[The Best] No, Diet Soda Doesn’t Make You Fat, and More

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Best Content of the Week

Just in time for the holidays, this week’s content covers multiple facets of fat loss and weight control.

Calvin Huynh’s article explains the science of appetite and offers strategies to minimize the inevitability of hunger while restricting calories. Aadam Ali’s Instagram post debunks the myth that diet soda causes insulin spikes and leads to weight gain. Heather Robertson’s podcast helps you troubleshoot your clients’ meal-planning challenges. And on the fitness side, we have a full-length workshop from OPEX Fitness showing you how to effectively program and progress interval training.

— Esther Avant

Best Article

How to Dominate Your Hunger Like an Almighty Weight-Loss Emperor — Calvin Huynh, Awesome Fitness Science

How often has a fat-loss client told you she “slipped up” on her diet because she was hungry? How your clients deal with hunger determines their success or failure. This comprehensive article by Calvin Huynh will help you understand the myriad factors that determine hunger and how to help your clients manage it.

— Shane McLean

Best Video

Programming and Progressing Interval Training — James FitzGerald, Carl Hardwick, and Georgia Smith, OPEX Fitness

In-person seminars aren’t on the table right now, so we have to settle for the next-best thing: continuing education brought to our living rooms. In this 90-minute workshop, the crew at OPEX Fitness show you how to program interval training so it’s more than a mashup of random exercises at the end of a workout. They explain the science and how to use it to get results for your clients.

— Esther Avant

Best Social Media Post

Do Diet Drinks “Trick” Your Body into Storing Fat? — Aadam Ali on Instagram

If you’ve never witnessed an internet feud about the effect of artificial sweeteners on body fat, or perhaps even participated in one, consider yourself lucky. Because on the basis of evidence, there’s really no argument.

Aadam Ali is one of the best in the fitness industry at explaining complex, controversial topics, which is why we chose one of his articles as the best of 2019. In this post, he needs just seven slides to demolish the popular but unsupported idea that noncaloric beverages somehow make people gain weight.

— Christina Abbey

Best Podcast

How to Overcome Struggles With Meal Planning — Heather Robertson, Half-Size Me

In this poignant episode, Heather Robertson illustrates the challenges of meal planning by sharing the story of a client who tragically lost her husband and became the sole caretaker of a child with autism. She emphasizes the importance of deliberate maintenance phases and offers practical tips on how to cook for picky eaters. This is an episode you’ll want to share with any clients who struggle to plan meals for themselves and their families.

— Mike Howard

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The Author

Esther Avant is a certified personal trainer, nutrition coach, sports nutritionist, pre- and postnatal coach, mom, and military wife who coaches women online. As the owner of Esther Avant Wellness Coaching and founder of the Gone For Good weight-loss program, she specializes in helping women lose weight and keep it off without another diet or gym challenge. You can find her at her website, on Instagram, and on Facebook.