This article series and video companion is designed to help you get radical results with your body transformation. It is from knowledge and experience collected from hundreds of clients. For more information on how to succeed you can contact Omar at omar_isuf@hotmail.com.

Success Tip: When you train, train hard or don`t train. Don`t waste your time

We have the desire, we’ve developed a plan but without this element none of it matters. I’m talking about intensity. ROAR! Intensity is the reason Michael Phelps (American Olympian swimming championing) can eat 10,000 calories a day of junk and be ridiculously lean. Intensity is the reason why you can be on the stair master 40 hours a week (like a second job), eat 300 calories and still not lose any weight. It is what separates those who see results from those who quit.

Success Tip: Attack fat loss! Remember you are waging a war and you want to win! Wussing out will give you a wuss`s body.

Intensity is a beautiful thing: it produces more results in less time. Why wait to achieve your dream body when you can accelerate the process? Jogging in your neighbourhood does not count as an intense exercise. Neither does playing a sport (especially chess!). Here is what you SHOULD do:

Hierarchy of Fat Loss
This is under the assumption that a sound diet is being followed. This is the order of what you should be doing to achieve results.

1. Heavy Strength Training- To preserve or build lean muscle as an avenue of ramping up your metabolism (minimum 2 times a week)
2. Volume Dominant Circuits- To melt off fat and maintain lean muscle (minimum 1 time a week)
3. High Intensity Interval Training- A good idea to do as extra physical activity if you are tired of the gym (or to be done post work out)
4. Other forms of energy system work (cardio)- If you have extra time and want to burn additional calories

Success Tip: Intensity saves you time and gets your results faster.

Now this is very important to state: being intense and beating up on yourself are not the same thing! I see all too often people in gyms questioning themselves, doubting their abilities and the possibility of success. Don`t! Do not beat up on yourself. I call this the “Rocky Syndrome“ when you never think you are good enough. I`ve experienced it myself;  you always wonder if you are truly giving 100%, whether you could have performed one more rep. You question your will. This is absurd. Training yourself into the ground isn`t the point- success is!

Success Tip: DON’T Beat Up on yourself, know when to exert yourself and when to recover

It`s no coincidence that my most successful clients are usually the most successful in their life as well. Its because when they work out- they train. Hard. They aren’t spending ten minutes at the water fountain talking about Desperate Housewives. They are doing burpees. Supersetted with jump squats. And frog jumps (and then usually puking but maybe I shouldn`t mention that…).

Success Tip: Intensity builds character so push yourself past your comfort zone

Remember be intense, stay focused and pursue the goal to the fullest. I`m not only talking about training intensely, but also using that same intensity to your eating habits and recovery. Are you zealous about getting your sleep, relaxing on off hours, and eating right? Intensity doesn`t mean yelling and screaming- it means quiet determination executed flawlessly and consistently. Use intensity to break through plateaus and see results- fast!

What is your type of intensity is in your training?

This article series and video companion is designed to help you get radical results with your body transformation. It is from knowledge and experience collected from hundreds of clients. For more information on how to succeed you can contact Omar at omar_isuf@hotmail.com.

If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Nothing can be more critical when designing a transformation than to know what you will be doing. Having a plan is a template for success. It allows you to intelligently pave the road to a sexier you. You should set aside time to effectively plan what you’ll be doing over the twelve weeks. I’m talking careful, intelligent planning- seriously.

Success Tip: If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Even having a poor plan and following through with it is superior to “sort of” following a plan.

 Let me restate it this way: most people don’t know how to plan a transformation. The most common faults are too much exercise of the wrong choice, lack of a sound nutritional base (eating nothing isn’t “sound”), lack of progress (doing the same old routine), and copying another person’s routine (Madonna’s or another celebrity). Let me put it this way, spending one hour to plan out what you’ll eat, exercise, sleep and do throughout 12 weeks will save you countless hours of frustration.

Success Tip: Frame your planning around action oriented habits not lofty goals (I`ll work out five days a week instead of I`ll lose thirty pounds of fat)

I’ll give you a quick story. A woman wanted to lose those last ten pounds and refused advice. After all, she read the tabloids and had a “pretty good” (aka no idea) of what she was doing. So she decided to do five hours of low intensity cardio a week (why?), pilates (for toning the tummy) twice a week, and yoga once a week. Her diet consisted of not eating white bread and eating Special K (the breakfast of losers). She did this for one week, lost two pounds. Confident in her results she decided to do nothing. Next week she didn’t lose any weight. WHAT?

Success Tip: Save time, money and calories by preparing your meals in big batch quantities. Grill up your chicken breast, make that chilli, prepare some buffins- what ever you need to do- do it.

