Your Ultimate Body Transformation Plan

by Nick Mitchell

  Lesson number one, however, is not about exercise, but instead should be all about your diet. Abs are very rarely made in the gym. They are made by controlling yourself in the kitchen. Following the right diet for a sustained period of time is paramount to achieving your goals, and we delve into this in depth in Chapter 6.

  However, many of you will benefit from additional cardiovascular-oriented training sessions. Go to Chapter 4 to read all about the best ways to incorporate cardio training into your transformation programme.

  HOW TO LIVE YOUR LIFE (FOR 12 WEEKS): LIFESTYLE RULES FOR MAXIMUM RESULTS IN MINIMUM TIME

  Some people say that diet is 80 per cent of the battle for a successful body transformation. Others say that training is 50 per cent. And you will get the wise old souls who say that it’s 33 per cent training, 33 per cent diet, 33 per cent rest, and 1 per cent luck! All of them are right. In certain cases.

  The blunt truth is that it is impossible to categorically define the exact importance of each factor. It will always be slightly different because we all have different genetics, different starting points and different goals. There are key rules, however, that you need to adhere to if you want a superlative result.

  CONSISTENCY IS KING

  One enormous problem that I see all the time, and that you may well have suffered from personally, is the lack of appreciation that most aspiring muscle-builders have for the importance of consistency.

  The importance of consistency is what makes bodybuilding one of the hardest ‘sports’ imaginable, because you are effectively working towards your goal 24 hours a day, and the chances are that if you are not doing something positive then you are doing something negative. We all need to remember that the body doesn’t stay in some sort of halfway house where it just stays the same: we are either anabolic (building up) or we are catabolic (breaking down). There is no middle ground here so the inconsistent trainee always becomes the unsuccessful trainee. It is imperative that you are consistent with:

  Your diet. Forget all of this intermittent fasting craze. It is categorically not the best way to build muscle as fast as possible. Some of you will need to find ways to get in as many calories as possible so every opportunity to eat must be taken; others will need to watch every morsel that enters their mouths.

  When wanting to add muscle most typical ectomorphs do not consume enough food, so forget about all that you read on the internet about long breaks in between meals to aid protein synthesis and instead focus on getting enough calories and the right macronutrients in and be consistent with whatever feeding schedule is most appropriate for you. The chances are that it will mean consuming calories every few hours and never ever skipping a meal. This will arguably be the most challenging aspect of your transformation process.

  Your training. Going to the gym consistently for two weeks and then skipping five days – a typical routine for the majority of gym-goers – will get you nowhere fast. Yes, you will improve a little bit for a little while, but very soon even the mediocre gains will come crashing to a halt and you will become dispirited, demotivated, and quit. Your body does not want to be lean and muscular and you must fight it tooth and claw to positively adapt to the training stress that you put it under.

  PRIORITISE YOURSELF

  Radically changing your physique is one of the hardest challenges you will ever undertake. Hopefully you’ve got the message by now that it takes round-the-clock attention and dedication, and this means that at certain times you are going to have to be selfish. For the next 12 weeks you need to make a deal with yourself and all those around you that for this short period of time you’re going to prioritise yourself.

  This doesn’t mean that you can say, ‘Nick Mitchell says it’s OK for me to be a selfish bastard or his book won’t work.’ Far from it, because in order to grow you also want to minimise your headaches!

  What I am telling you is that your training, your ‘strange’ diet and your rest come first. Late night out with the boys? Skip it. Long weekend in the countryside with the wife? Skip it. Running the London Marathon? Skip it. You get the picture. It’s only 12 weeks of your life, then you can cruise along, keep your gains, and put your foot down on the gas again when you think the time is right to improve even more.

  MAKE MUSCLE YOUR NUMBER-ONE PRIORITY

  Unless you’re a mutant super-freak the bad news is that your body doesn’t want to add muscle. It will fight you every step of the way. And as for adding muscle quickly, just forget about it. Muscle is metabolically inefficient, meaning it uses up too much fuel (which is a positive if we want to look good, but not ideal for the feast-or-famine scenarios our DNA wants us to be prepared for) so your body will look for every opportunity possible to not add muscle. This goes double for those of you who are ectomorphs and naturally slim.

  As a result we need to revert to an old bodybuilding maxim of ‘not wasting calories’. Don’t run when you can walk. Don’t walk when you can stand. Don’t stand when you can sit. Don’t sit when you can lie down. Of course you don’t need to take these words literally but it does mean that for the 12-week period of this programme I don’t want you playing football, jogging in the park or dancing until 4 a.m. You grow when you rest. Bear that in mind at all times.

  And just a quick note for those of you who might be worrying about this advice and the impact on your cardiovascular health. Go through one of the prescribed weights workouts, sticking to the right tempo, load and rest intervals, and then tell me that your cardiovascular system ‘needs’ you to go running!

  Please note that the above advice refers to those of you seeking to add maximum muscle, not a ‘body recomposition’ where fat loss is a critical goal.

