Author: Remson

The Barbell Squat Guide For Complete Lower Body Development

Post author By Remson
Post date November 7, 2017

Tribe By Noire

The Barbell Squat Guide For Complete Lower Body Development

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There are many different barbell variations to choose from, so I’m gonna breakdown the differences and what you want to consider when choosing.

Mobility limitation and injuries
Focus muscles and weaknesses
Posture and muscular imbalances

These key considerations make the difference between developing your lower body the way you want it and wrecking your joints. If you’re not sure how you should be squatting, keep reading.

Barbell Back Squat

This is the most commonly used barbell squat, probably because its the least technical one. Mounting the bar on your back allows you to squat more weight than other variations.

When done right, through a full range of motion, your quadriceps, hamstrings, and glutes are targeted pretty evenly. The bottom position is where you get the most muscular activation in the glutes and hamstrings.

Toes should be slightly turned out with your knees tracking in line with the toes. Forcing your knees out over your toes during each rep will protect your knees and really target your glute medius.

The glute medius sits right above your glute maximus and completes the roundness and fullness of your glutes.

Barbell Low Bar Back Squat

This is a slightly different variation of the conventional back squat where the bar rests a bit lower on your back. This changes the center of gravity, creating more of a bend at the hip and less of a bend at the knee.

This slight change in form targets the glutes and hamstrings more and is a great alternative to those with limited ankle mobility, or over developed quadriceps.

This squat variation places more of a demand on the torso, so if you have a weak core, back injury, or poor posture, this may not be the one for you.

Rest the bar right above your rear delts instead of directly at the top of your trapezius. Pull the bar in tight, squeezing your shoulder blades together.

Barbell Sumo Squat

The sumo squat is a great exercise for total glute development with a major focus on the glute medius. Being that the hamstrings aren’t as involved in this movement means more focus on the quadriceps.

This squat variation doesn’t require a great deal of mobility which is great for those who have limited hip and ankle mobility. Just make sure you’re doing accessory exercises for working on your limitations.

The stance here is going to be much wider, which is going to require a bit more flexibility in the inner thighs. You want to make sure that you maintain a vertical shin in the bottom position. As usual, your knees she track in line with your toes.

Barbell Front Squat

The front squat is a bit more technical because of its emphasis on torso stability and shoulder mobility. On the flip-side the key advantages are the safety. You don’t have to worry about getting stapled under the weight because you can just dump it in front of you.

The primary reasons for front squatting are quadricep development, core strength development, and posture improvement. This carries over to all of the other barbell squats making you much more efficient at squatting.

Staying as vertical as possible throughout each rep is a key focus here. Keep your chest up and elbows pointed straight ahead. Do not let your elbows touch your thighs.

In the video I show you a couple of techniques to use if you have limited shoulder mobility and can’t quite get the front racked position.

Barbell Zercher Squat

The zercher squat is a great alternative to the conventional barbell front squat. It doesn’t require the shoulder mobility, or as much torso stability. You might want to start here when first getting into front loading.

Start with the bar resting on your thighs and hook your arms under the bar. The bar should rest cradled right on the inside of the bend in your arm. Make sure the bar, and your arms do not touch your thighs.

This barbell variation puts much more concentration on the legs by taking a great deal of stress off of the torso. Still, you need to focus on maintaining a vertical position.

Having the bar rest in the crease of your arm may be a bit uncomfortable. Use a cushion on the bar for extra support.

Tribe By Noire

I’ve created this platform to help you become the most powerful version of yourself through fitness, plant based nutrition, and mindset coaching.

Tags bodybuilding, power building, powerlifting, Squat, training strategies

Nutrition & Supplements

7 Simple Diet Tips To Improve Insulin Sensitivity

Post author By Remson
Post date October 23, 2017

Tribe By Noire

7 SIMPLE DIET TIPS TO IMPROVE INSULIN SENSITIVITY

Its really important to understand how insulin works in the body and why insulin sensitivity is so important in relation to your fitness goals. To put it all simply, insulin is a hormone that your pancreas secretes to shuttle blood sugar into cells like your muscle and fat cells.

Being insulin sensitive means your body uses less insulin to transport blood sugar. Being insulin resistant means your body needs to use a lot more insulin for the same amount, which leads to fat gain, fatigue, and type 2 diabetes.

Increasing insulin sensitivity helps to cut body fat and use sugar for energy a lot more efficiently. This is also a good idea in the fight against type 2 diabetes.

Here are the 7 simple diet tips to improve insulin sensitivity.

1- Start Intermittent Fasting

Intermittent fasting is 1st on my list because it is the quickest and most effective way to increase insulin sensitivity and normalize blood sugar levels. This is why intermittent fasting is one of the most powerful ways to cut body fat and do it in a timeline fashion.

To start with intermittent fasting, set up a 6-8 hour eating window that works well with your schedule. This will leave you with 18-16 hour fasting window. After that you’ll want to plan out your meals for that eating window and preferably prep your meals, so they’re ready to go.

2- Add A Teaspoon Of Ceylon Cinnamon

Cinnamon improves insulin sensitivity and lowers fasting blood sugar levels. The 2 compounds in cinnamon that help with this are chromium and polyphenols.

