New Body For Life Trainees ask lots of questions. And they should. This is a “strange” program for most of us. It’s unique and different to eat 6 small meals a day, and to exercise for only about 4 hours a week or less and to still see terrific changes.

Most of the questions are in the nature of “How” and “What.” Questions such as, “how do I know if I’m eating the right amount of food?” Or, “How long before I see results?”  The “what” questions are along the lines of “What is the right way to do this exercise?” Or, “What if I want to move free day?”

Where it gets sticky is when the questions start with “why.” Things like, “Why do we only have 20 minute cardio sessions–I’m used to a lot more?”  Or, “Why should I do this just by the book since I read somewhere that all the champions did lots more and different kinds of workouts than in the book?”

The reason these questions pose a real problem is that they show a lack of trust on the part of the newbie. They show an actual suspicion that the person thinks they are being given less than the best way to do this plan, and that someone is holding out on them. Or, even worse, the questions tend to indicate that the trainee thinks that he or she knows better how to do a transformation than Bill Phillips, who spent ten years actually developing this plan for public presentation!

I can’t blame anyone for wanting to ultimately customize their fitness program. I have done it myself,in order to accomodate several physical problems from injuries. But, I STRONGLY SUGGEST that doing that first twelve weeks BY THE BOOK is the best way to ensure that your challenge is the best it can be.  To be sure, some champions used techniques different than the book. However, for many of them the book had not even been written. As for the rest–those who did things differently–there is really no good way of knowing whether they would have actually done better had they followed the book. And for most of us, doing the challenges by the book was the right way to do it. We found the 60 minutes of cardio to be plenty, provided it was done with the intensity that it deserved. And we found the exercise worked spectacularly if it was done with intensity, with regularity, and combined with the strictness of the diet.

I have made a lot of mistakes while doing body for life. My first mistake was doing the challenge for the shallowest of reasons. The one that I repeated often was tinkering with the diet, trying to get along with different types of foods and supplements, and trying to get by with fewer than six meals. But always, I came back to the basics, because they worked the best. 

It really all comes down to trust. Either you trust that this plan works, or you don’t. And if you don’t have that level of trust and confidence, chances are excellent that you won’t have the strength of will to stick with the challenge long enough to see if it really works, and you won’t really have disciplined and systematic approach, the wholehearted commitment, that it takes to make it really work.

Ask all the whats and hows you want. But, go light on the whys until you’ve really done that twelve weeks the way it should be done. After all, if the other things you thinking about substituting worked well, you’d already be fit, wouldn’t you?