Week 149 :: What Is The Best Way To Start A New Year's Transformation?

[the_fake_webmaster]

------------------------------------------------------------
* Note: How can I win? 1. Answer all questions in the order that they are asked. 2. Go over reviews (located at the bottom of past TOTW articles) and see what was said about those that did not win. Good Luck!
------------------------------------------------------------

TOPIC: What Is The Best Way To Start A New Year's Transformation?

For the week of: December 13th - December 18th
Tuesday @ Midnight Is The Final Cut (Mountain Time, US & Canada).

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

We are already plotting and panning our New Year's resolutions. Some of us will start off strong and fall off the wagon, and some of us will be consistent throughout the year. However, it is very important to have a strong start in the direction of a transformation.

What is the best way to start a New Year's transformation? Be specific: motivation, diet, training, etc...

What mistakes do people often make when starting a New Year's transformation?

How can those mistakes be kept to a minimum?

BONUS QUESTION: Are you satisfied with the transformation you have made throughout 2007? Would you have done anything differently?

-------------------------------------------------------------

* New Rule (beginning: June 1st, 2006): Any exercise not listed on our exercise listing (http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/exercises.htm) must be accompanied by a full and complete description and pictures (or a link to the exercise(s) where pictures and description are given).

Thanks.

Don't discuss any other topic in this section. ONLY discuss the question above.

The best response will get $75 in credit to use in our online store! The other good responses will be used in an article on the main Bodybuilding.com site, with the poster's forum name listed by it. Become famous!

Thanks,
Will
Webmaster
Bodybuilding.com

[87lifter]

The best way to start out a New Year's Resolution is SLOWLY!!!
I think the biggest mistake most people make for New Years is they try to do everything at once. They generally go from complete couch-potatoes to health nuts in one day, and it's just too much of a shock. THe key is to gradually incorporate new things into your life.

First people need to add 3days of weight training to their routine. Preferably M and F, upper body and W lower-body. After they do this for a month, they should add 3days of cardio (days they DONT lift). After that's been going for a month, diet should be cleaned up. A month after that another day or two can be added to training and so on... until a proper routine is in place. This keeps people from being overwhelmed and quitting!

I'm sure those of us who go to the gym regularly know how much crowded it gets for the first 2-3 weeks of the year and then dies back to normal.

Motivation is truly up to the individual. If they are serious about changing their bodies, they should do whatever it takes to get motivated. I used to have a picture of myself when I was 215lbs of SOLID fat in my wallet as motivation. Something as simple as that is all it takes to get someone off the couch and into the gym!

So, the general message of this is to take things slow and do what you need to in order to stay motivated! CHEERS!
MERRY CHRISTMAS and HAPPY NEW YEARS to everyone!

[V.H.9.8.4.]

What Is The Best Way To Start A New Year's Transformation?
With the new year approaching, many people have an ideal body which they set out to obtain. It is important to have a strong start, and without this you will surely fail, and not reach your goals. You must also stay consistent, or you will not have a successful transformation. How can you do this? Read on.

What is the best way to start a New Year's transformation? Be specific: motivation, diet, training, etc...
Some people, in fact most of them, start of strong, and seem to be doing well, but come the end of January through mid-February, they fall right off the transformation bandwagon. They stop going to the gym and become couch potatoes. The stop eating right. They stop getting proper amounts of sleep and are inconsistent and erratic. These are the people that fail. They lack discipline and will never obtain the body they want and desire. You do not want to be like them. You want to be successful. In order to do this, you need four aspects of your life in check and in your control. Here they are:

Motivation
Proper motivation is key to attaining your ideal body. Without this, you too will become a lazy couch potato, who does not want to workout. There are many ways to stay motivated:

1. Poster and Images of Your Desired Body
Find a poster of someone who has your ideal body, weather you buy it, set it as you computer wallpaper, or find it in your favorite magazine. Hang it on the wall and look at it every day. Bodybuilding.com has many motivational wallpapers which can be found here (http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/wallpapermainpage.htm)

2. Set a Reward
When rewards are set, people are more likely to succeed because they know that when they get there, they can have something they have always wanted. It sets a positive meaning to the behavior. Try setting rewards for yourself, such as a new supplement, a small vacation, or anything you enjoy, which you don't do often

3. Chart your gains
By charting your strength gains, weight loss, or weight gain, whatever your goal is, you can see how well you are doing, which should motivate you a little more.

