We salivate every time a new fitness ad tempts us: Try this today! Get results tomorrow!
The fitness industry is constantly churning out the next quick fix. What starts as a desire to improve our health usually gets muddied by a desire to make money.
Unfortunately for us, the promise of instant results is frequently dishonest and disheartening. It holds us hostage in a perpetual cycle of hope and disappointment as we desperately guess about what will work now, later or ever.
The following statement is not popular or how one rakes in money as a fitness professional, but I want to offer you the truth: There is no shortcut to fitness. Developing your physique, body composition, endurance and athletic output requires consistent effort over time.
When we are not willing to invest time and effort into transforming our bodies, we can find ourselves caught in “yo-yo dieting” or “weight cycling.” This is the timeless tale of the dieter who loses 30 pounds in 30 days, then regains that 30 pounds – plus more. The pattern continues as every “magic bullet” explodes and fades.
There is a way to cut the string of the yo-yo and to outlast the magic. It is not new, and it does not require a low monthly payment of $99.95 if you apply the promo code for new subscribers only that expired in the previous sentence. It is ancient, it is free, and it is available to you at any time. Best of all, it works: patience.
I am proud to unveil The Big Yogi’s latest fitness program based on this science: Patience Training™. P-training™ is an innovative system that I have developed to empower you to achieve and to sustain your fitness goals through a long-term, multidimensional program that laces intelligent, full-body workouts with the grueling mental exercise of patience.
P-training will shatter all limitations that you have placed on your body. It will elevate you to unprecedented levels of strength, flexibility and endurance. It will transform you to establish: Your New Normal™.
What Is Your New Normal?
The human body is designed to return to homeostasis, which Dictionary.com defines as: “the tendency of a system, especially the physiological system of higher animals, to maintain internal stability, owing to the coordinated response of its parts to any situation or stimulus that would tend to disturb its normal condition or function.”
Our bodies are meant to be balanced and healthy. They are constantly doing everything that they can to return us to this state. Our challenge is that our bodies also get used to the shape and demands that we set for them.
For example, an athlete’s body understands its obligation to constantly perform at peak levels, so it knows what it must do to maintain the strength, flexibility and endurance to execute. Even after long periods of being out of shape, an athlete’s body can recover previous levels of fitness quickly because it already has experienced what is being asked of it.
On the flip side, a body that has spent much of its life being sedentary and/or overweight also will understand what is required of it: not much. It therefore requires more time and effort to change.
P-training discourages you from beating yourself up if you are unhappy with your current state of normal. Instead, it invites you to cultivate a new state of normal.
How Can You Develop Your New Normal?
1. Move often.
New research shows that we need to exercise for one hour at least five times per week. This number will change depending on your size, goals and profession – aka whether you are a desk jockey or a professional athlete.
The most efficient way to exercise for improved body composition is through weight lifting and high-intensity interval training. Nothing burns more calories more quickly or creates more lean muscle mass. The combination of these two results can shift how your body looks and feels tremendously.
2. Gain and lose weight slowly.
Strive to gain or to lose a maximum of only 1 to 2 pounds per week. As your weight changes, your body needs time to adjust to its new state. If your weight changes too quickly to permit this stabilization, your body risks reverting to its previous form. Taking things slowly and doing things correctly are the secrets to lasting transformation – regardless of your goals.
Let’s look at two opposing examples:
[peicon size=”size-16″ icon=”ion-chevron-right”] A young, thin male who is 6 feet tall, weighs 150 pounds and wants to gain weight:
This client will need to learn how to lift heavy weights. His body is accustomed to being thin and will lean toward this state naturally. It may take years for him to overcome this tendency.
If we can get this client to gain just 1 pound of muscle per month for one year, he will gain 12 pounds of muscle in a year! Multiply this slow, steady pace by three years, and our young boy has transformed into a strapping man who weighs a whopping 186 pounds.
[peicon size=”size-16″ icon=”ion-chevron-right”] A middle-aged, overweight female who is 5 feet 5 inches, weighs 185 pounds and wants to lose weight:
This client will need to learn how to increase her exercise intensity and frequency. With guidance, she could begin to build these habits. But it most likely would take over a year, if not longer, to ingrain them into her psyche.
In contrast to the client above, we may want this client to lose 1 pound per week. In one year, she would lose 52 pounds, lowering her weight to 133. This would yield a drastic change in body composition, physical appearance and overall health.
This amount of weight loss even may be too drastic. We may want this client to lose only half a pound per week to ensure her body can adjust to its new normal and does not bounce back to its larger frame.
3. Be patient.
This is the key to P-training.
Learning to exercise properly and sustainably may take you years to learn. An insightful book called “Outliers” asserts that mastery requires 10,000 hours of repetition. This demands patience.
Obtaining results from these new exercise habits also requires time. It would take the clients above a long time to unlearn their old normal and to accomplish their new normal. This too demands patience.
P-training may be the most challenging fitness exercise that you have ever tried. But I guarantee – or your money back! – that it will empower you to establish a new normal that will transform your fitness. And not just for the summer – but for your entire life.
Are you ready to construct your new normal? Enroll in a P-training program today!
Come to my small-group training class as my guest or contact me about personal training.
A Maur Unity collaboration, edited by Maura Bogue