Use an Outcome-Based Approach

November 8th, 2007 by

One of the biggest dieting mistakes a person can make is not using an ‘outcome-based approach’.

Think about it. If something is broken, you fix it right? Well, what do you do if your training and nutrition program stops producing the desired results? You think you’re doing the right thing; you’re eating well, you’re lifting weights, you’re doing cardio, and everything seems correct on paper … but for some reason, the results just aren’t coming like you thought they were. Or maybe they were, but they’re not now.

What do you do? Keep plugging away? Common sense would seem to say no. Why continue on doing something that’s not working? Yet, this is what a lot of people do; they just keep plugging away, and they keep spinning their wheels.

Listen, if what you’re doing isn’t working, doing it longer isn’t going to make it suddenly start working. Your program needs some trouble shooting and you need to make some changes to it.

What’s an outcome-based approach? It’s really quite logical. What you do is based on the results of what you’re doing. Getting the results you’re after? Stay the course. Not getting the results you’re after? Make changes. See? Common sense, and yet oddly in practice, not a strategy many people in pursuit of fat loss pay attention to. I’ve come across many people who have been dieting and training for months with little to no results. Barring some undiagnosed physiological issue and assuming your adherence to your program is above 90%, this shouldn’t happen.

I think the best time line to monitor your results is biweekly (every two weeks); it’s long enough to see if what you’re doing is promoting any physical changes but not so long, that if you’re not getting results, you’ve wasted a lot of time. If there are no changes in two weeks, adjust your program. Reassess your caloric intake. Perhaps you need to lower calories by another 10%. Perhaps you’re actually undereating and need to raise your calories.

Look to your diet first; don’t automatically assume you’re not doing enough cardio because more than likely, you already are. Nutrition will trump exercise every single time. Remember, you can’t ‘out-exercise’ a bad diet.