The two types of cinnamon are cassia and ceylon. Cassia is alot more common and known for its strong flavor. Ceylon, also known as true cinnamon, is a lot harder to find, but one of the perks of it is that its taste is not as strong, which may make it easier on the liver.

A teaspoon a day of cinnamon with your first meal over time can help a great deal especially with fat loss. I personally add it to the smoothie that breaks my fast.

3- Add Apple Cider Vinegar

Apple cider works very well with improving insulin sensitivity after high carb meals by 19-34%. It also lowers blood sugar levels by slowing down the emptying of the stomach.

Finishing your last meal with 1-2 table spoons of apple cider vinegar is a great strategy for improving insulin sensitivity while you sleep.

You really have to earn the benefits of this stuff because it tastes terrible to most people. Try mixing it in with a salad, or a green juice smoothie.

4- Add Turmeric

Turmeric is one of the most powerful things you can add to your diet because of all the benefits that come with it. A few of those benefits are anti-inflammation, which helps to fix gut health issues, and arthritis. It also protects brain function, and fights depression, Alzheimer’s, and other brain related illnesses.

More specific to this topic, turmeric improves insulin sensitivity, and regulates blood glucose levels. A few of the ways it does this is by improving beta cell function of the pancreas, improving fatty acid oxidation and utilization, and improving insulin receptor function.

The benefits of turmeric come from anti-oxidant called curcumin. Checkout this study on curcumin for the details.

5- Add Ginger

Ginger is very similar to turmeric being that they are both from the Zingiberaceae family and have a lot of the same benefits. Unique to ginger, it can help reduce muscle soreness, chronic indigestion, LDL cholesterol levels, and menstrual pain.

Like turmeric, you can use it as a spice to cook with daily, and it works basically the same way over time. For the details on how this works, checkout this study here.

You can also get it in the form of of an essential oil and mix it with tea. If you don’t like the taste of ginger, you can also take it as a supplement in capsule form.

6- Add Spirulina

Spirulina is an amazing heavily nutrient dense food created from algae. In fact, gram for gram, it holds the reputation of being the most nutrient dense food in the world. It is heavily loaded with protein, B vitamins, iron, calcium, iron, calcium, anti-oxidants, and omega 3 fatty acids.

Spirulina improves insulin sensitivity by regulating blood lipid levels and cholesterol, and the anti-oxidants reduce oxidative stress and inflammation. All of this combined improves pancreas function and reduces lipotoxicity.

You can take it in a capsule, or powder form. It doesn’t taste too good by its self, so I’d advise mixing in with juiced vegetables, and a fruit like apples and pears.

7- Add More Magnesium

Magnesium is a key micro-nutrient that is responsible for improving and correcting insulin sensitivity. In fact, magnesium deficiency is the fundamental defect found in people who experience pre-diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and even diabetes. There is a huge variety of tasty foods that you can add to your daily diet. Here’s a few of those foods.

Dark Chocolate

Dark Chocolate is a great source of magnesium, but is also a great source of anti-oxidants. Its prebiotic fiber also feeds your good gut flora, which is a major asset in improving gut health.

Avocado

Avocado is one of the easiest ways to get magnesium in your diet because its versatile and delicious. Its also a great source of potassium as well which helps purge toxins from the blood.

Nuts

Nuts like almonds, cashews, and brazil nuts make for 20% of your RDI with just 1 serving.

Legumes

Legumes like black beans account for 30% of your RDI with just 1 cup. This is also a great source of protein, and iron.

Seeds

Seeds like pumpkin seeds account for 37% of your RDI with just 1 ounce. This is also another great source of protein that you can add to your smoothies and use as a topping.

Tribe By Noire

I’ve created this platform to help you become the most powerful version of yourself through fitness, plant based nutrition, and mindset coaching.

Tags diabetes, fat loss, insulin sensitivity, vegan diet tips, weight loss

Nutrition & Supplements

The 2 Diet Traps Of Skinny Fat

Post author By Remson
Post date October 12, 2017

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The 2 Diet Traps Of Skinny Fat

Being skinny fat is this frustrating paradox where you’re both skinny and fat at the same time. Its having skinny arms and legs, while having a high concentration of body fat wrapping around your torso. If this describes your situation, you’ll definitely want to take this info in.

The skinny fat dilemma
The body recomposition solution
The quality over quantity diet
Intermittent fasting & fat cutting

The Skinny Fat Dilemma

Here’s the dilemma in a nutshell. Do you focus on losing weight, or do you focus on gaining muscle? Here’s the problem with this mode of thinking. When you focus on losing weight, you do things like cut calories and increase how much cardio you do. This leads to you being even MORE skinny fat, because you end up losing muscle and retaining fat from under fueling the body. You can go the other way and focus on gaining muscle. This is not a bad idea outright but most people do this wrong. People typically take the approach of bulking where they focus on increasing calories and training hard. This often results in muscle gain, but even more fat gain. This leads to you being a heavier version of your skinny fat self.

