Three Weeks to Kickstart Your Fitness & Reclaim Your Life [Ultimate Beginners Guide]

Are you ready to get started with training? Do you want to know how to finally eat properly? Are you ready to kickstart your fitness, burn off that ugly gut, and feel better than ever before?

You’re in luck.

“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.” — Helen Keller

This is a three week course. All on one page. This is the official launch of Kettlebell Rebels.

It took me over a decade, thousands of dollars, heartbreak, shame, triumph, and hundreds of McChickens to figure all of this stuff out. All you have to do is read and I can guarantee you that you will be set on the right path to finally looking as sexy as you feel.

Week 1: Eating : How am I supposed to eat properly?

How the hell is a human being supposed to eat? How do I eat if I want to get in amazing shape?

I’ve asked myself this far too many times.

There are so many stupid rules for eating based on your goals, your body type, and all sorts of other metrics. It’s too damn confusing and annoying if you asked me.

I’m not going to throw any random stats out at you.

Some say that eating is 70% of the battle. I’m not sure about this generalization. I do know that eating is damn important.

You can workout all day, but you’ll never look your best until you watch what you eat. You simply can’t out-run your fork.

That then opens up a whole new discussion.

What the hell are you supposed to eat? There’s so much confusing information out there on eating.

Why should I deprive myself? You shouldn’t. Most people feel that dieting means leading a miserable life. That’s not true at all. I don’t want you to have a miserable life at all. I want you to live and be happy. I want you to feel on top of the damn world! ALWAYS! I want you to eat pizza, drink beer, and get wild.

I like to keep it simple. Actually, probably too simple. All of my girlfriends have loved to cook. I’m so simple that it’s frustrating. I could eat chicken and broccoli for the rest of my life.

But enough about me. Let’s figure out what to eat.

What should we be eating to look and feel our best?

Instead of going through every option, let’s take a general look at what to eat. I believe in experimenting. I like to throw out a few ideas and then let you make your own conclusions.

Eat: lean meats, vegetables, fish, and eggs.

Chicken, tuna, egg whites, beef, and whatever else comes to mind under this umbrella. Thankfully, I’m not a vegan or vegetarian. If you are, that’s cool, but I don’t know much about this sort of eating. My friend Louis is a vegetarian and he tells me that he eats lots of beans and nuts to make up for protein.

You’re also supposed to try to go as organic and natural as possible. However, I know that the finances won’t always allow this. So please don’t stress if you can’t afford the most organic food out there.

What about protein shakes? I believe in real food. I also live in the real world. We won’t always have time to sit down and prepare a meal. A shake certainly beats a big mac combo. A shake beats junk. It also beats starving and snapping when you see a slice of pizza. So go ahead and keep a tub of protein in your kitchen

Time for the bad stuff…

Don’t eat at all: grains, crap, junk, dairy, processed foods, and sugar.

You know what you shouldn’t eat. Grains suck. Say goodbye to the pasta, bread, and all that sort of stuff. This is food that you should avoid for aesthetic and performance reasons. It’s tough to push yourself when you feel like utter crap from that huge bowl of pasta that you just plowed away.

You’re also smart enough to know what’s bad for you. If you have to think about it, you likely already know the answer!

You don’t have to give it up forever. You can just save it for your cheat days.

What about fast food?

Well I don’t need to tell you how that works. You already know. Look around you the next time you’re inside of a fast food joint.

If you’re not sure if the place you’re at serves healthy food, well, look around. Who’s standing next to you in line? Joe Sixpack or a bulbous manatee? That’s a shallow way to look at it, but hey, let’s be realistic here.

Also, a microwave in a restaurant is a bad sign. Run!

Back to eating…

Eat in moderation: fruits, nuts, and beans.

I love almonds, black beans, and blueberries. I couldn’t go without them.

Here’s the catch: you need fuel for your body. You’re going to be useless if you don’t fuel up. You don’t have to eat a ton of calories for fuel though. A handful of almonds or blueberries will do wonders for your energy levels.

I love scarfing down a handful of almonds on the way to the gym.

There are diets that bash all three of these items and suggest that you avoid them. I can’t say that. It’s unrealistic. Nuts are so delicious and awesome.

The only reason you should eat these foods in moderation is because nuts are high in calories (bad when trying to lose weight), beans are bad for gas, and fruits have too much sugar.

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Take a breather.

How you feeling? You can walk away for a few hours. Bookmark this page for later.

How the hell do we actually eat this food?

Knowing is like 10% of the battle in my experiences. The other 90% is actually doing something and making this all possible. Most of my friends know what’s good to eat and what to avoid. Yet, it’s not rare to see them stopping by at McDonald’s.

