Skyler Meine

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Here’s something I don’t understand: why people believe they should take the hard route to their IdealShape. People will avoid supplementation because they think it’s unnatural, yet they’ll go for extreme diets and bizarre pills that don’t work.

Let me explain what supplementation really is, and why you need it.

The recipe for a healthy body and mind includes several ingredients. Supplements are one of them. When I talk about supplementing, I’m not talking about steroids or unhealthy muscle building substances, and I’m not talking about unnatural diet pills.

I am talking about vitamins, minerals, and natural ingredients that bring the body into balance. Nutrients that fortify the immune system and jumpstart metabolism. Many of these substances exist naturally in the foods you eat, but your body literally cannot absorb all the nutrients it needs from food alone.

That’s the beauty of extract form—i.e., supplements.

Understand that I personally would not take, or recommend, anything that was unhealthy, unnatural or a waste of time. I have been studying health and fitness for 12 years. And I’ve come to understand that adding supplements to your nutrition plan isn’t cheating, it’s the opposite of cheating. Here’s why:

You’ve been eating right and exercising hard. Now you can a) optimize your results (with a supplement), or b) cheat yourself out of your results by cancelling them out (leaving the body out of balance, letting the immune system and metabolism wilt).

Supplements are not only a key component of your body-shaping mission, they’re essential for lifelong health.

That doesn’t mean you’ll have to take a weight loss supplement forever; many people use it just to get down to their goal weight. By that time, the body is balanced and they are able to sustain their shape with the basics: exercise, food, a multivitamin and protein. But you need to get to that point first. The right supplement can take you there, helping you shed excess body fat so you can start sculpting!

Here are some body-balancing ingredients you’ll find in a good supplement:

• Green Tea—an antioxidant, promotes efficient metabolism
• Grapefruit—contains vitamins A, B5 and C, plus potassium and folate
• Caffeine—a natural appetite suppressant, promotes efficient metabolism and energy
• Resveratrol—this is one of my favorites: found naturally in the skin of red grapes and other plants, this antioxidant is currently being used by major pharmaceutical companies in longevity and health-promoting remedies. It has been shown to suppress appetite and correct leptin resistance (read the research on Resveratrol ).
• Kelp (seaweed)—promotes efficient metabolism, contains calcium, potassium, magnesium, iron, amino acid and vitamins A, B1, B2, C, D, E

ResveraShape, by IdealShape, is an excellent supplement if your goal is to burn excess fat, curb caloric intake, or just get the nutrients your body needs to stay fit. It contains all of the above ingredients. I encourage you to learn more about it and understand why these natural ingredients help the body slim down and shape up. Get the full scoop on ResveraShape

Bottom line: if your metabolism isn’t running efficiently, you can exercise and cut calories but you’ll still keep the fat. And if you aren’t healthy and energetic, your workouts will be pretty worthless. To achieve your IdealShape and mind, you need to create a holistic balance. Start with supplements.

Your Goal for the Day: start using a natural body-shaping, health-promoting supplement like ResveraShape. Use it every day for 31 days and assess the results!

antioxidant, body shaping, caffeine, diet pills, energy, exercise, grapefruit, green tea, holistic health, kelp, metabolism, nutrients, nutrition, ResveraShape, resveratrol, supplements, unnatural diet, vitamins and minerals

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The mind is definitely the most powerful influence on getting to your IdealShape. A close second is your metabolism. You have probably heard from other fitness professionals that weight loss is all about “calories in” versus “calories out.” Are they right? Yes… but it isn’t that simple.

If all you did was decrease your “calories in,” over time your “calories out” would decrease as well. But your goal isn’t to balance out, it’s to expend more calories, right? And if your only plan to boost metabolism is to eat fewer calories, well, you’re losing lean muscle. That’s not even balancing out—it’s driving your metabolism down. So, you’re skimping on food and yet slowing your metabolism. Not at all what you’re going for.

The real key to getting to your IdealShape is figuring out how to keep your metabolism up while taking in fewer calories.

Is It Possible to Keep Metabolism High While Lowering Caloric Intake?

Yes!

To a lot of people, “metabolism” is something unfathomable and untouchable. They believe their metabolism is set in stone, and they use it as an excuse to stay out of shape.

