How to Get Fit Fast – The Essential Habits & Tools
The Fit Apprentice is a plan based on the essential habits & tools needed to transform your physical fitness.
You do not need perfection, you need to make progress.
It helps to follow a proven path.
Are you struggling with obesity?
Have you been trying to lose weight for years?
Do you want to improve your confidence?
You are in the right place if you are looking for a simple plan to help you lose weight, body fat or build muscle.
No matter what your age is, even if you are over the age of 50.
What is an Apprentice?
By definition, an apprentice is someone who learns a trade or profession from a skilled or qualified person, especially for a recognized period.
An apprentice is also defined as any beginner or novice.
The ‘profession' in this case, is the investment you are going to make in your health.
What is your health worth?
How long do you want to continue at an unhealthy weight?
Do you think that it is impossible to get into better shape once you are over 50?
How about 55?
Well, so did I.
I was fifty five years old, near 275 pounds and a 50 inch waist.
I felt hopeless.
Every year, it became more difficult to lose weight.
My waist line went up along with my age.
So, I became an apprentice, a fit apprentice, I wanted to learn how to get fit.
I knew that if I did not get fit now, I might not have another chance.
Over a period of six months, I lost 75 pounds and 18 inches off my waist.
I was as shocked as my family, friends and neighbors were.
I had just started to be consistent in a small number of essential habits using the appropriate tools and equipment.
And my body began to transform.
To the point that I even lost weight off my face.
That experience convinced me that getting fit, even over 50 is not impossible.
I also began to believe that losing weight and fitness is not rocket science.
Yet, millions of people are struggling to get into better shape.
The Intention of The Fit Apprentice is to Simplify Fitness
There are plenty of diet and exercise plans out there, especially in the USA.
And for any other people who like most Americans who grew up eating processed foods.
If you grew up on frozen dinners, processed breakfasts, snickers, Oreos and chips, and think that is real food, that is where the root of the problem of obesity lies
There is no question that as time goes on, there are more studies that show real food has real transformative power.
And fake food will give you, well, a bloated and distorted, fake looking body.
Just about any diet and exercise plan has to focus on the same goal, eat a little less than you usually do, move a bit more and voila, you will lose weight.
The Fit Apprentice focuses on the minimum effective dose to get fit fast.
An effective dose (ED) in pharmacology is the dose or amount of drug that produces a therapeutic response or desired effect in some fraction of the subjects taking it.
It has been stated that any substance can be toxic at a high enough dose. This concept was exemplified in 2007 when a California woman died of water intoxication in a contest sanctioned by a radio station.[1] The line between efficacy and toxicity is dependent upon the particular patient, although the dose administered by a physician should fall into the predetermined therapeutic window of the drug.
The importance of determining the therapeutic range of a drug cannot be overstated. This is generally defined by the range between the minimum effective dose (MED) and the maximum tolerated dose (MTD). The MED is defined as the lowest dose level of a pharmaceutical product that provides a clinically significant response in average efficacy, which is also statistically significantly superior to the response provided by the placebo.((https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effective_dose_(pharmacology)))
The minimum effective dose applied to weight loss was popularized by Tim Ferris in his classic best-seller book (with only 3,000 plus very positive reviews): The 4 Hour Body: An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Fat Loss, Incredible Sex and Becoming Superhuman.
So what can The Fit Apprentice contribute to the endless stream of diet and exercise plans?
I know all about fat shaming.
From the time I can remember, I was fat shamed.
“Why are you so fat?
Why are you so husky?
Can't you lose weight?
You need to lose weight!
But in the meantime, have another bagel and lox sandwich with a black and white cookie for dessert.”
I feel a lot of empathy for every person who is struggling with losing weight.
The good news is that eating real food can dramatically improve your fitness, fast.
Real food like vegetables, eggs, fruit, legumes, some whole grains, nuts and even the much demonized meat.
Moving instead of sitting, even as simple as walking 30 minutes a day, will help to increase your metabolism.
Core strength training exercises like pushups, deadlifts, squats and presses will build muscle.