Clearly something was wrong. So she upped her cardio to eight hours a week. Lost another pound. Then week 4 came and she actually gained a pound! Horrified (it must have been that one oreo she ate on the weekend!), she upped her cardio to twelve hours and cut her calories in half (double dd: dangerous and dumb). She lost two more pounds and then hit a plateau.

The sad fact is that most of the weight loss was muscle and on top of that she messed up her metabolism for a good long while. It took even longer to fix the metabolism and eventually, through proper planning she got back on track and actually lost the weight (can you tell she became my client .

The point of the story is that if she just decided to actually PLAN out what she would do for 12 weeks, she wouldn’t be stuck after week two with no idea what to do. She would have saved countless hours, endless frustration, and actually saw results.

You need to have a plan not only what you will be inside the gym but outside as well (like that little thing called eating). Prepare your meals, plan your work outs, and get your sleep (there’s nothing cool about being a wimp in the gym because you didn’t sleep enough!)

Success Tip: Be realistic with your planning so that it coincides with your lifestyle and the amount of effort you are willing to put into your transformation (vowing to work out seven times a week is setting yourself up for failure and will get you odd looks from colleagues).

Now with all this talk of planning- what the heck am I planning on doing? Well here is a template for MY Plan- this is an example and NOT meant to be followed.

Here is MY Plan

Work out Plan: I will train with weights five days a week focusing on lifting heavy weights to maintain my muscle mass and expend as many calories as possible to burn as much fat.
I will perform low intensity cardio post-workout and on off days to accelerate the amount of fat I lose. The amount of time spent performing cardio will vary week to week depending on my goal.

Nutrition Plan: My nutrition will vary but the basics will stay the same
- Lots of protein and green veggies
- Limited carbohydrates except possibly post-workout
- Get a good blend of healthy fats (coconut oil, olive oil, fish oil, mixed nuts, flax seeds)
- Frequent meals (5-6 times to eat per day)
- Always consume post work out nutrition to maximize the effect of the work out
- Drink water like its my job

Recovery Plan: Get a solid eight hours of sleep a night (ya right!)
- Take as many Epsom salt bathes as possible
- Foam roll and stretch throughout the week to help muscles to recover
-Listen to as much Barry Manilow as possible (ya right!)

Assessment Plan: I will use the following assessments to see whether I`m on track with my goals.

Photographs:                                                   Bi-Monthly
Body fat Analysis:                                            Monthly
Anthropomorphic Measurements:                 Monthly
Scale Weight:                                                  Bi-Weekly

Now based off of this plan, I’m down three pounds in the first week!  The small amount of time it took me to plan this out saved me endless hours of frustration.

Week 2: September 7^th 2009
Weight: 168.4

What is YOUR plan for success?

This article series and video companion is designed to help you get radical results with your body transformation. It is from knowledge and experience collected from hundreds of clients. For more information on how to succeed you can contact Omar at omar_isuf@hotmail.com.

            If you don’t have a purpose, you don’t have anything. Why work out? Why even try and transform your body? Is it to look better for others, feel better about yourself, get out of the risk of a whole host of medical issues? You must be able to clarify why you are working out. The why determines everything. It is what is going to keep you motivated when the going gets tough, when that pizza is calling out your name and your stomach feels like it is on fire.

Success Tip: Figure out WHY you want to Transform

 Why am I doing this? A little bit of my background story…

At first I was intimidated by the weights and by others in the gym. I was way smaller and less experienced. I remember hanging on the pull-up bar trying to knock out one chin-up while the guy next to me was lifting three pounds on the bench. It was shaky at first, but I kept at it. Slowly I started lifting more weights, seeing progress and results with my body. Unfortunately I was not informed about nutrition. My diet during this phase can best be described as the see-food diet; if I saw it I ate it. A regular meal for me was eight eggs, three turkey sausages, three pieces of toast and a quarter block of cheese. This was one meal of about five or six. In about nine months I gained sixty pounds (I looked pregnant- but without the baby). Mentally, I believed I was all muscle. I lied to myself when I saw my double chin and gut and tried to ignore it. The shocking reality came when I came home from university for the summer…and my mother called me fat.

Success Tip: The most important thing is to list the reasons WHY you want to transform

Mine are
1. To feel better about myself
2. To reinforce self-control and discipline
3. Relate to Clients
4. Long term health benefits

My purpose for this fat loss phase is to get the leanest I’ve ever been. The reason is because I don’t feel my best unless I’m operating at peak efficiency. I like the feeling of being lean and healthy, I like the way I look, I like that I have more energy and it just gives me more satisfaction out of life. Fat loss to me is also an inward improvement; it helps curb your animal desires of food and pleasure and lets you focus on more important things in life (like your direction and purpose). I find it clarifies my mind and teaches me self discipline

Now you must ask yourself:

Success Tip: Ask, what would happen if you don’t fulfill your goals?

