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#114 - The System That Makes Losing Fat and Building Muscle Simple
19 Plays5 days ago
Tired of starting over? This episode breaks down why motivation isn’t your problem—it’s your system.If you’ve been trying to do everything right but still can’t stay consistent, this is the missing piece.
Here’s what we'll get into:
- A simple way to build a system that works for your life
- How to stop relying on willpower and stay consistent
- Real examples from my own journey and clients
- What to focus on daily to lose fat and build muscle without overthinking it
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Transcript
Welcome and Introduction
00:00:02
Speaker
Welcome back to the Fit-ish Project with your host Lathan Bass where we make fitness and health simple for regular people like you and I. We have another weekly episode coming at you this week before I get into this if you have not already done so if you can leave a review to just help to get this out to more people who need this information greatly appreciate those of you who have already done that and just continue to keep spreading the good word.
Why Relying on Motivation Fails
00:00:26
Speaker
But for this week, I wanted to do a little bit more of a tactical type of episode. So something that's just super practical because this is a concept that's just been on my mind a little bit more lately.
00:00:37
Speaker
And so I wanted to dive a little bit deeper on this topic. And so one of the things that a lot of people struggle with is this idea that they need like a lot of motivation to do these certain things to get a certain result.
00:00:50
Speaker
And so like people ask me like how I've been able to keep all of the weight off. and Motivation is nice when it's there. And i do enjoy working out and like eating healthy and all those things. But like I have plenty of days where I really don't feel like going for the run. i really don't feel like eating a certain way.
00:01:07
Speaker
i really don't feel like working out. the thing that's helped me has been to have a system, to have a repeatable and very simple system that I
Creating a Simple Fitness System
00:01:18
Speaker
follow. And and for me, it's based on three different things, which I'm going to get into in this episode.
00:01:23
Speaker
But what I wanna do is just really show you how easy it can be and how you can also build your own system so that this whole like fitness and health thing doesn't seem so complex. Cause it really can be simple when you do have the right system in place.
00:01:37
Speaker
And so i'm going to show you how I've gone about building a system and then how you can ultimately build your own simple repeatable system that fits within your lifestyle. I'm going to get into a little bit of why relying strictly on motivation and willpower is always going to be a bad idea and what you can actually do instead. And then ultimately how you can use some of these small wins that you will get from having a system to increase your consistency.
00:02:01
Speaker
Because when you can increase your consistency, you get better results and you're actually able to keep those results. And so let's get into this. Breaking down my personal system. So I started thinking about this probably a couple of years back because one of the things that I like to do when I'm chasing some sort of goal or interested in some sort of topic is I try to find people who are successful within that thing.
00:02:25
Speaker
So for fitness, it was just like, what do fit people do on a regular basis? Like there's common themes that you can pull out of certain areas when you just sit and look at them. And I think about these as like the highest leverage things that you can do in order to get the most progress possible.
00:02:41
Speaker
Because when you look at fitness and when you look at nutrition, it can be complicated, but it really doesn't have to be. But when you hop on social media, you will see all different types of opinions. You'll have people telling you to try this certain tip or try this diet, try this training program. You'll have people who have completely contradictory opinions and it can make things really confusing. And so I just look at, okay, what have successful people done? People who have been able to achieve the goal that I want to achieve.
00:03:10
Speaker
What do a lot of these people do? And then I'll test that thing for myself. And so when I was getting into this and just kind of thinking about like, okay, I've been able to keep this weight off for a really long time now. It's been over eight years since I've been able to lose all that weight, lose 100 pounds and keep that off for a long time. And that's very rare. And so I started thinking about, okay,
00:03:29
Speaker
what do i do differently that other people maybe don't do differently who have struggled to keep that weight off and so i narrowed it down to three things that i do on a regular consistent basis daily slash weekly basis that have gotten me to just be more consistent and have given me just a really really good foundation to focus on and allow me to continue to make progress for the last several years and again just be able to sustain the results that i got and so when I started thinking about these three things, it came down to steps, it came down to focusing on protein, and it came down to getting a certain amount of workouts in
Daily Steps and Protein's Role
00:04:06
Speaker
per week. And I'll explain a little bit why those three things are so important and how they've helped me. So when it comes to steps, steps is just daily movement.
