Conclusion
Congratulations on setting a goal to build muscle, gain mass and look and feel healthy and fit. Your personal fitness is the most important thing you own, and you have total control over how fit and healthy your body is. In fact, no one but you can reach your fitness goals. You must push yourself to the limit and beyond, and eventually you will get to the other side and be maintaining the body you’ve dreamed of.
When things get a little challenging and you may be tempted to give up, please don’t. Just dig in your heels, lift another weight, and keep going. It does get easier and better, and after a while you’ll be so accustomed to following these tips, that you won’t be tempted to do anything else. You’ll know that your body reacts to your behaviors, and you’ll take proper care of yourself.
Have a Binge Day
Once a week, allow yourself to eat whatever you want. Anything, and as much of it as you want. Go ahead, make yourself sick. Once a week. After a couple of weeks, you’ll be ready to stop binging, because you won’t want to continue getting sick and feeling bad for days. But if you know you can do it on your binge day—Sunday is a good day for it—then you won’t feel deprived the other days. And even if you don’t usually use your binge day, having it gives you an escape route.
“Do I Want to Work This Off?”
If you are considering “cheating” and eating something that is not exactly healthful, on a day when you’re not having a free binge day, think about this. You’re not “cheating,” because you’re not following someone else’s rules or restrictions. You’re doing this because you want to and are choosing to. You aren’t cheating anyone but yourself. But ask yourself, do I really want to work this off? If you do, and you’re giving yourself a rare treat, that’s your decision and you can make it. Sometimes it’s okay to splurge on a special occasion, but only if you are willing to give up something—the progress that treat will cost you and the effort to work it off.
Drink Non-Caffeinated Fluids
If you just absolutely cannot stomach the idea of drinking eight or ten glasses of plain water, there’s good news. You can count things like low-carb sports drinks, decaffeinated tea, and juice, as long as you’re not also counting them as part of a meal. In other words, you probably shouldn’t count the 8 ounces of juice you put in a protein shake, but it’s fine to count the 8 ounces of juice you have with breakfast. Caffeinated and alcoholic drinks don’t count, of course, and you probably want to avoid highly sugared, high-calorie sports drinks just on general principle.
Plan to Eat Early and Eat Often
Bodybuilders eat several times a day. You need the ongoing energy, and blood sugar levels stay stable. This has already been mentioned, but it is critical that you plan your meals ahead of time, and put them on your schedule. Make a list the night before of things you might want to eat at each meal. Many people split their meals between three protein shakes or meal replacement bars and three whole-food meals (breakfast, lunch, dinner). You will find that when you schedule and plan your meals, you do not always eat exactly when and what you planned, but you do eat six meals, and you do eat well. Don’t wing this; make some plans.
Protein is King
You absolutely have to get enough protein. If you are eating enough protein, your body can do amazing things in amazingly short periods of time. But if your body is starving, it simply cannot do what you’re asking it to do. It’s like pushing your car to move forward when you don’t have any gas in the tank. It wants to, but it simply can’t do it. If you’re not supplementing with protein powder, and you’re not getting the results you want, try increasing your protein.
You Cannot Isolate “Belly Fat”
Despite the claims by health supplement marketers, your body does not know what “belly fat” is or that you want to get rid of it. Fat is fat, and your body burns fat only when you give it the ability to do so by doing cardio workouts, building muscle, and eating healthful foods. You can take all the pills in the world, cut out diet soda, and anything else, but your belly fat will not disappear while the rest of your fat remains, because there’s no magic belly fat pill.
Balance Protein and Carbs, Cut Out Unhealthy Fat
There are so many diet plans around, and it’s tempting to think that if you just follow the “current fad” you’ll lose fat, build muscle and get fit. In fact, the best way to build muscle, burn fat and get fit is to eat a balanced diet of protein and complex carbs, while reducing your intake of simple carbs, starches and fat. Your body needs both protein and complex carbs, and the more protein you eat, within reason, the better you feel and the better your body will respond.
Ab Muscles Are Just Muscles
There seems to be a lot of mystique around ab muscles, as if they’re special muscles that seem to be somehow different or better than other muscles. Your body doesn’t know your abs are special, nad doesn’t care. They’re just muscle, and you tone them the same way you train other muscles—by working them intensely, letting them rest, and then working them intensely again. While your ab workout will include different exercises than your other weight training, you’re still just using your muscles and building them up.
You Don’t Need Gadgets
Lots of people make lots of money selling all kinds of ab workout gadgets that are supposed to work your abs harder or better. You do not need special equipment or gadgets to work your abs. Working out with a ball or just your body is all you really need to strengthen and tone your abs. Not only are gadgets not helpful, but often they fool us into thinking we’re really working our abs harder than we are. The best ways to train your abs are the old-fashioned, hard exercises that you’ve learned to hate.