They know it’s not good for you. But in reality, well, shit happens! I’m guilty of this too. I’m weak when it comes to pizza. Poutine too. Mmm!

Enough about junk food. You’re probably wondering as to how you’re supposed to eat the aforementioned food.

I want to help you actually eat this food. The following tips have worked for me when it comes to eating to feel amazing:

1. Don’t avoid eating out. You can get chicken and mixed vegetables at every single restaurant almost. You can always eat healthy. Just avoid pizza shops and frauds pretending to be healthy (sub shops usually – bread sucks!).
2. Carry nuts/berries with you. You can keep a bag of almonds or pack of berries with you at all times easily. I always have almonds in my glove compartment and some blueberries around. These are a much better snack than a junior chicken or a Snickers bar. You won’t go hungry after chugging down a handful of almonds. Win!
3. Load up on protein. While protein shakes aren’t the best option, they beat everything else out there. Protein shake > McDicks.
4. Get the food that’s easy to prepare. I hate cooking and I cook chicken/eggs pretty often. My trick is to keep your meals simple. Don’t get too fancy. Cut up your chicken, throw some oil on the pan, cook it up for a few minutes, throw in some frozen veggies, and you’re good to go. It’s quicker than waiting in line at Subway.
5. Drinks lots of water. As annoyingly common as this advice is, I need to remind you of the importance of water. You need it! Your body needs it! Chug as much water as you possibly can throughout the day.
6. Make slow changes to your eating. All of these changes need to be made slowly. You can start off by eating a handful of almonds instead of grabbing a slice of pizza the next time that you’re on the go.
7. Have a cheat day. I hate absolutes. I love poutine and I live for pizza. I will never totally cut it out. I will cut back though. Plan a weekly cheat day where you earn your meals and go wild!

It’s not that tough. I promise. I love to pig out and even I can follow most of these steps most of the time.

** Keyword here is most. That’s for a reason. Don’t beat yourself up for messing up. It happens. Move on. You won’t die from one slice of pizza.

That’s all I have to say about that. The next step of the course is going to be about when to eat!

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Time for another break.

What about food timing?

This is the last topic that I wanted to cover.

The timing of your meals.

There are many questions here:

• Should I eat breakfast?
• I heard it’s good to skip breakfast. Is this true?
• What about eating before bed?
• How often should I be eating?
• How do I eat if I want to lose weight?

Naturally, let’s start off with beginner food timing…

I really like what Tim Ferriss suggests in The 4-Hour Body. You have 30 grams of protein first thing in the morning (as soon as you wake up) and then you eat every 3-4 hours or so. Your meals should consist of protein, legumes, and vegetables. Very simple. Then you have one cheat day a week. This is easy to stick to. You should never go hungry.

Mike Dolce recommends eating Earth grown nutrients every 2-4 hours based on what you did and what you’re about to do. You eat until you feel good. You don’t eat until you’re stuffed and can’t get up from the table.

Since you’re eating based on what you plan on doing and what you just did, you use common sense. For example, before a soccer game you don’t want to load up on crap that will fill you up. Also, after a workout, you likely want to indulge on some steak and high protein.

Both strategies are simple enough. No need to be counting calories or any of that lame stuff. You don’t have to weigh your food or take pictures of it.

And yes, please don’t worry about tracking every single calorie. The trick is to eat good food until you feel good. I don’t want you to be deprived or to hate life. This isn’t the 80s. You don’t have to chug raw eggs for breakfast.

What do you do when you master your food or if you feel that you already have a decent control over how you eat?

Now I get to introduce to you what I’ve been playing around with recently.

Intermittent fasting.

This trend is taking over the fitness world (I think?). Fasting is gaining popularity. I’m not going to explain the science behind it because you can use Google for that.

There’s the 16 hour daily fast.

This is the most common fast. You have an 8-hour eating window per day. You skip breakfast and wait until the afternoon to eat. Most IF zealots believe in eating from 12-8pm.

The 24 hour fast once per week.

In the popular eBook, Eat Stop Eat, the goal is to get you to take a full 24 hours off from eating once a week every week.

Warrior Diet.

You undereat for 20 hours a day and then you feast for four hours in the evening. I actually really love this one simply because I’m a night owl. You pick four hours in the evening where you feast.

Now you know what all this eating stuff is all about. Let’s work on it slowly. Training is coming right at you.

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That’s enough for now. Take a step back.

Let’s finish off strong here!

I need to throw this out there for you.

There’s no a diet plan out there that’s suited for every single person on this planet.

I recommend that you play around with different foods and meal timing to see what works for you. I happen to like the Warrior Diet because I like to feast. Others prefer eating every few hours. It really depends on what your body’s like and what your lifestyle is.

