Some of the top pet peeves about the fitness industry, are the polarizing levels of expectations that people have when it comes to seeing results. It annoys the shit out of me (and other trainers) because what people want to achieve is hardly ever sensible. On one hand, we have morons that think they can lose a hundred pounds in a month and then we have underachievers who give people slow and un-motivating expectations, by saying that results will take decades.

Both these toolbags are utterly wrong.

You can’t expect a miracle in 10 days, but you should not expect to spend a decade getting to where you want to be. The real answer lies somewhere in the middle for most people… a years or less; depending on how much you’ve let yourself go.

Most of you know I hate that term weight loss with a passion. I want to punch it in the face; I’m more about fat loss. But for now, let’s assume that we are talking about the same thing. How realistic should your expectations be if you want to get lean and mean? Today I’ll give you a general guideline so that you can see into the future and say “hi” to the skinner and sexier you. That’s right you lazy bastards (and the not so lazy ones), FJ’s got the crystal ball and you get to take a peek.

There are four factors that will decide the outcome to your success. You can think of them as a chain and every “weak link” in the chain will hamper your results. The stronger you make each link, the faster you’ll see progress. It’s like the old saying goes: The whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

Frequency

You know, there were some low life haters that despised The Biggest Loser and criticised the shit outta it. Then there were realists and awesome people like me who loved every minute of it. While it had serious entertainment value and Jillian Michaels is one of my side crushes, the show proved one very important thing; training with a ridiculous frequency delivers results when it comes to dropping pounds. Period.

The show didn’t do everything right, not by a long shot. Some of the exercise choices were poor and a few food choices were lame but the fact of the matter is, the winners of that show went through a mind-blowing transformation. I mean, when you look at the before/after pictures you just cannot argue with the end result. And reason is that they trained with such a high frequency that even if their diet was shit and their exercise program was a mess, results were inevitable. How long are we talking? 8 hours a day/7days a week.

Now back that thang up. I am by no means saying that you need to train for that long… in fact if you can, you need to get a damn job. I’m just saying that if you can train 4 days/week for 60 minutes instead of 3 days/week for 45 minutes then you should do so. And if you want to get all nerdy about it, the explanation is really dead simple. The more you move, the more calories you burn, and assuming your eating habits (more on that below) are under your maintenance rate, you’ll drop the weight.

Intensity

This term still hasn’t truly been defined in the industry, and mainly because it’s not something you can measure directly. Powerlifters and bodybuilders can say that intensity is basically the T.U.T (time under tension). The greater your TUT for a given load, the more “intense” your workout. Fair enough. But for people looking to achieve general weight loss, I’m going to say that the definition of intensity should be directly related to heart rate. The longer you can keep your heart rate elevated at a rate above the norm, the higher your intensity.

This means that doing 4 sets of deadlifts with 30 second rest in between will be a more intense workout than if you were to use the exact same weight but rest for 90 seconds in between the four sets. Now obviously the deadlift session with 30 second rest intervals will be over sooner than the 90 second rest session… so doesn’t that average out?

No, because if you recall in my definition I included a time element. Getting your heart rate up is one thing, keeping it there is a different ball game. So switch over to another exercise and keep chugging along. If your workout session lasts only 45 mins, then with 30 second rest intervals you would’ve gotten more work done and thus burnt more calories. The best way to go about this is with a super set workout plan. Oh and let me tell you right now, 30 second rest intervals are a bitch and a half, but it’s how I manage to say this lean without ever bothering to do cardio. Do it once, do it quick, and do it right.