Metabolism is not a mystery. And we do have the power to shape our metabolism, and thus our bodies. Here are three ways to keep your metabolism high while cutting calories back:

1. Perform resistance exercises. They will build your lean muscle mass right up, in turn boosting your metabolism. Strength training is any activity that uses weights or your bodyweight. For example: bicep curls, push ups, planks, squats and lunges (these are just a few!).
2. Eat well before exercise. In addition to resistance exercises, fueling your workout will help you preserve muscle mass to keep metabolism high. Give your body plenty of carbs and protein pre-workout, so it doesn’t go after existing muscle for exercise energy. Also, consuming protein right after your workout will further muscle recovery and growth.
3. Don’t cut your caloric intake too low. To shed excess fat, you only need to go 300-500 calories less than your daily caloric need. Go any lower and your body will be forced to turn to muscle for daily energy.

Don’t use a “sluggish” metabolism as an excuse to be a shape you’re not happy with!

Your Goal for Today: put the above three tips into motion. Lower your caloric intake within the healthy range, complete a resistance workout, and have protein within 30 minutes of exercise (a weight loss protein shake is ideal). Make this your standard exercise routine, and watch your metabolism become twice as efficient!

More tips on pre- and post-workout nutrition coming this week!

build muscle, calories in, calories out, increase metabolism, lower caloric intake, metabolism, protein, resistance exercises, Weight Loss

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The One Time You Shouldn’t Fight Hunger

Breakfast is possibly the most important meal of the day, yet so many people pass it up. Don’t ignore that gnawing feeling in your stomach just because you’re in a rush, or because you think it will help you reach your IdealShape faster. It won’t! Skipping breakfast is one of the biggest causes of weight gain.

On day 4, I told you to eat more often, which will actually help you eat fewer calories. This is especially true of the morning meals. One of your 5-6 meals of the day should be breakfast, followed by a well-balanced snack a few hours later.

If you miss these earlier meals, your metabolism will slow down (Weight Gain Cause #1). Then you’ll gorge at later meals and crave unhealthy snacks (Weight Gain Cause #2). Without breakfast you’ll have less energy throughout the day, either skipping your exercise regimen or simply being less active in your daily activities (Weight Gain Cause #3).

A lot of people say they aren’t hungry in the morning, or that eating right away makes their stomach upset. As far as hunger goes—once you are exercising regularly and your metabolism starts to swing upward (thanks to those small 5-6 daily meals), you will be hungry. If breakfast bothers your stomach, just try to eat and have some water as early as you can. Your stomach will start getting used to morning food, especially if it’s the right kind.

What to Eat

By “breakfast” I don’t mean a piece of white bread or a bowl of Trix. You want to avoid processed foods and go for fresh as much as possible. And remember from previous posts, the goal for each meal is a 40/30/30 ratio of carbs/protein/fat.

A few ballpark 40/30/30 breakfast examples:

1. One egg and two egg whites,  and fresh fruit with a low carb yogurt
2. Whole grain cereal with nuts, fruit, and the Ideal Shape Shake made with skim milk

The IdealShape Meal Replacement Shake

The IdealShape shake is packed with protein, vitamins and minerals, making it a great on-the-go breakfast replacement. Mix the IdealShape shake with water or milk, add fruit and sprinkle some granola on top and you have a healthy, energizing breakfast in under 3 minutes.

Today’s Goal: eat breakfast. If you didn’t have breakfast today, plan for tomorrow. Choose what you’re going to eat, prepare items the night before if needed, and be sure to include a fresh fruit or vegetable. Aim to get a good portion of your calories in the first half of the day, not the latter half.

Trust me, this is one goal that delivers instant rewards. When you eat breakfast you will have more energy, and you will see your IdealShape much sooner—especially when you include the IdealShape protein shake in your meal plan.

Keep reading daily for more nutrition tips to create your IdealShape

breakfast, energizing breakfast, energy, IdealShape, meal plan, metabolism, minerals, protein, vitamins, weight gain

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The most important part of achieving your IdealShape is creating the habits that allow you to take better care of your body and mind.

Taking better care of your body is going to require building muscle that will increase your metabolism. To do this you need to be able to exercise. Before you get tOo far into your exercise regimen, you need to figure out how to keep your muscles and joints healthy to perform the exercise you need to get to your IdealShape.

