Guest article by Tom Venuto, NSCA-CPT, CSCS
www.burnthefat.com
Not long ago, one of the members of my health club poked her head in my office for some advice. Linda was a 46 year old mother of two, and she had been a member for over a year. She had been working out sporadically, with (not surprisingly), sporadic results. On that particular day, she seemed to have enthusiasm and a twinkle in her eye that I hadn’t seen before.
“I want to enter a before and after fitness contest called the “12 week body transformation challenge.” I could win money and prizes and even get my picture in a magazine.”
“I want to lose THIS”, she continued, as she grabbed the body fat on her stomach. “Do you think it’s a good idea?”
Linda was not “obese,” she just had the typical “moderate roll” of abdominal body fat and a little bit of thigh/hip fat that many forty-something females struggle with.
“I think it’s a great idea,” I reassured her. “Competitions are great for motivation. When you have a deadline and you dangle a “carrot” like that prize money in front of you, it can keep you focused and more motivated than ever.”
Linda was eager and rarin’ to go. “Will you help me? I have this enrollment kit and I need my body fat measured.”
“No problem,” I said as I pulled out my Skyndex fat caliper, which is used to measure body fat percentage with a “pinch an inch” test.
When I finished, I read the results to her from the caliper display: “Twenty-seven percent. Room for improvement, but not bad; it’s about average for your age group.”
She wasn’t overjoyed at being ‘average’. “Yeah, but it’s not good either. Look at THIS,” she complained as again she grabbed a handful of stomach fat. “I want to get my body fat down to 19%, I heard that was a good body fat level.”
I agreed that 19% was a great goal, but told her it would take a lot of work because average fat loss is usually about a half a percent a week, or six percent in twelve weeks. Her goal, to lose eight percent in twelve weeks was ambitious.
She smiled and insisted, “I’m a hard worker. I can do it”
Indeed she was and indeed she did. She was a machine! Not only did she never miss a day in the gym, she trained HARD. Whenever I left my office and took a stroll through the gym, she was up there pumping away with everything she had. She told me her diet was the strictest it had ever been in her life and she didn’t cheat at all. I believed her, and it started to show, quickly.
Each week she popped into my office to have her body fat measured again, and each week it went down, down, down. Consistently she lost three quarters of a percent per week – well above the average rate of fat loss – and on two separate occasions, I recall her losing a full one percent body fat in just seven days.
Someone conservative might have said she was overtraining, but when we weighed her and calculated her lean body mass, we saw that she hadn’t lost ANY muscle – only fat. Her results were simply exceptional!
She was ecstatic, and needless to say, her success bred more success and she kept after it like a hungry tiger for the full twelve weeks.
On week twelve, day seven, she showed up in my office for her final weigh-in and body fat measurement. She was wearing a pair of formerly tight blue jeans and they were FALLING OFF her!
“Look, look, look,” she repeated giddily as she tugged at her waistband, which was now several inches too large.
As I took her body fat, I have to say, I was impressed. She hadn’t just lost a little fat, she was “RIPPED!”
During week twelve she dropped from 18% to 17% body fat, for a grand total of 10% body fat lost in three months. She surpassed her goal of 19% by two percent. I was now even more impressed, because not many people lose that much body fat in three months.
You should have seen her! She started jumping up and down for joy like she was on a pogo stick! She was beaming… grinning from ear to ear! She practically knocked me over as she jumped up and gave me a hug – “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
“Don’t thank me,” I said, “You did it, I just measured your body fat.”
She thanked me again anyway and then said she had to go have her “after” pictures taken.
Then something very, very strange happened. She stopped coming to the gym. Her “disappearance” was so abrupt, I was worried and I called her. She never picked up, so I just left messages.
No return phone call.
It was about four months later when I finally saw Linda again. The giddy smile was gone, replaced with a sullen face, a droopy posture and a big sigh when I said hello and asked where she’d been.
“I stopped working out after the contest… and I didn’t even win.”
“You looked like a winner to me, no matter what place you came in” I insisted, “but why did you stop, you were doing so well!”
