Today is a bit of a long one, but I’m 100% dedicated to showing you all angles and giving you all the information when it comes to finding the right fitness program for you so that you can make informed and confident decisions for yourself.

It’ll be fun though, like a lil’ choose-your-own-adventure ;)

Ready? Let’s go!

So, I can’t believe that so many of us are already in week #5 or even #6 of #FastPhysique! The last couple months have flown by, and I’ve loved the feedback you’ve been sending me—zero boredom, can’t wait to get to the gym every day, getting stronger week to week and more curves and definition. Perfecto.

As such, the question of what happens next has also come up quite a bit, especially since #FastPhysique wasn’t positioned as a forever-solution for 95% of people because of the intensity and frequency (6 days a week). Buuuut, many have been loving it and want to know if they can do it again.

Here’s the thing about something as intense and high-volume as #FastPhysique: it’s a lot of exercise. For most people, it was an up-regulation in training. The program was designed to create a more “athletic look” for the body, so it’s, uh, an athletic program—simulating how an athlete might train. Which is, a lot!

If you’ve read Jade Teta and Keoni Teta’s book, ‘Lose Weight Here’—providing a great resource on the science of stubborn fat and how to attack it (yes, I know that sounds phony, but it’s 100% legit, I promise—read the book!)—then you might be familiar with the EMEM protocol.

Jade and Keoni coined the EMEM protocol, which stands for Eat More, Exercise More—how an athlete approaches her training. You’ve heard this before: eat to fuel your workouts. And it’s true. If your training volume increases and you want to keep your metabolism responsive, then you might need to take in more cals.

Conversely, when we hear terms like “metabolic damage,” and “overtraining,” normally we’re referring to symptoms experienced as a result of not fueling properly and not recovering from exercise fully, over a long period of time.

For example, one might employ and ELEM (Eat Less, Exercise More—aka traditional dieting) for too long, and the metabolism suffers. And so yes, over time, you may experience things like extreme exhaustion, major energy fluxuations, motivation problems, mood changes and more.

Note that normally these kinds of chronic symptoms actually take a long time to appear, so doing #FastPhysique or a similarly intense program one time for 9 weeks will rarely, if ever, produce this kind of thing. BUT, if your exercise volume stays high and you are not adjusting your nutrition and recovery accordingly, then yeah, maybe you are putting yourself at risk for some trouble years from now.

So, what do you do? Is it okay to re-start #FastPhysique? What other options do you have?

I am going to give you 3 options for what you can do after #FastPhysique is over. Ready?

1) You are paying close attention to nutrition and recovery.

If things like hunger, cravings and energy have been going crazy, then I want you to begin paying attention to that and adjust accordingly. Start to investigate. Maybe you need more protein, or to take in some extra carbs at one meal. Maybe you just need to increase cals overall. Or maybe you need to not skimp on sleep. Maybe you need to manage stress better, or maybe you need to do some more restorative activity like leisure walking or light stretching. If your biofeedback—hunger, energy, cravings, mood, etc.—are out of whack, then sorry mama, no #FastPhysique for you. I’d prefer you cut back on training and balance your metabolism again (while enjoying your gainz, of course).

2) You employ a 1-2 week “reset” period.

If you are in the clear for #1, and you want to start it again, I’d like for you to take a 1-2 week washout period, where you pull back on intensity, maybe lift 2-3x/week and do mostly restorative stuff daily, like again, leisure walking, light yoga or stretching, foam rolling, easy cardio, etc. Nothing too intense or fast. And then and only then, can you restart #FastPhysique.

Keep your metabolism responsive by paying close attention to nutrition and recovery status.

I launched #treadLIFT last year, and it’s a monster 36-week program that’s mostly considered conditioning. The main goals are muscle maintenance and fat loss—all workouts are 30 minutes or less and require 3-4 days at the gym.

I love #treadLIFT (as do the other 2000+ women who have done it in the last year), but it’s not ideal for muscle gain and not programmed to help you build a ton of strength. It’s what I recommend to women who want to maintain and perhaps even get a little leaner.

You can learn about #treadLIFT here, I’ve actually opened up the program for the week since it's an applicable fit post-#FastPhysique.

Lastly …

#PowerConditioning is a brand new 11-week program created by my friend Chrissy King, and it just released today. I was lucky enough to get an advanced look at it weeks ago, and even do some workouts with Chrissy when we were together in NYC last month (check my IG later today for a sample workout).

The workouts are for women who want to learn more about “the big 3” powerlifts—squat, bench press and deadlift—but don’t know where to begin (newbie) or are an intermediate lifter wanting to get even stronger.

Chrissy is top 20 in the country for powerlifting in her weight class, so it’s safe to say this gal knows her stuff!

But the best thing about #PowerConditioning is that Chrissy also added some metabolic conditioning “finishers” to provide a little fat loss attention at the end of each workout.

See, there’s a huge misconception that if you are trying to get stronger you need to gain a ton of weight. Chrissy’s story is actually the opposite—she used powerlifting and intense training to lose weight and keep it off doing something she learned and now loves. You can see her pics here.

So, if you loved the taste of strength you got in #FastPhysique and want to keep moving in that direction, #PowerConditioning is 100% what I would recommend and believe me, the workouts I’ve tried are no joke. They are super accessible next step after #FastPhysique.

Get all the details on #PowerConditioning here.

Just a heads up that both #treadLIFT and #PowerConditioning are coming off the shelves this Friday (May 19^th) at midnight so be sure to grab your choice this week—yes, you have lifetime access so you can start when you are ready.

Let me know if you have any questions!

Xo,

Jill