burn fat – lil bit of fit

January 31, 2024

How to Build Muscle & Lose Fat + 10 Tiny Sacrifices To 20 lbs Shed

One mindshift allowed me to finally lose weight after 3 decades of trying & failing…

In the last 30+ years, I quit binging on carbs & sugar so many times, but I always went back to it. Sometimes it took 1 week. Sometimes I resisted for as long as 3 months. But I always broke my promise. I ended up getting bigger & bigger & sicker & sicker every year. Veggies & fruit & even foods I thought were “healthy” killed my gut & caused my Crohn’s to flare.

Losing weight can be a daunting task, especially when we think about the sacrifices we have to make to reach our goal weight. However, making tiny changes in our daily routine can result in significant weight loss without having to make drastic changes to our lifestyle.

The mindshift that helped me: “You need to be okay with failure to succeed”

I’ve heard this many times but it didn’t click with me until my healing & fat loss journey “plan” finally worked.

This is not just about weight loss. When you expect results right away & get dependent on them, failure to reach them in a certain time frame frustrates you & throws you off your goal.

The solution to this problem is to be okay with the possibility of not reaching the goal. It is to be invested in the process & the other benefits of doing the work.

When you stop obsessing about the result, it magically appears!

How I’ve been able to build muscle & maintain my weight loss working 40+ hours a week at 40+

weight loss before and after carnivore lilbitoffit katie kelly

katie kelly fat loss advice 10 things carnivore lilbitoffit before and after photo

I maintain the same habits & commitments to myself as when I was losing weight because I want to be the healthiest, happiest, & strongest version I can be. I’ve made fitness my lifestyle.

I don’t let the scale determine my success or worth. I know it will fluctuate naturally with sleep, stress, food intake, hydration, workouts, etc. I do not cut food & punish myself when it goes up. I stay consistent with my plan & take it simply as data to help me.

I prioritize health & how I feel with food, workouts, & movement. My mindset determines my reality. I know I cannot hate myself thin, happy, strong, successful, & fulfilled. You have to diet & live from the inside out. Being active & strength training are always priorities no matter what age or season I’m in.

I eat simple, basic af food that serves me best physically & mentally. I stick to meat, eggs, animal fats, seafood, & dairy in moderation. My gut healing/carnivore story is in the link in my IG bio for reasons why I eat this way + my Crohn’s & bulimia remission.

I am patient & consistent af. I know body change & healing take time. I leave room for flexibility. I do not cheat, earn, or burn my food. It is fuel, not a treat. I don’t do rules, I do what feels right.

What I eat about every day!

Your Super Simple 5 Step Blueprint

1. Prioritize Walking: you can make a lot of progress by simply walking more. Aim to take at least 10,000 steps each day.

2. Prioritize Protein: eating is where most people struggle when trying to lose weight. You can simplify your nutrition strategy. In every meal, prioritize protein. I shoot for at least 40-60g per meal.

3. Prioritize Whole Foods: building on the last point, eat nourishing, whole foods 80-90% of the time. These are foods that aren’t processed & don’t come in a package. READ YOUR LABELS! The less ingredients the better.

4. Lift Weights at least 3 x Per Week: lifting weights is crucial whether your goal is muscle gain or fat loss. Lifting weights increases metabolic efficiency and muscle mass. The more muscle you have, the more calories you will burn on a daily basis. Lifting weights also increases excess post-exercise oxygen consumption (EPOC), which means you keep burning calories even after you’re done exercising.

5. Prioritize Sleep: there’s no shortage of research showing a lack of sleep can lead to fat gain and hinder our ability to increase our muscle mass. Ways to improve your sleep quality: morning light exposure, keep caffeine in the am, avoid eating late, keep a consistent sleep schedule, create a calm, dark, cool environment, limit electronics

Strength Training as a Newbie Tips

As a beginner, you’re obviously not going to be pushing as much weight as someone more advanced. When I started CrossFit, my coaches started me of with less reps & lighter weights, focusing on the basics & proper form first.

I had to drop down to much lower weights than when I was at the peak of my more competitive CrossFit days & times when I took a break from heavier/more frequent training due to work & life stuff.

Devoting 20 minutes 3 x per week — or 10-15 minutes a couple times a day works too. Start somewhere & build from there in terms of weights, frequency & intensity.

Pro Tip: invest in a quality trainer or group fitness program. They will show you how to use equipment & movement with proper form as well as workout routines. Utilize YouTube for workout videos & education at home. Tons of home workouts programs are available nowadays with minimal equipment & cost.

Best Time To Workout?

