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Welcome to my Blog. Here you can learn everything you want to know about getting stronger, losing weight and managing your diet, in an empathetic and scientific way.
Best Exercise To Lose Weight With PCOS
One of the biggest factors I have found over the years in helping thousands of women with PCOS lose weight is that you need to reframe your thoughts on the role exercise plays in your life with regard to your condition.
Women shy away from getting in the Gym and lifting weights in a structured manner, for gruelling HIIT workouts and hours upon hours of cardio work because they believe this will burn the most amount of calories for them.
If you have PCOS and you are doing this, please see this Blog Post as a sign to stop.
One of the key aspects of your condition is raised testosterone and androgen levels. You should see this aspect of your physiology as an opportunity — an opportunity to stop focusing your exercise regimen on losing weight, but actually on getting stronger.
Due to your condition, you have this natural ability to build strength and muscle, which will make your whole weight loss journey a lot easier.
It will:
Improve your relationship with fitness
Build your self-confidence
Build your self-esteem
Improve your dietary behaviours
When you get these in place, your weight loss will come along as a consequence of your desire to get strong. Getting stronger will help you with dealing with your PCOS Belly Fat, weight loss with PCOS and getting a lot stronger in your mind, body and soul.
Building strength first and then achieving your weight loss goals, because no bad comes from getting stronger.
I have been working with women just like you, with PCOS for a long time, and this is the exact strategy I have used to help them achieve the changes in their life that they were after.
Just like my client Sarah who is on the Strong & Confident Program who lost two stone when getting stronger:
“The foundation of a leaner body is muscle mass, not the absence of fat. ”
My coaching program is called The Strong & Confident Program and yes, it does help people lose weight, but it also teaches you get stronger in your soul, body and mind.
If that sounds like something you might need help with either right now, or you think you might at some point in the future then it’s probably a good idea you send me a friend request. You can do that by just putting in your email address below, and we can stay in touch that way….
Thank you for becoming my friend.
Now let me show you the best way to exercise to lose weight with PCOS.
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Table of Contents
How This Workout Plan Works
The Best Workouts To Lose Weight With PCOS: Day 1 and Day 2
How To Lose Weight And Get Strong with PCOS
HOW THIS WORKOUT PLAN WORKS
How Many Workouts A Week Are You Going To Do?
This plan is two full-body workouts a week.
If you are new to working out, or even if you are just resetting yourself and getting back into it, the good news is you don’t need to be in the gym four to five times a week in order to get stronger and lose some fat.
You will make incredible progress if you can just get into the gym two times a week and work out with enough intensity for the next 3-4 months.
And this program is the start of that.
How Many Workouts Are In The Plan?
Two. Two Beginner Workouts.
I am aware that variety can be important when it comes to working out, but variety is also counterintuitive to your long-term motivation and your ability to be consistent.
I could very easily come up with 8 different workouts for you, but that would overwhelm you. Each week you would have to learn new movement patterns, you wouldn’t develop the skill to get the most out of the movements you are doing and thus you wouldn’t be working to enough intensity for progress.
So there are two workouts.
These two workouts are designed for you to grow within them. They are designed so that by the end of the month you can see that you have improved:
The weight you are lifting
The form with which you are lifting the weight with
The amount of confidence you have from executing the plan consistently.
If you want variety, gain it by adding more weight, improving your form, and by trying to push yourself a little harder each time you do another rep.
The variety comes from your skill and development to achieve.
If you manage that, you will indeed make progress you never thought possible.
Best Time To Exercise with PCOS
Don’t overthink this. In an ideal world, you would have a few days between each workout so that you can recover fully from your last workout, and manage to then put your most into the next workout you do - and the time of day you workout is totally irrelevant.
But we don’t live in an ideal world - we live in a world where you have to balance an awful lot of your life against your health and fitness - so in truth, you have to go back to back days, then do, it won’t hinder you anywhere as much as you think it might or that the internet would have you believe.
When coaching clients I am always telling them to remember to balance what is optimal with what is possible.
We don’t all have the privilege to be optimal all of the time.
How Much Weight Should You Lift?
I can’t answer this in the way that you would probably like me to. I can’t tell you how much you can Lat Pulldown or Goblet Squat - and any program you find on the internet that tells you how much weight to lift - you should find another plan. Like this one.
I have never seen you move. I have no idea how strong you are.
But luckily in the Fitness Industry, we have a way around this.
It is called the RPE Scale. RPE stands for Rate of Perceived Exertion and is a subjective scale upon which you can judge how hard you are working across a set.
Across both of your workouts, you want to work to an RPE between 8-10.
In terms of the weight you lift, I would say this:
You are probably stronger than you give yourself credit for, you are probably more capable than you think, and that capability will grow very quickly if you remain consistent.
READ MY ARTICLE THAT HAS HELPED HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE NAVIGATE THE GYM MORE SAFELY
Progressing Through The Workouts?
As the weeks roll on - you should be wanting to progress your workouts as much as possible.
This will mean one of three things - you either:
Increase the weight you are lifting
Change the weight you are using
Change aspects of the form to make the lifts harder
You will adapt to these workouts, and therefore I want you to feel empowered to make the changes you feel you need to in order to make sure they remain challenging.
With some exercises, an increase in weight will not be possible, and therefore I would recommend you change the exercise you do.
Here is a list of adaptations you can try:
DAY 1
Box Squat -> Barbell Back Squat
Lat Pulldown -> Assisted Pull Up Machine
Incline Push Up -> Push Up
Glute Bridge -> Single Leg Glute Bridge or Hip Thursts
DAY 2
Reverse Lunges -> Split Squats or Walking Lunges
Single-Arm Dumbbell Row -> Single-Arm Dumbbell Row with a 1-second pause at the top
You can also change from Kettlebells to Dumbbells or to Barbells to help change the intensity and the variety of the movements you might do.
Do I Have To Do HIIT Workouts with PCOS?
No.
Well, certainly not in the manner upon which you think you probably do.
I haven’t written any HIIT or Cardio in your workouts for you.
I personally am a huge fan of walking - and if your goal is to lose weight, you are probably underestimating the benefits that walking for 20mins a day can have, and overemphasising the effect that a workout can have on your ability to lose weight.
Put as simply, you don’t burn anywhere near as many calories working out as you think, and you burn a lot more calories walking than you think.
This is why at the heart of working out to lose weight, the conversation has to be changed from working out to burn calories and lose weight, to working out to get strong and once your strength is built, good things will happen from there.
If you want to do Cardio, of course, you can. It won’t hinder your progress, it will look after your heart which I am a huge fan of. It won’t burn away all of your muscles. I promise.
And here is another dose of good news - you don’t need to do hard 5kms or sit on the recumbent bike for an hour - that hardly will fit into your life, will it?
You need to do 20mins a day - walking - at a pace that makes you feel like you don’t need a jacket and do need a bottle of water if it is late Autumn or Early Springtime.
How Much Rest Should I Take?
Rest is quite a personal thing.
I personally like quite a lot of rest between heavy sets, usually at the start of my workout. Then I can put the most effort into what I am about to do.
Then as my workout progresses, I reduce my rest between each set.
See how you go. Work to the maximum rest you can take at 2mins and the minimum to 30secs.
In the workouts, I have put rest between each set or superset - but they are just guidelines.
What is a Superset?
I feature Supersets quite a bit in this 4-Week Beginner Strength Training Routine for Weight Loss. For, two reasons.
Firstly they save time - and long gone are the days where you should be spending hours on end in the gym working out.
Secondly, they are a great way to get variety into your workout - and help stop the feeling of boredom
It basically means that you do one exercise, then the next exercise with no rest between exercises.
You can also superset three exercises together as a little circuit.
Warm-Ups and Cool Downs
In the workouts, I have put “optional” warm-ups.
I strongly advise you do them, but if you are short on time, you will probably be ok if you skip them.
They aren’t “walk on the treadmill for 5 minutes” although if you are short on time, and you need to just get in and get out, that is an adequate warm-up.
The warm-ups focus on developing mobility and improving your ability to work out in a much better way that will improve your results over time, and thus actually end up costing you less time - as you will make more progress quickly.
The Best Workouts To Lose Weight With PCOS: Day 1 and Day 2
DAY 1 - FULL BODY
WARM UP
The Worlds Greatest Stretch - 2 Sets, 10 Reps on each side
Spiderman Rocks - 2 Sets, 10 Reps on each side
Split Stance Rock To Tall Split Kneel - 2 Sets, 10 Reps on each side
CORE
Bird Dogs - 2 Sets, 10 on each side
Russian Twists - 2 Sets, 10 on each side
MAIN MOVEMENTS
Box Squat - 4 Sets, 8 Reps - (use a Barbell, a Dumbbell or your Bodyweight)
1.5 Dumbbell Bench Press - 4 Sets, 8 Reps
Rest for 2 minutes between all sets.
