Body Transformation
Training Manual
“The journey of a thousand miles
begins with one step” – Lao Tzu
About Me
My name is Jamie Bain and I’m a strength
and conditioning coach with over 15 years
experience including a decade working in
professional rugby. Now I have turned my
skills to helping people like you transform
their bodies and lives. I’ve developed a
training program that combines the best
training, nutrition and lifestyle coaching to
help you achieve just that.
But that’s enough about me! This manual
is about YOU and more importantly the
NEW YOU that we are about to create…
What’s in this training manual?
This manual will include everything you need to develop the body and life you want. We will give
an overview of the training methods and approach but this will be taken care of in your group
training classes, all you need to do is turn up with a smile on your face and work hard!
That leaves majority of the manual focused on nutrition and lifestyle. You see these are the two
things that hold people back when it comes to achieving their goals. But don’t worry we won’t give
you complicated training plans and nutrition blueprints, it’s Strength Made SIMPLE after all!
So let’s get to it!
www.strenghmadesimple.com Page 2
Training:
You will book onto 3 classes a week and your training sessions will consist of:
5min Dynamic Warm Up
15min of Heavy Strength Training
Why strength training? Because strength is the foundation of all physical qualities. If you increase
your strength everything else becomes easier! But as well as the physical adaptations it helps build
confidence and the successes make it fun and motivating.
Heavy means moderately heavy for you it’s all relative to you and you want be forced to lift
something you’re not prepared for. Don’t worry about getting too strong or muscle bound either!
We use functional exercises that carry over to everyday activities and will help you look and feel
more toned and trim than big and bulky!
10-15min of Functional Resistance Training
Here we use a bigger variety of exercises covering the whole body and working on your weak
points. This will start to challenge you fitness to as we reduce the rest periods and up the tempo!
10-15min of Metabolic Conditioning
This is the fun stuff! We will give you a variety of training stimulus to burn fat and fire up your
metabolism. This part of the session will combine resistance training, bodyweight exercises,
kettlebells and traditional CV to create a huge fat burning, muscle-toning effect!
Sessions will follow a progression plan for 4 weeks to make sure you are making progress,
mastering the movements and building a solid foundation.
That’s the general format but we will mix it up to keep things fun, challenge you and increase your
results!
www.strenghmadesimple.com Page 3
Nutrition
Before we get into the nitty gritty of our
nutrition protocols it’s important to state
what are not going to do.
• We are not going to provide you with
cookie cutter meal plans.
• We are not going to force you to count
calories and macros.
• We are not going to put you on a crazy
calorie restriction diet or encourage
intermittent fasting or the zone!
We believe in providing you with enough information and a framework to help you build the
HABITS that will allow you to find a comfortable nutrition approach that you can maintain for a
lifetime. Here’s why we don’t like counting calories and strict diets:
• Calorie counting isn’t accurate and is very individual
• Most people can only stick to them for a short period of time
• Those who do stick to them usually end up rebounding afterwards
• Meal plans often force people to eat foods they don’t like and there adherence is poor
So what is our approach you ask?!
Enter the Strength Made Simple 10 Commandments of Nutrition…
www.strenghmadesimple.com Page 4
The Strength Made Simple 10 Commandments of Nutrition
Here we provide you 10 guidelines for you to fit you eating habits around. You should already be
recording you food diary and once completed this will help your coach advise you where to make
changes. Anyway here are the 10 commandments:
1. Don’t Drink Calories
2. Cook your own food
3. Eat 3-4 meals per day
4. Consume Protein with every meal
5. Consume green veggies with every meal
6. Consume healthy carbs in two meals per day around your training sessions
7. Consume healthy fats with every meal
8. Eat Slowly and until 80% full
9. Drink 2-3 litres of water per day
10. Don’t Panic when things go wrong!
Let’s have a look at each individual commandment in a bit more detail…
www.strenghmadesimple.com Page 5
1. Don’t Drink Calories
This is something we see a lot. Clients start a diet and
EAT healthily but still can’t figure out why they aren’t
losing weight. People always underestimate how
many calories (and sugar) a in drinks. Even ones
people consider healthier choices orange juice and
milk for example are high in calories and are easy to
over consume. We recommend sticking to good old
H2O for 90% of your fluid intake. And it is one of the
first habits we encourage because you’ll be surprised
the results you can get from just changing this one
thing.
