I spend a lot of time reading exercise research, nutrition studies and, obviously, experimenting with various types of exercise and “diets” on myself and, to an extent, my clients. From a lifetime of self-study and four years of The Fitness Camp’s live boot camp, I believe I can sum up the keys to reaching your fitness goals – that is, the keys that don’t involve goals, motive, associations and self-identity – with two words:

1. Nutrition
2. Intensity

Exercise Intensity

Let’s talk about exercise intensity first. If you want to lose fat or lose weight, or completely transform your body, you need an intense exercise program. 3 hours on the elliptical is not only a colossal waste of time, but may be detrimental to both your joints your objectives. The key to a good exercise program is intensity. And you can’t maintain the proper level of intensity for 3 hours. Most people can’t maintain it for three minutes. That’s why you’ve probably heard of interval training, and metabolic resistance training, and even The Fitness Camp’s own hemispheric training. Because they work.

When I create workouts, I design them to be short and intense, because that’s the formula that gets results for most people. Including the warm-up, you get in and get out in 30 minutes or less, give your all during that time, and that’s it for the day. Fast, effective, and it doesn’t consume your day.

A good exercise program should work your entire body. This helps burn more fat and shape your body because of the multiple processes and hormone releases full-body exercise encourages.Once you’ve established the all-important intensity aspect, a quality exercise program should consist of multi-joint exercises, meaning exercises that utilize two or more joints in the movement. Pushups, squats and dumbbell rows are multi-joint exercises. Arm curls and leg extensions are not.

Also, a good exercise program should, on most days, work your entire body. This helps burn more fat and shape your body because of the multiple processes and hormone releases full-body exercise encourages.

Another important element to an effective exercise program is variety. Your body will adapt and, if you don’t mix it up, your body will plateau and that will be the end of you reaching your goal. So with a full-body, varied, multi-joint, high-intensity interval training program such as The Fitness Camp, you’ve got the Intensity element handled, and you’ll get the most from the exercise portion of the fitness equation.

Nutrition

Now let’s talk about nutrition. In general, what you put in your mouth holds an unreasonable and disproportionate sway over the results you will experience with any exercise program. I’d say your nutrition will determine 80% of your results. Poor eating habits diminish even the best workout systems. So that’s the “bad” news. The good news is that eating well, to support your health and fitness goals, isn’t as difficult as you may think.

I don’t believe in anything that’s not maintainable (health and fitness-wise), and so crash diets or any diet that is for “30 days” or “in just 2 Weeks!” is pointless from my perspective. Overwhelming statistics show that once the diet is done, the weight comes back, and with it an even higher body fat percentage. And that’s not good.

Eat 4-5 meals per day. Eat a complete, lean protein with every meal. Eat fruits and vegetables with every meal. Eliminate or minimize bread, pasta and sugar. A third of your calories should come from fat. Don’t drink your calories. Eat whole foods.So let’s talk basics principles. Here are the 7 elements of a good nutrition plan you’ll need to get the most out of any workout:

1) Eat 4-5 meals per day. Often a good pattern is simply breakfast, morning snack, lunch, afternoon snack, dinner.

2) Eat a complete, lean protein with every meal. If you’re an omnivore, complete proteins are animal products. If you’re a vegetarian, you’ll need to learn how to put together all the amino acids to form a complete protein.

3) Eat fruits and vegetables – preferably vegetables – with every meal. Your mother told you this, your teachers told you this, and they were right. It’s crucial for good health.

4) Your carbohydrates should come from fruits and vegetables. This means that, if you’re REALLY serious about transforming your body, you’ll need to A) eliminate or minimize the flour in your diet (bread, pasta, etc.); and B) Eliminate or minimize sugar and artificial sweeteners. I know, I know. I LOVE bread and pasta, too. And honey. But, if you’ve never tried getting rid of these types of foods, you will be AMAZED at how good you feel – and how much energy you’ll have – once you start cutting them out of your diet.