00:04:15
Speaker
And so getting increased activity within your day is crucial if you want to both lose weight but not just lose weight keep it off there was a study that they did a while back looking at people who had been able to lose a significant amount of weight and actually keep it off for i think it was like either three or five years at the time of the study And they narrowed it down to like these certain things that these people were doing. And one of the things that they did was they found that these people were just typically more active people, which like, duh, you think about that. It's like, okay, I want to lose weight. I want to be fit. I want to be healthy.
00:04:48
Speaker
I need to be active. which makes sense because the more active that you are, the more calories that you're going to be burning. And it makes it easier to have a little bit more flexibility with food and just to maintain weight.
00:04:59
Speaker
And so steps is the simplest way that you can do that. And for me, one of the things that I always focus on is how can I get at a bare minimum 8,000 steps in my day? I like to shoot for around 10,000 and typically like based on my activity tracker right now, I'm somewhere around like 11 to 12,000 a day.
00:05:17
Speaker
But that is something that I like to focus on because I know that when I'm getting that step count, when I'm hitting that step count, I'm staying active. And the other thing that focusing on steps really does is it's one thing that's just kind of always in the back of my brain that I'm thinking about, like how can I make sure that I'm hitting my steps every single day?
00:05:35
Speaker
And by focusing on that, I've noticed that it has a translation into other areas of fitness and health. So for example, As I'm focusing on getting more steps throughout my day, I think about, oh, I'm getting more steps. Well, maybe I should drink a little bit more water.
00:05:49
Speaker
Maybe I should make a little bit healthier choice when I go to eat my meals or my snacks. Maybe I should make sure that I'm stretching a little bit throughout the day as well. And so by just having this one little foundational habit of focusing on steps, I've noticed that just being fit and healthy and making those decisions that fit and healthy people make becomes more top of mind.
00:06:09
Speaker
And so it makes it like this really nice snowball effect of like, okay, I just focus on hitting my goal of eight to 10,000 steps per day. And just by doing that, I just have this positive effect on these other areas of my health as well, which obviously is going to help the overall goal of just being a more healthy and fit person.
00:06:27
Speaker
And so steps is the first thing that I focus on. The second thing is protein. And so for me, protein is I try to get at least 150 grams of protein in my day.
00:06:38
Speaker
If I can get closer to around 200 grams of protein, that's even better. But at a bare minimum, 150 grams of protein. So when it comes to protein recommendations, a lot of the studies that you'll see and a lot of the people in the industry will recommend at a bare minimum, try to get 0.7 grams per pound of body weight.
00:06:57
Speaker
When it comes to the recommendations around protein, it's best to go off like your lean body mass, which is basically just like your muscle and things like that. But since you don't really know that, people just come up with this estimation of at least 0.7 grams, but one gram per pound of body weight is even a little bit better.
00:07:13
Speaker
So for me, I think about, okay, what's the very bare minimum that I want to be hitting? And so for my body size, that comes down to around 150 grams of protein. And so one thing that focusing on this protein does for me, obviously, we know that protein is good for a building muscle, it's good for reducing hunger, but that's also going to have some effects as well, because building more muscle is going to help with having a higher metabolism, it's going to help with increasing my strength and be able to do all the things that I want to do just as far as like,
00:07:41
Speaker
playing sports and being active and just doing things in my everyday life and having the strength and ability to do those things. Muscle is a big part of that. Also, we all know that muscle looks better. So that's part of it as well. Like just having a nice physique and just being able to look the way that you want to look. So that's also part of it.
00:07:59
Speaker
And so muscle plays a critical role in all of these things. But the thing about focusing on getting 150 grams of protein within my day is that it forces me to plan and just actually think about my meals.
00:08:10
Speaker
Because if you're trying to get that much protein, you're not just going to randomly do that. You actually have to think about what am I going to eat for breakfast? What am I going to have for lunch? What am I going to have for dinner? you don't build your meals around protein, you're not going to hit that number. And maybe you need to even supplement with a couple of snacks or maybe like a protein shake or something to actually hit that number.
00:08:29
Speaker
And so by planning and just thinking about what are the meals that I'm going to have throughout the day, you're typically going to make better choices. Because if you're thinking about those things, you're not just going to be like, OK, I'm going to have this fast food for ah lunch. I'm going to have this.
