LYFA! FITNESS 21 Days to Health and Fitness for Life!

First and foremost, Thank You!

Dear Reader

Thank you for your interest and investment in the LYFA! FITNESS 21 day program to lose fat, build muscle and improve your health and fitness for the rest of your life. Whether you wish to lose fat for a wedding or to look good in your swimsuit this summer, whether you’ve just given birth and want to lose your baby fat, whether you need to lose weight on doctor’s orders, want to improve your health and fitness to be more productive or maybe just because you want abs and respect, this program will help you to do just that. This is the ultimate investment in your health and wellbeing and definitely money well spent. Over the course of the next 21 days, I’ll teach you the skills you need to reach your full physical potential, lose fat, gain muscle and improve your overall health and fitness, for the rest of your life. Welcome to the LYFA! Fitness, 21 Days to Health and Fitness for Life! fat loss and muscle development program, the first step towards realising your wildest dreams!

In this book I explain the principles for losing fat and staying lean and slim all year round, every year, while still enjoying life to the fullest. You’ll see a little bit further how I used this program to lose tons of fat and hopefully it’ll convince you that what you have here is golden. The best thing about this book is that you can, from this moment on, start to live healthy and improve your fitness as well. We’ll start off by covering the areas of Goal setting and Measurement, then Nutrition and Training and then we’ll work on Supplementation. Finally we’ll go over some neat tricks with Cold treatment for added fat loss and end off with maintenance and strengthening of Willpower and Motivation, our most important resources for a fit and healthy life.

This book has been written in such a manner that you can jump straight into whichever section you like. You do not necessarily have to read the whole book from start to finish (although I’d like that very much!) and these sections are all standalone parts that teach you specific concepts. Have a look at the table of contents above and jump straight into the section you want to learn about first. You can decide the sequence and follow it however you wish to.

This 21 day program will teach you all the skills you need to lose fat and build muscle. You’ll also learn how to transform these skills and actions into good, solid habits. Emphasis is placed on the formation of healthy habits, actions that become second nature through frequent use. It has been proven that a habit may be formed through repeated use in as little as 21 days [1]. It has also been proven that bad habits may be dropped in the same amount of time, by replacing them with good, healthy habits. It is my intention to help you achieve health and fitness for life, by teaching you the necessary skills and by showing you how to form these skills into actions and the actions into habits. In this way losing fat, building muscle and staying lean and healthy for the rest of your life becomes automatic second nature. You’ll be able to do it without even thinking about it!

Even though the order may vary, I recommend that you read through all the material in this book. But please do not let the reading of it hold you back. Start with the section of your choice and let’s get going right now! The key is to build momentum and to sustain it throughout the next 21 days. It should not take you more than an hour to read the next section and not more than 30 minutes to start to implement the principles. As you finish a section of the book sit back and perform the steps we discuss immediately. Build on that momentum with every step. Make use of the log sheets on which you can log your progress and which you can find online at www.lyfafitness.co.za. Print and paste these on your fridge door, or anywhere where it will be immediately visible. These will always remind you of the journey you have started and should help you to stay on track.

Now, as you stand on the precipice, take a moment to calm down, close your eyes and mentally let yourself go from the past, from the person you used to be. Step out of the shadows of the past and embrace the new you! You are no longer the same, and will soon look, feel and think differently as well. See how you step out of the shadow of your old self and how you take on the world with your new body. We’re going to do it you and I, and you’ll never ever have to look back again. Take my hand and let’s get started together!

Say goodbye to the old you and hello to your new life and body!

Sincerely yours,

Stefan Stoman

LYFA! FITNESS

First off, let me explain why

Slim and lean bodies, ripped, bulging muscles and toned physiques have always drawn my attention and in some small amount my envy. I have always intensely desired to own six pack abs and a beautifully built physique from the time when I was just a schoolboy. I fondly remember how I used to do push ups and sit ups and bicep curls with a little 4 kg dumbbell in the evenings after my homework was done. Today, nothing has changed for me. I still wake up every morning with the same intense desire for a lean, muscular physique and I’m always chasing after that goal.

For me, the allure had always been the aesthetic look. Like Michelangelo’s David, like a sleek, sexy sports car or an elegantly designed dress suit, I have always wanted to look aesthetically perfect. I wanted the perfect frame, wide muscular shoulders, lean arms, a small waist and ripped thigh muscles to finish off the perfect look.

Even though I have been chasing an aesthetic physique since my schooldays, my innermost desire was only satisfied much later, when I helped my brother prepare for a bodybuilding and modelling competition in 2008. I became enthralled with fitness and bodybuilding the moment he stepped on stage with all the other competitors and I vowed that I would step on the same stage, with the same level of conditioning the following year.

I threw together everything I knew about dieting and exercising and through lots of effort, without any help from a trainer or dietician, lost a total of 22 kg to eventually step on stage in 2009. See the incredible before and after pictures on the next page.