For years individuals have used massage to prepare for and recover from exercise. For the average person, to pay a therapist to work them over before and after a workout could cost a fortune. Recently, foam rolling was created to take the place of hands-on massage. Foam rolling is more convenient and is very inexpensive in comparison to the cost of a massage therapist. Foam rolling or self-myofascial release is self-massage done with a 18 to 36 inch by 6 inch cylindrical roller. Massage realigns the muscles in our bodies that have been overused or injured. It also increases blood flow to these muscles.

Foam rolling when started can be somewhat painful. These painful areas are the areas that are injured or have been overused and need to be repaired. You can foam roll as many times a day as you would like, but I generally use it with my clients right before and after their workouts.

Start with this intro to foam rolling given by Kit, or watch the actual demonstration below.

exercise, foam roller, foam rolling, IdealShape, massage therapist, metabolism, muscle, self massage, self myofascial release

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It has been a long day. You haven’t eaten since breakfast. You don’t want to have to make something when you are this hungry. A burger and fries suddenly sounds so good, but you are trying to lose weight. You remember that the “experts” say weight loss is all about calories in and calories out. You think I definitely haven’t eaten more calories than I burned today. I only had 300 calories for breakfast. You decide to be conservative and just get the medium sized value meal. It only has 1,000 calories. There’s protein in the burger, right? And you decide to make the purchase and eliminate your insatiable hunger.

You were under your calorie limit for the day. So why doesn’t this result in weight loss?

Because our bodies respond to when, what, and how much we eat.

We are genetically trained to be fat-storing machines. You can thank our ancestors for that because their fat-storing skills are what got them through droughts and famines, so they could thrive and be able to reproduce. Food sources haven’t always been as reliable as they are now.

Once you eat, you have about three hours where your body either uses or stores the food you ate. The average person usually only needs 200-300 calories during those three hours, so anything above these levels is stored. In the example above, over 700 calories is going to be stored as fat. Your body is going to tap these 700 calories after three hours but by then they will be stored as fat and your body would prefer to keep them stored as fat, so your metabolism slows down.  Remember, your metabolism is going to slow every time you have to utilize fat and protein as your primary energy sources. Which is going to divert protein from what it is supposed to do, which is build and repair your entire body.

Problems

1. How can you control hunger so you don’t binge?

2. How can you keep metabolism up as high as possible to burn the calories you are taking in, plus additional fat?

Solution

1. Plan what and when you are going to eat everyday.

2. Eat 5 to 6 times a day.

By eating more often, your hunger will have little to no control over your eating decisions.  Your metabolism will stay high throughout the day because it is constantly being fueled by a balance of protein, fats and carbohydrates.  And because you are trying to lose weight the right way, eating more often will allow your body to use fat and carbohydrates as your major energy sources and eliminate any dependence on protein (muscle). Muscle is what really drives your metabolism. Up to 50 calories are burned per pound of muscle on your body per day.

Hang in there and I will give you tips on what you should be eating and in what amounts to take you to your IdealShape.

Goal for the Day: Eat 5 to 6 Small Meals

carbohydrates, eat more often, fats, IdealShape, metabolism, proteins, value meals, Weight Loss

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Are you one of those people who jumps out of bed in the morning just in time to get a shower in before you have to run to work? Then, you are so busy at work that you only have a few minutes to grab a snack. By the end of the work day you realize you are starving, so you pick up something on the way home or go home and eat way too much to make up for your lack of food throughout the day.

If you can relate to this story it is time to make some changes to your eating habits because what you are doing is killing your metabolism! On top of killing your metabolism, if you are exercising you are seriously going to hamper your improvement in the gym.

It’s going to take some effort on your part but eating five to six small meals a day will give you more energy. It will keep your metabolism burning as many calories as possible throughout the entire day. Just three hours after you eat, your body will have used or stored all the energy from that meal. This allows your body to utilize fat as a source of energy so that your energy levels stay up, and your body doesn’t hear the starvation alarm and attack lean muscle mass for fuel.

