If you have ever tried to accomplish something more than once, you’ve run into some of the same issues. Hopefully remembering your mistakes for next time so you don’t have to go through the same troubles.
Imagine making cookies from scratch for the first time. You get all your ingredients set and you are ready to make the dough. You need some softened butter so you just toss It in the microwave and melt the crap out of It.
Whatever, right? Not a big deal.
So, you proceed on. After your oven timer goes off, you come back to take the cookies out just to realize they are flat as a pancake and pretty burnt.
That damn butter! The next time you make cookies I bet you won’t be melting the butter.
When It comes to the people I work with, many goals come up over and over again. With that, many of the same questions get asked often. For me, I’ve said these things so many times, but, for that particular person asking that question at that particular time, It’s their first time hearing It answered from me.
That’s why I don’t get upset repeating these things because everyone needs to hear them at least once. The same goes for the 7 hard truths we are about to dive into.
You might need to hear this once, twice, or three times. But as long as you hear or experience it this one time, you can make an effort to use that information to help you along the way!
#1: People DO NOT Care About Your Progress
Your friends and family care about you. They care about your health, wellbeing, and hell, maybe they get happy for you when you make strides in your fitness.
You might have lost some weight and posted it on social media. Some nice comments, lots of likes, which makes you feel good about the work you’ve done. These people care about YOU. What you accomplish makes them happy FOR YOU. They would have liked that post if you got a puppy, a new job, or moved to another country.
What people do not care about is the nuances of what you accomplished. Nor are you doing all this hard work to make OTHER people proud. You are doing this for you, for your health, and for your own well-being.
Want to know the best part about doing this for yourself and not for others?
Their opinion doesn’t matter anyways!
You are the only person doing the work. You are the only person who will feel that sense of accomplishment when you reach your goals. Do it for you, no one else cares.
#2: Calorie Deficit is the ONLY Way To Lose Weight
Calorie deficit: Consuming LESS calories than you BURN over time.
For weight loss, you need to be in a calorie deficit to see the scale move down. If you gained weight last month, you consumed more calories than you burned, period.
Is weight loss hard? Yes, for most of us in this world, weight loss is a hard journey. With that, the concept of weight loss is quite simple. If you can’t seem to lose the weight, you are consuming more than you are burning.
Fat burners do not work. Stop buying them.
All they do is pile a hefty amount of caffeine in each pill so you get your ass up and move more. What is one way to help get you in a calorie deficit…move more. Caffeine can DEFINITELY help you do that.
Juice cleanses do not work. Stop buying them.
Drink juice for a week, I bet you will consume less calories than normal. I bet even more that’d you’d have diarrhea.
Detox teas do not work. Stop buying them.
Same goes for these damn teas…and the diarrhea.
Here’s what you can do to help get yourself in a calorie deficit:
- First
- Track your food
- Figure out how many calories you are eating each week
- Figure out your macronutrient breakdown (carbs, protein, fat)
- Second
- Drop calories down a small amount at first (250-500 per day)
- Get your protein levels up to .7-1 gram per pound of your goal bodyweight per day
- Third
- Get out for a walk every single day
- Aim to get 7,500-10,000 steps each day
#3: You Will NEVER Look Like “That” Person
I’d say one in five people who send in a new training submission, have someone that they are striving to look like. And you know what, I get it. People have done great things with their bodies and it’s not a bad thing to want to emulate that.
The Problem: You will never resemble that person’s body, never. You are a different person, made up in a different way.
Your limb lengths are different.
Your muscle bellies are different.
Your genetics are different.
Your lifestyle is different.
Your goals are most likely different.
Away from the physical differences, you also have no idea what their life looks like. What have they done to get where they are?
How much time a certain person can devote to their body has a BIG impact on what they will look like. You might have a full time job, kids, and any other list of responsibilities.
Do you think your body could look completely different if your full time job was to look a certain way? Hell freaking yeah It would!
Then you cannot compare yourself to someone who devotes just about every waking second of their day to changing their physical appearance.
Having your goals set around looking like someone else is a never ending chase because it’s impossible to get there.
So let’s break this mold of needing to mimic the bodies of people who’s full time job is to look great. I’m not even going to mention the things that these people might do or take to push their results to the limits.
Be you. Be happy with yourself. Be happy with your progress.
#4: You Have More To Give
It’s hard to say without knowing you personally (so hey, it’s nice to meet you), but you aren’t at your limit just yet. I work with people for a living, online and in person. There are definitely people I work with that have to be pulled back a bit. They want to do more, push harder, and won’t stop until I say something.
This might be about 10% of the people I work with (and that’s being generous).
Think back to your last workout. Was there anything in that session that you could have pushed yourself just a tad bit more on? Of course there is. And after your session, you were fine. You recovered well, you felt good, and took a day off after that workout.
And this doesn’t just go for the effort during your sessions, It goes for everything.