2. Cook your own food
That’s right if you’re getting your food from a packet it won’t be the best for you. If you prepare
all your own meals you know you have good ingredients and you will take better carer to cook
healthy meals. Don’t worry we will help you with healthy recipes and ideas to keep it simple for
you but you can’t be having processed foods. Think whole foods and nutritious!
3. Eat 3-4 meals per day
There are many fat loss “gurus” out there who recommend 6-8 small meals spread out over the
day. They claim that this will keep your metabolism high and thus burn more fat. The problem is
they have no evidence to back this up. What’s worse is that the more meals you have the
greater you chance of over eating! It’s also a lot of work to prepare that many meals and is
easily ditched for fast food. Keep it simple and have 3-4 moderately sized meals per day (more
on meal size to come!)
www.strenghmadesimple.com Page 6
4. Consume Protein with every meal
Protein has tons of benefits especially for muscle
building and repair. But they also have a huge
benefit when trying to lose weight. The two main
reasons are that they help you feel fuller (eg stop
you over eating!) and protein actually costs more
calories to digest so you burn calories just by
eating! Our recommendation is 2 palm sized
portions per meal for men and 1 palm sized portion
for women. Here are good sources of protein:
• Meat (e.g. turkey, chicken, fish, beef, etc.)
• Eggs
• Beans/legumes (e.g. lentils, chickpeas, black
beans, white beans, etc.)
• Whey Protein Shakes
5. Consume green veggies with every meal
That’s right go to town with your veggies! These also help fill you up so you don’t over eat but
they are packed with the vitamins and minerals which are needed for all bodily functions. Try and
sample a variety of different vegetables especially greens they all offer different micronutrients
that you need. Try and eat the rainbow when it comes to your vegetables! Here are good choices:
If you struggle getting your greens in then a good alternative is to get them through juicing
and/or blending them into smoothies (the only time you can drink calories!!).
www.strenghmadesimple.com Page 7
6. Consume healthy carbs in two meals per day around your training sessions
Since the advent of the Atkins Diet carbs have had a bad wrap. Yes they are high in calories but
they are awesome fuel for high intensity exercise (think lifting weights and metabolic circuits). If
you avoid carbs completely you will decrease performance and thus decrease your potential to
burn fat. So the answer is to reduce how much you have, only 2 meals per day and have quality
sources (again no processed crap!) men should aim for 2 cupped hands and women only 1. Here
are some good sources:
• Fruits
• Quinuoa
• Cous Cous
• Buckwhest
• Legumes
• Brown Rice & Pasta
• Whole Grains
The key here is “good sources”, nothing processed and remember to keep them around training
sessions.
7. Consume healthy fats with every meal
Fats are also frowned upon but are vitally important for our body to function. For instance without
fats we can’t access some of the good nutrients in the greens we eat! Anyway fats do carry a high
calorie cost so we don’t want to over do them. Aim for one thumb sized portion per meal for
women and 2 for men. Here are some good choices:
• Nuts & Seeds
• Olive Oil (raw)
• Coconut Oil
• Small amounts of dairy
www.strenghmadesimple.com Page 8
8. Eat Slowly and until 80% full
This is probably the toughest habit to get right, certainly for me it is!! Anyway these days we
don’t eat our food we inhale it! Try to eat slowly and enjoy your healthy meal (it helps that you
learn to cook tasty healthy food) and listen to your body for signs of being full. We’ve all
experienced it when we scoff down a meal and 20 minutes later we are bloated and need a nap
(think Christmas day for instance!). T
his is because it takes our 20 minutes to figure out when we have ate enough. Over time you will
get better and learn to eat to satiety and learn how much you really need.
