How sustainable is what I’m doing?

This is kinda a long video, but it is jam-PACKED with good stuff.

I dive deeper into the specifics of what I’ve struggled with most, some perspective on integrating your fitness efforts with your efforts put towards other areas of your life, and one very important question you need to be asking yourself as you work towards your health and fitness goals.

Here’s a transcript:

What up?

Hope you’re having a stellar day!

I’m actually recording this the morning after we did Fall Back 2017 for daylight savings time, and I’m feeling pretty frickin’ awesome.

That extra hour of sleep was fantastic.

Anyhow.

Last week we discussed the importance of regularly checking in and asking ourselves, “How is this working for me?

How are my actions actually moving me towards my goals?”

Another very important question to ask regularly, is “How sustainable is what I’m doing?”

Let me elaborate on that for a bit.

Let’s say you’ve asked yourself, “How’s this working,” and you’re actually really crushing it.

You’re kickin’ ass.

You’re seeing all the changes that you want to see, whether that’s making performance gains in the gym, or if you’re trying to lose fat or if you’re trying to gain muscle.

Whatever it is.

Let’s say you’re smashing it.

The question that’s very beneficial to consider is, “Can I see myself doing the actions that are working for me?

Can I see myself doing these for the long run?”

Often, we can fall into the trap of separating our fitness efforts from our efforts going towards all of our other life goals.

We tend to think of our time in the gym and our time doing food prep and our time shopping for food, or at least this is something that I’ve done in the past, in the past, separate those efforts from the rest of the efforts in our lives.

All of the time and energy and resources that we devote towards improving our health and fitness is time and energy and resources that we aren’t devoting towards the pursuit of the other things in life that we value.

All of the time that we spend training or working on our body in the gym or at home, working on our mobility or lifting weights or running, or whatever it is … whatever your thing is.

All of the time that we spend doing that is time that we’re not spending with our friends and our family.

All of the money that we spend on food or on going to events or registering for races or competitions or what the hell ever. Gadgets.

That’s a mistake I’ve made in the past is buying all sorts of fuckin’ widgets to do whatever.

Which is funny, ’cause now I’m having the most fun of my life doing just body weight stuff.

Anyhow, all the money that we spend going towards improving our health and fitness, that’s money that we’re not spending on other goals.

And then there’s time.

Oh my gosh, time.

The one thing that we can never get more of.

You can always make more money, but you cannot ever make more time, and you never know when you’re going to run out of it.

That’s the crazy part.

Life is so short, and all the time that we spend focusing on our bodies is time that we’re not spending with other people, or whatever it is.

Other hobbies.

Time in our job.

I have been told that I’m intense.

That’s true.

I am an intense person.

I live my life …

I can get set in what I want to do, and I love that about myself.

I really do.

I think that’s a cool trait to have.

I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

But sometimes, it has definitely taken me into …

There have been times when I’ve just been a little too intense about things, in retrospect.

I’ve looked back and I’ve thought, “You know dude, maybe that played a larger role larger role in your life than it should have.”

I have absolutely done that with my pursuit of a certain “look.”

This was probably about three or four years ago, probably from the years of …

Shit.

Probably like 2011 or 2012 up until about 2014.

There’s a good three or four year span there where I just …

I didn’t focus on anything but trying to be perfect about what I ate and about training and trying out all sorts of different means and methods of improving improving my fitness.

If you asked any of my roommates who I lived with at that time or any of my friends, I was kind of off the grid for a few years there, and just really neglected a lot of things that had previously been important to me and things that are important to me now, because I thought that they might hold me back from pursuing my, whatever the hell goals they were at the time.

I was just trying to get “jacked” or “shredded” all at the same time.

Another thing I need to talk about is goals.

Not chasing more than one goal at a time.

Anyhow, that huge mistake that I made was not recognizing that that time and all of the effort and resources that I was pouring into “improving my health and improving my fitness” …

I’ll put that in quotes …

Whether I was actually succeeding or not, is questionable.

All of that time.

I’ll never get it back.

You know, I don’t regret it, ’cause it’s taken me where I am.

It’s put me where I am now, and it’s given me this perspective.

I wouldn’t change that for the world, but I’m not sure that I would ever wish anybody else to go through that experience.

It would have been a damn shame if I had gotten hit by a car right in the middle of that period in my life.

I would have never gotten the chance to kind of “correct the ship,” if that even is a metaphor.

Or simile. Metaphor? Whatever. Analogy?

There are certainly times …

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t devote all of your time towards your health and your fitness.

That is something that you’re gonna have to decide for yourself in terms of, “Are your efforts sustainable for the long run?”

That’s something you have to determine for yourself, and I’ll give an example.

Professional figure athletes like bodybuilders or physique competitors, bikini competitors.

A lot of them are just masters of their craft, and they devote so much time and effort and money and dedication and sacrifice to their art.

To their sport.

There is something admirable about that when, in retrospect, they look back at it and they say, “Yeah. It was worth it.”

For those competitors, that’s awesome.

I think that’s so cool.

I think we should all have a passion in life that we pursue.

On the other hand, there are also just regular folk who engage in those kinds of competitions, and they dive deep, and they do the weighing and measuring of the food.

They put in the hours at the gym and they prioritize their sleep.

They hire coaches to help them with their poses.

I’m just speculating.

I’ve never actually competed, so I’m just sharing what I’ve seen friends and stuff do.

But it’s a hell of a lot of work, and some of them, they look back at it, and they think it was just one of the best decisions that they ever made.

It was a cool experience, but it was a short term thing.

They didn’t plan on do it for the long run.

Others, though, they’ll look back and they’ll say “That didn’t really add any value to my life. It took up a whole lot of time and a whole lot of energy and a whole lot of resources, and it just didn’t align with my other goals and priorities.”

We can often fall into those traps when we’re pursuing our fat loss goals or our muscle building goals.

We go balls to the wall.

We go all in.

And then we’ll burn out in a few weeks, and we’ll lose all the progress that we made.

It’s because it’s not sustainable.

The efforts that we take, the efforts that we make to reach our goals are the efforts that we’re gonna have to make to maintain them, and I think that’s something that we fail to realize.

The things that you have to do to get to the body that you want are the things that you’re gonna have to do to maintain it.

You’re not just gonna “get there.”

You’re gonna have to stay there.

That’s the hard part.

That’s the hardest part.

Losing weight, losing fat, that’s much easier than keeping it off, for most of us.

This has been a helluva long video.

I’m gonna cut it off.

I just…

Ask yourself, “How sustainable is what I’m doing? All of the effort and time and money that I’m putting towards my body, can I continue to devote that to maintain my results?”

That’s a huge question.

Have a stellar day.

Chew on that for a hot minute!

Go forth, kick ass, make it an awesome day!

Thank you so much for watching.