Choose a time you’ll actually get yo ass to the gym. There’s no magic time. Some days you may need to be flexible, it’s called life. Being a creature of habit & routine will help with consistency.

Once afternoon strikes, my motivation to get to the gym is next to nothing. I prefer 5am or 10am depending on work.

This obviously varies from person to person as all of our lifestyles are different. But as I tell clients, “workout time is sacred time”. If you’re committed to it, you need to find a way to get it done.

Pro Tip: Start every morning with movement. Go for a walk, do mobility — something. Set out your workout clothes or sleep in them. You literally just have to roll out of bed & go. Split up your workouts into 2-3 mini sessions if you dread long sessions. Instead of doing 1 long workout, do 3, 10 minute workouts. It’s easier to make small simple commitments to yourself.

Realize Lack of Fitness Is An Emotional Issue

My job as a coach & mentor is to get my clients to “feel” like improving. To “feel” like doing the things they need to do to be their best. That might be working out in the morning, eating more protein, eating MORE, staying off the scales, working out less, nixing the negative self talk, etc. Binge eating especially comes from restriction with food & self worth – body, mind, & spirit.

It’s why people continue smoking when they know the risks. Why people overeat when they know it’s taking years off their life, why people would rather binge Netflix all day than go walk.

Humans seek short-term pleasures over long-term rewards. Most things worth doing take time to pay off. Most things that get you into trouble feel comfortable in the short-term. But until you “feel” like changing, long-term progress won’t happen.

Goals are great. They’re like the north star on a map. But the whole point of goal setting is to develop the habits & routines along the way to create a lifestyle.

Adherence & Consistency Are More Important Than The Details of the Training or Nutrition Plan.

I remember my first few years of work as a nutrition & CrossFit coach vividly. We could have the most “perfect” program, I could give the best advice I could. Then…the clients didn’t show up. They didn’t do the work. And they continually fell off the wagon. It doesn’t matter how good the plan is, if you don’t do it, you’re not going to improve.

Or as Joe Defranco says “a poor program done perfectly, is better than a perfect program done poorly.”

Dan John, a favorite of mine in the strength & conditioning world, has a catchphrase “Little & often over the long haul.” It’s not about how hard you can train today, how many times you train for the week, or even the month. It’s about showing up today & again tomorrow & the next day & repeat this lifestyle for years on end.

Movement, The Power of Words, & Accountability Are Important

Very few people wouldn’t benefit by taking more steps. Get up to 10,000 as a goal. I prefer to break this up into 2–3 smaller walks during the day. You might prefer one long one. It doesn’t matter, just get those steps in.

Take the word “might” out of your vocab & switch “have to” to “get to.” My pet peeve is when clients say “I might get to the gym tomorrow.” Or “I’ll try & eat good today.” They’re giving themselves an out, not committing. Don’t give yourself the option. Do you have to train at the gym or do you get to?

Group training & accountability make exercise more enjoyable, more efficient & produce greater results for most. Gyms like CrossFit, Spin, Orange Theory, & F45 have nailed what makes fitness more enjoyable.

Go through hell together & laugh about it afterwards. Or more simply: train, laugh & repeat.

Aesthetics are the By-Product of Quality Training, Nutrition, & Health.

The physical follows the physiological, target health first. Aesthetics shouldn’t be your focus. Yes, looking better naked makes us feel good. But that shouldn’t be the focus of your training/diet unless you’re an elite bodybuilder. Longevity & a sustainable lifestyle lean should be placed at the pentacle.

I’ve also seen far more “aesthetically-minded” clients get burned out, fall to binge eating, & stop training altogether than I do with “performance & longevity-minded” clients.

When your sole focus is on how you look in the mirror or the reading on the bathroom scales. You lose hope when it doesn’t change & often develop an unhealthy relationship with food and fitness.

Pick some performance goals. Let’s say a 2-mile run, max pull-ups & increasing your back squat. If you improve your performance on these 3, your body will look better, I promise you that.

Final Thoughts

Create your own framework & system for success! With all habits, developing them often comes down to mental hurdles.

Your body is the reflection of inputs & outputs. If you fuel your body with healthy, balanced nutrition & stress it with strength training, it will adapt appropriately.

10 Tiny Sacrifices To 20 lbs Shed

Cut out sugar
Drink water
Increase your protein intake
Cut out processed foods
Walk more
Cut out alcohol
Get enough quality sleep
Cook your meals at home
Practice mindful eating
Reduce your portion sizes & try fasting

Biohacking Guide Here

I understand what it feels like to be a prisoner in your own body with no idea what to eat or where to start. Wish you all the best of luck!