Eating every three hours will keep your metabolism burning calories non-stop, targeting the fat stores to get those extra calories it needs. Remember, healthy weight loss is all about maintaining lean muscle to keep your metabolism cranked up and burning fat. Make sure that each meal is balanced with protein, carbohydrates and fat. The closer the meals are to each other in number of calories, the better.

calories, healthy weight loss, maintain lean muscle mass, metabolism

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Everyone has the ability to lose weight. For a very small (and I mean very small) portion of the population, losing weight requires the help of a medical doctor but weight loss is still possible. For everyone else it comes down to doing the work to find the solution that will work for you. When I hear people say they can’t lose weight, it makes me want to rip my hair out and scream from the roof tops, “Stop Lying To Yourself.” The formula is simple: burn more calories than you eat and you will lose weight. Honestly, it is that simple.

I can hear you saying, “It isn’t that simple, Skyler. Every time I try to lose weight, I exercise and eat right and nothing happens.”

Well, guys, the answer is simple: you aren’t burning more calories than you are eating. One of two things is happening: you are eating more than you think or your metabolism is really slow. And both things can be remedied. By learning to eat the right things at the right time and practicing fat-burning, metabolism-enhancing exercise, you can and will start to lose weight.

I guarantee when I work with my clients that they are going to lose weight if they are willing to follow my program. I have never meet a client who didn’t lose weight if they followed through on their end. Sometimes it does take working with a weight loss expert to figure it out. Sometimes it is to difficult to figure out on your own, but I want to emphasize that it can be done. If you want to achieve your IdealShape, you can.

And as an incentive to come back we will be discussing what to eat and the fat-burning, metabolism-enhancing exercise that you should be doing.

burn more calories, fat burning, IdealShape, lose weight, metabolism, Weight Loss, weight loss expert

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As soon as you start to think about losing weight, a few thoughts should enter your mind, such as: How do I cut calories and maintain lean muscle mass? In order to cut calories, you are going to have to learn how to manage hunger and destroy many of your unhealthy cravings. Eating the right foods and the right supplements can help block hunger. But make sure you are cutting the right calories and eating the right foods to keep your metabolism high.  Metabolism is driven by lean muscle mass, so the foods you eat should promote the increase of lean muscle mass.

Three Tips to Maintain and Potentially Build Muscle While Losing Fat

1. Eat 5-6 Times a Day: Helps conserve protein to do its job, which is maintaining and rebuilding muscle.

2. Eat Smaller Portions: Each meal should be similar in caloric intake. No big calorie spikes.

3. Eat Meals Balanced With Carbs, Protein, and Fat: Remember fat isn’t the enemy, it is part of a balanced diet. Each energy source is essential to overall health.

lean muscle mass, losing weight, manage hunger, metabolism

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If you are struggling to lose weight, building lean muscle mass is the only way to get your metabolism to jump sky-high. Put on the lean muscle mass and watch what your body is capable of doing. And, for you ladies worried about putting on lean muscle mass, it doesn’t mean getting bulky.

One pound of lean muscle mass burns 50 calories a day.

Convert 10 pounds of your body weight from fat to lean muscle mass and you will be burning 500 more calories a day. If you maintained the number of calories you where eating each day with the additional 10 pounds of muscle you would average 1 pound of fat loss every week. 500 calories a day for seven days is 3500 calories. One pound of fat contains 3500 calories.

So if you did nothing but increase the amount of muscle you had on your body, you could lose one pound of fat a week. To boost your metabolism, boost your lean muscle mass!

fat loss, lean muscle burns fat, lean muscle mass, lose fat, metabolism

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This question seems to confuse people a lot.  The whole fitness and weight loss industry gives people conflicting messages about topics like protein shakes all the time. The truth to this question that protein shake will help you lose weight!

Protein builds everything in our body and renews everything in our body. If we don’t have enough protein in our diet, and we don’t get that protein at the right times, our lean muscle mass will decrease. If your lean muscle mass is reduced, you will have to eat less food to maintain the same weight – and even less to lose weight. If you increase your lean muscle mass, however, you will burn up to 50 calories more per pound each day.

Protein shakes have been proven to promote muscle growth if taken before a workout or right after a workout. That means that if someone using a protein shake is eating less than their maintenance needs each day, they will lose weight. They’ll also be more likely to maintain or build lean muscle mass.

Long-term success with weight loss requires an improvement in metabolism and protein shakes will allow muscle growth if consumed in correlation with a workout. Protein drinks can also provide extra protein to a diet that is otherwise lacking sufficient levels of protein.

lean muscle mass, metabolism, promote muscle growth, protein shakes