SUPERSET 1:
Lat Pulldown - 3 Sets, 12 Reps
Incline Push Up - 3 Sets, 12 Reps
Squat Thruster - 3 Sets 12 Reps
Rest for 1 minute after completing one set of all exercises
SUPERSET 2:
Plank Shoulder Taps - 3 Sets, 10 Reps on each side
Overhead Press - 3 Sets, 12 Reps on each side
Glute Bridge - 3 Sets, 12 Reps
Rest for 30 seconds after completing one set of all three exercises
DAY 1: SUMMARY
Warm-Up:
The Worlds Greatest Stretch - 2 Sets, 10 Reps on each side
Spiderman Rocks - 2 Sets, 10 Reps on each side
Split Stance Rock To Tall Split Kneel - 2 Sets, 10 Reps on each side
Core Activation:
Bird Dogs - 2 Sets, 10 on each side
Russian Twists - 2 Sets, 10 on each side
Main Movements:
Box Squat - 4 Sets, 8 Reps - (use a Barbell, a Dumbbell or your Bodyweight)
1.5 Dumbbell Bench Press - 4 Sets, 8 Reps
Rest for 2 minutes between all sets.
Superset 1:
Lat Pulldown - 3 Sets, 12 Reps
Incline Push Up - 3 Sets, 12 Reps
Squat Thruster - 3 Sets 12 Reps
Rest for 1 minute after completing one set of all three exercises
Superset 2:
Plank Shoulder Taps - 3 Sets, 10 Reps on each side
Overhead Press - 3 Sets, 12 Reps on each side
Glute Bridge - 3 Sets, 12 Reps
Rest for 30 seconds after completing one set of all three exercises
DAY 2 - FULL BODY
WARM UP
The Worlds Greatest Stretch - 2 Sets, 10 Reps on each side
Wide Stance Rock on Forearms - 2 Sets, 10 Reps on each side
Toes Touch to Squat - 2 Sets, 10 Reps on each side
CORE
Plank - 2 Sets, 30 seconds
Air Bikes - 2 Sets, 30 Reps
MAIN MOVEMENTS
Deadlift - 4 Sets, 8 Reps - (use a Barbell, a Dumbbell or Kettlebell)
Barbell Bench Press - 4 Sets, 8 Reps
Rest for 2 minutes between all sets.
SUPERSET 1:
Reverse Lunges - 3 Sets, 10 Reps
Single-Arm Dumbbell Row - 3 Sets, 10 Reps
Rest for 1 minute after completing one set of both exercises
SUPERSET 2:
Romanian Deadlift - 3 Sets, 12 Reps
Seated Row - 3 Sets, 10 Reps
Hamstring Walkouts - 3 Sets, 10 Reps
Rest for 30 seconds after completing one set of both exercises
FINISHER: SUPERSET 3
Walkouts - 2 Sets, 5 Reps
Lunge Driver - 2 Sets, 5 Reps on each side
No rest between sets or exercises
DAY 2: SUMMARY
WARM-UP
The Worlds Greatest Stretch - 2 Sets, 10 Reps on each side
Wide Stance Rock on Forearms - 2 Sets, 10 Reps on each side
Toes Touch to Squat - 2 Sets, 10 Reps on each side
CORE ACTIVATION
Plank - 2 Sets, 30 seconds
Air Bikes - 2 Sets, 30 Reps
MAIN MOVEMENTS
Deadlift - 4 Sets, 8 Reps - (use a Barbell, a Dumbbell or Kettlebell)
Barbell Bench Press - 4 Sets, 8 Reps
Rest for 2 minutes between all sets
SUPERSET 1:
Reverse Lunges - 3 Sets, 10 Reps
Single-Arm Dumbbell Row - 3 Sets, 10 Reps
Rest for 1 minute after completing one set of both exercises
SUPERSET 2:
Romanian Deadlift - 3 Sets, 12 Reps (use a Barbell,m Dumbbells or Kettlebell)
Seated Row - 3 Sets, 10 Reps
Hamstring Walkouts - 3 Sets, 10 Reps
Rest for 30 seconds after completing one set of both exercises
FINISHER: SUPERSET 3
Walkouts - 2 Sets, 5 Reps
Lunge Driver - 2 Sets, 5 Reps on each side
No rest between sets or exercises
How To Lose Weight As Well As Get Strong with PCOS
Over the years I have been doing this job I have worked with people who solely wanted to lose weight.
I have also worked with people who solely wanted to get strong.
And I have found that those who work on getting stronger first, usually lose weight and maintain it at a much more successful rate than those who only focus on losing weight.
And those who have PCOS also realise a whole new world of movement and empowerment by focusing on getting stronger as well. They have learnt to work with their body as opposed to against it.
They also enjoy their movement a lot more.
I have written about this topic extensively and I have much more in-depth guide on losing weight with PCOS right here:
When you’re dragging yourself to the Gym as a means to lose weight it can often feel like you are doing it with a weight around your neck. It’s a chore, it’s something you “have to do”, and the results never seem to come quickly enough.
When you approach your movement as a way of improving your strength, and not just your physical strength…but your mental strength, your emotional strength and your overall resilience, movement takes on a whole other meaning.
You embrace the challenge, you embrace the gift of your body.
Which is pretty epic.
So if you want a workout plan to solely lose weight, I am very sorry that doesn’t exist.
Yes, you do burn calories in the Gym, but nowhere near as much as you would need to create a deficit appropriate for you to lose weight.
You control your weight loss by controlling your energy balance - also known as a Calorie Deficit. On this website, I have extensive resources educating you and empowering you on how to execute a Calorie Deficit.
Articles like:
Any one of those articles will give you a blueprint to losing weight - and the article you are now at the end of is the blueprint for getting strong.
What’s Next?
Well, I suppose you had better get to the Gym to start your journey of getting strong…
However, there’s also some other things I would love to draw your attention to.
The first is my Facebook Group - which you can now consider yourself personally invited to.
It is called Straightforward Fat Loss and I would adore you to join - you can ask me direct questions there, I go Live once a week and jam on a topic. It also has lots of resources to help you make your Fat Loss journey as straightforward as possible.
You can also let me know in the group how you are getting on with these workouts - which would be one of the greatest honours I would have as a coach - to see you sharing your work with me.
If you aren’t on Facebook, we can still become friends and you can get just as many resources from me for your Weight Loss Journey with PCOS as if you were on Facebook.
Just send me a friend request using the form below - and I will be in touch immediately with you.
Thank you so much for reading my work, and good luck with your new gym routine and your weight loss journey with PCOS
I cannot wait to see how you go!
Coach Adam
4 Week Beginner Strength Training Routine for Weight Loss: A Video Guide
I want to take a hot second to talk about the title of this post.
Whenever I engage in writing like this I always do some research on what title I want to go for exactly. I have an idea in my head, and then take to Google and start looking at things.
My first idea for this post was:
“Full Body Workout Plan”
Then I realized I am known as The Gym Starter and thought I better add the word beginner:
“Full Body Workout Plan for Beginners”
Which sent me into a wormhole of things like:
“Strength Training Routine for Beginners”
“4 Day Gym Plan for Beginners”
“Weight Lifting for Weight Loss Female Plan”
And then the title of this article popped out at me:
“Beginner Strength Training Routine for Weight Loss”
The reason this one popped out at me is that it combines my two loves when it comes to fitness.
And it puts those two loves in the order upon which I try to get all of my clients to focus.
Building strength first and then helping people achieve their weight loss goals.
This is why today I am sharing with you a four-week beginner strength training routine - with a video guide to help you feel comfortable and at ease when you go to the gym to do it.
I firmly believe in seeing you get stronger, and then allowing that strength to allow the weight loss to happen.
The foundation of a leaner body is muscle mass, not the absence of fat.
My coaching program is called The Strong & Confident Program and yes, it does help people lose weight, but it also teaches you to move better, learn to fit fitness into your life, and help you build a better relationship with food, exercise and yourself.
If that sounds like something you might need help with either right now, or you think you might at some point in the future then it’s probably a good idea you send me a friend request. You can do that by just putting in your email address below, and we can stay in touch that way….
Thank you for becoming my friend.
Now here are the workouts you are after…
4 Week Beginner Strength Training Routine for Weight Loss: A Video Guide
TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR:
4 Week Beginner Strength Training Routine for Weight Loss: A Video Guide:
How This Workout Plan Works
The Workouts: Day 1 and Day 2
How To Lose Weight As Well As Get Strong
HOW THIS WORKOUT PLAN WORKS
How Many Workouts A Week Are You Going To Do?
This plan is two full-body workouts a week.
If you are new to working out, or even if you are just resetting yourself and getting back into it, the good news is you don’t need to be in the gym four to five times a week in order to get stronger and lose some fat.
