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.

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.

Well done on completing the 30 Day Fat Loss Challenge!

This is no small achievement!

And while you may feel and look different on the outside... on the inside things are even more different.

We’ve balanced hormones and repaired or replaced trillions of cells.

We’ve removed fat not only from our fat cells, but from our blood vessels, where it can thicken our blood, causing more work for our heart.

We’ve removed fatty deposits from our organs such as our liver and kidney, where it can make them less efficient or prevent them from doing their job. (Not good.)

We’ve built lean muscle and, at least to a degree, changed our body form.

We’ve improved digestion and the microbiome, the most important gatekeepers for our overall health.

And we've set ourselves up, if we maintain our current lifestyle, for not only sustainable fat loss, but a long and healthy life.

In short… we’ve done a lot!

But what do we do now?

Are we done? Are we not done? Is there something else to help lose those last stubborn bits for the lean toned body we want?

Let's see.

Welcome to the final week of the 30-Day Fat Loss Challenge!

During this challenge we’ve had our ups and downs as cravings came and went and hormones began to balance.

But by Week Four things have evened out or soon will.

Energy levels rise, mood may become more even, sleep becomes more restful, digestion improves, and overall health rises.

And, of course, we’ve lost a significant amount of body fat.

Make sure to take new measurements to compare to your original measurements!

As always, if you need any help, be sure to reach out in the VIP Group so we can answer any questions and assist however we can.

But I want to quickly cover what’s happening in this final week.

As we near the end of the Fat Loss stage of this or any protocol, fat loss will slow.

We’re at or near our personal goal.

We might still have some extra fat, but it’s not coming off or it’s coming off very slowly — and frustratingly.

Also, we’re getting hungry. Not for sugar or junk food or more food when we’re already stuffed, but hunger as in our body needs more food.

At this point it’s counter-productive to carry on with Fat Loss, even if we have a bit more to lose.

Our hormones have re-balanced to the point that they’re functioning correctly.

Our cells have majorly restructured, cutting out their addiction to sugar, and becoming able to use fat and amino acids for energy more easily.

If this hadn’t happened, you wouldn’t have lost body fat.

But we’ve also built muscle, something that helped us with our fat loss and which is what will carry us over the finish line.

Now we’re into Week Four of the 30-Day Fat Loss Challenge and we need to pull back for a moment and see where we're at.

For some, if there was significant insulin resistance to overcome, we may still be getting over the last of our cravings.

For others, we’re past that, but our hormones are still re-balancing.

In either of these cases we’re losing body fat the whole way, but we have more to go and we should continue.

But depending on how much body fat we had to lose at the start of this, some of us may have already achieved our goals... or at least, fat loss has slowed and hunger has returned.

And we need to know what to do when we hit this point, whether now, or a few weeks from now.

Because carrying on with the same macros after this point will cause us trouble.