There's No Magic Bullet: The Truth About Getting in Shape
Takeaway Points:
There are no magic bullets to success in getting in shape.
Crash diets, 30 day fitness challenges, and new supplements generally make strong promises and completely fail to deliver.
If there’s anything close to a magic bullet, it’s seeking out a support system and learning to think long term, buckling down for the sustainable process of habit change.
There's No Magic Bullet: The Truth About Getting in Shape
We are always constantly seeking shortcuts and quick fixes; the pursuit of a healthier, fitter self often falls prey to the allure of "magic bullets." These magical solutions promise instant transformation with minimal effort, but here's the truth: when it comes to getting in shape and achieving lasting results, there are no shortcuts. The road to fitness is paved with hard work, dedication, and consistency - and most importantly, thinking in the long term. Real success is not built by aggressively overworking yourself in the short term, but rather about developing the right sustainable habits that enable your past successes to compound in the long run.
The Fantasy of Overnight Success
We've all seen the advertisements promising rapid weight loss, sculpted abs in a week, or a magic pill that will melt away fat while you sleep. These marketing tactics work because they prey on our need for instant gratification, but they’re never actually attached to anything of substance that actually works.
Fitness isn’t a lottery that you win. It's the process of building habits over time, then building on those habits to compound on previous efforts, little steps that add up to bigger ones over time. In reality, all transformations happen gradually, with small, sustainable changes leading to significant progress.
30 Day Challenges
There is no 30 day challenge that will get you the physique you want, or make up for years of bad habits. Often, we can easily get away with minimal activity and a calorie heavy diet in our teens and twenties, when our metabolisms are naturally high, and our bodies are generally still not dealing with the cumulative effects of age or injury.
But over time, habits compound. It becomes harder and harder to dig yourself out of a specific set of habits and make a huge change in your life. Conversely, if you’ve maintained a set of fitness habits, it only gets easier over time as you get more and more used to that activity.
A 30 day challenge can be a good way to kickstart a habit from zero - but it’s not going to solve all your problems and give you a dream body. It’s going to get you started moving again, and the problem for many of us is transitioning from that initial challenge, to real and sustained habits in the long run.
In many cases, this means that something like a 30 day challenge can do more harm than good. By framing it subconsciously as if fitness is something to be “completed” or “accomplished” within 30 days, it often limits our ability to think longer term and figure out what happens next.
Crash Diets
Many people tend to think that if they stick to some absurdly strict crash diet, they can get the results they want without needing to put in as much long term effort.
The reality is that it’s actually not mathematically possible. One pound of weight is roughly 3500 calories - so this means that you need to cut 3500 calories out of your diet in order to lose 1lb of weight. Realistically, most people can only sustain a deficit of 500 calories a day consistently, and even then this is difficult when you start to get lighter, and the process of metabolic adaptation sets in, resulting in your caloric expenditure going down over time.
Crash diets often involve attempting much larger deficits, typically by drastically restricting the types of foods that you can eat, primarily to low energy density foods like vegetables. In this way, it’s often possible to sustain a much larger deficit - but only for a very short period of time. Sooner or later, hunger inevitably results in going off diet, and this results in a feeling of shame and failure for being unable to stick to the diet over time.
Nobody actually eats like that! In the long run, that’s not how anyone gets in shape. People make actual changes by focusing on smaller deficits and more sustainable approaches - learning to reduce their caloric intake slowly over time while still eating the things that they enjoy.
The Illusion of Miracle Supplements
Supplements and weight-loss products often promise miraculous results with minimal effort. While some supplements can support a healthy lifestyle, this is no serious substitute for real change.
Rather than relying on shortcuts in the form of pills or powders, focus on changing your habits. Remember that supplements should complement your diet, not replace it. You should also consult with a doctor and do some research before considering whether a supplement will really work, or be a good fit for you.
Spoiler: most supplements don’t do very much, or if they do, it’s only in very specific niche circumstances.
The Short-Term Approach vs. Long-Term Success
No crash diet, 30 day fitness challenge, or supplement is going to get you what you want. What’s needed is that mindset shift - learning to think more in the long term, understanding that your progress is going to fluctuate from day to day and that you’re not always going to see linear progress.
Measurements should not be the be-all/end-all of your progress. Measurements like your weight, strength on your bench press, body composition, etc. can all be meaningful metrics, but only if you’re treating them like data points; giving you indicators of what’s going on, but these are not (or shouldn’t be) the things that you actually care about. Measurements can give you meaningful indicators if you are generally moving in the right direction over time, or if not that you need to change up your routine.
But thinking in the long term means that you understand that you may have days, weeks, or years where you make little or no progress, or see movement away from progress. It means that you accept that you can’t always be 100% on your habits, that this is normal and acceptable, and that you can pick it back up and refocus your energy when you’re ready to push it hard again.
The Importance of Education and Support
One of the most valuable things that you can have on your fitness journey is simply the guidance and support of someone who knows better. This can be a coach (like one of us!) trainer, or friend who can give you assistance.
It’s a well known fact that people with support systems tend to succeed, while people without them have a much bigger struggle. Having a support system means that you have someone who pushes you to keep on your habits when you’re struggling, or that you have someone you can go to when you have questions and don’t understand what’s going on. Often, it means that you have someone to talk you down when you’re slipping back into short term thinking and anxious that you’re not seeing any results.
Fitness is a skill. Over time, you’ll get more and more practiced with it, and you’ll get more and more experienced with the difficulties and challenges associated with it. As a result, it will slowly get easier and easier as you get more and more familiar with how it works, and a support system is the closest thing that you have to a true “shortcut” in the process.
Learning from the experience of others who are further along than you is the easiest and fastest way to get ahead in virtually anything. If there’s anything that’s a real “magic bullet” - this is the closest thing to it.
Conclusion: Embrace the Journey
In a world obsessed with shortcuts and instant results, remember that there is no magic bullet when it comes to getting in shape. True fitness is about embracing the journey, valuing the process, and committing to long-term health and well-being.
Instead of falling for the allure of quick fixes, focus on building a strong foundation of consistent exercise and a mindset that values sustainable progress over immediate gratification. Embrace the sweat, the soreness, and the small victories along the way. Transformation is a slow, steady, frustrating process.
Fitness isn’t a sprint, it’s a marathon.
About Adam Fisher
Adam is an experienced fitness coach and blogger who's been blogging and coaching since 2012, and lifting since 2006. He's written for numerous major health publications, including Personal Trainer Development Center, T-Nation, Bodybuilding.com, Fitocracy, and Juggernaut Training Systems.
During that time he has coached hundreds of individuals of all levels of fitness, including competitive powerlifters and older exercisers regaining the strength to walk up a flight of stairs. His own training revolves around bodybuilding and powerlifting, in which he’s competed.
Adam writes about fitness, health, science, philosophy, personal finance, self-improvement, productivity, the good life, and everything else that interests him. When he's not writing or lifting, he's usually hanging out with his cats or feeding his video game addiction.
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