Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1967: How to Get in the Best Shape of Your Life in 2023

Episode Date: December 15, 2022

In this episode Sal, Adam & Justin cover five steps to getting into amazing shape in 2023. The Five-Step Action Plan to Get in the Best Shape of Your Life in 2023. (2:00) #1 – Have a plan. (Set realistic goals and then stage them in phases.) (5:11) #2 - Start with big rocks. (Avoid heavily processed food, strength train, walk, and sleep well.) (18:52) #3 - Wait till you plateau before adding anything. (31:41) #4 – Increase the intensity of workouts. (Track and prioritize protein.) (37:22) #5 – Add activity. (Track all macros.) (43:32) Related Links/Products Mentioned Visit Paleo Valley for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! **Promo code MINDPUMP15 at checkout for 15% discount** Special Promotion: RGB Bundle 50% off! **Promo code RGB50 at checkout** (Coupon expires Sunday, Dec. 18th) Mind Pump #1462: Setting New Year’s Resolutions That Actually Work How to Stay on Track With Your Health & Fitness Goals This Year – Mind Pump Blog Mind Pump #1830: Five Steps To Determine Your Ideal Caloric Intake NIH study finds heavily processed foods cause overeating and weight gain Mind Pump #1630: Ten Ways To Break Through A Plateau How Do I Choose The Right Weight? (LIFT RESPONSIBLY) – Mind Pump TV How Phasing Your Workouts Leads to Consistent Plateau Free Workouts – Mind Pump Blog Mind Pump #1840: Eleven Steps To A Single-Digit Body Fat Percentage Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the world's number one fitness health and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump Riding. Today's episode, we're talking about, we're teaching you, how to get in the best shape of your life for 20, 23. And we actually break it down for you.

Tell you like step by step what you should focus on, how are you going to get yourself from point A to point B. By the way, if you want workout programming, all planned out for that year, we have something called the RGB bundle. It includes maps and a ball, maps, uh, performance and maps aesthetic. And what we're doing with this episode is we're making that bundle of three programs, 50% off. So if you're interested in having that year planned out for you with your workouts, go to mapsfitinistproducts.com

and then use the code RGB50 for the 50% off discount. Now this episode is brought to you by one of our sponsors, Paleo Valley. They make Paleo inspired supplements that improve performance and health. Not my favorite, is their chocolate flavored bone broth, protein, it literally tastes like chocolate donuts, I swear to God.

And it's the easiest protein I've ever digested ever. So it's pretty incredible, check them out, go to paleovali.com-forward-slash-minepump and then use the code minepump pump 15 for 15% off your order. All right, here comes a show. And today's episode we're going to talk about how you can get the best shape of your life in 2023. A lot of people make big goals come January. So we're going to actually help you map it all out in a very accurate and effective

way. No crap, no, whatever. This is how you can actually accomplish this goal by the end of 2023. Yep. You know, this would be funny if you started off with like, a this episode sponsored by liposuction over at, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah.

We're gonna hook up there. Yeah. Okay, first, let's first talk about when you have somebody who's about to set, because let's be honest, the next 30 to 60 days, you know, this is what number, is always the number one or number two, New Year's resolution. Well, I mean, when you say New Year's resolution, it's like, you automatically think weight loss or fitness.

Yeah, it's always one or two, right? I think I believe for the last, I don't know, how many decades it's been smoking or their weight loss fitness goal is one and two. They go back and forth. And just to give an example of, because, you know, we manage gems for a long time, to give an example of the difference in traffic in in terms of the gem and people showing up or whatever, if you ran a gym that did, let's say, $200,000 in revenue, new revenue in a month, which would be, that's a pretty big club,

you could very realistically hit double that. Oh, it was. Double that in January. So just give you an example of how crazy it gets. But it's not just that, it's not just twice as many people signing up. It's also people who have memberships, who haven't used a gym, all of a sudden I'll decide to show up.

And it can definitely look like a nightclub during prime time in the gym in terms of just how many people are in there. So this is like, it's a big deal. The problem is that by, you know, come March, April, you lose all those people. We're all gone. The ultimate group of procrastinators, right? Yeah, yeah. We're all going to wait until there's one moment to motivate me. And I don't know. We talk a lot about like motivation and how initially like a good spark can help to kind of promote habits, but really it's about the disciplines of it and being able to do it,

even when you're not in that state of motivation. I actually think it's even less of the losing the motivation, therefore they've all off. I actually think it's because the approach is all wrong. Yeah. I really think that people because they're so motivated, they go into it wrong. They go into it with this idea of going from all, you know, nothing to all everything at once. And honestly, if you're going to make this a lifelong pursuit or you wanna reach the goal or you wanna maintain that after you get it, how you go about achieving it is so important.

Oh my God. So first off, we need to define best shape because that can be different from person to person. So we're gonna be speaking to the majority of people. And when they say the best shape, but they're talking about as a good balance of mobility, leanness, general leanness, good strength, some nice muscle development, energy, and mood.

