How to change your body forever, step by step

Jonathan Woods
Oct 30, 2020
10 min read

Jonathan here. This is a long read, but its worth it, especially if you haven't talked with me before. The following report is designed to empower you with expert knowledge of time-tested, evidence-based research on how to get in and stay in great shape through proven strategies used by fitness professionals around the world. In fact, these are the same topics I discuss with each personal training client I've had over the last decade as a certified personal trainer. Today, I want you to know too. Here we go!

Step 1: Build Rapport With Fitness Before we can get anywhere, lets understand the simple fact that we as people will be more likely to succeed if we have a good rapport with something or someone associated with the topic we want to understand, in this case, fitness. Every step that you take in a positive direction towards your fitness goal, you’re more likely to keep on making progress. And that starts with having good experiences with fitness and the fitness world around you. Whether you do it by spending time with a fit friend or family member, keeping with you an inspiring photo of you in that outfit years ago, reading about success stories in health and wellness magazines, or anything at all that lets you associate good feelings with fitness, be open to doing more of that. Step 2: Discover What You Want Let's focus on what's important when it comes to improving your fitness. What do you want? To make real changes in your body, first you need to be clear about where you've been, where you are now, and where you want to go. So get something you can write on, and answer yourself some questions like these:

“What are your top 3 fitness goals?”
“Why are those goals important to you?
"How would they change your life?”
“How long have those been goals of yours?”
“What specific events are coming up within the next 12 months for which you would like to reach your goals?:”(If you don't have any, make one!”)
“would achieving your goals by (that date) make your upcoming (event) more enjoyable?”
“On a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being the most serious) how important is it to you to reach your goals?:”
“What motivates you the most to make a change now and not before?”
“Do you have anyone such as a spouse or close friend that supports your fitness endeavors?”
“Would you agree having someone there to assist you would be important to reaching your goals?”
“How many days per week do you plan on working out?”
“What is your exact plan to achieve your goals by your deadline?” (hint: if you don't have one, you need one)"
“If yes, based on how it has worked for you in the past, is this the best possible plan for you to follow now?”
“Have you ever had a personal trainer before?”
“What prevented you from reaching your goals in the past?” “Are you still facing them now?”
“Do you know exactly how many calories you are eating on a daily basis? Please answer with a yes or no.”
“How many coffees, junky snacks, sodas, and alcoholic beverages do you drink per week?”
“How many days per week do you eat out for breakfast/lunch/dinner?”
“Are you taking any vitamins/shakes/meal replacements?”
“If you smoke, how many packs per day?”
“What is your sex, height, age, weight, goal weight?”
“What is your resting heart rate?”
“What is your blood pressure?”

