5 HEALTH HACKS FOR STAYING LEAN & BUILDING MUSCLE
How do you burn fat? How do you build muscle? How do you have more energy? All questions that I try and figure out everyday, because they’re important.
I try to make my content as practical as possible so whenever you read or listen to anything I put out, you can immediately take something away and apply it to your game.
Here are 5 easy health hacks you can take to help you shred fat, build more muscle, and have more energy to focus on what matters.
(1) Don’t Drink Your Calories
You should focus on getting your calories from food, not from what you drink.
I only drink two things: water & black coffee.
I have one cup of coffee in the morning, and one cup of coffee in the afternoon around 3 o’clock. Other than that, I drink about 1 gallon of water throughout the entire day.
When you simplify things and eliminate options, you get clarity. There is no purpose for all the unnecessary shit we’re being sold on: orange juice, lemonade, Diet Coke, Pepsi, Mountain Dew, milk, sweet tea, etc. Keep it simple and eliminate the unnecessary liquids.
“Life is really simple, but we insist on making it difficult.” — Confucious
(2) Understand The Low Sugar Diet
It’s already a well known fact that sugar is no good for you. We know sugar zaps your energy. It also makes gaining weight easy and burning fat hard.
In case you didn’t know the science, I will quickly sum it up:
- Sugar (fructose) causes insulin resistance and raises insulin levels in the body, which increases the deposit of fat in the fat cells.
- Fructose causes resistance to a hormone called leptin, which makes the brain not “see” that the fat cells are full of fat. This leads to increased food intake and decreased fat burning.
- Fructose does not make you feel satisfied after meals. This increases overall food intake.
- Sugar, with its powerful impact on the reward system, causes addiction in certain individuals.
The science is good and all but let’s talk about the history of mankind.
Our brains are a mix of old and newer processes that evolved at different times. The old brain is evolutionary older. It’s located near the top of the brain and stems to the back of the head.
The front part of our head is the new brain, which is a general-purpose learning and reasoning machine and a system that tries to control the impulses of the older brain.
The new brain is built to learn and where much of our logic comes from. It’s because of the new brain that got us out of living in a cave running from saber-tooth tigers to driving cars, flying planes, and going into outer space.
Ok, back to sugar:
The knew brain knows that prepackaged cookies are unhealthful, but your old brain can be quite insistent that they should be devoured. Many of them. With a cold glass of milk, please.
The old brain “knows” that sugar and fat are SCARCE and should be eaten when the opportunity arises. Back then, we didn’t know when our next meal could be. Thousands of years of evolution taught it that.
It doesn’t know that fat, sugar, and salt are now abundant and contributing to an obesity problem in the modern world. In contrast, the new brain knows that too much sugar isn’t good for you. But who are you going to listen to?
This understanding of the human brain and it’s relation to food should provide you with major awareness. Next time, you should be able to pull back off the junk knowing what you know now. The more aware we become, the better decisions we can make.
That’s one of the reasons I read a lot of books, to increase my awareness.
(3) Focus On The 90% and Do the Math
I hear a lot of people say in conversation, “Oh I eat healthy all the time but I’m not losing weight or I’m not gaining muscle. I’m getting no results.” Well, I quickly find out that the “I eat healthy all the time” part is really not reality.
One of my mentors told me this:
It’s not what you do 10% of the time, it’s what you do 90% of the time that makes a difference.
When it comes to diet, fitness, and anything beneficial, 50%, 60%, 70% of the time won’t get the job done. You can’t make an impact with that type of commitment.
You got to be hitting the 90% numbers. Let’s do the math.
“Numbas don’t lie, dawg.” — Jay Z?
Let’s say you eat 3 meals per day.
- 3 meals x 7 days/week = 21 meals/week.
- 21 meals x 0.90 = 18.9 meals
- 18.9 → 19 meals (round up)
Every week you should be eating 19 healthy meals and two (2) meals where you do whatever you want. That’s the type of commitment you need to get results. The hardest part will be building the habit, but the 90% will be 100% worth it.
This goes for everything by the way. Never forget the 90% rule.
(4) Lift Heavy While Decreasing Rest Periods
The first thing most people do when they want to drop body fat is start a cardio program or drop the carbs from their diet significantly.
Instead try incorporating heavier weights while decreasing the rest periods. Don’t buy into the higher reps for toning bull. Raising the weight on the bar or grabbing a bigger dumbbell will raise your caloric expenditure. This means it will help you burn fat around the middle.
Start lifting around the 4–8 rep range (3–5 sets). If you do not know how to properly execute the exercise, start with lighter weight until you drill down the technique. Then you can stack the bar.
(5) Know The Best Muscle Building/Fat Burning Foods
- Eggs
- White Fish
- Beef
- Chicken
- Asparagus
- Sweet potatoes
- Broccoli and cauliflower
- Rice
- Avacados
- Bananas
It would be ideal to have one or two of these foods in every meal.
Like everything else, you have to stick to the plan and be patient if you want to see the results. If you read everything above, you can see that this isn’t any earth-shattering information. This is all basic stuff and the results really depend on your commitment.
It’s not the big things that make a difference. It’s the little things done right over a long period of time that get you where you want to be.
That’s how winning is done.
BONUS INFORMATION:
Since you made it to the end, here is some bonus information on burning fat and building muscle:
Intermittent Fasting, Sleep 7 Hours, Daily Tracking, Meal Prepping, Full Body Workouts, Hydrating, Patience, Consistency, Goal Setting, Ownership, and HUSTLE.
Leave a comment below please!
Over & Out,
NITCH