Like, most people are not like, the best shape of my life is gonna be, you know, like I could walk on stage on a bodybuilding contest or something like that, right? Most people want this kind of overall fit healthy body. So that's kind of who we're talking to. Although, what we're gonna be talking about can be applied to almost anybody,

because a lot of this has to do with just the process. Now, Adam, you talked, you just mentioned that people don't, how they go into it is everything. I couldn't agree more. And I, I'm gonna start with the fact that most people go into it without a plan. They do not have a plan. Their plan is going, is literally this.

I'm gonna start working out. But would you build a house without a plan? I'm trying to build a house and be like, you know, I'm just gonna go build a house without a plan? I'm not trying to build a house and be like, you know, I'm just gonna go build a house without any plans without a starting point and what comes after the foundation and then what should I install next? Is it the plumbing or is it the structure?

When do I put the plaster on? When does the roof go on? Like if you don't have a plan at all, the odds of failure are astronomical because what'll happen is you'll just show up and just work out and you will plateau, like everybody does, and then you're not gonna know where to go from there

or typically what people do is they hit the more button and then that leads to, I mean, we know where that's gonna lead where eventually gets the point where it's unsustainable. So you have to have a plan for the year, not just the plan like I'm gonna start, you know, this week, but rather, what is this gonna look like for the whole year? And I'm gonna give you a little news flash here. The plan doesn't look the same all year.

So the plan is not gonna be, I'm gonna work out three days a week. That's what I'm gonna do for the rest of the year. The more you can get into and break down what you're gonna accomplish through the year, the more you can kind of map it out, the better your success is. There's more to look forward to, you know what to expect, and you know you're moving in a particular direction to get to the next level and next level. Well, the better the plan, the less wasted energy and the less deflated you get

with the lack of results or whatever it is that's actually driving you towards making these changes, it all has to be realistic and you have to really take an honest account for your habits and what you will actually duplicate and repeat and what sounds something reasonable that you'll be able to come back and keep incorporating on a frequent basis. I just think like, too, this is a really important piece to really kind of paint the entire year for you.

So that way your odds of success are way higher. Why do you guys think the majority don't have a plan? They don't know how to plan. They don't know how to plan for this. Oh, so they think that they're gonna go to the gym and they're gonna go from where they're at now, I don't know how to plan. They don't know how to plan for this. Right. So they think that they're gonna go to the gym and they're gonna go from where they're at now, I don't know, 30 pounds overweight, the condition to lost 30 pounds, feel good and fit,

and they think the way to get there is just to go and work out, which that's true, but there's more to it, right? Yeah, I think you would never train a client like that. So I would, maybe I would rephrase this because I bet there's lots of people that are going, oh, that's not me, I have a plan. They just have the wrong plan.

Sure. I think that's actually more common than not. I think that many people are the most common, you know, gym goer or person that sets the finnish. It's not somebody who's like, hey, I've never worked out in my life. That was a very small percentage. Like when I, when January rolled around and I was taking inventory of the types of people

that were coming into the gym, sure, you had a percentage that were like, hey, I've never done this in my entire life before. I'm trying to figure that, you know, but that's a very small percentage. Most people are like, they've been in and out of the gym for years, sometimes decades, and this is just kind of part of the, what they always do. It's like they,

one thing that they've never done has been able to be consistent. Yeah. That's what they're new to. This is true. Okay. They're, they're, that's true. But a lot of that also is because, again, I think they go in with a plan, but the plan is a, a failing plan. It's. It's not sustainable, and that what ends up happening is they eventually get burnt out. So I actually would think that a lot of people listening to this, here you say like, oh, you know, a lot of people don't have a plan. They're like, oh, well, that's not me.

I have a plan. And the plan many times is too simple. It's too, oh, I'm just gonna eat less, get rid of my bad food, and I'm gonna come in, I'm gonna train myself five, seven days a week. That's 100% what I mean by no plan is that their plan, it would be like, again, I'll use the example

of building a house, I'm like, hey Adam, I'm gonna go build a house, I'm like, well, what's your plan? I'm gonna go, and I'm gonna work on it every day. That's not the plan, like, okay, yeah, you're gonna work on it. But what does that look like? What does each step look like? I've bought all the materials, they're all there, I'm just gonna put it together. Yeah, so, so, okay, yeah, you're gonna work on it. But what does that look like? What does each step look like? I've bought all the materials. They're all there. I'm just gonna put it together.

Yeah. So, so, okay. So what does this look like? Let's give people some takeaways, right? So, first off, you want to set realistic goals. One of the biggest mistakes people make when they're starting on a fitness journey or they start or they're all of a sudden have this new motivation is that they, they set goals based off of their motivated, their current motivated state of mind. This is a terrible time to make, to base goals off of that motivated state of mind because that motivated state of mind.

It's like grocery shopping when you're hungry. Yeah, exactly. That strategy. Eventually it goes away, right? So like you think like, oh my God, I feel so motivated right now. Well, how many of these weeks can you realistically work out? Oh, four days a week.

Well, right now, but what about when this motivated state of mind eventually goes, well, which it will, right? Because it's a feeling and it comes and goes. So your goals have to be based on knowing yourself and saying the following, what can I do now that I think I can maintain forever? Like, what can I do now that I think I can maintain forever? Like, what does that look like?