“I don’t know, I blew my diet and then just completely lost my motivation. Now look at me, my weight is (more…)
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Continue reading about Health And Fitness Is Not A 12-Week Program
[Editor's note - a different version of this post came out two years ago from Jason, but I (Darrin) have years of experience managing teams of professionals and so I've added my experience with how people can achieve their goals. So this is a pretty major rework...]
This is the time of year that many people already start to give up on their New Year’s Resolutions. Especially fitness goals. Don’t be one of those people!
Not getting to your destination? Having trouble achieving your goals? You may have a problem that you haven’t considered – how you set them in the first place.
When you are doing everything you possibly can to achieve your goals, but just can’t quite seem to reach them, the problem might be that you are setting the wrong type of goal. Here’s a real-world example that you might see in business:
My goal is to increase company sales this year.
What’s wrong with this goal?
- “This Year” is too long a timeframe to measure progress. You can easily lie to yourself each month you fail to see higher sales, by saying “I’ll make up for it next month”.
- You don’t directly control company sales. Most likely, you aren’t in a position to control company-wide sales. Even a director of sales doesn’t technically “control” sales because customers must buy something for sales to increase, and you can’t control the customers. You can only take actions that will influence their decision to purchase.
- Not measurable. How will you measure your success here? “Increase” could mean just $1 more revenue when you really meant much more.
You may have heard of SMART goals: specific, measureable, actionable, realistic, and timebound. Good advice in theory but in practice, the average person gets so confused by these 5 criteria that their goals become convoluted and dysfunctional.
MT Goals
So forget the “S”, “A”, and “R” for now and just focus on the “M” and “T” – make sure your goals are Measureable and Timebound (you do this right, and the S, A, and R will come along for the ride). And since you are the only person that you have complete, direct control over, you are the only person that your goals should ever focus on. You will only set yourself up for disappointment if you create a goal that you can try your hardest to achieve and still fail at.
[I've known this for many years, after struggling with teams and individuals going into contortions to set up goals. All that really matters is that they are measurable and timebound. But the first time I heard the phrase "MT" goals was from the guys at http://www.manager-tools.com/ . For further advice on MT goals, see Better Smart Goals.
Your Workout Goals – Outcome vs. Process
You don’t have direct control over your body composition either. If you did, you would just add 10 pounds of muscle or lose fat whenever you want.
Instead, you have to take the specific actions that influence your body to look the way you want. You don’t just lose fat… you increase your metabolism, run hard, and eat clean food, and then your body may or may not lose 10 pounds of fat.
So setting a goal to lose 10 pounds of fat is an outcome-based goal. Outcome-based goals are fine and usually the place people start. And they are an important part of goal setting. But they don’t tell you what to do – what action to take. If you don’t know what the best mix of diet and exercise is most likely to lose 10 pounds, no amount of goal setting will make it happen. You need to have some more experience before you can set outcome-based goals.
The solution to these problems is (more…)
Continue reading about Goal Achievement For Lazy People – Start With The Right Goals
Remember when we asked you to Take Your Worst Picture Ever? Well it’s time to take it out. If you haven’t taken it yet, or are new to World Fitness Network, we’ve got reminders at the end of this post…
What Do You See?
That old picture of yourself – is that what you still look like? Have you made any progress? Have you made enough progress? I’m not here to lecture you – I’m here to help you lecture yourself.
If you think you’ve made good progress, skip to the Take a New Picture section and then compare.
If you haven’t made progress, do these things right now:
- write down every excuse you can come up with; don’t hold back!
- now rank those excuses by their “power”; the stronger their power over you, the closer to the top of the list they go
- for each of your top 5 excuses (more if you have the gumption), write down at least one action you are going to take to eliminate it as an excuse moving forward
- take your top 5 excuses and share them with someone who cares about you; ask them for their advice on how they think you can eliminate those; don’t share the previous step with them – you want original ideas
- take the combined list of approximately 10 ideas to combat your 5 major excuses, and tape the list to your bathroom mirror
- every day (especially on your workout days) recite that list out loud; if you get embarrassed reading it out loud, good! you’ve got to break through some barriers if you want to eliminate those excuses
- now act!
And time to take a new picture:
Haven’t Taken Your Picture Yet? Or Need To Take A New Picture?
