I think it’s an easy concept to understand. I think it’s hard to see yourself with this problem. I can give you an example.
Someone will come to me, they’ll say, “Hey JC, I’ve been working out for X amount of time, I’ve been watching my diet, and I’m just not getting the results I want.”
Usually, this person, they want some help, they want some coaching. They want someone to lay it all out for them and to tell them what to do. Within 20, 30 minutes of chatting, I can basically lay out what this person is doing, and why it’s not serving them.
An easy example is they typically want to get a certain result. Instead of working back to the fundamentals and realizing, “Hey, I need to exercise three or four times a week. I need to eat a diet that is in line with my goals. I need to give this time,” that person is typically exercising too much or trying to exercising too much and failing because they bit off more than they could chew.
They’re down on these rabbit holes when it comes to certain diets and certain protocols with eating. This person, if you look over their history of trying all these different things, they’re doing something every two weeks.
They’re like, “Oh, I tried keto, but it really sucked because I had insomnia and I craved carbs, so I just gave in. Now, I’m trying a high-carb approach. Now, I’m trying paleo.” They just jump back and forth.
You look at over a 12-week time period, and you’re like, “Wow you’ve done all these things and you’re not really getting results because you’re moving the goalposts and changing the way that you’re going about this too much.” What I typically do is I try to just scale everything back.
I’m like, “Look. Let’s forget the fancy dietary protocol. Let’s forget the fancy eating window. Let’s scrap this six-day training program. Let’s go down to three days.” When I can get someone on board, and they really take that to heart and do it, they just get way better results.
I think, especially in the western world, and how we’ve been brought up that more is better, and if you’re not hustling and doing all this stuff all the time, you’re a failure, I think we get caught up in this trap of feeling like there’s something better. There’s something more, and then we just try to do it all.
In reality, if you look at anyone that’s accomplished, we’ll just take strength athletes, or athletes in general, what are they masters at? They’re masters at the fundamentals.
They’re doing the basic stuff on a daily basis, and they’re doing it really well. Most people that are struggling, most people that are not hitting their goals, they learn the fundamentals at one point, but then they feel like, “Oh, the fundamentals are too easy, so I’m going to move on and try to do something more advanced.” That’s where I find they get in trouble.