00:08:43
Speaker
not very good breakfast, I'm gonna have this, not very good dinner. Like you're not going to plan to eat a diet that doesn't really align with your goals and really help you get to where you wanna get. You're going to plan quality meals that help you hit your goals. And so when I'm planning out, how am I gonna get 150 grams of protein, I'm gonna end up eating better quality meals. I'm gonna have more fruits and vegetables in my meals. I'm gonna have more fiber in my meals.
00:09:06
Speaker
going to focus on whole quality, unprocessed foods most of the time to be able to hit that goal. And so again, just by focusing on this one simple thing, I'm able to accomplish all these other things and make sure that my diet that I'm eating is super high quality and helping me hit all those goals.
00:09:23
Speaker
Whereas like if you think about nutrition as a whole, like there's so many different things that you could focus on when it comes to like the choices that you want to make. But just by simplifying this one thing and just thinking about, okay, how can I get a lot of protein within my day, it's going to naturally start to pull out some of those things that maybe you don't want to be eating as much.
00:09:40
Speaker
And you're going to see that you are planning and prioritizing some of those things that are going to help you feel better, look better. And just be overall more healthy. And so again, it's just one of those just foundational habits that helps to have that snowball effect and affect a lot of other things when it comes to just your diet and your nutrition.
00:09:58
Speaker
And then the last thing for me is I focus on workouts.
Strength Workouts and Planning
00:10:02
Speaker
So my goal is four strength workouts per week. And I know that if I'm focusing on, again, building muscle, getting in the gym and being able to increase my strength, it gives me a chance to work on a little bit of mobility when I'm in there in strength training.
00:10:17
Speaker
And it just helps me feel good, both physically and mentally. So I know that if I can get those four workouts in per week, I'm going to continue to progress and I'm going to continue to make all those positive changes that I want to see both physically, mentally, and it's just going to help me out in the long run. And again, I know that having those four workouts in my schedule forces me to plan and prioritize ahead of time. So again, it's just putting that fitness and health mindset top of mind, because it's something that like, if I don't plan those four, four workouts per week, and I don't like know where they're going to be in my schedule, like when I'm going to work out,
00:10:52
Speaker
and when I'm going to get these things in, then they're probably not gonna happen. By having that as one of the three foundational parts of my system, it forces me to prioritize something that I know is going to be really, really beneficial to my overall health and to my overall goal. So those are the three things that I focus on just religiously over the last multiple years, getting eight to 10,000 steps in my day, getting 150 grams of protein within my day, and then getting four strength workouts in per week.
00:11:21
Speaker
Now, there's some days that I will end up getting more like, let's say I'll get more steps in my day. I'll get some days or some weeks I'll end up working out five times or maybe I'll do four workouts and then get in like two or three cardio sessions or do some yoga or things like that.
00:11:36
Speaker
And all that stuff is great. I just think of all that as a bonus. And so anything that I can get on top of this foundation is just a bonus to me. Having a nice system like this is going to help to keep you grounded when life gets really, really chaotic because you don't want to just try to be winging this whole fitness and health thing. I think a lot of people think that they can just kind of wing it.
00:11:59
Speaker
But if that was the case, we wouldn't have so many people that struggle with being overweight. We wouldn't have so many people that are on. medications that have really really tough health issues going on we wouldn't have so many people that are just in pain all the time or not very mobile we wouldn't have so many people that are living a life in a way that is not the way that they want to live because their health and their fitness levels are so poor if you were able to wing it then everybody would be winging it everybody would be healthy but obviously that is not the case and so when we think about fitness and health it comes down to just having some skills and building some good habits around these things and
00:12:34
Speaker
And especially when life gets busy, when life gets stressful, when life gets chaotic, it's important to have this system to fall back on. Because if you don't, we've all been there where like just things get crazy and health and fitness just goes completely out the window.
00:12:48
Speaker
But when you have this system to rely on, it helps to just stay consistent when things do get kind of crazy. That's not to say that you'll have some days where like you do fall off and maybe you don't get the things in that you need to get in.
00:13:01
Speaker
but having this in place allows you to increase the chances of just being more consistent and just staying on track and not falling off for so long. And so systems really just become a really efficient way to save you some time. They save you some effort and they make things just easier overall.
00:13:16
Speaker
It's like if you go into work and you have no idea what you're doing for that day, like there's no agenda and every single day is completely different. The amount that you're able to get done and how productive you're able to be is probably not going to be as good as if you know a little bit about what you have going on that day. You have an agenda, you have a calendar that you can stick to, you have a routine.
