I received an email this morning from a coaching client who asked me my opinion of the new Pepsi Next product. My advice was to leave it on the shelf, but I wanted to do a blog post to explain my reasoning.

As you probably already know I’m down on ALL sodas. There’s not one that I see having a place in a healthy diet. This is especially true if you’re looking to lose weight and change your shape.

It’s not even necessarily all about the sugar content. I frequently cover this in my “Lean Code Method Nutrition for Fat Loss� seminars. Sodas should be left out of your diet completely when you’re looking to lose fat because the phosphorus depletes calcium in your body.

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I frequently get asked about my opinion of energy drinks and shots so I thought it would be a good idea to do a blog posts on the subject. As you can see in the title of this post I’ll be reviewing the Advocare Spark product and popular 5 Hour Energy shots.

There’s little need to review most convenience store energy drinks because quite simply I wouldn’t recommend them. The majority are so chocked full of sugar that they’re automatically tagged as garbage in my book.

Let me preface this whole discussion by stating my position on energy drinks in general. Could they serve a beneficial purpose in an otherwise healthy diet? Yes, absolutely but it all comes down to how much and how often you use them.

No surprises here but the main ingredient in most energy drinks is caffeine. While low-moderate doses of caffeine can be safely consumed by some individuals it’s not for everyone. If you suffer from adrenal fatigue or have cardiovascular health problems you’ll want to avoid caffeine.

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If you’re looking to lose some unwanted pounds and slim down your waistline, switching out processed and refined foods for more natural food sources is a great place to start. However, just because a natural food is something we’d consider to be “healthy� doesn’t mean you’ll automatically lose weight by eating it.

There are numerous examples of healthy foods that when consumed in excess can easily promote weight gain. In this post, I’m going to cover four of the biggest culprits. Remember fat loss requires more than just eating healthy. There needs to be a deficit in energy at some point in order for your body to call upon fuel reserves from stored body fat.

It’s all about creating short term restrictions and deficits with dietary changes and exercise to set the conditions right for fat burning. At the same time, there must be supportive nutrition to the cells and periods of “re-feeding� in order to avoid a down-regulation in metabolism. For now let’s address the four foods you want to be cautious with in your diet.

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I received this question yesterday from a coaching client and since it’s one I get quite frequently I figured it would be a good idea to do a blog post on the subject.

Night time snacking is probably responsible for throwing a monkey wrench into people’s weight loss attempts more than anything else.

You do good all day with your diet, eat clean and exercise, then blow it at night after dinner. In this post, I’m going to give you some tips to help curtail night time snacking that will enable you to stay on track towards fat loss.

First, let’s address some common reasons why you tend to have cravings at night.

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