And then what kind of weight loss does that look like? Or what kind of strength gain or whatever your goal is, does that look like? So you want to set this goal up and then you want to break it down into smaller goals and then phase out your year. And by the way, this is how I used to sell personal training. If I had somebody sitting in front of me

and my goal was to sell them a year's with a personal training, I wouldn't just say, well, that's gonna take 150 sessions. I would say, here's what the first two months are gonna look like, and here's what we're gonna focus on. We're gonna work on stability, mobility, I'm gonna try and alleviate some of that back pain. Then the next couple months, we're gonna focus on

really building strength, and here's what you can expect. The faster metabolism your appetite's gonna go up, you're gonna start to feel more tight and solid in your body. Then the next phase, and then I would go through and break this down for them and show them the plan. And now they know, like, oh, that's how I can get there, but for somebody who does this for themselves, you know what to expect.

Well, for the next two months, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna focus on eating more vegetables. And I'm gonna focus on, because I haven't done any strength training, I'm gonna try and get good at like three exercises. And then after that, the next thing I'm gonna do is I'm gonna remove sugar from my diet, and I'm gonna work on really building strength. And then after that, I'm gonna focus on endurance and stamina, and I'm gonna try and add more protein to my diet.

And by doing this, you have something to look forward to, but you've also built yourself out a plan. Now, there's good and bad plans, but but you've also built yourself out a plan. Now, there's good and bad plans, but at the very least planning it out in this way, you have at least something that you know you're working towards. Well, I'm to kind of go back to a bit of, I don't know, I was talking about like coming in with the wrong plan.

Sometimes it takes that consultation with the actual qualified coach, it's a good coach, or you know, you listen to a lot of the advice. We try to give, most of the clients I've had in this state that have this motivation, want to lose a lot of weight and get after this, have to build their body back up and have to build back healthy, thriving metabolism and to really focus

on building muscle and they're not even going to think in that direction on their own if they don't, you know, aren't consulting with the coach that can really give them a proper assessment for that. You know, the audience is probably tired of hearing me reference when I competed. But I feel like it taught me so much. Not just about myself, but even even as a coach helping other people. And one of the epiphanies that I had was knowing that I feel confident with a training program and diet and all those things like that, that I didn't need a plan.

I don't need a plan. I've been a fitness professional for over, you know, two decades now, at that time, I wasn't two days, I was like 15 years at that time. You know, why do I need to write out a plan or have like, but boy, because it was only because it was something that I was competitive, like it was like a sport, I'm going against other people,

I was gonna get on stage, and I'm competitive. I didn't want to lose. Did I actually have a different attitude? Because of that, I'm like, okay, I'm gonna obviously track because I need to know for sure. And it was, it was very enlightening how much I overestimated things, underestimated things, even with all of my experience,

didn't know exactly what was going on with myself until I attracted that level. So I can't stress enough to the audience that's listening that considers themselves very knowledgeable around program design, around nutrition, on the value of actually still writing it down or laying it out for yourself for months in advance and then sticking to your plan. And that doesn't mean that along the way I didn't have micro adjustments of, oh, scale back here.

Oh, it's flexibility. Yeah, there's fun. But just simply having a laid out plan for months in advance of what I needed to accomplish and do, I mean, obviously it was the best shape of my life that I was ever in, and a lot of that was attributed to one, obviously the consistency around it, but also really having a plan to, a plan of attack and sticking with it.

Yeah, so here's an example, right? You could take the year and you can break it up into four quarters, and then those four quarters are made up of three months, and then each of those months now is a mini goal. And then you ask yourself the following, okay, what kind of workouts? So for the first quarter, I'm gonna focus on like, just building strength, let's say in the bench press,

the overhead press, the squat, and the deadlift. That's my focus for that first quarter. So then you know what the first month's gonna look like, second month's gonna look like, third month's going to look like. And then you move it in the next quarter, okay, after this quarter, now I'm really going to try and focus on bringing up lagging body parts. So my routine's going to look a little different or maybe it's going to be stamina or maybe it's going to be mobility, but you kind of get the gist.

So you want to break down your year into workout plans focused on specific types of goals. Because by the way, getting fit, all these things contribute to fitness, whether it's mobility, strength, stamina, you know, bodybuilding, powerlifting, whatever, they all contribute to fitness. And as anybody who's ever followed our programs, knows this is how we write our programs,

and we write them specifically so people can follow them one after another and kind of do this. So you break that down and then do the same thing with your diet and make it realistic. This is, I can't make this goal for you because I don't know what your life looks like now, but make it realistic for yourself and say something like, for the first three months, I'm going to eliminate soda. That's all I'm going to do.

I'm just going to eliminate soda and I'm just going to drink water. And then the next, the next few months, then from there, what I'm going to do is I'm going to cut all my meals down by, let's say a quarter in terms of size. However much I eat, I'm going to cut them down by quarter and reduce my calories. And then maybe the next couple of months, now I'm going to focus on hitting my protein targets, whatever, right? So this is how you can kind of break it down. You could put sleep in there.