00:13:36
Speaker
And so having a system for your health is the same way. It's like if you went to if you've ever played sports, like if you go to practice and your coach was like changing things up every single practice, it's like you're probably not going to be that efficient and you're probably not going to be that good.
00:13:49
Speaker
When you go to a sports practice, the coach has a script for a reason so that you can be super efficient, so that you can make progress and so that things can run super smoothly. All things that are efficient, and all things that are successful typically have some sort of system or routine or protocol that they follow.
00:14:07
Speaker
Really big businesses, they have certain protocols in place because if they did not, it'd be a mess. Like they wouldn't be able to do the things they want to do. They wouldn't have success. And so being able to have this simple system for your health is that same exact thing.
00:14:22
Speaker
And so when it comes to thinking about this system, like there's a ah few reasons, again, that we want to get into doing this. And I think, as I mentioned before, at the beginning of this podcast, a lot of people think that like fitness and health comes down to being motivated.
00:14:37
Speaker
But when you have a good system in place, you don't need to focus on motivation or rely on motivation because motivation is nice when it's there. And it is part of this. You know, there's going to be times where like that motivation really does help.
00:14:49
Speaker
But there will be a lot of days where that motivation is nowhere to be found. And so motivation isn't really that reliable and it's not really that predictable. When you have a system in place, like especially a simple and repeatable one, like it is super reliable. It is predictable. And it allows you to increase that consistency and just see the results that you want to see.
Building Discipline and Reducing Decision Fatigue
00:15:07
Speaker
And so having this system in place helps in a big way so that, again, you're not relying on just strictly motivation or strictly on willpower.
00:15:15
Speaker
And the cool thing about having a system for yourself is that over time, you become way more disciplined by having these things in place. You do that by making the healthy choice the easy choice, which like if you have these clearly defined targets that you need to hit,
00:15:31
Speaker
it makes it easy to make those decisions. And then over time, as you make more of those decisions, this is how you build habits. And once you build those habits, then this whole process starts to become just automatic. It starts to bring about the results that you really wanna see because you are doing these simple things day after day after day.
00:15:49
Speaker
Sometimes I think people will look at people who have been successful with like fitness or they just look really healthy and they just assume that those people are just crazy disciplined. Like they were just born with this discipline or they're just naturally a disciplined person.
00:16:03
Speaker
But that's really not the case. Like when you just look at these people, they do a lot of the same things just over and over again. Like they're just consistent with things that they know work well. And so when you start to...
00:16:15
Speaker
find these things that you should be repeating on a daily basis. And again, it doesn't have to be 10 different things that you're doing every single day. Like you get these really high leverage things that you can do and that you can repeat and you'll start to notice that you build better habits over time.
00:16:30
Speaker
And so as you start to build this discipline and become a more disciplined person through creating this system, it makes this whole process so much easier. And it makes me think about this quote that this guy named Jocko Willink, if you've ever heard of him, he's an author and he's done some podcasts. i think he has his own podcast as well, but his whole thing is about discipline and his big tagline is discipline equals freedom.
00:16:55
Speaker
And I think this is really, really crucial when it comes to just like fitness and health, because a lot of the things that you are doing in fitness are for a different reason. So for example, like You're wanting to exercise and eat a certain way because you want to live a long time, because you want to be around the people that you love, because you want to be able to play with your kids, because you want to be able to go on hikes and do all the things that you love to do.
00:17:19
Speaker
You want to feel good. You want to look good. You want to have more confidence. And so having this discipline within your order fitness fitness health life allows you to have that freedom outside of the gym or outside of the kitchen because you're able to do all the things you want to do. You're able to feel the way you want to feel. You're able to have great health and be vibrant and wake up feeling good and have that confidence. And so the more that you can start to become disciplined within health and fitness, the more freedom that you have.
00:17:47
Speaker
It's like when i eat really well, most of the time, I enjoy those meals out even more. And so that discipline that I have within like my normal daily diet of just like eating quality foods and eating protein and prioritizing the right things, when I do kind of step outside of that and maybe go have some pizza or I go out to eat or I go eat some crazy dessert, like I enjoy those things more because I have more freedom because I've been more disciplined within my normal daily diet. Or for example, with exercise, it's like,
00:18:18
Speaker
I exercise and treat my body in a certain way so that I'm able to do things outside of the gym that I really enjoy doing. So like when I go play basketball or when I go on a hike with my friends, I can fully enjoy that experience without waking up the next day and feeling like a truck hit me or worrying about an injury or not being fit enough to do some of those things that I really love to do. So having that discipline within the gym allows me more freedom outside of the gym. And to create that discipline, to build that discipline muscle,
00:18:47
Speaker
If you have this system in place, it makes building that just way easier. And so I think that's another reason why just having some sort of system in place is really crucial. And then the third thing I would say about focusing on developing some sort of system that really works for you is that it reduces the decision fatigue that you have.
