I’ve always been interested in how some people can transform their body very quickly through fitness and nutrition. To me, it shows dedication, hard work, determination, and knowledge of how the body works. Many people don’t have the time or education to learn about how to do this. Transforming your body is not as complicated as it may seem. Getting the body you want requires consistency, but that’s it. Sure, a little hard work won’t hurt. But for many, staying true to your diet and fitness plan is all it really boils down to.
Let’s start with the fitness side. I always chuckle when I hear people brag about being in the gym for long periods of time. To me that should be less of a brag and more of an embarrassment. If someone is really spending over 90 minutes in the gym per day then they should be looking like Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime. If they don’t, then they are basically boasting about how inefficient they are in the gym. You can easily get the body you want with 45 minutes in the gym over 5 days. Or even less. It just depends on how extreme your goals are. But for most people, 45 minutes over 5 days a week is plenty, as long as you’re efficient with your time.
In simple and plain terms I’ll layout what you should be striving for at the gym. This applies for both men and women. If you’re looking to pack on muscle or lose fat, then you need to lift weights. There are plenty of people that just stick to cardio for their weight loss strategy and that’s not going to cut it and may even drive you crazy. Unless you truly love doing cardio, you need to incorporate heavy lifting. What is heavy lifting? Heaving lifting is lifting a weight that you are only able to lift about 6-8 reps max. If you are getting 8 reps easily, then you need to increase weight. By lifting heavy, you will build muscle much faster and shed fat faster as well.
So what should a day in the gym look like? Well every workout should start off with a heavy compound movement. For example, if it is back day then start off with deadlifts. If it is leg day, then start off with squats. These big compound movements will be your best friends when it comes to your body transformation. Master these and your progress will take off. Learning proper technique is crucial to any Olympic style lift so reach out to a trainer or an experienced lifter for proper guidance. There are also plenty of videos online to get you started. So, the first workout should be a compound lift with heavy weight. As the workout progresses, the lifts should trend towards more isolation movements and less compound movements. Also the weight should be getting less and the reps should be increasing. After bench press (compound movement), start to aim for more isolation exercises. So the next exercise can be incline dumbbell bench press. This is more isolation because it’s aimed towards a specific part of the chest. And the number of reps should increase to about 8-10 max. And by the third exercise, the focus should be on almost complete isolation. So in our scenario, we would do cable or dumbbell flys. This isolates the chest the most and we would bring our reps up to about 12. Rest in between exercises and sets should be less than 2 minutes to start off when lifting heavy and less than 30 seconds when at the end of the workout when doing isolation lifts. As for cardio, mix in cardio about 2-3 times a week, depending on how much fat loss you are going for. I like to do 1 day of extreme cardio, like hill sprints, then 2 days of casual cardio. Casual cardio could be playing a sport with some friends, going on a hike, going on a long walk, going on a long jog, and so on.
Let’s talk about the diet portion. This is by far the simplest part of transforming your body. However, that doesn’t make it the easiest. It just means there are just a few principles to follow. But these principles are easier on some people than they are for others. For diet, stick to the foods that once had a life. For example, anything that grew from the ground or walked/swam on this planet is allowed. Anything else should either be completely taken out or greatly limited (again, depending on how extreme your goals are). That is the main principle. The other principles are: no bread (this includes pasta), no dairy, and no added sugar (this also includes sauces and marinades high in sugar). But that’s it. Follow this diet plan for 6 days and give yourself 1 day of cheating. For that cheat day, go nuts. Eat as much junk as you’d like to get it out of your system. If you do, chances are you’ll get sick of it anyways which will only inspire you to get back to your diet plan.
Transforming your body doesn’t have to be complicated. This simple plan of fitness and nutrition will get anyone to the body they want and quickly. These are the basics and for some reason many trainers and dieticians try to complicate things to make it sound like it’s cutting edge. But it’s not. The rules of diet and nutrition have never changed in our human existence and they never will. Exercise and the right nutrition is the only way to improve your body.
What else do you like to do to get the body you want?
Dabbl 