You Don’t Have To Be Constantly Uncomfortable To Achieve Your Fitness Goals

Getting to where you want to be can take you through so many stages. There are so many ways to go about fitness it’s ridiculous because it’s quite simple to be fit. Giving into all the fitness guru advice and fads can, on the other hand, make your fitness life miserable and your journey hard. Here is why you don’t have to always be uncomfortable to get where you want in fitness.

Make It Easier For Yourself to Achieve Your Fitness Goals

You do not have to eat 6 times a day. Your metabolism won’t stop and your muscle won’t go away just because you like to eat 3 times a day. It’s just when you go hungry for long periods of time, it’s harder to restrain yourself from overeating later. That’s it. Eat your breakfast, have a healthy snack before lunch and dinner, if necessary to keep you from getting too hungry to stop eating all that pizza before bed and you’ll manage.

You don’t need that much protein. It’s not even close to 1 gr per pound of weight. 0.82 gr is a higher optimal level. The rest just burns as any other food like carbs and fat. So why stress over the last scoop/tub of protein when you simply might not even need it?

Also, you don’t need to cut carbs to lose weight. Not by much anyway. It also depends on how your body responds to carbs. If you feel dizzy and hungry when going lower on carbs then a low-carb diet won’t do you much good. On the other hand, if you’re a woman and cut too much fat out of your diet, you might get problems with your hormones that can impact anything from your boob size to periods. Studies show that there is not much of a difference in low-fat vs. low-carb diets for weight loss as long as there is a calorie deficit. And women tend to do better on higher fat diets as their strength markers improve and they appear leaner.

You absolutely should start weight training before you lose weight. Think about it, you are wasting all that stored energy (doing tons of cardio or simply dieting) without building muscle when you could do both at the same time as a beginner. Don’t wait till you slim down to go to the gym (that’s just inefficient). If you have self-esteem problems just think about it this way, all those people in the gym, whose disapproval you’re so afraid of, are just like you, 99% of their attention is directed at themselves (their lagging muscles, workout routines, and just general life problems). Besides, who cares what they think?

You can eat whatever you want whenever you want to. Unless you have a certain goal like most professionals do, you don’t need to restrict yourself as much as you think. You can eat whatever you want when you feel like it. And if you know that you have self-control issues just count the calories and macros, and try to stick to 80/20 rule (80% healthy and clean eating, 20% treats). You can also cycle calories and make high calorie vs. low calorie days, depending on the situation. Been invited to a wedding? Eat that cake and slightly lower your calories the next day to compensate for it if it’s a problem. There, problem solved.

You don’t have to workout 4 to 6 days per week to become/stay fit. Try 2 short (no longer than 1 hour) weightlifting sessions a week, especially if you’re a new mom or a dad, and a healthy balanced diet. If you’re a beginner, you will notice big changes as you build muscle where you want it and lose fat all at the same time with all that cardio running after kids or even if you simply have an active lifestyle/job.

There are many misconceptions about fitness that prevent many people from getting active because they make it out to be harder and more complicated than it really is. Yes, you will have to tolerate some level of discomfort depending on your goals, but it doesn’t always have to be a hurdle, a struggle, even a journey. Get active!