Sometime after the show, I realised that losing weight and building muscle is just a simple, ordinary system, with well-defined steps to be taken in sequence every day, a skill that anyone can learn, practice and make a habit to stay lean and healthy for the rest of their lives! By making all the actions automatic second nature, the whole process may be followed without even thinking too much about it. With a grasp of only a few concepts, anyone can lose fat and build an amazing physique, just like I did.

This ultimately led to what is today the LYFA! FITNESS 21 Days to Health and Fitness for Life! fat loss and muscle development program. I have been using this program ever since that day in 2009 to maintain a lean, healthy body and mind every single day.

Are you sick and tired of busting your ass to lose fat and gain muscle? Have you already tried everything out there without any luck or success? Well then, you haven’t tried the LYFA! FITNESS 21 day program yet. It really works and the proof is right here in front of your eyes!

The LYFA! FITNESS 21 day program has been designed to allow you to take your life back. To begin to take charge again. To place you squarely at the helm of your own destiny. Do not let life dictate its terms to you any longer. From this moment on, take the wheel and drive your own road the way you want it!

My hope is that you’ll reap the same rewards from this program that I do every single day of my life. With this program, run forward and never look back. I wish for you all the success in the world. May you reach all your goals and even surpass them! Stay true and train hard!

Setting great goals and taking measurements

Setting your own unique goals

If you’re like me, I bet you’re pretty eager to jump straight into this exciting new program. But before we start, let’s take a step backwards to establish a solid foundation on which we can build all our successes and victories. Just like a strong, well-built house, it all starts with a great foundation.

Before we start with any new project, we need to know the outcome. Where is it that we want to be when all the hard work is done? To know where our endpoint is we need clear, specific goals. With clear, specific goals the entire process may be broken down into smaller, more manageable chunks. It makes keeping track of progress much, much easier and also conserves and strengthens our willpower and motivation which, as we’ll discuss later on, keeps us on the straight and narrow much, much longer, and especially when the going gets tough.

Many studies on willpower have shown that setting down clear goals will more than likely lead to accomplishment of those goals [2]. The reason is because we know specifically where we want end up, the proverbial light at the end of the dark tunnel. By knowing where we want to go, we can take the straightest path, with the least amount of resistance. No fumbling around in the dark and no clutter accumulating in our minds which takes away a lot of our willpower and motivation. We’ll also keep ourselves on track for longer because our internal compasses and sense of doing the right things trigger the moment we go off track. Because our goals are real things which we have taken the time to set up carefully, we immediately correct course when something goes haywire.

When setting your goals, it is vitally important that you set your own goals. Unique goals, specific to only you. Set down whatever it is that only you want to achieve. Ideally, no-one should help you with setting these goals. Each and every one of us must set the standard for ourselves alone. In this way, we increase the chances of reaching our goals tremendously, because our internal sense of achievement will not allow us to disappoint ourselves. We’ve made a promise to ourselves, and it’s going to be difficult to break that promise. If your goals are 100% your own, you’ll definitely notice stricter adherence to them and to the process.

How then do we set these clear, specific goals? I explain in detail below.

S.M.A.R.T goals

For your goals to be clear and specific, you have to set S.M.A.R.T goals. Perhaps you’ve heard of S.M.A.R.T goals before, but for those that do not know, S.M.A.R.T is an acronym that stands for Specific, Measureable, Attainable, Realistic and Time-bound which is exactly what your goal/s should be.

Let’s look at two examples of goals: 1. Lose weight and 2. Lose 8 kg (18 lb) in 10 weeks by constructing meals from the Meal Construction Table and exercising at the gym every second day.

Goal #1, is vague, not time bound and therefore no good. It looks like New Year’s resolutions for most of us. And, honestly, do we ever reach those goals? Most times, the answer is a resounding NO. Studies [3] have shown that only about 8% of those who make resolutions for the following year actually achieve them. A major reason for this, is because these resolutions, or goals, have not been clearly defined and set up from the outset. Those poor devils who never achieved their New Year’s resolutions were, in truth, doomed from the start. Vague goals ensure mediocre adherence, and this has been shown and proved in many studies as well as in my own personal experience. You are most likely not going to achieve your goal/s if you set them like this. We don’t want to be doomed, we want to be successful from the start and so we’ll work hard on setting proper goals.

Now Goal #2, on the other hand, conforms to all of the S.M.A.R.T criteria. It is an example of a good, clear goal.

Specific – lose 8 kg in 10 weeks by using the Meal Construction Table and exercising every second day at the gym (this goal may be made even more specific if you plan and note all your meals and exercises well in advance; I’ll show you how in the sections to come). Very specific in terms of what is planned. The actions and endpoints are clear and specific.

Measureable – because your goal is to lose 8 kg in 10 weeks, you may track your weight loss as well as the time elapsed. Progress may thus be measured by daily or weekly tracking.

Attainable – losing 8 kg is not unattainable if you weigh 90 kg (203 lb) or more and have 8 kg of fat waiting to be lost. It