More Isn’t Always Better

Have you ever set a big goal for yourself and been so excited to achieve it? You know the path will be an uphill climb, but you’re up for a challenge. You’re ready to change your lifestyle and do whatever it takes to get from A to Z. When you don’t know where or how to start, it seems like a good idea to throw every tool in the toolbox at your problem. Take weight loss for example: you decide you’re ready to change your lifestyle and are willing to do whatever it takes to lose those 50 pounds. You’ve heard your friends or family talk about keto, 4 week transformation challenges, intermittent fasting, impossible WODs, calorie counting and fasted cardio. It seems to be working for each of them, so why wouldn’t it work for you? You’d probably reach your goal faster if you did every tactic at once, right? Unfortunately, no. Changing huge parts of your lifestyle all at once may lead to positive results in the short term, but you have to think further down the road. When life gets busy and roadblocks pop up, are you going to be able to sustain all of these changes? Probably not. And even worse, you’ll probably revert back to your old habits. For this reason, I encourage you to first go after the lowest hanging fruit – walking for 20 minutes a day or eating more cruciferous vegetables, cutting out sugary drinks or resistance training twice per week. Once one habit is nailed down, you can then add another and eventually another. Gradual change isn’t the sexy option, but it’s certainly the healthy option. As we approach the new year, consider hiring a coach to help you reach your health and fitness goals! Your coach’s job is to guide you from A to Z in a systematic and effective manner. It’s the best way to get the results you want. That being said, adding in workouts you coach doesn’t know about or making additional dietary changes isn’t helping anybody. Your coach can’t provide the best service if they don’t know the whole picture. Trust your coach, trust the process, and the results will come!  

Lauren Shull
B.S., NASM CPT