The Body Re-composition Solution

The one and only true solution to the skinny fat trap is not cutting or bulking, but total body re-composition. Following the law of exchange you’d build muscle and drop body fat at the same time. Body fat is just stored energy, so you’d use that energy to fuel the training that leads to the muscle building. Instead of focusing on food quantity, you’d focus on food quality.

As far as training goes, you need a training program that is geared toward increasing muscle size. This program should focus on resistance training where the volume is high and the training load is moderately heavy. This leads to maximizing your muscle’s time under tension.

Think of your body as a pie. A certain ratio of your body is lean mass and the rest is fat mass. When you’re skinny fat, your body fat mass percentage is high, and your lean mass percentage is low, too low. As you gain more muscle, your lean mass ratio will increase, thus decreasing your fat mass ratio. You’re basically gradually inverting the fat mass to lean mass ratio.

Quality Over Quantity

Retaining all of your body fat around your torso is an indication of poor gut health. Its important to understand that everything you put in your mouth is either improving your gut health or destroying your gut health. With this understanding it becomes pretty clear that your diet should be centered around quality rather than quantity.

Everywhere you look there’s some fitness expert telling you to make better food choice, but not many of them actually explain what qualifies as a “better” food choice. The most you’ll get is “avoid processed foods”. That’s a good start, but lets take it a step further. Quite simply put, you want to target plant based whole foods.

Think about this. If you had a chronic illness, or just plain ol obesity, what would a qualified doctor tell you to eat? I guarantee they’d tell you to eat more fruits and vegetables. To be specific, you want to target plant based whole foods. These types of foods all possess 3 key things.

Antioxidants

antioxidants protect cells from damage and or slow down deterioration. A few examples of antioxidants are beta-carotene, lycopene, and vitamin C. The only foods that have antioxidants in them are plant based. A few foods that possess the highest levels of anitoxidants are, goji berries, artichoke, dark chocolate, pecans, kidney beans, and cilantro.

micro-nutrients

micro-nutrients consists of all vitamins and minerals. These nutrients are absolutely essential for overall health including digestive health. Vitamin B is essential to the absorption and utilization of carbs, protein, and fat for energy. Vitamin C is needed for the production of collagen. This is especially important for maintaining the tissue quality of the digestive tract. Vitamin A maintains a healthy gut lining. Copper facilitates protein absorption. Potassium eliminates waste from the body. Selenium is needed for pancreas function. All of this is abundant in plant based foods.

Fiber

There are 2 main types of fiber found in food called soluble and insoluble fiber. Soluble fiber dissolves in water and regulates blood sugar levels, cholesterol levels, helps to create stomach acid for digestion, and protects stomach lining. Insoluble fiber does not dissolve in water, but instead helps to clean the intestinal walls, add bulk to your doodoo for an easy time in the bathroom, and feeds your good gut bacteria.

Plant Based Whole Foods Are The Key

When choosing foods for your diet remember this check list. Antioxidants | Micro-nutrients | Fiber. This doesn’t have to be 100% of your diet, but it should be at least 70% of it. There are 5 categories of food to target here.

fruits
vegetables
nuts & seeds
grains
Legumes

As long as you target these 5 categories daily, you’ll have a balanced and exciting diet that is easy to stick to. Finally to close on this topic, TRACK YOUR FOOD!! My top two picks are a couple of mobile apps called My Fitness Pal & Cronometer. This is key to knowing exactly how much of all the nutrients your getting and what you’re missing.

Intermittent Fasting

Aside from how you train and what you eat, when you eat can maximize your progress. This leads into one of the best strategies you can possibly use for cutting body fat, FASTING! There’s several different types of fasting for different reasons, but for anyone new to fasting for fat loss, intermittent fasting is the type I recommend.

Intermittent fasting is where you have a daily eating window 6-8 hours and a fasting window of 18-16 hours. Basically the goal is to get all of your eating done for the day in a shorter time frame and then not eat for the other 16 to 18 hours. You won’t be eating during the fasting window, so you’re body will be mostly using your body fat as energy.

The before and after picture of me at the top of this article is where I went from 15% body fat to 7% bodyfat. I made the largest body fat cut I’ve ever made in my entire life while gaining muscle, using this strategy. Not only has this worked for me, but it is currently working for my clients as well.

Tribe By Noire

I’ve created this platform to help you become the most powerful version of yourself through fitness, plant based nutrition, and mindset coaching.

Tags bodybuilding, fat loss, muscle building, plant based diet, vegan

Personal Development

How You Know You’ve Learned

Post author By Remson
Post date September 18, 2017

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HOW YOU KNOW YOU'VE LEARNED

Ask yourself, how do you know if you’ve learned? This simple question can be surprisingly difficult for most people. I know because I’ve asked quite a bit of people this question. The reason this question can be so tough to answer is because most of us never really took the time to qualify what actual learning is. Having said all that, let’s take the time to figure out how you know you’ve learned. Here’s the breakdown.

Remembering VS Learning
Mental Masturbation
The Result Of True Learning

REMEMBERING VS LEARNING

Typically when we think of learning, we are reminded of institutionalized education. You take a class, you’re given study materials from text books and class notes. You memorize those study materials for a test that you’re given later on down the line where you’ll then have to regurgitate various answers from those study materials. Simple enough right? Sure, but in my view, this is not an example of learning, it is more of example of memorizing. Let me explain.

