Many athletes at our box have been on Renaissance Periodization (RP) and have had excellent results. I started it February 5th. I had purchased the templates late in 2017. I finished up what I was doing, The BodyBiz, in January and then wanted to do something different. Below are some tips that I found useful:

First, read the FAQ’s and the materials provided several times through. Don’t just skip and read the bolded fonts. Read everything. I did not, and was eating 9oz of cooked protein four times a day for the first week. Whoops. Read the FAQ’s and watch the video.

I strongly suggest you scrap the MyFitnessPal membership and tracking. I found that to complicate things. The templates are all you need, paired with the digital scale of wonder and amazement! This thing is awesome. Pick one and stick with it, meaning weighing your food cooked, or raw. I weight it cooked, going by the grams of carbs, proteins, and fats, and put my meals together for the week on Sunday. Makes it much easier. Also, stick with basic meals the first few weeks until you get comfortable and confident with the templates. There are a lot of options for meals and some people are truly gifted at culinary genius based on the posts I see in the RP pages in Facebook. Try not to follow suit right away.

The scale is mean and it has no heart. Do not trust it. Meaning, do not rely on this as your single point of validation if RP is successful for you. I had been eating whole foods, following a similar program when I started RP and did not see much success in my two week base period. I actually gained a few pounds. However, clothes that had been snug before, were no longer snug. Trust the way the your clothes fit, and take the before and after pictures for comparison.

Don’t let one bad meal turn into a bad day, or worse yet, a string of bad days. It happens. Let’s face it. Our body composition did not happen overnight, not does changing our composition happen quickly. It takes time and more importantly, consistency. Cheat meals will happen for just about everyone. Do your best to enjoy that infrequent meal and then put it behind you and focus on staying on track with the templates. Go for a run, or a long walk, or do yard work, or something outside if you feel bad about the meal or a day, or in my case one hell of a fun weekend, and then follow the templates.

Feel free to post any questions and have a great day. Go PR something. Fact: Deadlifts are better than running any day.