Health
And Fitness Is Not A 12-Week Program
By Tom Venuto, NSCA-CPT, CSCS
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 hadnt
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 its
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
its 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; its
about average for your age group.
She wasnt
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, Im 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
hadnt 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 hadnt
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!
Dont
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
shed been.
I stopped
working out after the contest... and I didnt 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 dont
know, I blew my diet and then just completely lost my
motivation. Now look at me, my weight is right back where
I started and I dont even want to know my body fat.
Well,
I'm glad to see you back in here again. Write down some
new goals for yourself and remember to think long term
too. Twelve week goals are important, but fitness isnt
12 week program you know, its a lifestyle - you
have to do it every day, for the rest of your life.
She nodded
her head and finished her workout, still with a defeated
look on her face. Unfortunately, she never again come
anywhere near the condition she achieved for that competition,
and for the rest of the time she was a member at our club,
she slipped right back into the sporadic on and off workout
pattern.
Linda was not
an isolated case. Ive seen the same thing happen
with countless men and women of all ages and fitness levels
from beginners to competitive bodybuilders. In fact, it
happens to millions of people who go on diets,
lose a lot of weight, then quickly go off
the diet and gain the weight right back.
What causes
people to burn so brightly with enthusiasm and motivation
and then burn out just as quickly? Why do so many people
succeed brilliantly in the short term but fail 95 out
of 100 times in the long term? Why do so many people reach
their fitness goals but struggle to maintain them?
The answer
is simple: Health and fitness is for life, not for "12
weeks."
You can avoid
the on and off, yo-yo cycle of fitness ups and downs.
You can get in great shape and stay in great shape. You
can even get in shape and keep getting in better and better
shape year after year, but it's going to take a very different
philosophy than most people subscribe to. The seven tips
below will guide you.
These guidelines
are quite contrary to the quick fix philosophies prevailing
in the weight loss and fitness world today. Applying them
will take patience, discipline and dedication and they
will put you in the minority. Just remember, the only
thing worse than getting no results is getting great results
and losing them.
1) Dont go on diets.
When you go
on a diet, the underlying assumption is that at
some point you have to go off it. This isnt
just semantics, its one of the primary reasons most
diets fail. By definition, a diet is a temporary
and often drastic change in your eating behaviors and/or
a severe restriction of calories or food, which is ultimately,
not maintainable. If you reach your goal, the diet is
officially over and then you "go off"
(returning to the way you used to eat). Health and fitness
is not temporary; its not a diet. Its
something you do every day of your life. Unless you approach
nutrition from a habits and lifestyle
perspective, youre doomed from the start.
2) Eat the same healthy foods consistently, all year round.
Permanent fat
loss is best achieved by eating mostly the same types
of foods all year round. Naturally, you should include
a wide variety of healthy foods so you get the full spectrum
of nutrients you need, but there should be consistency,
month in, month out. When you want to lose body fat, theres
no dramatic change necessary - you dont need to
eat totally different foods - its a simple matter
of eating less of those same healthy foods and exercising
more.
3) Have a plan for easing into maintenance.
Lets
face it sometimes a nutrition program needs to
be more strict than usual. For example, peaking for a
bodybuilding, figure, fitness or transformation challenge
contest requires an extremely strict regimen thats
different than the rest of the year. As a rule, the stricter
your nutrition program, the more you must plan ahead and
the more time you must allow for a slow, disciplined transition
into maintenance. Failure to plan for a gradual transition
will almost always result in a huge binge and a very rapid,
hard fall "off the wagon."
4) Focus on changing daily behaviors and habits one or
two at a time.
Rather than
making huge, multiple changes all at once, focus on changing
one or two habits/behaviors at a time. Most psychologists
agree that it takes about 21 days of consistent effort
to replace an old bad habit with a new positive one. As
you master each habit, and it becomes as ingrained into
your daily life as brushing your teeth, then you simply
move on to the next one. That would be at least 17 new
habits per year. Can you imagine the impact that would
have on your health and your life? This approach requires
patience, but the results are a lot more permanent than
if you try to change everything in one fell swoop. This
is also the least intimidating way for a beginner to start
making some health-improving changes to their lifestyle.
5) Make goal setting a lifelong habit.
Goal setting
is not a one-time event, its a process that never
ends. For example, if you have a 12 week goal to lose
6% bodyfat, what are you going to do after you achieve
it? Lose even more fat? Gain muscle? What's next? On week
13, day 1, if you have no direction and no long term goal
to keep you going, youll have nothing to keep you
from slipping back into old patterns. Every time you achieve
a short term goal (daily, weekly and 12 week goals), you
must set another one. Having short term goals means that
you are literally setting goals continuously and never
stopping.
6) Allow a reasonable time frame to reach your goal.
It's important
to set deadlines for your fitness and weight loss goals.
It's also important to set big, ambitious goals, but you
must allow a reasonable time frame for achieving them.
Time pressure is often the motivating force that helps
people get in the best shape of their lives. But when
the deadline is unrealistic for a particular goal (like
30 pounds in 30 days), then crash dieting or other extreme
measures are often taken to get there before the bell.
The more rapidly you lose weight, the more likely you
are to lose muscle and the faster the weight will come
right back on afterwards. Start sooner. Don't wait until
mid-May to think about looking good for summer.
7) Extend your time perspective.
Successful
people in every field always share one common character
trait: Long term time perspective. Some of the most successful
Japanese technology and manufacturing companies have 100
year and even 250-year business plans. If you want to
be successful in maintaining high levels of fitness, you
must set long term goals: One year, Ten years, Even fifty
years! You also must consider what the long term consequences
might be as a result of using any "radical"
diet, training method or ergogenic aid. The people who
had it but lost it are usually the ones who failed to
think long term or acknowledge future consequences. It's
easy for a 21 year old to live only for today, and it
may even seem ridiculous to set 25 year goals, but consider
this: I've never met a 40 or 60 year old who didn't care
about his or her health and appearance, but I have met
40 or 60 year olds who regretted not caring 25 years ago.
Burn
the Fat, Feed The Muscle (BFFM) is a fat loss
program which acknowledges the simple truth that going
"on diets," entering "Fitness challenges"
or competing in "Transformation contests" without
having long term goals and a lifestyle attitude, is a
recipe for failure. Dont let yourself be part of
the latest fitness dropout statistics: visit the Burn
The Fat website for more details on how to change your
lifestyle... and keep the change! Burn
the Fat, Feed The Muscle
About
the Author:
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Tom Venuto is a lifetime
natural bodybuilder, an NSCA-certified personal
trainer (CPT), certified strength & conditioning
specialist (CSCS), and author of the #1 best-selling
e-book, "Burn
the Fat, Feed The Muscle. Tom has
written hundreds of articles and has been featured
in print magazines such as IRONMAN, Australian IRONMAN,
Natural Bodybuilding, Muscular Development, Exercise
for Men and Mens Exercise, as well as on hundreds
of websites worldwide.
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