Here I'm going to focus on sleep. Here I'm going to, but it's really cool because it gives you a plan. You know what look what to look forward to and you know where you're moving. You know that, okay, for the next couple months, I'm doing it this way. And then I'm going to be doing this other thing. I'm going to be working out this particular way versus I'm just going to the gym and just just trying to work out and just, you know, do my thing. This is just a more effective way of getting somebody from pointing to point B. You know, to that point, you, on your notes here, you've listed this in the fifth point, but I want to bring it up now because I think it belongs here. And when I first start off

with with any client or even myself, my own, my own routine. The first few weeks is purely just a lot of tracking. Yes, I have a goal in mind, but as far as my plan of attack, part of that process is really getting a good inventory and assessment of where I'm currently at. How much am I moving every year? So you're talking about just tracking. Yes. Not necessarily trying to hit anything, but just let me know. No, I'm not trying to hit so your time I was just tracking yes, not necessarily trying to hit anything But just no no, I'm not trying to hit the and I know that's part of what why you're talking about the tracking and the last part is the

Macro piece which that comes later Right now it's literally just to see where am I at? You know what how many steps do I I take on a normal day like how many grams of sugar I'm actually exactly how much sugar am I taking how much am I taking? How much protein intake do I take in order to do that? Where's my calories average per day for the week and get just a real good inventory on where you're currently at? Because that's going to be so different for every person regardless of what your current situation that you're in as far as body fat or muscle. Plus, it makes it easy when you're... I'm a realistic that way, because then it's actually something that you can see. I tend to lean towards these habits,

and this doesn't take me too far away from my actual daily routine. It's pretty close, but I can make micro adjustments that don't impact me too much, and then it's something I can repeat. Yeah, and it also allows you to make those changes because, you know, I'm adding more vegetables. Am I really adding a significant more vegetables? Or I'm trying to eat more protein, but am I really, because you don't know where you were

at before. So I like that. It's really about bringing awareness. And with nutrition, the reason why it's so important nutrition is most people, actually everybody miscalculates. If when they do surveys and ask people what they eat and how much they think they eat, people are a lot of, yeah, tremendously it's consistent.

So tracking is really important. So the next thing to do, now that you've kind of loosely created a plan for yourself, you've broken up your workouts into phases and goals, so it's not just one big goal for the year, but rather how each step is gonna lead to that big goal. Then what you wanna do is you wanna start with the big goal. Then what you want to do is you want to start with the big rocks. What I mean by big rocks is, if I'm trying to empty debris out of the room, I'm going to

move the big boulders first because one, if I carry one rock out of here and it's a big boulder, that makes a lot of space versus a pebble. You know, I could pick up a pebble and walk out. My God, I'm going to have to make a lot of trips before I really make an impact. So basically, essentially, what that means is to start with the steps that have the biggest impact so that when you make one choice, one change, you get a big return.

Rather than a small change or a change that gives you a very little return. This is very important because when you first get started, it's been shown in studies, and I've experienced this as well, that when people make a change and then see a big return, they're more likely to want to continue moving forward. Versus they make changes, don't see very much return.

It's very easy to become, you know, like, oh, this is not working. No, I want to add something to that, that I communicate differently today than when I did when I first started. And that is don't try and move too many big rocks at first. You know, choose one or two big rocks and focus on them and execute and be consistent with it before you add more because a mistake that I think I made as an early coach and trainer is someone would hire me, they're all motivated like this,

and then it'd be like, all right, here's all your things. We got protein, here's fiber, here's where your sugar needs to be at, here's where I want your steps to be at, oh, here's how I want you to be living, and it's like, and those are all big rocks, right? Sleep, I'm naming all these things, there's so many that when you do that, the average person

can get overwhelmed. Even the ones that can actually persevere through that and actually accomplish some of that stuff, the likelihood that they will have good habits and routines around those new behaviors is less likely than if I were to choose a rock and find a way to implement it into their life and to that they will maintain this for the rest of their life and really like hone in like, does that work right there with your schedule? Does that what you like? In every aspect, both the workout part, the nutrition part, like helping my sister-in-law

out recently and one of the things that she was asking is like, well, what do you, what show you for this meal and what show you for that she was asking is like, well, what do you, what's for this meal? And what's for that she's at, I'm like, I'm not worried about that right now. Right now, all we're focusing on is breakfast. Like we have not figured out how to consistently hit 40 grams of protein in your breakfast. And I'm trying to adjust it based off of the first

eating pattern she gave me, right? So I did the same thing with her. I said, listen, track your food for two weeks. Don't try and impress me how you always eat. I want to see your habits And then when I see what's going on? Oh, wow, you know for breakfast She's like all carb no no protein and that happens to be one of the big issues We're only getting 30 to 50 grams of protein. She needs north of 130 a day consistently and so okay here I'm gonna address this first meal of the day. And

I'm going to build it around stuff that she was kind of already doing to ask her to eat something that is dramatically different than what she is used to making is less likely that she's going to stick with it. Yeah, and there's like a cascading effect of some of these simple decisions that's a big rock because it has a ripple effect to it. It's something like, and you mentioned not drinking any more soda, for instance, so you can replace that with more water being more hydrated, having more energy. You're mentally, you're wanting to make better decisions nutritionally, or it's strength training, right?

