If you haven’t read my article explaining the Pareto Principle, go ahead and read that first to understand exactly what it is. For the impatient, summarized, basically 20% of the things we do give us 80% of our results. I’d like to talk to you about how to best apply this principle to our health and fitness.
When it comes to health & fitness, people really tend to overcomplicate things. They look to do entirely unnecessary things that really don’t matter until you take care of what’s actually important. Think of a person putting a fresh coat of varnish on a car that doesn’t have an engine. All that accomplishes is that it looks nice.
Instead of this approach, I believe we must focus on what’s actually important first. From an ideological perspective, at the base of everything is sustainability. Whatever we choose to do, we must see ourselves being able to do it long term. If we think about it as a short term fix, the results will probably be short term too. Research has actually proven that diets and short term fads don’t work. So, focus on sustainability & long term goals. That’s our ideologies fixed and put in place. Let’s move on to more practical stuff.
What can we do that will actually matter?
I’m honestly gonna give you everything here that I truly believe is the stuff that actually matters If you do these things, I promise, you will see a change in your lives.
1. Make your workouts efficient
Let’s be honest. Very few of us are actually bodybuilders. Very few of us are actors that have expensive trainers and gyms. Very few of us have time because we have full-time jobs and commitments.
Most of the people you see on social media you an assortment of tools to look the way they do. This could include things like photoshop, good lighting, plastic surgery, steroids, good genetics (can’t help this one) among many other things. The rest probably have fitness as their full-time job. I’m not trying to discourage you though. I’m just asking you not to compare yourselves to these people. If you have an issue with always comparing yourselves to others I have an article on that as well. I know. I’m shameless.
So, how do we tackle this problem? We make our workout efficient. What I mean by this is that we should tailor our workouts to do what’ll give us the maximum results with the least amount of time invested. I personally do this by always incorporating one of the following 3 movements in my workouts –
- Bench Press (mix of flat, incline and decline)
- Deadlift (Conventional & Sumo)
- Squat (Back & Front)
The advantage of incorporating these movements into your workouts is significant. Instead of isolating any one muscle, these movements hit a significant number of muscles in your body at the same time. I’ve listed the muscles you hit below along with a handy dandy diagram for each of them –
Bench Press – Chest, Shoulders, Triceps, Core & little tiny muscles here and there as well.
Deadlift – Hamstrings, Glutes, Biceps, Triceps, Upper & Lower Back, Shoulders, and Core. This is truly the king of all exercises.
Squat – Quadriceps, Glutes, Hamstrings, Calves & the Core.
Focusing and beginning with these exercises right at the start of your workouts will ensure that you’re using as little time as possible to hit the maximum number of muscles in your body. In other words, you’re being efficient.
2. Make your workouts fit your life, not the other way around
I don’t know if it’s just the society I’ve grown up in but I’ve always seen people be on one side of the spectrum or the other. I’ve seen extremes, rarely have I seen moderates. This is especially true when it comes to health & fitness. People tend to go on extreme fad diets and workouts that are basically just unsustainable in the long run.
This is why I recommend doing things that will fit the lifestyles we have now. This will make sure that the changes we make are much easier to stick to. For example, I have personally been on the same eating system for the past 7 years. I have tried all the extreme diets and have found that this system that I use is easiest to maintain and I can easily see myself maintaining it for the rest of my life.
Also, skill acquisition. Since I’ve been doing it for so long, I’ve gotten pretty good at it and will only continue to get better. If you’re curious, I calculate my macros and track my food intake. I’ll write an article on it later and link it here.
In terms of workouts, I used to work out and practice martial arts 6 days a week. As I’m getting older, I’ve recognized the need in my lifestyle to reduce my workload & make it more efficient. I now workout 4 days a week though the workouts are marginally longer. My workouts also utilize the movements listed above so that I can get more done in a shorter amount of time.
It is significantly better to pick one thing and do it long term. Something that works well for us and suits our lifestyles better. You can make tiny changes and adjustments along the way but the underlying principles should be consistent throughout.
So basic message here is –
- Don’t push yourself too hard. No extremes. Only sustainable habits and behaviors.
- Once you pick something, stick to it long term.
- Make changes along the way but keep your underlying principles intact.
3. Make sure you meet the “Nutritional Bare Minimum”
Research has shown that eating between 5-10 servings of vegetables a day. Before we move further with this, note down that “1 serving = 100 grams.” So we should aim to consume at the very bare minimum, a combination of 500 grams of fruits and vegetables.
Now, this may seem like a lot. I know a lot of people don’t even consume vegetables every day. Some people absolutely hate them. Thankfully, there are easier ways to get vegetables inside your body.
The first thing I would have you do is start tasting a bunch of different vegetables and pick the ones you like. I guarantee that there’s enough variety out there for you to find a few you’ll like and stick to. I would recommend having that 500g combo split up as 300g of vegetables and 200g of fruits.
A trick I like to employ is blending my veggies and fruits together in a Nutri-ninja and consuming them all at once. If I’m being honest, it tastes just okay but gets the job done. This saves me a bunch of time.
4. Sleep!
Just make sure you get enough sleep in. I can’t stress this enough. A lot of people (and you probably know a bunch of them) proudly love declaring how little sleep they get and it barely affects them.
These people are idiots and you should stay away from them.
A good night’s sleep is critical for healthy body function, recovery, mood among many other things. The benefits of getting a good night’s sleep and its effect on our health and fitness are best saved for another article but I’ll put down a few points right here –
- You’ll tend to be less of a dick to people.
- You won’t need to rely on caffeine to get through the day.
- Your productivity will go up since you’ll be way more awake & alert.
- For men, your testicles won’t shrink.
- Higher life expectancy.
- Less risk of cardiovascular disease.
- Are these reasons not enough?
So please please, please. Get your 7-9 hours in. You’ll be a much nicer person to be around.
Final Thoughts
So, in summation, there are only a few things that you have to do to get the most out of your health and fitness regime. These are –
- Focus on compound movements during your workouts.
- Make sure the timing and convenience of your workouts match your lifestyle.
- Get 500g of fruits and vegetables into your body daily.
- Get 7-9 hours of sleep.
If you do these 4 things, I guarantee, you will see a remarkable difference in the way you feel, both mentally and physically. You will literally get to a new level and up your health and fitness game in no time.