Under the militant gaze of a marauding Californian condor, I broke into US 6/95 at high noon for new territory, escorted by twisting dust devils that threatened to outflank me from either side of the road.

Breaking out onto the road, I powered onwards to my next checkpoint: Tonopah, NV. I remember traveling in the opposite direction, two years ago, after sixteen hours straight on the road. My heart was palpitating, so mentally clocked out from the fatigue that I couldn't remember that I was starving and that I had bought food less than twenty minutes ago for that exact problem. That was the must brutal, punishing hours I've ever faced on the road, but I like to think I'm wiser for it.

With phrases like yo-yo dieting, everybody knows that losing the weight is only half the battle. Once they succeed, most people see keeping the weight off as a life-long punishment for succeeding—but it doesn’t have to be that way!

Your body and mind are highly adaptive to change—but once they make a change, they stick to it no matter what. This is great when you pick up a new habit, like exercising and the routines you perform before and after the gym. The only time this isn’t so great, is when your body gets too used the exercises and diet you’ve put it on.

They say a dream without a plan is just a wish, so a plan is the only thing that will get your body from where it is to the best place it can be to serve you. Many people hit the gym hard, only to lose their gains at the next meal; that’s why you need a solid meal plan.

It’s very easy to imagine that only hollywood movie stars can afford to hire one to prepare for a career-defining role—-but personal trainers are a perfectly valid option in all walks of life and at every stage in their fitness journey.

We noticed a common mistake people make is placing too much focus on how not to fail, how to get everything right, until something they never prepared for happens: they do succeed and it goes right, or worse—it goes horribly right.

It’s widely accepted that carbs are the enemy, and while you can make it work with some balancing tricks from a nutritionist, this is a rare case of where—for the vast majority—where there’s smoke, there is a fire.

Even children hate eating their veggies and greens, so it’s no wonder that even as adults we still hate eating right. There are all sorts of complicated, scientific reasons—but the heart of it is that our bodies are designed for a caveman era, when food was scarce, and we live in a world of plenty.

People are creatures of habit, and exercise is no exception. We form habits when our mind accepts that whatever we’re doing, is how things are done and it should expect it. This creates neural pathways in your brain that helps it and your body before, during, and after exercise.

At Diced Kitchen, we’ve found that while a healthy amount of the right kind of stress—like exercise—is good for your body, too much of the wrong kind can send you down the wrong path. Stress impacts almost everything that happens in your body, and that includes your weight loss efforts.

We’ve found there are many ways to lose weight, and intermittent fasting is one of them. It’s not for everyone, and best done with medical supervision, but this is one way to lose a drastic amount of weight quickly. For those that do, the real problem is actually keeping the weight off.

It may sound strange, but working out to burn fat can be a fairly straight forward process. Put simply, you create a gap in your body’s calorie supply, and then maintain or increase your activity level, so your body has no choice but to burn its fat reserves to keep going.

If you're like most people, the new year ignites a new fire in your heart. This is the kind of fire that helps you burn through the exhaustions and obligations of yesteryear, make room for a new you in your calendar, and get your body fighting fit.

We’ve found traffic lights are a great way to make cardio more enjoyable. Okay, so not in the most literal sense—but in their meaning. The same way traffic signals tell you when to stop, prepare to stop or go, you can use this concept to listen to your body as your lungs approach capacity, are overloaded, and are ready to go again.

We’ve discovered that a great way to ease the burden of commitment to exercise is to share it with a friend—but you have to pick that friend wisely. For example, your weekend drinking buddies are less likely to appreciate your fitness goals than someone from your hiking group.

When you’re not used to it, going to the gym can look so boring and exhausting. In fact, if you do it for the wrong reasons and a negative attitude, it’s very easy to see it as paying to do the equivalent of manual labor with no pay off.

Your body’s natural reaction to a calorie deficit that leads to weight loss, is to make you eat more food. The trick is to know a few tips and tricks to help manage that.

More than a great way to stay consistent with your nutrition and portion control, there are many benefits to meal prep. It can make your life easier, stress-free, and more convenient. Meal prepping takes back time in your schedule.

You did it! You’ve finally hit your weight goal, and now the mission is to lock it in—but that’s easier said than done. Let’s unpack the mystery behind simply maintain your weight, something very few people talk about.

Sail to that foreign land, then burn the boats. You do that by going to any national gym like 24 Hour Fitness, then take a leap of faith by going all-in. That means you get their most expensive gym membership, and you pay it in full for a whole year—and that’s your bare minimum.

Eating right, intermittent fasting, and light exercise. When you eat right, it means setting a clear nutritional strategy that works for your body as a whole, and then calibrated to meet your tactical demands for each day.

Because your body adapts to whatever you throw at it, and the older you get the more stubborn it is against change. Your body wants everything to stay the same, and your mind gets in on this by maintaining the habits it knows and trusts.

Engaging in a thoughtful and well structured exercise routine can make a huge difference in your overall fitness journey. One approach that’s gaining popularity is including a brief cardio session before weight lifting. This seemingly simple adjustment can transform your workout experience, offering a range of benefits that contribute to enhanced performance and long-term fitness goals.

Building a truly lasting commitment to your fitness journey requires more than just a desire for temporary change. It demands a profound and enduring reason that gives you staying power during your transformation. The reason must exist beyond a need to impress others, to fit in to a specific group or to wear a particular outfit. This is because once you achieve those things (or don’t achieve them), you lose that fire.

Exercise is a dynamic process that involves pushing your body to its limits, challenging your muscles to adapt and grow stronger. Any time you demand your body to perform outside its comfort zone, you introduce physical stress that strains and eventually introduces microscopic tears in the muscle fibers and ligaments. Your strength comes from the healing process that builds new muscle fibers, while strengthening the older ones.

Your body keeps on doing it’s thing, even when you’re asleep. Some stuff slows down—like thinking—while other things speed up, especially the healing process. A smart move for your body i shitting the hay with a not-too-full stomach.

When you take a closer look at supplements, they have a lot more in common with get-rich-quick schemes than a lot of us want to admit. Even when they seem to work, more likely than not it's because you tweaked your diet or started moving a bit more. That's why we need to drop the idea that there's a quick fix to weight loss.

When you're not getting enough sleep, everything takes a hit in the efficiency department. Your digestive system, for example, becomes less effective at getting energy from what you ate. This means the energy supply to your brain is a little less than the usual amount, and arrives a little bit slower.

Your body is a fascinating and ever-changing system, and its needs can vary from one day to the next. What you put into your body, your daily activities, and the events (or lack thereof) that unfold, all play a role in its intricate workings.