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.
Think about 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 It to a puddle.
Whatever, right? Not a big deal.
So, you proceed on. You come back to take the cookies out of the oven just to realize they are flat as a pancake and burnt to a crisp.
That damn butter!
The next time you make cookies I bet you won’t be melting the butter.
Sometimes we need to DO something to learn the lesson. In other instances we may need to HEAR something multiple times to learn the same lesson.
This is why we made this list of 7 hard truths.
Something you can read multiple times and hopefully not have to fight too hard to learn the lesson.
#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, how hard you worked to get there, or what you plan to do next.
And you aren’t 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!
#2: Calorie Deficit works
Calorie deficit: Consuming LESS calories than you BURN over time.
For weight loss, you can use a calorie deficit to see the scale move down. If you gained weight last month, you consumed more calories than you burned.
This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t focus on food quality and nutrients but for strictly weight loss purposes, a calorie deficit does work.
Is weight loss hard? Yes.
With that, the concept of weight loss is quite simple, but the action of getting It to work is much harder!
Fat burners do not work.
All they do is pile a hefty amount of caffeine in each pill so you get up and move more while suppressing your appetite. What is one way to help get you in a calorie deficit…move more and eat less. Caffeine can DEFINITELY help you do that.
Juice cleanses do not work.
They are just another avenue to get yourself in a calorie deficit. They can also be a sure fire way to neglect much needed nutrients, give a a lot of time in the bathroom, and decrease some strength.
Detox teas do not work. They are very similar to the juice cleanses but with less nutrients.
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 Be Like “That” Person
I’d say one in five people who send in a new training submission, have someone that they are striving to be like. Whether for looks, lifestyle, or how they move. 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, 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 health 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 fitness 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 fitness.
So let’s break this mold of needing to mimic people who’s full time job is to look and move great.
Be you. Be happy with yourself. Be happy with your progress.
#4: You Have To Give More
This stuff will never be easy.
We always hear about the next shortcut or KEY to health and fitness but they never last.
It takes time and effort to see real progress that lasts. Progress is a multitude of things that compile together. That’s why the time and effort pays off.
Because It is always compounding. The more you give, the more you get.
The problem is the expectation of either the “end” or what It really takes to make a change.
On the one hand, we want to work towards something really hard for a certain amount of time and then stop. It’s easier on our minds to have a set end date instead of thinking you have to keep this up forever.
That’s the beauty of your health, It’s a never ending game.
On the other hand, knowing how hard It is to get the wheel turning in the right direction can be a deterrent in itself. The amount of time, effort, and consistency It takes steers people away all the time.
But momentum is a powerful thing. he farther along you get, the more momentum you’ve created – this is what we meant by that compounding effect. The more you keep going, the more you will get from It!
#5: You Don’t Need The Gym
The most common goals I see:
- Improve strength
- Move better
- Fat loss
- Muscle gain
- Improved health
For every single one of these goals, 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 track-ability 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.
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, just because you don’t like the gym or have time to get there doesn’t mean you can’t make progress. 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.
“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 we need to stop hearing this word “busy” when It comes to health and fitness.
It’s never that we are too busy to make a change, it’s that we aren’t willing to do the work to make the change.
Your schedule is not the problem.
Your priorities are the problem.
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.
No amount of weight loss, fat loss, or anything else for that matter is more important than your health.
That doesn’t mean we should just gain weight because someone said it’s healthier to not lose weight. But there are alot of things going on right now.
We had the health at all sizes movement which was great for people’s self confidence and image health. And now we have people attempting to lose as much weight as humanly possible.
The pendulum has swung and It yet again has involved peoples size and weight. Your overall health is FAR more important than either one of those measures.
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.
Take these topics and use them to your advantage.
They are not here to discourage you or make you feel bad.
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
