Ask Away Wednesday: Your Fat Burning Questions Answered!
By admin
Happy Wednesday! I don’t know why Wednesday has a bad wrap, it’s half way through the week! To be honest I don’t know why any day gets a bad wrap, we should be thankful for each day.
Last night, I asked you guys what questions you have on your mind. And you didn’t let me down. There were some great ones! So what better way to answer them with an
“Ask Away Wednesday”
I love getting questions, so if you have anything on your mind fitness related go ahead and ask away! Ask here or over at the Facebook page.
How do you curb cravings and handle them before then turn into a crave binge?
Great question, I think all of us women can relate to this!
First, when you get a craving in your head, ask yourself… are you bored, or are you REALLY craving it? To find out take your mind off it for a bit by doing something productive (aka, not watching the television which will only make it worst). Go for a walk, do a quick circuit at home, fold the laundry.. anything to take your mind away from food. If when you’re done the craving comes back then:
Satisfy it. If you’re craving chocolate, eat 2 dark chocolate Dove bites. Craving salty? Pop some air-popped popcorn, Craving ice cream? Make some banana soft serve. There are so many ways to cave in and feel satisfied without completing giving into the crave.
If you don’t give in, then this is how binges happen. The more you think about it but avoid it the more likely you’ll be to go wild animal style with it.
What is the correct stretching protocol? Before or after your strength training? Also should you warm up with cardio before strength training or go into it cold?
Ooo, this is more like 3 questions… but I love it! 
This is something that will always be argued, but the most recent research shows that if you are used to stretching before hand that you should keep stretching before. If you don’t stretch before a workout, don’t start because it can actually stretch out the muscles and increase your risk of injury. But if your body has adapted to it, that risk isn’t as prominent.
Always stretch at the end of workout. Stretching post workout helps to increase blood flow to tired muscles which can help recovery as well as yield faster results.
In terms of warm up before strength training, hopping on a treadmill or other cardio machine before hitting the weights isn’t the most ideal form of warm-up. It’s great if your’e getting ready to do cardio but since you’re not you might get more benefits from changing things a bit.
The best warm-up is one that mimics the workout you’re getting ready to do. This will warm up the joints and muscles to prepare you for what’s ahead. For strength training, do body weight moves like squats, lunges, push-ups. We like to do 3 sets of 10 reps of body weight moves just to get the blood flowing, muscles moving and the heart pumping before grabbing for the weights.
How do you determine portions for each meal? I never know how much is ok.
What a great questions! Portion control is a problem for 99.99% of us. Did you know that cookbook portions have increased by 40% over the years!? That’s a lot of calories!
This one unfortunately can’t be answered easily because each food group has it’s own serving size. To learn what is ideal to eat, I prefer to show example portion sizes (see below).
Seriously, when I make my plate I think about these to know how much I should be giving myself.
I also love my food scale. I don’t use it all the time, but when I first got it, it really helped me understand how much a portion was for whatever I was eating. After a few times, I learned to be able to eye ball it without the scale. Definitely worth the $ 15!
What is the best food plan for losing weight and gain strength at the same time? I’m a competitive powerlifter, but I still have a lot of weight to lose.
First off, that’s awesome that you’re a competitive powerlifter! I would love to hear more about that!
Second, for a competitive sport, I definitely suggest speaking with a training coach or dietician to help meet your needs while help you lose the weight. I am guessing that with the high demand from lifting that you require/follow a high protein diet.
Make sure you’re eating the right types of protein and spacing them out throughout the day. Eating smaller meals more often really helps to make sure you a. get the protein you need and b. cut back on calories without starving.
For workouts, the best for improving strength would be heavy compound exercises (deadlifts, squats, bench, etc) as well as intervals. The intervals will allow for fat burning without sacrificing muscle (which steady state cardio can do).
What are the best foods and exercises to burn fat?
The best foods are the clean ones: plenty of vegetables, whole grains and lean proteins. Avoiding anything in a box is the first thing I can suggest. Getting nutrients from natural foods will help your energy, metabolism and overall ability to burn body fat.
A few of my top clean foods that you’ll always find in my house are:
- Avocado
- Kale
- Nuts (even though high in calories, study show that people who eat a serving a day actually lose more weight)
- Greek yogurt
- Brussel sprouts
- Chickpeas
- Lentils
- Old fashion oats
- Fresh herbs
- Frozen berries
In terms of exercises, the ones proven to help burn the most amount of body fat include full body workouts (not arms today, legs tomorrow). Full body, compound exercises use large muscle groups and there fore helps to burn the most amount of fat. In terms of cardio, interval based workouts are #1. They burn fat 5x faster than steady state cardio! For workouts, you should check out Fit Women’s Weekly!
I hope that helped answer some things on your mind! Seriously, gotta a question, let me know and perhaps this will be a regular Wednesday activity? Let me know what you think.
On a more personal note:
I have been feeling “off” for a few weeks now. I wasn’t quite sure what was going on and pretty much ignored my symptoms. Symptoms that included: more hair loss than normal, being lethargic, weak, unfocused, and just out of character.
Yesterday during the workout I did with Dan, I finally decided that I needed to figure out what was going on. I never get dizzy or feel sick during workouts, but yesterday I felt as if I was about to pass out… again, not me!
Here’s what I am thinking: I suck at taking my multi-vitamin. Like, really suck.
I think I might be low on iron and/or zinc from my vegan diet. So after talking with a pharmacist friend and nutritionist, I am going to up my iron from a supplement pill and then rely on my multivitamin (which I moved to the kitchen counter so I can’t avoid it). The supplement is just to give me a “jump start” to bring it back up.
- Have you ever been deficient in something?
- Do you take a multi?