Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
#142 - 5 Steps To Losing 50+ Pounds In A Year
0 Playsin 1 day
Most people fail at fat loss because they chase fast results with methods they can’t sustain.
In this episode, I break down the exact mindset and simple system that helped me lose 100 pounds and keep it off for 9 years.
- Why 80 to 90% consistency beats perfection, and how to set expectations so you actually stick with it
- The 5 pillars that drive sustainable fat loss: calories, protein, steps, workouts, and the 1% better mindset
- How to pick a realistic calorie target and adjust based on real feedback like scale trends, progress photos, and how your clothes fit
- The practical “do this today” steps for protein, daily movement, and weekly lifting so you build results you can maintain for years
1-on-1 Coaching: Interest Form Here
Fit(ish) Project Newsletter: Sign Up
IG: Bassbuiltfitness
Facebook: bassbuiltfitness
Tik tok: bassbuiltfitness
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to the Fit-ish Project
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome back to the Fit-ish Project with your host, Lathan Bass, where we make fitness and health simple for regular people like you and I.
Setting Realistic Fitness Goals for 2026
00:00:11
Speaker
We have the last episode of 2025. I thought it would be a very good time to do an episode where I talk about how to go into 2026 in a way where you can actually make a real transformation to see the progress that you want to see. And there's five steps that I focus on when it comes to making fitness transformations in particular, trying to lose weight, build muscle, look better, feel better, all those things that all of us want.
Lathan's Personal Fitness Journey
00:00:40
Speaker
And there is a pretty simple formula that you need to follow. It doesn't have to be as complicated as people will make it out to be. And so I'm going to lay out what those five steps look like. This is exactly what I would do if I had to lose all the weight all over again. And this is the same exact blueprint, the same exact formula that I help my clients with as well when they have big goals around losing weight and just getting in better shape, getting better health, all those good things. And so within my first year, when I really got into this, I started in January, I was coming off of a knee surgery, I was laid up, I couldn't do any real physical activity. And so I just started diving into how to lose weight and specifically about what diet I should follow and calories and macros and all those different things. And
00:01:27
Speaker
One of the steps that I skipped and that I didn't really think too much about was just the expectations that I had around this whole process. And I can think back to when I started this and I was pretty determined that I was going to lose this weight and I was going to do whatever I had to do to figure this out.
00:01:42
Speaker
And I think a lot of people really skip this first step about actually creating the right mindset, which is step number one, which I'll get into in more specifics here
Overcoming Quick-Fix Mentality in Weight Loss
00:01:50
Speaker
in a second. But This step is so important and it's one that a lot of people miss because they go into this process with expectations that ah just aren't grounded in reality. They have a different experience and that leads them to quitting. And what I mean by that is a lot of people go into weight loss or thinking about fitness as this thing where they're just going to go super hard for a couple of months, get this certain result, lose the 30 pounds, get in shape, build a bunch of muscle, and then they can just chill.
00:02:17
Speaker
And so they're going to go really hard and then they can just kind of relax and everything's going to be all right. That's just not how this works. I've seen so many people attempt to try to make transformations or lose weight or build muscle or get in shape. And a lot of people take that approach. They think I'm just going to go super hard right off the bat. I'm going to do this as quickly as possible and hopefully I can just sustain my results.
00:02:41
Speaker
As we know, this just does not work for every person that this actually does end up working out for. They make this like seemingly overnight transformation. There is thousands of people who have tried this approach who it does not work for. And so I'm such proponent of doing it in a better way, in a more sustainable way. And so when you start thinking about this, this is very important that you create the right mindset and specifically just set the right expectations.
00:03:06
Speaker
If you try to do this quickly, your results are going to leave just as quickly. setting realistic expectations about what this
Consistency Over Perfection
00:03:12
Speaker
will look like. For most people, half a pound to about a pound a week of weight loss is what is going to be sustainable. And when you zoom out, you think about that for an entire year. If you were able to lose a half a pound to a pound a week, that's roughly 25 to 50 pounds lost in one calendar year.
