So its finally here, the final minutes of my call with Dustin Maher. In case you missed it, you can go back to part I or part II by clicking. But lets dive into the final part of this awesome call.
At the end I started prying Dustin for information about nutrition. Nutrition is so important when it comes to achieving all your fitness results. No matter if you’re living in Madison, Wisconsin or Ramsey, NJ. Your diet (eating plan or nonplan) will make or break your results. Dustin shares some tips on how to make your diet work and what should be in it.
And what about fat loss pills or other supplements? We go into that too. Learn which supplements you should be taking to maintain a healthy lifestyle. Somehow we also start talking about sumo wrestlers and what can learned from…I know, weird right?
ANTHONY: Ok, well speaking of getting rid of body fat, that was awesome information right there with the different tips and exercises especially – we know that this is not just a single focus process where you can’t just exercise your way to a great body. You’ve got to eat a little better and choose some better foods. If you can give some of your nutritional tips to help moms lose some weight what would it be?
DUSTIN: A lot of moms mistakenly think that if they’re exercising, and even if they’re exercising 4-5 days a week, they deserve to eat whatever they want. Or at least that they can afford to eat whatever they want. And that can’t be farther from the truth. I would argue that I’ve heard 80% of your success is nutrition based. I don’t know what percentage it is, but definitely eating plays a larger role than any of that other stuff that I talked about when it comes to fat loss. So I’ve got a few tips for you – I’ll quickly give my overall philosophy when it comes to nutrition.
This isn’t a one size fits all, but this is what I think 80-90% of women would see a great change if they’re able to implement this strategy. First, one is eating more frequently. This has become more popular during the last 5-10 years. It does make sense however, research has proved that eating more frequently does burn more calories and more fat than eating only a couple of times a day. I think it does this for a couple of reasons. One, is that if you’ve ever tried to eat smaller meals 5-6 times a day, I feel like you don’t have as many cravings and they’re not as intense because you know that in a couple of hours, in another 3 hours, you’re going to be getting another snack, another small meal in you. The times when I’ve binged the most, or when my clients have binged the most is when they’ve skipped breakfast or only had a little bit to eat for lunch and they’re starving by the time they get to dinner time and they just pig out and then that pigging out usually continues throughout the night until they go to bed.
Also, I think our bodies are really good at knowing how to survive. So say you’re skipping breakfast – which is another thing you should be doing is eating breakfast. But, say you’re skipping breakfast and you go from eating dinner at 6pm to eating your first meal at noon. That’s 18 hours where your body has had no fuel in it so your body starts to shut down and conserve because it doesn’t know when the next meal is coming. But if you’re continually eating small meals your body knows it’s continually coming in, it’s going to do its best to burn it off and get rid of it right away because it doesn’t need it there.
A great example I like to bring up at this point is I like to tell a story about someone we probably don’t want to be like and that’s sumo wrestlers. I’ve studied sumo wrestling quite a bit and their eating styles and training styles. And let me just give you a day in the life of a sumo wrestler and how they for the last 2000 to 3000 years have scientifically figured out what the best way is to put fat on and then we want to do the opposite. Basically, they wake up and they work out right away and that’s one strategy I don’t recommend doing, working out on an empty stomach, I definitely recommend eating a little bit, a piece of fruit or something to get you going. They work out for a couple of hours in the morning then they eat their first meal at noon. They eat this meal together because they found that when you eat together you eat 30% more. So, they eat a massive amount of food for lunch and it’s actually not that unhealthy, a lot of carbs and meat. They’ve also found that to increase adipose tissue in the belly, they drink a lot of beer, which is kind of interesting because Americans like their beer. So, they drink a lot of beer and then right after their big meal, they sleep for 3-4 hours. Then they wake up, do whatever they want for a couple of hours, and then they eat again together at about 7 pm and then a couple of hours later they go to bed. So, they only eat twice a day and they found that when they eat twice a day their bodies conserve more and put on more abdomen fat. Belly fat, more fat everywhere. Hopefully, that story scares you away from skipping breakfast and trying to eat more frequently. That’s the first big tip.
Nutrient wise, my philosophy that seems to work with just about every woman is to eat more protein. Now your body’s going to need more protein as you start to lift weights if you’ve never done it before. The next real important thing is to be eating complex carbs. I think our society emphasizes carbs too much. The Atkins phase emphasized carbs and made them play out as the devil. Carbs are important but if you look at all the advertisements about the grain products out there, we consume too many grains and too many sugars in our diet. But when you are eating carbs, you want whole grain, high fiber carbs. So be looking for 100% whole wheat bread, whole wheat pasta, beans and legumes. These are some of my favorite sources of carbs but also have some protein in them and fiber in them.
