When you are considering achieving a particular goal, be it weight loss, muscle gain or enhancing your fitness, you need to understand that your body will adapt to the environment that you subject it to.
Here are a few examples:
- You lounge around all day, snack on junk food and rarely exercise. You will therefore be unfit and probably overweight.
- You perform resistance training that is targeted toward muscle growth. You also eat in a way that promotes muscle growth. You will therefore gain muscle.
- You watch what you eat and exercise regularly, in a way that supports weight loss. You will therefore lose weight.
In other words, the body that you have now is a function of your current lifestyle.
This really is commonsensical. Subject your body to a particular environment and it will adapt accordingly. Considering this, there is one very common flaw in typical approaches to a particular health, fitness and/or weight goal:
After achieving a particular goal, it is assumed that it this goal is maintained with minimal effort
If you are conscientiously and effectively working toward a particular goal, then you will set up a new environment for your body to adapt to. However, you need to be aware that when you achieve your goal, you will need to maintain an environment that supports this state of your body.
If your goal is to lose weight, then you need to ensure that you maintain a lifestyle that supports that lower body weight indefinitely. If your goal is to build muscle, then you need to continue your resistance training and nutritional plan in order to maintain that muscle mass. Alternatively if you want to enhance your fitness to a certain level, then the environment you subject your body to must support that level of fitness, otherwise you will lose those benefits quickly!
The point – develop a lifestyle from the get-go that you can live with indefinitely that will also support your goals! There is no point in forcing yourself into the gym if you’re only going to give up in a matter of weeks because you hate the place! The key is to focus on the long-term.
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