Do you have a fitness goal that you've been working towards for a while?

If it's a weight loss goal you've probably tried different approaches. You may have tried a new training program. Maybe you switched up your nutritional plan. Perhaps you tried a new supplement to boost your workouts or enhance the fat burning process.

And if you're like most people you probably have only so many tweaks you can make to your lifestyle in an attempt to achieve your goal before you just throw in the towel and give up.

I mean that's a common theme on the after-noon talk shows isn't it? The attitude that it's not your fault, that you're an amazing person just the way you are and all the other warm & fuzzy psycho babble that is used to justify falling short of your goal.

Now don't get wrong here. I understand there are a number of factors that contribute to an individual's propensity to gain weight and subsequent ability to lose it as well. And unless we have a blood and hormone profile to work with it may be quite difficult for some to drop weight without knowing the information that can be collected from such tests.

But maybe we're going about this the wrong way?

Maybe instead of trying harder we need to relax our efforts a bit.

What? How does this make sense? How can relaxing the nutritional and exercise efforts you are making be holding you back from having the lean and healthy physique you would like to have?

Look at it this way.

A new exercise and fitness routine can be thought of as juggling.

Ask someone to reduce the calorie containing beverages they consume and they may be able to handle this. (more on this in a bit)

Now ask them to take omega-3 every day, plan and pack a lunch and snacks, have a post-workout drink with branch chain amino acids and now it's as though you've given the individual four balls to juggle.

I don't know about you but I can't juggle three balls very well let alone four. And if I were to try and drop a ball I would probably carry on and not make another attempt. I would see it as too much, I'm busy already and this just won't work.

And it has nothing to do with will power, motivation or wanting to juggle four balls. Sometimes it's just too much to ask someone to change that much that quickly.

Add to this the fact that maybe we could have given the individual four other tasks that could have been completed much more easily and we didn't even know it. Instead of juggling balls maybe this person would have been really good at some other task and we didn't even know about it.

So where is this going you may be wondering?

This past weekend Dr. John Berardi of Precision Nutrition gave a presentation about a client that lost 20 lbs in 12 weeks.

No big deal you may be thinking. Until you consider that:

* there was minimal nutritional intervention involved
* there was no meal plan
* there were no supplements
* there was no fasting
* the plan involved eating all the client's regular foods including pizza
* the exercise program included 32 minutes of training - per week!

What Dr. Berardi did was give the client one new nutritional task every 2 weeks. And it might be something as simple as reducing the consumption of calorie containing drinks.

Pretty simple and pretty effective if you ask me. I know lots of people that would be over the moon if they lost 20 lbs in 12 weeks.

So the take home message for you is to not beat yourself up on your weight loss efforts. Take stock of all the positive changes you could make to your nutritional plan. Evaluate them all based on which would be the easiest for you to succeed at for two weeks. Then pick that one and start every 2 weeks go through your list and select the next easiest for you to incorporate into your lifestyle. And go from there.

If you're not sure how to get started and what would constitute healthy nutritional choices contact one of our coaches today for a consult and assessment. You're just one easy choice away from your healthy body.

All the best,

Chris [fb-like]