4. Track What You Eat

Needless to say... not a lot of people make the effort to do this. As a result, some people on "bulking" programs don't eat enough to gain any weight, while others eat anything in sight and gain more fat than muscle. People who want to burn fat often just quit eating and end up slowing down their metabolisms.

The fact is, if you don't track what you're eating, you are just guessing. Although you might guess right, guessing is no way to reach a goal with maximum efficiency. Once you know how many calories and how much protein, carbs and fat you should eat, you can easily track using a nutrition journal or software, in order to meet your daily quotas. Tracking what you eat is a must.

At this point, in only 4 steps, you've already created the entire foundation for your nutrition program! There are 3 more to go...

5. Choose An Exercise Routine

There are so many workout systems being promoted today, how are you supposed to know which one to choose? Here's a hint... choose one that involves every major muscle group with basic exercises. A good basic workout for beginners should include:

*Legs (squats, lunges, leg extensions, leg curls, leg press) * Shoulders (military press, dumbbell raises, side laterals) * Chest (bench press, flyes, dips) * Back (pull-ups, rows, deadlifts, lat pull-downs) * Arms (ez-bar curls, barbell curls, dumbbell curls) * Abs (hanging leg raises, incline crunches) * Cardio (for the heart)

I could go on and on and post 500 different workout routines complete with reps, sets and complete explanations and instructions, and you might still be confused about which one to choose. So let me ease the confusion by saying this...

I've tried dozens, maybe even hundreds of routines. Max-OT, H.I.T., Tom Venuto's supersetting, volume training, jeff Anderson's Optimum Anabolics and many more, and I'll tell you something interesting: I've gotten gains out of all of them even though they all have very different philosophies. Which leads me to conclude that...

THERE IS NO SINGLE-BEST, "GOLDEN" ROUTINE THAT WILL WORK FOR EVERYONE!

It also leads me to conclude that variation in your training programs is essential. Here's more proof:

Do you see the same people in your gym, doing the same things month in, month out, and a year later they look exactly the same? It's really quite simple. If you keep doing what you've always done, you will keep getting what you've always gotten.

There are so many variations on exercises and routines you can do, your choices are virtually unlimited! You can find many of them just browsing around on forums and bodybuilding sites. By investing less than $100 in a few of the better programs, books and ebooks, I had enough routines to last me for an entire year!

A word of advice if you're tempted to stick with just one workout routine or workout philosohpy. Don't. Try it, evaluate it, then try another one. Within 6 months, you'll know your body very well and what it responds best to. But regardless of the fact that people often respond better to some training systems than others, variety is the one training principle that applies to everyone.

6. Take Supplements, but start only with the basics

While 97% of your progress will come from nutrition and training, there are still a few basics supplements you should consider.

What are the basics of supplementation?

* Daily Multi-Vitamin * Omega 3 and 6 EFA complex (fish oil, flax seed) * Whey Protein (specifically for after workouts)

Just this small trio is all you should need to get started to be certain your intake of viatmins, minerals and essential nutritients is 100%. Consider them your nutritional "insurance policy."

You may reach a point when you want to go beyond the basics. For example, once your nutrition and training is in completely in place, then additional supplements may help you gain that extra few percent in results that bring you as close to 100% of your possible gains as you can achieve. Just remember, start with the basics before you even consider the latest "whiz bang breakthrough" because no supplement will make much of a difference if you aren't eating and training properly and consistently.

7. Monitor Your Progress

It never ceases to amaze me how many people fail to follow this simple, but critical step. If you don't test your body composition, take your measurements, track your workout progress, or snap some photographs, it's almost impossible to know whether you're advancing from where you started to where you want to go.

Setting small daily goals and keeping track of your progress toward them is a wonderful method for keeping your forward momentum going and for keeping yourself motivated to reach your long term goals. It's much more difficult to stay motivated when you're not keeping track of your progress because you have nothing to compare your current results to; no personal bests recorded to beat.

Failure to monitor your progress is the #1 reason why people get frustrated and demotivated with their diet and training routines. Many people take one quick glance at at themselves in the mirror and decide on that basis alone whether the last 4 months of effort were worth it. They make judgments on what they perceive to be reality in that one moment, without considering whether they did better today than their last workout, or realizing whether their waist measurement is smaller than 6 weeks ago. Unfortunately, we are often our own worst critics and our perceptions of oursleves are often distorted, and that's why it's so imporant to measure your progresss objectively.

Methods of tracking your progress include:

* Writing down what you eat in a nutrition journal or software program * Journaling your workouts in a notebook (or using software) * Testing your body fat and calculating lean body mass * Taking measurements of various body areas (waist, hips, chest, arms, thighs, etc) * Taking before and after photographs

When you track your progress on a frequent basis, you will soon see clear, measureable evidence that your efforts are paying off. Seeing the little improvements will be a constant source of motivation for you. If there is a course correction necessary, you can make it quickly before it's too late.

This critical step of tracking progress is often overlooked by beginners because most haven't even figured out which workout to follow or how to eat, let alone be bothered to take all sorts of measurements. However, if you skip this step, you'll soon become one of those people who constantly complain that their body looks the same, month after month, year after year.

If you're a parent, here's an analogy you can relate to (if youre not a parent, just think back to when you were in school.) Report cards and homework quizzes are a method of tracking your child’s scholastic performance. You know where there might be a problem and can correct it before it becomes a major issue. What about your investment porftolio? Would you dump money into stocks and mutual funds, then just let them go without ever paying attention to whether they were going up or down? If you wouldn't ignore your child's report card or your own investment performance, then why ignore your own body's performance?