Sandbag Training

The last four weeks we have been road warriors here at Ultimate Sandbag Training. Every weekend we have been somewhere different often running on a tight schedule with a lot to do! In fact, it will be that way for us until almost December, but that is what we love doing;) However, being on the road for this long it can be a challenge to stay on track with your fitness goals. At home as fitness professionals, we can get spoiled having things often predictable and forget a lot of the challenges most people face. You become unable to relate to our clients and get very black and white attitudes about training and nutrition.

That is why this time on the road has been a great experience to create better strategies to hopefully relate to people that have a hard time finding how to fit fitness and proper nutrition into their daily lives. Without finding a system that works for you any progress will stall quickly, so we will be posting a lot more problem solving techniques. See if you like these these tips to Faster Fat Loss (although they work for almost any fitness goal;) and fire us your biggest obstacles at our Facebook Fan Page HERE

Fat Loss Obstacles

Being prepared is critical. Prepared for what? Prepared for the unexpected. People don’t get into trouble when they know exactly their schedule, when they know what food they can have access to, how what time they have to spend training. People DO get in trouble when life throws curve balls and screws up your routine. So, what can you do to prevent life putting you off course?

One is to have quick and healthy substitutions or grab and go options available. This is were protein or meal replacement powders and bars become very handy! However, not are all created equal in the world of powders and bars. Powders can often have a huge amount of artificial sweetners and can use cheap proteins that often make people bloat or have slight intolerances like feeling sluggish or sometimes a bit nauseas. I have found two keys in the world of protein/meal replacement powders that work well to avoid these issues.

Less ingredients the better! Either go with an unsweetened brand that you can sweeten yourself either with something such as Stevia or honey.

Use a blend of plant based proteins. This may surprise some people as I am not a vegetarian by any stretch of the imagination. However, in almost 18 years of working with a wide array of clients, I can tell you many people have issues with the milk or whey based proteins that most brands use. If you do end wanting to try for yourself I would recommend isolates of milk and whey as the are easier to digest and cleaner. However, the downside is the are fast absorbing proteins so while good for post-workout, you can find yourself hungary really fast!

I personally love a company called “Vega” and their protein powders and meal replacements. I don’t make any money for saying so, but for years I struggled with finding something I could take without feeling crappy afterwards. I like Vega because they use a great combination of plant based proteins have a bunch of fiber in their meal replacements with a host of quality vitamins and other healthy boosts. It is a bit more expensive, but remember these aren’t meant to help you stay on track and you won’t be living on them. Plus they come in travel packs which are great to throw in your backpack if you are heading out for the day and don’t want to carry a big bottle of protein with you.

You can also try to make your own combinations of these proteins on your own if you are looking to save some money.

Do Protein Bars Hurt Your Fat Loss?

My recommendation for protein bars isn’t too different. Most of them are glorified candy bars that have so much extra “stuff” that some people would be better off just with a candy bar! Some of these additives can actually increase weight gain, spike insulin, and create an environment for the body that is NOT conducive to fat loss or performance!

As sad as that is it is not hopeless. More companies have come out more whole food options that can fit the bill. Some are a bit higher in protein than others but overall have higher quality food sources in them. They can be more calorically dense because they will use nuts and dates for both binding and taste so be aware which is most appropriate for your goals.

Here are a few of my favorites:

Omega Food Bars

Dale’s Raw Protein Bars

Vega Bars

Perfect Food Bars

A newer one that I recently found is by Quest. They are a bit more chewy than the above, but have a ton of fiber that help you fill up and 20 grams of protein isolates. They taste good, but as I mentioned are a bit chewy. I would find your personal favorite, but also be open to rotating as sometimes this helps avoid building allergies to specific ingredients.

Don’t get me wrong, I have no interest in you guys living off these powders and bars. I want you to eat whole foods meals, but pretending that there are times where our best intentions can’t deliver a perfectly prepared nutritious meal, these offer great alternatives. Instead of falling prey to bad fast food, fake food supplements, I’d rather see anyone utilize these these options to keep them on track and healthy!

We make no money off recommending any of these brands, we want you to know what we like and believe works best!

Nothing like a fast and effective workout to go with all this nutrition talk! Here is one from a hotel when we were running our DVRT Ultimate Sandbag Level 1 Certification