I’m going to give this post a subtitle of “Fill your calendar with T’s and C’s”
I have not updated the 10000 steps forum with my daily walks.. I’ve decided to post my week end results instead, but that does not mean that I’m not tracking it.
How do you know where you’re going if you don’t have a map? Pretty hard. It’s just as important to track your weight loss progress and your training. You won’t know if it’s water, muscle or fat that you’re burning unless you keep track of your body composition.
Body composition is more important that weight. I have clients who begin Sunrider and then wonder why they’re gaining weight when what they want is to lose weight. We have a discussion about “weight” and end up agreeing that body composition is more important. It’s better to weigh 140 pounds at 14% body fat than 140 pounds at 25% body fat for example.
When my clients begin Sunrider, a whole food program, they begin to gain weight. I explain that this is likely because of 2 reasons:
1. They finally begin to hydrate. Their cells begin to absorb that much needed water that is required for so many functions and that water has weight. If you went from 4 litres of water in your cells to 6 litres (in your muscles for example), then you’d have gained the weight of 2 litres of water … and
2) muscles begin to become stronger, even without exercise. I have a Sunrider friend who does no exercise other than walking and the last time we met, she came up to me all excited and said “look at my guns”. She had very well toned and developed biceps without doing any lifting. This is a natural process the body wants to do.. become leaner and develop stronger muscles. Well, the heart, the kidneys, the stomach are all muscles too and as they become stronger, they weigh more too. These same clients begin to monitor their body composition and realize that they are exchanging weight… fat for muscle.
I’m over simplifying here for example, but nevertheless, it’s tracking that determined what was happening.
I had a friend visit and ask what all the T’s and C’s were on my calendar. It was filled with them. I told her T stands for “training” and C stands for “cardio”. I track the days that I do cardio and training on my calendar. My goal is to fill it every month as a way to visually see that I’m doing a lot of exercise.
I’ve now added how many steps I did that day from my pedometer, so now it’s T’s C’s and numbers.
Now.. are you getting results with your weight loss program? Why not? What’s going on? Do you have any idea? What was your starting weight and body fat? What is it now? How many meals per day did you eat over the past week or month? How often did you exercise?
here is no such thing as “not getting results”. You always get a result. The question is whether or not you got the result you wanted. Results are a way of monitoring what’s working and what isn’t. Tom Venuto recently posted an email from a subscriber of his burn the fat program on his blog. She stated that in a year, she has not lost any weight and she’s stayed on exactly the same program for the entire year.
If you don’t get results that you want in 2 weeks, time to modify your program. Options include (but are not limited to)
1) lowering calories
2) Increasing calories
3) Increasing the amount of exercise
4) Increasing the amount of fat
5) Lowering the amount of fat
Make a change, then track it again for a week. Check your results. What happened? If it worked, keep with that program for the next week or two and track the results some more. If it changes again, you might need to modify it again.
If you’re quite active, you might need to increase calories to burn more fat and you might need to add more good fat to increase fat burning. It’s one thing very few people consider. Tom talked about this very example on his teleconference call he did recently. He gave the full hour long interview where he answered these questions to his Burn the fat clients. It’s great listening.
Keep a food log too. What you’re eating at each meal while you’re on a new program. I use my food logs to help me improve. When I have a great streak of results, I note it.. and if I ever get to a point where things have stalled, I refer back to what worked and then do that program again. Why guess? Use something you know worked for you in the past. I know fully well, that carbohydrates and me just DO NOT get along. I also know that I perform much better on protein and fat based meals. I feel better, I have more energy, I’m a lot more positive and my skin is just that much better.
Training logs help you with your exercise program. My personal trainer develops some very intricate programs based on my current goals and incorporates a LOT of core training. A lot is an understatement. Her training is all core based training. I’ve never experienced such good results as I have with her training me than me training myself. Plus I don’t have to expend any energy on creating my own programs. She’s got the long term results in mind and develops 6 week programs that combine with each other to end up 3 years from now with the results I want. What I mean is that she’s not “winging it”… She has a long term plan in mind and then gives me little 6 week roadmaps to get to my goal. It’s awesome. I let her deal with it rather than me. Get a trainer. They’re awesome. If you’re in the Edmonton area and want a GREAT personal trainer check out my personal trainer here in Edmonton.
I can look back over the various program’s she’s given me, I know what weight I started at and how far I progressed in the 6 weeks and what my mood was like before and after each exercise. I also track how long I’m in the gym as well. It is of vital importance to not train more than one hour per session. After that you’re heading down hill very fast. I have recently reviewed an amazing Muscle Building product… nay…. System…. and put up a website that talks about it and offers a 5 week mini course. Go have a look at How To Build Muscle. I fully endorse it!
Track your progress. Know where you’ve started from and have a plan for where you’re going. There are no such thing as “no results”, it’s just a matter of deciding what you learn from the results you are getting. Tweak your program, try something new and for personal bragging rights…..
Fill Your Calendar with T’s and C’s
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