You will make incredible progress if you can just get into the gym two times a week and work out with enough intensity for the next 3-4 months.
And this program is the start of that.
How Many Workouts Are In The Plan?
Two.
I am aware that variety can be important when it comes to working out, but variety is also counterintuitive to your long-term motivation and your ability to be consistent.
I could very easily come up with 8 different workouts for you, but that would overwhelm you. Each week you would have to learn new movement patterns, you wouldn’t develop the skill to get the most out of the movements you are doing and thus you wouldn’t be working to enough intensity for progress.
So there are two workouts.
These two workouts are designed for you to grow within them. They are designed so that by the end of the month you can see that you have improved:
The weight you are lifting
The form with which you are lifting the weight with
The amount of confidence you have from executing the plan consistently.
If you want variety, gain it by adding more weight, improving your form, and by trying to push yourself a little harder each time you do another rep.
The variety comes from your skill and development to achieve.
If you manage that, you will indeed make progress you never thought possible.
What Days Should I Work Out?
Don’t overthink this. In an ideal world you would have a few days between each workout so that you can recover fully from your last workout, and manage to then put your most into the next workout you do. But we don’t live in an ideal world - we live in a world where you have to balance an awful lot of your life against your health and fitness - so in truth, you have to go back to back days, then do, it won’t hinder you anywhere as much as you think it might or that the internet would have you believe.
When coaching clients I am always telling them to remember to balance what is optimal with what is possible.
We don’t all have the privilege to be optimal all of the time.
How Much Weight Should I Lift?
I can’t answer this in the way that you would probably like me to. I can’t tell you how much you can Lat Pulldown or Goblet Squat - and any program you find on the internet that tells you how much weight to lift - you should find another plan. Like this one.
I have never seen you move. I have no idea how strong you are.
But luckily in the Fitness Industry, we have a way around this.
It is called the RPE Scale. RPE stands for Rate of Perceived Exertion and is a subjective scale upon which you can judge how hard you are working across a set.
Across both of your workouts, you want to work to an RPE between 8-10.
In terms of the weight you lift, I would say this:
You are probably stronger than you give yourself credit for, you are probably more capable than you think, and that capability will grow very quickly if you remain consistent.
READ MY ARTICLE THAT HAS HELPED HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE NAVIGATE THE GYM MORE SAFELY
Progressing Through The Workouts?
As the weeks roll on - you should be wanting to progress your workouts as much as possible.
This will mean one of three things - you either:
Increase the weight you are lifting
Change the weight you are using
Change aspects of the form to make the lifts harder
You will adapt to these workouts, and therefore I want you to feel empowered to make the changes you feel you need to in order to make sure they remain challenging.
With some exercises, an increase in weight will not be possible, and therefore I would recommend you change the exercise you do.
Here is a list of adaptations you can try:
DAY 1
Box Squat -> Barbell Back Squat
Lat Pulldown -> Assisted Pull Up Machine
Incline Push Up -> Push Up
Glute Bridge -> Single Leg Glute Bridge or Hip Thursts
DAY 2
Reverse Lunges -> Split Squats or Walking Lunges
Single-Arm Dumbbell Row -> Single-Arm Dumbbell Row with a 1-second pause at the top
You can also change from Kettlebells to Dumbbells or to Barbells to help change the intensity and the variety of the movements you might do.
Do I Have To Do Cardio?
No.
Well, certainly not in the manner upon which you think you probably do.
I haven’t written any Cardio in your workouts for you.
I personally am a huge fan of walking - and if your goal is to lose weight, you are probably underestimating the benefits that walking for 20mins a day can have, and overemphasising the effect that a workout can have on your ability to lose weight.
Put as simply, you don’t burn anywhere near as many calories working out as you think, and you burn a lot more calories walking than you think.
This is why at the heart of working out to lose weight, the conversation has to be changed from working out to burn calories and lose weight, to working out to get strong and once your strength is built, good things will happen from there.
If you want to do Cardio, of course, you can. It won’t hinder your progress, it will look after your heart which I am a huge fan of. It won’t burn away all of your muscle. I promise.
And here is another dose of good news - you don’t need to do hard 5kms or sit on the recumbent bike for an hour - that hardly will fit into your life, will it?
You need to do 20mins a day - walking - at a pace that makes you feel like you don’t need a jacket and do need a bottle of water if it is late Autumn or Early Springtime.
How Much Rest Should I Take?
Rest is quite a personal thing.
I personally like quite a lot of rest between heavy sets, usually at the start of my workout. Then I can put the most effort into what I am about to do.
Then as my workout progresses, I reduce my rest between each set.
See how you go. Work to the maximum rest you can take at 2mins and the minimum to 30secs.
In the workouts, I have put rest between each set or superset - but they are just guidelines.
What is a Superset?
I feature Supersets quite a bit in this 4-Week Beginner Strength Training Routine for Weight Loss. For, two reasons.
Firstly they save time - and long gone are the days where you should be spending hours on end in the gym working out.
Secondly, they are a great way to get variety into your workout - and help stop the feeling of boredom
It basically means that you do one exercise, then the next exercise with no rest between exercises.
You can also superset three exercises together as a little circuit.
Warm-Ups and Cool Downs
In the workouts, I have put “optional” warm-ups.
I strongly advise you do them, but if you are short on time, you will probably be ok if you skip them.
They aren’t “walk on the treadmill for 5 minutes” although if you are short on time, and you need to just get in and get out, that is an adequate warm-up.
The warm-ups focus on developing mobility and improving your ability to work out in a much better way that will improve your results over time, and thus actually end up costing you less time - as you will make more progress quickly.
THE WORKOUTS
DAY 1 - FULL BODY
WARM UP
The Worlds Greatest Stretch - 2 Sets, 10 Reps on each side
Spiderman Rocks - 2 Sets, 10 Reps on each side
Split Stance Rock To Tall Split Kneel - 2 Sets, 10 Reps on each side
CORE
Bird Dogs - 2 Sets, 10 on each side
Russian Twists - 2 Sets, 10 on each side
MAIN MOVEMENTS
Box Squat - 4 Sets, 8 Reps - (use a Barbell, a Dumbbell or your Bodyweight)
1.5 Dumbbell Bench Press - 4 Sets, 8 Reps
Rest for 2 minutes between all sets.
SUPERSET 1:
Lat Pulldown - 3 Sets, 12 Reps
Incline Push Up - 3 Sets, 12 Reps
Squat Thruster - 3 Sets 12 Reps
Rest for 1 minute after completing one set of all exercises
SUPERSET 2:
Plank Shoulder Taps - 3 Sets, 10 Reps on each side
Overhead Press - 3 Sets, 12 Reps on each side
Glute Bridge - 3 Sets, 12 Reps
Rest for 30 seconds after completing one set of all three exercises
DAY 1: SUMMARY
Warm-Up:
The Worlds Greatest Stretch - 2 Sets, 10 Reps on each side
Spiderman Rocks - 2 Sets, 10 Reps on each side
Split Stance Rock To Tall Split Kneel - 2 Sets, 10 Reps on each side
Core Activation:
Bird Dogs - 2 Sets, 10 on each side
Russian Twists - 2 Sets, 10 on each side
Main Movements:
Box Squat - 4 Sets, 8 Reps - (use a Barbell, a Dumbbell or your Bodyweight)
1.5 Dumbbell Bench Press - 4 Sets, 8 Reps
Rest for 2 minutes between all sets.
Superset 1:
Lat Pulldown - 3 Sets, 12 Reps
Incline Push Up - 3 Sets, 12 Reps
Squat Thruster - 3 Sets 12 Reps
Rest for 1 minute after completing one set of all three exercises
Superset 2:
Plank Shoulder Taps - 3 Sets, 10 Reps on each side
Overhead Press - 3 Sets, 12 Reps on each side
Glute Bridge - 3 Sets, 12 Reps
Rest for 30 seconds after completing one set of all three exercises
DAY 2 - FULL BODY
WARM UP
The Worlds Greatest Stretch - 2 Sets, 10 Reps on each side
Wide Stance Rock on Forearms - 2 Sets, 10 Reps on each side
Toes Touch to Squat - 2 Sets, 10 Reps on each side
CORE
Plank - 2 Sets, 30 seconds
Air Bikes - 2 Sets, 30 Reps
MAIN MOVEMENTS
Deadlift - 4 Sets, 8 Reps - (use a Barbell, a Dumbbell or Kettlebell)
Barbell Bench Press - 4 Sets, 8 Reps
Rest for 2 minutes between all sets.