Bodybuilding.com has tons of motivation articles (http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/bbinfo.php?page=motivation) with great information

Diet
Don't you love eating ice cream, cake, and fast food? Sadly, those foods wont help you reach your transformation goal. Your diet should include lean sources of protein (steak, chicken, fish), good sources of carbohydrates (oats, pasta, rice), plenty of healthy fats (peanuts, peanut butter, canola oil), and lots and lots of water, at least a gallon a day. You need to eat at least 1g of protein per pound of bodyweight, and the amount of carbs and fats depends on your individual goals. I won't go into too much detail here, but you can find many more articles on diet (http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/bbmainnut.htm) on bodybuilding.com.

Workout Routine
As you would expect, a solid, consistent workout routine is needed to reach your goals. There are many workout routines, which can be split into three categories, and you can pick a routine that suits you best:

1. Fat Loss/Toning
These type of routines usually involve higher rep ranges (8-15) and many cardio days, to burn the fat. They do not focus on increasing muscle size but the high reps are more for endurance. You can also tryHIIT (http://www.teenbodybuilding.com/justin6.htm=), or High Intensity Interval Training, which can be used with your current workout routine to help burn more fat.

2. Strength
Pure strength routines, frequently called powerlifting, involves much lower rep ranges heavier weight, and more sets. Examples of these workouts are sheiko, and the programs based off the Westside Philosophy. Powerlifting articles can be found here (http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/bbinfo.php?page=Powerlifting)

3. Hypertrophy/Hyperplasia
Hypertrophy/Hyperplasia are two ways a muscle can increase in size. Hypertrophy is the increase in the size of cells, while hyperplasia is an increase in the number of cells, both which increase the size of the muscle. Strength gains on this type of routine are not as great as they would be on a powerlifting routines. Examples of these types of routines are HST (Hypertrophy-Specific-Training), and Rippetoes, which is a combination of strength and size, and is great for new lifters. View some hypertrohy hints here (http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/dimaggio6.htm)

You must pick between these three types of routines, and pick a specific routine afterwards, and it is essential that you workout consistently, and follow your routine to a T in order to reap the greatest benefits. I highly recommend Rippetoes (http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=998224) to all beginners and new lifter, as I myself have seen great results with this routine. Bodybuilding.com also has a huge workout database (http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/workoutdatabase.htm) with tons of workouts for you to try.

Sleep
Last but certainly not least is sleep. Sleep is necessary to survive, and it has many benefits to a bodybuilder, such as
1. Muscle Repair
2. More Energy
3. Increased Metabolism
4. Stronger Immune System

These are just a few of the benefits. Read more on sleep on bodybuilding.com (http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/bbinfo.php?page=Sleep). Sleep is necessary to your transformation, and I recommend a minimum of eight hours a night for maximum benefits. Stick to this goal as well, as sleep is crucial to your success, and less sleep equals no success. Just because you feel well rested after five hours of sleep does not mean its enough, eight is a good amount, seven at the least.

Mistakes

What Mistake Do People Make?
Many mistakes are above, which includes an improper routine, poor diet, and not enough sleep. I have discussed how you should approach each, but I will discuss them a little bit here.

When starting out many people neglect diet, and eat anything they want, or don't eat enough Obviously, this will result in nothing but failure, the total opposite of what you want. You must eat the proper amount of protein, carbs, and fats, and drink plenty of water.

Many people also neglect the importance of sleep, and do not get nearly enough. The benefits of sleep have already been discussed, and a lack of it can lead to the following:

1. Depression
2. Headaches
3. Loss of Concentration
4. Less Energy
5. Higher Risk of Heart Disease

You can see sleep is very important, as well as a consistent training routine. Altering your routine every day will not get you results. Stick with a routine for at least two or three months before switching it up. As a beginner, I used to change my workout every week, and I would see no progress, and I wasted my time.

How Are These Kept To A Minimum?
There are a few ways to keep these mistake to a minimum, and the number one way is to read. Read, read, read. Read articles here on bodybuilding.com and learn about training routines, sleep, diet, motivation, the mind, supplements, and much more. You have a great start to this by coming here and reading this.

Another thing you can do is go to the bodybuilding.com forums and ask questions. There are stickies, which contain important information and tips for everyone to read, and if those don't answer your question, you can search, or start a thread and ask it. There are almost one million registered forum users who can answer your question, so don't be shy.

BONUS QUESTION: Are you satisfied with the transformation you have made throughout 2007? Would you have done anything differently?
Overall, I would give myself a 5/10 this year. I have done much reading, but my diet was not in check, nor my sleep. I slacked off on keeping a good diet, and plan to improve it this year, and make it almost perfect. I end up going to sleep at around 11:00, and wake up at 6:00 for school, only six hours of sleep, which as as good as it should. Other than those, everything was perfect. I followed my workout routine perfectly, and did plenty of reading. I gave myself a five because those two things are very important. Aim for a 10/10 in 2008, I know I am!

