Body transformations aren’t easy to achieve. Whether your goal is to lose fat, gain muscle, or maybe even both, a lot of hard work is needed to reach your goals. The most important thing is that you’ve decided to better yourself on this journey. Whether you’ve already started your transformation or are looking for tips proactively, we are sure the following tips can be of great help. These tips will allow you to optimize the entire process and hopefully make it a bit easier.
- Ease Into It
Probably the most important tip when starting out. Most of us want to go all out at the start of the transformation, frequently burning out way too fast. Your transformation is a marathon, not a sprint. The key to success is to ease into your newly found routine. Going from being a physically inactive person to going to the gym 7 days a week isn’t reasonable, and it certainly isn’t maintainable right out of the gate. Start with baby steps – visit Bulldog Gym 3 times a week and start with a small caloric deficit. As time goes on, you can increase the frequency of your workouts and adjust your diet accordingly.
- Respect Your Recovery
It’s important to treat recovery as a vital part of your body transformation. When you’re just starting out, you won’t have the same tolerance for physical activity as a regular gym-goer. Another major thing to remember is that your body adapts during periods of rest. You won’t build muscle unless you get quality sleep. You most certainly won’t lose body fat if you sleep poorly and get your hormones out of whack. Bulldog Gym offers amenities like our Theragun Percussive Therapy Gun and infrared sauna with chromotherapy to help with your recovery.
- Progressively Overload
One of the fundamental principles of training is called progressive overload. It means that, in order to improve, you need to increase the intensity of your exercise gradually. You can do this by increasing the weight you’re using, the number of sets or reps you perform, or the total number of exercises you do. You need to step up things gradually, not start from a tall starting place and then crumble down. Our trainers at Bulldog Gym can guide you through this process effectively.
- Set Achievable Goals and Break Them Down into Smaller Goals
Let’s be real, you will not lose 200 pounds in a month. Neither will you gain 45 pounds of lean muscle in 3 months. Being realistic with your goal-setting could be the difference between failure and success. After setting realistic goals, it’s time to break them down into smaller goals. For example, planning to lose 80 pounds in a year is great, but that year is a long time from now, and sometimes it might seem too far away. By making sure we chunk the big goals down into bite-sized goals, we can track our progress and make sure we are on the right track. Plus, seeing yourself achieving goals on a monthly basis can be a huge motivation boost! Consider using Bulldog Gym’s InBody Body Composition Scanner to track your progress accurately.
- Plan for Cheat Days
Even hardcore bodybuilders have cheat days, so can you. These “planned hedonic goal deviations” help us stay true to our goals when we are actually following a diet. A study by Polivy and Herman (2005) found that planned deviations from a diet, such as cheat days, can improve long-term adherence and reduce the likelihood of binge eating (Polivy, J., & Herman, C. P. (2005). If you binge, will you purge? A prospective study of the relation between dieting and binging in nonobese women. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 114(1), 124). Dieting can be challenging, and cheat days can help you make it more enjoyable. Our selection of healthy snacks and grab-and-go meals from CleanEatzKitchen can support your diet while allowing for the occasional treat.
- Take Progress Pics
Taking progress pics is a must. You don’t have to share them with anyone. Just stash them somewhere so you can look back to see how much you’ve achieved. Many members at Bulldog Gym have expressed how they regret not taking a few progress pictures, especially when starting out. These pictures can be a great source of motivation.
- Get a Coach
If there’s something that will help you achieve your goals, it’s a personal trainer. Not only will your accountability go up since you’re spending money on their services, but a quality trainer will do everything in their power to help you achieve your goals. From structuring workout programs to putting together a nutrition plan, a quality coach will be your second biggest advantage on your path to success. Bulldog Gym offers personal training services to help you stay on track and reach your fitness goals. Your first advantage, of course, is your discipline.
Embrace these tips and leverage the services, programs, and amenities at Bulldog Gym to make your body transformation journey a successful and enjoyable one.