00:03:30
Speaker
Is a year a long period of time? Yes and no. Like in the grand scheme of things, it's not really that much time. But it's going to pass regardless. And so it's more important to do this in the right way because you could try to lose 50 pounds in three months. and there's people that do that, but you check in on those people in six months and a year and that weight is right back on. So would you rather lose 50 pounds in three months and gain it all back before the end of the year? Would you rather take your time and lose 50 pounds and keep that weight off for the next several decades? Obviously the right answer is number two, because if you're losing weight and gaining it back, like what's the whole point of that We want to make sure that we are doing this in a sustainable way. And the other part of this, just setting the right expectations, is getting out of that perfection mindset that so many of us think that we need to approach this with.
00:04:19
Speaker
The all or nothing mindset holds so many people back because they feel that if things aren't going exactly as planned or if this big plan or expectations or things like that, that they set up at the beginning of this process aren't going exactly how they thought it was going to go, then they're not moving in the right direction. And for so many people, I just wish they understood that if they did the right things, they did the basics for 80 to 90% of the time, like they did those things consistently 80 to 90% of the time, you would have a completely different body, you would have a completely different view of health, you would be able to lose the weight and keep it off, you'd be so much happier and have more confidence because trying to be perfect is just not realistic. There's nobody out there who is just on their stuff every single day.
00:05:07
Speaker
And for those that are like more power to you, like there's very far and few between people who do it in that way. And I don't want to live that lifestyle. And the cool thing is if you want to get like really solid results and like lose some weight, be more fit, feel better, all those things, you don't have to be 100% consistent.
Incremental Progress and Daily Actions
00:05:24
Speaker
if you can hit that 80 to 90% consistency and do the right things on most of your days, you can get to a place where you feel really good about your body. You feel really good physically, mentally, emotionally, like you have all these things in place and you feel how you really want to feel by being consistent most of the time. And so those are some of the things that I would really urge you to think about before diving into something like this, because Having the right expectations is just, it's that important. like you have to go into this with the right mindset, because if you go in with the wrong mindset, you are going to quit. This is not going to last for you. And this is why I'm such a big proponent of understanding like, this is going to be challenging.
00:06:06
Speaker
There's going to be setbacks. It's probably going to take longer than you want. The timeline that you have in your head right now, it's not going to happen on that timeline. You're not always going to be motivated to do the things that you know that you should be doing.
00:06:17
Speaker
Sometimes you're even gonna wonder, like, is this all worth it? And I can say with 100% certainty on being on the other side of this for a very long time, most of my life, and now being on this side of it where I do have the body I want, I do feel better, i do look a lot better, like all those different things.
00:06:33
Speaker
It is 100% worth every single struggle and every little bit of effort that you put into this process to get to this point. So approaching this with 1% better mindset that I always talk about is the way it's not perfection. It's about getting a tiny bit better. And to expand on that just a little bit, one thing that I see holding a lot of people back is letting their ego get in the way of this whole process.
00:06:56
Speaker
There's lots of things that you know that you probably should be doing. If you have goals around losing a lot of weight or making some big fitness transformation. And just because you know it, that doesn't mean that you can execute on those things right away because you're trying to change behavior, trying to change habits. You're trying to change patterns that you have been doing. likely for very many years, sometimes decades. And so to think that you're just going to change those things overnight and be able to do all these things that I'm about to talk about a little bit later in this podcast, It's just unrealistic.
00:07:25
Speaker
People think about building these plans with a bigger ego and they don't want to just accept the fact that like you're probably going to have to do less than you want to or you think you should just because you know that it's really advantageous to work out four or five times a week to get 10,000 steps in to do all these different health things. That doesn't mean that you're just magically going to wake up tomorrow and just because you wrote it down on a piece of paper, be able to execute those things with 100% certainty.
00:07:51
Speaker
the likelihood of you doing that is just not very high. And instead, you approach it with 1% better, like, what are some smaller steps that I can really start to do that I know that I can 100% do no matter how busy I am, no matter how stressful things are, no matter how many other things I have going on my life? What are the steps that I can start to hit and check off and feel good about and build confidence with? Because that is how sustainable progress is made.