Yes, even if you are over 50 and very out of shape.
These are the essential strategies of how to get fit fast.
Maybe you are here because you are overweight or obese and you are sick and tired of not being able to fit into your clothing.
Have you been trying to lose weight for years, even decades, to no avail?
Maybe you are here because you have a big event coming up in three to six months, and you want to look and feel your best.
Has your doctor told you that you must drop pounds for your health?
Are you ready to commit and make the most important investment of your life, in your own health?
Then, you are ready to become a Fit Apprentice.
We are all learning the most effective methods to get healthier.
There are new studies and information every day.
No one can possibly hope to get through all of the millions of megabytes of data.
However, I know what helped me to achieve a body transformation that I never thought possible.
I want to share this information with you, give you hope, and guide you where possible.
You deserve the best, and if you want to get fit, no matter what your age or shape, you are in the right place.
Whatever reason you have for being here, thank you.
How to Get Fit – Action Plan
Take care of yourself every day.
So that every day you eat better, move a little bit more, sleep a little better and before you know it you will be looking and feeling better.
The Fit Apprentice believes in gradual improvement.
While you might see dramatic improvements, sometimes even fast, that is not the goal.
The Fit Apprentice will I would rather you lose weight slowly than fast, get stronger gradually than attempt to deadlift 225 pounds cold and throw out your back.
I want you to know that even though you feel like you are alone, you are not alone.
While overweight people can still party with the crowd, someone in depression is going to avoid the crowd and prefer isolation.
Depression is a lonely and isolating disease, but I want you to know that you are not alone.
Small changes in your daily thoughts, speech, habits and actions can lead to bigger changes if not transformation.
So, why The Fit Apprentice?
I have been trying to figure out how to deal with obesity as long as I can remember.
The first meal I remember eating as a kid was a Weight Watcher™ pizza.
This classic Weight Watcher™ breakfast was made with a Thomas english muffin, american cheese, ketchup and oregano.
I was already on the Weight Watcher™ diet by the age of 5.
I have tried all the diets.
Macrobiotics, vegan, vegetarian, fruitarian, cabbage only and by the time I turned 55, I had successfully dieted down to 275 pounds and a 50 inch waist.
Yes, not much of a success.
For years I tried different diets, sometimes as frequently as a new diet every day or hour and just ended up with total confusion.
I was desperate.
I was isolating in my apartment, steeped in depression and saw no hope or bright future.
One evening I had a recurring nightmare of seeing a man in an elevator that was not moving.
When I tapped him on the shoulder he would turn around and I saw what looked like an older version of myself, a heavier man who had no mouth.
I always woke up screaming unintelligibly because the image was so frightening.
But this time was different.
This time I was in the elevator which did not move, either up or down, or sideways for that matter.
Again the elevator operator was facing away from me and I tapped him on the shoulder.
When he turned around, sure enough, he had no mouth.
But this time, when I woke up, I woke up screaming “That's it!”, after years of not expressing even a single word from seeing that nightmare, I finally woke up screaming an actual word.
All other times I awoke screaming nonsense while still lying down.
This time I sat up while screaming “That's it!” and I knew what it meant.
I had finally said something that made sense.
I knew that it meant “Enough, I have had enough of being a fat bastard!”
I said “That's it!” to myself over and over again.
I could not fall asleep and went to an all night deli for a blueberry muffin.
You can be sure that I did not need another blueberry muffin at two in the morning.
Especially after a typical day of egg sandwiches, pizza, lasagna, cookies, ice cream, chips and spaghetti and meatballs.
My stomach was so distended and I could not reach down to tie my shoes, I could not even see my shoes.
Sitting in the deli, with a stomach full of food, yet still looking to satisfy craving with a muffin led me to just break down crying to myself.
I had trouble breathing, my doctor had told me that I was near diabetic and I could not fit in anything other than an old checkered blue plaid shirt that I always wore outside of my pants to hide my belly.
I just did not know what to do.
I did not know how my body could handle any more and thought I was just going to burst.
I knew my nightmare meant that I had to take some type of action to improve my life.
