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.

Most people don’t pursue their fitness goal; they chase it. From jumping onto the latest fitness crazes to falling off the bandwagon, the average gym goer has no idea what they are doing. Its easy to understand why; from the mass of confusion thats out there in the media (do I go with the low-carb, no fat, or don’t eat diet?), to the amount of misinformation spread by “fitness professionals” (I use that term very loosely), the average person just doesn’t know who to listen to. What happens then is you either combine everything into a messy quagmire of confusion (interpretive salsa cardio kick boxing!) or cling onto one of the many tight factions of people who convince themselves that one method of choice works the best (enter the cardio bunnies, pilates chicks, yoga moms, former high school jocks).

Success Tip: Know what to focus on and what is just a big waste of time

Stuck with no real solution, the usual outcome of a once highly motivated person is plateau of their progress. Instead of listening to the noise we should zone out the confusion and focus on what is important, not what is interesting. Don’t ask if drinking cold water assists with weight loss when you haven’t performed five hours of physical activity! You can drink all the cold water you want but unless you get that butt off the couch, Ben and Jerry’s will still be your best friend.

Success Tip: Do the most important things first

What Should You Focus on?
Three Pillars to a Lasting Transformation
1. Perform at least 5 hours of physical activity a week, with 3 of those involving strength training and the rest a mixture of strength, circuits and high intensity cardio

2. Eat small meals spread throughout the day loaded with clean protein and vegetables (don’t count calories, go by quality of ingredients such as one skinless chicken breast instead of breaded chicken fingers!)

3. De-stress your body: get at least eight hours of sleep on average a night, go for relaxing walks, foam roll, stretch, perform NEPA (non-exercise physical activity) and just enjoy life!

You need to focus on what is important. By doing so you also develop a strong sense of commitment to what you are trying to achieve because you have faith it will work. Believing in the program is just as important as doing that actual program. When doubt starts to creep in thats when people stop trying and end up quitting.

Success Tip: Don’t doubt! Believe the program will work and it will!

This is why one of the most common mistakes you can make is weighing yourself every morning. It goes against the concept of focus and faith as you are in doubt about your progress. Its the same reason why most people don’t stick to a routine long enough to see any progress. I see too often people initiate a fat loss transformation and stop one or two weeks in because they “haven’t seen any progress”. Fat loss is an emotional issue, we want that extra flab gone yesterday. But the fat loss is a long term process. It takes awhile before your exercise is intense enough to effectively burn fat.

The combination of immediately wanting results and not focusing on whats important (such as doing cardio instead of weights) equals frustration. We doubt. A lot. The minute we have an unsuccessful weigh-in we question the whole program. We need to have faith that what we are doing is right and effective. We need to be rational. There is too much noise out there. In one magazine you can read how low-carb diets are the “solution to your bulging butt” while on TV you’ll hear that low-carb diets are outdated and its all about what they do over at South Beach.
Here is the right answer: 90% of all diet routines are the same, people quibble on the small details.

Instead have clarity of thought. Eliminate all the needless distractions and figure out whats most important, whats holding you back the most, and do them! You’ll be surprised by the results.

Success Tip: Ask yourself constantly if you are doing whats most important or just wasting time?

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.

I can hear the confusion now, “but I thought you said to go intense!”. Yes I did, but in order to maximize your gains in the gym you must recover just as hard. Our pillar of a successful transformation is threefold: exercise, nutrition, and recovery. If you remove one, the whole stack falls down (or you become a work-out zombie- dead to the living!). Let me illustrate my point.

The Dark Side
Yes I’ve seen it happen. Heck I’ve had it happen. You don’t feel like working out. Your performance in the gym sucks. You go through the motions but can’t give a 100%. You can’t go to sleep (or worse you dream of dancing Twinkies with black bow ties). You my friend, could be suffering from Adrenal fatigue.

Signs Include:
-Burn out, fatigue, depression, irritability, reduce gym performance, loss of appetite, lack of weight loss, death, ugliness, stinkiness, ok maybe not the last three aren’t true but you get the point.

Listen friend, you aren’t over trained, you are under recovered. Heck your performance in the bed might even suffer! NOBODY WANTS THAT. I once trained myself into the ground. I was working 60 hours a week, training 6 days and getting no results with fat loss. Now that’s frustrating, working out a lot and seeing NO results.

