What A Trainer Recommends To Do To Lose Weight

If you were to ask a certified Personal Trainer, “What should I do to lose weight?”, you wouldn’t just get a one-word answer.

Weight loss, and being healthy in general, requires a combination of different things done consistently to get the body and health you want.

Lucky for you, I am a NASM Certified Personal Trainer and will answer that question for you for free!

In this blog post, I share with you what it REALLY takes to lose the weight and narrow it down to 5 major bullet points.

Tip #1: Eat REAL Food

There are millions of products out there in grocery aisles that claim to be “all natural,” “organic,” “non-GMO,” and “gluten free” that make you feel like you are doing a good job by buying it because it’s healthy for you.

But if you’re not careful, you can be getting fooled by strategic marketing and might actually be buying something that’s contributing to weight GAIN!

As a society, it can be so hard to figure out what’s healthy and what’s not. With differing opinions on what diet is the BEST, I don’t blame you for being confused.

However, we seem to have forgotten our ancestral roots. Before extensive production of food and the advancement of food technology, what did your ancestors used to eat?

Let me answer that for you…

REAL FOOD!

Yes, real food! The stuff that comes from the ground! The food that grows from plants! The stuff that actually rots after harvest and isn’t preserved by chemicals.

REAL FOOD means eating:

• Vegetables
• Fruits
• Meats
• Seafood
• Nuts and Seeds
• Healthy Fats

REAL FOOD does NOT mean eating:

• Sugar-filled drinks
• Sugar-filled cupcakes, cakes, cookies, and muffins
• Starbucks lattes and frappuccinos
• Chips, crackers, bagels, etc

You get the idea.

If you just SIMPLIFIED eating and went back to eating REAL FOOD, you will be surprised how quickly your body will start to reduce inflammation, lose weight, and detox from all of the foreign ingredients you’ve been putting into your system for years.

Remember, you can’t outrun your fork.

No matter how long you workout at the gym, you cannot outrun a bad diet. Everything starts with the way you eat.

If you need some recommendations on basic clean eating recipes, consider checking out my 7 Day Sample Meal Plan, my Low Carb Keto Recipe Guide, or my Paleo Approve Your Life E-Book.

Tip #2: Drink Lots Of Water

One of the culprits that might be hindering your results is your lack of water intake. Water is extremely important for overall health and can help you reduce bloat, lose weight, and even suppress your appetite.

I find many of my clients forget to drink water, or they drink soda or sugar-filled drinks instead, so here are a few tips on how to up your water intake.

Try Fruit Infused Water Or Sparkling Water

Do you need some flavor to plain old boring water? Try adding in fruit and herbs to your water for a refreshing taste!

I LOVE adding juice of a lemon and a few drops of liquid stevia to ice cold water. It’s like lemonade without the added sugar and insulin spike!

You can also try blueberries, raspberries, lime, strawberries, or watermelon! Feel free to also play with herbs like mint for a minty freshness!

If you need that carbonation, try sparkling water! It’ll give you that same pleasure of having coke but without the sugar or chemicals.

Carry Your Water Bottle Everywhere

Always have a water with you so that you can remind yourself to drink often! I like to carry my shaker cup everywhere.

It sits on my desk right next to my computer, it comes with me to the gym, and it’s always near me when I’m doing errands.

It’s a great little reminder to continue drinking water throughout the day if you always see it or carry it around with you!

It’s also a great way to measure how much water you’ve drank for the day! Make a goal to refill your bottle at least 4-5x throughout the day!

Hunger Tip: A lot of times you might confuse hunger with thirst, so if you ever feel “hungry” before your usual eating time, try gulping down a huge glass of water. You might just be dehydrated and will help prolong your hunger craving a little bit more.

Tip #3: Stay Away From Sugar

Added sugar is most likely one of the biggest factors that might be contributing to weight gain. We put sugar on everything!

From our fruit smoothies and yogurt parfaits to ice cream and mocha latte chocolate frappes, we tend to have an excess amount of both naturally occurring and added sugars.

The first step is to eliminate all added sugars. That means, when you’re looking at an ingredient label (which you shouldn’t be doing anyways because you should be eating REAL food), you should be avoiding the following secret names of sugar:

The American Heart Association (AHA) recommends limiting the amount of added sugars you consume to no more than half of your daily discretionary calories allowance. For most American women, that’s no more than 100 calories per day, or about 6 teaspoons of sugar. For men, it’s 150 calories per day, or about 9 teaspoons.

Once you feel like you’ve taken most added sugar out of your diet, try to focus on limiting naturally occurring sugars as well.

Naturally occurring sugars can be found in fruits, dates, dried fruit, etc.

Again, people tend to over-consume way too much sugar even though they THINK they’re being healthy!

