Your perfect exercise plan won't make it past January

and your body already knows it

Photo by Irish83 on Unsplash

The fact that you can’t keep up with a consistent and stellar exercise program has little to do with YOU in the way of actions.

I am sure you know that exercise is important for your health.

You’ve heard it.

Longevity gurus and functional doctors all over the world are rehashing how exercise is the thing that will make you healthier and how this and that study say how good it is for you. And it is true. But that’s not the whole story.

They also pound out all kinds of perfect exercise protocols for a person to do. It’s fashionable now to engage in fancy health protocols touted to be evidence based.

If you don’t do the protocols just so, you might just get really sick and die of this and that.

So, you’ve got to wake up every morning, motivate yourself to pound it out day in and day out at least 6 days a week and do it even if you feel exhausted.

The result?

TOO MUCH TOO SOON AND NOT ENOUGH RECOVERY

I have seen this over and over again with 90% of the hundreds of clients I have coached so far in my life.

People listen to famous podcasts, read health books, watch videos on social media of the perfect evidence based exercise routines, put it into practice, and then not even 1.5 months into the said routine, pains start to surface, sleep starts to decline, eating begins to go out of whack (body is asking for real raw materials but people give it just more empty calories), and then consistency begins to falter of course…

…they started by going to the gym 5 days a week and now, they are going to the gym 1X per week, full of pains, tired, hungry like a wolf, and MAJORLY DISAPPOINTED THAT they did not keep their word to themselves for the plan they set out to do.

Now your trust in yourself has gone out the window.

You feel like you are no good and can’t even keep up with an exercise routine, and you think there is something wrong with you.

But that is FAR FAR away from the complete story.

You not keeping up with an exercise program is not due to your lack of motivation.

It’s also not because you are lazy.

And it’s also not because you don’t like the gym.

Let’s just get these out of the way. Period.

And please get these out of head and your body and your soul ONCE AND FOR ALL.

The fact of the matter is that YOU don’t trust yourself and you think that others know more about your body than you do.

And this is a cycle that keeps on giving. The more you attempt perfect routines and protocols without respect for yourself and your life and who you are, the less and less you will trust yourself.

This is lopsided. You don’t trust THE person you need to trust the most: YOU. In fact, you think there is something wrong with you.

And instead, you think that the health guru down the street knows it all, has got it all together and knows what they are doing.

For example, a mom or dad who has 3 little kids at home to take care of, cannot possibly follow the same exercise protocol that a health guru who is single engages in.

It’s NEVER gonna work. Attempting this is not only disrespecting your body and your life, it is a recipe for major failure.

And it doesn’t matter how ‘good’ the protocol looks and how much it is touted as the evidence based peer reviewed journal whatever. If it doesn’t meet you where you are right now in your life, it will create so much health frustration in your life that you will, at some point, want to give it all up.

All those New Years moments in the past…when you promised yourself that that was going to be THE year you were going to go to that gym everyday.

Except that you didn’t give any thought or respect to your current body state, your current chronic stress state, your family situation, your career, your burnout state.

All of that MATTERs. And matters A WHOLE LOT.

Those details are EVERYTHING.

It’s easy to consume that ‘perfect’ information that sounds so good.

But not so easy to do the work of listening to your body, connecting the health information that really matters right now in the right way, and then giving your body what it needs to thrive.

When you disregard your body, your life, your current mental health and emotional state in order to get to some ideal exercise routine, you will lose MAJOR trust in yourself. (Yes, exercise does help your mental health, THAT IS, if it is done with respect for yourself.)

On top of that, you will blame yourself for having no motivation to do the things that are good for you.

There is nothing wrong with you. Absolutely nothing.

The problem is YOUR system of going about building this exercise habit.

You have to build an exercise routine that is effective and sustainable for where you are right now in your life.

Then, as you build this consistently, your body will beautifully and automatically respond and improve with time.

You can then use those health pieces of evidence based protocols out there as just guides to aim for and achieve any peak performance goal that you want! There are infinite possibilities no matter what age you are.

Here are some KEY items that MUST BE in place if you are to ever be successful in creating an exercise routine that is actually going to take you to that optimal health trajectory.

I use the 3 guidelines below with all of my clients and especially with myself.

What I find is that, not only do people have a lot more fun in the process, they are baffled at how quickly and solidly their bodies and minds respond!

And the big BONUS here is, now you’ve got that solid trust in yourself that keeps on building. And the more trust you gain in your ability to care for your own body and see the improvements right before your eyes, the more your entire life changes.

1. Start simple from where you are

   1. Say that you are inconsistent with exercise and not that active right now due to an insanely busy schedule. Don’t complicate things by joining a gym and promise to wake up at 5 AM every morning to work out for 2 hours before you go to work.

      1. This might, and will probably start going downhill 3 weeks or less into it. Instead, you can work up to this. How about starting with just walking outside (rain or shine) - one 30 min walk after lunch? This is doable. This will also help with dispersing cortisol in the body from work stress and will get you some much needed fresh air.

      2. After a month doing this, add a second 30 min walk after dinner.

      3. Walking is a perfectly amazing mode of exercise to get things going. As you go about building this solid movement foundation, you can then add more types of exercise making sure recovery is up to par.

2. Etch this in your mind: Fitness = EXERCISE + RECOVERY.

   1. There is no sustainable fitness to be had with just exercise. If proper and abundant recovery is not there, the body CANNOT adapt to make you stronger.

      1. Instead, it will overcompensate for the lack of recovery and we all know what that feels like: PAIN, INJURIES, FATIGUE. EXERCISE-RECOVERY is an inseparable habit pair.

3. Eat enough daily protein

   1. Recovery is a whole world in and of itself with many exciting paths that I am going to be writing about here! But to go with starting a sustainable exercise routine that will keep on giving, please make sure that you are getting enough protein everyday.

      1. There are many protein guidelines out there evidence based and anecdotal based (this is also evidence, BTW) but I like to make it simple and I always aim for 30-50 G protein per meal.

   2. Your body cannot function well without enough protein and will not allow you to continue to create a solid fitness foundation without it.

This is a fascinating topic and I am already preparing a post on my favourite all around exercise modality of all that is going to blow your minds!