Once you understand what you want, now you can get motived by understanding the urgency of taking action now. Step 3: Understand Your Urgency If you have urgency to get something done, you’ll actually do it, instead of waiting for the “perfect time”, and we all know the perfect time to take action doesn’t exist. The only time is now. So let’s find out what needs to be addressed now, not later. For many people, that means understanding their current unhealthy condition that if left unaddressed for another day, week, month, or year, will lead to some less desired health outcomes later in life, such as having a high body fat percentage. Have you ever wondered what percent of your body is made up from fat? Its the amount of fat you have in our bodies versus everything else such as bone, muscle, etc. It's a good number to know and track as you make progress. According to the American College of Sports Medicine, men can have a range of 4.2% (very lean) to 37.3% (very poor) and women 11.4% (very lean) to 40.0% (very poor). There's a couple ways to calculate it, but first let's talk about why body fat percentage matters. Having a high body fat percentage can increase the risk for chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and cancer. So let’s move on to the timeline for reducing the risk. For example, following a healthy nutrition and exercise program, the average person can expect to lose as much as 1 to 2% of body fat per month, and about 1-2 pounds of fat per week. So to make a timeline using these numbers, with someone's goal to lose 5% body fat and 20 pounds, that means it will take about 5-10 months to reach their goal body fat %, and about 10-20 weeks to reach their weight goal. So knowing this now, and if this sounds like your current situation, would you say that your commitment level should be at a 10/10? Step 4: Experience The Benefits The benefits of exercise for your body, your mind, your mood, and much more, are worlds better when following structured guidance laid out by the experts, versus just "winging it" without good planning, and this is the edge you probably didn't even know you were looking for. Here's why… For most people, in order to make progress, the goal is to increase your metabolism, so when we talk about losing those pounds, they are from fat and not muscle to get you fit and healthy. This is accomplished through a combination of guidance of proper nutrition, cardio training, and resistance training. It would make sense to burn fat so we can see the muscle on your body right? The next goal is to keep burning body fat while building strong lean muscle. The more muscle you have on your body, the more calories you will be burning at all times. So even when you’re sitting down looking at cat memes on the computer, if you have more lean muscle on you, the more calories you will burn, the more fat you will lose, the better you will look and feel, and the healthier you will be. Whether we are talking about helping you gain muscle or helping you lean and tone, this is how you can start becoming a calorie burning machine. In fact, for approximately every 1 pound of pure muscle you have on your body, the body burns up to an extra 50 calories per day IN ADDITION to your normal activity. So to put that into perspective, approximately for every 10 pounds of muscle added to the body, we burn put to an extra 500 calories per day, or 3500 calories per week (thats a big deal, because there are about 3500 calories in a pound of fat, so after adding 10 pounds of muscle to the body, we can burn up to an extra pound of fat every week just by doing nothing!) Imagine how many calories you will burn as you put on more and more lean muscle even when you are not exercising! This means that you could live life more freely and eat more of the things you like and not feel scared to gain weight by just looking at dessert! It takes the average person 4-6 weeks to gain 1 pound of muscle tissue onto the body so we are not talking about increasing your metabolism overnight. Just as you didn’t get out of shape overnight, it takes time to change your metabolism so it works this efficiently. The key is to be burning fat from head to toe, while also focusing on your target areas, because the body knows where to put on or take away fat. I assume that when you gain weight, you don't tell it where to go, right? It works the same way in reverse: when you lose fat, the body knows where to take it away. So once you start to lean out, the body will now reveal all the parts you worked so hard on to change and the six pack abs will finally start to show. Typically when most people start to exercise they see results the first 2-3 weeks, then the body adapts to what they’ve been doing, and they stop making progress. This is the point most people get discouraged and quit. To make sure you keep making progress, the goal is to keep manipulating variables such as reps, sets, tempo, rest periods, exercise selection, etc. (If you don’t know what those are or how to structure your workout with them, a good certified personal trainer should teach you). Lasting results means going through several stages of your journey towards your goal: First you set the foundation for progress later by learning proper form and posture. This is when you get to know what is good and not good for your body. This begins to challenge your body with fundamental exercises that won’t make you too sore in the beginning; however you will feel soreness in the beginning no matter what. Next, you will start to adapt to some of your workout routines, and that is when you will update the workout variables we talked about to keep you making progress. This is when you will begin to feel and see real changes in your body when you look in the mirror and feel how differently your clothes fit. Finally, you will transform into feeling and looking entirely different, like your own superhero. At this point you will crank up the complexity and intensity of your workouts until you reach your goal. But it doesn’t stop there. Once you hit your goal, you will need the education, plan, and support to live there and maintain your progress. Step 5: Commit To Something Ok, let's get back to setting you up for success! In order to do that, you have to be committed to something consistently. Here are some basic guidelines I have clients commit to that has lead to monumental success. First, think about this “should I go this alone” test… Based on your current health and fitness, and your current education, plan, and support that you may or may not have that is necessary to improve it, is it important that you finally find a solution that works? If no, congratulations because you already have the tools you need to get and stay fit. If yes, go ahead and read on. My recommendations often combine exercise, nutrition, and lifestyle changes that transform the body into a calorie burning machine, and enable the body to burn as much as approximately 1-2 pounds of pure body fat on a weekly basis...let’s discuss how to get there. Component 1: The first component is resistance training (aka strength training/weight bearing activity) which is the key to building muscle to increase your metabolism and fat burning. I recommend most people to do this 3-5 days per week. Do you feel you can commit to that?” Component 2: The second component is cardio conditioning (aka heart rate training) which I typically recommend to do 2-4 days per week. This will enhance the fat burning… but surprisingly, the foundation for weight loss is resistance training (ask me about muscle metabolism if we haven't discussed that already) which will also have some cardio in it as well. Do you feel you can commit to that?” Component 3: Thirdly, nutrition. I usually recommend sticking with a healthy eating program 5-6 days per week. My clients are much more successful when they have the nutritional guidance, education, and accountability I provide. Can you commit to that? Component 4: Finally, hire a certified personal trainer. I typically recommend working with a trainer 2-3 times per week. A certified personal trainer provides you with the perfect mix of all those components into a customized fitness plan and takes the guesswork out of getting results. Step 6: Weigh the Cost Let's talk about how your budget might be holding you back from your fat loss goals and the cost of not improving your health… Based on nutrition and lifestyle answers many clients tell me during my consultations, I often calculate that my new clients were spending upwards of $300 per month on things that ARE NOT helping them achieve their goals! How, you ask? For example, ordering that daily $5 Starbucks coffee and $20 dollars of junky restaurant takeout two nights a week really adds up to $300 every month spent on things that do not serve our purpose… If that sounds like you, when it comes to your body and your health, those are obstacles that we need to remove. As we age, our muscle mass decreases with time, and our metabolisms begins to slow, unless we do something about it. Right now, chances are your problem is at its lowest and your motivation is at its highest. So if you don’t take action today your motivation could lessen and your problem could get worse, and a year from now you’re going to be a year older when it could be harder to make a change. Step 7: Choose You If you feel confident you can commit to dedicating time for your fitness at least a couple days per week, and you realistically need at least a few weeks for your fat loss or muscle toning goals to be achieved, you now have the choice to ignore your problems another day, or finally make yourself a priority. Which one will you get started on today? If you’re choosing the healthy, energetic, low stress, happy, sexy, fit you, then congratulations, you’re going to do great! Over the next few weeks and months as you utilize your newfound knowledge to get the results you want, I encourage you to tell all your friends about what you've learned and introduce me to more people like you. My mission is to serve as many people as possible by empowering them toward wellness, and I want to thank you for being a part of that with me. Enjoy the journey and never give up!

P.S., I'm looking to give away 6 weeks of FREE online small group personal training to 6 hard working people that want to get in the best shape of their lives. It's totally free, and the training is meant to change your body fast. The catch? You have to commit to being consistent to working out with me for a full 6 weeks so I can show off your results at the end to all your friends and family. You'll get the benefit of getting in great shape at no cost, and you'll be helping me grow my online presence, so more people can get to know me as the best around for all your online personal training needs. Its a win-win! I can only give away 6 spots at a time so email me back asap if you want in :)

Yours in Wellness, Jonathan Woods, MS, CPT CEO and Founder, Partner Wellness, LLC JonathanPWoods.com 305-396-1139 Online Nutrition Coaching Online Personal Training