Ingrid’s Top Tips for a Successful Body Transformation Program
Doing a successful body transformation is challenging. If you’re looking for the best body transformation program, sign up for my 16-Week Transformation Program today. You can either complete it online or in-person with me in Geelong, Melbourne. In the meantime here are my best tips to help you profoundly change your body.
All that out the way, let’s get into it.
Physique Transformation Tips
1. Preparation and Planning Tips
Have a solid plan in place. If you are going to permanently change your physique, ensure that you have planned for every scenario. Cover your training, nutrition, supplements (if using them), food preparation, rest and recovery time,
Contemplate how you are going to handle your setbacks. Always have a backup plan for everything if you can. Plan B’s are useful!
Action without planning is one of the biggest causes of failure. Planning takes serious effort and thought. Efficiency experts say that every minute spent in planning and preparation will save you ten minutes in execution.
When you apply this simple planning concept to your nutrition, training and lifestyle, the results will astonish you. Better results and more efficient use of time aren’t the only benefits. Feeling unprepared or aimless creates anxiety and stress. That makes planning and preparation a superb stress reducer and confidence builder.
2. Mental and Goal Setting Planning Tips
Know your “why”. Most people do not settle on writing down a goal. It sounds so simple, we hear it over and over and over again, and yet still, people fail to do this. You have got to know not only what it is you want from your challenge/transformation but WHY you want it.
When you have lapses in willpower and you will, tapping into your WHY will help you not blow off your workouts. It will allow you to stay up an extra half an hour in the evening to get your meals prepped for the next day. It will help you not have a second helping. It will help you say “no” to inappropriate foods when offered.
Focus on what you want to achieve, not what you want to avoid or get “rid of”. For example, don’t be obsessed with losing 10 kg’s of body fat. Focus more on things like “I am getting leaner every day”, “I like myself”, “I like eating these healthy meals”, and “I am doing whatever it takes”.
Your WHY is the emotional reason why you want to achieve your weight loss. Let’s be honest. No one feels like training every day. No one wants to eat their whole life 100% perfectly “clean” food-wise. But understanding the emotional reason why you want this better body is really going to be helpful in the times and days when you are struggling.
Maybe ask and answer these three questions:
- a) What’s important about you reaching your goal?
- b) Why is that important to you?
- c)What impact, specifically, will achieving this goal have on your life?
Try not to embark on your transformation with a “perfectionist” mindset.
Some of you might get through your target time with nary a slip-up, cheat morsel or a skipped workout. Great! But if you do make a slip here or there, that’s ok. Thinking you need to be “perfect” is a dangerous place to be. Unable to be grateful for where you are because anything less than complete and utter achievement is not good enough.
Perfectionists have a hard time appreciating the journey. They see it as an inconvenient means to an end. And remain dissatisfied until they reach their goal, only to set out to reach the next goal. Not being able to feel gratitude is a scary part of the perfectionist mindset. Those who are the happiest and the most productive. They see the journey as part of their destination. And they are grateful for the struggle along the way.
Therefore, embrace the journey as part of the destination. It’s your opportunity to learn, grow and get better. In fact, it’s where all the good stuff happens. Practice feeling grateful, and I think you’ll find yourself a whole lot happier in the process.
Your transformation journey is not about being perfect. It is about learning and growing. When you look at things that way, how can you not hope for struggles? And if you are working with me, I’m going to help you lean into those struggles and overcome them.
Think really hard about setting a scale weight as a goal. At the risk of being repetitive, you don’t just want “weight loss” Scale weight is inaccurate when it comes to measuring overall progress. Scale weight depends on a whole host of other things going on in the body.
For example, muscle cells shrink and expand with glycogen and glycogen depletion, and your body can hang onto extra water. So, don’t freak out or get discouraged when the scale doesn’t say what you want it to.
If you are doing all the right things, being consistent and sticking to your plan – then trust that you’re after photo will tell your story – that of you being successful in the transformation of your physique. This isn’t about the scales at all.
Again, I know this seems counter-intuitive because you might have a time-sensitive target but don’t do this. Don’t fire all your fat loss bullets all at once. Start conservatively with your weight loss. Smart trainees don’t go overboard on any one fat loss strategy, and they don’t implement multiple fat loss strategies simultaneously. Really. Don’t!
It’s not a smart strategy to begin with four cardio sessions a week, five weight training sessions a week, ridiculously slash your calories, add extra workouts, take over-the-counter “fat-burners” (waste of your good money), eliminate high-energy carbohydrates, and manipulate your water intake!
Why? Because there’s no advantage in doing so. It will be virtually impossible to maintain, and the body would adapt, stalling progress. Extreme short-term fat loss methods will also lead to muscle loss, wrecking not only the metabolism but the final product: a leaner, more muscular body to present in your “after” photos.
3. Nutrition Planning Tips
Come on, you knew this one was coming! You have to get your food preparation down pat. What are the things you are going to need to have plenty of? Here are some things off the top of my head that you are going to need to make life really easy for yourself.
- Tupperware. This is by far the biggest thing I can think of. Your meals need to be neatly lined up in your fridge, ready to go at a moment’s notice. If you are not prepared, you are going to fail!
- Shaker bottles. A couple, at least. One for training, one in the house and a spare in the car for emergencies!
- Sharp knives in your kitchen – make life much easier and faster.
- Always cook for more than one meal. If you are going to fire up the oven, grill, hot plate or BBQ, never cook one meal. Always cook extra to ensure two or more meals at least. It takes the same amount of time to cook one meal as it does to cook two or three.
- This is an amazingly simple rule that I live by! That’s why I swear by homemade stews, casseroles, roasted chickens and chilli con carne. If you are going to turn on a cooking appliance, get the most value from your efforts in the kitchen.
