm going to go eat what I need protein wise first and then however I feel will dictate how much that and what ends up happen is nine times out of 10 I get so full from that I either don't even want the dessert or I can have bites yeah have a bite or small portion of it and I feel plenty plenty satisfied and then this also mitigates what I said earlier about the the compounding effect of drinking too much alcohol for your Cal cies is you also are going to at least hopefully sustain the muscle so even if you didn't work out that day and at least you hit your protein intake and you don't completely atrophy and go backwards and so hitting your protein intake keeping you satisfied the psycholog this is by far the most powerful tip of all the tips totally all right next up I'm going to say this one cautiously because you can go too far with this but it is a viable strategy and that's to undulate your calories all right what do I mean by that well you got a holiday party coming up you can eat lower calories for two days leading up to it to offset the higher calories you're going to have uh on the holiday now I say it cautiously because you don't want to make this a restrict binge scenario where I'm starving myself only so I can go binge do this uh with kind of a judicious approach a little bit of a planned approach what I tend to do when I do this if I do this which I really do but if I do what I tend to do is I don't eat carbohydrates leading up to uh a holiday party and I do that only because carbohydrates are not essential uh whereas fats and proteins are so I'm not lacking any essential nutrients and then I move into the holiday party eat the protein first and eat the rest but this is what I would tell my clients to do as well is it's hey you know leading up to your your your Thanksgiving let's let's write let's let's come up with some ideas for some lower calorie days we'll keep them high protein and and then when you average it out and it's funny I've had a couple clients like clients who were willing to do this I didn't push this on people but I had clients at track and we would look at their averages and when they do this their averages for the calories were the same because they they came in lower a high they did have a high calorie day on the holiday but when we average it out which is how the body works it averages things out it actually came out to the same as the week before so it is a viable strategy for sure I I actually do what you do where I cut the carbs now before the main event right because I used to fast before I would go into the main event but then I found I was still having a hard time getting my protein intake yeah because I have so many grams of protein that I need to eat for like my daily my my daily I'm like okay if I weight all the way till Thanksgiving dinner and I don't have anything and then I try and cons I mean it's the 200 g yeah 200 gram of of turkey even is a lot of turkey to sit down and eat that in one sitting and so what I found is okay if I allow myself to just have like fats and protein leading up to that and so maybe I go in with say 60 to 80 grams of protein and then I load up on the protein and then I can eat whatever I want after that that's been a really good strategy for for keeping the calories down still hitting the protein intake and then also not telling myself I can't have yes now you've probably heard us say on the podcast before that just trying to burn a lot of calories with exercise is a losing strategy and it is in the long term but in the short term before your body adapts uh it actually is a decent strategy what I mean by short-term is like over a few week period so this is a good time to utilize high-intensity interval training for short periods to offset the calories now high intensity training Burns a lot of calories in a short period of time like a 20-minute hit workout will burn a as many calories as an hour hour and 20 minute other kind of or traditional workout now the best time to do these workouts is the morning of the holiday meal uh when they when you look at the the research or the data on continual glucose monitors when people do a hit workout that morning and then that later that that afternoon or evening they have their meal the blood sugar effects are largely blunted so this is a great time plus hit workouts are short so if you're like you got people visiting and you know you you you got limited time or whatever like a a 15 to 20 minute hit workout a real effective calorie burning weight hey sorry to interrupt look for the holiday season here's what we did we put together an atome workout program bundle Maps anywhere map suspension Maps hit all three of them together together for $999.99 click on the link below to get started all right back to the show now the challenge with this I got to say this is that most hit workouts are terribly Terri terbly programmed yes some of the worst what I mean by program for people don't know is the organization organization of the exercis how people do them it just become like they're so poorly programmed that you can just pick any five exercises do them as fast as you can and you've done an equivalent workout really well program hit workouts are in a completely different universe so if you do a hit workout make sure it's it's well programmed but nonetheless short hard workout Burns a lot of calories morning of the meal makes a big difference now the science to support that is is that because you expend so much and you're you basically dump the glycogen out of your muscles and so now you have all these stores for glycogen that are waiting to get Tak they're primed yeah they're primed to take on so then when you go oh you go eat, 1500 calories in one sitting a good majority that goes back to just filling your gas tanks back up before you over spill okay and then you then you add the compounding effect of that of you've also sent a signal to build muscle so that any additional calories that say over or go beyond the total you need hopefully get partitioned over into building this was my this was literally my my blueprint for clients during the holiday season they came out often times better than they did going in got some questions here the first one is what are the best holiday foods and what are the worst the best holiday Foods uhin all the meats the meat all the meats almost every every holiday like everyone either does hams Turkey right like those are all the big you know popular dishes around the holid I would say the meats and the vegetables are the best the worst are got to be the sweets you know all the pastries and pies and desserts um have got to be the the worst ones that I can think of I would say