 Hello everyone. Welcome to Mind Pump. How would you like to get in the best shape of your life? Would you like to lose fat, build muscle, get more mobile, or all of the above? Well, you can have it all. In this episode, we give you five proven steps to reach your goals and to have long-term success. All right. Enjoy the show. In today's episode, we're going to talk about how you can get in the best shape of your life in 2023. I don't know. 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. You know, this would be funny if you started off with, like, this episode sponsored by lipo suction over at blah, blah, blah. You got a good hook up there. 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 managed gyms for a long time, to give an example of the difference in traffic in terms of the gym 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. Double that in January. So just give me 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 the 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. They're all gone. That's the ultimate group of procrastinators, right? 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. You know, I actually think it's even less of the losing the motivation. If I fall 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 want to reach the goal or you want to 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 going to be speaking to the majority of people. And when they say the best shape, what they're talking about is a good balance of mobility, leanness, you know, general leanness, good strength, some nice muscle development, energy and mood. Like most people are not like the best shape of my life is going to 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 going to 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'm going to 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 going to start working out. But would you build a house without a plan? Imagine trying to build a house and be like, you know, I'm just going to 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, is it the, you know, 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 will happen is you'll just show up and just work out and you will plateau like everybody does. And then you're not going to 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 going to 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 going to start, you know, this week, but rather, what is this going to look like for the whole year? And I'm going to give you a little news flash here. The plan doesn't look the same all year. So the plan is not going to be, I'm going to work out three days a week. That's what I'm going to do for the rest of the year. The more you can get into and break down what you're going to 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, you know, 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 in 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. They think that they're going to go to the gym and they're going to go from where they're at now. I don't know, 30 pounds overweight, deconditioned 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. Like you would never train a client. 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 gym goer or person that sets the fit. It's not somebody who's like, hey, I've never worked out in my life. That was a very small percentage. Like 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, the, the, what they always do. It's like they, One thing that they've never done is been able to be consistent. Yeah. That's what they're new to. This is true. Okay. 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 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, and the plan many times is, is too simple. It's too, oh, I'm just going to eat less, get rid of my bad food. And I'm going to, I'm going to come in and I'm going to train myself five, seven days a week. That's a hundred percent. 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 going to go build a house. You're like, well, what's your plan? I'm going to go and I'm going to work on it every day. That's not the plan. Like, oh, yeah, yeah, you're going to work on it. But what does that look like? What does each step look like? I bought all the materials. They're all there. I'm just going to 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 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. Fat strategy. Eventually it goes away, right? So like, you think like, oh my God, I feel so, I'm so motivated right now. Well, how many days a week can you realistically work out? Oh, four days a week. Well, right now, but what about when this motivated state of mind eventually goes away? 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 worth of personal training. I wouldn't just say, well, that's going to take 150 sessions. I would say, here's what the first two months are going to look like. And here's what we're going to focus on. We're going to work on stability, mobility. I'm going to try and alleviate some of that back pain. Then the next, the next couple of months, we're going to focus on really building strength. And here's what you can expect. The faster metabolism, your appetite is going to go up. You're going to 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 going to do is I'm going to focus on eating more vegetables. And I'm going to focus on, because I haven't done any strength training. I'm going to try and get good at like three exercises. And then after that, the next thing I'm going to do is I'm going to remove sugar from my diet. And I'm going to work on really building strength. And then after that, I'm going to focus on endurance and stamina. And I'm going to try to 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 at the very least, planning it out in this way, you have at least something that you know you're working towards. Well, and 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 an actual qualified coach that's a good coach, or you know, you listen to a lot of the advice we try to give is 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, you know, 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 a coach that can really give them a proper assessment for that. You know, the audience is probably tired of hearing me referenced when I competed. But I feel like it taught me so much, not just about myself, but even like as a coach helping other people. And one of the epiphanies that I had was, you know, knowing that I feel confident with a training program and diet and all those things like that, that I didn't need, 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. It was like 15 years at that time. You know, why do I need to write out a plan or how like, but boy, because it was only because it was something that I was competitive. Like it was like a sport, right? I'm going against other people. I was going to 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, OK, I'm going to obviously track because I need to know for sure. And it was very enlightening how much I overestimated things, underestimated things, even with all of my experience, didn't didn't know exactly what was going on with myself until I tracked to that level. So I can't stress enough to the audience that's listening that considers themself 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 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. Flexibility. Yeah, but just simply having a laid out plan for months in advance of what I needed to accomplish and do. Boy, 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. For 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 going to 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 going to look like. Second month's going to look like third month's going to look like and then 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 is 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 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. 