• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Life By Dylan

Lifestyle, Business and Travel Blog

  • Home
  • About Dylan
  • Categories
    • Business
    • Life
    • Travel
    • Home
      • Smart Home
    • Fashion
  • Shop
  • Contact
  • Lee’s Blog

How to Effortlessly Stay in Shape – Monday Motivation

by

Lose Weight EffortlesslyI’m pretty lazy when it comes to fitness.  It’s not that I don’t want to be in good shape, it’s just that I don’t want to spend a lot of unnecessary time working out if it’s not necessary.   This led me to try a bunch of different workouts and read a lot of books trying to find the easiest ways to stay in shape, and I’ve narrowed down them down to these top 8 tips.

Using these tips I’ve been able to keep a 6-pack for the last 10 years.  Although there are periods where I will workout a lot, on average I’ve been able to do this while working out less than 2 times per week.

1. Eat More Fat (Good Fat)

The whole idea that eating fat will make you fat is a complete lie. I eat 2 to 4 tablespoons of grass-fed butter per day, and since doing so my 6-pack has almost turned into an 8-pack – all without working out any more.

Eating good fats (grass fed butter, avocados, other high-quality, non-processed fats) keeps you full longer, increases your metabolism, and actually makes you happier (seriously!) If you only take away one thing from this article it should be this.

2. Drink Less Alcohol + Cut Out The Beer

Alcohol calories go straight to your gut, especially beer.  There is a reason it’s called a “Beer Gut.” If you like to drink switch to vodka.

When I left for college at 18, I thought about all the alcohol I would be drinking over the next 4 years. I figured that if I drank vodka instead of beer I’d come out of college looking much better than if I did that latter – and it worked.  Vodka is just alcohol and water.  If you’re going to be drinking, it’s the best thing for you.

3. Squat Before Big Meals

I took this tip from Tim Ferris book 4 Hour Body, so I won’t go into tremendous detail here, but there is a hormone in your body, that when triggered, tells your body to send excess calories to your muscles for repair instead of storing it in fat. You could run for 2 hours to spike that hormone in your body, or you could do 40 squats.

So if I’m eating out and about to consume a huge, heavy meal, I’ll walk off to the bathroom jump in a stall and bang out a quick 40 squats.  Does this make me look weird, maybe, but no one sees me do it, and it works.  I’ll take weird guy with a six-pack over normal guy with a beer gut any day.

4. Build Muscle – Don’t Run

I’m not saying running is bad, but if you’re looking to get the best results in the least time, running isn’t going to be a good choice.  In the same time, you can easily burn more calories lifting weights than running. As an added benefit, for every extra pound of muscle to gain, you burn extra calories each day – even if you’re not doing anything.

I like to think adding muscle is like putting money in the stock market.  You may not make a lot of money every day, but over time your gains (or lack of weight gain in this case) can be significant.

If you want to gain the most muscle the quickest, concentrate on your large muscle groups like your legs and back by doing squats and pull ups.

5. 5 Minute Ab Workout

The saying that “abs are made in the kitchen, not the gym” is true, but if you want to get some extra ab definition quickly, I have a quick 5 minute workout I do 3 times per week.

I don’t remember where I found this image, but I traced it back to darebee.com.  Download this picture to your phone, and set an alarm on your phone for whenever you get up on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and knock it out. It’s so short that there is absolutely no excuse why you can’t do it.

img_0759-1

I’ll elaborate on some additional ab workouts in a coming post, but if you don’t normally do a lot of ab exercises, this is a great place to start.

6. Cut Out The Carbs – But Not All Of Them

People normally eat too many carbs.  They’re found in most processed foods, because they have a very long shelf life, which makes them more profitable for food companies. That’s not a good reason to be eating them.

Most carbohydrates are high-glycemic foods, which means they cause large spikes in blood sugar.  Have you ever felt suddenly tired after a meal?  That’s because whatever you ate caused your blood sugar to spike, followed by a spike in insulin.  Insulin takes the sugar out of your blood and when you have an insulin spike, it ends up taking out too much sugar, causing you to fee tired.  And it continues to get worse, where do you think all the extra sugar goes?  It gets turned into fat.

I’m not recommending to cut out all carbs, but instead to just be conscious about how much you eat.  Eating pasta and bread daily can kill any weight loss gains you’ve made.

7. Stop Drinking Your Calories

I used to drink juice with every meal.  I thought it was healthy. It’s healthy to eat fruit; juice comes from fruit, so juice must be healthy. Nope.

Juice has too much sugar in it.  It take 6 oranges to make a 12 oz glass of orange juice. When was the last time you ate 6 oranges in one sitting. Even worse, you consume that orange juice much quicker than you would 6 oranges, which leads to the blood sugar spike talked about earlier.

