Kaizen – Your Secret Weapon

While is seems like an obvious trait, methodical movement towards your fat loss goal is often a lacking component especially when your fat loss goal is a long term goal (i.e. 4+ months). But constantly making an effort to methodically move forward, get better, be more precise, constantly making little corrections to your plan and execution will get you to your goal faster than you originally planned.

The Japanese call this kaizen. Small improvements summed over a longer period of time yield huge results. The reason that I say that you need to make these changes/improvement in a methodical fashion is because making improvements in this fashion will allow your to maximize your efforts. This is goes in line with one of my ‘diet rules’ which says

‘…you should spend the least amount of time and effort on your diet as possible because you have better things in your life…’

Methodical changes will allow for the least wasted effort and time spent. How do you do this?

First, you need to identify areas in which you would like to improve. Areas which improvement would give you better and faster results.

Some areas you might choose from area:

-Compliance
-Food/Meal Prep
-Resistance Training
-Metabolic Training
-Nutrition Taste/Flavor

Let’s look at two.

Metabolic Training

Metabolic training as this is an easy one. Continually making small improvements to your metabolic training (i.e. doing more work in less time) will make sure that not only your fitness level will improve but you will cause more ‘metabolic disruption’ yielding more fat and calories burned.

My friend and partner in fat loss crime Alwyn Cosgrove loves to do metabolic countdown ladders with burpees and kettlebell swings. Here’s how you do it:

15 reps of burpees
15 reps of kettlebell swings
14 reps of burpees
14 reps of kettlebell swings

…etc…etc..etc..until you get down to 1 rep of each.

When you do this time yourself. Each time you complete the workout strive to improve your time.

Focus on continually improving this over the course of 12 weeks – you’ll be amazed.

Compliance & Cravings

Let’s briefly look at another area in which you can apply methodical improvements – compliance. If you are currently in the 2nd Stage of Nutrition (see this article for more), then your main goal is improving your compliance. How can you do this?

After tracking your compliance to your diet for 2 weeks. Take a look at where you veer from your dietary plan. Were these planned occasions or spur of the moment decisions? Take all the spur of the moment decisions and try to figure out what was going on in those situations. A common problem people have to deal with is cravings. If your compliance is suffering from your struggles with warding off cravings then this is an area to target.

How can you get better?

Step 1 – Identify the cravings.

Step 2 – Idenfity what is causing the cravings (i.e. triggers).

Step 3 – If possible, remove the focus of your carvings. For example, if you crave doritos make sure there aren’t any doritos in your house).

Step 4 – Vow to ‘wait out’ your craving. Usually food cravings are psychological. When you are ‘in the moment’ with your craving, acknowledge this fact and make a decision to wait 20 minutes before acting on your urge. Usually after 20 minutes the craving will have passed.

Put this process into action. The first time you do it, you might not do it all successfully. That is fine. Just vow to improve each and every time. Soon enough these cravings won’t be an issue.

Wrapping it Up

It is okay if you only pick one area at a time to focus on but pick one. Get better each workout. Each day become compliant, do more work in less time. Often when we set longer term goals, it is easy to get stuck in maintenance mode without knowing it. Maintenance mode is another word for slow death By focusing on small improvements each day in one or more areas you will ensure that you avoid a slow fitness death and lose the weight faster.

-Mike

P.S. If you want more practical weight loss and health boosting tips as well as strategies to help you stick to your plan become a Naked Nutrition Insider today. Learn more about the membership and the Strong, Fit & Healthy Newsletter Click Here. It only costs less than 2 cups of coffee at Starbucks (but membership rates are doubling next week).

Time to get physical. But before you do, make sure that your workout plan as everything that it needs to get you where you want to be.
How do you like your salad? Just lettuce? No dressing, no croutons, no cheese, no carrots, etc…. That would be a really boring salad and wouldn’t get you anywhere nutritionally. You need to build up your salad and make sure you have a little bit of everything. Add as much as you can, without overdoing it. At the very least, it needs the important components. Proteins, veggies, fats, and maybe some sweet fruit.

Workout plans should be developed in the same kind of way. Throw on what you need, leave off the rest…but make sure you have the musts.