  PLAN AHEAD

  The beauty of the Ultimate Transformation Plan workouts is that all the training is laid out for you. It is easy to follow and you don’t need to think about it too hard. The same principle needs to apply to the rest of your life, and whereas it would be impossible to lay out a life plan for you as every reader will have a different job, home environment, and ability to commit, you can and should take control and plan everything out for yourself.

  This doesn’t mean that you need to sit down and map out everything that you’re going to do for the next 84 days. But it does mean that living each day on the fly just won’t cut it.

  Your gym time needs to be set into your schedule, your bedtime needs to be regular, your eating time needs organising. Above all else your food for the day needs preparing before you leave the house. Popping out for a quick sandwich at lunchtime is guaranteeing you fail this programme. Buy some Tupperware, plan ahead and cook your meals the night before, and make life simple and easy for yourself. Nothing in the plan is difficult – except maybe the training routines! – but it will be mildly inconvenient until you get into the habit of planning ahead. Then it should be as easy as falling off a log and your progress could be spectacular.

  MINIMISE STRESS

  One of the personality traits that typifies a significant percentage of ‘easy gainers’ – yes, there are people out there who can add ridiculous amounts of muscle drug-free in a very short space of time – is that they are very laid-back. Conversely, think about people you know who are highly strung: the chances are that they are wiry and lean with very little fat and muscle bulk.

  One of the reasons for this is that when we are stressed out and worrying (usually for no good reason) our adrenal glands are working overtime producing the fight or flight stress hormone cortisol.

  Cortisol is not the demon hormone that some have made it out to be. We need it to mobilise fat as energy, and without it you literally wouldn’t get out of bed in the morning.

  However, while acute levels of cortisol have a purpose (running away from something dangerous or getting ready for a hard gym workout), chronic cortisol secretion caused by ‘over-stressing’ can have a very negative effect in the long run by both lowering our peak cortisol output, meaning that we have lower energy levels and fatigue more easily, an
d reducing testosterone levels.

  Testosterone, as you may know, is the key androgenic hormone that helps us to build muscle tissue and recover from intense training sessions, and is something that we want to maximise as much as possible.

  A good way for you to contextualise this is to think about your own sex drive when you’re relaxed and on holiday versus a time of extended stress. When you’re chilled out and not worrying, your sexual appetite – therefore testosterone level – is much higher than when you’re worried and your cortisol is through the roof.

  What all this means for you is that in order to optimise your muscle-building efforts you must exercise a disciplined mind and make every effort to only worry about the things that really deserve your concern. Your family, your health and your job are all important. The person who annoys you on the commute to work, the fact that your wife makes you do the washing up, or that bloke off the TV, are all just bothersome things and not worthy of any stress at all. And when you’re struggling try this little trick of mine: Ask yourself whether it will bother you five years from now. The answer is almost always a resounding no.

  SLEEP IS A NECESSITY, NOT A LUXURY

  Sleep is so critical to your progress that it deserves a chapter all to itself. To be very clear, if you do not prioritise a restful night’s sleep you will not make optimal progress. I don’t care how hard you train and how smart you diet; without the right amount of quality sleep you will never make significant changes to your body.

  For those of you who say that you don’t have time to get the recommended eight hours of sleep a night, welcome to my world. I am forced to do what Arnold Schwarzenegger says and get six hours by ‘sleeping faster’, but I am no longer prioritising my body composition. For the purposes of your own 12-week transformation you should insist that you do everything possible to get as much sleep as you need.

  How do you define how much sleep you need? You should wake up feeling refreshed without the need for an alarm clock. That’s probably something that very few of you ever achieve. It doesn’t have to be eight hours, though – for some it will be more, and others can function optimally on much less.

  Whatever your own sleep sweet-spot you must never forget that it is one of the key non-negotiables to optimal health, hormones, performance, and physical potential. In very simple terms, not getting enough sleep plays havoc with:

  TESTOSTERONE PRODUCTION: Go a few nights on 60 per cent of the sleep you need and see what happens to your sex drive. A teenager or young man in his 20s won’t feel this, but wait until the 30s and 40s hit.

  INSULIN AND CORTISOL: Your tired mind – never forget how significant the brain is in these things – and body need boosts in cortisol to get them going and they also become more insulin resistant (meaning it is much more likely to store glucose in the fat cells). What sort of foods do you reach for when you are sleep deprived? The worst kinds always – forget meat and veg and think croissants and candy. You do this for a hormonal reason and it will send you into a negative spiral of worse food, lower ‘real’ energy, mental fog and fat accumulation.

  GROWTH HORMONE (HGH) PRODUCTION: We release a lot of our HGH during certain cycles of sleep. Miss these cycles out and you can’t play catch-up.

  SLEEP SCIENCE

  Sleep is much more complicated than you may think, with four distinct stages. There are three non-rapid eye movement stages and the rapid eye movement state, which is associated with dreaming.

  In each phase biochemistry is altered within the body to promote memory retention and increase hormonal production.

  The first two phases of sleep are the transition period from a state of being awake to that of reduced body temperature and slower brain waves.