I also believe you can eat as much fruit as you want. Fruit has natural sugars and I think are very important. Berries are very good because they’re lower calorie, lower glycemic, meaning they’re not going to raise your blood sugars as high. So those are some of the big ones from a carb standpoint and again women don’t eat enough protein. And if you read body building magazines, they say eat one gram per pound of body weight, or per ideal body weight. So if you’re a woman that’s 130 pounds, you should eat 130 grams of protein. I think that might be a little bit high, but if you go by what the government say, about 50-60 grams, that is a little bit low. So, for a 130 pound woman, 80-110 pounds of protein will be good because that’ll maximize muscle gain, but it will also help you feel full and help you with cravings you might have.
Some good protein sources are lowfat dairy products and low fat meats. If you’re going to get beef try to get extra lean. Chicken is one of the greatest sources of protein that is lowfat. Tuna is good. Most of the fish are all great. I’m a big fan of protein shakes and if you’re looking for a protein powder, I sell my own on my website, but look for 100% or at least 90% whey protein as opposed to soy protein. There are a lot of different kinds of proteins out there but whey protein seems to be the best at building muscle but also staying lean and I usually have a scoop of protein powder, some sort of frozen berries, and milk or powder in it depending on the day. They taste great and they can be one of my meals that I eat. If I’m trying to eat 5-6 times a day it can be difficult to sit down and eat that many meals so having these shakes that I can make is great because I can bring it with me. They have really helped me out and my clients out. Moms can make a bunch of them and enjoy drinking them with their kids too.
Eggs are another excellent protein source. And if you’re able to afford it, buy the grass-fed organic eggs – free range is another name for them. They have a much lower fat profile than regular eggs, but they’re definitely three times more expensive than the normal ones. Same goes for meats. Grass-fed organic beef is a lot better for you, better profile – no hormones all that stuff, but it’ll be about 2-3 times more expensive as well.
Then fats – some people try to stay away from fats because they think fats will make you fat, but that’s farther from the truth. You know your body needs fat since it helps you feel full. However, there are some fats that are better than others. Some of the best fats for you would be in olive oil, avocados, coconut milk. Most nuts are good for you especially almonds, walnuts, and pecans. The fat in grass-fed organic beef is very good for you. The fish fats, the omega threes are all very good fats for you. If you go on a low-fat diet, hormones get messed up and it’s tough to lose weight. But, at the same time fats are very calorie dense so you want to make sure you don’t go overboard with them. It’s easy to eat 500 calories worth of cashews if you’re not careful. So when you are eating fattier foods, even if it’s healthy fats, you definitely want to watch the portion size and be aware of that.
Overall my philosophy is making sensible choices. Eating as many vegetables as you can especially dark, leafy greens are the best. They’re basically free foods from a calorie standpoint. They’re very, very low in calories and they’re going to fill you up. They also provide healthy nutrients. I think sometimes we eat a meal, we eat a fast food meal, those meals are not very nutrient dense with vitamins and minerals. Or say we eat candy, our body doesn’t really get much out of those and those types of foods. We’re going to eat them but we’re going to feel hungry right after because our body’s not getting what it wants to. But you’d be amazed when you start eating healthy how much more your body responds to that and tells you that it’s full and it doesn’t need anymore food. But, as long as you’re eating more processed, junkier stuff, your body’s always going to be craving more food.
That’s when people really get in trouble. Another tip I can provide for moms – one of the biggest ones, is planning ahead. I recommend making some sort of meal plan like on Saturday or Sunday and going shopping and buying not every meal, but buying a lot of the stuff and cooking it in bulk. You know you have five pounds of cooked chicken breast or a huge pot of rice. You can put them in zip lock baggies and know you have them for the rest of the week. When you’re able to plan some of your meals ahead and you’re going to look at your schedule and see that you’re going to be gone 6 hours away from home and need to have a meal ready having it prepared ahead of time is great. Because if you’re not prepared, those fast food places, carry-out or take-out or the vending machine will get you. Something will grab our attention because you’ll be craving food and making poor decisions. I can’t emphasize that enough. Planning ahead and knowing what you’re going to eat for the day before the day occurs. Nutrition is such a big topic you could talk about it forever.
ANTHONY: Exactly. It’s a never-ending one. Either exercise or nutrition it just keeps going and going and going and going.