Memorizing is a small part that potentially leads to learning, but I can’t consider this to be learning in and of itself. Let’s stick with this example. Ask yourself and really think, “Do I still remember all or at least most of the information from all the tests I did really well on in the past?” If the answer is no and you’ve forgotten most of that stuff, that means you didn’t truly learn those lessons. What you did do was learn to remember the right answers.

The truth is we never really forget what we’ve learned. A good example of this is bike riding. Once you’ve learned how to ride a bike, you never forget, even if you haven’t been on a bike in years. You might be a little awkward on it at first, but that only lasts for a few minutes or so.

MENTAL MASTURBATION

Let’s talk about a little thing I like to call mental masturbation! Sounds like an interesting topic and it truly is. Its something that we do quite often and we can even learn from it. In short, mental masturbation is when you play with yourself… in your head. We bring thoughts into our minds and stimulate ourselves with them in our idol time. We often get these thoughts from things like tv shows, magazines, social media, the news, and events like concerts. Basically its all just information that’s very stimulating, but most of it you’ll never actually use.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. After all, entertainment is one of the great spices of life, but using too much can spoil your intellectual appetite. So how does this relate to the subject then? So far I’ve clarified the distinction between learning and memorizing and now I want clarify the difference between mental masturbation and learning. We often loosely associate this form of entertainment with learning. For example, you may look at some brief 2 minute video of someone cooking a recipe and at the end you think, “Oh ok cool I learned a new recipe!” Sorry to burst your bubble, but You ain’t learn jack.

So how can I have the audacity to tell you that you haven’t learned?

THE RESULT OF TRUE LEARNING

All true learning has one very important thing in common. That one thing is behavioral change. That’s right! All true learning leads to a behavioral change. True learning is the basis for true growth as a person. This is how you add new habits and replace bad habits with better habits. True learning is what adds extra tools and skills to your figurative toolbox. Before you go and make the statement that you’ve learned, ask yourself, “How has this, or how will this change my behavior?”

One last quote I’ll leave you with is this. “Practice does not make perfect. Practice makes permanent. Make it permanent”

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Fitness & Training

4 Exercises For Building A Strong Defined Core

Post author By Remson
Post date August 29, 2017

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4 EXERCISES FOR BUILDING A STRONG DEFINED CORE

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Flex | Extend | Twist

In order to effectively train your core, you need to understand how your core muscles function. In my 11 years of experience its become pretty obvious that most people have no idea… well maybe a little. The truth is if you need to do 500 reps of an exercise in order to feel it, stop doing it, or stop doing it the way you’re doing it. In this article I’ll be explaining the following.

The main core training movements
4 exercises for core building
Core exercise video tutorials

The Main Core Training Movements

Your core training should achieve 4 things

Improve your posture
Shrink your waist
Lower your risk of back injury
Add muscular definition to your core.

THE 3 MAIN MOVEMENTS OF CORE TRAINING

Flexion – This targets the Rectus Abdominis. Sit ups, crunches, leg raises, planks, all those exercises that are typically marketed as six pack builders. This is by far the most common form of core training.
Extension – This targets the Erector Spinae. Extension is just as important to train, but often neglected and even when done, its done ineffectively by most. When you train your spinal erectors correctly, it contributes a great deal to the look of your back and the quality of your posture.
Twist – This targets the internal and external obliques (sides). Typically people make the mistake of target these muscles by doing some type of side bending exercise, but that actually targets a muscle on your back called the Quadratus Lumborum. The muscle fibers of the obliques actually run diagonally across the torso. Any movements that you use to target those muscles should follow that direction.

4 Exercises For Core Building

1. OPEN TO CLOSE HOLLOW

This exercise is great way to truly start developing your abs. If you’re doing exercises like sit ups and leg raises and feeling it mostly in your quadriceps and hip flexors, do this instead.

Start by laying on your back. Tuck your knees to your chest as much as possible while rounding out your back, and squeezing your abs.
Keeping the abs engaged, slowly stretch your legs and arms out and away from your torso. Do your best to not let your back arch.
Work within a range of motion that challenges you, but not to the point where you feel back pain.

2. Prone Back Extension

If you’ve been using a hyper extension to target your lower back, STOP! I’ve got a much better idea. This exercise will not only strength your lower back, but it will also strength your mid back, and improve your posture.

Start by laying on your stomach with your palms flat to the ground, adjacent to your sholders.
Pick your chest and pams up from the ground while squeezing your glutes. Keep a neutral neck position throughout the movement.
Hold the top position for 1-2 seconds and then relax.

3. SUPINE LEG RAISE ARC

Rather than twisting frantically side to side with a weight in your hand, give this a shot. Core training should be controlled and strategically paced rather than rushed and jerky. Oblique exercises should be combined with spinal flexion.

Start flat on your back with your legs stretched out 45 degrees away from center with your hips rotated in that direction. Place your arms out to the side, palms down.
Brace your abs and raise your legs 90 degrees to center. Lower your legs 45 degrees to the other side.
Keep your feet together throughout the entire movement and Imagine tracing a large arch with your feet.

