2949: 4 Ways to Make Your Fitness Plan Easier When Life Gets Harder by Matt McLeod on Consistent Action

[00:00:00] This is Optimal Health Daily, 4 Ways to Make Your Fitness Plan Easier When Life Gets Harder by Matt McLeod of mattmcleod.org and I'm Dr. Neal Malik. Hey there, happy Saturday. Thank you so much for being here and welcome back to Optimal Health Daily where I act as your narrator of the best health and fitness blogs all for free. Alright, let's get right into today's post and start optimizing your life.

[00:00:30] 4 Ways to Make Your Fitness Plan Easier When Life Gets Harder by Matt McLeod of mattmcleod.org When I was in college, I went to the gym 6 days per week, 2 hours at a time, sometimes longer depending on which friends and cute girls were there. I remember thinking, I'm so busy and regularly using that as an excuse for why I didn't get things done. Now, at my age, I see how naive I was.

[00:00:59] I can also recognize that a future me will be looking back in 10 years saying the same thing to me now. Enjoy your child-free sleep. But my point is that as we get older and responsibilities inevitably pile up, we have to use a flexible approach if we want to reach our fitness goals and maintain them long term. We can't have the same expectations of who we were 10 years ago, 5 years ago, or even 1 year ago. A lot can change. And quickly.

[00:01:29] And one of the first things to fall to the wayside when life gets busy? The glue that holds everything else together. Our health and fitness. When things settle down, then I'll... This is one of the biggest limiting beliefs I hear people throw around when justifying why they haven't taken their fat loss goals more seriously yet. I'm moving in a few weeks. I'm going on vacation soon. Work is just crazy right now. The moon is in retrograde.

[00:01:58] These are all common retorts. Well, maybe not the last one, unless you live in Austin, Texas like I do. And look, I'm not here to tell you that you just need to work harder or judge you in any way. Life is messy. All I'm saying is, getting in shape while dealing with the messiness of life is a skill. And therefore, it can be learned. I'd even say it's one of the most important things you can learn if you want to lose weight and keep it off for life without being miserable.

[00:02:28] The reality is, your life will never settle down. There's always going to be something preventing this from being the better time. Again, I understand there are legitimate excuses. But if you want to make these weight loss changes long term, which I'm assuming you do, you need to learn how to navigate these non-perfect times. Because if you can only follow your plan when things are perfect, you'll slide backwards once life inevitably becomes more chaotic.

[00:02:57] Just like the parents who magically figure it out when they have no other choice, you can do the same. There are a couple of ways I'd recommend to make following your fitness plan easier when life gets busy. There are four, actually. Four ways to make your fitness plan easier when life gets harder. One. Start with your values and why this is important to you. Fat loss is not a value. It's a goal. It's also not very motivating.

[00:03:26] You know that eating a salad is the right choice for fat loss. But since it doesn't give you abs immediately, it's harder to follow through if you don't love salads. So as the saying goes, start with why. This may require some internal digging. Like, I want to lose weight so I can live a healthy life for my children. Or, I want to lose weight to prove to myself I can do hard things. And, I want to lose weight so I can feel more confident in clothes while on dates.

[00:03:54] Finding your soulmate is much more motivating than seeing an arbitrary number on the scale. Two. Lower expectations, but keep momentum forward. You've already acknowledged that things are hectic in your life. Piling on unrealistic goals or forcing extreme discipline are a recipe for disaster and a waste of time. Go for the easy wins. And think addition, not subtraction. We want to focus on what you can do,

[00:04:23] not what you can't do. For example, add more water throughout your day. Add more protein to each meal. Add more fruit to breakfast every morning. Add one greens to your smoothie. Add a wok after lunch each day. You don't need the perfect plan. You need consistent action. Oh, and don't judge yourself when you mess up, because it will happen. Three. Find your minimum effective dose.

[00:04:51] You don't need the perfect plan, but any type of structure will help. This is where I encourage finding your minimum effective dose with both your diet and exercise program. And four. Outsource your accountability, thinking, and action plan by hiring help. Excuse me while I put on my sales hat for a second. Here's the deal. I don't know what you're going through, but I know that I've likely worked with someone who's gone through something similar. Construction workers,

[00:05:21] project managers, directors, CEOs, students, teachers, nurses, stay-at-home moms, finance, and government officials. I've worked with them all. And they came to me basically saying one thing. I know I can do better than what I'm doing right now. I understand where they're coming from. I've been going through the same thing these past few years. Eventually, I found that middle ground where I had to balance my health and fitness with my other priorities.

[00:05:48] But the things I needed to make that transition weren't obvious. It turned out that I needed other people. Coaches, mentors, fitness industry friends, insiders, and so on to help guide me to a sustainable way of training and eating. If you're someone who's ambitious like my clients and like me, this may be hard to accept. We like to figure out problems on our own. We know enough, right? All we have to do is just do it. But that's just it.

[00:06:17] We're not doing it because it seems like it's only a matter of buckling down. If we would just fill in the blank, then we'd see results. Like you, I thought if I could just have more discipline and stronger willpower, then I'd see results. I just needed to try harder. But I was wrong. I needed two things. One, I needed to learn the skills required to get my butt in shape and keep my butt in shape. And two,

[00:06:48] I needed the accountability. I was letting myself off the hook when things got hard. But it started with accepting that I needed help. You just listened to the post titled, Four Ways to Make Your Fitness Plan Easier When Life Gets Harder by Matt McLeod of mattmcleod.org. And I'll be right back with my commentary. When we started this podcast, it felt like diving into the deep end. Each day brought new challenges,

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[00:08:16] shopify.com slash OHD. Shopify.com slash OHD. Oikos presents 15 seconds of strength. Here we go. Steve's got a trunk full of groceries and no one to help him. Oh, that's tough, Jim. Looks like a five-trip load at least. He grabs the first bag. The second. Bob, it looks like he's trying to do it all. One trip. He shimmies the door open, steps over the dog. Oh, and he stumbles. Oh, right into the kitchen without missing a beat. Jim,

[00:08:45] now that's a man who eats his protein-packed Oikos. With 15 grams of complete protein in each cup, Oikos Triple Zero can help build strength for every day. Oikos. Stronger makes everything better. Dr. Neil here for my commentary. One thing I really loved about Matt McCloud's post today was his mention of adding things to our lifestyle to keep the momentum going. Let's try and experiment.

[00:09:07] What are some of the first thoughts that come to mind when we hear the words diet or weight loss or eating nutritiously? Often our reflex is to think, well, I'm going to have to give up such and such foods, or going to have to give up dining out with friends, or now I'm going to have less time to do the things I like, and I'm going to have to spend more time at the gym, and so on. But it doesn't have to be like that. As Matt said, what if we thought about adding things to our lifestyle,

[00:09:37] and focusing on what we're able to do instead? That's so much better than focusing on all the things we think we'll be giving up, and it's so much more empowering. So, think about what you can add to your lifestyle, and try and keep it consistent. Even if it's something small, if you can keep it consistent, it will add up over time. I promise. Alright, that'll do it for today. I hope you have a great weekend if you're listening in real time, and of course,

[00:10:06] I'll see you back here tomorrow, where your optimal life awaits.