For many years we were told to avoid eating fat if we didn’t want to get fat. We turned to foods brandishing the “low fat” label and gobbled up more and more processed foods which actually contributed to weight gain. Recent studies have debunked the eat-fat-get-fat myth and have shown that all fat varieties (sans trans fat) can and should have a place in your diet!
Fats play a major role in our bodies, forming our brains, nervous systems and cell membranes. It helps to manufacture and balance hormones and transport fat soluble vitamins like A, D, E, and K. “Healthy” fats help to reduce the risk of heart disease, stroke, cancer, as well as lower LDL (bad cholesterol) and raise HDL (good cholesterol). Fats also provide energy to the body.
This month focuses on increasing unsaturated fats like omega-3 fatty acids, in our diet You will be challenged to plan where your fats will come from each week, and then, armed with your fats list, you’ll hit the store to stock up. On action days we will try easy ways to boost our fat intake or swap one fat for another.
Flex your intuitive eating muscle by not logging one day each week. At the end of the day, look back and see how you did. As always, check in with us on social media – show us your macro charts, nutrient breakdown or what you’re eating that day.
No challenge would be complete without some movement, so we’ve included finishers that you can do following a strength workout or for when you are short on time. They are short, but intense!
Team EM2WL would like to extend a warm welcome to our newest guest blogger, Andréa, from Andréa’s Protein Cakery! Today Andréa shares a high protein snack that will satisfy your sweet tooth!
Perfect for your Thanksgiving feast, a healthy, high-protein sweet potato pie!
To transform a traditional recipe into Sweet Potato Protein Pie, I made some simple recipe exchanges. Instead of using a traditional pie crust, I made one using almond butter and vanilla rice protein powder. It tastes great, and has the flaky crust texture you’d expect in a pie. And instead of sweetened evaporated milk in the filling, I mixed some vanilla whey protein powder with water. Easy! I left out the added sweetener here, but if you’d like a sweeter protein pie I suggest adding ¼ to ½ cup coconut sugar or date sugar.
With ingredients like these, you can enjoy Sweet Potato Protein Pie anytime!
In a medium bowl, mix almond butter with water until smooth.
Add in rice protein and cinnamon. Mix until combined. (If the batter is sticky, add a little more rice protein.)
Press into 9" pie pan.
Bake for about 10 minutes, then remove from oven.
Filling
Meanwhile, puree sweet potato with 1/2 cup water.
Pour into a bowl, and add eggs. Mix until smooth.
Combine with remaining ingredients (including the remaining 1/2 cup water) and mix well.
Pour into pie crust.
Bake for about 40 minutes, until the center of the pie is firm to the touch.
Let cool completely.
Top with cashew whipped cream (if desired, not included in macros) and enjoy!
Note
Makes one 9" pie (8 servings) Per serving: Protein: 14g Carbs: 10g Fiber: 2g Sugar: 3g Fat: 7g Calories: 162
I don’t know anyone who doesn’t enjoy a good night’s sleep. But for some, getting 8 hours sleep has become an unaffordable luxury, taking a back seat to what are perceived to be more important tasks. Sleep is now just an afterthought where we simply ‘get by’ on a few hours for as long as we can before finally crashing or we play catch up on the weekends. Many of us don’t know or minimize the role sleep plays not only with our fitness goals, but our overall health. Racking up a sleep debt should be avoided as much as possible.
Your Body on Too Little Sleep
It’s important to understand what activities (oh, yes, things are happening) take place when we sleep to better understand why we need it in adequate amounts. During our deepest sleep, our muscles relax and our energy is restored. It’s during this stage that HGH (Human Growth Hormone) is released and tissue growth and repair occurs, including muscle development.
When our bodies are robbed of sleep we put our immune system at risk, impacting its ability to fight bacterial infections like the common cold. Short term memory, alertness and our decision-making ability decrease as well as our energy level. When sleep is missed long enough, it has been shown to be a risk factor for increased high blood pressure, heart disease, and type 2 diabetes.