00:19:06
Speaker
when it comes to fitness. And what I mean by that is like, simplicity is really easy to scale complexity is not and so when things get really complex, people are less likely to stick to those things. There's a story I heard a while back, I don't know if there's any truth to this, but they were like making fun of Mark Zuckerberg because he just wears the same thing every single day. And his reasoning for that was, he didn't want to have to make this extra decision every single morning.
00:19:30
Speaker
around what he was going to wear because he wanted to save all his brain power for building Facebook and doing all the things that he had to do at a high level. And I think there's a lot to this. So like if you're constantly having to make decisions every single day, like you're constantly making new decisions about What am I going to have to eat? Like, what workout should I do? When should I work out?
00:19:50
Speaker
What snacks should I have? Should I do this or should I do this? Like all these different decisions, the more that you have to make those things in the moment and the more that you have to address those things as they come up, the less likely that you are going to make the decision that you want to make.
00:20:07
Speaker
And really simple example is like, we've all had those days of like, we had a really busy day or a really stressful day, or we just had one of those days where like, we're just all over the place. And then you get home and you're like, what am I going to have to eat for dinner tonight? And you're like, huh, like, I really don't know. Like, I don't really want to make anything. I don't really want to eat the quality meal tonight. Like, let's just order takeout. Or like, you get done with a really stressful day and then you're supposed to work out that day. And you're like, oh, like,
00:20:33
Speaker
I don't know, like, should I do it today? Should I push it off to tomorrow? Like, I don't really know. But like, when you have these certain things in place, like when you have these, these little daily disciplines, or these weekly disciplines, like I said, like, you know, you're supposed to get 150 grams of protein in your day, and you focused on getting that and you've done that multiple times, it makes making that decision much easier in that instance than having to think about, okay, I need to get 150 grams of protein, how am I going to do that? Like, should I have this meal? Or should I have this meal? Like,
00:21:03
Speaker
You've done those things so many times that you can just easily do it. And you just already know, like, this is just something that I do. And it just becomes
Simplifying Fitness Routines
00:21:11
Speaker
automatic. And so having the system in place starts to simplify some of the decisions that you have to make. And then you don't have to worry about this decision fatigue as much.
00:21:21
Speaker
So like for me, when I think about it's like my diet is fairly simple most of the time, like probably, I mean, Monday through Friday and even sometimes on the weekend, I'm eating a lot of the same meals. Like I eat the same like two to three things for breakfast.
00:21:34
Speaker
almost every single day. i eat very similar lunches. I eat very similar dinners. And then like on the weekend, sometimes like if I want to go out to eat or if I want to change it up or if I want to have some pizza or if I want to try a new recipe, then I'll do that.
00:21:46
Speaker
But most of the time I keep it really simple because it's just really easily repeatable and it allows me to just go about my day. I don't have to think about it. It's like, I just eat these things. And I know these things work really well for me. They allow me to hit my protein goals. they allow me to feel good. They fill me up. And so I know these meals.
00:22:02
Speaker
And so I just stick to those meals most of the time. My exercise routine is very similar. Like I do the same workouts for months at a time. Like I don't change my workouts up very often, unless I'm just like needing a little bit of variety. but like,
00:22:16
Speaker
Right now, I've been currently doing the same workout routine for probably like four or five months straight. Very slight tweaks, but most of the main exercises just stay the same because I know what really feels good on my body and I know what really works well for me and what I'm trying to do and hit my goals. And so I just stick with those things. So when you start to find some of these things that really work, you don't need to try to reinvent the wheel.
00:22:36
Speaker
Look at what things help to make you successful and help to get the progress that you want to get and then just repeat those things. I think a lot of times people are so quick to add new things or add more variety or try this new diet or try this new training program when in reality it's like you were getting good progress with these things that you were doing and these things were working for you. Like, what's the point of changing those things?