9. Drink 2-3 litres of water per day
Well if you aren’t drinking calories you have to
drink water right?! Being hydrated is really
important for both physical and mental
performance, so don’t take this lightly. Research
has also shown that people who drink more water
lose more weight, so get guzzling! If you struggle
to keep up with endless glasses of water then by a
big 2 litre water bottle and take it everywhere with
you so you can keep an eye on how much you
drink. It might take a while but eventually you will
be able to hit your target.
www.strenghmadesimple.com Page 9
10. Don’t Panic when things go wrong!
This is one of the biggest problems that body transformers face. Firstly keep it simple and try not
to stress. The system is designed to do that so your energy is focused on being successful. You are
human and there will be times when you make a mistake or downright cheat! That’s normal
everyone does it. The problem is when people say to themselves “oh well I’ve blown it now…what’s
the number for dominos?!”. Those are the people that fail. You are going to be strong and get
back on the horse. You know that if you stick to the plan for 85-90% of the time you will make
progress towards your goals.
Your Plate:
Supplements
Notice that we haven’t discussed supplements until the end of the nutrition chapter. That’s
because supplements won’t be of benefit if you nutrition isn’t already dialled in. Supplements
may be helpful to some people in some situations but get the 10 commandments in place
first then discuss with your coach if you think you need something else.
www.strenghmadesimple.com Page 10
Lifestyle
Right, so we’ve got you’re training and nutrition down. You’re fuelling healthily and stimulating fat
loss. But that alone isn’t going to be enough for you to truly get the results you want and deserve
and keep the habits for a lifetime. Heck if you train 10 hours a week you still have 158 hours to
get it all wrong! Here are some tips to help you get through the program successfully and build
lasting healthy habits.
www.strenghmadesimple.com Page 11
Increase your activity levels
The best way to reduce body fat is to create a caloric deficit, meaning you consume less
calories than you burn through movement (exercise etc). Thus to make up the energy deficit
your body uses your fat stores for energy and hey presto your abs appear!
Obviously this starts with your nutrition restricting what you eat reduces the calories you
consume and obviously the 3 weekly training sessions with us help with increasing the number
of calories you burn. But to get best results you need to increase your NEPA or Non Exercise
Physical activity.
You can increase NEPA any number of ways; gardening, cycling to work, taking the stairs
instead of the lift, taking the dog for a walk. Our favourite is walking, not only is it extra
exercise but it helps you relax and reduce stress (see next section!). Many consider walking as
active meditation and some of the great people in history were renowned for their regimented
walks.
We recommend tracking your daily activity levels using an activity tracker (polar loop, fitbit) or
using an app on your phone. Increase your daily paces each day until you can get to 10,000
per day and then try and maintain for as long as possible. Challenge a friend to see who can
get the most consecutive days over 10,000 paces per day!
www.strenghmadesimple.com Page 12
De-stress/relaxation
If we spend all our time worrying about training and nutrition it will be a recipe for disaster (that’s
why we’ve tried to make it simple!). You see, your body doesn’t know the difference between
mental and physical stress. It responds to both in very similar ways so if we increase physical
stress we need to reduce mental stress or you will dig into your reserves too much and that’s not
good.
However, you can’t just will your stress to decrease! You need strategies to help reduce it like you
need strategies to improve your nutrition and training. You need to actively make time to relax like
you have with your training. We’ve already discussed walking as a good example but here are
some other things worth putting in place:
Sleep
Sleep is probably the number 1 recovery modality out there but unfortunately the modern way of
life isn’t conducive with getting a good nights sleep. We could (and maybe should) write a whole
chapter on sleep and it’s importance to health but here are some quick tips to getting the most
from your sleep:
• Aim for 8 hours per night
• Try and have the same sleep wake time everyday (even weekends!)
• Avoid iphones/ipads in the last 30-40min pre bed (at least use the screen dimmer function!)
• Try reading before bed
• Get blackout curtains and try to get the room as dark as possible
• Try to get a 30-40min nap in the day if work/life allows and especially if you miss out on your 8
hours.
www.strenghmadesimple.com Page 13
Meditation
This doesn’t have to be the typical hippy type meditation but some people find that extremely
beneficial. Meditation is just some time to yourself to relax, switch off and think about other
things. It could be walking, reading or any hobby. It doesn’t matter what it is so long as it
allows you sometime to yourself and you feel relaxed. But you need to make time for this. If
you go down the classic meditation route there are tons of good apps that will guide you
through a relaxation and help you learn to control your breathing.