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1:1 Fat loss solution coaching available! Resources & guides in link here

December 20, 2022

How To Feel And Look Good Naked: 18 Fitness And Nutrition Tips to Make This Your Year

How To Feel And Look Good Naked: 18 Tips to Make This Your Year

You know it’s true, we all wanna look good naked. Yes, health should always be at the forefront & I stand firm in my belief if you focus on health everything else will fall into line.

You may have resolved to make this the year you finally start, & hopefully stick with an exercise program or nutrition approach, but you’re fighting an uphill battle if you don’t shift your vow into truly making a LIFESTYLE change.

It’s all too easy to give up after a few weeks & lookin around the gyms after the January rush, come February you see the same people there as before & most newbies drop off. The OG’s know what’s up!

So how to turn your determination into action you can sustain for more than 30 days? There are no secrets. In Beth Dutton fashion, to be blunt, at some point, you must get off your tush & take action. No one can do it for you.

To help you get started towards truly making this your year of change, here are fitness tips to feeling & looking good naked!

1. Set Clear Intentions

Write down your ultimate physique &/or health goal & how you’d like to look/feel. Include weight, body fat, any mental or physical improvements you’d like to see. Anything goes here.

2. Make Time

Work up to 60 minutes of physical activity each day. That doesn’t mean beating the crap out of your body 7d/wk, but strive to get some kind of activity & routine down — even if it’s a walk with your dog, walking after meals, working out 3 days a week, etc. If you’re new to fitness, start with a 20 minute session 5-6 d/wk, two 15-minute sessions or three 10-minute sessions to help you become acclimated. Work your steps up to 10k/day.

3. Do What You Enjoy
Weights & lifting are one of the best ways to make significant physical changes to your body. Unfortunately, not everyone enjoys lifting. The most important determinant of long-term success with fitness is how much you enjoy an activity. Choose something that makes fitness fun & keeps you consistent! Explore new exercise classes and activities to determine which you prefer. As a beginner, almost anything you choose will be challenging, but gains will be made starting your very first week.

4. Surround Yourself With a Supportive Community & Accountability

Train with a friend who has similar goals. Join a group class at your gym. Try CrossFit, F45, Orange Theory, Spin, etc. You’ll be far less likely to skip your workout & it’s also more motivating when you workout with a group & push each other. You’re also less likely to cut your sessions short. People who choose healthy lifestyles will engage in behaviors that will impact you. Similarly, if your friends are just the opposite, they’ll likely reinforce the wrong kinds of behaviors.

5. Avoid Comparison to Others

Instead, compare yourself to YOU. If you make every week better in some way than the preceding week, you’re moving forward & making progress. Aim to improve yourself vs last year’s version of you. It’s hard for any of us to feel good about ourselves when we try to measure up to more advanced athletes who may have been training for a decade or more. What makes these people champions is they focus on what they need to do & who they need to be to get what they want every single day. They stayed consistent, created a lifestyle they love, & kept going.

6. Make Mistakes & Be A Forever Student

Experiment! It’s the only way to figure out what works, what doesn’t, what you like & what you don’t like. Try different classes, different diets, track your food, get a mentor, get a coach, invest in a trainer or nutritionist. An easy way to get inspired & increase your knowledge of fitness, training, & nutrition is to commit to researching each day. There are tons of free resources via the web, YouTube, Podcasts, Social Media, etc.

7. Learn to Be Patient AF

Many individuals will drop out of their training or nutrition program because they’re not seeing results fast enough. However, physiological adaptations occur incrementally. You most likely won’t see much, if any, improvement from one week to the next, but you surely will over 90 days. That’s why you should make a commitment of at least 3 months when starting any diet or exercise program.

8. Rise, Grind, Then Shine

Work out in the morning before the rest of the day gets in your way. Bonus: morning workouts boost your energy & confidence for the rest of the day! Get up 20 minutes earlier & knock out some of those steps. Sleep in your gym clothes or set your clothes out in the morning to make it easier. Set your coffee on auto brew so it’s fresh & ready. Caffeine helps!

9. Get Up & Move During the Day

Sedentary jobs are associated with greater risk for cardiovascular disease, not to mention weight gain. Incorporate some kind of movement every 30 minutes or so at work. Set a reminder on your phone, walk after meals, park further away, walk to lunch, take the stairs, walk on calls, just keep moving.

