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.

WEEK ONE OF THE 30 DAY FAT LOSS CHALLENGE: To lose body fat we do something called calorie counting. If you eat less calories than your body needs, it will burn body fat to release energy. So you lose fat. At least, it should do this. But it doesn’t always… This is because of your hormones.

Welcome to the 30 Day Fat Loss Challenge!

Knowing what you are addressing, why you are doing what you are doing, and what is happening within your body at different stages is KEY.

It gets you results and puts you in control of your health for the long term.

If you ever felt alone in your struggle to lose fat and keep it off — you’re not.

There's a reason fat loss programs in America are a $72 billion per year industry. In the past forty-plus years, the percentage of obese Americans have increased from slightly less than 10% to more than 40%, according to the CDC.

But this isn’t due to laziness or lack of discipline on our part. No. We have modern foods to blame for this.

If you’ve ever had trouble with diets, losing weight, 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?

Let me start by saying: No, fat doesn’t make you fat. Sugars, mainly processed sugars, do. 

Fat from food is not converted to fat in the body without the presence of sugar. But due to their effects on our hormones, some fats can help us lose weight, and some make us gain it.

Now, there are many types of fat, both that you eat and your body creates, and different fats are used for various actions in your body. 

There are several things that control cravings or make it hard to get off sugar, as covered in this article here: What Causes Cravings For Sugar & Junk Food?

Causes mentioned in that article include hormones, messenger chemicals in the body that tell the cells what to do or not do, how to use energy or not, whether to build muscle or break it down, or add fat or burn it. 

When our sleep is below normal, when it’s broken up or thrown off, it affects us more both physically and mentally than we realize. Sleep is when most fat burning and muscle building occurs, as well as when most cellular repair happens. Our cortisol levels lower when we get good sleep and we become less stressed or anxious and more able to relax. This helps balance out hormones and neurotransmitters.

“How do I get off sugar and junk food? It's so hard!” In case you feel alone in this struggle — please know that you're not. In fact, the majority of people don't succeed from mainstream diets, even when they go all out on them. Why is that? Is it because the diet or lifestyle habits to succeed are not practical? Or you might be thinking you are not determined enough or simply lazy. Though some of the factors we’ll cover will make you feel low in energy to the point you may feel it’s laziness, but no it’s not. 

As we head towards winter, I wanted to provide a little information on how our immune system works and how you can prepare your body to stay as healthy as possible over the coming months. Getting sick is never fun, but even more, is often unneeded. Yes, we may occasionally get a cold, the flu, or some other illness, but if our immune system was in proper health then we would get sick less often.

There are about 500 different species of bacteria. And between them, they ether produce or help to produce neurotransmitters in our body, such as Serotonin and GABA, which calm and relax us, de-stress us, allow us to fall asleep, and help to keep our hormones in balance so we can lose weight and add muscle.

Some of these bacteria eat the foods coming in such as amino acids, vitamins and other nutrients, and some actually produce amino acids, or vitamins, or other nutrients that the body can use or that other bacteria feed off of.

There is something called “Leaky Gut”, and this is not just a funny name. It’s probably one of the most accurate labels there are, actually.

When food comes into your small intestine from your stomach it’s already mostly broken down. Here, more enzymes (bodily chemicals) are released to break it down further into truly microscopic pieces.