8. Drink More Water

If you don’t normally drink water, it can take a while to get used to the taste (or lack thereof) but it’s one of the simplest changes that can help you stay in shape.  It keeps you away from sugary drinks and artificially sweetened ones that can actually make losing fat harder.

I work from home, so I keep a REALLY large glass in my office to make it easy to drink a lot of water without having to constantly fill it back up.

Have any other tips you’d like to share? Let me know in the comments below

Related Posts

  • 3 Easy Meals to Uncover Your Six Pack3 Easy Meals to Uncover Your Six Pack
  • 3 Easy To Make Healthy Meals3 Easy To Make Healthy Meals
  • My Morning Breakfast RoutineMy Morning Breakfast Routine
  • When To Walk Away From a Huge Salary – Monday MotivationWhen To Walk Away From a Huge Salary – Monday Motivation
  • 5 Reasons Why You Should Start Your Own Business5 Reasons Why You Should Start Your Own Business
  • When Should You Quit your Job for your side Gig?When Should You Quit your Job for your side Gig?

Filed Under: Life Tagged With: 6 pack, abs, get in shape, how to lose weight easily, lose weight, Monday Motivation, workout

Previous Post: « My Stay at The Nines Hotel in Portland, Oregon
Next Post: Weekend Trip to Portland, Oregon »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. betweenthepearls says

    October 24, 2016 at 10:14 am

    Those are such good tips! Thanks for sharing.

    Alicia | http://www.betweenthepearls.com

  2. lexi @ glitterinc.com says

    October 24, 2016 at 1:45 pm

    These are all such good tips. I definitely prefer an efficient and fast workout!

  3. Maggie says

    October 24, 2016 at 7:35 pm

    That squatting before eating tip is really interesting! I’ll have to try it!

    http://www.maggiealamode.com

  4. Styled Blonde says

    October 24, 2016 at 8:19 pm

    Yes!!! Love these! Such good tips!

  5. annaefox01 says

    October 24, 2016 at 9:05 pm

    #3 totally made me LOL! I haven’t heard that one before. Great tips!

  6. Lauren of An Explorer's Heart says

    October 24, 2016 at 9:22 pm

    So many good tips (and super informative) – I knew about drinking water, but many of the others were new to me 🙂

    Lauren
    http://www.anexplorersheart.com

  7. Alex says

    October 24, 2016 at 10:29 pm

    Definitely needed to read this today! As I sit here drinking a glass of wine… but I am definitely trying to implement more water the past few weeks and it makes a difference.

    http://adoredbyalex.com

  8. Jaime Cittadino says

    October 25, 2016 at 8:29 am

    Great tips! I do a lot of these already!!

  9. bnbstyling says

    October 26, 2016 at 10:15 am

    These are great tips, especially coming up with the holidays 🙂

    BNBstyling.com

  10. Alicia says

    October 26, 2016 at 1:42 pm

    I need to start using these ASAP — I’m so out of shape and need to fix it!

    xo, Alicia | Alicia Tenise

Primary Sidebar

  • Email
  • Instagram
  • Twitter

Life By Dylan Email

subscribe for email updates!

