By
in
Holiday Season is soon upon us! 🏖🌅
Now, if you know me well, you will know I am against the fad of losing weight and am more interested in helping people develop healthy relationships with their body. I want to help people to get fitter and stronger whilst developing mobility and improving general health.
I would normally be running a body transformation program at this time of year, helping people to do just that, but time is against me. My time has been taken up studying for my ‘Strength & Conditioning’ and ‘Olympic Lifting Coach’ Qualification. I have so much more knowledge and loads of great information for the next program which will be running around September time!
I am going to Tenerife for a 4 day Jiu Jitsu camp at the beginning of July and like most people, I would like to lose a bit of body fat before I go.
My weight changes depending on what training cycle I am on. For example, I have just had my ass kicked by adapting to a new whopping 6 hrs a week of Olympic lifting training. This is on top of my Jiu Jitsu, Plyometric, speed training and mobility training. You might think that when you are doing this much exercise, you can eat what you want, but the truth is, you can’t. Adapting to the new exercise requires lots more food, but specific food and it takes a while to adapt my diet. If im at a BJJ competition stage then I cut weight back and get rid of extra body fat. This is really usual process for most athletes.
I would like to become more conditioned because, just like anyone else, I want to feel comfortable with my body. I have vanity issues just like anybody else!
With all that in mind I thought I might share some insight of how I am going to do it-
1) Write a training & nutrition plan and stick to it
This is the most important bit. Without a plan it is not going to work. I need to know what training I am doing on what days, what intensity etc. I also need to know what I am eating and if I am eating the right amount. Also making sure my diet is full of what I need to have enough energy to conduct the training selected.
2) Set goals & be realistic
This needs timescales and a way of measuring where you are now and where you want to be. Again this is also really important. If you want to lose a stone in 2 weeks that is not a good goal because it is unrealistic, unhealthy and also, why choose losing 1 stone as your goal? If you would like to be a smaller dress size for example it is possible to change body shape and not lose any weight. So goals need to go deeper than just losing weight.
3) Be ready to work hard & keep motivated
This is the bit I see people fail on all the time no matter what health, fad diet, exercise or type of training promise. You will need to work really hard and not just through training but also with your nutrition. For example, you could have the hardest Kettlebell session ever but that might only be 45mins or 1 hr of hard work. The nutrition is the rest of your time.
You may have had a tough day at work, fallen out with a friend or just had a very stressful time and that is when nutritional plans go out of the window. So you will need to be stubborn and prepare to put in some work.
4) Be patient
I have been supporting people achieve their goals for over 17 years and whether it is has been providing counselling sessions, helping homeless people get off the streets, helping someone get into work, training martial artist for their first fight, or helping someone develop strength after injury: the list could go on and on. It is always the same. People who are patient and in it for the long haul are going to make it. People who stop and try something else without seeing their original plan through will not.
5) Make it specific for you
So many plans I have seen provide generic training with the same meal plans for everyone. These do not take into consideration that all plans should be individual and that no goals and people’s bodies are exactly the same, so why should the training and nutritional plan be?
6) Respect the process
There is a process to changing your body shape and it involves all of the above. If you miss out a process you have less chance of achieving your goal. I conduct the above process every time I need to lose weight for Brazilian Jiu Jitsu competitions and it always works. It is never easy but I respect that from the start.
I hope that was useful and remember, the next Body Transformation Program is in Sept/Oct. If you would like any help in the meantime just send me a email with as much detail of what you want to achieve in what time frame enquirybespokeft@gmail.com
See you all in Class. Gav
