After the holidays, get yourself a Dramatic Body Transformation
This is a message from Ngo Okafor, founder/owner of Iconoclast fitness and the creator of the 28 Day Transformation Program - “28 Days Greater”.
I hope that everyone is having a Merry Christmas, Hanukkah and enjoying the holidays. Have fun, eat, drink and be merry. When it’s all over, we will help you burn off the holiday pounds. It is not impossible to lose the weight. My trainers and I will show you the way.
You can either join us to the dramatic transformation program 1-on-1 at Iconoclast Fitness or download the digital version of the 28 Day Transformation Program by clicking on - https://www.ngookafor.com/store/28-days-greater
THE PROGRAM
Set out for you below is a program that I’ve used time and time again to get my clients (both celebrities and non-celebrities) in amazing shape, in four weeks flat. Follow it to the letter. You’ll add muscle while losing body fat. You will look and feel better than you ever have in your life.
Your progress won’t be dependent on genetics, supplementation, counting calories, cheat meals, figuring out your macros, etc. This is about hard work, dedication, consistency and having faith that your body is about to change in ways and at a speed you didn’t think possible. It’s about adopting a winning mindset and, believe it or not, it’s largely dependent on having fun.
Merely buying this program isn’t going to change your body one bit. If, however, you choose to make working out and eating well your focus, in addition to having fun, you are already on a fast track to a jaw-dropping transformation.
For the next 28 days, it’s important to focus on the reward that awaits you. If you remember that you're going to have the most dramatic physical change you’ve ever had, you’ll be more willing to sacrifice for it. Let’s face facts: You’ll be sacrificing foods you enjoy. You’ll be giving up spending time with people you love. You’ll be skipping social events that are intertwined with behaviors that are diametrically opposed to the getting the result you envisioned when you purchased this program.
Look, if getting in amazing shape were easy, everyone would have the body they dream of. This process is simple but it is going to require that you dig deep. I believe in you, and I believe that you can do it. This program is going to challenge you, but you will come through it, tougher and leaner than you’ve ever been in your life.
I guarantee it.
Ngo
A program for everyone
When I’m working one-on-one with a client over a period of several months or even years, I’m assessing and reassessing their progress. We’re discussing evolving goals, and I’m constantly changing their workouts accordingly.
When a rapid transformation is what’s needed, however, I’ve found that a certain regimen gets the same improvement in body composition regardless of age, gender or experience level. The program you now own is that regimen. It has repeatedly produced life-changing results.
Whether you’re a Victoria’s Secret model prepping for a shoot, an actor looking to pack on some size and get ripped for an action role, or you just want to look great at your high school reunion, everyone has the same basic goal, which is to improve their body composition. A person’s body composition means the ratio of lean mass to body fat they’re carrying.
You can lose weight quickly by creating a daily calorie deficit, but if you’re not eating mindfully and not working out intensely, a significant proportion of that loss is going to be from muscle. I created this program to ensure that your body fat melts off, while the amount of muscle you have remains or increases. When it comes to aesthetic improvement over a 28-day span, improving body composition is everything.
Some people embarking on this program may find that they get to muscle failure before completing the prescribed amount of repetitions or circuits. As long as you’re not in real pain, that’s okay. In fact, in means that you are pushing yourself to the max, which is great.
When you get to the point of exhaustion and/or you’re conscious of your form breaking down, stop. Take a breath, sip some water, cue up a song that gets you fired up and remember what the you of the near future is going to look and feel like. Then, marshal your energy and complete the remaining movements, breaking them up into smaller chunks of work if you need to.
The last thing I want to do is break you or have your burn out. I do, however, want your body to adapt. For that to happen, we need to stress your body in ways that will require you to dig deep and get tough. You’re going to be so glad that you pushed yourself like never before!
Important: If you feel nauseated or faint, stop. If these feelings persist, seek out a trainer in your gym or a visit a medical practitioner immediately.
A Winning Mindset
For the next 28 days, it’s really important to believe that you are about to undergo the most dramatic physical change you’ve ever had.
Visualize the new you.
Know that all things are created twice — first in the mind and then in the physical world. You have to visualize and see your body as you dream it. This will guarantee that you will get there, or, at the very least, get close. I’m not talking about blind faith here. My program has been tested on several men and women and has been proven to work over and over again. Follow the program that I have laid out here and you will be transformed!