Did you fail your self-evaluation? Or are you just now planning to get in shape, but haven’t quite started yet?
Or even if you’ve made progress, you now need a new benchmark – a new picture.
Go into your room and take all your clothes off. That’s right, strip down to nothing but your briefs, your Spiderman Underoos, your boxers, your lingerie, whatever you are wearing underneath. (more…)
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Continue reading about It’s Time to Look At Your Worst Picture Ever, And Take A New One
- Don’t delay getting in the best shape of your life…
Are you waiting until January to get serious about fitness?
I’m already starting to hear a phrase I absolutely hate: “After the holidays I will… [fill in the blank]“
For some it’s “After the holidays I’ll get serious about eating right.” For others it’s “…I’ll start lifting heavy,” or “…I’ll start on that workout program I bought last month.” You get the picture.
Are you guilty of saying this?
What in the world is so magical about “after the holidays?”
I’ll tell you what the “magic” is – it’s the dark magic of excuses and procrastination.
Because “the holidays” are a recognized calendar demarcation, it’s easy to put things off until afterward.
“I’ll be too busy until then.”
“There are too many temptations during the holidays.”
Wah wah wah.
And then you bring in the worst self-improvement lie I know of: the New Year’s Resolution.
I’m going to be sharing with you REAL strategies on goal setting in the coming weeks and let me assure you, there is nothing special about New Year’s except what’s in your head. That means it’s perception, and you can change your perception.
Your fitness is too important to wait.
You are ready now.
You are subscribed to this website (or else you landed here because you did a web search for something fitness related) and you wouldn’t be here if you weren’t considering getting serious.
There is no better time.
Some of you (thank goodness) are already well on your way to having a great physique and I’ll bet you didn’t “turn the corner” because of a New Year’s Resolution or by saying “I’ll start after the holidays.”
Sometimes it takes a life-changing event to push you into making change. Don’t wait for a life-changing event.
You are there now.
You have no excuse.
Earlier this year I was really focused on gaining strength. I set specific goals around 3 particular lifts and set a deadline. To accomplish them, I had to adjust my training plan and mental rehearsal framework. I had to read about elite deadlifters. I had to watch videos of heavy squatters. I had to increase the amount of food I was eating by a lot.
Having accomplished that, I turned my attention to shedding some of the fat I gained (it wasn’t much extra fat, but I still wanted it gone). So I set specific goals around appearance and bodyfat %.
In fact, my entire annual routine is based on the concept of periodically changing the routine to accomplish different fitness goals at different times of year.
What are YOUR most important fitness goals?
Want to shed 5 pounds of fat by New Year’s?
Want to be able to fully squat 300 pounds by your birthday?
Want to simply look good enough that you aren’t embarrassed at the beach next summer?
I’m going to be sharing more advice with you about goal setting in upcoming articles, but I want to introduce a concept first: your ultimate fitness goals (UFGs).
See, you probably want it ALL, right? You want to accomplish everything in as short a timeframe as possible. I understand. I’m ambitious and impatient, so my inclination when I set goals is to bite off wayyyy more than I can chew.
The reality is that you can’t do everything all at once.
Over time, sure, you can accomplish a tremendous amount. But for fitness, it’s best to focus on one or two goals at a time and then when you accomplish them you can move on to others.
So what are your most important fitness goals for the next 6 months – your UFGs?
The 8 Primary Fitness Areas
90% of the fitness goals you want to achieve are contained in one of the following 8 areas:
1) Lose Fat
2) Improve Endurance
3) Gain Strength
4) Increase Muscle Mass [hypertrophy]
5) Be “Healthy” And Feel Good (subjective)
6) Maintain everything at your current level
7) Recover From Injury
8) “Look Better” [body proportions, composition] (subjective)
It’s really important to focus on an area first, then set your goals. In other words, pick one of the 8 fitness areas to focus on first. Then set specific goals within that area. Maybe pick one more area and do the same. But really only work on at most 2 areas at once. And within each area, keep your specific goals to less than 5.
I’ve officially had it with fitness pros who tell people cardio is bad.
