Get motivated to get lean!

Righto Summer is just around the corner and you want to build that beach body. You know the one that makes the chicks/fellas go ‘ahhh’.

Well first off I’m here to tell you that there are way more benefits to having a great body than impressing the opposite sex. The main benefits come from the way you feel about yourself. Having a body you are proud of will increase your self esteem and make you happier which will carry over to all aspects of your life including professionally, socially and with family members.

Secondly, I’m here to tell you that building your body into something you are proud of is more about motivation and will-power than anything else.

In this article I will give you the nutritional information you need and the training principles to match BUT it is up to you to use them. AND the only way you will do this is through absolute desire and willpower to say NO to that cheesecake. Except for Sundays! Which I’ll get to later.

So lets GET MOTIVATED TO GET LEAN!!

How you build your lean body

There are a million gadgets out there that promise you the abs of your dreams in just 30 minutes a day!

In fact your garage may have one, along with the dust settled on top.

Truth is these gadgets don’t give you the magic the infomercials promise… surprise!… surprise!!

The real truth is that there are two key components to building a lean body. Nutrition and exercise. By following the principles below your dream body will come true.

Nutrition is most important so I’ll tell you all about that first.

What to eat

Carbohydrates

Carbohydrates are the body’s prime energy source. They help in the proper function of the brain as well as the body’s muscles by transforming sugar into the energy your body truly needs. All carbohydrates are made up of sugar.

There are both simple carbohydrates and complex carbohydrates. Simple carbohydrates are made up of only one kind of sugar. It could either be fructose (fruit sugar), glucose (corn sugar), sucrose (table sugar), lactose, and maltose. This is the type of carbohydrate that is quickly turned into glucose after consumption, so the bloodstream can absorb it and transport it all over the body. Because of its fast transformation, its effect is a sudden boost of energy to your body. Any energy that your body doesn’t burn stores as bodyfat.

On the other hand, complex carbohydrates are composed of different types of sugar. These carbohydrates normally take slower digestion that also affects the glucose transformation. As such, the body’s energy lasts longer unlike that of simple carbohydrates. This means that your body can use the energy from these carbohydrates as opposed to them converting into bodyfat.

Complex carbohydrates are considered good for the body. They have nutrients that include the dietary fiber that help you have a faster metabolism. Not only that, complex carbohydrates also have lower amounts of fats.

Examples of complex carbohydrates are white and sweet potatoes, rice , whole grain cereals, pasta and wheat bread.

Protein

Protein is the building block of cells and fluids, and is essential to the body because it manufactures, maintains, and replaces body tissues. Every muscle, hormone, and organ found in the body is made of protein and it helps in manufacturing haemoglobin and antibodies. The body makes use of protein to function properly and nine of the essential amino acids humans require can only be found in protein foods.

Examples of protein foods include meat, fish, dairy products, eggs, soy products, and nuts, poultry, shellfish, cheese, oats, tofu, yogurt, egg substitutes, and legumes.

It is important that any protein you eat is lean.

Fat

Saturated fat is found in a wide range of foods including fatty meats, full cream dairy products, pastries and cakes. These are bad, very bad and will raise your risk of heart attack and stroke by increasing blood cholesterol levels. Avoid these fats.

Trans fats are devil food! Even more potent than saturated fats in raising bad blood cholesterol. Found in many snack foods, processed foods, commercially prepared fried foods and some margarines, these man-made fats are produced by heating liquid vegetable oils in the presence of hydrogen (a process known as hydrogenation).

And for the good news…

I present…

Unsaturated fats. These include the mono-unsaturates found in olive oil, canola, and avocados, and two types of polyunsaturated fats: omega-6 (including safflower and sunflower oils) and omega-3 (found in fish, some plants such as spinach, nuts and seeds). These fats can help lower cholesterol and can also lower your own body fat.

Sample nutrition plan

Here is a sample nutrition plan for you to follow. For best results and to make it stick, you should ideally follow it for 8 weeks.

	Food	Amount (grams)
Meal 1	Oats/Special K	80
	protein shake	35
	Fruit (any)
Meal 2	Nuts	50
Meal 3	chicken (skinless, grilled or boiled)	175
	beans/vegetables/salad	115
	Rice	60 (uncooked weight)
Meal 4	Chicken	175
	vegetable/lettuce/tomato/chilli	115
	lentils, or other bean	60
	pasta (egg noodle cooked)	60
Meal 5	Lean meat, fish or tofu	175/250
	tomato/onion (low fat pasta sauce)	200
Meal 6 (before bed)	Low fat cottage cheese	200
	No fat yoghurt	200
Post training/snack	Protein shake	40
	Lollies/maltodextrin	50

I am eating according to this nutrition plan at the moment. I will go from 85kg and 12% bodyfat to about 80kg and 8% bodyfat. It will take me about 5 weeks to do this.

