The Foundations of Fitness

The Essential Guide to Achieving your Fitness Goals Faster, Safer, and Maintaining the Results! Part 1

By Danny Borowicz

So you have decided to get in shape. Luckily, just joining your local gym will solve all of your problems…

Oh wait 🤔that’s not true😆

The truth is there is a lot of hard work ahead of you. That said, let’s get you to work smarter, not just harder.

Think of yourself as this wonderful project, a beautiful building that is going up. I’m not a construction expert, but I do know that every building needs a solid foundation. The same holds true for this glorious project, you! The foundations of fitness will allow you to set a solid place from which to build yourself up, be a springboard to achieve fantastic results quickly, and have them last longer, a lifetime if applied consistently and correctly.

The foundations of fitness are not a big secret,

and you may actually after having read the introduction of what they are be tempted to dismiss this and say “Oh, I knew that”. Please don’t, this is a mistake. After all, this is your journey, your life. When all of the foundations are applied, it is a force multiplier that can yield amazing results. Failure to leave out even one step will result in less than optimal results. Is that why you are working out? To bust your butt only to get little to no results? Well, get ready, because if you apply what follows, greater fitness success can be yours! We will explore these mysteries in several parts, otherwise, this would be a book & not an article 😆

The foundations of fitness are resistance training, diet, supplementation, and hydration.

Firstly, let me mention that before doing ANY workout or starting any diet, you should consult and be cleared by your physician before doing so -- and I highly recommend working with a highly qualified fitness professional. Do you know who works with personal trainers? Pro athletes, bodybuilders, and movie stars. I don’t think any of them are any more important than you, so treat yourself right and get professional help. In the long run, it is entirely worth it. Ok, that’s my disclaimer and 2 cents. Let’s get down and dirty!

PART 1 - UNDERSTANDING CALORIC INTAKE AND ITS EFFECTS ON YOUR WEIGHT.

Let’s begin with thermodynamics. Wait a second, are we gonna talk physics here?

Well, we are going to touch on them, yes. 🤓 I know, I said we’d start with resistance training and this seems to have a bit more to do with diet on the surface, but it directly affects everything so we should start here. Think of it as your pre-construction, or framing. It is what comes before laying your foundation. Ok? Ok.

Just some quick stats that are worth noting:

• There are 3500 calories (cals) in 1 pound of fat.

• Calories in versus calories out dictate mass (This is an oversimplification, but truly if you take in fewer calories than your body spends, weight loss is the result. Yes there are many factors, including the thermogenesis effect of various macronutrients, hormones, issues with the thyroid, and the Keebler elves claiming their cookies had fewer calories than they do 😁 but let’s try to keep it simple for the sake of starting 😅)

So, if you run a 500 cal deficit daily, seven days a week, that’s 3500 calories or 1 pound of weight loss. Does that make sense? For weight gain, the reverse holds true, but let’s stay on weight loss, or fat loss for the moment.

FAT LOSS

There are three ways to lose fat: eat less, do more, or what I advocate, both.

This is the place to start. “But Danny, I barely eat at all, and yet I still can’t lose weight” That’s just baloney (perhaps literally, but that was a figure of speech 😌) as most people don’t keep

track of what they eat and even when they do are very likely to make mistakes.

“A landmark study, and repeated follow-up studies, found people often underestimate how much they eat over the course of a day, sometimes by more than 1,000 calories.”

Calories in - Calories out

A THOUSAND cals a day?!! Wow, so do the math. A thousand multiplied by 7 days equates to nearly a 2-pound swing in a week! This is CRITICAL to get right. Not just for accuracy in results, but for your SANITY & MOTIVATION! This is why so many give up.

Let me explain: Let’s say you work hard and when payday comes, you get paid less or not at all! What would you do? Probably at first, you would go to your boss and ask what happened. If he apologized and told you it was a mistake, that they would make it right, you’d probably keep working there, at least until the next check came. If this was repeated, and once again, you get paid nothing, you would be pissed off 😤. You would tell your boss of your displeasure, that you are gonna sue them, and quite likely use some choice expletives!