SUPERSET 1:
Reverse Lunges - 3 Sets, 10 Reps
Single-Arm Dumbbell Row - 3 Sets, 10 Reps
Rest for 1 minute after completing one set of both exercises
SUPERSET 2:
Romanian Deadlift - 3 Sets, 12 Reps
Seated Row - 3 Sets, 10 Reps
Hamstring Walkouts - 3 Sets, 10 Reps
Rest for 30 seconds after completing one set of both exercises
FINISHER: SUPERSET 3
Walkouts - 2 Sets, 5 Reps
Lunge Driver - 2 Sets, 5 Reps on each side
No rest between sets or exercises
DAY 2: SUMMARY
WARM-UP
The Worlds Greatest Stretch - 2 Sets, 10 Reps on each side
Wide Stance Rock on Forearms - 2 Sets, 10 Reps on each side
Toes Touch to Squat - 2 Sets, 10 Reps on each side
CORE ACTIVATION
Plank - 2 Sets, 30 seconds
Air Bikes - 2 Sets, 30 Reps
MAIN MOVEMENTS
Deadlift - 4 Sets, 8 Reps - (use a Barbell, a Dumbbell or Kettlebell)
Barbell Bench Press - 4 Sets, 8 Reps
Rest for 2 minutes between all sets
SUPERSET 1:
Reverse Lunges - 3 Sets, 10 Reps
Single-Arm Dumbbell Row - 3 Sets, 10 Reps
Rest for 1 minute after completing one set of both exercises
SUPERSET 2:
Romanian Deadlift - 3 Sets, 12 Reps (use a Barbell,m Dumbbells or Kettlebell)
Seated Row - 3 Sets, 10 Reps
Hamstring Walkouts - 3 Sets, 10 Reps
Rest for 30 seconds after completing one set of both exercises
FINISHER: SUPERSET 3
Walkouts - 2 Sets, 5 Reps
Lunge Driver - 2 Sets, 5 Reps on each side
No rest between sets or exercises
How To Lose Weight As Well As Get Strong
Over the years I have been doing this job I have worked with people who solely wanted to lose weight.
I have also worked with people who solely wanted to get strong.
And I have found that those who work on getting stronger first, usually lose weight and maintain it at a much more successful rate than those who only focus on losing weight.
They also enjoy their movement a lot more.
When you’re dragging yourself to the Gym as a means to lose weight it can often feel like you are doing it with a weight around your neck. It’s a chore, it’s something you “have to do”, and the results never seem to come quick enough.
When you approach your movement as a way of improving your strength, and not just your physical strength…but your mental strength, your emotional strength and your overall resilience, movement takes on a whole other meaning.
You embrace the challenge, you embrace the gift of your body.
Which is pretty epic.
So if you want a workout plan to solely lose weight, I am very sorry that doesn’t exist.
Yes, you do burn calories in the Gym, but nowhere near as much as you would need to create a deficit appropriate for you to lose weight.
You control your weight loss by controlling your energy balance - also known as a Calorie Deficit. On this website, I have extensive resources educating you and empowering you on how to execute a Calorie Deficit.
Articles like:
Any one of those articles will give you a blueprint to losing weight - and the article you are now at the end of is the blueprint for getting strong.
What’s Next?
Well, I suppose you had better get to the Gym to start your journey of getting strong…
However, there’s also some other things I would love to draw your attention to.
The first is my Facebook Group - which you can now consider yourself personally invited to.
It is called Straightforward Fat Loss and I would adore you to join - you can ask me direct questions there, I go Live once a week and jam on a topic. It also has lots of resources to help you make your Fat Loss journey as straightforward as possible.
You can also let me know in the group how you are getting on with these workouts - which would be one of the greatest honours I would have as a coach - to see you sharing your work with me.
If you aren’t on Facebook, we can still become friends and you can get just as many resources from me for your Fat Loss Journey as if you were on Facebook.
Just send me a friend request using the form below - and I will be in touch immediately with you.
Thank you so much for reading my work, and good luck with your new gym routine.
I cannot wait to see how you go!
Coach Adam
How To Start Your Fitness Journey: A Guide for Beginners
As you probably know by now, I’m The Gym Starter, better known as Adam and I find it shocking that I haven’t written this article sooner.
I’m working on my own self compassion with this…a theme that will be key to this article…so if I can forgive myself, I’m hoping, you can too dear reader.
There was a phrase I was taught at Drama School when it came to writing:
“Don’t get it right, get it written”
Which along with self-compassion is one of the most important tasks for someone who wants to “start their fitness journey”
Before we begin, I just wanted to let you know that I have indeed written a Workout Guide exactly for you. It’s called The Beginners Bodyweight Workout Guide and is made up of 10-minute workouts, to do at home. It has 56 workouts in there and you can get this totally for free.
If you chose to acquire it, you are also acquiring me as your friend. This brings me joys untold but does come with a warning. The warning being: I will send you things. Helpful things. Things like Podcasts, Articles and thoughts…these thoughts might not always be appropriate, but in truth, isn’t that what makes friends friends?
To send me a friend request (and to get The Beginners Bodyweight Guide) just put your email in here:
TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR:
How To Start Your Fitness Journey:
Step 1: The truth behind being able to start
Step 2: Why is it called a journey?
Step 3: Releasing Expectations
Step 4: Understanding confidence
Step 5: Understanding there is no right/or wrong
Step 6: What Should You Do In The Gym?
Step 1: The Truth Behind Being Able To Start
At the point of which I am writing this…the number one hit on Google for this topic (a position I am hoping to overthrow) outlines 6 points about starting.
One of which is “create a vision board”.
I remember doing this once because I was told to do it. It didn’t connect me to my dreams, it just annoyed me - because it forced my brain into the world of comparison, and it constantly reminded me of where I wasn’t - not where I currently am.
Maybe I’m just bad at Vision Boards - and if that is your thing, then great, but I don’t think it offers much help here.
Starting a Fitness Journey might just be one of the hardest things someone is going to do.
And I just don’t think a Vision Board is really going to help someone overcome their fears.
Fears of:
Failure
The Gym Environment
Judgement from others
Resistance from loved ones
Overwhelm of information
Getting it wrong
It taking too long
and one of the biggest fears:
Not being good enough
For it is within these topics that we have to truly find the answers.
I could tell you all the practical stuff in the world:
Find a Gym you like
Ask for help from Personal Trainer at the Gym
Start with X workout
Eat-in a Calorie Deficit to lose weight
Get a Vision Board
But none of that is really going to create the lasting change you need until we deal with the fears that you have about fitness.
Fear is:
F alse
E xpectation
A ppearing
R eal
And having practical help, will not alleviate these false expectations, they will simply suspend them - and when they come home to roost again you will have fallen into the same pattern as before of starting then stopping and feeling like a failure.
The issue with allowing fear to dominate in the short term is that it feeds the fear in the longer term. By not addressing your fear when you first feel it, you give it more and more power over time, to the point it will dominate you more than it needs to.
All of those fears I listed above are very real, but the more you find the courage to work against them, the less significant the fear will feel.
And it is my job to help you find the courage to negotiate those fears in order to help you start your fitness journey.
You are here now. You are in a safe space.
Just this weekend I felt the need to reach out to an old client of the Strong & Confident Program.
She had her fears. She was very new to exercise and working out. She had never worked with a Coach before - and even though our time came to an end about a year ago, just the other day I sent her this:
This should always be the ultimate goal. To continue being active, to continue getting stronger, to be able to get rid of your fears, so the changes last forever. So they last the entire length of your journey… also known as: Life.
Step 2: Why Is It Called A Journey?
Just quickly, every time I put a Schitts Creek GIF into one of these articles, it slows me down, because I then have to go back and watch it all over again…HOW GOOD IS SCHITT’S CREEK?
Ok, I’ve now managed to prize myself away from Netflix. I need to be honest with you.
I have a love/hate relationship with the word “journey”.
But the more I see, and I am nearly 10 years into my Personal Training Career the more I understand why we use this word, and why I am currently in a phase of loving it more than hating it.
It comes down to the human experience. We live to experience, not to simply achieve.
In fact, the more you focus on achievement, quite often the more elusive it becomes.
Because what happens is you close yourself off to everything the journey has to offer.
A journey undulates.
A journey has a beginning (the topic if this article)
A middle
An end
A journey will be hard at times.
It will also be easy at times.
You will want to stop
You will want to speed it up
You will have to be patient
You will have to contend with things both in and out of your control
A journey changes as you experience it
It has phases
And it also guarantees you stay in the moment.
You have to be present.
If you want to get somewhere - you can’t rush the process of getting there. It will only ever take as long as it takes.
In Intuitive Eating: 4th Edition Evelyn Tribole states:
“We call it a journey because there is no judgement attached”
I might have paraphrased, but I like the effect of these words. The more we can disassociate with judgement from ourselves with regards to fitness, the more present in the human experience we can be.
I say we because this is something I have to work on as well.
Each month, I set my clients a monthly challenge - for February 2022 its to read a book by a psychologist. The book is by Dr Julie Smith, and is called “Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before”
In the section addressing the topic of self-acceptance, she explains that the “work is never done”. She reveals that on the journey of living a life of self-compassion, you do the work every day to live in align with unconditional self-acceptance; you never arrive.
