EVERYTHING YOU WILL NEED FOR A TOTAL PHYSIQUE TRANSFORMATION

The words “physique transformation” get used to promote, hype and lead people into believing that there is a secret magic pill or training program, that will transform someone to an elite level of conditioning, in only a few short weeks. Unfortunately, savvy, unethical snake oil sales people, make lots of money on the people who are ready and willing to make healthy lifestyle changes, but don’t have any idea of where to begin. Of course, every sales person has the best training programs, supplements, magic pills and infomercial gadgets that will turn you into an elite athlete–just ask them!!!!

1. The most important variable– You need to have love. Uh-oh , that just sounded exactly like a 1960’s hippie culture quote! Let me explain. I once read an article in a fitness magazine, where the author of an article said that there is no such thing as discipline–only love. Of course, I thought this sounded cheesy at first, but since this particular author is a very well-educated and successful fitness trainer, I had to keep reading out of curiosity. The author went on to explain that discipline is just doing the same thing over and over for the basic necessary functioning of daily life. Love means that you need to love yourself, before you can make any life-changing difference, in any area of your life. O.k., it really does make sense to me now. Do you love yourself enough to start taking care of your health? Do you love yourself enough to want to make a lifestyle change, to improve your total mental and physical physique? If you do not love yourself first, it will be impossible to make any positive lifestyle change.

2. Now that I am done with the mental psychoanalysis of physique transformation, let’s move on to an easy to use physical related element. You need to find as many ways as possible, to burn energy. Here is a formula to help you remember the importance of energy expenditure. EU= CB. Say what? Energy used = calories burned. Simple, but most people don’t do enough to utilize this concept enough! Walk, run, jump and move as much as possible!! Another favorite trick of mine, is to drink as much ice-cold water as possible. The body has to burn energy, to heat the water to normal body temperature. This means calories burned!!

3. Another energy (calorie) burner is to eat lots of high protein foods. Meats, dairy (if you can tolerate it), chicken, fish and protein supplements. Some of the best high protein foods–cottage cheese, low sugar yogurt, skim milk, steak and chicken. Do not worry so much about your fat consumption with these foods. The fat producing culprit with these foods is usually all the high carbohydrate side dishes. The body has to use lots of energy (calories burned) to digest protein. Translation– eating protein speeds up the metabolism!

4. Avoid, as much as possible, foods that are made with white flour or any type of bleached flour. All ingredient labels list the ingredients in the order of how much of each ingredient is in each product–Example– if bleached or white flour or sugar is listed at the beginning of the ingredients, that means these are the top ingredients in the product.

5. Avoid sugar as much as possible. Not much need for explanation here, but just remember, too much sugar gets converted to fat, at turbo speed!!

6. Lift weights!! You do not have to lift heavy weights for results!! Remember this– Lifting weights burns twice the energy of cardio exercises!! The lean muscle you build from lifting weights also has to be supported with more energy (calories used) by the body!! The more lean, healthy muscle tissue that you add to your body, will force your body to burn more calories, even while you are sleeping!!

7. Speaking of sleep, you need to sleep as long as possible, at night for optimal health and fitness. Too much to explain here, but the less sleep you get–the more fat weight you gain!!

8. You need lots of fiber and good fats. Yes you read that correctly–you need good fats!! Nuts, seeds, olives and olive oil are examples of good fats. Look for mono-unsaturated and poly- unsaturated fats on your food labels. All you really need to know, is that the more fiber and the good fats that I mentioned, that are in a product– the better it is!!

9. High fiber foods are vegetables, nuts, seeds and beans. Fiber slows down digestion, and keeps you full, longer!!

10. You need to cheat on your diet once a week!! Yes, you read that correctly, as well!! As long as you follow your good diet habits the rest of the week (love yourself), cheating is mandatory!! If you are too regimented with your diet, you will not stick with it long enough to get results! The catch is, that you need to love yourself, for the rest of the week first.

If you follow all of the above suggestions, you are on your way to a total, successful transformation–without all of the confusion and misinformation, from all of those unethical and uneducated savvy, snake oil salespeople!!! Until next time, love yourself, and make the lifestyle changes to totally transform your physique!!!