Welcome to the DKS LifeStyle Fitness blog! My name is Dev Smith. I started DKS in 2022 with the purpose of making fitness more adaptable to people’s lifestyles.
My belief when it comes to fitness is that it’s not about what you can do for 3 months. It’s about what you can do forever.
My Story
Why do I consider myself an authority in the fitness niche? Well, for most of my childhood I was very obese. I remember going for a doctor’s visit and being told that I was in danger of developing diabetes. I was only 8 years old at the time.
The doctor told my mother my blood sugar levels were dangerously high and that I needed to lose weight if I wanted to have any chance of reducing my risk of developing diabetes.
My older brother tried to help the situation. He made me run, do pushups, other body-weight exercises, but for some reason I wasn’t losing any weight.
For years to come I continued to gain weight, even though I was working out routinely. At my heaviest I was 195 pounds at 19-years old at a height of 5’6 inches.
It wasn’t until I got into my early 20s and I learned the actual science of fat loss that changed things for me.
I didn’t learn an “opinion “or a “perspective” behind fat loss. I learned how fat loss worked from a scientific standpoint.
Once I developed my understanding of fat loss science, I was able to go from 195 pounds to 155 pounds over the course of a few years. At my leanest condition, I was 145 pounds.
How Fat Loss Works
Fat loss comes down to a net energy deficit or a calorie deficit. In other words, you need to figure out how many calories are needed to maintain your current body-weight and from there you create a deficit.
How Building Muscle Works
We build muscle as a functional response to getting stronger relative to our body-weight. Whether you prefer to train with internal resistance or external resistance, you need to produce progressive overload to produce muscle growth.
My Core Fitness and Health Practices
These are the core practices that I promote for lifestyle fitness and health.
1. Intermittent Fasting
Fasting is the most essential health practice that humans have abandoned. It has been the key to our survival for thousands of years. We didn’t evolve to eat multiple small meals throughout the day or constantly snack throughout the day.
We ate most of our food at night. The idea of “breakfast” or eating first thing in the morning is a recent phenomenon in human evolution.
There are many health and fitness benefits that you get from practicing daily intermittent fasting including:
- Improved focus and cognition
- An increase in metabolic rate, which increases fat burning.
- An increase in Human Growth Hormone for muscle retention/building.
- A decrease in the risk of Type 2 Diabetes and Cancer
- Better caloric management
Not enough great things can be said about fasting.
2. Tracking Calories
Most of my fitness success can be attributed to tracking calories. When I track my caloric intake, it optimizes for everything including:
- Fat Loss
- Muscle Growth/ Muscle Retention
- Functioning Hormones
- Body-weight Management
- Sleep
- Enjoyability of the process
I don’t track all 3 of my macro-nutrients meticulously. When it comes to fat loss, the 2 most important things for me are sustaining a caloric deficit and getting sufficient protein. I eat a balance of fats and carbohydrates.
Generally, I recommend keeping fat intake lower than carb intake since fat is more calorically dense than carbs.
The great thing about setting up a fat loss diet this way is you can still eat the foods you enjoy if you adhere to a deficit and your body’s protein needs are met.
3. Strength Training 3 Days a Week
I don’t lift weights everyday nor do I recommend people lift weights every day. Lifting weights most days or 5 to 6 days a week is not recommended either.
I also don’t recommend lifting weights 2 days in row. There should be about 48 -72 hours of rest in between lifting sessions for recovery purposes.
From my experience, training 3 days a week as a natural best optimizes for:
- Muscle Recovery/ Muscle Growth
- Central Nervous System recovery
- Consistent strength gains
- A life outside of the gym
You need to hit certain strength metrics to build muscle. It’s not about training everyday to fatigue. If you can consistently overload a major compound movement, you can build muscle with 3 heavy resistance workouts a week.
4. Walking
Even though I don’t promote lifting weight every day, I do recommend low-intensity daily activity. Walking is the best exercise you can do for long-term fat loss, weight management, and overall health.
It doesn’t take willpower to go for a 45-60 minute walk every day. However, it can take a lot of willpower to go for a 30–60 minute run every day, which is why I don’t recommend running for most of the population.
When you walk, you see improvements in:
- Mood
- Cognition
- Blood sugar regulation
- Fat loss
- Weight Management
- Muscle recovery
- Reduction in the risk of Type 2 Diabetes
By walking, you burn a moderate number of calories, but your appetite doesn’t go up. It is possible that your appetite might even be suppressed after a long walk, which is good because it makes it easier to maintain a calorie deficit if your goal is fat loss