- If you don’t have one, go to K-Mart and grab yourself a magic bullet. This device is fantastic, it’s one appliance that no health-conscious person should be without. It saves time and space in the kitchen because it does any job a blender or food processor can do in less than 10 seconds and without any mess. The magic bullet is so handy that I guarantee that you will use it every single day (and probably several times a day).
The bullet will make anything from fresh salsa to your morning omelette- all in 10 seconds or less. And with a quick, painless clean-up.
- Nutrition scales- I stress the importance of being calorie aware rather than counting calories. Additionally, the only dietary variable people really have to get a handle on instantly is to know how much protein they consume in their meals.
A set of nutrition scales make both these tasks really easy. These scales are fantastic; they accurately weigh food portions and calculate nutritional values. At the push of a button, calories, fat, cholesterol, fibre, protein and carbohydrates are all provided for the portion of food being weighed.
Within a week, you will be a master of knowing exactly how much protein is contained within x amount of food. Importantly, you’ll have a very clear idea of what this amount looks like. You can pick them up for around $40. When you consider the amount of information and education you receive every time this appliance is used, it’s an investment and an absolute bargain!
I would highly recommend you purchase my eBook the Body Cookfest which is available for a mere $35. This Cookfest was devised for those who aren’t a whiz in the kitchen who get short of ideas for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
It has a rated “star” system of 1 star through to 4 stars and covers some absolutely beautiful yet quick, fast and tasty recipes to make your life easy. Think “balsamic beetroot, walnut and feta salad”, some lovely dressings such as lemon yoghurt or a special flax dressing, salmon cakes and “Indonesian coriander chicken”. For those with a sweet tooth and at only 1 star are things like protein ice cream and strawberry meringue.
As well, I have a Liquid Meals eBook available also. Liquid meals are your fastest, easiest option but they cannot just be a protein shake – that isn’t a complete meal. You need to get your good fats and your plant food into you as well. Therefore, this eBook will help you think beyond protein powder and berries.
Think peanut butter and jelly muscle shake, German chocolate cake and apple and rhubarb pie! These shakes are full of easily accessible supermarket ingredients that will really spice things up. Especially if you are attending any social gatherings where the temptation to consume the wrong foods for this challenge may present itself.
4. Follow Your Plan and Recovery Tips
It’s really easy to get caught up in the excitement and hype of “starting a new thing” when it comes to a new and invigorated approach to your health and fitness journey. Newbies/novices in particular, but intermediate and advanced trainees also make the same mistake of buying into the mentality that “more is better”.
I disagree strongly. Training intensely, with quality is important, but then get out of the gym and get busy on recovery. So, this point comes back to the following tip, follow your coach’s advice and stick to your plan. Resist the urge to add more exercises. Put more effort into doing what is written in your program.
Don’t think “I haven’t done enough”, or “I need to train longer”. No, you don’t. All the magic of your body transformation happens when you are resting and recovering so ensure you are doing that. Don’t be training 6 or 7 days a week. You won’t get better results, in fact, you could be significantly shooting yourself in the foot, and that would be a shame.
Stemming on from the above, pay attention to your recovery strategies. When doing a physique transformation challenge, prioritise sleep as much as you can. 7 to 9 hours of sleep a night is optimal. Do everything in your power to be able to achieve this.
The restorative powers of sleep are unmatched. But then there are other things you can spend time doing that are going to help you also. Active recovery with undertakings such as long, slow walks is encouraged. These will get your endorphins flowing, blood flow, make you feel good and clear your mind mentally.
Some mobility work is always useful as is some gentle stretching. A yoga or Pilates class won’t hurt you if you wish. And if your budget allows for it, I would highly recommend seeing a myotherapist to release your trigger points once a month.
5. My Best Training Tips
For all of you intermediate and advanced trainees this is not going to be a new tip. However, it is one of my best tips in order for someone to add muscle and lose fat. Focus on your big pinnacle exercises.
The more weight you can add to exercises such as the deadlift, squat, bench press, incline press, barbell rows, Romanian deadlifts and military presses the better. This is in line with the main principle of resistance training – progressive overload. I cannot stress the importance of it enough.
I would encourage you to push yourself each and every session. It is my experience that trainees think that they are training hard but there is actually plenty more in the tank. True story. I am even guilty of this. You can always raise the bar. Obviously, be careful and always prevent injury – but if you are tossing up between adding 10kg to your leg press, or 15, sometimes you know, just add 15 and if you “only” get out a small handful of reps, that was probably the better choice.
I feel that too many trainees are overly conservative. You need caution, but you also need balanced confidence.
In every sport, there is a couple of “must-haves” to perform the sport well. A tennis player is going to require a great racquet. An ice-hockey player is going to need great skates and a good hockey stick. With weight training, I strongly suggest that you get yourself a good, high-quality lifting belt and a pair of wrist wraps.
Lifting belt. I cannot recommend highly enough the importance of a great lifting belt. I don’t mean a poxy, unsupportive belt that you brought from Rebel that really doesn’t cut the mustard. I mean a proper lifting belt. Sure, you need to spend $150 odd dollars. But consider this…you are going to use it in many of your lifts. It’s a no-brainer. Spend the money once, be done with it and you won’t have to ever replace it.
I highly recommend the SBD belt that I wear and love. If you want to take a look at this great belt here is the link:https://www.citystrength.com.au/products/sbd-belt
Wrist Wraps. The primary benefit of wrist wraps is to help stabilise the wrist to prevent hyperextending and promote proper wrist placement under the bar. I highly recommend wearing them in both your squat and your bench press.
Enjoy and expect success!