[HarleyG_123]

here we are...

[Mighty Kev]

Rock on brothers.

[V.H.9.8.4.]

Rock on brothers.
why did you have to enter? now im not gonna win :(:mad:

-VH

[Mighty Kev]

Actually I think you might have me beat on this one, we'll see won't we? Only 3 entries so hopefully we all win

[Mighty Kev]

Oh 4 actually

[blind2limits]

why did you have to enter? now im not gonna win :(:mad:

-VH


Actually I think you might have me beat on this one, we'll see won't we? Only 3 entries so hopefully we all win

It would have been fun to enter... but I know personally I'm just starting my journey for 2008. Some people probably haven't gotten their transformations off the ground yet.

So good luck to the... well four of you that entered. lol

At least the odds of you getting into the top three are 3:4 -- much better than last week lol.

(oh yeah, and there have been cases where there were only two winners or one winner... so don't bank on those odds)

[V.H.9.8.4.]

Actually I think you might have me beat on this one, we'll see won't we? Only 3 entries so hopefully we all win
i doubt it, its only my second one, and i was never too good at writing. have you won before

-VH

[Ryall]

Edit: oh geez, I didn't see the cutoff date LOL.

Oh well. :|

[Veeshmack]

What is the best way to start a New Year's transformation?
The best way to start any transformation is slowly, yet correctly. You have to do things the correct way to see the best results, but at the same time you need to do it at a slow pace. One important attribute to keep in mind is patience. Patience is important in any transformation, especially transforming your very own body. Bodybuilding takes time. It often takes months to see results.

What mistakes do people often make when starting a New Year's transformation?
The majority of people who attempt to transform anything, body included, rush into things too fast, and then they overwhelm themselves. A few months (if that) down the road, they're worn out and ready to call it quits because they haven't seen the results they want.

How can those mistakes be kept to a minimum?
From personal experience, the easiest and most efficient way to transform something is step by step.

Personally I started out with an average American diet -- a bad diet. Like a typical newcomer to weight lifting and exercise, I did not realize diet played as big of a role as it does. I started off by buying a dirt cheap bench with standard weights at K-Mart in June 2007. I still ate complete garbage, had no routine really, and just did my own thing. I started out doing leg curls, bicep curls, and bench pressing. Although I did make minimal progress over the course of a few months, I think I moreless wasted my first few months. One day searching on google for more exercises to do (I actually knew about what I know now as a Bent-over row, but I didn't know what it was called, what muscle group(s) it worked, or how to perform it.) and found this site. I immediately started reading around, but still didn't make any changes for a while. I eventually decided that enough was enough and, after reading a ton, decided to go with a Rippetoes routine. So at the end of October 2007, I started Rippetoes the right way.

Now here is where doing things slowly comes in. I know that if I would have immediately ditched my previous diet and began eating 100% healthy, I wouldn't have stuck with it. This is where most people fall apart. Instead I started with little things..I went from drinking no water and all pop, to drinking 1 bottle of flavored water for every bottle of pop. After a while I started drinking all flavored water, and now I have worked my way to only regular water, and very rarely drink anything else (besides milk). This, in my opinion, is the ultimate way to improve your diet, weight lifting and exercise routine, and ultimately your life.

BONUS QUESTION: Are you satisfied with the transformation you have made throughout 2007? Would you have done anything differently?

From the point that I started doing things right (Read the above testimony), the end of October 2007, and on, I am happy with what I've accomplished. I have made fantastic gains in the gym. Although I feel that I wasted my potential to make these fantastic gains much sooner than I did, I don't think there is any reason to bother myself about the past mistakes. All I can do is look forward to the future and continue to make the right decisions.

deadline was a week ago

[Ryall]

deadline was a week ago

I edited my post..I didn't see the deadline lol..Excuse my stupidity.

[V.H.9.8.4.]

I edited my post..I didn't see the deadline lol..Excuse my stupidity.
it's ok.. you made made me lol :)

-VH

[Ryall]

it's ok.. you made made me lol :)

-VH

Haha I was all set for winning..All that typing for nothing :D

[V.H.9.8.4.]

Haha I was all set for winning..All that typing for nothing :D
there's always next time

-VH

[Mighty Kev]

I bet this one will get posted next

[Mighty Kev]

Haha, maybe not!

[V.H.9.8.4.]

dammit! this one didnt go up yet, right?

-VH