Finally, I thought to myself, why not just try to eat real food like vegetables and fruit.
That idea made me wince because I just did care for vegetables or fruit.
My favorite ‘food' in the world was an Oreo cookie.
Outside of Oreos, my next favorite was any ice cream, chip, snickers, Reesees, pizza, hamburger that you can think of.
I also decided that I was going to go beyond cutting out Oreos and minimize all processed foods.
I cut out just about any food that was processed and marketed in a colorful package, all junk food, pretty much I had nothing left to eat or so I thought.
What was left?
Vegetables, yellow potato, white potato, sweet potato, asparagus, broccoli, cauliflower, eggplant, okra, bok choy, whole grain bread, fruit; mainly blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, grapes, mango, nuts like cashews, almonds and walnuts.
I was terrified of eating eggs, meat and fish from years of having been vegan/vegetarian.
But I figured that I had to have something with some calories and protein, so if I had to have an egg, so be it.
I did not want to have the frozen veggie burgers because they looked pretty processed to me and they had wheat gluten in them as well.
I also kept plain yogurt, red wine and a little dark chocolate as a treat once in a while.
I had tried to lose weight for many years, even decades without success.
I think it is safe to say that I have read and tried tens if not hundreds of different weight loss plans.
I always had focused on ways to eat less.
This time, I made sure to eat more!
What?
What kind of meal plan says to eat more?
I learned of a biological reality called the starvation response from Chris Aceto's book Everything You Need to Know about Fat Loss.
Starvation response in animals is a set of adaptive biochemical and physiological changes that reduce metabolism in response to a lack of food.((https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starvation_response))
This means that if you eat too few calories, you will lower your basal metabolic rate to a point that even a little food can cause you to maintain your excess weight.
Your body adjusts to a lack of calories by slowing down your metabolism.
Now I finally understood that when I heard overweight people say “I hardly ate anything today, and I still did not lose an ounce!”.
I realized that they were not lying.
I used to think they were hiding out in a closet and finishing off a dozen pop em's from Dunkin Donuts.
They were telling the truth.
Do you ever try to starve yourself to successful weight loss?
If you do, you probably have run into the same problem.
Once I minimized processed food and focused on eating a sufficient amount of real foods, I experienced the life changing body transformation of fat practically melting off of my body for ten months straight until I reached a stable weight.
Eating to lose weight, is that Nirvana?
For anyone who has adopted the idea that food is not your friend when trying to lose weight, being able to eat food and a lot of food, is Nirvana.
Stop starving.
Start eating high quality food and enough of it.
You will have the shock of your life.
I finally began to see positive changes and they were not from exercise, because I had been exercising, bike, swimming, walking, machine weights all throughout the years and I was still being called a ‘fat bastard' because of my inability to lose weight.
The secret was so simple.
Real food, just eat enough real food.
When I first minimized processed wheat, I had no clue how I was going to survive.
Everything that I ate in the past was made of wheat and flour, egg sandwich, tuna sandwich, turkey sandwich, pizza, pasta, what did not have wheat or wheat flour?
The first real food meal with vegetables that I had was a breakfast.
Instead of having the usual egg sandwich or wrap, I asked the chef of Tudor Cafe, a New York City cafe I frequented to make me a vegetable omelette from eggs, tomato, onion, spinach, mushrooms, pepper, any vegetables that they had.
I also asked them to add some hummus, avocado and olives.
When the chef asked me what the name of this dish is, I said that I will call it “Hashi Mashi”, just a name I made up because it seemed like such a mish mash, a mixture of ingredients.
Six months later when people in my building and neighborhood did not recognize me, they asked me what I had been doing to lose so much weight, over 75 pounds and 18 inches off my waist.
I said Hashi Mashi and that is how the I got the nickname Hashi Mashi.
It all started with one meal, it all started with food.
Finally after so many years of struggling with weight loss and obesity, I found a way to melt fat off of my body.
Even when I was having 5 or 6 simple meals a day.
I was never hungry and still lost the fat.
I want to share this path of The Fit Apprentice with you, with anyone that is struggling with weight loss, no matter what your age.