Don’t just imagine a better-looking body here, but actually try to see it. Actually believe that you have what it takes to put in the hard work that is required to build the body of your dreams. That is going to be a key motivator to help you to continue showing up and putting in the work, even when you don’t feel like it or when it gets harder than you’d bargained for.
Set goals.
It’s all a dream until you write it down. It’s at that point that it becomes a goal. It is extremely important to set a goal for how you want to look at the end of day 28. Top-level athletes, successful businesspeople and achievers in all fields all set goals. Setting goals gives you long-term vision and short-term motivation. It focuses your acquisition of knowledge, and helps you to organize your time and your resources so that you can make the very most of your life. By setting goals, you set targets to strive toward. These targets make you venture into new places and new situations that put you into growth mode. They make you stretch beyond your normal self and reach new heights.
Find a picture of someone with a physique that inspires you and use it as screensaver on your phone. This will force you to look at it every time you look at your phone. It will help motivate you to make better choices. Would the person on your screensaver eat that or drink that or do that thing that you’re about to do? Behave like a winner and you will become a winner.
Dedicate yourself to working hard.
At the beginning in particular, it’s going to be tough — not just physically, but mentally and emotionally. You are going to work hard and be dedicated to reach the goals of this program. For that first week you're going to have sore muscles. You’re going to be exhausted both from your efforts in the gym and from no longer having access to the quick and easy energy you’ve been getting from carbohydrates. You’re going to be staying away from behaviors that aren’t conducive to your transformation. You are going to miss your friends, and you’re going to miss comfort foods. What’s more, you may not see a difference in the mirror during that first tough week. These and other factors combined can be discouraging. This is why it is important to make a break with your past attempts to get in shape and realize that all of your limitations are self-imposed. You can do this!
My program is simple but extremely challenging. It requires hard work, dedication and consistency, both in and out of the gym. You have to be willing to sacrifice for it. Having a lean, toned body is rare, and it’s not free. You pay with hard work and dedication. Achieving and maintaining or increasing muscle mass, while keeping your body fat low, requires a level of hard work and sacrifice that most people just aren’t willing to undertake. Internalize this idea above all others: you are not most people.
Set yourself up for success
In creating this program, I’ve designed a product that is going to feel as close to having me there with you as I can make it. To ensure that you feel this, I write how I talk. I make the program easy to follow, and I’ve made a short video for each and every one of the exercises prescribed below.
Most of the movements you’ll probably recognize, but before you head into the gym or your workout space each day, familiarize yourself with each of the exercises you’ll be doing. You’ll get a sense of how you need to set up for a circuit and have a more time-efficient and therefore effective workout. More importantly, you’ll hear me talk about the do's and don’ts associated with each movement, and you'll learn how to avoid common mistakes that can cause injury and frustrate your progress.
I strongly recommend that you begin the program on a Monday. Mondays through Fridays will consist of an hour of resistance circuit training, focused on a combination of selected exercises, designed to target a specific muscle group. This will be followed by a low-impact cardio session. Mondays will focus on the chest and shoulders, Tuesdays, back, and Wednesday legs. On Thursdays we will do chest and shoulders again and on Fridays we will train back once more. These later chest and back sessions will also incorporate exercises that target the arms to a greater extent.
Do the workout at whatever time works for you, but be as consistent as possible. Being consistent with your diet and exercise is crucial to getting the most eye-popping results in four weeks flat. If you have the luxury of a more flexible schedule, try and get to the gym at a time when it’s less crowded. You’re going to be switching between three, four our five different exercises in a single circuit, one right after the other with each movement often requiring different equipment. Having access to all the equipment you need is going to be very helpful in making your workout as efficient and effective as possible. If, however, your gym is crowded and you are being held up because other people are using the equipment you’re using, move on to the next station in your circuit then double back.
Tempo and resistance
Tempo is the rate or speed of motion or activity. You’re going to be hopping from one station to the next quickly because a big part of what makes this program so effective is tempo. Forget any ideas of checking your social-media feeds, texting or sending emails for 60 full minutes. This program is designed to keep your heart rate up, but if you keep playing around on your phone, your heart rate will back come down and you would have wasted your time. You came to the gym to work, so get to work!