It's something that's going to pay you back in terms of building up not just your muscles and your strength, but also to your metabolism. And so now you can actually utilize energy more effectively, have more of an able body, which promotes more movement. And so it's like considering some of those bigger things, it's a simple thing, but it's also, too so it's like considering some of those bigger things that like it's a simple thing, but it's also to it's going to pay you an dividend. Yeah, well you're developing the skill of changing behaviors, that's what it is. So you, if you're trying to develop a, if you're trying to change behaviors, you have to have a skill to do so. It's not easy. It's very hard to change behaviors and behaviors include like how active you

are or not and the kinds of foods you eat. And so if you haven't made big behavior changes recently, effectively in long term, well, you're going to do one because if you do five, the odds that you're going to succeed are really low. So you're going to do one, get good at it, try another one, ooh, I'm getting better at this, and then you get the kind of the snowball effect. But here's some examples of big rocks. These are just examples of things that have a big payback, right? So the first one would be avoiding heavily processed foods or ultra processed foods.

These are foods that are found in boxes or in wrappers. They have long ingredient lists, long shelf lives. Now these foods aren't necessarily inherently unhealthy, although a lot of them are. That's not the reason why we're cutting them out. We're cutting them out because, or why this is considered big rock, is because this almost always leads

to a significant reduction in calories, period, and the story. And they've got, they've done really, really good studies on this topic. And just've got, they've done really, really good studies on this topic. And just consuming ultra-process foods or these hyper-palatable process foods, typically we'll drive somebody to eat north of 500 to 600 more calories a day.

So simply removing these, what you'll find is you'll eat about five to 600 less calories on a daily basis. So basically what you're doing is you're saying, I'm just not gonna eat these foods, but I'll eat as much as I want of whole natural foods. This usually in my experience results in like a seven to 12 pound weight loss. When I would have clients do this,

they would eat as much as they wanted, they just wouldn't eat these heavily processed foods and they would lose seven to 12 pounds. There's very little things you can do that's one step that will contribute so greatly to something like fat loss. The second thing that's a big rock would be the strength train of all the forms of exercise when you're talking about bang for your buck results when it comes to fat loss sculpting strengthening strength training is the king there's nothing like it other forms of exercise have

value but strength training impacts the metabolism in a positive way whereas other forms of exercise have value, but strength training impacts the metabolism in a positive way, whereas other forms of exercise don't necessarily do this, meaning you can speed up your metabolism. You can make your body burn more calories on its own versus having to move yourself. That's why it's such a big rock. Two days a week of strength training is way more powerful than two days a week of any other form of exercise from just an overall health mobility and fat loss, fat loss standpoint. The next thing would be to walk more. Walking is a big rock because it's the form of activity that you're most likely to be able to be consistent doing.

And it's not on a treadmill. It's just walk more throughout the day. So here's where step counter can come in handy. And you can say, wow, I averaged 4,000 steps a day, I'm just going to try and hit 7,000 steps a day. It's a little almost double and let's see what happens. And then you don't need to work out, you just need to just be conscious of moving more and walking more. That might mean you do a 10 minute walk up for breakfast lunch and dinner, but that makes a significant impact on your health. And then the last one will be sleep, just getting better sleep because that impacts your diet impacts your eating habits, your cravings.

It gives you, you're more likely to feel the feeling of motivation, which if you feel motivated, you're much more likely to do the things you want to do. Bounces out your hormones. Bounces out hormones as well. So those are common big rocks that you could tackle, but like Adam said, and Justin was communicating like, start with one of them is probably what I would recommend. Yeah, either one of them or one thing in regards to each one of them, meaning this, like, okay, I get this client, they eat,

they eat, let's say they're dropping the ball at all these things. They eat tons of processed food, they don't strengthen whatsoever, they don't go get outside and walk and get any activity, they have a shit sleep routine, okay? They're fucking up all of them. And now I've just told them, these are all the big rocks we've got here. Now what I'm not going to do is to put tremendous amount of emphasis on each one of them individually. I may take one thing from all of them. So I'm looking at my sister in law, I'm looking at my sister in law's

diet. And let's, and we we're gonna use her as an example as if she's, even though this is not her, but let's pretend she's eating out every single meal and fast food and drink coax or so that. I'm gonna pick one or two things tops in there that I want to improve. Like say, oh, I noticed that dinner, you always eat out at this place.

So our goal for this first month is dinner you make. Okay. We'll worry about the other meals, what that like dinner, we're going to make it at home and we're going to, we're going to balance it out. It's going to, and we have all these different choices I want you to choose from, but I want it to be whole food. That last meal the day, and that's all I'm going to set for that goal, right? And then the, the next one is strength range.

It wasn't doing any sort of strength training whatsoever. So I'm gonna start her off on like, you do like a Maps 15 type of routine or a Maps that Obolic pre-phase where I'm only asking her to go in and lift weights two days a week, that's all we're gonna do. Then like her walking, she's not doing anything activity-wise outside of the gym and so that.

