Lean4Life
This course helps you to optimize diet and training for long term health and body composition. Body Composition for the Lifetime Athlete!
Introduction - Lean4LIFE!
Welcome to Lean4LIFE! This is a program that will help you to achieve and maintain your ideal body composition…throughout your lifespan. The predecessor of this course was a popular e-book that I produced a few years ago. It was called “Effortless Weight Loss” and I intentionally used that term because it resonated with what the general population wanted. But as my online coaching and performance enhancement services grew, many clients asked for an approach to body composition that was not just about weight loss. They desired a system that comprehensively addressed health, supported training and peak performance, and protected longevity. They needed a program that used an athletic view of healthspan. Something that was personalizable, and sustainable. A way of helping them to stay Lean4LIFE.
The first principle in Lean4LIFE is this: You should eat an Earth-Based Diet. At least most of the time. I’ve evolved this term over the past decade as I studied and tested myriad diets and philosophies. Zone, Paleo, Keto, Carnivore, Auto-immune, Anti-Lectin, Clean Eating, South Beach, Atkins…and many others. More recently the camps have chosen sides and we hear a lot of discussion regarding Animal-based versus Plant-based approaches to human nutrition.
One nutrition “expert” will say “calories don’t matter…it’s all about food quality.” Another will state “Of course calories count.” They are both correct and incorrect and their endless bulls**t debates are tiring. We’ve already established that we need to consume high quality food. Don’t need to go back there.
Here are two of the most commonly asked questions you’ll hear at the gym. “What’s yer bench?” “What’re yer MACROS?” The macronutrient composition of diet is a valuable consideration. If presented in alphabetical order, we’re talking about carbohydrates, fats, and proteins.
I like to be careful about the use of “always” and “never.” As in “you should always do this but you should never do that.” In training, diet, and most life practices we do well when we apply “it depends.” While this talk will frustrate some self-help productivity gurus, it is a very appropriate statement with regard to liquid calories.
The late and oh so great Tom Petty had a line in a song “You believe what you wanna believe!” This definitely rings true concerning supplements. That’s because the data surrounding supplementation isn’t entirely unequivocal. In fact, this section, perhaps more than any other, will require that we have an opended-minded discussion. Let’s look at a few things related to supplements and call them considerations more so than arguments. The topic challenges my beliefs and experiences and I imagine it does the same for you.
Have you ever taken a personality test? There are a number of them and such an inventory can sometimes reveal interesting information about your traits, tendencies, and preferences. I’m not going to suggest you go take a personality test right now, although it’s not a bad idea if you’ve never done one.
There are 2 key concepts in this section. Eating should be dining and that should be spread over 2-4 meals each day.
There has been considerable research on the relationship between circadian biology and metabolic function. As humans, we are diurnal animals whose daily rhythms are integrally linked to the sun. We rev up in the morning and wind down in the evening. Consequently, our digestive systems and metabolic machinery function best during daylight hours. You’ve probably noticed that you don’t have much of an appetite if you wake up extremely early in the morning. Or that a late-night meal wreaks havoc on your digestion and sleep quality. All of this is very well known.
Sleep is of crucial importance for both short and long term health. This point requires no elucidation. But it is certainly worth discussing sleep in relation to its value for bodcompopp.
If you’ve ever had the pleasure of working on a 60’s muscle car, or a Harley Davidson motorcycle, you’ll immediately recognize the importance of a properly idling engine. You have to carefully adjust the carburetor and timing to get that relatively smooth, low idle which keeps the engine running gently without stalling out. In the case of those combustion engines, you know when you’ve got it right because that completely delicious (Ho!) sound fills the air and your spirit.
Find your Goldilocks stress level. By this I mean not too high, and not too low. Stress is a fascinating component of human physiology. We actually need a little stress to get going, pump out some dopamine, and have reason to embrace the day. If we had no stress at all, in the form of some basic daily excitement, we’d be practically comatose.
Make your relationships not suck. That’s the best way I can say it. Harmonious relationships are additive, not detractive, to the life experience. When you get along swimmingly with yourself (that’s the first one to make right) and others, there is a powerful level of support and positivity that you experience.
Intra-workout and peri-workout fueling practices are quite valuable for The Lifetime Athlete. We can briefly discuss the before, during and after options which will be of use for performance as well as bodcompopp.
Meal planning is extremely useful for Lifetime Athletes. You can save money and make it much easier to make healthy choices throughout the week. Use a calendar and write down what you want to have for most of the meals in the week. Some folks like my wife, totally don’t mind having the same things quite consistently. I, on the other hand, crave variety and don’t like to have the same meal twice in a week. To each their own. Compromise in your relationship where you need to by making sure everyone gets a healthy version of their favorites from time to time.
Oh, I love the flex day! It’s been called the re-feed day and even the cheat day. I like flex because it connotes what we’re going after in Lean4LIFE. The flex day in our program is this: On one day per week, any day you choose, you have the option of eating anything you want, as much as you like, at any time of day. No rules. The beauty of the flex day is twofold. It enhances sustainability and provides a “reverse dieting” effect. We shall discuss both.
At some point, you’re going to want to know if all this bodcompopp mojo is working. You might jump on the scales. Maybe your scales use bioelectrical impedance analysis and give you a percent body fat reading. Watch your hydration levels as fluctuations can throw those results off.
Training and eating for body fat reduction revolves around the caloric deficit and the upregulated metabolism. We want to give the body every reason to burn stored fat. We definitely want a lot of that GDA, or step equivalents. For fat loss, I recommend a minimum of 15k steps per day, in addition to training output.
If cut, ripped, and shredded describe fat loss, then JACKED AND SWOLE are the targets of gaining. The challenge here is to send enough stimulus, through diet and exercise, to encourage the body to add lean mass, and not too much fat.
There are those times in the year, especially with good plan and program design, when we have a peak season. This is when major workouts get crushed and A-level goals get smashed.
The final component in Lean4LIFE, and bodcompopp, is the practice of seasonality. I view that in terms of an athletic year, and in the sense of an ancestral, calendar year.