It's Time To Get Ready For Spring Leaning!

It's time to get in gear. Spring is right around the corner.

You know what that means don't you? Time to put that washboard on display.

What? You are behind schedule aren't you?

No worries!

Then it's time to initiate spring leaning mode! In this blog post, we're going to bring out some of our heavy-hitters; tips to really get the metabolism fired up and fat melting off your body.

Ready? Let's go.

Lift Heavy

Most people that train casually shy away from lifting heavy resistance, but in reality, using heavy weights in resistance training can help you get lean faster than using light weights for a few reasons.

lift heavy weights

First, heavy weightlifting helps you build more muscle mass than light weights. Muscle is much more metabolically active than fat, which means that it burns more calories while at rest. What this means is that having more muscle can help you increase your metabolism and burn more calories throughout the day, which can lead to faster fat loss.

Secondly, heavy weightlifting can lead to an enhanced afterburn effect known as excess post-exercise oxygen consumption (EPOC). This refers to the increased metabolic rate and oxygen consumption that occurs after a workout.

Studies have shown that high-intensity weightlifting can lead to a higher EPOC than low-intensity weightlifting, which can help you burn more calories and fat in the hours and days after your workout.

Finally, heavy weightlifting can help you improve your overall fitness and athletic performance, which can make it easier to perform other activities and burn more calories throughout the day. For example, building strength and power through heavy weightlifting can help you perform better during day-to-day tasks you might shy away from, such as washing the car, taking the stairs or redecorating.

Use A Supplement

No- supplements aren't a means to an end. But what they do is that they make getting to the end much easier (if you know what you're doing).

With the dozens of supplements on the market, it's not difficult to see where confusion and indecisiveness stem from.

Ideally, an effective weight loss supplement needs to accomplish several things:

  • Suppress Hunger- Ingredients such as Caralluma make you feel full and reduce appetite.
  • Enhance Metabolism- Green tea and caffeine are gold standards at helping to increase metabolism and support fatty acid oxidation (fat burning)
  • Insulin and Blood Glucose Management- Chromium and InnoSlim play important roles in optimizing glucose and insulin metabolism.

While you can very well consume each of those supplements individually, who would want to take several pills daily?

That's why we've formulated Lean, our latest labor of love to help you achieve the body you are working towards.

Just 3 capsules taken after breakfast will help boost get your metabolism revved up and ready to burn some fat!

Carb Cycling

Most of us are guilty of having tried a low-carb dietary approach at some point in time. Chances are high that it didn't work out (but if it did- major props). How about an approach that doesn't completely villainize the intake of carbohydrates? Carb cycling might be what you need.

Carb cycling is a nutrition strategy that involves alternating between high-carb and low-carb days to optimize body composition and performance. The goal of carb cycling is to provide the body with enough carbohydrates to fuel workouts and recovery while minimizing the intake of excess carbs that can contribute to fat gain.

During high-carb days, you would consume a higher amount of carbohydrates to replenish glycogen stores and fuel workouts. During low-carb days, you would reduce your carbohydrate intake to force your body to use stored fat as fuel instead of carbohydrates. This can help you achieve a caloric deficit and promote fat loss while preserving muscle mass.

The number of days per week you should carb cycle depends on your individual needs and goals. Generally, high-carb days correspond with days when you engage in higher-intensity or longer-duration workouts, and low-carb days correspond with days of rest or light activity.

For example, a typical carb cycling plan might involve two to three high-carb days per week and four to five low-carb days per week.

However, the specific number of days and the number of carbohydrates consumed on each day will vary based on your individual needs and goals.

Carb cycling can also help regulate hormones like insulin, which is important for maintaining stable blood sugar levels and preventing fat storage. By alternating between high-carb and low-carb days, you can help regulate insulin sensitivity and prevent insulin resistance, which can contribute to weight gain and other health issues.

Additionally, carb cycling can be a flexible and sustainable approach to nutrition, as it allows you to enjoy high-carb foods like pasta, rice, and bread on high-carb days while still promoting fat loss on low-carb days.

If you are new to carb cycling, it's important to start slowly and gradually increase the number of high-carb and low-carb days as you become more comfortable with the approach, making it a very sustainable approach to leaning out.

Try Active Recovery

If you feel like a fish out of water on your rest days, then active recovery might be the thing you need.

Active recovery is a type of recovery that involves performing low-intensity exercise or mobility work on rest days to promote recovery and prevent muscle soreness.

couple jogging

Unlike passive recovery, which involves complete rest, active recovery involves light movement and can help increase blood flow and nutrients to the muscles, improving recovery and reducing soreness.

Active recovery can help you get leaner by promoting muscle recovery and preventing muscle breakdown. During high-intensity training, the body undergoes micro-tears in the muscle fibers, leading to muscle soreness and fatigue.

Active recovery can help promote healing and repair of these micro-tears, leading to faster recovery and allowing you to train harder and more frequently.

