If you're not happy with the way you look, here are 5 guidelines that are guaranteed to give you the body you've been dreaming about!
1. Diet is the most important thing.
There is a saying in the fitness world that you can't out-train a bad diet. This isn't entirely true, but if you don't have 20 hours a week to spend on exercise, then it is an absolute certainty.
To lose fat, you must have a caloric deficit. You can create this in 3 ways:
- Diet alone - This is the least time-consuming option. It's also the most difficult because most people (including myself) have a difficult time adhering to insanely strict, calorie-counting diets. This is also assuming that you will be performing strength training to maintain your muscle mass (see #2).
- Exercise alone - This is the most time-consuming option. I'm going to assume that most people don't have 15-20 hours to spend in the gym, so this one's out.
- Diet and exercise - This is the most realistic and effective method. Keep in mind that the less strict your diet, the more you have to exercise.
Let me first say that I'm not a fan of counting calories. It is tedious and time-consuming. It's also unnecessary unless your goal is to get extremely lean (like bodybuilding contest lean).
Reading nutrition information works better than sleeping pills.
The simplest way to do it is to eat less than you normally do. If you normally eat desserts after every meal or snack in between meals, that is the first thing to go. Try doing that for 2 weeks and see how your body responds.
If you lose 1-2 lbs a week, keep going until your progress slows down or stops, then make another small change. If you normally drink calorie-containing beverages, cut those out. Switch to diet pop, Crystal Light, and water. If you go out to dinner on a regular basis, start ordering from the "healthy choice" section of the menu (almost every chain restaurant has one now).
The key here is making consistent, steady progress. When that progress slows or stops, it's time to make another small change.
Also, if you "fall off the wagon" and devour the entire bakery section at Giant Eagle, don't sweat it. You didn't "ruin" your diet. Just continue it like nothing ever happened, and try to resist temptation (or avoid it altogether!) next time.
For further information on what to eat, check out this article.
2. To reshape your body, you must gain muscle, or at least maintain the muscle you already have.
This is why aerobic exercise and diet alone falls flat on its face when it comes to body transformation. When you lose the fat, you just end up looking like a smaller version of how you looked before. Not to mention the fact that you will no doubt lose a good deal of muscle in the process.
Losing muscle will lower your resting metabolic rate. So after you've lost the weight, you're much more likely to gain it all back and then some unless you continue dieting and doing cardio. Then, when you go to diet again, it will be much harder to get the weight off.
The key is to maintain your muscle mass through progressive resistance training. This way, your resting metabolic rate will be maintained. When the diet is over, you won't gain all of the weight back, and you'll be able to maintain your new body much more easily.
To maintain, or even gain, muscle and strength while dieting, you should strength train with mainly compound exercises 2-4 times per week. Squats, deadlifts, bench press, standing press, pullups (or pulldowns), and rows will give you the most bang for your buck. Split these up over the 2-4 days and try to get stronger in each of them.
Squats are awesome.
Be realistic though. Depending on your current strength level, it can be nearly impossible to gain strength on a good fat loss diet. Your muscles will be depleted of glycogen and water, and your overall energy level will be lower. Sometimes it can feel like you're losing muscle and strength, when in reality you've only lost the ability to display your strength.
If any of you follow my training log, you'll notice that I recently finished up a fat loss phase myself. By the end of it, I could barely bench press 295 lbs for one rep! Three weeks later I pressed 305 for 3 easy reps. I hadn't lost the muscle or the strength, but my muscles were so depleted that I couldn't use my usual weights in the gym.
Remember that the next time you're in the middle of a diet and feel like you can barely deadlift a pair of wet socks!
3. High Intensity Metabolic Conditioning
HIMC is the most efficient way to lose fat from a "time spent" standpoint. Since time is a precious commodity to most of us, I'll assume that this is a desirable thing.
I have written about this in past articles, so I'll be brief here:
- Perform HIMC 1-3 times per week as standalone training sessions.
- Incorporate HIMC "finishers" after 1-3 of your weight training sessions.
- Total HIMC training should not exceed 4 total sessions per week
- Start slow, with 1 day devoted to HIMC and 1 "finisher" at the end of strength training, and build from there.
- You can see several good examples of HIMC workouts here and here.
- Don't be afraid to skip a workout if you are honestly wiped out. But, don't take this as an excuse to be a wimp.
Crybabies need not apply.
4. Aerobic exercise - THE LAST RESORT!
If you follow guidelines 1-3 to the letter, you WILL lose fat and maintain (or even, in certain cases, gain) muscle and strength. However, if you're still not satisfied with your progress, and you still have time to burn, you can add aerobic exercise into your program.
There really is no limit to how much you can do. Bodybuilders and figure models sometimes do up to 2-3 hours of aerobic work per day!
That's like climbing Mt. Rainier every day.
I suggest starting with 1-3 days at 20-30 minutes each day and working up from there until you start seeing the progress you want. Again, this is ONLY if you're already nailing #1-3 above and still not seeing satisfactory results.
It really doesn't matter what type of aerobic activity you choose, so long as it makes you breathe harder than normal. Incline treadmill walking, stairsteppers, stationary bikes, and ellipticals will all work in this case. If I had to do this, I would walk around my housing plan in a 40 lb weight vest, because at this point my neighbors couldn't think I'm any more crazy, and my weight vest bears a strong resemblance to a flak jacket.
It is a scientific fact that wearing a flak jacket will make
you awesome no matter what you wear underneath it.
5. Putting it all together.
Here is a sample beginner's body transformation training program:
Monday - strength training with HIMC finisher
Warm-up for 5-10 minutes
A) Squat - 5 sets of 4-8 reps working up to one top set
B1) Standing Military Press - 4 sets of 4-8 reps working up to one top set
B2) Pullups or pulldowns - 4 sets of 8-12 reps working up to one or two top sets
*B1 and B2 means that these exercises are to be alternated each set (press, pull, press, etc)
C) Plank - 3 sets for max time
D) Prowler push or bodyweight complex for max reps in 10 minutes
Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday - strength training
Warm-up for 5-10 minutes
A) Deadlift - 5 sets of 4-8 reps working up to one top set
B1) DB Rows - 4 sets of 8-12 reps working up to one or two top sets
B2) Bench Press - 4 sets of 4-8 reps working up to one top set
C) Hanging Leg Raises - 3 sets of max reps
Friday or Saturday - HIMC
Warm-up for 5-10 minutes
Hill running - until you're done; start off slow and add reps each time
Diet - follow the 5 Simple Rules and make adjustments when progress slows or stops
Follow these guidelines and I guarantee that in 2-3 months there will be a new you staring back at you in the mirror! You won't be able to walk outside to get your mail without someone commenting on how great you look!
Get started TODAY!
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