The Power of Persistence

My name is Bill, and I have always wanted to be the person with the before and after pictures. I can’t believe I finally accomplished a worthy transformation this. Like so many people, getting leaner and healthier is something I have tried to do many times before; I entered the Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle challenge four times and dropped out every time. The 5th time, I not only finished the challenge and reached my goal (I lost 34 pounds in 3 1/2 months), I’m also confident that now I have all the tools to continue on this journey, and make these changes last a lifetime.
Mindset and Motivation
These past several months of my life have been an incredible journey. One of the biggest things I learned is that goal setting plays a very big part in succeeding. I set both big goals and small goals. This time, I actually wrote them out. I went through a lot of goal cards.
Making the small weekly goals helped a lot. I knew that if I made the small goals, the bigger goals would have to happen. I had my mind set from the beginning I was going to finish this time.
I did find that even with a strong mindset, doubts can creep in if you let them. The best way I found to curb those doubts was to keep going back to the Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle book, or the Burn the Fat Inner Circle. It seemed to me that the more knowledge I acquired, and the more success stories I read and listened to, the more that brought me back in line.
Food and Nutrition
Food and nutrition was probably the easiest part for me. I always knew, through earlier failed attempts, that nutrition for fat loss is as simple as calories in and calories used. My starting point was always going to the online calculators at the Burn the Fat Inner Circle, choosing the Harris Benedict calculator for men, and plugging in my numbers to see how many calories I needed to have for a 25% deficit.
I kept my meal plan as simple as possible. I started with 40/40/20 macronutrient ratios and figured out what foods to eat to get the right ratios and calories.
I started by making a perfect meal plan for one day, and followed that for two weeks to make sure it worked, before I started changing anything. That might sound boring, but I learned that if I had a good baseline plan that worked, I could always come back to it. If I changed anything, I made it as close to the original plan as I could, calorie for calorie.
Breakfast was always oatmeal and a protein drink with an essential oil supplement. my other meals were mainly chicken, fish, and vegetables. I didn’t have any cheat meals or cheat days. I knew from my past experience that it didn’t take much cheating to ruin a week of hard work, and I knew that one ruined week can start playing mind tricks on you really fast.
Training
For my training, I logged every workout I did. Every weight, every rep, every set, every mile on the bike. I made a spreadsheet that listed all the weight training exercises I did. That made it easy to keep track of my progress, and easier to change exercises without guessing what weights to use. All I had to do was go back in the notebook that I kept, and find what I needed. I didn’t want to guess, or leave anything to memory. It was actually easier to do than it sounds.
Cardio was done first thing every morning. 45-60 minutes every morning on a bike in the basement. Winter in the Chicago area was tough on outdoor cardio this year. Needless to say, this is when I did all my TV watching, or listened to Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle audios, success stories, and information.
After about 4 weeks, I was making progress, but I knew that one cardio session a day would not be enough for me to win the competition, so I increased my cardio for the remaining weeks of the challenge to two times a day.
Some people might think that doubling up on cardio is too much or that it’s simply not necessary if your diet is dialed in, but that’s what did the job for me and I know it was responsible for some unbelievable transformations for other people before me.
I’ll never forget reading one of the before and after success stories on the Burn the Fat website. It was about the transformation of John Bartlett who went from literally obese with zero muscle definition to competition bodybuilding shape in 12 weeks. In John’s success story, he wrote, “Cardio is king”. For fat loss, it was for me too.
Other Tips And Advice
The biggest piece of advice I can offer to help other people is this: Try to keep it as simple as possible.
Second is to track it and write it down. So many times I heard, “I’m not counting calories”, or “I’m not logging workouts.” That’s fine if it’s working, but if you’re stuck, you really do have to start tracking everything. After you’re through the initial learning curve, it’s really not that hard.
Do it for even just a few weeks and it all gets easier. You start to memorize the calories in almost everything you normally eat, and you can look up the calories in everything else very quickly and easily. After a while, you don’t even have to think about calories, because eating the right foods in the right amounts becomes a part of you.
Third is to be persistent. The longer a person sticks with the Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle program, the easier it gets. It really does become a part of your everyday lifestyle. It’s actually amazing, you’ll find you won’t be able to stop it from happening.
Last but not least, remember to never stop feeding your mind. When doubt starts creeping in, it’s just a sign that you need more positive input and support. All the information and inspiration you need is in the Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle book or the Burn the Fat Inner Circle website.
-Bill K.