4. PRONE EXTERNAL KNEE TUCK

The thing that makes this exercise so effective is that it really works not only your abs big time, but also your Serratus Anterior, Obliques, and Quadratis Lumborum, in synergistic fashion.

Start at the top of the push up position with your shoulders directly over your wrists.
Brace your abs and bring your knee to the outside of your upper arm. Laterally flex your spine to get your thigh to physically touch the outside of your upper arm.
Keep your abs braced while bringing your foot back to the starting position. Each rep should be done at a slow and controlled pace.

Tribe By Noire

I’ve created this platform to help you become the most powerful version of yourself through fitness, plant based nutrition, and mindset coaching.

Tags ab workout, bodybuilding, core training, training strategies

Nutrition & Supplements

My Vegan Oatmeal Recipe Guide

Post author By Remson
Post date August 21, 2017

Tribe By Noire

My Vegan Oatmeal Recipe Guide

Let me just start off by saying oatmeal is one of my personal favorites. Its a great source of carbs, protein, vitamin A, B6, calcium, magnesium, iron, and fiber. It is also a very versatile. The problem with oatmeal is that it tastes pretty bland on its own. In this recipe guide I’m going to dive into a few points.

What type of oatmeal to get
How to cook oatmeal
what to add to oatmeal

What Type Of Oatmeal To Get

When you get your oatmeal from the grocery store, make sure that its not mixed with sugar and other added sweeteners. The idea when you’re choosing your oatmeal is to get the most nutrient dense and least processed form. Here are my top picks.

Steel Cut Oats

Nutrition (serving size ¼ cup dry): 170 calories, 3 g fat (0.5 g saturated fat), 0 mg sodium, 29 g carbohydrates, 5 g fiber, 0 g sugar, 7 g protein

Steel cut oats are the most nutrient dense type of oatmeal. They are also the least processed. They take the longest to cook, but have a nice flavor that almost seems a bit nutty.

Rolled Oats

Nutrition (serving size ½ cup dry): 190 calories, 3.5 g fat (0.5 g saturated fat), 32 g carbohydrates, 5 g fiber, 7 g protein

Rolled oats is also known as old fashion oats. It matches steel cut oats in nutrient density, but is slightly more processed. The pre-steaming and flattening of these oats gives it longer shelf life and a shorter cooking time.

Quick Oats

Nutrition (serving size ½ cup dry): 180 calories, 3 g fat (0.5 g saturated fat), 29 g carbohydrates, 5 g fiber, 1 g sugar, 7 g protein

Quick oats is also known as quick cooking oats, or quick rolled oats. The difference between quick oats and rolled oats is that the quick oats is steamed for longer and rolled thinner. This extended processing of quick oats makes it come out much creamier after its cooked.

How To Cook Oatmeal

The interesting thing about oats is that it mixes with pretty much anything because adapts the flavor of whatever seasonings you use. This means you can really think outside the typical idea of oatmeal being a regular warm cereal. Here’s how I’ve been making mine.

- Add 2 table spoons of chia seeds, 1/2 tea spoon of cinnamon, and 1/4 teaspoon of pink Himalayan sea salt to 1 cup of old fashioned rolled oats.
- Bring 2 cups of water to a boil. Put the heat low and then add 1 tablespoon of agave for a bit of added sweetness.
- Once the water comes to a simmer, add the oatmeal and turn the heat off.
- Stir occasionally until you get your ideal consistency. You can also add cashew milk for extra creaminess.

What To Add To Oatmeal

This is a simple recipe that tastes great on its own, but the real magic is in what you add on top. Typically what I would add is a variety of fruits, nuts and seeds. Here’s a list of those foods.

FRUIT

Berries
Sliced Banana
Sliced Avocado
Sliced Apple
Pineapple Chunks

NUTS

Crushed Cashews
Crush Pecans
Crushed Peanuts
Sliced Almonds
Walnuts

SEEDS

Chia Seeds
Flax Seeds
Hemp Seeds
Pumpkins Seeds

Tribe By Noire

I’ve created this platform to help you become the most powerful version of yourself through fitness, plant based nutrition, and mindset coaching.

Tags vegan diet, vegan recipes

Nutrition & Supplements

Carbs Weight Loss And Insulin Resistance Explained

Post author By Remson
Post date August 18, 2017

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Carbs Weight Loss & Insulin Resistance Explained

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Its a popular belief that carbs and sugar cause weight gain, insulin resistance, and diabetes, but according to peer reviewed scientific studies, it turns out that’s not really the case. I’ve put together this article to clear things up on this topic and explain what actually causes insulin resistance, and the steps you can take to fix this issue. Here’s the breakdown.

What is insulin resistance
What causes insulin resistance
Possible signs of insulin resistance
How to fix insulin resistance

What Is Insulin Resistance

Insulin resistance is directly associated with type 2 diabetes, but being insulin resistant doesn’t always mean you’re diabetic. There are varying degrees of insulin resistance and as this condition worsens, diabetes occurs. So here how it works.

