Why You’re Still Not in Shape — and How to Fix It

All right, so today's episode is all about why you're still not in shape and how to fix it. So I want to start off with a bit of a harsh truth: getting in shape isn't that complicated at all. We all know it deep down. The steps to looking and feeling great, they're actually pretty obvious: train hard, eat well, make good lifestyle choices. So why then do some people get into the best shape of their lives while others stay stuck spinning their wheels for years? Well, the answer is consistency. You have to train hard, eat well, and make good lifestyle choices, sure, but you have to do it consistently. And if you can do that, it's almost impossible not to get results. So then the real question becomes this: why do some people manage to stay consistent while others keep falling off? Well, look, I'll let you in on a secret. It's not willpower. It's not motivation. And it's definitely not some clever workout or diet plan. The truth is this: these people have built themselves into the kind of person who is able to show up no matter how they feel. They have a foundation of discipline and capability, and that changes everything. Now, I had to learn this one the hard way. For years, I was all over the place. I would start strong and I would only fizzle out after a week, sometimes even just a few days. I couldn't stick to my diet. I was inconsistent with my training and I struggled to make good lifestyle choices. And surprise, surprise, my results were just as messy. And it wasn't because I didn't want it. I really did want it. I just wasn't capable of doing what it took consistently. If I fast forward to today, I am a different person. I train hard. I eat well-ish, but that's for another episode. I make good choices even when I don't feel like it. And look, I'm not perfect. I mess up plenty. But here's another secret. You don't have to be perfect. Importantly, I'm consistent enough to get great results. And because of that, I look and feel the best I ever have in my life. So in this episode, I want to dig into this a little bit. I'm going to share 3 examples of how this kind of capability plays out in real life, and I want to explain how you can start building it for yourself. So let's get into those 3 examples. Now, the first example is I want to share a snapshot of my training and eating from the last couple of weeks. So let me do that now. If you are watching on the video, you will be able to see this pop up, but don't worry, I'm going to talk it through anyway. So you should be able to see that on the screen now, and you can see that this is my last 2 weeks of training and eating and generally just like kind of lifestyle habits. So last week, which is in brackets Week 1, you can see I trained 5 times. So I did 2 strength training sessions, 2 1-hour cardio Zone 2 sessions, and also a conditioning session. So 5 training sessions for the week, pretty standard for me. I did 9.5K steps on average. I slept 6:49, a little low for me but pretty good still. I didn't track my eating, uh, and like I said, I'm not perfect and my eating got a little astray last week. I mean, it was probably about okay, but I went off track here or there and I didn't track everything. So not a perfect week on the nutrition front, but generally speaking, a super active week. Um, with training and steps and some solid sleep. If you look at the week before that, same type of story. This is the one in brackets, week 4. 5 sessions, 2 strength, uh, 2 60-minute sessions of zone 2 and a conditioning workout. I averaged 7,500 steps. Average sleep much better, 7:40. Great eating, Calories on target, enough protein, enough fiber, pretty good whole foods percentage. And yeah, I think I mentioned this, but yeah, average sleep 7:40, super good. So these are two pretty standard weeks for me nowadays. So if I just switch this off a second. Cool. So I still get a bit blown away when I look at what I get done in a typical week now. And the crazy thing is this: these kind of weeks are pretty normal for me now. Now, I'm not saying it's easy. There was quite a lot there, but also it's generally not hard for me to sustain weeks like this anymore. And that wasn't the case a few years ago. Back then, I would have been lucky to hit even half of that, and only if everything lined up perfectly. So what changed? Well, no surprise, I built 7 foundational health habits into my life and they made all of the difference. These habits are what makes this level of consistency feel automatic now. And like I said before, it's not about willpower or being fired up. It's about the fact that those habits built capability and discipline for me, and that capability and discipline was built slowly and deliberately over time. So that's the first example. Two weeks, my, my last two previous weeks, but really kind of those weeks are pretty standard for me. And the difference between now and how I used to behave is really the foundational health habits. You can see the, the difference is night and day. Example number 2, the marathon runner. So look, you've probably seen this before, and maybe you've even lived it yourself. Someone signs up for a marathon, and suddenly they're training like a mad person, training like never before. Sometimes actually they go from completely sedentary to running most days, often for a period of months. And they totally pull it off. They finish the marathon, which, by the way, is an epic achievement. But then what happens? Usually they stop. Training tends to fall off a cliff, and the motivation just seems to vanish. Now, why is that? Well, if they were able to train so consistently before the marathon, why don't they keep going afterwards? Well, look, I have a theory. I think that they were being pulled forward by external accountability, the fear of failing publicly, the fixed deadline, the pressure, and often the charity donations. But underneath all of that, they didn't build the internal capability to train consistently without those crutches. And that's why as soon as the external accountability disappeared, so did the ability to put in that kind of training weeks they had previously been doing. And you can absolutely find short-term hacks, or even in the case of a marathon runner, a huge dose of external accountability, and it might work for a while, but it doesn't last. All right, example number 3, and I want to kind of give you a little bit of a snapshot of just one of my days last week. So last week I had one of those days, low energy, I was tired, I was just not feeling it at all, and I just felt pretty crappy and low. And it was super tempting to just shrug off what I had to do, laze around and just kind of feel sorry for myself. And a few years ago, I would have done exactly that, and it would have then turned into a second bad day, a third bad day, and inevitably a much longer bad streak. These things could last weeks and months for me before. But that day that I felt super crappy last week, I still trained, I ate well, I hit my steps, and I stuck to most of my habits. And a few years ago, that day would have been— I don't know, it would have been hard to hit that even when I was feeling at my best. And now I can do it when I'm feeling close to my worst. And days like that have just become my baseline now, like you saw in my weeks. That's what changes when you build a foundation of discipline and capability. You get the important stuff done regardless of how you feel. And it's that type of consistency that is the difference between getting the results you want or mostly no results at all. So look, there you have it. I hope these examples really drilled in how critical it is to build foundational health habits into your life. Most people aren't getting the results they want because they're shying away from building that capability. Or actually, in most cases, they're not even sure that's what's missing. They're chasing the next quick fix instead of working on becoming someone who can actually do the work. And here's the harsh reality. If you haven't built yourself into someone who can do the basics consistently, no hack, no program, and no diet will work because you won't follow through long enough to see results. Instead, go back to the basics. Build your base. Rebuild yourself from the ground up into a different human being. Do that by building the 7 powerful foundational health habits into your life. When you do, you'll finally break the cycle and get into the best shape of your life. You'll feel capable and you'll start to feel in control. And I think you'll surprise yourself by just how consistent you'll be able to be. And I'm telling you, when you do this, you'll realize you've been playing on difficult mode this whole time. All right, see you in the next episode.