Lets prevent that from happening by recovering properly.

Real Recovery: How To Sleep Like its Your Job

1. Sleep- Yes it sounds obvious but no you do not get enough sleep (eight hours is what we are after). Make this a priority! Even one night of impaired sleep can affect your nervous system (i.e. your mental mood and physical performance). Fix this by getting effective sleep.

Heres how:
-Keep your bedroom as dark as possible(no LCD lights, put on a sleep mask)
-Develop into an evening routine (avoid TV late at night), stimulate the mind with something relaxing: a fictional book, jazz (no Whitney Houston), my blog, a picture book, whatever.

If you can’t get enough sleep consider power naps (just don’t wear a power suit) where you’ll sleep anywhere from 30min-2hours. Remember we are after total time for sleeping.

2. Nutrition

Yep another no brainer, you should be eating food that fuels recovery. I’m talking proper post-workout nutrition (to help accelerate recovery from the gym) and day to day eating to fuel a more balanced body. Top recommendations are fish oil for anti-inflammation (its also used to treat depression in Europe), Vitamin D (for overall performance) and Vitamin C (post-workout or pre-bed to lower cortisol).

PS In the video that shake is a product called Surge by Biotest, excellent for fuelling performance, pretty much the only company I trust.

3. Active Recovery: Foam Rolling, Epsom Salt Bathes, Contrast Showers, NEPA
You want to do activities that help your body recover, whatever they may be (yes even doing that helps). Here are some of the most effective.

Foam Rolling- Great to relieve built up muscle tightness and adhesions that might be stopping you from optimal gym performance (don’t worry if people look at you strange in the gym!)

Epsom Salt Bathes- Soaking in a hot bath with two cups of Epsom salt helps detoxify your body and releases magnesium into your blood

Contrast Showers- In a shower turn the water cold for 30 seconds, followed by 2 minutes of warm water, repeat for 10 minutes.

NEPA (Non-exercise physical activity)- Aids in peripheral blood flow into muscles that are sore and affected, walk, throw a Frisbee, whatever relaxes you thats active

These things should be an essential component to proper recovery. Now writing this post has made me sleepy, so I think I’m going to catch up on my ZzZs, I suggest you do the same.

What are you doing to recover?

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?

I’m no stranger to the art of transforming bodies; it is something I help participate in every day. I’ve witnessed and helped deliver some radical transformations. But truth be told I’ve struggled myself with making that same transformation. True, I was in decent shape before, but not to the level I expected of myself. There has been many aborted attempts, some more successful than others but most usually ending in complete failure. I failed for the most typical reasons: not dedicated enough, improper planning, frustration, etc.

In fact here is an Old Timeline of a Twelve Week Cut
Week 1-2: Feeling excited about making the transformation, initial weight is down and energy in the gym is good. Bring out the tank-tops!
Week 3-4: Progress starting to slow down, so I immediately cut calories and do triple cardio (ok I lied, more like ten times the cardio)
Weeks 5-6: Desperate by lack of progress, cut calories further (eating less than a supermodel) and working out like a bodybuilder on a double dose of juice.
Weeks 6-8: Burn out and failure, the combination of too much work, too little recovery and a ravenous appetite lead to a downward spiral
Weeks 9-12: Don’t happen as I wimped out and quit, defeated and crying like a pre-teen girl at a Jonas brothers concert.

As you can see I needed help to make this transformation. My key secret that helped me succeed was to seek professional help. WHAT? BLASPHEMY! A trainer admitting he used another trainer? Why? Why can’t I design I own program? Well I have designed my own programs and followed them but what I was missing was my failure to think objectively about my body. Either I’d cut my calories weigh to low (disaster), increase my training frequency too high and under recover (even bigger disaster), or do a combination of both (near life-death experience). I’m serious, I saw visions of the after-life during one particularly brutal cut (and it wasn’t pretty like in the movies- Richard Simmons was on the other side and he was PISSED!).

Who was this wise sage that I consulted? Why a fellow Canadian of course, Christian Thibaudeau. I’ve been reading his articles and books for several years and finally decided to take my body to the next level. Using his “Get Jacked” Program, I embarked on a twelve week transformation, eager for it to be the best and last one. Not surprisingly not only did I lose the weight I wanted: I even gained muscle!

