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Are you really ready for fat loss/muscle gain?? The gym is just the start.

Hey Team,

Welcome to another week.  We are running at break-neck speed towards another ‘block’ of boxing classes (July 24) and I’m looking forward to continuing to ‘build’ on some of what we have done over the past couple of months whilst adding in some additional new ‘challenges’.  The bike race will be back for July, we have a cool class incorporating some Zercher Carries and then there is our first ‘Shadow-Boxing’ based circuit since COVID.  I’m probably going to need to run that one for our staff ‘Team Training’ so all the coaches get the idea of what’s going on!

I have a bit of a ‘different’ topic for you this week – which is “even though you’re coming to the gym, are you really ready to make some changes?”.  It probably sounds a bit harsh as a topic – it isn’t meant to – what it is can be seen as a bit of a story about just how HARD it is to lose-weight or add muscle and the fact that you need to be really ‘READY’ for those challenges if you want to meet them.  

I guess I’m writing this – again – based on some of the conversations I have been having with new starters recently.  This ‘Get Started’ thing we have going where everyone starts with a Body Scan and a bit of a food review + weekly training ‘PLAN’ really is great for triggering discussions…and it has made me realise how hard it is just to get things kicked off.  I mean, we all want to make a change and the gym is 100% a big part of that – certainly the biggest ‘bang for your buck’ in terms of making a bit of the healthy lifestyle change.  BUT.  There is a lot involved in getting things ‘set up’ so that you can see the body composition changes that you dreamed of when you walked through the door for the first time and it can be hard to get your head around.

The funny part of it is – As I started writing this and reflected on my own training/food over the past 18-months or so I was forced to acknowledge some pretty tough truths.  I mean, I do pretty much 5x classes in the gym every week – plus sneak out for a run pretty religiously these days AND get 1-2 dedicated strength efforts in.  Not only that, my food is ‘mostly’ good – certainly disciplined with breakfast and dinner (at least from Mon-Friday) although a little bit haphazard (but not bad) at lunch time…but my ability to really IMPACT on my body composition has been pretty much ZERO.  And it’s truthfully because – when I look at the list of things below – there’s just too many things that I either haven’t been able to say “YES” too…or if I have, I haven’t been prepared to truly own CONSISTENTLY.  I do most things, most of the time…but in order to really make a change, it means doing ALL things most of the time…or MOST things ALL of the time.  But there is only so much ‘wiggle room’ allowed if you want to make an impact.

Before I start, it’s worth quickly covering what it means to truly change your body composition either by losing fat or gaining muscle (or – in an ideal world, by doing BOTH of those things!).  First off, in order to lose fat you need to make sure you are consuming FEWER calories than you EXPEND.  In order to do that, you need to have a pretty good (meaning, iron fast hold!!) grip on how many calories you are consuming – and a clear plan of ‘HOW’ you are going to consume them each day…

OK – here goes.  Even if you’re IN THE GYM – and by this, I mean completing 3-4 STRUCTURED sessions per week for a minimum of 3-months – you aren’t truly ready for change if:

    • You have never tracked your calories before and are uncertain how/where to start.  Before you can be ‘ready’, you need to have a clear mechanism as to how you are going to track your food.  
  • If this is you, START by ‘getting ready’ by tracking for 7-days using an app such as “myfitnesspal”.  As with everything, tracking food is a ‘skill’ and one you learn by doing…trying to ‘go live’ with your tracking as part of a fat-loss or muscle-gain plan?  That’s just adding complexity that can contribute to the whole thing falling apart.
    • You are uncertain what a ‘good’ day of eating – protein and calories – looks like for you and are unsure how to calculate it.
  • Start by doing a body scan and chatting to one of the coaches about establishing a baseline plan for you.  If you aren’t keen to do that, just check the ‘guesstimate’ numbers in our “Simple Food and Recipe Guide” for a great shortcut:  https://round1fitness.com.au/round-1-simple-food-and-recipe-guide/.
    • When you think about your food, you’ve been under-eating for an extended period of time.  Now – this obviously varies based on each person but a good baseline number for boys would be regularly under 1800 cals per day or girls who are regularly under 1500 calories per day.
  • If this is you, START by putting together a simple daily plan – 3 meals plus a snack – that will get you to these targets and commit to hitting the number every day for 10-consecutive days.
    • When you think about what you eat, your first thought is to think about what diet you might jump on – Intermittent fasting, low-carb, vegetarian etc.
  • If this is you, START by really focussing on a ‘simple’ plan that involves 3-meals per day + one snack and ALL of the food groups.  When you’re going well, you don’t need to be ‘clever’ or follow a ‘special’ plan – simple and consistent is BEST.
  • You believe that whatever you eat between Friday lunchtime and Monday morning somehow doesn’t count – and every weekend becomes a eating free-for-all.
    • If this is you, START by including your weekends in your plans.  Of course you should get to have a social life – that’s why you go to the gym and watch your food the rest of the time…BUT…those calories still count.  Special occasions are 100% special occasions and rules shouldn’t apply…but that isn’t every Friday and Saturday night.

Basically, if any of those things are true for you, then you probably aren’t ready to make a change to your body composition ‘right now’.  Just like the first few months at the gym are all about setting some good habits in place and conditioning your body so that you can start to ‘BENEFIT’ from the sessions rather than just ‘ENDURE’ them, there is that out of the gym side as well – and it’s not just food really, it’s getting adequate sleep, having a mechanism for managing stress…once you get all of these things in place – positive training habits and the capacity for both EATING well and tracking what you are consuming, THEN you are in a great place to start.

First come the ‘habits’, then come the outcomes.  Losing fat and changing muscle (aka changing your body comp) is actually pretty hard to do.  For so many people getting ‘started’ at the gym is like the ‘start-line’ for making a change…but it isn’t really ‘part’ of the change itself.  I mean, I know going from ‘no training’ to ‘3x per week’ is a big change…but it’s also just the start…it’s part of creating a positive HABIT that forms part of the foundation for making a change – but it is just one of a number of positive habits that you need to have ‘in place’ before you can really get the results you are chasing.

If that all sounds hard…well, it sort of is I guess.  But you have to remember that you aren’t the first person to do it and we are here to help you through it.  When your training, diet and ‘other stuff’ – sleep, incidental exercise, stress management, stretching and prehab etc – are all aligned, it really is amazing what you can accomplish.  And each of those things is a ‘HABIT’ that you can teach yourself to do almost automatically every single day.

See you in the gym,

Michael.

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Michael
Michael

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