A Patient Approach to Nutrition and Training
Written by Fritz Nugent
We often have new members step into the gym who want to start out with double-days right away and fix their eating and ALL the things all at once! We love this energy and pursuit of greatness, but going out of the gate too quickly is also the fastest way to burn out on your routine. Here’s a more successful way to start by using a more patient approach.Â
A Patient Approach to Training
Start with four days a week of consistent training for one month and see how it goes. No doubles, yet. There is no need to go from inconsistent training to double-days multiple times a week until you have to.Â
Think about it like this: the minimum effective dose is best. If you can get better from X, why do X+1 or even X+5 if X itself is enough to elicit gains? The gains from more training are not always more, and most of the time they are less. So be patient here. Once you can tolerate four days per week of training for a month, then you can decide how you feel about your progress. If you feel good, then keep going four days a week. If you feel like four is not enough (and you’ll know – if this is the case, your soreness will be down and your desire to train will be high on rest days), then you can bump up to five days/week. Same process there for a few months. If after some time your body needs more, then you can add one double day at that time. So be patient and let the gains come to you through consistency.
A Patient Approach to NutritionÂ
Start simple. Clean things up. Eat like this:
– lean meats
– lots of fruits and vegetables
– some starchy carbohydrates (potatoes, sweet potatoes, rice, bread, grains)
– healthy fats (avocado, nuts, extra virgin olive oil, omega-3s)
– and minimize highly processed foods and foods high in sugar, saturated fats, and other highly processed oils
How much food? I assume that you want to gain muscle and lose body fat and stay roughly the same weight that you currently are. This is called a recomposition. To do this, you must eat enough food to maintain weight on the scale while you clean up your eating habits and become more consistent with strength training.Â
This is a process of learning and discovery, and you won’t get it perfect right away. It will take months or years to learn how to do this well. So now you begin taking your first steps along your journey towards your ideal self. I’m here to guide and support, and you must do the work.