DUSTIN: I’ve got one more tip. I would really encourage everyone, if you’ve never done it before, is to make a food journal. It’s one of the things I make all of my clients do. Write everything out and even if you don’t show it to anybody but yourself, you’ll be amazed at how much food you eat. It’ll help you realize the times of day that you feel hungry or maybe when you feel tired. Maybe you’ll start seeing at breakfast you really feel full after, and you’ll see what you’re eating to make you feel full after that. And also mentally, sometimes we eat just subconsciously, we’ll be walking by the table and see some candy and we’ll grab a handful of m&ms but if you know you have to write it down it at least makes you think about it and maybe you won’t take it. But it also might bring some of our unconscious eating to the conscious level. I just saw a study that said people who did food journals when trying to lose weight lost maybe 40-50% more weight than those who did not make a food journal. It’s something that’s a little bit time consuming, but it’s something that’s well worth the effort.
ANTHONY: Forty to fifty percent is huge.
DUSTIN: It is. With such a high failure rate of diets and people trying to lose weight and keep it off, journaling can be a big tool to help out with that.
ANTHONY: I just wanted to just go through a few of the things you said. I know you said that kids love the protein shakes. Whenever I make a shake, and usually with fruits in it, I give them to my son, he’s almost three years old and he’s always drinking shakes with me. The second topic you were talking about was the carbs and Atkins. You know some people have said that Dr. Atkins was a genius in his own rite, but what we did with his ideas was we took it completely out of concept. We took it to being completely zero carbs, that there should be no carbs and that’s just not what it was about. We went overboard. Another thing was about eating a lot of fish and the omega fatty acids. I just wanted to ask about the fish oil pills, I’m sure that everybody recommends them, how do you feel?
DUSTIN: I think a couple of supplements that are necessary or should be taken and unless you’re eating fish 4-5 times a week, is a fish oil and a multi-vitamin. And a protein drink – there’s nothing magical about protein powder in itself, but what is nice about it is that it’s handy and there’s plenty of other ways to get protein into your diet, but a lot of people have trouble doing that. So protein powder is something I recommend for everyone.
I think fish oil tablets or capsules are definitely very good because we don’t eat enough fish in our diets. Just google all the benefits of omega threes and fatty acids and hopefully you’ll be persuaded to take a fish oil pill.
ANTHONY: The reason I even bring it up and talk about it is that we’re talking about moms. The benefits of eating fish and taking fish oil pills during pregnancy and after, as well as children taking fish oil supplements it’s just huge.
DUSTIN: I know women are concerned about the mercury in fish or fish tablets. I think the US government nutrition – say the benefits of taking fish or eating fish or fish oil tablets three times a week are greater than the risks of the mercury. So as of now it seems three servings of fish a week is safer than no fish at all, and being afraid of the mercury poisoning.
ANTHONY: Absolutely, fish oil is huge. So all right, that was great info. You know, that was so much information you passed on, everything from exercise and nutrition to the post-baby body. We’re just going to wrap it up a little bit, if you want to give the people your contact info and any website you want to them to take a look at or any resources.
DUSTIN: Definitely. My blog, my main website is fatlosstipsforwomen.com. If you’re a mom please check it out. There’s so much information there and I update it almost every day.
ANTHONY: That’s actually the word “for” right? Because it could be the number four.
DUSTIN: Yeah, f-o-r. and also when you’re there there’s an insider report of the top ten things you’re doing to make yourself fat but you don’t know it. So check that out, sign up for that, it’s free, and you’ll also be able to get updates. And also talking to Tony before the call, and I can’t give you the details of it right now, but I’ve got a big product launch coming up in about 2 months where I’m able to help any mom anywhere in the country or the world to get into the best shape. I get a lot of calls from all over the country and it’s very difficult to write out a program so I’ve gotten a solution for this. I can’t give it away right now, but you can be looking for that if you go to my blog and sign up for that insider’s report, you’ll be updated when that comes up in six weeks to two months. And then also if you’re in the Madison, Wisconsin area, I do boot camps indoors and outdoors, and you can check that out at madisonbootcamps.com. My other website is dustinmaherfitness.com. So my e-mail address, if you have any questions, I’d love to answer them, is dustinmaherfitness@gmail.com.
ANTHONY: I’ve heard some of the details about this quiet product so I’m not going to spill the beans, but I definitely think it’s an excellent idea and it definitely could help so many moms. It’s just going to be something amazing so hopefully people check out the website, get over there and sign up and have the inside scoop of what happens. So with that, Dustin I appreciate it. I’m glad that we got this call and I’m glad that – I’m happy with the information that you shared, I think so many people can benefit from everything you had to say. So I want to thank you for being here.
– So thats the end of this great interview I did with Dustin. I hope you enjoyed it and coming up over the course of the next couple weeks Ive got tons more interviews to give you, so please stay tuned. What did you think of this one? What did you like or not like?