And so I'm just gonna say, hey, every day after lunch, go for a 20 minute walk or something, right? It's like, I'm gonna say, and then sleep, right? Sleep is always messed up. I'm gonna say, hey, here's this one hack and once you add, sun goes down, put your blue blockers on.

That's all I'm gonna say to you right now. I'm not gonna put any more parameters around this. Just, let's get in the habit of doing that one thing, right? So I'm gonna give them very realistic, obtainable goals that could improve these big rocks and start moving us in the right direction. And the reason why I only wanna do that is I want to, I want to start to build winds.

Because if I ask them to do all those big rocks and to execute all of them, really, no process food walking every single day three times You know your sleep routine looks like x, y, and z if I ask them to do all that they might For a little while but the likelihood they stick to all of it forever is less likely and so I'm gonna give them these real subtle changes in in each one of those categories and then I'm gonna hold them accountable to them, and then, and give them an easy win, and celebrate that win so we can start to build that moment.

I'm gonna give an analogy, so, think of it this way, if this isn't something that you're doing on a regular basis, it's like you're in a pitch black room, and this is just your, you're in a pitch black room, this is how your eyes are adjusted. Now imagine someone, someone come in and turn the lights on full blast. Super bright.

It is blinding. It's overwhelming. You can't process it. You got to turn up the lights slowly so that you can your eyes can adapt and it doesn't blind you and you adjust to it. So this is what these steps do because when you take a step, one step, it's hard, but you can adjust to it. And then it becomes a part of your life. And then the next step becomes another kind of hard step, but then I adjust to it as well. You do everything at once, because the idea is this, the idea is, well, if I do everything at once, I'm gonna get results way faster,

kind of, but not, because yes, initially, you may see a big change, but the odds that you're gonna fail after a few months is like almost 100%. After a year, it's about 100%. So you will fail doing it this way. So you do need to take those steps and tackle again, tackle the things with the biggest return.

That's why I listed heavily processed food, strength training, walking and sleeping because those tend to have the biggest return when you do those types of things. It's sprinting. It's sprinting versus the marathon runner. We 100% the pursuit of health, longevity and a fulfilled healthy life is a marathon. I don't think anybody would argue that, right? It's a it's a it's years. It's the longest thing you'll do. It's your whole life. It is the longest marathon. So doing all those things, you absolutely can sprint out the gates, but 100% a sprinter

that runs out the gates versus the experienced marathon runner will get their ass kicked by the marathon runner eventually. You will eventually burn out and not be able to sustain that level of speed. And the marathon runner will come jogging past you whether it's in one week, eight weeks, six months, or a year they will. And all the studies and research point in that direction that most people end up going on. We all know the tortoise in the hair.

I mean, it's timeless, but it depicts this perfectly. And it's just, yeah, it's all part of that. So the next one is, at this point now, what you're gonna do is you're going to wait till you plateau before adding anything on top of what you're doing, okay? Now, I think we need to find what a plateau is because when I say plateau, people think it's a plateau on the scale. Oh, that's it, everything stopped working.

No, fitness, exercise, eating better, has a lot to do with everything. Not just weight loss, but how you feel Your skin your strength your mobility your stamina like how well you're sleeping. So a real plateau means you're not getting anything Not I didn't lose weight on the scale, but I got stronger, you know, so I think I plateaued. You didn't plateau, you got stronger. Like everything's working, because if you throw stuff on top of stuff that's working, you definitely run the risk of doing too much for your body and going backwards, or just overwhelming yourself

with too many changes that you absolutely can't stick to. This is also why I like this approach of like one single thing towards each of these big rocks is because I give that client all these single things and then say, okay, let's be consistent for the next two to four weeks and report back. And it's like, oh nice, we're seeing nice, slow gradual progress. They're getting a little bit stronger or losing a little bit of body fat. Things are going good.

Oh, we're starting to slow down. Well, now I can do the same thing. Now I'm going to go right back through all those big rocks again and add one more thing. So I have all these levers that I can pull every time their progress starts to slow down. Versus, I've done everything that we could right out the gates, we hit our first plateau

and then where do we go? Totally, nothing else I can do. Yeah, and I think it's a good point too that you consider there's a lot of other factors to that your body's providing you a lot more signals than just the weight or your energy for instance, all those are very valuable things to pay attention to. How's it affecting your sleep? How's your overall strength in the gym? How's your overall strength in the gym? Like how's your endurance? How's your sleep and all these other things?

Like you gotta make sure like you're considering your digestion for instance, like all these other factors involved so that way you still have an indication on progress. Yeah, if your body's getting healthier, if you have any signs of improved health and vitality, you're not plateauing. Plateau is everything kind of stops.

And at that point, then evaluate what you're doing, and then this is a good time to add something else. You talk feels right. Talk though about how important, I mean, this was something that it took me a long time as a trainer to get good at communicating that to a client because clients many times can attach their success purely to like one metric, right?