More than two-thirds (68.8 percent) of adults are considered to be overweight or obese.
More than one-third (35.7 percent) of adults are considered to be obese.
More than 1 in 20 (6.3 percent) have extreme obesity.
Almost 3 in 4 men (74 percent) are considered to be overweight or obese((https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/health-statistics/Pages/overweight-obesity-statistics.aspx)).
Here are 10 reasons that you should stop thinking about losing weight as a cosmetic improvement to how you look and consider your overweight or obesity as a life threatening emergency and take action immediately((https://www.mediweightlossclinics.com/patients/resources/articles/obesity-facts/)):
1. High Blood Pressure
2. Diabetes
3. Heart Disease
4. High Cholesterol levels
5. Cancer
6. Infertility
7. Back Pain
8. Skin Infections
9. Ulcers
10. Gallstones
I want to help.
The main message of The Fit Apprentice is to “You Can Get Fit, No Matter What Your Age or Shape is Now”.
I am NOT a medical professional.
I am not an expert with degrees in nutrition, (at least not yet, working on it!).
Rather I am just like you, an average person who is in the same trenches with you – learning how to improve physical fitness and be the best version of myself possible.
If you want to lose weight, I can help.
If you want to lower your body fat, I can help.
If you want to start feeling better about yourself and improve your life, I can help.
Let me help you live a better life.
The Fit Apprentice Philosophy
This is the basic philosophy of The Fit Apprentice in a nutshell.
The rest of this site is devoted to covering the details in more depth.
The Essential Habits & Tools
Imagine that you are the owner of a vineyard that has been decimated by natural disaster.
If you still owned the field, would you let it lie fallow?
Wouldn't you make an attempt to rebuild?
You still do own your field, your body, you still have the opportunity to transform yourself.
Following the metaphor of planting and rebuilding your vineyard, here are 10 essential steps to success:
1. Choose to Plant a Vineyard – make the choice to be lean and strong again
Be Willing to Change
Are you willing to change?
You have to ask yourself if you have had enough of being fat, overweight, obese and/or out of shape.
Only you can answer the question.
Even if you do not think that you have to willpower or motivation, you can still make progress with one thought.
Say to yourself, that you are willing to change.
“I am willing to change.”
Repeat that thought to yourself, while holding in your mind the image of yourself at your healthy ideal weight.
This is an important first step.
Once you are willing to change, you will find the tools to change appearing in your life.
This is what perhaps brought you to The Fit Apprentice in the first place.
Only you have this enormous power within you, to be willing to change.
Be willing to change and to live a different life.
You are the one who must make the choice to rebuild your health.
You are worth it, no?
You deserve to be in the best shape possible, for yourself, your family and friends.
2. Select a Site with Ample Sunlight
A vineyard requires ample sunlight to flourish.
Before you start delving into the best food and workouts for your body, you have to keep your mind focused on your goals.
After you make the choice, to be willing to get fit, you must keep your mind full of positive, motivating thoughts.
You can do it.
You ate yourself into the shape you are in now.
You sat on the couch into the shape you are at now.
It is all up to you.
Just as the vineyard owner begins with the end in mind and holds the image of a great vineyard once again.
So too must you do the same.
Stop the negative self talk like:
I cannot lose weight.
I'll never get into shape.
I am too old.
I am too fat.
I hate myself, who cares anyway.
You have to stop those thoughts and that talk.
Instead, think motivating thoughts.
I can eat the right foods and strip the fat.
I am getting into better shape every day.
Just six months on x date, and I will need a new wardrobe and will look and feel great.
Get your mind focused on health.
No more excuses to be fat and out of shape.
3. Working the Field
Just as you have to work the field before planting, so too do you have to exercise your body now to build muscle.
If you want to transform your body, you have to move it.
You must do some exercise to build muscle and change the metabolism and shape of your body.
There is no way around it and you are the only one who can start exercising.
There are several best exercises for getting fit and building muscle, such as:
Walking
Deadlifts
Squats
Pushups
Pullups
Bench Press
Shoulder Press
You will learn more about each one and their benefits to help you build muscle and shed fat.
