Why do people give up on their fitness ?

Jun 02, 2024

Principles of your fitness translate to nearly all facets of your life. It shows dedication, commitment, sacrifice, and discipline. This doesn’t mean fitness should take up your ENTIRE life, but it puts into perspective how hard you work to achieve something.

How far are you willing to push yourself = how far your fitness will go

Top 4 reasons why people give up on their fitness goals:

lack of patience
misunderstanding how to train
misunderstanding nutrition
underestimating recovery

Let’s talk about each one.

Lack of patience:

Fitness results just like the good things in life take time. You won’t see any results committing to your fitness goals for a few weeks or months. That is the reality. Results come from constant repetitions, doing the same thing over and over to the point that you get so good at it that sometimes it gets boring; but being committed to the disciple will give you the best results. Progress takes a lot of time and you will probably see noticeable results from several months to a year. In the early stages of running a business; you won’t receive profits within the first weeks, you may even question if your ROI (return on investment) is even worth it. As time moves you stay committed, learn from mistakes, pick up on concepts quicker, make adjustments suited to your needs, and evolve. This not only applies to fitness but also to your life.

"He that can have patience can have what he will." – Benjamin Franklin

Understanding how to train:

Let’s say we are making a cake from scratch. We need certain ingredients, cooking utensils, and equipment to do this task. It relies on structure and a clear idea of what we are doing. In this process, randomly adding ingredients to the batter won't lead to great results. Even if the cake turns out decent, following a structured approach would yield much better results than improvising. I’ve heard stories from friends and family members wanting to change their fitness life by accomplishing their goals and the type of training they tell me doesn’t correlate with the results they want. I’ve heard “I want to lose weight” or “I want to lose belly fat”. While these goals are great, it’s necessary to have systems set in place to help achieve this, but also understand the fallacies that fall under.

A fallacy is a false or mistaken idea. There is power in truth and power in fallacy. Which one you choose to believe will massively impact the results of your fitness. If you believe in the power of truth your results will skyrocket because you understand the mechanisms to shape your greatness. If you believe in the power of fallacy, you are constantly doing, promoting, and implementing false narratives that you believe are right, but in reality, will do more harm than good. You may think what you are doing is right, but fallacies can make you believe in what’s not true from a lack of evidence, comprehension, and understanding. Your training depends on your goals: you can train for hypertrophy, strength, power, and endurance. There is also sport-specific training that can be done respective to that sport. Each training style has its own principles and training schemes in place. IT IS NOT A ONE SIZE FITS ALL. All these training styles have variations in reps, sets, etc.

This is a list of the biggest fallacies in fitness:

Spot Reduction Myth: The belief that you can lose fat in specific areas of your body by targeting them with exercises. Fat loss occurs throughout the body, not just in isolated spots.
More Is Better: Thinking that more exercise always leads to better results. Overtraining can lead to injuries and burnout. Rest and recovery are crucial parts of any fitness regimen.
Cardio Is Best for Weight Loss: Believing that cardio is the only or best way to lose weight. Strength training and high-intensity interval training (HIIT) can be more effective for fat loss and improving overall fitness.
Women Will Bulk Up from Weightlifting: The misconception is that women who lift weights will develop large, bulky muscles. Due to hormonal differences, most women gain strength and muscle without significant bulk.
Sweating Equals a Good Workout: Believing that the more you sweat, the more effective your workout is. Sweat is not an indicator of workout intensity or calorie burn; it’s simply the body’s way of regulating temperature.

This table shows the specific training type with how much load/intensity is required along with the repetitions needed. Table on the left shows the training type. Table in the middle represents the percentage load of the training type. The percentage is based on how hard you should train. Table on the right shows the repetitions needed.

This shows the rep range for each training style

This table shows how much training a person should do depending on their experience in training.

Understanding Nutrition

Nutrition falls under the same principles of understanding how to train; however, nutrition is the most important aspect that is responsible for your physique. YOU CANNOT OUT TRAIN A BAD DIET. You are what you eat. Your physique is a reflection of what you put into your body

Getting results in fitness formula: working out = 20% of your results, nutrition = 80% of your results

I have struggled with this before. You can work out all you want, but if you are not providing the right fuel for your vessel you are wasting your potential. Nutrition is simple but challenging to be consistent with.

In the United States, about 7 out of every 10 food-related advertisements on television are for fast food. This means that a significant portion of the food advertising seen by viewers, including children and teens, is promoting fast food restaurants and their products. The high frequency of these advertisements contributes to increased fast-food consumption, especially among younger demographics.