How Sleep Debt Impacts Your Fitness
When we talk about fitness most likely the first topics to spring to mind are exercise and nutrition. Rarely, if ever, do you hear someone ask how much sleep they should be getting. Granted, when it comes to fitness exercise and nutrition are major factors, however when you are slacking on your napping, you put both your performance and nutrition goals at risk.
Hormone imbalances caused by too little sleep increase cravings for comfort foods.
Hormone Mayhem When our sleep is routinely shortchanged, our hormones get out of whack. Hormones like cortisol, the stress hormone, are elevated and can increase our cravings for comfort foods (aka high fat/sugar foods). Grehlin, the hunger hormone, is increased while leptin, the satiety hormone, is decreased. When you add that all up you have a sleep-deprived, comfort food-seeking zombie who can’t tell if they are hungry or full. Even the strongest-willed person can be undone in the kitchen when faced with that hormone brew. More often than not this results in an energy imbalance leading to weight gain.
Earlier we mentioned that HGH is released in large quantity during deep sleep. When that period is cut short, muscle growth and development can be impacted. What could be worse than giving your best effort in the gym yet only reaping half the reward.
Inconsistent Effort When the alarm goes off after 4 or 5 hours of sleep it is very tempting to hit the snooze button 2, 3, 4 or more times before you force yourself to get out of bed. Early morning exercisers will likely miss scheduled training to get a few more zzz’s. If you train later in the day it is probably equally as tempting to head home after a long day of work rather than the gym. String a few missed workouts together and you are bound to see an impact on your progress.
Injury Risk Decreased alertness means increased risk of injury. If you do happen to make it to the weight floor of your gym, your chance of getting hurt increases greatly with decreased alertness.
Poor performance Let’s face it, when you are dragging yourself around all day because you’re sleepy, it’s hard to be at your best and that includes when you’re training. When we give our bodies adequate rest, our hormones are better balanced which is likely to leave us feeling patient and even-keeled and with more energy.
Getting more shut eye
The Centers for Disease Control & Prevention recommends 7-8 hours of sleep each night. Establishing a bedtime routine can help with getting your mind and body ready for sleep. Here are some ways to increase your chance of reaching that optimal level of sleep on a regular basis:
Avoid big meals and stimulants before bedtime If you have trouble falling asleep because of tummy troubles, opt for lighter meals when it is close to bedtime. Digestion halts at night and occurs at a much slower rate than during the day. Limit consumption of stimulants later in the day which can make it harder to fall asleep.
Set regular sleep and waking hoursGoing to bed and getting up at the same time helps to regulate our Circadian Rhythm – the 24-hour internal clock that controls our biological processes. Don’t try to make up for missed sleep on the weekend by sleeping in. It throws off our internal clock, upsetting the regular sleep pattern our bodies prefer.
Dim the lights and shut off electronics Bright light delays the production of melatonin, a natural hormone which helps you sleep. Turn off the tv and silence electronics such as smart devices, which can impact getting a restful night’s sleep. Stay off social media. It gets your brain filled with information that’s not conducive to relaxing.
Find a comfortable temperature This tip can be a challenge, especially if you share your bedroom. The recommended optimal temperature range for sleep is anywhere from 60-67 degrees. While this will fluctuate according to personal preference, it’s a good reference point. Temperature regulation is important not only for comfortability purposes but because it also is closely related to our biological clock and circadian rhythm.
Wrap up
Next time you think about putting sleep at the bottom of your list of priorities, think twice. While some mornings it may be tempting to crawl out of bed to hit the gym after a poor night’s sleep, you may be better off catching those extra zzz’s. Sometimes skipping that workout to sleep reaps more benefits than dragging yourself to the gym.
When it comes to general health and fitness, sleep can be a game changer. Too little quality sleep increases risk factors for poor health conditions as well as impact your fitness progress. Sleep is fundamental to leading a healthy lifestyle. Start prioritizing sleep to keep progressing on your fitness journey.