Tesla Model X Falcon Doors Open

13 Things You Don’t Know About The Tesla Model X

Honda MIIMO HRM 520

Mow Your Lawn without leaving your couch

Samsung Smart Hub Fridge

Samsung Smart Hub Fridge – Best Features

Dylan and Noah with Schlage Encode wifi lock

My Top 3 Smart Home Security Devices

Categories

Archives

  • Email
  • Instagram
  • Twitter

Footer

You don’t see me wearing jeans often, but when I You don’t see me wearing jeans often, but when I do they need to be comfortable & have some stretch. I’ve been a fan of @express for awhile now & they have great denim that’s comparable to some higher end pairs I’ve tried. I will link this look for you in my stories & also in the @liketoknow.it app so shopping is easy! http://liketk.it/3ckqC #liketkit #express #expresspartner #expressyou #mensfashion #mensstyle
Touch touching into 35 😂 Having a great birthda Touch touching into 35 😂 Having a great birthday! So thankful for @leeannebenjamin for planning the day
One step closer to finishing! We got Gunite put i One step closer to finishing! We got Gunite put in our pool last week, so we’re hoping to have it done in less than a month! Check out my Highlights to see the progress, or swipe to see what it looked like before!
Stopped by @hermanmiller for an early Christmas pr Stopped by @hermanmiller for an early Christmas present. My office chair is probably the only thing I spend more time on than my mattress, so I thought it was time for an upgrade. Emma helped out making sure I picked the fabric color that smelled the best 😆 Swipe to see the color I ended up picking and check out my Stories for more info and a link.
Pool is moving along! Check out my Stories or Pool Pool is moving along! Check out my Stories or Pool Highlights for an update!
Back again with another grill recipe! This time I Back again with another grill recipe! This time I cooked 16 ribeyes on our Weber grill from @homedepot and came up with a super easy and consistent recipe to cook them perfectly and get a good crust. I detailed it all out in a blog post where there’s a simple version if you just want the recipe, or a more detailed one where I talk about why this worked so well. Check out my Stories for the link! Plus, @homedepot is offering free shipping on all their grills purchased online! #ad #HomeDepotPartner #HomeDepotxGrills
Guess who now wants golf clubs for Christmas! 😆 Guess who now wants golf clubs for Christmas! 😆 I finally got Noah out to hit some balls, and now he’s obsessed. Looks like I have a golfing buddy 😄
I’ve worn clothing from Banana Republic since hi I’ve worn clothing from Banana Republic since high school. In fact, my brother even worked at Banana Republic Factory which is where my outfit is from. They have the best comfortable everyday essentials for amazing prices. I’ll share the swipe up for my knit shirt & jeans over in my stories if you’re looking for something new for winter. #ad @bananarepublicfactory
I’ve been drinking butter coffee for A LONG TIME I’ve been drinking butter coffee for A LONG TIME, but I recently changed up my recipe. I used to make coffee in a French press every morning, but I changed it up to speed up the process. My latest recipe is: 1 Cosi @Nespresso pod Small amount of frothed whole grass-fed Milk Little Stevia 1/4 Tsp Guittard cocoa powder 1 Tbsp MCT Oil 1.5 Tbsp Grass-Fed Butter Blend it It’s not too sweet, but changes things up a bit from my normal butter coffee. Plus the single @nespresso pod has half the caffeine I’m used to (I’m trying to cut back, so this is a good way to get the butter and MCT oil without as much caffeine). If I need more caffeine, I just make another one ☕️ I’ve always been a fan of Mocha’s and ever since
After grilling 14 racks of ribs over 14 days on ou After grilling 14 racks of ribs over 14 days on our new Weber grill from @homedepot, I think I finally came up with the best rib recipe that takes the least work! Even after eating ribs pretty much every day for the last 2 week, Noah’s still excited for more 😆 I’ve shared a detailed blog post that’ll have you cooking some of the best ribs you’ve had without sacrificing your entire Saturday! Check out my Stories or Ribs Highlight for the link! #HomeDepotPartner #HomeDepotxGrills
When your kids tell you to wear a Pikachu costume When your kids tell you to wear a Pikachu costume for Halloween, YOU WEAR A PIKACHU COSTUME FOR HALLOWEEN!
We’re back out in the sun again after we rented We’re back out in the sun again after we rented a golf cart for @LeeAnneBenjamin to get around! Sharing some of my favorite products from @everymanjack today. Their spray sunscreen ($14) is amazing and doesn’t have oxybenzone or parabens in it, and living in Texas we almost need sunscreen year round. Sharing more of my favorite products by them in stories today and linking them with @liketoknow.it #liketkit http://liketk.it/2XpDe #LTKmens #LTKunder50 #EMJPartner #SummerResponsibly
New drink recipe and a giveaway! Since getting the New drink recipe and a giveaway! Since getting the #GEProfile Opal nugget ice maker, we’ve been making more drinks than ever! I just can't get enough of the nugget ice, and now we’re giving one away too so someone can enjoy all the goodness 😆 ** just follow the instructions below ** The newest drink recipe is an Apple Pie Punch that's great for fall, and tastes great on its own or with a little rum 👌 Check out my stories for the recipe and a link! To enter all you need to do is follow @GEappliances and comment below on the first beverage you are gonna cool down with your nugget ice! Enter by Friday September, 18 at 6 pm ET. Open to US residents with US shipping addresses. Winner chosen at random and announced in this post. #ad @GEAppliances #OpalNuggetIce
I've been loving my #ProjectAthena- based #GalaxyB I've been loving my #ProjectAthena- based #GalaxyBookFlex laptop so much that when we had to get one for my son for distance learning, I knew exactly what to get him. We’ve been working a lot on handwriting and math lessons, so the S-Pen has been amazing to help him practice. We tried using another computer we had lying around, but it just couldn’t keep up with all the video calls and interactive learning games. We’re hoping to do some road trips this year, so the battery life and super bright screen will be perfect! #ad #MoreThan @intel

Copyright © 2021 · Life By Dylan

  • Home
  • About Dylan
  • Categories
    • Business
    • Life
    • Travel
    • Home
      • Smart Home
    • Fashion
  • Shop
  • Contact
  • Lee’s Blog