If you want a list of five things to show you exactly how to have the perfect life style, then you have definitely not found it. However, if you want to learn and get just a little closer to your goals, then this is for you. I have spent hundreds of hours and a lot of effort researching, learning, and doing everything wrong so that now you don’t have to. #doasisaynotasidid
1. Do More Than Just Workout
When I first started trying to get healthy I thought it was all about the workout. I was so proud of myself if I did my army training style workout and running. I thought I was good. After a few years of wasted time I started learning from some awesome blogs….(you need to read a good fitness blog regularly, so this is my shamless plug) Soon I started cleaning up my diet and before I knew what was happening I had lost almost 30lb. Now I know why all those hard workouts didn’t matter, because of a novel thing called compensatory behavior. #workhardernotdumber
2. Workout or Eat Clean
I was fine doing both until life got busy, but then I had to make the choice between my two hour workouts and taking the time to make healthy food. So then I had to ask myself, “What will help me lose weight and get healthy faster: work out like the pros or eat clean like the celebs do?” After a lot of trial and error I found that, for me, losing weight is 90% diet and 10% working out. So if you actually have a life, like I had at the time, then you need to focus on your diet and get in your workouts when you can.
3. Sleep If You Want to Lose Weight
A few years into my fitness journey, I hit my first hard plateau. (That is what the cool kids call “not growing”… at least I think) I was eating cleanly and I was hitting two hour workouts every day. No matter how I hard I worked, I just couldn’t lose weight or gain any muscle. To top it all off, I was tired and sore all the time. One day I gave up and started sleeping rather than doing the second half of my workout. After a while of this, I walked into the bathroom and saw myself. I had put on a ton of muscle in just a week or two. I had discovered that to grow or lose weight, my body needed to rest to recover from the stress. Don’t waste your life, sleep. #youupallnightworkingImdownallnightgrowing
4 Relax and Chill or Burn Out
I have been told that I am like a golden retriever. Now, I would like to think that means I’m loved by all and the girls can’t leave me alone, but what it really means is that I am like that dog from UP. I will get so excited about a new workout or diet or hobby that I will spend all my time thinking about it. I’ll be like a dog with a bone, consumed by it. Although that is a good thing, I will almost always burn out and quit after a few weeks of work. Now I know better. Whenever I start a new effort, I make sure I don’t work too hard. I know that sounds stupid but often the key is to work less hard more frequently. #doworklessbutworkmoreoften
5 Work Hard, But Live, Too
All work and no play makes jack’s life horrible. So give yourself time to smell the roses and eat cake and you will come back all the better for it.I try to live by the 80/20 rule for diet and life. Spend 80 % of you time on working out hard and eating cleanly and keeping up house and home. Then spend the other 20% having fun. #worktolivenotlivetowork
Now if you were that one weirdo looking for an article to teach him a small but useful amount of fitness knowledge and not a boring definitive guide…you’re very welcome. #sorrystupidjoke #imnotsorrynoregrets
~Sam Young