10. Get Sunshine

Get outside in nature as much as you can. Sunshine is vital to healthy vitamin D levels & walking in nature helps lower stress levels. Try Red Light Therapy. You can get a small portable one for your home. You can read all about my experience here in this blog, complete with a 20% discount code for EMR TEK: lilbitoffit20

Benefits include:

* Reduces oxidative stress
* Reduces inflammation & joint pain
* Increases muscle recovery
* Increases collagen production & tightens skin
* Reduces fine lines & wrinkles
* Increases hair growth
* Increases overall energy & vitality
* Increases wound healing, great for skin conditions
* Improves memory & vision quality
* Increases testosterone production
* Improves sleep & can aid in fat/weight loss

11. Reduce Eating Out & Alcohol

You consume more total calories when you eat out, & many of those calories will be empty, in the form of sugary beverages like pop & alcohol, & desserts. You won’t be tempted to indulge during a weak moment if you’re eating at home & no junk food or temptations are present.

12. Make Protein the Focus of All Meals

Undereating + over exercising = bone loss, muscle loss, & a hot metabolic & hormonal mess for women especially. We underestimate the protein we need, especially if we’re active. It’s all about that repair & regrowth of muscle mass & recovery that build a healthy, lean physique. We need protein for “tone” & if we’re not careful when we lose weight, we’re actually losing muscle instead of fat. For most, .8-1.2g of protein/lb of body weight or goal weight if you have more to lose (or even 1.5g/lb for some more petite, leaner, active women) is appropriate. Choose what’s right for you. Try to get at least 30-50g of protein per meal.

13. If You Consume Carbs, Choose Slower-Digesting Carbs Over Fast-Digesting

Slower-digesting carbs such as veggies, brown rice, whole grains, oats, sweet potatoes, & quinoa provide more sustained energy throughout the day & don’t spike your insulin as much. Fast-digesting carbs like sugar, white bread, candy, crackers, pancakes, bars, juices, baked goods, & most prepackaged stuff can spike blood sugar levels & increase the insulin response. Save these for your post-workout meal, when your body can use the extra carbs to replenish fuel stores if you must have them. And don’t forget to keep sugary juices & drinks in check!

14. Set Eating Windows & Routine Meal Times

Routine meal times & some kind of food boundaries are helpful for most. Try fasting, which isn’t a dirty word. It simply means periods of not eating. Fasting 12-16hrs overnight would suffice for most. Nix late night eating & snacking in front of the tv. Set routine meal times. We should not be snacking in between meals. If you find you’re hungry in between meals, you’re most likely not eating enough food, especially protein &/or fat. Meals should keep us satiated for at least 3+ hours. Track your food if you don’t know. I use MyFitnessPal. Awareness is a super power!

15. Realize Huge Muscles & Ripped Abs Don’t Equate To Being Fit & Healthy

Fitness is about more than big muscles & ripped abs. Flexibility, cardiovascular fitness, muscular strength & endurance, & body composition are elements in determining how fit & healthy you really are. Realize there are specific activity & exercise regimens for each one of them. This goes back to tip number one, define your goals, create a system & plan accordingly.

16. Start With Simple Total Body Workouts

One of the simplest ways to ease into a weight workout is to do a total body workout 3x/week with a day of rest in between for recovery. A total body workout hits these major muscle groups: glutes, quads, hamstrings, chest, back, shoulders, triceps, biceps, & core. Choose one exercise for each muscle group (multi joint exercises hit multiple body parts), training every other day. Examples: bench press, shoulder press, squat, deadlift, rows, pull-ups, push-ups.

17. Build Upon Your Workout Routine As You Gain Experience

As you gain experience in the gym, start adding more exercises and sets (volume) for each body part for better overall development. Rather than just doing longer workouts, start dividing your training into a split, such as push muscles (chest, shoulders, triceps) one day, pull muscles (back, biceps) on another, and legs on a third. Given the greater overall volume you do each session for those individual muscle groups, you’ll also need a longer recovery session before repeating that workout again.

18. Prioritize Strength Training & Use Cardio As A Lever For Fat Loss

To lose body fat, you need to burn more calories than you consume. Doing cardio is one way to widen the caloric deficit. But not all cardio strategies are created equal & more is not always better. Weight training is an essential component of weight loss. Muscle is a metabolically active tissue, meaning it burns off loads of calories all day long, even when you’re at rest. To build as much muscle tissue as possible, or even to keep it when dieting, train with moderately heavy weights in the 6-12-rep range. And stick with the multi joint exercises for the majority of your movements.

Studies have also shown that intense, moderately heavy lifting of this sort has the greatest effect on keeping your metabolism elevated for as long as 24 hours after your workout has ended. That significantly adds to the total number of calories burned!

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