Grand Plan Stan/Stella

By Tony Horton

So you want to be fit and lean and you want all the news on how to get there. Well, I'm your plan man. Your plan must be simple. Exercise and eating right do not have to be convoluted. You just need a philosophy for getting there. Here are a few tips to help you on your journey:

1. Know ahead of time when you're going to work out. Write it on a calendar (I'm old school . . . that's what I do) or in your PDA and get into the Beachbody® virtual gym, WOWY® (Work Out with You), to be with a group of committed people. Schedule out the whole month in advance!

2. If you really want results, you have to stop with the FOOD PORN. Remove the porn from the house and buy fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and lean proteins. If switching over makes you feel deprived, then do what I do—I call it the 90/10 Plan. Ninety percent of the food I eat is in the top two tiers of Michi's Ladder. The other 10 percent of the time I dip into Michi's basement. I stay away from grease, fat, and salt, but I do relish in the sweet side of life. Can you say chocolate chip cookie? Another plan is the 50/50 plan. This is for people who have been eating poorly at every meal for years. Your job is to clean up your act just half the time while sticking with the old ways for the other 50 percent. You have to decide ahead of time which meals are clean and which are PORN. Three meals a day, seven days a week makes for 21 meals. Make 11 of them healthy (you know what that looks like) and keep the rest ugly. This plan will improve things immensely for many of you. The hope is that over time, the 11 good meals become 12 and 10 bad become 9, etc.

3. If you really struggle with your healthy diet, start writing down what you eat. Try this for just three weeks. Buy a small note pad or some 3" x 5" index cards and start keeping track of every morsel. Grade yourself at the end of each day. Healthy foods get no grades while junk/porn gets a negative number. That blue cheese dressing in your healthy salad gets a negative 1. Add bacon bits and you're at a negative 2. On a 1 to 10 scale, 8, 9, and 10 are best. Below 5 means you've been cheating all day long.

Self-improvement doesn't have to be complicated. Your simple plan is to schedule workouts so that you can stay consistent and find a food philosophy that works for you.


*Tony reference Michi's ladder. If you need a copy of this, you can join the Beachbody commnuity for free at my website, www.exercise2day.com or shoot me an email.