Recently I interviewed nutrition and fat loss expert Erik Ledin on beginner and advanced fat loss strategies.

Craig Ballantyne: Okay. So let’s go back to some of the beginner changes. What type of nutrition plan or changes do you recommend to someone starting from scratch?

Erik Ledin: Let me preface this by saying I think that the most important thing when it comes to fat loss is not necessarily what you eat but how much you eat. One of the mistakes I just wrote about was the mistake of quality over quantity. In the sense that you can still overeat the right foods and fat loss is really about eating the right amount of food for your own body.

Like you can be eating “clean” but still not eating the right amount for your body to support fat loss. That’s the first mistake. So I always say quantity trumps quality.

But I think for a long-term success that people have to move from the dieting mentality to the lifestyle mentality which then means you have to start eating the clean foods and eating healthy and whatnot so I think learning to make good choices.

Lean proteins and a lot of fruit and vegetables and good fats like raw nuts and whatnot. I still think there’s room for good stuff because you can kind of just factor it into how much you’re eating and have planned off-plan meals.

I think one of the biggest mistakes that beginners make is that they think they gotta be perfect 100 percent and when they deviate by having one cookie they say, “That’s it, I suck. I might as well eat the whole bag.” And that one cookie’s not a problem. The whole bag is. It’s kind of an all or none mentality.

So I think it’s important even for a beginner to know how much they’re eating because otherwise at least if they want to kind of maximize the rate of progress if you don’t know how much you’re eating you can’t troubleshoot your program. You don’t know if you need to adjust something from a nutritional standpoint.

At the same time though understandably that beginners don’t really necessarily have the ability to do that. So if they’re going from say this really shoddy type of eating plan, I think just actually cleaning things up and cutting out the processed foods. Eat a lot more one-ingredient type foods. One-ingredient foods. Like chicken’s a one-ingredient food. Cheez Whiz isn’t.

Craig Ballantyne: So do you recommend them using some type of software or actually measuring foods or what’s a nice way for a beginner to start getting a handle on it because I can imagine that most people just don’t understand portion sizes even if they’re eating the good foods.

Erik Ledin: That’s true. I detail it out in terms of quantities and there have been many occasions where people have said they really had their portions off. They were eating the right food but the portions were way off. They didn’t realize that four ounces was so small or something like that.

So I think www.fitday.com is a good resource. I mean it gets you in the ballpark. You can actually just plug in foods and the amount you’re going to eat and tally it up. First and foremost, whether you’re a beginner or not, you need to be eating the right amount of food.

Set your calories and then you can pretty much go from there. I think the most idiot-proof way to set up nutrition is set your calories, set your protein, get your six grams of fish oils and the rest is kind of up to you provided you stay within your caloric limits.

Use those strategies in the 12th TT Transformation Contest and you just might win the $1000 Grand Prize for your group.

Join the contest here: www.TransformationContest.com

To your success,

Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS
Certified Turbulence Trainer

 

I’m just finishing up a quick in-and-out trip to New York City, where I had lunch meeting with John Romaniello and then a few other business partners (non-fitness related) on Friday afternoon and Saturday morning.

I also snuck in a big walk around Central Park, and then hit an upper body meathead workout with my friend Simon Black – he’s like a secret agent or something – at a New York Sports Club near Central Park.

Friday was a true cheat day, as Roman and I hit a BBQ joint where I just “had to try” the fried chicken and waffles. Good times. But I planned for that. And on Saturday I was right back on track.

And today I’ll join you in doing the 3 things we all MUST do for our diets.

1 – Plan
2 – Shop
3 – Prepare

Every single person who loses 10 pounds, 25 pounds, or even over 34 pounds in 12 weeks with Turbulence Training does these 3 things with their diet.

First, they plan ahead.

They identify the obstacles that are going to come up this week (such as business trips, work meetings, soccer practices with the kids and no time to make dinner) and they plan ahead to make sure healthy meals are pre-made.

And when you’re home, you plan ahead to have the ingredients for incredible fat loss meals like these ones from Prograde, a company I’ve partnered with to bring you the best nutrition information.

You get 197 recipes for under $5. That’s 2.5 cents per recipe. And these meals aren’t boring or bland, and they don’t require crazy, fancy ingredients. Even ol’ Bally the Dog could make these meals.

Second, that brings us to the shopping part.

Now that you know what you need for your meals in the week ahead, that makes the shopping easy. Get the best quality ingredients you can afford – checking out farmer’s markets for deals on fresh food.

Finally, bring home the ingredients and “batch-prepare” as many of the meals for the week ahead as you possibly can make.

Wash and cut up fruits and vegetables and place them on the most visible shelf in your fridge. Research shows this encourages you to eat more of them.

Simple steps – 1, 2, 3 – will help you lose fat without needing to make dramatic changes. And this recipe book shows you how to enjoy delicious meals that help you lose fat.

=> 197 recipes for fat loss meals

Follow this simple plan and you’ll look better, feel better, eat better, and have 10x’s more energy for your family, work, and fun.

Back with some really cool workouts tomorrow,

Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS
Certified Turbulence Trainer

PS – What about protein powders?

I’m not huge into using powders, but when I do use protein, I like this brand

=> If you use protein, get this protein powder

It’s the brand I buy for my mom, too.