stuffing too right stuffing is is not great I mean a lot of the carb carb meals are bad because a lot of them are just like even like uh I mean you guys have your family do the sweet potato yams that are like covered in maple syrup and and marshmallow and stuff like that and there's like a lot of the carb dishes are just sugar and lot of extra we have sugar on everything like stick to the protein lit eat eat an abundance of and the gravies the gravies are off although delicious often just add a bunch of like you know not useful calories to whatever you're dumping them all over yeah um I have an aunt that makes she makes the best stuffing it's so good but it's literally just it's all bread and and starches and just you know you pour gravy all over and it's just this really crazy calorie bomb with zero protein there's so many jell don't know why you guys have a jell family yeah we're just Jell-o and marshmallow people yeah I wish we weren't I mean our Katrina's family does the all like you know ruins all the vegetables by putting bacon grease in all of it you know what I'm saying they cook all of it so there's bacon in all of them you know what else you know what else is really damaging I don't know if you guys do a lot of families do this mine does you have your big meal and then there's like a dessert table that stays out for the rest of the night yeah and it's like cookies and candies and pastries and pies and P see and here's the thing though and this this is to the point of if you just just know and this is where there's value to kind of tracking getting the idea of like what is what do I need for optimal protein so using me it's 200 Gams let's say going in and saying hey I'm going to let myself go have some of those pies tonight so long as I go get those 200 grams of protein first if I do that I don't even have that much of a desire to now if I undereat on protein then I and that appetite kicks up and that's my choice out there I could easily Crush 2 3,000 calories of pie and dessert so that's the that's the part you got to watch out for my weakness PE camp pie oh man if I ice cream on top of it vanilla ice cream on top done deal next question is which alcohol does the least damage straight straight straight alcohol vodka the lowest vodka is the lowest right vodka is the lowest Whiskey's not too far behind though not bad you know here's there's two strategies with alcohol uh in my opinion one reti what no that's not what you're say some people do that isn't it twice as strong that way isn't it twice as strong even recommend that people die from that yeah no I um the two strategies are I either drink to get the effects or I drink to enjoy the drink yeah I think if you drink to get the effects of the alcohol which is me cuz I don't drink the The Taste do it fasted then it's no it's literally your advice right now just abely true it's literally vodka and and and and soda water or seltzer with a little lime there's solo calorie I drink one or two of those I have a buzz um so that's that's the strategy for me so if you if you want it just for the buzz or just for social I mean period the best is just straight liquor if you're looking for the health healthy wise right it's the what kills people calories is the calories and the mix drinks is the eggnog that Justin brought up everything else is going to be riddled with sugar margar Coco cocoa Margarita peppermint snop stuff like that's you're just you got all kinds of calories just ice you know to to cut down a little bit of the harshness and you're good yeah I get stressed for Holiday par and fear of fat gain should I skip them no so what I don't want to communicate with this is that uh the value of the connecting with your family and of celebrating these these these holidays isn't worth uh the potential quote unquote damage look if you are healthy for most of the year you exercise relatively consistently you have a decent relationship with food you go to the holiday like you're okay and even if you're not okay even if you overindulge or whatever like it's one or two days like I don't want to cuz there are Fitness Fanatics like this where they go into the holidays and they don't even enjoy the holiday cuz all they doing is tracking their calories when am I going to get my workout and they miss out that's just as unhealthy just a different reason here here's the thing too if you actually if you actually follow this advice um and let's just say on top of that you really overeat you're not going to do you're not going to do nearly as much damage as you think you're going to do you're not putting 5 lbs of the fat on in from two days yeah from two days of of eating pumpkin pie and stuff days especially if you got the workouts in there especially if you hit your protein intake in there especially if you make those walks afterwards if you hit the tips that we're saying I would I would I and I I I hate to do this but I would if you were my client I'd say I'm don't worry go enjoy yourself and your have have your pie have yourself like that but go hit your protein intake take the walks like I told you get your little workout in with your bands like I told you to do and then enjoy the [ __ ] out of your food have a good time have a good drink this is why we stress building the body and building the metabolism so you have flexibility you know if you don't have that flexibility and you're paranoid about that that's a problem in itself totally now here's what we did right we have workout programs that are perfect for what we talked about we have a program called Maps anywhere that is a at home or anywhere based workout we have a suspension trainer based program which also just use a suspension trainer and then we have a high-intensity interval training workout program so all three of those individually over $100 each okay so here's what we did for this episode only for the holiday season only just this episode all three of them you get all three of them together combined for $999.99 or so for $99.99 you get maps anywhere map suspension and Maps hit all of those for this episode only all you got to do is go to maps november.com all right I know you like that episode if you did check this one out 30% body fat for men this is way too high this is actually a bit high for women as well so in today's episode we're talk about how you can go from 30 to 10 what is 10% body fat this is when you have a visible six-pack can you go from 30 to 10% yes it's possible but not if you guess along the way so we're going to talk about how you can do that in today's episode now there's a huge range right of like body types some people can run uh a little bit heavier uh and or a little bit higher body