by EM2WL | Feb 13, 2017 | Consistency, Diet Mentality
Article by: Ichel, of Team EM2WL
Let’s face it. We all think we’re special snowflakes. That certain rules only apply to others. That particular thing doesn’t matter if I do it or not. Yes, it might be how others got results but I’m different because…
They are called blind spots because we can’t see them. It’s not arrogance or rebellion. It’s a case of cognitive dissonance. We have been conditioned to think a certain way for so long, that to challenge it is to challenge our core beliefs. It’s uncomfortable. It’s scary.
My blind spot was protein. I walked the EM2WL walk. Increased my calories. Strength trained with periodized workouts. Got my fibre in. Got my water in. Increased my protein. Yet the old cliche of spinning wheels was happening. I was confused, frustrated.
My trainer pointed out that my protein was averaging 17-20% Well, yeah! I’m a vegan! The 30% rule can’t apply to me! It’s impossible to get 30% from plant-based sources!
Then she pointed out that actually, as a vegan, I should shoot for 35% as plant-based sources are digested differently to animal proteins. Wait. Whaaaaat!! From then, every question I asked got the same response.
Where should my calorie level be at?
How’s your protein?
Should I add in walking?
How’s your protein?
Am I doing enough cardio?
How’s your protein?
I had to face it. Head on. Time to pull up my big girl plant-based pants and get it done! I started having protein shakes for breakfast. Found a pea protein sausage and high protein bread for lunch. Adapted the family evening meal to be high protein.
It wasn’t overnight, and there were some disasters (hemp protein powder, bleurgh!) but I now consistently hit 250g protein per day.
Within a couple of months, I started to see body recomposition. Muscles had more definition. Recovery after workouts improved.
My blind spot had been removed! We will all have a blind spot somewhere in life. It can be the one thing stopping us from reaching our goals. So if you hear someone telling you the same thing over and over, it might be worth asking yourself if they are revealing your blind spot to you.
by EM2WL | Jun 14, 2016 | Increasing calories, The Journey
Thank you for considering me to share my story with the world or whoever will read.
My story has been full of ups and downs. A lot of trial and error, tears and a lot of frustration. But without that it wouldn’t have made me the person that I am today.
I wasn’t always a bigger girl growing up. I actually used to get made fun of for being too skinny. But, with time, I ended up putting the weight on and totally losing control of it. I ballooned up to 230+ pounds. My doctor told me I was getting close to being pre-diabetic. So I knew right there and then I had to do something about it.
And this is where the frustration began.
I started off doing weight watchers, and then moving to Curves, and then joining a local gym which I was not happy at. Didn’t help that I had no idea what I was doing. At that point in time I was frustrated with seeing no progress and decided just to give up. I was sad and depressed. Avoided looking in the mirror and was disgusted having to shop in the plus size in all the stores. Nothing that I used to wear fit. Started wearing men’s clothes because it would hide a lot of my shame.
Then in 2012 a Snap Fitness opened up down the street from me which ended up saving my life and kick started my love of fitness. I started going everyday nearly two or three hours and eating very little. About 1200 calories a day. Yup got caught up in that cycle. Sure I lost weight. And before I knew it I was under 200 lbs. Took me a few years to go from a size 24 to a size 12 but had been logging my food with myfitnesspal since 2011.
Then the nasty bought of plateaus hit.
Frustration grew.
I found eatmore2weighless through the forums on myfitnesspal and started to apply it to my daily routine. I knew that with the amount of work that I was doing that I was just simply not eating enough. For a few years I went back and forth from eating 1200 calories to 1700 calories. If I didn’t see the pounds move then I would cut cut cut.
Which brings me to a couple months ago (April 2016) when after all the frustrations finally piled up I said to myself that I’m going to start eating more especially with doing heavy lifting 4 to 5 days a week. Looking at progress pics I can see myself leaning out and toning up even though I’m the same weight as I was in September 2015. I’ve gained a lot of self confidence over the years and have done a lot of reading and research that I feel confident enough to take a personal training course so I can help others on their journey.
I don’t know where I would be right now if I didn’t find EM2WL. I look forward to see where this journey takes me.
Read more of Crystal’s journey here.
by EM2WL | Jun 6, 2016 | Team EM2WL, Testimonials, The Journey
I am originally from Brazil, but the heat and sun of Florida took my heart away over ten years ago. Being a stay-at-home parent to a teenager, a pre-teen and a toddler can bring in some new challenges when it comes to working out and eating healthy. Our home is a multicultural place, a melting pot of Brazilian and Arabic backgrounds in America, with different languages and foods. And yes, we love food!
