 Keto, Intermittent Fasting, IIFYM, Carb Cycling, low carb/high protein, Detox…. there are pros and cons to all of them and different approaches work for different people. I remember when the biggest decision you had to make when deciding to lose weight is if you wanted to join Weight Watchers or Jenny Craig, however nowadays it seems like there are 100 strategies to chose from. Everywhere you turn someone is talking about their success story with a particular strategy, and you think, “Great, I’ll try that”, and then the next day some one else tells you they failed with that plan, but succeeded with another plan. You end up flipping back and forth between plans and getting nowhere. So now what?  Wine and beer have some health benefits, but alcohol can also have detrimental effects on weight loss and muscle growth. Other than empty calories and reduced will power, alcohol also effects your hormones, your quality of sleep, protein synthesis (needed to build muscle) and fat burning. So can you drink alcohol and still lose weight? 
Detoxes and cleanses are often touted as a beneficial - even necessary - way to rid the body of harmful toxins, and there are many products on the market available to help you do so. Are they an ideal way to help neutralize and reset our system, or are they a potentially dangerous waste of money? 
Or should you even do cardio at all? Some say the answer is simple, I say, it depends on your goals. When we exercise we either perform aerobic or anaerobic exercise, and often, a blend of the two. We also either use our fast twitch muscle, slow twitch muscles, or a combination of both. These variables will effect our results, and deciding upon performing cardio before or after lifting (or not at all) is a choice that could make a difference to help us achieve our goals. If you have one single goal, to increase muscle mass, then yes, the simple answer would be to do cardio separately from lifting, or maybe not at all. But what if your goal is not so singular; ie. gain muscle mass while losing fat? Then you need to analyse the pros and cons for each approach. 
Intermittent Fasting has become a popular diet concept for fat loss in the last few years; many swear by it, and many swear it will cause potential long-term problems. Will you be able to reap a multitude of benefits from it? Or will it ultimately cause you to gain fat, lose muscle and put you on the brink of eating disorders? Read about the basics you need to know: the great ways it can help you lose weight, the potential ways it might backfire, and my personal experience with Intermittent Fasting (what worked, what didn't).  The ketogenic diet has helped many people lose weight and gain control of their health, but like any diet strategy there are things you need to know before you embark upon it. Is the ketogenic diet right for you? Read about the concept, benefits and drawbacks and how it might help you lose weight.  Chronic inflammation wreaks havoc on the body, contributing to fatigue, depression, weight gain and many diseases. Insulin, sex hormones (estrogen, progesterone, testosterone) and cortisol play big roles in how the body controls inflammation. So how to you control these hormones?
 You have goals and train for them, so make sure that you have the best pre, post (and perhaps peri) workout nutrition to help you achieve your goals.  Women struggle with symptoms of PMS and think that they are powerless to change it. Granted, there are sometimes underlying medical causes for heavy periods and PMS symptoms, but in the vast majority of cases symptoms can be relived by dietary and lifestyle changes. Even if there are medical conditions, these modifications can help everyone.
 Ask my kids what my favourite vegetable is, and they will tell you broccoli. I call it the wonder food and preach its glory in an attempt to get them to love broccoli as much as I do; sadly, to no avail!
If I’m being 100% honest, taste wise, broccoli is not my favourite vegetable, but I eat it almost daily as I truly believe it when I call it a wonder food and know how many benefits it has.  Build muscle, lose fat, and improve endurance: Cardio has its place, steady state, HIIT, Zone 2; I love to do them all and reap benefits from them all. Its what people think of first when they think about loosing fat. While cardio can definitely help, I am also a big believer in Metabolic Conditioning and make sure to schedule it into my training program every week. I know that it will help me stay lean by burning calories and increasing my Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR) (read more: Metabolism: Can You Change It?), improve my cardiovascular endurance, and build muscle at the same time.  Metabolism: anabolism (building up) and catabolism (breaking down); commonly used to refer to the breakdown of food and its conversion into energy.
This conversion into energy is what we think of as “burning calories”, and each person has a different rate at which we do so. Each person is born with a certain metabolic rate, fast, slow, medium; so are we stuck with it? Or can we change it?  Cardio used to be simple; the most complicated decision you had to make was which machine you preferred. But it turns out that cardio is not a one-size-fits-all approach and should be tailored to each individual and their goals. Learn about the different kinds of cardio and how to include them in your training regime. 
Insulin: how do we control it to to our advantage? I first learned about insulin when I read a book called Sugar Busters shortly after it was originally published in 1995. I have to admit, it changed my whole perception of food, what I put into my body as fuel, and helped shape my path towards a fit lifestyle. It taught me the basics of how insulin is produced, how it acts within our bodies and how to control it in order to not gain body fat. Skip forward about 20 years and I still control my insulin daily, however I now also know how to use it to help me build muscle. With correct nutrition, insulin can help you control your body fat, as well as enhance muscle gain.  There has been a lot of talk over the last few years about the fat burning potential of doing cardio in a fasted state. There are a few questions that should come to mind when considering this as an option:
 I am not a great runner, but I’ve worked at it for years, and have finally gotten to the point where I’m decent at it, and actually look forward to my weekly 10km runs. There have been ups and downs along the way, but I kept working at it, and for me, perseverance paid off. Barring any physical limitations like pre-existing injuries, I believe that almost everyone can grow to love to run - or at least get decent enough at it to enjoy the post-run-endorphin effect; but if you don’t feel that running will ever be for you, that’s ok too. Walking has enormous health benefits and can be just as rewarding as running. If you decide that you do want to work on learning to love running, here are a few tips:  What we use to fuel our bodies can either enhance all our fitness efforts in order to help us achieve our body composition goals, or it can render all our hard work redundant. In-depth nutrition analyses can get complicated, even confusing, so here is an overview of the basics you need to know to get started.
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