Formosa Fitness

Sometimes a client comes in and says they want to:

• gain muscle
• lose fat
• clean up their diet
• take suplement A, B, and C
• cut back on drinking
• go to bed earlier
• get up earlier
• stop smoking
• stop kicking the dog
• etc., etc., etc.

Every time I hear this, I don't know whether to laugh or to cry. I understand the desire to change things but this is NOT the way to go. Why not?

1. Doing too many things prevents you from doing any one thing well. For most people, all of these are good goals but they're pretty hard to do individually, let alone in a whole group. Disperse your efforts and you wind up with nothing. You're just setting yourself up for failure.

2. All of these things either are habits or depend on habits. How many habits (some you might have had your whole life) do you think you can change in a week? You'd be lucky to change one. So just pick one.

3. But here's the worst part that few people get: even if you do get results, you'll never know WHAT got you the results. You're doing too many things. What worked and what didn't? Who knows? So when whatever worked stops working (and it eventually will) what are you going to do then?

This total makeover idea is terrible unless you're on a reality show and can work on this stuff 24/7.

Instead, start a fitness and diet journal. Write down everything that you're eating and how you're exercising. Just get that habit in place first! Once you have the DISCIPLINE to journal, get the exercise habit down. Make it consistent, make it effective. If you can't get that habit down, then forget about taking supplements, etc. because it won't matter. Once the fitness is in place, start cleaning up the diet. Diet is MUCH harder for most folks than exercise. There's a hierarchy to this stuff that must be respected. Once fitness and diet are taken care of then the cornerstones of an effective program are laid. We can then later discuss supplements, etc.

Keeping a journal lets you know what worked and what didn't. That's a VITAL piece of the puzzle. Without it, you're just foundering around unfocused.

DISCIPLINE is a major issue for most folks. They are so scattered that they become immobilized. Get the discipline to focus on one goal at a time, and most anything is possible.