It’s likely that you don’t weigh the same as me. If that’s the case all you need to do is subtract or add more food into your nutrition plan, so that it is tailor made to you. Doing this is easy. For every kg more than 85kg you weigh add 1% to the quantity of each food item. Alternatively for every kg less than me you weigh subtract 1% from the quantity of each food item.

Good news is that once a week you may have a cheat day. This is the day you can eat that cheese cake. You will learn to love this day!! On your cheat day you may eat 1 or 2 meals plus one snack of whatever you want. But be careful that the ’snack’ is just a snack ie a medium packet of chips, an ice cream etc and not a full blown meal.

Exercise

As well as eating well you need to exercise in order to build your dream body. Exercise is made up of cardiovascular exercise and weight training. You ideally need to do both.

Cardiovascular Exercise

Cardio is exercises that involve the large muscles like legs and help make your heart and lungs stronger. Cardiovascular exercise has lots of health benefits like lowering your blood pressure, and burns lots of calories leading to weight loss.

You need to do Cardio at least 5 days per week. Your cardio can be made up of either brisk walks or interval sprints. Choose whichever best suits your fitness level.

The bad thing about cardio is that it will need to be done first thing in the morning. The good thing about cardio is that you will learn to love it!!

Interval sprints

Some studies have shown that interval sprints are the best way to lose bodyfat. Ever seen a fat 100m sprinter??

If you choose sprints you will do them as follows:

• 3 – 5 minutes warm-up (light jog, low intesity, gradually increasing at the end of the warm up period)
• 1 minute high intensity sprint followed by a 1 minute low intensity jog (repeat 6-8 times)
• 3 – 5 minutes cool down (light jog, low intensity, gradually decreasing by the end of the cool down period)

This will take you 20-30 minutes to complete and thus can give you an extra 30 minutes sleep than a brisk walk will allow.

Brisk walk

If you don’t like the idea of doing sprints you can do a brisk walk.

Or you can mix up days you do a brisk walk with days that you sprint. Again the key is to make sure you are doing cardio at least 5 days per week.

A brisk walk needs to be done for an hour. With an i-pod this hour can go real fast.

Here’s some good news… and a bit of leeway. If you can’t do your cardio in the morning you can do it sometime during the day. Just make sure that you do your cardio at least 3 hours after you last ate.

But as I said. Morning is best.

Weight training

Weight training is the use of weights to put resistance on your body. Two key concepts in any weight training program are to make sure you use as many compound movements as possible and make sure your workout is intense.

Compound movements are those that incorporate as many muscle groups as possible in performing the lift. Squats, deadlifts, clean and press and bench press are all great examples of compound movements.

Intensity simply means to make sure you work hard. Hard work does not necessarily mean to build a sweat BUT it does mean to tax your body. Ways to ensure your work out is intense is to have short rest periods, lift massively heavy weights, and lift to the point that you can no longer do that exercise with proper technique.

Your weight training workout should go for between 40 minutes and 1 hour.

Here is a weight training programme for you to follow for the next 8 weeks.

Sample weight training program

You should only do weight training three days per week. On the other days just do Cardiovascular Exercise or rest.

Monday: Chest/Triceps/Shoulders

Exercise	Sets	Reps
Dumbbell presses on flat bench	2	8-10
Dumbbell presses on incline bench	2	10-12
Standing barbell military presses	2	10-12
Cable crossover flies (focus on contraction)	2	12-15
Standing barbell military presses	2	10-12
Lateral dumbbell deltoid raises	2	12-15
Dips	2	10-12
Skullcrushers with EZ-bar	2	10-12
Tricep V-bar pushdowns	2	10-12

Wednesday: Back/Biceps/Forearms/Abs

Exercise	Sets	Reps
Deadlifts	3	10-12
Reverse-grip lat pulls	2	10-12
Dumbbell rows	2	10-12
Chins	2	10-12
Preacher curls with EZ-bar	2	10-12
Standing alternating dumbbell bicep curls	2	10-12
Seated dumbbell hammer curls	2	8-10
Reverse bicep curls with straight bar	2	12-15
Ab-machine of choice (Nautilus recommended)	2	10-12
Crunches	3	Unlimited

Friday: legs

Exercise	Sets	Reps
Squats	3	10-12
Leg presses (plate-loaded machine)	2	8-10
Leg extension machine	2	10-12
Seated hamstring curls	2	10-12
Face-down hamstring curls	2	10-12
Standing calf presses	3	8-10
Donkey calf presses	2	10-12
Lying calf presses	2	10-12

For all these exercises rest between 1-2 minutes.

And it is important to see a personal trainer if you are unsure how to do any of them to avoid injury.

Feel free to post any specific questions you have and I’ll answer them for you.

…and remember GET MOTIVATED TO GET LEAN!!

- Matthew

Related posts:

1. Kick-start your productivity
2. The secret to networking
3. Mental Discipline an introduction
4. 5 tips for developing a positive mental attitude (text version)