There are certain types of cells that operate primarily on glucose from carbs and sugar. These types of cells are muscle, liver, and brain cells. When glucose enters the blood stream, insulin is released from the pancreas. That insulin then carries the glucose to these cells. The cells have insulin receptors that are responsible for opening up the cell and allowing the glucose to enter. The problem with insulin resistance is that the cell’s insulin receptors stop working, which in turn doesn’t allow the glucose to enter.

What Causes Insulin Resistance

If these cells primarily rely on carbs and sugar for energy, then how can carbs and sugar be the thing causing insulin resistance? Doesn’t make much sense does it? Now if we take a look at the dysfunction in the insulin receptors of these cells, things start to make more sense. It turns out that when the cell is full, the insulin receptors will not respond. Upon further study, scientists have discovered lipotoxicity to be the issue with these cells. Lipotoxicity is a metabolic syndrome that results from the accumulation of fat in tissue cells that are not meant to store fat.

The next question of course would be, how does fat get stored in muscle cells. The short answer is that a diet high in saturated fat causes lipotoxicity. Take a look at the standard American diet. Typically its high in fatty foods like meat dairy and eggs, which are loaded with saturated fat and cholesterol. Even the foods that people consider to be high carb like pizza, and donuts are high fat foods. Its because of this misunderstanding that people find it easy to demonize carbs.

Fat takes much longer for us to use as energy which makes it so much easier for our body’s to store as fat. As a response people go to extremes like high fat low carb diets like the keto diet. The problem with this is that the worlds most nutrient dense foods are fruit, vegetables, grains, legumes, and seeds, which are high in carbs. The subject of diet has become so warped that people believe that taking the bun off of a cheeseburger is a great weight loss strategy.

Possible Signs Of Insulin Resistance

In my 11 years of experience as a coach and from the research I’ve done, I’ve noticed commonalities with insulin resistant people. See if you experience any of these issues when you eat carb heavy foods.

Sluggishness
Bloating
headaches

Also frequent light headedness and urination can also be an indication of insulin resistance.

How To Fix Insulin Resistance

Intermittent Fasting

Fasting is known to be one of the best methods of healing the body. Of course raw fasting can be really tough for most people and unsustainable overall. However there is a way to make fasting much more practical and sustainable. That method is intermittent fasting. This is where you have a 6-8 hour eating window and a 16-18 hour fasting window. This change to your eating schedule can be maintained on a daily basis. The reason why the fasting works so well for improving insulin sensitivity is that the fasting window allows you to use fat for energy at a much higher rate. This is how you can start draining that lipotoxicity out of your cells.

Whole Food Plant Based Diet

Cutting the saturated fat and cholesterol out of your diet and replacing them with nutrient dense plant based whole foods will allow your digestive tract to heal and drain the lipotoxicity out of your cells. I specified whole foods because these are the most ideal foods for the human species. These foods contain the essentials to the human diet in the ideal ratios. Plant based foods also contain fiber which regulate blood glucose and cholesterol levels. This goes a long way towards protecting against insulin resistance, obesity, and diabetes.

10-15% Fat

Most people don’t have a clear understanding of what a low fat diet actually is. An ideal low fat diet is where your fat intake makes up for 10-15% of your total macros. This method combined with a whole food plant based diet high in starchy foods has actually reversed type 2 diabetes.

Citations

SATURATED FAT PRODUCES INSULIN RESISTANCE

SATURATED FAT & CHOLESTEROL ARE HARMFUL TO INSULIN PRODUCING BETA CELLS

KETOGENIC DIETS DO NOT HAVE A METABOLIC ADVANTAGE

https://www.medpagetoday.com/cardiology/prevention/59018

Tribe By Noire

I’ve created this platform to help you become the most powerful version of yourself through fitness, plant based nutrition, and mindset coaching.

Tags diabetes, diet strategies, fat loss, insulin sensitivity, muscle growth, plant based diet, vegan diet tips

Personal Development

The Key To Self Reliance Internalized vs Externalized Accountability

Post author By Remson
Post date August 15, 2017

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THE KEY TO SELF RELIANCE INTERNALIZED VS EXTERNALIZED ACCOUNTABILITY

Self reliance is one of the most powerful attributes we can develop as people. With it we are able to achieve anything we commit to. Its a big part of what allows us to commit in the first place. In regards to self reliance, one of the biggest struggles people have is being able to keep themselves accountable. If you identify with this struggle, then this is for you. Here I’m going to explain the following.

Externalized Accountability
Internalized Accountability
Improving Self Reliance

EXTERNALIZED ACCOUNTABILITY

This is also what I like to call “institutionalized accountability”. Basically this is anyone besides yourself who is holding you accountable. It started when you were young with your parents setting and enforcing rules. As soon as you were old enough to go to school, they came in your room and whipped the covers right off of you, “let’s go! Get up! Time to go!” Well at least something along those lines. Your teachers took over once you got school, gave you homework, study materials, and tests. Even as an adult you’re held accountable by employers. They expect you to be to work at a given time and they expect you to produce a certain quality of work.

You see the thing about externalized accountability is that someone is setting the standard for you and you have to operate at or above that standard, or face the consequences. This is a great way to learn accountability from a young age. The one major flaw is that in our society typically, externalized accountability becomes the most prominent form of accountability in our lives. This is to the point where we barely ever learn internalized accountability.