Building a Positive Mindset for Fitness
00:08:16
Speaker
It's not by doing these huge things overnight and just trying to completely overhaul your entire life in a couple of days or a couple of weeks, because that's just not going to last. You have to slowly build on these things. You have to create a really good foundation. And this happens by doing small things.
00:08:32
Speaker
And then once you start to build this good foundation of just doing these smaller things daily and really building up the habits and the mindset and just the actions that you want to be doing on a daily basis,
00:08:44
Speaker
you can start to do more of these things. So for instance, maybe when you first start, like some of your goals around nutrition are going to be fairly simple or around exercise, they're going to be fairly simple, but eventually you're going to get to the point where you can do more.
00:08:59
Speaker
I think about this from a workout perspective. Like when I first got into running, The things that I could do, they're not nearly the same things that I can do now if I want to go out. Like I can go out for a 5, 10, 15 mile run right now on any given day. And it's not that difficult for me. Like it's challenging, but it's something that I can do. If I tried to go out for a 10 mile run when I first started this whole process of like getting into cardio and fitness and things like that, I would have wanted to quit because it's just too much. It's too much too soon.
00:09:25
Speaker
The same exact thing goes for like diet or other habits that are going to help you be healthier. Like if you try to completely change your diet and follow a diet that you don't enjoy or something that is just so far off from what you've been doing, the likelihood that you're able to stick to that is just very low. And so it's more so about just doing these small things and making these changes over time so that you can really build a solid foundation. And yes, this does take longer than just trying to do everything overnight, but What do you think is going to lead to getting results that you can actually sustain? Probably the way that is going to be a little bit more slow, a little bit more methodical, a little bit more thought out and ah just give you time to adjust and give you time to really bake this into something that's part of your lifestyle and not just some little fad or some little challenge or some little thing that you're trying to do for the next couple of weeks. This is what you're trying to build a lifestyle around. And in order to do that, you have to do this in a way that's manageable.
00:10:20
Speaker
And so to sum that all up for step number one, you need to create a better mindset. And the practical step around this is just doing the small things that you say you are going to do on a daily basis. And I'm gonna get into some of these targets and like some of these other steps. And so you'll see what I mean by that, but like, If you don't plan on doing certain things, don't say you're going to do those. Because one of the biggest things that I see people struggle with is just this belief in this confidence that they have within themselves to actually follow through and be consistent with their goals. And the reason that so many people struggle with this is because they constantly are saying they're going to be doing this certain thing. I'm going to work out this many times per week. I'm going to stick to this diet. I'm going to get this many steps in per day. And they don't do it.
00:11:04
Speaker
And if you don't do those things, you don't follow through, why would you ever have any confidence within yourself? It's the same thing like if you have a friend or a family member or somebody that you know who's just always talking. Like they're always talking this big game. They're always making these plans or they're setting these goals and they don't follow through on any of them. You have zero confidence in that person that they're going to follow through. Like you still may like that person or love that person or whatever, but like you don't have any confidence within them when it comes to following through on their goals because they don't do the things they say they're going to do.
00:11:33
Speaker
and when it comes to these things with yourself, you cannot lie to yourself. Like, you know whether you are doing the things that you say that you're supposed to be doing. And if you're not, every single time you're not doing those things, you're just reinforcing that fact that like you can't trust yourself. You don't have that confidence in yourself. You don't have that belief that you can actually follow through on these things. And so when you can break these down into smaller parts and you actually follow through on those things every single day.
00:11:58
Speaker
you're building that confidence, you're building that belief, you're building that discipline. And at the same time, you're building better habits. And so that is such a key part of this whole process is just doing the small little things each and every day, getting that 1% better. And when you start to do that, it's a really good foundation that you can build on to improve all these habits. And then eventually, these small little things turn into big progress and big goals down the road. So Doing cardio a couple times a week may turn into you wanting to run a half marathon or a marathon or getting protein and vegetables at most of your meals may turn into you're able to lose 50 or 100 pounds down the line. Like all these little things, they add up over time and eventually you're able to do more. And you're able to see really big progress. All the big things that I've been able to accomplish through fitness and through health all started with very small things. Like every big thing started with the tiniest little action. And that's exactly how you need to think about this because those little things, they matter and they add up over time.
