Building the Perfect Body for Life
Posted in: Training
I truly believe that everyone wants a good body – even those who hate exercise or who jealously claim that those who do keep in shape are ‘insane’ or ‘don’t see what’s important in life’ or whatever else. Baloney – everyone wants to look better.
What is perfect to one person may not be perfect to another. But this is about you. You need to ask yourself, what is it that you want for your own body, for your own life. Then, using the tips on this site, and in this article, you’ll formulate a plan to get there.
Rather than an actual training program, in this article I’ll take you through some of the things you can expect to face, happen, and learn throughout your journey, as well as some general tips to usher you in the right direction – and hopefully, most important of all, I’ll be able to motivate you enough to actually get up and do it!
Is your idea of an ideal body – achievable through exercise I’m talking about, not surgery! – Anything like this…
- Very little body fat.
- Shapely muscle.
- Tighter skin.
I bet I’m fairly close to the mark because that’s almost everyone’s ideal body, or some variation thereof.
And most of all, you want to feel good. You want to feel healthy, strong; you want to feel like you’ve got more energy. You want more confidence, you want to feel more attractive, and quite possibly… you want to enjoy the whole process and really get into the lifestyle.
After all, it is a lifestyle; it’s not a part time thing.
Really, to build any body you want, you need only 5 things:
- Time and patience. Things don’t happen overnight. It takes months – possibly years – to achieve anything amazing with your body.
- Commitment. Half measures will result in half the results, you can’t pretend otherwise. Also, you need to understand this is a lifetime commitment. You need to maintain your body for life. It’s not a one off deal. Stop or slack off, and your body will lose reflect your lack of effort.
- Good diet. Exercise is only part of it; you need to know what to eat, how much, when, and why. You can then formulate foods, recipes and a diet plan which you enjoy and can stick to.
- Good training program. Of course, training will evolve and change over time, but with a little experience and research you’ll be able to find out what works, how and why, and also the little things you can do in training to get results which suit your goals, which leads me to the most important thing of all…
- Knowledge. I could give you a solid training program and diet now and you could use it (for a while, at least) without giving it any more thought. But then what? How far will that take you? It’s only you who can take it further, only you who can find out what’s stopping you, diagnose what’s wrong in your training or diet, what you do like and don’t like in training and diet, on and on. Knowledge of this ‘lifestyle’ isn’t just a luxury or an indulgence for those who are super serious – it’s for everyone, and you need it.
Here are some general pointers which apply to anyone…
- The only way to lose fat is to eat less calories than you currently do, and do more exercise. You can’t shortcut this and starve yourself because that forces loss of shapely (and needed) muscle mass and slows down your fat loss because muscle helps to burn fat. I recommend aiming to lose 1-2lb of fat a week.
- Training with weights is an excellent way to help you maintain muscle mass and continue burning fat. Anyone who says it will make you inflexible or huge and bulky doesn’t know anything. You won’t suddenly wake up one day looking like Arnold, that takes 10-20+ years and copious amounts of steroids… and I think you’d see it gradually happening if you were on that path. It’s not an out-of-the-blue thing. Secondly, the flexibility issue is solved by regular stretching exercises. Big muscle can be made just as flexible as small muscle, it’s just a case of regular stretching exercises. Simple.
- When training with weights – as I recommend everyone does – train 3-4 days a week, and no more. That is sufficient for most peoples needs. Train each body part only once every 72 hours minimum to give time to recover, and, keep sessions to 1 hour or less. Also, lift as heavy as you can go to complete a reasonable amount of sets and reps (Min 3 sets, min 5 reps. Max 5 sets, max 12-15 reps) I feel this is sufficient for most peoples needs.
- Cut out sugary foods or keep them to a minimum as they will serve very little purpose insofar as feeding muscle tissue – which is our goal, so really, they are wasted calories. You want to take in whole foods such as lean meat, rice, pasta, potato, oats, fish, eggs and milk and so forth.
- Controlled calorie excess will equate to muscle growth and very limited fat gains. Uncontrolled calorie excess will equate to muscle growth and a lot of fat gains.
- Controlled calorie deficit will equate to fat loss and very limited muscle loss. Uncontrolled calorie deficit will equate to fat loss and muscle loss – and possibly, if too low, more muscle loss than fat loss (worst case scenario!)
- You can’t lose fat and gain muscle simultaneously for the reasons already explained in the previous 2 bullets… so you need to strike a balance and spend ‘periods’ gaining muscle and limiting fat, and periods losing fat and limiting muscle loss.
- You should not only train with weights when trying to gain muscle, but also when trying to retain muscle and lose fat.
Also, I’ll tell you now… it’s just not human nature to settle for ‘perfect’. What you believe would be your ideal body down the line, and believe you would be completely satisfied with forever, will, in all likelihood, change a little – or a lot, the closer you get to it.
Sure, you’ll be much happier and much closer to what you want, but there’ll always be little things here and there to ‘improve’, but that’s a good thing – it keeps us busy and interested!
If there’s one thing you can be absolutely certain of, it’s this: there are countless people out there who have gone from having a much worse body than you currently have, to achieving a body which would now take your breath away. Likewise, people have achieved the same even with illnesses.
Imagine how great you would feel if you did the same. Every look of awe, respect, admiration – and even jealousy – you have earned. If that’s not enough to motivate you and make you feel amazing, then maybe getting in shape isn’t for you.
A few final tips for you…
- Be specific in what you want to achieve, and you’ll be much more likely to get it, or come very, very close. Plus – you’ll feel a sense of achievement and empowerment in knowing that you’ve achieved precisely what you set out to do. From there, you can do anything and go anywhere.
- Find a photograph of someone you wish to resemble, and use that as your target. Of course, with bone structure, muscle structure/mass, skin tone, etc, you won’t look identical… but what you’re aiming for here is that level.
What more can I say? Now it’s down to you… so get to it!
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