When you've found the "best approach" or the "perfect plan" to reach your goal, if that exist, anything that takes away your resources to execute your perfect plan like time, money, and mental effort should be considered avoided. If you really want THE shortcut, you would cease wasteful spending of your resources on fluff behaviors.
If you're a busy person, a lazy person, or an unmotivated person, the last thing you need to do is fluff training and fluff dieting. You already have so little willpower and time going for you, why spend it on things that don't work?
Let me describe what the ideal approach for is for losing fat and gaining muscle then I'll give you a few examples of the "fluff" you might be committing now that's holding you back.
If you want to look better than your current physique, you have to gain muscle while lose body fat. Most people tell trainers they just want to be "healthy." But they really meant they want to lose body fat and look good naked. Sure, being healthy is nice for a 60-70 year old but improving your physique is what really drives people to attend group classes, eat clean, and hire help 99% of the time. When they say they want to "feel stronger" or "athletic", they also meant having more muscle on their body to move and look like they play a sports, don't lie, it's true.
If you need to get strong and muscular you have to strength train and eat. And I don't mean the pink dumbbells you see Julian Michael holding or the 20lb barbells you use in body pump class. I meant heavy ass weight you can't do for more than 10-15reps at a time before you reach muscular fatigue.
If you are not eating enough protein and not applying enough tension onto your muscle to elicit adaptation; you will not get stronger or more muscular.
If you are not eating enough protein and not applying enough tension onto your muscle to elicit adaptation; you will not get stronger or more muscular.
If you need to lose body fat; move more, eat less, and have the patience to do that for a while. If you somehow end up eating more (knowingly or mindlessly) because you're not budgeting your calories correctly, you won't lose fat. If you follow stupid dietary advice like "clean eating" or "just go vegetarian/paleo", taking pills, juicing, or use body wraps thinking you'll burn more, you will never lose the fat. even if you did, it's because whatever the product or system you're using tricked you into eating less, which you could have done it yourself without paying a shit load of money and believing in pseudoscience. It's not magical, you just ate less.
To help boost your metabolism you HAVE to apply work. Anything that is not resistance training or helping you eat less will be time, money, and energy wasted on fluff.
To help boost your metabolism you HAVE to apply work. Anything that is not resistance training or helping you eat less will be time, money, and energy wasted on fluff.
You need to eat and train in ways that's enjoyable, safe, and relevant to your current lifestyle and fitness level so that you have the mental and physical capacity to keep doing it without quitting.
The 21 day plank challenge you do with your coworkers or the 2 weeks sugar detox your girlfriends show you aren't going to last. If you have to reach a goal or develop a new habit through so much resistance (through willpower), it's not likely that they last.
Education and smart planning on the other hand, will. This means reading and being more open-minded to methods you may not have tried or heard of. See mistakes as just missteps to doing it better next time. Build small and productive habits on top of another positive, existing habit so there is not a lot of "willpower" require to eventually reach the end goal. The end goal, being having healthy habits that make eating less and moving more easy. When you're enjoying the process, you won't even feel all of this fitness business is "work" anymore and that's the magic to "maintenance".
At the end of the day, you will have to lift intelligently with resistance over time and eat just enough food to build lean mass while still be in an overall energy deficit to lose body fat. This is what helps you get the results you want so you can look good naked. I know this doesn't sound sexy at all (the math and the planning) but you will FEEL sexy when you actually get results instead of jumping from new fitness fads to newer fitness fads. If you have trouble with this, seek help from a professional who doesn't sell you stupid shakes, 5min dumb workout routines, meal replacements, but actually produce results reguarlily and have endless testimonials to show it.
Education and smart planning on the other hand, will. This means reading and being more open-minded to methods you may not have tried or heard of. See mistakes as just missteps to doing it better next time. Build small and productive habits on top of another positive, existing habit so there is not a lot of "willpower" require to eventually reach the end goal. The end goal, being having healthy habits that make eating less and moving more easy. When you're enjoying the process, you won't even feel all of this fitness business is "work" anymore and that's the magic to "maintenance".
At the end of the day, you will have to lift intelligently with resistance over time and eat just enough food to build lean mass while still be in an overall energy deficit to lose body fat. This is what helps you get the results you want so you can look good naked. I know this doesn't sound sexy at all (the math and the planning) but you will FEEL sexy when you actually get results instead of jumping from new fitness fads to newer fitness fads. If you have trouble with this, seek help from a professional who doesn't sell you stupid shakes, 5min dumb workout routines, meal replacements, but actually produce results reguarlily and have endless testimonials to show it.