00:12:57
Speaker
Don't think that you need to do this all. overnight or do this in one week or one month or whatever, like give yourself time, be patient with yourself and really attack this in a way that you can see yourself making this a lifestyle and not just a temporary thing.
Understanding Calorie Deficit for Weight Loss
00:13:12
Speaker
Step number two in this process is hit your calorie goal. There's no secret that if you want to lose weight, you need to be in a calorie deficit. There is no ifs, ands, buts about it. That is the only way that you're going to lose weight is if you are in a calorie deficit. If you have a calorie deficit that is too low, it's going to be very hard to stick with long-term. you have one that is too high or you're eating too many calories, you're not really going to be seeing much progress. So you need to find that sweet spot, that moderate calorie deficit, so you can actually see some tangible progress.
00:13:45
Speaker
And it's something that you can sustain for a good amount of time. When it comes to calories, both the quantity, so how many calories you're eating on a daily basis, that matters, but also the quality of your calories matters a lot too. When I think about calories, I think about it through the lens of numbers. But I also think about the quality of those calories. And so when it comes to the quality of those calories, you want to be eating mostly whole foods. And there's tons of different reasons I could get into about why you want to stick to mostly whole foods. But to put it very simply, whole foods are much, much harder to overeat.
00:14:20
Speaker
And if it's harder to overeat, it makes weight loss and more specifically sustaining your weight loss easier in the long run. Again, there's tons of different reasons that I could dive into as to why you want to do that. But Just to put it very simply, that is why you want to focus on mostly whole foods. When it comes to the quantities of your calories, this is what I think about a lot when it comes to losing weight because if you can hit your numbers, even if you are eating a little bit more processed foods and you aren't necessarily eating as many whole foods as you would like, If you're sticking to those numbers and you're hitting those targets that you need to hit, you are still going to lose weight. And this has been proven through lots of different diets, people eating strictly junk food diets, people eating strictly McDonald's to lose weight. Like you can lose weight on any certain food if you are hitting your numbers.
00:15:04
Speaker
Obviously, that is not a good idea because if you're eating only McDonald's or you're eating only junk food or you're eating all foods that just aren't super high quality and don't have a lot of great nutrients or different things like that, it's going to make weight loss much more difficult. And the sustainability of that diet makes it very hard to maintain. And so obviously, that's not a good idea. But it just goes to show you that like having some moderation and being able to include some other things is possible. and so you don't need to stress over like certain foods or like just get super neurotic about this.
00:15:36
Speaker
Eat mostly whole foods, but also make sure that you are focusing on the amount or the number of calories that you're eating as well. And when you do those so two things together, i think it gives you the best chance at success when it comes to losing weight.
00:15:50
Speaker
Your practical step when it comes to hitting your calorie goal, obviously, you know, hitting that goal is important, but how do you find that goal? There's a couple different ways that you can do it super quickly. So If you want to know just a very rough number, you can take your body weight, multiply that by 11, and that is going to give you a rough number about how many calories you want to be eating on a daily basis.
00:16:07
Speaker
It's not exact and it's not perfect and you're going to have to adjust up or down. And if you want a more specific number, you can go find a calorie calculator and that's going to have you put in some information about your weight, your height, your gender, maybe a couple other things that can give you a little bit more specific estimate of that calorie number. Again, these aren't perfect either and a lot of calculators will give you slightly different numbers, but it gives you a good starting point. and so Finding what you should be doing on a daily basis and then sticking to that number. I highly recommend tracking your calories through an app. And the ones that I've used the most have been MyFitnessPal or Chronometer. Those are the two nutrition apps that I have used the most and that I have clients use typically. And so when you have this number, you want to start to track calories, track food, make sure that you're hitting those targets on a consistent basis.