Swimming
Swimming is a great way to relax. It will add to your activity level but is low impact on your
joints and the water pressure is like a massage on your muscles. You don’t need to go hard
for a good recover session just 15-20mins in of movement in the water has a great effect on
the body. Add in a sauna and it’s an awesome recipe for relaxed muscles and mind.
Baths
A classic way to relax! I would recommend Epsom salt baths as they are great for muscle
recovery due to the magnesium content but any old bubble bath will do!
It might seem silly but it’s these small things that can help you continue to make progress and
stick to the plan. In the next session I’ll explain why…
www.strenghmadesimple.com Page 14
Remove Obstacles
We humans are very good at making excuses. At justifying why we shouldn’t do things. Even
if we know those things are good for us in the long run. We use any obstacle, no matter how
small or trivial to stop us from doing the hard work now so we don’t reap the rewards later
on.
Everything we do requires willpower and research has shown that willpower is finite and
expends energy. That’s why you cheat at the end of the day not at breakfast time (well at
least hopefully otherwise we are in for trouble!). The more you have to exercise your
willpower the more likely that you will run out soon!
That’s why we teach habits. A habit once learned doesn’t require your willpower. It’s
something you do automatically. That’s why we make things SIMPLE too. The simpler
everything is the less energy and willpower you will use.
So what are some practical tips you can use to remove obstacles and make things easier to
develop into habits and less likely to challenge your willpower reserve? Here are a few
examples for training and nutrition:
Training Nutrition
• Get your gym kit ready the night before • Remove all unhealthy foods from the
an early morning session house (if its there you’ll eat it when
• Plan to get in 15mins earlier for soft you’re feeling weak!)
tissue mobility work (if your late your still • Plan your weekly shop/meals in
early!) advance
• Keep track of your workouts so its easier • Carry healthy snacks with you when
to see what you need to do next you travel
• Get a training partner to hold you • Don’t do the food shop when you’re
accountable if you miss sessions (do the hungry
same in return of course) • Find tasty ways to cook your meals so
you’ll stick to the plan
These might seem like small things and they are. But that’s all it takes to keep you on track
and getting closer towards your goals.
www.strenghmadesimple.com Page 15
Accountability/Motivational support
Thankfully we’ve already covered this partly in our very first meeting! Remember the Free
Body Transformation Session? Well I got you to fill out a post card with a vision of your future.
Hopefully you did as I said and have put that somewhere you see it everyday for
motivation?!You see I think it is really important to think about our future to impact our
present and what we are doing.
Whenever you make a decision that will affect your health and/or fitness ask yourself “how will
this impact the future vision that I have planned for myself?” This little trick is surprisingly
powerful at helping you stay on the wagon!
It is accountability and motivation that has led to the small group training model that we use
in this very Body Transformation Programme. You see as a coach I will hold you accountable
and motivate you but there is nothing more powerful than your peers doing it too. It might be
the person who texts you when you miss a session or who inspires you by losing 5kg of fat.
But also it’s the feeling you get when you help someone or inspire someone.
That is what we want at Strength Made Simple a community that cares about each other, their
results and their happiness. We want to be greater than the sum of our parts and have people
wondering how we do what we do!
But what else can keep us motivated and accountable? Family can be a massive help but also
a massive hindrance! I’ve seen it hundreds of times when one partner in the relationship is
trying to lose weight and the other is in party mode, recipe for disaster (for the dieter not the
party boy!). Make sure you get your family and friends onside from the get go. Heck even get
them involved, challenge them too!
You should by now have a specific goal of what you’re trying to achieve. Don’t hide it away,
declare it. Post it on social media, it might be frightening but not as frightening as your future
if you don’t make changes for the better. You may get people who try to sabotage you but
that highlights the for them not for you, learn to steer clear and stick with people who want
you to be better.
Ultimately no one ever achieved anything great on their own. Find and nurture relationships
that help you get to where you want to be. You will not only get better results but you will
have a better all round life.
www.strenghmadesimple.com Page 16
What Now?
Well done! You’ve got to the end of the manual but I’m sure you will be aware that work has
just begun! I urge you to keep this manual handy and refer to it often to help you stay on
path towards your health and fitness goals. Good luck and of course if you have any questions
don’t hesitate to ask one of your coaches.
www.strenghmadesimple.com Page 17
