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It’s recommended that we eat 6-10 fruits and vegetables a day. Here in the States it is reported the actual average of fruits and veggies eaten each day is just 2.

Yup, just 2.

Now, I don’t know where you stand on this, but overall, it really is a sad state of nutritional affairs.

But do not despair! It’s not that tough to get more fruits and veggies in each day.

Here are some super simple tips to get you started:

1) Buy ‘em pre-chopped

Look, I can be lazy, too There’s nothing wrong with not wanting to go through the hassle of having to chop up fruits and veggies. If you want to buy them pre-chopped go ahead. It’s much better for you than not eating them.

2) Carry ‘em with you

Load up a plastic baggie with your pre-chopped veggies and bring them to work. Seriously, see how easy this can be!

3) Add real fruit to your yogurt

Have some yogurt for breakfast and add some fresh blueberries, raspberries or blackberries. It’s that simple!

Bonus tip: A great way to provide your body with the nutritional foundation you need each day is a Whole Foods based multi-vitamin. I’m a proud Prograde Nutrition partner and they have a terrific product called VGF 25+ that is made from 25 veggies, greens and fruits.

The best part is you can try Prograde’s VGF 25+ for FREE! (There’s just a small S & H charge)
Get Your Free Vitamins Here

Be sure to use these tips and comment below with some of your own tips.

What REALLY Causes Fat Loss Plateaus
Guest Blog by Joel Marion

I got my friend and weight loss expert Joel Marion to explain what causes the dreaded weight loss plateau.

Joel is the author of Cheat To Lose and is considered by many (including me) one of the top authorities on the subject.

Enjoy!!!

So, what REALLY causes fat loss plateaus to happen and why is getting exceptionally lean incredibly difficult?

Well, that’s two questions, so let’s address them one at a time

A general fat loss plateau or stall in weight loss can happen for many reasons, but they all basically come down to metabolism and hormones.

If you’ve read some of my previous writing, then you’re probably pretty familiar with leptin, so while I’ll save you the long science, I do believe a brief explanation is in order.

Leptin, AKA the anti-starvation hormone, is basic the “control” hormone when it comes to weight loss, particularly fat loss. Other important hormones with regards to metabolism and weight loss, such as the appetite regulating hormones neuropeptide-Y and ghrelin, and the metabolic thyroid hormones are all more or less dependent on leptin.

As an analogy, Leptin is the “Sergeant” hormone from which all other hormones take commands.

Either that or leptin is just REALLY cool and the other guys simply base everything they do around what leptin’s doing.

Bunch of lame-ass follower hormones.

I digress.

The point is, if you hope to have any success when it comes to weight loss, then you need to understand and learn to manipulate leptin.

To make things extremely simplistic:

High leptin levels = Heightened fat burning and metabolism

Low leptin levels = Decreased fat burning and metabolism

Unless of course you suffer from leptin resistance, which we’ll talk about momentarily.

So how is leptin mediated? Two ways:

1. Leptin is mediated by body fat levels.

Because leptin is secreted by fat cells, it makes sense that there is a direct, linear relationship between the amount of body fat you are carrying and the amount of leptin you have floating around. That is to say, the more fat you have, the more leptin you have, and vice versa.

This is THE major reason why losing those last few pounds is exceptionally difficult.

Oops, looks like we are answering the second question before we fully answer the first. I tend to do that.

But yes, low body fat levels unquestionably mean low baseline levels of leptin. Essentially, with every pound of fat you lose, the lower baseline leptin levels fall, making it even more difficult to lose the next pound.

Fun stuff, I know.

To recap:

Low body fat levels = low leptin

High body fat levels = high leptin

Uh oh. Now I have to explain why “fat” people, if they indeed have the highest leptin levels because of their large amount of body fat, aren’t the leanest people in the world if leptin is so metabolic.

Good question, my smart fellow, but there is indeed an explanation, and that explanation is called “leptin resistance”.

Similar to insulin resistance, if leptin receptors are constantly being bombarded by high levels of leptin, they start to become less sensitive to the hormone.

This is what happens with insulin in Type II diabetics. People eat crap food and loads of highly processed carbohydrates for years, flood their bloodstream with insulin every hour of the day, and gradually over time insulin receptors become so desensitized to the hormone to the point that insulin no longer “works”.

The same occurs with leptin. Overweight people, who have been overweight for years, become resistant to the hormone due to massive amounts of leptin (caused by high body fat levels and high calorie intakes, which we’ll talk about in a minute) slamming receptors for extended periods of time.

I won’t go into too much further detail about leptin resistance and sensitivity here, but for the sake of the conversation, we’ll just say that leptin is “broke” in these individuals.

Can it be fixed?

Yes. And I actually cover exactly how to do this in the Ninja Nutrition Tactics manual.