For most people this step – eliminating or minimizing bread, pasta and sugar – is the most challenging aspect of good nutrition. I understand that. I’ve struggled with it, too. It’s a matter of detaching yourself emotionally from bread and pasta. For me, honey is my kryptonite. It’s a never-ending struggle, but I love honey, and I want to enjoy life and eating, so my goal is to keep my honey consumption under control. Minimize. That’s it. Whatever you do must be a sane, healthy and maintainable nutrition system.

5) Be sure about a third of your calories comes from fat, equally split between saturated (animal fats), monounsaturated (olive oil, etc.) and polyunsaturated, which are fats such as flax oil or salmon oil. That might be complicated, so it often helps to have a nutrition tracking system performing the heavy lifting for you so you can be sure your macro- and micro-nutritional elements are in place.

6) Don’t drink your calories. Drink only non-calorie containing beverages. Your best choices are water and tea, and the best tea choice is green tea.

7) Eat whole foods, meaning non-processed foods. You’ve heard it a million times – shop around the edge of the grocery store. Produce, meats, dairy. That’s generally where they keep the food that’s good for you.

Eat anything you want using those 7 principles, and you’ll be on your way to body transformation.

Avoid foods with more than 5 ingredients. Avoid foods with health claims. Take a quality Omega-3 supplement.And just for the fun of it, three quick, bonus nutrition tips:

1) Avoid foods with more than 5 ingredients

2) Avoid foods with health claims. If the box says “Now with Omega-3!”, chances are it’s bad for you. Spinach and kiwi and salmon don’t have to toot their own horns about how healthy they are. We all KNOW they’re healthy.

3) Take a quality Omega-3 supplement. Omega-3 (fish oil) helps counteract the negative effects of a grain-heavy Western diet.

With all that in mind, the most frustrating thing about quality fitness programs and quality nutrition programs is that they work gradually. Not because they’re less effective than crash diets or “Put on 10 pounds of Rippling Muscle in 10 days!” bodybuilding systems, but because they are designed to create good habits and promote gradual behavioral change, which is what prepares one for a lifetime spent in one’s “ideal state.”

What’s Ideal State? It’s a term I’ve used for a few years now when describing the sort of aesthetic, performance and enjoyment balance my online personal training program is designed to achieve. Ideal State is the balance of appearance, capability and lifestyle enjoyment that you can maintain for the rest of your life, not just for the next 60 days while you drop 20 pounds, only to put it back on in the subsequent 120 days.

For example, let’s say that you work out three times per day (even though it interferes with other things you’d like to do) and never let sugar or carbs pass your lips (even though you like sugar with your coffee and ache for a plate of pasta). You have a six-pack and measure in at 7% body fat.

Ideal State is the balance of appearance, capability and lifestyle enjoyment that you can maintain for the rest of your life.But by my yardstick, the above is not your Ideal State. Why not? Because Ideal State takes into account not only your body fat and lean muscle mass, but your overall enjoyment of life. If you could work out only once per day and have more time with your friends and family, and If having sugar with your coffee each morning and Fettucini Alfredo on Saturday nights will make your life more enjoyable, is it really so bad if your body fat skyrocketed all the way to 8%?

I’ve found I’m happier if I add honey to my morning tea, and include an “anything goes” day (usually Saturdays) each week. The rest of the time, I try to nail my “diet” 80% of the time. This “allows” me to eat macaroni and cheese with my kids, or have a muffin with a friend, and essentially live a normal life around people who are committed to fitness AND those who are not so committed.

In the end, like most things, Ideal State is about balance. Look in the mirror, take measurements, get on the scale, see what’s working, see what’s not working, make adjustments. It’s your body. Your life. You can look great, feel great, and enjoy it all at the same time. Know your goal and motive. Control your associations. Revise your self-identity. Follow good nutrition habits, exercise with the proper intensity, and balance your physical goals with your lifestyle.

Now you know what to do. Next up is today’s workout. Like yesterday, you have the choice of dumbbells or no dumbbells. Make a decision, and let’s get to it.