INTERNALIZED ACCOUNTABILITY

This is where your real power is! You become truly unstoppable when internalized accountability becomes your most dominant form of accountability. Internalized accountability is when you hold yourself accountable and set your own standards. If you have major personal goals like lofty fitness goals, entrepreneurship goals, and personal development goals, you need to develop internalized accountability. It will be extremely difficult for you to reach those personal goals if you externalize your accountability because ask yourself, what happens when no one is pushing you? What happens when no one is watching you? When no one else is holding your feet to the fire and you’re not holding your own feet to the fire, you will slack off. You will quit. Having got all that out on the table, let’s talk about how to win.

IMPROVING SELF RELIANCE

Cultivating real internalized accountability starts with setting the standard for yourself and then keeping a reminder in your face of the standard you set. Obviously its much easier said than done, but the key here is setting a step by step process and being 100% honest with yourself. It starts with a few questions.

“Who do you want to be from this day forward?” (Right down your values)

“Why do you want to achieve the goals you’ve set?” (It better be a really strong reason)

“What 3 changes will you commit to this week?” (These changes absolutely must be made)

Right down your answers to all of these questions and keep them in multiple places where you can easily see them EVERYDAY. This written form serves as your daily reminder and also serves as a hybrid form of accountability. It serves as both internal and external accountability. Over time as you are reminded each day and you develop the habit of acting in alignment with what you’ve written, you will see massive success as a result.

In closing, I charge you with the responsibility of acting on this information that I’ve just given you. GO GET IT!

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Fitness & Training

The Fundamentals Of A Solid Fitness Training Program

Post author By Remson
Post date August 14, 2017

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The Fundamentals Of A Solid Fitness Training Program

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Real success towards reaching your fitness is in understanding the fundamentals of a solid fitness training program. You don’t want to be like most people in the gym who just go to the gym with no real game plan, you want to train. Training requires a program that lays out a solid path and natural progression. A few of the things I’m going to cover here are,

What qualifies as a fitness goal.
The 4 phases of a training session.
The training bell curve.
The micro, meso, and macro cycle.

What Qualifies As A Fitness Goal

To put it simply, a fitness goal is a goal that can only be reached through training. Fitness is the measure of how well you move. This includes things like strength, endurance, power, and mobility. Aside from improving performance there are training goals that revolve around body re-composition. This is where your training is put together with the intent to tailor your physique to look a certain way.

While body re-composition is a legitimate fitness goal, weight loss is not. Weight loss is not a legitimate fitness goal because you don’t need to train to lose weight. The only real way to manipulate your weight is through your diet. There is no shortage of people in the gym doing hours of cardio in a failed attempt to lose weight. Cardio is for improving cardiovascular performance, not weight loss.

The 4 Phase Of A Training Session

Your workouts shouldn’t just be a perpetual string of random exercises. The ideal workout should have 4 phases that flow seamlessly into one another in a specific order.

PHASE 1 – MOVEMENT PREP

This is the part where you get your body ready for the work you’re about to do, in other words, warm up. If today is going to be an intense squat day, you want your movement prep to be geared towards loosening the muscles and joints of that movement, and setting an efficient squat pattern. The same goes for any other primary movement or movements of the day.

PHASE 2 – PRIMARY MOVEMENTS

This is the phase where you tackle your main objective of the day. Your primary work would be where you target a specific movement and or skill. This is typical the most intense part of the workout in terms of performance output. An example of this would be a powerlifter targeting the conventional deadlift for the training session. Ideally the powerlifter would target a high load on the deadlift for low amount of reps.

PHASE 3 – ACCESSORY WORK

This phase should consist of movements that compliment and work to improve on your primary movements of the training session. For example, if you were target the barbell bench press as your primary movement, your accessory exercises would be movements like dumbbell chest press, rows, overhead press, tricep extensions, etc. Core strength movements should be done towards the end. Accessory movements should be done with moderate to low weight and higher volume.

PHASE 4 – COOL DOWN

All the hard work is over and now its time to settle down and bring the body out of that state of stress. This could be yoga movements, dynamic stretching, and simple breathing exercises. If you have the time I would definitely advise that you not skip this phase. It helps more than most people think.

The Training Bell Curve

This curve is an example of how the intensity levels of your workouts should typically look in reference to the 4 phases. Your workouts should have a flow from low to high and back down again to recover. This type of strategy is key to managing the stress levels that training puts on the body. This will drastically reduce your risk of injury and keep you from over training. For more info on over training, read here.

Microe Meso & Macro Cycles

A solid training program should have these 3 cycles within it. The reason for this is because progress happens both in the short term as well as the long term. Only focusing on the short term, day to day training, will put you at risk for early plateauing. This is why you should plan your training cycles long term.

MICRO-CYCLE

This cycle describes the exercises, sets, and reps within a given training session.

MESO-CYCLE

This cycle describes the layout of the training days within a given week.

MACRO-CYCLE

This cycle describes the weekly layout of an entire program lasting for atleast a month.

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I’ve created this platform to help you become the most powerful version of yourself through fitness, plant based nutrition, and mindset coaching.

