For most of my life, I thought getting in shape was supposed to feel miserable.
I thought if I wanted to lose fat and look my best, there was a price I had to pay for it.
I Thought Restriction Was Part of Getting in Shape
I thought dessert had to go.
I’d completely cut out sugar, dessert, and foods I actually enjoyed because I thought that was just part of having a good body.
And the more I told myself I couldn’t have those foods, the more I wanted them.
I’d feel restricted all week, constantly thinking about the foods I was trying not to eat, and eventually the diet started feeling like something I was just trying to get through.
Eating Started Feeling Complicated
Then there was the meal prep.
I remember constantly trying to piece together what I was going to eat.
What am I having today?
Does this meal hit my protein target?
Does this fit my fats?
Can I have this later if I eat this now?
And even when I did everything right, a lot of the meals weren’t satisfying.
I’d eat and still feel like I wanted more.
I’d spend a lot of the day hungry, thinking about food, and waiting for the next meal.
I was scared of carbs too.
Potatoes. Fruit. Anything with sugar.
I had heard all the same things everybody hears — carbs make you fat, sugar spikes your blood sugar, potatoes are bad for fat loss — and eventually you start looking at normal foods like they’re the reason you can’t get lean.
Going Out to Eat Felt Like I Was Ruining My Progress
Going out to eat was another problem.
If friends wanted to go to dinner, I felt like I was going off the plan.
I remember thinking one meal out was going to set me back.
Then I’d wake up the next morning, see the scale higher, and immediately think I fucked everything up.
So I’d try to compensate.
Eat less the next day.
Get stricter.
Try to “undo” the dinner.
I Thought More Training Meant Better Results
And then there was training.
Five or six days a week.
Going back into the gym sore because I thought that was what serious people did.
Coming home exhausted.
Dreading having to go back again.
I thought the same way about cardio.
If I wanted to lose more fat, I thought I needed to run more and push myself harder.
And what made it worse was feeling like the results still didn’t match the amount of effort I was putting in.
I was giving fitness a huge part of my life and still feeling like I needed to do more.
I Had Confused Struggle With Progress
Looking back, I think that was the biggest mistake.
I had confused how hard fitness felt with how effective it actually was.
If I was hungry, I thought the diet must be working.
If I was sore, I thought the workout must have been good.
If I was saying no to dinners, desserts, and drinks, I thought that meant I was disciplined.
If I was running and exhausting myself, I thought I was doing more to lose fat.
If the plan was hard to live with, I almost treated that like proof that it was the right plan.
But being miserable and being effective are not the same thing.
I Started Doing the Opposite
It wasn’t until I started doing the opposite of that that I got in the best shape of my life.
I started eating big, satisfying meals at night.
I stopped being afraid of carbs.
I ate potatoes.
I fit dessert in every night.
I could go out and have dinner.
I could have a few drinks on the weekend.
My meals became simple and repeatable instead of feeling like I had to rebuild my diet every single day.
I stopped thinking I needed to run myself into the ground to lose fat and started walking instead.
And instead of living in the gym five or six days a week, I started training two to three days a week. I focused on getting stronger on the movements that actually mattered instead of judging my workouts by how sore and exhausted I felt afterward.
Fitness Became Something I Could Actually Live With
And that’s when my entire relationship with fitness started to change.
I stopped looking at fitness like something I had to suffer through until I finally got the body I wanted.
I stopped looking at my diet like a temporary set of rules I couldn’t wait to escape.
I started looking at it like:
This is just how I eat.
This is just how I train.
This is something I can actually live.
And that’s the biggest thing I want people to understand.
The goal isn’t to find the most miserable plan you can tolerate for the next eight weeks.
The goal is to build a way of eating and training that gets you in the best shape of your life without requiring your entire life to revolve around fitness.
Because once the plan stops feeling like something you’re trying to escape, it stops being another diet.
It starts becoming your lifestyle.
Fitness should enhance your life, not consume it.
Final Comments
If you want to see how I structure my nutrition, training, and fat-loss approach around this philosophy, click the link in my Facebook or Instagram bio and check out The Built Approach.