2. Leptin is mediated by calorie intake.

In addition to leptin’s relationship with body fat, leptin is also pretty chummy with the amount of food you’re taking in on a daily basis. That is, your calorie intake.

High calorie intakes = high leptin levels

Low calorie intakes = low leptin levels

That said, that darned “common sense” does come into play here as well (i.e. you can’t eat 5,000 calories a day and expect your high leptin levels to cancel out the rules of mathematics).

The important thing to recognize is that typical dieting, in which you are restricting calories on a daily/weekly/monthly basis, derails leptin “fo’ sheezy” (as the kids say), and there’s no getting around that.

This means that with chronic dieting, you WILL screw with leptin and you WILL hit a fat loss plateau, period. It WILL happen-so whatcha gonna do about it?

Oh yeah, and I also talk quite a bit about the whole “getting really lean” thing, too, so let’s go back to that real quick.

As mentioned, the number one reason losing those last few pounds of fat is such a curse word is low leptin and the fact that your body does not WANT you to be single digit body fat-at all.

It’s all like “Noooooooooo, stay fat and keep me warmmmmm. I’m colddddd. And what are we going to do if we end up like Tom Hanks in that one movie-you know, the one with the volley ball. That could happen.”

And theoretically, your body is correct. But, being lean is way cooler than Tom Hanks (sorry, it’s true, I took a poll), so if you’re going to ever get exceptionally lean, you’re going to have to learn the ways of the Ninja.

Bottom line, it AINT easy to figure out, but the good news is that you don’t have to since I already did it for you.

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Your Grocery List May Be Sabotaging you

I was at the grocery store with my wife Johnette and my princess Bailee the other day picking up some ingredients for a black bean & brown rice with seasoned venison strips dish I was planning to make, when an interesting thing happened…

I had gone straight to the grocery store after meeting a couple clients at the gym.

Well, as I was grabbing some frozen veggies, a friendly lady (who must have seen that I was a fitness coach from my shirt), asked me my advice on a couple frozen prepared box meals she was picking out (by the way, those prepared frozen meals are usually highly processed crap loaded with sodium and other chemicals).

Now I will say that this woman was VERY overweight, and she mentioned that she has “tried everything” to get rid of all of the excess body fat and always failed.

Keep in mind I hear about 50 people a day tell me they’ve “tried everything” to get in shape.

The problem that they don’t realize is that they’re trying all of the wrong things…they’re trying all of the gimmicks and fads that are out there instead of just adopting a TRUE healthy active lifestyle.

Back to the woman in the store…

So we started chatting about her struggles with getting in shape, and I began scanning her grocery cart. If I can remember, these were some of the contents she thought were healthy:

*Slim fast shakes (far from healthy…they’re actually loaded with high fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated oils, and a bunch of other chemicals)

*Fat Free Rice Cakes (ok…despite so many people believing these pieces of crap are healthy…they really are nothing but pure refined starch with zero fiber, which basically breaks down immediately into sugar in your body, spiking insulin and promoting fat storage…doesn’t sound so good anymore, huh)

*Protein bars “Scientifically Slim Body Engineered” or some BS statement like that (I took a gander at the ingredient list of these so called “healthy” protein bars and sure enough… hydrogenated oils, high fructose corn syrup, and enough sugar alcohols to give you diarrhea for a week!)

*Canned fruit in syrup (I guess she could do worse here…but still, why not just eat fresh whole fruit which still contains the skins, fiber, active enzymes, etc, instead of resorting to processed, canned fruit that’s been cooked and loaded with syrup)

*Reduced Sugar Dessert Cakes (ok, so these are loaded with artificial sweeteners, sugar alcohols, preservatives, and a chemical ingredient list about 15 lines long)

Do you see what’s going on here?

This is the same scenario that I see all the time.

Most people are fooled by what the FRONT OF THE BOX says, leading them to believe what they are buying is healthy.

On all of these items, the FRONT of the packages had all kinds of great sounding things like “fat free”, “reduced sugar”, “high protein”, “low cholesterol”, “low carb”, etc.

However, the TRUTH is on the BACK OF THE BOX!

Ah yes, the ingredient list and nutrition info is where the real truth is.

However, I’ve realized that most of the general public doesn’t know how to fully understand the ingredient list and nutrition info, so they rely on the advertising claims on the front of the package to guide them.

BIG MISTAKE!

If you notice, this woman thought she was doing great with her grocery shopping and buying all kinds of healthy stuff for her and her family.

In reality, EVERYTHING she was buying was highly processed and full of chemicals and industrially refined ingredients.

No wonder “nothing has worked” for her to get in shape and lose the body fat… she actually hasn’t been doing anything right.

She’s been mislead by all of the confusing marketing, labeling and conflicting nutrition info in the mass media.

Thank you and if you enjoyed this Blog please click the facebook icon below and share with your friends.

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Thanks for tuning in!

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