Over the last few decades, I've worked with number of clients. By working with so many people I started to understand the trend with people who succeed and those who quit. In this article I will share what I have found with those who are successful in fitness and those who are not. If you are planning on challenging yourself to fitness journey, this may give you perspective as to what you should be ready with.
Missing Pieces
Fitness, in my opinion, can monitored in 5 different metrics. Fitness can be strength, muscular endurance, mobility, VO2max, and metabolic flexibility. I don’t include physique in fitness metrics because it is the byproduct of the 5 metrics. When you look at these metrics, it is more than what the fitness industry is marketing. What the fitness industry is marketing is the possible outcome and not what you need to accomplish. Although diet and exercise is important variables to success in fitness, however, we need to be more precise according to the goal you are accomplishing.
Everybody has their own fitness goals, which the outcome is usually based on mixture of those 5 metrics. What to improve and how much to improve is up to the individual. This is where the challenge happens. Identifying the missing pieces and know what to work on.
Therefore, the first step to success in fitness is knowing what you want to accomplish and what are the metrics that you will need to work on. Just like getting degree in college or university. To obtain a degree, you will need to accomplish required courses. How fast you will receive the degree is depending on how much effort you will put into your courses. Putting effort in wrong courses, although it may look important to you, will not lead you to get the degree. Also, even when you were successful in one class, if you haven’t completed in all the required classes, you will not get a degree. Same thing goes with fitness.
Since weight loss is common goal, let’s briefly review what metrics you will need. Primary fitness requirement in weight loss is metabolic flexibility. This means training your body to use 3 different energy sources, carbohydrate, fat, and lactate. Those who need to lose weight are typically good at converting carbohydrate into energy but very poor in utilizing fat and lactate as energy source. Because of that, typical issues that we see in overweight population is increase in body fat and chronic fatigue. This is because the body cannot metabolize fat and lactate efficiently due to in activity and malnutrition.
Those who choose to lose weight will typically see 5-10lb of weight loss in the first 1-2 months and feel energized. Whether it is fat loss or water loss, losing 5-10lb of weight is significant since one has less weight to carrying around. Because of the exercise, the body can utilize lactate as energy source which helps lower the chronic fatiguing. Therefore, other three metrics strength, muscular endurance, and VO2max are important, however, it should not be the primary focus. These 3 metrics will help increase energy requirement and increase the capacity of energy that body can use. Hence it is important. Things need to be considered is if the person is not conditioned properly, this may lead to increase in cortisol, or stress hormone, and may not results in fat loss.
1-2 months is the typical crossroad for those who will continue the journey and those who discontinues. If you have been going to the gym for few years you may see this trend in New Year resolutioners. Why does this happen?
Those who continues, learn that there are things that they can accomplish that they have never accomplished before, which may lead to receiving what they want when they continue. Those who discontinues see the minor results and assume they have accomplished as if they have acquired the degree without realizing that they just completed the first semester. Typically, these people end up gaining the weight back and may add more weight on top of it.
Thought Process
For those who continues and discontinues mindset is different. One of the traits that I observed is willingness to change and accept that they don’t have the right thought process or skill to move on. Reason why you are where you are is because of the pattern of thoughts that you currently have. Whether it is performance improvement or fat loss, if something is not working right, first thing you should change is your thought process with information you currently have. Just like a puzzle pieces. Even if the shape looks like the piece that you are looking for, if the picture does not match, although that piece is a part of the puzzle, it is a wrong piece for that part of the puzzle.
People who are willing to continue is willing to accept that the puzzle piece they have is in the wrong place and willing to change so that puzzle can be completed. Those who discontinue has tendency to satisfy with placing the wrong pieces and assume they have completed the puzzle.
Let’s put this in context of fat loss. We all know that the exercise, diet, and sleep are important in fat loss. What people like to do is to rank them in importance and this confuses people. Therefore, you here things like “diet is more important than exercise”, “staying awake can burn more calories”, “strength training is better for the fat loss than cardio”, and so on. Because of these amateur input people go to gym and lift weights 2 times per week, eat 1200 calories, and sleep about 6 hours a night. After 1-2 month of “trying hard” in wrong thought process and plan, will lead to “not working”.
Recognizing or not recognizing “not working” may separate the people. The worst part is seeing minor success, 5-10lb loss, in wrong thought process and assuming they’ve mastered it. This will eventually lead to “not working anymore” and unable to meet the actual goal. Because of confidence they had in what they have accomplished, accepting “not working anymore” can be challenging and allowing the excuses to kick in. “Busy”, “life challenge”, “more important things” gets in the way and create sophisticated reason to discontinue or quit.