If you’re eating a fruit-filled smoothie in the morning, then having a cold pressed juice later in the day, and munching on dates and dried fruit for a snack, that’s just a little too much in my opinion.

Your insulin levels will be like a rollercoaster throughout the whole day and those foods won’t fulfill you like having a good source of protein, carbs, and healthy fat would.

I try to stick to having up to 2 servings of fruit a day, and if needed, a small sweet treat at the end of the night. For example, I like to have a 1 cup of fresh blueberries in the morning with my Paleo waffle from KNOW FOODS, then around midday I’ll have an apple and a handful of nuts. After dinner, I might have a small treat like a piece of dark chocolate, a little fresh fruit, or just a spoonful of Halo Top icecream. (I do NOT eat the whole pint even though it is tempting!)

Tip #4: Focus on Strength Training or HIIT

There’s this old-age idea that men lift weights and women do cardio. However, to get the lean sculpted body you want, you have to focus on resistance or strength training just as much as men do!

I go into much greater detail on cardio versus strength and which one’s better in this blog post, but to summarize, strength training is crucial to help you build muscle and burn fat.

Not only that, it helps to rev your metabolism, burn MORE calories while at rest, and improves overall health and well-being!

The best way I like to incorporate strength training is through high intensity interval training. The reason why I love HIIT so much is because it combines the elements of both CARDIO and STRENGTH in one short intense workout!

Rather than splitting up cardio + strength days, I get to tackle both to make it the most effective use of my time. Plus, it’s so much fun!

HIIT simply means creating intervals in your workouts. There are so many varieties and methods of interval training, but here are a few examples:

Example 1: Sprint on a treadmill for 1 minute. Walk/jogging recovery for 2 minutes. Repeat 10 times. (cardio focus)

Example 2: Do 3 strength-based exercises followed by 1 minute of intense cardio like burpees or jumping jacks (strength + cardio focus)

The point of HIIT is to get to the point where you are breathless and exhausted after a workout. On a scale of 1-10, with 1 being you’re sitting on the couch watching Netlix, and 10 being you’re being chased by tiger, you should be at a 7 or higher by the time your HIIT workout is done.

When you do strength training or HIIT, your body goes into something called EPOC, which stands for excess post-exercise oxygen consumption.

When your body goes into EPOC, it requires more oxygen to return back to a resting state. This process requires more energy, or more calories, to be used. Meaning, your body will start burning MORE calories while at rest long after your workout is over!

How cool is that!?  

In case you don’t know of HIIT workouts to do, just Google them! Circuit training, Crossfit, and some group fitness classes can all be considered HIIT training. The point is to challenge yourself both cardio-wise and strength-rise.

And just to let you know, I am in the process of creating my very own HIIT workouts that you can do anywhere! You can get them done in 30 minutes or less and are total body workouts that just use a set of light to medium dumbbells!

I’m super excited to release it to a small handful of people for a Test Group before I launch the real thing, so if you want to be in the know, make sure you’re subscribed to my newsletter to get the announcement

Tip #5: Find Ways To Be More Active

As a society, we have become so sedentary with desk jobs, scrolling the newsfeed to pass the time, and sitting on the couch all night watching Netflix!

My last tip for you is to find more opportunities to be active throughout the day. You might not think it helps, all of the little things you do will add up big time!

Here are a few ways you can add more activity to your life:

1. Take the stairs instead of the elevator
2. Set a timer every 45 minutes to get up from your desk and take a walk around the office
3. Instead of calling your co-worker who’s sitting across the office, get up and walk to them
4. Bike/walk to work if you’re close enough
5. Instead of going out for lunch with a friend, go on a hike
6. Instead of watching movies every night with the boyfriend, take a long nice walk outside
7. Invest in a stand-up desk
8. Workout more often, even if it just 15 minutes a day

Healthy living is a LIFESTYLE, so try making these daily rituals or habits so that you don’t have to consciously think about it all the time.

Let’s Recap What You Learned

To recap this post in my 5 major bullet points, here’s what you need to do all day long to lose weight:

1. Eat REAL foods with little to no processing (you can’t outrun your fork)
2. Drink tons of water all day
3. Stay away from sugar
4. Focus on strength training / HIIT
5. Find ways to be more active

Thanks so much for reading all the way to the end! If you want more awesome tips like this, make sure you’re subscribed to my newsletter where I give you exclusive access to a private Facebook Community Support Group and free challenges to keep you accountable!

Want fun workouts ON DEMAND anytime, anywhere? Check out JJF On Demand where you can access real-time workout classes from the comfort of your own home. From Cardio/HIIT and Strength to Dance and Yoga, you'll get a variety of fun, challenging, and sweaty workouts right in your living room! Get a 7 Day Free Trial Here!

Jenny