It’s Not a Quick Fix – It’s a Lifestyle

Have you ever seen someone go on a popular diet, get some quick results, and only to go back to how they used to look a couple of weeks later? It happens more often that most people realize.  

Or maybe you’ve one of these types of programs: “Get your summer beach body in 6 weeks!” “Get shredded abs in 30 days!” Try to look past the marketing that is in your face all of the time.

The fact of the matter is that some of these types of programs can work, if they are designed right, but most of us have the wrong mindset when approaching them. We want that quick fix. You can see it all over modern media and our current generations.

So let me pose a question to you: Do you want to reach your fitness goal and only have them for a short time? Have them for a matter of a couple of weeks?  

I’m going to assume you answered with a resounding “No!” We want our ideal bodies for a lifetime. So I encourage you to change your mindset about fitness and nutrition to this: It’s a lifestyle, not a quick fix.

Stop pursuing short term solutions and broaden your vision to the long term. How can you build your fitness and nutrition routines in a sustainable way that can become second nature to YOU?

This answer will be different for everyone, but the basic concept is the same. You have to make small changes over the long term. Pick a new piece this week that you can do every day in order to make it a habit. Then when next week rolls around, that part will become a lot easier, ideally even automatic, and then add a new goal for the new week when it arrives!

This can be super simple. Perhaps the goal you choose is eat less potato chips and eat 1 more serving of protein each day. Maybe the next week your fitness goal for the week is to spend an extra 5-10 minutes before class working on that weakness in your squat, on top of not eating chips and getting an extra serving of protein.

The point is to make the goal a bite-sized chunk so that you set yourself up for success. One of my own coaches said this, and I found it to be potent and empowering: “Incremental change is unstoppable”.

Picture this. Say you squat every week because you want to get stronger, sexier legs. What if you added just 2 lbs to that squat every week? That’s not a great, overwhelming amount. No! It’s pretty small. But think about it in the long term. 2 lbs x 52 weeks in a year = an extra 104 lbs added to your squat! Do you think your legs are gonna look different when they can push around an extra 102 lbs??? Heck yeah!

As a coach and trainer of 7 years, I have seen many of the latest diets and get-fit-quick programs come and go with knowledge to analyze them and compare their results from real people in my own life.

Who do you think are the most successful, fit people that I know? I’ll give you a hint: it’s not the person bouncing from one diet to the next. It’s the one committing to one program, and following it consistently.  

Here is a bonus for you. Find what healthy eating habits work for you, and find a fitness routine that you love. Come hang out with us a Holy City CrossFit, and I hope that you fall in love with it. I hope that you give it a shot for a month and start making those friends here that keep bringing you back. I hope that you find a routine that is simply fun, so going to get fitter is something that you look forward to in your day, and so that it just happens automatically. If it’s not us, then I hope you find what does work for you and you become the best human being that you can become. I personally, have had this attitude and vision shift make awesome changes in my fitness that has bled into other areas of my life, including my relationships, work, and personal well-being, and I hope that the same happens to you, wherever you land.