Workout plan checklist: MUSTS

1. Strength Training – Does your plan have some kind of resistance training included? This could be with free weights, bands, machines, body weight, etc… Some kind of resistance on a consistent basis. If your plan doesn’t include resistance training, then you are missing a prime ingredient that needs to be added. Full body – upper and lower as well as the core needs to be included.
2. Cardiovascular Component – Now, don’t jump to conclusions here. This does not mean you have to run, or ride the bike for an hour each day. If you read my article on HIIT, you know that there are other ways to get the heart healthy. However, some people like to run and like to ride the bike, and that is OK and good too. Whatever your method, make sure you have some kind of cardiovascular component to your training. It can even be hidden in your weight training routine if done correctly.
3. Mobility and Flexibility – Even though joint mobility and muscular flexibility are not the same, I include them at the same time, because many people can put them in the same routine and work on them together. Just for clarification, mobility is the range of motion around a given joint. All of the muscles are involved in this motion and some muscles need to be turned on to pull, and some need to be relaxed to allow the pulling. Activation and relaxation help to develop proper mobility. Flexibility is the range of motion that a specific muscle or muscle tendon has. It’s applicable to one muscle.
4. Nutritional Counseling ­- If you aren’t putting the right stuff in your mouth, you are not going to get where you want to go. If you are putting the wrong stuff in your mouth, you are not going to get where you want to go. Bottom line is that you need to know what, how and when to eat. Any program or plan is incomplete without the basics of nutrition.
5. Recovery Plan - Part of your plan must include a recovery plan. Sounds redundant, but it actually needs to be scheduled into your routine. Whether that is taking a week or a few days off, or if it is toning down the program, recovery time is a must for programs or plans.
6. Corrective Exercise ­- When things are broken they need to be fixed. I feel that this aspect is one of the most neglected of all of the components in plans. You can’t and wont get very far unless things in your physical body is balanced, and in correct form both while working out and doing daily aspects of life. The two areas that jump out and need to be focused on the most are the hips and shoulder girdle.
7. Pre-workout Evaluation – In reference to getting corrective exercise in your program, you need to find out what you need to work on first. Where are your weaknesses, strengths…where are you tight, and where are you too loose? You need to know what needs work. Don’t start a program with guess work. This is why generic programs don’t work. Cookie cutter programs are worthless in the long run.

The next time you want to start a program or someone makes you a workout plan, make sure the plan has the above components included. If it doesn’t, question the person that made the plan about them. If he/she doesn’t know about them or worse, doesn’t think any of the above are important, dump that guy/girl and find someone with a clue!!

• Increase you overall sets while decreasing your reps. Instead of doing 3 sets of 12-15, try doing 5 sets of 6 reps. Don’t worry, you are not going to get huge or turn into the hulk, this will simply help you get stronger.
• When you decrease your reps, you have to up the weight. So if you were doing 20 pounds with dumbbells for sets of 12 reps, try upping the weight to 30 or more and see what you can do.
• Incorporate squats and dead lifts of some sort into your routine. These are not just lower body exercises, rather they will strengthen the whole body and help keep you injury free too. If you don’t know how to do these, find someone that can help you along.
• Every two weeks, try to lift a little more than you did before. By progressively increasing the resistance, you will get stronger faster than you thought you could. Make sure you don’t compromise your form however.

Remember, being strong isn’t a curse, it is a much needed fitness goal and should be on everyone’s list. When you reach your golden years, your full body strength is what is going to keep you living the life you want, and the way you want to live it.

Holidays are awesome…parties, family, fun, presents, football games on TV, time off (some of us), etc… The Holidays can be an excellent time to reconnect with family and friends and with that, partake in many activities that can side track your fitness goals. For some, the stretch between Thanksgiving and New Years day can add 20 pounds, and seem to wipe out all of that hard work from months before. Frustration sets in, and you just never seem to get yourself back into the gym or back on your diet plan. The next thing you know, it is March or April and feel worse than ever. If any of this sounds familiar, you are in good company. Trust me when I tell you that many people are in the boat and repeat this process each year without fail. At present, it is already February and you are not really moving in the direction that you thought or more so, wanted to be moving. You have ‘fallen off’ the fitness wagon and need a way to get back on. Here are some real world tips (proven to work) to get you right back on that wagon:

1. Set goals right now! : Either stop reading now, or wait until you are finished this post, but either way, write down some fitness goals. Make sure your goals are positive, straight forward, and doable NOW. Do not worry about long term goals right now. Set some short-term goals to get you moving. Things you can do in the next few weeks.

1. Hire GOOD Help! Find a good personal fitness coach and pay up front, for some sessions. Research has shown that people are much more likely to stay with and reach their goals if they actually pay money and hire someone to work with them. A financial investment can be a true motivator to help you follow through. In addition, a professional will make sure you are doing the right things and keep you on track. You do not have to stay with them forever, just long enough to get you going.

1. Get a training partner! – Find a friend or even a good acquaintance and ask them to start working out with you. Most people that reach their fitness goals, do so when other people are directly involved with them. Training partners, fitness classmates, jogging buddies, etc… Find someone that will help keep you going even on the days you do not feel like it. You are much less likely to skip a workout when you know someone else is depending on you.

1. Clean out your kitchen! – Go through your fridge and food storage areas and dump all of the crap into the trash. Most people fail on their diets because they get into the trap of eating what is in front of them. Get rid of the junk and replace it with good stuff. If you need help with this, go back and read Mike’s Naked Nutrition information. It is packed with great advice on just what you should be eating.

1. Start Fresh! – Get yourself a brand new training program. Variety is the key with making gains in the gym. Chances are you have been doing the same thing each year without fail. Try a new program. Find someone your trust to write you a new plan. Seek out professional help and have them write you someone new. You are more likely to stick to and have fun with a new plan then the same old one you have been doing. New plans will get you excited and keep you motivated.

Falling ‘off’ of the wagon is easy. It is getting back on and back on the road of true fitness that is difficult for people. Take it one day at a time. Commit to one workout each day, and one more positive change each day and soon momentum will take over. Remember, if your ultimate fitness goal is really important to you, than you cannot afford to not go after it. You only have about 16 weeks left until memorial day. Will you be ready?