Diamonds are made under pressure.
Yep, true…the right kind of pressure is important.
We need that to a degree for our health and fitness regimes.
When it comes to self-care, health & fitness, things kind of get taken out of context.
Pressure with health and fitness can tend to be the thing that just makes us sit on the sofa with comfort food and go f**k it…next Monday, next month, the summer, new years…momentum works both ways.
It’s important not to confuse being healthy with ‘pressuring yourself too much’, setting goals and maintaining a standard is part of that process.
That’s equally as important not to confuse being unhealthy as non-pressure, letting emotions of the day dictate actions without a plan will more often than not sell you short.
Those perceptions, plus the pressure from societal fad like projections of having to ‘lose that much weight to be healthy’, ‘that much weight in that much time’, ‘diets are the way to lose weight’, ‘good and bad foods’…only just evoke people to freeze on moving forwards…”oh what’s the point, I’m too this, I’m too that”.
Then enter the social media influencers who promote this supplement ‘to look like that’, ‘do this exercise to get these glutes or pecs (some kind of weird squat on the abductor machine with a band around the knees, or press-ups off two benches that wrenches the shoulders from their sockets)’. Basically, something they didn’t do to look the way they look. That’s just the ‘look at me mentality’ and the dollar dollar speaking. Not a genuine source of help to empower you with your self-care plan.
Maaaaaaaaaan, it’s a minefield.
The amount of sheer nonsense out there is actually shocking.
All of that pressure to be like this or be like that, him, her, that diet, this set of rules, that set of rules, this plan that plan…
All it does is just simply create a disconnect for people who want to genuinely practice health and fitness in a realistic sustainable manner of living with control, realistic living as well as a healthy body with results to show. Cut out all of the crap, and THAT IS VERY ACHIEVABLE, by all.
Part of that process is to block out the noise, reducing the pressure on yourself to look a certain way in a certain period of time, stopping the comparisons to other people ESPECIALLY on social media, and building your self-care plan around your best interests for yourself and your health (physical and mental).
Essentially for you, to tap into those results, it’s about those universal principles of what are, applying them to your lifestyle with patience and practice, being consistent, and making momentum with those concepts ultimately living with genuine control from a healthy/normal outlook without pressuring yourself in a negative way.
Of course, we all have different thoughts and feelings that we thrive on. Just like the best diet for you and me, it can differ…so can the notion of pressure. But ultimately the principles are the same.
It’s the reduction of this crappy societal pressure that lifts the weight of unrealistic results from a flawed psychologically damaged approach that gets the ball rolling.
Focus on:
- Consistently exercising (it doesn’t have to be just one thing) with a realistic frequency – It’s easy and common for people to fly off of the handle, take too much on and burn out. Start where you are with what you’ve got and you can build and build as time goes on. if 3 X per week is enough to begin with, perfect, 2 or 1 or 5…make it realistic and achievable.
- Learning and starting to practice the principles of nutrition that promote balance in your life…genuine balance – Dropping the ‘diet’, stopping obsessing over calories and telling yourself you get all of your vitamins and minerals from a tablet. Marketing again. Food, we need food.
- Your progressive markers against your progressive markers for comparison, track your weight for sure (note that’s certainly not the be-all or end-all), clothes, pics, mood, confidence (most important), measurements.
- All of the above can only be appropriately analyzed with supporting actions. So as much as it’s important to track that stuff, it’s EVEN MORE IMPORTANT to track your daily performance. Expecting weight loss, fat loss, fitness, great mood, confidence, energy, and happiness without the daily supporting actions is as logical as going to the beach and being annoyed that you have sand on your feet.
- Aligning your goals to your actions and GIVING YOURSELF time to grow with that.
- Getting enough quality sleep and rest – smashing this as much as your workouts is the sweet spot for fat loss, weight loss, etc.
Ok so, all of that lot, is WHY ‘diet’ companies and sell out ‘influencers’ (not all influencers, there are some magnificent ones) thrive…because, people will say, “naaaaah, I want it now”… Overlooking the fact that ‘the now’ without the correct principles will make them yo-yo faster than a person on the end of a bungee rope. That plus the fact that the influencer and ‘diet’ companies can’t actually be arsed to go through that coaching process of mindset change because they want money NOW! Thats creates a system of masses amounts of ch’chiiiing based on flawed processes (quick fix, turd with glitter on it) where in the long run, the opt-in statistic (consumer) doesn’t actually get the results they are seeking.
This ultimately creates a diet to diet culture, further weakening the perception of health, fitness, and its attainability.
The tortoise winning the race saying comes to mind.
So, each to their own, but if you are somebody who wants to make genuine results…take this from somebody in the know…
The fastest way to your BEST RESULTS is to learn the universal principles with practice, along the way weight/fat will drop, the muscle will build, the fitness will thrive, you will feel great… all for you to keep with a non-pressured fragile approach to the judgment of flawed societal ‘fitness’.
Do yourself that favor, take the pressure away, give yourself a genuine chance, improve yourself for yourself and enjoy your journey of growth. Whilst we are on the subject of results check this blog out regarding weight loss and dieting.
just like the egg in the blog image, the wrong kind of pressure will lead to an eggsplosion in the form of underwhelming neglect of oneself based around limiting beliefs.
Don’t be that hare.
Just like we ensure the garages we take our cars to are reputable, the vets we take out pets to are reliable, the option we choose to improve our health and fitness with is of the same effect. There are some stinking options out there.
It’s not easy, but it is simple.