You sure as Heck Fire (trying not to swear 😅) wouldn’t keep working there! You would quit!! And to be fair, who would blame you? Now substitute your fitness results (getting little to none) compared to the work you did and the outcome would be the same. This is why so many quit, with no results, or not worth what they put in. However, here is a big part of the problem: they didn’t see all the factors, they weren’t upset with the one person who truly was at fault… Themselves.

Let’s use that work example again, you go to work, work hard, and don’t get paid. When you ask why your boss says, “You were hired to slash company expenditures & just clocked in and spun around on your chair, making Curly from the three stooges sounds at your desk all day saying “Look at how hard I am working! Whoop whoop whoop!” Not only shouldn’t you get paid, but you should also have been fired on day one. Wouldn’t you agree? When you don’t track calorie intake vs expenditure, the odds of success for weight loss are slim to none. Why? Because your body’s job is survival. All it cares about is keeping you alive. It doesn’t know why you are restricting cal intake and will seek out these cals at every opportunity, and since you don’t account for what you take in versus spend, it will do its job and take in as much as it can. Make sense?

WHERE TO START

So, I usually have all my clients begin by logging their food. NOT by eating less, but by just logging what they ate to establish a baseline, with the added benefit of them learning “Oh my, I didn’t realize this!” or “that had so many calories!” Etc. Slowly but surely we decrease calorie intake while simultaneously increasing physical activity through exercise. I know, sounds simple, but having trained thousands of folks over decades, the amount of times I was told “I know” but they never REALLY put it into practice till they worked with me is nothing short of astounding. Weight loss, when approached with exactitude is completely achievable. For weight gain, it is the same.

MUSCLE GAIN

Weight gain done right can be amazing, especially when it’s mostly all muscle. I had a wonderful client who came to me in his 50s and said

“Danny, I’ve been working out since I was a kid, I have worked with professional bodybuilders and many experts, and I know I just can’t gain any muscle. I’ve accepted that. I’m still going to hire you because I need someone to push me and hold me accountable.”

I thanked him for sharing, and then I asked him,

“How would you like me to address that statement? Politically correct, or shoot straight with you?”

After staring at me for a few seconds a bit confused, eyes blinking, he asked me to give it to him straight.

I said, “You don’t know what the &$!#% you are doing!” 😄

“I don’t care if you worked out with Arnold Schwarzenegger, they gave you a little advice and sent you on your way.”

I then went on to tell him no matter how special he was, he couldn’t violate the laws of the universe, namely The Law of Thermodynamics. If he ate more than he needed he would have to gain weight. I then proceeded to instruct him on diet, proper protein consumption (more on these below), and solid principles of working out correctly to build muscle. The result? This 55-year-old man, who came to me weighing 158 pounds, within a year climbed to over 191 pounds solid with less than 14% body fat! When he reached his goal he was astounded. I asked him if he wanted to maintain this body or go bigger. “Do you think I can get bigger?” He asked. With a laugh, I said, “Of course!” We proceeded to put another 10 pounds of lean body mass on him in the next few months. He still is training to this day and is ecstatic with himself.

Muscle gain is also possible and beneficial for women too! While individual results may vary, men can gain an average of about 1/2 pounds of muscle a week and women 1/4 pounds of muscle a week.

Muscle gain fast

This is significant for women as it means about a 10-12 pound increase in muscle in a year! Where does it go? Wherever you want if trained correctly. A rounder butt, shapelier legs, tighter abdomen, more shapely shoulders, the sky is the limit!

It all begins with managing your caloric intake properly. When applied correctly, weight loss, gain, or maintenance is achievable 😃

Understanding caloric intake versus expenditure and its effect on your fitness results is a key concept as it ties directly into your foundation. When applied correctly, your results may seem amazing to some, even yourself, but in reality, they are inevitable. This is painting by the numbers 🎨, putting one step in front of the other 🏃‍♂️ until fitness success is yours!

— DannyB

(Danny Borowicz is a Master Personal Trainer, Martial Arts Expert, and Life Coach who has been involved in fitness for over three decades, graduated Top of his class with multiple degrees including Psychology, and has personally helped thousands to achieve their fitness goals. He continues to actively train people worldwide, both virtually and in person, based out of Round Rock Texas.)

Stay tuned for Part 2 of The Foundations of Fitness, in which we will delve into resistance training and its pivotal role in your body’s development!