Those who recognized “not working” or “not working anymore” and have the courage to accept that they need to change, will lead into new thought process of “what can I do next” to meet their goal. They recognize that failure is part of the success. Especially in fitness, plateau is part of success, and you need to fail to understand your limit. There aren’t any fitness professionals who haven’t had any failure. Most successful ones are typically the one who failed the most but accepted it and moved on by adjusting their thought process. We'll get to this topic later.
Genetics
When it comes to fitness, genetic can play a significant role in how fast you can produce results. Those who have gifted genetics can experience outstanding benefit faster compared to those who have normal genes. However, whether you have gifted or normal genes, effort that needs to be placed is the same. This is same with those who use performance enhancement drugs or not.
Having a good genetic is like having a million-dollar check. If you don’t put effort in cashing it, penny may have more value. Same thing in fitness. Don’t let other people’s hereditary background impress you. You can make a difference when you put an effort. Often, dedicated effort can produce better results than those with gifted genetics but with poor work ethics.
This fact tells us another truth. Stop comparing yourself with others. Fitness is not about how to impress yourself to others. It is how much you can improve yourself every day. Because of that age, gender, genetics, family history, health, injury, your past does not matter.
Luck and Result
When you start seeing results you may hear people say you are “lucky”. Mostly due to envying your success. There is reason why you’ve received the luck of producing the results that you have. In my opinion, luck and result are synonymous especially when it comes to health and fitness.
Have you ever had an experience where pigeon pooped on your head or car? It’s a worst feeling. After being pooped on, you realize there are so many poops on the floor and so many pigeons are posting above you. In a situation where you could have avoided but couldn’t, will you consider this a “bad luck”? When you play crane game at the game center, but the crane was broken and you didn’t know and lost quarter in a process, will you consider this “unlucky”? In these two situations, if the information was previously given “bad luck” or “unlucky” could have been avoided.
Luck does exist.
If you want to receive luck you will need to act accordingly and prepared to receive them. For example, I have 80-year-old client who loves to travel and training with me accordingly. She had very successful career and is fit enough to travel pretty much wherever she wants. In public view, she may view as lucky person. However, if you observe how she received luck you can see that she worked hard in her career and invested in her fitness. If either is missing, she may not have been able to travel at all and only traveling she could have done is through internet. Luck was there, and she prepared herself to receive it.
Luck will appear to those who just sit around and do nothing. But they won’t be ready to receive it. Same thing with results in health and fitness. Those who just sit and talk about health and fitness and relying on others to fix their situation, there won’t be a desired result. Results are there. Recipients must be prepared and ready to earn it.
Success is Never by Chance
Success, especially in fitness, is never by chance. It is progressive effort dedicated to improving self. What to improve and how to improve is all depending on what you are wanting to accomplish.
When it comes to weight loss it is matter of teaching body how to use excess fat stored into you body. This may include nutrition plan to avoid storing additional fat. Along with restricting fat storage, the body needs to learn how to utilize fat as energy source. What makes the process easier is when you can build muscles (strength and size), which will allow you to use more energy even while at rest.
When in comes to improving your sports performance, you will need to learn your strength and weakness. If you are not sure, what injuries have you had recently? What challenge are you having in your sports? When you performed well, what was the situation and how did you perform?
Success is planned effort which means you will need a plan of action. Which also means that you will need to study and understand yourself. If you have snacking problem and need to lose weight, don’t keep them in your house. Cannot exercise at home? Get a gym membership and hire a trainer. With amount of money you will invest, you will exercise and look for best trainer possible.
Same mind and habits that created the problem cannot solve the problem. Change is required not just in action but in a thought process.
Failure is Must
As mentioned before, failure will always be there. There aren’t any sole on this planet has never failed. In fitness, you are supposed to fail to get stronger and fit. When, not if, you fail what you need to learn is to change what you were currently doing. This may be type of exercises you were doing, amount of weight you were working with, type of diet you were following, number of calories you were consuming, and so on.
Improvement is a change and failure are a great sign to make that change. Home improvement, for example, the idea pops in because something is not working the way you want and need to make changes.
Failure is important to make improvement. Rather than fear and ignore failure, have the courage to accept it, and make a change. Even with failure, those who are willing to accept, learn, and change, are the one who accomplish their goal.
Success in Fitness
Fitness in my mind is a never-ending story. It is continuous story of improving who and what you are. It is not as easy as what social media says. It is consistent learning about yourself and finding the way to improve. Therefore, success in fitness means you are understanding your own body by breaking down your old thought process and habits, and readjust the puzzle pieces to create new you.
How fast you will succeed in fitness is based on how fast you can make an adjustments in your mind and action. Some struggle to make those adjustments and take longer time to make any changes. Hence, they may not see any progress and cannot experience success.
When you accept to make changes you will find more fun in fitness than just to lose weight.
Kota Shimada
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