Once you have the basics in place, it's time to get your head in place. I don't recommend doing the above steps and then thinking now all I have to do is workout and I'll be fine (you've probably already tried this approach…at least I did). You really need to sit yourself down and come up with a game plan. I mean just because you have all the team members on the field, and they know all the plays, you still have to have somebody to put it all together and provide your team with a high probability of success week in and week out. This is the job of the coach, aka your mind. Having your mind working for you instead of against you will make the transformation much smoother. It'll be the one to make you get back on track after a night of eating ice cream, it'll be the one to prevent you from forgetting why you're doing this, it'll be the one to keep you motivated, etc. The issues you need to solve vary depending on your own mental health, but here's a few to get you going.
"If you are not absolutely convinced you need to make a
change, then you might as well stop right now. Transforming your mind and body requires total
effort, and if you haven't set your mind to sticking with the program, you've already increased
your chances of failure. Tell yourself no matter what obstacles get in your way, you will be totally
committed to changing your mind and body. And when you identify a specific reason to get a grip on
your body and life, to make yourself stronger, healthier, more confident and more capable than you
have ever felt, then you will, by that very act, be taking another essential step in this process. So identify
a specific reason to make a change. Be particular. I know you know deep down inside you have
a reason, actually several good reasons to decide to change."
-Bill Phillips
You might have to do a little soul searching on this one. For me I decided to make a promise to myself to finish. It sounds simple, but I thought that if I can't keep a promise to myself, then I can't keep a promise to anybody. And when I started to think how this might effect relationships with my future wife, kids, grandkids, friends, etc, I knew it was a promise I had to keep.
I can't stress enough how very important this one is. My physical goal initially was to look like Shawn Phillips. Shawn is the guy in most of the background images on this website. (Pretty impressive huh?) Unfortunately, that's not a very specific goal or measurable goal, so I changed it to getting my body fat below 8%, and increasing my bench press by 50 lbs. Both of these I can track and progress towards. (other goals might be to lose X lbs of fat, gain X lbs of muscle, lose X inches, get marathon time under X minutes, etc.) And since I did learn something from the first time I took the challenge, on the second go around I created mental goals as well. My mental goals were to put other people in perspective, to take responsibility for everything I do, to quit making excuses, to stop complaining, and most importantly to really love who I am. This last one sounds kind of corny, but once it started happening, I couldn't believe how my attitude changed and how great I began to feel. Write your goals down on a piece of paper and keep them with you. Also, post a copy of them somewhere so that you can read them every morning. Again, this is extremely important so please give it a try.
A great way to determine your goals is to find someone who started in the same condition as you (weight, height, body fat percentage, training experience) and had the same goals as you (I want to lose X lbs of fat and gain X lbs of muscle in the next X weeks). Then you have something to gauge your progress against. If you don't know anybody like this, you're going to be the pioneer for your own transformation. What this means is that you're not allowed to compare yourself to others. Everyday I see emails that say "I just feel I should be farther along". My question to them is always "Why?". The usual answer is "Because I just do". So, please try to find someone that used to be in your shoes if you're going to compare yourself to others. Otherwise, find the person who is closest to your situation, and use their plan as a guideline. Also, as you set your 12 week goals, don't forget to break those down into 1 and 2 month goals. It's always the one month time frame that people assume a miracle should've happened, and start doubting themselves.
One of the obstacles I knew I'd face was after each and every softball game when the team went out for beers. I love beer, but wanted to do this right for 12 weeks so I decided to give it up temporarily. So I wrote down that I would still go out with the team, but drink ice tea instead. I was a little nervous after the first game, but since I had expected it, when we got to the bar, I just ordered up my ice tea and I was fine. I can't stress how important it is to write these down though.
Use this same line of thought for anything you expect to happen. Plan for injury, a much needed vacation, a momentary lapse of sanity, whatever. Just make sure that you promise yourself that you'll recover and get back on the horse. Make sure to honor any and all promises you make to yourself also. These are the ones that are easiest to break, yet it is the best way to destroy your self confidence. Continually work on keeping them.
How to stay motivated is one of the most frequent questions that I get. There's no canned answer here, but for me part of it is hanging a picture of what I want to look like on my bathroom mirror and fridge. It's calling up my buddy Todd and my Dad to make sure they're still on track with their transformations. It's responding to people from this website. It's finding someone to send daily emails to discussing how each other's tranformation is coming along, etc. You'll have to figure out what works for you, but I can tell you that if you can incorporate your goals into every hour of the day so that they're staring you in the face at every corner, it will be much easier to achieve success.
Do you know why you are really doing this challenge? Is it to look good. Yes. Is it to build self esteem and have greater confidence? Yes. Is it to win your share of the million dollar cash prize? Maybe.
Actually, it's probably a combination of all these things, but if you back up one step farther you'll probably see that these things are just ways to make you happy and your life more ful-fulling. Gee, thanks for pointing that out, now is there a point to all this? Actually, there is. Don't lose site or neglect the other things in your life that also make you extremely happy: your girlfriend, your wife, your kids, etc. Being totally committed to changing the way you look and feel is great, really great and worth it 1000 times over, but it also can be very consuming if you aren't careful. So just make sure you keep everything in balance and don't lose sight of the forest through the trees.
These are just some of the things I put into my game plan when I started. Feel free to use them as your starting point, and to think up other specific ones for yourself.
Get containers to store your food. Purchase tupperware, a water jug, and a cooler to carry your food. An easy way to keep track of your water consumption is to buy a gallon water jug, and then make sure to drink all of it each day. You'll be pissing a river, but all that water really helps to keep your system clean and running efficiently.