You might be doing a lot of fluff today that you're not aware of. Here are ways to help you invest your resources better. Unless you actually enjoy the behaviors I’m describing below and willing to justify them for a slower, less efficient way of reaching your goal (or never), then the list should apply to everyone.
Fluff Things People Do For Fat Loss
1. Eating less sodium or drinking excessive amount of water. This has little do to with energy balance.
2. Not embracing hunger every time you feel hungry.
3. Fear of: cholesterol, saturated fat, gluten, GMO food, sugar, carbs, milk, fat, protein, alcohol, meat, candy, pizza, etc. (Really anything that's not rat poison or that you're medically not supposed to have and totally disregard the fact that quantity of foods matter.)
4. Using cardio or HIIT as the only way to burn more calories.
If you actually try to build more lean mass from heavy lifting, (or avoid cardio/conditioning type workouts that breakdown your muscle when done excessively) you'll burn more calories outside of the gym everyday than your actual cardio workouts. Lean tissues are more calorically expensive to keep alive which is good for burning more calories and to help offset surplus incoming calories in the future.
5. Not tracking calories - guessing your energy intake and output and lie about it to your trainer.
6. Buying useless products: protein shakes, Thrive and WorkIt patches, and packaged meals that may be more convenient but don't help you truly "eat less" long term. this is because they don't do the things they promise you, like increase your metabolism, satiate hunger, or fix your cravings etc... More importantly, it doesn't teach you time management and cooking skills. you know, real world, basic human stuff.
7. Becoming a vegetarian.
8. Telling people you became a vegetarian.
9. Only want to be told what to eat and what not to eat instead of learning about nutrition for yourself. So you can make dietary choices and think independently at the restaurant and in the kitchen or even when you're traveling. Basically, if you ask for meal plans instead of a cookbook from a trainer/nutritionist; you have already failed.
10. Hash-tagging and Pinterest full of delicious dessert porn you know you shouldn't be looking at.
Fluff Things People Do For Muscle Gain
1. Yoga, Zumba, Barre, BeachBody, LesMill, and getting massages. Basically anything bodybuilders didn't do 30 years ago. and most commercial gym free/cheap group classes.
2. Running and thinking that's good enough for "leg day".
3. Drinking protein shakes and not lifting. Drinking any shakes and not lifting.
4. Buying gym memberships and not using it, reading a lot about fitness but never starting anything.
5. Getting injured due to lack of common sense in the gym or doing too much repetitive movements for a long duration of time.
6. Crossfit, HIIT, Insanity, cross training, circuit training, dildo training, as well as most boot camps that worries about how many calories you burn or how much you sweat instead of how much weight you can stack on the bar... or using bosu balls for everything and call it functional training. … and pink dumbbells.
7. Anything that is not progressively overloading your body with more resistance correctly and frequently than what you can handle currently with ease is fluff.
8. Do only what "feels" good instead of doing what's necessary.
everybody is all about their feelings instead of what it actually takes to reach their goal. It's to hot outside, i don't have the right music, the gym is too expensive/far, I have kids and school, i rather run than doing push ups, and blah blah blah.
Learn to love/worship the pump and the soreness that comes after the workout. Even if that means waking up earlier than usual, getting out of bed on a cold day, or train the upper body when your legs are still sore. Just get to the gym!
Learn to love/worship the pump and the soreness that comes after the workout. Even if that means waking up earlier than usual, getting out of bed on a cold day, or train the upper body when your legs are still sore. Just get to the gym!
9. Playing a sport that doesn't involve lifting more than just body weight and call it resistance training.
10. Jogging
Please invest your resources better or hire a professional that can help you in that department. Esp. if you've tried and tried and are still not getting the results you wanted. Stop thinking "this time will be different" when your methods are the same.
Stop Fluff Spending.
"Since meeting him, my training is more effective and my results, more amazing. Jem has graciously contributed to me gaining back power over my body and my future; I am in the best shape of my life NOW, after having a child, and am a much happier, healthier version of me! I can't wait to compete again in October when I'll be able to apply what I've learned from him. Thanks jem!"
- Daisy Saenz
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