How I look in the mirror or the scale. And if those things are slowing down, but to Justin's point, digestion is getting better. My sleep is getting better. My energy levels are getting better. Like, hey, those are all great indicators that we're moving in the right direction, even though you may be discouraged because you paid for this year of training with me because you want to look a certain way. Trust me, we're moving in the right direction.

If your body is giving us all these signals back, that's improving. We're doing well. You usually, you'll get the physiological feelings of energy and strength and mobility, and those will improve, improve, improve and then the aesthetics start to change. The aesthetics tend to reflect improvements and vitalities. So just like building muscle, like if you go to the gym and your goal, let's say your goal is to build muscle and you add five pounds to your squat and then you go

back the next time you add five pounds to your squat and then you go back to the next time you add five pounds to your squat. You probably you go back to the next time you had five pounds of your squat. And then you go back to the next time you had five pounds of your squat. You probably didn't build or notice any muscle built that entire time. But eventually at some point, you're going to add weight to the bar, weight to the bar, weight to the bar, and then the muscle just pops on your body. Like there's the aesthetic result. So you want to look at everything. You want to look at all the metrics of health and vitality. And if none of them are moving forward, or if you start to feel like this isn't working anymore, but be objective, then you can add something like additional exercise or more sets or add weight or calories

a little more. But wait until you get to that point. You didn't have this in your list, but this is something that I like to do for that exact reason. Is I have all my clients take a photo of themselves from the front side and back, Friday mornings first thing when they wake up. That's like, and we do it every week, but I want to refer back to it once a month. And so part of our are we on track, are we seeing results,

are we are we actually moving in the right direction, I want to take a look at the difference between picture one and then the fourth picture after that and be able to say like, can we see a noticeable difference between weeks one and four, because sometimes we will see the stall on the weight. If we're doing such a good job of reducing body fat while also slowly building muscle, there's a good chance 30 days goes by and we see absolutely no movement on the scale. And because we look at ourselves in the mirror every single day, multiple times a day sometimes, then it's hard for us to see these subtle changes

that are happening. So having these pictures that we track every week, I love to use that as a like, hey, I know you don't think you've changed a much, but look at this picture when we first started. This is just four weeks later. And even though the scale is the same, look at how different your body composition is.

Right. Now at this point, let's say you're really starting to plateau, then the next thing you want to add is the intensity of workouts. You can make your workouts a little harder. After this, then you can add more workouts. But I tell people to focus on this first because I mean, just give an example, I trained, Doug was a client of mine and he was experienced. He wasn't a total beginner. He worked out twice a week for six, seven months before adding an extra day. So for six or seven months, we got great results two days a week. Now the workouts changed, right? The workouts weren't the same. We added intensity

and load the entire time. But once we got to the point where there wasn't much we could do, additionally, with those two days a week, then we threw that extra day. So the first thing I would say to change with the workouts is the intensity. You make them a little harder, challenge yourself a little more. And then this is where I like to add now a diet, a specific diet target, okay?

And I like to tell people here to hit protein targets. Let's just focus on that for now. And typically what you wanna do is you wanna take your body weight and you wanna try and hit that in grams of protein. If you're really overweight, then take your goal weight and hit that number in protein. So if you wanna lose 30 pounds, which brings you down to 130,

try and hit 130 grams of protein a day. And prioritize that and do that with every single meal. And what'll happen is protein is very satiating, tends to make you eat less. More protein builds more muscle. That's gonna look better, it's gonna feel better, it's gonna speed up your metabolism. And it leads to a typically better consumption habit. So hit protein targets at this point is typically what I tell people. I want to touch more on the increase in intensity, just because this is top of mind for me. Katrina is actually helping two of her close friends through this process of following a math program, eating better, and these friends of hers

are chronic yo-yo dieters and going from on-off wagon and she's been trying to get them to just trust the process with her, and they started, both of them, this has been a couple months in, actually were several months in now, and they both around the same. This has been a, we're a couple months in, actually we're several months in now. And they both around the same time started at this plateau and Katrina was coming to me and she's like, you know, hey, they're falling,

they're on this phase of maps and, you know, they're sticking to the diet and all these things like that, but they're at like a really bad plateau. And I said, you know, when, and this is really common, especially with my female clients. Like my female clients were always really good about like following the plan.

If I told them to do this, they stuck to it. But they also tend to weigh on like the safer side, the opposite of my guys when it comes to lifting. And so, and they think they're just doing as they're told, like following the program as it's laid out, but they're not trying to stretch themselves, you know, every workout or every few workouts. Can I lift more with good form?

That's right. And quickly I didn't take me long of inquiring about their routine and she remember her reporting back to me, I said, well, where was their bench class, the big lifts, right? I'm like, where was it when they first started? And what are they doing right now? And they're literally like lifting the same weights, you know, three months later.