If we work one-on-one it’s easy to come up with a plan that works. For now I want you to play around with the different ideas here until you find something that works for you.

Try a style of eating out for a week.

Try a timing program out for a week. If you feel weak or hate it, then switch.

You should never ever be miserable with your diet. Seriously. The goal of eating better is to feel better, not worse.

If you don’t feel better after 7 days, then you need to alternate your food. For example, I found that I feel the best when I eat almonds, blueberries and eggs throughout the day.

Too much beans = too much gas.
All meat = weak.

You should also try to wait a few days to see how your body adjusts to your new style of eating. You don’t want to give up too soon. This is especially true if your body is used to you eating crap. It’s going to take some time to get adjusted to the new food and timing.

Finally there’s lifestyle that needs to be factored into all of this. What’s your lifestyle like?

• Are you a student?
• Do you do shift work?
• Are you self-employed?
• Do you travel?
• Are you a heavy partier on the weekends?

Only you can realistically answer what your lifestyle is like. All I ask is that you play around with your lifestyle and eating. I also don’t want you to use any excuses.

I happen to enjoy partying and traveling. Yet I still manage apply the principles covered in here. How? Plan your meals first and then go party.

Before a night out, I do my best to eat well all week, including the day of. When I’m on my trip, I load up on food so that I don’t get desperate and eat crap. You can always find me with a bag of almonds or a few cans of tuna. But now we’re getting off track!

What’s going to fuel you?

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You’ve complete the section on eating. Chill out and relax.

Week 2: Training

This is the fun part. This is where you have to get up and destroy your biggest rival (yourself). This is where you get off your ass and see what you’re really made of.

In my opinion, the world is your gym!

“Success: no magic formula. You gotta be willing to work for it. Consistent, hard ass work.” – The Rock

I’ve designed three specific programs for your unique life.

1. If you don’t want to formally train at all.
2. For those that want to train at home.
3. A program that you can do at the gym.

The next few sections will cover the different workouts. For now, I just want you throw out my four guidelines for working out. These rules are holy and shall never be broken (okay, break them, I can’t stop you!).

• Always push yourself. Why go halfway?
• Never train when you’re tired. Get your sleep. Drinking 6 cups of coffee after 2 hours of sleep doesn’t count.
• Never ever miss a workout. It’s okay to delay a workout because you’re sore or literally can’t squeeze it in. Don’t skip it totally.
• Focus on eating. You can train all day everyday, but that won’t matter if you don’t want to eat properly.

Are you ready to start training?

If you don’t want to formally train at all.

What if you just don’t want to formally train? You know that working out is good for you, but you’re not interested in formal training. You don’t want to use a fancy app that counts how many times you blink per second, nor do you want to check in every time you’re working out. You just want to somehow get your training in without being serious about it.

The amazing news is that you can still get into shape. Yup!

Your job is to treat the world like your gym.

Huh? How’s this possible? Here are the tips that I’ve shared with friends that didn’t want to formally train:

• Always take the stairs. Burn those calories off.
• Bust out some pullups when you walk past a tree.
• Do as many pushups as you can during commercials.
• Perform as many air squats as possible when you wake up.
• Buy a kettlebell and swing it when you’re bored (or do this instead of stalking on Facebook).
• Use any excuse to get a quick pump in.

Any little bit of working out helps. Those pushups here, the 10 squats there, and a few pullups, you got yourself an improve physique.

You also need to take your diet more seriously. Instead of stressing about training, you can really zone in on your eating. Can you replace that slice of pizza with a shake? Can you try cooking some chicken instead of ordering in the same crap?

Let’s move on to training at home.

If you want to train at home or around home.

I thought working out from home was useless, until I tried it. Then I was in pain. Then I fell in love with this idea.

There are going to be times where you can’t hit a gym or don’t want to be inside of a gym. As simple as that. This is where you can use your floor or the park.

Before I get into the workouts, I need to throw out the usual annoying warning. Please warm up for a few minutes before working out and stretch when you’re done.

Since, I’m a fan of self-experimenting and creating your own maps, I’m just going to throw out some sample ideas for both the park and your floor…

At the park:

• Max jumping squats.
• Max pullups.
• Max pushups.
• Max swings.

Repeat x 3 or set your time for 20 minutes to see what you’re made of!

At home:

Max air squats.
Max pushups.
Max swings.
Walking lunges (10 on each side).

X 3 or for 20 minutes. Push yourself. See what you’re made of. Wake up your whole damn neighborhood. Nobody ever drowned in sweat.

**You can also try one of the billions of home workout routines. They’re all over YouTube.**

As always, you can alter either plan. The trick is to try to be as consistent as possible. Get in three solid workouts in a week. You won’t regret it.

If you want to hit up the gym.