And it is through the same lens that those who are successful in fitness view their fitness. It is this that makes it a journey for them.
And it is this that is the key to getting your journey started.
Step 3: Releasing Expectation
I talk about this very often with fitness - the biggest thing that will perpetuate your feelings of failure is your expectations of the result.
Its a very frustrating dichotomy:
We have to have a goal to get started on a fitness journey, but these goals can also be the reason you give up.
And it all comes down to your expectations.
Society at large has done a fantastic job on selling you the unachievable dream in terms of fitness. I’m not here to sour your hopes and dreams about getting started, but a realistic starting point for you would be to take what you want to achieve and then at least double the time frame in which you think it will be achievable.
By lengthening out your time frame, you will give yourself more space and time to allow your fitness to develop properly. The human body doesn’t change quickly, and more importantly the faster it does change the harder it is to sustain.
Many diets are built on your willpower, not habit transformation,
And your willpower will run out. As your life gets stressful. And your life will get stressful.
And when that happens, you won’t be able to live up to your expectations - which creates more stress, and the cycle will continue until you finally stop your fitness journey.
All because you tried to do too much, too soon and it just wasn’t sustainable.
Nor was it flexible.
My birthday is in early February. This means every new year I know it is futile to set huge expectations of fitness because |’m going to enjoy my birthday, and I won’t be able to keep up with a 4x a week program in the Gym at that time in my life.
For you, it could be lots of your friends are getting married, the school holidays, the Christmas/New Year combination or why is it that every single human in your family seems to have their birthday in the same month?
When these events which happen every year coincide with the 12 week period you gave yourself to “lose the weight” you obviously aren’t going to sacrifice making memories for going to the Gym.
And nor should you have to.
The only time you think you should have to is when you have far too strict a time frame to achieve your goals.
When you open up your time frame you create flexibility in your fitness journey to allow for your life.
This is crucial…because when it comes down to:
Life vs Fitness Journey
Life ALWAYS wins.
You should never have to pip one against the other - this is another reason we call it a journey. It has to have the ability to work with your life, not versus it.
Step 4: Understanding Confidence
Now that we have managed to take away your expectations, legitimised your fears and strategised on how to help you overcome them as well as actually figured out why it’s called a journey and how that will scope your attitude towards your future fitness I’m hoping you will feel a little more confident about starting.
Which is great.
And a good sign that you are setting yourself up for success, and not for repeated failure.
But confidence is a fickle thing.
And when you might actually be faced with a little more resistance it can evaporate quickly on us.
I’ve had many clients say to me over the years that they wished they had my confidence - and for many years I was never really sure where my confidence came from.
Then I heard something that bought it all into focus for me.
And I want you to remember this too.
Between where you are right now….and the confidence you wish to have is one word:
Courage
Now it’s important to remember this quote when discussing courage:
“Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, “I will try again tomorrow”
Courage comes in many forms. Sometimes it is the Braveheart-Esque bashing of the chest very masculine energy (FYI: I don’t have a great deal of that energy).
Sometimes it is having the courage to lead yourself with self-compassion.
Sometimes it’s having the courage to execute on the small things each day you said you would.
Confidence is something we must build at all different times in our lives. It is not something inherently given to you by God.
One reason I have confidence is because I have always been able to build a new comfort zone in new environments.
We can’t get confident unless we become comfortable. But you must keep levelling up your comfort zone to continue feeding your confidence. When you stop stretching out, when you stop trying to rebuild new zones of comfort in your life, you end up in what is known as a fixed mindset - and when you are challenged with a new environment or a new prospect ahead of you, like a fitness journey, you have no recent experience in building a new comfort zone, and so it seems all far too much to handle.
You stay where you are - and your confidence isn’t fed.
To build each new zone of comfort in your life you must have courage. This can be built slowly, or quickly, it really doesn't matter, but we do have to keep in order to keep driving our confidence and to not withdraw.
For example, at home I was always a very confident person, in my comfort zone and felt very capable at school…then I got into Drama School.
The first two years of my life at Drama School, yes; two years, I was low on confidence. I was out of my comfort zone by a long way and had to very slowly rebuild it alongside trying to figure out how to find out who I was in the world of a very elite Drama School full of extremely talented people.
I honestly never felt confident at Drama School, and in my abilities there, until my third year.
But I didn’t shy away. It was my dream coming true, I wasn’t going to stay at home and not show up each day. I just focussed on looking for my wins, trying to develop my ability, crafting my talent into a skill and rebuilding a comfort zone for me there on the first floor of a dingy building in Farringdon, London.
And that took courage. My courage took patience, it took self-compassion and it took a lot of failures and it took a lot of time. But I knew with every experience, both positive and negative, I would be able to make it my comfort zone - and when I managed that - I was a different person altogether.
And this is something I have done time and time and time again in my life.
The more comfort zones I have built, the more feedback I have in my life that I can figure it out. The easier it is to build again, and again, and again.
The above image shows where growth and therefore the building of your confidence lies.
Imagine the image as stepping stones over a river. You start on the first one, then once you are balanced and comfortable on that stone, you stretch your leg out, and move onto the next stone.
When you over stretch, you fall in and begin to panic.
But each time you stretch, you then find comfort again, and then you know you are ready to stretch once more. Avoiding panic.
Each Zone on the above diagram comes with words attached:
Comfort Zone: Unchallenged, Safe, Low Risk- Low Reward, Easy, Stable, Secure
Stretch Zone: Education focussed, Willing to learn, Find Purpose, Conquer Objectives, Anticipating, Excited
Panic Zone: Panic, Annoyed, Stressed, Lacks Self Confidence, Frustrated, Fed Up, Fearful, Effected by Opinions, Excuse Driven, Overwhelmed
We exist in all three zones in very different aspects of our lives. But let's convert this model into starting your Fitness Journey…because that is why you are here isn’t it?
In terms of Fitness, the Comfort Zone is not a good place to be. You will find your workouts uninteresting, you will find your journey monotonous, and progress will feel incredibly slow.
The Stretch Zone is where I try to keep all of my clients on my Strong and Confident Program. I think one of the most important aspects of a Fitness Journey is that of education - and I spend a lot of time trying to educate my clients on what they are doing. A fitness journey is a skill, and you can’t get better at that skill unless you learn more about it, and practice what you are learning.
My Weekly Forms for instance, which my clients use as a journal focus their minds on completing objectives, trying to get them excited about the progress they are journalling each week, and keeping them focussed on the purpose of living an active lifestyle and how they balance that into their lives.
Now, without a doubt, many of my clients miss the stretch zone and end up in the panic zone. They can feel overwhelmed, try to do too much at once, many of them lack self-confidence as a result of literally “over-stretching” all the time - and as you can imagine this undermines their ability to actually grow.
My job as their Personal Trainer is to write plans and workouts and check their form on exercises.
My role as their Coach is to keep them in the Stretch Zone.
And as you start your Fitness Journey - this will be your role too.
Don’t get overwhelmed by all the information, don’t worry about the result.
Focus on the process, not the outcome. The process is within your control, the output is not.
And by remaining in the stretch zone, you will stay rooted in the process, and build your confidence naturally. And as you grow, the way in which you stretch yourself will grow as well - ensuring constant development and growth throughout your Fitness Journey.
Step 5: Understanding There Is No Right or Wrong
Fitness can be a very overwhelming topic.
Wait: Where have you seen that word before in this article?
Overwhelm puts you into the Panic Zone.
Overwhelm can make you feel paralysed.
Overwhelm can make you feel like there’s no possible way you can do it.
And I’m sure whenever you have looked into “The Best Meal Plan” or “What Exercise is best for Fat Loss - Cardio or Weight Training” or even “How To Lose A Stone” the sheer amount of conflicting information has just made your brain go:
This is why truly getting to grips with the understanding that there is no right or wrong, just exploration is crucial as you start your journey.
Worrying about things that are well out of what you need to worry about isn’t going to help you.
At all.
To see whether or not you are achieving what you want to achieve with your fitness journey, all you need to do is the following:
One action every day that moves you further down the road
This could be increasing your step count day on day.
This could be increasing your step count on rest days, and doing your workout when it is planned.
This could be having a protein shake today.
This could be increasing your Vegetable intake.
Or my personal favourite:
Increase your sleep
And each day as you string together new behaviours you will make far greater progress, far quicker, than if you focus on what is right, or what is best.
I would go so far as to say, as long as today, you build in what you did yesterday - that is all you ever need to do really.
This doesn’t mean keep doing more.
Sometimes building on yesterday can mean having a rest day to allow the foundations to settle. It could mean listening to The Fitness Solution Podcast to educate and get a greater understanding of where you are at.