00:16:55
Speaker
And with that, in order to make sure that you are actually seeing some progress, you need to measure things like your body weight, take some progress pictures, make sure you pay attention to how your clothes are fitting.
00:17:06
Speaker
You can take some measurements to see if you are losing inches over time. So like your waist, your belly, your thighs, your arms, like if you're losing inches, those are also good signs. But if you're hitting this calorie number, and you're seeing progress in any of those ways that I just listed, that is a sign that you have a good calorie deficit and you can keep doing those.
Importance of Protein in Diet
00:17:25
Speaker
As things start to slow down, or maybe you're not seeing progress as quickly, or maybe you're hitting a plateau or different things like that, you may have to make some adjustments. But having the numbers and being able to track calories as well as track your progress over time is the best way to know for certain like what type of things you need to be doing and where you need to make adjustments and this is obviously what I help people do with coaching and it's not always easy but having some of these numbers and being able to track somebody some of these things is going to help you tremendously than just trying to wing it because people that try to wing it they end up getting frustrated because they feel like they're doing all the right things but they don't actually know and then they just quit like they're not going to continue to do these things if they don't feel like they're making progress and so
00:18:08
Speaker
Having these numbers and being more objective about it, you can make better decisions and you can make better adjustments as you go throughout this process. Step number three, hit your daily protein goal. There's lots of reasons that we want to hit protein and you probably know a good amount of these. For one, it's going to help us build muscle, which is important. That is helpful for keeping our metabolism higher if we have more muscle mass. Eating more protein is going to help with reducing our hunger throughout the day. It's going to help us stay full for longer.
00:18:37
Speaker
All good stuff for helping us look better, but also for just helping us with not overeating. And so for those reasons, protein is pretty important. A couple other things that protein does that I don't think people really think about is by prioritizing protein, it forces you to plan out your meals because the amount of protein that you need to get is typically more than you are used to getting. And for the people who have never really tracked protein or focused on a high protein diet, it's a lot more than you think. If you wanna actually hit those targets, you're going to have to plan out your meals ahead of time and planning out your meals ahead of time is very helpful for actually picking out high quality, healthy meals and sticking to a meal plan. If you just try to wing it,
00:19:17
Speaker
That typically doesn't go very well. And so to hit these protein numbers, you act you have to actually actively plan what are the meals that I'm going to be eating? What are the snacks that I'm going to be eating? Do I need to add in some protein shakes or protein bars or things like that? It just forces you to think ahead a little bit. And the more that you can plan these things out, the more consistent that you are going to be and the more consistent you can be, the better progress that you're going to see.
00:19:39
Speaker
And then the last thing that I'll say about protein is if you not only just want to lose weight, but you want to actually look more toned, as people will say, you need to have muscle mass. Having a high protein diet is going to help with building or at the very least sustaining that muscle mass as you lose the weight. Because if you lose weight, but you also lose a lot of muscle mass, I can promise you, you're not going to look the way that you want to look.
00:20:00
Speaker
Because if you want to look toned, you need to lose body fat, but you also need to have a significant amount of muscle mass and Protein is going to help you with having that muscle mass or building that muscle mass as you strip all this fat away.
00:20:12
Speaker
And so your practical step for this, the recommendations are at least 0.7 grams per pound of body weight. So if you take your body weight, multiply that by 0.7, that is the minimum that you want to be hitting when it comes to your protein goal.
00:20:27
Speaker
You look at different studies or you check out different people who are well educated in these areas about dieting or like fitness professionals. Some people will tell you to shoot a little bit higher. So one gram per pound of body weight is a number that is thrown around a lot. And that's also a good range. But I think if you're hitting that 0.7, a lot of the studies tell us you're getting a very large amount of the benefits that you get from eating a high protein diet.
