Why You're Still Out Of Shape And How To Really Change Things This Year (pt 1.)

I'm sure you've seen this puppy - whether on Facebook or at your local gym, the phenomenon is as real as it is hilarious.

Boromir really hit the Orc in the head, with a sword.

But take a moment to stifle your giggling and reflect:  Are you guilty of the same infraction?  At the conclusion of every year, without fail, you resolve to change some aspect of your life.  You call it a "resolution"; a declaration to shift your health/fitness/love life/career, etc. towards a new paradigm.  While it merits a status update or justifies a banal conversation between you and a co-worker, it ends up scrapped like most other promises you make.  In perfect form, after a few days/weeks of blistering effort, you miss a workout, spend the next month sitting on your ass eating cupcakes and tell yourself it's okay to fail because it was too hard.  You give up.  "Nobody sticks to their New Years resolutions anyway.".

This self-deprecating group mentality, looking at underachievement as the norm, blaming extraneous factors for a lack of success, might make you FEEL better (temporarily)...But it doesn't get rid of your pot belly or your back aches.  It doesn't inure you with the self-esteem and motivation to enter that 5K.  It doesn't actually make anything better and before you know it, it'll be December (again) and you'll go through the same vicious cycle (again).  You could blame it on laziness but you work a full-time job and you're raising a family.  You could blame it on a lack of time, but you spend every weekend playing Call of Duty and watching movies.  You could even blame it on a lack of direction, but you've read about and tried every routine out there, from the 300 workout to P90X.  What's the REAL problem?  What's really preventing you from getting into shape?

In this series, I will share some of what's kept me on the right track over the past several years and offer you some tips on how you can set a course for winds of fortune.

Ignore this stuff and you've effectively decapitated your chances of success.

You approach your diet TOO aggressively and TOO strictly.

Yep.  That's right.  It's not the diet, it's not the workout, it's not your genetics, and it's not your lack of work ethic.  You're just too eager!  You want your six pack now.  You can't wait to hand out tickets to the gun show.  You go hard, instantly jumping into a five-days-a-week, two-hour-a-session bodybuilding program.  As a compliment to your change in activity, you start logging your food and embark upon a 1500 calorie diet that drops every food you love in favor of protein shakes and ground beef, and you make sure NEVER to cheat.  The weeks progress and almost out of nowhere, you stop losing weight and you begin to feel like someone hit you in the face with a shovel.  You miss chest day (NOOO!).  Before you know it, you break down and allow yourself a doughnut...Or two...Or the whole box.  Whatever; you tried your hardest and you weren't cut out for it.  You'll be fat forever now.  Time to hit up the couch and chug a 2 liter of soda.  Right?  NOPE.

Your effort is commendable, but you bit off more than you chew.  It's time to TAKE A BREAK.  Get your head straight and consider implementing some of these habitual changes that can make your diet less maddening:

• Forget about diet for a second.  EXERCISE CHANGES EVERYTHING.  I know, that may seem contradictory but hear me out: say you just spent the past five years gaining 50lbs eating and living the way you were.  Worst-case scenario, if you'd gained that 50lbs while lifting weights 3x/week (rather than sitting on your ass), you could be looking at an extra 20lbs of muscle on your frame.  You'd be buff rather than fluffy and you'd probably be stronger than most people you know.  Take that into consideration and the idea of undergoing an extreme diet should seem absurd.  By adding exercise into the equation, the food you eat (good or bad) will be used to fuel either muscle growth, strength gains or fat loss.  If you aren't lifting weights a few times a week, start TODAY.  If you are, then you're in a great position to begin a diet and either gain some size or lose some weight without much worry.  However, the diet has to facilitate your activity levels (and vice versa) so you need to know where to start.
• Look at your normal diet objectively and make gradual changes.  While it's probably true that you need to make better decisions as far as food goes, you can't force a square peg into a round hole.  You should begin with substitutions and minor alterations rather than doing a complete 180 on your diet.  If you drink four cans of Mt. Dew every day, try drinking three.  If you eat breakfast, try substituting eggs and bacon w/ toast rather than a bowl of cereal.  Put less sugar in your coffee.  If dinner usually consists of a lb of spaghetti and a meat sauce, start eating a big fat steak in place of the meat sauce and cut the pasta serving in half.  If you don't like steak, fine, have chicken.  Try to eventually replace the pasta with a big serving of a vegetable you can tolerate.  At lunch time, instead of ordering a triple cheeseburger with fries and a coke, stick with just the burger.  The key to this whole thing is make gradual changes to how you eat so that you can adhere for the long term, without starving yourself or going crazy from detachment.  Food deprivation is an emotional trigger for a lot of us, and that brings me to my second point.
• Have a cheat weekend.  There are physiological and psychological benefits to overeating on a diet.  If you're at the point where you're eating healthy, losing weight, and feeling great but you miss going out for pizza and ice cream, it's time to start having planned cheat days.  You may feel as though you're fudging your diet, but overeating for a few days will actually speed up your metabolism and accelerate fat loss.  If you PLAN to overeat, you'll feel liberated and in control.  There's no reason you have to go overboard and you probably won't; the implication of having a vacation from the diet will make it easier to say "No thanks." throughout the week.  Speaking of which, if you just can't control yourself and you end up scarfing down an entire lasagna...
• Don't beat yourself up.  You may have just eaten your entire weeks calories in one day, but if you make it into a negative thing, if you use it as an excuse to fail, you'll never achieve your goals.  Instead, allow yourself to enjoy the food and get back on the horse the next day.  Don't worry about doing anything drastic to make up for it the next day either; changing your body will take months, if not years, and one day is only a drop in the bucket.  There's no need to exercise more, go on a juice fast, chop off a limb...Just relax and live your life.

 In the next installment, I'll talk more about exercise/activity levels and how most of us are completely missing the point when we go to the gym.  Carry on, wayward son.