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?

Related posts:

1. 12 Keys to Rapid Fat Loss. A Guide to a Leaner You Week 3: Intensity
2. 12 Keys to Rapid Fat Loss. A Guide to a Leaner You Week 5: Focus and Faith
3. 12 Keys to Rapid Fat Loss. A Guide to a Leaner You Week 4: Recovery
4. 12 Keys to Rapid Fat Loss. A Guide to a Leaner You Week 1: Purpose and Desire
5. 12 Keys to a Leaner You (Rapid Fat Loss) Week 7: Persistence