Muscle will up your metabolism, energize you, make you look and feel younger, as well as help you in functional life.
4. Planting the Field
When you plant your field, you keep track of when and where you planted, and watered.
Similarly, when you start to be a Fit Apprentice, you must keep track of your food intake and exercise.
This is not rocket science.
You just need to establish a baseline worksheet to get started.
You will learn to adjust from there.
Without keeping track of what you are doing, you will find it difficult to manage your field successfully.
According to the Encyclopaedia of Occupational Health and Safety, by Jeanne Mager Stellman (page 1992), Lord Kelvin said in his May 3, 1883, lecture on “Electrical Units of Measurement” (Popular Lectures, Vol. 1, page 73):
I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind; it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely, in your thoughts, advanced to the stage of science, whatever the matter may be.((https://athinkingperson.com/2012/12/02/who-said-what-gets-measured-gets-managed/))
What gets measured, gets managed.
Your spreadsheet(s) will be indispensable tools to getting fit fast.
5. Watering the Field
we need good nutrition to nourish the vineyard and ourselves
- Growing the vineyard – we need to take care of ourselves and adjust to new obstacles which come every day
- Harvesting the vineyard – we need to appreciate what we have and be grateful for the accomplishments however small
- Winnowing – we need to select the best of what we have right now and not focus on the worst
- Pressing the wine – we must squeeze the best that we can out of the grapes that we have right now
- Drinking the Wine – we should celebrate as often as possible the gift of life, with our family and friends
This site is dedicated to exploring the best practices of how to improve our lives with the current knowledge that is available.
Obviously, it is physically impossible for any one of us to absorb and disseminate the millions of research studies and conclusions that are available on the web, but remember, we are looking for the best nutritional, exercise and thinking strategies that we can employ to build a better body and mind.
No one said a perfect body and mind.
Just better, lets keep improving every day.
- Eat real food as often as possible.
- Cut back on fake foods and processed foods.
- Eat in moderation.
Z E H H U Fitness is a revolution when it comes to dealing with depression.
Diet and exercise plans have been around for decades to lose weight.
Unfortunately, the statistics say that we are fatter than ever((https://authoritynutrition.com/12-graphs-that-show-why-people-get-fat/)).
And being fatter than ever is after hundreds if not thousands of diet plans.
And if you think that we are just fatter than ever, but a lot happier than we used to be because we have so many colorful antidepressants to choose from, think again, not only is there more obesity than ever, but we are more depressed than ever((https://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/10/02/3575170/depression-rising-americans/)).
Clearly, the traditional diet and exercise plans along with traditional antidepressants are not effective.
For this reason, I dedicate my time to doing my best to uncover the best strategies to not only help to strip the unwanted fat from our bodies and relieve our obesity, but how to deal with depression as well.
Despite all of the diet and exercise plans that are out there right now, they have not been enough, especially when it comes to treating depression which is a disease that many suffer in silence and shame.
Yes, I want to create a Z E H H U Fitness Revolution, so from now and in the future, well meaning medical professionals will also be aware of the potential benefits of nutrition, strength training and positive thinking to help their patients deal with depression.
With or without medications, for people that react well to anti depressants and for those that suffer with treatment resistant depression, there will be another option, Z E H H U Fitness, to help those who suffer in silence get back into the game of life.
The gold standard for managing most types of depression has been talk therapy and medications for many years if not decades.
Let's explore making the food that we eat, how we move and think the new gold standard of how to deal with depression and obesity.
I’d love for you to join the Z E H H U Fitness Revolution and help us turn things around, for us, for our family and friends, for our country and world.
Introduction to Fitness over 50
How to get fit fast is a question that many people of all ages ask, especially in the USA where obesity and being out of shape is so prevalent.
And here we are, over 50 and wondering if we can ever get back into shape.
The answer is yes, it can be done, even after age 50 and certainly if you are younger.
In order to make this work, we do not have time to beat up on ourselves where we are right now, because that will not change the reality of whatever shape that we are in right now.