Russell Forrester puts the criticality of sleep into perspective with this great TED talk. If you still think you are doing just fine on a few hours sleep, you’ll want to watch this.
At EM2WL we make a big deal about eating sufficient protein to maintain and support muscle growth (a key factor to keep your metabolism revved up). While fiber does not get as much fan fair it is also very important to consume an adequate amount each day. It’s not news to most of us that fiber is great for keeping the pipes clear, but what may be news to you is that when it comes to fitness, fiber can also be an ally.
Whole foods like apples (skin on!) provide fiber as well as other nutrients.
Understanding Fiber
Fiber is contained in plant-based materials such as fruits, vegetables, nuts, whole grains, and legumes. Because our bodies can not digest fiber, you’ll often find fitness folks talking about net carbs, subtracting the fiber from total carbohydrates. When we talk about fiber we usually just refer to it as, well, fiber. In actuality, there are two forms of fiber: soluble and insoluble. Soluble fiber, as the name suggests, dissolves in water and insoluble fiber does not. What’s important to note is that each type of fiber reacts differently in the body.
Soluble fiber, forms a gel in the digestive tract and, as it moves through, picks up some fatty acid along the way which aids in lowering cholesterol. It also slows the absorption of sugar in the blood, keeping blood sugar levels more balanced and reducing the amount of insulin released. Great sources of soluble fiber include chia seeds, oat bran, peas and legumes.
Insoluble fiber, while it doesn’t dissolve in water, it does absorb it. Think of it as a sponge, soaking up water, excess nutrients, metabolic waste and cancer-causing carcinogens as it moves through the intestines. Insoluble fiber helps to get the bowels moving keeping constipation at bay. Great sources of insoluble fiber include wheat, corn, oat bran, nuts, and the skins and peels of many fruits and vegetables such as apples and pears.
Fiber can also be categorized as dietary or functional. Dietary fibers are found naturally in foods while functional fibers have been isolated and extracted from foods and added to processed foods. Dietary fibers from whole foods include additional nutrients and vitamins so make them your first choice. Functional fibers are for filling in when you are falling short on your fiber intake.
Beans, seeds and whole grains are a great source of fiber!
How Fiber Aids Fitness Goals
Removes metabolic waste High intensity workouts result in the metabolic damage (good thing) we so desire to bring about physique changes. During the recovery process, metabolic waste is generated and needs to be removed. When not removed, the waste can be reabsorbed into the body (bad thing), adding stress to the body. This stress can impact growth hormones and ultimately your fitness progress. Think slooow gains. To minimize this re-absorption, eat sufficient fiber to aid the removal process.
Bulk, bulk, bulk Ok, you know we like to get our bulk on! But when it comes to fiber, we’re talking about the kind of bulk that leaves you feeling full..longer. As mentioned above, fiber expands in the intestine and imparts a feeling of fullness while also slowing down digestion. This can be especially helpful when switching between diet phases, especially a cutting phase, where you’re eating at a deficit, and might be missing those extra calories!
Increased satiety Closely related to the fullness you feel from the bulk is a feeling of satiety. Following fiber consumption a GI hormone, glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1), is elevated. GLP-1 signals satiety and suppresses appetite, making you feel more satisfied and less likely to overeat.
Boost fiber in sauces by adding pureed veggies like zucchini or squash!
Increasing fiber
Fiber can be increased easily by including more fruits, vegetables, seeds, nuts and legumes in your diet. Having a serving at each meal will help you reach the recommended amount of 25-30g/day. Until you are meeting your needs from dietary fiber, be sure to include functional fibers to make up the difference.
If your current fiber intake is very low, increase your intake slowly, giving your body, specifically your GI tract time to adjust to the increased amount. Because fiber pulls water from the body, drink additional water, especially if you are not already drinking sufficient amounts.
