The CORE 4 Pillars of Health & Fitness that Cannot Be Overlooked
You want to gain muscle and lose fat.
You want a body that is not only healthy but exudes discipline, confidence, and self mastery.
Building that kind of body is difficult especially for busy guys over 30 and it’s easy to get discouraged even when you are doing all the right things because the body responds slowly to diet and exercise.
To make matters worse, everyone from social media influencers to grandmothers have an opinion on how you should go about achieving your goal.
Whether it’s cutting carbs, lifting weights, running, zumba, yoga, pilates, paleo, keto, IIFYM, WeightWatchers, Zone, CrossFit, bodybuilding, calisthenics, kettlebell training, and more, the combinations for diet and exercise are nearly infinite. A guy could spend a lifetime switching to the newest diet and exercise trend to hit the market and still not achieve his goal physique.
I am giving away the exact process I use (backed by both science and experience) to help my clients cut through the mountain of garbage that is the modern day fitness industry so they can finally stop spinning their wheels and start achieving their best body in a direct and simple manner that does not require bizarre methods, weird supplements, or a ton of time.
As I told you earlier, the body responds slowly to diet and exercise so don’t waste any precious time getting your progress derailed by something that gets a lot of attention and looks interesting (ice baths anyone) but does little to produce results.
There are four concepts that you need to master if you want to transform your body in a meaningful way.
That’s it, four.
Without paying attention to these four concepts you will find yourself discouraged from a lack of progress. All the other junk you see or hear is useless if you are not addressing these core four pillars of health and fitness.
They are:
Sleep
Steps or daily movement
Energy balance
Resistance training
How you address these core four pillars is up to you but until you start addressing them all you will not get the results you are looking for. Let’s take a closer look at each of these pillars.
Sleep
It is essential to get adequate and restful sleep. When you are sleep deprived your body does not function in a way that promotes health, performance, and aesthetics. Your appetite gets thrown out of whack, hormones that are responsible for recovery dwindle, you impair blood sugar regulation, and your willpower evaporates.
If you are serious about transforming your body, get serious about improving your sleep. Shoot for seven and a half hours of restful sleep or more per night if you can.
The obvious exception to this rule is parents with young children. If you have young children that you are caring for night after night, take hope, it is just a season and your children will sleep through the night which means you too will eventually sleep through the night. Until that time, do what you can to improve the quality of your sleep every night and be reasonable with your approach to diet and exercise. You would be surprised at what you're able to accomplish, even with compromised sleep, by consistently following a reasonable workout and eating plan that takes into account your lifestyle rather than driving your body into the ground with HIIT style classes.
Steps (aka daily movement)
You may be surprised to learn that you don’t need to run (or any form of cardio) to achieve your fat-loss goals. A common misconception is that you NEED to handcuff yourself to a treadmill in order to lose weight. You don’t. Cardiovascular training is amazing and should be included in everyone’s weekly workout agenda… for heart health not fat-loss.
What you do need to account for is daily movement.
I like using my step count to track my daily movement, it’s a simple way to quantify how much I move day to day. When you eat fewer calories your desire to move throughout the day decreases (aka the compensation effect) which means that if you want to lose body-fat you need to stay consistent with how much you move everyday. Otherwise, you will eat less and find yourself moving less and which means that you will see a stall in progress.
No clue how much you are moving on a daily basis? Aim for 7-10k steps per day. How you choose to get your steps in is completely up to you. If you get all your steps at once or break them up throughout the day is up to you and based on your unique schedule and lifestyle.
The simple act of walking has many other benefits than simply keeping the “energy out” side of the equation consistent. Walking helps with digestion and blood sugar control, improves mood, and boosts cognitive performance so do not dismiss the simple act of putting one foot in front of the other because it’s “too simple or easy.”
Strength Train
Whether you want to gain muscle or lose body fat, strength training is going to be a requirement unless you would prefer a “skinny fat” appearance. The role of strength training in body transformation is to create the right amount of tension on the muscles to signal your body to build more muscle (provided you are supplying it with the required raw materials) or hold onto as much muscle as possible while you are trying to lose weight.
The form of strength training you choose is determined mostly by preference and logistics. What I mean by that is you can get ridiculously strong with your bodyweight and a knowledge of how to place your body at a mechanical disadvantage. You need to look no further than elite gymnasts for proof. However, most of us mortals will fare better with some form of weight training in addition to bodyweight strength training. Fortunately, you have A LOT of options in regard to which methods for strength training you want to use. The key takeaway here is to find a method that you enjoy and fits into your schedule. Do you like kettlebells and bodyweight strength training? Awesome you can get strong. If you like traditional barbell and dumbbell training, you can get strong. Do you enjoy machines at the gym? Rock on!