00:20:53
Speaker
If you can get one gram per pound of body weight and that's something that you want to shoot for, then by all means, go for it. There are certain circumstances, like if you're in a bigger calorie deficit, you may want to shoot for that one gram. If you're a leaner person, like you don't have as much body fat to lose, that may be another case where you want to have that higher amount of protein. Or if you're training and exercising a lot more than the average person,
00:21:17
Speaker
having a little bit more protein and shooting for that one gram per pound of body weight can be a good idea. But at a minimum, 0.7 grams per pound of body weight is going to be a really good target for people to shoot for. And so your practical step for this, find your protein target, take your body weight, multiply that by 0.7, that is going to be your target, and then hit that target daily.
00:21:38
Speaker
perfection is not the goal here but we want to be getting close to that target most days and if you need a super simple method to help you hit your protein goal i'll just run through this really quick i've done this on other episodes and talked about this in more details and things like that but i call it the three to one method so three meals per day getting protein at each of those meals so breakfast lunch dinner get some sort of protein at those meals in those meals breakfast, lunch, dinner, you're probably already eating protein at some of those.
00:22:07
Speaker
And if you're eating a lean source of protein, so like proteins with less fat content and higher protein content,
Daily Activity and Walking for Health
00:22:13
Speaker
that's what I mean by lean proteins, just simply double whatever those meals are, just double your protein amount at those meals. So if you're eating two eggs, eat four eggs. If you're eating three ounces of chicken, eat six ounces at a meal. By doing that and just doubling your lean protein sources, you're going to up your protein in a single day by a lot.
00:22:32
Speaker
That alone might be able to help you get to that total protein target and then you don't even have to do the next two steps. But if that doesn't get you all the way to your target, the two in the three to one method stands for two high protein snacks. So in between meals, pick a high protein snack. So this could be nonfat Greek yogurt, nonfat cottage cheese, protein bar, protein shake, jerky, something that's very high in protein, but pick two of those and have those in between meals. By doing that there, you're adding at least 12 20 to maybe even 50 grams of protein in your day by adding two high protein snacks. And if that doesn't get you all the way to your goal, the one in the three, two, one protein method is just to find some sort of protein supplement. So I'm a big fan of whey protein supplements.
00:23:17
Speaker
You can add those into shakes. You can add them into yogurt. You can add them into oatmeal. You can bake them into different things. Any way that you want to start to use that. But it's just a really quick and easy way that you can supplement some extra protein and make hitting that goal really easy. If you do those three things, you will have absolutely no issues hitting your your total protein goal.
00:23:37
Speaker
Step number four, hit your daily step goal. There's lots of reasons that we want to focus on a step count. The obvious one is that when you're more active, you're going to burn more calories. So it's helpful from that standpoint. Another point is that less sedentary people typically have a lot easier time keeping the weight off, which that seems very obvious, right? People who are more active, people who walk more, people who exercise more, they are better at keeping the weight off, which that makes sense. If you're more active, you're burning more calories. And right along with that,
00:24:10
Speaker
People who tend to prioritize exercise and just who have good habits around being active and just exercising on a regular basis, they do a lot better because they're also thinking about other things that pertain to their health as well. And so what I mean by that is like walking becomes one of these keystone habits where because you're thinking about getting your steps in throughout the day, you're thinking about hitting that eight to 10,000 step range per day. You're also thinking about other healthy habits that you want to do throughout the day. And Maybe you have like a fitness tracker or you have an Apple watch or you have some app on your phone where you're tracking your steps and you're looking at that periodically to see like where you're at with your goal. Do I need to get up and go for a 10 minute walk in the middle of the day? Do I need to go for a 20 minute walk when I get home from work tonight? And just by doing those things, you're naturally going to start to notice that you're also making other healthy behaviors. So like because you're focused on getting your walking in, now you're also thinking about, okay, i need to also get my workout in after work
00:25:07
Speaker
I'm going to make healthier choices at lunch today. I'm going to focus on drinking water, all because you have this foundational habit of walking that's constantly kind of running in the background or something that you're thinking about. And because you're thinking about this one healthy behavior in the form of walking, you're also going to think about other healthy behaviors that you want to do on top of that.