It could mean working out again.
You see, the options are actually limitless when you stop focussing on what is right and wrong and start focussing on what you want to explore.
And with limitless options, your journey will be full of colour, intrigue and excitement.
Step 6: What and How To Do. Not Why To Do It
This quote is another of my favourites.
“Practice makes progress permanent”
A lot of people when setting someone up on a fitness journey will try and get you to focus wholly on your “why”. Try and pull those emotional heartstrings:
You know the kind of stuff I mean:
To be able to play with my children
To feel more confident
To feel comfortable in photos
To feel sexy again
To reduce my tiredness
To improve my mental health
To reduce my feelings of anxiety
To get strong enough to fight a bear in the woods
The list goes on and on and on.
And I’m not demeaning why you want to do something, but when we attach whys to actions we frame them through judgement.
“To be able to play with my children” which could actually be “I’m too unfit and lazy to be able to enjoy time with my children”
“To feel sexy again” which could actually be “To feel less self-conscious and to feel desired by the opposite sex. To reduce my loneliness and to hopefully find some happiness through the attachment of another human”
And the truth behind the simpler forms of the whys is loaded with self-guilt, lack of self-compassion and brutal self-talk and inner feelings that will only focus you more on them.
You know why you are wanting to start a fitness journey - and really - you only need to use that as a motivator once.
That was your motivation for searching for this article on Google.
Now it’s about practical application.
Now it’s about building progress.
And making that progress permanent.
This is why, as you start your Fitness Journey it is vitally important you focus on “What to Do” and “How To Do It”.
What and How takes away the judgement of the “Why” and places you into a Stretch Zone.
Whereas focussing on the “Why” puts you into the Panic Zone.
Look at this practically. If you went to the Gym because you wanted to lose weight, a perfectly fair and reasonable goal, but you associate the action of going to the gym solely with why you are there.
“To lose weight” which could actually be “To feel more attractive to the opposite sex and to feel less judged by society”.
The Gym then becomes the place where you are going to get fixed, where you are going to try and remove your feelings - and that is not a nice energy to be working with when you are working out. It’s an energy that makes everything so much harder because you are focussed far too much on your negative self.
Therefore get focussed on the Practical.
What Should You Do In The Gym?
Honestly? Do what you enjoy.
That is your number one priority. As long as it is safe.
Don’t do what I have done on a couple of occasions.
Like fall off a treadmill at 18km/h. Yup I did that.
Try not to load a Deadlift Bar up unevenly by 20kgs, when thinking you’re going for a PB. Yup. I did that too.
Another thing I have done in the Gym that bought me no enjoyment. Enjoyment is key.
Because enjoyment is sustainable.
And…
Enjoyment is moveable. It’s so very easy to get caught up in optimal strength training for “best results”.
But if you hate doing it…you will never get to those “best results” because you won’t be able to do it for long enough.
Added to that by starting with what you enjoy, you can then build from there. What you enjoy can change over time as you get stronger, see results and keep consistent. What I enjoy now in the Gym is vastly different to what I enjoyed 3 or 4 years ago.
And that’s ok.
Because that means what I am doing right now is optimal for my results - because in four years time I will hopefully still be going and loving the benefits attached to being that consistent with my movement.
Let me tell you a little secret.
I used to get really caught up on what was the “ideal” thing for my clients - and it used to get in the way so much. Strength Training and Fitness for the vast majority of people isn’t that complex or needs to be overthought.
I used to feel so insignificant, and so unknowledgeable because I didn’t know the secret order of exercises to progress someone over a year.
I didn’t know what it felt like everyone else seemed to know…and that made me very worried indeed.
But there is no secret. Which is why I didn’t know it.
In fact…the thing that every other trainer seemed to know only got in the way of how they worked with people. They overthought it too much also.
The most optimal thing in strength training for the general population is showing up, and doing something that you enjoy.
Then from there, we can look at workouts that will progress you over time.
But that’s not as hard as it sounds. And don’t let it worry you.
The key principles to What to do in the Gym are:
Show Up
Enjoy what you do when you show up
Work on improving your form
Work on increasing the intensity of what you do in the Gym (heavier weights, longer runs, more sets and reps)
I have two workout Manuals I give away that work on these compelte principles.
The Confident and Strong Manual is a month of Gym Workouts and Home Workouts designed to be quick, accessible and straightforward for you.
They take care of all of the principles outlined above and will really help you start your Strength Training.
The Beginners Bodyweight Guide has a slightly lower barrier to entry and can be done at home. The workouts are just 10mins a day and include guided walks by myself as well - which is one of the most underrated forms of movement a human can do.
To get these manuals then all you have to do is put your email address in below and I will send the straight to you.
What’s Next?
I really hope you found this article useful, and you feel a lot more comfortable about starting your journey.
I also have some other articles you might find useful to help flesh out how to go about starting your Fitness Journey.
Thank you so much for being here - it means an awful lot to me.
Have a great day…
Coach Adam
6 Strategies To Help Stop Late Night Eating and Food Cravings
We have all been there.
it’s dark outside, it’s been a stressful day, and you’re lying in bed listening to one thing.
The rumble in your tum tum.
And as you pay more attention to it, the louder it gets. You then get up and head towards the light.
Like a person possessed. Your brain is screaming: “NO”. But your legs are just walking slowly but surely down the stairs, and towards the light.
You almost try to convince yourself that you will choose something “good” as with each step you justify your legs moving you towards the light.
You get there.
Your arm is on auto-pilot.
The hum is almost soothing, and the light is not too bright….and not too dark. It’s as mesmerising as a flame to a moth.
And before you made a single conscious decision you have already eaten the Milkybar Yoghurt that was just calling your name less than 20 seconds ago.
And as your scrape your tongue on the bottom of the plastic tub, making sure that you do not want to waste a single drop of that Milklybar goodness…the guilt, fear, and worry start to set in:
“Oh my god I’ve totally screwed up”
“Why am I a total failure?”
“I have no self-control”
“I’m never going to conquer this”
“Why am I such a slob?”
“What is wrong with me?”
And the blame game with the self sets in, and then the whole process is repeated.
So here are my top 6 Strategies to help you stop late-night eating and food cravings!
Briefly, before I begin I want to address the issue of “Does Late Night Snacking Lead To Weight Gain?”.
No. It doesn’t from a purely scientific and objective point of view.
The Calories in a Banana do not change between 18:58 and 19:02 on a Wednesday night.
Calories are Calories are Calories.
As this Instagram Post on my Page, points out:
But from a Human Perspective…ask yourself what kind of foods are you eating late at night? I’m pretty sure it’s not Apples and Oranges.
As this Instagram Post explains:
When Calories are controlled, timings of food make no difference to your overall success or not in Weight Loss.
There are arguments to be made for how eating later at night might affect your circadian rhythm, stress resistance and Gut Health. But this doesn’t change the caloric make up of the food and how your body processes the energy from food at night as opposed to during the day, it just influences your ability to stick to a Calorie Deficit over time.
However, late at night, staring into the fridge, you are less likely to be making decisions that are congruent to your Calorie Window and therefore congruent to your goals.
So bear that in mind. Please.
Table of Contents for: “6 Strategies To Help Stop Late Night Eating and Food Cravings”
Eat More Calories
Eat more protein
Eat more Fibre and Drink More Water
Get More Sleep
Lower Stress and Anxiety and Boredom
Stop restricting yourself to lose weight
Eat More Calories
Yup. I said it. You need to eat more.
That might be a little too much….but the image will stick in your head for sure!
According to a paper called The Biology of Binge Eating, 2010, Food Deprivation is a key indicator of Binge Eating Disorder.
The 2010 paper wanted “to examine the literature on binge eating to gain a better understanding of its biological foundations and their role in the eating disorders” [1]
And in the section relating to Food Deprivation it concluded:
“Rats maintained on a restricted feeding schedule, during which they receive 66% of the amount of food that free eating rats consume, increase their caloric intake by 42% compared with sated rats when allowed ad lib access to food. Increased consumption is evident within 2 hours of the return of the food and persists for up to 4 hours (Hagan et al., 2003). This increased consumption over a discrete period of time mirrors behaviors seen in humans who binge eat.” [1]
Ergo, just a 44% reduction in your calories, can lead to a 42% increase in caloric intake.
Don’t worry, I’m not about to renege on my stance of a Calorie Deficit being required to lose weight, but I am going to hammer home the point, your Calorie Deficit must be built on certain foundations to make sure that you can adhere to it in the long term, and not feel overly restricted, leading to a Binge Episode further down the track.
These principles are outlined by my Five Awesome Rules For Fat Loss Life:
And many of these will re-occur in this article. But the most important one is to make sure your Deficit is not too aggressive.
It is far far better to have slow sustainable progress that gives you flexibility and doesn’t lead you on a path to undercutting your psychological progress by falling into a trap of Binge Eating at night than to get aggressive results that you know are not sustainable.