The promotion of fast food in combination with influential marketing strategies creates an attraction to food that is hard to resist, especially for younger audiences, leading to increased consumption and a preference for unhealthy, calorie-dense options. This pervasive advertising often overshadows healthier food choices, contributing to poor dietary habits and higher risks of obesity and other diet-related diseases

I previously stated that nutrition is also simple. Let’s run through how to do so.

What physique goals do you want to achieve?

Do you want to lose weight, do you want to gain size, would you like to maintain your current weight but increase muscle size?

Depending on your answer, you will either be in a calorie deficit, calorie surplus, or body recomposition (another form of calorie deficit)

Calorie deficit = you eat less than your daily maintenance

Calorie deficit = you eat more than your maintenance.

Body recomposition is eating in a slight calorie deficit while eating sufficient protein combined with weight training to increase muscle mass and lose body fat at the same time.

What you will need to know from a numbers standpoint is what your maintenance calories are. This includes measurements such as your weight, height, age, sex, and activity level. From this number you can either eat below it = calorie deficit or you can eat above it = calorie surplus.

That’s it. It is a numbers game and how well you can follow it. All you have to do now is eat the right amount of quality foods to get you towards those numbers.

If you consistently meet your daily calorie, protein, fat, and carbohydrate targets, you WILL achieve your physique goals.

[There are more details within nutrition than grains of rice in this world but that right there is the core principle/secret formula]

Recovery:

I fall victim to this aspect the most. Frequently I don’t get enough sleep/rest and it affects my output when working out. I train for hypertrophy which means gaining muscle size, and this type of training involves high intensity and uses all available energy stores in the body. You can imagine that insufficient rest = lack of energy = hindered workout.

The concept of recovery is simple. Get enough food and rest well.

Recovery is also one of those underrated aspects that get overlooked. Training heavy combined with insufficient rest may cause injury prolonging your progress. Rest allows your body’s mechanisms to fully recover for it to train efficiently repeatedly. There are other ways to recover such as massage guns and ice baths but the king of recovery is rest. In my experience, the litmus test to evaluate how well I have rested is how I feel. This comes with experimentation. I function best with 7 hours of sleep. Some people can function with 5-6 hours of sleep while others need the recommended 8-10 hours of sleep. Your answer for how long you should sleep depends on how you feel.

Solutions

Let’s talk about a structured way to achieve the physique you want:

Identify your fitness goals (weight maintenance, weight gain, or weight loss)
Use a calorie calculator to get an estimate of the calories you need to achieve your fitness goals. From the calorie calculator, you can calculate how much to eat daily including protein, carbs, and fat amount.
You can research how to properly measure your food so you know how many calories are in each meal. (BONUS: you can ask chat GPT to make you a meal plan based on your daily calorie needs. Ask it to show you the total calories with proteins, fats, and carbs)
Understand what training style is best for you and pick 1! (hypertrophy, strength, power, endurance, or sport-specific)
Create a schedule that allows you to train anywhere from 2-6 days a week (depending on your training experience).
Be consistent. Don’t start this journey for 2 weeks and give up because you haven’t seen results. Good things take time.

P.S. - if you aren’t sure what workouts to do, you can start with the core lifts: Squats, Deadlifts, Bench presses, and overhead presses. Again, research training types and how to execute them.

Personal story:

I was always a lanky, skinny person growing up. My goal since I was 19 was to add more size to my frame. The main reason/insecurity why I started to improve my physique was because I was self-conscious about my legs. I thought they were too small. If you are a tall guy you can probably relate. When I started my fitness journey I weighed in at 145-150 pounds. Fast forward to today, I weigh around 200 pounds and have added size to my frame. The results I have accumulated over 5 years have been noticeable to the point where I can talk about this topic. I went through a bulking phase incorporating Hypertrophy training which was quite difficult but necessary for my goals. I still have a long way to go but if I could give any tips it would be these:

the sooner you finalize what your fitness goals are as well as what training to do; the will get you results compared to training aimlessly with no plan
your diet is more important than your training
find creative ways to create recipes
If you hit a plateau, you may need to adjust your calories.
STAY CONSISTENT.

Training and nutrition are broad topics covering a vast amount of information. Based on feedback, I can provide additional detailed information on any unclear aspects. You can leave suggestions in the comments for specific questions or topics you have concerns about.

I hope you have at least 1 fact of information that can help you achieve the physique you want. If you thought this newsletter was helpful or insightful please share it with someone who needs it and subscribe. Have a blessed day :)

Amit’s Substack

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