The Only Fitness Article You’ll Ever Need to Read

By: Niki Sims, Exclusive Coach and CXO

Alarm goes off. You wake up. You open up Instagram. 

After taking a few too many minutes to scroll through your feed and mindlessly absorb the updates from smiling people with abs and buddies on cool vacations, you get your day started. Shower, look at yourself in the mirror and try to find some abs, get dressed and head to work, no time for cardio this morning, but for sure tomorrow.

The morning passes, and you have a salad for lunch because you’re trying to eat healthily. Someone comes back to the office with pastries. You have one because you were “good” for lunch. A couple of hours later, and you’re feeling guilty about that scone and your energy is dragging a bit. You hop back on Instagram. More people having fun with their muscles. Let’s head over to SomeMagazineWithaSmilingJackedGuyOnTheCover.com and pick out a workout plan for tonight. 

By the time you leave that site, you have 3 different ab, arm, and leg routines and are suddenly concerned that, while you don’t know what your body fat percentage is, you’re sure it needs to be under 15% within the next two months. 

Okay, time for more research. Subscribe to some strength coaches and bodybuilders and functional fitness experts on YouTube. Watch some tutorials and follow all the ‘grams. CrossFit is too dangerous for you, but you for sure need to do things in sets of 8-10. Some fats are healthy, meat is probably bad, but protein is good (note to self: find a meal planning service w/ vegetarian options). You need carbs to get strong. Strong is lean. Lean = jacked. None of that = you. You need to lose weight, cuz that graphic of 12% body fat looked pretty good.

After work, you “do legs”, some arms too and find out when the next yoga class is. Then it’s off to grab drinks with friends. You can’t help but wonder if there are better drinks than others for your fitness goals, but since you don’t know, you go for wings and a light beer. Unfortunately, that workout made you hungry and that beer convinced you that a burger and a gin and tonic will be okay for today. Some more drinks and bed at 11. 

Wake up, repeat. This time the internet tells you that you need to work on your core. And man, keto seems like it’d be a sure-fire way to lose some weight fast. That worked for a buddy, but not for long, he doesn’t look that great anymore. That won’t be you. Let’s research that today. Lots of studies to go through. Seems like all of them work, and yet none of them work. Sweet. 

Mad cardio later. Legs before or after? Are deadlifts bad? 

📸More Instagram.📸

🥃Drinks.🥃

🍔Sliders.🍔

🛏11 pm in bed. 🛏

😱Instagram. Internet. More solutions. More questions. More confusion. 😕

✅Subscribe.✅

👉Try this one. Try that one. 👈

💰Pay for a trainer. Spend hundreds on spin classes and fancy shoes and meal plans and hot yoga. 💰

🍖Carbs are good. Carbs are bad. Avocados are good. Tequila is fine. Lentils instead of meat. Healthy fats only.

That extra 15 is hitting hard this year. But it’s hard to know what to do to feel better. Where should you start?

You Can’t Buy Fitness

It can be challenging to sit with decisions you made about food and exercise that have led you to feel poorly. And when you’re looking for the thing that will make you feel better, it can be overwhelming. What have you learned from in the last three months by being reactive and chasing instant fixes? Has anything stuck, for better or worse?

Surfing through programs online can lead to a lot of bouncing around, and it’s enticing to try “THE workout routine for a leaner you who resists aging and has huge arms. -Tom Brady approved.” When it comes to food, there isn’t much hope for consistent results when you’re jumping around from “THE only diet you’ll need to live forever and never be hungry and never get heart disease and always have really nice teeth”  to the next “The 3 foods you love that are giving you belly fat and holding you back from getting a raise!” 

There are many sites and friends on Facebook from high school who suggest detoxes, but one that may be worth trying when you feel overwhelmed is an internet fitness detox. That world is designed to appeal to your insecurities and constantly throw information at you, convincing you that you have problems and that they have instant solutions. Being informed is important, but too much informational input leads to paralysis by analysis. And the (not-so-)secret to success tends to be simple and repetitive. Shift your focus from information input to consistent action output. 

Your body will react to consistency. After all, it’s habits (good and bad) that got you to where you are right now. It’s not the one bender you had last Saturday. It’s the 3 weeks of Sunday Funday per month and skipping breakfast. 

There are good things in your routine, too. What are they? Identify the habits that you are proud of. The ones that make you feel good physically and give them some momentum. Maybe start with some other simple changes, like committing to just one workout program. How does it feel to drink more water? After a week of going to bed at a consistent bedtime, do you notice any changes? 

Then, give yourself some time to honestly and lovingly analyze the results. Seriously, be nice to yourself, good things take time, and you are a good thing. Let your work breathe and then figure out what is or isn’t working. Let yourself learn from what you’ve been doing. Don’t beat yourself up over something if you don’t love the results, and be proud of things that get you closer to what you want. Take notes on your energy levels and how your training made you feel. Keep a visual food diary of your food and liquid intake so you can see in full what you are putting into your body. You can use this information to build awareness of what makes you feel great, and what doesn’t.

You won’t find a happier you on the internet, and you can’t buy fitness. While it can be frustrating to feel very far away from how you want to look and feel, starting where you are right now is the perfect place. Make some changes that are hard but doable. You may find joy in your consistency, and I promise, you’ll end up enhancing the good parts of you.

The best place to get started is with the main barbell lifts. Visit the Barbell Logic Beginning Barbells Page for in-depth lifting guides, cues, and troubleshooting tips.