  The third phase – known as slow-wave sleep – is that of hormonal production and receptor sensitivity regulators. It is critical for body composition change because during this phase your body resets insulin sensitivity and promotes growth hormone production. If you wake up between 1 a.m. and 3 a.m. in the morning after falling asleep at 10 p.m. the chances are that this crucial phase of sleep is disturbed.

  Your liver is responsible for much of the hormonal balance, so if the liver is unable to fully process toxins this balance is disturbed and the effect will be a lack of urinary control and a need to use the bathroom during the night. The problem with disturbing slow-wave sleep is that in this phase the switch is reset to prevent the onset of diabetes or cancer growth, so it is vital not only for composition change but also for much more important health factors.

  The final phase is REM sleep, which is responsible, among other things, for establishing motor unit function and memory retention.

  Therefore sleep can be a complicated process, and for many people it sadly isn’t as simple as climbing into bed and hoping for the best. Most of you reading this will not have optimal sleeping patterns, but there are many things that we can do to improve that.

  HOW TO IMPROVE SLEEP QUALITY

  01 Keep regular hours: go to bed at the same time every night and dispel this notion that you can play ‘catch-up’ at weekends.

  02 Sleep in a cool room: by decreasing body temperature and regulating room temperature, you can create an environment that will sustain REM sleep.

  03 Make your bedroom a Batcave: REM sleep can easily be affected by noise pollution and light interference, so make your bedroom as dark and as quiet as possible. Go as far as switching off electrical devices that have standby lights on. Light interference can easily create a sensory marker in the brain that disturbs REM sleep, therefore it is vital to establish the best sleep environment. Even the slightest light contact with the skin will reduce the quality of REM sleep, so the darker the bedroom the more likely you are to gain quality REM sleep. I know this sounds a bit over the top but the changes will be worth it.

  04 Take magnesium. This mineral is vital in aiding cortisol management and therefore assists slow-wave sleep by resetting insulin sensitivity. Magnesium is also a catalyst in re-establishing adrenal health through the cortisol/insulin connection.

  05 Take Californian poppy extract. This is a great adaptogenic herb (see here) that relaxes brain waves into slow-wave sleep. It also acts as a liver detoxifier and has a secondary pathway in slowly aiding the removal of toxins that affect the sleep cycle.

  06 Eat better. Our diets have a significant impact upon the sleep cycle. Foods that are high in carbohydrates may increase serotonin production (the neurotransmitter responsible for a calm, happy and relaxed state of mind), but the downside is that once blood-sugar levels decline the body will go into a natural hunger mode and it is possible that you may wake up as a natural reaction to low blood sugar. Foods that are high in essential fats will aid in establishing a constant blood glucose level, which is beneficial because the body will be able to go into a fasting state while slow-release energy is being made available for metabolic function. Therefore one option to try is to stay away from carbohydrate-rich meals at least two hours before bed and instead have a meal rich in essential fatty acids. You must experiment to find out which approach works best for you as very often, especially in individuals dieting on lower-carbohydrate diets, carbs prior to bedtime can significantly improve sleep quality.

  07 If you are waking up after two to four hours of sleep you may benefit from a protocol that will assist your liver’s ability to detoxify. Increase fibre intake and consider a morning and evening addition of a high-quality fibre supplement.

  Glucuronic acid, a carboxylic acid with a structure similar to glucose, is vital in unbinding phase-two detoxified substances for removal from the gastrointestinal (GI) tract. Take two calcium d-glucarate capsules three times daily for 16 days.

  Use an oestrogen control protocol (see Chapter 8) for 16 days.

  As an ongoing liver support formula, mix one to three tablespoons of a good-quality greens powder (a concentrated version of several fruits, vegetables and herbs that is taken as a supplement) with 1.5l of water and consume daily. Maintaining pH le
vels will aid not only GI detoxification but also positively influence proper cortisol management.

  03 EXERCISE FUNDAMENTALS

  ‘To progress in the gym you must do today what you could not do yesterday.’ If only the hordes of gym-goers worldwide could understand this concept then gym results would be magnified tenfold.

  Only by forcing your body to a place that it doesn’t want to go will it make a positive adaptation, in this case by getting stronger, fitter and laying down new muscle tissue.

  I want to set out some rules for you to live by when you go to the gym. If these concepts are new to you then please read through them before every single workout until they are ingrained in your brain. They really are that important.

  HOW TO LIFT WEIGHTS

  I’d hazard a guess that the average gym-goer should be considered a failure when it comes to achieving their weight-training goals. This would be for multi-factorial reasons, but one critical missing component is that very few people know how to properly lift weights. If you think that effective weight training is all about lifting a weight up and putting a weight down then you need to completely rethink your approach.

  Before we get into what that new approach should be I want you to ask yourself a question. What are you trying to achieve when you are resistance training?

  If your answer is ‘to show off to hot chicks in the gym’ then you and I have reached a philosophical crossroads and we need to part ways. If your answer is the slightly more complicated ‘to use progressive overload and improve by lifting more weight or doing more repetitions at every session’ then you do have half the answer, but you are also running the risk of falling into the trap of chasing performance at the expense of stimulation, and often safety.