00:22:57
Speaker
And so like when things start to get hard, I think about how can I simplify these things and make them as easy as possible so that I can be successful? Because there's a good chance that you're probably already doing some things or you know some things that work really well for you. Like maybe you know some meals that you really like that just align with your goals really well or you know some sort of like exercises that feel really good on your body or you know certain habits that work really well for you to stay consistent.
00:23:23
Speaker
Double down on those things. Focus on those things more because it's easier to just build on things that you already have in place and that you already know work than it is to just try to add a bunch of new things all the time. The point that I'm really trying to get at is just that keeping things simple and being able to identify those things that work really well for you is one of the easiest ways to be more consistent and to see better results.
00:23:47
Speaker
And so the last thing I'll say about systems is they're really nice because it starts to get people out of this all or nothing mindset that so many people struggle with. I always say like, we never want to be an all or nothing mindset. We want to be, we want to think more about always something. So like, what's something that I can do? There's always something that I can do, whether or not it is going to be the top tier thing and whether or not it's going to be like this huge thing. Like something is always going to be better than nothing, that 1% better mindset and starting to focus more on this simple system will start to reinforce that habit. And so
00:24:19
Speaker
One thing that I've mentioned already is just talking about like the daily or weekly disciplines and some people call them like BAM, so bare ass minimum. So things that you can do even on your most stressful day, on your busiest day, on your roughest day, like you can do these certain things.
00:24:35
Speaker
Anything on top of that is going to be a bonus. But when we can hit these things, most of the time, you're going to continue to get that progress, not just even from a physical standpoint, like you will start to make progress as long as you, you know, you're hitting your three workouts a week or you're getting your 150 grams of protein and you're building some muscle, like you're going to see some physical progress from those things.
00:24:54
Speaker
But I think even more importantly, Being able to keep that mental momentum going and having that feeling like you're making progress and you're checking off these boxes is such a big underrated thing.
00:25:06
Speaker
And so sometimes I'll have clients that they kind of get in a little bit of a rut or maybe they just have a really busy time going on. something comes up where we need to make some adjustments because they're not able to stick to the original plan. And so the first thing I think about is, okay, what are two to three things that we can do on a daily basis where we can really scale these things back and just get some small wins to create some of that mental momentum?
00:25:27
Speaker
Because once you start to create that momentum and you start to feel good about the things that you're doing and you feel like you have a little bit more control back, You're able to make some progress. You can start to build on those things over time.
00:25:38
Speaker
But if you just try to stick to the plan or you're trying to do like a million different things, you're trying to go in with the all or nothing mindset and you're not and you're not able to be perfect. Well, then you're going to default to the nothing part. Like you're you're not able to do everything. So you're just going to do nothing. And we all know that doesn't lead us to where we want to get to. And so starting to shift out of like being perfect and all or nothing mindset and starting to think about, OK, what are these things that I can do?
00:26:03
Speaker
at a bare minimum to help keep that progress rolling forward.
Creating and Adjusting Personal Fitness Systems
00:26:08
Speaker
And so when it comes to actually building your own system, let's get into the tactical part of this. I think about these in three different categories. So again, you don't need to pick 10 different things that you need to focus on.
00:26:19
Speaker
Two to three is going to be plenty. And so I break it down in three different ways. Like you have diet. And so underneath diet, we have like our big pillars, like you have calories, basically like your food quality, things like that.
00:26:30
Speaker
You have protein or you could even throw water in there. Like that's a big thing in there as well. And then you have exercise slash movement. So steps or workouts. And then you have like lifestyle factors. So like sleep, stress management. And so like Out of these three areas, you want to pick one thing that you can do underneath each of these things, and those can be your daily or weekly discipline. So like I already gave you an example for mine, but for somebody maybe on diet, maybe yours is just having protein at every single meal. Like maybe you're not going to strive for a certain number. You're just going to try to get protein at every single meal. Or maybe it's going to be, I eat a fruit or vegetable at every single meal, because that's something that you really want to start to focus on. Or maybe it's I'm drinking,
00:27:12
Speaker
this much water within my day. It doesn't really matter. doesn't have to be the same as mine. Just pick something that you know is going to help you and then just stick with that. Maybe with exercise, your goal is to get two workouts per week or three workouts per week. Because if you're picking things that you can't be at least 90% consistent with most of the time, then this does not work. You need to pick things that you know that you can do even on your busiest, most stressful day, because that's going to allow you to continue to make progress. Remember,
00:27:41
Speaker
This is like the foundation. Like we want to be able to check this off no matter what. And again, you're going to have some days where like maybe you don't hit that goal exactly. But the more that you can string some of these days together and just really hit these bare minimums, you're going to be able to keep that mental momentum going. You're going to be able to make a little bit progress moving forward.