This is my twelve week transformation

In the wake of this success I’ve learnt a lot about myself and about transformations in general. Below I hope to share a couple key points that I learnt so I can save YOU time. The quick answer is the holy trinity of a successful transformation revolves around 1. Your metabolism 2. Your body’s ability to use fat (its carb tolerance, hormonal profile, exercise choice, etc) and 3. Your ability to recover from work outs. Here is what I’d do differently.

Don’t cut calories too soon
Focus on expending more calories first before you hack away at what you are eating. Its a lot easier to deny yourself food then it is to do the gruelling workouts necessary to make an impressive transformation. Cutting calories too soon can not only mess up y our metabolism but affect your performance in the gym (not to mention possibly damaging your hormonal profile). Sluggish work outs won’t preserve muscle mass and not ingesting enough quality food can make you drowsy and tired.

Don’t do too much cardio.
I think its a plague in our society where we feel the need to over exert ourselves. Call it a type A personality, or whatever you want, but the fact remains that most people will spend TOO MUCH time doing TOO MUCH cardio of the wrong type. Each of us only has so much time to work out and cardio should be at the bottom of your to do list. Here’s why: too much cardio can eat away at your muscles, down regulate the amount of calories you burn in a day, increased cortisol levels (a stress hormone), and make you addicted to watching Oprah. Seriously, its that bad. A proper balance between weight training and energy systems work is the key toward a proper transformation. If your time is limited here is what you should do:

Minimum Three Strength Work outs a week (to maintain or build lean mass and burn calories)
Three Circuit Based Weight Work outs a week (to elevate metabolism and preserve muscle)
High Intensity Interval Training
Low Intensity Cardio

Focus on the biggest issues
Often times we get bogged down by the minor details instead of focusing on the key issues, the things that are most important to us seeing results. Instead of asking am I getting enough exercise? We ask “whats better, eating my last meal one hour before bed or two hours before bed”. Don’t cloud your mind by details, focus instead on the big keys to success: proper eating habits, proper exercise choice and plenty of rest. You can’t out train a crappy diet and you can’t train properly with out adequate rest.

Take time off!
Seriously this is an order. If you are constantly pursuing your fat loss goal it’ll only wear you down both physically and mentally. Eating below maintenance for prolonged periods of times can slow down your metabolism and leave you feeling sluggish and miserable. Fat loss shouldn’t become a grind. If you have been cutting for longer than twelve weeks straight, take a break. I’m not talking a couple days, I’m talking a solid one to two weeks off. This will not only reset your metabolism but it’ll also refuel your desire to achieve your goals. Believe me, we all want results yesterday but a temporary pause to reset and refuel your body is necessary for long-term success.

You never want to reach the point where you are endlessly trying and just not seeing an results, its frustrating and defeating!
 
Don’t beat up on yourself
Had a cheat meal? Or a cheat day? Don’t sweat it, it happens to the best of us. The telling point is what you do AFTER you fall off the band wagon, do you jump back on or fall apart? Strength is going through your struggles and deciding not to surrender, that is true strength.

Have a plan, follow it, believe it
If you don’t map out your road to success then there won’t be any success. Planning out what you need to do is just as important as doing it. When you are six weeks into a transformation a lot of doubt starts to creep in, that is when knowing you are on a specific plan is so important, it helps ground you and gives you a vision. A key to success is to have a blueprint. How can you know where you are if going if you have no direction?

This also applies to eating, do you pack your meals? Have you planned out your week, or do you find yourself stopping into your local McDonalds and ordering combo #1? Lets use a familiar line: if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. And while you are at it, make your food tasty for a change! As someone who loves to eat good food, I’ve discovered that healthy food need not taste like cardboard. Hence the introduction of my Chef Buff series (click here to watch the latest episode).

Seek professional help
Often times we think we know it all. Its hard to try and ask for help especially from people we don’t know. This is even more true for myself being a trainer. The cost however to both your time and more importantly your body, is just not worth skimping out on yourself. I tell all my clients to look at training as an investment on their bodies and more important themselves. When you put it that way, nothing can be more important than how you think and feel.

My two year transformation, wow

There is plenty more advice but I think those are the key points to succeed, now go forth and conquer that flubber!

Got Any Advice? Share it below please!