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What’s the most ludicrous exercise you’ve witnessed before?

It’s a tough call right – type ‘stupid exercise’ into youtube and you’ll be swamped – No don’t do that, because if you listened to yesterdays show on your ‘not to do list’ then YouTube is there right?

Today’s training show is leaves no room for ludicrous. Lets focus on simple, effective, high bang for your fat burning buck, today is all about:

The 80:20 Approach To Exercising and Eating.

The law of the vital few.

This is of course the Pareto Principle. Which states that in virtually any aspect of life 80% of the effects will come from 20% of the causes.

So 80% of your income may come from 20% of your clients. Or as first discovered in 1906 by Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the population.

As more recently made popular by Perry Marshall in his book ’80/20 Sales and Marketing’ this principle is fractal.

So 4% of the actions can get 64% of the results. I’ve never found maths much fun so don’t worry this will not get complicated however the general guidelines are gold.

If we take the LIMITLESS. At times conflicting. Often confusing. And constantly evolving options so far as how to eat and exercise to lose weight there are in my mind without doubt two options that will give you the favourable 80:20 results:

ONE: Lift Heavy Weights Consistently.

TWO: Eat Primarily One Ingredient Foods. 

Both are vital and both are high return for your time energy and money invested.

So let’s take these two essentials and find the top 20% again… so we uncover the 4% of actions that can get 64% of the results.

Sounds like a plan right?

Again my disclaimer, I can’t work out 4% of limitless however I can give you the most effective actions so far as getting great results for the minimum time invested.

=> Let’s start with lifting heavy weights consistently.

3 Gold Guidelines:

1. Start with big compound movements. So heavy biceps curls will never be in your top 4% however movements that use multiple muscles and multiple joints like squats, lunges, deadlifts, chin ups and push ups are indeed 4%’ers.

2. Incorporate your compound movements into a circuit where exercises using opposing muscle groups follow each other so that you need minimal recovery time… this means you work at a higher intensity.

For example a pulling movement like a chin up will be followed by a lower body movement or a pushing moving like push up…rather than by another pulling movement like a lat pull down.

This is called metabolic resistance training – because it gives you the highest metabolic effect… Which basically means you burn the most both during your session and even more importantly, after your session.

3. Get competitive with YOU by adding timed components to your metabolic resistance training circuit.

This is again designed to push your boundaries as you get fitter and increase the intensity.

For example in an 8 exercise circuit each odd number exercise may be a heavy compound movement for repetitions and every even number may be a body weight exercise for time (body weight exercises are all by nature going to be compound movements and my body weight is actually pretty heavy too when it’s not supported by a machine!)

This timed component is called density training. Where you set the baseline in your first circuit and then try to beat it in the circuits to follow.

This style of training has the benefits of lifting heavy weights with an additional heart rate raising, fitness increasing cardio effect. It means you don’t need to bother with cardio machine tedium which is not a 4%’er approach to exercise.

So your MRT circuit may look like this:

1) Heavy dumbbell split squats. 8-12 reps.

2) Push ups. 30 seconds.

3) Assisted chin ups. 8-12 reps.

4) Medicine ball tricep dips. 30 seconds.

5) Heavy dumbbell 1 arm row. 8-12 reps.

6) Sumo in out jump squats. 30 seconds.

7) Heavy push press. 8-12 reps.

8) Oblique v-up. 30 seconds.

=> Moving on to eating primarily one ingredient foods.

3 gold guidelines:

1. Build your meals around high value, micronutrient rich, low caloric density, fibrous veg.

So for example potatoes are one ingredient foods – and I’m not hating on spuds, I love them, however I would never recommend basing your meal around something so carbie.

Your high value fibrous friends are kale, zucchini, spinach, zucchini, broccoli etc.

2. Add a generous serve of protein and a portion controlled serve of good fat.

Having 30 grams of nuts is not going to satisfy you. Additionally your protein component of a plant based meal will generally not be one big hunk of protein like in a meal containing animal products. So perhaps it’s a tablespoon each of hemp seeds, pumpkin seeds, nutritional yeast and also a 1/2 cup of quinoa or chickpeas or other beans / legumes.

Equally, splashing copious amounts of olive oil over your salad is overkill… as is a whole packet of nuts.

3. Take the time to find the one ingredient meals you love, be creative and constantly look to evolve your creations. Why is this a 4%’er? In a word, sustainability.

Boredom is a massive saboteur to healthy eating. You need to take the time to make sure your meals are pleasurable or you’ll feel deprived and resentful.

These 4%’ers may sound simple however they certainly work – even if you already believe you’re training ‘hard’ and ‘eating well.’

Early on in my personal training career I trained a cardio queen. This lady was super disciplined with her exercise and eating however she wasn’t seeing the results for all her hard work. The 6 hours a week of exercise she did were ALL committed to cardio. Although her strictly portioned controled meals were planned to within an inch of their life, they were based around low fat… and that meant they were also high carb and relatively low protein.

I made 2 changes – she continued with her awesome work ethic and followed my advice to the key and dropped her body fat from 24% to 17% in just 3 months. It’s important to note 24% is fairly healthy, even a goal a lot of people would aspire too, and the less fat you have to shed the harder it is to shift. However my clients wanted to be ultra fit looking and she deserved it with the effort she was making.

Those changes?

=> I introduced lifting heavy weights a couple of times a week and drastically cut back her moderate intensity cardio.

=> I slashed her refined carbs and amped up her one ingredient proteins and fibrous veg.

It must be time to get actionable with todays show.

I would love for you to either give MRT a go. Or if you’re already a fan then how about getting creative with a fibrous veg base for a meal that used to be pretty carbie?

Something I’m loving right now as it starts to get cooler in Sydney town, is cauliflower rice.

I steam or microwave a big serve of cauliflower until it’s nice and soft. Then season and mash with a potato masher till it’s all broken up like rice. It’s pretty good comfort food on a cold night, served with vegan curry or ratatouille.

If you liked this you’ll also like: 6 Things I Wish I Knew Before Making The Switch To 100% Plant Based Eating.

If you’re yet to share the Healthification love – just click here to zip over to iTunes and leave an honest rating and review. It’d help me out big time. With gratitude, Kate.