Making a real change in your life requires 3 main factors
1) Goal
2) Deadline
3) Reward
Every “to do” list and idea that you come up with is just a dream without a clearly stated goal. Setting goals that are too far off in the distance don’t help create any momentum and leave you wishing and dreaming about ‘some day’ when it’ll all happen for you.
The goal most be achievable, within site, and clearly defined…and the most important factor to bring a goal to life is setting is a deadline. Without a clearly defined deadline a goal is meaningless.
Finally a goal must always be linked to a reward (otherwise what was the point of setting the goal in the first place)
In todays podcast we’ll talk about the goal of changing your body and the rewards that follow.
As you see your body change you will also notice people changing the way they react to you. This change is profound and you will also notice that you must also change the way you act.
You’ll learn all of this while we profile one of our transformation contest winners Tristan Creswick 3rd place overall.
We’ll discuss:
1. How your look changes your inner game
2. How your look changes what you will and won’t do
3. How your look changes how people act
4. What it takes to change your body
5. How low calories really have to go for effective weight loss
6. Social and psychological changes that come with a better body
John
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
{ 13 comments }
How would a deadline apply to someone who has a significant amount of weight to lose? I have roughly 70 pounds to lose. A deadline for 70 pounds would be a while away. 9, 12, 15 months, I don’t even know. Should I break it down into smaller increments, say, 5 or 10 pounds, then set a deadline to lose that particular amount, and just repeat until I’m done?
Trist,
Great interview!
Jorden,
That is the best way to do it you have an overall goal of 70 lbs. set closer “Benchmark goals” at 6- 12- 18 week intervals to check your progress and evaluate your plan.
“GIT-R-DONE” funny story so I seen larry the cable guy live the other day and belive it or not he is taking steps forward in fitness.
This is due to the fact that he lost 50 pounds last year. Honestly it would be great if larry would lose some more weight, a comedian like that whos audiences are usually genrally unhealthy would be a great roll model for the adverage persone.
So I’m here listening to Tristan talking about gorging and stuffing his face…while on a FAST.
Great interview, Tristan.
…and hearing my name so many times was totally embarrassing (looking back at things)…:P
Although, I *do* “get” why people fight doing the AI even though we bought it….now I get it.
Again, great interview and podcast.
Jordan,
Sometimes goals don’t have to be so set as x amount of inches of fat loss in y amount of time. WHen I lost about 5 inches (and 30lbs) in 10 weeks, I didn’t have a goal like that. Instead my goal was “I’m going to do this program with 100% effort and keep my calories at a certain amount and fast 2x/week.”
Mostly because I didn’t know how much I could or would lose. Like this, in my mind, I wasn’t limiting what I could achieve.
Just my .02.
Jason
Thanks, Ron and Jason.
Jason, I don’t know how much I’ll lose either! I know I’d like to end up somewhere around 175-185, but I can’t say for sure. It depends on what I look like when I get there. And I don’t know how long it will take either. I think it was John that emphasized that weight loss usually happens quickly, rather than a slow process over a long period of time, so I don’t want to short-change myself in that regard. Maybe it won’t take 9 or 12 months. That would be great, lol.
Clearly you were more focused on the process than the results. That’s a good point. If one is doing the right things, the results should follow. Now that I’m finally focused and serious about losing weight, I feel more impatient about losing those x number of pounds. I’m probably too preoccupied with the numbers. I should just use the weigh-in as a double-check that the process is working, and that I’m on track.
Thanks for the food for thought.
My experience while doing eat stop eat consistently over a long time was that i lost 0,5cm off my waist every week. And that was just by doing ESE and a workout program (called 5/3/1 if anyone’s familiar with it, it contains a bit more advanced lifts then say, the adonis system). It doesn’t matter how much gravitational pull you have, what matters is (by adonis philosophy) how symmetrical you are. The other podcasts have been pretty clear on why weight is a bad measurement. I lost CONSISTENTLY 0,5cm of my waist every week doing ESE. I also went out once or twice (usually twice) every weekend drinking alcohol and eating good food when I wanted to. So anyone in my situation *might* use this to set a deadline for waist measurement.
However I think it’s wrong to expect a deadline for muscle gain. If your gains are consistent, sure. But muscle gain isn’t like fat loss, you can’t just add up some numbers. If your nervous system is in the right state one day, you might end up activating a lot of muscle fibre and getting a lot more hypertrophy (muscle growth), but then again the other day you might be in crappy shape (there’s soooo many variables to this you can’t even start to imagine them). As you notice not even the adonis guys (who are pretty much the most down-to-earth, science oriented, result-focused guys in the fitness industry) really give you any specific guidelines as to how much muscle growth to expect (if you have, I’m sorry, I believe I’ve heard all of your podcasts). I’m doing a “bulk” now (5 days of 500kcal surplus in recovery periods, 24h fast over two next days) and I SEEM to be adding about 0,5cm to my shoulders every week. How is this compared to the other adonis results? Do people have some consistency in their muscle gains? I think there should be some way to gather information about this, so you can give guys some estimate of what people *usually* gain with those and those pre-existing bodies (A complete beginner will of course have different gains then someone with a good neurological strenght base but not much mass).