You will see that I often incorporate short sharp bursts of cardio into certain resistance circuits, to ensure that your heart rate is elevated at all times. Also know that every day is ab day in this program. We’re not just uncovering abs here. We’re stimulating their quick growth and causing them to poke through by Day 28, if not sooner.
I purposefully didn’t include weight recommendations with each exercise, but here’s what I will say: I want the resistance you chose to be heavy enough that the last five reps of each set are challenging, requiring you to dig deep. At the same time, I want them to be manageable so that you can maintain the proper form. If a weight is too heavy, you’ll automatically start relying on other muscles and momentum to help you complete repetitions. That’s paving the way for injury, and it’s not targeting the muscle the movement is designed to work. Your challenge will be to find that balance. Be honest with yourself. Get tough but check your ego. Listen to your body.
I would suggest going to the gym the week before you start the program and practice. It would be a great idea to play around with the exercises, get familiar with them and understand the tempo. You can also use this time to figure out what weights are right for you. You can then get to work on Monday.
Cardio
After your hour of fast-paced resistance circuits, it’s time for cardio. You’ve already heard me mention injuries a couple of times, but I’m going to say it again — getting hurt can easily throw a wrench in this intense program and see your 28-day transformation come to a grinding halt. That’s why I recommend doing your cardio on an elliptical machine. It’ll put less stress on your joints and you’ll be less likely to pull a muscle or turn your ankle, than if you did virtually any other cardio exercise. Set the resistance as high as you can and aim to grind out 300 calories over a 30-minute period.
I recommend that you start with 30 minutes of cardio daily. If getting lean is your biggest issue, then you may want to ramp that up to 45 or 60 minutes as your cardiovascular conditioning gets stronger.
Unlike the resistance portion of the workout, your body no longer requires your undivided attention. Take this time to listen to a playlist you love, download an audiobook you’re interested in or binge watch a TV series you’ve been meaning to catch up on. The average American is now consuming 721 minutes — a little over 12 hours — of media per day. You’ll feel a lot better if some of that consumption happens when you are burning calories and getting into the best shape of your life.
This program is about getting dramatic results in a short period of time. To that end, you will be working out on the weekend. However, this will be restricted to low-injury-risk cardio and some ab work. I like to recommend spin classes on both Saturday and Sunday. It’s fun, you’ll burn a lot of calories, and you’ll have a hard time getting hurt in the process. If you can’t get to spin class or spin simply doesn’t appeal to you, I’ve included an alternate cardio workout that will keep your engine revved throughout the weekend.
Tracking your progress
It is important to track your progress. What gets measured, gets improved. If you don’t set specific targets and milestones, there’s nothing to work toward, and even though you may be putting in a lot of effort, your hard work may not translate into anything. As the popular saying goes, “Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.” When you set goals, you are aiming for the moon. Your goals propel you to marshal more effort that you would have otherwise.
I highly recommend that you take before-and-after pictures of yourself, to track your progress and to see the results of your hard work. Having someone else take the pictures is ideal, but selfies will do fine in a pinch. Take a full-length picture of your front, side and back. I suggest that you take a picture on Day 1 and then another on Day 29.
I also recommend weighing yourself when you wake up on Day One of the 28-Day Transformation Program. Don’t get attached to the number on the scale. It is just a number that tells you that you’ve begun. If you follow the “28 Days Greater Program”, to the letter, and continue to live a healthy lifestyle, you will never see that number again. I weigh myself everyday, but I understand that it may be too nerve racking for many people. Weigh yourself once a week — the mornings of Day 1, Day 8, Day 15, Day 23 and then on Day 29. Weighing yourself every week gives you an opportunity to correct your mistakes and change your behavior. If you’re not satisfied with the speed of your progress. You can fix things the following week.
Nutrition
You’ve probably heard that getting in shape is more dependent on diet than exercise. It’s true. You can't outtrain a bad diet. Period. No matter how challenging the workouts in this program are, if you don’t maintain a healthy diet, they will all be useless. That said, I’m not going to ask you to count calories. Just follow the guidelines below, drink plenty of water and get real with yourself about whether you are really hungry or if you are just eating because you’re bored, dehydrated or it simply makes you feel good.