You see you must determine the pain behind what would happen if you fail to succeed. Sometimes we need to reinforce the outcome of NOT succeeding to remember why we should. My results are that if I don’t succeed, I wouldn’t feel good about myself, I’d feel like I let myself down and my clients. I’d not learn to improve focus and discipline and quick honestly I’d feel like crap. I can tell you from doing this before with myself and countless clients, the outcome of succeeding is far superior to any potential pain.

So now I’d tell you to make the transformation, make the choice, decide to succeed and you will!

Week 1: August 31^st 2009
Weight: 171.4

What is YOUR desire and purpose in your transformation?

Seriously, you’re NOT worth it. I’m talking directly to you. If you were, you’d already be taking massive action in taking care of yourself. You’d stop eating shitty foods that leave you feeling bloated and tired. You’d get off your butt and exercise today, instead of tomorrow (because as we know, tomorrow never comes). You’d stop spending money on things that don’t matter (the new cottage, boat, car, video game, etc) and start spending money on what gives your life permanent value (your health in the form of proper nutrition, exercise and well being). Oh, this doesn’t apply to you? Then full apologies. But ask yourself this: how much do you really value yourself?

                You see, I used to think when I started personal training that when people objected to the cost of training it was because they were unsure. They were unsure that the price of training was worth what they’d get in return. Would they see results? Would it work for them? Could they get it for less elsewhere? There was a million possible reasons in their mind why NOT to get training. I used to think that.

                I used to think that when price was the issue for someone, it wasn’t what the cost of the product was that deterred them; it was the value they placed in it. In other words, they don’t believe that the product is worth the amount being charged to them. If they saw the value, they’d definitely buy it. Now, I don’t think so. You see, I think the real objection isn’t the value they see in the training, but the value that they see in themselves. They actually don’t think they are worth that amount! Shocking but true.

                A perfect example is an experience a colleague had training a client. This individual had wanted to transform their body for a long long time. In fact, they confessed to a friend in tears how much pain they felt at being overweight. They couldn’t bear it any longer! The friend, seeing their friend’s  agony, recommended a top personal trainer (someone known for proven results).

                This individual was well within the means of affording training; penthouse apartment, new Porsche, $50,000 in apartment renovations and $15,000 on a walker… for her dog. However when it came time to get committed to their body, see results from a trainer with a proven track record, they balked at the price. This trainer charged the average price of training, a cost that for her to see results would be a fraction of her dog walker! But she refused. She refused because she didn’t find herself worth it. She said she knew she’d lose the weight, but it wasn’t the right investment for her.  You might think she went out the next day and tried to find another trainer for less, or maybe buy one of those fad work out DVDs. Nope. One year later, she is now more overweight than ever. She is going to get in shape “one of these days”. 

                Another more real example of our lack of self worth is with doctors. How many of us will complain and shake their fists at the Gods, spend three hours on the phone and raise trouble when their phone bill is wrong? Most of us (I confess I did exactly this). We’ll do a lot of research on what is the best service plan and company to sign a phone contract, but when it comes time to find a good doctor, the  very person responsible for our health? Five minutes, max. We go with whoever is available! This individual might be responsible for the future of our well being! They can make crucial decisions that will extend or shorten our life permanently, but once again, we don’t invest the time in it.

                What is it that leads us to believe we’re not worth it? Why would we spend a lot of money on useless things but hesitate to spend anything on ourselves? I think a big problem is that our perception of what is truly important today has become completely off. We seek immediate material base gratification (DQ Blizzards, anyone?) and give up in exchange real, permanent life changing improvements. Instead of looking at the long term benefits of a healthy lifestyle (such as reduced risk of injuries, increased strength, improved flexibility, more energy, vitality, contentment-and looking better naked!), we do what can immediately make us “happy”. Instead of seeking outward satisfaction, we should turn inward and improve ourselves.

 Now, I have to get off my high horse myself; I’m just as guilty as everyone else. I’m much more likely to spend my money on a new gadget rather than on a food intolerance test! At the same time, from personally helping to improve lives, I can see the long term benefits that my clients have seen from training, and it serves as a constant reminder to me that it is in fact worth it.     

How Much are you Worth?

Alright gang I’ve decided to be your guinea and subject myself to the awesome power of the infrared sauna: warning alien technology IS detected.

I’d like to thank Daniel and Mylinh for their co-operation and their highly generous offer for a free infrared sauna experience ($45 value). Anyone that is an Omar client can use my name to get a FREE infrared Sauna session. Located right in Carrot Common at 320 Danforth Avenue, you can go to www.inspiredlife.ca or e-mail at http://www.inspiredlife.ca/contact.

My time was 5min 30 sec before I started to sweat- what about you?