Your Calorie Deficit should at a minimum be set to your Basal Metabolic Rate, and at a maximum at your Goal Bodyweight in LBS multiplied by 12.
To make sure you get that in place - download my Free Calorie Calculator right here.
Yes, by eating more, your weight loss will happen at a reduced rate. But this reduced rate will also allow for:
The flexibility you need as a human being who has emotions.
You to build muscle and improve your Basal Metabolic Rate whilst still in deficit
Greater adherence to actually being in a Calorie Deficit
Late-night snacking so very often comes from a place of restriction throughout the day - and this wouldn’t be so bad if, at night you ate foods congruent to your goals. However quite often late at night…you aren’t snacking on Apples and Broccolli. Due to the restriction throughout the day, you get cravings for foods that are a lot more palatable - and often a lot higher in calories.
This is due to a number of factors, but one obvious one is, come to the end of the day, you are out of energy - and therefore convenience becomes king. Convenient foods are far higher in calories - and far tastier.
Which then puts you into a cycle of craving said foods more the following day…and so it continues.
This study found when they took 20 weight-stable adults and split them into two groups. One group was given an ultra-processed diet and the other an unprocessed diet for 2 weeks. Subjects were told to consume as much or as little as desired. Rather unsurprisingly, the Group that was given the Ultra Processed DIet consumed on average 508kcal/day more with increased consumption of carbohydrates and fat, but not Protein. [2]
This brings me nicely to my next Strategy for you:
2. Eat more Protein
In terms of quelling hunger and regulating appetite, Protein has two main roles.
It makes you feel fuller for longer
It lowers your desire to eat late at night
In this study from 2011, the researchers took 27 overweight or obese men, split them into two groups. Group One was given a Higher Protein (HP) Diet at 25% of energy as Protein, and Group 2 was given a Normal Protein (NP) Diet at 14% of energy as Protein.
The study concluded the following:
“When compared to NP, the HP group experienced lower late-night desire to eat and preoccupation with thoughts of food”
and,
“Collectively, this data supports the consumption of HP intake, but not greater eating frequency, for improved appetite control and satiety in overweight/obese men during energy restriction-induced weight loss” [3]
I often feel that when we discuss eating more protein, you think it has to be the dominant component of your diet. This isn’t true. As you can see from the study above Protein consumption was still only a quarter of dietary intake and garnered great results for halting late-night snacking.
To figure out your Protein Intake I would recommend you download my Calorie and Macro Calculator here: Free Macro Calculator
However, if you want to know the numbers without doing that they are as follows:
Eat 0.8g-1.1g of Protein each day per LB of Lean Body Mass.
However those numbers can be quite hard to achieve, and thus if you start by aiming for just 100g a day if you eat meat, and 80g a day if you don’t then you should be in a pretty good place.
If you would like some more help with your diet and your training then get my Ultimate Guide to your Diet when Working Out:
3. Eat more Fibre and Drink More Water
If you have read a number of my Blogs you will know that I discuss this a lot.
And the prevalence of it is extremely important. Not just if you are wanting to lose weight, but to also curb those late-night snacks.
In terms of Fibre, you want to be keeping this as a key feature of your diet - think of it as the “other Macro-Nutrient”.
Research in Fibre is ever-evolving, and I have it on good authority that what we thought we knew about Fibre may well develop deeper very soon.
Fibre has the ability to do two things that will help curb your hunger:
High Fibre intake stretches the stomach and slows its emptying rate - therefore making you feel fuller for longer
Fibre also ferments in the Bowel, which is thought to increase feelings of fullness as it releases short-chain fatty acids.
Then if we look at this in the context of your goal to lose weight, being fuller for longer throughout the day is an awesome win for you…and if it is going to help you stop eating high-calorie snacks late at night then that too will help you keep your calories down over time.
Added to everything else…
You will be increasing your Vegetable intake - and no bad can come from that can it?
Now onto Water…
Water is filling, and can very much reduce appetite, especially when consumed before you eat.
This study titled: “Association between water consumption and body weight outcomes: a systematic review”
It found:
“Of 4963 retrieved records, 11 original studies and 2 systematic reviews were included. In participants dieting for weight loss or maintenance, a randomized controlled trial, a nonrandomized controlled trial, and an observational longitudinal study showed that increased water consumption, in addition to a program for weight loss or maintenance, reduced body weight after 3-12 mo compared with such a program alone” [4]
Hunger and thirst are interlinked also. When I am working with a friend who I coach online, and their calorie consumption is where it needs to be, but they are still feeling hungry, I will point them towards their water bottle, and remind them of my Five Awesome Rules For Fat Loss Life or the blog post below.
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Back to water…
I will always ask them to aim for 3 liters a day.
And they react like this:
This is a lofty goal.
But I found that setting this goal higher, as it is a behaviour that can be very easily done, means that my clients would be more than likely to hit an amount appropriate for them and their goals.
Thus, lowering their hunger, and therefore their caloric intake.
So, if it’s late at night, and you know that going to the fridge for that snack is an option that isn’t going to make you feel your best, then you should probably think about reaching for the water bottle first.
Establish if you are hungry or thirsty.
And I reckon about 80% of the time, the water will do the trick.
If you have some water, wait 15mins, and still think you are hungry…then consider having some food….but my best advice in this situation would be:
4. Get More Sleep
The Blog Post I published before this one is all about “How Sleep Affects Your Weight”.
But in terms of more sleep leading to less late-night snacking, I think the point is rather obvious. If you are in bed asleep, you’re not in the kitchen eating food.
Then the benefit of being in bed earlier will help reduce your calorie intake the following day. Added to that, improved sleep, helps you regulate your emotional responses the next day, and if emotional eating is a reason for your late-night snacking then a great strategy against that will be getting those extra hours of zzzz’s.
For optimal sleep, you want to plan for about 8 hours of sleep a night. One thing that always perplexes me about the way you manage sleep is this:
You rely on your wake-up time being the marker of your total time sleep.
But your wake-up time is out of your control pretty much. You could be woken up early, which frequently happens, by some traffic, a bird, a child, needing a wee.
Suddenly you have had a bad night’s sleep because you went to bed at 11:00 pm hoping you would get your 7 hours in and suddenly woke up at 5 am.
Plan better.
If you went to bed at 10:00 pm suddenly 5 am isn’t such a bad wake-up time.
Sleep is the foundation that your appetite control is built on. This study found a correlation between lack of sleep in duration and increased Grehlin and lack of sleep in duration and decreased Leptin.
Grehlin is a hormone that is responsible for how hungry you get. Leptin is the hormone responsible for how full you feel.
So yeah. Poor sleep leads to these two hormones very much working against your ability to curb that late-night eating.
Other strategies to improve your sleep are:
Exercise Regularly
Sleep with your Circadian Rhythm
Listen to Sleep Stories (link to my YouTube Sleep Stories)
Listen to Sleep Meditations (link to my YouTube Sleep Meditations)
Stop Drinking Caffeine from 11:00 am
Reduce Alcohol Intake
And Brush Your Teeth…
This is anecdotal evidence, as is in there is ZERO Science to actually back this up, but brushing your teeth has been reported to stop people snacking.
And it makes sense right?
Have you ever had Orange Juice straight after you brushed your teeth?
The combination of tastes, the effort of going to all that trouble to have to brush your teeth again, or if there is some psychological thing about the act of brushing your teeth priming your mind for sleep as opposed to food…but…whatever works.
Maybe try it next time your legs are walking to the fridge and the brain is saying “NOOOOOOOO”. See if it helps.
5. Lower Your Stress, Anxiety and Boredom
I know that this is easier said than done. But if you can at least practice some behaviors that will help you lower these two things, then you are going to put yourself into a better position when it comes to these food cravings, especially late at night.
Of these 7 strategies, there are 2 that most people will ignore.
Get More Sleep and Lower Stress, Anxiety and Boredom (especially Stress and Boredom)
Personally, I believe them to be the most important two on the list, for the exact same reason - they are mostly overlooked.
We seem to be happy to live in the two states of being Stressed and being Bored quite a lot in this day and age. It's almost a Social Norm for us, to just accept that we will be stressed and that boredom is one of those things.
However, when you accept living this way, as opposed to learning to control it, you pay the consequences for it as well.
And the consequences of chronic stress, and Emotional Eating manifesting itself as Boredom Eating are indeed not fun things to be faced with.
So let me show you the link between these emotions and how that is impacting your Fitness Goals.
Does Stress Lead To Increased Food Intake?
This study [6] called “Stress and Eating Behaviours”
“Repeated bouts of minor daily stressors that keep the stress system in a chronically activated state may alter brain reward/motivation pathways involved in wanting and seeking hyper-palatable foods and induce metabolic changes that promote weight and body fat mass”
The part of this that I find correlates majorly to late-night eating is the term “hyper-palatable foods”. When you are stressed you aren’t eating apples and oranges. You’re eating Apple Pies and Terry’s Chocolate Orange.
