I’m a fan of keeping things as simple as possible. And, most of the time for most people, getting the basics right will get you most of the way to your goals.
And yet, we’re always drawn to believing that we need to do something “more”.
Whether it’s trying a particularly strict diet, following an intense workout routine, taking particular supplements or collecting data about ourselves with gadgets and apps, we always feel that more is better. And we often end up bamboozled with too much to do, or too much information, which leads to an on:off relationship with heading towards your goals.
While some “beyond the basics” can certainly provide some benefit, especially for some people, the improvement they’re providing is small fry compared to getting the basics right consistently.
The most impactful things you can do to change your health and fitness shown in research are:
– not smoking
– eating a basically healthy diet
– keeping physically active
I would also like to add routinely getting decent quality sleep to this list too!
Here are a few examples of how this might look in reality:
Although you might see the scale move more quickly, a super strict diet is likely only good for the short term as you’ll almost certainly run out of steam for it in some way or other. Get the basics right consistently and you’ll see steady, constant changes which you’re much more likely to be able to stick with for the long term.
Although they can certainly help in a variety of cases, I think most of us probably don’t need a cupboard full of supplements – we just need to eat a healthy diet most of the time.
Although structured exercise is really healthy for us, most of us don’t need complicated, intense training sessions multiple times a week – keeping it simple is likely a better option.
Most of us don’t really need to analyse our sleep quality with a gadget or app – it’s likely that consistently getting to bed at a decent time will give us the result we’re looking for.
Put your effort and attention into getting the basics right, consistently. I think you’ll find this gets you much closer to your goals that you expect.