As a teen and as a young adult, I was always average size, but in my mind I felt huge. I chased the scale number of my early teen years and believed that I could only be thin if I over dieted and overdid cardio. I tried WW, Overeaters Anonymous, weight loss pills, you name it. It would not work for more than a few weeks, I would give up and regain the lost weight. I battled bulimia and chronic depression (triggered by prescription weight loss pills) in my early 20’s and thought I could never achieve the body I wanted. Yo-Yo dieting made me believe that I needed to settle for less to be able to enjoy life. Why bother dieting if it wouldn’t work? I didn’t think there was another way of achieving the body and confidence I wanted. This mind set would always keep me unhappy and unsatisfied deep inside.
Losing a baby when I was 5 months pregnant in 2011, (my second pregnancy, we went through multiple in-vitro treatments) was the wake-up call that I needed to force myself to change. Trying to make the sadness go away, I started working out. As long as I was tired and sweating, I would not feel the pain of the loss. Soon I realized that I needed way more than 1500 calories and something other than cardio madness to live well.
Through research, I found out that I could eat way more than that to lose the weight and look my best. I didn’t need hours in the gym on an empty stomach! Lifting heavier became a part of me. After discovering the EM2WL lifestyle, I got my CPT certification with NASM, became a Cathlete and looked better at almost 40 than in my 20’s! I could have my cake and eat it too!
After trying to put on muscle through a bulk (a bold move that taught me that the number on the scale does not matter at all), I found myself pregnant. It took me 18 months of eating and lifting to go back to my previous size. What I learned with EM2WL helped me go through this pregnancy without worrying about what would happen if I ate to support it. It gave me confidence to do what was best for my baby and for me, it taught me that I that I could do it.
No more settling for less than I deserve! Happiness in my own skin is something that I was only able to achieve after realizing that I could enjoy eating and working out without any extremes, in a mentally sane and moderate way, following the EM2WL lifestyle. I conquered binge eating, food was not the enemy anymore.
Now I can truly say that I am happy and confident with the body I have and how I look. I am able to enjoy life, family time and food. The number on the scale does not define me anymore. Lifting weights gave me confidence to face life in a different way. Working out at home is a good time saver for me, after all nothing beats working out in my pj’s! My garage became my girl cave, where I can just zone out and enjoy the iron. Most of my ideas and decisions happen when I’m lifting. It helps me connect to my mind, body and soul. Taking care of myself makes me a better person, a better mother and better wife.
One of my goals is to share my passion on being healthy and happy with my children and other people, especially moms who have the same struggles and youngsters who are still so lost in this journey of self discovery and self love. There is a better way other than hating and damaging your body thin.
by EM2WL | May 27, 2016 | Cardio, Diet Mentality, Fat Loss / Cutting
Let’s talk about plateaus.
It’s likely that somewhere along your journey, you’ll hit one. You’re eating like you feel you should, and working out regularly. Yet for some reason, you’re not shaking up your body enough to invoke change.
Workout Plateaus
At this point, many people want to run to cardio as the answer. They get sucked back in to the Cardio Trap thinking, “if 30 minutes on the treadmill each day helped me lose a few pounds, then 60 minutes will of course help me lose even more. And if 60 minutes at a moderate pace helps me lose more, 60 minutes at a strenuous pace must be even better.”
This philosophy is a huge misconception. Even if it works initially, it can and most likely will eventually backfire. What happens when 60 minutes is no longer enough? Go to 90? 120? Do you REALLY want to work for 2 hours to get the same amount of results that you once got in 30 min? This is something to consider before you even consider falling down that rabbit hole:
“What happens when what I’m currently doing, is no longer ‘enough’?”
Because the time will come. Your body is amazingly adaptive, always seeking ways to bring you back into balance. It naturally wants to adapt to cardio, so that you can go farther on less fuel (burn fewer cals doing more…and more…and moreeeeee work).
That’s why lifting is my number one recommendation when seeking fat loss…even if you LOVE and adore cardio. (aka “cardio for fun, weights to transform”)
Your body also adapts to resistance training, by building your muscles – making you strong enough to carry the same load in the future. This means that when you hit a lifting plateau, you also must make adjustments to your workouts. But these adjustments typically come in terms of weight amounts, not time. So you can still create changes to your body by increasing the challenge of the work load, without increasing your work time.
