On the weekends I like to go out with my friends to make the rounds at all the bars in my town. Usually at least once or twice in the weekend the topic of weight lifting or nutrition comes up. This past weekend it seemed like more people then normal were asking me about weight training or nutrition advice.

In a bar scene its always hard to give real in depth answers. My attention is often elsewhere or focused on something else, and a lot of times everyone who asks for advice is really just hoping you’ll reaffirm the preconceived thought they had in their head and aren’t really looking for a real answer. This time was different. I had a few people come up to me with some legitimate heartfelt questions and they really seemed to care about the answers.

I gave out a few answers but I mainly told a few people that I would get back to them later with a more in depth response. This is going to be a general response to them and I really hope it helps.

Basically the key to all of this is to master the basics. According to the internet there are so many answers to all these questions that you’d think we were talking about chemical engineering or astro physics. At the end of the day all any of us are really talking about is how to get a little stronger, a little more muscular, a little leaner or eat a little better. It really isn’t hard at all to do those things.

Here in a nutshell are a few basic tips to help get you started in the right direction. By the time you’ve mastered these things you will be well past the original results you had hoped to achieve.

1: Put most of your focus into learning and progressing in the big basic lifts, the squat, deadlift, bench press and over head press. Mastering  these 4 exercises will be the key to your strength and muscle building goals.  If you insist on belonging to a gym that cannot accommodate these 4 exercises in their true barbell form then you can use the next best thing. For the squat you can use the leg press, or the smith machine. For the bench you can do dumbell bench pressing, and the same for the overhead press. For the deadlift you can use a smith machine and if your gym doesn’t have one you can substitute in pullups. thats not a similar exercise but it is simple to do and learn and it will still hit the back muscles and you can revisit the deadlift at a later time when you have come to your senses.

2: Five to eight reps should be your ideal rep range. Since you’re a beginner you won’t get too much out of doing super heavy low reps and as a beginner form breakdown starts to creep in pretty dramatically after eight reps. Five reps is good for muscle building and strength and the closer you move towards 8 reps the more it tilts toward muscle building.

3. You must progress upwards in weight or reps each week. Choosing an effective proven plan will make it much easier to do this but until you decide to do that then you can just make do with this simple formula. For upper body lifts add 2.5 pounds per week and for lower body lifts add 5 pounds per week. If your gym can’t accommodate that then for example shoot for 3 sets of 6 reps each week. When you can get all 6 reps on all sets then move up to the next increment in weight and repeat until you can get all 6 reps for all 3 sets. Then repeat again, and again. This is not the absolute best method but sometimes you have to work with what you have and this is still linear progression and it will take you a very long way.

4: Cook your own food. Stop eating out and stop buying junk food. This alone will work wonders. You can’t drink sodas if you don’t have any in the house and if you commit to only eating foods you cook yourself then luckily some of the most unhealthy foods are some of the most difficult to cook so that will make it much easier to eat healthy.

5: Focus on whole foods that you have to cook, don’t buy a bunch of prepared food. You cant control what’s in it and you definitely can’t believe the labeling these days. Here are some easy basic food items that can be prepared in bulk and easily combined in different ways to make more exciting dishes. Meats: ground beef, steaks, london broil, chicken breasts, pork. Vegetables: frozen broccoli and mixed vegetables, anything green. Carbs: rice, white or brown, potatoes, yams, black beans, pasta. Fats: olive oil, cheese, milk, and red meat has a higher fat content then chicken or pork. Don’t forget eggs as a source of good protein that is easy to cook and very versatile.

6: An overly simplistic way of looking at nutrition is this, if you want to gain weight, add more carbs. If you want to lose weight eat less carbs. An extra serving of potatoes or a half serving of potatoes. Overly simple, yes. Effective for a beginner and much better then eating processed junk and enormous portions of expensive restaurant food-yes.

Those few things are the simple basics that you need. You’ll notice that there was no mention of workout plans, body part splits, supplements, macros, max lifts or anything like that. If you’re asking a guy with an overly tight shirt at the bar for training and nutrition advice then you aren’t ready for all that yet. You’re in the beginner stage of just trying to undo or change bad habits or lack of good habits and you don’t need more then this yet.

You need to cultivate an actual interest in training and eating healthy first and once you’ve grown to like the results and begin to enjoy it then you can move on to more advanced principles. Just get a feel for weightlifting and cooking and make it fit into your life first before you do anything else. Experiment with these simple ideas and I guarantee you will start to see positive results. That alone is a very satisfying thing to experience and will help cultivate a permanent change in behavior.