07 Feb You Set The Wrong Goal.
Do you want to know why *so many* smart, disciplined, highly-accomplished people consistently fail to establish a healthy lifestyle?
Here it is:
They approach their health as something that can be achieved. They approach their fitness as a box that can be checked off their to-do list.
The problem lies within the common proclamation:
“I want to lose X lbs!”
Here’s the thing though — no you don’t.
Whether your number is 10, 50 or 200 lbs; I promise you that you’re incorrect. Losing that weight is not your goal.
Let me explain.
Say you’re currently 200 lbs and you decide you want to get in shape. You look at pictures of yourself 10 years ago. You look at the little red dress you used to wear and cherish. You recall the confidence of putting on a bathing suit without a single doubt or self-critical thought.
“Let’s see… I know that I was hovering around 150 lbs back then.”
So, given that you’re currently 200 lbs, you decide that your goal is to lose 50 lbs. Sounds logical, right?
Well, let’s explore.
If your goal is to get to 150 lbs, then you’re going to focus on doing everything you can to lose weight. Each day, you’ll push yourself to overcome the struggle, knowing it’ll all be worth it at the end.
“Think about that red dress.”
You’ll tell yourself this over and over again in times of doubt.
You’ll successfully abstain from the temptations of sugar and laziness by envisioning that moment when you’ll be hanging out by the pool, finally feeling free again.
It will work. Your conviction that “it will all be worth it at the end” will help you push through. So what’s the problem?
The problem is that you are going to achieve this goal.
Then what?
Listen, I tell you the following forecast not from a place of negativity, not from an opinion, not from a theory. I’m simply telling you what happens to almost everyone once they achieve their weight loss goal.
You’ll feel elated at first. You’ll celebrate and start easing off your strict diet and workout routine a little, knowing that you can dial it back in at any time. You’ve already achieved your goal, so even if you veer off plan a little bit, you can always bounce right back. You already know how to do it, so it’s all good.
That “easing off your plan a bit” will quickly — alarmingly quickly — turn into you snapping back to your old habits like a rubber band. In possibly under a month, you’ll be back to the exact lifestyle routines that you had prior to embarking on this weight loss journey.
Over the next several months, you’ll gradually start gaining back the weight. You’ll have this thought in the back of your mind, “Oh, I really should get back on my plan again soon.” But again, you know you can do it, and you know what you have to do, so you’re not too worried about it. It just doesn’t have the same urgency it did before.
Then, you’ll wake up one day and realize that you’ve gained back all the weight you worked so hard to lose.
Well, actually you won’t gain back all the weight you lost. You’ll gain back more.
All that discipline enacted. All those tough workouts completed. All those fun opportunities avoided in favor of achieving your weight loss goal… and now you’re worse off than you were before.
That moment sucks. It really, really sucks.
It was hard enough to muster up the motivation to lose the weight the first time, and now you don’t even want to think about it.
Look, I’m painting a pretty bleak picture here. While I’m tempted to tell you I don’t want to discourage you… I know that would be acting on a false premise. Because I know I’m not writing to someone who’s learning about this for the first time.
In all likelihood, you — the person reading this — know exactly what I’m talking about. In all likelihood, I just described an experience you’ve already had.
In the off-chance that you haven’t already experienced this yo-yo effect with your own health and fitness, you surely have seen it in friends, family, and pretty much the entire country.
So now we can finally change tones. Now we can finally start focusing on the solution. But before we do, let’s establish a clear identification of the problem:
You set the wrong goal. It wasn’t what you truly wanted. Your goal was never to “get to” 150 lbs. Your goal is to BE 150 lbs.
You don’t want to LOSE 5o lbs. You want to BE 50 lbs lighter.
This isn’t trivial semantics. This is a radically different goal and its successful achievement requires a radically different approach.
The actions you must take to lose 50 lbs have almost nothing to do with the actions you must take to BE 50 lbs lighter.
In many cases, they’re the exact opposite.
To lose 50 lbs, all you need is a caloric deficit (to consume fewer calories than you burn). Therefore, your actions will likely include:
- Starting an extremely restrictive and/or low calorie diet
- Following Rigid rules around eating (potentially even banning entire food groups or macronturients)
- Using any plan that is designed to last for a period of time (e.g. 30 day cleanse, detox, etc.)
- Withdrawing socially to avoid temptations
- Beating yourself up mentally to avoid slipping up once which will cause chaos
To BE 50 lbs lighter, your actions will likely include:
- Establishing a healthy caloric deficit that causes weight loss without unhealthy muscle loss or severe hunger
- Designing your own personalized fitness plan with as few restrictions and as much freedom / flexibility as possible
- Not giving any short-term solutions a second look
- Approaching each social event as a new opportunity to discover what guidelines will work for you, so that you can enjoy your life and socialize while maintaining your desired health and fitness
- Accepting that you are 1000% GOING to slip up, and being ready to bounce right back when it happens
We can sum up the difference in one sentence:
It’s not about what you can stick to for the next 10 days. It’s about what you can stick to for the next 10 years.
That’s it. That’s the difference between a short-term high that rebounds you into a terrible, terrible low, and a long-term solution that effectively solves the problem.
It’s the difference between a tactic, or a “hack”, and a comprehensive strategy that endures.
As much as this line has been bastardized by popularity:
It’s the difference between a diet and a lifestyle change.
So now it’s time to take action. What small, productive habit can you establish right now that you know you can stick to, even when life gets crazy?
You’re looking for something tiny here. Some daily action that may not yield the quickest results, but that will undeniably make you a better, happier, more confident, more productive human in one year from now.
My suggestion?
Start with a 10-minute daily workout.
The benefits of exercise aren’t limited to fat loss and strength gain. In fact, researchers have identified exercise as a “keystone habit”, a term that refers to one habit that leads to a myriad of additional habits without conscious effort from the individual.
In other words, people who focus exclusively on starting their day with a 10-minute workout, see significant improvements in their nutrition, productivity, mood, confidence and other key areas of their lives. It’s the one healthy habit that catalyzes a domino effect of additional healthy habits.
So, I recommend starting with a daily 10-minute home workout routine. Ideally, perform this first thing in the morning, before you start your day. If it’s truly important to you, then do it before any external distractions can get in your way. Make it a part of your morning routine, like brushing your teeth.
Hopefully, dear reader of mine, you simply don’t skip brushing your teeth. No matter how “busy” you are or “unmotivated” you feel.
Why not treat your own fitness with the same respect?
Stay busy. Stay fit.
-Coach Dani
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