One of the big issues I see in the fitness world is how complex they want to make it, when the reality is that getting fit, healthy and strong, and staying fit, healthy and strong is simple.
There are four Cardinal Rules to fitness…
- Don’t eat like a glutton
- Avoid the recreational drugs that make you feel good in the short term (nicotine, alcohol, cocaine, fentanyl, heroin, you get the picture)
- Lift weights for a higher quality of life as you age
- Perform cardio exercise for improved heart and lung function and longevity
We like to make all sorts of excuses for people who are significantly overweight or sick all the time, but the fact remains they are likely breaking one or both of those first two rules regularly.
The good news is this… get control of what you put in your body, and you don’t have to do as much work to live a high quality of life.
But, because we are creatures who like to complicate things, let me address each of the rules.
Don’t Eat Like a Glutton
People make all kinds of excuses for being fat, and diet is no exception.
The fact is that most people eat too much because they aren’t active. Then they try to make excuses such as genetics, thyroid conditions, medications, etc.
Most of the stuff they are putting in their mouths is high calorie to begin with since it is mostly carbs… bread, pasta, potatoes, cake, cookies, ice cream, soda, etc.
Over the course of several meals each day, this all adds up to over eating by 200, 500, even 1,000 calories or more per day.
As a result, they could run five miles every day and it wouldn’t matter.
I remember a friend of mine that I used to train with in martial arts who was significantly overweight. At one point, on days he didn’t train, he would run four miles.
Yet, the weight never came down.
At one point he admitted that after many of our classes he would stop on the way home and pick up a couple chili cheesedogs.
Well, duh!
If you want to lose weight, you’ve got to control your diet.
This doesn’t mean you need to massively restrict your calories or go on a diet you can’t stick with over the long term.
Just eat sensibly… eat more protein and veggies, eat less carbs and fat.
Avoid the recreational drugs
This is a no brainer, and probably should be Cardinal Rule #1.
Nothing will reduce your lifespan more than consistent over-indulgence in any of this stuff.
Keep in mind, over-indulgence in one of these drugs may involve a lot less than another.
The reality is that they are all best avoided. While some cultures that have a high average life expectancy may include wine in their daily diet, others with a similar life expectancy do not.
Alcohol also contains a lot of calories. If you regularly consume alcohol in addition to over-eating, you’re just setting yourself up for failure.
Lift Weights
This is one of the areas where the fitness industry likes to make things complicated.
The reason for this is that they realize most people are not interested in hard work.
The purpose of lifting weights is to build strength to ensure we retain as much mobility as possible as we age. Building strength is hard work.
Because building strength is hard work, the industry likes to focus on building muscle instead.
Building muscle is focused more on isolation exercises that are far easier to perform than the compound exercises that build strength.
Which is easier, a dumbbell curl or a barbell squat?
The reality is that you only need a handful of exercises to get really strong… the squat, deadlift, bench press and overhead press.
Some people can’t perform one or more of these exercises due to injury, but the vast majority of us can.
All other exercises are simply assistance exercises, or they target aesthetics (the aforementioned dumbbell curl).
If you are new to training, building strength with these four compound exercises is fairly straightforward…
Do a few warm-up sets, and then do three to five working sets of five repetitions.
Each workout, at weight to the bar, until that becomes too difficult. When the progress stalls, your training will then become a bit more complex.
However, if you start at a conservative weight, you should be able to add weight to the bar for a few months with each exercise (progress in the overhead press will stall out first).
As a result, your body will adapt, you will grow muscle, strengthen your bones and joints, and increase your metabolism.
Cardio Exercise
This is another area where the fitness industry likes to complicate things.
We have all kinds of exercise programs to choose from now, when the reality is you can keep it very simple.
If you are new to fitness, just get up and walk, and over time try to increase the pace.
Eventually, perhaps you can start jogging, ride a bike or swim.
But, you don’t have to kill yourself when you do a cardio workout.
In fact, a very effective way to do cardio exercise is at a pace where you can still have a conversation, or breathe through your nose.
This is known as Zone 2 cardio, and it is where you are working at a level where your heart rate stays at about 60%-70% of your maximum heart rate.
Zone 2 helps you build stamina and increases the number of mitochondria in your cells, and their efficiency in using fat for energy.
The key is to work at this level for 45 minutes or more to get the most benefit.
This is why we have other options. Most people don’t want to spend 45 minutes or more doing cardio exercise, so they turn to higher intensity cardio workouts.
This is because they are told they will burn more calories during and after the workout.
The fact is, if you are already building muscle with strength training, you are already increasing your metabolism.
Therefore, these other fancy workouts are not really needed.
Final Thoughts
And there you have it.
Getting and staying shape isn’t rocket science. Don’t make it more complicated than it needs to be.
Lift weights, do some cardio, eat sensibly, and don’t do drugs!
Obviously, if you want to compete in a triathlon, or as a bodybuilder, you’ll obviously need to make some adjustments to your programming and up your game.
But, for most people, you can keep your program very simple.
Now, get to work!
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