Program Layout

So working out 4 days a week and keeping your workouts intense will no doubt deliver results… but if all you’re doing is lifting the same crap day in and day out and or just running around like a hamster, then sooner or later your body will adapt. Once your body adapts, you’ll hit a plateau and will most probably kill yourself in frustration. To avoid country-wide suicides, I suggest planning your workouts with some intelligence. Here are a few things you can do (besides higher professional help):

• Change up your core workout plan every 4-5 weeks. No E-Training client of mine has done the same workout plan for longer than 5 weeks. I make new ones all the time.
• Change up minor details in you workout plan every time you hit up the gym. For example, if you ran at 7.5mph for 20 mins, bump that shit to 8mph. No two workouts should be identical, even if they follow the same exercise order.
• Always, Always, Always use multi-joint lift movements and leave the isolation lifts for people who already have a killer body (like me). Deadlifts, Barbell Squats, Jumping Squats, Lunges, Powercleans, Overhead Press, Benchpress, Pullups and Dips are some of the best fat burning exercises you can do. Do you notice something ironic here? These are also the best strength builders… all you have to change is the load amount, rest period, reps and you’re set. Powerlifting and Fat Cutting have many parallels that too many people fail to see.
• Alternate high reps with medium reps but don’t bother doing low reps. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that never go below 10 reps. If you can’t lift for 10, you’re lifting too heavy. Remember, your goal is fat loss. People think you need to do this weird shit where you need to lift 6-8 reps to build muscle then 15-20 reps to burn fat or whatever. NO! If you’re resistance training, you will build muscle. You can focus on serious hypertrophy once you’re a bit leaner.

If you want a solid fat loss workout, then grab my Fat Burning Secrets package below. It will cost you nothing and will get you in better shape than 99% of the junk programs you see in fitness magazines.

Eating Habits

This factor is probably the most important. I really believe that 60% – 65% of your weight loss success comes form how you manage your food intake. You could literally not do anything I said above. In fact, when it comes to “exercising”, you can just go for half hour walks 3 days/week, but if you’re eating habits are tighter than a virgin, you’ll drop the pounds. No joke.

The best and easiest way to start is to find out what your maintenance calories are and then drop that number by 400-500. A simple way to find your maintenance calories is to track what you eat for a week and average out your daily calories. Now you know the amount of calories that made you fat; assuming you didn’t change the way you ate. Then you take this number and drop it by 500 and test it out…

If your weight doesn’t change then congratulations, you’ve found your maintenance calories. If it goes up, drop it by 200-300 calorie increments till you find it. If the weight drops then increase it. There are obviously more sophisticated/quicker ways of doing this, but I’ve found that this longer method is one of the most accurate since it mimics a person’s already established bad habit.

Now, some people like Intermittent Fasting… which in my opinion is just a clever way of cutting anywhere from 1500-2000 calories of your weekly intake. I personally like eating but do whatever works for you. As long as you’re eating less than your body needs, you’ll drop the weight. Throw on intense exercise done frequently with smart program design and viola! You’ll be ripped.

Conclusion

The advice I just gave will most probably help you achieve 10%-15% body fat assuming there are no “weak links” in your chain. Below is a chart with some realistic expectations you can hope to see depending on how many factors you’ve nailed. I’ve compiled this list of average numbers from my E-Training clients so don’t freak out if your numbers are below or above. It’s just an educated guess. Some clients can afford to train 5 days a week, others can only manage only 2, so be aware of that.

Legend:

• Fq – High Frequency Of Workous (4+ days/week)
• In – Intense Workouts (Rest Periods <60 secs)
• P – Smart Program Layout (Big lifts, correct technique etc.)
• D – Proper Diet (Lower than maintenance calories + good macro-nutrient ratios)

Notice how when all you have working for you is your diet (3rd option), you can still manage to lose up to half a pound a week. That’s 2lbs/month or 24 lbs/year just from proper eating alone!

Finally, if you want to get down to those ridiculous 5%-6% that I stay at, then you’ll have to introduce some supplementation, tweak your macronutrient ratios, do carbohydrate cycling and execute a few dehydration tricks (for photo shoots). But that is a whole another subject matter which will take more than one post to explain. For now though, if you aren’t at a body fat level of 10% – 15%, then you should be excited in your panties because I’ve just laid out a solid blueprint for you. Get your ass to work. And if you need someone with mad skills and experience to customize and put everything together for you, then you know where to find me.

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