Increase your fiber with these easy tips:
Add beans to a salad, pasta, or rice dish
Add chia or flax seed to smoothies, oatmeal, yogurt, cottage cheese baked goods
Spread nut butters onto sliced fruit for a delicious snack
Use spinach or kale as a salad base instead of iceberg lettuce
Swap bread crumbs for ground oats or whole grain cereal
Include a vegetable or fruit with each meal. Tip: Keep it simple with steamed options
Raw veggies like celery or carrot sticks, sliced peppers or tomato make great snacks
Add chopped vegetables and beans to chilis
Puree vegetables or beans to thicken soups or stews
Wrap up
Including both soluble and insoluble fiber in your diet will aid in lowering cholesterol, regulating blood sugar and reducing constipation. Dietary fibers also include nutrients and vitamins and should be prioritized. Functional fibers can be used to help increase your daily consumption. Because of fiber’s bulking and satiety producing properties, it can aid your weight loss goals by helping you feel full and satisfied, which is particularly helpful when eating at a deficit. Fiber also helps to remove metabolic waste produced during your training, preventing re-absorption which can affect fitness progress. Gradually increase your intake to avoid discomfort and be sure to drink plenty of water!
Kiki has been bugging me for a while now to write about my weight loss and fitness journey, so here I am finally getting the courage up to writing it. I say courage because in the past year I have come to realize quite a few things about myself that I was ashamed about for a long time and have finally come to be able to face the truth. Yes, I too (as many women do), suffer from binge eating disorder (BED), but let me start at the beginning of my journey, because I couldn’t always admit, or understood that this was going on.
Upon turning 40 (4.5 years ago), I was very unhappy with my body and weight and the fact that hiking was getting hard for me. I live in Arizona and hiking is one of my husband and my passions, especially at the Grand Canyon. Well, it was a trip to the canyon that finally snapped me into reality and made me make the decision to do something about my weight that had ballooned to 185. I am 5’7” and 195 was the highest weight that I had gotten to in the past, so I was closing in on that number again! I decided to give online weight watchers a try and had (what I thought) was great success, after all I dropped 45 pounds in about 4 months! Of course, I quickly hit a plateau and continued to increase my exercise, while sticking to the very low “points” that weight watchers was allowing me; rarely to never eating back my exercise calories that continued to increase with my cardio/calorie burn obsession!
After about a year of weight watchers, I decided not to renew my contract and to switch over to MFP, where I discovered that there was a whole group of Cathe Friedrich obsessed women out there. For those of you unfamiliar with Cathe, she is a workout DVD genius and my guru! I had been lifting weights with her DVD’s along with her cardio DVD’s during the whole weight watchers process. It was a breath of fresh air to meet all of these women with the same workout commitment that I had. Well, long story short, I got hooked up with Kiki through other mutual Cathe/MFP ladies and started to read her blog posts and watched her YouTube videos. This is where I first got hooked up with EM2WL and started to realize that the health industry has steered us women in the wrong direction when it comes to “losing” weight.
After many conversations with Kiki, I was convinced and finally understood that eating really low restricted calories was always going to set someone up for failure, especially when it comes to losing weight and keeping it off and that the healthiest route was to eat to fuel your body and to lift weights, heavy weights! As I mentioned, I had been lifting weights all this time, but never understood why I was never able to make any progress in muscle development and that I had actually lost much of my muscle. Oh, and I should mention that during this plateau, I didn’t understand why every time I would feel like I made some progress I would fall into a binge tailspin. For 9 months, it was 2 steps forward and 1 huge binge step back. Every time this would happen I would absolutely loath myself and shame myself etc, but never understanding that it was partly my body’s way of telling me to “feed me”! (Of course there are also psychological reasons for the binging as well).