00:25:26
Speaker
And it works really well because again, you're just forcing yourself to start thinking about other things that are going to make being healthier and hitting your goals that much easier. And for that reason, I'm such a big proponent of walking. And it's one of the things that I contribute my hundred pound weight loss and specifically like keeping the weight off to like walking is such a slept on thing and something that I didn't really realize was so important, but it is.
00:25:52
Speaker
When it comes to your practical step around walking, I mentioned this just a second ago, but eight to 10,000 steps is the goal that I like to have people shoot for. And again, when you're thinking about this, this is something that you're trying to build towards that you can do.
00:26:06
Speaker
almost every single day, like you're wanting to get to a point where eight to 10,000 steps is something that you're checking off just in your everyday life, you're now so conscious about walking and making that a priority that hitting that 8000 steps per day becomes fairly easy. It's just something that's like baked into your routine. It's just something that you do on a natural basis. That is the goal that we want to get to. So if you have to work your way up from that, that's totally fine. Like if you're somebody who's getting 3000 steps right now, then trying to get 10,000 steps may seem very far away. And if you need to work your way up to a point where you build over time and finally hit that, maybe after six months or whatever the case may be, that's fine too. we Again, we want to think long-term here. And if you try to go from 3000 to 10,000, that might be something that's not quite as sustainable. So if you need to work your way up from 3000 5,000
00:26:55
Speaker
5,000 to 7,000, 7,000 to 10,000, like absolutely do that. But there's so many ways that you can start to think about getting more steps in your day. And so to give you a concrete example, if you're walking at a decent clip, you're going to get roughly 1,000 steps for about every 10 minutes of walking. If you're walking a little bit slower, you're not gonna hit that number. If you're walking a little bit faster, you're obviously going to get a little bit more than that. But that means a 10 minute walk, you can get about 10,000 steps in. And so tons of different ways that you can start to implement this. A lot of people will do after meal walks. So after breakfast, lunch, dinner, they'll go on 10 minute walks. That is 3000 extra steps within your day right there. Some people will go for a couple walks in the morning and then one in the evening. So if you say you go on a 20 minute walk in the morning and then you go on a 20 minute walk in the evening,
00:27:44
Speaker
That right there is an extra 4000 steps. So you can see how these start to add up very quickly. Maybe you're somebody who works a more sedentary job or you work at a desk, like try to get up every five minutes and just walk around for a little bit. That's 500 extra steps. You do that eight times in a day, that is now 4,000 extra steps. And so there's lots of different ways that you can start to implement getting more steps. The fact is you just need to make this a thing that you are consciously thinking about. And the more that you're thinking about it and the more that you track it, you're going to notice that you just naturally start to increase your step count. And Eventually, it just becomes a habit and it just becomes something that you're doing and you don't even really have to think about hitting those eight to 10,000 steps per day.
Strength Training Tips
00:28:26
Speaker
Step number five, the final step of this five step process is to hit your weekly workouts. When it comes to workouts, I'm specifically talking about strength training.
00:28:38
Speaker
All exercise, in my opinion, is good exercise, but specifically when it comes to like losing weight and really changing your body and how you look, lifting weights is the best way and the most effective and efficient way to do that.
00:28:50
Speaker
When it comes to lifting weights, we do this for a lot of reasons. We want to look a certain way. We want to increase our muscle mass, which is going to help with or having a higher metabolism. It's going to help with just increasing the quality of our life because we know that if we have more muscle, we're going to be stronger. We're going to have better energy. We're going to have more endurance and all those things are going to be helpful. Not only now, but especially as you age, muscle and strength become a very important thing. And so we want to make sure that we are lifting weights because, again, that is the best and most efficient way that we can build a significant amount of muscle. And then on top of that, you also have all the mental benefits that comes with lifting weights.
00:29:28
Speaker
It's not always easy, so you're forcing yourself to do hard things. That's a really good skill to cultivate, be able to do hard things and overcome hard things. It helps to build confidence, helps to build discipline, helps to build some grit because you're doing things that you don't always want to do.
