This “secret” is really not a secret at all.
“Success isn’t always about greatness. It’s about consistency. Consistent hard work leads to success. Greatness will come.” — Dwayne Johnson
EDITORIAL DISCLAIMER: Any advice or recommendation given in my writing is what works for ME and may not be the best regimen for you based on your psychological or physiological makeup and stability. Please consult a doctor when making decisions about your health.
Iput on my very first fitness challenge this past quarter and it was pretty eye-opening.
It actually went decently well, as I had a number of people who were excited to build the best version of themselves.
It was also very exciting for me because I learned a lot about the human psyche and think I finally understood the difference between people who lose/gain the weight they desire and those who stay in the same place but yet always talk about how they are going to get in the best of their lives.
It was funny because, at first, I wasn’t exactly sure how everything was going to play out with who was going to stay focused and committed and who was going to fall by the wayside.
I saw a number of people come out of the gates strong and seemed to be following a number of different aspects of the AINYF Fitness Lifestyle Plan to be successful.
However, as time progressed, I started to notice patterns in some of them that were interesting to me.
As the weeks wore on, I started to see the similarities in how some were approaching their weeks when “setbacks” would happen and how others rarely, if ever, mentioned things that didn’t allow them to be successful.
From that, I think I identified the one thing that allowed one group of people to lose a fair amount of weight (on average 15lbs and 7% of body fat) and others to lose nothing.
It boiled down to one single thing.
Staying Consistent
That was it.
As easy as it may sound, this is the one thing that differed between those who lost weight and those who didn’t lose or actually gained.
It’s not that every workout that the person did was amazing.
It’s not that the person made all the right decisions as it related to eating the right things all the time.
It’s that they continued to TRY to do better each week and just didn’t give up.
The reason I know this is because they had to report each Thursday over the course of the 13-week challenge.
What I noticed was those people who were not losing weight would always check in late or “forget” to check in altogether some weeks.
Their updates would be very sporadic, and they always seemed to have some type of reason or excuse to explain why they didn’t see a reduction in weight for the week.
These individuals eventually stopped sending in any updates altogether around the 7th or 8th week. I reached out a few times to check in to see how they were doing without a response, as it seemed they had decided that this AINYF Fitness Lifestyle Plan was no longer for them.
People who continued to send in their updates each week despite whether they lost weight or not were the ones who eventually began to see results after some time.
They understood that the process of building the best healthy version of oneself is a journey that takes place over time and just because you make a mistake here or there, that doesn’t me one should give up.
Often, individuals get down on themselves when they aren’t perfect with a diet and tell themselves that they just don’t have “what it takes” to be healthy or this was just the type of body they are “stuck with.”
The truth is that is not the case at all, and it’s only through having such a defeatist attitude that this actually does become true.
As long as individuals continue to fight and focus on what they can do to improve a little each day, they have a chance.
How to stay consistent
The important thing is to try to learn something each week about what is and isn’t working in relation to keeping the right psyche to lose weight.
For the ones who were successful, they could see what food agreed with them for the week and allowed them to stay focused on their course and what food may have led them astray a bit.
They could identify which workouts were easy for them to do and which ones were a bit more challenging.
By doing so, they slowly begin to build a playbook of how their body and mind reacted to different scenarios to be able to lean into what works and find strategies to prevent what doesn’t work.
It’s one of the reasons it is so important to also weigh yourself every day. Only by doing so can you get a true sense of what is helping you on your weight loss journey and what is hurting.
Otherwise, you will find yourself frustrated at thinking you should be losing/gaining weight only to find the scales tipping the wrong way when you finally gain the courage to jump on the scale.
To stay consistent and eventually see results, there are three behaviors that you have to commit to on a regular basis:
- Working out regularly
- Tracking what you’re eating regularly
- Weighing yourself regularly
Now mind you, I didn’t say you have to be perfect in these three things or even do these things well.
I just said you have to DO them.
By doing these three things, you will consistently remind yourself of the results of your decisions and establish accountability in recognizing how all of your decisions daily affect your long-term goal of reaching whatever weight or health level for which you are shooting.
Over time, you will find your mind begins to identify what the right mix of activities and food can be for you to reach the goals you desire without feeling as if you have to sacrifice a lot to do so.
You won’t get there overnight, but your mind will slowly begin to identify all the different things you can do differently/better to move the scale in the direction you desire.
And while it will take different amounts of time for different individuals, by staying consistent and just not giving up, the chances are very good you’ll eventually see the results you desire.