Additionally, active recovery can help promote blood flow and oxygen delivery to the muscles, which can increase nutrient uptake and help promote muscle growth. This can help you increase muscle mass and reduce body fat, leading to a leaner physique.

Active recovery can also help reduce stress levels and improve overall fitness, which can make it easier to perform high-intensity workouts and burn more calories throughout the day.

Examples of active recovery include light cardio, yoga, stretching, or mobility exercises. It's important to listen to your body and choose activities that feel good and help promote recovery without causing additional stress or fatigue.

Then there's the other major benefit of helping you utilize more calories on the days that you would usually skip physical exercise altogether, contributing to your weekly calorie usage targets.

Use A Kitchen Scale And Count Calories

Counting calories remains one of the most unnecessarily difficult bottlenecks in achieving the body you desire, but not because it is hard.

Sure, labels are fun and all, but what happens when you eat/ make home-cooked food? Enter the kitchen scale, a savior of man.

kitchen scale and counting calories

Using a kitchen scale to count the calories you consume can help you achieve your target weight by providing accurate measurements of portion sizes and helping you monitor your calorie intake more effectively.

This is because measuring portions by weight is far more accurate than using volume measurements, such as cups or spoons, which can vary widely depending on factors such as how tightly the food is packed or how level the measurement is.

When you use a kitchen scale, you can weigh your food and input the weight into a calorie tracking app or website to get an accurate estimate of the calories you're consuming. This can help you better understand your calorie intake and adjust your diet accordingly to achieve your target weight.

Using a kitchen scale to count calories also helps you to become more aware of portion and serving sizes. Often, we underestimate the amount of food we're eating, which can lead to overeating and weight gain by means of a caloric surplus. By using a kitchen scale, you can become more mindful of the amount of food you're consuming and make adjustments as needed.

Furthermore, using a kitchen scale to count calories can help you create a sustainable and flexible approach to nutrition. By accurately tracking your calorie intake, you can still enjoy your favorite foods while staying within your calorie goals. This can help you avoid feelings of deprivation or restriction, which can lead to binge eating or falling off track with your weight loss goals.

Consciously Use More Protein

Getting enough protein in your diet isn't really that hard. And yet, most people do not meet the requirements that a high level of physical activity demands. Protein is essential for building and repairing muscle tissue, and it's also a key nutrient for weight loss. Eating a high-protein diet can help you get leaner in several ways.

First, protein is more satiating than carbohydrates or fat, meaning that it can help you feel full and satisfied for longer periods of time. This can help you control your appetite and prevent overeating, leading to a reduction in overall calorie intake and weight loss.

Second, protein has a high thermic effect, which means that it requires more energy to digest and metabolize than carbohydrates or fat. This can increase your metabolic rate, leading to more calorie burning and weight loss.

Third, consuming protein can help preserve muscle mass during weight loss. When you're in a calorie deficit, your body may start breaking down muscle tissue for energy, which can slow down your metabolism and make it harder to lose weight. However, eating enough protein can help prevent this muscle breakdown and promote fat loss instead.

If you find that you are unable to physically eat enough solid food to meet your target intake (around 1g per pound of body weight), supplementing with a high quality protein powder such as Radiance will help out greatly.

Try High Frequency Training

High frequency training is somewhat of a taboo topic for many in fitness circles, largely because popular magazines and publications have "standardized" the approach of training a body part once every 7 days.

But what happens if you train them more often than every 7 days? Does your body collapse and disintegrate into a pile of mush?

high frequency 2x training

Not at all; in fact, you might just about double your results!

High-frequency weight training can lead to improved leanness by promoting muscle growth, increasing metabolic rate, and improving overall fitness. Specifically, training each muscle group twice in 8 days with a 3-day split program can be an effective approach for achieving these benefits, and can be utilized by the average Joe.

There are many ways of utilizing high frequency workouts. For instance, when you first started lifting weights, it wasn't unpopular to perform a full-body split 3 days per week (Monday, Wednesday, and Friday).

The major difference in this split is that workouts will be upper and lower body dominated. It also requires you to lose a lot of the fluff from your workouts, AKA isolation movements.

This approach allows you to train each muscle group more frequently than traditional weightlifting programs, which typically involve training each muscle group once per week. By training each muscle group twice over the course of 8 days, you can promote superior muscle growth and recovery, leading to faster progress and improved leanness.

Additionally, high-frequency weight training can increase metabolic rate, as the body burns calories to repair and grow muscle tissue. By training each muscle group more frequently, you can increase your overall muscle mass, leading to a higher metabolic rate and more calories burned at rest.

Final Words

It's time to shift gears and work harder, and smarter this year. By combining diligence with knowledge, your chances of success exponentially increase.

Of course, it goes without saying that you still need to follow and apply basic principles for achieving weight loss, but the techniques mentioned above can really make the difference and help you get where you need to go.