Getting good sleep is one of the most important things we can do, not just for muscle building and fat loss but for our mood, energy levels, and overall health.

Sleep is when our body is able to recover and repair cells, a lack of it even affects our aging process, speeding it up internally, as well as visibly causing wrinkles and sagging skin.

During the first few hours of deep sleep is when many hormones, including growth hormone and IGF (major fat-burning hormone) are released.

Getting enough sleep also helps to keep cortisol levels lower and balance estrogen, testosterone, progesterone and thyroid.

So if we want a lean, toned or muscled body, then we need deep sleep every night for full recovery, muscle building, natural fat loss and hormonal balance.

Yet a third of Americans get poor sleep, and those with the worst sleep generally have poor health.

So what causes this and what can we do to not only get better, deeper, more refreshing sleep, but also to reverse the effects of poor sleep?

Let’s dive in and see.

If you’ve ever had a shock and felt the adrenaline surge in your body, then you’ve felt cortisol. It’s a wake-you-up, get-you-ready-for-action hormone.

It hits its lowest point around midnight, so you can go to sleep, and then peaks again about an hour after you’ve gotten up in the morning, getting you to wake up and get ready for the day.

It’s nick-named the “stress hormone” because it’s released in moments of stress. So in a dangerous situation, or if you get scared suddenly, you’ll feel it.

But… when we have too-high levels of cortisol for too long, it can make us feel stressed… even if we have no reason to be.

It’s these too-high levels that are bad. They can make us depressed, anxious, or angry for no reason, make us want to eat more (especially sugary foods), cause us to lose muscle, and throw off our other hormones.

And it makes Fat Loss nearly impossible.

Let’s see how this works.

While insulin is in the bloodstream, almost no fat burning can take place.

But something can happen here when our diet is quite high in sugar over a long period of time, keeping our Insulin levels high for longer each day.

The cells build up a resistance to the Insulin. Meaning, when Insulin comes knocking, trying to give the sugar to the cell so it can make energy, the cell says “no” and closes its doors.

In this article we dive into how body fat is created in our body, and how we get rid of it, so you understand what we're doing on this protocol and why.

About 90% of what most of us consider to be body fat is actually made by and from sugar.

But probably not how you think.

And it has a lot more to do with how it affects your hormones (messenger chemicals that tell your body how to use the food you put into it).

Because it’s your hormones that will determine what will ultimately happen with this sugar and whether or not it will be used to make new body fat.

First, let’s break down what actually happens when we consume carbs and what hormones come into play here.

Welcome to the 30-Day Fat Loss Challenge!

By now you should have done your shopping, know what you’ll be making for meals (mostly), stocked up on minimally your PerfectAmino, Omega 3 and Digestive Enzymes, and be ready to go!

In this launch article we cover a few key things to think with when starting: How to address cravings that will come up, some important reminders and information, what metrics to use to measure progress and generally how to run the challenge.

Make sure to read this article fully before getting started!

The hardest part of any diet, whether for fat loss, muscle gain or health, is getting over our cravings for sugar and junk food.

There's no question there.

The only real question is how? It can be so hard!

I understand. And in case you feel alone in this struggle — you're not.

It's the hardest part of any diet or lifestyle change, and where most people fall off.

But to know how to fix this we need to know exactly what's causing it.

And one thing I can tell you is not causing it... is you having a "weak will."

That's not it at all.

There are very exact things causing these cravings, and they can turn them on hard.

In today's article I cover exactly what is causing them (all the reasons), why they can be so hard to get over, and exactly how to address them to make the transition as smooth as possible (which is exactly what the Fat Loss Protocol is designed to do).

I think you'll like it.

You may or may not have lifted weights before, but on this protocol you will be lifting 5 days per week, or as much as you can.

This is key as it helps you build muscle that both tones your body, but also speeds fat-burning, cellular restructuring, and hormone rebalancing. And the more muscle you have by the end of this challenge, the easier it will be to keep excess body fat off.

As this protocol is very specific, there will only be weight lifting — no running or other forms of cardio. If you would like to take a walk, that’s fine. But adding in other forms of cardio will hamper your progress and may cause you trouble. And it’s only 30 days.

Your workouts will be very simple. So even if you know more that you could do, for this challenge just stick to the below. The protocol and amount of food you will be consuming was determined thinking with this level of activity, not more.

Now we’re going to dive into the exact foods, supplements and protocols you’ll be following during the challenge. 

On this protocol we’ll only be consuming whole foods — no packaged, processed foods or processed sugars, not because of how many calories they have, but because of what they do to our hormones, making it harder to lose fat and keep it off.

There will be no protein bars, protein powders, or collagen powders. These will only get in our way on this protocol.

We need real foods and they need to be organic. We need real fruits, real vegetables and real meats — organic and grass-fed.

You will also be consuming more protein than you are used to and most likely will not be up to that at the very beginning. This is because the amounts of processed sugar and foods, and lack of enough protein that most people have had for decades, have lowered most people’s ability to fully digest proteins.

You've probably heard of calorie counting. It's something you're told you must do on any diet to lose body fat. 

And this is true.

But there's much more to it than that.

Because if you only did calorie restriction, and addressed nothing else, you'd most likely fail at the diet, or, if you made it through, you'd almost certainly gain it all right back again. 

So, while we'll start this article with calorie counting, make sure you read all the way through, because it's just the tip of the iceberg. 

Let's begin.

Welcome to the Guide to Sustainable Fat Loss & 30-Day Challenge!

If you’ve ever had trouble losing excess body fat, or keeping it off afterwards, this guide and challenge are for you.

This isn’t some quick fix to help you lose body fat fast only to gain it all back again, or some miracle product that helps you lose body fat but also harms you in some other way.

No, this is a very exact protocol that addresses the reasons you gained the excess body fat in the first place, why it’s so hard to lose it, and why it’s so easy to gain it back again once you have lost it.

It also addresses physical form, building up the muscle that helps to shape our body.

Even more, once you’ve lost the excess body fat on this challenge, you will be in a position to easily keep it off, because you will know exactly what caused it in the first place.

When we talk about losing body fat, toning our physique, or doing any kind of diet, for most of us, while it's something we want, it's also something that's just little bit hard to get started on.

Because we know it will be hard to do. So hard that we come up with so many excuses to push it off into the future.

But why? What makes it so hard to do or even hard to face?

And what makes it so hard to keep our discipline in after so as to keep the weight off?

The key to sustainable fat loss is not “cutting calories”, “working out”, or “changing our diet”.

Yes, we absolutely do need to do all of this for immediate fat loss.

But we’re talking about sustainable fat loss now: how to reduce body fat in the smoothest and most pain-free way, and how to keep it off afterwards.

And there is one thing that determines this more than any other: our hormones.

If we’re having any trouble losing excess fat, or gaining it in the first place, this is due to hormones that are out of balance.

This is what causes excess fat creation when it shouldn’t occur, what prevents us from losing excess fat despite our best efforts, what keeps our energy levels low and our hunger cravings high, and what ensures that even if we push through all the way and lose the fat… we’re going to gain it back again.

It’s unbalanced hormones. And to fix these, we need to fix our nutrition.

If you’ve ever had trouble with diets, losing fat, or simply keeping the weight off, let’s start by saying…

It’s not you.

Let me say that one more time in case you didn't get it.

It’s. Not. You.

Period.

Every year, over a hundred million Americans make New Year’s Resolutions.

And, there’s one resolution made more often than any of the others: the goal to lose weight.

It’s also the one that’s given up on the fastest.

Why is that the case?