Exercise Your Mind

Going out for dinner and want to stick to your healthy eating plan? It's not as hard as you think. If you want to stick to your diet when dining out, get comfortable with asking your server to help you meet your needs. There are several ways to modify dishes when eating out. Here are my top three dining-out tactics:

Q: I don't have the equipment you show on the site and can't really afford to go out and buy it. Do you have any suggestions for what I can use instead?

A: Sure — let's get a little creative here. Instead of dumbbells, how about jugs of water, canned goods, candlesticks, or books? Anything that you can grip firmly and securely and that weighs at least 3 to 5 pounds will work.

The hormone leptin is released from your fat cells after you eat to tell your body to stop feeling hungry and start burning calories. So the more leptin the merrier, right? Not exactly. The more fat you have on your body, the more leptin you produce, and excess leptin can eventually cause your body to become resistant. If your body is resistant to leptin, the hormone can't do its job. The goal is to optimize your leptin levels by choosing foods that work to increase your body's sensitivity to leptin and strategically raise levels of it when necessary.

Oh, you love cardio. I know it. But my program, for the most part, makes straight cardio exercise obsolete. The kind of resistance training I recommend includes cardio intervals and compound movements, which effectively raise your heart rate while burning fat. But as I always say, cardio is weight-loss extra credit — it's a great way to get a workout on days when you're giving your muscles a break from strength training. That's why it's important to get a few cardio basics under your belt, so that you know when to do cardio in relation to your resistance training.