I finally let her convince me to do a metabolism reset after being at the plateau for a good 9-12 months and losing and gaining the same 5#. Silly me, I thought that I would reset my metabolism for 6 weeks and then start cutting again. I didn’t understand why after that 6 weeks I had gained a good 10# back and why when I started cutting it didn’t just fall right off!? After more conversations with Kiki and more research, she finally got me to understand that it wasn’t a number that I could assign to my reset, that it could and would take time, quite possibly a LONG time. She also convinced me to join a group of ladies who were starting STS (a 3-6 month Cathe weight lifting program), while bulking (eating above calorie requirement). She did warn me that I would gain weight and boy did I. I gained about 20# back, bringing me back to around 160. I was a little scared, as was my husband starting this process but new it was going to be for my good. After STS was finished I decided to try a cut. I lost some of that weight, but I could tell that my metabolism still wasn’t healed, so I started to eat at what I thought was maintenance and stayed there for a long time.
I should mention, that after I lost all the weight with weight watchers, I told my husband that I thought I wanted to someday compete in a figure competition. I had an unwritten goal of competing before I was 45. Well, I talked about this goal for about 4 years and finally, a (very devout Christian) friend of mine finally pointed out that maybe the fact that I kept bringing this topic up every few months, that maybe, just maybe God was directing me to actually go for my goal. I should mention that within all this time of weight loss and resets, I was born again (which is why she felt it was God calling me to this goal, for whatever reason). We both figured the reason was not because he wanted me to compete, but one much more deeply.
This conversation occurred in December of 2013 and around the same time, my husband got fed up with my talk and said that I needed to just do it! After much discussion with him and other women who had competed and a TON of prayer, God led me to an online trainer who came highly recommended and who was also a Christian. I signed a yearlong contract that began on January 27 2014 that included a nutrition and training plan, with the intention of competing on November 1, 2014. You are probably wondering how did it go!? It didn’t.
After starting with my trainer, I quickly started seeing results, not only in fat loss, but overall improvement in my cardio ability as well as muscle development. I couldn’t and still can’t believe the amount of muscle that I have been able to develop. So why did I not compete? As I said, I felt God had me on this journey for a much bigger reason than simply competing and as it turned out, it has been a journey of healing and learning about nutrition and coming to a place where I can finally admit that I do suffer from BED. Do I still struggle with BED? Constantly! Have I binged during this new goal phase of my life? Sadly yes, but with God’s help I am working on it and have only had 2 major occurrences in the last 9 months, which is a great improvement from binging every few weeks.
So, the reason I didn’t compete? Twelve weeks out from the competition date, when true contest prep would normally take place, I got a response from my trainer that I was not expecting. She felt that with my BED issues, that she could not get me to competition readiness without restricting my calories too much and with my ED, she knew it was the wrong thing to do. After much discussion with my husband, we both agreed that this is why I hired her and I should heed her advice.
We have now moved into a muscle building phase and the new goal is to compete in spring of 2015 and if I am still not ready, than winter 2015. Needless to say, I now know this is a journey of not only physical health, but mental and spiritual as well and I will take as long as I need to get to the point of competing. My mindset has changed from “I just want to be able to say that I did it”, to “I did it and I won!”
I guess I should add my stats for those of you who are wondering (I started tracking in July of 2012 and unfortunately don’t have pictures for the earlier dates):
July 2012: 158 (end of my second reset)
September 2012 (the start of STS and after a short cut): 152
March 2013 (end of my first official bulk): 164
June 2013 (end of my first cut): 150
December 2013 (during my second bulk): 154
January 27, 2014 (the start of my figure training) 25% bf and 154.5
August 11, 2014 (12 weeks out from competition) 18.8% bf and 134
October 27, 2014 (last check in with my trainer) 17.7% bf and 132
For many years we were told to avoid eating fat if we didn’t want to get fat. We turned to foods brandishing the “low fat” label and gobbled up more and more processed foods which actually contributed to weight gain. Recent studies have debunked the eat-fat-get-fat myth and have shown that all fat varieties (sans trans fat) can and should have a place in your diet!
Flex your intuitive eating muscle by not logging one day each week. At the end of the day, look back and see how you did. As always, check in with us on social media – show us your macro charts, nutrient breakdown or what you’re eating that day.
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