And I said, listen, I can, I can, I can look at her and tell you right now, she is much stronger than I can. I know if I was training her, she'd be squatting way more than that. She'd be over. I know I could get her to that. I can just, I can see the muscle she has on her body. I said, I want you to get a lift with each of them. And then you know how to push. I've trained you long enough. You know how to increase that intensity. Make sure you challenge them. And when it says things in our program where it's like eight to 10 reps, I want you to challenge

them to find a weight that they have a hard time getting to eight for them. Now mind you, we coach differently on the podcast about two in the tank. But when it comes to teaching somebody how to increase intensity, many times it's because they're kind of following this routine, sticking to the same weight, weeks and weeks, and weeks, too much. You ask them in the gym, I would ask people, like, oh, I do, you know, I do,

this is my routine, I do shoulder press and I do a row and I, and oh, and I use the 10 pound dumbbells for the shoulder press and I use the 15 pound dumbbells for the rows and I put this weight stack on 70 pounds and you know, and you're like, how long you pound dumbbells for the rows. And I put this weight stack of 70 pounds. And you know, and you're like, how long you been doing that? Oh, five years. I always do.

Yeah, you know that they're just going in and plugging in the numbers. No, no, no, you got to increase the resistance. You got to get stronger. Otherwise, your body will improve to handle that load. And then that's it. It has got no reason. Now you'll maintain, but you're not going to progress at all.

So increasing the intensity, that's a part of it. Like, get yourself stronger, but also hit those targets in protein, and then worry about everything else. Meaning, when you're eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner, center the meal around the protein, eat the protein, and then move on to the rest. And studies will show that this does result in a reduction in calories. And then of course, you'll hit your protein targets, which builds. Well, I mean, simply just that alone. I mean, we had a, you know, podcast live call or

just recently that we talked about that. This to me is the one of the most common mistakes, especially for my female clients that are trying to build muscle speed the metabolism up is not consistently hitting protein. And a lot of times I won't even worry about the rest of the diet other than that. Just like, let's get to a place where you can literally tell me, hey, Adam, 30 days and I hit what my body needs protein-wise every single day. And I bet you, you will see a difference just from doing that because you can train consistently and as hard as you want all day long. But if you don't give your body the adequate protein

for it to build muscle, then you're just gonna get really the benefits of burning calories and you're gonna build very, very little muscle and maybe a little bit of that beginner newbie gains, right? But after that, the body adapts and then you're not gonna see anything until you start to increase it. And that's a mention like I said,

it contributes to just eating better overall because it's such a sati- That's why I didn't have to focus on it. That was a byproduct that I didn't realize what was going to happen was, oh, wow, when I got my clients just to focus on that, I didn't need to tell them, oh, back off the saturated fat or, oh, it decreased the calories because it was so hard for them to consistently hit that. They would get full.

They get full off all that protein. So it would naturally restrict all these other calories, carbohydrates, saturated fats. So all I had to do was just focus on the protein. Yeah, now next up would be just, now you're starting to add more activity, right? So you've been doing this for a while, you wanna make another change.

This is when you're just moving more. This is when you add workouts. This is when you add extra steps in your day. This is also now where you could start to aim for other macro targets. So if you've gotten good at eating your 130 grams approaching a day, let's say that's your target, and it's pretty consistent and you can do it. And you know what that looks like. Now you can look at your overall calories and say, okay, I want to eat this many grams of carbohydrates, this many grams of fats. Let me see if I can hit these. Now I'm going to be quite honest.

If you don't get to this part, you're still going to get pretty down far. But if you get to this part, it's because you've gotten far and you want to take it to the next level. This is really when things, this is when you get that last, you know, 3% body fat off your body. When you get that last 5 to 10 pounds, it's kind of stuck. It's when you push this and you start to track all the macros or aim for macro targets at a little activity. And then this is when you hit that final goal that you have. Oh, I would make

the case that you'll build the best body you've ever built. That's the title of the episode with with just simply hitting your protein and calorie targets. The carbohydrates and fat and stuff like that. Unless you're doing something like my sister-in-law which was grossly under-consuming fiber and I had to adjust her fiber and take because she was having digestive issues. Unless you are doing something like that, simply focusing on just hitting your protein

and staying within your calorie budget is normally enough to completely change the body in any direction you really wanna go. Totally. And basically what we just gave you is kind of a loose blueprint that you could follow for the year 2023 to get your body in the best shape ever. Now, if you want specific programming, like week by week, month by month, that takes you towards the end of the year. It really gives you over nine months planned out. We have something called the RGB bundle,

which is three maps workout programs. And you literally follow them one after another, maps endabolic to maps performance and maps aesthetic. And then you've got the whole workout part planned out for you. And because we did this episode, we're putting the RGB bundle on 50% off just for this episode and this expires Sunday, December 18th. So if you're interested in that, you go to maps, fitnessproducts.com, and then use the code RGB50 for the 50% off discount. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump.

If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Superbundle at MindPumpMedia.com. The RGB Superbundle includes maps and a ballac, maps for performance, and maps aesthetic, nine months of phased, expert exercise programming designed by Sal, Adam, and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks,

feels, and performs. With detailed workout blueprints in over 200 videos, the RGB Superbundle is like having Sal and the Justin as your own personal trainer's butt at a fraction of the price. The RGB Superbundle has a full 30-day money bag guarantee and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources at MindPumpMedia.com. If you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a five-star rating and review on iTunes and by introducing MindPump to your friends and family. We thank you for your support and until next time, this is MindPump.

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