So, you’re thinking about jumping in on the My TransPhormation Challenge, but you have reservations. Do you really have the time? Will it just be another failed attempt at getting into shape?
My story might help you.
I’m 42 years old. I have a family. I have a more-than-full-time job. I’m in leadership at my church. I’m an outdoorsman, endurance athlete, and in decent shape for my age. Why would I bother with a 56-day My TransPhormation Challenge? That’s a long time, and what did I really need to “TransPhorm” into, anyway?
The truth is, my nutritional discipline had drifted and was actively working against my distance efforts and weight lifting. Deep inside I knew I had loosened the reins, but it was an uncomfortable reality I was hesitant to confront. The scale told a starker tale: 195 pounds. My 5’ 10” frame was flirting dangerously with the double-century mark.
Peer pressure isn’t always a bad thing, so when Legionnaire coach Jake Arvold texted asking if I was jumping onboard with the eight-week TransPhormation Challenge, it was just the nudge I needed to commit.
I won’t make you wait until the end to find out my results. In those 56 days, I dropped over 13 pounds AND added lean muscle AND regained definition I thought was gone forever.
For clarity, let me breakdown the nuts and bolts of what you’re signing up for:
- Weekly weigh-ins
- Weekly progress pictures (front/side/back)
- Following a prescribed workout plan (beginner/intermediate/advanced)
- Logging all your food intake for 56 days
- Submitting weekly assessments to your advisor
As you sit on the precipice of making this decision, let me offer some lessons I learned that’ll make your path a little smoother. There are bonus tips at the end, too.
Also, you can totally do this!
Learning How to Eat
You’re an adult (mostly), right? You learned to eat back before you could walk…which is why you’ll feel insane when you start to really break down the macronutrients in your daily food intake. What are macronutrients (also called “macros”)? They’re a collective term for proteins, fats, and carbs. If you’re like me, you’ll find yourself reconceptualizing how and what to eat in this process. Peanut butter was KILLING my daily fat numbers…but how did I know that?
The primary tool for the TransPhormation Challenge is an app from 1st Phorm called, (not-so-coincidentally) the My TransPhormation App. That’s your home base. Enter your physiological metrics, your goals, your level of activity, and it generates your daily caloric needs and further breaks down how many grams of proteins, carbs, and fats you need to reach your goal (lose fat, gain lean muscle, maintain).
As you log your food intake, it pulls the nutritional data out of a HUGE database of food and breaks it down for you. I learned quickly how much more effective it is to log food right after eating so I didn’t forget, and it showed me what I had left in my budget for the rest of the day, further informing my nutrition.
What I found quickly (and I believe you will too), is that my diet was not supplying my body with enough protein. I was getting my calories primarily from fats…which had contributed to weight gain. And, I wasn’t getting enough carbs…which was blunting my efforts to gain lean muscle mass.
This is really where I felt like I was relearning how to eat at 42. Humbling for sure, but a dose of reality I don’t think I would have gotten otherwise. Assume you will have to challenge preconceptions about food — some you didn’t even know you held.
Commit to the Truth
You know who you’re really good at lying to?
HINT: He or she is reading this very sentence in this exact moment.
Yeah, it’s you. It’s all of us. We lie to ourselves all the time. How many times have you said, “I’ll start eating better on Monday.”
What about, “This is just the way I am. I’m not a fitness person.”
Or how about eating healthy around others and then pouncing on a king size Snickers when no one is around?
We’re good at lying to ourselves, but where do those lies get us? Overweight. Lethargic. Unhappy. Undisciplined.
This TransPhormation only works if you commit to the truth. You have to be honest with yourself and others. Sure, you can go through and enter whatever you want in the app tracking your food and workouts…but unless it’s the truth, it’s all window dressing, and the power is gone from the process.
You’re better than that.
My first brush with this conflict came after I had uploaded a screenshot of my daily food intake to an accountability group I was part of (JOIN ONE!), and later started making my kids’ lunch at 10pm. One Smuckers Uncrustable led to a granola bar and then a cascade of snacks. Before I knew it, I had knocked down another 900 unnecessary, guilt-ridden calories.
If you don’t log them, they never happened, right?
Wrong!
In that moment, the entire hope for success hung in the balance. If it’s just a game, it’s not going to change my life.
Thankfully, truth prevailed. I begrudgingly logged those miserable snacks and vowed to never have a late-night rampage like that again. And I haven’t.
Do the Work
If food is one side of the pair of scissors, exercise is the other. And you’ll need both to cut free from the thought patterns and behaviors that got you where you are. Your body was designed by God to move and be challenged. The good news is you’ll adapt, and your physical competency will increase.
Having a decent level of fitness prior to jumping in on the Challenge, I chose the Advanced track using the At-Home series of workouts. You choose whatever works for you. This may be the first time you’ve ever exercised and that’s ok! I’m not the biggest fan of change and had found myself in a rut doing the same lifting routines I’d done for years, but I was hungrier for different results than I was for comfort. With some dumbbells, a chin-up bar, and workout mat, I treated each session like an adventure. What workout will I GET TO DO today? That’s a mindset shift.
Listen, you have to do the work. Sure, 1st Phorm makes supplements to assist, but none of those will ever take the place of real food and real effort. So plan on getting that heartrate up. Plan on being challenged, but also plan on seeing results. My jeans fit perfectly now. I don’t think twice about taking off my shirt at the pool or going for a run. I sleep like a baby (except for my 2 AM, middle-aged man trip to the bathroom). Life is just better when you’re putting in the effort.
Decide with Data
Regular weigh-ins and weekly assessments gave me the cold hard data I needed to see what was and wasn’t working. Having advisors like Collin Stark and Jake Arvold at 1st Phorm gave me critical insights I couldn’t have gained on my own. Among other things, the guys helped me learn to leverage carbs to better utilize the protein I was taking, ultimately boosting my muscle mass.
Those connections also formed a positive layer of accountability and support absent from any of my efforts in the past. Lean on the data and personal resources given to you in the TransPhormation Challenge. Those tools and relationships are part of the magic.
It’s 56 days. That’s less than two months, and really, it’s a daily game. One step at a time. Sure, some days will be better than others, but if you really commit to new ways of thinking about food, being honest, doing the work, and leveraging the data, you’ll find the My TransPhormation Challenge does a bit of transformation itself. It changes from a challenge you decided to do 56 days ago and becomes a lifestyle you love!
You CAN do this. I know there’s a little voice gnawing away back there wanting to keep you down. Kill it with a commitment right now. You will do this, and I’ve got some bonus tips to help!
Bonus Tips:
- Enjoy your rest days! They should feel like little mini-vacations.
- Get the premium version of the app. The food database alone is worth the $4/month price tag.
- Protein is the Godfather of macros. You’ll likely fall short at first. Making Level-1 smoothies helped me hit my protein number.
- Have fun learning new foods. I discovered powdered peanut butter, and it cut out so much fat from regular PB!
- Bring friends along. This trip is so much more fun when you can share it.
- Harness the discipline. Scaffold the mental toughness you’ll gain into other areas of your life. I finally started making the bed each morning!
- Take care of your gut. Adding Micro-Factor packs helped ensure my diet was complete as I was readjusting what and how I ate.
Join me in the Legion of Woodsmen if you want me to serve as your fearless Advisor on your My TransPhormation Challenge! Still not convinced and want to hear more? Check out this podcast!
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