The first step in how to get fit fast, is to just accept where we are.
If the gut is hanging out, then that is the reality.
If your arms are jiggling, then that is what it is.
We must accept where we are now but not accept that it has to remain this way going forward.
I am going to lead you on a step by step journey of how to get fit fast, getting stronger, changing your body, because it can be done. You have to want it, make no excuses and become aware of what you are eating and how your are exercising.
How to Get Fit Fast Starts with What You Eat
This is not rocket science, but for us to make some real transformation to our bodies, we have to start feeding it with real food. How do I know that just based on the food that you will eat, you can transform your body from a flabby shmabby bowl of jello to a fit body, even after 50? I know this because I have experienced how to get fit fast myself.
I know this because when I am eating real food, vegetables, protein, fruits, nuts and drinking plenty of water, I feel great and I can see how my body reacts to good fuel. Even with minimal exercise, you can make your first big transformation by transforming your diet from processed to whole, from junk to real, from dreamed up in a lab to grown from the ground. I know this sounds too easy and too good to be true, but honestly, it is the truth. You do not need to buy any special program, diet book, supplements or special foods to get started. All you have to do is to start eating real food that has been minimally processed if at all.
How to Get Fit Fast Transformation Example
When I began to eat real food, before I knew it, my body started changing. My bloat started to dissipate, my jowls started to recede, my face began taking on more structure and my belly seemed to be deflating on it's own. Between June 21, 2012 and December 21, 2012, I had already shed over 50lbs, which is approximately 2 pounds a week. I was not hungry, in fact, even though I was consuming less calories, I was not craving the usual processed sugar foods. Boy is that a relief.
How to Get Fit Fast Carb Recommendations
Since it all starts with food, my intention is to post at least once a day what I am having. I think it would be helpful for you to become aware of exactly what you are putting in your body during the course of a day. I also suggest that you keep your total carbs between 50 and 100 as is recommended by Mark Sisson of Mark's Daily Apple. You can use a program like myfitnesspal.com to tally up your calories, carbs, fat, protein. It is fairly simple to use and will keep you honest.
You will notice that once you start minimizing your carbs to between 50 and 100 grams, you are going to start avoiding the huge carb fillers like bread, which with only 2 slices of your average bread, you will have already consumed over 60 carbs. Once you see how many carbs bread, rice, pasta are, you will know intuitively that your real carbohydrate friends are vegetables. For example, a whole box of frozen spinach is a whopping 9 carbs! Have your salmon with the spinach and you have a real meal but without the carb overload which will spike up your insulin levels, which in turn will store those excess carbs as fat. If you are vegetarian, you should still have your spinach and you can add a couple of veggie burgers for protein. You are also going to notice that you will not feel famished, even though the total number of calories that you have might be less than you are accustomed to.
How to Get Fit Fast Meal Plan
Today for example, here is what I had, straight from my entries in myfitness pal:
You can see that my total number of carbs is 89. I had plenty of food, just not much if any concentrated carbs. I would prefer salmon over veggie burgers, but that is what I had at home, so I went with it.
How to Get Fit Fast and Cravings
Was I craving cookies today? No. Cake? no. Pizza? Nope. Do not get me wrong, now and then, you will want and can have a slice of Pizza, which is about 35 carbs, so you can see that you cannot have too many if you want to stay in the fat burning zone of 50 – 100 carbs a day. But once in a while it is fine. But we all know that we got fat from way too many pizzas and not way too much spinach, so it is time to flip the script, start to be aware of what you are eating, consume as many vegetables as you can, every meal, a moderate amount of protein and a couple of fruits here and there.
Make your goal. Is your goal to become fit, to be in shape? Do you think that you can do it even after 50? I have seen myself that the way how to get fit fast is a fairly simple process that just requires awareness, dedication and forgiving yourself for what you have already done to your body. I am here to tell you that it is NOT too late! You can make the change. You can transform your body from fat to fit. Start today. What do you have to lose other than your fat?
Rich is a Certified Personal Trainer-AAPT, an