Tags fitness tips, training strategies

Fitness & Training

Top 3 Strategies For Building Lean Muscle Mass

Post author By Remson
Post date August 11, 2017

Top 3 strategies for lean muscle mass building

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Top 3 Strategies For Building Lean Muscle Mass

There are all kinds of different opinions on how to build lean muscle mass. To be honest with you, any strategy can work if you do it for the right amount of time. The catch is that even the greatest strategy will ultimately stop working over time. The smart strategy is to have not just one, or even two, but have 3. Let’s get into the top 3 strategies of lean mass building.

1

Increase The Amount Of Weight

Muscle size will increase as you become stronger. The reason for this is because your body has to adapt to heavier weight . A good example of strength training would be to 5 sets of 5 reps. The idea is that you stick with the same amount of sets and reps, but week after week you increase the amount of weight.

Week 1

5×5 @ 135 lbs

Rest 2-3 mins between each set

Week 2

5×5 @ 155 lbs

Rest 2-3 mins between each set

Week 3

5×5 @ 175 lbs

Rest 2-3- mins between each set

Week 4

5×5 @ 195 lbs

Rest 2-3- mins between each set

This strategy can work for a few consecutive months, as long as you include deload weeks. For those of you who don’t know, a deload week is a training week where you significantly reduce training intensity to recover from training stress. Basically just lift light that week. Ultimately though, this strategy will stop working due to the fact that strength progress will slow down and it will become impossible to continue adding weight to the bar.

2

Increase The Amount Of Training Sets

Muscle size will grow in order to accommodate a greater training volume. Your training volume basically implies the quantity of repetitions you do rather than the quantity of weight you lift. A good example of this training volume strategy would be increasing the amount of sets you do with a given weight from week to week.

Week 1

5×8 @ 135 lbs

Rest 1-2 mins between each set

Week 2

6×8 @ 135 lbs

Rest 1-2 mins between each set

Week 3

7×8 @ 135 lbs

Rest 1-2 mins between each set

Week 4

8×8 @ 135 lbs

Rest 1-2 mins between each set

This strategy can work for a few months as well, but eventually you will have to change strategies because it will be impossible to continually keeping adding sets. Attempting to do so will result in workouts being excessively long and over training which leads to a decrease in muscle mass as well as performance.

3

Increase The Amount Of Training Reps

This strategy is an alternative way to increase training volume. The goal with this strategy is to gradually increase the amount of reps you do in a given set. Unlike strategy number two, this method doesn’t require you to increase the amount of sets you do. The amount of sets you do should actually decrease, which would serve as an indication that you’re strength and muscular endurance is improving. This strategy especially works with body weight exercises like push up and pull ups. Its also a very effective way to train arms, or any single joint muscle.

Week 1

100 rep goal

Complete in 6 sets

Rest 15-30 secs between each set

Week 2

100 rep goal

Complete in 5 sets

Rest 15-30 secs between each set

Week 3

100 rep goals

Complete in 4 sets

Rest 15-30 secs between each set

Week 4

100 rep goal

Complete in 3 sets

Rest 15-30 secs between each set

Before you try this strategy, BE WARNED, this is an intense method and takes tremendous will power. Squeezing out every last rep you can, burns like crazy. Eventually though you’ll have to ease off of this type of training because it can lead to over-use injuries because of the build up in inflammation in the muscle tissue.

Tracking Performance & Channging Methods

Driving muscle is a matter of manual transmission. You gotta know when to switch gears. One of the most common things I’ve seen people do is stick with a certain training method to the point that their progress stalls. The easiest way to avoid this is to track your progress really closely. Typically the first 3 months that you follow a given strategy, you’ll see pretty good results. After that 3 month mark, things can start to slow down. That slow down in progress is an indication that its time to make a change.

In my experience, using two different strategies from opposite ends of the spectrum yield the most results, with minimal sacrifice. The way I would advise you to do this is by splitting your workouts up into 2 phases. The 1st phase would be the low volume heavy lifting, and the 2nd phase would be the higher volume with lighter loads. In most cases this is best way to get the most benefit out of every training session. Here’s what it would look like.

Session 1

Phase 1 (Low Volume/Heavy Weight)

Barbell Back Squat

Phase 2 (High Volume/Low Weight)

Dumbbell Goblet

Prone Leg Curl

SESSION 2

Phase 1 (Low Volume/Heavy Weight)

Barbell Bench Press

Phase 2 (High Volume/Low Weight)

Dumbbell Incline Press

Seated Row

SESSION 3

Phase 1 (Low Volume/Heavy Weight)

Barbell Deadlift

Phase 2 (High Volume/Low Weight)

Barbell Hip Bridge

Prone Leg Curl

SESSION 4

Phase 1 (Low Volume/Heavy Weight)

Barbell Overhead Press

Phase 2 (High Volume/Low Weight)

Lat Pull Down

Face Pull

Tribe By Noire

I’ve created this platform to help you become the most powerful version of yourself through fitness, plant based nutrition, and mindset coaching.

Tags bodybuilding, mass gain, muscle growth, power building, powerlifting, training strategies