- The way you eat
- The way you sleep
- How hard you are willing to push yourself
- The way you recover
- How consistent you are with your workouts
All these things play a role in how much you are giving forth (effort, energy, focus) to the things that will get you where you want to be.
It’s hard to judge your progress (good or bad) without judging your effort and consistency on all the things that take place on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis.
Now, this might seem like overkill coming from the guy who talks about taking It slow and going step by step, but what I am trying to convey here is that you are not even close to pushing yourself 100% all the time. You have more to give. I know It, and you know It.
#5: You Don’t Need The Gym
The most common goals I see:
- Weight loss
- Fat loss
- Muscle gain
- Strength gain
- Feel better
For every single one of these goals (maybe not as much muscle building, but It still applies), the gym is not a necessity. The gym has been a place we gravitate towards for any single goal within health and fitness.
Now I love the gym. I use the gym for myself and just about every single client that I work with BUT that doesn’t mean it’s a necessity. Think of any other form of exercise out there that you could do to lose weight, lose fat, feel better, and even get stronger.
- Yoga
- Kayaking
- Walking
- Jogging
- Hiking
- Paddle boarding
- Cycling
- Calisthenics
Any one of these things COULD help you make change, without using a traditional gym setting
This isn’t a great topic for my job security, but It’s the truth.
What matters more is that you are being active, pushing yourself, and controlling your nutrition. The reasons I like the gym go beyond just losing weight or gaining strength.
I first and foremost like the gym for the trackability of everything you do. There are objective measures that you can improve upon each and every day.
You did 5 push-ups last week, let’s try for 6 this week. That’s improvement!
Along with that, when It comes to formal exercise in the gym, there is a focus on moving well in a variety of different ways (granted the same thing could be said about yoga). The way it’s carried out is much different. Not just the improvement of that range of motion but the addition to strength in that range of motion.
I’m getting off topic and making points as to what I like about the gym (which I could go on) but the main idea here is that you do not NEED the gym. Even though I enjoy and utilize the gym for myself and my clients, It is not the only way to get results.
Basically, stop blaming your poor progress on you not liking the gym. Find a way to make It work for your situation.
#6: Being Busy Is Not An Excuse Anymore
This is how every conversation goes when you talk to someone for the first time in a while:
“ Hey! How have you been?
“Hey, things have been good. Busy, but good”
Every damn time!
We are all busy. That’s our nature, to pack our day full of things we need to get done. The craving for productivity and progress everyday. It’s relatively new though.
Telling people you are super busy has been a status symbol for the past few decades. It shows you are important, that you have things to get done, and you are relied upon in this world.
And we crave that type of status. We want other people to know that we are important. Being busy (or at least telling people you are busy) makes us feel that way.
How busy are you when It comes to your exercise, nutrition, and sleep?
These things aren’t a top priority when It comes to status, but you have already labeled yourself as a busy person, so It carries over.
“I’ve been too busy to workout”
“I’m too busy to dial in my nutrition”
“My sleep has been crap because I am so busy”
I don’t like confrontation whatsoever. I also don’t like putting people down for their choices or situations. I like to be more uplifting when I am working with someone. But I need to stop hearing this word “busy” when It comes to health and fitness.
It’s never that we are too busy to notice how much change we want to make, it’s always that we are too busy to do the work to actually get there.
You are not too busy.
Your schedule is not the problem.
Your priorities are the problem.
Without knowing you, I can’t be 100% confident in any of the above statements, but It will stand true for most people.
If you care enough, It will get done. I am going to leave It at that.
#7: Change At The Expense of Health Is Not Worth It
Your health is always #1. This might not be your overarching top priority when you start but It should be a non negotiable.
There is no amount of physical change that is worth risking your health for. Sending It back to #3, the people who are on magazine covers or competing in physique shows are not doing that for their health.
Pushing your body to those limits is NOT a healthy tactic.
Us normal folk definitely do not need to reach those extremes. Most of us just want to look and feel better, right? So if we are not being paid to look a certain way, then it’s clear that your health is more important than the number on the scale.
Your health is also more important than the overall look of your body.
Now, we can tip the scales the other way as well. The health at all sizes movement was not necessarily all positive. It was great for mental health and being able to accept/love our bodies. BUT being overweight/obese, having excess body fat, not maintaining a certain amount of muscle is not healthy.
You deserve to be healthy.
You deserve to reach your goals without sacrificing any part of your health.
You deserve longevity.
These 7 truths have been things that stick in my mind year over year. I hear topics like these come up often when I meet and work with new people. They even come up with the people that I have been working with for a long time.
I don’t get mad. I explain my thoughts around the topic and how we can move forward around certain things.
Take these topics and use them to your advantage.
They are not here to discourage you or make you feel bad. Like I said above, I hate controversy and I really hate putting people down. My goal is to build you up. Help you along the way. And create an environment where you can succeed despite things getting in your way.
These 7 topics are here to help you move past certain problems and focus on the things that really matter.
In good health,
Jeff