Being satisfied versus feeling full.
It is important to understand that there is a big difference between being satisfied and the feeling of fullness when you’re eating. When you are satisfied, the body has consumed enough nutrients to work efficiently. This is a physical feeling. Feeling full is completely different. The feeling of fullness is an emotional feeling. We have a lot of baggage in our emotional lives and we use food to numb these bad feelings. We often use food to fill these holes. These holes manifest themselves, at times, as hunger. Therefore, we continue to stuff food in our mouths until we can’t take another bite, thereby “filling the holes” which have absolutely nothing to do with hunger or consuming the calories we need to survive and perform adequately. It’s vital to know the difference and adjust.
Losing fat and adding muscle at the same time.
Can it be done? The answer to this question is a resounding “yes”!! Despite the enduring idea that this is impossible, I am living proof that it’s not. I have never gone through a “bulking” phase, which is defined as a period when people put on an insane amount of weight, with the goal of building as much muscle as they can. They then follow this by a “cutting” phase, which is when they attempt get lean at all costs. While it’s difficult, it’s certainly not impossible to do both simultaneously. I suspect that people who say that’s it’s impossible simply don’t want to do the work required to build muscle and lose body fat at the same time.
Building muscle and losing fat at the same time over a few weeks is what I do with my clients day in and day out. The key is to eat clean, work out hard and create a calorie deficit. Again, you don't need to count calories, just go hard in the gym and be mindful of what and how much you’re eating.
The do's and don’ts of eating on this program.
This is where I lay down the law. You are not going to drink any alcohol. You are not going to eat bread, pasta, potatoes — yes, even sweet potatoes — or rice. You are not going to consume any sugar or any other natural or unnatural sweetening agents such as honey, maple syrup, agave syrup, stevia, splenda etc. You are not going to eat any fruits, beans, legumes (no peanut butter!) or corn. All of your liquids should be calorie free. That pretty much limits you to water, seltzer, black, unsweetened coffee and tea. Yeah, the first few days may have you feeling a little lacking in energy, but I promise that you’ll be pleasantly surprised by how quickly your body adapts to a low-carb environment and you’ll also love how you feel as you progress through week two.
Avoid protein shakes, protein bars, creatine and pre-workout drinks completely. Trust me: these will get in your way. If, however, you stick to a vegetarian or vegan diet you may need to supplement with protein to get an adequate amount.
For everybody else, here’s what you will be filing your plate with: meat and poultry — using increasingly leaner cuts as you go through the program — fatty fish, eggs, a limited amount of dairy and plenty of above-ground vegetables — cabbage, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, green beans, asparagus, bell peppers, onions, kale, spinach, arugula, cauliflower, celery. It is important to stock your refrigerator with enough of these foods to last you a week. Just long enough that they stay fresh and do not go bad. I hate wasting food!! To help you adapt to 28 days of low carbs, eat ½ to ¾ of a cup of oatmeal in the morning for the first week. Limit your use of oils and butter. Switch to a cooking spray — they contain a negligible amount of calories — and buy a selection of hot sauces which are also very low in calories. This will be helpful in the final week of the program during which the diet will become more restricted.
While all of this sounds severe, several of my clients have innovated great-tasting meals within these guidelines. I’ve included links to some meal ideas they’ve shared.
You don’t need to figure out your macros or eat a certain amount of protein in relation to your body weight. Just fill half your plate (a regular-sized meal plate, not one of those massive plates that you get when you eat out at a restaurant) with lean protein and half your plate with vegetables. Lean protein would include chicken, very lean cuts of steak, very lean pork chop, and fish. Eat until you're satisfied then stop. You don’t need to fast.
Eat a breakfast, a lunch and a dinner, with one or two snacks in between as needed. Always keep some almonds or mixed nuts on hand if you feel your energy dip and don’t eat anything within three hours of bedtime. If you turn in at midnight, don’t eat past 9pm. Keep it simple.
As I mentioned above, it is a good idea to always have plenty of clean food that you love to eat in your home. It’s when stores are low that bad decisions are made and your transformation is dealt a blow.
Cheat meals? No. Go to that burger joint you love once you’ve got your six-pack, not before. Let the burger be your reward. Earn it! You may decide that looking like you do is better than that burger is going to taste anyway.