Spring has really and truly officially started. The Exercise Season has Commenced!
Get on board now, or risk spending the entire season of Summer trying to get into the kind of shape you want to be in when it STARTS!
Get a head start now and be in the BEST SHAPE OF YOUR LIFE when the real beach weather hits!
Let's face it: most of us aren't elite athletes preparing for a competition. Nor are we obsessive gym rats with the time and determination to train for hours, eat like mice prepping for our next magazine cover shoot.
But that doesn't mean you can't be as fit and health as an professional athlete, and it doesn't mean you can't look like a cover model! Seriously!
All you need is a good 6 -12 weeks! And guess what?! The longer you leave that, the closer to next Winter you will be - ready to rug up again and starting eating heavy, soul-warming comfort food.
Now forget all that! Back to a 6 week program.
I have just trained 2 clients who have lost an average of 5kgs just by tweaking their diet and by maintaining their existing training! All in FOUR WEEKS.
So here's how it's done:
Keep training a minimum of 3 days per week doing high intensity total body workouts.
These workouts can be outdoors or in a gym - take your pick - but base it on body weight - higher reps with little rest. I recommend my ORIGINAL BOOTCAMP (of course!) where we do exercise that gets your metabolism burning for hours after you've stopped racing around the sand dunes!
Next: focus of good lean protein.
Now that you have cleaned up your diet you can start to look at what you can do with the good foods you are now eating.
Eat a balanced diet.
Protein with EVERY meal - lean chicken, lean steak or fish;
Carbs: fresh vegetables and salads - pretty much as much as you want. Oats: fantastic source of energy especially first thing in the morning.
Starches: potato, rice and pasta - LIMIT these, particularly after lunch.
Dairy: limit to low fat milk and cheese if necessary; but you can probably do without them completely.
Nuts: great source of GOOD Fat: but limit to one palm full PER DAY.
Now you will hear a lot about calorie counting. The bottom line is - if you don't know who much petrol you are putting in the tank, and you don't know how much you are using, but you never run out of fuel: there's a good chance you buying more petrol than you need.
Same goes with your food.
You want to run out of petrol every-now-and-then so that you're forced to get out and push the car!
A weird analogy - but it means that when it comes to calories you have to burn more than you eat in order to burn off the calories you have stored around you body in the form of unwanted fat. Rather than putting in more fat.
So, it's your choice: if you really want to know how many calories you need and how many you'll burn you will have to measure it somehow. Find a way that works for you.
But honestly, unless you are counting numbers then you're probably not adding it all up right.
I have a client who finally heeded my advice after 5 years and added up his calories.
I have to admit to being a little annoyed when he finally came to me and announced in amazement: do you know how many calories are in that?! (well, yes - I've been telling you for years! argh!)
But most people need to learn for themselves.
That client is now an avid calorie counter and has dropped from 23% body fat to 14% body fat in 5 weeks.
You can actually see definition on what used to be a bulging gut. And he's no cover model! (I can say that because I know he doesn't read this blog! Ha ha!)
The other little trick is to change the percentage of protein to carbs on consecutive days.
Try avoiding bread (wholegrain because you've cut out the sugar that looks a whole lot like white bread), pasta, rice and grains, for a couple of days.
Just eat protein in your favourite form, with a salad.
Then on day three add back in the oats, rice and (wholemeal) pasta.
Then repeat this pattern several times.
This plan can get quite complicated and the timing of how long and how much can be quite different for each person because of your body type, the kind of training your doing, how old you are, etc, but the basic principle is that if you shake up your energy sources, you can force your body to use more of what it already has stored away, rather than just trying to put more fuel in an already full tank!
Want more info?
Check out (Google) Tom Venuto's Burn the Fat Feed the Muscle and Nick Nilsson's Metabolic Surge.
I'm not an affiliate of either of these programs - I don't receive any kick back (these people probably don't even know I exist anywhere other than on their mailing lists!) but after being suspicious of a lot of online information, I have found these two guys provide honest, reliable information on what it takes to get in shape.
Now, stop reading this and get outside and exercise! (and drop the donut!!!) ;-)
HOOYAH