This is my favorite because I for the most part am pretty damn social (translation: I need an audience for my stories).

I hit up my gym (actually a few gyms depending on where I am) mainly and only for squats and deadlifts. I’ve been thinking about slowly saving up for this purchase, so that I could have my own rack at home. I’m not that hardcore yet. Maybe one day soon.

What’s a solid beginner split?

I believe in full body routines, compound exercises, and lifting heavy three times per week. Who has time to train 5-7 times per week? How sustainable is that? What if you want to have a life outside of training?

And for the love of everything holy out there, please don’t stress about bicep curls, abs, and other useless workouts.

FOCUS ON THE MAIN LIFTS!

• Deadlifts.
• Squats.
• Bench.
• Pull ups.
• Shoulder press.

Nothing else matters. Don’t try to convince me otherwise. Go on YouTube and spend some time watching how to perfect those exercises. There are hundreds of videos on proper technique. It sure beats being a Facebook creep.

As a beginner you should go three times a week.

Your workout that you create should be simple.

Perform 3 sets of 12 reps of two of the compounds and alternate everytime you go.

For example:

Monday: Deadlifts 3 x 12 and then bench 3 x 12
Wednesday: Squats 3 x 12 and shoulder press 3 x 12
Friday: 3 sets of max pulls up and deadlifts 3 x 12

You can alternate as you see fit. Just please stick to the compounds. Don’t worry about abs and bicep curls. Save yourself some time. I wasted the years away for you already lol (okay, that’s more of a sad “lol”).

After a few months, you’re likely going to want to switch things up. When you get to the intermediate stages, you should focus in on the workouts.

For example…

Monday: Deadlifts 3 x 12, a few sets of bent over rows and pullups.
Wednesday Bench press 3 x 12, shoulder press 3 x 12, and some pushups.
Friday: Squat 3 x 12, walking lunges, and some jump squats.

How do kettlebell swings fit into this?

Swinging is an excellent way to build strength and perform cardio. You can throw in some swings after your workout or at the beginning for a warm up. You can also replace barbells with bells for all of these workouts.

Since you’re a member of a gym, you can also attend random classes that the gym offers. This is what I try to do.

That’s all you need to know about training. Stop debating the excruciating minutia with your lazy friends. Get off your ass and do something!

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That wasn’t so bad. We’re almost done.

Week 3: Lifestyle and surviving the long haul!

Always in style. Never a trend.

Week 3 is the shortest week because I assume that you’re too busy with training and eating to be reading blog articles.

This is where things get interesting. Most of us can stick to our workouts. A few of us can actually eat well pretty often.

How about combining eating and training with life? This is where the whole dynamic changes.

How can you ensure that you’re going to be in this for the long haul? I don’t want to see you going back to being a slob. This is a new beginning. Why waste all this time only to go back?

Try one of our challenges.

You want a kickstart? You want to push yourself?

We have many challenges over at the start here page.

There’s the 30 days with no alcohol. This will do wonders for you training, your body, and your mind. Plus, someone started a site based on this challenge.

…or you can create your own challenge. You’re smart enough. A few rough ideas are:

• No caffeine weekend.
• Eat real food for a week.
• A 24 hour fast once per week.

What challenge will you try?

Meet people into this sort of lifestyle.

It might be a pain to try to talk about fitness with your buddies who just want to get wasted or your friends that make excuses. Actually, it flat out sucks. And please don’t be a working out douchebag.

Please don’t become “that guy.”

No need for unsolicited advice. Let your friends eat junk and chill out. They don’t want to be told what to do just because you took an email course.

Try to lead by example. Don’t try to force your friends into becoming fitness junkies.

We’re not all the same.

The trick is to meet new friends or old friends that are already into fitness. Work together. Train together. Bounce ideas off each other. Challenge each other.

Where can you meet these friends?

1. At the gym.
2. Classes.
3. Facebook.
4. Anywhere really.

Get out there and meet some fitness junkies.

Turn it into a game!

This shit is supposed to be fun! Don’t be lame about it.

I love impromptu challenges. On my 25th birthday party I called my buddy Bohdan out to a pushup challenge. Whoever did the least consecutive pushups would have to drink two shots of vodka straight with no chaser.

Bo goes first. He pumps out 41 pushups. Not bad after a few shots. I get nervous. I go for it. BOOM! I humbled 45 pushups. Two shots straight and for the rest of the story, watch The Hangover.

Try to set a swinging record or a pushup record. How many swings can you bust out in a row? What about pushups? Start off every other day with this challenge. You’ll feel on top of the world.

That’s the end of our three week crash course. You’re ready to grab life by the balls and to look/feel your best ever.

Stay in touch! If you want to know how to live forever, then drop your email in below to grab a copy of our FREE GUIDE.