00:29:42
Speaker
All those things are really important from just a mental aspect and especially with being able to sustain this weight loss long term and build up some good skills and some good habits around what it means to be healthy and fit you get a lot of that from strength training and so for that reason it's super important when it comes to your practical step with this At a minimum, two times per week. You can make really, really good progress from getting in the gym two times per week.
00:30:09
Speaker
I think a lot more people fall into that three to four times per week. That's what most people can fit into their schedule. They feel good about that. They're able to also balance other things outside of that. I personally love doing four days per week in the gym. That has been my favorite split. I've tried more than that. I don't really like it that much. I've tried less than that. I don't really like that as much. And so it's important to find what you feel is the best for you. And again, this may change. Like maybe you start with two days per week and then you find that, yeah, I have some more time or I want to start to get in the gym a little bit more. I like what it's doing for my mental health. And so you ramp it up to three days per week and then maybe you work up to four days per week, but at a minimum two days per week. And then if you want to work up to three to four days per week, that's cool too.
00:30:51
Speaker
If you're going three days per week, I'm a big fan of doing three full body days or doing a upper or lower than full body split. Again, there's this isn't something that you have to do, but I've seen with just working with a lot of people and helping them out with workouts and plans and making these sorts of things fit into their life and their preferences and their goals that those tend to be really solid splits for people. If you're going four days per week, I really like the upper or lower body split. So two upper body days, two lower body days. You could do full body for four days per week, but you have to be a little bit more strategic about what your plan actually looks like. So I really like upper lower for if you're going to do four days per week. But again, there's no one size fits all. There's so many different ways that you can attack this. But the big thing is to make sure that you get a good plan that fits with you.
00:31:37
Speaker
It's enjoyable and so that you're actually consistent with it. And also just making sure that you're focusing on progressive overload. Like if your plan is not rooted in progressive overload, where you're doing a lot of similar exercises you're focused on building strength over time you're focused on increasing your technique you're focused on doing more weight more reps that sort of thing like that is what you want to be focusing on because if you're seeing those progressions that's a good sign that you are building muscle which is the ultimate goal here with strength training Those
Recap of Fitness Transformation Process
00:32:04
Speaker
are the five steps. You have your mindset, really cultivate the right mindset and set the right expectations.
00:32:09
Speaker
Do those small daily things. You have hitting your calorie target. You have hitting your protein target, hitting your step target, and then hitting your weekly workout target. If you do those five things, you check that box for 80 to 90% of your days out of the year. Like you do those things consistently, your life will look completely different. Your body will look different. Your mindset will be different. Your habits will be different. You'll be a lot healthier and happier. It's just a matter of doing these things consistently and also remembering that this starts small.
00:32:39
Speaker
You don't change all these things overnight. So if these things that you are trying to change, if it feels completely overwhelming and you can't stick to it, that means you need to regress. You need to break it down. You need to start with smaller things. so don't let the fact that you think that you're not doing enough stop you from doing anything at all. These big results, losing 100 pounds, losing 50 pounds, losing 75 pounds, these things start with very small actions done on a daily basis. And so now you have a framework, you have some of the whys behind it, and you have some of the mistakes that I have made and others have made that you can now
Closing Remarks and Audience Engagement
00:33:13
Speaker
avoid. And that will give you a good place to start if you have goals around making a big transformation with the upcoming year.
00:33:21
Speaker
With that being said, i appreciate you listening as always. Kind of hard to believe. i think I'm coming up on 150 episodes, which is almost three years of doing this podcast. And so all of you people that have been listening since the beginning, I really appreciate you. All the people that have joined.
00:33:36
Speaker
along the way. I appreciate you as well. Anybody who has shared this with other people who has left your review, I really do appreciate that. And hopefully you're getting some value out of these things. And if you ever have any questions or anything that I can help with or suggestions about things you'd like me to talk about, topics, anything like that, feel free to reach out.
00:33:57
Speaker
But with that being said, I appreciate you listening and we will see you next