I wish I were kidding. But I’m not exaggerating here. There are fitness guys saying all cardio is bad for all people.
In fact, as a result of one of my (former) affiliate partner’s recent blog posts on his site, I am now totally dropping him. Even though he has some great products, I can’t recommend him any more because his approach is so far away from my philosophy. I don’t want to make this personal, so I won’t name him, but you can count on me not promoting his products anymore.
What am I so angry about? (My first draft of this article was so filled with venom that I had to edit it down heavily…!)
I think I know the source of happiness. Took me over 40 years, but it’s this:
Progress.
Progress in career. In family relationships. In fitness. In understanding. In friendship. In health.
Even if the progress is slow (like it is for our turtle friend pictured here). In some cases, slow progress is even better. In some cases, progress that’s too slow feels like treading water.
And stagnation is unhappiness.
That’s why people give up on their fat loss plans, especially on fad diets. They lose a bunch of weight (including muscle mass, unfortunately) but then they can’t make further progress. And so what do they do? They give up. And then get even fatter than they were to start with.
Stagnation why most people don’t stick to their weight training program. They see some gains in the first few weeks, but then the progress doesn’t continue at the same rate. It slows. Or, if they aren’t dedicated, it may even back slide. So instead of digging in, rededicating themselves, and working through plateaus, they give up. And become flabby. Next thing you know, they are 65 yrs old and can’t lift a gallon of milk above their heads.
That’s why many marriages end: stagnation. Boredom. (Sure, there are other reasons, but even the “other” reasons are often linked to stagnation.)
Some people find comfort in the status quo. But I believe that’s a false comfort, born out of fear. They fear that things could get worse if they try to improve/progress. Or they fear they may fail. They believe it’s safer to just live with things as they are (status quo).
But is it really safer?
Obviously, living with the status quo of poor health and pitiful physical conditioning is anything but safe.
And in your career, do you think you can coast for very long in any business? Eventually, you need to advance your skills, push through with more effort to complete a big project, or do something to advance yourself.
Even in relationships, where the “comfort of status quo” is most prevalent, it’s still a fear of failure that makes things stagnate. If you take that step to re-engage your spouse/friend/parent/child and improve your relationship a bit, you may get rebuffed.
But the rewards for growing and progressing far outweigh the downsides and risks of stagnation.
You’re either growing or dying. There is no in-between.
It might be baby steps or it might be giant leaps. But if you aren’t progressing, you’re stagnating.
So what are you going to do today to break yourself out of the status quo?
How are you going to make sure you progress tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that?
When are you going to create your own happiness by dedicating yourself to steady progress in every aspect of your life?
If I were to say to a roomful of average Americans, “I’ve run 4 times a week, every week, for the past 10 years, without an exception, even when I was sick,” I’d get most of the audience nodding their heads in appreciation and admiration. I’d probably even get some spontaneous applause and a few people would be so impressed they’d be speechless.
If instead, I said to that same room full of average Americans, “I’ve lifted weights 4 times a week, every week, for the past 10 years, without an exception, even when I was sick,” I’d get
- Blank stares (confusion)
- Frowns (disappointment)
- Shaking heads (how could he waste so much of his time?)
- Scoffs (“he must be so vain to be that focused on how he looks”)
- Etc.
You get the picture.
The Average American Is A Running Snob
We’ve been conditioned/taught over decades that runners deserve admiration.
Don’t get me wrong – they certainly do deserve admiration.
But bodybuilders and strength trainers don’t get that same breadth of acceptance. Instead, they get scorn. Sadly, the steroid issue has tainted the whole weight lifting world to some degree, and quite unfairly. I’ll save that diatribe for another day.
When most people think of the term “bodybuilding”, they think of hugely muscular men whose entire exercise routine rests on lifting weights in isolation movements. It’s a shame that the term bodybuilding has been pigeon-holed into a single class of exercise. I love the term “body building” because that’s what all exercise is – building your body.
Of course, bodybuilders and strength trainers are themselves a snobbish lot. Both groups tend to dismiss runners with such phrases as (more…)
Continue reading about Bodybuilding Snobs vs. Strength Training Snobs vs. Running Snobs
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