You can get strong and build muscle with nearly every tool and gizmo out there provided it’s being used in a progressively challenging manner.
This is where your preferences come into play. Train however you like as long as you can consistently get two to four sessions per week with 10-20 sets per muscle group/movement pattern spread throughout the week. (read this last sentence again because this is arguably the most important part of designing a muscle building program)
There are principles to pay attention to when choosing a program however, even a poorly designed program done consistently will get you results (at least at first) but, you will get better results for a longer period of time with a lower risk of injury when you choose a properly designed program. The key takeaway here is to remember what my friend, Pat Flynn, likes to say, “Always something, never nothing.” In other words, don’t get so caught up trying to find a perfect program to the point where you never start. Take action ASAP, choose a training plan, and get to work!
If you’d like 30 free Kettlebell and bodyweight workouts that you can accomplish in 30 minutes or less for FREE I’ve got you covered! Just go here.
Energy Balance (AKA Calories & Protein)
The final and perhaps biggest factor in whether or not you get lean or put on muscle is going to be your eating. It’s not popular to say this but, nearly 80% of the results in a body transformation are created by a change in eating habits.
It does not matter if you choose keto, paleo, vegan, Whole 30, Weight Watchers or other fad diet/system of eating that pops up across your feed, if you ignore energy balance you will not gain muscle or lose weight. End of story. It’s not hormones, it’s not chemicals, it’s not sugar, or not taking ice baths it's your energy balance.
If you are not seeing results from your eating plan (or lack of a plan) then it is time to start paying attention to your energy balance. The way that we track energy intake is by counting calories.
When I have clients track calories I try to get at least three days of eating recorded (two weekdays and one weekend day) and get the average of the three for a baseline of what your daily energy intake looks like. Once you have your average daily intake you can adjust based on whether you want to gain muscle or lose fat.
Don’t want to track your calories for the rest of your life? Me either, and you don’t have to. In fact, I don’t recommend counting calories for a prolonged period of time. Instead I recommend you to track your calories for 4-8 weeks because you will start to learn which of the foods you enjoy that also move you closer to your goal. You will also learn which foods are sabotaging your efforts in building the body of your dreams.
The amount of insight you will gain from weighing and measuring your food during a 4-8 week period will serve you for the rest of your life. You will calibrate your eyeballs so you know what a 6 ounce chicken breast or steak looks like, you will understand what a half a cup of rice looks like, and you will get a handle on how much you are eating by simply looking at your plate. After a few weeks of practice counting calories and weighing and measuring you will intuitively know the proper amount of food your body needs without having to log every single meal.
Once you have your energy intake dialed in its time to start tracking your protein intake.
Most of us could use more protein in our life. Protein is not only important for supporting muscle growth and repair, it is incredibly filling which makes life a lot more enjoyable whenever you are trying to lose weight.
Another reason to track protein intake is that it has the highest thermic effect of feeding (meat sweats anyone?) which is a hundred dollar phrase for saying that it raises your metabolism which helps support weight loss. I like recommending 0.7-1g of protein per pound of goal bodyweight per day as the standard for nearly everyone regardless of goal to achieve.
Key actions:
Find your daily caloric average by tracking your food for a minimum of three days(a full week is even better) then add or subtract 10-20% if you want to gain or lose weight.
Take your ideal bodyweight and multiply it by 0.7-1g to get your daily protein target
Get started tracking for 4-8 weeks
Conclusion:
If you are stuck and it seems that your results have stalled out for a while, you are not alone. It will happen to everyone. The good news is that getting back on track is a simple process once you know where to focus your time and effort.
If you are stuck, start tracking these CORE 4 areas for health and longevity, performance, and aesthetics. After more than a decade of helping men and women move toward their health and fitness goals nearly every obstacle stems from one or more of these Core 4 fundamental areas.
Once you apply the core 4 consistently you will see the change in your body that you are looking for. The problem is that in order to solidify the core 4 consistently you must work to implement skills, tactics and strategies that allow for you to make them work in the context of your own life (your schedule, your knowledge of exercise, your unique body, your unique preferences). But, if you keep coming back to these core 4 areas and doing your best to improve in these areas you WILL arrive at your goal body.
Stay tuned for more detailed articles about each of the Core 4 pillars of health and fitness.