00:28:00
Speaker
And then lastly, like with the lifestyle things, like maybe it's a sleep thing, you know, that like, if you get really good sleep, you know how much it affects just your workouts and your food choices and things like that. So maybe sleep is one of those things for you, like you get.
00:28:14
Speaker
seven plus hours of sleep every single night. And that is your daily discipline. Or maybe it's a stress management thing. You know that when you are super stressed, you start to make really bad choices with food. You don't exercise as much. So maybe part of your daily discipline is like, I go for a 30 minute walk with no distractions so that I can clear my mind and just de-stress a little bit. Like maybe that's part of your plan.
00:28:36
Speaker
And just think about these a little bit and figure out what are three things that you could do that are going to help you make really good progress and things that you can do at least 90% of the time. From this point, obviously you might have to adjust a little bit. You might have to test some of these things out, but I would say the biggest thing is just start small, start with things that you absolutely know that you can do.
00:28:56
Speaker
And then as you get better at those things, you can build on those things. So like when a new client comes to me or just any client, to be honest, like I always err on the side of starting with less and then building on that.
00:29:08
Speaker
for the psychological reasons. Like if you take on, if you say, i want to work out four times per week, and then you're not able to do that, you don't feel good about that. But on the opposite end, if you're like, I want to work out two times per week, and then you hit those two times per week, and you do that for several weeks back to back, you feel really good about that. And then maybe even within those weeks, your goal is to work out at least two times per week, and then you end up doing three, like anything on top of that is a bonus. But you want to start smaller, make sure that you can check that off, and then build on that over time to just help you feel a little bit better about the progress, and also just know that you can do these things. And then if you need to adjust, if you need to build on those things over time,
00:29:46
Speaker
then by all means, absolutely, go ahead and do that. And the last thing that I would say about when it comes to just building your system is these may change over time a little bit.
00:29:57
Speaker
For example, like you hit a really, really, really stressful time, like your schedule is completely different. Maybe you just had a kid or like you're just going through a really rough time or just work is just crazy busy. You might have to adjust this a little bit as well. And so maybe you instead, you're your goal was to hit 10,000 steps per day, but maybe you need to scale it back a little bit. And now it's going to be 7,500 during this period.
00:30:19
Speaker
or your goal was to get this many grams of protein and now you just need to focus on, I'm just gonna get at least protein at every single meal. Like maybe you need to scale it down a little bit so that you can actually make sure you're hitting these check marks and that is perfectly fine as well.
00:30:34
Speaker
So don't be afraid to adjust and don't be afraid to try some different things. But again, having this just framework in place and having this repeatable system to fall back on can do a lot for the progress that you can make over time because,
00:30:49
Speaker
It never comes down to the all or nothing. it never comes down to being perfect on every single day. It just comes down to being consistent, getting 1% better. And when you can do that, when you can string a lot of those days together and you do that for several months and you look up, you've made a ton of progress in whatever that
High Leverage Actions for Fitness Progress
00:31:07
Speaker
area may be. And so closing this thing up, when it comes to just taking some practical steps, think about Two to three things that you can do on a daily or weekly basis.
00:31:19
Speaker
Find those high leverage things that are going to help you stay consistent and help you hit those goals that you want to hit. Make sure you start small and then build on those things over time and you can always adjust as needed. It's really as simple as that.
00:31:30
Speaker
When you can start to do this more often and start to build those habits, you'll notice just how easy this whole process starts to seem. So with that being said, hopefully this is helpful and gives you a little insight on something that you can take some action on this week.
00:31:46
Speaker
One-on-one coaching, if you're interested in that, there's always a link in the show notes for that. If you need a little bit of help with this kind of stuff, if you want some guidance, you want some nutrition help, you want some help with some personalized workouts to hit all those goals that you have around fat loss, building muscle, all that good stuff, you can check out the link in the show notes.
00:32:04
Speaker
Otherwise, I appreciate you listening and we will see you next week.