Does Anxiety Lead To Increased Food Intake?
This study [7] from 2017 is called “Effects of anxiety on caloric intake and satiety-related brain activation in women and men”.
It took twenty-nine twin pairs (58 individuals) and asked them to fill out a questionnaire about their tendency to be anxious. Participants had to answer questions like:
“I worry too much over something that really doesn’t matter”
“I am content; I am a steady person”
and questions like:
“I am tense; I am worried” and “I feel calm; I feel secure”.
All items are rated on a 4-point scale (e.g., from “Almost Never” to “Almost Always”)
Participants were then given an all-you-can-eat buffet, as a thank you for filling out the questionnaire, and were not told their intake was being recorded.
And those that scored a higher rating of anxious feelings on the questionnaire also ate more food at the buffet (Fig A)
As you can see from the graphs. The Twin that scored higher on the Trait Anxiety Scale also ate more food at the Buffet, independent of BMI (Fig B)
The study concluded the following:
“In conclusion, the current findings suggest that anxiety promotes caloric consumption and consumption of high-fat foods in women. We also provide evidence that anxiety alters brain responses to satiety such that the normal reduction in activation by high-calorie food cues induced by a meal does not occur in highly anxious women, suggesting a disruption in neural circuitry that could promote overeating. Anxiety may be a risk factor for obesity, but we show this risk is likely limited to people with a genetic susceptibility to weight gain”
So this gets more complex than just…you’re anxious so you increase your calories.
It also means that if you are anxious, you might show signs of Leptin Resistance which therefore means you won’t know if you are full or not.
Does Boredom Lead To Increased Food Intake?
I think we all know this to be true colloquially.
However, this study from 2012 [8] by the University of Limerick, proves it to be true.
Researchers wanted to establish whether or not Boredom eating is a distinct construct away from other negative emotions by revising the Emotional Eating Scale.
Results found were: “On the open-ended items, participants more often reported eating in response to boredom than the other emotions”
They also stated: “boredom leads to unhealthy eating, as it helps to distract from the unpleasant boredom experience.”
Added to that, a study in 2016 by the University of Central Lancashire ran a couple of tests to measure this also.
The first test asked 52 people to fill out a questionnaire about their food preferences, then complete a task of copying the same group of letters over and over again. They then filled out the questionnaire again.
The second test was 45 participants and they got to watch either a funny video or a boring video. As they watched bowls of snacks were left out for the participants for them to eat ad libitum.
They found that:
“From the first study showed people were more likely to express a preference for unhealthy foods like crisps, sweets and fast food after completing the boring task.
The results from the second study showed that the participants who had watched the boring video ate significantly more unhealthy food.” [9]
How To Lower Stress, Anxiety, and Boredom
You will start to see a pattern emerging in all of these Strategies and the positive behaviors that will help you stop those late-night food cravings.
Some of these will help all three categories, some of them will only help one emotion, however, all of them will go some way to helping you stop those late-night cravings for food:
Exercise Regularly (again)
Improve Your Sleep (again) by not staying up late mindlessly watching tv and playing video games - get to bed earlier and turn off the electronics
Eat more nutritious food
Meditate
Reduce Caffeine intake
Journal Daily
Communicate your feelings
Manage your to-do list to avoid procrastination
Get focused on what you want from life
Pick Up A Hobby
Pick a few from the list, the ones that excite you the most and have the lowest barrier of entry for you, and see if that helps you with those late-night munchies.
6. Stop Restricting Food
I would say that food avoidance is one of the biggest reasons that people crave food.
Pink Elephant syndrome.
You know, if I’m telling you not think of that big, round, funny-looking Pink Elephant…
You’re going to think of it.
Put into the mix that we have a sensual relationship with food, and if I tell you not to eat something….you are going to crave it more and more.
And the cravings ALWAYS WIN.
Because they rear their head, at night, when you are stressed, anxious, and bored.
Are you starting to see a theme here?
This is also a key construct in why Diets Fail - because many Diets require you to give up foods you enjoy. But the cravings will always win because your willpower is finite - and then the feelings of guilt and failure set in, perpetuating the cycle that has led you to look for a solution in the first place.
This study [10] from 2005, is called “The Effect of Deprivation on Food Cravings” and for one week they took 103 Female Undergraduates and deprived them of Chocolate, Vanilla or not deprivation at all.
The result was:
“Chocolate-deprived restrained eaters consumed more chocolate food than did any other group. Restrained eaters experienced more food cravings than did unrestrained eaters and were more likely to eat the craved food”
But for me the most interesting conclusion was this:
“Moreover, restrained eaters deprived of chocolate spent the least time doing an anagram task before a "taste-rating task" in which they expected that chocolate foods might be available”
So if you are deprived, not only will you actually end up eating more, but you will also rush through life at times where you think the food that you are deprived from is on the other side of the task - and as we know from other studies when you are in a state of stress, you will indeed consume more food.
The final conclusion from this study was the following:
“Converging measures of craving indicate that deprivation causes craving and overeating, but primarily in restrained eaters.”
Which draws a direct correlation between deprivation - and overeating especially in those who are abstaining from certain foods.
Ergo, to conquer those cravings, give yourself permission to eat the foods you enjoy the most.
Remember, if it is within your Calorie Window it won’t halt your progress. Added to that…even if it is outside your Calorie Window, having it might still do less damage to your overall goals than not having it at all.
Remember…CRAVINGS ALWAYS WIN because WILLPOWER IS FINITE.
And by giving yourself permission to eat these foods you will eradicate many negative feelings you attach to “indulging”.
Bottom Line
These strategies are here to help you understand why you might be behaving in a certain way. All 6 might work a treat for you, you might only need one or two of them to find success.
As I have been writing this article, someone has reached out to me on Instagram discussing her past trauma and how that effects her eating, especially late at night. Emotional Eating is a whole other topic, and although some of what I have shared in this article might be helpful to you, if you are dealing with something a lot deeper then I urge you to get the proper help needed for that.
In our conversations, this person explained to me that as part of dealing with the trauma it leads her to eat foods that she is craving, foods that she also knows work against her fitness goals.
But in this instance, working on the trauma and resolving what happened is much more important. If eating choclate after a therpay session helps you cope with the therapy and is a part of the process of your healing, then you have to understand that is going to be better for your long term success as a person, as opposed to your short term success for your fitness goals.
To be hungry is normal.
To have cravings is normal.
To have an appetite is normal.
To have reduced willpower in the evenings is normal.
I don’t want you to have read this article and then thought that because you can’t seem to avoid late-night snacking, even when you implement some of the things in this article you are in some way “broken”.
We all need to stop trying to find ways of erasing our human self, in the pursuit of fitness.
You don’t need appetite suppressants, you don’t need bio hacks and you don’t need to just “have more willpower”.
You more than likely need to have more self-empathy and understanding for your own human condition.
And you probably need to:
Exercise some more to reduce your stress
Get to Bed earlier to help reduce your stress
Stop restricting yourself away from foods you love….to reduce your stress.
Your cravings come from too much stress and drained willpower at the end of the day.
Luckily, that’s far easier worked upon than trying to “fix” what isn’t broken in the first place.
Did You Find This Useful?
Thank you so much for reading my article - I really hope you found it helpful.
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Just like with this article - where I like to give as much help to you as I can.
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Taheri S, Lin L, Austin D, Young T, Mignot E. Short sleep duration is associated with reduced leptin, elevated ghrelin, and increased body mass index. PLoS Med. 2004 Dec;1(3):e62. doi: 10.1371/journal.pmed.0010062. Epub 2004 Dec 7. PMID: 15602591; PMCID: PMC535701.
Yau, Y. H., & Potenza, M. N. (2013). Stress and eating behaviors. Minerva endocrinologica, 38(3), 255–267.
Mestre, Z. L., Melhorn, S. J., Askren, M. K., Tyagi, V., Gatenby, C., Young, L., Mehta, S., Webb, M. F., Grabowski, T. J., & Schur, E. A. (2016). Effects of Anxiety on Caloric Intake and Satiety-Related Brain Activation in Women and Men. Psychosomatic medicine, 78(4), 454–464. https://doi.org/10.1097/PSY.0000000000000299
Koball AM, Meers MR, Storfer-Isser A, Domoff SE, Musher-Eizenman DR. Eating when bored: revision of the emotional eating scale with a focus on boredom. Health Psychol. 2012 Jul;31(4):521-4. doi: 10.1037/a0025893. Epub 2011 Oct 17. PMID: 22004466.
British Psychological Society (BPS). "Bored people reach for the chips." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 27 April 2016. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/04/160427081756.htm>.