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 time, the next few months, then from there, what I'm going to do is I'm going to, you know, I'm going to, I'm going to cut all my meals down by let's say a quarter in terms of size. So however much I eat, I'm going to cut them down by a 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 and you can 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 to look forward to and you know where you're moving, you know that, okay, for the next couple of 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 the more effective way of getting somebody from point A 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, the, the first few weeks is purely just a lot of tracking. Yes, I have a goal in mind, but as far as like my, 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. Anything, but just let me know. No, 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 fiber am I taking? How much protein intake do I take in every single day? Where's my calories average per day for the week and, 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. Realistic that way, because then it's actually something that like you can see, like I, I tend to lean towards these habits and this doesn't, this doesn't like 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. Off. Yeah. Tremendously. It's consistent. So tracking is really important. What's up everybody? Here's the giveaway for today. The RGB bundle maps anabolic maps performance maps aesthetic. You can get it for free, but here's how you have to enter to win. You go under the comments here in the first 24 hours, leave a comment and then subscribe to this channel and then turn on your notifications. Do all those things. And if we like your comment, we'll notify you in the comment section that you won the RGB bundle. We're putting the RGB bundle on sale 50% off. This sale ends the 18th. So from now until then, 50% off. Here's how you can get it. You want to go to mapsfitnessproducts.com and then use the code RGB50 for the 50% off discount. All right. Here comes the show. 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 going to lead to that big goal. Then what you want to do is you want to start with the big rocks. What I mean by big rocks is, you know, if I'm trying to empty debris out of a room, I'm going to move the big boulders first because one, you know, 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 makes it 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 what 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, you know, someone would hire me. They're all motivated like this and they'd be like, all right, here's all your things. You know, we got protein, here's fiber, here's, you know, where your sugar needs to be yet. Here's where I want your steps to be at. Oh, here's how I want you to be lifted. And it's like, and those are all big rocks, right? Sleep. I'm naming all these things, but there's so many that when you 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 built 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 into 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? Like in every aspect, both the workout part, the nutrition part like helping my sister-in-law recently. And, you know, one of the things that she was asking is like, well, what do you, what should I eat for this meal and what should I eat for that she's like, 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. Eat how you always eat. I want to see your habits. And then when I see what's going on, I go, oh, wow, you know, for breakfast, she's like all carved. 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 where I'm going to address this first meal of the day. And we're, 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 decisions that so that's a big rock because it has like a ripple effect to it, right? So it's, it's something like, and you mentioned like not drinking any more soda, like for instance, so what you replace that with more water being more hydrated, having more energy, you know, your mentally you're wanting to make better decisions nutritionally, you know, or it's strength training, right? It's something that's going to pay you back in terms of like 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, you know, more of an able body, which promotes more movement. And 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 in dividends. Yeah. Well, you're, you're developing the skill of changing behaviors. It's what it is. So you, if you're trying to develop us the, 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 and 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 kind of the snowball effect. But here's some examples of big rocks. These are just examples of 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 done really, really good studies on this topic and just consuming ultra processed foods or these hyper palatable processed foods typically will 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 going to eat these foods, but I'll eat as much as I want of 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 to 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 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. So that's why it's such a big rock. Like 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 a 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. You can do a 10-minute walk after breakfast, lunch, and dinner. But that makes a significant impact on your health. And then the last one would be sleep. Just getting better sleep because that 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. Balance out your hormones. Balance out hormones. So those are common big rocks that you could tackle. But like Adam said, and Justin was communicating, I would recommend. Yeah, either one of them or one thing in regards to each one of them. Right. Meaning this, like, okay, I get this client. They eat, they eat, let's say they're dropping the ball and all these things. They eat tons of processed food. They don't strength train whatsoever. They don't go get outside and walk and get any activity. They have a shit sleep routine. They're fucking up all of them. And now I've just told them, I'm going 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. That's another approach. That's good. I'm looking at my sister in law's diet and we're going to 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 something like that. I'm going to pick one or two things tops in there that I want to improve. Like say, oh, I noticed that you know, 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. Like dinner, we're going to make it at home and 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 next one is the maps on a ball of pre phase where I'm only asking her to go in and lift weights two days a week. That's all that's all we're going to do then like her walking. She's not doing anything activity wise outside of the gym and so that and so I'm just going to say, Hey, every day after lunch go for a 20 minute walk or something right like I'm going to say and then sleep right sleep is always messed up. I'm going to say Hey, here's this one hack. I want you to add sun goes down put your blue blockers around this just let's get in the habit of doing that one thing. Right. So I'm going to I'm going to 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 want to do that is I want to I want to start to build wins because if I ask them to do all those big rocks and to execute all of them really like all no process food walking every single day sometimes you know 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 going to give them these real subtle changes in each one of those categories and then I'm going to hold them accountable to