After the 12 Week Workout Plan is Over

A lot of plans talk about 8 weeks, 12 weeks.  Even I wrote one – 2 weeks.  The truth about plans that include time frames is that once the 12 week workout plan is over, life still goes on.  Sometimes people try these plans and after the plan is over, they still haven’t succeeded in achieving their goal.  So they feel that there’s no hope and a lot of people end up confused, discouraged, defeated, and lost.

The truth is, unless you’re getting ready for a show, there shouldn’t be a 12 week plan.  It should be a life plan.  Do you plan to brush your teeth for 12 weeks and then quit if your teeth don’t become sparkly white and perfect?  No, you have to maintain them for the rest of your life.

The same thing goes for health and fitness and your physique in general.  You have to think of this as more of marathon and not a sprint.  I don’t know if many people can actually do everything in 12 weeks.  Matter of fact I’m willing to bet they can’t.  Most people I’ve worked with have a hard time making a change in a year.  So to define your fitness goals in a 12 week parameter, may possibly set you up for failure.

I’m not trying to slam anyone who has created a 12 week workout plan because a lot of them are made well.  The truth is a lot of people want quick fixes and there is no fast way to accomplish anything that will last a lifetime that’s good.  What people should be focusing on is how to make a life change because to base a life changing program on 12 weeks is almost like saying that you won’t physically change after 12 weeks is over, which is a lie.

But if you change your lifestyle and make that apart of your plan, now you’ve incorporated something that will be with you always. So a plan that will be forever beneficial would include weekly and monthly consistent diet and training in moderation.

Usually people are caught up in 5-6 day workloads in the gym with loads of cardio, excessive dieting and supplementation.  I’ve heard people talk about eating chicken and rice and fish and oatmeal, sweet potatoes and vegetables measured to this amount and weighed to that amount.  That’s fine sometimes but you have to realize even though you may not want to admit it, you want to be able to eat fatty foods and have decadent desserts on a weekly to monthly basis.  Unless you’re preparing to diet for some sort of competition or photo shoot, or any occasion that requires you to be in superb condition, this way of eating should not be apart of your month to month eating from now until forever.

This is one of the problems with the 12 week plan – when people don’t see the results they thought they would see at the end, they are forced to continue to eat in this manner and end up breaking their diet every other weekend if not every weekend.  By staying consistent – training and eating in moderation, a permanent transition can take place eliminating the need to struggle within 12 weeks and the feeling of discouragement and defeat when unsuccessful.

The first step to starting your journey of physical fitness is to slowly eliminate bad foods from your diet.  This includes processed foods, junk food, sodas, etc., you get the idea.  The next step is to join a gym if you’re not already signed up and train anywhere from 2-3 days in a 7 day period leaving at least a day or two between each workout day to rest.

If you’re the average person and not someone who’s into competing or a fitness model, basic multivitamins will enough to begin with as far as supplementation.  However, if you are a little more hardcore and want to get sliced, diced and shredded, you might already have an idea about what you may need as far as supplementation goes, ie. fat burners, pre-workouts, protein, amino acids, glutamine, etc,.

But again unless you are getting ready for some show in the next couple months, use these supplements in moderation and also remember that food is the best and most vital supplement your body needs first and foremost.  On this lifelong mission to change your physique, it’s more important to weight your options of what you enjoy eating and doing versus what the diet requires.

And the main reason why I say this is because you need to find a balance between your personal life and everything around you.  This is what I’ve come to find is the hardest thing for people to juggle.  So by just doing a little every week instead of a lot, it becomes more of something you enjoy doing instead of something you have to do.  And so as the years go on, you become more like fine wine getting better with age.

The knowledge that you acquire by doing this over the years will be because you experience this new lifestyle and it won’t be because of you cramming it all in 12 weeks.