Roadmap to Ripped? What does that mean exactly? No, you don’t have to go to Las Vegas to understand this, but it might help. Only because I’m here, lending my personal trainer expertise to help you read that roadmap.
OK. So, here’s the situation. Your parents went away on a weeks vacation. Wait. No, that’s wrong. OK. New situation. You want to get ripped. You want to lose fat. And on and on. We all know the feeling. But have you thought about how you are going to do this? Let’s pretend our goal to rippedness, is actually a trip. So. what do we need for our trip? If we are going somewhere we’ve never been before, we need directions. Whether it’s through GPS, or Mapquest, or Rand McNally, someone has to tell us how to get there. Then we have to find our vehicle. Are we going to fly, or take a train? Maybe we’ll drive our own car. Who is coming with us? Do we have travel buddies that would make this trip more enjoyable, or people that could help us find the way? Also, we more than likely will need to fuel up for this trip. Can’t go anywhere without gas. Once we have all that figured out, we are set right? Cross country trip here we go. Not quite. We have to map out points of interest along the way, refueling, and recharging. NOW, let’s be on our way.
Let us translate this into fitness. Minus the Fresh Prince reference, let’s take a look at what we just talked about. We need directions. We can’t go anywhere, unless we know how to get there. If you have no goal, or end point in mind, you’ll just be running circles and using a lot of fuel, for nothing. Make a goal, and figure out how to get there, with specific directions. This could be something like saying you want to lose 10 pounds by March 1st. But if you don’t have any way to do that, more than likely it won’t happen. Maybe you take the advice of someone like me and sign up for a fitness program, and start to learn about nutrition. There are your directions. As far as your vehicle of choice, we aren’t left with many options, as we only have one body, but that’s a good thing, because there is one less thing to think about. Do you have travel buddies? Maybe your spouse, brother, roommate, or co-worker has the same goals as you. You could buddy up, and make this less of a solo mission, and be entertained by your travel companion. Maybe that companion is your trainer. Either way, making the drive yourself is usually less enjoyable. When we are talking about fuel, we are talking about food. Are you going use inferior food to fuel this trip, or are you going to put the premium in, so performance of your vehicle is top notch? We want the cleanest, highest performance food for our bodies. You aren’t going to try and gas up a Lamborghini with the cheap stuff, are you? As far as the points of interest and refueling, if this is a cross country trip, we are going to need to rest at some point, let our body recover, and refuel, and take in the scenery of the journey. Acknowledge the 3 pounds you lost. Notice the new ab you see in the mirror. Enjoy it.
This trip is not always easy, and sometimes, it gets boring. You get tired when it seems like you’ve been driving forever, but you always have to keep that end point in sight. Break up the journey, stop every so often, and you’ll find that this trip isn’t really as long as you thought, and you don’t hate it, but actually enjoy it. The Roadmap to Ripped is usually already around you.
We all have seen The Biggest Loser. The show on TV that basically tells the general public losing 20 pounds in a week is normal. Yeah, well, it’s not. Losing 5 pounds a week isn’t really normal or healthy either. Think about your current state of health. Are you overweight? If the answer is yes, by how much? If you are 20 pounds overweight, how long did it take you to gain those 20 extra pounds? A week? Have you ever tried to gain 20 pounds in a week? How about 5, even? How long did it take you to gain 5 solid, consistent pounds? Not pounds that come and go, but pounds that stick. I am willing to bet more than a week. Possibly even a month. My point is, why, if it took you a while to gain that extra weight, do you THINK it can healthily come OFF in comparatively light speed amounts of time? Now ask yourself another question. If you watch The Biggest Loser, would you watch it, if these people lost on average, 2 pounds a week? I bet that answer is no. They rig the show to have dramatic results, not real life, or real attainable results. Plus, ask any of those people losing massive amounts of weight quickly what their skin looks like. Anyway, take this home. Your should be gradual, not instant. you need a plan physically, mentally, and nutritionally. Don’t think diet, think PLAN. Think Lifestyle. The Biggest Loser, is NOT your weight loss plan.
