Here’s how to kick-start your New Year health and fitness mission to guarantee you’ll get the better-body results you want!
Part 1: Set up for success
1. Have a specific goal
‘I want to lose 5kg of fat’ is a better goal than ‘I want to lose weight’ because it is measurable and trackable.
2. Set a realistic timeframe
Setting a time-frame, such as six or eight weeks, allows you to break your big goal down into manageable chunks.
3. Don’t weigh yourself every day
Your weight will fluctuate from day to day today, which can be distracting. A better strategy is to weigh in once a week and take weekly progress photos.
Part 2: Eat well
4. Make protein a priority
Eating a portion of protein (meat, fish or eggs) in every meal will control calorie intake, make you feel full and help build muscle.
5. Forget perfection
You don’t need to eat perfectly to succeed. Eating well 80% of the time will allow you to make progress. Hit 90% and you’ll be flying.
6. Max out on veg
Veg is nutrient dense and low in calories so it’ll keep you healthy and help you feel full.
7. Take your time
Chewing your food is the easiest way to absorb more nutrients and ensure you never mindlessly over-eat.
8. Drink heavily
Water, that is. Drink more water to feel energised and prevent you from confusing hunger with dehydration.
9. Cupboard love
What’s in your cupboards will end up in your stomach. Want to avoid eating sugary snacks you know you don’t need? Then don’t buy it.
To find your perfect plan, take the New Body quiz!
Take the New Body quiz!
Part 3: Train smart
10. Plan sessions
Writing your sessions into your diary for the week ahead is the biggest thing you can do to ensure that you turn up and do them.
11. Think like an athlete
Imagine that you’re a fighter preparing for a world title bout. If you have that winner-takes all mindset, where failure isn’t option, you’re setting yourself up for success
12. Make some noise
If you’re lifting weights to burn fat and build muscle and you never feel the need to make noise, you’re probably not training hard enough. If you train smarter you can train harder for less effort – and that’s when the results will come.
13. Give it a squeeze
At the top of each rep, squeeze the muscle hard to maximise tension on the working muscle. The better the muscular contraction, the better the outcome.
14. Don’t be a swinger
If you swing your weights around you aren’t properly applying tension to the target muscle. Using momentum might help to grow your ego but it won’t do much for your muscles. Minimise momentum and your muscles will grow.
15. Lower slower
The eccentric (lowering) phase of a lift is important because it’s an opportunity to expose your muscle to size-boosting stress in its strongest part of the lift, so slow your reps down.
16. Switch on
Squeezing the weight before you lift will send a signal to your brain to recruit muscle fibres and help you lift heavier weights more easily.
Part 4: Mind games
17. Don’t negotiate
When you commit to your fitness goal you’re all in. When you ‘see how it goes’ you open yourself up to constant internal negotiation about how you eat and how you exercise.
18. Don’t sweat slip-ups
You will slip-up. It happens. But you can make up for any mistake. Don’t let them define you or derail you.
19. Follow the process
Constant analysis will paralyse your progress. Trust the process and follow the steps and you’ll achieve the better-body results you want – just like these guys.
20. Believe in yourself
If you believe you can change, you will. If you don’t, you probably won’t.
Part 5: The Big One
21. Follow a plan
If you don’t follow a plan, you’ll fail. If you follow a plan and use the 20 tips above, you’ll succeed.
To find your perfect plan, take the New Body quiz!
Take the New Body quiz!
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