If you want to throw in a cardio workout or two each week for fun…because you enjoy it, that’s fine. However, be careful throwing in more than 2-3 intense cardio sessions a week (unless endurance is your goal). More is not always better, even if it “feels” awesome. Unknowingly, many ladies are putting far too much stress on their bodies and heading directly toward adrenal fatigue.
Going beyond a certain level of intensity need not be the goal of every.single.workout.
Diet Plateaus
Understand that the number of calories you consume is also subject to this adaptation, making you require less and less to achieve the same goal. Many people start with the absolute lowest number of cals, thinking it will get them to goal weight faster. What they find out instead, is that it gets them to plateau faster…with no way out.
As you lose weight, the amount of food you need automatically lowers for you. (Don’t believe me? Go punch in your stats here, and compare the food your body requires now, vs 5-10 pounds from now.) You don’t need to implement the “minimum food / maximum workouts” suggestions that society promotes – WAY before it’s time. That lifestyle will backfire and kill your metabolism.
It seems counterintuitive to eat more and workout less, especially when you’ve tried the opposite in the past and it seemingly “worked.” Remember…if it “worked,” you wouldn’t need to keep starting over.
Slashing calories, ditching carbs (or other entire macronutrient groups), fasting, or going all out on the treadmill for 90 minutes instead of 30 is not sustainable in the long term for many of us. If the method is not sustainable, it’s not maintainable – no matter how attractive the “results” are in the short term. Chasing down non-sustainable methods, is a huge setup for hitting the inevitable plateau, that much sooner.
We recommend a no-nonsense, slower approach, that helps you to achieve results that you can maintain long-term. Using the Hierarchy of Fat Loss, and incorporating periodized resistance training, provides built-in progressions that naturally keep you climbing toward your goals.
This is no fast fix, so the weight will drop slower than it may if you were on a fad diet or jumped right in to hours of cardio a day. So many people look for those temporary measures, and view them as the gold standard. Many will attempt this lifestyle, but ultimately decide that this way is taking too long and decide to do something drastic to make the process move faster.
Most of those people will end up back where they started, or worse. Quick fixes actually take you further away from your goals in the long run; leaving you impatient, uninformed, and ill-prepared for what it really takes to reach them.
by EM2WL | May 23, 2016 | Building Muscle, Fat Loss / Cutting, Q & A
A lot of people ask should an overweight person lift weights, or should they wait until they’re smaller. A common misconception is that the bigger you are, the more extreme measures you need to take (bigger calorie deficit, higher amounts of cardio, etc). The thinking is that you should wait until you look like the people that are lifting, before you join in.
Extremes are overrated. Don’t believe the hype.
Should an overweight person lift weights?
Cardio will help you lose weight, to an extent. But it will only create a smaller version of the body you have now, with all the same lumps and bumps in all the same areas. You will shrink, but your body shape won’t change. If you lift heavy; however, you will manipulate your body in such a way that it will not only shrink, but also change shape.
Now remember, the definition of heavy varies person to person. My heavy is going to be different from your heavy. The key is to challenge yourself, within your limits. You should be able to lift increasingly heavier as you progress through the different lifting stages. This is an excellent time to challenge yourself, lifting as heavy as possible — the bigger we are, the more power we actually have to push more weight. Challenging yourself by increasing weight will push your metabolism through the roof.
With lifting, you can actually get more done in less time because your body doesn’t have the same opportunity to adapt as it does when doing cardio. When your body begins to adapt, the only solution is to keep pushing it to the limit. A limit that keeps moving further and further away means longer and longer workouts. But when you lift, all you have to do is to increase the poundage. You don’t have to add more time to your workout. More productive in less time. Isn’t that something we all want?
So don’t be intimidated by the thought of lifting “heavy.” Heavy is relative, but you definitely want to start lifting as soon as possible. Start with what you’re able to lift and work your way up. Heavy two weeks from now should be different than heavy today. There was a time when 7 or 8 pounds was heavy for me! But I kept increasing, and in turn, I gained strength. If you don’t increase, your body will adapt, and stop changing. The initial toned look from your first few weeks of a new workout will become softer.
Your body needs the challenge in order to keep morphing into the body you want and deserve.
Looking for a new challenge to your workouts? Try out our EM2WL Training App!
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