Health Mirrors Life (If It’s True in One, It’s True in the Other)
Your health reflects your everyday actions.
So does anything else you’re trying to accomplish.
If you haven’t lost weight or become as fit and healthy as you’d like, your habits need work, or you need to give them more time.
But there’s more to it than building a healthy lifestyle and losing weight once and for all.
It’s understanding there’s no difference between that and anything else in life.
If you’d call “bullshit” on something in everyday life, then it’s a great idea when it comes to losing weight, adding muscle or anything else involving the gym world. You’re saving time, effort and lots of suffering because the number of myths, misnomers, false promises and outright fabrications in the fitness industry is enough to stagger a pack mule.
Nothing in life is free. At some point, the bill comes due.
You’ve seen it. You follow a “diet” or “program” for a while, you get fabulous results then they disappear faster than they showed up. It’s not because the program or diet you followed was ineffective or that you didn’t put in the time and effort.
It’s because permanent change doesn’t come from following a program for a few months. If that was the case, why do 80% of diets fail in a year and how come most lottery winners end up broke not long after collecting obscene amounts of money?
Anything worth accomplishing involves hard work, dedication and learning from the unavoidable failures along the way. Falling, getting up, falling some more and, finally, putting it all together. Even then, it’s not going to be perfect. You’ll still fail, but you’ll learn each time.
Let’s apply the rules of life to health and fitness:
Wrap your mind around the fact that being healthy and fit for life takes the rest of your life.
-So does having a successful career or being a parent.
Realize being healthy is work.
-There’s no shortcut and you won’t trick your way into being successful whether it’s work, family or fitness.
Concentrate on the three basics: exercise, a healthy diet and sleep.
-In anything, the fundamentals are responsible for most of your success.
Don’t waste a second getting started because time never stops.
-The more you waste, the less there is for enjoying what you’ve earned.
Embrace the process, love yourself for the mistakes and keep going no matter what happens.
-If you’ve been successful at anything in life, that’s already happened; this isn’t any different.
We suggested in The Process of Progress:
If you saw a course that promised to turn you into a guitar virtuoso in just 90 days, you’d keep scrolling because everyone knows there’s no way something like that can happen.
Eddie Van Halen couldn’t play like Eddie Van Halen in just three months.
What makes us think we can look like Arnold in that short a time if we just find the right diet or workout hack?
You can’t build a business or fund your retirement in just a few months. College took you at least four years and it will take your kids almost two decades until they’re ready for it.
Being healthy and fit for the rest of your life isn’t any different.
Look around you. If you do what everyone else does it’s reasonable to think you’ll look like they do. Expecting similar health issues is a good bet and so is spending the same amount of time going to the doctor and taking similar medications.
Because someone said there’s a secret workout or eating trick that that will keep you from working at it – and working hard – doesn’t make it so.
More than likely, they’re selling you something.
The last several decades have seen amazing advances. And every one of them was the result of hard work and perseverance no matter how many times they failed.
There’s no shortcut to creating a life-changing invention. Innovations make the things we do more efficient, but they still require action. Whatever they are, the “things” we do still have to be done. We’ve progressed from the abacus to the slide rule, to the calculator and now to the spreadsheet, but someone is there crunching numbers.
Everyone with a job has one because there’s work that needs to be done.
Gym equipment has come a long way but it’s still a hunk of iron you need to push or pull if you want to get stronger. A slick barbell with an ice cream paint job is the same size and shape as the rusty one Arnold used to make himself into the GOAT. Using fancy machines won’t get you out of tossing the iron.
You’ll only get stronger by lifting progressively heavier weight over time. You’ll only lose fat by staying in a calorie deficit for however long it takes to get the job done. No technological advance – disguised as a tip, trick, hack or “system” – will get you out of it.
No one likes hearing that reaching their goals will take a lot of work. Or that they’ll fail repeatedly and become frustrated but need to keep going if they want to succeed. Those who do are the ones whose health and physique we envy. Earning the title United States Marine during boot camp exemplifies that success. That’s what makes them one of The Few, The Proud.
Start with your mind in the right spot. Being healthy and fit is a lifelong endeavor. Hard work is required. Diligence is essential. You’ll first have to learn – by trying and failing until you get it right – to build a lifestyle that supports the health goals you’ve set. You’ll have to change the way you see and do things. You’ll need to develop thick skin because people will encourage you to give up and “live a little.” But if you choose their way, “living a little” sums up the amount of time you have left.
Limit your focus to a few things:
A workout program that makes you stronger but easily fits into your busy schedule.
A healthy diet with foods you like eating. Going to restaurants and enjoying holidays and special occasions is required. If you can lose weight and keep it off while enjoying good times, your diet will last a lifetime.
Getting plenty of sleep. Hitting the sack and getting seven or eight hours of sleep costs nothing. Feeling like a million bucks, increasing your sex drive, being less stressed and amping up fat loss and muscle building is a small price to pay for turning off the TV a little earlier.
It sounds simple. And it is. But it’s not easy. The work’s not temporary but neither are the results.
Eating healthy while “dieting” helps you lose weight but don’t expect to go back to your old ways without it coming back. We spend Monday through Friday working for the man because we like eating, having a roof over our heads, going on vacation and buying nice things. Working for only a few months doesn’t guarantee them forever. We put the kids to bed at a set time because we know sleeping is critical to their growth and development.
Why do we think it doesn’t apply to us because we’re grown-ups or the subject is health?
Look at it like anything in life that doesn’t involve health and fitness. If it’s BS in life, it is when it comes to being healthy.
You had to crawl before you could walk. Reading See Ted Run made one day enjoying the classics possible. Closing your first sale was the initial step along a path leading to multimillion dollar deals and winning Salesman of the Year.
It took years of work between each of them and none were easy to accomplish. The cost was time and effort, perseverance and learning from failure. The prize was successively bigger victories.
Building a healthy lifestyle and achieving the things you want mirrors life.
You’ll have to sound out the words to Dick and Jane before you’re able to enjoy a classic like To Kill a Mockingbird and you’ll have to start with baby weights before you’re able to bench like the bros you see on YouTube. (If that’s your thing.)
It’s okay, that’s how Arnold started. Realizing you’ll need to do the same gets you on the road to success that much faster.
You’ll make mistakes and eat an entire can of frosting – a couple of times – before the lessons sink in. Those are the steppingstones to a lifestyle that produces lasting results.
The secret is accepting that it’s work. Tricking your way there only pushes your arrival farther into the future. Nothing gets you there faster than starting right now.
Be realistic about the fact you’re on a journey lasting the rest of your life. Settle in to doing the work. It’s faster and easier than spending years of frustration chasing a shortcut that gets you out of it. There isn’t one and you’ll never get there. You’ll spend less time, have more success and be much happier living a healthy lifestyle than you will by seeing the doctor and going to the pharmacy on a regular basis.
Parenting got easier and this will, too. It was worth it and so is your health.
Most things in life are simple. The work is hard but the concept is relatively easy to understand. Focus on the basics. Apply the rules of life to health and fitness. Tricking your way to something that can only be achieved by hard work and perseverance leads nowhere. It’s faster and more satisfying doing the work.
You’ll spend the rest of your life healthy, at your goal weight and able to do the things you want to do when you want to do them.
You’ll realize the time and effort was a bargain at twice the price.
"Change is not a bolt of lightning that arrives with a zap. It is a bridge built brick by brick, every day, with sweat and humility and slips. It is hard work, and slow work, but it can be thrilling to watch it take shape." - Sarah Hepola
Regards,
Henry
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