Are your sacrifices actually making you fitter?
Do you fall for this trap and increase your pain without increasing your reward?
“I’m giving up coffee.”
“I don’t eat after 5pm anymore.”
“I’m going carb free.”
“I’m doing Dry January.”
Ok, but are these sacrifices moving the needle in the direction of your goal?
There are trade-offs to be made in the pursuit of challenging health, fitness, and physique goals, and some of the above may actually help but you need to make the RIGHT sacrifices, not the biggest sacrifices.
At builtXyou, first we define the goal with our clients. Then we reverse engineer that goal and look for actions we can add to a plan that will get us there. Only then can we accurately work out what stands in the way of these things and restrict or remove them.
If your goal is to lose 15 lbs of body fat in 12 weeks, then we would likely add the following to a plan:
3-4x per week strength training
10k steps per day
Nutrition plan that yields a caloric deficit, mitigates hunger, and maintains muscle
7-9 hours of sleep per night
Stress management support and techniques
Now we look at lifestyle factors that are most likely to get in the way of achieving these things.
Perhaps, it’s poor sleep, perhaps it’s lack of time, perhaps it’s all or nothing perfectionist thinking, perhaps it’s the nightly eating take out habit, perhaps it is that you drink coffee too late in the day.
But randomly restricting coffee, avoiding carbs, or arbitrarily not eating after 5pm might sound like it would work because it’s difficult. But difficult doesn't mean effective.
In fact, difficult, more often than not, means making things less likely to be successfully completed.
Changing your lifestyle in any way is tough enough, make sure the things you are moving and changing around actually contribute to your goal and don’t just make things more difficult. Because difficulty is no guarantee of progress.
If you want a plan that is expertly designed and customized to your needs, preferences, and goals so that you are guaranteed to get results, then we can help.
We’ve helped 100s of busy guys transform their health, fitness, and physique for over the last decade. If you’re ready to get a plan that works for you and want to stop wasting time trying to figure it out alone, yo-yo dieting, and program hopping every few weeks, then apply for one of our limited coaching spots below today.