Just my 2 cents anyways
Lars,
This is a great experiment you’re doing and we would love to hear how it works for you over the next while. How long do you plan on doing this ‘bulk’ phase?
As you’ve probably heard me say, I cannot come up with any scientific reason why any caloric excess should produce muscle gain, but I sure am curious to see how it goes.
The reason we don’t give any specific guidelines on muscle growth rates is because we’ve never seen consistent results that suggest where to even start with a guideline. The best we can come up with is that it all boils down to more work. More total reps, more time under tension, just more. And of course even this theory will reach a point of diminishing returns where ever increasing work will eventually cause over training and a breakdown or injury.
I guess my only question to you would be as follows: If 500 calories extra is doing something for muscle building, wouldn’t 1000 calories extra do it twice as well? And if that is the case why stop at 500 calories? Wouldn’t 5000 calories work 10 times better?
Also if this is going to ‘add muscle’ in a linear fashion, how long do you think it will continue to work for you? if you can add 0.5 cm to your shoulders every week does that mean by the end of the year you will have added 26cm’s to your shoulder measurement? If it really is as simple as “add calories and grow” wouldn’t you be growing forever?
My point is there is a genetic limit to the size the muscle can get, and it seems to be controlled by the amount of work done and not calories.
But I am still very curious to see where you get to. Please keep us updated.
John
Hey Guys,
Great interview. I have a question though. I am 6′.0″ tall and have a 32″ waist (measured at or a touch above my navel I get narrower from that poijnt down). My shoulders are at 47.5″. I want to get my shoulders to around 51″ to 52″. I eat about 1,500 calories a day Monday through Friday and about 3,000 for both Saturday and Sunday. This leaves me in a calorie deficit because I lift pretty hard 4 to 5 days a week (I hit shoulds twice a week really hard 12 to 20 sets of 10 to 15 reps of various shoulder exercises). I also take 5 grams of creatine monohydrate. My goal is to have a harder more defined 6 pack and broader shoulders. The calorie deficit will remove the fat layer on my abs but will it prevent the growth of my shoulders despite the amount of lifting and creatine?
Any help with this would be very appreciated.
Thanks,
Mike
Mike,
That sounds like it should be a good formula for what you’re goals are. Consistency with your training and patiences are the other parts. Muscle growth just takes time.
JB
I’m planning on doing it until I’m at a 1.618. (currently around 1.45). My waist is where I want it so I mostly need to build muscle. I kept up a log with weekly pictures when I tested ESE, and I’m doing the same now. So far I’m only two weeks in, but I can see pretty big changes already – especially when I compare it to the changes I saw when I did the same program while doing ESE(Visually I really didn’t see any improvements, my data suggested that I gained some 1kg LBM). I can see (and have recieved comments on) improvements in my upper back, shoulders and chest.
My “bulk” food is a litre of whole milk that I consume right after working out. If you want to I can send you a summary when summer grows near, I always keep logs of pretty much everything, and I’d love to be able to contribute with some qualitative data.
I’m having some trouble getting correct shoulder measurement, but really any trend in growth should be obvious when a certain amount of time has passed.
oh wow, I can’t believe you guys said to unsubscribe from others if we are subscribed to you, because just in the past week after listening to podcast after podcast, I’ve unsubscribed from Men’s Health, Arnel TV, and a couple of other online fitness coaches and newsletters. I just can’t believe how real you guys are and honestly, I get a little emotional now whenever I look in the mirror because for the very first time in my life, I’m starting to LOVE, not like, but LOVE what I see. I can’t believe how much I’ve learned since I purchased the Adonis Effect. I lead everyone who asks me to you guys and I tell them, this program has changed my life and I know this is only the very beginning. John B., Brad, and John P. THANK YOU
Hey Pierre good work buddy and John excellent site! You helped me set a new goal to achieve : Reaching the Golden Ratio! However I’ve some “confusing” questions going through my mind nowadays.
First of all I am 183 cm tall with 77 cm waist, 98 cm chest and 123 shoulder circumference. So chest-to-waist ratio is 1.27 and my Shoulder-to-waist ratio is 1.59. But I feel like there’s something missing.I mean I don’t think I have the body that can help through social domination yet and all the other stuff.
Is it because my Waist is narrow compared to my Height which doesn’t allow me to go beyond 125 for the Golden Ratio? What do you recommend here?
And Which muscle group should I work the most to achieve the 1.4 Golden Ratio (Chest-to-Waist)? Lats, chest or Middle trapezius?
Any Help would be highly appreciated!
Thank you man you’re the best!
Sorry to “piggyback” on this subject – I did a search for “measuirng waist” and it did not return any results. My question is what is the correct way to accurately measure my waist? Around the belly button, if I pull the tape tight I can get 34″ (someone said that fat doesn’t compress so this is a valid measurement), but if I just let my belly hang loose – I get 37.5″. I am 6’2″ tall. Seems like if you just “don’t let it hang but don’t suck it in” then you are going to get a different measurement every time, hence my confusion.
Thank you in advance
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