them and then and give them a easy win and celebrate that win so we can start to build that moment. I'm going to give an analogy so think of it this way if this isn't something that you're doing on a regular basis pitch black room and this is just you're in a pitch black room this is how your eyes are adjusted now imagine 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 another kind of hard step and 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 going to get results way faster kind of but not because yes initially you may see a big change but the odds that you're going to fail after a few months is like almost a hundred percent after a year it's about a hundred percent so you will fail doing it this way so you do need to take those the biggest return that's why I listed you know 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 years it's the longest thing you'll do it's the longest you absolutely can sprint out the gates no 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 know the tortoise and the hare 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 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 ooh I didn't lose weight on the scale but I got stronger you know so I think a plateau 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 so we're starting to slow down well now I can do the same thing now I'm going to go right back throw 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 had I done everything that we could right out the gates we hit our first plateau and then where do we go there's 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 too that your body's providing you a lot more signals than just or you know your your energy for instance although those are very valuable things to pay attention to how does it affect in your sleep you know how's you know how's your overall strength in the gym like how's your endurance how's how's like 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 talk though about how 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 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 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 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 vitality so just like building muscle like if you go to the gym and your your goal let's say your goal is to build muscle and you add five pounds to your your squat and then you go back the next time you had five pounds 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 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 or you know more sets or add weight or you know cut calories a little more but wait until you get to that point you know you didn't have this in your list but this is something that I like to do for that exact reason is I I have all my clients take a photo of themselves from the front side and back you know a Friday morning 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 part of our are we on track are we seeing results are we 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 and like on the weight right if we're doing such a good job of reducing body fat while also slowly building muscle 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 these subtle changes that are happening so having these 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 much but look at right look at this picture when we first started this is just four weeks later and even though the composition is 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 two days a week now the workouts changed 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 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 just just focus on that for now and typically what you want to do is you want to take your body weight and you want to 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 want to 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 will happen is proteins very satiating tends to make you eat less more protein builds more muscle that's going to look better it's going to feel better it's going to speed up and it leads to typically better consumption habits so hit protein targets at this point is typically what I tell people I want to touch more on the increase 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 you know these friends of hers are you know chronic yo-yo dieters and going from you know on off wagon and you know she's been trying to just like trust the process with her and they started both of them this has been we're a couple months in actually we're several months in now and they both around the same time started this plateau and Katrina was coming to me and she's like you know hey they're they're following 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 they're at like a really bad plateau and I said you know when this is really common especially with my female clients like my female clients are 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 like can I lift more with good form that's right and quickly it didn't take me long of inquiring about their routine she remember her reporting back to me I said well where was their where was their bench glass 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 look at her and tell you right now she is much stronger than I 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 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 ten 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 way weeks and weeks oh yeah you ask them in the gym what to ask people like oh I do this is my routine I do shoulder press and I do a row and oh and I use the ten pound dumbbells for the shoulder press and I use the 15 pound dumbbells for the rows and I put this weight stack at 70 pounds and you know and you're like how long you been doing that for oh five years I always do 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 has got no reason 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 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 it's 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 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 going to get really the benefits of burning calories and you're going to 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 going to see anything until you start to increase that protein and not to mention like I said it contributes to just eating better overall because it's such a satiate that's why I didn't have to focus on it that was a thing that I realized 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 they would get full they get full off of 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 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 carbohydrates this many grams of fats let me see you've gotten 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 add a little activity and then this is when you hit that final goal that you have I would make the case that you'll build the best body you've ever built that's the title of the episode 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 intake because she was having digestive issues like 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 want to go totally and basically what we just gave you was 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 that 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 enabolic to mass performance 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 mapsfitnessproducts.com and then use the code RGB50 for the 50% off discount today we're going to teach you everything you need to know to build a strong well developed chest when I think of points and areas that I struggled with developing for a really long time chest was up there with the yeah it was for me it was for me for sure I got more caught up in the weight I could lift versus how I was developing my body I think it's one of the most challenging muscles to develop for most people because the form and technique