Late night infomercials, daytime TV specials, social media posts, and grandiose magazine ads all like to claim what spectacular results you can achieve with their products in X number of time. While attacking a goal for a month is a great start...what then? Are your legs just complete after your four weeks of 15 minutes a day? Are your granite-carved abs of glory permanent once you've spent your time for 8 minutes a day? What about the 21 day fix? Are you "done" after 3 weeks? Will 4 weeks of the Hollywood Cookie Diet solve your metabolic woes until the end of time.
Of course not.
But, you're in luck. There's always the novel idea of committing to a longer term path to success. There's always the basics. Rather than buy in both emotionally and financially to a temporary gimmick, why not spend that month and pile of cash on setting yourself up for the long term? Meet with an experienced trainer and/or nutrition specialist to point you in the right direction with your exercise and nutritional needs, not a label on a bottle or a "cookie cutter" formula. Buy a gym membership or some weights for home. Learn to use the equipment to train the compound lifts using an intelligent progression plan that will allow you to gain strength and improve your body composition gradually over time. These things have been proven successful over the course of decades on end. They don't lie. A barbell with 5 more pounds on it than last week doesn't make promises it won't keep. If you can lift more than last time, you've progressed. How do you know when the effectiveness of a shake weight runs out? Actually...don't answer that one!
Nutrition is no different. Learn the tools you need to be healthy and successful for the rest of your life. Learn how to track your macronutrient intake and how to adjust when need be. Just about anybody can lose 5 lbs by simply not eating, pounding down an excess of fiber, or any number of other short term band-aid solutions. But lasting success lies in moderation, commitment, and a decent base of knowledge.
There's a reason that these are the basics. There's not much that's truly revolutionary when it comes to nutrition or training. It comes down to using your brain, committing to a long term change, and going to bed before the ads for "fat incinerating, ab torching, glute sculpting 8 day solutions" come on late at night. Treat yourself as the intelligent consumer that you should be, not the schmuck paying 7 easy payments of $43.78 for a spring-loaded ab-cruncher combined with a color coded pill planner guaranteed to make you look like a fitness model (results not typical).
Steve Decker
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